by Natalie Grey
It was impossible to stop that sort of thing, and it wasn’t even a threat. A bunch of resistance fighters, each trapped in their own districts….
Ah.
Ellian tried to refrain from smiling. That was the key. The resistance, itself, was no threat.
“Word has it there’s a Dragon team determined to land, and cause havoc.”
The Warlord went very still.
Ellian considered his words carefully. This was a dangerous road to walk. “You know the circles in which I run,” he said, as lazily as he dared. He could not draw this out, or the Warlord would be infuriated. “Well, they love to gamble. Taking bets on Rift’s odds is the newest way to pass the time.”
He allowed himself to smile, and saw the speculative gleam of the Warlord’s eyes, behind the mask.
“‘Arming the peasants’ is one of the methods being bet on,” Ellian confided. “Few are willing to believe he’d be so stupid. Why, his own soldiers could hardly expect not to be shot with such untrained fighters on their side. Alimore Moback made that point—what was it he said? Ah, yes: ‘with allies like those….’”
The Warlord did not laugh. The Warlord never really laughed. But his mood had lightened somewhat.
“And what do you bet?” he asked.
A test. Of course.
“I haven’t. For one thing, it wouldn’t be sporting when I’m on a team. For another….” Ellian raised a shoulder. “Well, I don’t think anything’s going to get that far. Everyone asking what his odds are of freeing the populace once he lands—as though him making it all the way there alive, and still having a populace to save, are given things. They don’t think creatively enough, I’m afraid.” He held up a small device. “Speaking of which, I have the solution to your problems. That’s the good news. The better news … is that they’re made with alloys your refineries are already able to produce, and they’re easy to assemble.”
The Warlord considered this.
“So, rather than any shipments that might be intercepted—” Ellian could hardly keep the triumphant laugh from his voice “—I have a rather more elegant solution. Your slaves can make the very devices that will kill them. I’ll send along the plans, if you like.”
The Warlord said nothing, but Ellian could sense his approval as he ended the call.
He smiled, and tried to keep from shuddering. In this world, you did what you had to do, to survive. If the Warlord of Ymir wanted a new populace, brought in with the heaped bodies of their predecessors as a potent warning, then no one was going to stop him—and, to keep his own family safe, Ellian must provide what the man wanted.
Anyone would do the same, he told himself.
Ed Fordham had been advised by all and sundry not to have this particular meeting. His captain had told him not to do it, his governor had told him he did not have to do it, and his wife had threatened him bodily harm if he was stupid enough to do it.
You tell that man Rift that if he’s going to kill you, I should get some shots in first. A wife has rights.
And Fordham was sure they all had a point. But he was going to go to this meeting anyway, for the same reason the Alveni Syndicate had allowed Talon Rift’s ship into syndicate space in the first place: curiosity.
They were, all of them, wildly curious.
The Alveni Syndicate and the Dragons didn’t have much to do with one another. They never had. The Syndicate wasn’t interested in suppressing regular peasant revolts, so they made a point of sticking to fair labor contracts—which usually meant that the syndicate hotshots and the labor negotiators both left the table unhappy—but keep food in everyone’s belly and give them a safe place to lay their head at night, and most people would work hard and keep their head down.
So the Dragons didn’t care enough to interfere. And as long as the Dragons didn’t make any obvious shows of force in syndicate territory, the Syndicate Council didn’t care, either.
That didn’t mean everyone was chummy. Fordham had had the dubious pleasure of interacting with Talon more than once, over the course of a long and drawn out hunt that had ended with a great deal of blood and even more bribes. He’d been first mate on the ship where the Dragons’ prey was trying to hide, assuming that the syndicate would shelter him.
Which they did. Until he became a nuisance.
Which was about the time the Dragons walked on board. Fordham had gone through the motions of saying all of the usual this-is-our-turf talking points, and then had pointedly sequestered himself in his cabin and locked the rest of the passengers in theirs until the screaming stopped.
No other ship ever showed up on either his cameras or the navigational equipment, but when they all came out, there was no sign of either the Dragons, or of what would have to be a nearly bloodless body.
Fordham made a point to remember the name Talon Rift, after that, and he was pleased, in a nervous sort of way, that Rift had remembered his name as well.
He felt the familiar shiver of fear, however, as their ship landed and Rift came out—alone. That was unusual, wasn’t it? He’d always seen the man flanked by two of his team. But he didn’t comment on it as he came to clasp the man’s hand.
“Commander Rift.” Too late, he noticed the insignia on the man’s armor. “Major. I’m sorry.”
Talon only shrugged. “I was hoping the syndicate would allow me to arrange a meeting with your lead information broker.”
“What, no small talk?” It was a joke, but Fordham’s smile faded at the look on Talon’s face.
“Believe me when I say I do not have time for that,” Talon said flatly. “Jorgensen—can I meet him?”
Now they got to the more awkward part of the meeting.
“He says he doesn’t have the information,” Ed said bluntly. He didn’t believe in beating around the bush when there were no appearances to keep up. “Apparently, he knew what you were going to ask.”
