by David Weber
"I wish we didn't have to do this," Tannis said into the quiet.
"I do, too, but how else can we handle it? We tried to wait till we found the guilty parties, but all our investigators seem to've hit stone walls—even Ben Belkassem hasn't reported in over a month. If we act at all, we have to take everyone into custody at once or risk missing the people we really want, and I'm afraid we're finally out of time." Keita tapped his reader. "I've just read a message from Ben McIlheny, and I wish to hell Countess Miller had let me tell him about this!"
"Why?"
"Because he didn't know anybody was getting set to act, so he decided to push things to a head on his own. He tried to run a bluff and force the bastards into overt action by reporting to a very select readership that he was about to unmask the traitor."
"He what?" Tannis jerked upright in her chair, and Keita nodded.
"Exactly. He figured they couldn't take a chance that he was really onto them . . . and he was right." The brigadier's face was grim. "His last data dump was accompanied by a followup to the effect that Colonel McIlheny is in critical condition following a quote 'freak skimmer accident,' unquote. Lady Rosario has him in a maximum-security ward with handpicked Wasps watching him round-the-clock, and Captain Okanami thinks he'll pull through, but he'll be hospitalized for months."
"They must be getting desperate to try something like that!"
"No question, but it's even worse than you may guess without knowing who he sent his report to." She raised an eyebrow, and Keita's smile was thin. "Governor General Treadwell, Admiral Gomez, Admiral Brinkman, Admiral Horth, and their chiefs of staff," he said, and watched her wince.
"So at least one of those eight people is either a traitor or an unwitting leak," he continued quietly, "and I doubt the latter after the microscope McIlheny's put on his information distribution. But the fact that they tried to shut him up seems to confirm his theory that they're after more than just loot. If they didn't have a long-term objective, they'd've cut their losses and disappeared rather than risk trying for him, and I doubt it was a simple panic reaction. If whoever set this up were the type to panic we'd have had him—or her—long ago. So either their timetable's so advanced they hoped to wrap things up before anyone figured out what had happened to McIlheny and why, or else—" he met Tannis's eyes "—everyone on his short list of suspects is guilty and they thought no one else would pick up on his report because no one else would ever see it."
"Surely you don't really think—" Tannis began, and he shook his head.
"No, I don't think they're all dirty. But then I wouldn't have believed any of them were. My personal theory is that they underestimated McIlheny's ability to crash land a skimmer even after two of its grav coils suddenly reversed polarity on final. They didn't expect him to live, much less leave enough wreckage for anyone to figure out just how 'freak' a freak accident it was. And, of course, we don't think they know about the way he's been keeping us informed. At the very least, they probably counted on several weeks, possibly even months, of confusion before we put it together.
"The problem is that we can't rely on that. I may be wrong, and even if I'm not, his survival and the questions his subordinates are asking about the nature of his 'accident' may force them into something precipitous. If that's the case, we need to get in there before they start wiping their records or bug out on us. We may not get them all when we come crashing in, but we may lose them all if we don't."
"I see," she said quietly, and Keita nodded again.
"I believe you do, Tannis. So get back to Base Two and get ready to welcome Suares. I want everyone aboard ship in forty-eight hours."
Sir Arthur Keita stood on the flag bridge of HMS Pavia, flagship of Admiral Mikhail Leibniz, and watched the visual display as the task force formed up about her in Alexandria orbit. Like the Cadre strike team it was to transport, its units had been drawn from far and wide—a three-ship division here, a squadron there, a single ship from yet another base. Its heaviest unit was a battlecruiser, for it had been planned for speed, yet it was a powerful force. Like Keita himself, its commanders hoped there would be no fighting; if there was any, they intended to win.
"Departure in seven hours, Sir Arthur," Admiral Leibniz said quietly, and Keita nodded without turning. He hoped Leibniz wouldn't construe that as discourtesy, but he didn't like this mission.
He sighed and concentrated on the gleaming minnows of the ships, half eager to depart into wormhole space and get this ended, half dreading what might happen when he reached his destination. And that, he knew, was why he disliked this operation so. Somewhere at the far end of his journey he would find a traitor, possibly—probably—more than one, and treason was a crime Sir Arthur Keita simply could not understand. The thought that any officer could so degrade himself and his honor made his skin crawl, and knowing that someone sworn to protect and defend had murdered millions made him physically ill.
He wanted that traitor unmasked and destroyed. There was, could be, no trace of mercy in him, but there was sorrow for the shame that traitor had brought to everything Keita himself held sacred.
"Excuse me, Sir Arthur, but you have a priority signal."
The voice broke into his reverie, and he turned to find it belonged to a youthful communications officer who extended a message chip to him.
Keita took the chip and frowned as he recognized the Cadre Intelligence coding. None of the flag bridge's readers could unscramble it, so he excused himself and made his way to Tannis Cateau's command center. The major started shooing the staff away from the com section at sight of the message chip, but he waved for her to remain when she started to follow them. She sat back down at her desk, keeping her back to him while he inserted the chip, only to look back up with a jerk as a voice spoke.
