Honor from Ashes (Honor and Duty Book 3)

by Amanda S Green

  “I think I speak for us all when I say we agree, Mr. President,” General Helen Okafor said.

  “No formalities tonight, Helen. We have a lot to discuss before Second Fleet returns.” A soft knock sounded at the door. Harper called out and a moment later the door opened. Several servers entered, carrying drinks and light snacks. “What do we know so far?”

  “Miranda has been careful with what she’s transmitted,” Richard Collins said as the doors closed behind the retreating servers. “But reading between the lines, it sounds like she is bringing us a great deal of intel and more for Rico’s people to work their magic on.”

  “And we are sure they have confirmation of Midlothian involvement?”

  “We are,” Okafor answered. “If Miranda has been tight lipped, Ashlyn has been down right silent. But she did sent word that they had a very special package for us. That means only one thing. Not only did they get the confirmation we were hoping for but they have taken Hughes into custody.”

  Harper sank onto a chair and shook his head, a slight smile on his lips. “You’re sure?”

  “I am. We had agreed on that code phrase before she shipped out.”

  “Then we may have been luckier than I thought.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “How bad were Second Fleet’s losses?”

  “As you said, Sir, we were lucky. Their ship losses were minimal. They will need some time in the Yard but they should be able to get back in action in a month or so. FleetCom will have to evaluate Second’s personnel needs once they have received the casualty list and reviewed the treatment plans for the injured,” Collins said.

  Harper turned to Okafor next. “And the Devil Dogs?”

  “No deaths for the main force but a number of injuries.” She pulled out her datapad and consulted it before continuing. “The LACs, on the other hand, were hit harder. I don’t have the final casualty report but the preliminary lists a dozen deaths and many more injuries. The biggest issue is the loss of equipment.”

  “All right.” He ran a hand through his hair, his expression serious. “I believe it is clear that our so-called allies have turned against us. The fact we now have an officer in the Midlothian Space Navy in custody and he was captured onboard a Callusian warship leaves little doubt, at least in my mind. So how do we proceed?”

  For a moment, no one spoke. Then Okafor looked at Collins. He nodded and she drew a deep breath.

  “Without more detailed information, I see three courses of action available to us, Sir,” Okafor began. “We can proceed as though nothing has changed and we don’t know the Midlothians are conspiring against us. We can hold the line where it is, building up our forces and consulting with our other allies to make sure none of them are involved. The last option is to fall back to the Home System and see how things shake out.”

  Harper leaned forward, elbows on knees, his expression serious. “Richard?”

  “I agree with Helen. However, I would urge you not to make any decision until we’ve had a chance to debrief both Miranda and Ash. They have information we don’t, information necessary to making an informed decision.”

  “Agreed, but I still want to hear the arguments for each of the options.”

  Instead of answering right away, Okafor got to her feet and moved to stare out the window, much as Harper had earlier. She didn’t speak until she turned back to the room a few moments later.

  “The first option would be the best in many ways but it will also be the most difficult, if not impossible, to pull off. If we could keep Midlothian in the dark, we can start feeding them false information. That, in turn, can help us pinpoint exactly where the leaks are happening. However, doing so will also make it difficult to continue our investigation without raising their suspicion. It would mean keeping them out of certain briefings they would normally have been included in. Then there is the possibility of them learning we have Hughes in custody. It could all blow up in our faces.”

  “Agreed, although I wouldn’t mind stringing them along for a bit longer.”

  “None of us would, Mr. President,” Collins said. “As for the second option Helen laid out, it and the third option carry much the same dangers. While they both allow us to build up our numbers, it also lets the Callusians continue unchecked. Such an approach could also turn our remaining allies against us. Worse, it would play into Midlothian’s hands. We would come across as weak and tentative, just as we did during the last war. Our biggest advantage this time, at least as far as our allies are concerned, is they know you will keep your word about doing everything possible to defeat the Callusians once and for all.”

