Page 29 of Alien Burn

Dhomhes called the emergency allocations clerk. On the fourth attempt she answered, several displays open behind her.

“The southern terraces requested additional coverage,” she said.

“Requested by whom?”

“It's an approved perimeter review.”

“I can read that. I would like to know why two units were taken from an active search.”

She looked off-screen.

“There may be further devices.”

“Then the southern review needs equipment. So does the search. When are the replacements arriving?”

“I don't have a replacement allocation.”

Dhomhes let out a breath through his nose.

“And the terrain team?”

“Reassigned under the same priority review.”

“To a structural audit that isn't due for another eight months.”

The clerk finally looked directly at him.

“I don't set the audit schedule, Gol-Vett.”

“Who does?”

“The receiving office would have to answer that.”

He knew she had not moved the team herself. He also knew he was a sentence away from treating her as though she had.

He sat back.

“Send me the authorization and the receiving office. Please. I need the team returned or replaced.”

She nodded, visibly relieved to have something she could do.

“I'll put the request through.”

He asked for its number and saved it. Then he forwarded the missing allocations to the search commander and Stron's office so neither would be working from yesterday's figures.

A frightened Coalition member could get equipment moved before anyone asked where it was coming from. Fiviel would have had something insulting to say about that.

The transfer authorization arrived. Dhomhes copied it into the search record before calling his father.

Ruthak answered from the refinery operations floor.

For half a breath, all Dhomhes could hear was the low, familiar machinery behind him. The crushers had been part of the sound of home for as long as he could remember. He used to fall asleep to them. On the rare nights they stopped, he woke.

“You're alive,” his father said. “Good.”

“You could sound less surprised.”

“You could have called.”