by Jay Allan
“We have more than a few of those in the Confederation, too. You have my understanding, and my sympathy that you have to deal with such issues. I would help you if I could, if my demands were things I could live without. But they are not. Whatever you have to do, whatever risks are involved, if you want Rim military assistance—and understand, I cannot guarantee that no matter what you do—you will have to find a way.”
Akella let out a long exhale. “Very well, Tyler Barron. You have come here at our request, and I can see how much effort it has taken for you to see beyond the understandable bad feelings from the war. I will do what I must, at whatever risk. I believe I can assemble a team of people I can trust to dispatch to Colossus. And I will see that the targeting information, and all supporting scanner readings are provided to you. I would order it uploaded to Dauntless’s data banks, but there is too much risk of detection, especially with a transmission of that size and duration. I will have data crystals prepared and brought to your shuttle…late tonight. Perhaps you can come up with some reason you must return to your ship, an illness, or perhaps some routine command business. That will offer us some cover, at least.”
“Thank you, Akella…I truly mean that. I will not lie and tell you it is easy for me to imagine fighting alongside your people after everything that has happened. But I believe you…I am beginning to trust you. If you knew me better, you’d realize what a slow and rare thing that is for me.”
“I feel as though I am beginning to know you as well, Tyler Barron…and also to understand you. Perhaps because, in many ways, I feel we are much alike.”
Barron didn’t say anything, but he agreed with her statement, more perhaps than he was ready to accept yet.
* * *
“You are young for your post, Lieutenant Simms. Your billet would normally have gone to a lieutenant commander, at least, and possibly a full commander, especially on a flagship like Dauntless. You are only here because Anya Fritz recommended you, so we expect that you will show your appreciation through the quality of your work.” Atara Travis spoke to the officer, her tone imposing, not exactly hostile, but unrelenting in a way that Travis had long made her own.
Barron and his longtime comrade shared many traits with each other, but Atara had always had a harder edge than he did. She inspired loyalty in her spacers, almost as much as he did, but her approach had always been different, just a bit rougher.
He wondered if that was a natural result of her difficult childhood and her stubborn ascent from the impoverished ghettoes of her homeworld…or something she’d developed to stand out after so many years in his shadow.
Or both. That seemed the likeliest answer.
“Yes, Admiral. Certainly. Commodore Fritz’s support is a source of immense pride. And, I will do my best, for you and Admiral Barron. For the Confederation.”
Barron almost winced at the blinding earnestness of the youthful officer’s response. Was I ever that young?
No, I wasn’t, came the answer, from someplace deep inside him. Barron had been born into immense privilege and advantage, but he’d shouldered the attendant responsibilities for as long as he could remember.
“I am sure you will do that, Lieutenant.” Barron spoke up, partially out of pity for the young officer. Atara seemed like she was ready to ride him hard—not even his trusted aide was immune from the stress building all around them all—and he decided to take a lighter approach. Anybody with Anya Fritz’s full-throated support didn’t need to be pushed to work hard…or to do his best. No one drove people harder than Fritz.
“There are petabytes of data, Lieutenant, all scanner readings from Hegemony ships facing the new invaders. You will immediately see the…irregularity…of the enemy contacts. We also have the results of Hegemony analysis, and the resulting theory of how to track these vessels with sufficient accuracy to establish fire locks. That method has been demonstrated to be at least moderately effective. Your job, and you can assemble any team you require, regardless of the ranks of the members, is to adapt the Hegemony algorithm to function with our own targeting networks. I don’t know if we will become involved in this conflict, Lieutenant, but I want us to be ready in case we do. Once you’ve ported the Hegemony routines to our own systems, and confirmed that they work, you will review the raw data in extreme detail. I don’t mind borrowing from the Hegemony, Lieutenant, but I wouldn’t object to us improving on their work as well…doing them one better, as we used to say back at the Academy. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, sir!” The lieutenant still looked a bit intimidated—which seemed natural enough—but he was also enthusiastic, and clearly anxious to begin.
“I want you to get started immediately. If you have any trouble securing the personnel you need, just comm Admiral Travis or myself. This is our number one priority right now. I’m counting on you, Lieutenant. Don’t let me down.” Barron knew it was a little unfair dumping that on the kid…but he needed the scanner technician to work himself to exhaustion.
“Yes, Admiral!” The officer saluted crisply, and he turned and raced out of the room, looking a bit like he wasn’t sure where to start.
“Are you sure about all this, Tyler?” Atara waited until the Simms had left, but then she looked at him with a concerned expression on her face. “I don’t doubt these…Others…are a threat, and perhaps to us as well as the Heggies. But to ask the Senate to send the fleet, to dive right in alongside them, like they’re trusted allies…” Atara Travis didn’t often disagree with Barron, and truth be told, his own view wasn’t far from hers. He didn’t like the situation any more than she did, and he didn’t trust the Hegemony, at least behind his fragile and tentative connection with Akella. But that didn’t change reality. The Others were dangerous, and it seemed the wildest of wishful thinking to assume they would limit their hostilities to the Hegemony and stop short of the Rim.
