by David Weber
"Because I've moved in on your operation?" he asked gently. "Or for another reason, as well?"
"Of course there's another reason, and I see you know what it is. But can you blame her? Can't you see it from her side? You're the commanding officer of Dahak, a starship that's like a dream to all of us Terra-born, a combination of heaven and hell. But it's a dream whose decks 'Tanni actually walked … and lost for something she never did. She's spent her entire adult life fighting to undo the wrong others did, and now you, simply by virtue of being the first Terra-born human to enter the ship, have become not just a crew member, but its commander. Why should you have that and not her? Why should you have a complete set of implants - a bridge officer's, no less - while she has only bits and pieces?"
Isis fell silent, studying his face as if looking for something, then nodded slightly.
"But worst of all, Colin, she's a fighter. She wouldn't stand a chance hand to hand against an Imperial, and she knows it, but she's a fighter. She's spent her life in the shadows, fighting other shadows, always indirectly, protected by Dad and the others because she's weaker than they are, unable to fight her enemies face to face. Surely you understand how much that hurts?"
"I do," Colin said softly. "I do," he said more firmly, "and I'll bear it in mind, but we all have to fight Anu, Isis. I can't have her fighting me."
"I don't think she will." Isis paused again, frowning. "I don't think she will, but she's not feeling exactly … reasonable, just now."
"I know. But if she does fight me, it could ruin everything. Too much depends not only on smashing Anu but finding a way to stop the Achuultani. If she can't work with me, I certainly can't let her work against me."
"What … what will you do?" Isis asked softly.
"I won't hurt her, if that's what you're afraid of. She's given too much - all of you have - for that. But if she threatens what we're trying to do now, I won't have any choice but to put her back into stasis."
"No! Please!" Isis gripped his arm tightly. "That … that would be almost worse than killing her, Colin!"
"I know," he said gently. "I know what it would do to me, and I don't want to. Before God, I don't want to. But if she fights me, I won't have a choice. Try to make her understand that, Isis. She may take it better from you than from me."
The old woman looked at him with tear-bright eyes and her lips trembled, but she nodded slowly and patted his arm.
"I understand, Colin," she said very softly. "I'll talk to her. And I understand. I wish I didn't, but I do."
"Thank you, Isis," he said quietly. He met her eyes a moment longer, then squeezed the hand on his arm very gently and rose. An obscure impulse touched him, and he bent to kiss her parchment cheek.
"Thank you," he said again, and left the command deck.
Chapter Twelve
"Colin?"
Colin looked up in sudden relief as Horus stuck his head in through his cabin door. The old man had been more than two hours overdue the last time Colin checked with Nergal's operations room.
"About time you got back," he said, and Horus nodded and gripped his hand, but his smile was odd, halfway between apology and a sort of triumph.
"Sorry," Horus said. "I got tied up talking to one of our people. He's got a suggestion so interesting I brought him back with me."
The old Imperial gestured to the tall man behind him, and Colin glanced at the newcomer, taking in the hard-trained body and salt-and-pepper temples. The stranger's nose was almost as prominent as Colin's, but on him it looked good. He also wore the uniform of the United States Marine Corps and a full colonel's eagles, but the flash on his right shoulder bore the crossed daggers and parachute of the Unified Special Forces Command.
Colin's right eyebrow rose as he waved his guests to chairs. The USFC was the elite of the elite, its members recruited from all branches of the service and trained for "selective warfare" - the old "low-intensity conflict" of the last century - and counter-terrorism. Labels meant little to Colin. Insurgent, terrorist, guerrilla, or patriot. As far as he was concerned, anyone who chose violence against the helpless as his means of protest deserved the same label: barbarian, and the USFC was the United States' answer to the barbarians.
