“I heard good things about you, on Apsidal and N-Gann,” Admiral Stuart said. Her voice was clipped, very precise. And yet, there was a faint hint of the American South in her accent. “You worked well with the various rebel and resistance groups. They were very pleased with you.”
“We had to work together or die, Admiral,” Martin said. “I did what anyone would have done, in my place.”
“Perhaps,” Admiral Stuart said. “But the fact of the matter is that you did very well.”
She keyed her terminal. A holographic image - a man, wearing a shapeless tunic - appeared in front of them. “Listen to this, carefully. I’ll want your opinion afterwards.”
Martin leaned forward as the man - a tagline identified him as Samuel Piece - spoke rapidly, but with consummate force. He didn’t know anything about the worlds he talked about - he’d have to look them up, the moment he got out of the office - but the logic was unmistakable. A revolution in the enemy rear might just knock them off their high horse, once and for all. Martin doubted it would be that simple - Apsidal’s resistance movements hadn’t worked together very well - but it would certainly cause problems for the enemy. And who knew? A tiny little virus could bring a grown man to his knees ...
The recording came to an end. “Your thoughts?”
“I don’t know anything about the Twins,” Martin said. He’d learnt the hard way to admit ignorance, rather than letting people think he knew what they were talking about. “But if he’s right, the rebels would be in a good place to launch an uprising.”
“Perhaps.” Admiral Stuart dismissed the recording with a flick of her hand. “The real question, right now, is are you prepared to head into enemy space and support an uprising?”
Martin frowned. “On what timescale?”
“A month, perhaps two months,” Admiral Stuart said. “Ideally, your uprising would start six weeks from today.”
“Tricky,” Martin said. “It isn’t easy to time such an operation.”
“So I’ve been told.” Admiral Stuart didn’t sound angry, merely amused. “Do you think you could provide support ...?”
“Yes and no.” Martin met her eyes. “I could take a team there and provide support, but - on the scale of such an operation - the support would be very minimal indeed. There is no way we could make that much of a dent in enemy operations. The vast majority of the operation would have to be carried out by the rebels themselves.”
“But you would be a sign of our commitment,” Admiral Stuart mused. She met his eyes. “The blunt truth is that I couldn’t guarantee punching fleet support through to you in time to keep the enemy from reoccupying the orbitals. At best, you’d be fighting a full-scale insurgency. At worst, they’d nuke the entire planet and kill everyone, including you. I might not be able to extract you or anyone.”
She let out a long breath. “It seems fairly clear that they’re planning to rise, with or without us,” she added. “Our help may tip the balance in their favour. But if we cannot get through to the Twins in time ...”
“We all die,” Martin said. “Admiral, I understand the risks.”
He took a long breath, feeling his heart start to pound. He had no illusions about himself. He’d been warned, time and time again, that recon troopers were often marked as expendable. The missions had sounded exciting, when he’d sought new challenges. Now ... it came home to him, violently, that he might be out on a limb, with someone behind him merrily sawing it off. Admiral Stuart would do everything in her power to get to him in time - she didn’t have a reputation for abandoning people - but it might not be enough. And he might never go home.
“I’m glad you do,” Admiral Stuart said, sympathetically. She sat back in her chair. “You can take an entire recon platoon with you. Under the circumstances” - her lips thinned, as if she’d bitten into something nasty - “you can have complete freedom in planning the operation. If you want to borrow the LinkShip to get there, you can ask. Just let me know before I start making other plans that involve it.”
Martin nodded. He’d been briefed on the LinkShip project. Most of the details had been classified, of course, but he knew the ship could pass through a gravity point without being detected. It would have been a war-winner, before the Tokomak invented stardrive. Now, it was still one hell of an advantage ... if the enemy hadn’t realised what the humans had learnt to do. The last set of reports he’d read insisted the enemy had laid so many mines on the far side of the gravity point that someone could probably walk on them.
“Agent Piece is waiting for you in Briefing Room C,” Admiral Stuart continued. “I expect you to remember that walls have ears, even here. If they figure out what you’re doing, you’ll be in trouble.”
“I’ll be dead,” Martin corrected. He rose and saluted. “Thank you, Admiral.”
Yolanda was waiting outside, looking as pale as always. “You alright?”
“In the words of Edmund Blackadder, another tempting opportunity to commit suicide beckons,” Martin said. The quote would normally have made her smile. This time, she looked as if she was already weeping by his grave. He shuddered. If he died this time, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to pick up with a pair of tweezers. “I have a meeting in Briefing Room C.”
“Good luck,” Yolanda said. “I’ll take you there.”
She led him through empty corridors and through a hatch that was not only locked but guarded by two marines. Martin wondered, dryly, if the admiral wanted to draw attention to Agent Piece or if she simply didn’t trust him. Or maybe she just wanted to make damn sure that no one outside the handful of people in the know laid eyes on him. People would talk, unfortunately. And no one really knew what piece of information would allow the enemy to put the whole picture together.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Yolanda said, as the hatch opened. “Call me when you’re done.”
