“We will have. I suspect Delvan is correct when he says Hiltch will want to open with a grand gesture. That should work in our favour. As always when a land is invaded, its people pull together. They’ll see that as individuals they can offer no resistance to the Liberation forces, and they’ll flee their isolation in search of group sanctuary. We will gather ourselves together as a people again. Then the battle will be joined in full.”
Annette’s growing smile was a physical demonstration of the satisfaction spreading through her thoughts. “Remember Stephanie Ash, what I told her about having to decide whose side she was on? That self-righteous cow just stood there smiling politely the whole time, knowing her world view was the real thing and that I’d come round to her way of thinking in the end. Looks like I’ll have the last laugh after all—even if it is only a short one. Damn, I’m going to enjoy that almost as much as I am bollixing up my dear old friend Ralph’s campaign.”
“You really think we’ll be able to start recruiting into the regiments again?” Delvan asked Soi Hon.
“Can you think of nothing but your own position and power? It is not the regiments which will inflict the worst casualties, but the united people. Group ten of us together, and the destructive potential of our energistic power is an order of magnitude greater than any artillery the Liberation forces can bring to bear.”
“Which is less than one per cent of the lowest powered maser on a Strategic Defence platform, and that’s before we get into the heavy duty systems like their X-ray lasers,” Annette said, tired of their bickering. “It’s not our numbers which matter, but our ability to communicate and organise. That’s what we have to safeguard until the last of us is shoved into zero-tau.”
“I agree,” Delvan said. “The whole war is going to be an extremely fluid situation from the start. Lightning strikes, hit the bastards and run, are what we should be planning for.”
“Exactly, that’s where I expect you two to combine for me. Your overall strategy, Delvan, combined with Soi’s tactics. It’s a lethal alliance, the equivalent of the Kingdom and the Edenists.”
“An inspired comparison,” Soi chuckled.
“My pleasure. All right, let’s start looking at the map, and see who we’re going to send where.”
* * *
It was Emmet Mordden, again, who was on duty in the operations centre when the Organization fleet started to emerge above New California. The hellhawks were first, their wormholes opening more or less in the official emergence zone, a hundred thousand kilometres above Monterey. That gave them some warning that the Adamist craft were en route. Emmet quickly called in five more operatives to monitor their rag-tag arrival. They certainly aimed for the emergence zone, but with possessed officers on board aiming and hitting were increasingly separate concepts. Event horizons started to inflate across a vast section of space around the planet; the only thing regular about them was the timing. One every twenty seconds.
The big flight trajectory holoscreens ringing the centre had to change perspective several times, clicking down through their magnification to encompass space right out to Requa, New California’s fourth moonlet. Black icons started to erupt across the screen as if it was being struck by dirty rain.
The AI began to absorb the swarm of information datavised in from the SD sensor platforms, and started plotting the starships’ erratic trajectories. Multiple vector lines sprang up on every console display. The operators studied them urgently, opening communication circuits to verify the ships were still under Organization control. Emmet got so carried along by the pandemonium of the first few minutes it took a while before he began to realize something was badly wrong with the whole episode. Firstly, they were too early, Admiral Kolhammer’s task force couldn’t possibly have arrived at Tranquillity yet. Secondly, there were too many ships. Even if the ambush had been a massive success, some ships would have been lost. Of all Capone’s lieutenants, he had the most pragmatic view of just how effective the fleet ships were.
Those two ugly facts were just beginning to register, when he sensed the dismay bubbling up among Jull von Holger’s thoughts, as the hellhawk liaison man communicated with his colleagues.
“What the hell is it?” Emmet demanded. “Why are they back here? Did they lose, chicken out, or what?”
Jull von Holger shook his head in bewilderment, most reluctant to be the messenger of bad news. “No. No, they didn’t lose. Their target . . . Tranquillity jumped away.”
Emmet frowned at him.
“Look, just call Luigi, okay. I don’t understand it myself.”
