TRAITOR'S DUTY

Battlecruiser Alamo: Book 12

Richard Tongue

Battlecruiser Alamo #12: Traitor's Duty

Copyright © 2015 by Richard Tongue, All Rights Reserved

First Kindle Edition: May 2015

Cover By Keith Draws

All characters and events portrayed within this ebook are fictitious; any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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With Thanks To: Ellen Clarke, Rene Douville and Peter Long

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,  

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Chapter 1

 Ensign Gabriel Cooper, commanding the forward detachment of the Espatier strike force operating on Hades Station, raised his hand to signal the enlarged platoon behind him to hold their positions and wait. He glanced down at the watch on his wrist, the countdown timer still showing ninety seconds before the strike would begin. Two levels up, Lieutenant Esposito was in position with two smaller platoons, waiting to pounce from above and providing the distraction his force would need to break through the Cabal defenses, secure the command center, and finally bring this prolonged siege to an end.

 He glanced back at the leading troopers, rookies no more after four weeks of non-stop fighting. All of them had the marks of battle, their uniforms worn from constant wear, fresh scars on their faces and arms from shrapnel bursts nearby. Under normal circumstances, several of them would be back in a medical facility healing up, but neither side had infinite reinforcements to throw into the fray. Just one more push, and they would finally control Operations. Life Support and Communications had fallen during the frantic initial assault, and now they had to finish the job. Thirty seconds to go.

 His weapon was ready, a fresh ammunition clip snapped into place, and he looked over the men behind him, all of whom were conducting similar checks. They’d learned, the hard way, but at least the Confederation now had another company of seasoned combat troops to count on. That they’d begun this mission with two rookie companies and ended with just one – most of the other lost on the destroyed Trident – still tug at him. Too many people weren’t coming back from this nightmare.

 Not that he could waste time thinking about that now. Ten seconds to go, and he wished for the thousandth time that he had reliable communications links with the other detachment. For all he knew, they were still threading their way through the maze of corridors and passages on the upper levels, but by the same token, they might already have begun their assault.

 “Come on, troopers! Take ‘em!” he yelled, pushing off from the wall behind him and diving towards the end of the corridor. There was no way that their approach could have been missed by the force they had been besieging – that would have been far too much to hope for – but at least the timing of their joint assault might throw them off a little. Behind him, the four squads surged down the corridor like champagne from a bottle, spilling out to fan down the three side corridors in pre-arranged patterns, Corporals leading the charge while Lance-Corporals herded down the stragglers.

 He, of course, was at the head of the column, where he was most comfortable. After only a few seconds, the defenders started to react, and shots cracked around him, a cry indicating that one of his troopers had been hit. That was a cue for his grenadiers to start work, and clouds of smoke billowed out ahead of them, Cooper getting a couple of shots off before the fog grew too thick to see through.

 Instinct took over, and he pulled himself up a shaft that his spatial memory told him was there, hoping that his squad would follow him, and moved away from the cloud back into the clear, the whirring of fans testament to the attempts of the enemy’s engineers to support their front-line troops. The lights began to flicker, and with a smile, Cooper saw the efforts of their hackers in action at last.

 Sergeant Forrest and his team could handle things down below; that was just battering through the lower-level guards with the fewest casualties possible. They could simply keep on pounding at the outer defenses until the last man died, but Cooper was hoping that a more daring approach might save lives on both sides; if his guess was right, this shaft would lead them all the way to the heart of their defenses. The squad behind him had been hand-picked for this mission, mostly old Alamo hands from the long cruise through Cabal space, all people he’d fought beside many times. All people he knew he could count on. 

 He popped unceremoniously from the top of the shaft, and without thinking, fired at the baffled-looking guard waiting at the top, the corpse drifting away down the corridor before it had even properly registered. Without pausing, he pushed off after it, his squad following, ignoring the usual tactical doctrine and practice of securing side corridors in favor of diving right for his objective, the big double-doors that were slowly sliding shut as he watched.

 Throwing a small sphere ahead of him, he slowed his advance by pushing back off the wall, closing his eyes for a split second on the count of five. The blinding flash stunned the troops behind it; more to the point, it left the doors as twisted wreckage, the mechanism still trying to jam them into place but failing dismally.

 The enemy guards recovered quickly, moving to use the still-hot metal as a barricade, setting up suppressing fire, but he knew that hesitation would mean the capture of his squad; he pushed on, firing a few rounds to try and keep the enemy pinned down, his men behind him following suit. He heard a scream from up ahead, one of his people getting in a good shot, but as the splatters of blood drifted across their path, he turned back to see one of his own men drifting way, frantically trying to secure a bandage around a gaping wound in his leg.

 “Get into cover!” Cooper yelled as the medic tried to move in, paying the price for his courage with a bullet of his own smashing into his chest, the armor under his uniform absorbing the impact but still sending the unlucky trooper flying into the middle of the corridor, perfect target practice for any of the Cabal soldiers up ahead.

 Shaking his head, he swung himself out to cover him, emptying the remains of his clip into the shadowy targets at the ruined door, hoping that he could provide enough of a distraction to give the medic time to protect himself, knowing that the odds were that a bullet would be racing towards him.

 By a miracle, it never arrived, and he found himself flashing past the barricade, crashing the butt of his rifle down on the nearest Cabal soldier while another slammed to the wall in a fountain of blood, one of the men following him getting in a lucky shot. Beyond the door was a short corridor leading into a large room, a few uncertain people in neat uniforms fumbling with pistols while a tall, aristocratic-looking woman with white hair looked at him with contempt, as though she had found something unpleasant under her shoe.

 “Are you the commander here?” Cooper asked, his gun pointed at her.

 “I am,” she replied in a suitably haughty tone. “You might temporarily have the advantage, but my reinforcements will be with us momentarily.”

 “All they’ll find will be your bodies,” he said. “End this now, dammit. For the sake of everyone fighting on the other levels.” Glancing back at his approaching squad, he continued, “This is the last major bastion.”

 “We can still hold you up for weeks,” she said, shaking her head. 

 “Granted, but at a greater cost to you than to us. If you surrender, I guarantee your immediate repatriation to the inhabited planet in this system. No penal colony, no interrogation, just a shuttle ride home.”

 “Can you authorize that?” she asked with a frown.

 “No, but my fleet commander already has. You have the word of Captain Marshall.”

 “Ah, I have heard that name many times,” she said. 

 “You’re stalling,” Cooper said, looking over at the communications station. “You there, can you broadcast across the whole asteroid?”

 The technician looked at his commander, then back at Cooper, and said, “Yes, sir.”

 “Set it up. Now.” Turning back to the woman, he said, “Give the order, or I’ll have to wipe out everyone in the room. One way or another, this facility is now the property of the Triplanetary Confederation.”

 She looked up at a clock in the corner, then curtly nodded, reaching for a microphone. 

 “No tricks,” Cooper warned. 

 “I don’t think we’ve got any left,” she replied. “Once our fleet gets here, you will be driven back. Don’t get too attached to this facility.”

 “I assure you, ma’am,” he replied with a smile, “that nothing would give me greater pleasure than to leave this place behind. I’ve been here twice, and once was too often.” Her face dropped in shock, perhaps recognition, and he continued, “Now make that call.”

 Placing the microphone carefully by her mouth, her eyes locked on Cooper’s rifle, she said, “This is Commandant Fitzpatrick. All personnel are to stand down from offensive operations, and make their way to the shuttle locks. We’re abandoning the station. Do not engage in any hostile acts against Triplanetary personnel.”

 “May I have the console?” Cooper asked, moving over to the communications station while Lomax, one of his more fearsome troopers, kept Fitzpatrick covered. “This is Ensign Cooper to Lieutenant-Major Brownworth. We’ve taken station control, and…”

 “We heard,” the jubilant voice of his superior replied. “We all heard. Damn good work, Cooper. I’ll see that the Cabal forces get escorted safely to the shuttles; Dragon will escort them to orbit.”

 “Thanks, ma’am, I’ll pass that along.”

 “I heard,” Fitzpatrick said. With a last look around, she said, “I hereby surrender myself to the Triplanetary Confederation, and request political asylum.”

 “You’ve got you be out of your mind,” Lomax yelled. “After what you did to us?”

 “Lomax!” Cooper snapped, then said, “Commandant, that offer included you, and I would strongly suggest that you accompany your men. There will be some negotiations now, and…”

 “There will be no negotiations,” she replied, shaking her head. “Do not be naive. I will face a firing squad for what I have done here today. The Admiralty’s bid to stiffen our resolve and prevent commanders such as myself from taking individual action.” Glancing at her crew as they started to file out of the room, she said, “They’ll be fine, though. Always a need for good troopers. I expect that they will be sent right back into the fight.”

 “Fight?”

 “We still have forces in this system, and now that operations here are concluded, I anticipate that their commanding officer will consider he has no choice but to launch a counter-attack.”

 “They’ve been sitting around near the planet for the last three weeks…” Cooper said.

 “Repairing the damage your surprise attack inflicted on us.”

 “Interesting,” he said. “You’ll be subject to interrogation.”

 “I am aware of that,” she replied. “I suspect it will be a considerably better fate than I can expect if I return home.”

 Nodding, Cooper said, “Lomax, escort her to a shuttle, have her transferred back to the fleet. You stay with her all the way, don’t let her out of your sight for a moment, and if she tries anything stupid, act appropriately.”

 With an air of what he hoped was assumed menace, Lomax replied, “Aye, sir.”

 As the two of them left the rapidly-emptying room, Sergeant Forrest drifted in, a pair of technicians in his wake to take over the control stations. He looked around the room, shaking his head.

 “I can’t believe it. More than a year since we first hit this place, and we finally get to run up our flag.”

 “Are we actually doing that?”

 “Ceremony in half-an-hour in their large mess. We’re just tidying up the loose ends now.”

 “Best guess that there will be booby traps scattered around.”

 Gesturing at the technicians, the sergeant replied, “That’s for our spooks to deal with. Our job’s over, at least for the present.”

 “Final count?”

 “From this operation? Two dead, nine wounded. Bit better than before, I think they’re getting the hang of this.”

 “This whole lousy operation stinks, Sergeant. This dump wasn’t worth that many lives.”

 “I don’t think this place was worth a paper cut, but I’m not the one making the decisions upstairs. Think they’ll let us hang onto this place?”

 “I damn well hope so. The asking price was high enough. Never mind negotiations, though. The big question is whether or not we can hang onto it.”

 “I don’t see why not,” Forrest replied. “Now we’ve got the home-field advantage and all the interior lines of communication.”

 “We don’t have the manpower,” Cooper said, frowning. “That’s going to make it tougher.”

 “Relax, Ensign,” the Sergeant said with a smile. “You don’t need to take all the cares of the world on your shoulders. This is Brownworth’s problem now. Incidentally, she’ll be up here any minute.”

 “So?”

 “Don’t you want to smarten yourself up, or something?”

 Fixing Forrest with a stare, Cooper replied, “That’s the least of our problems right now.”

 “Sir,” one of the technicians said, “I’ve managed to establish contact with the fleet. Internal communications are coming on line.”

 “Good news,” Cooper said. “That was fast work.”

 “Get the encryption systems working before you use them,” Forrest said. “Last thing we need is to have all of our chit-chat sent right to the enemy in the clear.”

 “We already have a message coming in, sir,” the technician continued, looking at Cooper. “Your presence is urgently requested on the flagship.”

 “On Dragon?” Cooper asked. “What for?” 

 “I don’t know, sir, but it comes directly from Captain Marshall.”

 “What about the other officers on the base?” Forrest asked.

 “The only message I have is for Ensign Cooper, Sergeant, and it didn’t give any more details than that.”

  “Not for Major Brownworth or Lieutenant Esposito?”

 “No, sir. Just for you,” the technician repeated.

 “Someone’s playing games again,” Cooper said. 

 “Captain Marshall isn’t like that, Gabe, and you know it.”

 Shrugging, he replied, “I guess I’d better smarten up a little after all.” He looked down at his uniform, smiled, and said, “I don’t think I’ve changed for a week.”

 “I wondered what the smell was,” Forrest said with a smirk. “Have fun with the brass.”

 “You have a strange idea of fun, Sergeant,” Cooper said as he moved over to the corridor. He paused for a moment, looking around at the signs of battle on the walls, droplets of blood still floating in the air, burn marks all around, scattered empty ammo cases drifting in his path. All this waste, and just for a tumbling rock in the middle of nowhere. Shaking his head, he pushed off towards the shaft, heading for the lock. Joking aside, he didn’t want to keep the Captain waiting.

Chapter 2

 Marshall lay on his bed, looking up at the monitor on the far wall where an old movie was playing, occasionally glancing at the clock. He was trying to kill time, and he was trying to avoid thinking, neither of which came easily to him. The datapad resting by his side held a report that he would have given anything not to read, but the fresh rank insignia on his uniform jacket, hanging on the wall, was silent testimony that he was the man on the spot.

 There was a brief knock on the door, and Caine stepped in, shaking her head as she looked at the screen.

 “What the hell is that?”

 “Some old Ugandan action flick I found in the archives. Amazing what random walk can throw up from time to time.”

 She reached over to a panel, tapped a control, and quickly the sound faded to nothing. “Meeting in five minutes.”

 “Don’t remind me.”

 “You’re the one who called it.”

 He flashed her a glare and said, “Do you think for a single moment that I wanted to?”

 “No, but now you’ve started down this path, you’re going to have to walk it.”

 “What the hell does that mean?”

 “Exactly what I said. I’m with you all the way, but I don’t think that’s going to make it any easier. If it’s any consolation, I think most of the crew will be behind you on this one.”

 “That doesn’t make me feel any better. This shouldn’t even be a question for discussion.”

 “Then cancel the meeting, delete the records, and let things go as they will.”

 “I can’t do that.”

 “Then you’d better pull yourself together and get to work.”

 He looked up at her, then said, “One of these days it’ll be you in the hot seat.”

 “I’ve been there before, Danny. I didn’t like it.”

 “Sometimes it isn’t given to us to make the choice.” He pulled himself to his feet and reached for his jacket. “This isn’t exactly the part of the job I crave. Damn it, I’d rather be back out in Cabal space. At least then I knew who the damn enemy was.”

 “There’s still an enemy out there to fight.”

 “Yes, but after that, then we have the main event.” With a sigh, he made his way to the door, and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

 The two of them walked down the short corridor to the crew mess. None of the scout ships had any meeting rooms worthy of the name, not something that Marshall was too unhappy about in the normal course of events, but they’d had to scramble to accommodate the incoming personnel.

 “You really should transfer your flag, you know,” Caine said. “Wyvern’s a good ship, but she really isn’t built for fleet command.”

 “She’ll do.”

 “There are two battlecruisers floating out there, and Gilgamesh even has a…”

 Shaking his head, he interrupted, “Wyvern’s fine for the moment.”

 “Danny, you aren’t getting Alamo back. You’re too high-ranked for the command.” 

 “I know that, Deadeye,” he replied. “Don’t expect me to like it.”

 “Like it or not, you’re going to have to accept it.”

 “I’m getting there,” he said, pausing at the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

 He stepped into the mess, evidently the last one to arrive. Cunningham was standing over in the corner, there to speak for the scoutships, Cooper standing next to him with a puzzled expression, evidently wondering why he was here and his senior officers weren’t. Sitting at one of the tables were the auxiliary commanders, the garrulous Pilsudski and the icy Franklin, each attempting to avoid eye contact. His battlecruiser commanders, Rogers and Gorski, sat at a different table, keeping their distance. Lounging over at the far end of the room was Lieutenant Dragomirov, the nearest thing left to a fleet CAG, still wearing his flight jacket.

 Marshall looked around the room, half-expecting to see the more familiar faces walk in. Quinn, Orlova, Race, Nelyubov, Rider, Dietz. The old Alamo hands he’d served with for years. Somehow, it seemed as if there was something missing, something big. Shaking his head, he gestured at the nearest table.

 “Gather round, everyone. I’m sorry for the conditions, but hopefully this won’t take too long. Let’s open with a quick status report. How are the battlecruisers?”

 Gorski looked at Rogers, then said, “Gilgamesh is ready for battle once again, sir. All combat damage repaired.” He almost tripped up on the ‘sir’, as though he was still unwilling to acknowledge Marshall as his superior. “We can do anything we need to do. Are we going after the Cabal task force?”

 “Thermopylae isn’t in as good shape,” Rogers said, reddening. “We’re still having trouble with our laser cannon, and our combat fabricators aren’t in a good way. We need another week.”

 “We haven’t got it, Frank. Can Hadfield help?”

 Pilsudski shook his head, and said, “They’ve got the components, and we’ve sent over engineering teams. I don’t know why they’re running behind, frankly.”

 “Because our damage is an order of magnitude worse than your assessments,” Rogers snapped. “Your repairs are too damn superficial.”

 “Gentlemen,” Marshall said. “Get it fixed. I don’t care how. What about our guest?”

 “I’ve got my medics working on her,” Rogers said. “Our sickbay is in better condition than Gilgamesh.”

 “She wasn’t wounded,” Cooper said.

 “Some sort of psychological trauma. I’ve got my staff shrink looking at her right now, then we can start to find out what she knows.” 

 “When she left me, she was fine,” pressed the Espatier.

 “We’ll wait for the report,” Marshall said. “Scouts, John?”

 Cunningham shrugged, and said, “Dragon and Griffon are at full capability, Wyvern’s as good as we can get her for the present. She really needs some spacedock time. Nevertheless, my squadron can fight.”

 “As can mine,” Dragomirov added. “We’re ready to go. I’ve got our reaction-to-alert launch time down to three minutes in the last simulation. Given that we’re spread out to hell and gone, that’s the best we can do.”

 “Thanks, Lieutenant,” Marshall said, sitting down at the edge of the table. “We need to discuss our ongoing mission here. The Espatiers have secured the asteroid, so in one sense our job here is concluded. All we have to do is knock out the remains of that Cabal task force and we can go home.”

 There were smiles around the room from everyone but Cooper, who said, “We’re going to need a garrison, sir, and a substantial one. I wouldn’t care to walk down some of those corridors without a guard for a while.”

 “Understood, Ensign,” Marshall said. “I’m sure you are wondering why you are here.”

 “I certainly am,” Gorski replied. “Where is Lieutenant-Major Brownworth?”

 “She’ll be remaining in command of our forces in this system when we leave,” Marshall said. “Given that my main purpose in calling this meeting was to discuss what we will do after leaving this system, there didn’t seem to be any need to have her here.”

 “I disagree,” Gorski said.

 “That’s your prerogative, Captain, but I think you will understand in a minute.” He glanced at Caine, then said, “Can anyone tell me what our original orders were?”

 With a scowl, Franklin said, “Our mission was to take Hades Station, and secure the supply lines to Hydra. If you’re commanding this fleet, I’d hope you were aware of that.”

 “Really?” Marshall said, waving his datapad in the air. “Just before the last fleet engagement in this system, I found out what our actual orders were.” Looking at the text, he read, “You will proceed in force to Hydra Station, and serve as a garrison in the event of Cabal attack. You are authorized to conduct reconnaissance of adjacent systems.”

 Pilsudski looked from Marshall to Caine, then said in an uncharacteristically calm voice, “Could I see those orders, please?”

 Nodding, Marshall passed them to him. The rest of the room waited while the tender commander scrolled through the document, checking the authentication, then reading it again before resting it on the table. He looked up at Marshall again, his face set.

 “If that bastard Pierce wasn’t dead, I’d kill him.”

 “Walt…,” Rogers said.

 Pilsudski leapt to his feet and turned to face the other officers, “I lost fifteen people. Across the whole fleet, how many? Hundreds? An entire company of Espatiers, Mister Cooper. Just because some god-damn contemptible bastard decided to go medal-hunting in enemy territory.”

 Cooper nodded, and said, “I had some idea of this on the flight out. We had the wrong force for the job.”

 “Why didn’t you say something?” Franklin snapped.

 “He did,” Marshall interrupted. “To me. There was no evidence of anything but incompetence, and it wouldn’t be the first time.”

 “We’re stuck, aren’t we,” Rogers said. “I mean, we can’t abandon Hades, not now. The damage is done, and we’re going to have to work with what we’ve got.”

 Shaking his head, Pilsudski said, “I disagree. Let’s leave this mess behind and get the hell out of this nightmare.”

 “No,” Cooper said. “We paid too big a cost for that rock. The Espatiers won’t give it up.”

 “Are you giving orders now?” Franklin asked.

 “He’s right,” Cunningham said. “There’d be a mutiny if we tried, and besides, Frank has a point. We’ve taken this installation, and we’ve fought our battle. Pulling out now would be pointless.”

 “How long have you known about this?” Gorski asked.

 Taking a deep breath, Marshall said, “About four weeks.”

 “Why the hell…,” Pilsudski began.

 “Because I wasn’t sure, and it’s taken me most of that time to go through everything and double-check, and because the fleet wasn’t in a position to do anything about it in any case. We had a mission, Captain, and whatever we think of it, whatever led to it, we can’t simply abandon it for nothing.”

 “There’s a chance that this is still legitimate,” Caine said. “Alamo’s operated on verbal-only orders before.”

 “So has Thermopylae,” Rogers added. “In which case failing to obey our orders would constitute an act of mutiny. You’re in a hell of a position, Danny.”

 “Obeying our orders, Captain,” Pilsudski said, “might well have started a war.”

 “For all we know, we’re at war. We don’t know what is happening outside this system.”

 “We’re the big push, though,” Rogers said. “This fleet and Admiral Tramiel’s.”

 “What are you going to do?” Dragomirov asked. “And for that matter, why are we here?”

 Looking around at them, Marshall paused for a moment. Had he been looking at his officers from Alamo, he wouldn’t have hesitated for a second. He’d have known how they would react, what they would think, and while they might had disagreed, they’d have backed him up. This time it was very different.

 “We should head to Hydra,” Rogers said, filling the vacuum. “After dealing with the Cabal fleet in this system. Admiral Tramiel needs to know.”

 “Don’t be stupid,” Pilsudski said. “He must have been in on this. He wouldn’t give away half his fleet without knowing what he was doing.”

 “Our orders are to remain on station,” Gorski said. “At least until relieved.”

 “Danny,” Caine whispered. “Come on.”

 “We’re going home,” Marshall said. “We will deal with the Cabal fleet, and then my intention is to return to Mars and demand a full investigation into whatever happened here.”

 “Captain,” Gorski said, “We’re serving officers. I don’t think…”

 “That’s the problem, isn’t it,” Pilsudski said. “We’re just meant to be little robots, following orders, aren’t we? Don’t think, don’t consider, just do as we’re told.” Gesturing at the viewport, he said, “And that’s cost a lot of lives – and if we end up at war, it could cost us everything. If this was some sort of terrible mistake, there might be a chance to resolve it without bloodshed.”

 “At the very least,” Caine said, “Hades is a tool we can use in peace negotiations.”

 “We aren’t at war!” Pilsudski replied. “At least, we weren’t until we set off on this fool’s crusade. I’m with you, Captain. All the way to the Combined Chiefs, if that’s what’s needed.”

 “Walt,” Rogers said, “You’re talking gross insubordination. At best.”

 “If that stops this happening again to some other fleet, that’s fine by me. I didn’t join the service to be someone’s puppet.”

 “Our job is to defend the Confederation…,” Franklin began.

 “And we can’t do that by launching unprovoked attacks on our neighbors. I don’t even think we should wait, Marshall. We ought to head home now.”

 “No,” Gorski said. “I cannot countenance that. We must finish the job here.”

 “This is not a matter for debate!” Marshall said. “I remain the commander of this fleet, and the decision and the responsibility are mine, and mine alone. Is that understood?” There was a chorus of reluctant nods, and he continued, “I will contact the Cabal forces commander and attempt to organize a cease-fire. Failing that, we will neutralize them as a threat in this system, and then we will head home.”

 “And end our careers,” Dragomirov said.

 “Just one,” Marshall replied. “As I said, the responsibility for this lies with me.”

 “Optimist,” the pilot replied. “Not that I mind, though. It’s been a good run while it lasted.”

 “What exactly are you planning to do?” Gorski asked. “Walk up to Admiral Remek’s office, knock on her door, and ask her why you were sent on an illegal mission?”

 “It might be just that simple, but you’ve found the whole point of this. I believe that we have been operating on illegal orders, outside the chain of command. If that is the case, then it is our duty to try and fix that if we can.”

 “They’ll fight,” Cooper said. “They won’t yield. Not unless you surrender everything we’ve gained.”

 “Assets that, in the event of a war, we’re going to need,” Rogers said. He looked around the room, then said, “We might be stuck fighting a war. We can’t give up strategic advantages.”

 With a sigh, Marshall said, “Captain Rogers is quite correct, and so is Ensign Cooper. I’m very much afraid that we have another battle to fight in this system yet.” 

 “So what are we supposed to do?” Franklin asked.

 “Investigate,” Pilsudski said. “Go through our systems, try and find any more evidence, and start putting together a case to take to the JAG.” He looked at Marshall, and said, “You think there’s more to this, don’t you.”

 Cooper said, “The general feeling among the Espatier contingent is that we were being used as a sacrificial lamb. That we weren’t supposed to do anything other than, well, die gloriously and give the politicians back home a reason for war.”

 “That’s absurd,” Gorski said, though a trace of doubt was evident in his voice.

 “I hope you are right about that, Captain,” Marshall replied. “Nevertheless the possibility remains that there is more to this than just a few rogue officers out for glory. Admiral Pierce didn’t strike me as the sort of person who would co-ordinate this by himself, and Admiral Tramiel…”

 “I’ve known Jack Tramiel for years,” Cunningham said. “It doesn’t seem possible.” He glanced around, and said, “There must be more going on than we know about.”

 “Perhaps,” Caine said. “We’ve got to know, though.”

 Gorski shook his head, then said, “Excuse me, but this all sounds rather paranoid. Now you are suggesting some sort of vast conspiracy?”

 “I didn’t say…”

 “I don’t deny that this whole operation has been mishandled, but that doesn’t mean some shadowy…”

 “Cabal?” Caine interrupted.

 “Is behind it all.”

 “Can we rule that out?” Dragomirov asked. “They’ve run intelligence operations before. Perhaps they suborned Pierce, or sent him fake orders, or something like that.”

