by Rick Partlow
He rubbed at his chin, eyes clouding over in thought.
“What do you think, General Constantine?” he asked the intelligence officer. “Night or day?”
Constantine pushed himself up to a seated position, seeming to regain some focus at the direct question.
“The bikes are electric,” he said. “They’ll have a fairly low thermal signature. Plus, there’s a time constraint. They should leave immediately.”
Bohardt nodded.
“Chloe, Lt. Guarras, get together packs with enough water and food for a few days and move out tonight. And Lt. Guarras, make sure Ms. Carpenter is suitably armed.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Guarras motioned to Chloe to follow her and the girl pushed herself to her feet, but hesitated beside Alec, touching his arm.
“Stay close to the camp while I’m gone,” she warned him. “Don’t wander off and make sure you get enough to eat.”
“Yes, Chloe.” The boy’s voice was soft, rasping. Katy knew he hadn’t talked much for several years after witnessing the deaths of his parents at the hands of bandits when he was much younger. “Are you coming back?”
There didn’t seem to be fear or dread in the question, simply acceptance, as if losing people were the norm and Chloe was going to be the next, but certainly not the last. Talons of pain clenched at Katy’s chest and she wondered if they had brought this on the people of Revelation, but she quickly rejected the notion. The bandits had taken Alec’s parents long before Wholesale Slaughter had even existed, and Jeuta raiders were nothing new.
“I’ll be back in a couple days, squirt,” Chloe told the boy, tousling his mop of dark hair and shooting him a confident grin. “Just stay out of trouble.”
Katy was silent as the younger woman stalked off after the Ranger officer, heading for the pallets of supplies stored beneath an overhang of rock farther down the canyon. Alec trailed after her and Antonia went with him, a hand on his shoulder, speaking softly.
“We have to get word back to Logan,” Katy said once the others were out of earshot. “We have to get these people help.”
“If he’s still alive,” Constantine reminded her. “If he’s in a position to help us. The last we heard from him, he was a captive of Rhianna Hale. I sent the message to Ruth Laurent offering the deal, but that doesn’t guarantee Starkad accepted it.”
“I have to believe he made it,” Katy insisted. “I have to believe it because it’s Logan and he hasn’t been in a fight yet that was too big for him. And more important, we have to act as if he did make it…because he’s the only one who’d care enough about this world to save it.”
6
You can’t do this, sir,” Colonel Stone said, shaking his head. “Begging your pardon, I know you’re the Guardian, but if you brought me here to advise you, this is my advice. No. You can’t go.”
Logan Brannigan glared at the Intelligence colonel over the desk his father had occupied for most of his life and tried to control himself. Only the fact that Garrett Stone had spent the last several months in one of Rhianna Hale’s blacksight prisons as a suspected enemy of the state kept Logan from shouting the man down. Stone was a tall man, and it was clear he’d once been a hardy one as well, but the privation had left him lean, almost gaunt, his cheeks sunken into the bones of his skull until his face was nearly skeletal. His uniform, however, was spotless and impeccable, a habit he had, no doubt, picked up as a protégé of General Constantine.
“Finally, someone’s talking sense!” Valentine Kurtz exclaimed, throwing up his hands as he paced around the office.
It was a large chamber, but it seemed crowded with Logan, Colonel Stone, Kurtz, Colonel Lee, Kammy, Terrin and Derek Shupert all crammed into it, most of them standing. No one had been able to calm down enough to sit since the planning session had started, including Logan.
“If there are people still alive on Revelation,” Logan insisted, leaning across the desk toward Stone, “I owe it to them to go back. I can’t sit here and wait…”
“Yes, you can!” Kurtz said, nearly shouting the words. “Damn it, Boss, John and I are your senior officers.” He motioned between himself and Colonel Lee, who hadn’t said a word the whole time. “You gave us the positions because you trusted us to lead your troops into battle! You send us to Revelation and we’ll take care of whatever Jeuta are still there and rescue our people, you have my word as your officer and your friend.” He closed his eyes and visibly composed himself. “I swear to Mithra and all the Spenta Mainyu, and to Jesus, too, if that helps, that if Katy is still alive, I will bring her back to you.”
Logan fell back into the seat. He didn’t remember ever actually sitting in it before. The office had been his father’s, the chair had been the Guardian’s chair, and no one else sat in it. The office had looked different back then, before Rhianna Hale had gotten her hands on it. Someone had removed a few paintings from the wall before he’d arrived back from the Council chamber. He hadn’t asked them to, but when he’d first stepped into the room after landing and seen the paintings of Duncan Lambert, he didn’t suppose it had been difficult to read his expression.
He would have to think about stripping the chamber of the rest of her influence when he had a chance, but for now, there was only one thing he could think of.
“It doesn’t feel right,” he admitted, slumping forward, elbows resting on the polished mahogany of the desktop. “It feels like I’m abandoning them.”
“My Lord Guardian,” Shupert said, sounding hesitant to speak up, as if it weren’t his place, “I supported your father and I will support you, but I have to echo what Colonel Stone has already said and add this to it. The Guardianship has been through much turmoil these last few months, and things are still in flux. Rhianna Hale thought little for the Council and less for the people, so fixated was she on securing the loyalty of the military and ferreting out any opposition to her there. You can’t afford to make the same mistake.”