“Not surprising.” Talon’s face was dark with anger. “And he’s a liar. He knows, I’m sure of it.”
“Knows what?” Fordham recoiled at the look on Talon’s face. “Never mind, forget I asked.”
He was curious—and he was curious, too, that Jorgensen had known Talon wouldn’t accept this answer. But if he persists, Jorgensen had said, tell him this….
The thing was, he was pretty sure Jorgensen wanted to tell. It looked like this secret was eating him alive.
He sighed. “He says there are conditions. You come alone to the meeting, no crew. And if they come for him, you do what you can to save him.” He paused. “And the last condition, is that you believe him. He says you won’t want the answer you get.”
“I know enough to know that,” Talon said flatly. “And I’ll come alone.”
Fordham raised an eyebrow. “Even I wouldn’t take that bargain.”
“Why?” Talon fixed him with a stare. “Is Jorgensen trying to kill me?”
“I wouldn’t—I don’t—he hasn’t—” Fordham cleared his throat and prayed to every god he’d ever heard of, and a few of the saints, besides. “I think he wants someone to know, truth be told. But it just seems like a weird thing for him to ask, and weirder for you to agree to.”
“Yeah.” For a moment, he thought Talon would leave it at that, but the man said, quietly: “He doesn’t trust my crew. And I think he’s right not to.”
“A Dragon crew? But—” At the look in Talon’s eyes, he broke off with a hastily cleared throat. “Right.” He held out a piece of paper. “Meeting place is on Nimiset—it’s close.”
“Price?” Talon asked. He did not take the paper.
“Just that you believe him,” Fordham said again. “That’s all he wanted, I swear.”
“Yeah,” Talon said quietly. “Yeah, that sounds right. Wonder how long the bastard’s been sitting on this.”
Fordham struggled with the desire to ask, again, what information this was, and Talon gave a bitter smile.
“This is the type of thing it’s better not to be involved with,�
� he said bluntly. “Go home to your wife.” He was smiling, though, as he backed away. “She was wrong, but … tell her to take a couple of shots anyway. She was just trying to keep you safe.”
He disappeared into the darkness without waiting for an answer, and Fordham stared after him bemusedly.
Dragons. Every time with them, something different.
He liked that this time hadn’t been quite as bloody, though.
21
“Sir.” Julian’s face was a pale oval in the doorway. “The Conway is tracked as heading toward the Ariane’s last known trajectory.” He consulted a piece of paper. “It’s a planet called Nimiset, under control of the Alveni Syndicate.”
“Good.” Aleksander Soras stood and made sure everything on his desk was secured. This was not his personal sanctum on Ymir; he could not be too careful. “I am leaving for the night. You can reach me if needed.”
He did not wait for an answer as he took an elevator down to the ground floor. He smiled at each of the agents he saw, making pleasant small talk and resisting the urge to scream at them that he didn’t care about their children or their weekend plans when he was about to face down invasion and armed insurrection.
Outside the building, he decided to take a circuitous route back to his apartment. The day was pleasant enough, the fading light taking the sky from blue to the lustrous pearl sheen that came before sunset. The air smelled pleasantly of greenery.
It was nothing compared to Ymir, of course. The bedrock of the planet, rich with ore, lay beneath gently rolling hills and a temperate climate. His gardeners had been able to reproduce the gardens of old Versailles perfectly, often with plants grown from clippings of the very bushes that had grown there—a seed vault, an exorbitant series of bribes.
He thought of Tera, ensconced now on Barrush—his staff had confirmed it—and felt a twist of something that was part yearning for something lost, and part guilt. She had been such an inquisitive child, so eager to please, so eager to learn. He still remembered the look on her face when they first stepped out of the shuttle onto that world. Perhaps she would remember it as fondly.
When she finds out—
She wouldn’t find out. He would make sure of that.
His stride quickened and he realized his chest was rising and falling quickly in fear.
It had worked for so long. After the assassination, assuming the role had been easy. Alliance Intelligence had laughable flaws in its security protocols, which he had exploited ruthlessly, always alert for any agent who might think to ask the wrong questions.
And the Dragons had been easily enough managed. The Alliance was never going to send troops to aid them, not after losing the carrier—an unpleasant necessity, but how many would have died in the fighting? He refused to feel guilty about it—and so it had been a simple matter of throwing them crumbs.
All the while, he made Ymir so integral to the Alliance that they would never seriously consider overthrowing him. His ores built alliance ships, his alloys powered their servers and made the containers that carried their food. Too many businesses now depended absolutely on prices that only he, with free labor, could provide.
It had worked for so long, that he had come to believe it would always work. Who, after all, would take on an army with a crew of sixteen? It was suicidal.
But it had a plausible chance, now, of being the first domino in a terrifying sequence.
Tera was right: something had happened down on that planet. Some spark had caught. His footsteps slowed.
Jacinta Nikolau, a single, unimportant resistance leader, had been a catalyst for something far greater than one little resistance cell.
His fingers tightened in his pocket.
Damn her.
