by David Weber
"Well, that's not our problem!" Mullins snapped, leaning on his cane. "I warn you, if you delay my departure, Rob Pierre himself will hear about it! You understand me, sonny?"
"Yes, Mistress Warax," the cop said. "If you'll please proceed into the terminal. Will you need assistance? A float chair can be arranged."
"Yes, of course I need assistance, you moron!" Mullins replied. "Do you think I use this damned stick as an affectation?!"
The float chair was hastily summoned and Mullins rode into the port in semi-regal fashion. It was a well-known fact that without the covert support of members of the Solarian League, the Haven/Manticore war would have been long over, in Manticore's favor. So it was no surprise that their cover as Solarian trade representatives was a key to favor. It would not, however, keep them from being intensely scrutinized on the way to the shuttle.
Gonzalvez confirmed their reservation on the Solarian liner Adrian Bayside then led the group towards the long line for the final security scan. As he did, an overly abundant blonde, obviously a local and gorgeous in a trimly cut suit, cut in front of him.
"It looks like they're choosing every fifth person for a full-body search," Gonzalvez said. "That's . . . new."
"And unpleasant," Mullins replied softly.
"I don't think you have to worry," Mladek said sardonically as the StateSec guards who were "assisting" the usual security started to swarm around the blonde who had cut them off.
As she approached the security scanner, the head of the StateSec detail waved her out of line and pointed towards a side door; she had apparently been "randomly" selected as a potential threat.
"Pass," the guard said to Mladek as they approached the scanner. He was looking towards the side door angrily in the realization that he was going to miss the show. "Pass, pass, just get on through," he snarled.
The scanner field was a more advanced system than the simple hand scanners of the guards; among other things, if it was set high enough, it could conceivably detect not only the fact that Mullins was male, but that he and Gonzalvez were loaded with special ops "goodies." They were well concealed, but with some of the technology transfers from the Sollies, there was a possibility of detection.
So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that Mullins clambered off the float chair and muttered his way through the scanner. As he did, however, he had to repress a chuckle.
The scanner had two lights, one red and one green. The green was supposed to shine all the time as a tell-tale. However, the lights occasionally went out and given the Havenite approach to maintenance it was no surprise that this one was dark. However, what was also interesting was that the scanner was unplugged; the plug was sitting on the ground, a meter from the wall socket.
Mullins was morally certain he knew what had happened. The local guards had been told to crank the scanner through the roof. But after a few hours of constant false alarms, they had surreptitiously unplugged it so they could return to their regular routine.
Whatever had caused it, they clearly had nothing to fear. Mullins unobtrusively tapped Gonzalvez on the ankle then gestured at the plug as he walked through. The scanner, naturally, gave nary a beep, even at the metal in his cane.
He suppressed a grin as he took Gonzalvez' arm for "assistance" then started to join Mladek. At that moment, though, there was a shout from behind them.
"You three, halt!" The captain of the StateSec detail, returned from his "security check" of the dangerous blonde, gestured at the bored local guard.
"What in the hell is that scanner doing unplugged?" the StateSec captain snapped.
"Uh," the local guard said.
"Plug it back in," the captain snarled. "You three, back through the scanner!"
"The hell if I will," Mullins said, waving his cane. "Do you know who I am?"
"No, and I don't care," the StateSec officer said dangerously.
"Now Mother," Gonzalvez said soothingly. "We should do as the Captain says."
"I'll have you know that I know Rob Pierre!" Mullins said. "And he will not be happy that you have slowed us on our way back to Despartia!"
"Captain," one of the local guards said, trotting up and panting. "Is your communicator turned on?"
"What?" he asked, reaching down and activating the device. "No. I was . . . monitoring a procedure that required my undivided attention. And what is it to you?"