 “If their intelligence network is good enough that they can move fleets around as they want, then we’ve already lost the war,” Caine said.

 “Why am I here, sir?” Cooper asked.

 “Because I need an Espatier platoon,” Marshall replied. “I can’t strip the garrison on the station much, but…”

 “Why do we need an assault force?” Franklin asked, her eyebrow raised.

 “I don’t know,” Marshall said. “I do know that I’m not taking any chances. Cooper, put together a platoon, and feel free to pick the best. Volunteers only, though, and make it clear that there is a risk that it will adversely affect their careers.”

 “Can I tell them why?”

 “No.”

 “Pity. I’d get nothing but volunteers.”

 “If you told the troopers that,” Caine said, “We’d end up launching a full-scale assault on the Admiralty, and I’m not convinced that would help the situation.”

 “None of what I have said in this room is to leave it,” Marshall said. “That must be completely clear.”

 “Don’t worry,” Gorski said. “I have no intention of passing any of this on.”

 “Because you don’t believe a word of it,” Pilsudski said with a sneer.

 “Captain Marshall is at present my commanding officer, and I will follow his orders. I do not recall where in Fleet Regulations it tells me that I have to believe everything he tells me.”

 “Frank?” Marshall asked.

 “You’re the boss, Danny. Whatever you say goes, as far as I’m concerned.”

 “Right. I want the fleet ready for action, and ready to leave the system immediately upon the conclusion of that action. I will maintain my flag here in Wyvern for the moment.”

 “You’d be better off on Thermopylae,” Rogers said. 

 “Thanks, but I’m settled in now.”

 “If you change your mind…”

 “You’ll be the first to know. Dismissed.”

 The officers filed out of the room, talking quietly among themselves. Caine and Cunningham remained in their chairs, waiting for the rest to leave.

 “That went well,” Caine said, deadpan.

 “Pilsudski’s mad enough that he might just take off for home, Gorski and Franklin think you are crazy, and Rogers is sticking his head in the sand,” Cunningham summarized. “Cooper and Dragomirov will go along with you for the ride, whatever that’s worth.”

 “So at least you’ll have infantry support and fighter escort at your court-martial,” Caine added.

 “Good to know,” Marshall said with a smile. “And the two of you?”

 “If someone’s trying to start a war, we’ve got to stop them. I didn’t sign up to fight wars of territorial conquest,” Cunningham said. “It’s as simple as that.”

 “I agree,” Caine said. “Though I doubt it will be that simple.”

 “You know what I meant, damn it.”

 A chirp came from Marshall’s communicator, and he placed it by his ear, saying, “Marshall here. What’s up?” 

 “Bridge here, sir. We’ve got an aspect change from the Cabal forces in-system. They just placed themselves on an attack vector, sir. Intercept in four days, nine hours.”

 “Four days?” Caine asked. “Not top speed, then.”

 “Damage to propulsion systems?” Cunningham suggested. “But then, why attack?”

 “Good question,” Marshall said. “At least they’ve given us plenty of warning.”

 “Why do that, either? At least they could have tried to decoy us? This commander’s been smart enough so far, why change now?” Caine said. “There’s something missing here.”

 “Maybe,” Marshall said. “Though at least I know how to handle this part. Go get the commanders back in, Deadeye. We’d better start planning the battle.”

Chapter 3

 Orlova looked around the room, taking a sip from the champagne glass in her hand, trying to stick close to Harriet, her recently-acquired embedded journalist, and attempting to keep as low a profile as possible. Somehow, her unlikely colleague had managed to arrange invitations to one of the more exclusive parties taking place in Sagan City, one of a dozen arranged to allow the politicians to drum up support before the election from the movers and shakers of the Triplanetary Confederation.

 She felt sick, and it wasn’t the food.

 This wasn’t her job. She was meant to be out on one of the ships currently fighting for the future of the Confederation, not loitering around a cocktail lounge trying to overhear some gossip, some malevolent rumor that might be useful in their campaign to prevent the overthrow of the President. It didn’t help that she felt a target on her back; Margaret Orlova was wanted for treason, and while her forged identification had worked so far, it would never stand up to extensive testimony.

 “Excuse me,” a suave voice said. “I couldn’t help notice that you were over here by yourself. I can’t believe that someone could have stood you up.”

 She turned to see a man she vaguely recognized, one of the legion of press commentators gathering at such events. “I’m just taking a moment to decompress.”

 He smiled, and said, “Meaning that you’re trying to get over an argument with someone. If you want to make someone jealous, there’s plenty of room for two more on the dance floor.”

 “No thank you,” she replied. “Really, I just need a moment to myself.”

 Harriet walked over to her, and Orlova quickly kissed her on the lips, turning to the man before her surprise could show, and said, “As I said, I only needed a moment.”

 The man’s eyes darted from Orlova to Harriet, and with a smile and a quick bow, he headed off into the gathering in a bid to attract fresh game.

 “What the hell was that about?” Harriet asked. “My job is to tweeze out gossip, not provide it. You realize that we’ll be all over the networks by the morning.”

 “If they think I’m your lover, they probably won’t think I’m a spy.”

 “Never heard of Mata Hari?” she shook her head, then said, “Next time, ask first.”

 “Have you found out anything interesting?”

 “Senator Norman’s apparently on her third personal assistant of the year, and this one used to be a boxer. Whether he has any secretarial qualifications, I don’t know.”

 “I think we’re going to need more than that. Hell, even I knew that she was a man-eater, and I’ve spent most of the last three years several parsecs from here.”

 “Relax, Maggie. We’re getting quite a dossier built up.” She pointed over at the far side of the room to a tight tangle of gray-haired men, and said, “That’s an interesting little group right there. Senator Harper and his few remaining acolytes.”

 “He’s here? Damn.”

 “What’s wrong?”

 “We’ve got to get out of here now.”

 “Why?”

 “Harriet, he knows me. I don’t think he’s going to buy the cover story.”

 She glanced over at the Senator, evidently once too often. He moved away from his group, and started to pull something out of his pocket. Not waiting for him to call Security, Orlova began to move for the door, quietly at first, then without any attempt at deception. One of the bouncers, his finger on his ear, was moving to block the exit, but she quickly ducked past him, moving out onto the street, almost toppling over in her haste to leave.

 Ahead of her, a pair of guards waited, both of them wearing the uniform of the Sagan PD. She looked from left to right, but the pistols resting in their holsters and the lack of cover convinced her that she didn’t have anywhere to go. A police car pulled up, and she looked behind her to see the Senator walking down the steps, Harriet reluctantly on his arm.

 “Fancy meeting you here, Lieutenant.”

 Orlova looked across at the car, and saw a flash of green hair in the back seat. Suppressing a smile, she replied, “Bad pennies always turn up.”

 “Just get in the car,” one of the policemen said. “Both of you.”

 “I’ll ride along as well,” the Senator said. “I imagine you’ll want to interview me.”

 “If you don’t mind, Senator,” the other policeman said, glancing up at a security camera. “It will speed the whole process along.”

 “I’ve done nothing wrong!” Harriet said. “This is absurd!”

 Orlova shook her head, and replied, “I think we’ve lost this game. With a little luck we’ll have another chance later on.” She started to walk over to the car, and said, “Let’s get this over with.”

 As soon as the passenger door opened, her suspicions were confirmed, and she climbed in next to a beaming Kristin Harper, latterly of Alamo and Spitfire Station. The Senator sat opposite her, and Harriet, looking at the three of them in turn, paused at the door.

 “What the hell is going on?”

 “Get in,” the Senator said. “And quickly. We haven’t much time.” The door slammed shut, and the car began to speed down the street. He glanced out of the window, and said, “We’re heading for the nearest vehicular airlock. You’re damn lucky the Chief of Police is my old Operations Officer.”

 “This is a set-up.” Harriet looked at Orlova. “What is this?”

 “May I introduce Senior Spaceman…”

 “Technical Officer, Maggie. I’ve gone up in the world.”

 “Kristin Harper, the most insubordinate – and brilliant – hacker I’ve ever come across.”

 “Senator Harper’s daughter,” the journalist said with a smile. “I wondered where she’d gone. None of my sources would talk.”

 “She opted to follow her father into the fleet…,” the Senator began.

 “After it was made clear that it was a choice between one jail or another.”

 Looking at Orlova, Harriet said, “If nothing else – if nothing else – I’m getting an interview with her. That I can publish, and it’ll keep my editor at bay for a while. You realize I haven’t filed anything in a month? They’re beginning to forget I exist.”

 “We’ll talk later.”

 “Lieutenant,” the Senator said, “My daughter has given me as full a briefing as she can, and I have spoken with the President.”

 “Which one?”

 “Teddy.” He shook his head, then said, “The man is a fool.”

“You won’t get an argument from me, sir,” Orlova replied. “Kristin, how long have you been in-system?”

 “I jumped ship when Alamo headed out.”

 “Alamo’s left Sol? They got away?”

 “From here, anyway, though I don’t know what happened next. It took me two weeks to sneak back here, and longer to get in touch with Dad.”

 “One phone call…,” the Senator began.

 “Would have been traced. I’ve had some recent experience with how fragile our communication-security infrastructure is.”

 “Give me some details and I’ll propose a bill on the subject, not that it will get through the current logjam. We’re going to be debating the impeachment right until the Senate rests.”

 “You’re stalling?” Harriet asked.

 With a smile, the Senator replied, “I don’t have to. They are. You see, the Progressives are milking this for every bit of publicity they can. Every moment this is in the spotlight, they gain votes. Ideally, they’ll have this declared the day before the end of the session, and they can go back to their constituencies and parade their successes.”

 “How long?”

 “Thirty-two days, and each one’s going to be more torture than the last. Most of my party isn’t even showing up now. The Technocrats are loving it, but they’re torn between wanting the peace treaty and wanting to win the election, and I think they’re coming down on the side of winning the election.”

 “Will they?”

 Throwing his hands in the air, he said, “I honestly don’t know. I know that we won’t, but I don’t know if the Progressives can snatch enough Freedom Party supporters to make it count. We’re going to end up with the doves or the ultra-hawks, and the sane are going to have to sit out an election or two.”

 “All you are telling me is that I have a month to come up with some sort of a miracle, Senator. It’s good to have a time frame to work with.”

 “Everything I’ve heard about you is obviously true. You’re a born optimist.”

 “The universe has been trying to beat that out of me lately, but somehow I keep on going.” Leaning forward, she asked, “What I would like to know, Senator, is…”

 “Where I stand in all this?” He glanced across at his daughter, and said, “I don’t want a war, and I don’t want to leave us defenseless either. But I can’t afford to damage the Freedom Party any more than it has been already, which means…”

 “That you can offer any and all assistance short of actual help,” Harriet said. “We’ve heard that song already.”

 “What are you doing here, anyway?” Harper asked.

 “Can’t a journalist be a patriot as well?” She sighed, then said, “I got sucked in, I admit it. It’s the story of a lifetime, and the press need to be in on it. More than that, I can help.”

 “Lieutenant, I’m not going to leave you hanging out to dry. I’m pretty sure that I can get the charges against you dropped…”

 “I’m not in this for me, Senator. I’m in this to stop a war, and more than that, I’m in this to stop us being the aggressors in one! I don’t understand how the hell this can all have got started in the first place, damn it.”

 “Duty,” he said. “That’s the worst part of it. You have a President that’s managed to leave himself wide open to corruption charges, so the vultures start to descend. This President is rearming, earning the ire of the Technocrats, but proposing a peace treaty, so amazingly he’s got the hawks and the doves attacking him. As for the military, you tell me. You’re a soldier.”

 “A fleet that’s been getting ready for a war, building up forces and preparing to repel a surprise attack suddenly gets word that there is an opportunity for a strike, a chance to turn the tables on them,” she said, resigned. “And presuming that war is inevitable anyway, and knowing that a lot of the Senate will be behind them after the elections, they jump the gun and go early.”

 “Precisely,” the Senator replied. “Oh, we’re not saints. There are enough people on this bandwagon that are along for the goodies, but the key movers, though, they are convinced they are doing this for the right reasons, and there is nothing as dangerous as that.”

 “What if they are right?” Harriet asked.

 “Then we risk leaving the Confederation exposed to a surprise attack. I’ll follow the lead of the only in-system expert on the Cabal we’ve got. What do you think, Lieutenant?”

 “They’re too weak. Right now, we’re as safe as we’re going to be. That doesn’t mean we can ignore the danger.”

 Nodding, the Senator said, “We all assumed that we had time to rearm, maybe two to five years to get ourselves ready, and hoped that the very act of building up our forces would be a sufficient deterrent to war. I found the reports you sent back about conditions in the Cabal abhorrent, Lieutenant, but we’re not the universe’s policeman. We haven’t got the manpower, and the risk is too grave.”

 “I agree. Reluctantly. And I didn’t a few months ago. Given time and work, the Cabal will collapse anyway. We’ve already struck a few blows along those lines.”

 “Hang on a moment,” Harriet said. “You fought your way through Cabal space…”

 “They tried to trap us, and damn near succeeded. That was different.”

 “How?”

 Orlova shook her head, and said, “Because they were building up a force to attack us, and they fired the first shot. We sent a message that we were strong enough for them to leave alone, and that we would go to any lengths to get back our people, but we did not engage in acts of aggression. Helping a few people free themselves from the Cabal is one thing, but we didn’t strike a base without warning.”

 “Now we have,” the Senator said. With a sigh, he continued, “We might be at war whether we want to be or not, but I think we could still get the peace treaty ratified, with enough bonuses that we might be able to convince the Commandant to go along with it. We’re going to need your help for that.”

 “My help? I’m not a negotiator.”

 He glanced across at his daughter again, then replied, “I understand you have covert operations experience.”

 Orlova sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, and said, “You want me to break the Commandant out of the nice warm jail cell he’s been thrown into. Don’t you have your own people for this sort of thing?”

 “Triplanetary Intelligence isn’t returning my calls, and I don’t keep commando units on hand. Borrowing a police car for an hour or two is one thing, but I’m talking about something a lot more extensive. Besides…”

 “You don’t have any connection to the party,” Harper said, looking at her father. “Nor do I. You’ll have me as back-up on this, and your journalist girlfriend as well.”

 “I’m not her girlfriend,” Harriet said.

 “I saw the two of you in there on the cameras,” the hacker said with a smirk. “So, you’ll do it?”

 Orlova looked at the Senator, and said, “Then what?”

 “He negotiates a new treaty with the President, and we get it in front of the Senate, somehow. I’m not sure how.”

 “There has to be an easier way of doing this.”

 “Probably, but I can’t think of one right now. If you have any better suggestions…”

 “No,” she replied with a sigh. “And it’s got to be better than another cocktail party.” 

 “Almost certainly.”

 “And given your current faux-neutral status, should I be caught on this hare-brained scheme of yours, I can presume that I will be…”

 “Disclaimed as a traitor, and in all probability shot. Under the circumstances, this has to be a volunteer mission, Lieutenant.”

 With a smirk, she said, “You’re not in the chain of command to give me orders anyway. Though I presume this comes direct from the President.”

 “It does.”

 “Then I guess I volunteer. Just make sure you spell my name right in my obituary.”

Chapter 4

 “Signal confirmed, Captain,” Spinelli said from his sensor station, turning to face Logan in the command chair. “Transport by the looks of it, though we’d be the only ones who’d recognize it as Triplanetary.”

 “Why is that, Spaceman?” Ryder asked, turning from her position at Tactical.

 “Because it’s the Ouroboros, ma’am, but with new markings.”

 Logan frowned, then asked, “Are you sure, Spinelli? There must be other Cabal ships of that type.”

 “Very probably, sir, but every exterior detail matches. I’ve got some excellent resolution shots of that ship now, and I can match it completely.” He looked up from his console, and said, “Trust me, sir, I know that ship far too damn well.”

 “Interesting,” Logan replied. “A superficial attempt to transform a Triplanetary ship into a Cabal vessel. Are they responding to our hails?”

 “Still silent, sir. Now sixty minutes since they jumped into the system, and I’m not getting any response,” Weitzman said, eyes darting from display to display.

 “No chance of an intercept?” Logan asked.

 “We’re scheduled to leave the system in two hours,” Ryder noted. “We might be able to get out that far in time, but we’d be days late getting to Hades. Of course, sir, it’s your call.”

 It didn’t take long for Logan to decide, “I can guess what is on board that ship; I don’t see the point in wasting four or five days to satisfy my curiosity. We’ll let them go, but Weitzman, you make it damn clear that we know what they are up to.” He stood up, then said, “I’ll be in the office if you need me. Ryder, take the conn.”

 Still it was ‘the’ office, not ‘his’ office. Five weeks he’d been officially in command of the Battlecruiser Alamo, and he was still reluctant to take the jump and consider it as his ship. As he stepped through the door, he looked down at Captain Marshall’s desk, the empty chair behind it, and shook his head.

 “Why the hell aren’t you sitting there, damn it? This isn’t my job.”

 The door behind him slid open, and Ryder walked in, replying, “Right now it is, Captain.”

 He turned with a start, and said, “You want it?”

 “Not yet. Maybe in four or five years.”

 “Figures.” He moved over to the desk, staring out at the starscape, and continued, “You think I made the right call?”

 “It isn’t my place…”

 “Don’t give me that crap. You know how far over my head I am. I can play-act for almost everyone out there, but you know better. I need you to watch my back, and if you don’t tell me when I screw up, we’ve had it.”

 “I think you made the right call. It would have been nice to go and get that ship, but we don’t need it, and we need to get to the task force as fast as we can.”

 “If it isn’t too late already.”

 “What do you mean?”

 Sighing, he said, “If I’d been commanding that task force, I’d have taken along a couple of ships that I could use as couriers, to report the success of my mission.”

 “Scoutships, surely.”

 He shook his head. “Remember that the people commanding that task force are playing fast and loose with their orders. They won’t necessarily want just everyone to know what they are doing, and that means using covert means.”

 “A Cabal ship, though? Why not a Triplanetary one?”

 “How well do you know transports, Ryder? Speaking purely personally, without the computers, I couldn’t tell one from another. All it has to do is drop into some out of the way spot, Triton Colony maybe, and send its message home from there. No-one at that flea-pit could tell the difference.”

 Managing a thin smile, she said, “You realize you’re probably talking about my next posting. Assuming I have a next posting.”

 “Intelligence will always give you a job if it comes to it. If I ever get back in touch with them again. Failing that, perhaps we could all just take off and seek adventure in the far stars.”

 “You don’t strike me as the explorer type.”

 “I grew up reading the same books that you did, and you might be surprised at how much time I’ve spent on the frontier.” Looking out at the stars, he continued, “I’ve spent more of the last decade outside Sol than back home.”

 “But, before…”

 “There are some routes that were well-worn even before Alamo set off on that first expedition, you know. Proxima Station, Omicron Eridani, far-flung outposts where there was still some freedom.”

 “I thought you were an information broker.”

 “Specializing in exotic alien artifacts. Not that getting hold of them was particularly easy. The industrial archeology companies are extremely jealous with their findings, especially the ones with a United Nations contract.”

 “Thinking of going back to that?”

 “Possibly. There’s a lot more stars to look at now than there were a few years ago, that much is certain, and the Cabal must have some interesting stories to tell. From what I picked up out of Alamo’s files, there’s plenty of scope for exploration.” He grinned, then said, “That’s one good thing about commanding this ship. Full access to the mission logs.”

 “I wish I hadn’t missed the trip,” Ryder said, looking wistful.

 “I’m sorry about that,” he replied. “I needed you on Spitfire, and I need you now. I promise that I won’t hold you back next time.”

 Shaking her head, she said, “I won’t hold you to that, Logan. What you said back at Carter Station was quite right; I go where I am needed, not where I want. Not while I’m wearing this uniform. For however much longer that turns out to be.”

 “You might be surprised. I was out for a decade, and they brought me back in eventually. And I wanted to leave.”

 “You’ve never told me what happened.”

 “No, I haven’t. And for the present, it’s going to stay that way.” He looked down at his uniform, and said, “Let’s just say I had a lesson in what this costume means, and that it soured me on it for a while.”

 “Yet you came back.”

 “There’s wasn’t much choice at the time, and maybe I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. Besides, I can’t deny that my life has been a lot more interesting since I put this thing back on.” He looked at the door to the bridge, and asked, “What about the crew? You know them a lot better than me. How are they holding up?”

 “Quinn and I are keeping them as busy as we can. Not hard, with so few of us on board. I don’t think they’ve really thought about what is likely to happen too much, though that’s liable to change later on.” She paused, then said, “They’ll do what they have to do. That much I do know.” 

 “And afterward?”

 “I don’t think anyone’s given it too much thought. As I said, we’re keeping everyone moving fast enough that they aren’t getting any time to think. At least it will be over soon.”

 “Four and a half days to Hades Station. We’re going to have to be ready for anything when we emerge, up to and including a full Cabal task force armed for war.”

 “By now, the Triplanetary force will have arrived.”

 “And for all we know, we’ll find their component atoms scattered across the system, and a dozen battlecruisers lined up, pointing at the egress point. In which case I have no intention of fighting to the finish.”

 “Reassuring, though some of this crew have already been held captive by the Cabal once. They won’t let it happen again. We could go to a different egress point. There are several in that system.”

 Shaking his head, he replied, “Ending up too far to influence anything, or at best with a long delay. We haven’t just got to get out here, remember, we’ve got to get back, and as fast as we can. I don’t think we’ll have as easy a time of it on our return, either. Talking our way through Spitfire Station will be a lot tougher now they know we’ve borrowed this ship.”

 “It’ll be a whole task force though, surely.”

 “We can but hope. We could easily all be arrested as soon as we arrive.”

 “You’re in an optimistic mood today.”

 “The burdens of command.” He looked down at the desk again, and said, “Can we fight a battle?”

 “Let’s hope we don’t have to.”

 “But if it comes to that, could we?”

 She frowned, saying, “We’ll leave hendecaspace at battle stations and make sure everyone is well-rested before we return to normal space. As long as any fighting doesn’t last too long and we have someone to help us clean up the mess at the end, I don’t see any reason why not, but we’re going to be a glass fist, Logan.”

 “Damage control.”

 Nodding, she said, “We’ve only got three teams, and they’ve got an awful lot of ship to cover. Aside from the really critical areas, I think the odds of us making any repairs during a battle are next to none.”

 “Which means a near-instant tactical assessment, and getting any shots off first, while we have the ability to make them count.”

 “Agreed.”

 “Our goal is still to keep the peace, Ryder. We’ve got to hold onto that. It would be downright stupid for us to come all this way and end up starting the war we came out here to stop.”

 “I’m aware of that. I’m just not sure how many options we’re going to have. Don’t forget, this is still at least nominally enemy territory that we’re flying through.”

 “True.” He looked up at the countdown clock on the wall, patiently ticking down the seconds before Alamo could enter the safety of hendecaspace, and said, “Does it always count down so slowly?”

 “Unless you want it to.”

 “Figures.” Glancing down at the desk, he saw the reports log flash to indicate another batch of paperwork appearing in his message queue. “If you ignore all of this long enough, does it go away?”

 “I know there are some commanders who set the messages to automatically reply, but Captain Marshall used to find it therapeutic. Something to do while he was waiting for the action to start.”

 “Is that a not-so-gentle hint?”

 “You don’t want to leave too big a mess for your replacement, do you?”

 “I guess not.” He pushed a button at random, and read, “Fuel consumption status report. I thought you were keeping the crew busy?”

 “Three people worked for four hours to prepare that report for you.”

 A smile creeping across his face, he said, “Ah. Understood.”

 “It’s not just what’s out there waiting that’s bothering you, is it. It’s what we left behind.”

 “I should be back there, Ryder. That’s my job, and I’m good at it. I’m not a ship driver, I’m an intelligence agent. It wasn’t fair to dump all of that on Orlova and Harper.”

 “Don’t you have faith in them?”

 “Of course.”

 “Then what’s the problem?” She shook her head, and said, “Like it or not, for the moment you are a capital ship commander, which means that your place is on the bridge or in your office. Preferably the latter as a rule, because the crew never reacts well to someone looking over their shoulder. You’ve got to delegate.” Pausing, she added, “It’s Chambers, as well, isn’t it.”

 “She almost died because of the danger I got her into. She was just a political aide, damn it, not a combat soldier.” Shaking his head, he added, “The bastards we're fighting don't seem to care who strays into their line of fire.”

 “Melissa knew the risks she was taking when she signed up. More than most. That didn't stop her volunteering.”

 “The President talked her into it. Used words like duty and patriotism.” Sighing, he said, “Words that don't seem to mean a damn thing anymore.” Looking up, he said, “You know why I like being an agent? I like to know what’s going on, behind the scenes. I haven’t been this blind in a long time.”

 “Think of it this way. This is just a temporary assignment, and if you do a good enough job, you’ll be able to hand it over to someone else in a few weeks and get back to the seedy alleys and dodgy bars you like so much.”

 “Music to my ears.”

 She smiled, and turned for the door, saying, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to start finding myself things to do. The last thing I need is to start thinking about what we’re doing.”

 There was a chirp from his desk, and he responded with a start, tapping a control and saying, “Logan here.”

 “Bridge here, sir. We’ve got something from the freighter, sir. A message in code.”

 “How did you manage that, Weitzman?”

 “Steele here, sir. I suggested in our message that we were on a secret mission for Admiral Tramiel, and that we needed a situation update.”

 “They fell for that?” Logan said, incredulous. “This really is amateur hour.”

 “Not entirely, Captain,” the watch officer replied. “The response was encrypted, and Alamo’s database doesn’t have the key.”

 “Never mind, Sub-Lieutenant,” Ryder said. “That’s still good work.” She looked across at Logan, and asked, “Why didn’t you try that?”

 “I didn’t think it would work, and it was a bit obvious. It could be a deception, of course, some sort of false message, but we’re heading in the right direction for Steele’s story to work.” He tapped a series of controls, and pulled a worn datarod from his pocket. “Let’s see if I can open that file.”

 After a moment, he smiled, and said, “Got it. Apparently there was an attack on Hydra Station…”

 “Not Hades,” Ryder interrupted.

 “No,” he replied, shaking his head. “A Cabal task force, two battlecruisers and four scoutships. I’ll let you take a look at the details, but the basic gist is that they were repelled with light losses, and that Hydra is secure.” He paused, then said, “Damn.”

