Maybe if the Trust had closed their three jump gates, the Chenon attack wouldn’t have happened. Maybe. Crowder wasn’t entirely convinced that he believed the spiel Eve Moyo had given them. Benjamin was behind all this, he was sure—Benjamin, Crossways, and those independent planets, some of which had once been profitable colonies for the Trust.
Close the jump gates? Not likely. It would have to be the last possible choice from a series of bad ones. Much as he hated to admit it, solving the platinum problem once and for all was the best solution all round. He’d already suggested as much to Yolanda Chang. He knew Chang had been closeted with Tori LeBon all day yesterday, and they’d put several calls through to Eve Moyo.
It was hardly surprising everyone was focused on Chenon and the Nimbus today. They’d all be talking about repelling the attack and disaster relief. He could go and be solicitous, or he could think outside the rather small box everyone else’s mind was trapped in right now.
He called up the distribution of Trust resources at any one time. It showed which ships were where. He needed a small fleet of decently armed ships. The Trust sometimes worked with independent contractors. Yes, all right, mercenaries. With the right crew, he should be able to take what he wanted from Crossways via the backdoor while everyone else was focusing on the wrong thing.
“Stefan!”
There was no answer. Oh, Damn. He’d already forgotten his secretary was with everyone else up on the ground floor, watching the big screens and waiting for news as it unfolded.
He activated his desk pad, a little slow because he was too used to having someone do this for him. Pav Danniri had moved to Earth after she left him high and dry on Chenon. She’d been a good bodyguard; a better tactical thinker than her brother Tom, who’d managed to get himself killed by Benjamin in a fair fight. Crowder had directed Pav’s thirst for revenge, until she’d discovered for herself that Ben hadn’t actually murdered Tom in cold blood. That little misjudgment on Crowder’s part had been the end of a good working relationship, but he’d kept tabs on her. She’d gone independent; she might be looking for some work.
Ah, there she was.
Crowder thumbed the index.
“Well, well, Mr. Crowder,” Pav answered his call on her handpad. “Just one moment, please.” He could see as her hand moved. She’d been driving. She set the groundcar to auto and pushed her seat back to stretch out her legs.
“I have a job for you, Pav.”
“I don’t work for you anymore.”
“I thought you might if the price was right.”
“That depends. I’m not going after Benjamin again.”
“That’s not the job. In fact, since he’s on Chenon, that might have been taken care of by now.”
“Yeah, Chenon. Bad break. This call’s coming from Earth, though, so you’re obviously not on Chenon anymore.”
“Luckily, no.”
“So what’s the job?”
“Crossways.”
“I told you I’m not going after Benjamin. That goes for his crew, too. The Free Company, or whatever they’re calling themselves now.”
“That’s the beauty of it. They’re all on Chenon, or in orbit around it. Crossways should be wide open.”
“Should be.”
He shrugged. “I’ll find you a few battleships as a distraction, and you can slip in quietly while everyone’s concentrating on a bigger threat. There’s something I need you to get for me. I’ll be sending a tech team with you. Retrieval specialists. All you have to do is get them to the right place. They’ll do the rest.”
She snorted and said something Crowder didn’t quite catch, but then she flashed up a series of numbers. “My bank account,” she said. “Make the transfer.”
“I take it that’s a yes, then?”
A few calls later, Crowder had everything in place without worrying anyone else about the details. He’d found Jack Damary, who liked to think of himself as an admiral, but in reality was a man who had built a mercenary fleet, and by some instinct for when and where to deploy, had managed to keep most of it intact. Crowder had hired Damary before, a long time ago, for a job on Hera-3 which hadn’t gone entirely to plan, but that hadn’t been Damary’s fault. If Ari van Blaiden hadn’t jumped the gun . . .
He sat back, anticipating the congratulations when he delivered the jump drive plans to the Trust. Garrick was overdue—long overdue—for some payback. The blueprints were the main objective. Blowing a hole in Crossways would be a bonus, and he had the perfect man for that, someone he’d been cultivating against the day he could be used to good effect.
Crowder had two more calls to make. He didn’t expect a response, but he’d leave messages anyway. His daughters hadn’t spoken to him since he’d accidentally led Benjamin to the island of Norro where their mother was living. He’d tried to tell them it hadn’t been deliberate, but they’d not chosen to believe him.
Ingrid first. It was no surprise when she didn’t take his call, but he left a message anyway to say he’d requested extra assistance to get their mother airlifted off Norro before the Nimbus army arrived.
Then Tamsin. Again, he left a message in the hope that she would get back to him, or at least understand he’d done everything he could.
Almost immediately his comm beeped.
His daughter’s tear-streaked face appeared on his screen.
“Inga, sweetheart, it’s so good to see you again.” And it was, even though she’d obviously been weeping for her mother. Her eyes were heavy and red-rimmed, her lovely face blotchy. That was understandable. Aggie could be the bitch from hell to him, but never as far as her daughters were concerned.
“Poppa.” She hadn’t called him that since she’d hit her teen years. “Poppa, it’s Tamsin.”
“I left her a message. I’ve sent someone for your mother.” He needn’t tell either of them it was Benjamin.