"Nothing, Sir," the private said, coming to attention. "But you might want to contact Colonel Sims. All of the communicators in your team were turned off; he thought you'd been taken out but there wasn't any incident report. The thing is, the Manty spies have been cornered in a warehouse in the company of a local woman. Team Five has them pinned down, but the Manties have some heavy firepower. Colonel Sims is calling in all of the StateSec units."
"Shit," the captain snarled. "You," he said, pointing at the scanner operator. "Get that plugged back in and get the rest of them through the line. You," he continued. "My team is in the interrogation room. They should be about done. Get them while I call the Colonel."
"Yes, Sir," the private said sardonically. "In the interrogation room, huh?"
"Never you mind that," the captain snapped, striding away.
The scanner operator waited until he was out of sight then waved to Mullins.
"You can go, Mistress. My apologies for the delay."
"Not your problem," he replied in a querulous voice. "But I've got the name of that captain. If he thinks Colonel Whatsisname is a problem, just you wait until I get done with him."
He got back on his float chair, which had been helpfully brought around the scanners, and proceeded towards the gate.
"We're early," Gonzalvez said.
"I know. I'd figured more time getting through security."
"So we just lie low?" Mladek said.
"Yeah," Mullins replied, guiding the float chair over to a corner near the gate. "I'm going to take a nap; I had a long night."
Gonzalvez snorted then looked up as the blonde came into the gate, still straightening her clothing. "I'd like a long night with that."
"She doesn't look too happy, does she?" Mullins muttered.
"Not particularly," Gonzalvez said. "Ah, there's our scanner tech."
"Go see if he's got any information on what's going down downtown," Mullins said.
Gonzalvez walked over to the tech, who was obviously headed for his break, and waved him down.
"Pardon me, good fellow," Gonzalvez called. "I was just wondering if you could tell me something."
"Depends on what it is," the tech replied with a smile to reduce the sarcasm.
"The other fellow mentioned some sort of a shoot-out downtown," Gonzalvez said. "I'm just curious about it."
"Well, there was a group of Manty spies we've been chasing all week," the tech said. "That's the reason for the alert here. Anyway, they have them cornered someplace. That's all I know. I'll keep my ears open on break and if I hear anything else I'll tell you. But why do you want to know?"
"Just curious," Gonzalvez replied. "Excitement, danger, foreign adventures," he said with a relish. "It's all so wonderfully alien to my usual life, you know."
"I can tell," the tech said with a snort. "That's your mother?"
"Yes," Gonzalvez said with a sigh. "The head of Oberlon when she was twenty-nine and now no one can pry her out of the seat, don'cha'know."
"Well, good luck," the tech said with a chuckle. "I'll keep you posted."
Gonzalvez went back to the group and sat down. Mullins was flipping through a pad that contained very reasonable, if wholly imaginary, business reports on a company called "Oberlon" while Mladek was just sitting staring out the windows at the shuttle port.
Gonzalvez glanced back over at Mullins and realized that he was riveted on the blonde.
"Mother, is there something wrong?" he asked, clearing his throat.
"Uh, no, dearie," Mullins said, returning to his pad.
"She doesn't appear to be your type, Mother
," Gonzalvez clucked.
"Go away, dear," Mullins said.
"On the other hand, she is mine." Gonzalvez chuckled and walked over to the blonde.
"That was idiocy at the security scanner," he said, holding out his hand.
"Thank you," the girl said, looking up at him with a pinched expression. "But I've had about all the male attention I can handle for the day."
"I'm sorry," he said with a rueful smile. "I can understand. But I thought you'd like to know that the guy in charge of the security detail caught some hell for a completely different reason. He's likely to lose his captaincy."
"Thank you," the girl said curtly. "Now if you'll just leave me alone I can try to get back some of my bearing. Or at least center my aggression."
"Okee-dokee," Gonzalvez said, stepping away as the scanner tech came across the gate area with a smile on his face.
"Good news?" Gonzalvez asked, intercepting him well short of the girl.
"For us," the scanner tech said with a grim grin. "Not for the Manties. When they saw all the reinforcements coming, including your captain friend, they blew themselves up. So it's over."