  “I note neither of you recommend confronting the Midlothian ambassador with what we know and sending a message to Midlothian through him that we will not put up with their treachery.”

  “It very well may come to that, sir,” Okafor said. “But, for the moment, we don’t have enough information. We may not have it even after Second Fleet arrives and FleetIntel has had the opportunity to interrogate Hughes.”

  “What information?”

  “We still don’t know if the Midlothian government is officially behind this treachery or if there is someone else behind it. Are we ready to declare war against an ally?”

  Harper didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stared into the fireplace, his expression thoughtful. “All right. Until we have a chance to debrief Miranda and Ashlyn, we will continue with our plan of battle as it’s currently laid out. I don’t want any discussion or communication about what Second Fleet discovered until I give the go ahead. Understood?”

  “Understood,” they replied.

  Harper sat up and shook his head. He had not been happy when he learned Second Fleet had delayed its transit to the Drakkana System. It hadn’t made sense to him for the fleet to stay in-system while it waited for the two Devil Dog companies to meet up with it. Now he saw that delay as providential. If Second Fleet hadn’t been waiting on the outer edges of the system, who knew how badly things could have gone for Fuercon. He still had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact the Callusians had actually sent a taskforce into the system.

  “There is another factor to add to the equation before I make a final decision about how to react to this betrayal,” Harper continued. “I received confirmation just before your arrival that Martyn Baudin was found dead earlier today. The investigators said there is no doubt he was murdered. This was the second murder associated with the Midlothian embassy in the last few weeks. The first was Kael Paulus. Paulus was found in an alley. He had been stabbed. Blood found at the scene belonged to one Evan Moreau.”

  “Moreau?” Okafor demanded. “You’re sure?”

  “I am and I take it you know the name, Helen.”

  “I do, Sir. It has been linked with the conspiracy against Ashlyn Shaw.”

  “And the circle grows ever larger – or perhaps smaller,” the President mused. “The investigation also revealed evidence of a third person there and it appeared that after Paulus was killed, Moreau and the other party fought. Blood was found near the opening of the alley that also belonged to Moreau.”

  “The two deaths can’t be a coincidence.” Collins’ expression turned thoughtful.

  “Agreed, Richard, especially since Baudin is not unfamiliar to the the Intel people. He is Alexander Watchman’s right hand and where he goes, bodies either show up or people disappear.”

  For several long moments, no one spoke. Then Okafor blew out a breath. Harper understood. He had known about the connection between the murders and the Midlothian embassy for some time. But knowing about Moreau’s connection with the conspiracy against Shaw added another dimension to everything. How many plots were they going to uncover before this was over?

  “I think that is at the least preliminary confirmation that the Midlothians have been working against Fuercon for some time now.” He climbed to his feet and began to pace. “I want to meet with Miranda and Ashlyn as soon as they are on-planet. Brigadier General Shaw and Secretary Kling
sbury, as well as Colonel Santiago, will be included in the meeting.”

  “Aye, sir,” Collins and Okafor answered as they, too, stood.

  “Richard, I’m relying on you to make sure the system is secure.”

  “I understand, Sir. I’ve already ordered my division COs to increase patrols.”

  “Helen, I want you to re-evaluate how your Marines are being used and where we have them stationed. I want the system, and especially Fuercon, protected.”

  “Understood, Mr. President.”

  His comm beeped softly. “My apologies, but I have a meeting with the Secretary of Education in a few minutes.”

  As they left, he wondered if they knew more than they had told him. It wouldn’t surprise him if they did. They wouldn’t talk to him about something if they felt they needed more confirmation of the information or if they thought he needed to have plausible deniability.

  And that was what made them not only excellent officers but two of his most trusted advisors. Hopefully, between them and a few others, Fuercon would not only weather the war but prevail.

  * * *

  Watchman read the report a second time and then a third. With each time, his anger grew. How had it gone so wrong so quickly?

