by GARY DARBY
One corner of his mouth drew up, heightening his smirk. “After all, I believe that one of your creeds is that a leader is responsible for all that his or her subordinates do, or not do, as is the case.
“So, Tor’al and the council members are willing to let all but the leaders go free, but those must pay the price for their treachery.”
Rosberg waved a hand in anger. “I’ve already told you,” he replied harshly, “no Star Scout tried to murder Elder Tor’al. He was taken by the Gadion Faction and—”
“Stop!” Peller demanded his anger evident as he rose out of his seat to jab a slender, bony finger straight at Rosberg.
“We have heard Elder Tor’al’s testimony. I need not remind you that he was the victim. It was your scouts who almost killed him, and I dare say that his eyewitness testimony far outweighs your hearsay evidence.”
Breathing hard, Peller lowered himself into his chair, adjusted his robe, and brought his face up to lock eyes with Rosberg.
“Your testimony has been weighed, measured, and found lacking both in relevance and truthfulness. Neither your word nor that of Scoutmaster Tarracas has any standing before this body.”
He leaned forward, placing both hands on the table. “In fact, Rosberg, I would advise you to tread lightly here, for it is in my mind, and others who sit here that you and your accomplice are concealing the whereabouts of those renegades or have directed them to evade our attempts to seek them out for apprehension.”
Peller took in a breath and drummed his fingers on the table in obvious agitation. “However, Tor’al and we have agreed that if you will order certain scouts to turn themselves in, then we will not hand you over to the Sha’anay for their, uh, unique brand of justice.”
Rosberg asked in a tight voice, “And, if we do this, what happens to the Scoutmaster and me, and what happens to those scouts?”
Peller eyed the two as a little smile played at the corners of his mouth. “For you and the Scoutmaster; a well-deserved rest away from the limelight on a lovely, out-of-the-way colony planet. Someplace that will be very comfortable and very . . . Quiet in your retirement.
“Regarding the others, that is of no concern to you. Whatever happens to them, it will be for the Imperium’s good and that is sufficient for this conversation.”
“And just who are these scouts?” Rosberg asked.
Peller leaned over the table as if to read something before raising his head and peering at them with a self-satisfied smile. “Colonel Shar Tuul, Lieutenant Colonel Jadar Marrel, and Star Scout Dason Thorne.”
Peller leaned back and brought his fingers together, pyramid fashion in front of his face. “So general, what is your answer? If you respect honor and justice, then your answer can only be that you agree.”
Rosberg and Tarracas exchanged grim glances. Tarracas whispered, “May I, sir?”
“Please,” the general muttered. “It’s taking every bit of willpower I have not to wring that scrawny chicken’s neck into a pretzel.”
Tarracas nodded in answer and turned to the council. “Honor and justice I hold dear and respect with all my being. They are two of the threads that one weaves into the tapestry of an honorable life.
“What I have witnessed today though is the unraveling of that fabric in each of you. Your personal tapestry is woven with nothing more than the vain filaments of treachery, deceit, lies, dishonor, and injustice.
“All of which I abhor and detest. This is what I see, and this is what I hear from this so-called ‘high’ council. As for me, my answer to you is simple.”
With that, he took a step back, did an about-face, and turned his back on the councilors. Several gasped out loud at the Scoutmaster’s impudence.
Rosberg smiled and spoke to Peller, whose visage was livid with anger. “I cannot match the Scoutmaster’s eloquence, but I can match his action for it is my answer as well.”
He too did an about-face and turned his broad back to the council.
Furious, Peller rose from his chair, his body shaking in anger. “Guards!” he shrieked. “Take them back to their cells and let them rot some more!”
The doors opened and the guardsmen formed their boxlike formation around the two prisoners.
As Rosberg and Tarracas strode from the room, Peller screamed after them, “Rosberg! Tarracas! I will have what is mine. Do you hear me? No one will stand in my way. I will have what is mine!”
