General Taggart strode briskly toward the door, leaving Blair behind. Rachel exchanged glances with him.
"That was General Taggart?" she asked as Paladin's broad back disappeared through the doorway.
Blair nodded. "In the flesh."
"Good God," the woman said softly. "I feel sorry for the Kilrathi who gets in his way . . ."
"The last one who tried ended up with a Paladin-sized hole in him," Blair agree. "I just wonder what the hell he's doing here. . . ?"
The door buzzer made an irritating noise, and Blair swung his feet from his bunk and said "Enter" just to shut it off. He wasn't surprised to see Paladin when the door slid open. "Come in, General," he said formally.
Taggart cocked an eyebrow at him. "General, is it, again? Have ye decided tae go all formal on me, lad?"
Blair shrugged wearily. "It's hard to think of you as Paladin any more, you know. It's been a long time."
"Those were the good days, though, laddie," Paladin told him, crossing the cramped cabin to perch on the only chair. "I wish I was still out on the firing line with you young lads and lasses, instead of flying a bloody desk.
"I wish you were out here, too," Blair told him. "A few more pilots like we had in the old gang and we might've saved Behemoth last week."
"That bucket of bolts," Paladin said, making a face. "Auld Geoff really thought that monster of his would work. He always believed that bigger was better."
"You had a better solution, I take it? Kevin said you had some scheme cooked up, over in Covert Ops." Blair couldn't help letting some of his anger show in the comment.
Taggart studied him. "I hear you . . . heard about Angel," he said, answering Blair's tone rather than his question. "In a tangle with Thrakhath, no less."
"Yes, I did, you son of a bitch."
"I'm sorry that ye had tae find out that way."
"How long have you known?" Blair demanded.
Paladin didn't answer right away. "Since. . . since before Concordia was lost," he admitted.
Blair felt the anger surging within, his fists clenching with the sudden desire to strike out at the man. "You bastard," he said. "When I asked, you stood there and lied to me."
"Laddie, I had to do it. I was under orders myself. . . ."
"All the missions we flew together — they didn't mean a damn thing, did they?" Blair demanded. "You out there on my wing, protecting me . . ."
"Don't you see that's what I was doing by not telling you?" Paladin said. "Look, ladie . . . look what ye almost did out there, when ye learned of it all. I was protecting you again . . . from yourself."
Blair looked away, at the holo projector sitting beside his bed. He hadn't played the message again since learning she was dead, but he heard it in his dreams all too often. "You know what she meant to me."
"Aye, lad, I do indeed." Taggart paused. "But we're fighting a war, son. We've all lost someone close to us. It doesna make you special."
"Yeah, right," Blair said. "I've heard the whole routine before. It doesn't get better with repetition."
Paladin shrugged. "I suppose not. But the fact is, lad, that we couldna tell anyone about Angel. Not until now. Not without ruining the work she did before she died."
He didn't answer, but he met Taggart's eyes.
"Her last mission was a part of my project, laddie. Not sae grand, perhaps, as Auld Geoff and his Behemoth, But a way tae end this war, once and for all. And satis up tae you, Chris Blair, tae finish what Angel started."
Like his arrival, the briefing Paladin gave the next morning was a low-key affair. Instead of an audience of aides and ship's officers, the general limited the briefing to Blair and Eisen. He wasted no time on useless preliminaries or self-congratulation.
"We've got a lot to cover, and damned little time to do it in." Blair always noticed that Paladin's accent faded as he focused on important matters, and today was no exception. "Covert Ops lost out to Admiral Tolwyn when it came time for HQ to decide on a response to the Kilrathi biological threat, but like him we've had an operation in train for several years. Its a long shot, I'll grant you, but it can work. It has to."
Blair noticed a look of distaste on Eisen's face. After Behemoth, another long shot was the last thing any of them wanted.
"You hae already been briefed on the seismic instability of Kilrah," Paladin went on. "It was central to the whole Behemoth project, the notion that even if the weapon wasn't able to bust a planet cold, it could at least shake the place apart when applied against the right target. Our project tackled the same concept from anither angle, one more in keeping with the philosophy of Covert Ops."
He punched a code into the keypad in front of him and the map table came to life, projecting an image of a torpedo-shaped device into the air between the three men. "This is the Temblor Bomb," he said quietly. "It was developed by Doctor Philip Severin, one of the top research men in the Confederation. It's been undergoing tests for some time now . . . nearly a decade, in fact."
The view changed to schematics. It brought back unpleasant thoughts of Tolwyn's Behemoth lecture, and Blair shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Eisen's face was a study in bland neutrality as he regarded the holographic image
"The bomb operates on the principle of seismic resonance," Taggart continued. "Detonated in the right place, at the proper juncture of tectonic fault lines, it will set up a series of quakes which will increase in intensity until Kilrah is quite literally shaken apart." Paladin spread his hands. "Unfortunately, the weapon doesna lend itself to pretty demonstrations on backwater worlds. There's only a handful of planets we know of where the Temblor Bomb could do its work, and Kilrah is at the top of the list. The High Command wanted something they could escalate up to gradually, so they threw their weight behind Admiral Tolwyn and the Behemoth."
Blair frowned. "I've said all along that I'm against —"
"Laddie," Taggart said sternly. "I'd like nothing better than to find a solution that didn't involve civilian casualties, but the simple fact is we do not have one at hand." He paused. "Right now we have to stop the Empire cold. Not just a defeat, but a final defeat. The Imperial hierarchy is so centralized, so built around the idea of Kilrah as the core of their entire culture, that the destruction of the planet will bring the rest of the Empire to a halt. Even if there are a few warlords who want to fight, the other Kilrathi worlds will come apart as clans and factions and splinter groups start fighting for a new equilibrium. And that's our only hope of bringing the war to a quick end."
Eisen looked at him. "The brass must have thought a negotiated settlement was possible," he commented. "They wanted Tolwyn to demonstrate Behemoth and make the Kilrathi come to the peace table."
"Aye, that was the hope," Paladin admitted slowly. "Though you must know that the admiral had no plans tae stop with Loki. He knew, just as I do, that Thrakhath and his Emperor willna stop fighting as long as they see a hope of winning. And a balance of power, their bioweapons against our Behemoth, would have meant the advantage of numbers and strategic position was still with the Empire."