He rocked his chair slowly, nursing his cigar. McIlheny had already clamped down on normal information distribution, which produced a dangerous decrease in possible suspects. The more restricted data became, the fewer people could possibly be passing it on to the "pirates," and that was bad enough. But if the two of them were beginning to restrict critical data to an inner clique only they trusted, his people might miss some critical bit of information Howell and Alexsov had to have.
At least that Justice pest had worn out his enthusiasm and decamped, and Keita would be gone within days. Both of those were major pluses, but it didn't help much with the McIlheny problem. The ideal solution would be to remove him, but he was a cautious and a dangerous man. He could be gotten to, yet setting up an overt assassination that didn't prove how massively security had been breached would be time consuming and difficult. Worse, it would suggest there'd been a reason to kill him, and anyone with whom he'd shared his suspicions-whatever they were-would have to wonder if the reason wasn't that he'd been on the right track and getting too close to an answer.
At the very least Gomez would be out for blood, and assassinating her would be even harder. She practically never left her battlecruiser flagship these days, and about the only way to get to her would be to sabotage Antietam's Fasset drive or fusion plants and take out the entire ship. That might not be impossible, but it would certainly be difficult. Worst of all, killing her would be the Whitworth situation all over again and worse. It would put him in her command, and stepping into her shoes under the present circumstances might raise the wrong eyebrows. What if someone who shared McIlheny's suspicions wondered why someone else might want to see Sir Amos Brinkman in her place?
He let his chair swing back upright and shook his head with a sigh. No, precipitous action against Gomez was out of the question. Pressure was building in the Senate and the Ministry as the "pirates" danced around her and laughed at her attempts to deal with them. It could only be a matter of time before she was relieved for her failures. Brinkman would be properly distressed at relieving so old and dear a friend under such circumstances-and send McIlheny packing as part of his "new broom" housekeeping. That had been the plan for getting rid of Gomez from the beginning; it was only McIlheny's stubborn probing that had him thinking about other approaches.
Still, the time might come when McIlheny got too close and they had to take him out, suspicious or no. It wouldn't be a best-case scenario, but if it was a choice between that and having him figure out what was really going on, the decision would make itself. And his death would produce at least short-term confusion, especially if it wasn't an obvious assassination. If they were lucky, the confusion might even last long enough to carry clear through Gomez's relief.
Brinkman nodded to himself and stubbed out his cigar. Yes, it might become necessary, in which case it would be a good idea to put the assets in place now, and the admiral thought he might just know the way to go about it. McIlheny had started out as a shuttle pilot, after all. That was where he'd won his spurs and first made his name, and he still had a weakness for hot shuttles and hotter skimmers. Better yet, he insisted on piloting himself whenever possible. Under normal circumstances, no one would be too surprised if he finally lost it in a midair one day, and a little help in the maintenance shop could … assist the good colonel right out of the sky.
He smiled a slow, thoughtful smile and tried to remember the name of that "skimmer tech" Rachel Shu had used to eliminate Admiral Whitworth. It was time for a little judicious personnel reassignment.
Chapter Fifty
"Good evening, Captain Mainwaring. My name is Yerensky. I understand you're seeking a cargo for your vessel?"
Alicia looked up from her wineglass and saw a tall, cadaverous man. He was well-dressed, despite his half-starved appearance, and his polished tones were well-suited to the background hum of the expensive restaurant. She eyed him for a moment, then sat back slightly and made a tiny gesture at the empty chair across from her. Yerensky slid into it, smiling politely. A waiter materialized at his elbow, and Alicia sipped her own wine, using the brief, low-voiced exchange between waiter and patron to evaluate her visitor.
Smooth as pond scum, isn't he? she commented, and felt Tisiphone's silent agreement. Not that they were surprised. They'd learned a great deal about Yerensky during the two weeks they'd spent angling for this meeting.