Emmet gave him a long dissatisfied look, then turned to his own console. He ordered it to find the Salvatore’s transponder, and open a channel to the flagship. “What’s going on?” he asked when a fuzzy picture of Luigi Balsamo appeared in the corner of his display.
“She tricked us,” Luigi shouted angrily. “That Saldana bitch ran away. Christ knows how she managed it, but the whole thing vanished down a wormhole. Nobody told us a habitat could do that. You never warned us, did you? You’re supposed to be the Organization’s technical whiz kid. Why the fuck didn’t you say something?”
“About what? What do you mean it went down a wormhole? What went down a wormhole?”
“Why don’t you listen, shitbrain? The habitat! The habitat vanished in front of us!”
Emmet stared at the image, refusing to believe what he’d heard. “I’m calling Al,” he said eventually.
* * *
It was the first time Luigi had ever been intimidated by the big double doors of the Nixon suite. There were a couple of soldiers on duty outside, wearing their standard fawn-brown double-breasted suits, big square-jawed guys with a dark rasp of stubble, glossy Thompson machine guns held prominently. He could sense several people milling about inside, their familiar thoughts dull and unhappy as they waited for him. He thought of all the punishments and reprimands he’d attended in his own capacity as one of the Organization’s elite lieutenants. The omens weren’t good.
One of the soldiers opened the doors, a superior in-the-know grin on his face. He didn’t say anything, just made a mocking gesture of welcome. Luigi resisted the urge to smash his face to pulp, and walked in.
“What the fuck happened?” Al bellowed.
Luigi glanced round at the semicircle of erstwhile friends as the doors closed behind him. Patricia was there, as was Silvano, Jezzibella, Emmet, Mickey, and that little bitch Kiera. All of them going with the tide that was sweeping him away to drown.
“We were given some very bad information.” He looked pointedly at Patricia. “Perez sold us a dummy. And you bought it.”
“He didn’t,” she snapped. “He possessed one of the First Admiral’s top aids in Trafalgar. Kolhammer was heading straight for Tranquillity.”
“And we would have got him, too. If somebody had just warned me. I mean, Jesus H Christ, an entire goddamn habitat flitting off. Do you have any idea how big that thing was?”
“Who cares?” Al said. “The habitat wasn’t your main target. You were there to blow up Kolhammer’s ships.”
“The only way we could do that was if we’d captured the habitat first,” Luigi said angrily. “Don’t try blaming all this on me. I did everything you asked.”
“Who the fuck else am I going to blame?” Al asked. “You were there, it was your responsibility.”
“Nobody has ever heard of a habitat that can do that before,” Luigi ground out. “Nobody.” He shoved an accusatory finger at Jezzibella. “Right?”
For whatever reason, Jezzibella had assumed her impish adolescent girl persona, red ribbons tying her hair into ponytails, a white blouse and grey pleated skirt not really covering her body. She pouted, a gesture which was almost obscenely provocative. It was an act which various judges had been asked to ban when she performed it live on tour. “Right. But I’m hardly an expert on energy patterning systems, now am I?”
“Christ almighty. Emmet?” It was almost a plea.
; “It is unprecedented,” Emmet said with some sympathy.
“And you.” Luigi glared at Kiera. “You lived in a habitat. You knew all about how they work, why didn’t you tell us?” The attack didn’t quite kick up the response he expected. A flash of icy anger twisted Kiera’s thoughts, while Al simply sneered scornfully.
“Valisk was not capable of performing a swallow manoeuvre,” she said. “As far as we know, only Tranquillity has that ability. Certainly none of the Edenist habitats can. I don’t know about the other three independent habitats.”
“Didn’t stop Valisk from vanishing, though, did it,” Al muttered snidely.
Silvano gave an over-loud laugh, while Jezzibella smiled demurely at Kiera’s discomfort. Luigi looked from one to the other in puzzlement. “Okay, so are we agreed? It was a shitty situation, sure. But there was nothing I could do about it. That Saldana girl took everyone by surprise.”