 “What’s the problem?”

 “If the Cabal launched an attack,” he looked at the date stamp and continued, “two weeks ago, that might suggest that they never had any intention of honoring the peace treaty in the first place.” Shrugging, he said, “Of course, this might just be a trick, as I said, and we don’t know what’s happened out here since the task force left. Tramiel might not have needed any help to start a war.”

 “Then we might have come out here for nothing.”

 “Hardly that,” Logan said. “In the worst case, we’ve just thrown another laser battlecruiser at the front line. I doubt we’ll get any serious complaints about that. Not until the dust settles, anyway.”

 “And when it does?”

 “My advice? Be elsewhere.”

Chapter 5

 Orlova took a sip of her coffee, and glanced around the restaurant for the fifth time. The view was perfect from her table, looking out across the street to the nondescript building on the far side, the one with two security guards standing in front of it. To the casual observer, they were just private guards, nothing to attract attention, but they were carrying last-model Triplanetary sidearms at their belt, and standing in a perfect ‘at ease’ stance.

 She glanced down at her datapad, looking at the specifications again. Former Cornucopia offices, sold to a holding company six months ago, listed as Progressive Party headquarters for Sagan City. Evidently those plans had changed; no placards, signs or banners trying to tempt people to yield them their vote, just two stony-faced guards.

 Again, to the casual observer, the former owners of the building would have meant little other than another collapsed company, which had managed to cause a nine-month slump on their way down. Given that Cornucopia was a Cabal front, however, she was willing to bet that there were some interesting surprises waiting in that building, gadgets that the new owners might well be making use of. They could hardly hold the Commandant in a Triplanetary facility; using one of the open ones would have led to a lot of questions no-one wanted to answer, and Intelligence wasn’t co-operating sufficiently to let them use a safe house.

 The second hand of her old watch continued to count down, slowly heading for the deadline. The wonderful thing about living in a completely artificial environment was that everything had to be controlled, and therefore could be taken over. Naturally, most of the systems had lots of redundancies and back-ups. Taking out the life support systems would never be permitted to happen, but the more cosmetic features had rather less security. Such as the lighting, for example. She reached into her pocket for her sunglasses, closed her eyes, counted to five, and slipped them on.

 Harper had done her job well, and the blinding light had everyone unprepared in a daze, including the two guards at the door. As she raced across the street, all the exterior lights went out, and her glasses automatically switched to night-vision, giving her a perfect view of the pandemonium taking place outside. From a far corner, out of sight, a pair of blowguns, wielded by two soldiers from the Ragnarok Embassy who had volunteered for the assignment, fired two darts at the guards, who slumped down to the ground as Orlova raced past.

 By now, security would be all over the place, but their priority was going to be dealing with the sabotage to the lighting systems, with everything else permitted to wait. There was no way that they could permit any risk that someone might escalate to the heating. The lights flashed on again, and Orlova slid her reliable hacking datarod, recently augmented with Cabal programming, into the door slot, and with a series of quick clicks, it opened.

 For a brief second, she paused. All of this was going a little too smoothly, too much according to plan. Regardless, she pressed on into the building, heading for the central corridor. It was only a three-floor office complex, and at a single glance she realized that the plans filed in Central Records were complete fiction; nonetheless, the top levels were unlikely to have anything interesting. Too easy to access by members of the public.

 Downstairs was the key, into the basement level, and as she suspected, there was a hatch access to the old shelter complex, a ladder leading down into the gloom. An ear-shattering alarm began to sound, and she tensed up before realizing that it was the depressurization alarm, again, Harper’s work. While actually knocking out the protective dome or messing with the atmosphere was something she’d never consider, the alarm systems were surprisingly easy to set off. One more distraction.

 Moving quickly, she scrambled down the ladder, tossing a small sphere above her as she slid down the shaft, hearing it rattle on the floor above. She planted another on the wall, tucking it over one of the old light fittings; the equipment here was a century old, but the pioneers built it to last. Not that they would have ever considered that an enemy intelligence service would make use of their work.

 She dropped down to the floor, and immediately found what she was looking for – a series of cells running the length of the corridor, the old living quarters re-tasked to a new function. Each of them had their own airlock, bulky and old-fashioned, intended as an emergency shelter back in the old days. The systems had recently been updated to top-of-the-line Cabal standards, but she had plenty of experience at hacking them. It was easy to tell which of them had been used recently, the trails on the floor were testament to that, and at the first try, she peered through the viewing window at the Commandant, sitting cross-legged on the floor in meditative pose.

 Rolling another sphere across the ground, she quickly started the work on the lock, and got her first shock when a loud report sounded when she opened the door; the pressure inside had been left slightly higher than in the corridor, enough that the echo reverberated around the walls. The Commandant rose to his feet with a smile.

 “What kept you?” he asked.

 “You’re damn lucky that I came at all,” she replied. “Come on. We need to move.”

 She turned to see a familiar figure walking down the corridor, and snatched her pistol from her holster in time to match his draw. The two of them stood, facing each other, guns out and pointed in textbook fashion.

 “Captain Tarrant,” she said. “I should have expected you to be here yourself.”

 “I’m surprised at you, Maggie,” he said. “To have fallen for so obvious a trap.”

 “I was in a hurry. Nevertheless, unless part of your plan was an elaborate murder/suicide pact, I don’t think things are working out for you.”

 Shaking his head, he replied, “You have no intention of shooting me, and the two of us know it. So why don’t we stop the pretense and get on with our business. My offer for you to join our cause remains.”

 “I never thought I’d say this, but I’ll stick with the Commandant.”

 With a wide grin, the Cabal officer said, “I’m very pleased to hear it, especially after everything we have been through together.” 

 “You’d side with an enemy over a person wearing the same uniform as you?”

 “All I see in this corridor is a traitor and a prisoner.”

 “I’m doing…”

 “Your duty,” she said. “We’ve covered all of this before. I haven’t changed my mind, and I have no intention of so doing.”

 “It’s so useless, though. We’re in the right, dammit. Constitutionally, legally, morally…”

 “I’d question the latter,” she said. “I doubt the people of the Confederation will welcome a war of conquest.”

 “Interesting,” the Commandant said. “I appear to be getting a unique viewpoint into the decision-making processes at the highest levels of your government. I had no idea you were such a key figure, Lieutenant. Our intelligence division will need considerable instruction.”

 Looking across at him with a sneer, Tarrant said, “I wouldn’t worry, Commandant. You’ve got minutes left to live. Just another loose end to tie up.”

 “Is this morality, Tarrant? Killing people to tie up loose ends? Like you did on Carter Station?”

 “I have no compunction about killing enemies of the people, Maggie, and while you wear that uniform, neither should you.”

 Taking a step back, she said, “This uniform is not a license for murder. If that’s what you think it is, you have no business wearing it.”

 With a deep sigh, he replied, “All of this is rather academic. My guards are on the way down as soon as they’ve disabled your smoke bombs, and we’ll all be going into custody. You will he charged with the murder of the Commandant, and we have some very effective special effects people working on the footage now.”

 “And presumably I will be killed while attempting escape.”

 “Treason carries the death penalty.”

 “Another loose end for you to tie up, then.”

 “It doesn’t have to be that way, Maggie,” he said, gesturing at the Commandant. “He can be the one who dies while attempting escape. It works just as well either way.”

 She shook her head, and said, “That’s not how it’s going to be, Tarrant. You’re going to let the two of us walk out of here, without attempting to stop us.”

 “Why would I do that?”

 “Because those smoke bombs I planted are of a rather special design. They double as signal boosters, and right now every word we’ve said is being transmitted to a friend of mine in another location.” Smiling, she continued, “Unless you want this conversation to be live on every news broadcast in the system, I suggest you reconsider your actions.”

 “You’re bluffing.”

 Shrugging, she said, “The collapse of the Confederation won’t affect me very much if I’m dead, and I suspect that the Commandant would be willing to die for his country.”

 “Speaking as one who has been on the receiving end of the Lieutenant’s remarkable talent for deception before,” the Commandant volunteered, “I would suggest that you do exactly as she says. I would like some fresh air, in any case.”

 “All of this to help an enemy prisoner escape.”

 “Look carefully at your own motives before questioning mine.” She gestured over at the Commandant, who rose to his feet in response and started to make his way over to her, standing by her side.

 “Last chance to change your mind about this, Maggie,” Tarrant said, his gun not wavering by a millimeter. “Don’t force me to do something I’d regret.”

 “Why do you care so damn much?” she asked.

 “Because, my dear Lieutenant,” the Commandant said, “You are one of only two officers to have defeated Cabal forces in battle, and he isn’t quite sure of the rest of his brethren. From my own personal experience, military coups are generally not led by the top caliber of the officer corps; those are more interested in protecting their country than destroying it.”

 “We’re trying to save it, dammit!” he yelled, and his gun twitched across for a split second. Long enough for Orlova to fire, ducking to the ground as the echo reverberated through the corridor. He crumpled to the floor and she raced up to him taking his pulse.

 “Dead?” the Commandant asked.

 “Stunned. Taser charge. Something we’ve been working on.”

 “You appear to have access to some rather advanced equipment for a rebel on the run.”

 “Friends in low places. We can stand here discussing this all day if you want, but I think we should consider getting out of here.”

 “I bow to your superior wisdom in these matters.”  

 Stepping over Tarrant’s unconscious form, they raced down the corridor, scrambling up the ladder to ground level. Orlova kept her gun in her hand, and as she reached the top, heard a trio of cracks from above; she peered out to see one of the Ragnarok troopers cautiously making his way inside, disobeying her orders and providing her with backup.

 “Car’s waiting outside, Lieutenant,” he yelled. “We’d better move.”

 “Right, Talbot,” she said. “Commandant, let’s go.”

 She stepped out to bask in purple light, shaking her head; Harper had excelled herself this time, though it was not a trick she ever wanted to repeat. A crowd had gathered outside the building, the noise of the gunshots drawing those whose curiosity overrode their common sense, but she forced her way through the crowd towards the getaway car, scrambling into the passenger seat as Talbot took the controls.

 “Move it!” she yelled, tugging on her seatbelt. This was likely to be a wild ride, and the grin on Talbot’s face confirmed her suspicions as he slammed on the accelerator, just giving the crowd enough time to dive for safety as he raced down the street.

 “What’s the score, Lieutenant?” he asked.

 “We got what we came for. How are things out here?”

 “Harper’s hanging on to finish our daring getaway. I’ve got Fitzroy in position to get her clear at the end. You want to speak?” he replied, tossing her a communicator.

 “Harper, this is Maggie,” Orlova said. “We clear?”

 “Security’s sorting out the mess I made right now. You can expect company inbound any time now, but I don’t think you’ll have too much to worry about once you get outside the dome. Someone seems to have thrown an invasion alert practice into the defense subroutines.”

 “How the hell did you hack into the defense mainframe?”

 “I didn’t have to. It’s a lot easier to hack into the messaging computers, and hell, who’s going to question putting the planet on a higher defense status?”

 “True,” she replied.

 “That and Triplanetary Intelligence taking an extended vacation is making this simple. I haven’t had this much fun in weeks.”

 “I can tell.” The car sped up as it reached the end of the road, the long vehicular airlock up ahead, a tunnel a quarter mile long that would give them ample room for a quick getaway. “Get the doors open.”

 “Wait one.”

 Orlova’s face fell, and she said, “I can’t, Harper!”

 “Estimate twenty seconds to doors,” Talbot yelled. “What do I do?”

 “Working on it, working on it,” Harper muttered. “Someone smart at the other end’s on to me.”

 “Fifteen seconds.”

 The hatch was made of solid metal, and the car was going to make an awful mess when it slammed into it. She could hear sirens from behind, the local security services belatedly responding to their escape.

 “Harper, get that damn hatch open!”

 Finally, reluctantly, the hatch begin to slowly grind open, making a narrow gap just wide enough for the car to glide through, and Talbot adjusted the steering to slide through the gap with just a few sparks on either side where metal scraped against metal, quickly opening up to the familiar corridor beyond, out to the red surface in the distance.

 Behind, the sirens were still sounding, fading away as the pressure dropped while the car raced towards the exit, and the rear door slammed shut, sealing them off as the airlock completed its cycle. The car bounced on the sands as it sped across the desert outside, racing to gain distance before their pursuers could get after them.

 “Unbelievable,” Talbot said. “I don’t see how we got away with that.”

 “A little luck and a lot of skill,” Orlova said, pulling the communicator up again, “Great work, Harper.”

 “Maggie,” she replied, “That wasn’t me. I was a second from telling you to brake.”

 “If it wasn’t you, then who the hell was it?”

 “I don’t know.”

 “Tarrant,” Orlova said, shaking her head. “Damn me for a fool.”

 “What?” Talbot asked. 

 Looking across at him, she said, “Now he’s got me. He knows that I can’t release that footage, not without bringing everything down around our ears, and now I can be charged with aiding and abetting the escape of an enemy prisoner of war. He must have known that I’d come after him.”

 “Why not just capture you?”

 “I’m guessing we’re on his backup plan. Once we got out of the building, I suspect we were home free.” She shook her head, and said, “I don’t like dancing to someone else’s tune.”

 “What now, Maggie?” Harper asked.

 “Get to Site Y, and we’ll make our way from there,” she said. “Let’s just hope no-one else gets there first.”

  “Out of interest,” the Commandant asked, “Where are you taking me?”

 “You have an appointment with the President, sir, and my job is to make sure that you don't miss it.”

Chapter 6

 Marshall looked at the tactical display on the viewscreen, shaking his head. Two Cabal battlecruisers in any state of repair were enough of a threat to be worried about, but his force was superior in every way to them at present. With two battlecruisers, three scoutships and a fighter squadron to play with, he had all the options a commander would want, and had deployed his strike force accordingly, ready to intercept them.

 This commander had developed a reputation for trickery, but this time, Marshall just couldn’t see what he could be up to. There was a chance that he might vector away, head for the hendecaspace point and leave the system, in which case he would probably just let him go and avoid an unnecessary battle. If he’d wanted to do that, though, he’d had far more options where he was at the planet.

 “I don’t like it either,” Cunningham said, catching his expression. “All of this is just too damn convenient for my liking.”

 “Perhaps we took out their commander in the last battle,” Caine suggested, “and this is someone with less experience.”

 “Then why didn’t he attack sooner?” Marshall replied. “How’s our squadron.”

 “Meshed and ready to go,” she said with a smile. “We ought to be better than we were last time; we’ve had a lot more chances to practice.”

 “Message from Lieutenant-Major Brownworth,” the communications technician said. “Wishes us good luck in the battle ahead.”

 “Acknowledge, Spaceman, and send my thanks and compliments. Nothing from the enemy flotilla?”

 “Thermopylae and I have been calling constantly since they broke orbit, sir, and haven’t picked up any signals at all.”

 “Why’s Frank calling them?” Cunningham asked. “Did you order it?”

 “Ninety seconds to firing range,” Caine said. “Kelso, keep us in tight formation. Danny, I need firing orders.”

 “I think you can assume that you can fire at will this time,” Marshall said, still pondering Cunningham’s question. “We don’t have enough of an advantage that we can yield the first shot.”

 “Always good to here. Seventy-five seconds to go.”

 “Get me Thermopylae and Gilgamesh,” Marshall said, turning to the communications station. “On your monitors, if you please.”

 “Aye, sir,” he replied, and after a short delay, two faces appeared on the monitor, sitting on their respective bridges. Captain Gorski of Gilgamesh on the right, his perpetual scowl staining his face, and Frank Rogers on the left, looking around the bridge.

 “Gilgamesh is ready for battle, sir,” Gorski said. “I presume we are using the same tactics as last time?”

 “Take one each, with the scouts in reserve and half a squadron each for defensive/offensive work. You get to command your own fighters.”

 “Nice to know,” Rogers said. “We’re ready over here, Danny. Let’s hope we all get out the other side.”

 “As long as the enemy doesn’t, I’ll be comfortable calling this a win,” Marshall replied. “Anything I need to know about?”

 “Sir,” the sensor technician said with a frown, “Thermopylae is falling back.” 

 “What? Frank, are you having problems over there?”

 “Wait one, sir,” he replied, turning away from the screen.

 “Missile salvo ready, Danny,” Caine said. “Gilgamesh is closing on the enemy.” She looked up, sharply, and said, “Thermopylae just dropped out of the tactical datanet.”

 “Frank, what the hell is going on?” Before he could answer, the screen went dead, and a sickening feeling began to grow inside his stomach. He looked across at Caine, her face a catalog of frustration and fury.

 “The battlecruisers are turning towards Gilgamesh,” she said. “They’re ignoring Thermopylae, and I can’t get through to her Tactical officer. There must be something seriously wrong over there.”

 “Press the attack,” he replied. “Take one of them, and get Dragomirov to pull Thermopylae’s support squadron out to support us. We’ll just have to make the best of what we have.”

 “Aye, sir,” she said, and the ship surged forward, the other two vessels in its squadron on either side. Marshall looked at the tactical display, watching his carefully planned formation slowly fall apart as Thermopylae hung behind, loitering out of combat range. For whatever reason, he couldn’t count on that ship entering the fight. They were going to have to do this one by themselves.

 “Energy spike! Twelve missiles incoming to Gilgamesh.”

 Marshall shook his head; there was nothing he could do to help the battlecruiser at the moment; his forces had to strike the second enemy ship, and their course was curving towards it rapidly, their fighters hard on their heels.

 “Firing!” Caine said, and Wyvern rocked back as two missiles leapt forward, matching the launches on the other scoutships in the formation. Their target started to turn, moving to face them as the six warheads moved ahead on their track towards their target. Over on one side, Gilgamesh was concentrating on defense rather than attack, trying to knock down the incoming missiles before they could reach her.

 “Enemy battlecruiser launching missiles, sir. Six warheads, right at us!” the sensor technician yelled, and Marshall shook his head. They’d only just put Wyvern together after the last battle, and of all the scoutships in the squadron, she was the weakest. The enemy commander was making the best of a bad job, trying to take his ships apart one at a time, but he’d take a terrible pounding getting that home.

 At last, the fighters swooped past the scoutships, four of them pushing ahead to make an attack run on the Cabal vessel, the others holding back to help Wyvern defend; Caine was frantically working her controls, trying to get the launch tubes reloaded in time to get some anti-missiles out, while riding the countermeasure controls to try and knock down the incoming targets.

 “Got one!” she yelled. “Four to go; one of the fighters just took another down.”

 “Progress, Deadeye, progress.”

 He tried to step back from the ship, to take an overall look at the battle; it was an effort for him to remember that he was commanding the whole fleet now, and that he couldn’t just focus on a single ship, even if it was the one he was riding. Gilgamesh seemed to be just about holding its own against its target, matching salvo for salvo now that the odds had been evened, and the fighters were getting in some good strikes, but the scoutships were faring less well; the formation had broken, and they were no longer mutually-supporting their countermeasure systems.

 “Kelso, get us back into sync,” he yelled.

 “Trying, sir,” the helmsman said, struggling with his controls.

 “Still got two incoming, getting very close,” Caine warned.

 “All hands,” Cunningham said, slapping a control on his chair, “Brace for impact!”

 Despite all his experience, Marshall could never quite get accustomed to the terrible shock of a missile impact on the ship he was riding; the two missiles slammed amidships, sending the lights flickering as the systems struggled to compensate for the damage to the power grid. On the viewscreen, the stars began to tumble as the ship drifted out of control, Kelso muttering in frustration at his unresponsive board.

 “It’s bad, Danny,” Cunningham said, looking at his status indicators. “I think we’re sitting this one out.”

 “Sensor resolution’s low,” the technician said. “I’ll try to clear it.”

 “Do what you can. I’d at least like to see what the hell is going on.”

 “We’re getting a lot of jamming,” Caine said. “I can’t get a clear channel to the rest of the squadron.”

 “If you get a chance, tell Gorski that he’s got the command. Any chance of a shuttle?”

 “Not through all that, you don’t,” Cunningham said. “Gorski can handle it.”

 While Cunningham and his crew started the slow process of putting the pieces back together, the battle began to ebb past them. The remaining scoutships, Dragon and Griffon, pushed ahead in an attempt to co-ordinate with the fighters to get a strike on to their target, but it was an uneven struggle and they knew it; another salvo began to range in on Griffon, threatening to take the squadron down to a single ship.

 Gilgamesh seemed to be faring better against its prey; the Triplanetary battlecruiser had evidently made more progress with its repairs than its Cabal equivalent, and the damage to the latter was beginning to seriously show, rips in its outer hull and outgassing from the current engagement adding to the problem.

 Caine stood up, walking to his side, and said, “Nothing I can do at the moment.”

 “That bad?”

 “Tactical systems have failed. Lower priority than life-support and power distribution.”

 He turned, frowning, and said, “We’ve got that much damage to the linkages?”

 “It was all held together with duct tape after the last battle. All the repair crews focused on the battlecruisers.” She gestured at Thermopylae, still hanging alone at the rear of the formation, and said, “What the hell does Frank think he’s doing back there anyway?”

 “Once this battle is over, he’d better have some damn significant problems or he’ll be walking home. He’s leaving the rest of us hanging.”

 As he finished speaking, the image that represented Thermopylae began to move, and Caine said, “Maybe he heard you.”

 “Thermopylae on course for us, Captain,” the sensor officer said, shaking his head. “Direct intercept trajectory, termination in two minutes, fifteen seconds.”

 “Maybe he’s going to give us a hand?”

 Turning to the communications station, Marshall asked, “Any signal from him?”

 “Nothing, sir.”

 “Look at Griffon!” the sensor technician said, pointing at his monitor. He’d managed to get a full-magnification shot of the stricken scoutship, and she was tumbling end over end, completely out of control, a cluster of bodies drifting around her hull. “Three hits, a coordinated strike. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

 Shaking his head, Marshall said, “Get me Thermopylae now, dammit, and I don’t care if you need to use smoke signals. We’ve got to get that second battlecruiser into the fight. And try and contact Dragon, tell them to pull out and see if they can decoy the ship away. If they both concentrate on Gilgamesh, we’ve had it.”

 “I can’t raise anyone, sir,” the communications technician said, red-faced with frustration. “The jamming’s getting worse.”

 “How the hell are they cutting through us at this range?” Cunningham asked, looking at the viewscreen.

 Caine looked over at one of the monitors, then turned, anger flashing on her cheeks, “It’s Thermopylae! Thermopylae is jamming us!”

 “What the hell?” Marshall said, pushing over to her, tapping controls on her station. “Not just us, but the whole damn fleet.”

 “Dragon under heavy fire, sir. Gilgamesh is trying to turn, but has damage to her starboard thrusters.”

 “Which means that left to itself, that remaining battlecruiser is going to sweep around and finish all of us off,” Caine said. “With nothing left to stop them from wiping out everything in the system.”

 “Surely Thermopylae will defend itself?” Cunningham said.

 “Haven’t you got it yet?” Caine snapped. “Frank’s turned, damn it!”

 “I’ve known him since he was a rookie,” Marshall said, but she broke in.

 “I don’t care if you’ve known him since he was a fetus, he’s switched sides on us now! Look at the readings. He isn’t closing to assist us, he’s trying to finish what he started.”

 “Danny, we should start to think about abandoning ship,” Cunningham added with a sigh. “We might be able to get some of the crew to safety on the asteroid. There’s still a chance that Gilgamesh could win this.”

 “I can’t believe that the crew of Thermopylae would go along with this,” Marshall said, shaking his head. 

 “They don’t all have to,” Caine replied. “Just the bridge crew. The rest could easily be tricked. Most of them won’t know why they aren’t in the battle. He could be telling them anything. That depends, though…”

 “On there being no other survivors.”

 “Thermopylae is turning, sir,” the sensor technician said. “Making for the hendecaspace point. The interference is beginning to clear.” He looked across at another monitor, and said, “Not that it’ll do us any good. Dragon’s out of the fight, engines disabled. She is launching escape pods, but I think that’s just a precaution.”

 “I have Captain Gorski,” the communications technician said, and Marshall snatched up a headset.

 “This is Marshall. Thermopylae’s decided to take the better part of valor. Can you get around?”

 “Not easily or quickly,” Gorski replied. “We’ve got a lot of damage to our maneuvering thrusters. Our target decided to concentrate his fire on those areas. I think we’ve knocked one battlecruiser out of the battle…”

 “Which means one against one. Tell me the truth, Captain, can you handle it?”

 “I’m not sure, sir. Even fight at best. We certainly can’t reach Thermopylae before she jumps.”

 “What about a shuttle?” Caine said. “Cooper and one of his squads are on board.”

 Looking up at the monitor, Marshall replied, “Not much of a chance unless we can slow them down, but better than nothing.”

 “One squad against a battlecruiser?” Cunningham said, eyes widening. “Those are pretty heavy odds.”

 “One squad against a bridge crew is rather more like it. Get them up in the air.”

 “Not a hope in…,” Cunningham said, then looked back at Marshall, “Damn. Dimensional interference at the near hendecaspace point.”

 “Great,” Caine said. “What now?”

 “Something’s coming through!” the sensor technician said. “Captain, you aren’t going to believe this.”

 “Try me,” Marshall replied.

 “It’s a Triplanetary Battlecruiser, sir,” he said, a smile growing. “The Alamo.”

Chapter 7

 Logan didn’t know what he was expecting to find when Alamo emerged from hendecaspace at Hades Station, but the situation was even more chaotic than he could ever have guessed. Two battlecruisers – one Cabal, one Triplanetary – were slugging it out, while another seemed to be in the process of wiping out a squadron of scoutships scattered across the combat area. Racing towards them was the Thermopylae, which looked undamaged but was nevertheless fleeing the fight.

 “Orders, Captain?” Ryder asked. 

 “We’ve got to help those scoutships. Full speed, and take us into the battle. Try and find out who is in command here and see if they have any other ideas.”

 Weitzman turned from his console, and said, “I have Captain Rogers on Thermopylae, sir. Apparently he’s been ordered to pull back, and we should allow him to pass.”

 Stabbing a button on the arm of his command chair, he said, “Rogers, this is Captain Winter on Alamo. By Presidential order you are to remain in this system.”

 “Presidential order?” Steele said.