It had been far harder than Alicia had expected to find the precise shipper she sought. Not because there hadn't been offers in plenty, but because, to her intense chagrin, virtually all of them had been legitimate. She'd underestimated the pirates' effect on insurance rates, and under the circumstances, Star Runner's high speed more than outweighed her limited cargo capacity. If she'd been a real free trader, Alicia could have increased her transport fees by a quarter of the amount by which her ship's speed lowered the insurance premiums and still tripled her normal profit margin.
Unfortunately, she wasn't looking for an honest cargo, and she'd been forced to concoct an extraordinary range of excuses to avoid accepting one. More than once, she'd been reduced to letting the Fury enter a legitimate shipper's mind and get him to suggest a reason to decline his offer.
It had been maddening, especially after one of Megaira's and Tisiphone's forays through MaGuire's classified data base revealed that the Empire had provided the Jung Association with Alicia's retinal and genetic prints. They hadn't anticipated that when they concocted Captain Mainwaring, so they'd used her real patterns, and she'd almost fainted when she found out the authorities had both sets. If they happened to run a check against all new arrivals … .
That threat, at least, had been alleviated, if not nullified, by the simple expedient of sending Tisiphone back into the net to alter the prints for Star Runner's skipper. It wasn't a perfect solution, since any document-like a freight contract-Alicia signed as Captain Mainwaring would include her real retinal prints, which no longer matched the ones on file, yet it was the best they could do. Tisiphone had suggested doctoring the Fleet download instead of Mainwaring's, but Alicia and Megaira had vetoed that idea, since they couldn't touch the files on Soissons. It was tempting to "legitimize" Mainwaring's prints, but it was unlikely anyone would check the prints on a document when he knew they were the right person's. At least Alicia hoped they wouldn't, and that possibility worried her less than what might happen if ONI should check back and notice that Alicia DeVries' records on MaGuire no longer matched those on Soissons. At the very least, it would be proof she'd been to MaGuire, since no one but she would have any reason to change them. Worse, a simple cross-check would soon reveal that "Captain Mainwaring's" prints did match.
None of that had been calculated to soothe her nerves, but at least it looked as if they'd be able to clear out shortly. The Fury's careful mental probes had, at last, plucked one Anton Yerensky's name and face from the thoughts of a more honest merchant, and Mister Yerensky, it seemed, needed a cargo delivered to Ching-Hai in the Thierdahl System. Barely civilized and sparsely settled, Ching-Hai had very little to recommend it … except that it was only ten light-years from Dewent, and Dewent was barely six light-years from Wyvern. Better yet, what passed for the planetary authorities on Ching-Hai had a very cozy relationship with both Dewent and Wyvern.
Once Yerensky had been identified, it hadn't been hard to arrange casual contacts with two or three of his associates. With Tisiphone to plant a favorable impression of Captain Mainwaring in their minds, one of them was bound to mention her to him eventually, and for the first time, the skewed shipping conditions had worked in their favor. With so many fast ships being snapped up for legitimate cargoes, the supply of smugglers was running thin.
"You seem to be well-informed, Mister Yerensky," she said as the waiter departed with his order. "I am looking for a cargo-a small one, I'm afraid, but I assume you've already checked my capacity with the port master."
"Your vessel's capacity would suit me quite well, Captain, assuming we can come to terms."
"I see." Alicia refilled her wineglass and held it up to the light. "Exactly what sort of cubage are we talking about here, Mister Yerensky?"
"Oh, no more than two hundred cubic meters. A bit less, actually."
"I see," Alicia repeated. That really was a small shipment, less than half the available volume in Megaira's hold, which was already well-stocked with spares and replacement parts. "And where would you like it delivered?"
"Ah, that's a bit delicate, Captain," Yerensky said slowly, watching her from under lowered lids. "You see, I need it delivered to Ching-Hai." He paused for a moment, as if to let that sink in, before continuing. "I understand you have a Fleet-type cargo shuttle with rough field capability?"
Alicia lowered her wine and let her lips curl in a tiny smile.
"I do, indeed. May I assume your receiver will be … unable to collect his cargo at the regular port?"
"Precisely," Yerensky said politely, and his smile was just as small. "I see you have a fine appreciation for these matters, Captain."
"One tries, Mister Yerensky."
