by David Weber
"Prove I was out here, not anywhere near Sol..." Roger said.
"And they're going to be livid," Eleanora said, nodding her head.
"How many?" Roger asked.
"The Empress' Own Association lists thirty-five hundred former members living on Old Earth," Julian replied. "The Association's directory lists them by age, rank on retirement or termination of service, and specialty. It also gives their mailing addresses and electronic contact information. Some are active members, some inactive, but they're all listed. And a lot of them are... pretty old for wet-work. But, then again, a lot ain't."
"Anybody that anyone knows?" Roger asked.
"A couple of former commanders and sergeants," Despreaux answered. "The Association's Regimental Sergeant Major is Thomas Catrone. No one in the company really knew him when he was in. Some of us crossed paths, but that doesn't begin to count for something like this. But... Captain Pahner did. Tomcat was one of the Captain's basic training instructors."
"Catrone's going to remember Pahner as some snot-nosed basic training enlistee, if he remembers him at all." Roger thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "Okay, I doubt he was a snot-nose even then. It's hard to imagine, anyway. Any other assets?"
"This," Eleanora said, gesturing at the overhead and, by extension, the entire ship. "It's a Saint insertion ship, and it's got some facilities that are, frankly, a bit unreal. Including some for bod-mods for spy missions. We can do the extensive bod-mods we're going to require for cover with those facilities."
"I'm going to have to cut my hair, aren't I?" Roger's mouth made a brief one-sided twitch that might have been construed as a grin.
"There were some suggestions that went a bit beyond that." Eleanora made a moue and glanced at Julian. "It was suggested that to ensure nobody began to suspect it was you, and so you could keep your hair, you could change sex."
"What?" Roger said in chorus with Despreaux.
"Hey, I also suggested Nimashet change at the same time," Julian protested. "That way—oomph!"
He stopped as Kosutic elbowed him in the gut. Roger coughed and avoided Despreaux's eye, while she simply rolled a tongue in her cheek and glared at Julian.
"We've come to an agreement, however," the chief of staff continued, also looking pointedly at Julian, "that that extreme level of change won't be necessary. The facilities are extensive, however, and we'll all be retroed with a nearly complete DNA mod. Skin, lungs, digestive tract, salivaries—anything that can shed DNA or be tested in a casual scan. We can't do anything about height, but everything else will change. So there's no reason you can't keep the hair. Different coloration, but just as long."
"The hair's not important," Roger said frowningly. "I'd considered cutting it, anyway. As a... gift. But the time was never right."
Armand Pahner had cordially detested Roger's hair from first meeting. But the funeral had been a hurried affair in the midst of the chaos of trying to keep the ship spaceworthy and simultaneously clear the planet of any sign the Bronze Barbarians had ever been there.
"But this way you can keep it." Eleanora kept her own tone light. "And if you didn't, how would we know it was you? At any rate, the body-mod problem is solved. And the ship has other assets. It's too bad we can't take it deep into Imperial space."
"No way," Kosutic said, shaking her head sharply. "One good look at it by any reasonably competent customs officer, even if we could get it patched up, and he's going to know it's not just some tramp freighter."
"So we'll have to dump it—trade it, rather—with someone we can be sure won't be telling the Empire what they traded for."
"Pirates?" Roger grimaced and glanced quickly at Despreaux. "I'd hate to support those scum in any way. And I wouldn't trust them a centimeter."
"Again, considered and rejected," Eleanora replied. "For both of those reasons. And also because we're going to need a considerable amount of help pirates simply aren't going to be able to provide."
"So who?"
"Special Agent Jin now has the floor," the chief of staff said, rather than responding directly herself.
"I've completed an analysis of the information that wasn't wiped from the ship's computers," Jin said, tapping his own pad. "We're not the only group the Saints have been messing with."
"I'd think not," Roger snorted. "They're a pest."
"This ship, in particular," Jin continued, "has been inserting agents, and some covert action teams, into Alphane territory."