 “I’m sure he’d give it if he was here. Full acceleration. Let’s see if we can make a mess of that Cabal ship. Ryder, you can fire whenever you want.”

 “Yes, sir,” she said with a smile, tapping a series of controls that sent Alamo’s radiators flying out at speed, mile-long wings that would reflect the heat of the laser cannon she was busily charging. Logan concentrated on the battle as a whole, leaving the details to the infinitely more-experienced Ryder. Everything here seemed to have gone to hell; up ahead, Gilgamesh was struggling to turn while still trading salvos with its nearest rival, a battle that looked like it wasn’t going to end any time soon.

 It didn’t take much imagination to work out what had happened. Thermopylae should have been in the thick of the fight, but had pulled back, and Logan could guess why. A defeat at the hands of the Cabal would spur the Senate to action even more quickly, lead the general population to call for revenge, inflame passions. Dangerous.

 “Ryder, can we get a firing solution on Thermopylae?” he asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible.

 Silence reigned across the bridge as she replied, “Yes, sir. I can.”

 “We’re going to fire on another Triplanetary ship?” Spinelli said, turning white. “Captain, are you sure about this?”

 “We must assume that Thermopylae is not acting for the Confederation, and that its crew have decided to leave their comrades to die.” He paused, and said, “I’m not doing this lightly, but I’m not going to allow them to run home either. We need them here. Ryder, I want you to knock out their hendecaspace drive. Do as little damage as possible, and try and avoid causing any casualties.”

 “Sir,” she said, horror on her face. “That's one of our ships.”

 He looked into her eyes, shook his head, and said, “We don’t have any choice. Make it a quick laser blast.”

 She waited for a second, and he thought she was going to refuse his order, but instead she turned to Steele and said, “Sub-Lieutenant, get me a firing solution in twenty seconds. Make sure you don’t telegraph it; if we’re going to do this, let’s get it right. I don’t want to hit their living quarters by mistake.”

 “Hit on Gilgamesh, aft!” Spinelli said. “Looks like a last strike from the enemy battlecruiser. The Cabal ship is throwing out escape pods, but Gilgamesh is drifting. Intact, but they don’t have attitude control.”

 “Which puts them out of the battle, at least for the moment.”

 Ryder turned to Logan, and said, “Ready to fire, sir.”

 “Do it,” he said with a deep sigh.

 Steele tapped a series of controls, and Alamo pivoted towards Thermopylae, her cannon pointing at Ryder’s target. For an instant, the two ships were connected by a flash of light, and then an angry red gouge appeared at the rear of Thermopylae, atmosphere leaking into space from the wound in her hull.

 “Target hit, sir,” she said. “They won’t be leaving this system any time soon.”

 “Message from Wyvern, sir!” Weitzman said. “Signal’s strength’s low, audio only.”

 “Put him on,” Logan said.

 “This is Captain Marshall,” a voice said, almost drowned out by the spontaneous cheer that resounded around the bridge. “We’ll deal with Thermopylae, you knock out that bastard up ahead. We’re defenseless here.”

 “We’ve got your back, Wyvern.”

 “Captain,” Marshall asked, “What are you doing here?”

 “Technically, our job is to protect the peace, but today I think that means blowing holes in enemy ships. I’ll go into more detail later. Logan out.” He looked around the bridge, and said, “Focus, everyone. We’ve got a job to do.”

 “Laser recharge cycle under way,” Ryder said. “All systems running well.”

 “Intercept course for the enemy battlecruiser,” Steele added. “They look pretty confident, they’re not trying to evade at all.”

 “They’re playing chicken,” Logan said. “Keep a firing solution on Thermopylae, just in case.”

 “You don’t seriously think that they’ll fire on a Triplanetary ship, do you?”

 “Why not? We did. Get our fighters out as well, we might as well throw everything we’ve got into the fight.”

 Nodding, Ryder reached across to an adjacent console, currently unoccupied, and tapped a series of controls before saying into a microphone, “All fighters, immediate launch.”

 Three new trails appeared on the tactical display as Alamo’s borrowed fighter formation moved into attack position, diving towards the enemy battlecruiser. Over to one side, another group of fighters curved around, aiming for a coordinated strike. If they got this right, then the Cabal vessel would be caught neatly between the two of them, with Alamo racing down the middle.

 There was a strange beauty to the tactical display, a series of intersecting lines tangling around each other as the pilots and tactical officers of dozens of ships and fighters worked their magic, each one attempting to gain the split-second advantage that might win them the battle. Alamo was gracefully curving in, on a direct course for the enemy battlecruiser, her fighters proceeding her in a sleek arrowhead formation.

 “Shuttle launched from Alamo, sir,” Spinelli said. “Moving fast, as well.”

 “Search and rescue?”

 “No, Captain,” the sensor operator said. “It’s heading for Thermopylae.”

 “I don’t envy them that job,” Ryder said. “Firing range with the enemy battlecruiser in two minutes.”

 Nodding, Logan said, “Do everything necessary to bring that bastard down, Ryder. Laser shots, missile salvos, throw rocks at them. Whatever it takes. Weitzman, try and get contact with them, offer them a chance at surrender.”

 “Unconditional surrender?”

 “No, damn it, I’ll talk terms. We’re here on a peace mission, and I’d rather be trading insults than missiles. Give them an honorable way out.”

 Shaking her head, Steele said, “They’ll fight to the end, sir. The consequences of failure…”

 “Let’s hope you are wrong about that, Sub-Lieutenant.”

 He settled back again as Alamo raced towards the enemy, letting Ryder handle the tactical details while he concentrated on the overall picture. Up ahead, the fighters were launching a salvo, six missiles racing towards their target in two directions. Alamo would be contributing another half-dozen to the battle in a few seconds.

 The enemy commander must know that Alamo’s arrival had ended any chance he had of winning. He’d pulled it close – Thermopylae’s withdrawal from the battle had wiped out the previous Triplanetary advantage and thrown their plans into confusion – but the game was up, and all he was doing was throwing away lives.

 “Energy spike,” Spinelli said. “They’re going for us, at extreme range.”

 “Plenty of time for our countermeasures to do their stuff,” Ryder said with a nod. “Working on it now.”

 “Watch them,” Steele replied. “They’ve had plenty of time to come up with some new tricks.”

 “I’ve got this, Sub-Lieutenant,” Ryder said, working her panel. Logan looked at her, saw the beads of sweat building up on her face, and then turned to his console, bringing up the hacking subroutines.

 “I’ll handle the countermeasures, Ryder. You concentrate on the rest of the battle.”

 “Yes, sir,” she said with a grateful smile. She turned back to the missile controls, locking targets into the computer to try and give a time-on-target impact, all twelve missiles hitting the enemy at once. Logan focused instead on the incoming Cabal warheads.

 They were a surprisingly familiar design, a United Nations vintage from about nine years ago, considerably post-war, one he knew rather well. Long ago, he'd run a deep cover operation in the research office that developed it; the head technician was very susceptible to tequila. He’d never run a ship countermeasures control before, but hacking was something he did know; he went straight to the intrusive programs, working his worms into their network, trying to wrest control.

 The first couple were all too easy; the leading missile had an error in its security programming, and he slammed it across into an adjacent target, resulting in a satisfying explosion. Immediately, the rest of the missiles spread out, lateral thrusters hurling them apart to prevent him trying that trick again. The self-destruct systems were his next target; on that mark of missile, they’d been legendarily easy to access, but he quickly realized that the Cabal had made some modifications to the design. Still, another missile turned back on itself, spiraling on its engine before exploding.

 Three left, almost half-way to their target. He smiled as he switched over to their on-board sensors, kept nice and simple as a rule. Visual lock, based on a target set by the tactical officer. Changing the target would be darn near impossible, but hacking into the image database was somewhat easier. He tapped a control, feeding an image of the Cabal battlecruiser into his system, then fired it off at the missiles, overwriting the original feed.

 As he worked, the lights dimmed for a second as Alamo fired another laser pulse, this time at the enemy ship, slicing into the hull armor. Excellent; that would provide a nice distraction while he finished his work, and a few seconds later, there were fifteen missiles heading for the enemy battlecruiser. He started to overwrite some of the security protocols, setting a few bots loose in the missile network, and looked back up at the tactical display.

 “That’s a good trick, sir,” Ryder said.

 “Enemy ship is trying to turn, sir,” Spinelli said. “Best guess is that he’s attempting to protect critical systems.”

 “Message from Gilgamesh,” Weitzman added. “Their target is heading towards the planet, and they’ve managed to restore sufficient attitude control to head back for the battle area. Estimated arrival in nine minutes.”

 “What condition are they in?”

 “Not good, sir. No hendecaspace drive, significant damage to outer hull and weapon systems.”

 “Let’s hope we can finish this one off first, then,” Logan replied. “Time to impact?”

 “First wave in ten seconds.” Ryder looked up, and said, “Second salvo ready to fire.”

 He’d missed the firing of the first salvo completely while he was working the countermeasures.

 “Give me the score as soon as we get it.”

 A few of the tracks had winked out, the Cabal security team desperately working to protect their ship, but nine still remained, entering the terminal phase of their flight, and in a split-second, they were gone, leaving nothing but damage and devastation in their wake.

 “Multiple impacts!” Ryder said. “Outgassing oxygen, the ship’s tumbling, and we’ve taken out most of their launch tubes. I’d say they are out of the combat.”

 “Can you get Marshall?”

 “No, sir,” Weitzman said. “Wyvern’s long-range communications are out.””

 “Another hit?”

 “Power failure.”

 Shaking his head, Logan said, “Get a damage control team out there at once. We’re not going to need them, and they might. Is the enemy ship in a mood to talk now?”

 “Oddly enough, sir, yes.”

 An image flashed onto the viewscreen, a man with a pair of gashes across his forehead standing on a smoke-filled bridge, wreckage everywhere. One of the impacts must have been pretty close-by to do that much damage.

 “This act of aggression….” the figure began, but Logan cut him off.

 “We can talk about ancient history all you want, but you and your crew don’t have the time. I want to get medical teams over to you right now, and some engineers from our tender to try and patch you up enough to limp for orbit.”

 “I will not surrender.” He turned, then said, “Hale, prepare for ramming speed.”

 “I don’t want your surrender, I just want a cease-fire! This whole damn battle shouldn’t have happened in the first place. We leave things as they are and let the diplomats sort out the details later.”

 “I have to defend this system…”

 “All you’ll be is component atoms if you carry on with this.”

 Another man stepped in behind him as the Cabal commander said, “I repeat, if…”

 The screen went blank for a moment, and when it cleared again, a different figure – with far less ornamentation on his uniform, was present. “We’re willing to stand down, Captain. Send your medical and rescue teams. I have disabled our defensive/offensive systems, and am willing to trust your intentions.”

 “What happened just?”

 “My predecessor has been taken ill.”

 “I see,” Logan said. “Our support teams are on the way. No Espatiers, though if you do something stupid…”

 “You don’t need to threaten me, Captain. I am aware that our situation is dire, and that we don’t have any options remaining to us except to hope for mercy.” Pausing, he added, “Our dead will be avenged, though. Have no doubt about that.”

 Ryder, moving over to his side, said, “Mutiny?”

 “Looks like it,” he replied, “Don’t get ideas. I just hope he’s wrong about the vengeance.” Resting back in the command chair, he continued, “Now we’ve got to try and put all the pieces back together. What a god-damned mess.”

Chapter 8

 Marshall looked at the approaching ship as it grew closer on the shuttle’s viewscreen, his eyes drinking in every detail of the hull as they closed for docking. Caine, at the pilot’s seat, attempted to concentrate on her flying, but kept glancing across at him, a smile on her face. He knew that he’d missed Alamo, but until this moment, he hadn’t quite realized how much she meant to him. Now he was seconds away from boarding her once again, and he struggled to collect himself.

 “Now on final approach,” Caine said. “I think we can let the computers handle the post-flight, can’t we? I don’t want to miss this either.”

 “Fine, fine,” he said, as the shuttle coasted in towards the docking bay, hooking itself into the elevator airlock as it began its ride inside the ship, a hissing noise growing as the pressure rose on the far side. He tugged at his uniform and walked into the rear section, standing in front of the airlock. Cunningham had already unstrapped himself from his couch, and clapped him on the back.

 “Relax, Danny,” he said.

 “Easy to say.”

 A green light winked on, and the hatch slid open, the ramp coming down. He looked around the hangar bay, a couple of dozen people standing at attention, all of whom he recognized. Quinn with his wife, Tabitha Dixon, standing next to him in front of the flight crews and technicians, Ryder over on the far side with all but the on-duty bridge watch, Logan at the head of the group wearing a suspiciously-new dress uniform, Weitzman, Spinelli, Ivanov from the deck crew, Chief Washington, all of them had turned out to meet him. He took three steps down from the shuttle, and took a deep breath.

 “It’s good to be back.” He looked at Logan, and asked, “Permission to come aboard?” 

 “As if you needed to ask,” Logan replied with a smile. He pulled a datapad out of his pocket and passed it across, continuing, “I took good care of her, and with the help of the Popovich I’ve even filled up the gas tank. Really, though, she isn’t mine.”

 “Logan, I’m happy to keep things as they are.”

 “I’m not. Take it.”

 “Go on, Danny,” Caine said, moving down from the cockpit airlock. “It’s a gift.”

 “In that case, as of this time, this date, I am hereby assuming command of this vessel. Have the duty officer record this in the log. Captain Winter, I relieve you, sir.”

 “I stand relieved,” Logan said, his smile growing. “And never have I been happier to see anyone in my life, Captain.”

 “Condition report?”

 Quinn stepped forward, and said, “No damage from the battle, sir, and I had a chance to do a quick overhaul at Carter Station. She’s ready for anything, and supplied for an extended cruise.”

 “Crew status?”

 “With the exception of three on the bridge and two in engineering, you’re looking at them,” Logan replied. “We’d better have a quiet talk as to why, but we’ve only got a crew compliment of twenty-nine, including our three fighter pilots.”

 “All volunteers,” Dixon said. “Every single one. And the only reason there aren’t more people here is that Logan didn’t ask anyone with families to come along.”

 “What about our guest?”

 “Ensign Cooper dropped him off ten minutes ago. Apparently he didn’t put up any sort of a fight, and I’m not really surprised about that. The game was up and he knew it.”

 Shaking his head, Cunningham said, “I still don’t understand what could have got into Frank’s head to make him do something like that. Treason, desertion, mutiny…”

 “I can explain it,” Logan said. “We’d better speak privately, then I’ll have him brought in.”

 Nodding, Marshall turned back to the waiting crowd, “Words can’t describe how it felt to see all of you again, to see this ship appear in the system, and how proud I am of each and every one of you. We’ve got a hell of a long road left in front of us, but with a little luck we’ll all get to the other side in one piece. Let’s get to work.”

 Logan waved Marshall into the deck officer’s cabin, sitting down behind the desk with a sigh. Cunningham, Caine and Ryder stepped in with them, crowding the confined office, a resigned look on Ryder’s face.

 “Problem, Lieutenant?” Marshall asked, then after seeing her rank insignia, continued, “I’m sorry, Senior Lieutenant.”

 “Logan promoted me when we got back to Sol. Quinn as well. You aren’t going to like the rest of it.”

 “Danny,” Logan said, struggling to find the words, “You were sent here illegally.”

 “I know,” he replied. “We found out a few weeks ago, but by then were committed to battle. Not much we could do about it. How far have things gone back home?”

 “The President is in the process of being impeached, and the Vice-President is using it to hold up the peace treaty in the hopes of starting a war with the Cabal. Enough Fleet officers are involved that I can’t trust anyone not in this room, and Intelligence is sitting this one out.”

 “A coup?” Caine said, almost yelling. “There’s a god-damned coup going on back home?”

 “Oh, it’s a very constitutional one. They’ve got the President on charges of corruption, dead to rights, but they’re abusing the situation for their own ends. People have already died, Deadeye,” Logan said, shaking his head. “We had to leave Maggie Orlova and Kristin Harper behind. Last I heard, they were on the run. Chambers as well, my Political Officer.”

 “Who is on our side?”

 Shrugging, Logan replied, “My guess is that we’re up against the Progressive senior figures, a few people with the Vice-President, and some key Fleet officers. I really don’t think that there are that many of them, maybe no more than a hundred, but they’ve managed to tangle themselves up in the power structure. The problem is that they’ve managed to wrestle control of the agenda.”

 “So go public!” Cunningham said.

 “No,” Marshall replied. “For the same reason that we didn’t tell the whole fleet about our little discovery. If this got out, it could bring the whole government down, and then we’d get our war – with one hand tied behind our backs. We can’t let this get out.”

 “Which means we’re fighting them off with one hand tied behind our backs,” Caine said.

 “Not now we’re here,” Logan said. “We’ve got a task force behind us.”

 “What task force?” Cunningham replied. “Have you seen the damage reports? We had to abandon Griffon, and neither Wyvern nor Dragon are going to be in condition to do anything for months. You did about two weeks’ damage to Thermopylae yourself, and Gilgamesh got pasted as well. None of that would have mattered that much if we only had to win a straight victory – we’ve got plenty of resources here to put everything back together again. If it comes to a battle, though, it’s just Alamo.”

 “All this way…” Ryder said.

 “We can certainly spare crew, though, especially from the scouts. Once we’re done here, John, I want you to go through the fleet for volunteers. Anyone who doesn’t mind throwing their career onto the scrapheap. No details,” Marshall said. “And no sales technique. I don’t want anyone pushed into something they’ll regret.

 “I think we can pick up a few,” Cunningham said. “Enough to give us a reasonable chance, if nothing else. Spares and components as well, get Alamo ready for action.”

 “Fighters and Espatiers too,” Ryder suggested.

 “Only the flight Alamo has already, and Cooper's platoon,” Marshall said. “We went to a lot of trouble to take this station, and I don’t want to just hand it back to the enemy without a fight. We’re going to be leaving this system stripped bare enough as it is.”

 “Sir,” Ryder asked, “May I ask who is going to relieve me?”

 “Relieve you of what?” Marshall replied.

 “My position, sir. There are several officers who outrank me for the position of Alamo’s Exec.”

 “Hmm. Logan, is she doing a good job?”

 “We wouldn’t have got here without her,” the agent replied with a smile. “And I certainly don’t want the damn job.”

 “Ryder, at least for the present, I need you where you are. Deadeye, you can take Tactical, and I presume you’re happy to revert to Supercargo, Logan?”

 “Always a pleasure to have next to nothing to do,” he replied. “I’ve thrown everything into a very highly classified report for you to go through on our trip home, though I’d have something strong around to wash it down with. Bad taste.” He paused, then said, “Theoretically, we’re operating under a Presidential order, but he didn’t have any authority to issue it. Which means everyone on this ship will be up on all sorts of charges when we get home.”

 “Understood.”

 “What do you want me to do, Danny?” Cunningham asked.

 “Logan, could you go and get the prisoner for me? Deadeye, Ryder, you’d better get up to the bridge and start pulling together some status reports, and see where we can integrate some crewmen.”

 “Right,” Caine said, and the three of them left the room, leaving Cunningham and Marshall alone.

 “This is going to be one of those unpleasant orders, isn’t it.”

 “You’ve got to stay behind,” Marshall said. “And this is not subject to argument.”

 “Danny…,” he began.

 “I mean it, John. For two reasons. The first is that I need someone good to take command here. You’ll need to push the repairs as fast as you can, try and get at least one of the battlecruisers ready for action, preferably both. If war breaks out this is the front line, and there just isn’t anyone I trust.”

 “Gorski…”

 “Is perfectly competent, but I don’t know him well enough to trust him with something like this, not when there is a better choice. The only other possibility would be Brownworth, and she’s Espatier. Good but not for this – it’ll be a fleet battle if there is one.”

 “What’s the second reason?” 

 “Almost everyone who knows the truth is going to be shipping out on Alamo. I want to keep this as tight as possible. You’ll be the only one left behind, and if it all goes wrong when we go back to Mars, I need someone as a backup. I can’t give you any orders, but do what you need to do to make things right.”

 “That’s a hell of a hot seat to leave me in.”

 “Trust me, this one’s worse.”

 “What are you going to do?”

 “That depends very much on my conversation with Frank.”

 The door opened, and Cooper was standing outside with Logan, Frank Rogers in front of them both with a resigned look on his face. He walked into the office and looked around.

 “Quite an audience, Danny.”

 “You will address me as ‘sir’, Mr. Rogers.”

 “Is this a preparation for a court-martial?”

 “I’ve got enough officers of the right rank to call one right here and now. I suspect that the end result would see you in front of a firing squad. Give me a reason why not?”

 “Publicity?”

 “The Captain told you to call him ‘sir’,” Cooper said, a scowl on his face.

 “Get in here,” Marshall said. “John, Logan, you stay. Cooper, make sure we are not disturbed, and if I call, get inside instantly.”

 “With backup. Yes, sir,” the Espatier said, stepping back to allow the door to slide shut.

 “Quite an attack dog you have there,” Rogers said. 

 “Look, Captain,” Logan began, “You’re part of this little conspiracy, and while Captain Marshall might have a conscience about such things, I don’t. You are talking for your life, quite literally.”

 “You’re bluffing.”

 “It won’t take a firing squad. An airlock accident. And don’t pretend that your side hasn’t organized a few, because I’ve already seen the evidence. The charge is treason, and we’ve got you well and truly caught.”

 “Thermopylae…”

 “Had no significant damage,” Cunningham said. “Look, think of this another way. Convince us that what you were doing was right.”

 Shaking his head, he said, “This was meant to be a one-way mission. It was meant to fail. Either in the assault, or during the fleet battle. Preferably the first.”

 “Cooper was right,” Marshall said. “The Espatiers…”

 “Dregs of the training program. Expendable.” He looked up at Logan, and said, “All of them volunteered, Captain. And when they signed up, they knew that it might require them to sacrifice their lives.”

 “Not throw them away!” Logan yelled. “And who the hell decides what this greater good is, anyway?”

 “You’ve been to the Cabal,” Rogers said, turning to Marshall. “You know what sort of bastards they are, and that they have to be stopped. After the next election, there will be the majority in the Senate to call for a war, and we can’t have the lame-ducks sign us up to a peace treaty.”

 “That’s not how the system works, damn it! The Senate are the representatives of the people, and their job is to decide whether to ratify a treaty or not.”

 “The President has committed…”

 “Does that have anything to do with the treaty? In any way? Is he accused of treason, perhaps? Spying for the Cabal, or taking money to influence his decision.”

 “No.”

 “Then why not sign the treaty?” Sighing, Marshall said, “I have been out there, and unlike you, I’ve fought them for most of a year. We could easily lose this war, and then what? We’re subjugated under the Cabal, and everything we have fought for his lost.”

 “Not that it will matter if you toss it all into the dustbin,” Logan added. “The Senate could vote to bypass the impeachment and vote on the treaty, but there are just enough people opposing that to prevent the two-thirds majority. In the meantime, you come out here to fight a war of aggression, and with the greatest irony yet, collaborate with the Cabal to start it.”

 “What?” Cunningham asked.

 Nodding, Marshall said, “It’s the only way that this make sense. Someone leaked our plans, and that they would be pulling out of the battle line at the last minute.”

 “We’ve already found the data trail in Thermopylae’s systems. Everything is being copied and deleted; there’ll be no trace of it for anyone else to find unless we want them too.” Turning to Rogers, he said, “That is treason.”

 “My orders were to leave this system with news of the defeat. If the Cabal commander needed some encouragement to push a battle, I was happy to provide it. Once news that they had knocked out a fleet on a mission of peace had circulated, the majority for war would have been absolute.”  

 Marshall looked across at Logan and asked, “All of this is documented?”

 “A nice smoking gun for us.” 

 “Who else was in on this?” Marshall asked.

 “I won’t…”

 “One thing I can leak is that a Triplanetary officer has committed an act of treason. No-one needs to know where the dots connect,” Marshall snapped. “Co-operate and I’ll see that you are charged instead with cowardice in the face of the enemy. That’s a prison term. Or maybe I’ll just tell the Espatiers that you considered them as expendable rejects and let them take you on a tour of the asteroid.” 

 “I didn’t want it to go this way, Danny.” He sighed, then said, “I’m operating under Presidential orders, all the way. Though talking to the enemy was my idea; I was improvising. Fleet Captain Hayes was in charge of this operation. Admiral Pierce didn’t know.”

 “Tramiel?”

 “He was the one who passed the orders to me.”

 Leaning forward, Marshall asked, “Will you testify?”

 “I was doing my duty as I saw it. I was willing to die in the line of that duty, and I’m willing to die now, for the good of the Confederation.”

 Nodding, Marshall said, “Get him out of here.”

 The door opened, and Cooper escorted him out of the room. Silence descended after he left, Cunningham sitting down on the edge of the desk.

 “The Cabal officers we’ve captured will likely testify.”

 “How will that help?” Marshall asked. “No-one will believe a word they said. We’ve got some evidence, but they’ll just say it was faked. Or throw everything at him, and clear themselves in the process.”

 Frowning, Logan said, “We’ve got a gun to point at them, Danny. They don’t need to know that we’re firing blanks. There’s a chance that simply threatening them with his testimony will be enough, especially with a treason charge hanging over him.”

 “That’s a weak hand to play with, Logan,” Cunningham said.

 “You’ve got to take the cards you’ve been dealt.”

 Nodding, Marshall said, “It’s all we’ve got. Alamo will head home as soon as possible, and present everything we’ve got to the Senate. There’s a chance that Orlova might have put together some more information as well, and we can continue to work on Rogers.”

 “He won’t talk. He’s got no reason to,” Cunningham replied. “All he has to do is wait until the coup succeeds, and he’s in the clear. He knows that, and also that you won’t just kill him now.” 

 “What’s the other choice, then?” Marshall asked. “Sit back and watch all this happen? Let them start a war? If they get away with this once, how long before they do it again?”

 “I’m not going to let this coup succeed,” Logan said with an air of finality.

 “Then it’s settled,” Marshall said, looking up at the clock. “In four days, Alamo makes course for home. I want to meet with the Cabal leadership, in whatever neutral ground we can manage.”

 “What are you going to tell them?” Cunningham asked.

 “The truth. As much as I dare.”