“She won’t get it, Poppa. She’s taken Nini to visit Mom. That’s what I mean. She’s on Chenon.”
Crowder felt as if he’d been doused in ice water. Sending Benjamin after Aggie on Norro had been win-win, whichever way it had worked out, but now that had changed. His daughter and granddaughter . . . Oh, gods! Tamsin and little Nini. He should have asked for a full troop of special forces. Instead, he’d sent his worst enemy to rescue all that was precious to him.
Chapter Fifty
NORRO
“STATUS?” BEN SWEPT SOLAR WIND LOW OVER the Calman Sea toward the island of Norro. Last time they’d been here, Crowder had almost killed Cara and Ben had fired three anesthetic darts into Crowder. They should have killed him. Cara had been out of it, but she knew the story.
She checked the relative positions of the invaders and the resistance. The ships were decimating the Nimbus fleet, but every time they shot one down, another two appeared.
“They’re defending the gates,” she told Ben. “Keeping them open. Pouring more ships through and landing ground forces. It’s a ragtag army, but there are so many of them, and they’re throwing everything they’ve got at the assault. It doesn’t matter how many they lose, they keep right on coming.”
Ben swore. He’d warned them, yet they’d done nothing. Cara could almost see steam coming out of his ears he was so angry.
She knew how he felt—literally. Being an Empath meant she felt it all, the anger, the frustration. Ben was usually good at keeping his feelings to himself, but there was a limit and he’d reached it.
Cara’s screen beeped. She checked the message. “The Nimbus has landed a secondary force at the Corrigar Spaceport.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Did they get all the transports away in time?”
“Yes, but they didn’t get all the refugees onto the transports, and the last ship was hit by the incoming enemy fleet. No survivors.”
He swore again. “What about Norro?”
�
�Still clear. Maybe it’s too small for them to bother with.”
He shook his head. “If they make a push for Ganya, Norro will be in their way. They don’t even need to land forces; a couple of well-placed bombs will do the trick, or maybe they have more stocks of Agent Topax or something equally deadly.”
“There’s a ship ahead,” Wenna said. “It looks like a Monitor vessel, but the Nimbus has some of them, too.”
“Hail it, Cara,” Ben said.
She did. “It’s Jessop.” She felt the rush of relief right down to her toes.
“Put it on speaker.” Ben flipped his throat mic into position.
“Jess?”
“I’ve got your six, Benjamin. I’ll take the south of the island. You take the north. There’s a surge of Nimbus ships heading this way.”
“How long have we got?”
“Twenty minutes, tops.”
“You can’t evacuate half an island in twenty minutes,” Cara said.
“I can try.”
Agnetha Sugurdsdottir had her home in a large walled compound on the northern tip of Norro. Cara remembered it from last year, a cliff-top approach, a high wall, and within it an elegant house and sculpted gardens. They’d rebuilt the wall since last year’s confrontation.
“No time to knock first,” Ben said and landed Solar Wind inside the wall.
As soon as they touched down, Cara activated external speakers.
“Agnetha Sugurdsdottir, we’re your evacuation transport. Please make your way to the hatch and board in an orderly manner.”
Agnetha Sigurdsdottir, a smart woman in her mid-fifties, appeared on the terrace carrying a high-powered rifle and flanked by what must be her new security team. They were probably putting a dent in the Trust’s budget. Cara didn’t blame her after what had happened last year. Solar Wind was the last ship she’d want to see.
“We can look after ourselves,” she yelled, waving her arms in the universal signal for go-away-move-along.
“What the hell does she think she’s doing?” Ben leaped out of the nav chair. “Does she know what’s heading her way?”
“Maybe not entirely,” Cara said. “No one wants the population so panicked they can’t think straight.”
Ben hit the access tube from the flight deck and Cara slid down after him. The hatch was already open and the ramp extended.
“Let me go first,” Cara said. “She’ll shoot you as soon as she recognizes you. Maybe that’s what Crowder intended.”
“Whatever he intended, he knew I wouldn’t leave her behind.”
“Yeah, he knows your fatal flaw—White Knight Syndrome.”
“So I’m not letting you go first.”
“We’ll go together.” Cara grabbed his hand and stepped onto the ramp. “Agnetha—Mrs. Crowder. Can we talk?” she yelled. “Close up? Civilized? All this shouting’s bad for your throat.” She coughed. “And mine,” she said softly. “Charm offensive, Ben.”
“Right. Hard when she’s pointing a gun at your belly. At least, I think it’s my belly, but her aim’s a little low for comfort.”
The gun stayed steady, and Agnetha and her crew didn’t step out from the shelter of the porch.
“I thought it was you,” Agnetha said.
“I think your ex is hoping you’ll kill me,” Ben said. “He’s tried a couple of times, but I’m not all that easy to get rid of.”
“My team is quite proficient,” she said. “I upgraded since our last encounter.”
“I apologize for the last intrusion. We used Norro as a rendezvous because I figured it was the last place Crowder would be. He obviously had the same idea. Unfortunate.”
“Is that all you thought it was?”
“We haven’t time to argue, Mrs. Crowder,” Cara said.
“Don’t call me that.”