"Well, I will be goddamned," it said softly, and her head whipped around in astonishment, for it belonged to Sir Arthur Keita, and he was grinning as he met her startled gaze.
"Something new has been added," he announced. "This—" he jerked his chin at the reader screen "—is from the team we placed on Ringbolt. It would seem our missing O Branch inspector arrived there two days ago and put on some sort of Pied Piper performance."
"Pied Piper?" His eyes were positively glowing, Tannis thought.
"Our people couldn't get all the details—they're isolated from our official presence there, and the locals are playing their cards mighty close—but it seems Ben Belkassem turned up aboard a tramp freighter named Star Runner, or possibly Far Runner, for a personal meeting with Admiral Simon Monkoto."
"He did?" Tannis' eyes narrowed in speculation, and Keita nodded.
"He did. And six hours later the Monkoto Free Mercenaries, the Westfeldt Wolves, O'Kane's Free Company, the Star Assassins, and Falconi's Falcons were under way. Not some of them—all of them."
"My God," she whispered. "You don't think he—?"
"It would seem probable," Keita replied, "and please note that he appears to have gone directly to the mercenaries; not the Fleet and not the El Grecan Navy. Not to anyone who might have reported back to Soissons. He didn't tell us, either, but then he didn't know we were out here. If he's avoiding Soissons, he may have starcommed Justice HQ, but it'll take Old Earth another four days to relay to us if he did, and in the meantime . . . ."
He began feeding numbers into his terminal, and Tannis frowned.
"I know that tone of voice, Uncle Arthur. What are you up to?"
"Our people may not have gotten everything, but they did find out where all those mercenaries are headed and when they're supposed to get there, and unless I'm mistaken—aha!" The result of his calculations blinked before him, and his grin became savage with delight. "We can get there within forty-one hours of their ETA if we move our departure up a bit."
"But what about Clean Sweep?"
"Soissons won't go anywhere, Tannis, and—" he swivelled to face her, and she saw the hunger in his eyes, heard it in his voice "—this little detour may just tell us who,
because only one thing in the universe could have sucked Simon Monkoto away from Ringbolt!"
Chapter Sixty-Two
"Well it's about damned time," Commodore Howell muttered to himself.
He glared at the gravitic plot and reminded himself—again—that he wasn't going to climb down Alexsov's throat the instant he saw him. He suspected it wasn't going to be an easy resolve to keep.
He turned his back on the plot and interlaced his fingers to crack his knuckles. Alexsov was at least twelve days late, which would have been bad enough from anyone else. From the obsessively punctual chief of staff it was maddening, and vague visions of horrible disaster had haunted the commodore, only just held at bay by his faith in Alexsov.
He drew a deep breath and summoned a wry smile, wishing—not for the first time—that "pirates" weren't cut off from the Empire's starcom network. This business of relying solely on starships and SLAM drones wore on a man. And, his eyes narrowed again, speaking of SLAM drones, just why hadn't Gregor used one to explain his delay? His eyes lit with a touch of real humor as he realized he had at least one perfectly valid reason to tear a long, bloody strip off his chief of staff . . . and how much he looked forward to it.
Alicia only grunted in response. She sat in her command chair, clasping her hands in her lap to keep from gnawing her fingernails. She'd smelled enough fear on Cadre strikes, but drop commandos were passengers up to the moment they made their drops. Whether or not their targets would be there when they arrived was something their chauffeurs worried about, and she'd never realized how tense the final approach must be for Fleet personnel. She was blind, unable to see out of wormhole space. She couldn't know if an ambush awaited her, or even if the enemy were there at all, but if they were, they could see her just fine.
She heard Tisiphone's tension, but it was a different sort of strain. The Fury never doubted they would find those they sought; eagerness sharpened her tone, not uncertainty.
"Yeah, sure," Alicia said, and twitched in surprise at the saw-toothed anticipation quivering in her own voice.
She felt Tisiphone's answering start of surprise—and something like concern behind it—and looked down with a frown. Her clasped hands were actually trembling! Confusion flickered through her for just a moment, a vague sense of something wrong, but she brushed it aside and reached for a thought to distract her from it.
"Think they'll bite, Megaira?"
Alicia nodded, though "a bit more complicated" grossly understated the task her cybernetic sister faced. Pretending to be a freighter was complex yet straightforward for an alpha-synth's electronic warfare capabilities, but this time the deception was multi-layered and far more difficult. This time Megaira was pretending to be a battlecruiser pretending to be a destroyer—and failing. The "pirates" were supposed to see through the first level of deceit, but not the second . . . and if they pierced the first too soon, Monkoto's entire plan would come crashing down about their ears.
"Definitely a destroyer drive," Commander Rendlemann announced several hours later, and Howell allowed himself an ironic smile. Of course it was a tin can. Arriving at this godforsaken star on that heading it could only be Harpy. No one but Alexsov and Control knew where to find them, and any dispatch boat from Control would have come in on a completely dif —
"Still," Rendlemann murmured to himself, "there's something odd about it."
"What?" Howell twisted around in his chair, eyes sharpening.