Chapter 9

 The buggy pulled up outside a battered, windswept dome with a long strip of concrete running down one side, a tall antenna looming over the horizon and a series of glowing blue lights, only half of which were working. Orlova stepped out, the Commandant and Talbot behind her, and hurried into the airlock, willing it to cycle quickly.

 Waiting for her at the other side was a nervous-looking Harriet, alone inside the all-but empty dome, just a trio of sleeping bags, a stove, and some monitoring equipment for company. She tossed aside the datapad in her hand and hustled over to them, looking at the Commandant.

 “Is this him?” she asked.

 “Not impressed?” Orlova replied.

 “No horns, no forked tail. Not what the press briefings made us expect. Maggie, we can’t stay here. I just got a report from Harper up on Phobos…”

 “She made it, then?” Talbot interjected.

 “Yes, yes, no problem, but she’s spotted a couple of convoys heading this way, local planetary defense forces. They’ve got both major routes covered, but she thinks that we should be able to make it to Clarke City. If we leave immediately. My buggy’s charged and ready to go outside.”

 Smiling, Orlova replied, “That would be letting them dictate our course of action. They’ve got the resources to have blocked off every point of retreat, at little or no risk to them. Which means they are trying to force us somewhere. We need to get to the Ragnarok Embassy, get the Commandant in a meeting with the President. That’s our top priority right now.”

 “How?” Harriet asked.

 “Aren’t you curious what this base was for?”

 “Just another abandoned military site from the War, I figured. Mars is littered with them.”

 “This one was a little special. My father worked here on the admin side for a while. Back in the day, it was a flight test facility.”

 “Shuttles?” Talbot said, beaming. “Then we can get up to Phobos, or make a ballistic trajectory all the way to our target.”

 “No,” Orlova replied, shaking her head. “Aircraft.”

 “Military aircraft? In the Martian atmosphere?”

 “There’s enough of an atmosphere to fly. Search and rescue uses them all the time.”

 “Only for spotting and quick response,” Harriet replied. “I covered them for a while when I was starting out. There’s nothing around that can carry more than a couple of men, and…”

 Looking down at the floor, Orlova said, “In an underground hangar is a pair of two-seater fighters, designed for the Martian atmosphere. They never put them into service, but they’ve been tested, and they work.”

 “And anyone with a SAM could shoot them down,” Talbot said, bluntly.

 “Not many of those on Mars,” Harriet said. “I’m more worried about the orbital defense platforms.”

 “Don’t worry, I’ve got that all worked out,” said Orlova with a grin. “Ever do any flying, Lieutenant?”

 Talbot shrugged, and said, “On Ragnarok, with an atmosphere a hundred times thicker. I’m guessing the principle is basically the same.” 

 “Let the autopilot do most of the work,” Orlova replied, “and I’ll run interference for you. Relax, it’ll work.”

 She walked over to the far side of the dome and reached down for a hidden hatch, pulling away a piece of floor tiling to expose a shaft heading down into darkness, lit only by a few dimly glowing spotlights at the bottom. Without waiting, she started to climb down, waving for the others to follow.

 “How the hell did you know about this?” Harriet asked.

 “I told you my father was stationed here; that was when I was about five. I spent ages wandering around these tunnels. Not much else for a kid to do on a base like this. We were here for about a year, long enough to know the layout of the place.” She smiled, then said, “I even went up a couple of times, whenever one of the pilots showed a little mercy to my father.”

 After a few dozen rungs, she was out into empty space, a huge, dug-out hangar space with half a dozen shapes hidden under red tarpaulins, covered in dust. Orlova eagerly slid down the last few steps and raced over to the nearest, pulling the sheet clear and exposing the craft beneath, a long, thin cylinder with stubby wings attached, a cable connected to a socket underneath.

 “Still working,” she said, reaching up into the cockpit and tapping a series of controls. “I’ve got preflight running. Ready to launch in five minutes.” As she raced over to the next craft and repeated the procedure, Talbot looked over the craft with a frown on his face, shaking his head.

 “I’ve only got a light aircraft license, and I’m not an aeronautical engineer, but aren’t these wings rather on the small side?”

 “You’ll see when we get out to the surface. Harriet, you’re with me. Talbot and the Commandant over there. Strap yourselves in and get ready for the ride of your life.”

 Moving back into the first cockpit, Orlova strapped herself in as Harriet clambered in behind her, looking around at the instruments with an air of bafflement.

 “Don’t worry, I can handle everything from here. Most of these are single-seat, but they did a couple of trainers. At one point the plan was to put together a few squadrons of these.”

 “Why didn’t they?”

 “After a few years they realized that there wasn’t going to be any fighting down on the surface, not unless everything had gone so badly wrong that the war was lost anyway. So they shut down the program and threw it into mothballs. Someone comes around every month or so to check that everything’s working, but they’ve been doing it for so long that I suspect the brass has forgotten about it. It's a Martian Space Service project anyway, nothing to do with the Triplanetary Fleet. With a bit of luck, we’ll catch them by surprise. You ready?”

 “I guess so.”

 “Good,” she said. “This is going to be fun.” After a quick glance back to make sure that the other fighter was ready, she threw a trio of switches and the hatch at the far end of the hangar opened, the atmosphere leaking quickly away. Tapping another button, the fighter began to taxi down to the start of the runway, edging left and right as she tested the controls, attempting to get the feel of the craft.

 “What about the wings?” Harriet asked.

 “Ah, that’s one of the special parts of the design. Watch.” Orlova threw a switch, and on either side of the fighter, the wings began to extend, racing out more than a hundred feet, support struts clicking into place. A series of lights flashed from red to amber to green, and she smiled. “They built them to be hidden away, small, if needed.”

 “Doesn’t that affect their strength?”

 “We get hit by something, we’re dead anyway. No armor. This craft was built like the early landers – weight was at an absolute premium. Don’t bang the floor.”

 “I thought this was a fighter?”

 “She’s got great performance.” Pulling out a headset and strapping it on, she said, “Talbot, do you read me?”

 “Yeah, my wings are extending now. Your work?”

 “I’ve set up a slave system on some of your controls. Autopilot’s programming for the Ragnarok Embassy right now; with a little luck we should come down just outside. One quick dash for the airlock and we’ll be fine. Give them a call and arrange for a welcoming party once we get into the air.”

 “Will do.”

 She rested her hands on the controls, left hand on the throttle, right hand on the joystick, the computer managing the rest of the systems. Despite everything that was happening, she was enjoying this – the nearest she’d been to real flying for years.

 “You’ve done this a lot, have you, Maggie?” Harriet asked.

 “Atmospheric flying?” she replied. “Several hundred hours.”

 “That’s good.”

 As the plane built up speed, the nose beginning to pull up, she added, “In simulation. Hang on!” 

 Biting the thin atmosphere, the engine powering up to full, the plane slowly began to lift off the ground, plenty of runway still remaining. With a loud, grinding noise, the landing gear retracted into the main body of the fighter, and the wings swept into position for maximum lift, the

internal systems pulling the structure tighter, making micro-adjustments to make the fighter as aerodynamic as possible.

 “All good, we have cleared the runway, height a hundred feet.” She reached up for a switch, and said, “Going for level flight.”

 “Can’t we go higher?”

 Shaking her head, Orlova replied, “Where’s the fun in that! These craft were designed to go low, and besides, I want as much attention as possible.” She gestured up ahead, and said, “I’m heading for the Tharsis Strip. There’s enough traffic there that no-one’s going to shoot us down, far too many questions to answer. It’s about a hundred miles, maybe a little over an hour if we’re lucky.”

 “Skyborne,” Talbot’s voice echoed over the speaker. “Only just had enough runway.”

 “Don’t worry, as long as you made it, that’s good enough. Maintain your altitude and follow me.”

 “Look down there,” Harriet said, pointing over her left side. Orlova looked down and saw one of the truck convoys in the desert, the vehicles stopped and spacesuited figures climbing out.

 “That’s a bit of bad luck. I’d hoped to dodge them, at least for a while. Never mind.”

 “What can they do?”

 “I don’t know what the current defense preparedness level is, but it’ll take time to get the planetary defenses set up for this. They’re designed to point out, not in.”

 With a sigh, Melissa said, “Then we shouldn’t have any real problems.”

 Looking down at a monitor, Orlova replied, “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

 “Problem?”

 “I’m getting readings of something lifting from the base. They must have managed to get past the security overrides on the other fighters.” Shaking her head, she replied, “Which means that they must have had some pilots with them. Damn it, I should have known this would happen.”

 “We’ve got a head start, haven’t we?”

 “Yes, but there are two of us in this fighter, and the rest are built for one. These things are light enough that even that little weight makes a real difference to our performance.” She turned to look behind her, spotting a trio of faint dots rising to the sky. “Thank God the load-out on these things was never completed.”

 “It wasn’t?”

 “They never got funding for the air-to-air missiles.”

 “Then what are they armed with?”

 “Well, there are laser targeters to simulate all sorts of damage profiles for exercises and flight tests, but the brass insisted that something get loaded on them…”

 “So what? Railguns, plasma cannons?”

 Turning back to face her passenger, Orlova said, “Machine guns. The specs for which were dug out of an old history text. Thrown together in four evenings, as I recall. I helped Dad put the bits together.”

 “This is absurd. I’m flying over Mars in a plane that would have fit just fine in the Hitler War.”

 “Actually, it’s a little primitive for that. We were improvising.” She threw a few switches, then said, “I’m going to have to go to manual. The on-board systems aren’t really up to dogfighting. Make sure your parachute straps are secure.”

 “Maggie, we’re only wearing light suits.”

 “Then we’d better hope we don’t need the parachutes. Hold on, this is going to get bumpy.” Pulling down the microphone on her headset, she said, “Talbot, I’m going to take the rear and try and keep our new friends off our backs. Head right for the Embassy, and don’t look back. Clear?”

 “Hold on, I’m….”

 “You will do no such thing!” Orlova snapped. “I know this atmosphere, I know this plane, and you know neither. Get to safety. I can handle this. That’s an order.”

 “Roger,” he reluctantly said. “See you on the deck.”

 “Good. Orlova out.”

 While she settled into manual control, Orlova looked back at the pursuing pilots, glancing down at their progress on the rudimentary sensor display. Lots of quick maneuvers, sloppy piloting, not making the most of their advantage, though they would still catch up to her in a few moments. Rookies, at a guess, perhaps making too much use of their automated systems. That was something she could exploit.

 With a smile, she pulled the nose up, gaining altitude, watching as they struggled to follow. Her controls began to soften, the power fade away as the fighter pulled out of the thin pressure envelope in which it could safely operate. Two of them gave up the attempt, staying down on the deck, while the other managed to gain some height. While he wallowed through the air, she banked around in a wide arc, swooping down towards him and tapping a control on her joystick, sending fire spitting in his direction.

 The machine gun was at least automatically aimed, and a salvo of bullets smashed into her opponent’s wing, sending him wheeling down to the surface as the on-board computer attempted to salvage the situation into a controllable crash, with less than a thousand feet to play with.

 His wingmates were coming up fast, and bullets flew past the cockpit, missing only narrowly, a little out of range. On instinct alone, she dived down for the ground, Harriet gasping as she pulled out of the descent with only a few dozen feet to go, close enough to make out every detail of the surface. She could only see one of the fighters ahead, and she ranged in towards it.

 “Behind us, Maggie!” Harriet said. “Five o’clock!”

 “Too many old movies…,” Orlova muttered as she hurled the fighter into a series of evasive maneuvers, glancing up at the power register.  As with everything else on this prototype, the flying time had never been sufficient, the bugs in the system not worked out, and the stresses of combat were beginning to take their toll. For a split second, she had a chance shot at one of the other fighters, and she took full advantage of it; the pilot was close enough to the ground that he could get into a glide path down as her bullets tore into his engine housing.

 Before she could properly check, a salvo ripped through the air above her, sending a series of red lights flashing on her controls as she threw switches in an attempt to mitigate the damage. 

 “What is it?”

 “Sensors, damn it. Look around for the bastard.”

 Orlova’s eyes ranged the sky as she wove an intricate pattern of evasive maneuvers, trying not to stay straight and level for more than a few seconds, heedless of the damage to her power reserve, which was getting worryingly near the red line.

 “Got him, seven o’clock,” Harriet said. “Heading our way.”

 A portion of Orlova’s mind was impressed at the journalist’s calm, but a bigger part was focusing on the task at hand, pulling around until the enemy fighter was visible head, still diving right for her. He was dodging back and forth as well, trying to deny her a shot; he was learning the rules of the game quickly enough, but it was still taking too long. The race had one simple goal, to get in that first, critical shot.

 By less than a second, Orlova won, and her target began its slow descent to the surface, black gashes running down the side of the ship, oxygen outgassing from the sides. Dipping her wings, she turned back towards her original goal, the Ragnarok Embassy a hundred and twenty miles distant.

 “Great work, Maggie! That was amazing! I can’t wait to write this one up!”

 “The job isn’t finished,” Orlova replied, trimming for maximum fuel economy. “I pushed her too damn hard in that dogfight.” The power indicator began to flash red, and she continued,  “We’ll never make the Embassy; I’m just going to have to hope that we can get far enough away from that convoy.”

 “You mean it was all for nothing?”

 “We’re still alive, and we’re free. Look around for a settlement, I need to bring her down.”

 “There’s nothing on the map.”

 With a smile, Orlova replied, “This part of the surface has lots of illegal ice mines. Find me one, and we can work out the details when we get onto the deck.”

 “Ice mines?” Harriet said, shaking her head. “Never mind. One more article, I guess. I don’t see anything at the moment.”

 “Look closely, they’ll be camouflaged from orbital observation, though we ought to have more luck down here.”

 Gently, carefully, Orlova nursed the plane into a long, slow glide path, turning the engines down as low as she dared. They might have another twenty minutes in the air before she had to ditch into the desert, though unless they could get undercover quickly, the inevitable outcome was going to be capture. At least Talbot and the Commandant had managed to get away; with any luck, they ought to be touching down in a matter of minutes.

 The moments ticked on, guiding the fighter becoming more of a struggle by the second, Orlova taking more and more of the work back on herself to try and eke out her power, thriftier than the automated systems. Finally, just as she was about to start looking for the most sheltered spot she could to go down, Harriet tapped her on the shoulder.

 “To our right, Maggie. About a mile.”

 “Perfect,” she replied, tipping the nose down. “Hang on, this is going to be rough.”

 “You’re going down now?”

 “We can walk a mile before anyone arrives out here. And cover our tracks well enough that we should escape detection. Cross your fingers.”

 The ground raced up towards her as she gently guided the fighter down, warning alarms sounding all around her that she had to filter out as she brought the nose up to the horizon, gently bringing it to the surface. With an anticlimactic bump, the fighter landed, skidding across the sand, sending dust flying high into the air. Throwing a series of switches, Orlova pulled her mask on, gesturing for Harriet to follow suit.

 “Come on. We’ve got to get moving. Radio silence unless you have to.”

 “Right.”

 She stepped out of the cockpit and started to move in the direction Harriet indicated, pausing for a moment to see the fighter alone on the desert floor, running her eye over it. No serious damage, nothing that couldn’t be fixed. That bird would fly again.

Chapter 10

 “Peace negotiations,” one of the troopers guarding the room muttered, earning a dark stare from Cooper. “I thought we’d taken this damn rock. It certainly cost us enough.”

 “That’s enough, Private,” Forrest said. “I’d rather listen to a million politicians debating than get into another firefight. I’ve done that here once too often.”

 “I’d done it once too often the first time,” Cooper added, looking across at the door. “Though they’re taking their time about it. We need to be on the move.”

 “Captain’s got a pretty tricky job in there,” Forrest replied. “We tore our guts out winning this fight, and now Alamo’s heading off into the black with one of our few remaining platoons.” He looked from side to side, and said, “You realize that I’m your Platoon Sergeant for this run, I hope. I wouldn’t want to have to hurt you.”

 “Relax, Sergeant. It’ll feel funny not to have you around in a battle by this point. Though it is a step down for you.”

 Gesturing at the stripes on his arm, he said, “If wearing these things mean that I’m not allowed to be where I’m needed, I’ll rip them off this minute and go into battle as Private Forrest. The rank doesn’t mean that much to me.”

 “I know what you mean. Lomax getting everything stowed away?”

 Nodding, he replied, “Pick of the equipment, and Alamo’s barracks are just as we left them. Unfortunately, I mean that literally; they didn’t get around to them on the overhaul. Nice cleaning detail for the ride back.”

 “Sir,” the Private said. “You’re going home early? Where do I sign up?”

 “Nowhere, kid,” Forrest said.

 “Believe me, Private, this isn’t necessarily going to be a happy homecoming. I think you’re better off staying exactly where you are.”

 “More fighting? Then…”

 “Leave it,” Forrest said. “Someone’s got to stay here.”

 Another figure drifted up, Lieutenant-Major Brownworth with a severe expression on her face, making a bee-line for Cooper. The troopers snapped salutes as she approached, and she returned them with a glare.

 “Ensign, I need words with you. Sergeant, you take the guard watch; I think you can manage without an officer for a moment.”

 “Yes, ma’am,” Forrest said.

 Cooper sighed, and followed her off down the corridor to the nearest office, only recently vacated by the Cabal administrators, papers strewn around the room from the hasty sweep the inspection team had made just that morning. Pushing the debris out of the way, he swung in to float by the wall, the door closing shut. 

 “Ensign…,” Brownworth began, but he raised a hand.

 “Major, none of this – especially not putting you in the loop – is my decision, and I cannot and will not tell you anything that I have been told in confidence by Captain Marshall and Lieutenant-Captain Winter.”

 “You aren’t usually this insubordinate.”

 “It’s been a long day.” He shook his head, and said, “If you trust me, then accept that in my opinion you are far better off not knowing all the details, both personally and for the sake of your career.” 

 “What the hell does that mean?”

 “It means that we’re going somewhere very dark, and I’m far from convinced any of us are going to get out of it in one piece.”

 “You’re tearing my command apart, Ensign.”

 “I don’t have a choice!” he replied. “I’m going to need the best troopers that we’ve got if we have even a hope of pulling this off, and that means the old Alamo hands. You’ve still got four platoons left for the reconstituted Seventh Company.”

 “The rookies and the inexperienced. If the Cabal attack again, we’re going to miss the people you’ve taken, Cooper. We could lose everything.”

 “It’ll get a damn sight worse if I don’t, ma’am.”

 Pausing for a second, she asked, “Does Sergeant Forrest know?”

 “I haven’t told him, but it wouldn’t surprise me. He’s an…”

 “Old Alamo hand,” she said. “I’m getting tired of hearing that expression, Ensign. We’re all Espatiers, all members of the Corps, and that’s supposed to mean something, something special. We can’t afford to divide ourselves up. You’ll have other postings, you know.”

 A smile spread across Cooper’s face as he replied, “That very much remains to be seen, ma’am, and if I do I’ll be only too happy to adapt to the situation. I’m not doing this because I want too, I’m doing this because I need to.”

 “And if I give you a direct order, from your superior in the chain of command, to tell me what is going on?”

 “Then I will refer you to Captain Marshall.” Rubbing his hand against his forehead, he said, “Come on, Major, you know all of this already. You can’t honestly expect me to believe that you thought I’d just come into this office and give you classified information.”

 “No, of course not,” she replied. “Perhaps I was hoping to talk you out of taking so many people with you. Esposito wasn’t any more informative than you were, but at least she isn’t stripping my company. Hell, half the people you’ve taken are up for promotions if they stay!”

 “They’re all volunteers,” Cooper said, then added, “Lieutenant Esposito’s going?”

 “I see there’s something you didn’t know.”

 “I don’t understand,” he replied. “Captain Marshall put me in command of the Espatier platoon.”

 “Perhaps if I was better informed, I might be able to help.”

 “There’s nothing I can do, Major. I’ve got to go, and I’ve got to take the best with me.” There was a knock on the door, and Lance-Sergeant Fuller floated in.

 “Ma’am.”

 “What is it, Sergeant?”

 “Actually, I’m here to see Ensign Cooper,” she replied.

 “Of course you are,” Brownworth said. “I’m only the commanding officer of the Triplanetary Espatier force in this system. What could I possibly do?”

 “I’m sorry, ma’am, I can come back later.”

 “No, no, by all means. Is this secret, or can I remain in my own office?”

 “Ma’am?”

 “Get on with it, Sergeant.”

 Turning to Cooper, she said, “Sir, you haven’t tapped anyone from Second Platoon to go with you yet.”

 With a quick glance at Brownworth, he said, “I’ve focused on those with prior service on Alamo, Sergeant. It’s nothing personal.”

 “Request permission to accompany you back to Mars, sir. On behalf of myself, and the survivors of the unit you commanded in the assault. I think we’d all like to see the mission through.”

 “You are needed here, Sergeant,” Brownworth said, her face reddening.

 “Besides,” Cooper added, “I already have a three-stripe coming with me.”

 “I can take one of them down, sir. It doesn’t bother me. Mason’s happy to go down to Lance as well, I already spoke with her.” With a smile, she said, “Actually, she talked to me.”

 “What is it with you all?” Brownworth asked. “Now we’ve got people demanding demotions to go on this trip.”

 “Sergeant, while I am not at liberty to tell you where we are going or what we are to do, I can tell you that it is an almost guaranteed career-killer. If you had any ambitions in the service, then this isn’t the place for you.”

 “Can I ask you a question, sir?” Fuller asked.

 “I can’t promise that I’ll be able to answer.”

 “Why are you going, sir? Why have you volunteered?”

 With a thin smile, he replied, “Because in my opinion and that of others I trust, it is the right thing to do, the necessary thing to do.” He paused, then said, “I have history in this game. You don’t.”

 “If you think that...whatever it is...is necessary, then that is good enough for me, and for the rest of the platoon as well. It’ll streamline the administrative set-up back here as well, sir. Taking what remains of Second Platoon and the Alamo veterans should just about fill up the roster.”

 “It will at that,” Cooper said, looking at Brownworth. “Major…”

 “Captain Marshall – and yes, I have had words with him – has made it quite clear that this has nothing to do with me. He seems to enjoy doing end runs around the chain of command.”

 With a quick glance at Brownworth, Cooper said, “Go and tell Second Platoon to head over to Alamo at the next opportunity, and to make sure all their kit gets loaded aboard Alamo. You take charge.”

 “Thank you, sir,” Fuller said, beaming. 

 “And Fuller,” he said, “Don’t worry about the extra stripe. We’re off-script enough at the moment that I don’t think we need to be too concerned about keeping the org chart straight. The same goes for Mason.”

 “Yes, sir,” she replied. “I’ll get everything moving.”

 As the door closed, Brownworth said, “This had better be damned important, Ensign. You’re risking a lot of people that we can’t afford to be without.”

 “Do you want a war, Major?” he asked.

 “Don’t be stupid. I already fought one, and that was enough for me.”

 “Then it’s damned important.”

 The door opened again, Forrest on the other side, shouting, “It’s on! The Captain’s pulled it off, details to follow but we’re holding onto the station. Alamo’s shipping out in forty minutes.”

 “Forty minutes?” Brownworth said. “That’s nowhere near enough time.”

 “Every second matters,” Cooper said. “Sergeant, find Fuller and tell her to move with all speed, and you round up the rest of the crew and make sure that everyone who is going is on the ride.”

 “We’re going to be pushed to get all the kit loaded in time.”

 “Bundle it all into one of the cargo bays. We’ll have weeks to get it all sorted out once we’re on the move, and pass the word that we’re going to have a busy time of it. I want drills and practice exercises going in three hours.”

 “No time off for good behavior?” the veteran replied with a smile. “They’re going to love you, sir. I’m on the way.”

 Turning back to Brownworth, Cooper said, “This is my cue to get going. Yours too; Captain Cunningham will no doubt want to brief you on the details of the treaty. By your leave?”

 “Dismissed, Ensign.”

 “Thank you, ma’am.” He headed for the door, then said, “It has been a pleasure to serve with you, Major, and I’m sorry it has had to end this way.”

 She nodded, then replied, “We all are sometimes compelled to do things that we don’t want to while we’re wearing the uniform. Just make sure that you do it proud, Ensign. Whatever you end up doing at the end of your journey.”

 “I will, ma’am.” He floated out of the room, out into the corridor, and started to make his way down to the shuttle bay, a trip that he could almost do in his sleep at this point; he’d certainly had more than enough practice. Twice he had come to this asteroid with a gun in his hand to attempt to wrest control of it from an enemy, and the first time he had been extremely lucky to leave it.

 Somehow, it seemed different this time, and there was even a faint tinge of regret at the back of his mind. The last piece of unfinished business from Alamo’s first cruise, and it was fitting that he was returning to that ship with the survivors of the attack. Twenty-one people, almost a full platoon; he could have taken everyone, not short of volunteers, but he needed to have people he could trust at his back this time, and as far as he could tell, that meant people he’d fought alongside.

 As he drifted down the long corridor, he saw scorch marks still on the wall, and remembered the battle where they had been burned into place; he’d made quite a few of them himself at one time or another. He could see in his mind the faces of the people who had died here, beginning to slowly regress into history. Now, this would be a place of technicians and engineers, perhaps merchant traders and explorers. The Espatiers, though, were here first, and some of them would be here forever.

 Up ahead, the shuttle was waiting. He drifted into the airlock, sat alongside the other crewmen heading for Alamo, and closed his eyes as he left Hades, the asteroid slowly receding as the shuttle engines accelerated. Thirty minutes to go. He couldn’t wait.

Chapter 11

 Marshall sat in Alamo’s command chair, looking around the bridge. Everything seemed so superficially normal, just like any of the other cruises he had commanded over the years; Caine sitting at Tactical, Ryder at the watch officer’s station, familiar figures at Sensors, Communications and Engineering. Even Hades Station, still at the heart of the viewscreen, was almost becoming a familiar object in the sky as it slowly receded. This was different, though. Normally, going home was a joy, something to be longed for, but this time he dreaded seeing Sol in that screen.

 “Captain Cunningham, sir,” Weitzman said from his station. “Calling from Thermopylae.”

 “Put him on.”

 Cunningham’s face appeared on the screen, fresh worry lines already forming. “We’re all set here, Danny. I’ve briefed everyone about the plan and the ceasefire agreement.”

 “I’m not leaving you too light, am I?”

