-=0=-***-=0=
Ben Belkassem watched Alicia from the corner of his eye as they stepped out of the personnel tube onto Monkoto's flagship. Something was happening inside her, something that was burning holes in the Alicia DeVries he'd first met, and it was getting worse. Right after leaving Wyvern, hours had passed between flashes of that something else, but the intervals were growing shorter. It wasn't Tisiphone—he was positive of that now—and that made it worse. It was as if Alicia herself were burning out before his eyes. He could almost feel her ... slipping away. Yet she had herself under control just now, and that was enough. It had to be.
"It's been a long time, Ferhat," a mellow tenor said, and Simon Monkoto held out his hand in greeting.
"Not that long," Ben Belkassem disagreed, returning the mercenary's clasp with a toothy grin.
"And this must be Captain Mainwaring," Monkoto said, and Alicia smiled tightly without confirming his assumption. He didn't notice; his eyes were locked on Ben Belkassem, and his humor had vanished.
"You said you have some information for me?"
"I do—or, rather, Captain Mainwaring does."
"What—?" Monkoto began eagerly, then chopped himself off. "Forgive me. My colleagues are waiting in the main briefing room, and they should hear this along with me. If you'll join us, Captain?"
Alicia nodded and followed the tall, broad-shouldered mercenary into a lift. She watched his face as the elevator rose, seeing the pinched nostrils, the deep-etched furrow between the eyes, and she didn't need Tisiphone to feel his hunger calling to her own, sharp-edged and jagged.
The lift doors opened, and Monkoto ushered them into a briefing room.
"Captain Mainwaring, Mister Ben Belkassem, allow me to introduce my colleagues," he said, and worked his way down the table, starting with Admiral Yussuf Westfeldt, a stocky, gray- haired man. Commodore Tadeoshi Falconi was as tall as Monkoto but thin, with quick, assertive movements; Captain Esther Tarbaneau was a slender, black-skinned woman with a very still face and startlingly gentle eyes; and Commodore Matthew O'Kane was a younger version of Monkoto—not surprisingly: he'd begun his career with the Maniacs.
Between them, Alicia knew, these people controlled over seventy ships of war, including two battleships, nine battle-cruisers, and seven heavy cruisers, and no regular navy could have matched their experience. They looked back at her with hooded eyes, and she wondered what they made of her.
Monkoto finished the introductions and took a seat at the center of the long table, across from her and Ben Belkassem. The outsized view screen at her back was focused on Megarea's freighter disguise, and she tried not to wipe her palms on her trousers as she faced people who fought for pay and remembered the million-credit reward the Empire had offered for her.
"I've dealt with Mister Ben Belkassem before," Monkoto informed his fellows, "and I trust him implicitly. Certain conditions of confidentiality apply, but he represents a ... major galactic power." The others nodded and regarded the inspector with renewed curiosity, wondering which branch of the imperial bureaucracy he worked for, as Monkoto gestured for him to take over.
"Thank you, Admiral Monkoto," he said, returning the searching gazes steadily, "but under the circumstances, I feel I ought to put all my cards on the table. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ferhat Ben Belkassem, and I am a senior inspector with Operations Branch of the Imperial Ministry of Justice."
Breath hissed in along Monkoto's side of the table. O Branch agents never revealed their identities unless they were up to their necks in fecal matter and sinking fast, but at least he'd guaranteed their attention.
"I realize that may be a bit of a shock," he continued calmly, "but I'm afraid there are more to come. I know why you're here—and I know where you can find the pirates." A ripple ran through his audience. "To be more precise, my associate does." Eyes swiveled back to Alicia, hot and no longer hooded, and she made herself sit straight and still under their weight.
"How?" Monkoto demanded. "How did you find them?"
"I'm afraid I can't reveal that, sir," Alicia replied carefully. "I have ... a source I must protect, but my information is solid."
"I would certainly like to believe that, Captain Mainwaring," Esther Tarbaneau said in a soft soprano, "but you must realize how critical your credibility is, even with Inspector Ben Belkassem to vouch for you. How is it that a single merchant skipper could locate them when the Empire, El Greco, and the Jung Association have all failed?"
"Captain Mainwaring is more than she seems, Captain Tarbaneau," Ben Belkassem put in.
"Indeed?" Tarbaneau arched politely skeptical eyebrows, and Alicia sighed. She'd known all along it would come to this.
"Cut the holo, Megarea."
"Are you sure, Alley?" the AI asked anxiously. "I don't like the thought of doing that with you over there all alone."
"I'm not "all alone," and we don't have a choice. Do it."
There was no response, but she didn't need one. Every eye jerked to the view screen in a single, harsh gasp, and most of the mercenaries hunched convulsively forward— O'Kane actually jerked to his feet—as the "freighter" vanished. The lean wickedness of an imperial alpha synth could not be mistaken, even with splotches of titanium marring its immaculate hull.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Ben Belkassem said quietly, "allow me to introduce Captain Alicia DeVries, Imperial Cadre." Eyes whipped back to her, and he nodded. "I assure you, Captain DeVries's ... instability has been grossly exaggerated. We've been working together for the past several weeks," he added, which was true enough, though Alicia hadn't known it at the time.
The mercenaries sank back in their chairs, eyes narrowed, and he hid a smile as he watched them leap to the conclusion he'd intended. Alicia really did have a marvelous cover—even if no one had set it up on purpose.
-=0=-***-=0=
"So," Monkoto said forty minutes later, drumming his fingers on the conference table while he stared at a holographic star map. AR-12359/J burned a sullen crimson at its heart, and a computer screen at his elbow glowed with all the data Alicia had been able to supply on the "pirates'"strength. "We know where they are; the problem is what we do with them."
He pinched the bridge of his nose as he met his colleagues' eyes, then turned to Alicia, smiling grimly as he recognized the questions in her eyes.
"Neither you nor the Inspector are Fleet officers, Captain, but that's what we do for a living, and I'm afraid this—" he gestured at the star map "—is a classic nasty fleet problem."
"Why?" Impatience burned in Alicia's blood once more, yet Monkoto's obvious professionalism—and matching hunger—kept it out of her voice.
"Put most simply, they're in n-space and they'll see us coming. Ships run blind in wormhole space, but their gravitics will pick us up long before we arrive, at which point they'll simply run on an acutely divergent vector. By the time we can kill our velocity and go in pursuit, they'll be long gone."
Alicia stared at the admiral, stunned by how calmly he'd said it, then jerked around to glare at Ben Belkassem. He'd been so glib about "getting help" —had he known how hopeless it was?!
"The classic solution is a converging envelopement," Monkoto went on, "with someone coming in at high velocity on almost any possible escape vector, but that also requires an overwhelming numerical advantage. We—" he waved at his fellows "—can probably take these bastards head on, though that Capella-class'll make things tight, but not if we spread out to envelope them."