"I said there's some—"
"I heard that part! What d'you mean, 'odd'?"
"Nothing I can really put a finger on, Sir," Rendlemann frowned as he concentrated on his link to Procyon's AI, "but they're decelerating a bit slowly. There's a slight frequency shift in the forward nodes, too." He rubbed his chin. "Wonder if they've had drive problems? That could explain the delay, and if they had to make shipboard repairs it might explain the frequency anomaly."
Howell reached for his own headset. Unlike Rendlemann, he couldn't link directly with the dreadnought's cyber-synth, but a frown gathered between his brows as he studied Tracking's data. Rendlemann was right. Harpy was coming in faster than she should have—in fact, her current deceleration would carry her past her rendezvous with Procyon at more than seven thousand KPS.
His frown deepened. Harpy was well inside his perimeter destroyers, little more than ninety minutes from Procyon at her present deceleration, and she hadn't said a word. She was still 17.6 light-minutes out, so transmission lag would be a pain, but why hadn't Alexsov sent even a greeting? He had to know how Howell must have worried, and . . . .
"Com, hail Captain Alexsov and ask him where he's been."
The message fled towards Megaira at the speed of light, and she raced to meet it. Eight hundred seconds after it was born, Megaira's receptors scooped it out of space, and Alicia swore.
"I wanted to be closer than this, damn it!" Her own displays glowed behind her eyes, and thirteen light-minutes lay between her and Procyon. She was already in the dreadnought's SLAM range . . . but Megaira mounted no SLAMs. She had to close another sixty-five million kilometers, fifteen more minutes at this deceleration, before her missiles could range upon her enemy—and seventy-two million before she could "break and run" on the vector to Monkoto's rendezvous.
"Can we steal enough delay, Megaira?" she demanded.
the AI replied unhappily.
A corner of Alicia's mind glanced at the clock. Eighty seconds since the signal came in, and Megaira was right; if she delayed much longer, her very delay would become a response . . . .
Something hot and primitive boiled in the recesses of her mind, something red that smoked with the hot, sweet incense of blood, and her lips thinned over her teeth.
"Oh, the hell with it! Talk to the man, Megaira."
James Howell's fingers drummed on the arm of his command chair, and he frowned in growing, formless uneasiness. That had to be Harpy, but Gregor was taking his own sweet time about replying.
He glanced at the chronometer and bared his teeth at his own thoughts. Barely twenty-seven minutes had passed since he sent his own signal; a reply could scarcely have arrived this soon even if Gregor had responded instantly. He knew that, but . . .
He bit the thought off and made himself wait. Twenty-eight minutes. The range was down to eleven light-minutes. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
"Sir," his com officer looked up with a puzzled expression, "we have a response, but it's not from Captain Alexsov."
"What?!" Howell rounded fiercely on the unfortunate officer.
"They say they have battle damage, Sir," that worthy said defensively. "We don't have visual, and their signal is very weak. I think—Here, let me route it to your station."
Howell leaned back, glaring at Harpy's blue star. Battle damage? How? From whom? What the hell was go —
His thought died as a faint voice sounded in his ear bug.
". . . nal is very faint. Say again your transmission. Repeat, this is Medusa. Your signal is very weak. Say again your trans—"
Medusa?! Howell jerked upright in his chair with an oath.
"Battle stations!"
His shocked bridge crew stared at him for an instant, and then alarms began to howl throughout Procyon's eight million-tonne hull.
Howell snapped his chair around to face Commander Rendlemann across his own battle board. The ops officer's eyes were a
lmost focused, despite his concentration on his cyber-synth-link, and questions burned in their depths.
"It's not Gregor," Howell snapped.
"But—how, Sir?"
"I don't know how!" Yet even as he spoke, Howell's mind raced. "Something must have given Gregor away to a regular Fleet unit." He slammed a fist against his console. "They took him out and reset their transponder to bluff their way in, but they can't have taken Harpy intact. If they had, they'd know the Medusa transponder codes were bogus."
"But if they didn't take her intact, how did they know to come here?"
"How the hell do I know? Unless—" Howell closed his eyes, thinking furiously, then spat another curse. "They must've picked him up leaving Wyvern, before he wormholed out of the system. Damn the luck! They got a read on his vector and extrapolated his destination."
"Extrapolated well enough to hit us dead center?"
"How the hell many other stars are there within twenty light-years?" Howell snarled. "But they can't've known what they were heading into. If they knew, they wouldn't have sent a single tin can to check it out." He glared at the blue dot again, yet a grudging respect had crept into his angry eyes. "Those gutsy bastards are decelerating straight toward us, and they're already inside sensor range. They can't see us on gravitics with our drives down, so they're hanging on as long as they can to get a full count for their SLAM drones, and if they do—"
He cut himself off and bent over his board. That destroyer was still outside its own range, and no destroyer could stand up to the SLAM salvos of a dreadnought. He glanced at his plot, at the two escorting battlecruisers tying into Procyon's tactical net as his ships rushed to battle stations. A third battlecruiser was far closer to the intruder, already wheeling to close her jaws upon her prey.