 “We’ll manage with what we have. My people say they should have Thermopylae ready to jump out of the system in a fortnight, and Gilgamesh back up to full fighting potential in a month. You’ve got reinforcements here if you need them.”

 Marshall caught the subtext, and didn’t like it one bit. “Thanks for the offer, John, but I don’t think I’m going to be taking you up on it. Just keep an eye on things here, and don’t accept any changes of mission unless you get the word from me.”

 Nodding, Cunningham replied, “Understood. I wish I was going with you.”

 “I wish I was staying behind. Good luck.”

 “You too. Thermopylae out.”

 Caine stepped up from her console, walking over to his side, and said, “Are you going to tell them anything?”

 He looked up, nodded, and said, “Sixty-one people on board. They deserve to know what is at stake, though I think I can cut out some of the details.” Glancing at the remnants of the Triplanetary task force on the monitor, he added, “And a chance to get out if they want.”

 The door behind him slid open, and Quinn stepped out onto the deck, datapad in hand and a smile on his face as he moved behind Ivanov at the Engineering station.

 “All stations ready for hendecaspace, sir,” he reported. “Provisions and parts for a one-month cruise, full fuel tanks for the trip home, though I’d recommend topping up at Spitfire Station.”

 “Sol is where we end our wanderings, Lieutenant,” Marshall said. “For better or for worse, we’re going to have to make our stand there. Is ex-Captain Rogers secure?”

 “Locked in the brig. Logan’s interrogating him again, but I don’t think he’s getting anywhere. Just passing the time, waiting for the jump.”

 Nodding, Marshall looked over to Weitzman, and said, “Patch me through to the ship, and restrict all outgoing communication until further notice. Nothing leaves without my personal permission until we get to Mars.”

 “Aye, sir. Discriminators set, and you have the ship.”

 Pausing for a moment to run over his thoughts, Marshall picked up the microphone, then stopped again. How could he tell his crew that he was taking them home to potentially make war upon their own government?

 “This is the Captain,” he finally began. “In about five minutes, we will be leaving this system for what I hope will be the last time, on the first stage of our trip back to Mars, and home. I must at this time inform you all that I am acting in violation of my orders in so doing. I have learned that there is a threat to the very fabric of our nation back home, one which is attempting to launch a war of aggression against the Cabal.”

 “I am fully aware that many of you have strong feelings about the Cabal, and I admit that I share them. Nevertheless, I cannot permit our Confederation to be forced into war against the will of the Senate. Those of you who left Sol on Alamo to come out here will have seen some of the things happening back home.”

 He took a deep breath, and said, “I must inform you that in my opinion, based on the testimony I have received, that this action is the result of a rogue element in our own Fleet, as well as certain Senators and Governors. There is an old saying that for evil to triumph, good must stay silent, and in this case I cannot remain silent. My intention is to return home, to report what has taken place out here, including the actions of Lieutenant-Captain Rogers, an admitted member of this conspiracy, and insist that the appropriate action is taken.”

 Everyone on the bridge was watching him as he continued, “This action, I am well aware, could be construed as mutiny, even treason. You have all followed me this far, but in all good conscience I cannot ask you to go any further. If you wish to leave the ship now, make your way to one of the escape pods and bail out; one of the ships in the task force will pick you up shortly, and I will enter your actions into the log. You have three minutes and fifty-one seconds. That is all.”

 Looking around the bridge, he said, “That includes all of you.”

 “Sir,” Steele said, turning from the helm, “I think we all made our decision when Alamo left Sol. We’re all already guilty of quite a few charges already, and I don’t think this can really make things much worse.”

 “One escape pod launching, sir,” Ryder said, looking at her console. “Atkinson, Spaceman Second Class, from the sensor decks.” She turned to Marshall, and said, “We can manage without him.”

 “I guess we’ll have to,” Marshall replied.

 “Another now, sir,” Ryder added. “Two this time, Petty Officer Bugatsky and Spaceman First Hale. Tactical department.”

 “They’ve both got kids,” Caine said. “I think they only volunteered because they thought it’d get them home sooner.”

 “Hendecaspace in two minutes, Captain,” Steele said. Tapping a control, she spoke into an audio pickup, “Guidance to Crew. Stand by for dimensional transfer. Anyone wanting to get off should do so immediately.”

 “Steele,” Marshall said, an edge of sharpness in his voice, “No need for that. They’re entitled to make the choice. That’s why I told them before we left the system.”

 “You realize it’ll spread around the fleet,” Caine said.

 Shaking his head, Marshall replied, “No danger of that; I gave John specific orders on this. He’ll pick them up himself, and they’ll be placed in solitary confinement until all of this is over. As comfortable as he can make it, of course, but they won’t talk. None of them are communications or computer specialists, so I can’t see them sneaking past the security.”

 “That’s a bit tough on them, isn’t it,” she said.

 “Perhaps, but I don’t want to take any risks. We’re taking enough of them already just doing this.”

 “One minute to dimensional transfer,” Steele said. “All hands have reported in as ready for the jump.”

 “Thank you, Sub-Lieutenant.” He looked at the screen, one last look at Hades before it was enveloped by a blinding blue flash, and the stars winked out, exterior monitors disabled. Rising from his chair, he looked around the bridge, and said, “Thank you all for everything you have done today. Now we just have to get through the next twenty-eight days to get home.”

 The elevator doors slid open, and Logan stepped through, saying, “It’s what happens in nineteen days that worries me, skipper.”

 “Spitfire Station?”

 “We were able to bluff our way through the first time, but I know they were suspicious. This time I’m damn sure that there will be someone waiting for us.”

 Ryder nodded, and said, “I agree. There’s a strong chance that a task force will be mobilized.”

 “Nothing as obvious as that,” Logan replied. “They don’t want to publicly admit that we’ve gone rogue, and sending ships out to hunt us down would be an open admission that something is going on. We’re all still operating with one hand tied behind our backs.”

 “Then what?”

 “Sabotage, probably. Agents to try and infiltrate, some sort of excuse to get us off the ship. You’re going to have to watch them like a hawk, and I wouldn’t take anything on from the station. No fuel, no spares, nothing.”

 “We’ll have to watch them?” Caine said.

 “I won’t be there,” he replied. “I’m getting off at Spitfire Station.”

 “Logan, I think you’re in this deep enough that....,” Marshall began, but he held up his hand.

 “Lieutenant Esposito and I are going on ahead. There are plenty of civilian transports, and I shouldn’t have any trouble convincing one of them to let us head to Mars early. I’ll be on-planet a week before Alamo arrives, with any luck.”

 “And do what?” Caine asked. “If it was that simple, why come out here in the first place?”

 “I don’t know what I’ll end up doing, but I know that you are going to need some support. We can’t gamble on Orlova and Harper still being free, or even still being alive. I’ll make contact with the President and let them know you are on your way with the evidence, start preparing the ground for the big arrival.”

 “You seem to have all of this thought through,” Marshall said. “All the dots joined up.”

 “That’s as good a way of putting it as any,” he replied with a sigh.

 Standing up, Marshall said, “Come into my office,” in a tone that made it clear that he was giving an order, not a request. Logan followed him across the bridge and stepped in behind him, making for the other side at the desk before correcting himself.

 “I think I was beginning to get used to it,” he admitted. “Sorry.”

 “You did a good job.”

 “That was Ryder and Quinn, not me.”

 “Nevertheless, you had the good sense to let them get on with their job. Not everyone would have.”

 “Perhaps.”

 Looking up at him, Marshall asked, “None of this is new to you, is it?”

 “History always repeats itself, Captain. Only the names change.”

 “Tell me.”

 With a deep sigh, he said, “If you tell this to anyone else, I will deny it.”

 “I need to know, Logan. You’re one of the key people in this operation, and if there is any sort of a weakness, then I have to be aware of it.”

 “Who else are you going to send? You aren’t exactly overburdened with manpower.”

 “Talk, Logan.”

 He paused, nodded, and said, “I have been here before. The last time was fifteen years ago.”

 “The Revolt of the Colonels.”

 “You have to understand, Danny, that they were not bad men. Some of them were friends of mine. They genuinely thought they were doing the right thing, that the government had lost its way, that the people were being manipulated out of their freedoms.”

 “None of the details were ever released. Just that a dozen senior officers resigned in a single night, with some whispers that they had…”

 “They kidnapped the Provisional President and attempted to force him to hold a new election under their supervision, claiming that the previous one was flawed, that there was no way that the people would not have voted for their candidate.”

 “What?”

 Looking away, Logan said, “It was a damn close run thing, remember, and all the polls called it wrong. Davidson only won by three thousand votes. They didn’t believe it, and there were problems with that election.” He shook his head, and said, “We were still technically at war, though everyone knew it was over. Then there were the arguments against unification, and most of the officers wanted Callisto to go its own way, rather than being shackled to Mars.”

 “None of this ever came out.”

 “Because the key people involved kept their heads, including the conspirators. We were able to infiltrate a strike team and take them out, force them to resign and leave public office. All but General Haskell, who shot himself rather than be captured.”

 “The record…”

 With a faint laugh, Logan said, “There’s an old Russian saying. That any death, ultimately, can be described as heart failure.”

 “I’m guessing you were in that strike team.”

 His eyes glassing over, Logan replied, “In a manner of speaking. I commanded it.”

 “Then you did what was necessary.”

 Slamming his hands on the desk, Logan said, “They were right!”

 “What?” Marshall replied, his face ashen.

 “The election was rigged. Their suspicions were correct. United Nations Intelligence hacked into our communications computers and logged five thousand plus votes, in an attempt to destabilize our new democracy.” Closing his eyes, he said, “The plan was to leak the news, to make it seem like we were rigging the system right from the start. Fortunately, we found out first.”

 Sitting back in his chair, Marshall said, “Then….”

 “As soon as we found out, about three months later, we managed to knock out the operatives involved. Davidson, to his credit, resigned as soon as he found out. Called a new election, using the signature of the peace treaty as cover. He wasn’t a bad man either. None of them were.” Looking up, he said, “That’s the curse of it, and the curse of these. These aren’t bad people, not most of them, anyway. They all think they are doing what was right, and by God, don’t we all. We all think that we know what is best for the future of mankind, and we’re going to force that on everyone else come what may, aren’t we!”

 “If you feel that way…”

 “I resigned, last time. Cleaned up the loose ends and burned my damn uniform, because I couldn’t wear it any more. Now I’m back, and the same mess has started again, and we’ve got to try and clean it up again.” His face fixed, he continued, “I’ll do my duty, Captain. I know how to do that, and I’m as big a hypocrite as the rest of them. Maybe I’m a little older.” 

 “I’m sorry, Logan.”

 Shaking his head, the agent replied, “You didn’t cause this mess.”

 “If you want to part ways permanently at Spitfire, I'd understand.” 

 “No,” he said. “I’m committed. Someone has to fix this.” Standing up, he said, “I’m going to go and get drunk. Have someone call me in the morning.”

 “Logan,” Marshall said. “You did the right thing.”

 “Yeah. Maybe if I tell myself that often enough it’ll even be true.”

Chapter 12

 As they walked, Orlova swept the dust behind them with a piece of parachute, trying to conceal her trail. Increasingly she was aware that it wasn’t necessary; the particulate count in the air was rising rapidly, and her suit was having more and more trouble topping up its power with her shoulder solar array; a dust storm was beginning to rise, though all she could see of it with her eyes was a barely perceptible haze.

 Up ahead, she could make out the single, low dome, covered in carefully applied mud to prevent it appearing on any orbiting satellite; monitors could be bribed or hacked for long enough to put a base together, but it was madness to take a risk on such trickery forever. Old-fashioned camouflage still had its place, even in a world with full orbital surveillance.

 To her right, Harriet continued to trudge, occasionally looking around as though fearing that someone would jump out at them without any warning, snatching them from the desert and leaving no trace behind. Orlova was reasonably sure that they would be fine; certainly nothing would be coming after them in the air with a dust storm in progress, and they had hours of margin before they had to worry about something coming for them overland. Nevertheless, she could hardly argue with caution.

 She almost tripped over a hidden rut, a trail where trucks had been in the recent past, concealed using similar techniques. Hopefully that meant that they had transport on the base; risking calling out would be difficult, even if they agreed to it. Glancing up at the sky, she wondered who was watching her from orbit. The haze might be hiding her from Tarrant and his lackeys, but it was also going to hide her from her friends.

 The faint outline of an airlock was visible on the side of the dome nearest them. She could make out enough of it to recognize it as war surplus, one of the old prefabricated outposts that could be assembled in a day on almost any sort of environment. Hundreds of them were scattered across the Solar System, and more of the kits had been sold since the war. With a little luck, she’d be able to guess the layout.

 No sign of anyone coming out to meet them, which could mean that the base had been abandoned. There were still places where you could find failed, abandoned colonies, even after a century – sites where it had not been deemed worthwhile to do anything other than salvage spare parts and oxygen, leaving everything else in situ. Every year, some of the more familiar ones would be havens for teenagers on holiday from school, daring themselves to enter the forgotten relics of the first colonial boom.

 She waved her arm towards the door, reading the sensors. A trace of oxygen, outgassing from old equipment long past its best, a few micro-leaks that provided her with evidence that there was a safe environment inside, though that didn’t necessarily mean occupation. Reaching for the controls, she was immediately suspicious; there was no attempt at security. It was as though someone had invited her in, and if she’d had any other options, she’d have immediately declined. Pulling her pistol out of her holster, she tapped the control and stepped into the airlock, Harriet following.

 The inner door opened, and Orlova cautiously stepped out, a smile creeping across her face as a wall of green beckoned her forward, plans leaping out of the soil all around her, trenches for irrigation running from underground tanks, water sprays in the hot and humid air.

 “What is it?” Harriet said. “Crops?”

 Looking across as she pulled off her helmet, Orlova replied, “In a manner of speaking. Cannabis plants, by the look of it.”

 “Drugs?”

 “You think anyone would go to the trouble of setting up a drill into the ice layer to sell water? I figured it was probably something like this.” She looked around, then said, “Though I’d have expected someone to be inside, at least. You could run this place man-tended, just the occasional visit by someone to tend the machinery, but security would suggest that there would be a guard at all times.”

 “Quite right, Lieutenant,” a gruff voice said, echoing through the dome. “Very astute of you to find our little operation, and my compliments on your victory in the dogfight. We had an excellent view from down there; perhaps when all of this is done we can send you a copy of our recordings. You can reply, you’re only twenty feet from an audio pickup.”

 “I take it you know who we are, then,” Orlova said.

 “We watch the news out here,” the voice replied. “Enough to know that you are of significant value. There is a substantial reward for information leading to your capture, and I suspect I would get even more if I was to hand you over.”

 Looking at Harriet, Orlova replied, “I need to get to the Ragnarok Embassy as quickly as possible. If you were to assist me, I’m certain that a reward of some sort would be provided.”

 “Too thin,” the voice replied, “and you can’t give us the reward we want. Cash is irrelevant; amnesty would be better.”

 “And you think you can trust the Security Services?” Harriet asked. “There are dozens of eager detectives who would love to bust this operation. I’m certain there must be more than just this going on.”

 “Let’s be blunt,” Orlova replied. “What you really want is a license to operate without government supervision. Hell, some of your bosses probably think that you might be able to talk someone into legalization, as crazy as it seems.”

 “No,” the voice replied. “That would give opportunities for competition that we haven’t any interest in. We’ll settle for an understanding that we can continue our work without opposition. You’ll find a pair of sleeping bags on the far side of the dome, and rations for a couple of days. There are plenty of water butts around, and it’s quite pure. Nothing but the best. You will be well cared for.”

 “Valuable property,” Orlova said. “Do you really think that anyone will go along with this?”

 “It isn’t my job to worry about matters such as that,” the voice replied. “All I do is obey orders. And before you suggest that I might be personally recompensed for helping you, I will assure you that I have no wish to die suddenly, and that I will certainly receive a large portion of any reward money.”

 “There will be a search team, you know,” Orlova replied. “Both sides are going to be hunting us down.”

 “I’m sure that we can evade their detection. We always have in the past. I suggest that you head over to the sleeping bags, and rest assured that everything you say will be overheard. If there is anything you need, just talk to the plants,” the voice said with a chuckle, “and we’ll see that it is provided, within reason, naturally. As I said, my orders are to keep you safe. And secure.”

 With a shrug, Orlova walked to the far side of the dome, taking care to remain on the well-marked paths, Harriet following her with a resentful stare at the loudspeaker on the ceiling. The promised equipment was there, but it was still going to be an uncomfortable stay in the oppressive heat, to say nothing of the periodic spray of water from above, simulated rain to keep the plants happy and them miserable.

 Harriet dropped to the ground, perching on one of the sleeping bags, and asked, “What do you think?”

 “That everything we say will be heard, but that in this case it doesn’t matter. I don’t doubt that either Tarrant or Norman would be only too happy to pay a bribe, probably a substantial one, but I don’t see them giving them what they want. Presumably our captors will take precautions to make sure that we aren’t traced back to here, but assuming one side or another doesn’t find this place, I foresee a prolonged stay.”

 “Our people?”

 “Again, a one-off bribe is one thing, but they won’t get what they are asking for.” She paused, then said, quietly, “This is precisely why we have to win this one.”

 “This dome must have been here for years…”

 “But now they think that they can bribe the impending government into helping them, into helping criminal activities, and I suppose there is still a chance that they might pull it off. Then what? Lawlessness at the top encourages lawlessness below, and everything falls apart.”

 “It’s only cannabis.”

 Gesturing around at the fields, she replied, “Though in this case, a hell of a lot of it. It goes a lot further than this, though. Harder stuff, protection rackets, all the dark, nasty things that we thought we’d left behind. All of it can come up to the surface again, too damn quickly.” Shaking her head, she replied, “Space is clean. Cleaner than this. We always seem to find a way to get ourselves stuck in the mud.”

 Leaning forward, imitating despair, she started to draw in the dirt, hoping that Harriet would take the rather broad hint she had just dropped. There might be – must be – camera pickups monitoring them, but not from every angle; an installation like this wouldn’t spend that much on security.

 “Suit status?” she wrote.

 With a quick glance at her monitor, Harriet replied with quick marks, “Four hours.”

 “Run when I do. Helmet on.”

 She looked around the dome, hunting for the exits. There had been no attempt to search them or take her weapon, but there wasn’t much she could do with the pistol. Even if she could get through the hull material, which was beyond unlikely, the resulting decompression would stand an excellent chance of killing her. There wasn’t any obvious equipment, though no doubt a hunt would find some, but again, it would be for life support – and it wasn’t in her interests to damage that either.

 Three airlocks, equidistant around the perimeter of the dome. All of them presumably sealed, though her hacker key would likely help with that. Once they got out, though, they would face a long walk to get anywhere, and an excellent chance of being captured wherever they came down. She sat back, frowning for a moment, then smiled. Certainly if she tried something they’d stop her. That she was counting on.

 Quickly, she raced over to the nearest airlock, sliding her hacker key into the slot as she placed her light helmet on, Harriet following a few seconds later. There were no alarms or sirens, none of the panic and confusion she had been expecting – doubtless soon her guards would be on their way. It took almost no time at all to crack the security, and she slid the key back into the false pocket of her suit, slapping the seal down as she started to cycle the lock, stepping back onto the desert as the outer door opened.

 As she expected, there were four people outside, waiting for her, summoned by the unseen voice of her captor. All of them had pistols pointed at her, and the leader gestured her to the door. She nodded, turned, then leapt up into the air, springing from a standing start, snatching her pistol from its belt and turning to point at the leader.

 Risking being overheard, she said, “Are you willing to die today? Your friends might kill me, but I will certainly kill you.”

 “Nothing to what will happen if you get away.”

 “Or if I am killed, yes? They’ll shoot to wound, and I will live through this. I am a good enough shot that I can guarantee that you will not. Your call. Or, perhaps, theirs.”

 One of them glanced over at a patch of sand about fifty feet away, a spot where the ground was discolored. Well camouflaged, certainly, but not quite well enough, and she bolted for it, firing a pair of wild shots to buy her a few seconds of advantage. Harriet was left behind, two of the guards covering her with their pistols while the others moved after Orlova. She felt awfully exposed, giving two armed men an excellent target, but with only a thin layer of suit between her and the Martian atmosphere – or what passed for it – any good shot could kill her, and their potential paychecks would shrink to nothing.

 Their greed stayed their hands for just long enough, and while bullets cracked behind her, they were fired to try and pin her in position, not to kill her. Psychological warfare as opposed to physical, and she’d been shot at often enough in the last few years that it phased her considerably less than it once did. She had to tell herself that they would not shoot her, and she could focus on the task at hand.

 It must have been a poor shot, she thought, as the third bullet smashed into her arm, sending blood trickling down her sleeve as the suit sealant fought a losing battle to repair the damage, the automed pumping stimulants into her to get her moving, keep her on her feet, give her a chance to reach shelter. Long-term, that wasn’t going to help her recover, but in the short- term – the next few minutes – it would keep her alive.

 The hatch was just beneath her, and she slumped down into it, filtering out the shouts and screams coming from behind. It was an old fashioned ladder airlock, dropping down a few painful feet into a shelter below, the automatic systems working as he hung limply from the ladder, gasping for breath, her suit sensors flashing grateful green as they realized they could stop fighting a losing battle to keep the atmosphere within the suit. It had only been seconds since the gunshot, but it felt as though it might have been centuries as she staggered across the room to the waiting console, leaving a red trail behind her on the dirty floor.

 It was a conventional set-up, ripped whole from some abandoned shuttle in the receding past, and her left hand worked the keys while her right hand hung limp. She could hear the lock cycling again behind her, distant as though in a dream, and a gray fog began to descend upon her, her suit medical systems deciding that it was time for her to take a rest, to let the rescuers help her. With everything she could, she fought back, trying to open up a channel, though she had no idea whether she had been successful.

 “Orlova...to Alamo,” she gasped. “Tell the Captain…”

 She collapsed in the dust, slumping slowly back to the floor as arms reached out for her, gently supporting her, lowering her down comfortably to the floor. Floating above her was the face of Harriet, briefly seeming to morph into that of Carpenter, or Nelyubov, or Caine, or Zabek, before finally the ghosts of the past pulled her into unconsciousness, the faces and voices around her fading to black.

Chapter 13

 “We’ve got to go and get her,” Harper said, looking around the communications suite of the Ragnarok Embassy.

 Frank Nelyubov looked up, nodded, and replied, “I agree. We’ve got at least a rough location of her current position. About an hour and a half if we leave right now. Ambassador, can I borrow a couple of squads.”

 “Wait just a minute,” Senator Harper said. “A rough estimate, and you want to take a force out onto the desert. I hate to remind you, Lieutenant, but you are a wanted fugitive, and the last thing we need is to lose you as well.”

 Nodding, the Ambassador said, “He’s right, Frank. Lieutenant Talbot can run this operation. I know that you’ll hate to sit back and watch, but the Senator has a point.”

 “Good,” Harper replied. “Now that’s settled, I’ll go and get suited up.”

 “No,” the Senator said. “You’re staying right here.”

 She gave him a look that spoke daggers, and turned to the Ambassador, “If you’d get a couple of trucks ready with the men I’m going to need, we’ll be on our way in a few minutes.”

 “But…”

 “I think I need a private word with my father. Frank, can you handle the preparations.”

 “I should be going, damn it.”

 “Frank, he’s right,” she said. “About you, anyway.”

 “Besides, someone who knows the Cabal needs to be with the President for the negotiations. I think the lack of expert advice was half the trouble last time,” the Ambassador added.

 “Kristin, there’s no need for us to discuss anything. Once Lieutenant…”

 She turned back to him again, and said, “If the rest of you could give us the room, I’ll be out in a few minutes. Someone get my suit to the airlock.”

 “I’ll see to that,” the communications technician said, getting himself rapidly out of the line of fire as the others left the room. Nelyubov looked back for a second, as though he was going to return, but thought better of it.

 “I’ve never…,” the Senator began, but Harper shook her head.

 “Get this through your head, Dad. This is my job.”

 “You’re a security specialist. Not a field operative.”

 Shaking her head, she replied, “You really don’t understand any of this, do you? What do you think I was doing out there in the black for the last two years, exactly? Sitting in an office? I’ve fought in boarding actions, I’ve ridden shuttles into gas giants, wandered around derelict ships, and yes, I’ve been in gunfights, and yes,” her voice was rising to a shout, “I have taken lives in battle.”

 His face collapsed, and he said, “Whoever put you in that position…”

 “Better start with yourself, then.” She tugged at her uniform top, and said, “All of this, all of it, was your idea. You were the one who dragooned me into the Fleet, and I had to make the best of it, and I did. Here’s an admission for you – you were right. About joining the service. But if you thought it was going to turn me into something I’m not, you are very much mistaken.”

 “Someone with your experience should not have been placed in field situations.”

 “Where did you think you were sending me? Alamo went out on a four-month cruise into unexplored space, and there’s no such thing as ‘behind the lines’ out there. Then Spitfire Station, which wasn’t exactly a cakewalk, and back out again. And now here.”

 “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry to have put you through all of that.”

 “No, you aren’t. At least you weren’t, not at the time. I was an embarrassment, remember? Getting into all of the gossip sites, spoiling your chances of re-election.”

 “That was nothing to do with it,” he replied, his voice rising in response. “You were wasting your life, throwing it away, and I thought the Fleet could make best use of your talents. I didn’t expect them to turn you into some sort of commando.”

 “They didn’t, I did. I’m good at this, damn it. I own any computer system I see, and that means real-time operation – no time delays to mess things up. My place is on the front lines, and my place is out there now bringing back my friend.”

 “Your commanding officer,” he replied.

 “My friend,” she repeated. “That’s what this is all about. I don’t know what sort of a fleet you were in, but mine is different. I’ve been given room to do what I’m best at, not forced into being what I’m not.” Pointing at the window, she said, “In my judgment, that’s where I need to be.”

 “I’m giving you an order.”

 She barked a laugh, and replied, “I did read the regulations once, remember. You’re a Senator. Not in my chain of command. You can’t give me an order, and I think the President’s a bit busy at the moment to get involved in family squabbles, isn’t he? At least he damn well should be.”

 “Lieutenant Nelyubov…”

 “Doesn’t actually…,” she began, then said, “Never mind. Suffice to say that going is my decision, and that’s the end of it.”