  Stupid question. The answer was simple: Dorescu. He, like so many of his kind, cared for nothing but killing the enemy. It didn’t matter if they most or all of their own people died in the process. The Callusians had a warped sense of honor and believed nothing was more glorious than to die in battle.

  From the beginning, from that first meeting when working with the Callusians had been brought up, he had been against it. Playing Devil’s Advocate, he had warned the others that no good could come from trusting the Callusians. They had ignored him. Greed drove them, blinding them to the potential disaster that lay ahead.

  Now it looked like his predictions might be coming true.

  But it hadn’t happened yet. All he knew for sure was that the Fuerconese had managed to intercept Dorescu’s taskforce and defeat it. What worried him was the lack of information coming from Fuercon. In the past, the media would have been alive with the news. So far, there had been no mention of it. Nor had there been any mention about when, or if, Second Fleet was returning to Fuercon.

  Worse, there had been no word from Fuercon itself to confirm the report. Under the terms of too many treaties to count, they should have notified Midlothian and their other allies to share information about the encounter. Instead of information there had been silence and he had no way to find out why.

  That was another source of concern. Baudin’s last report had relayed news of the death of Kael Paulus. What the report had not included was information about Moreau. Worse, Baudin had not made contact since then. He hadn’t known why until that morning when he received word from the embassy on Fuercon that Baudin had been killed. No, there were no suspects. The capital police were investigating but had no leads. Their working theory was Baudin had been a tourist who happened to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid the ultimate price.

  Watchman knew better. Somehow, Moreau had discovered the reason Baudin was on Fuercon. She had killed him. Of that, Watchman had no doubt. That was bad enough. Worse, if Moreau thought he had written her off, she became more than a loose end. She became a loose cannon and might decide to come after him.

  Damn the gods, he hated loose ends. There was only one way to protect himself until he could deal with Moreau, something he now looked forward to doing himself. Like it or not, he needed to shut down all operations on Fuercon except for those run out of the embassy, at least for the near future.

  In the meantime, he needed to find an operative he could trust and who would not be known to Moreau to locate the woman. Nothing more, just locate her. Once they had, he would act. She wasn’t his first operative to outlive her usefulness, nor would she be the last. He had recognized the attempts in her reports to cover her ass and to put the blame for anything that went wrong on others. Now she had left a string of dead bodies that could all too easily be tied back to her and, in turn, to him. She had signed her own death warrant. All he had to do was make sure she died in such a way that it never came back on him.

  Until then, there was no shame in doing a strategic withdrawal to reconsider battle plans. Let the others continue their disastrous relationship with the Callusions. They might even get lucky. If they did, he had more than enough dirt on them to prevent them from moving against him. It would only be a matter of time before they either fell into the fold or suffered some tragic accident.

  No one got the better of Alexander Watchman and he had no intention of letting that change.

  “Sir, your aircar is here. You are due at the theater in half an hour,” his secretary said over the comm.

  “Thank you, Sylva. Tell the drive I will be there shortly.”

  He checked his appearance in the mirror and smiled. The world might be crumbling around him, at least metaphorically speaking, but he would not let that stop him. He knew what real power was and when to use it. That time wasn’t there – yet. When it came no one would be safe.

  * * *

  The moment the door closed behind her, Evan Moreau leaned against it earily and closed her eyes. Never before had she been so exhausted. She stayed on the move, changing her appearance as well as where she stayed. No two nights were spent in the same location.

  Damn her luck!

  And damn Alexander Watchman and Ashlyn Shaw and everyone else who stood in her way.

  Pushing away from the door, she reached up and began stripping off her clothes. As she did, she kicked them away in distaste. She would kill for a designer suit and shoes. Instead, she wore off the rack work clothes. They helped her blend in instead of stand out. They fit the cheap rooms she had been renting. God, what she would give to go back to the life she had known just a month before.