Like their ConEuropean, Australian-Japanese, and Russian counterparts, the men and women of the USFC were as adept at infiltration, information-gathering, and covert warfare as they with the conventional weapons of the soldier's trade. Unlike the rest of the US military, they were an integral part of the intelligence community, as much policemen and spies (and some, Colin knew, would add "assassins") as soldiers. Not that it kept them from being elite troops. USFC personnel were chosen only after proving themselves - thoroughly - in their regular arms of service.
"Colin, this is Hector MacMahan. In addition to his duties for the USFC, he's also the head of our Terra-born intelligence network."
"Colonel," Colin said courteously, extending his hand again and reading the four rows of ribbons under the parachutist and pilot's wings - both rotary wing and fixed. And the crossed dagger and assault rifle of the USFC's close combat medal. Impressive, he thought. Very impressive.
"Commander," MacMahan said. Then he grinned-slightly; his was not a face that lent itself to effusive expressions. "Or should I say ‘Fleet Captain'?"
"Commander will do just fine, Colonel. That, or Colin." His guests sat, and Colin moved to the small bar in the corner as he looked back and forth between them. "You do seem to recruit only the best, Horus," he murmured.
"Thank you," Horus said with a smile. "In more ways than one. Hector is my great-great-great-great-great-grandson."
"I prefer," the colonel said without a trace of a smile, "to think of myself as simply your greatest grandson."
Colin chuckled and shook his head.
"I'm still getting used to all this, Colonel, but I was referring to your military credentials, not your familial ones." He finished mixing drinks and moved out from behind the bar. "I'm impressed. And if your suggestion was interesting enough for Horus to bring you back with him, I'm eager to hear it."
"Of course. You see - thank you." MacMahan took the drink Colin extended, sipped politely once, then proceeded to ignore it. Colin sat back down in his swivel chair and gestured for him to continue.
"You see," the colonel began again, "I've been giving our situation a lot of thought. In my own humble way, I'm as much a specialist as any of you rocket jockeys, and I've nourished a few rather worrisome suspicions of late."
"Suspicions?" Colin asked, his eyes suddenly intent.
"Yes, Com-Colin. I'm in a unique position to study the terrorist mentality, and I've also had the advantage of Granddad's input and Nergal's surveillance reports. That's one reason I'm a colonel. My superiors don't know about my other sources, and they think I'm a mighty savvy analyst."
Colin nodded. The northerners' intelligence network - especially the old battleship's carefully stealthed sensor arrays - would be tremendously helpful in MacMahan's line of work, but the ribbons on his chest told Colin the colonel's superiors were right about his native abilities, as well.
"The point is, Colin, that Anu's people have been digging deeper and deeper into the terrorist organizations. By now, they effectively control Black Mecca, the January Twelfth Group, the Army of Allah, the Red Eyebrows, and a dozen other major and minor outfits. That's ominous enough, if not too surprising - they've always been right at home with butchers like that - but what bothers me are certain common ideological (if I may be permitted the term) threads that have crept into the policies of the groups they control.
"You see," he furrowed his forehead, "these are some pretty unlikely soulmates. Black Mecca and the Army of Allah hate each other even more than they hate the rest of the world. Black Mecca wants to de-stabilize both the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds to such an extent their radical fundamentalists can establish a world-wide theocratic state, while the Army of Allah attacks non-Islamic targets primarily as a means of forcing an unbridgeab
le split between Islamics and non-Islamics. They don't want the rest of us; they're a bunch of isolationists who want to shut everyone else out while they attend to their concept of religious purity. Then there's the Red Eyebrows. They grew out of the old punker/skinhead groups of the late nineties, and they're just plain anarchists. They - "
MacMahan stopped himself and waved a hand.
"I get carried away sometimes, and the etiology of terrorism can wait. My point is that all these different outfits share a growing, common interest in what I can only call nihilism, and I don't think there's much doubt it stems from Anu's input. His goals are becoming, whether they know it or not, their goals, and what's scary about that is what it says about his own mind set."
The colonel seemed to remember his drink and took another sip, then stared down into it for several seconds, swirling the ice cubes.
