It wasn't a pleasant duty; and for several long minutes after he'd signed off Galway stood at the large window beside his desk, gazing out at the Hub as he let the tension of that contact work itself out through trembling muscles. He didn't hate humanity's conquerors, of course; the loyalty-conditioning he'd undergone at the age of eighteen had permanently eliminated that emotional response to the Ryqril. But the conditioning didn't block fear... and Galway feared the rubber-skinned aliens more than anything in the universe. Not only for what they could do to him personally, but also for what they'd already shown themselves capable of doing to whole worlds.
To his world.
Lifting his eyes, Galway looked past Capstone's buildings to the Greenheart Mountains, where even thirty-six years after the Ryqril Groundfire attack the vegetation was still nowhere near its prewar lushness. Plinry had come close to dying in that attack, and it would be another generation at least before the planet could survive anything comparable.
And if the blackcollar training camp became too much of a threat to the Ryqril...
Galway shuddered. No, he couldn't simply pass on information about Caine to someone else and then forget about it. He had a highly vested interest in making sure every team Lathe and Lepkowski sent on its way was neutralized, and neutralized fast. Involuntarily, as if seeking one final cathartic shiver, his eyes slipped back to Capstone, and the Hub, and the tall black wall rising like a truncated mountain from near the center of the government section. The Ryqril Enclave. The impregnable town-within-a-city-within-a-city from which the real rulers of Plinry sent their orders to puppets like Galway. The place where the decision to obliterate the blackcollars—and perhaps the entire planet along with them—might someday be made.
And all that stood between Plinry and that decision was a competent Security prefect doing his job.
Turning away from the window, Galway stepped back to his desk and, with fresh determination, got to work.
—
"Backlash."
Lathe said the word quietly, almost reverently, fingers playing over the red-eyed dragonhead ring on his hand. Two hours ago his ambitions had been of a small, comfortable size; he'd felt himself lucky just to have a training center and men of Caine's and Pittman's caliber with whom to work. But if Backlash was once again available, there was suddenly no limit to what he could accomplish....
With an effort, he forced both mind and eyes back from the visionary future to the reality of the man facing him. "What are his chances? Really?"
Lepkowski shook his head. "I don't know," he told the comsquare. "I'd bet heavily that the formula was in the Aegis secrets file during the war. But after that point I can't even hazard a guess. I suppose it could still be lying around in there gathering dust—it's nothing the Ryqril would be especially interested in rooting out."
"Nor your average resistance team, either," Lathe mused. "Even mainline military people might not realize how heavily the blackcollar project hinged on the drug."
Lepkowski cocked an eyebrow. "Or else they simply didn't think the blackcollars were worth bringing back."
Lathe smiled grimly. "Can't hurt my feelings that easily, friend—I like being underestimated, remember?"
Lepkowski grinned in return, a smile of shared memories. Then he sobered. "Caine won't like being interfered with, you know."
"I sort of expected that." Lathe thought a moment. "Well, we've got five days to come up with something clever."
"And remember that that something clever shouldn't interfere with or compromise Project Christmas," the general said.
"Oh, hell," Lathe muttered under his breath. Project Christmas had been in the works for so long he hadn't immediately made the—obvious, now—connection. "That does complicate everything, doesn't it?" he admitted. "Though in some ways it actually might work to our advantage. Well, we'll just have to make double-damn sure Christmas comes off without a hitch."
Lepkowski waved a hand. "We've been in worse spots with tighter tolerances—and as you say, we've got five days. Let's get to work, shall we?"
Chapter 3
One of the biggest problems Lepkowski and the Plinry blackcollars had faced with their year-old businessmen's shuttle, Caine knew, had been that of maintaining proper security while civilians were aboard the new starships. It wasn't a trivial matter; with the tool of loyalty-conditioning at Security's disposal, the government could theoretically slip saboteurs through even the finest screening procedures. The danger had eventually been at least minimized by completely sealing off a section of the Novak exclusively for civilian passenger use.
Which sounded rather cramped to most people... because most people didn't have any real feel for just how big the Novak really was.
Certainly Caine's four teammates didn't, expecting confinement to a special section of their own away from both crew and other passengers, neither of which knew of their presence. Caine had watched with secret amusement as they first learned what a "small private section" really meant.
After the cramped homes most of them had grown up knowing in nongovernment Capstone—and the even tighter conditions at Hamner Lodge—the Novak was almost like a luxury vacation by comparison.
A vacation that ended three days out from Earth with the arrival of Lepkowski for their final briefing.
"The shuttle will be coming into Denver from the west, on this vector," the general told them, indicating a path west by north over the Rockies on the detailed map he'd brought for them. "Your drop pods will be jettisoned here, about twenty-five klicks from the edge of the mountains and civilization."
"A bit of a stretch, isn't that?" Stef Braune asked dubiously.
"We did nearly thirty on Argent," Caine told him. "And that was without any tailwind assistance."
"These are mountains, though," Doon Colvin pointed out. "That means strong and often dangerous air currents to fight."
"How dangerous?" Caine asked. Unlike any of the others—including Caine—Colvin had had a lot of private experience with hang gliders.
Colvin shrugged. "Depends on the mountains and the weather at the time. Could be a relatively minor annoyance or an immediate catastrophe or anything in between."
Lepkowski and Caine exchanged glances. "Can you drop any closer to the metro area?" the general asked.
Caine shook his head. "Too much of our path's going to be visible on Security's radar as it is. I want to be on the far side of these mountains here and here when we swing around to follow this road. We need to draw their first countermove to the wrong place if we're going to have time to lose ourselves in Denver before they realize their mistake."
Alamzad cleared his throat. "Not to push or anything, Caine, but as long as we're all together now anyway... how about breaking down and telling us just what we're supposed to do once we get there?"
Caine could feel Lepkowski's eyes on him. "Sorry," he said, looking at each of his team as he spoke.
"But this is too important a mission to take any risks whatsoever with. It's not that I don't trust you," he added, "but there's always a chance Security might snatch one of you... and even psychor conditioning techniques can be broken with the right kind of pressure."
None of the four liked it—that much was obvious from their faces. But they accepted it without further argument.
—
Some of that same faith was also in evidence later on in a different part of the starship, but in this case the participants had a good deal more experience on which to base it. Seated together with his own four-man team, Lathe ran through the details of Caine's plan. "...so we'll drop approximately three klicks back and one up from their drop point," he finished, marking the spot on his copy of Lepkowski's map. "Colvin seemed to think we'd have some trouble with winds, but I don't see us having any choice."