“I have seen more of the Others than you have, Atara. I don’t like the situation any more than you do, but what if we’d allowed past incidents to keep us from allying with the Alliance, or with Denisov’s people?”
“That’s not the same situation, and you know it. I was there when we fought Invictus, and it was a bloody fight, one that still gives me nightmares. But it was two ships, on the edge of neutral space. The Hegemony invaded the Rim, occupied our capital.”
“Then what about Denisov and his ships? How easy was it to trust a Union officer and his spacers? How many have died in the four wars we fought against them? Yet, if my memory is not faulty, Denisov’s arrival pulled our asses out of the fire.” Barron looked at Travis, and he reached out, putting his hand on her shoulder. “When was the last time we got to do something because we wanted to, because we were comfortable with it? Do we have a choice here? You’ve seen enough of the footage to know those ships are bad news. Can we risk facing them at Dannith, or Ulion? Do you think we could stop them at Megara? Or anywhere?”
She was silent for a moment, and finally, she just shook her head and said, “No…I know you’re right. It’s just hard.”
“You bet your ass it’s hard. Do you remember anything not being hard?”
“No, I guess not.” A short paused, and then changed the subject slightly. “Who are you sending back?”
“Jon Riley.” Barron didn’t hesitate in his reply. He’d already decided who he was going to send to the Senate to make his case.
Travis looked surprised, for an instant. Then she just smiled and said, “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Confederation Embassy
Liberte City
Planet Montmirail, Ghassara IV
Union Year 225 (321 AC)
Sandrine Ciara walked down the street, trying to look as calm and unobtrusive as possible. She wore a disguise, a good one, a full-scale professional job, but she didn’t fool herself. The AI scanners in the Hall of the People were leading edge. She might get past them if she went through the main entrance, but she d
oubted that chance was more than one in three…and a lot less if the paranoid Villieneuve still had the emergency protocols in place.
Paranoid? You’re on your way to try to kill him, so is it really fair to call him paranoid right now?
She thought she saw movement toward her, and she tensed, turning to the side, her combat reflexes kicking into action. But it was nothing. She tried to relax her pose, ignoring the fact that a number of passersby were looking at her.
Do that again, and you might as well just walk up to Sector Nine headquarters and ask them to put you in a cell…
She moved down the street as quickly as she could without drawing further attention to herself. The Hall of the People was just down the street. She’d decided against a run through the main entrance security, but she knew one or two other ways in that might avoid unwanted scrutiny.
Or, at least would have before Villieneuve got riled up by the coup attempt. There’s no telling what changes he’s made…
She couldn’t be sure the security lapses she knew about were still in place, but it was her best bet…and if she did get in, she’d be better placed to reach the lower levels, where her true destination lay.
That wasn’t where she was supposed to be going, at least not as far as Alexander Kerevsky was concerned. The Confed spy had sent her in to try to kill Villieneuve, but he’d intended her to target only the First Citizen, and perhaps his immediate advisors and guards who were present. But that was a fool’s game, an effort far too direct, too audacious to succeed. She needed another way, one that rested more in the shadows. She wanted Villieneuve dead…and he would be just as out of the picture if he was killed alone, or along with a few thousand others.
Kerevsky wouldn’t approve, she knew that. But as much as she had feelings for the Confed spy—and she did, real ones—she was an agent herself, and her Sector Nine training gave her a greater tolerance for collateral damage than Kerevsky would ever understand. She could take a wild chance, hoping against hope that she somehow got to Villieneuve and managed to kill him at close quarters, and then made good her own escape. Or she could sabotage the reactor under the Hall, obliterating the building—and a few square kilometers of central Liberte City. A lot of people would die, certainly, but if she could kill Villieneuve—and, with any luck more than a few of her potential rivals in the race to fill the power vacuum—she could avoid a renewed war against the Confederation. That was a fair trade for ten or twenty thousand of Liberte City’s population. Preventing a future war alone would save millions.
That was the kind of thing the Confeds never understood. They were fond of platitudes, of refusals to answer questions like, ‘would you kill one to save ten?’ But there was no question millions would be killed when Villieneuve completed his rebuilding of the fleet and invaded the Confederation. She would prevent that from happening if she secured power, and even if she didn’t manage to gain the top position, any replacement for Villieneuve would be more concerned with consolidating power than provoking foreign wars.
She slipped around the corner, resisting the urge to look around her, to check if she was being observed or followed. She slipped to the side, down a small access road leading around to the back of the Hall. She looked along the blank gray masonry wall, her eyes searching for something she remembered. She’d almost given up hope, assumed Villieneuve had dealt with the security breach, when her eyes focused on it.
A small metal access door.
She walked over and pulled on it. It was locked. That wasn’t a surprise. But now she faced one of the most dangerous moments in her mission. She knew the access code, at least what it had been, and in a moment, she was going to enter it on the small keypad half-obscured by tall weeds. When she did, one of several things would happen. The door would open, proving that the code was still good, that it hadn’t been changed…or leading her into a trap, one triggered by the AI detecting an old and outdated code used for access.
