But even counting Action Team 491, that added up to only 180. This left at least some of the loyalists unaccounted for, and as she added her columns of figures, Sula saw they were all Torminel.
Relief eased her taut-strung nerves. She and her team weren’t entirely alone: there were at least some other Fleet personnel out there, armed and presumably ready to make the Naxids pay for the capital. Torminel mightlook like fat-bottomed plush toys come to life, but that was only until you saw their fangs. They were a species that Sula would rather have on her side than not.
The problem was, she had no means of contacting them. There were backup communications protocols, but these were the very procedures the Naxids had used to capture most of her comrades. Sula didn’t dare use them, and she presumed the Torminel wouldn’t dare either.
Nor could she communicate with any of her superiors. They were all off-planet, and none of the action teams were provided with appropriate transmitters. Hong had such a transmitter, but it had probably been captured along with him.
The executions continued, messy and bloody now that the executioners were tired. Sula told the video wall to turn off. She had learned all she could.
Despair fell on her like soft rain. Her mouth was dry. She dragged herself to the kitchen and poured a glass of water, and saw the bottles of iarogüt piled casually on a shelf. Iarogüt was the cheapest drunk available, a palatesearing rotgut with a sickening herbal scent, the least attractive form of alcohol Sula knew, but still the sudden urge to drink struck her with the force of a hammer. One or two bottles, she thought, and the whole nightmare afternoon would spin away into chemical oblivion…
Her heart throbbed in her chest. Her knees felt watery. She turned and walked back to the front room, clutching her glass of water as if it were her savior. She took a sip, and then another.
Jangly music floated into the room through the open window. “It’syou, ” cried a voice from the bedroom. “It’s never been anyone butyou! ”