"My outfit's always had to try to think like the enemy, and I have to admit it can be almost enjoyable. I hate the bastards, but it's almost like a game - like chess or bridge, in a way - except that I haven't been enjoying it much of late. Because there's a question that's been bothering me for the last few years, and especially since Horus told me about you and Dahak: just how will Anu react if he decides we can beat him? For that matter, how would he react to simply knowing that Dahak is fully operational?
"And the reason that bothers me is that I think Horus is right about him. I think the nihilism of his terrorist toadies reflects his own nihilism and that if he ever decides his position is hopeless - which it is, whatever happens to us, if Dahak's out there - he might enjoy taking the whole planet with him."
Colin kept his body relaxed and nodded slowly, but a cold wind seemed to have invaded the cabin.
"It makes sense, Colin," Horus said quietly. "Hector's right about his nihilism. Whatever he was once like, Anu likes destruction now. It's almost as if it relieves his frustration, and it's probably part of his whole addiction to power, as well. But whatever causes it, it's real enough. He and his people certainly proved that a hundred years ago."
Colin nodded again, understanding completely. He'd occasionally wondered why Hitler had proved so resistant to assassination - until he gained access to Nergal's database. No wonder the bomb plot had failed; a man with full enhancement would hardly even have noticed it. And if anyone had ever shown a maniacal glee in taking others down with them, it had been the Nazi elite.
"So." He twirled his chair slowly. "It seems another minor complication has been added." His smile held no humor. "But from the fact that you're here, Colonel, I imagine you've been doing more than just worrying?"
"I have." The colonel drew a deep breath and met Colin's eyes levelly. "A man in my profession doesn't have much use for do-or-die missions, but I've spent the last year building a worst-case scenario - a doomsday one, if you will - and trying to find a way to beat it, and I may have come up with one. It's scary as hell, and I've always seen it more as a last-ditch contingency than anything I'd want to try. In fact, I wouldn't even mention it except for what you've told us about the Achuultani. The smart thing would be to wait till things settle down a bit, get you back up to Dahak, and then hit the bastards from two directions at once - or at least get another suppresser down here. But we don't have time to play it smart, do we?"
"No, we don't," Colin said, his tone calm but flat. "So may I assume you're about to tell me about this ‘way to beat it' you've come up with?"
"Yes. Instead of waiting for things to cool down, we heat them up."
"Hm?" Colin leaned slowly back, his chair squeaking softly, and tugged at his nose. "And why should we do that, Colonel?"
"Because maybe - just maybe - we can take them out ourselves, without calling on Dahak at all," the colonel said.
No one, Colin reflected as he watched the Council file into the command deck, could accuse Hector MacMahan of thinking small. Merely to consider attacking such a powerful enemy took a lot of audacity, but it seemed the colonel had chutzpah by the truckload. And who knew? It might just work.
The council settled into their places in tense silence, and he tucked his hands behind him and squared his shoulders, feeling their eyes and wondering just how deep his rapport with them truly went. They'd had barely a month to get to know one another, and he knew some of them both resented and feared him. He couldn't blame them for that; he still had reservations about them, though he no longer doubted their sincerity. Not even Jiltanith's.
Thoughts of the young woman drew his eyes, and he hid a smile as he realized he, too, had come to think of her as "young" despite the fact that she was more than twice his age. Much more, if he counted the time she'd spent in stasis. But his smile died stillborn as he saw her expression. She'd finally managed to push the active hatred out of her face, but it remained a shuttered window, neither offering nor accepting a thing.
In many ways, he would have preferred to exclude her from this meeting and from all decision-making, but it hadn't worked out that way. She was young, but she was also Nergal's chief intelligence officer, which officially made her MacMahan's Imperial counterpart and, indirectly, his boss.