Chapter Five
Star date: 2443.094
Aboard the INS Polaris Orbiting Epsilon Alpha Four
Staring with hard, unbelieving eyes, Teng Rhee, Deputy Director of the Imperium’s Special Operations Group, slowly turned his head from side to side as he gazed at the incredibly mesmerizing but heartbreaking scene unfold before him.
From inside the small conference room of the Polaris, everywhere he looked, he saw broken, torn ships, some of them the Imperium’s newest and most powerful as they lay in stationary orbit above Epsilon Alpha Four.
His eyes rested on a nearby Marauder, the INS Albany, one of the fleet’s grandest battleships. From stem to stern, her hull was scorched and torn as if some titan had taken a huge blowtorch and using it like a scythe had slashed her open almost to her innards.
As he watched, a repair ship slowly came to rest against the deep-space battlewagon and nestled itself amidships. The repair ship, though in reality quite large, seemed small in comparison, like a gnat compared to a dragonfly.
Abruptly, the darkness was shattered as from the repair ship enormous arc lights suddenly flared and from several hatchways tiny figures, like bees shooting out from a hive spread over the Albany’s ripped outer hull.
Some wrestled massive welders and mobile h-cranes that carried shield plating over the scarred and torn hull. The long and arduous task to repair the battleship had begun.
Teng’s eyes caught movement just past the Marauder and lifted his eyes as a Prowler, its bow all but torn loose from the ship’s main body, came to rest next to the Albany. Teng shook his head to himself, amazed that the crumpled ship was able to return to this Imperium sanctuary among the stars.
Everywhere he gazed, Teng saw broken hulls and charred metal, the remnants of a once proud and mighty fleet of Imperium warships. Now, the Imperium poured in resources trying to get the ships back into service before the Mongans could strike again.
The question was—would they have the time, or would the Mongans swarm out of the Helix to attack somewhere new, perhaps even against the Imperium’s center, mighty Earth herself.
He heard the soft swish from the door opening behind him and turned. Admiral Stannick strode into the room and came to stand beside him. “Incredible, horrific, and unbelievable, isn’t it?” she asked, her tired, sad eyes gazing upon her once proud battle group.
Teng turned back to the vista, shaking his head with evident sadness. “I read the reports, of course, but until you see it, the words don’t describe the full measure of devastation.”
He motioned toward the scene on the vu-window. “With all this, how are you doing, admiral?”
The grimace that creased her face deepened her frown lines. “Doing?” she asked with a long sigh. “I haven’t slept more than a few hours since we went into the Helix.
“The council is harassing me day and night, strongly ‘suggesting’ what I should do to counter the Mongans. Which, for the moment, I’m ignoring as I detest advice from people who think they know something about real combat from playing chess.”
Her mouth tightened. “The damage to the fleet is far worse than we first thought, which means the repairs are going that much slower, which means I’ve got to ride my commanders that much harder . . .
Her voice trailed off and her eyes grew distant. “And, I just finished my one-hundredth personal call to the family of a deceased sailor from the Helix battle.”
She turned distressed eyes to him. “I still have over six hundred to go.”
“Couldn’t you turn that over to your staff?” Teng asked ge
ntly.
“I could,” she sighed, “but for some reason, I just feel that I can’t.”
For several seconds, she remained silent, her thoughts on her brave dead sailors and their bereaved families. “Other than that, I’m doing fine, but thanks for asking.”
She turned to face him fully. “But you didn’t want to see me just to ask how I’m doing. So, what’s on your mind, Teng Rhee?”
He folded his arms over his chest as he turned from the shocking scene. “Have you heard about General Rosberg?”
“Have I heard?” she snorted. “Half of my conversations with my subordinate flag officers are about what’s happened to him. The other half are but disguised attempts at trying to get me to divulge whether I’m being relieved of command.”
Teng looked at her and asked in a sharp tone, “Have you been relieved?”