Martin nodded and stepped into the compartment. Agent Piece sat at a table, studying a file report. He rose as Martin entered, looking him up and down with practiced ease. Decent training, Martin noted absently. Piece looked sloppy, as if he was nothing more than a poser, but there was something about his movements that suggested his sloppiness was an act. Martin wondered if the aliens noticed - and, if they did notice, if they cared. They found human body language as hard to read as humans found theirs. He doubted there were many human-specific xenospecialists among the Tokomak.
“Agent,” he said. “I’m Captain Douglas.”
“Captain,” Piece said. “Or should it be Colonel, here?”
“Here, it doesn’t matter.” Martin took a seat. “I heard the lecture you gave the admiral. I want to hear it again, from you.”
Piece didn’t look surprised at the request. Instead, he sat down and calmly recited the entire speech for a second time. Martin formulated questions and interrupted to ask them, giving Piece as little time as possible to think of answers. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Piece was who he claimed to be - by now, Admiral Stuart and General Romford would have run his ID through the wringer - so much as he wanted to make sure he knew everything he could. He’d run into trouble, during exercises, by assuming he knew more than he did. If he did that during a real mission, he’d be dead and his team along with him.
“A small team isn’t going to make that much of a difference,” he said, finally. Piece seemed to have an answer for everything. Martin was curious to see how he’d answer that. “I know the movies make us into superhumans, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound and smash entire battleships with a single punch, but reality is rarely that obliging.”
“No,” Piece agreed. “On one hand, your team will be a sign to the dissidents that they’re not alone. And, on the other, your team may come in handy.”
“Really.” Martin met his eyes. “And what’s to stop the Galactic Overlords from simply vaporising every last planet in the system? Or merely scorching them clean of life?”
“The Twins are a vitally important part of the galactic econo
my,” Piece said, evenly. “Their population is one of the most highly-trained and educated workforces in the core, the second or third largest in the galaxy. In addition, they are owned - owned outright - by the combines, the enemy’s interstellar corporations. Their owners would not be pleased if their military saved the system by destroying it. The dissidents are effectively using themselves as human shields.”
“I’m sure there’s a flaw in that logic somewhere,” Martin said. It was hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Will they be pointing guns at their own heads and threatening to shoot if the Tokomak don’t go away?”
“No.” There was a faint hint of irritation in his voice. “The point is, Captain, that they are limited in how they can react. If they blow up the entire system, they will blow up a sizable chunk of their own economy with it. And the knock-on effects will be serious. It will set their fleet refitting and mobilisation programs back years. They will have to try and take the system back without destroying it.”
Martin considered it. “And a long-term insurgency will render the system useless anyway.”
“Yes,” Piece said.
“How can you be so cold?” Martin cocked his head. “How many of your allies are going to die when the fighting starts?”
Piece’s face sagged. “It wasn’t my plan, Captain. They’re going to do it, with or without us. They understand the risks, they understand what’s at stake, but ... they want to die on their feet rather than live on their knees. Because that’s what they’re facing, right now. A system that is blatantly racist, that will not grant even the slightest glimmer of respect to the most useful workers ... workers who could make the difference between saving the galactic economy and letting it continue to stagnate. They’re desperate. They’re sick of living with the Sword of Damocles constantly hanging over their heads. They want to put an end to it.”
Martin frowned. “Even if it costs them everything?”
“Even so.” Piece looked at the table. “I won’t pretend any of this is good, Captain. I won’t pretend that millions of people - aliens, but still people - aren’t about to die. All we can do is take advantage of it.”
“Right.” Martin sat down. “How do you plan to get there?”
“I’ve asked for a freighter to be modified for us,” Piece said. “Assuming the codes still work, and they should, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting there within three weeks. If they don’t” - he smiled, coldly - “things may become slightly problematic.”
“Slightly,” Martin repeated. A freighter couldn’t run or fight. If they ran into pirates, let alone an enemy warship, they’d be dead. “There are other options.”
“So I’ve been told,” Piece said. “But we also need to take supplies. I’ve had a bit of an idea.”
Martin laughed. “Just a bit?”
“Just a bit,” Piece said. He keyed his datapad, bringing up a holographic display. “But I was hoping you could help me flesh it out.”
“As you wish,” Martin said. He’d see what the plan was before he either started to improve it or vetoed it. “And then I’ll have to call the rest of the team.”
Chapter Eight
Martin couldn’t sleep.
He lay next to Yolanda, feeling her curled against him. The last week had been hectic, starting with a detailed assessment of the captured databanks - he’d never been so glad the Tokomak were obsessive bureaucrats who listed everything - and continuing with training, preparing the modified freighter and readying the team for the mission. It was good to know that he could requisition anything he wanted, and he’d taken shameless advantage of it to make sure the team had everything it needed, but it wasn’t enough. He knew he was going into danger. And he knew there was a very good chance he’d die, along with the rest of the team, thousands of light years from home.