"Aha." Roger's eyes narrowed.
"Into whose territory?" Krindi asked in Mardukan. Because the humans' personal computer implants could automatically translate, the meeting had been speaking the Diaspran dialect of Mardukan with which all the locals were familiar. "Sorry," the infantryman continued, "but I've been getting up to speed on most of your human terms, and this is a new one."
"The Alphanes are the only nonhuman interstellar polity with which we have contact," Eleanora said, descending into lecture mode. "Or, rather, the only one which isn't predominately human. The Alphane Alliance consists of twelve planets, with the population about evenly split between humans, Altharis, and Phaenurs.
"The Phaenurs are lizardlike creatures—they look something like atul, but with only four legs and two arms, and they're scaly, like the flar-ta. They're also empaths—which means they can read emotions—and, among themselves, they're functional telepaths. Very shrewd bargainers, since it's virtually impossible to lie to them.
"The Altharis are a warrior race that looks somewhat like large... Well, you don't have the referent, but they look like big koala bears. Very stoic and honorable. Females make up the bulk of their warriors, while males tend to be their engineers and workers. I've dealt with the Alphanes before, and the combination is... difficult. You have to lay all your cards on the table, because the Phaenurs can tell if you're lying, and the Altharis lose all respect for you if you do."
"But the critical point, for our purposes, is that we have information the Alphanes need," Jin continued, picking up the thread once more. "They need to know both the extent of Saint penetration—which they're going to be somewhat surprised about, I suspect—and the true nature of what's going on in the Empire."
"Even if they do need to know that, and even if we tell them, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to help us," Roger pointed out.
"No," Eleanora agreed with a frown. "But they can, and there are reasons they may. I won't say they will, but it's our best hope."
"And do you have any suggestions about how we're going to penetrate the Empire?" Roger asked. "Assuming we can convince the Alphanes to help us, that is?"
"Yes," Eleanora said, then shrugged. "It's not my idea, but I think it's a good one. I didn't at first, but it makes more sense than anything else we've come up with. Julian?"
Roger looked at the noncom, and Julian grinned.
"Restaurants," he said.
"What?" Roger frowned blankly.
"Kostas, may he rest in peace, gave me the idea."
"What does Kostas have to do with it?" Roger demanded, almost angrily. The bitter wound of the valet's death had yet to fully heal.
"It was those incredible meals he'd summon up out of nothing but swamp water and day-old atul," Julian replied with another smile, this one of sad fondness and memory. "Man, I still can't believe some of those recipes he came up with! I was thinking about them, and it suddenly occurred to me that Old Earth is always looking for the 'new' thing. Restaurants spring up with some new, out-of-this-world—literally!—food all the time. It's going to require one helluva lot of funding, but that's going to be a problem for anything we do. So, what we do, is we come to Imperial City with a chain of the newest, most you've-got-to-try-this-new-place, most brassy possible restaurants serving 'authentic Mardukan food.'"
"You've wanted to do this your whole life," Roger said, wonderingly. "Haven't you?"
"No, listen," Julian said earnestly. "We don't just bring Mardukans and Mardukan food. We bring the whole schme
er. Atul in cages. Flar-ta. Basik. Tanks of coll fish. Hell, bring Patty! We throw a grand opening for the new restaurant in Imperial City that's the talk of the whole planet. A parade of civan riders and the Diasprans bearing platters of atul and basik on beds of barleyrice. Rastar chopping the meat off the bone right there in the restaurant for everyone to watch. Impossible to miss."
"The purloined letter approach," Kosutic said. "Don't hide it, flaunt it. They're looking for Prince Roger to come sneaking in? Heaven with that! We'll come in blowing trumpets."
"And do you know how good a restaurant is for having meetings?" Julian asked. "Who thinks about a group of former Empress' Own having one of their get-togethers in the newest, hottest restaurant on the face of the planet?"
"And we've got the whole Basik's Own right there in the heart of the capital," Roger said, almost wonderingly.