Alicia sipped more wine as the waiter returned with Yerensky's order and began sliding plates onto the table. There were a lot of them, and she wondered what sort of metabolism could handle that kind of intake and still look starved.
The waiter scurried off again, and Yerensky unfolded a snow-white napkin in his lap and reached for a fork.
"Given your appreciation, Captain, I must assume you realize you and your crew are-well, let us say, a rather unknown quantity."
"If you checked my port download, I'm sure you discovered that we're bonded with the Melville Sector governor," Alicia said, forbearing to mention just how surprised the Melville Sector governor would be to learn that.
"Well, yes, Captain, but MaGuire is scarcely an imperial planet, now is it? And there might be circumstances under which it would be inconvenient for a shipper to attempt to recover against your bond if something went awry."
In other words, Alicia observed silently to Tisiphone, a crook can't exactly report you to the cops for stealing his illegal cargo.
It is reassuring to find some things unchanged, the Fury returned, and Alicia nodded at Yerensky.
"I can understand that. Still, I assume you wouldn't have come to see me unless you felt these little problems could be resolved."
"A woman after my own heart, Captain," he said as he spread his salad dressing more evenly. "I'd thought in terms of a mutual expression of trust."
"Such as?"
"I think, perhaps, a front payment of twenty-five percent of the total shipping charges with the remainder placed in escrow here on MaGuire to be released when the cargo is delivered to my agent on Ching-Hai."
Alicia nodded thoughtfully, but her mind raced. That was a terrible idea. It would require reams of legal documents, and that meant retinal prints galore. But she couldn't exactly object on those grounds ….
"An interesting suggestion, but not the way I normally do business, Mister Yerensky. I can conceive of certain circumstances under which-purely without your knowledge, of course-an unscrupulous receiver might deny he'd ever received the goods, which could tie up the escrow account or even require litigation. Then, too, limited facility fields, you know, are often under-equipped. A completely honest difference of opinion might arise, and without proper instrumentation to examine the cargo, well-"
She shrugged with a helpless little smile, and a gleam of appreciation lit Yerensky's eyes.
"I see. May I assume you have a counter offer, Captain?"
"Indeed. I would suggest that you pay me half the freight charges up front, and that your receiver pay the other half immediately upon receipt and examination of his cargo. I sacrifice the security of the escrow account; you run a slightly greater risk with your front payment. That seems fair."
Yerensky munched thoughtfully on his salad for a few moments, then nodded. "I believe I could accept that arrangement, assuming we can settle the remainder of the terms to our mutual satisfaction."
"Oh, I'm certain we can, Mister Yerensky." Alicia smiled even more sweetly. "I'm a great believer in mutual satisfaction."
Alicia reclined in her command chair and chewed on a grape. She savored the sweet juice and pulp with sensual delight, and the back of her brain hummed with an odd duality as Megaira and Tisiphone shared her pleasure.
That's nice, the AI observed. Much sharper than your memories. Almost makes me wish I were a flesh-and-blood.
Not I, Tisiphone disagreed. Such moments are pleasant, yet what need have we for flesh and blood when we may share them with Alicia? And unlike her, we are not subject to the unpleasant aspects of such existence.
Voyeurs. Alicia swallowed and examined the bunch in her lap to select a fresh grape. "You ought to experience some of the downside-maybe a nice head cold, for instance-so you could appreciate the pleasures properly."
I have yet to observe that suffering truly makes pleasure sweeter, Little One. Bliss is not the mere absence of pain.
"Maybe." She popped the chosen grape into her mouth and turned her attention back to Megaira's sensors.
They'd left the dreary featurelessness of wormhole space an hour ago, decelerating steadily towards the heart of the Ching-Hai System, and the glory of the stars was even sweeter than the grapes. She drank it in, reveling in the reach and power of Megaira's senses, as Thierdahl's distant spark grew brighter. They were fifteen days-just over eleven days by their own clocks-out of MaGuire with their cargo of bootleg medical supplies, and she wondered again what they would discover when they reached their destination. So far, things had gone more smoothly than she had hoped.
