"Hold it!" Hawking snapped. "You hear me, Ryq? Stand down."
Skyler rolled out from beneath Halaak's legs and up into a crouch. Hawking had retrieved the khassq's laser, his manacled hands holding it pointed toward Daasaa and Bailey. O'Hara was kneeling in front of him, his shoulder providing a rest for the laser barrel, making it dead certain that the other wouldn't miss his shot.
And Daasaa clearly knew it. His own laser was half drawn, but still pointed at the ground, and he was making no attempt to draw it out any farther. "Rhy?" he shouted back.
"Because we don't particularly want to kill you," Skyler said. "On the contrary, we have a message we want you to deliver to the high command."
Daasaa looked at Bailey, then back at Hawking. Then, slowly, he lowered the laser the rest of the way into its holster and let his hand fall to his side. "I rill listen."
Skyler looked over at Hawking and O'Hara, caught the latter's eye and nodded toward Taakh. O'Hara nodded back in understanding. The khassq was almost certainly dead, but O'Hara would make sure.
"You okay?" Skyler asked, turning to Flynn.
The boy nodded, his eyes on Taakh. "It worked," he murmured. "It actually worked." He looked up at Skyler, the ghost of an uncertain smile touching his lips.
"It sure did," Skyler agreed.
And now this was it. His improvised tactics had gotten him here; but it was Lathe's message that would or would not carry the day. Taking a deep breath, he gestured Flynn toward Daasaa. "Come on," he said.
"Let's go end a war."
"You don't want to kill me," Galway said as Taakh took another step forward, a small part of his mind noting the insane irony of the words. Of course Taakh wanted to kill him.
And he would, too. Without a weapon, Galway had no chance in the universe of surviving a confrontation with a khassq-class warrior.
And then, from nowhere, came a small, desperate flicker of an idea. "Because if you do," he added,
"you'll never know what happened here."
"Yae are a traitor," Taakh said. "There is nothing else tae know."
"Don't you at least want to know Lathe's plan?" Galway persisted.
Almost reluctantly, Taakh slowed to a halt. "What ha' yae tae say?"
"Be careful, Your Eminence," Judas put in urgently. "He's stalling for time. The other blackcollars are here somewhere."
"I dae not 'ear the 'lackcollars," Taakh said contemptuously. "'Ery rell, traitor. S'eak."
Galway took a deep breath. He'd bought himself some time. Now all he had to do was figure out what to do with it. "We never fooled him," he told Taakh. "Not for a minute. He was on to our replacement of Caine from the very beginning."
"I knew it," Haberdae growled, glaring at Judas. "I knew he'd foul up somewhere."
"It wasn't anything Judas did," Galway told him. "Lathe's been expecting someone to try this trick ever since he found out that Caine was himself a clone. He followed the same logic we did—that the Resistance would have created more than just one—and knew we'd eventually track down one of the others and try a substitution."
"So he had some kind of private recognition signal set up," Judas murmured, wincing.
"Exactly," Galway said. "I don't know what it was. Not that it really matters."
"So Lathe knew o' the su'stitaetion," Taakh said.
"Yes," Galway said. "But he also knew we'd have to wait until the team reached Khala to make the switch. That's why he went to so much trouble to decoy us with those fake drop pods and sneak in another way. He needed a few minutes while they weren't under surveillance to call Shaw and arrange for someone to tail Caine once they made the switch."
"That tavern they first stopped at," Haberdae growled.
"Right," Galway said, nodding. "Shaw's people got there first and set up surveillance. When we took off with Caine, they just followed us up to the strongpoint." He looked at Judas. "And from that point on, everything that was said and done in your presence was designed to throw you—and us—off their real plan."
"All the backbiting between Lathe and Shaw," Judas murmured, his face looking suddenly old. "The changed plans, the fake hints—all of it."
"All of it," Galway said mechanically, his thoughts freezing. Judas—the blackcollars—
"Rhat then ras their 'lan?" Taakh demanded.
"Their plan was me," Galway said, turning back to the Ryq. "Everything they did from the moment they landed was aimed toward one of two goals: to get them into Khorstron, and to get me alone for a few minutes."
"Rich they did last night."
"Exactly," Galway said, taking a casual step toward Judas. "Caine was running on his own timetable, with orders to make some kind of escape attempt after a couple of days that would hopefully lure me out of Inkosi City and up into the mountains to check on him. They already had Spadafora in position to fry the entryway sensors so that they could get in and gimmick my car while I was inside."
"Yet yae are loyalty-conditioned," Taakh said.
"I was," Galway corrected. "I just learned last night that they have a drug called Whiplash that breaks loyalty-conditioning."
"That is not 'ossi'le," Taakh said flatly.
Galway spread his hands to the sides. "I'm proof that it works," he pointed out, taking another step to his side. One more step, and he would be beside Judas's chair.
"But why?" Judas asked, clearly still not understanding. "They were already running rings around us.
What did they need you for?"
"Many things," Galway told him. "Because they weren't running rings around us, not really. Not until this afternoon. If you think back, Your Eminence, I was the one who suggested that the bunker fire was probably a diversion. I also pointed out that one of the dummies had been tossed on top of the south tunnel and suggested Shaw's men might be trying for a breach there." He looked at Haberdae. "And of course, I'm the one who turned off the corridor lasers after Haberdae turned them on."
"Fine," Haberdae said. "So they get into Khorstron. So what? There's nothing useful in here for them to steal."
"It was never about stealing anything," Galway said, taking the step that put him at Judas's side.
"Khorstron was just a means to an end. The real point of the plan is much more subtle." He turned back to face Taakh, letting his hand drop casually to Judas's left wrist.
And as he did so, his fingertips pressed against the tingler beneath the other's flexarmor sleeve.
He didn't know blackcollar tingler code. But he didn't have to. Hopefully, a long, sustained signal would be properly interpreted as a cry for help. "You see, Your Eminence, what this little exercise has demonstrated is that your universe has abruptly changed," he told Taakh. "If we can penetrate right to the center of a Ryqril base—"
"Your Eminence!" Judas barked, his eyes suddenly wide. "He's signaling with my tingler!"
"Stand aray," Taakh snarled, taking a long step forward, his hand lifted to strike.
Galway dived to his left, trying to get out of the other's reach. But the khassq was too big and too fast.
His hand slapped across the side of Galway's head hard enough to spin him halfway around.
The prefect tumbled to the floor, a stab of pain knifing through his head and neck as he scrabbled back up into a sitting position. Shoving against the floor with his feet, his bloody hands raised in front of his face, he slithered backward, trying to get away from the killing blow that would certainly be coming next.
But the blow didn't come. His back bumped up against the wall, and still the blow didn't come.
Carefully, hesitantly, he lowered his hands.
Taakh wasn't looking at him. He was turned to face the door, his hands curled into claws at his sides.
And standing facing him just inside the doorway was Mordecai.
For a moment they just stood there, gazing silently across the gap between them, each warrior apparently sizing up the other. Then, abruptly, Taakh leaped sideways, grabbed Judas's chair, and heaved it and Judas straight at Mordecai.