by David Weber
"No, Sir," the warrant said, coming halfway to attention.
"Did he say anything else?"
"Just something about everything being a lie," Sims said. "Sir, what's this all about?"
"Sims, you do not have the need to know," Poertena said, swallowing and shaking his head. "Modderpocker. I don't have the need to pocking know." The captain had worked hard on his accent, and it only tended to show in times of stress. "I did not pocking need t'is. Where was t'is guy?"
"Well..." Sims hesitated. "In a bar, Captain. I know they're off limits—"
"Forget t'at," Poertena said. "Modderpocker. I've got to t'ink. Sims, you don't tell anyone about t'is, clear?"
"Clear, Sir." It was Sims' turn to swallow hard.
"I'll probably need you in a while. Get some chow and crew rest if you need. I t'ink we're going back to Halliwell."
"Sir, regulations state—"
"Yeah. Well, I t'ink t'e pocking regulations jus' wen' out t'e pocking airlock."
Julian looked up as a sizable shadow loomed over the restaurant table.
"Guy that looks a lot like a Poertena just walked into the bar," Denat said. "He's with that shuttle pilot. Sena's keeping an eye on them."
Julian had gone over to one of the local restaurants that served a really good bitok. He'd missed them on Marduk, and this place did them right—thick, cooked to a light pink in the middle, and with really good barbecue sauce. It was infinitely preferable to the "snacks" served in the bar, and Denat and Sena had remained behind to keep an eye on things while he ate it.
Now he set down the bitok and took a sip of cola.
"Okay, showtime," he said. "Where's Magee?"
"Dunno," the Mardukan said.
"Find him," Julian replied, and tried very hard not to be irritated by the little Pinopan's absence. After all, Julian hadn't expected Captain Poertena to show up this fast, either, and it was late at night by local time. Capodista's skipper must have gotten the message and taken the first available shuttle back.
Julian dropped enough credits on the table to pay for the bitok and a tip and walked out. He glanced around as he stepped out of the restaurant's door. The street was somewhat more animated at night, with groups moving from bar to bar, and he felt mildly uneasy without backup. But there was nothing he could do about that.
He went to the bar and looked around. Despite the hour, the party was still in full roar, and the band had gotten, if anything, worse. At least the stripper was gone.
He moved along the edge of the crowd around the bar until he spotted Sena. She was by the bar, one lower elbow propped nonchalantly on its surface while a true-hand nursed a beer, where she could keep an unobtrusive eye on the two Navy officers who'd taken one of the tables at the back. Lousy trade craft. It was like signaling "Look over here! We're having a Secret Conversation!"
He chose a spot of his own at the bar, out of sight of them but where Sena could flash him a signal if they tried to leave. About ten minutes later, Denat loomed through the door, followed by Poertena.
"Where were you?"
"Taking care of some pocking personal business."
"You know that human who was taking off her clothes?" Denat asked.
"Goddamn it, P... Magee!"
"Hey, a guy's got pocking needs!"
"Well, you're not gonna have the equipment to do anything about them if you just wander off that way again," Julian said ominously, then sighed and shook his head at Poertena's unrepentant look.
"C'mon," he said, and led the way through the crowd towards the Navy officers' table.
"Captain Poertena," he said, sitting down and shifting his chair to a spot from which he could keep an eye on the bar.
"Well, I know he's not Julio," the captain said, pointing at the Mardukan. "And neither is he," he added dryly as Sena wandered over to join them. "And you're too tall," he continued, looking at Julian.
"Hey, Uncle Marciel," Poertena said with a slight catch in his voice. "Long pocking time."
"Goddamn it, Julio," the captain said, shaking his head. "What have you gotten yourself into? I should have had a team of Marines standing by, you know that? I'm putting my balls on the line here for you."
"They're not on the line for him," Julian said. "They're on the line for the Empire."
"Which one are you?" the captain snapped.
"Adib Julian."
"I don't recognize the name," the captain said, regarding him intently.
"You wouldn't. I was just a sergeant in one of the line companies. But get this straight, we've been on Marduk," Julian gestured with a thumb at Denat and Sena, "for the last ten months. Marduk. We can prove that a dozen different ways. We had nothing to do with it."