 “What were you about to say?” he pressed. “He outranks you. You’re a Technical Officer, non-commissioned.”

 “I like that rank. Doesn’t tie me down too much, but lets me go where I need to be without anyone getting in the way.”

 “You asked for it?” he replied. “Picked your rank?” 

 “Actually, no,” she said, shaking her head. With a sigh, she said, “That isn’t actually my rank. It’s the one that’s on my records, but if you have enough of a security clearance, I’m…,” she paused, then continued, “a little higher than that. Logan thought I might need it someday. I guess he was right.”

 “Logan being soon-to-be-ex-Lieutenant-Captain Winter.”

 “Another friend I’m looking forward to seeing again.”

 “You’re right,” the Senator said. “This isn’t the Fleet I know.”

 “Welcome to the wonderful world of Triplanetary Intelligence. The rules work a little differently there, but I rather like it. Turns out I get a kick out of knowing what’s going on, rather than being one of the uninformed masses like I used to be. That, and I actually enjoy the work I do.” She paused, then said, “You’re going to have to get used to me going into harm’s way, Dad. That’s my job now, and you’ve got no-one to blame for it but yourself. If it makes any difference...I already signed up for a second term. Not sure if I’m going to go career, but I’m in for another three years once my enlistment is up. And this time it was my choice.”

 He looked at her, frowning, and said, “No-one pushed you into it?”

 “No-one even mentioned it. I filed the paperwork when Alamo got home, presumably some admin tech has signed off on it by now.” She looked up at the clock, and said, “I need to be going. Don’t worry, I’ve done this enough times that I know what I’m doing. I’m probably a better shot than you these days.”

 “We’ll have to test that theory out at some point.”

 “Later,” she said, heading for the door. She stopped at the threshold, and said, “Just make sure the President doesn’t make a deal we’ll regret.”

 “I’ll handle the politics. I suppose I can leave the daring rescues to you. Be careful.”

 She walked from the room, heading around the now-familiar corridors to the airlock, passing a pair of guards who snapped to attention as she approached. She froze for a second at the sight, shook her head, and walked on, heading around the long ring to the far end, where a worried-looking Nelyubov was waiting for her.

 “Bring her back alive, Harper,” he said, reluctantly passing her a pistol. “Did you sort everything out with your father?”

 “That’s going to take much more than a ten-minute conversation, but I think we’re getting back on the straight and narrow. Everyone ready out there?”

 “Talbot’s in the lead vehicle. All of them are set.” Looking from side to side, he said, “Don’t get caught. If it looks like they’ve grabbed her, don’t try any daring rescues.” She raised an eyebrow, and he added, “Well, not unless you are damn sure they’re going to work, anyway. Good Luck.”

 “Thanks, Frank,” she replied, sliding into her suit and stepping into the airlock. Her hands moved over the now-familiar pattern of checks, clicking switches and watching lights flash green on her chest display, before locking her helmet into position. All of this would have seemed beyond strange to the person she was a few years ago; now it was second nature, part of the daily routine.

 Two sleek trucks were waiting outside, inside the press perimeter. The journalist pack was thinning out considerably, boredom setting in after it became obvious that the bird they were interested in had flown. Still, a lot of photographers were paying special attention, and she hoped that the Embassy communication jammers were working properly. Then she looked at another airlock, and saw another group of troopers moving to surround them, stopping them from warning anyone of their departure; either Nelyubov or the Ambassador had come up with the same idea.

 She stepped into the airlock of the leading truck, pulling off her helmet as the inner door opened into the cramped cabin, and made her way forward to the driving compartment, dropping herself down next to a nervous Talbot, glancing up at her.

 “Ready to go?” she asked.

 “Everyone’s all set. Do we know where we’re going?”

 “Roughly.”

 “It’s a big desert out there. We might need more to work with than that.”

 “Maggie isn’t going to find herself, Lieutenant. Let’s get moving.”

 Talbot spoke into a microphone, giving orders to his counterpart on the other truck, and engaged the motor, the engine whining into life as the monitor systems began to wink into life, one after another. With a loud judder, the vehicle began to move forward, initially at a crawl, then faster as he ramped the engine up to full power. Harper pulled out a datapad with the little data she had managed to reap from the brief transmission, and started to plot a more accurate route for them to follow.

 “Up on this ridge,” she said, pointing at a spot on the screen. “That’s about five degrees out of the way, but it’s got the best line of sight. We’ll get the second truck up there to spot, and we’ll follow the path of the transmission as best we can.”

 Talbot frowned, and asked, “Shouldn’t we both try for the high ground?”

 “Whatever sort of a structure is out there must have been designed to be concealed from aerial or orbital survey. I’m not at all sure that it will be visible at all, even closer to the surface, which means we might have to do this the old-fashioned way. I do know that we’re going to only have a short head-start over the Security forces, and ideally we need to be at this place and well away before they get close.”

 “And if they get there first?”

 “That depends whether they’ve got there in force, but I’d hate to leave this mission unfinished.”

 “The men are ready for action, I know that much,” Talbot replied.

 “And you?”

 “I don’t want to see any of them go home in body bags.”

 She looked up at him, and asked, “Have you ever done this before?” 

 “Lots of patrols during our little insurgency, but no actual fighting. I missed the Battle of the Crater. Were you at that one?”

 “Before my time,” she replied. “I didn’t join the fleet until about six months later. Orlova…”

 “Is the reason we’re out here in the first place,” he said. “Though she doesn’t look anything like she did in the movie.”

 “There was a movie?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

 “Local production last year, a docu-drama. From what I heard they got most of the details wrong, though they did get Hunter’s Charge about right, I think. I’ll set you up with a copy.”

 The Embassy was now dropping away in the distance, receding behind the horizon as they gained speed. Harper’s eyes were fixed forward, looking for any sign of anything unusual, something distinct from the rest of the landscape. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for, a base, a crashed fighter...it could be almost anything.

 Occasionally, the truck stopped at an obstacle, and frustrating seconds ticked away while Talbot eased his way around. The other vehicle disappeared off into the distance with half their manpower, steadily climbing the ridge to get to the high ground.

 The communicator crackled, and with one hand, Talbot snatched the handset from its cradle, saying, “Buggy One. Go ahead.”

 “You’re going to have company soon,” a tinny voice replied. “We just picked up the chatter. No planes – not with the dust storm – but a couple of convoys on their way to you know. I’d say you’ve got about an hour to get the package and head home. You copy?”

 “We do. Out.” He turned to Harper, and said, “Now we’ve got a deadline.”

 “And we’re going to keep looking until the last possible minute.”

 “I’m not taking any unnecessary risks with the lives of my people.”

 “Our definition…,” she said, stopping as she saw something on the far horizon. It might just be a mound of dirt and rock, but it might be something else entirely. “Change your heading, three degrees right.”

 “On it,” he replied, straining into the middle distance. “There’s something there, right enough.”

 The communicator crackled again, and a distorted voice crackled, “Buggy Two to Buggy One. We’ve spotted the crashed airplane, and there’s someone near it. I think they’re trying to camouflage it.”

 “Can you get to it quickly?” Talbot asked.

 “Yes we can,” the voice replied. “There’s a gentler slope just ahead.”

 “Proceed with caution and detain whoever it is. It could be Orlova, trying to hide the landing site, so non-lethal only. Understood?”

 “Got that, boss. We’re on the job.”

 “Should we go help?” he asked.

 “No,” she replied. “That’s not Orlova. She’d have sent more than a few words, and they’d have made sense, unless she was in real trouble. At a guess, they’ve found one of her captors.”

 The truck raced ahead, bouncing over the desert in their frantic hurry to reach the formation. After a few moments more, Harper realized that she’d guessed right; this was a dome, well-hidden, but the only place on the track that Orlova might be hiding out. Talbot began to slow down, but she shook her head.

 “By now they must know that we’re coming.”

 “No surprise attack, then, just good old fashioned speed.”

 “I’m afraid so.”

 Nodding, he said, “We get as close as we can, then charge for the dome. With a little luck, they’ll surrender.”

  “I have a feeling that it won’t be quite so easy.”

Chapter 14

 The pain in Orlova’s leg was finally beginning to fade; her captors had been surprisingly adept field medics, though their bedside manner left a lot to be desired. Harriet was sitting by her side, the two of them back in the dome but this time with an improvised shelter to protect her from the simulated elements, and a bored-looking man sitting on a stool in the middle of the dome, a rifle in his hand.

 “How are you feeling?” Harriet asked.

 “Got any more silly questions?” she replied. “I got shot, and it hurts like hell, but I’ve had worse, and the painkillers are just about working. If we had access to a half-decent medical facility I’d be up and about in a few days. Left here it might take somewhat longer than that.”

 “I don't get how you are taking this so calmly.”

 “You want me to start screaming again?”

 The guard stood up, a hand on his ear, and raced over to the airlock, leaving the two of them behind. Harriet rose to watch him leave, and Orlova gestured frantically at him.

 “Get him, for God’s sake! He’s giving us a free run!”

 “But…”

 “Details later. Action now. Move!”

 Harriet loped across the landscape at a worryingly slow pace, but the guard didn’t seem to be paying her any attention; his focus was elsewhere, and he raced to the airlock with his rifle out in his hands, switching on his scope. For a moment, Orlova thought that he was going to leave the dome without hindrance, but with a few seconds to spare, Harriet caught up to him, and after a split-second of hesitation, slammed into his back, sending him staggering around, his rifle flying to the ground.

 He turned around to try and stop her, but she dove after the discarded weapon, her fingers reaching it first by an instant, turning the barrel to point at him. He froze, looking down at her on the ground, then took a step forward, then another.

 “Shoot him!” Orlova yelled, cursing her helplessness. Panic and horror danced across Harriet’s face as the man loomed over her, only to fall back onto the ground as the airlock burst open, Talbot racing in with his pistol in his hand, eyes darting around the room.

 “Over here!” he yelled behind him, and a pair of troopers began to snap together a stretcher while he raced towards Orlova. Harriet was still lying on the ground, the rifle in her hand, looking at the body on the floor.

 “About time,” Orlova said with a smile. “What’s the situation?”

 “The rest of the squad is outside neutralizing the bunker we picked up, no trouble at all. Turns out overwhelming force works. We’ve got Security forces incoming, so we need to get a move on.”

 “Right,” she replied, trying to get to her feet, but he shook his head.

 “Not with that leg you don’t,” he said, looking down at her wound, blood staining the bandage. “Let’s get you into one of the trucks, and get the hell out of here.”

 The two guards gently put on her suit, taking care with the trousers not to cause any more damage, and placed her onto the stretcher, moving towards the airlock. They drew level with Harriet, her eyes still fixed on the corpse.

 “I couldn’t do it,” she said, quietly. “I couldn’t pull the trigger.”

 Orlova pushed herself up, reaching out to put a gloved hand on her shoulder, and said, “All that means is that you aren’t a murderer, and that isn’t a bad thing. None of us want to pull the trigger, but sometimes it has to be done. Which doesn’t mean you are the one who must do it. Leave that to us.”

 “Come on, lady, get your suit on,” Talbot said. “We’ve got company in thirty minutes.”

 Nodding, Harriet pulled herself up from the ground and started to change into her suit, Talbot hurrying her along, passing the pieces to her and helping clip them on. Finally, their helmets locked into position, and they made their way into the airlock, and out onto the surface beyond.

 A trio of bodies were lying on the sand, their suits torn and ripped, while another group clustered around the shaft Orlova could just remember climbing down, dropping grenades down it. She shook her head, and her vision swam, as she tried to focus.

 “That’s enough,” she rasped. “We don’t have time for this.”

 “Leave it,” Talbot said. “Get back to the truck.”

 “Still got enemies down there, sir,” the trooper replied.

 “I said leave it, Clyde. They aren’t going to come after us. Button it up and we can get the hell out of here.”

 “Company coming!” Harper yelled over the communication circuit. “I just picked up a shuttle on descent trajectory, heading for our area. Those UN convoys are getting close as well.”

 “Move it!” Talbot yelled, and the troopers reluctantly left their work, hastily moving back to the truck, Orlova carried at the rear. They carried her up to the airlock, taking her through between them, leaving her stretcher to be secured to the roof. Behind them, a couple of her erstwhile captors were emerging, a pair of bullets pinning them down as the truck left the scene, one of the troopers at the controls.

 “That took too damn long,” Harper said, moving back into the cabin. “What happened, Maggie?”

 “Bullet in the leg. Zigged when I should have zagged. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

 “We’ll let our medic decide that. Take a look at her, Fitz.”

 “Never mind that,” Orlova said. “I’ll keep. What’s the situation?”

 “The situation is that we have rescued someone who doesn’t know how to rest.”

 With a chuckle, Harper said, “I wouldn’t worry about it, Geoff. She isn’t going to sit there and rest while anything is going on.” Turning to her, she said, “We’re a good hour and a half from the Embassy dome, and there are Security forces heading towards us from all directions, with an excellent prospect of intercepting us. Somewhere up above is a shuttle heading our way with God knows what in mind, and this force is divided into two with no prospect of the two halves linking up.”

 “This was a rescue mission?”

 Shrugging, she said, “We didn’t have time for any of the fine details.”

 A voice yelled from the driving compartment, “How close did you say those others were?”

 “Half an hour away,” Harper replied. “Last time I looked. Why?”

 “I can see people up on the ridge line, less than a mile away.”

 “Damn it,” Talbot said. “They must have dropped some of their force off on their way here to block our escape.”

 “We could try and get around…,” Harper began.

 “No point,” Orlova replied. “Best guess is that they have enough hardware on them to blow this buggy to pieces.” She looked around, and said, “It was a nice try, but this is the end of the road. Trade me for your safety.”

 “Not an option,” Harper said.

 “That’s an…”

 “You’re medically relieved, Maggie,” the hacker said with a smile. Talbot looked up at her, frowning.

 “Do you have a plan?” 

 “Get out of the truck and take them down,” she said.

 “No, I forbid it!” Orlova said. “They’re on our side, and probably just think that they are going after dangerous fugitives. If you launch an unprovoked attack on them, all you are doing is giving ammunition to the conspirators. We can’t do that.” She coughed, loud enough to echo around the cabin, and said, “Turn around, try and get away.”

 “Ellis, do it,” Talbot yelled to the driver. “Back the way we came, fast as we can.”

 “That’ll take us right towards the Security forces, boss.”

 “It’ll buy us some time, and that’s what we need right now. What about the other truck?”

 “Quite a bit ahead of us now,” Harper said. “They must know which one they want. I’d bet someone in that mob knows exactly what he is doing, no matter what you say, Maggie.”

 “Possibly. Can you tell me which one?”

 The truck turned in a long, frustratingly slow arc, heading back towards the dome from whence it came. Harper stepped over to a wall console, tapping in commands whose result made her frown.

 “Damn, that shuttle’s getting close. It’s going to be on the deck right in front of us in less than two minutes.”

 “Evade?” Talbot asked

 “What’s the point?” Harper replied. “That thing’s a hell of a lot faster than we are, even just skimming along the ground, and probably armed to boot. Time for a glorious last stand.”

 “Surrender,” Orlova said. “That is an order. Look, most of you haven’t done anything wrong, and I can’t see any judge doing anything against you for rescuing a friend from a drug lab.”

 Clouds of dust began to rise all around them, rolling across the desert to add to the building storm as the shuttle gently descended to the ground, landing legs sliding into position as it made a perfect landing right in front of the truck.

 “Bradley to Orlova, Harper, Talbot. Someone come in, please.”

 “Barbara?” Orlova yelled, wincing from the pain in her leg. “Tell me you’re on our side.”

 “AWOL to prove it, as well as borrowing some government properly. I’m still the best shuttle jockey on the planet, but there are some of my rivals coming down after me, so let’s get this moving. I can take all of you if we hurry.” She paused for a second, then said, “By which I mean right now! Come on, let’s move!”

 Talbot looked at Orlova for a moment, nodded, and said, “Everyone out! Suits on, get to the shuttle!”

 The squad hurried to comply, Orlova’s helmet being placed back on and locked down as two of the troopers carried her through the airlock, being careful not to drop her on the ground, gently taking her the hundred yards to the waiting shuttle, its ramp down. The rest of the men moved into position behind her, one of them shepherding Harriet, Harper taking up the rear after lingering for a moment in the driver’s cabin. As she stepped onto the sand, the truck took off, heading back for the base at top speed.

 “Autopilot,” she said. “No point making it too easy. Better if Security has someone to chase, or they’ll think it wasn’t worth coming.”

 Orlova was placed carefully into one of the couches and strapped down as the others filed in, quickly dumping their equipment onto the floor and getting themselves ready for takeoff. Looking around, she couldn’t help but be frustrated; at the very least, she ought to be sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, but Harper raced forward, sliding into the crash couch.

 “Hang on, everyone!”

 The engine roared into life, the pilot expertly playing the forward thrusters to tilt it forward, then burst up into the sky with a pulse of acceleration throwing it on a trajectory towards the Embassy dome. A journey that would have taken hours on land would take only a few minutes in the air, though at the cost of showing everyone on the planet where they were and what they were doing. Every tracking station for a thousand miles was doubtlessly watching her every move.

 The acceleration ended, and the shuttle seemed to hang in the air as Bradley corrected the course, firing thrusters to swing the end-point of the trajectory into the right place. Through it all, Orlova concentrated on her aching leg; the painkillers were wearing off, and she grimaced as the shuttle completed its course track, the thrusters firing again to slow their descent, the expert pilot not bothering with anything other than the most brute-force approach, sliding down for a vertical landing.

 As if they had practiced it a hundred times, the troopers burst from their seats immediately the shuttle came down, and with the journalists outside taking dozens of pictures, being kept well-clear by the threatening posture of the soldiers, she was escorted into the dome. In the background, she could see a police cordon, a few Triplanetary soldiers scattered around, but none of them made a move. Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when she was through the airlock, and back on safe territory.

 “What happened?” Nelyubov said, waiting for her on the far side.

 “Never mind that now,” Talbot replied. “We need to get her to a doctor.”

 “That’s the last time you leave the dome,” Nelyubov said, looking at Orlova. “Just as your picture was beginning to fade out of the newscasts, you get yourself shot up like that. Heaven knows what sort of a story the press will put together.”

 “I’m glad to see you too,” Orlova said, gasping for breath. “I think I might stay here for a while at that.”

 A gurney appeared at the top side of the corridor, a man wearing a medical uniform pushing it, and the two troopers carrying her gratefully laid her down upon it as the doctor began to connect up pain relief, wiring her up to the monitors. Bradley stepped in, looking around the corridor.

 “I guess this is where I claim asylum? You can keep the shuttle, Harper’s setting it up so that no-one else can use it right now.”

 “I’ll have a word with the Ambassador, but I think we can arrange it,” Nelyubov said. “Glad you're with us.”

 “I finally got bored with the bullshit in Flight School, and being interrogated on three consecutive days was the last straw,” she replied. “They all thought I was working for you anyway, so I figured I’d make it official. Not that I’m staying, though. I want passage out of here.”

 “Where are you going?”

 “Spitfire Station. I want to meet Alamo when it arrives. I’m rather curious to see how my husband’s doing.”

Chapter 15

 Three weeks of training, watching the stars, and endless card games in the barracks. Three long weeks as Alamo made its way home, traveling faster than anyone could have imagined a century ago, yet still too slowly for Cooper’s liking. He paced through the empty corridors, following their twists and turns, hardly seeing a soul. The quarters deck ought to have been full of people at this time of the night, most of the crew off-watch, but with the ship managing on a skeleton crew, everyone had huddled together for emotional warmth in the other compartments.

 He glanced down at his watch, and frowned. They’d be at Spitfire Station soon, the last step in the journey before they reached home. The last two systems had been empty, just as expected. No-one was going to send garrisons out there just on the off chance, but Spitfire was turning into a major strategic strong-point; once sufficient bodies had gone through the training program, there’d be a full company stationed there – garrison duty, more mind-numbing tedium.

 “Ensign Cooper, report to the bridge,” his communicator barked unheralded.

 “On my way,” he replied, then said, “Sergeant Forrest, Lance-Sergeant Fuller, report to the shuttle deck with the platoon on the double, non-lethal tactical load-out.”

 He jogged to the elevator, stepping in and tapping out a priority override to take him up to the bridge. Even after the last couple of months, it still felt strange to be someone the Captain would summon personally; there was still quite a bit of the rookie Private deep inside him, astonished by the path his career had taken.

 The doors opened, and he stepped out onto the command deck, looking around the stations at the now-familiar officers. Captain Marshall at the heart of everything, naturally, and Caine standing at Tactical, Ryder, Steele, Weitzman, Spinelli – the usual alpha-team on duty ready to face whatever awaited them.

 “Emergence in two minutes,” Steele said. “All decks report ready to return to normal space.”

 “I still think we should be at battle stations,” Caine said, shaking her head. “This could cost us crucial seconds if there is someone waiting for us.”

 “Best we don’t appear too eager for a fight, Deadeye,” Marshall replied. “We’ll have time to react to anything small, and anything worse than that will be too strong for us anyway. Let’s just hope they decided not to spread themselves too thinly.”

 “Ninety seconds,” Steele said.

 “My platoon is standing by in the shuttle bay, Captain,” Cooper said. “We’re ready to go, non-lethal deployment.”

 “Good,” Marshall replied. “Let’s not forget that we’re all still wearing the same uniform. If we can just get to Mars and make our case to the Senate without opposition…”

 “Then we’ll be very lucky indeed,” Caine said. “I’m firing up the countermeasures, just in case, and Security has all the firewalls on full.”

 “The restrictions on exterior communications are still in effect, sir,” Weitzman said. “No-one can talk to anyone on the ship except through us, and this console is the only one that can send a transmission.”

 “Fifty seconds,” Steele said, tapping a control, “Helm to all stations. Stand by for emergence from hendecaspace. Secure for dimensional transfer.”

 Cooper looked at the gray screen, watching the clock count down, a mere observer as everyone else worked. Almost everyone; he saw the Captain’s fingers quietly tapping the side of his chair, his eyes fixed forward. The two of them shared the same problem, nothing to do but wait.

 “Transfer!” Steele said, and the stars returned to the screen, the purple clouds of Kumar dead-center, a few lights indicating the presence of the station and surrounding ships. Spinelli began to frantically work the sensor console as the tactical display snapped into position.

 “Negative threat warning. No fleet vessels anywhere in system, and the station is currently maintaining a neutral posture.” He looked up, relief showing on his face, and said, “Plenty of transports in the system, all of them in the holding pattern. I’d say we’re clear.”

 “We’re being hailed,” Weitzman said, a smile creeping across his face, “Senior Lieutenant Thomas Watson wants to speak to you.”

 Ryder turned from her station, and said, “He’s gone down in the world, skipper.”

 “The one that had been picked to take over Alamo,” Caine said. “Interesting.”

 “I guess this is his punishment for letting us get away.”

 “No chance that there could be anything behind Kumar?” Marshall asked.

 “I don’t think so, sir. I’ve got images from satellites behind the gas giant.” He frowned, then said, “There’s always a chance that we’d be getting false readings, but there are no indications that they are being tampered with, and I’d probably be able to tell.”

 “Besides,” Ryder added, “They’d have no way of knowing which hendecaspace point we’d use to come in, and if we’d used the other one, the concealed area would be a lot different.”

 “Lieutenant Watson is still calling, sir. Wants to speak to Captain Winter.”

 “No point bothering Logan,” Marshall replied with a smile. “I’ll talk to him.” Tapping a button, he said, “This is Captain Marshall calling Spitfire Station. Effective immediately, I am assuming command of all fleet assets in system, under the Contingency Powers Act. Acknowledge.”

 “Captain Marshall?” the voice replied. “No matter. I have arrest warrants for Lieutenant-Captain Winter, Senior Lieutenants Ryder and Quinn, and twenty-six others. You will turn them over to me and prepare to transfer your ship to my command.”

 Leaning forward in his chair, Marshall replied, “Last time I looked at my shoulder insignia, I outranked you. Consider yourself under arrest for insubordination and place your Executive Officer in command.”

 Cooper moved over to his side, and whispered, “We could do with this one, sir.”

 “Can you grab him?”

 “If you can hold him for a little while, I’m sure we can arrange something.”

 “Very well.” Turning back to the screen, Marshall said, “My Espatier commander has suggested that a compromise might be in order.”

 “I cannot disobey lawful orders, sir, and with all due respect, neither can you.”

 Taking a deep breath, he said, “I want to see the arrest warrants, and all documentation, before I even consider this. That’s non-negotiable, Lieutenant, and I still intend to press charges of insubordination.”

 “That is your privilege, Captain. Data being transferred now.”

 Turning away from the screen, Marshall tapped a control to mute the sound, saying to Cooper, “I’ll tell him we’re sending over the prisoners. I don’t like sending you into a trap, because I’m damn sure he’ll be suspicious…”

 “It’ll be a sad-looking trap once we’ve found it, sir. Permission to permit Captain Winter to accompany us? We could use a native guide.”

 “Sir,” Ryder said, “I know that station like the back of my hand.”

 Glancing at her for a second, he nodded, and said, “On the understanding the Ensign Cooper has the command, I’ll allow it. Just be careful, Ryder. We’re short-handed enough already.”

 “Aye, sir,” she said, following Cooper into the elevator. As the doors slid shut, she said, “Think I was going to miss out on the fun? It’ll be nice to have words with that bastard with a platoon of Espatiers at my back.”

 “This isn’t personal, ma’am. We’re here on business, not pleasure.”

 “Understood, Ensign,” she said, impatiently. “I know they cleaned house at the station pretty comprehensively, but there are likely to be a few people there who remember me. Our priority has to be getting to Operations.”

 “Top end of the station, right? We’ll get the shuttle docked as close as possible.”

 “Damn right you will,” she replied. “I’ll be flying it.”

 The doors opened as she was speaking, and Logan stood at the threshold, saying, “Good, that’ll save me the trouble.”

 “You’re going with us as well?” Cooper asked.

 “You’ve got room on the shuttles,” Logan replied, “and I could do with getting myself infiltrated as quickly as possible. This is where I get off the train.”

 “Captain Marshall…”

 “Approved this before we left Hades. Come on.”

