A soft buzz drew his eyes to the gravitic plot. He stepped closer, then stiffened as the preposterous nature of the incoming Fasset signature penetrated. Whatever it was, it was moving faster than a destroyer, yet its drive mass was greater than a battleship’s!
More buzzers began to sound as other eyes and brains made the same observation. Additional sensors sprang alive, battle boards blinked green and amber eyes that turned quickly to red, and Simon Monkoto smiled.
That was an Imperial Fleet drive, but the ships that murdered Raphael had been Empire-built, as well.
“You don’t think you could’ve come in just a bit more discreetly?” Ben Belkassem asked politely from the chair Alicia had installed beside her own on Megarea’s bridge. “They’re probably in hair-trigger mode, you know.”
“We don’t have time to be inconspicuous,” Alicia said absently. She wore her headset this time, and readiness signals purred to her from her weapon systems. She didn’t want to use them, but if she had to . . .
“Howell won’t stay at the rendezvous more than another three weeks, and it’s a two-week trip from here even if we could make it a straight shot—which we can’t. We have to come in on a Wyvern-based vector, or they’ll know we’re not Alexsov the instant they pick us up. That gives us less than two days’ leeway, and I’m not going to lose them now.”
“But—“
“Either your friend Monkoto helps us, or he doesn’t,” she said flatly. “Either way, I’m going to be at AR-12359/J within the next nineteen standard days.” She looked at him, and that same, strange hunger flickered in her eyes. “Tisiphone, Megarea, and I aren’t going to miss our shot. Not now.”
He closed his mouth. Ben Belkassem didn’t frighten easily, yet there were times Alicia DeVries terrified him. Not because she threatened him, but because of the determination that burned in her like fiery ice. People had called her mad, and he’d disagreed; now he was no longer certain. She wouldn’t stop—couldn’t stop—and he wondered how much of that sprang from Tisiphone, whatever Tisiphone truly was, and how much from herself.
Audacious rendezvoused with the other capital ships of the mercenary fleet barely half a million kilometers out from Ringbolt, for it was obvious the bogey was far faster and more maneuverable than they were. So far it had shown no sign of hostility, but Monkoto spread “his” ships—tight enough to concentrate their fire, dispersed enough to intercept any effort to get by them—and readiness reports murmured in his link to Audacious’s cyber synth.
He returned his attention to the bogey with a sort of awe. Whatever it was, it was pouring on an incredible deceleration. It was well inside the primary’s Powell limit, but it was decelerating at over thirteen hundred gravities—which, if it kept it up, would bring it to a halt, motionless with regard to Audacious, just over five thousand kilometers short of his flagship. If its intentions were hostile, that was suicide range, and—
The light cruiser Serpent finally got close enough for a visual, and Monkoto gawked as CIC shunted it to his display. A freighter? Impossible!
But a freighter the image before him was, and a freighter it remained—a slightly battered, totally unremarkable freighter . . . with more drive power than a battleship.
“We’re coming into com range, Ferhat. Want me to hail them?” Megarea asked eagerly through a wall speaker, and Ben Belkassem heard Alicia’s soft chuckle beside him.
Megarea liked the inspector, and Ben Belkassem was bemused by how much he liked her in return—and how much he enjoyed her bawdy, wicked sense of humor. She’d even built herself a “Megarea face,” a svelte, stunning redhead, so she could flirt via com screen while her sickbay remotes worked on his arm, and he knew she simply ached to use that face (and figure) on a new audience. Whatever else happened, he would never again think of AIs in quite the same way.
“Have you identified Audacious?” he asked.
“Yup. Just as big and nasty as you said, but I could spot her half my drive nodes and still run her into the ground.”
“Be nice,” Alicia said, and Megarea sniffed.
“Never mind, Megarea,” Ben Belkassem grinned. “Go on and call them.”
“Sure thing,” she said, and he twitched his uniform straight for the pickup. His own baggage remained somewhere on Wyvern, but Alicia and Megarea had outfitted him in “Star Runner’s” midnight blue, and he had to admit he liked the way it made him look.
“Admiral, the bogey identifies itself as the private ship Star Runner,” Monkoto’s com officer announced. “They’re asking for you by name.”
Monkoto scratched his nose. Odder and odder, he thought with his first real smile since the Ringbolt Raid, but that “private ship” business had to be a fiction. Whatever that thing might look like, it was no freighter.
“Route it to my station,” he said, and leaned back as a lovely young woman in dark blue and silver appeared on his screen. He eyed her high-piled, Titian hair admiringly while he waited out the transmission lag, then her own eyes sharpened and looked back at him.
