Rebellion, page 10
“Then what happens?” the courier asked.
“Presumably they take that ship into the depths of the galaxy and use it to fight a war with other aliens,” Gore stated.
He noted the slightest twitch in the man’s eyes, but they were all Westphalian. The concept of other aliens out there that might be a threat to Humanity was enough to unnerve the strongest men and women.
“Is it in our benefit to encourage a war between aliens, fought elsewhere?” Ferdinand probed.
“It is,” Gore agreed. “I am working to insert assassins, but the target party has been divided into two groups, one with the High Council and one secured at Naval Headquarters. It is quite likely that the attempt, success or failure, will blow so many covers and agents that a mass extraction might be necessary. By the time you reach Earth with your news, things will be close to culminating here, so I need to inform your superiors, our superiors, so that they are prepared if a mob is following close on behind you. I will try to shield as much of the organization as I can, but this might be worth destroying all that work, if we can keep Rio from gaining new and potentially powerful allies.”
The man licked his lips once and nodded. A slow blink seemed to confirm everything in deep memory, where it could be drawn out later.
“When should I depart?” Ferdinand asked.
“Immediately,” Gore said. “All teams have been activated and tasked. It is out of my hands, except where the failure might reach the stage where I am endangered.”
“Does anybody know where Ajax is located?” Ferdinand asked.
“The Captain of the vessel,” Gore said. “Probably the two aliens. It is doubtful that any of the others will be privy.”
“And capturing them for interrogation?”
“Too risky,” Gore replied, nodding. “I had considered it, but the evidence suggests that eliminating them now pushes Ajax out of the current sphere of concern. It hopefully reduces the chance of a Rio/Alien alliance for the time being, while we work to reduce Rio.”
“Should surveys be sent out to locate the aliens?” Ferdinand asked, speaking the first question they would put to him on Earth, most likely.
“Only if you wish to open a multi-front war,” Gore fought not to sneer at the man. He was just the messenger. “We cannot afford it. If there are as many aliens as the report you will take home suggests, we are probably surrounded on all sides. Better we work on technology research, so that we can overwhelm any aliens we do encounter.”
“Understood,” Ferdinand said. “Do you have anything else to transmit?”
“No,” Gore said. He pulled a reader from a pocket and handed it to the man. “Read and memorize this material and you will be ready to depart.”
He leaned back and watched the man’s eyes flicker over each page. There was significant intelligence in there, but the man only took fifteen minutes to read it all, barely pausing to sip at his drink as he did.
Finally he handed the reader back.
“Thoughts?” Gore asked. “Questions?”
“Negative, sir,” Ferdinand replied in a quiet voice. “Compelling and dangerous.”
“We should assume that the Rio Alliance must be broken in the next five years, if not utterly defeated,” Gore said. “After that, the chances are good that another Atomarsk mining vessel will stumble into a Human explorer, with yet another set of aliens that will resist our efforts to expand our colonies. Go.”
Gore finished his drink as the man exited the library.
He would make it to Earth and let those people know that trouble beyond their worst nightmares had erupted. And there was nothing they would be able to do about it, but Gore had been given sufficient authority to make those decisions, by the nature of his position in the government.
On the surface, just another senior bureaucrat from a good family with an inheritance and sufficient cover. How could those fools know what went on inside the sanctum of his mind?
He would see the Rio Alliance fall.
With any luck, his hand might even hold the blade.
Twenty-Nine
Oluchi
Oluchi smiled at the woman who was a representative of the High Council, as they attempted, yet again, to question his motives, his position, and his authority.
“Because I am attached to the Churquen Embassy,” he answered her, again, in a bright innocent voice that would brook no silliness. “Ambassador Dunham has accredited me to speak partly in her voice, at least as far as negotiating pacts of trade and such.”
“Yisan is not part of the Rio Alliance,” the leader of the small group across the table from him retorted.
Oluchi paused to study the three of them. One man on his right. The woman across from him with the authority. One more woman on his left. The outer two were just bureaucrats. Faceless and interchangeable, although the junior woman was rather cute, once he thought about it.
“Innruld Space is not part of the Rio Alliance, either, madam,” Oluchi noted. “I also speak with trade authority for the merchants of Yisan, through whose space I suspect a significant tonnage of cargo bound for Churquen worlds will pass. I might remind your masters that they will wish to be on good terms with those merchants at Yisan, if they wish to consider future expansion or colonies in that direction and not any sort of organized polity one of these days.”
He could almost see steam coming off the woman’s head. The two on her flanks were even less skilled at maintaining their façades.
Oluchi figured he was only slightly bluffing. Eduardo Martìnez had specifically ensured that Oluchi was part of the team to rescue Eha originally, hanging up on Lazarus, seated all of three feet away, to call Oluchi two seconds later with key pieces of information.
Eduardo had understood immediately that this was going to be big. And trusted Oluchi to keep his interests, and all of Yisan by association, in mind.
“I am not authorized to negotiate with representatives of Yisan,” the woman said the words slowly. Painfully. Angrily.