"Bingo," Julian agreed with a chuckle.
"Just one problem," Roger noted, with another of those quick, one-side-of-the-face smiles. "They're all lousy cooks."
"It's haute cuisine," Julian said. "Who can tell the difference? Besides, we can scrounge up cooks on the planet. Ones that are either loyal to us, or don't know what's going on. Just that they were hired to go to another planet and cook. That place in K'Vaern's Cove, the one down by the water—you know, the one Tor Flain's parents own. That's a whole family of expert cooks. Ones we can trust, come to think of it. And how many humans speak Mardukan? It was only your toot and Eleanora's that let us get by at first. Then there's Harvard."
"Harvard?" Roger asked.
"Yeah, Harvard. If you trust him," Julian said seriously.
Roger thought about that for a long time. They'd discovered Harvard Mansul, a reporter for the Imperial Astrographic Society in a cell in a Krath fortress the Marines had captured. He'd been almost pathetically grateful to be rescued, and to have his prized Zuiko tri-cam returned more or less unharmed. Since then, he'd been attached to Roger like a limpet. Not for safety, but because, as he'd frankly admitted, it was the story of all time. Marooned prince battles neobarbarians and saves the Empire... assuming, of course, that any of them survived.
But Mansul wasn't in it solely for the story. Roger felt confident about that. He was not, by any means, scatterbrained, and he was loyal to the Empire. And furious at what was happening at home.
"I think I trust him," the prince said finally. "Why?"
"Because if we send Harvard back early, he thinks he can get a pretty good piece—maybe a lead piece—into the IAS Monthly. He's got good video, and Marduk is one of those 'I can't believe worlds like that still exist' places the IAS loves. If we hit right after the IAS piece, it'd make for that much better publicity, and he's willing, more than willing, to help. Obviously, he'll hold off on the big scoop. And he can do some other groundwork for us in advance. We're going to need that."
"Why do I have the feeling Captain Pahner is watching us," Roger said with a crooked smile, "and clasping his head and shaking it. 'You're all insane. This isn't a plan; this is a catastrophe,'" he added in a slightly deeper voice.
"Because it isn't a plan," Kosutic replied simply. "It's the germ of a plan, and it is insane, because the whole idea is insane. Twelve Marines, a couple of hundred Mardukans, and one scion of House MacClintock taking on the Empire? No plan that isn't insane will save your mother and the Empire."
"Not quite," Eleanora said, carefully. "Well, there's one other approach that might do either of those. Government-in-exile."
"Eleanora, we talked about this." Julian shook his head stubbornly. "It won't work."
"Maybe not, but it still needs to be laid on the table," Roger said. "A staff's job is to give its boss options. So let me hear this option."
"We go to the Alphanes and lay out everything we know," Eleanora said, licking her lips. "Then we make a full spectacle of it. Tell the whole story to anyone who'll listen, especially the representatives of other polities. On the side, we dump them the data we got from the ship, by the way. There are already questions in Parliament about your mother's condition—we all know that. This would make it much harder for her to conveniently die of 'remnant trauma from her ordeal.' We've got Harvard, who's a known member of the Imperial press, to start the ball rolling, and others. will come to us to follow it up. That much I can absolutely guarantee; the story's a natural."
"And what we'll have is a civil war," Julian said. "Adoula's faction's in too deep to back out, and they're not going to go down smiling. They also control a substantial fraction of the Navy and the Corps, and they own the current Empress' Own. We do this, and Adoula either sits tight on Imperial City, declaring a state of martial law in the Sol System while the various fleets have internal squabbles and duke it out in space. Or, maybe even worse, he runs back to his sector with the baby, your mother being dead, and we end up in a civil war between two pretenders to the Throne."
"He's going to get some portion of the Navy, no matter what we do," Eleanora argued.
"Not if we capture the king," Julian countered.
"This isn't a chess game," Eleanora said mulishly.