After a moment, his chin came up and he began to walk again, cultured elegance oozing from every motion. Talon was determined—but so was the captain of the Conway.
And if she did not succeed … there were other options, team members long ago bought. No one could seriously expect Talon Rift not to die on this mission, after all.
With a thin smile, Soras kept walking.
The game was not over. It was just beginning.
22
Nimiset was a planet much like old earth, some of it given over to large-scale farming operations, some of it devoted to modest industry. The Ariane came in over the largest city, Felicity, near dawn, and Talon was treated to a view of apartment buildings and highways that were quickly given over to dirt roads and a patchwork of crops. Sunlight glinted off ponds and rivers, and shone on the golden dome of a temple, incongruously elegant.
Talon suited up alone in the armory. He had never done that before. It simply wasn’t good tactics to go anywhere alone, given a Dragon’s line of business. He expected Nyx to come glower at him and attempt to talk him out of it, but the armory remained quiet and still.
It wasn’t like her.
It wasn’t like him, he told himself. She was staying away because she understood the necessity. Just like Tersi was. Just like they all were.
They were loyal. They were.
In the little bathroom off the armory, he splashed water on his face and stared at his reflection. He looked haunted, but he could barely register that fact. It was all he could do just to exist right now, with his gut churning like this. The safety of the team, the bond he’d found since he was first a Dragon recruit, underlay everything in his life. Without it….
It was only duty that kept him moving. He had to go, or he would miss the rendezvous. Jorgensen—he still didn’t know if that was the man’s last name or first name—had named an alleyway on the outskirts of town, surrounded by old, half-built structures and a rundown apartment building.
It was an ambush waiting to happen. He shouldn’t go.
But if you followed that line of thinking, you came to the inescapable conclusion that it was better not to be a Dragon at all, and live a boring life as an accountant with a newspaper subscription and 2.4 beagles.
He made his way through a suspiciously quiet ship and to the airlock.
He should go ask Nyx if she—
No.
He should go check on the—
No.
He looked once down the hallway of the Ariane and had the sense that he was saying goodbye to someone.
He just didn’t know who yet.
Jorgensen was a good, Viking sort of name. It brought to mind saltwater and battleaxes and tall people with broad shoulders.
Jorgensen had the broad shoulders, all right, but that was where the resemblance ended. He had a weather beaten face with greying blond hair cut bristle short, and though his shoulders were broad and his arms strong, his belly was visible under the standard-issue black shirt worn by Alveni Syndicate spacers. If Talon hadn’t known better, he would have said the man was a bachelor farmer who liked bacon and beer a bit too much—not an information broker stuck on a ship.
He stood almost ostentatiously in the middle of the alleyway and watched Talon approach with ice-blue eyes and such a calm expression that Talon was only a few feet away before he saw the fear.
Once you saw it, though, it was impossible to miss. It was rolling off the man in waves.
“Were you followed?” Jorgensen asked abruptly.
“Almost certainly.” Talon thought about saying that he’d think less of his enemies if they weren’t planning to take him out at this opportunity, and decided against it.
Civilians could be so jumpy, after all.
Jorgensen only nodded, though, and ran a hand through his hair. He swallowed hard. Talon was just opening his mouth to hurry things along when Jorgensen looked right at him.
“Aleksander Soras.”
“What?” Talon frowned at him.
“That’s the name you want.” When Talon still stared at him blankly, Jorgensen gave a tight-lipped smile. “Aleksander Soras,” he said carefully, “is the Warlord of Ymir.”
Talon gave a bark of laughter. “And I’m a ballerina.” He narrow
ed his eyes. “Whoever got to you first and told you not to tell me the truth, they’re not here right now, and I am. So if I were you—”
“It’s the truth.” Jorgensen stood his ground. “And I don’t think you have much time to do something about it.”
“It’s not the—” Talon broke off. He gave a laugh that sounded uncertain, even to his ears. “It’s not the truth. That couldn’t possibly be—I mean, if it were him—well, they’d have to….” He swallowed hard.
The price is that you have to believe him, Ed had told him, and Talon had laughed. But now…
The truth was, everywhere his mind turned, looking for an out, he found only the conclusion that this made sense. It wasn’t impossible, as he wanted to say it was. It wasn’t even close to impossible.
Who would have been able to find that troop carrier, know its weaknesses, and take it down?
Who would have taken control of Alliance Intelligence when no one else dared?
Who else could have ordered review—or not—of the decisions surrounding Ymir?
It made all too much sense … and the sheer audacity of it took Talon’s breath away. He stared at the rain-slick concrete and forced himself through the motions.
“Do you have proof?”
“Of course.” Jorgensen tossed him a data capsule, and something like grief passed over his face. “You should go.”
Talon knew what he meant, and he looked up sharply. “I can help you—”
“You can’t.” There was a terrible finality in those words. “I knew that telling anyone this would cost me my life. I just had to wait for someone I thought could do something about it. I had to make it worth it.”
Talon stared at him mutely. Some faraway part of his brain registered the faintest sounds of human movement nearby. Someone coming close, someone trying to be quiet.