"This is about the coup!" the pilot blurted. "Holy shit."
"Sergeant—well, Captain, sort of, Adib Julian," Julian said, nodding. "Bronze Battalion of the Empress' Own. Currently, S-2 to Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock. Heir Primus to the Throne of Man."
Despite the racket all around them, a brief bubble of intense silence seemed to surround the barroom table.
"So," Captain Poertena said after a moment, "what's the plan?"
"I need to talk to Helmut," Julian said. "I've got encrypted data chips that prove beyond any reasonable doubt that we were on Marduk when the coup occurred, not Old Earth. This is Adoula's plot, not the Prince's. Helmut needs to know that."
"What's he going to do with it?" Sims asked.
"Warrant, that's between the Admiral and myself," Julian said. "You realize, of course, that you're going to spend the next few weeks, at least, in solitary lockdown. Right?"
"Shit, this is what I get for talking to strangers in bars," the warrant said. "Let me get this straight. The Prince was on Marduk. Which means the whole line about him being behind the attempted coup so much bullshit. Right?"
"Right," Julian ground out. "Trust me on that one. I was there the whole time. Poertena and I are two of only twelve survivors from an entire Marine company that went in with him. We had to walk across that hot, miserable, rain-filled ball of jungle and swamp. It's a long story. But we didn't even know there'd been a coup until a month, month and a half ago. And Adoula is in charge, not the Empress."
"We'd sort of figured that out," the captain said dryly. "Which is why we're stooging around in the back of beyond out here. You're either a godsend or a goddammed menace, and I can't decide which." He sighed and shrugged. "You'll have to meet the Admiral. Sims, you and these other four go in solitary when we get to the ship. When we make rendezvous with the Fleet, I'll send them over in your shuttle to the Zetian. Why you four, by the way?"
"Julio to convince you," Julian said. "Me, because I've met Admiral Helmut before. And Denat and Sena because they're a counterpoint to proving we were on Marduk. And because Denat's a buddy of Julio's."
"Taught me everything I know," Denat said, shrugging all four shoulders.
"In that case, remind me not to play poker with you."
Admiral Angus Helmut, Third Baron Flechelle, was short, almost a dwarf. Well under regulation height, his feet dangled off the deck in a standard station chair, which was why the one in which he now sat was lower than standard. He had a gray, lined face, high cheekbones, thinning gray hair, and gray eyes. His black uniform was two uniform changes old—the pattern he'd worn as an ensign, and quite possibly the same uniform Ensign Helmut had worn, judging by the smoothness of the fabric. He wore his admiral's pips on one collar point, and the crossed cloak and daggers of his original position in Naval Intelligence on the other, and his eyes were slightly bloodshot from lack of sleep as he stared at Julian as if the Marine were something a cat had left on his doorstep.
"Adib Julian," he said. "I should have known. I noticed your name on the seizure orders and thought that treason would be about your métier."
"I've never committed treason," Julian shot back. "No more than you have by keeping your fleet out of contact. The traitors are Adoula and Gianetto and Gr
eenberg."
"Perhaps. But what I see before me is a jumped-up sergeant—one I last met standing charges for falsifying a readiness report."
"There've been changes," Julian replied.
"So you tell me." The admiral considered him with basilisk eyes for several seconds, then tipped his chair very slightly back. "So, the wastrel prince returns as pretender to the Throne, and you want my help?"
"Let's just say... there have been changes," Julian repeated. "Calling Master Rog a wastrel would be... incorrect at this point. And not a pretender to the Throne; he just wants his mother back on it, and that bastard Adoula's head. Although his balls would do in a pinch."
"So what's the non-wastrel's plan?"
"I have to get some assurances that you're going to back us," Julian pointed out. "Not simply use the information to carry favor with Adoula, Admiral."
The admiral's jaw muscles flexed at that, and he shrugged angrily.