“I’ll call you the Queen of Heaven if you’ll move yourself and your staff to the safety of the Solar Wind,” Ben said.
“Young man, there’s no need to be ru—”
“There’s every need. Within ten minutes this island’s going to be overrun, probably bombed from the air.”
“Make that five minutes.” Cara picked up a signal from Wenna. “Incoming.”
“Momma, we should go. I’ll get Nini.” A young woman stepped forward from behind Agnetha. Cara hadn’t taken much notice of her, but now she looked, she could see the echoes of Crowder in the girl’s face. This must be one of his daughters.
“Just bring what you have with you,” Ben snapped.
The young woman looked at him, eyes wide. “Nini’s my daughter. She’s asleep in the house.”
“Oh, shit!” Ben said. “Cara, get them all aboard. You—” He turned to the woman. “Let’s get the child. Run.”
He headed for the house with the young woman.
“Quick, to the Solar Wind!” Cara waved Agnetha, her guards and all household staff forward. She ran after them, chivvying the slowest and grabbing Agnetha by the arm and dragging her along when she slowed to look behind her.
“Ben will get your granddaughter,” Cara said. “Just get into the ship and strap in for takeoff.”
Why did they always have to tuck children away in the quiet corners of big houses? Ben ran after the young woman, who must be Tamsin Crowder, as she wove her way through corridors and up staircases. He remembered Crowder’s delight at the birth of his first grandchild, Nini. It had to be at least six years ago.
“Up there.” Tamsin launched herself up another stair to a bedroom at the top.
“Nini, sweetheart, wake up.” Tamsin sat on the edge of the bed and gently touched the little girl’s arm.
The child woke, took one look at Ben, and started to wail.
“We have to go, now,” Tamsin said.
“Don’t want to go. Want to stay with Grandma.”
“Grandma’s going, too. Hurry we have to catch up.”
Instead of instilling a sense of urgency, Tamsin’s agitation transferred itself and Ben could see a tantrum developing.
*Three minutes, Ben,* Cara said.
Tamsin swept Nini out of the bed, but the child, at six was too big for her to carry, especially while wriggling and screaming.
“Bring a blanket,” Ben said, and lifted the kicking child from her mother’s arms. “We go now.”
He ran out of the door and down the stairs, trusting that Tamsin wouldn’t let him out of her sight as long as he had her daughter. He retraced the route to the ground floor and out through the garden doors at a flat run, Nini still screaming in his left ear.
*One minute.*
“We should lock up,” Tamsin said.
“Not unless you want to die right here.” Ben half-turned, grabbed Tamsin’s hand and dragged her toward Solar Wind.
An ominous whistling in the air, high-pitched but on a descending scale was exactly what Ben didn’t want to hear. He let go of the mother and put his hand over the back of the child’s head, drawing her closer to protect her as much as possible with his body.
A huge whump, a missile strike from the south end of the island, shook the ground. Ben angled himself to be between the child and the blast, felt the heat, and saw a column of smoke and flames rise to their left. The only good thing was that it shocked Nini out of the screams, though if ever there was a time to yell, it was now.
He could hear the Solar Wind’s drive rising in pitch and see Cara standing in the open hatch. She didn’t need to urge him onward. His legs pumped, his muscles ached. And he knew he was leaving Tamsin behind.
One thing at a time. Get the child to safety.
He almost threw Nini up the ramp to Cara, then turned to see Tamsin about twenty paces behind. Ten paces to grab her hand as she pounded toward him, and ten more paces to drag her to the ramp which began to retract as they made a leap for it.
; Another descending whistle.
Ben shoved Tamsin through the hatch. A whump behind him knocked him forward. The house disappeared in a cloud of ash and debris and he felt as if someone had hit him from behind with a club. For a moment, his brain didn’t register that he was on the floor, his cheek on the metal grill. The ramp retracted and the hatch closed. A weight pressed him into the deck as Solar Wind rose vertically. Who the hell was flying the bus?
Cara had Tamsin and Nini under control, and had wisely sat them down before they fell down and was holding onto both of them.
Ben struggled to his knees and then his feet and lunged for the access tube to the bridge. Wenna was in the pilot’s chair, hands steady on the controls, face a mask of concentration. As he lurched forward, she scooted out of the way.
“I didn’t know you could fly,” he said.
“I can’t,” she said. “I was banking on you getting here before I needed to do anything except hit the lift controls.”
Ben changed Solar Wind’s incline. “You just won a course of flying lessons if we manage to get out of this.”
“Make sure we do. I want to live to collect.”
“Incoming,” Gwala shouted from tactical.
Ben glanced at the screen. They were going to have to punch a hole through the oncoming Nimbus fleet.
“Hilde, Gwala, hit them with everything we’ve got.”
He highlighted coordinates, and the two mercs fired a continuous stream. A small ship flamed and went down, leaving a gap.
“Well done. Again.”
They aimed at the cruiser that had targeted them. Hilde’s shot damaged its engines, and Gwala’s shot smashed its forward weapons array.
A third ship took a hit and skewed out of place.
*You’re welcome,* Jessop said from the Carylan. *Let’s get out of here.*
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