"Wait." Roger held up his hand. "Jin?"
The agent raised an eyebrow and then shrugged.
"I agree with both," he said simply. "All of it. Civil war and all the rest. Which will mean, of course, the Saints will be busy snapping up as many planetary systems as they can manage. The flip side, which, curiously, neither of them mentioned, is that it means all of us will be relatively safe. Adoula wouldn't be able to touch us if we were under the Alphanes' protection. And if they offer it, it will be full force. They're very serious about such things. You can live a full life, whether Adoula is pushed out or not."
"They didn't mention it because it's not part of the equation," Roger said, his face hard. "Sure, it's tempting. But there are too many lives on the trail for any of us to ever think about turning aside because it's 'safer.' The only question that matters here is where our duty lies? So how do you evaluate that question?"
"As one with too many imponderables for a definite answer," Jin replied. "We don't have enough information to know if the insertion and countercoup plan is even remotely feasible." He paused and shrugged. "If we find that it'simpossible to checkmate Adoula, and we're still undetected, we can back out. Go back to the Alphanes—this allassumes their support—and go for Plan B. And if we're caught, which is highly likely given that the IBI is not stupid, the Alphanes will be authorized to release the entire story. It won't help us, or your mother, most likely, but it will severely damage Adoula."
No," Roger said. "One condition we'll have to have on their help will be that if we fail, we fail."
"Why?" Julian asked.
"Getting Adoula out of power, rescuing Mother—those are both important things," Roger said. "I'll even admit I'd like to live through accomplishing them. But what's the most important part of this mission?"
He looked around at them, and shook his head as all of them looked back in greater or lesser degrees of confusion.
"I'm surprised at you," he said. "Captain Pahner would have been able to answer that in a second."
"The safety of the Empire," Julian said then, nodding his head. "Sorry."
"I've contemplated not trying to retake the Throne at all," Roger said, looking at all of them intently. "The only reason I intend to try is because I agree with Mother that Adoula's long-term policies will be more detrimental to the Empire than another coup or even a minor civil war. Give Adoula enough time, and he'll break the Constitution for personal power. That's what we're fighting to prevent. But the long-term good of the Empire is the preeminent mission. Much, much more important than just making sure there's a MacClintock on the Throne. If we fail, there will be no one except Adoula who can possibly safeguard the Empire. He won't do a good job, but that's better than the Empire breaking up into small pieces, ripe for plucking by the Saints or Raiden-Winterhowe, or whoever else moves into the power vacuum. We're talking about the good of three-quarters of a trill
ion lives. A major civil war, with the half-dozen factions that will fall out, would make the Dagger Years look like a pocking picnic. No. If we fail, then wefail, and our deaths will be as unremarked as any in history. It's not heroic, it's not pretty, but it is the best thing for the Empire... and it will be done. Clear?"
"Clear," Julian said, swallowing.
Roger leaned his elbow on the station chair's arm and rubbed his forehead furiously, his eyes closed.
"So we go to the Alphanes, get them to switch out the ship for one that's less conspicuous—"
"And a bunch of money," Julian interjected. "There's some technology on here I don't think they have yet."
"And a bunch of money," Roger agreed, still rubbing. "Then we take the Basik's Own, and Patty, and a bunch of atul and basiks and what have you—"
"And several tons of barleyrice," Julian said.
"And we go start a chain of restaurants, or at least a couple," Roger said.
"A chain would be better," Julian pointed out. "But at least one in Imperial City. Maybe near the old river; they were gentrifying that area when we left."
"And then we somehow parlay that into taking the Palace, checkmating Home Fleet, and preventing Adoula from killing my mother," Roger finished, looking up and gesturing with an open palm. "Is that what we have as a plan?"
"Yes," Eleanora said in an uncharacteristically small voice, looking down at the tabletop.
Roger gazed up at the overhead, as if seeking guidance. Then he shrugged, reached back to straighten his ponytail, pulled each hair carefully into place, and looked around the compartment.