"Well, that's the problem in these little plots that run around the Palace," he said. "Trust. I can give you all the assurances in the universe. Prepare the fleet for battle, head for Sol. And then, when we get there, clap you in irons and send you to Adoula as a trophy, along with all your plans. By the same token, there could be Marines standing right outside my cabin, waiting for me to reveal my disloyalty to the Throne. In which case, when I say 'Oh, yes, Sergeant Julian, we'll help your little plot,' they come busting in and arrest me."
"Not if Sergeant Major Steinberg is still in charge," Julian said with a slight grin.
"There is that," Helmut admitted. He and the sergeant major had been close throughout their respective (and lengthy) careers. Which was one reason Steinberg had been Sergeant Major of Sixth Fleet as long as Helmut had commanded it. "Nonetheless."
"The Prince intends to capture his mother, and the Palace, and then to bring in independents to show that she's been held in duress, and that he had nothing to do with it."
"Well, that much is obvious," Helmut snapped. "How?"
"Are you going to back us?"
The admiral leaned further back and steepled his fingers, staring at the sergeant.
"Falsifying a weapons room readiness report," he said, changing the subject. "It wasn't actually your doing, was it?"
"I took the blame. It was my responsibility."
"But you didn't do the shoddy work, did you?"
"No," Julian admitted. "I trusted someone else's statement that it had been done, and signed off on it. The last time I made that particular mistake."
"And what did you do to the person who was actually responsible for losing you your stripes?"
"Beat the crap out of him, Sir," Julian replied after a short pause.
"Yes, I saw the surgeon's report," Helmut said with a trace of satisfaction. Then— "What happened to Pahner?" he rapped suddenly.
"Killed, Sir," Julian said, and swallowed. "Taking the ship we captured to get off that mudball."
"Hard man to kill," Helmut mused.
"It was a Saint covert commando ship," Julian said. "We didn't know until we were in too deep to back out. He died to save the Prince."
"That was his responsibility," Helmut said. "And what was his position on this... countercoup?"
"We developed the original plan's framework before the attack on the ship, Sir. It had his full backing."
"It would," the admiral said. "He was a rather all-or-nothing person. Very well, Julian. Yes, you have my backing. No Marines at the last minute, no double crosses."
"You haven't asked what you get for it," Julian noted. "The Prince will owe you a rather large favor."
"I get the safety of the Empire," Helmut growled. "If I asked for anything else, would you trust me?"
"No," Julian admitted. "Not in this. But the Prince authorized me to tell you that, as far as he's concerned, you can have Sixth Fleet or Home Fleet or CNO 'until you die or go senile.' That last is a direct quote."
"And what are you getting, Sergeant?" the admiral asked, ignoring the offer.
"As a quid pro quo? Nada. Hell, Sir, I haven't even been paid in over ten months. He told me before we left that I'm a captain, but I didn't ask for it."
Julian paused and shrugged.
"The safety of the Empire? Admiral, I'm sworn to serve the Empire, we both are, but I serve Master Rog. We all do. You'd have to have been there to understand. He's not... who he was. None of us are. We're Prince Roger's Own. Period. They call aides 'dog-robbers' because they'll rob a dog of its bone, if that's what the admiral wants. We're... we're pig-robbers. We'll steal slop, if that's what Roger wants. Or conquer the Caravazan Empire. Or set him up as a pirate king. Maybe Pahner wasn't that way, maybe he fought for the Empire, even to the last. But the rest of us are, we few who survive. We're Roger's dogs. And if he wants to save the Empire, well, we'll save the Empire. And if he'd told me to come in here and assassinate you, well, Admiral, you'd be dead."
"Household troops," the admiral said distastefully.
"Yes, Sir, that's us. And the nastiest group thereof you're ever likely to see. And that doesn't even count the Mardukans. Don't judge them by Denat; he just follows us around to see what mischief we get into. Rastar or Fain or Honal would nuke a world without blinking if Roger told them to."
"Interesting that he can command such loyalty," Helmut mused. "That doesn't... fit his profile from before his disappearance. In fact, that was one factor in my disbelief that he had anything to do with the coup."
"Well, things change," Julian said. "They change fast on Marduk. Admiral, I've got a presentation on what we went through and what our plans are. If you'd like to see it."