Or nothing would happen. Or Foudre Rouge would come storming around the corner in a matter of second. She wouldn’t know until she tried, or perhaps not until after. Until she reached the reactor.
Until she was back out of the Hall and in the safe house.
She paused and took a deep breath, and then she pushed herself forward. She’d gotten this far, but every wasted second was another chance of being detected. She leaned forward, shoving the tall grass aside and placing her hand on the keypad. She hesitated again, and a few seconds later, pushing against the fear, she punched in the code. She watched and waited, a time that seemed like hours, but she knew had been only a second or two. Then, the old door slid open, its old and corroded surface moving slowly, jerkily. But it did open, at least far enough for her to squeeze through.
She dropped down to the floor, her feet landing in a puddle, splashing water all around her. Good. It’s empty, not maintained. Just the way I remember it.
She walked down the narrow hallway, pausing once or twice to look around, to confirm her memories the best she could. It had been years since she’d been in the sub-basement’s largely abandoned corridors. She’d used the eerily quiet place for clandestine meetings she’d wanted to keep private, away from the prying eyes that scoured almost every square centimeter of the massive building.
She moved quickly—even down in the lower level, time wasn’t on her side. She knew roughly the way to the reactor, though she had to stop several times and get her bearings. Unlike the empty basement corridors, the reactor would have security. Guards—at least two—plus surveillance systems, alarms. Once she got there, and took out the guards, she’d have at best a few minutes to do what she had to do.
And she wouldn’t have much more time to escape after. Ideally, she’d give herself an hour or more to get out of the building and far enough away from the blast zone. But that wasn’t remotely possible. Her sabotage would set off alarms, no matter how careful she was, and if she left enough time, someone would get down there and prevent the explosion. She could give herself ten minutes, at most…and she was far from sure that was long enough to get out of the kill zone.
But it was her best chance. Her only chance. Kerevsky had to leave in three days, and without her Confederation allies, she knew it was only a matter of time before Villieneuve’s hunters caught up to her.
She stopped suddenly, her ears picking up something. Talk. Up ahead and around the corner.
She crept forward slowly, her hand moving around behind her, into the bag she’d hidden under her coat. There was a small pistol inside, and a knife.
She pulled the blade out. She had no idea where the guards would be in the room, and silence was still her ally, if only for a few more seconds.
She moved ahead, reaching the place she remembered, the hole in the wall, surrounded by crumbed masonry. It hadn’t changed, not in all the time since she’d been there. She knew what lay beyond, a metal lined corridor, and less than five meters farther along, the entrance to the reactor room.
And the guards. Waiting.
She wasn’t overly concerned about the sentries. They were dangerous, of course, but the posting was a dull and sleepy one, and she doubted they were expecting any trouble. If she kept her cool, remembered her training and experience, she could take down one of them, at least, before alerting the other one.
She tried to steel herself for the effort, to regain the confidence and the feeling of preparedness that had been so fleeting the past weeks in hiding. She’d felt more like a terrified animal, running from hunters than the cool and capable agent she was. Now she needed that strength back, she had to wash away the failure of the coup. The reactor sentries weren’t from any crack team, but they could kill her easily enough if she gave them a chance.
She moved forward, feeling a familiar energy as she did, one that had been absent for weeks. Her hand gripped the knife tightly, and she continued down the corridor, almost gilding above the smooth metal floor. She took one final breath, slowly, quietly…and then she spun around the corner, mo
ving quickly toward the door.
There were two guards, as she’d expected, flanking the doorway to the reactor. She moved up on one, reaching him an instant after he saw her. He started to turn, and his hand dropped to his sidearm. But he was too late. Her arm moved with blinding speed, and the razor-sharp edge of her blade whipped by along his throat. For an instant, he just stood where he was, and then a torrent of blood flowed out from the deep gash she’d left. He dropped to his knees, holding there for a second or two before he fell forward, landing face down on the floor.
But Ciara was already on the move. She’d covered half the distance to the other guard before the man managed to react. His hand was down to his waist, and then up, holding his pistol. Ciara’s mind was racing, calculating, updating the situation with each passing fraction of a second. The doubts, the defeat, the fear…they were all gone in that brief instant. Only the stone-cold killer remained.
Her knife was out in front of her, its gleaming silvery alloy partially stained now with a sheen of bright crimson. Her eyes darted down, to her enemy’s gun, and then back to his face. He was falling back slightly, trying to bring the weapon to bear, and she made a quick decision. A throat slash was too difficult, too easy to block. And it was probably what he expected. She angled her hand, bringing the point of the knife forward, and her eyes focused on her target. The chest could be difficult. The sternum could deflect a poorly aimed blow, as could the ribs. She’d killed before with blows to the chest, and she knew what to do. It was just a question of getting there before her opponent fired.