“Not yet,” she answered flatly. “But it’s probably only a matter of time.”
Taking a step closer to the vu-window, she placed both hands on the tempered glass as if she could somehow push away the distressing scene.
“When you lose a good portion of the fleet the first time you go up against the Mongans, well, the High Council can’t ignore that, of course.
“And after what they did to Rosberg, and my own association with him over the years, I have no doubt the executioner’s blade will soon fall upon this head. It’s just a matter of when.”
In a husky voice, she went on. “I’m just surprised it hasn’t landed sooner, though the council may have so many other matters to deal with that I’m way down on the ‘things to do’ list.”
Her lackluster laugh had little mirth to it. “In the meantime, the condemned doesn’t eat a hearty meal or get much sleep trying to put the fleet back together again.”
Teng pursed his lips at her remarks, though he wasn’t too surprised at her conclusions. “I’m sorry to hear that, Cait. For what it’s worth, you know I’ve always thought you were the best.”
She stepped back from the vu-window to give him a small smile and a pat on the arm. “Thanks, Teng. Too bad you’re not on the High Council, I’d have at least one friend in my corner. But enough about me. What’s on your mind?”
Teng squeezed his chin between thumb and fingers, hesitant to broach this subject with her, but knowing that he must. “Cait, I need your honest assessment.
“What do you think is going on with the High Council? This deal with Rosberg, well, it’s got me a little spooked, and as you military types are prone to say, your head is always right and tight, so I’d appreciate hearing your opinion.”
Her eyes narrowed in deep puzzlement. “I don’t understand, Teng,” she returned. “What do you care about Rosberg? Your organization and his don’t cross paths—what’s it to you?”
Teng let his fingers beat a slow staccato on his upper arm as he considered his choice of words. “Cait, we’ve been friends ever since you rescued me from the outpost massacre. You’ve been my mentor in many ways, even after I joined SOG. I knew I could always trust your judgment.
“Well, I’m going to trust it even more. What you said about Star Scout Command and SOG, well, that’s not exactly correct. It’s very close hold, but Rosberg and SOG have been conducting joint operations against the Faction.”
Stannick’s eyes widened at Teng Rhee’s admission of collaboration between SOG and the Star Scouts. “Whew,” she let out. “That’s quite an admission. If I didn’t know that you’d never tell a falsehood to me, I’d call you a liar to your face.”
Shaking her head, she said, “You know, Ty Rosberg and I go back a ways. Not as far as you and me, but knowing the man as I do, for him to be linked to SOG, well, I’d sooner believe that we had found a way to safely fly in and out of a singularity.”
She gave a little shrug. “Go on, you’ve got my attention.”
Rhee gave her a quick nod. “Some time back, with the approval of a select committee from the High Council, General Rosberg approached SOG with a proposition. It’s a long story, and I won’t bore you with the details.
“In short, Rosberg needed help in preventing the Faction from carrying out a possible assassination or kidnapping attempt on certain novice scouts who had close links to highly placed Imperium leaders.
“In turn, we needed help in breaking the Faction operations code. By doing the one, we hoped that we could do both.”
“A ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ kinda deal,” Stannick noted.
“Exactly,” Rhee replied. “I was keen to be a part of the project because I thought we could really get somewhere in hitting back at the Faction, and not small stuff as has been the norm, but some big, big hits.”
“Which is what you live for,” Stannick remarked.
A hard look crossed Teng’s face. “Which is what I live for,” he adamantly agreed.
Stannick let out a deep breath. “Well, I have to admit, that’s fascinating. Ty must have been pretty desperate to invite SOG into his house. He’s always been a real stickler for the rules and in particular the firewall between your organization and his.”
Teng gave her a little shrug. “At the time, the situation was dangerous enough across several fronts that he was willing to take a pretty extraordinary step, particularly as he was convinced that the Faction had agents inside his command.”