Of course they have, Little One. What, after all, could go wrong in wormhole space?
"Nothing, but it's the nature of the human beast to worry. At least I don't have to feel guilty about what we're carrying."
Do not be foolish. There is neither cause nor room for "guilt" in whatever we may do in pursuit of your vengeance.
Alicia winced at Tisiphone's absolute assurance. She could forget just how alien the Fury was for days at a stretch, but then Tisiphone came out with something like that. It wasn't posturing. It was simply the literal truth as she saw it.
"I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that one. I want justice, not blind vengeance, and I'd rather not hurt anyone I don't have to."
Justice is a delusion, Little One. The Fury's mental voice dripped scorn. Your people have learned much, but you have forgotten much, as well.
"You might profit by a little forgetting-or learning-of your own."
Such as?
"Such as the fact that simple vengeance is a self-sustaining reaction. When you 'avenge' yourself on someone, you usually give someone else an excuse to seek vengeance on you.
And you think your precious justice does not? You are wiser than that, Alicia DeVries-or would be, if you but let yourself!
"You're missing the point. If a society settles for naked vengeance, it all comes down to who has the bigger club. Justice provides the rules that make it possible for people to live together with some semblance of decency."
Bah! "Justice" is no more than vengeance dressed up in fine clothes! There can be no justice without punishment-or would you say that Colonel Watts was treated "justly" for the wrong he did your company?
Alicia's lip curled in an involuntary snarl, but she closed her eyes and fought it back as she felt the Fury's amusement.
"No, I wouldn't call that justice, or disagree that punishment is a part of justice. I won't even pretend vengeance isn't exactly what I wanted from that son-of-a-bitch. But there has to be guilt-and he was guilty as sin-before punishment. A society can't just go around smashing people without determining that the one punished is actually the guilty party. That's the worst kind of capriciousness-and a damned good recipe for anarchy."
What care I for anarchy? Tisiphone demanded. Nor am I "society." Nor, for that matter, are you. You are an individual, seeking redress for yourself and for others who cannot. Is that wrong?
"I didn't say it was. I only said I don't want to hurt innocent bystanders. But whether you like it or not, justice-the rule of law, not men, if you will-is the glue that sticks human societies together. It lets human beings live together with some sense of security, and it establishes precedents. When a criminal is proven guilty and punished, it sets the parameters. It tells people what's acceptable and what isn't, and whenever we inch a few centimeters forward, justice is what keeps us from slipping back."
So you say, Little One, but you delude yourself. It is compassion, not reason, which truly shapes your thought-misplaced compassion for those who deserve none. This is the truth of what you feel.
Alicia's face twisted as the Fury relaxed inner barriers-barriers Alicia had almost forgotten existed-and a red haze of rage boiled in the back of her brain. Her fists clenched, and she locked her teeth together, fighting the sudden need to smash something-anything-in the pure, wanton destruction her emotions craved. She felt Megaira's distress, felt the AI beating at Tisiphone in a futile effort to free Alicia from her own hate, but even that was small and faint and far, far away … .
The barriers snapped back, and she slumped in her chair, gasping and beaded with sweat.
You bitch! Megaira snarled. If you ever try that again, I'll-!
Peace, Megaira, the Fury interrupted almost gently. I will not harm her. But she must know herself if we are to succeed. There is no room for confusion or self-blindness in what we do.
Alicia trembled in the couch, nerve ends shuddering, and closed her thoughts off from the others. She needed the silence, needed a moment to breathe and recover from the side of herself she'd just seen. She believed what she'd told Tisiphone-more than believed, knew it was true-and yet …
She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. They were slick and wet, coated in dripping grape pulp, and she shuddered.
Chapter Fifty-One
Commodore Howell sat on the freighter's bridge and told himself-again-that the ship was perfectly adequate for her mission. Compared to a warship, her command facilities were primitive, her defenses minimal, and her offensive weapons nonexistent, but if everything went right, that wouldn't matter, and so far the mission profile had been perfect. And much as he would have preferred being somewhere else, he had to be here for this one. They needed a success to blunt the sting of Elysium, and his people's morale required that he be here in person.