Shupert wasn’t wearing his ceremonial robes and Logan thought the Councilor could have been a different man dressed in a conservative grey business suit.
“If you were to leave now, before you’ve stabilized the political situation and solidified your support in the Council, you could very well come back to find another coup had been launched in your absence.”
“I certainly hope that’s not a threat, Councilor Shupert,” Logan said, channeling Nicolai Constantine for the edge he put into the words.
“As I said, Lord Guardian, you have my support,” Shupert reminded him. If the implication otherwise had offended the man, he didn’t show it.
But then, he’s a politician.
“But there are many in the Council who will support you now for no other reason than because there’s no safe alternative.,” Shupert went on. “These people will not hesitate to throw their weight behind someone they feel they can more easily control.” The older man brought his hands together in front of him, almost as if in prayer. “You have been through much, sacrificed much to accomplish this. Don’t throw it away so lightly.”
“Trust me, Councilor,” Logan said, “nothing about this is being done lightly.”
“Boss,” Kammy said, stepping around the desk and kneeling down beside the chair, which still almost put him at eye level with Logan. “You say the word, I’ll have a shuttle ready to fly you out of here and up to the Shakak. None of this shit,” he waved around them at the office, and the palace outside of it, “means anything to me. You and Katy, you mean everything.”
Logan put a hand on the big man’s shoulder.
“Thanks, Kammy.” He shook his head, blowing out a breath of resignation. “But I have to admit, I don’t know what I’m doing in this job. Which means I should listen to the people who do know.”
He opened his mouth, closed it again, nearly giving in to the gut instinct screaming at him to head back to Revelation; to hell with the Council and to hell with Sparta. For once, for what might have been the first time in his c
areer, he went against his gut and listened to his advisors.
“Val,” he said to Kurtz, “get a full mech battalion onto the Shakak, I don’t care if you have to tear out the fucking bulkheads. And do it within twenty-four hours. John, I want two companies of Rangers on board and you leading them. Kammy, the Shakak is breaking orbit in twenty-four hours. Anything you need, ask and I’ll get it to you before you leave.” He raised a palm to halt what he expected to be a chorus of “yes, sir” from the officers. “Everybody, get to work. I expect a status report in twelve hours and you’d better be more than halfway done by then.”
“You’re doing the right thing, my lord,” Shupert assured him, hesitating at the door after everyone had left except Terrin. “Your father would be proud.”
Logan waited until the door had closed to respond.
“I suppose we’ll never know.”
Terrin had been leaning against the far wall since the meeting had convened, but now he moved to the leather-upholstered chair opposite the desk and sat down, hands in his lap. He stared straight ahead into nothing, face drawn in thought.
“Don’t you need to get ready for the mission?” Logan wondered.
“I don’t think I’m going on this one,” he said.
Logan grunted in mild surprise. “Really? I’d have thought…”
“I want to go,” Terrin clarified. “I want more than anything, to be there for Katy. But I think there’s something else I could be doing that would make more of a difference.”
Logan leaned back in the chair. It didn’t even groan or squeak with the motion, despite having been in the office since before his father had taken the throne.
“Tell me.”
Derek Shupert could have hailed a car to take him back to his city apartment. Both the car and the well-appointed townhouse were among the perks of being in the Council, and among the most abused. Too many of his fellow Councilors showed the overuse of their in-city vehicles around their waist, and the most common use for the convenient, downtown apartments were to hide affairs from their spouses. He had neither a spouse nor the need to hide anything from them, and he also had no desire to wind up with the double chins and substantial gut of some of his lazier comrades.
And the night was pleasant enough, cool without being uncomfortably cold, the clouds wispy and sparse and the moon glowing down brightly. Plus, the walk gave him time to think, though his thoughts were somewhat less pleasant than the weather.
So absorbed was he in those thoughts that he nearly didn’t notice Warner Michelson seated at a bench in Hellas Square until the man stood to meet him.
“I figured you’d be coming home this way,” Michelson said, nodding a greeting. “I had my driver drop me here an hour ago.”
Shupert laughed softly, the sound perhaps tinged with some bitterness.
“He’s not going. But it was a near thing.” A knot of tension pulled at Derek Shupert’s neck and he massaged at it, moving his head around to try to crack the vertebrae. “And I was so damned grateful he didn’t charge off across a dozen star systems a day after taking the throne that I didn’t even think to question him sending away our most powerful warship, the only stardrive ship in all the Dominions, on a mission into the teeth of the Jeuta to save his wife.”
“He’s young,” Michelson allowed, shrugging. “Perhaps too young for the office. You saw how he rushed out of the Council chamber when he received the news. Hardly the decorum of a man seasoned enough to assume the place of the Guardian. He’s a soldier, a man of action.”
“So was his father,” Shupert reminded his friend.
They both fell quiet as a cluster of pedestrians passed on their way into the park. Younger people, perhaps students at the university given their colorful clothing and outrageous hairstyles. They laughed loudly, heedless of anything outside their little world, but Shupert waited until they were out of earshot before he went on.