Stannick nodded slowly. “Ty told me about President Utlander’s daughter being a novice Star Scout, and the fact that the Faction had at least one agent operating in his headquarters.”
“And very, very close hold information,” Teng replied. “Only a few at SOG, Star Scout Command, and the High Council know. She was one of those that we highly suspected that the Faction would go after.”
“And Cait,” he emphatically stressed, “we must keep it that way, not only because of the political implications, but because we are still working on breaking the Faction ops code.”
“I understand,” she replied. “You know I’ll keep it under my hat.”
“Thanks,” Teng replied and went on. “So, yes, in a way, at the time Rosberg was indeed a bit desperate and SOG was the only real place he could turn to for help. He simply didn’t have the resources to deal with both the external and internal threat of that nature.”
He let his gaze drop to the floor. “But all of that is another story. Right now, I’ve got a grave situation that under normal circumstances I wouldn’t hesitate to bring to my director’s attention.”
Teng lifted his eyes to her. “But I can’t, because she, no doubt, would bring it to the council’s attention.”
Furrowing her eyebrows deeply, Stannick spoke slowly, her eyes searching his face. “I’m not sure I understand any of that but I take it that you have grave misgivings that this is something you don’t want in front of the High Council.”
Teng nodded in reply. “Something like that.”
“And this concerns Ty Rosberg?”
“Yes,” he acknowledged, “he’s part of it, but not entirely.”
Stannick met his eyes, saw the grave concern on Teng’s face and brought a finger to her lips as she pondered his surprising confession.
After a moment, she stepped to the window and gazed out at the cosmos. She stood virtually motionless as if her eyes saw far beyond what lay in front of her.
Over her shoulder, she said firmly, “Ty Rosberg is one of the few really honorable and principled human beings that I know. If you’re fortunate enough that he calls you friend, then you have a friend for life.
“His loyalty and dedication to his scouts is legendary and that goes double for his allegiance to the Imperium. Everything he does is for the betterment of those two organizations. I wish we had more like him.”
Her voice turned to a snarl. “Which is why what the High Council did to him is so outrageous and incredible.”
Stannick turned to Teng and said in a musing tone, “Back in the day when sailors sailed under canvas on Earth’s oceans, they not only were good sailors, but they were pre
tty decent weathermen, too.
“They had to be. Back then, sailors didn’t have weather satellites, or weather makers, or even the most rudimentary instruments to help them gauge the weather. So, they learned to read the sky, the wind, and the waves.
“They came up with little ditties to describe certain situations, as in ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky at morning, sailor take warning.’”
Her lips became compressed, and the timbre of her voice was hard and somber. “Teng, in the Imperium right now, I would say we definitely have a red morning. What the council has done is a clear warning that there’s a storm brewing but the full wrath is still to come.”
She exhaled deeply. “And it’s not just the lightning fire that will strike when the Mongans attack again, but the brewing tempest that’s rising within the Imperium as well. And I believe it’s the council that will bring this gale down upon us.”
She met his stare with an unapologetic expression. “You wanted my opinion and so you have it. Not too flattering of your political masters, is it?”
“No,” Teng replied. “But not wholly undeserved either.”
His face grew hard and his voice matched his expression. “Cait, you know my whole life has been dedicated to fighting the Faction. It’s the only reason I joined SOG.
“I thought it would be the one place within the Imperium where I could do the most good in finding and bringing to justice those who killed my family.”
Stannick nodded in understanding. “I know, and you’ve done a great job, too. The Marines and we have walloped the Faction numerous times because of your work. It’s something you can be proud of, and I know your family would be proud too.”
At the mention of his slain family, Teng’s thoughts flashed back to his parents and once again he felt the deep hurt and the cold rage that always accompanied the memory.
“Cait,” he replied, “I’ve always been a loyal soldier in SOG, never questioned my superiors, always the first when it meant getting my hands dirty to move the work forward, particularly when it concerned the Faction.”