“Then I will continue to speak with you as a representative of Ambassador Dunham,” Oluchi smiled warmly, just to frost them an extra layer.
This was even more fun than seducing rich, older women with needs and nobody willing to treat them as people rather than meal tickets. But that was why Oluchi had been so successful for so long.
A willingness to simply listen when a woman wanted to bitch, hold her when she wanted to be held, and take her off line at the appropriate times, too.
This main bureaucrat didn’t look like one who needed his services. Still, the one on the left, a dark brunette with the sort of dark brown skin that was common in this sector of space, was giving off subtle signs as he watched them all.
None of them would last twenty minutes across from him at a poker table.
“I will need to consult my superiors.” The woman in the center grimaced and rose, awkward and off-balance physically as well as mentally.
The other two were a moment slower.
Oluchi watched the brunette with a smile. She briefly smiled back. Could he seduce her for information? Or let her seduce him, depending on whose orders meant what?
Eha was a spymaster of great skill. Oluchi had figured that out pretty quickly, back on Ajax, but then, he’d listened to her talk. Understood her words and context.
And was more than willing to let her set him on these bumbling bureaucrats, as long as he was able to get a thin slice of things going by. Even a few basis points would be fun, when there were going to be that many zeroes involved.
Oluchi rose after the others and saw them to the door of this conference room, where he could see his minders waiting patiently in the hall. None of them were likely to break responsibility long enough to fool around, which was something of a shame, but he could appreciate them not wanting to risk their jobs.
The main woman stomped off, followed closely by the man. The brunette hesitated for a long moment, glancing at him. Oluchi smiled an invitation, to which she nodded and departed quickly after the others.
He took a long breath and let them have a head start to the lifts. It was close enough to lunch time and he could head there now.
None of the guards were apparently allowed names around him, but again, Oluchi wasn’t offended. The High Council was trying to keep control of things by maintaining something of a dignified distance, even as everyone was more or less confined to a large, rural estate.
He nodded to the man assigned as a minder today and turned left, headed for the stairs instead of the lift. The guard fell in a step behind and followed. Presumably the man would eat after going off duty, regardless of previous suggestions that he could just sit and have a cup of tea or something.
They didn’t do that.
The lunchroom was sparsely inhabited. Oluchi stayed away from the formal restaurant where important personages were served, preferring to eat with the staff. The decor wasn’t anywhere near as good, but the ambiance and cheerfulness more than made up for it. And it all came from the same kitchen, as near as he could tell.
Down the communal line, with food deposited on plates and his tray. Stop for a tea pot while his guard glowered at people to keep them at a polite distance. Out into the main area and taking a table currently unoccupied, so as to not put anyone off their lunch.
He ate, wondering. Waiting. Something.
It had been a week of dickering and bickering, with little to show for it. The Rio Alliance wanted names, dates, and places. Eha wanted assurances before she offered up Innruld Space to potential new overlords.
Deadlock was the result. Or gridlock.
He ate. The food was pretty good today, pasta with meat and a pink sauce, but that was him getting here twenty minutes before most people.
Oluchi had a view of the main doorway from where he sat.
He saw the brunette woman from earlier enter, look around, and spot him. No blush marred her elegant face as she turned and went for a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup.
Interestingly, the minder chose this moment to supposedly absently wander to a corner of the room, far enough away not to eavesdrop but close enough to watch.
Oluchi wondered if they thought he was that dense or not paying any attention, but wasn’t going to point out bad tradecraft, just because it was aimed at him. They might decide to send professionals instead next time.
And seducing a spy and seducing a woman required the same skills, most of the time.
Anya, that was her name. She hesitated cutely as she approached and sat down across from him.
“Sorry about this morning,” she offered carefully.
He smiled and tried to look innocent. Oluchi Pryce had a LOT of experience at that sort of thing.
“Eventually, the wheels of bureaucracy will grind far enough,” Anya continued. “But everyone has to have their hand in things first, adding a signature or getting a bullet point to their approval.”
Oluchi nodded.
“My concern, however, is still with the timing,” he offered, just as blandly, to see where she would go with it. “At some point, we need to go check in with Addison.”
“Surely not all of you?” Anya asked.
“Actually, I would presume just the opposite,” he countered. “Eha has only spoken briefly with Lazarus since he and the others were diverted, but Eha has some nervousness about that sort of thing, especially after the events at Yisan.”
“Did you really storm a yacht?” she asked, eyes glowing just a little.
“Lazarus did,” he corrected her. “And we snuck aboard, stunning several people at first, until we realized how complicit the entire crew was. At that point, everyone took their gloves off. I doubt any of the crew survived after we blew the boat up, considering the size of that storm.”
“Would they do anything like that here?” she asked, faking a pretty good breathlessness.
“The whole reason they did it in the first place was to keep Ajax from setting the colony on fire in retribution for some moron hurting Eha,” he leaned forward, just so he could whisper the words and see the impact.