“You were the fleet’s commander,” Al said. “I gave you that job because I thought you were smart, man, that you had some flare and imagination. A guy with a few qualities, know what I mean? If all I want is some putz who expects a slap on the back every time he does what he’s told I would have given the job to Bernhard Alsop. I expected more from you, Luigi, a lot more.”
“Like what? I mean, come on here, tell me, Al, just what the hell would you have done?
“Stopped it from flying out. Don’t you get it, Luigi? You were my man on the ground. I was goddamn depending on you to bring the Organization through this okay. Instead, I’m left with shit all over my face. Once you saw what was happening you should have zeroed the place.”
“Christ, why won’t any of you listen? I was fucking trying to zero it, Al. That’s what spooked Saldana; that’s what made her scoot the hell out of there. I’d got nearly five thousand of those war rockets chasing after her faster than a coyote with a hornet up its ass, and she got clean away. There was nothing we could do. We were damn lucky to cut free ourselves. The explosions from all those war rockets did some damage, too, we were . . .”
“Wooha there,” Al held up a hand. “What explosions? You just said the combat wasps never touched Tranquillity.”
“Yeah, but most of them detonated when they hit the wormhole entrance. I don’t understand none too well; the technical boys, they say it’s like a solid barrier, but it’s made out of nothing. Beats me. Anyway, the first ones started to go off, and . . . hell, you know how powerful antimatter is, they set off the others. The whole lot went off like a string of goddamn firecrackers.”
“All of them? Five thousand antimatter-powered combat wasps?”
“That’s right. Like I said, we were lucky to get out alive.”
“Sure you were.” Al’s voice had dropped to a dangerous monotone. “You’re alive, and I’m out one planet which we postponed invading, I’m down a Confederation Navy task force you were supposed to ambush, and I’ve also got to replace five thousand combat wasps fuelled up by the goddamn rarest substance in the whole fucking universe. Jeez, I’m real glad you’re back. Seeing you here smiling away in once piece makes me feel absolutely fucking peachy. You piece of shit! Do you have any idea how badly you’ve screwed up?”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Oh absolutely. You’re right. No way are you to blame for this. And you know what? I bet I know who it was. Yeah. Yeah, now I think about it, I know. It was me. That’s right, me. I’m to blame. I’m the asshole here. I made the biggest fucking mistake of my life when I put you in charge.”
“Yeah? Well I didn’t hear you whining none when I came back from Arnstat. Remember that day? I delivered a whole fucking planet on a fucking plate for you, Al. You gave me the keys for the city back then. Parties, girls, you even made Avvy track down a genuine copy of the Clark Gable Gone with the Wind for me. Nothing. Nothing was too much trouble. I was loyal to you, then, and I’m loyal to you now. I don’t deserve any of this. All you lost was a few lousy rockets and some fancy fuel. I put my life on the line for you, Al. And we all know how goddamn precious that is now, don’t we? Well, do you know what? I don’t deserve to be treated like this. It ain’t right.”
Al scowled, looking round the other lieutenants. They all kept their faces blank, of course, but their minds were boiling. Annoyance and doubt were the predominant emotions. He guessed his own mind would show the same. He was fucking furious with Luigi, it was the first defeat the Organization had been dealt, the news boys would crow about it clear over the Confederation. His image would take a terrible battering, and as Jez always said: image was everything in the modern world. The aura of the Organization’s invincibility would be hit badly. Yet at the same time, Luigi was right, he had done his best, right from the start when they’d all walked into City Hall in the ballsiest escapade this side of the Trojan horse.
“By rights, I ought to fucking fry you, Luigi,” Al said darkly. “We’ve been set back weeks thanks to what happened at Tranquillity. I’ve got to find another planet to invade, I’ve got to wait until we’ve built up a decent new stock of antimatter, the reporters will hang me out to dry, everyone’s confidence is busted. But I’m not going to. And the only reason I’m not going to is because you came back here like a man. You ain’t afraid to admit you made a mistake.”