He watched the display, face expressionless, as the freighter and her two sister ships settled into parking orbit around Ringbolt. Control's information on the El Grecan fleet maneuvers had been right on the money, and the only ground defenses were purely anti-air weapons sited to cover Adcock Field, the main spaceport outside the city of Raphael. They had the reach to cover the city's airspace, but they wouldn't have the chance.
Howell's eyes swiveled to the reason they wouldn't. The freighters' transponders identified them as Fleet transports-courtesy of the ID codes Control had provided-escorted by a heavy cruiser. Now all four ships were in position, riding geosynchronous orbit directly above Raphael, and a signal in the commodore's synth-link told him HMS Intolerant's weapons were locked in.
Captain Arlen Monkoto of the Monkoto Free Mercenaries, known less formally as "Monkoto's Maniacs," stepped out onto the hotel balcony and sucked in crisp, cool air. Ringbolt was a much nicer planet than El Greco, he mused, and wondered if he could convince Simon to relocate their home port here.
He looked back over his shoulder. Lieutenant Commander Hugin was on the suite com, conferring with Chief Pilaskov. The recruiting mission had gone well, and Monkoto expected Simon to be pleased when he arrived. Over a hundred experienced personnel, including twelve officers, could certainly be put to excellent use.
He started to open the balcony's French windows to join Hugin, and something flashed behind him. Eye-tearing light bounced back off the window glass, and his shadow was suddenly etched stark and black against the wall.
He whirled in disbelief, trained reflexes already throwing him face-down, as a huge, white fireball devoured Adcock Field.
"Launch shuttles!" Howell barked as Intolerant's HVW obliterated the port. Each of the big transports normally mothered eight heavy-lift cargo shuttles; for this operation, they'd been replaced with twelve Bengal-class assault boats each, and thirty-six deadly attack craft shrieked downward. Thirteen hundred grim-faced raiders rode them. For many this was their first mission, and they were determined to get it right. Others were the survivors of Elysium … and they were even more determined to avoid another disaster.
Arlen Monkoto staggered erect like a punch-drunk fighter. His nerve ends jittered with echoes of heat and blast, but it must have been an HVW. If it had been a nuke or anti-matter, he'd be dead, and he was only singed a bit. Fires roared and fumed along the city's eastern edge, and he doubted there was an intact window in Raphael, but otherwise the damage hadn't been severe.
He wheeled back to the French windows and froze. He'd been wrong about the severity of the damage, an icy voice told him. The windows had been blown across the hotel suite like glittering daggers, and bloody bits of Lieutenant Commander Hugin's mutilated body were sprayed across the far wall.
Monkoto made himself pick his way into the wreckage, and his hands were a stranger's as they moved what remained of Hugin gently aside. His exec's body had protected the com unit, and Chief Pilaskov was still on it. The burly NCO was half shouting, though Monkoto's stunned ears could hardly hear him, and his brown eyes widened in relief as he saw his CO.
Fresh explosions thundered behind the captain, and his mouth tightened as he looked over his shoulder and saw the contrails slashing down the sky.
"Can't hear you, Chief." He tapped an ear, and Pilaskov's mouth snapped shut. "It doesn't matter. Break into the ordnance order and get our people moving. The primary LZ looks like Toledo U. I'll meet you there."
Surprise was total.
Adcock Field had known the freighters and their escort were friendly. No one at the port lived long enough to realize he was wrong, and sheer shock-not disbelief so much as a desperate need to be wrong-stunned Raphael motionless until the shuttle contrails were sighted.
By then it was far, far too late, and Howell's raiders carried through with merciless precision. Individual shuttles peeled off and streaked in to lay smaller HVW and guided bombs on every police station and substation in the city. Entire blocks went up with them, and other shuttles swept a circle about the raider's target with rocket clusters and incendiaries. A curtain of flame sealed their objective off from relief while two more shuttles took out the militia armory, and twenty Bengals grounded on the university campus, disgorging seven hundred heavily armed raiders who charged straight for their objectives and killed anyone in their path.