“Admiral Monkoto?” she inquired in a musical contralto, and he nodded. There was another lengthy delay while his nod sped to her screen, then she said, “I have someone here who wishes to speak to you, sir,” and disappeared, replaced by a small, hook-nosed man in a sling and the same blue uniform.
“Hello, Simon,” the newcomer said, not waiting for Monkoto to respond. “Sorry to drop in on you without warning, but we need to talk.”
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.
the AI asked anxiously.
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.
“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.”
Alicia dropped her eyes to the star map, fingers curving into talons under the table edge as she glared at the crimson star.
“We could call in the Empies for more ships,” O’Kane suggested.
“Somehow I don’t think so,” Monkoto murmured, watching Ben Belkassem’s face. “If we could, you wouldn’t be talking to us, would you, Ferhat?”
“No,” Ben Belkassem said unhappily. “We have reason to believe there’s a leak—a very, very high-level leak— from Soissons.”
“Well, isn’t that a fine crock of shit,” Westfeldt muttered softly.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Alicia almost begged, and Monkoto leaned back in his chair and met her eyes with a cool, thoughtful gaze.
“Actually,” he said, “I think there is . . . especially with an alpha synth to help.” He swept the others with a shark’s lazy smile. “Our problem is that they can see us coming, but suppose we were the ones in normal space?”
“You’ve got that evil gleam in your eye, Simon,” Falconi observed.
“It’s very simple, Tad. We won’t go to them at all; well invite them to come to us.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The green-uniformed woman rapped on the edge of the open office door, and the massive, silver-haired man behind the deck looked up. He grunted in greeting, waved at an empty chair, and returned to his reader, and the corners of the woman’s mouth quirked as she sat and leaned back to wait.
It wasn’t a very long wait. The silver-haired man nodded, grunted again—a harsher, somehow ugly grunt this time—and switched off the reader.
“Took your time getting here,” he rumbled, and she shrugged.
“I was running that field exercise we discussed. Besides,” she pointed at the reader, “you seemed busy enough.” She spoke lightly, but her eyes were worried. “Was that about Alley?”
“No. Still not a sign of her.” Sir Arthur Keita sounded oddly pleased, for the man whose iron sense of duty had started the hunt for Alicia DeVries, and he smiled wryly as Tannis Gateau inhaled in wordless relief. She couldn’t very well say “Thank God!” but she could think it very loudly. Then his smile faded.
“No, this is about our other problem, and I’m afraid it’s coming to a head. I’m placing Clean Sweep on two-day standby.”
Tannis twitched upright, eyes wide, and Keita watched her mind race, following her thoughts with ease. She’d been kept fully briefed on his downloads from Colonel McIlheny, and she knew something McIlheny didn’t— that his reports to Sir Arthur had been quietly received on Old Earth, re-encrypted, and starcommed back across the light-years to Alexandria, just over the Macedon Sector border from the Franconian Sector. And they had been sent there because that was as far as Sir Arthur Keita had gone when he took his leave of Soissons.
The brigadier rocked gently in his chair, reexamining every tortuous step which had brou
ght them to Clean Sweep. It would be ugly even if it went perfectly, but McIlheny and Ben Belkassem had pegged it; someone far up the chain of command had to be working with the pirates, and that made every officer in the Franconian Sector suspect. No doubt most were loyal servants of Crown and Empire, but there was no way to tell which of them weren’t, which was why Keita hadn’t gone home—and why an entire battalion of drop commandos had been gathered in bits and pieces from the most distant stations Keita could think of to the remotest training camp on Alexandria.
Countess Miller had wanted to send Keita a full colonel to command them, but he’d refused. The Cadre had so few officers that senior, he’d argued, that the sudden disappearance of any of them was too likely to be noticed. Which was true enough, though hardly the full story.
Major Gateau’s fierce resolve to protect Alicia Devries was the rest of it. No one else would be allowed to serve as Alicia’s physician if she could be brought in alive . . . and, Sir Arthur knew, Tannis hoped—prayed—she’d be there when Alicia was found. If anyone could talk her into surrendering, that anyone was Tannis Gateau.
Keita understood that, and he owed her the chance, threadbare though they both knew it was, almost as much as he owed Alicia herself. But that wasn’t something he cared to explain to Countess Miller, and so he’d kept Tannis here by pointing out that a battalion was a major’s command and insisting that Major Gateau, already on the spot, was the logical person to command this one. The Fleet or Marines might have questioned one of their medical officers’ competence in such matters; the Cadre did not.
“Have you told Inspector Suares?” Tannis asked finally, and he nodded.
“He agrees that we have no choice. His marshals will begin arriving at Base Two this afternoon.”
“But they won’t have time for live-fire exercises, will they?”