"Yes, it is," Gonzalvez said shaking his head. "Those poor people. I know they are your enemies, but I can't help but feel for them."
"Well, yes," the tech said, adjusting his perceptions. "A terrible tragedy. But at least now the security won't be so intense and you'll be sure to catch your shuttle."
"Yes, that will be for the good," Gonzalvez said, shaking the tech's hand. "Thank you very much for all your help."
"No problem. Have a good trip."
Gonzalvez sat down by Mullins and took a breath.
"You heard?"
"I heard," Mullins replied. "We'll talk about it when we get back."
"Boarding for the Adrian Bayside will begin in just a moment." A slim female in Bayside Lines uniform appeared at the gate door. "I would like to have anyone with mobility problems, very small children or priority passes to come up first."
"Well, two out of three ain't bad," Mullins said, holding up a hand. "Give me a hand sonny," he quavered.
"Yes, Mother," Gonzalvez said with a sigh. "Coming, 'Robert'?"
"I suppose," Mladek said, standing up and smiling. "Let me give you a hand, there, Mistress."
"Such nice boys," Mullins said, shuffling towards the personnel tube. "You'd never know I met his father in a spaceport bar, would you?"
"Mother!"
CHAPTER 9
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Admiral. Period.
After surviving extraction from Prague, sneaking through Peep space and convincing the Manty contingent on Excelsior that they weren't really double agents—look, here's a Peep Admiral Defector for proof!—Mullins thought it was likely that he would die right here and right now. Or, at least, he halfway wished his heart would just stop or a rock would drop on him or something.
"What in the ever living hells was going through what might, with leniency, be referred to as your mind?!" Admiral Givens was not known for raising her voice. And she did not now. The very fact that they practically had to strain to hear her tongue-lashing, which was just winding up after more than thirty minutes that had traced the course of their idiocy from generations before, through infancy and up to the present day, made it worse.
"Well, we did get the Admiral back," Gonzalvez pointed out.
"It's clear proof that your mother dropped you on your head as a child that you think that question was other than rhetorical, Major Gonzalvez," the admiral continued. "The only reason that Excelsior didn't sanction you was that you brought the Admiral back. And that was a good thing. His information, I'll admit, was useful confirmation."
"Confirmation, Ma'am?" Mullins asked. "He had a head full of StateSec secrets and codes!"
"All of which, and more, Honor Harrington brought back two weeks ago," Givens said.
"Harrington?" Gonzalvez blurted. "She's dead."
"So we all thought," the admiral replied. "But, in fact, she ended up on the ground on Hades. She staged the largest prison breakout in history and returned with not only a half a million prisoners, but reams of data on StateSec procedures and communications and some political prisoners that the Havenites had insisted had been dead for years."
"So," Mullins said. "We went through all of that for confirmation?"
"Exactly," Givens snappped. "You two are the most consummate foul-ups I have in my entire organization. I cannot let you out of my sight for more than thirty seconds without you involving yourself in some intensely moronic encounter. I don't care if you live through them; the chaos that you leave in your wake more than makes up for your survival. The whole point is to enter and exit seamlessly, causing not a ripple while you are there. Not killing double agents, blowing up buildings, getting in car chases and otherwise disporting yourselves like you're playing a game. Is any of this getting through to you two hydrocephalic morons."
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"I'm not in this business to build structures just for you to kick them down like a couple of children who find a pretty vase to break! This is not going to be a short war and we need all the intelligence we can gather; sending you two to a planet is like asking to have the entire system shut out for the rest of the war! Am I getting through to you?"
"Yes, Ma'am!" they chorused.
"I don't even know why I waste my breath," she muttered. She finally took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers. "What I want to do is space both of you, both for the good of NavInt and for my own sanity. But, as a personal favor to Agent Covilla I have agreed to give you a reprieve."
"Ma'am?" Gonzalvez said, stunned.
