Broken Truce (Broken City, #2)

Broken Truce (Chapter Eight)

                                                                              Chapter Eight

                                                                                       Orin

The control room in Andak city was a vast room covered with computers. The monitors displayed information that ranged from electricity levels at the various power plants to security cameras that watched over every aspect of the compound. A large table at the centre of the room proved, on closer inspection, to be a detailed map of the different territories in the City. Demarcations in different colours traced the edges of each territory, and a large dot marked the compound of each tribe. A list at the side gave details such as how many members, know affiliations and known enmities. A red line detailed any contact with the Lewises, and whether it was friendly or aggressive in nature.

The council laughingly called it the table of war, obliquely referencing the military war rooms that operated before the crash. It had always seemed rather overkill despite the frequent skirmishes between the Andak guard and the Lewis army, like using a hammer to kill a fly.

Orin Andak’s mouth settles into a grim line. Then the Lewises had attacked Andak city, and perhaps for the first time the council realised that they were no longer engaged in a battle over boundaries, but had entered upon war.

Everything had changed that day, thinks Orin, and it had not necessarily been for the better. The mysterious and enigmatic Andak had been forced out of their voluntary seclusion, and had opened their eyes to find a rotting City outside their perfect little compound, mired in its own filth.

The peace between them and the other tribes, so necessary in the face of a Lewis invasion, had always been uneasy. Forged, not from trust, but in fear. After the Lewises had withdrawn, life had returned to a more familiar and recognisable pattern.

With that return to familiar things, he realises, had come a regression of all they had worked so hard to build up. With no one standing against them, forcing them to unite, the tribes had pulled one another apart. Overnight almost, the control room had gone from a glorified security room, to the heart of the Andak guards operations.

Today the room was even busier than usual, with no less than six Andak brothers present. A vague air of panic coloured the atmosphere, and tempers were frayed and sharp.

“It can only be the Lewises.”

It was not the first time his half-brother Dagny had made this statement, and Orin, attempting to reduce the panic rendering everyone around him useless, was heartily sick of hearing it.

“We don’t know that for sure.”

Dagny seemed to be finding a strange kind of satisfaction in stating the fear that held them all in its grip. Orin can see that his words are having a damaging effect on morale, and knows how dangerous it could prove to be for those out in the City.

Tom and Ryder’s safety, and the welfare of all those with them, relied on the quick responses of the soldiers in this room.

The distress call had coincided with Cayden’s departure to the Marshall compound. He had been working on improving the second drill, and with the upgrade complete, he was taking it to the Marshall compound for testing.

Orin hadn’t wanted him to go; Cayden was too necessary to the survival of the Andak compound to have him risking his life out in the City. However Cayden had been adamant, and it had seemed a relatively safe journey to allow him to make.

Cayden had always been the more intrepid of the twins, and keeping him kicking his heels in the Andak compound while his brothers roamed free, was getting more difficult. It had been decided that, as Cayden was already en-route, he should be diverted to rescue Tom and Ryder. Orin hadn’t felt right about it, but he couldn’t deny that it was the most sensible course of action.