Colin wouldn't have considered someone with her fiery, driven disposition an ideal spy master, but when he hinted as much to one or two council members, their reactions had surprised him. Their absolute faith in her judgment was almost scary, especially since he knew how much she detested him. Yet when he'd checked the log, her performance certainly seemed to justify their high regard. The Colorado Springs attack was the first time in forty years that the southern Imperials (as distinct from their Terra-born proxies) had surprised the northerners, and he knew whose fault that had been. Given the way the Council felt about her, he dared not try removing her from her position. Besides, his own stubborn integrity wouldn't let him fire someone who did her job so well simply because she happened to hate him.
But she worried him. No matter what anyone else said or thought about her, she worried him.
He sighed, wishing she would open up just once. Just once, so he could know what she was thinking and whether or not he could trust her. Then he pushed the thought aside and smiled tightly at the rest of the Council.
"I'm sure you all know Colonel MacMahan far better than I do." He gestured at the colonel and watched the exchange of nods and smiles, then put his hand back behind him. "The reason he's here just now, though, may surprise you. You see, he proposes that we attack Anu directly - without Dahak."
One or two members of his audience gasped, and Jiltanith seemed to gather herself like a cat. She never actually moved a muscle, but her eyes widened slightly and he thought he saw a glow in their dark depths.
"But that's crazy!" It was Sarah Meir, Nergal's Terra-born astrogator. Then she blushed and glanced at MacMahan. "Or, at least, it sounds that way."
"I agree, but that's one of the beauties of it. It's so crazy they'll never expect it." That got a small chorus of chuckles, and Colin permitted himself a wider grin. "And crazy or not, we don't really have much choice. We've been sitting on dead center ever since my … arrival - " that provoked a louder ripple of laughter " - and we can't afford that. You all know why."
Their levity vanished, and one or two actually glanced upward, as if to see the stars beyond which the Achuultani swept inexorably closer. He nodded.
"Exactly. But the thing that surprised me most is that it might just work." He turned to MacMahan. "Hector?"
"Thank you, Colin." MacMahan stood in the center of the command deck, his erect figure and Marine uniform as out of place and yet inevitable as Colin's own Fleet blue, and met their intent eyes levelly, a man who was clearly accustomed to such scrutiny.
"In essence," he said, "the problem is time. Time we need and haven't got. But we do have one major advantage: Anu doesn't know we're on a short count. It's obvious he thought Colin was one of us when he hit the Tudors - " Colin saw Jiltanith twitch at that, but she had herself well under control … for her " - so it seems extremely unlikely he realizes a genuinel
y new element has been added. He'll evaluate whatever we do against a background that, so far as he knows, is unchanged."
He paused, and several heads nodded in agreement.
"Now, we all know we hurt them badly at Colorado Springs." There was a soft growl of agreement, and he rationed himself to one of his minute smiles. "We've confirmed seventeen hard kills, and two more probables - more damage than we've done in centuries. They must be wondering what happened and, hopefully, feeling a bit on the defensive. Certainly that ties in with the efforts they've been making to find us ever since.
"At present, they no doubt see the entire skirmish as exactly what it was: a defensive action on our part, but what I propose is that we convince them it was an offensive act. I propose that we attack them - hit them everywhere we can - hard enough to convince them we've opened a general offensive. It'll be risky, but no more so than some of the things we've done in the past."
"Wait a minute, Hector." The colonel paused as Geb, one of the older Imperials and Nergal's senior engineer, raised a hand. "There's nothing I'd like better than a shot at them, but how will it help?"
"A fair question," MacMahan acknowledged, "and I'll try to answer it, Geb. It may sound a bit complicated, but the underlying concept is simple.
"First, some of their people are actually more vulnerable than we are. They've always been more involved in world affairs than we have, and we've been able to identify more of them than they have of us. We know where several of their Imperials are, and we've got positive IDs on quite a few of their Terra-born. More than that, we've identified the terrorist groups they're currently working through and positively located several operational centers and HQs. What that all boils down to is that even though the bulk of their personnel are far better protected than we are, the ones who are actually outside the enclave are more exposed. We can get to them more readily than they can get to us."