Yolanda shifted against him, pressing against his warmth. Martin was tempted to wake her, to make love one final time before the alarm rang and he had to leave, but he resisted. Yolanda had a job to do too. And besides, they’d spent most of the evening making love. He smiled at the memory, then sobered. Who would have thought a black kid from whatever remained of the once-great United States of America would end up so far from home, fighting to defend the entire human race? He felt a pang of guilt for everyone he’d left behind, mingled with the grim awareness that they too could have left if they’d worked up the nerve. It was hard to leave everything behind, he admitted in the privacy of his own mind. He knew he wouldn’t have left if he hadn’t been certain he’d been on the short road to an early death. And yet, it had been harder than he’d expected to start the first leg on the journey to space.
He closed his eyes, silently contemplating all the things that could go wrong. They’d done their best to plan for everything, but they knew - all too well - that the slightest mistake could end in disaster. No plan ever survived contact with the enemy. The Tokomak were stodgy and unimaginative, but that didn’t make them stupid. And, right now, they had to be cracking down hard right across their territory. An invading fleet was bad enough, but a string of uprisings had to be worse. If even a relative handful of their worlds exploded into rebellion, their empire was screwed. It would take so long to put down the revolts that humanity would have all the time it needed to build a whole new fleet and deploy weapons right out of the fertile dream of a science-fiction author. His lips quirked at the thought. Someone had honestly proposed building a Death Star. It was technically possible, just incredibly expensive. And vulnerable to a single enemy gunboat.
And we could build a million cruisers for the resources wasted in a single Death Star, he thought, dryly. He’d taken a course on grand concepts and practical realities during OCS, where his instructors had pointed out the flaws in a hundred brilliant ideas that - somehow - never worked so well in the field. And the cruisers would probably be more useful.
Yolanda stirred, her hand stroking his chest. Martin opened his eyes and saw her looking at him, her dark eyes worried. She knew everything, he guessed, although she wasn’t - technically - on the list of people who had a need-to-know. Yolanda was Admiral Stuart’s tactical aide. She’d probably done much of the legwork involved in getting Martin and his team the resources they needed. And she wasn’t stupid. She might not know the exact details, but she could probably put together a very accurate picture.
“You’d better come back,” she said, as her hand slipped downwards. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Martin nodded, although he knew there were no guarantees. That had been true in the ghetto and it was true in deep space. He’d learnt that the hard way. The cold equations would always claim their due, whatever happened. The slightest mistake - the slightest innocent mistake - could get people killed. One could take every imaginable precaution and still wind up dead. It didn’t bother him. He’d lived on Earth. The environment might be safer, by and large, but the people were not. Solarians tended to be a more practical, and tolerant, breed.
He smiled as she clambered on top of him, pressing down. His hands rose to her breasts, stroking them gently. It had taken him longer than it should to realise the value of a single partner, one he knew - and knew him - intimately. They moved together, building towards a climax. He held her tightly as he came, pulling her down so they could kiss. He wanted to stay with her. He needed ... but he knew he had to go. He glanced at the chronometer and swallowed a curse. There were only a few minutes left until the alarm rang.
“When we get home, I think I ...”
Yolanda broke off. She knew - they both knew - that it was bad luck to talk about the future. There was no guarantee that either - or both - of them would survive. Yolanda was on a cruiser, the most heavily-protected ship in the fleet, but a lucky hit might destroy the ship with all hands. She might die ... they both might die. Martin pressed his lips against her lightly, trying to say with his kisses what he couldn’t say with his mouth. Afterwards, if there was an afterwards, they could have children. They’d talked about it, more th
an once. But the war had always got in the way.
The alarm rang. Martin allowed himself a quick fantasy of drawing his pistol and shooting the alarm, then reached out and silenced it with a tap of his hand. Yolanda rolled over, her pale skin glistening with sweat. Martin wanted her - his body was urgently reminding him that it would be months, at least, before he saw her again - but he ignored it. His team would make sarcastic remarks if he was late for deployment. And he hated to think what Admiral Stuart would say to his lover. Yolanda was the Admiral’s tactical aide.
He stood and walked into the shower, turning on the water. Yolanda followed, pressing against him as he washed the sweat from their bodies. He kissed her again, then dried himself and donned his tunic. He thought he heard a sob from inside the washroom, but didn’t dare look. Yolanda would never have forgiven him. Instead, he checked his appearance in the mirror. He looked like a soldier, a very dangerous man. Any human would have spotted him at once. Thankfully, the Tokomak weren’t human. All humans looked alike to them. Martin would have been annoyed if he hadn’t known humans had the same problem. The Tokomak really did look alike.
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