She was a pretty good actress, for a cute bureaucrat. Amateur, but well-meaning.
“So if all of you don’t go out to meet the others…?”
“I would presume that the Rio Alliance would have blown its chance to achieve a meaningful working relationship with Addison Wolcott and the Species Underground,” Oluchi repeated the key piece that probably nobody in authority had really believed. “He’ll still have a warm spot for the Humans at Yisan, who helped him in his time of need, but that’s because we had already killed everyone for him.”
Someone really engaged emotionally would have flinched, or something. Reacted, however viscerally. He’d made enough of a living at poker tables to read layers deep on people.
Anya did react, but it was a calculated thing. Just a shade off, but fish that’s gone bad is just a shade off, as well. Her eyes gave her away. Too shrewd for this sort of conversation.
He nearly chuckled when one of her hands crept across the table and rested next to his. Just touching, rather than holding, but more than his minder would have allowed, if someone hadn’t ordered the man to move far enough away to make this look and feel like a casual assignation.
Her hands were cold.
“So you’ll go away with them?” Anya asked in a soft, throaty tone.
“Briefly,” he smiled.
Hell, if they wanted to throw this woman at him, he wasn’t about to say no. Would trust her about as far as he could throw her, but he’d let her set the pace on verisimilitude. And take advantage of it.
There hadn’t been any women around since Fernanda, after all. Not counting several alien females who had not expressed any sort of interest. And Grace only had eyes for Lazarus.
“But that’s just to sort out the bad guys,” Oluchi continued, letting himself even sound sincere.
Faking that had been the hardest lesson to learn. And the most fruitful over his career.
He smiled into her eyes and put all his experience to work.
“Once the Innruld are handled, I’m sure the next stop will be to return here for an extended period,” he said in an open-ended, inviting sort of tone, just to see what her orders were.
Oluchi felt like a shit, but he hadn’t set these rules. Just understood on Day One that the fools in Greenbriar and the vicinity didn’t really understand how the rest of the universe worked, once you got away from all the silly, meaningless, bureaucratic squabbles.
Most of these people had never been shot at, and those that had had been serving in the military, probably.
“How would you feel about a private meeting for a while?” she asked awkwardly, going so far as to bat her eyelashes at him. “I’ve reserved a conference room and you don’t currently have anything on your calendar for two hours.”
Oluchi smiled. He’d done dumber, riskier, crazier things. And it wasn’t like they could blackmail him with video. He might insist on a copy for himself, just to seed various video services with as an advertisement for his services, if he ever had to go back to that kind of life. Lazarus was too serious to appreciate performance art as a practical joke, but he didn’t need to.
Eha would get a good laugh out of it.
Oluchi finished his tea and nodded.
If she had any sense or experience with this sort of thing, she would have immediately walked out the door and waited down a hallway for him. Instead, she rose and nodded at him, almost making the whole scene kabuki in case any of the secretaries had missed the subtext of what was going on over here.
They walked side by side, with his minder casually—and more importantly silently—following along. Oluchi wondered just what they might think they could demand of him later, since they were going all this way to set him up, presumably for blackmail later.
Or maybe they thought they could set him up with a girlfriend to whom he would spill all his secrets?
Inwardly, he shrugged. Pillow talk required pillows, rather than conference tables with full audio/video functionality.
He’d let them figure that out on their own.
Or not.
Thirty
Addison
Addison studied the readout on the screen, ever so happy that he had decided to park the ship out here in a LaGrange point to watch as a way of killing time when Ajax was ahead of the original schedule. A far better alternative to having been in orbit of the planet at the wrong moment.
That was a Westphalian Task Force over there, intent on something more than mere mischief.
He’d listened to Lazarus talk about the GunWall, but never really understood the concept. Innruld Space was a police state, to use the Human conception. One authority exercising control with no overt challenges. No war fleets. Just occasional Security Barcs or Innruld Pyramids.
Westphalia had brought a fleet. A GunWall. Each of the little ships looked like a flying mushroom, with a shield around the bow gun and a Star Spear on the central mount, plus eight Powerbolts around the rim. About midway back on the hull they had an articulation point that let the engines and rear half of the ship rotate forward past ninety degrees. A Phalanx-class destroyer like those could keep the bow centered on an enemy force while maneuvering sideways.
Each set of four Phalanx ships protected a leader, known as an Archer, where the Star Spear had been upgraded to a more powerful Star Lance and the number of Powerbolts cut in half.
A team of five would be a terrible thing against anything in Innruld Space lighter than one of the bigger Security Barcs. When you had four such teams, you added a CommandWall, where they kept the eight Powerbolts but replaced the cannon with added space for a senior Director to control all twenty-one vessels.
Lazarus had said that Ajax could take on an entire GunWall like that, if it had a full crew of trained sailors. Truly a frightening thought.
Addison had Kuei, Wybert, and Cormac. It would not be enough to even consider, since the Westphalian force had two GunWalls and something the encyclopedia called a Heavy Starcruiser, plus any number of cargo vessels coming and going.