Stunned university security forces tried to stop them, but they had only sidearms and Howell's raiders were in battle armor with heavy weapons. The university's director of research raced for the computer center to purge her data, but a squad of invaders burst through the doors and cut her down before she reached her console. Teams of technicians followed the assault wave, setting up their portable terminals and transmission dishes while the thunder of weapons and screams of the dying shook the building about them. More raiders broke into the labs themselves and massacred the researchers, and a fresh flood of technicians poured in in their wake, heaving specimen cases, hard-copy records, and lab animals onto counter-gravity pallets while their boots slipped in their victims' blood.
Monkoto found Chief Pilaskov more by luck than any other way. The petty officer had his recruits mustered near the roaring wall of flames sealing the university off from the rest of the city, their uniforms a black-and-gray knot of order in a sea of chaos.
They were more heavily armed than Monkoto had hoped. They'd been quartered in the warehouse district to keep an eye on the Maniacs' ordnance order, but it was obvious Pilaskov had helped himself generously from the arms merchant's other wares. Half the recruits wore light armor, and Monkoto saw squad heavy weapons as well as personal arms. Best of all, Pilaskov had snagged a half-dozen Stiletto units. By the time Monkoto arrived, the chief had the remote launchers deployed well away from the fire control units.
"Glad to see you, Sir," he said as Monkoto panted up to him. "Where's Commander Hugin?"
"Dead." Monkoto sucked in air, feeling the fire's heat in his lungs, and tried to think. A Bengal passed overhead, and he straightened quickly as one of the Stiletto crews began to track.
"Hold your fire!" he snapped, and the crew chief jerked in surprise. "We don't want the flankers," he continued when he was certain the other man was listening. "We want the main body. Wait till they lift out."
The crew chief nodded, face tightening in understanding, and Monkoto turned back to Pilaskov. He jabbed a thumb at the roaring flames.
"HE or straight incendiaries?" he demanded.
"Mainly incendiaries and just enough HE to bust things open, I think."
"We have a com on the secure police frequency?"
"Yes, Sir. Not much traffic-only whoever was on the street when they hit."
"It'll have to do." Monkoto held out one hand and gestured at the rubble-strewn sidewalks with the other. "Find me a manhole, Chief."
"Aye, Sir!" Pilaskov's face lit with understanding, and he started shouting orders as Monkoto raised the com to his mouth.
"This is Captain Arlen Monkoto, Monkoto's Mercenaries," he said crisply. "I am at the corner of Hadrian and Stimson. My people are going in in five minutes. Anyone who can reach us in time, get your ass over here now!"
The raiders crushed the last resistance, and small parties broke off to loot secondary objectives in Admin and the library building. The computer techs hovered over their equipment, draining the R amp;D data base and beaming it up to the freighters, and fire teams set up along the campus approaches in case anyone found a way through the fire wall. There was little wasted motion, and the situation was a far cry from the chaos of Elysium. Another forty minutes and they could lift the hell out of here again.
A manhole cover grated quietly well behind their outer perimeter. A cautious head poked up out of it, and two hundred men and women-mercenaries, police, and civilian volunteers inextricably mixed-flowed upward from the sewers and service tunnels buried meters beneath the interceding inferno.
Howell's ground commander was reporting to the flagship when bedlam exploded behind him. He wheeled in shock, gaping at the wave of El Grecans coming at him, then hit his jump gear to put a solid wall between him and them as grenades ripped into his temporary CP.
Where had they all come from? Damn it, they couldn't be here! But they were, and panicky reports flooded in. The bastards were hitting him everywhere at once, and memories of Elysium echoed through his raiders.
But this wasn't Elysium, goddamn it! These were a hastily assembled and lightly armed scratch group, not Imperial Marines in battle armor, and the CO screamed and cursed his people into coherent response.
Commodore Howell slammed a fist into the arm of his command chair as he, too, remembered Elysium. He didn't have the instrumentation for a solid read on what was happening, but the sudden confusion of combat chatter-and the screams of wounded and dying raiders-told him it wasn't good.