"You," Virunga said.
That rocked Sten back. "But how..."
Virunga told him the rest of it. The unknown person was searching the records for someone matching Sten's description. It was a methodical search designed to see through any disguise or assumed identity. It was only a matter of time before Sten's file popped up.
Virunga assumed—with very good reason—that whoever was looking for Sten did not plan on throwing his or her arms around him and greeting him with a shower of gifts and kisses.
Bottom line:
"You... and Kilgour must... go!"
There was no argument from Sten. He and Alex would go out with the others. All he had to do was get his escape team together one last time and fill them in on what he hoped was the final hitch in their plans.
The news was greeted with silence by the others. They took a quick look into the roles they were supposed to play, checked to see how Alex and Sten would affect them, saw there was no problem, and just shrugged. The more, the merrier.
Then St. Clair stood up and announced there would be one other change in plans. She was no longer going out solo. She was taking L'n with her.
"That's the stupidest idea I ever heard of," Sten blurted out before Alex could dig an elbow into his ribs and suggest a more diplomatic way of dealing with St. Clair. Later on, Alex explained that Sten should have hesitated first—then told the woman she was around the bend.
"Just the same," St. Clair responded. "That's the way it's going to be."
Before Sten could do something so foolish as try to forbid St. Clair, she played her ace.
"Don't bother trying to stop me. We're both going out tomorrow night—one way or another. Through the tunnel with the rest of you. Or under the wire."
Sten had no choice but to give in. If St. Clair did another cowboy run, she would blow whatever chance the tunnelers had—and Sten was pretty sure that nothing he could come up with short of murder would stop her. But he always wondered why St. Clair had decided on that course of action. As far as he was concerned, it was way out of character—because with L'n along, St. Clair would certainly get caught. He wondered what St. Clair thought she would get out of it—because personal gain could be her only reason.
He was wrong on both counts. For once in her life St. Clair was not being selfish. She knew what the news of Sten's escape would do to L'n. Without the crutch of her ideal, L'n was doomed. Second, although St. Clair could not know it, L'n's presence would save both their lives.
Sten curled his fingers, and the knife leapt into his hand. He smoothly cut through the dirt, carefully easing it away at first and then clawing at it with growing impatience. Then the night air bit through, chilling them all to the bone, drying the sweat, and clearing the smoke-laden air.
Sten found himself tumbling through. He came to his feet—numb and a little in shock. Below Koldyeze he could see the dim outline of the city with the blackout lights gleaming here and mere. And then he felt Alex come out from behind him, grabbing him around the shoulders and pushing him on.
They were free.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Durer was a major victory.
The general history fiche, to which all Imperial worlds subscribing to the Imperial education scheme subjected their secondary-level students, portrayed the battle in a few, sweeping arrow strokes.
At this time, the attack was made... here. A red arrow, moving across systems. It was backed by a secondary attack... here. It was met... here. A blue arrow.
The results were... this.
The more curious might acquire a specialty fiche and, given access to a battle chamber, project more details of the battle.
At that point, the bewilderment would begin.
First, Durer was variously called the Durer-Al-Sufi Battles, the First Imperial Counterattack, the Second Tahn Offensive, Fleet Encounters of the Midstages of the Tahn War, and so forth, into degenerative and confusing accounts of the ships involved.
Still more confusing for the eager student were the accounts of anyone and everyone involved in that battle.
The battle(s) became a favorite study of both amateurs and professionals, all of them seeking a perspective that would enable them to understand what had happened during those weeks and, possibly more important to historians, to see some grandness in what otherwise appeared to be a bloody, blindfolded brawl in which several million people had died.
They would look for that understanding and perspective in vain.
Because that perspective never existed.
A Mantis Section captain named Bet sat in a spacesuit, watching what looked like the entire Tahn Navy float toward her, and wished that Vulcan had given her a god or six to pray for.
The Emperor had coppered his bets. Yes, he believed that the real attack would be made on Durer. Al-Sufi would be nothing more than a feint. He had so allocated his forces under Fleet Marshal Ian Mahoney.
But still...
Light-years beyond Durer drifted what appeared to be the ruined hulks of some Tahn destroyers. A complete flotilla thereof.
They were just exactly that.
What the Tahn did not know was that the flotilla had been ambushed many, many months earlier in an entirely different galaxy by an Imperial battlefleet. Their screams for help had been blanketed and had never been received on any Tahn world. To the Tahn, the flotilla had simply disappeared, probably doing something or other terribly heroic.
The hulks had been recovered, and strong-stomached salvors had cleaned out the ship interiors. Then those destroyers had been given shielded power sources, sophisticated sensors, and shielded com beams and positioned in place, beyond Durer.
They had been crewed with Mantis teams and given orders to sit and wait.
Bet and her team, and other teams, had done just that, fighting against boredom and the feeling that they were being stuck in nowhere for a meaningless mission.
All the teams viewed the assignment as a glory run and swore at the head of Mantis Section for the medal- and obituary-winning idea. Why hadn't far more sophisticated and unmanned sensors been used?
The head of Mantis was not to blame. The idea was completely that of the Eternal Emperor and Fleet Marshal Ian Mahoney. Certainly those zoot capri sensors could have been scattered in front of where they felt the Tahn forces would make their real attack. But suppose one of those sensors was found? Would the Tahn not conceivably guess that the Imperial Forces were waiting?
Instead, it appeared far less logical for the Empire to have some dumb troops inhabiting hulks. Plus, cynically, Mahoney pointed out that it would be very unlikely for any Mantis troopie to surrender and be deprogrammable, unlike the average machine.
Cursing, smelling, and sweating, the teams waited.
And then the sensors lit.
More Tahn fleets than even Bet's high-level briefing had suggested swam through space toward her hulks.
Bet burst-transmitted the information, then shut down. Her view of the battle—if there was going to be one—was complete. All she had to do was hope that none of the Tahn battleships or destroyers passing—almost within visual range—bothered to investigate her wreck for survivors.
The Eternal Emperor sat aboard the Normandie, his personal yacht/command ship. The ship was as far forward—and three more light-years—as he could logically go without potentially becoming involved in his own battle. His battle chamber was set to give full and complete reports of any and all intelligence forthcoming.
The Emperor figured that Mahoney would very rapidly become involved in the grind of the battle. The Emperor hoped to be able to stand off and help if Mahoney lost track of the grand strategy.