There was a new flash of anger in Luigi’s mind at that. Al waited, mildly intrigued, but it was never voiced. He materialised a Havana, and took a comfortable drag before saying: “So I’ll make you an offer. You can stay with the Organization, but I’m going to bust you right back down to the bottom of the ladder again. You’re a private zero class, Luigi. I know the other guys’ll go hard on you for a while, but you stay loyal, you keep your nose clean, and you can work your way back up again. I can’t be no fairer than that.”
Luigi gawped at Al, struggling with disbelief at what he’d just heard while a strangled choke growled up from his throat. His mind was telegraphing the notion of outright rebellion. Al fixed him with the look, all humour eradicated. “You won’t like the alternative.”
“All right, Al,” Luigi said slowly. “I can live with that. But I’m telling you, I’ll be back in charge of the fleet inside of six months.”
Al guffawed, and clapped Luigi’s arm. “That’s my boy. I knew I made the right decision with you.” Luigi managed a brief smile, and turned to walk out of the room. Al slumped his shoulders when the doors shut. “Guess that’s one guy we’ve lost for good.”
Jezzibella rubbed his arm in sympathy. “You did the right thing, baby. It was honourable. He did fuck up something chronic.”
“I wouldn’t have been so generous,” Kiera said. “You shouldn’t show so much kindness. People will see it as a weakness.”
“You’re dealing with people, not mechanoids,” Jezzibella said blankly. “You have to make allowances for the odd mistake. If you shoot every waiter who spills a cup of coffee over your skirt, you wind up with a self service bar.”
Kiera smiled condescendingly at her. “What you’ll actually wind up with is a group of highly efficient waiters who can do the job effectively.”
“You mean, like the way your team handled things on Valisk?”
“All teams need an effective leader.”
Al was tempted to let them go for it—nothing like a good catfight. But one bust-up among his senior lieutenants was enough for today. So instead, he said: “Speaking of which, Kiera, are the hellhawks going to keep flying for me?”
“Of course they will, Al. I’ve been busy setting up my new flight coordination office in one of the docking ledge departure lounges. Close to the action, as it were. They’ll do what I tell them to.”
“Uh huh.” He didn’t like the implications of that sweetly spoken assurance any more than the unpleasant note of victory rippling through her mind. And judging by the sudden suspicion colouring Jez’s thoughts, neither did she.
* * *
It was one of those absurd left right, left right sideways shuffles that seemingly automatically occurs when
two people try to get out of each other’s way simultaneously which finally blew Beth’s temper. She’d come out of the washroom at one end of the Mindori’s life support module to find Jed standing outside waiting to use it. He immediately dropped his head so he didn’t have to look at her and danced to one side. A move she instinctively matched. They dodged about for a couple of seconds.
The next thing Jed knew was a hand grasping his collar, and hauling him into the washroom. Bright mock sunbeams poured through the smoked-glass portholes, producing large white ovals on the polished wood floor. Archaic brass plumbing gleamed and sparkled all around the small compartment. Jed’s knee banged painfully on the rim of the enamel bath as Beth smoothly slewed his weight round like some kind of ice skater act. The door slammed shut, the lock snicked and he was shoved flat against the wall. “Listen ball-brain,” she snarled, “I was not shagging him. Okay?”
He risked a sneer, praying she wasn’t still carrying the nervejam stick. “Yeah? So what were you doing in bed with him?”
“Sleeping.” She saw the new expression of derision forming on his face, and twisted his sweatshirt fabric just a fraction tighter. “Sleeping,” she repeated forcefully. “Jeeze, mate, the guy’s brain is totally zonked. It took a time to get him quietened down, that’s all. I dozed off. Big deal. If you hadn’t stormed out so bloody fast you would have seen I still had all my clobber on.”
“That’s it?”
“What the hell do you expect? The pair of us were working our way through a kama sutra recording? Is that what you think of me? That I’m going to leap into bed with the first geriatric I meet?”
Jed knew his answer to that question was going to be critical, and possibly close to fatal if he got it wrong. “No,” he insisted, willing himself to believe it totally. Voice only would never be good enough. He often suspected Beth had some kind of advanced telepathic ability. “I don’t think that of you at all. Um . . . you’ve got more class that that. I always said so.”
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 261