"Agent Covilla said that the two of you were of some assistance to her in her mission to extract the Admiral," Givens replied, touching a button on her desk. She waved as a woman walked through the door. She appeared to be about thirty, standard, plain and blunt featured, with male-short blond hair. She was wearing the uniform of a captain with ONI markings. "She personally convinced me that despite your amateurish blunderings on Prague, not to mention the reason you were there, that I should let you off with no more than a warning. Do I have to spell it out for you?"
"No more unauthorized adventures?" Gonzalvez asked, glancing sideways at the woman. He had never seen her before in his life.
"That should go without saying. No, if you ever get that screwed up on a mission again, authorized or un authorized, I will personally strap you to a missile and fire you out the tube. Do I make myself clear?"
"Clear, Ma'am," they both chorused.
"Captain Covilla?" Givens said. "Do you have anything?"
"No, Ma'am," the captain said. Her voice was gravelly; she'd either spent a lot of time shouting at some point or she'd had a bad experience with death pressure. "I'd like a moment of Captain Mullins' time."
"Very well," Givens said, pointing to the door. "Dismissed."
All three found themselves out in the corridor, looking around at the busy scurrying of NavInt.
"Confirmation," Gonzalvez muttered. "We put our butts on the line for confirmation!"
"Typical," Covilla growled. "Captain Mullins, if you could step down to my office, please?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Mullins said. "What about Captain Gonzalvez?"
"Well, he can get started on the paperwork."
"Paperwork?" Gonzalvez said suspiciously.
"Your unauthorized adventure was expensive," Covilla said. "We're going to have to sort out which part was duty and which part was not. And you're going to be paying back the non-duty portion. Come on, Captain."
He followed her to her office, noting that she had a decidedly un-ladylike gait that bespoke significant time in small-craft. He came to attention as she walked around her desk and sat in the room's sole chair.
"Do you have anything you want to add to the debrief?" she asked, flipping a pad across the desk. "You can stand at ease."
"I just have a question," Mullins said, spreading his feet apa
rt and placing his hands behind his back in a position closer to parade rest.
"If it doesn't violate your need to know," Covilla responded with a thin smile.
"How was the rest of your trip back?" he asked. "I mean, after the scene at the shuttle-port, Rachel."
Covilla leaned back and steepled her fingers in a manner identical to Admiral Givens. "How long have you known?" she asked, swinging her chair back and forth. Her voice was now honey smooth.
"I wasn't sure until just now," Mullins said. "But the blonde at the shuttleport smoothed her hair back in a manner identical to the way you do. And her pushing into line was a bit too coincidental. As soon as I'd made that connection, backing up and finding all the places where you'd managed us was easy. So what really happened?"
"I was the backup for the defection," she said. "I had figured out that the Chinese laundry was compromised, doubled, but I couldn't abort the Admiral. So I blew up the laundry."
"When you said you had 'something to do' that first evening, you were serious," Mullins said with a chuckle.
"And I drove the Admiral to you," she continued. "I couldn't get him out and spoof StateSec at the same time."
"And the apartment?"
"Oh, that was really my boyfriend's," she replied, tiredly. "You use the weapons that God gives you, John. One of my weapons is my body."
"And it's one hell of a weapon," he said with a smile. "So where does this leave us?"
"I'm not sure," she replied. "I'm not in your chain of command, exactly, but we're close. If we continue it could be construed as fraternization."
"You know what?" John replied. "I really could give a rat's ass."
"Same here," she said with a smile, reaching up and peeling off the mask. She picked at a few pieces of plasflesh and rolled them on her finger. "I'm due about a year's leave. How about you?"
"I'm not sure I can get any ever again," Mullins replied with a shrug. "And I'm not going to be able to afford it."
"Don't worry about Patricia, I know where the bodies are buried," Rachel said. "As for the charge issue, I just told Gonzalvez that to get him out of our hair. Where should we go?"