  The day would come when she could return to it. All she had to do was play it smart and keep her eyes open. Completing the job for Watchman – and killing Shaw – would take the heat off. Watchman might never again trust her to work for him, but he would leave her alone.

  “Just keep you head and follow the plan,” she said softly as she moved into the small bathroom. “It will be over soon enough.”

  That didn’t make waiting any easier.

  Padding across the thin carpet of the bedroom a few minutes later, Moreau wondered if the authorities had tied Paulus’ murder to that of Baudin. Did they suspect the level of treachery where their Midlothian “allies’ were concerned? It didn’t matter if they knew or not. By the time the Midlothians moved against Fuercon, she planned to be far away.

  As she slipped into a silken robe that cost more than most people made in a month, her one luxury in this latest hellhole, Moreau smiled as she thought of Baudin’s death. She had taken her time with him, needing to make him pay for hurting her. The drugs she’d paid the bartender to slip into his drink had worked as expected. Unable to resist her “in” they go for a walk, he had followed her out of the bar. As she had him take her to his waiting aircar, she had laughed to see the fight in his eyes, a fight that could not escape his mind. Once at the aircar, she had him buckle into the passenger seat and she had taken them to a park near the downtown district, knowing it would be closed and she would have plenty of time to play with him.

  Everything would work out. She would make sure of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “EVERYONE IS HERE, Mister President.”

  Derek Harper nodded without turning. How long he had stood before her office window, staring unseeing into the distance, he couldn’t say. But it hadn’t been long enough – or maybe it had been too long – to erase the trouble that lay ahead. Trouble Fuercon hadn’t looked for and certainly hadn’t asked for or wanted. But there it lay, ready to destroy all Harper held dear if he wasn’t up to the task of dealing with it.

  Closing his eyes, he drew a deep, calming breath. This wasn’t the time to give in t
o emotion or to engage in “what if’s.” Time for that would come later. Now duty called and he couldn’t turn away from it, no matter how much he might want to.

  With a decisive nod, he turned from the window and moved across the office toward the door. As he passed his desk, his right hand closed over the small, black jewelers box. Almost absently, he dropped it into his jacket pocket. Then he continued on his way down the path he had chosen but had never expected to take this particular turn.

  In the four weeks since the first word of the Callusian taskforce’s entry into Fuerconese space, Harper and his closest advisors had worked almost non-stop in an effort to determine how deep the cancer of Midlothian’s betrayal ran. He had no idea how many hours intelligence officers had spent interrogating not only Commander Hughes but the Callusian prisoners of war. Despite the information they have offered, as well as that retrieved from the databanks of the captured Callusian ships, there were still questions about how deep the conspiracy ran.

  Now, waiting just down the hall, were his closest advisors. They were to meet briefly before he addressed the joint Houses of Congress. He was well aware of what most everyone expected of the session. They would get it and more, much more. He prayed they were ready to face the consequences because there was no alternative acceptable to the action he was about to take.

  Five men and women quickly climbed to their feet as he entered the library. Three, resplendent in Mess Dress uniforms, snapped to attention. The others unconconsciously came to a modified form of attention, betraying their own military backgrounds. The President quickly put all but two at their ease.

  As he approached Miranda Tremayne, the woman watched him closely. Her blue eyes reflected her curiosity even though nothing else betrayed her thoughts. Smiling slightly in approval, the President paused before her. Without a word, he extended his hand to Linden Klingsbury. Her Secretary of Defense placed an old fashioned leather portfolio in his hand and then stepped back.

  “We’ll do this a bit more formally shortly,” the President began, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. “With the reality of declaring war against a supposed ally, it has been decided that the Navy needs a slight realignment. Effective immediately, you will be the new commanding officer of First Fleet, designated as Home Fleet, Admiral Tremayne. Admiral Collins will assume command of Second Fleet. Don’t worry that he will see this as a demotion. He didn’t and, when I told him what sort of new toys he would get to play with, he asked me to tell you he was more than glad to turn the defense of the Home System over to you.”