Katy stepped into the airlock before he could finish. It sealed itself shut before the second airlock opened, revealing a small compartment with a handful of bunk beds, a pair of computer terminals and a set of battle armour. The two women and one man sitting on the bunks stood up as she entered, snapping into loose salutes, and Katy returned them, studying them with interest. It was the first time she had knowingly seen Imperial Intelligence’s covert operatives.
“Admiral,” the leader said. Her nametag read SASHA. Her voice was flat, almost emotionless. “Welcome to our lair.”
Katy smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said, taking a moment to study Sasha and her comrades. Sasha herself was tall, blonde and looked more like a Freebooter than an Imperial Intelligence officer. Sandra was shorter, with an oriental face and long dark hair, while Charlie was tall and good-looking, in a bland way. He had the kind of face that a person could pass on the streets and instantly forget. The two girls would be remembered more for their appearances than anything more important. “I trust that you have been briefed on the mission?”
“We were told to report to you and follow your general orders,” Sasha said. Her voice didn’t change tone one iota. “The choice of exact method for carrying out your orders are to lie with us.”
“I would not expect you to follow my precise instructions,” Katy agreed. “How much do you know about the Cottbus Sector?”
Charlie tilted his head. “Twenty-three major star systems, nineteen minor star systems, fifty-two stars without any legal outpost or station above stage three,” he said, as if he were reading it off a datapad. “The largest population within the sector is on Cottbus itself; four billion on-planet, two billion off-planet. The smallest population is on…”
“All right, all right,” Sasha said. She winked at Katy, as if she wasn’t even aware of the difference in rank. “Give Charlie a question and he’ll spend all day answering it.”
“Forty major industrial nodes, including seven major shipyards,” Charlie continued. “The largest shipyard is at Cottbus itself and is classed as a Type-I…”
“Thank you,” Katy said, firmly. “As you may know, Ambassador Goscinny is going to be making open overtures to Cottbus in hopes of establishing exactly what is going on with them. Your task is to provide verification and attempt to discover just what is actually going on. I want intelligence on just how many worlds follow Admiral Wilhelm, how many ships he actually has and just what he’s building in that shipyard.”
Sasha smiled. “Is that all?”
Katy lifted an eyebrow. “Are you sure that you can find that out without compromising yourselves?”
“It shouldn’t be that difficult, at least in the beginning,” Sasha assured her. “I take it that we’ll be operating at Cottbus itself first?”
“It’s the one target that Admiral Wilhelm has to defend,” Katy said. “How do you plan to get into the system?”
“No offence,” Sandra said, speaking for the first time, “but what you don’t know, you can’t be made to tell. We have some methods and technologies on our parasite ship that are so highly classified that I’m surprised that they allowed us to bring them along with you. We literally cannot discuss such things with anyone, but our immediate superiors.”
Katy paused, considering. Sandra’s voice was like liquid sex. She could have made a recital of annual missile usage statistics sound like an invitation to bed. If Katy had been more interested in the female sex, the effect would have been more dramatic, but even so, it pushed at her mind. And yet… she’d heard rumours, whispers, that Imperial Intelligence used mental techniques on its spies, techniques that would keep them loyal and burn their minds out if they were captured. She looked at the three agents, taking in their calm expressions, and knew that at least some of the rumours were true.
“I understand,” she said, finally.
“We will formulate a plan of campaign,” Sasha said. “Once we know how we intend to proceed, we will inform you of the bare bones of the plan and if you can assist us. The plan may require modification once we take a look at the ground, but until then…”
She shrugged. “We won’t fail you, Admiral,” she added. “We have never failed before.”
“Understood,” Katy said. She had heard that Imperial Intelligence agents were weird, but rumour didn’t come close to the reality. “Are you all right here, in this compartment?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Charlie said. “We’ve been in much more cramped spots than this. It’s just a shame we can’t tell you about them.”
Katy consulted her timepiece. “We flicker out in an hour,” she said. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to get away from them. “If you need me, call my communicator directly.”
She left the compartment, accepted the salutes of the Marines, and started walking back towards the Flag Bridge, thinking hard. Colin — and Anderson, who had been a part of the conspiracy from the start — had told her that the Imperial Intelligence agents were strange, but expendable. She was used to going into battle with a starship wrapped around her, but they would be going into Cottbus with nothing, but their own wits to protect them. She didn’t envy them in the slightest. If something went wrong, they would literally have no option, but suicide.
Her desktop processor had hundreds of reports on the state of the fleet and she skimmed through them, trusting her Captains to handle their tasks without much in the way of supervision. They might have been largely raw, but they’d had the best training the Shadow Fleet could provide, spiced up by a handful of veteran spacers. They’d worked overtime to identify and deal with any potential problems and, for once, they had all the supplies they needed and a fully-functional fleet train. Her 2nd Fleet wasn’t the most powerful fleet that Colin and the rebels had mounted, but it was perhaps the most capable. They should be able to handle anything.
She just wished she felt confident. Had she really been so confident when she’d raided Paradise Rest and a dozen other worlds? What would happen when she faced combat again?
An hour later, the fleet flickered out and started on the long trip to Hawthorne.
Chapter Twelve
The guards hadn’t been rough, or abusive, but they’d made their point quite clear. They escorted Lady Madeline Hohenzollern through the corridors of the massive command fortress, threatening her with their push-prods whenever she even looked like slowing, until they finally escorted her into a room. Stacy Roosevelt, behind her, had made the mistake of trying to fight and had been zapped by one of the prods. A guard carried her, slung over his shoulder, while her body remained limp and unmoving. A push-prod somehow — Madeline had never studied the principle — disabled the body’s voluntary muscles for a short period of time, leaving Stacy completely helpless. The guards could do anything to her — to both of them — and they knew it.
She winced as they pushed her into a chair. The change had been so sudden! She’d been certain, of course, that Admiral Wilhelm was aware that he no longer needed them, but somehow she’d failed to consider the possible consequences. Her mind worked desperately to think of a way — some way, any way — that they could return to their ship and escape, but even if they succeeded, where would they go? There was nowhere that would welcome them, now, and Admiral Wilhelm wouldn’t let them escape. They knew too much about his plans and the future to be allowed to leave.
Stacy moaned, but Madeline barely spared her a glance. She wasn’t important any longer, not when bare survival itself was at stake… had it really only been seven months since she’d been at the High City, deciding the fate of the universe? The mighty, she reflected, had truly fallen… and if by some miracle she managed to escape, she could never return to the High City. The new administration would probably greet her and put her in front of a firing squad. Or, her mind gibbered, perhaps they would simply put her out an airlock and save themselves the cost of a firing squad. They certainly wouldn’t be pleased to see her.