"I would," Helmut admitted. "I'd like to see what could change a clothes horse into—"
"Just say a MacClintock."
* * *
"Well, well—Harvard Mansul." Etienne Thorwell, Editor in Chief of Imperial Astrographic, shook his head with an expression which tried, not entirely successfully, to be more of a scowl than a grin. "Late as usual—way past deadline! And don't you dare tell me you want per diem for the extra time, you little weasel!"
"Good to see you again, too, Etienne," Mansul said with a smile of his own. He walked across the office, and Thorwell stood to shake his hand. Then the editor gave a "what-the-hell" shrug and wrapped both arms around the smaller man in a bear hug.
"Thought we'd lost you for sure this time, Harvard," he said after a moment, stepping back and holding the reporter at arm's length. "You were supposed to be back months ago!"
"I know." Mansul shrugged, and his smile was more than a little crooked. "Seems our information on the societal setup was a bit, um, out of date. The Krath have undergone a religious conversion with some really nasty side effects. They almost decided to eat me."
"Eat you?" Thorwell blinked, then regarded Mansul skeptically. "Ritualistic cannibalism of 'great white hunters' by any sort of established city-building society is for bad novelists and holodrama, Harvard."
"Usually." Mansul nodded in agreement. "This time around, though—" He shrugged. "Look, I've got the video to back it up. But even more important, I got caught in a shooting war between the 'civilized' cannibals and a bunch of 'barbarian tribesmen' who objected to being eaten... and did something about it. It's pretty damned spectacular stuff, Etienne."
That much, he reflected, was certainly true. Of course, he'd had to do some pretty careful editing to keep any of the humans (or their weapons) from appearing in the aforesaid video. A few carefully scripted interviews with Pedi Karuse's father had also been added to the mix, making it quite plain that the entire war—and the desperate battle which had concluded it—had been the result of purely Mardukan efforts. The fact that it made the Gastan look like a military genius had tickled the Shin monarch's sense of humor, but he'd covered admirably for the human involvement.
"Actual combat footage?" Thorwell's nose almost twitched, and Mansul hid a smile. He'd told Roger and O'Casey how his boss would react to that. The official IAS charter was to repor
t seriously on alien worlds and societies, with substantive analysis and exploration, not cater to core-world stereotypes of "barbarian behavior," but the editorial staff couldn't afford to ignore the realities of viewership demographics.
"Actual combat footage," he confirmed. "Pikes, axes, and black powder and the decisive defeat of the 'civilized' side by the barbarians who don't eat people. And who happen to have saved my own personal ass in the process."
"Hot damn," Thorwell said. "'Fearless reporter rescued by valiant barbarian ruler.' That kind of stuff?"
"That was how I figured on playing it," Mansul agreed. "With suitably modest commentary from myself, of course."
They looked at each other and chuckled almost in unison. Harvard Mansul had already won the coveted Interstellar Correspondents Society's Stimson-Yamaguchi Medal twice. If this footage was as good as Thorwell suspected it was, he might be about to win it a third time.
Mansul knew exactly what the chief editor was thinking. But what made him chuckle was the knowledge that he had the SYM absolutely sewed up once he was able to actually release the documentary he'd done of Roger's adventures on Marduk. Especially with the inside track he'd been promised on coverage of the countercoup after it came off, as well.
"I've got a lot of other stuff, too," the reporter went on after a few moments. "In-depth societal analysis of both sides, some pretty good stuff on their basic tech capabilities, and an update on the original geological survey. It really underestimated the planet's vulcanism, Etienne, and I think that probably played a big part in how some of the social developments played out. And a lot on basic culture, including their arts and crafts and their cuisine." He shook his head and rolled his eyes appreciatively. "And I've gotta tell you, while I don't think I'd care a bit for Krath dietary staples, the rest of these people can cook.
"Just before the wheels came off for the Krath, they made contact with these people from the other side of the local ocean—from a place called K'Vaern's Cove, sort of a local maritime trading empire—and I got some good footage on them, too. And the food those people turned out!"
He shook his head, and Thorwell chuckled again.