“Let us walk,” Michelson suggested, waving an invitation.
Shupert nodded at the prudence of not standing in the open, speaking where any Intelligence drone might pick up their conversation. If there was, indeed, anyone concentrating enough on their job at the moment to even bother launching one.
“Jaimie Brannigan was young when he took over the throne,” Shupert continued his thought, “but he matured into a respected and wise leader.”
“Respected by some. Wise, though perhaps not wise enough to make the difficult decisions.”
Michelson’s voice was cold and calculating and Shupert eyed him sidelong as they kept pace with each other on the tree-lined walk.
“And which difficult decisions were those?” he wondered.
“Whether or not to follow his father’s intent and make the office of Guardian an inherited one. He gave lip service to the right of the Council to choose his successor, yet it was well known among all who were close to him that he intended Logan to take his place.” A hint of a sneer twisted Michelson’s lips, almost hidden by his beard. “And if he had, indeed, intended this, the prudent step would have been to dispose of those who had supported the coup against his father rather than allow them to live, allow their children to serve in the military and grow their resentment like a cancer in our midst.”
Shupert wanted to argue, but found he couldn’t.
“I advised him of just that course of action when he took the throne,” he admitted. “So did Nicolai Constantine. But I think his late wife weighed too heavily on his mind and he often told me she wouldn’t approve of punishing the children for the sins of the parents.”
“Then she was a fool, and she made him a fool. Nits make lice. The question is, can we count on young Lord Brannigan to be wiser than his father? He seemed content to hand the power over the succession back to the Council when he thought his wife dead. Will he be so enlightened about things if she’s found alive and he sees a chance for his line to continue as the rulers of Sparta?”
“What are you suggesting, Warner?” Shupert demanded. “Another coup? And who would lead it? Thanks to General Constantine’s propaganda, Logan Brannigan is incredibly popular both with the public and the military. It would not be easy nor would it be bloodless to try to depose him.”
Michelson shook his head.
“No, another coup would be madness. And it would be doomed to fail, as things stand now. What I’m suggesting is that we have a contingency in place just in case the situation changes. We need to cultivate allies, test the waters, as it were. If everything goes well, then…” He waved a hand in casual dismissiveness. “No need to worry. But if our young Guardian gives in to his passions, we need someone who can take his place.”
“And who in the hell might that be?” Shupert asked, tiring of the man’s vague generalities. “Who do you think could unite both the Council and the military behind them, not to mention the people?”
“Oh, my friend,” Michelson said, laughing, “I think you’d be surprised just how easy it would be to find such a person. But leave that to me. Best you keep your hands clean, just like last time.” He regarded the older man out of the corner of his eye. “I wonder what Jaimie Brannigan would have thought if he’d known his old friend had made a deal with Rhianna Hale?”
7
I hate this damned planet,” Alvar murmured,
His eyes flickered from side to side, warily. Such a statement spoken out loud could be perceived as weakness if a subordinate overheard him, but it wasn’t a danger at the moment. He was standing twelve meters off the ground on the shoulder of his mech, taking in his surroundings from the high vantage point but as he preferred, with his naked eyes, unfiltered by sensors.
His hulking Nomad strike mech stood on a table rock overlooking a patchwork of low, sandstone hills and nothing larger than an insect could have approached within a kilometer without being seen. It wasn’t the openness of the terrain that disturbed him, nor was it the unrelenting heat, which didn’t bother his people nearly as much as it did the humans. No, it was the deceptiveness
of the place. At first glance, it had seemed as if it were a serving tray delivering the human colonists to him on a platter, but the place had far too many hiding places for his liking. A network of caves kilometers deep lay under these rolling hills, and they’d already dug out a dozen underground shelters.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the huge canyon system outside the town. He knew that at least some of the colonists had to be concealed there, but it was a maze, the perfect place to hide an army…or to lose one, should he charge in blindly. Orbital scans had shown nothing, which only proved the humans of Wholesale Slaughter were adept at camouflage, and any drones attempting to circumnavigate the labyrinth disappeared without a trace.
A puff of black smoke rose from what had appeared to be a shadowy spot in a hillside, billowing upward into a virulent mushroom, a headstone to the humans who’d been hiding in the cavern beneath the hill. Three Jeuta soldiers clambered out of the weathered hole in the rock, dragging the body of a fourth behind them. Alvar winced. He bore no particular fondness for these soldiers, but his numbers were not unlimited and he’d already lost more infantry than he’d bargained for. The leader of the team waved back at him, signaling they’d cleared all the humans they’d found infesting the cavern.
Which was something, at least.
“Primus Pilus, this is Relay Shuttle Alpha.” He recognized the voice of the aerospacecraft’s crew chief in his helmet’s headphones and he winced again. The male’s businesslike tone had begun to serve as a harbinger of bad tidings over the last few days, telling him of one niggling loss of troops after another to enemy action, accident and equipment failure. He hesitated, not wanting to hear what the communications relay bird had to say this time. “You have a priority visual coms request from Praefectus Magnus on the Annihilator. Do you wish me to put it through to your mech’s display?”