 As Cooper walked over to his platoon, he saw Lieutenant Esposito standing with them, and snapped to attention, saying, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I thought…”

 “I’m here with Logan, Ensign. You’re still in command.”

 Glancing across at a bemused Forrest, Cooper replied, “Yes, ma’am.” Turning to the platoon, he said, “What are you guys waiting for? Let’s get on the move. Remember, non-lethal only.”

 “Aye, sir,” Forrest said with a hint of a wink. Cooper knew that the veteran trooper had a concealed pistol somewhere on him, probably of the same type as the one he was carrying. At least he could trust him to use it with caution and discrimination; some of the other troopers had yet to master that skill.

 Stepping onto the first shuttle, he sat down next to the airlock, checking over the gear that Sergeant Forrest had stowed for him. Taser, tranq rifle, smoke grenades. Quite a combination for assaulting a key military space station.

 “Listen up,” he said to the squad as the shuttle started its launch sequence. “We don’t know what we’re going to find over there, so expect the worst. Full tactical deployment once we hit the station, and don’t stop and wait for the welcoming party. Get right into cover, and then strike for Operations in fire teams. Got that?”

 A chorus of confirmation echoed around the cabin, and a few seconds later over his communicator from the other shuttle following to their rear. The engines kicked in, pushing him back against his chair for a second while he adjusted to the acceleration, the trajectory plotter lighting up on the monitors. Six minutes to the station, too damn long. Plenty of time to check his gear and get ready for the assault, but also lots of time to think about what they were doing and to tense up.

 He went over what he remembered of the layout of the station from the briefing, picturing it in his mind, and then remembered Logan’s warning that it didn’t bear much resemblance to the plans. They’d have a good two hundred meters to cover, even from where they were docking, and he didn’t have the first idea what was waiting for them at the other end, anything up to a full company, armed to the teeth.

 Looking around the cabin, he wondered what was in the mind of the men under his command. Anticipation, uncertainty, eagerness to get home? Some of them had been in combat situations for more than a year, been captives of the Cabal, and were still willing to make one last push to complete their mission. Not that he hadn’t thought that before. A part of him was beginning to wonder if they would ever get any peace, any end to it all.

 An amber light flashed on, and he rose from his seat, making his way over to the airlock as the shuttle completed terminal deceleration, thrusters slamming it to a standstill. His squad formed into position behind him, ready to burst out into the airlock as soon as the locks engaged. He hefted his taser, worryingly light, and checked the charge light one last time.

 With a loud clang, the shuttle lock linked up with the station, a green light flashed on, and the twin hatches slid open. Cooper dived through the airlock, weapon ready, and hurled for the nearest cover he could find on the far corridor. A figure moved down the corridor towards him, and with Forrest heading through the hatch, and vulnerable to attack, he aimed to take a shot.

 “Gabe! It’s me!” the voice yelled, and he realized that it was his wife floating down the corridor to him. “You’re all clear, I managed to divert them to another airlock.”

 He leapt forward and threw his arms around her, sending them both tumbling towards a wall while Forrest looked on, Lance-Corporal Lomax moving up beside him with a huge smirk on his face.

 “Sir, would you like a few moments alone?” Forrest asked.

 Breaking away, Cooper asked Barbara, “What’s going on over here?”

 “There was a squad on their way up here, but I don’t think their heart’s in it. They’re taking their time, and they were very willing to listen when I told them you were going another way.”

 Nodding, Cooper said, “That means they can’t be a part of the conspiracy. How did you get here?”

 “I’m AWOL, and I got here on a civilian transport under an assumed name. I only broke cover half an hour ago, and there are orders out to arrest me already.”

 “I wouldn’t worry about that, ma’am,” Forrest said.

 Throwing him a smile, she continued, “Watson’s up in Operations with a few midshipmen. No Espatier guards, though, I don’t think he trusts them.”

 “For once I’m glad to hear it.”

 Pushing through the squad, Ryder drifted out onto the station, frowning as she saw Barbara with her arm wrapped around Cooper’s waist. She gestured up the corridor.

 “That’s where the man we’re here to get is, Ensign. Let’s go and get him.”

 “You aren’t here to take the station?” Barbara asked.

 “Just snatch and grab, honey,” Cooper replied. “We’re not topping up or transferring. Captain Marshall doesn’t want to risk taking any saboteurs on board.”

 “Long as he doesn’t include me in that restriction.”

 “Stick with the shuttle. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

 This had to be the strangest start to a strike assault he’d ever taken part in, but Cooper’s squad moved into formation after a few meters, the second squad now drifting into position to the rear, fanning out to cover the entrances to adjacent compartments and corridors. There was no-one around, suspicious for the time of day, though he guessed that the word had gone around that the strike was happening, and no-one was willing to do something stupid for Watson.

 Standing at the entrance to Operations was a lone guard, his sidearm securely placed in his holster, his arms crossed. When he saw Cooper and his men approach, he pointed his finger at them with a smile on his face.

 “Bang,” he said. Then, clutching his chest, he continued, “Argh. You got me.” Pushing over to one side, he continued, “Help yourself. I’m not fighting fellow Espatiers for anyone, and I guess you feel the same way.”

 “Carry on, Corporal,” Cooper said, moving through the door into the control deck, his taser in his hand. Waiting on the far side was Watson, a trio of panicking midshipmen hurriedly purging records from the local database, who froze as his squad entered the room.

 “Ensign Cooper, you and your men will surrender immediately,” he began, turning towards a control panel.

 “Sergeant,” Cooper said, and four guns fired, sending tranq darts into the four officers, the drugs kicking in instantly to send them convulsing, spinning wildly around in the air.

 “Do we take all of them, sir?” Forrest asked.

 “Might as well make this as clean a sweep as possible, Sergeant,” he replied. He drifted over to the control panel and tapped a button, saying, “Will the Executive Officer please report to Operations in ten minutes. Ten minutes, no sooner. That is all.” With a grin, he said, “That should settle that nicely.”

 Lomax moved over to the database and slid in a datastick before turning back to Cooper, a frown on his face, and saying, “All deleted, sir, I’m afraid. We’d have to do a take and hold if you want our spooks to reconstruct it.”

 “I don’t think we have the resources, Corporal, and I’ve conquered enough space stations for this month. Turn off the external sensors, and we’ll get the hell out of here.” He looked around, and said, “Pity. I hear the nightlife around here’s pretty good. By the numbers, people,” he said, as his squad filed out of the room, back towards the shuttle.

Chapter 16

 Logan watched the squad he had accompanied to the station drift off down the corridor, and after a moment turned away, moving up into one of the maintenance shafts. He didn’t have any particular destination in mind at the moment, just out of the way for a while, giving Cooper and his team enough time to finish their job and get back to Alamo. Esposito was following him at a discrete distance, under instructions to find a different path to their mutual destination.

 The shaft was empty, all the way down the long axis of the station, and he drifted leisurely down towards the rear areas. He had plenty of contacts among the civilian population, and one of those in particular in mind. After twenty minutes, sirens began to sound, and he paused at a terminal, plugging in his datapad and getting a local status report. Apparently someone had abducted the station’s commanding officer, person or persons unknown. Which rather suggested which side the new commander of the station was on.

 Right now, the local security had a lot of problems on their hands, and they weren’t going to pay any attention to a single spacehand drifting around the concourse, so he cautiously drifted down out of a nearby hatch, heading back into the traffic flow. This was more the station he remembered, crowds of people working their way between the stalls, arguments and debates in a dozen languages babbling through the air. Lilith’s was still there, the bright neon sign flickering on and off, a bouncer hovering in front of the entrance.

 “No admissions,” the bouncer said, looking at him. “I doubt you could afford it.”

 “Tell Lilith Logan wants to speak to her,” he replied with a smile. “And that I think they’re seeing through my disguise.”

 “I’ve heard that before. Just another groupie. Get out.”

 “It’s a pity that you’re planning on taking this attitude,” Logan said, drifting leisurely towards him. “Are you sure that I can’t change your mind?”

 “Beat it.”

 “Whatever you say,” Logan said, pulling out his datapad and entering a security code. The local fire suppression system activated, sending a burst of foam at high pressure into the man’s chest, sending him tumbling to the wall. Taking the opportunity, Logan pushed past, swinging over the threshold into a bar empty enough that the bouncer must have been paid to prevent him from entering, and he upgraded the urgency of his timetable accordingly.

 Ignoring the look he received from the bartender, he swooped over the counter and through the door at the back, heading directly for Lilith’s office. Not wanting to wait, he tapped in an access code he wasn’t supposed to know, and the door slid open to reveal the woman herself behind a desk, a shady-looking individual in front of her.

 “Logan!” she yelled, and the man turned; acting on instinct, Logan pulled his pistol from the concealed holster in his pocket, leveling it at the stranger.

 “I don’t know what your business is, but I know mine is a damn sight more urgent.”

 “So, you’ve hired a hitman,” the man said to Lilith. “My people are tougher.”

 With a sigh, Logan said, “We don’t have time for this,” and fired, the man falling limp where he stood. “Tranq dart,” he said to Lilith. “New issue. I guess you can have someone take this piece of trash out.”

 “He’s from the local Mafia,” she said. “Do you know what you just did?”

 “Cut out the crap?” he replied. “Look, never mind these petty underworld rogues, I need your help, and I need it right now.”

 Fury leaping across her face, she said, “You probably just cost my staff and I their lives, Logan, and you need my help?”

 “That depends if you want the Confederation to fall to a military coup and a Cabal fleet to swoop through here destroying everything that moves or not. If that’s fine with you, I’ll go.”

 Visibly deflating, she replied, “What’s going on, Logan?”

 “It’d take me too long to explain right now, but I’ve got to get back to Mars, and I need to do it in a hurry. You must have a ship around that can take me back. I’ll pay – once I get the Intelligence accounts open again.” 

 “You’ve been quarantined?”

 “I think my boss has taken an executive decision to sit this one out.”

 Shaking her head, she replied, “Things are getting bad, Logan. All this security activity is doing very bad things for my business.” Pointing at the drifting figure, she said, “He was here to collect a quarter million credits, or repossess the bar, whichever came first. Probably both.”

 “Lilith, I’m sorry.”

 “Not your fault. It was inevitable that someone would start paying attention to the station eventually; the good times couldn’t last forever. Though that bastard Watson’s made things a lot worse. Why did you leave him in charge?”

 “You’ve got an inflated idea of the influence I wield, especially at the moment, but that at least has been dealt with. Don’t you have any way of getting me to Mars? Any contacts?”

 “With all the fleet ships that have been back and forth here lately? The only people moving in here are too damn honest. Or they’ve been infiltrated themselves by your bad guys. I presume Watson was one of them. The only smuggler that’s still operating left yesterday, and didn’t have any of my cargo on board.”

 “Damn,” he replied.

 “Can’t you get a ride back in that shiny battlecruiser of yours?” She shook her head, and said, “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

 “I never had a chance! One of my friends had almost been killed, and…,” he paused, took a breath, and said, “Look, I’ve got to get to Mars now. Alamo can’t jump for five days, but I can be there in plenty of time. We’ve got to move on this before it is too late.”

 Looking around the room, Lilith said, “I need to know something.”

 “What?”

 “That you’ll help me get past the consequences of this. That you’ll make it good. I’ll trust that you’ll find a way, but I want your word on this.”

 “I don’t let my friends down,” he replied. “Which is pretty much how I got into this mess.”

 “That makes a crazy kinda sense.” She tapped a control on her desk, and said, “Harry, we’re closed. Get all the customers out, and do it right now. Tell everyone except you, Boris, Janet and Clyde to go to their quarters; they’ll find their next three months’ pay deposited in their accounts when they get there.”

 “Boris is working for you now?” Logan asked.

 “Watson fired him, insubordination or something like that.”

 “Right, boss,” a tinny voice replied. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

 “It does,” she said. Turning off the communicator, she looked up at Logan and said, “Come on. Let’s go to my quarters.”

 “Do we have time for this?”

 With a smile, she replied, “Men. All the same. Trust me, I have an ulterior motive.”

 “Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ve got someone else coming.” He tapped a control on his datapad, and an image of Esposito flashed up on the screen. “Make sure she’s let in when she arrives.”

 Lilith glanced down at the face with a brief glare of irritation, and reached over to tap a few controls, sending the image and instructions to her bartender. That done, she drifted out of her office, gracefully swinging from handhold to handhold to the forward section, and opened the door to her quarters with a passcode she took care to ensure Logan didn’t see. The hatch slid wide, and the two of them drifted in, looking at the huge viewscreen that filled a wall.

 “Over there,” she pointed, “You’ll find systems control. Start turning everything on, and tell me if we get any red lights. I’ll start feeding power to the primary feeds.”

 He looked at her, eyes wide, and said, “This is crazy, even by my standards.”

 “This bar was originally a United Nations scoutship, remember. I always made sure to keep everything maintained, including the hendecaspace drive – and in direct contravention of security protocols, it’s even fueled up for a single jump. I always thought I might need a get out of jail card one day, and I guess that day has come.”

 Logan pushed over to one of her tables, taking the cover off to reveal the control station below. The systems were archaic, decades out of date, but as he started to run the power-up procedures, everything seemed to be working properly, one step after another winking green to confirm activation.

 Boris drifted in through the far door, the engineer still wearing his battered uniform jacket, and said, “Logan? Might have known you’d be involved in all of this.”

 “Is everything ready?” Lilith asked.

 “Sure, Cap’n,” he replied. “I’ve prepped the seals to pop when we give the word, and the airlock is sealed. We don’t have any passengers on board, just the five of us.” Frowning, he replied, “That’s not many people for a dimensional transit.”

 “We don’t have time to recruit a crew.”

 “One thing we can do,” Logan said, opening a communications channel. “Logan to Lieutenant Race. You there, Pete?”

 The voice of Alamo’s astrogator replied with a yawn, “What’s going on? Do you know what time it is?”

 “Time for you to do something for me. I need a course from here to Mars, to Titov Station, calibrated for ninety-eight minutes from now.”

 “Ninety-eight...never mind, I’ll get on it right now, feed it through your datapad.”

 “Thanks. Much appreciated.” He looked up at Lilith, and said, “Astrogation, oddly enough, is not one of my talents. It’d be better for us to end up at the right place. I figured Titov rather than Mariner, a hell of a lot less traffic.”

 “Fine by me,” Lilith said, tapping a control. A series of lights flashed on, and the room now looked a lot more like the bridge it once was, wall panels flickering on, readings spilling out across the viewscreen, the focus switching to the hendecaspace point. “We’re not going to get any pursuit, are we?”

 “Not from Alamo,” Logan replied. “We’re going to surprise the hell out of everyone, though.” Looking down at his station, he said, “All power systems look good at my end.”

 From the rear, Boris said, “Hendecaspace drive is primed, ready to go. We just need to know where we’re going. Where are we going?”

 “Mars,” Logan said. “I’ll explain later.” Turning to Lilith, he said, “You don’t have to go this far. I’ll think of something else.”

 “Little late for that now,” she said. “Don’t worry, I was thinking about changing my base of operations anyway. That’s why I hired Boris, I wanted someone to do an overhaul of the systems, make sure they were all working.”

 “Are they?” Logan asked Boris.

 “The ones I checked. I’m only about half-way through.”

 “Great,” he said. “Just great.”

 “Clyde here,” a voice loaded with a heavy burr said over the ceiling speaker. “The woman Logan was waiting for has arrived. Should I send her up?”

 Looking at the status monitors, Boris said, “We don’t have time, and you’re going to need the help with the internal engineering relays.” Looking at Logan, he asked, “She does know some engineering, right?”

 “Just the usual basic training.”

 “That’ll have to do.”

 “Stand by to undock, then,” Lilith said. “Logan, that’s you.”

 “Out of purely academic interest,” Logan replied, “What’s this going to do to the rest of the station? This bar...ship...has been docked here for years.”

 “Probably nothing much,” she replied. “The maintenance gangs will have to spend a few days tidying up, but I don’t think the integrity of the station itself will be compromised.” With a smile, she asked, “Cold feet?” 

 “I’d really prefer to not destroy the station on our way out if we can help it,” he said with a levity he didn’t feel.”

 “Relax,” Boris said. “It’ll be fine. I’m far more worried about whether this ship will fall to pieces once we undock.”

 “Very reassuring,” he said, looking down at his board. “We’re ready for separation. Main engines are primed and all systems show green. Undock at your discretion.”

 “Let’s get this over with,” Lilith said. “At least I didn’t have to pack.”

 With an ear-splitting grind, the sound of metal tortured almost beyond its limits, half a dozen clamps that had not moved in nearly two decades ripped open, sending the erstwhile bar tumbling forward, away from the station. Boris and Logan hastily ran through the engineering telltales, but astoundingly everything seemed to be working.

 “I guess they built this girl to last,” Boris said, shaking his head.

 “Let’s see what happens when we turn the engines on,” Lilith replied. “Hang on.”

 She manipulated a control, and Logan started to feel heavy as the acceleration built. Something dropped on his head, leaving a scratch, a piece of loose metal, and the accumulated debris of years of zero-gravity rained down all around them, but the ship began to slowly move onto the calculated trajectory, heading for the hendecaspace point. Looking across at the unoccupied communications station, Logan saw a host of incoming calls, all of them listed as urgent. Tapping a control to slave that station to his, he opened a channel to Alamo.

 “What the hell is happening over there?” Marshall yelled. “Station maintenance is having a heart attack, they thought there was a structural integrity failure!” 

 “There might be,” Boris said from the back. “Tell Chief Hooper that he should have someone check the superstructure in that area right now, and he’s going to need to do something about the power grid in that module as well.”

 “We’re on our way to Mars, Danny,” Logan said. “Has Race finished that course yet?”

 “I’m sending it over to you now,” Race said, breaking into the channel.

 “Thanks, Pete. We’ll keep a seat warm for you at the bar when we get home. Logan out.”

 “He seemed a bit upset,” Boris said.

 “Commanding officers often like to be kept informed of changes to the mission profile, and besides, my original plan was to sneak away from the station. We’ve traded secrecy for speed, but as long as we have enough of it, I think everything will work out.”

 “Hendecaspace drive coming on-line,” Lilith said. “This is the big jump.” The engine faded out for a moment, sending the three of them drifting forward, Boris banging his head on a ceiling panel.

 Logan, swinging himself back behind his console, said, “Fuel feed malfunction. I can bypass it. I guess that was one of the systems Boris hadn’t gotten around to yet.”

 “Good guess,” the engineer replied, rubbing his head. The engine roared into life again, sending him careening back to the far deck, slamming his elbow into the wall. “Damn it, I think this ship wants to kill me!”

 “She just wants a little love and attention,” Logan said, patting the console. “Next stop, Mars!”

Chapter 17

 “Sir, Lilith’s Bar has just entered hendecaspace,” Steele said, shaking her head.

 “Congratulations, Sub-Lieutenant,” Marshall replied, standing from his command chair. “I think you’ve just issued the most surreal tactical update in the history of the Triplanetary Fleet.”

 “We’ve only been official for three years, Danny,” Caine said with a wide grin. “Give it time.”

 “Is Watson below?” Marshall asked.

 “Secured in our temporary second brig; the midshipmen are being held in separate quarters down on the lower habitation deck.” Caine shrugged, and said, “We ran out of brigs. Alamo wasn’t built to carry large numbers of prisoners.”

 “Cooper’s people are watching them?”

 “Like a hawk. Barbara wants to speak with you as well, now that we’ve managed to extricate her from Cooper’s embraces.”

 A smile crossed Marshall’s face, one of the few he had managed since this nightmare began, and he replied, “I can’t blame either of them, can you?”

 “Hell no. Who do you want to see first?” 

 “The one on our side, I think; have her come up to my office. I’m going to need time to prepare myself for Watson. I’ll still trying to get used to the idea that people in our own damn Fleet are working against us.”

 “I think I’d rather not get used to it,” Steele said. “I don’t want it to ever happen again.”

 “There we agree, Sub-Lieutenant.” Marshall walked across to his office, stepping through the door and taking his usual seat behind his desk, looking around the room. A dozen datapads, each flashing a ‘memory full’ warning, were sitting on it for his attention. Captain Winter had managed to let the paperwork build up to a new record backlog, even by his standards. Nine days before they got home and everything went crazy. The last thing he wanted was a court-martial for administrative incompetence. Bad black mark on his record. Though admittedly, it paled beside hijacking a battlecruiser.

 He looked out of the window at the dim star at the heart of the system, trying to find his usual solace in the view, but this time he couldn’t seem to rest or relax; he was too tensed up, and he knew why – the five people under confinement below decks. There was a knock on the door, and it opened to reveal Barbara standing at the entrance, wearing a brand-new uniform.

 “Sir,” she began, “I must inform you that I am currently AWOL from my assigned posting.”

 “Who isn’t?” Marshall said. “Right now, I think that’s the least of our problems. Have a seat.” As she sat down opposite him, he said, “What’s the situation back home? How’s Orlova?”

 “When I left Mars two weeks ago, she was recovering from a gunshot to the leg; not the security services, the occupants of a drug lab. It’s a long story.”

 “For once I’m looking forward to going over the after-action reports.”

 “The impeachment process is still ongoing, and Senator Harper believes that it won’t be resolved until just before the election. Both the Progressive and Technocratic parties don’t have anything to gain by closing the book on it. They want to take the maximum advantage from the mess that they can.”

 “Which means we should have the time we need to present our case to the Senate. Alamo should enter Mars orbit with a few hours to spare.” Shaking his head, he continued, “We’re really cutting it close this time.” 

 “Couldn’t we send them on ahead? Commandeer a transport, put a prize crew on board as well as Cooper’s platoon, and get them to Mars five days earlier?”

 “We could, but that’s even more risky. A transport is far too vulnerable, and I know if I was running any of the stations right now, I’d be instituting checks on passenger manifests and inspections we couldn’t get through.”

 “Captain Winter might have...,”

 “I don’t see how,” Marshall interrupted. “He’s going to have enough trouble getting himself through security, without explaining why a platoon of Triplanetary Espatiers and five members of the conspiracy are on board.” Looking around, he said, “Taking them in on a battlecruiser might be a little obvious, but it’s the safest option.”

 “They’ve got bigger pieces on the table, sir,” she said.

 “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Is there anything else I should know?” 

 “Orlova and Nelyubov are in the Ragnarok Embassy at the moment, seeking refuge. Both of them are facing charges of espionage for the Cabal. The Rockies are on our side in this, though I don’t know how much detail they’ve been given about this affair. Also, the President – Newton – and the Commandant are working out a new peace treaty, to take into account the assumed hostilities at Hades Station. Both of them seemed to think they could come up with something acceptable to all sides.”

 “Reasonable politicians. How did we get so lucky?” Marshall said. “What about the general population? How much do they know?”

 “Not much beyond the superficial. Both sides are slinging mud, but no-one’s said anything much yet. There’s a general agreement that the President should be impeached, but the peace treaty is staying off the radar.” She paused, then said, “The polls do suggest that it will be rejected in the next Senate session. The Progressives are set for some good gains, and it’s the hawk wing of the Freedom party that’s surviving best.” Shaking her head, she said, “I’m a shuttle pilot, damn it, not a political strategist.”

 “Right now you are a messenger, Sub-Lieutenant, and I’m very glad to get your report. It means there is still some hope of resolving all of this quietly, much to my surprise.”

 She nodded, then said, “You’ve got a spare fighter on board, haven’t you, sir?”

 “I presume you’re offering to fly it.”

 “Technically I haven’t completed the fighter training course, sir, but I think I can handle it.”

 He nodded, and said, “I’ve seen you fly, and given what you’ve sacrificed to join us, I rather think that letting you ride fire is the least I can do. Go report to Senior Lieutenant Dixon, she’ll get you checked out on our kit and integrated into the squadron formation.”

 “Thank you, sir,” she said, saluting.

 “Any time.” He rose from his desk, following her from the room, stepping out onto the bridge. Evidently the distaste at what he was about to do showed. Caine rose from her station, moving over to him.

 “Want some company in your trip to the sewer?”

 “I’ll take you up on that.”

 The two of them stepped into the elevator, and Caine said, “You don’t have to speak to him at all. I think we both know what he’ll say. An appeal to patriotism, some sort of arrogant attempt at bluster, and a refusal to say anything specific. Just like Frank Rogers.”

 “Frank was different,” Marshall replied. “On some level, I still consider him a friend, strange as it sounds. He had my back often enough during the war, and I just find all of this so unbelievable. Watson? I’ve got no history with him.” He balled his hands into fists, and said, “Maybe I feel a little more open about what I can say.”

 “Be careful, Danny,” Caine warned. “We’re already perilously close to the line. The way you are talking right now, you’re dangerously close to crossing it.”

 He glared at her, and said, “They’ve done a damn sight more than crossing a line, Deadeye.”

 “Is that any excuse for us to?”

 Taking a deep breath, he replied, “It makes me angry, damn it. I thought this uniform meant something, I thought that it was a symbol of something better than we once were. I’ve told people out there that the Confederation is not an expansionist power, that it is not out to conquer the galaxy, and these bastards are making a liar out of me.”

 “I know, Danny, I know,” she said. “That’s why we’re trying to stop them, isn’t it? To prove that it is more than just words.”

 The elevator reached their destination, and the doors slid open, admitted them to the brig level. A pair of Espatiers snapped to attention as they approached, saluting the approaching officers; Marshall returned the salute.

 “No trouble?” he asked.

 “None, sir. They’re being quiet enough.”

 “Good,” he replied. “I want to speak to Watson.”

 One of the guards went over to a panel while the other asked, “Which of us do you want with you, sir?”

 “Neither, Private. Lieutenant Caine and I can handle ourselves quite well.”

 “I’m certain of that, sir, but Ensign Cooper left orders that no-one was to enter the prisoners’ cells without escort. I think he was concerned about people taking action on their own initiative.”

 Caine glanced at Marshall, then said, “Do you honestly think that the Captain and I fit into that category?”

 “No, ma’am, I don’t.”

 “Then by all means,” Marshall said, “please wait in the corridor. I imagine that you will be able to respond at once if needed.”

 “Before you finish asking, sir,” the trooper said, and Marshall stepped into the cell, followed by Caine. Watson sat slumped on the far side of the room, barely seeming to acknowledge their entrance, until the door slammed closed.

 “Let’s talk about a deal,” Watson said, looking up.

 “You aren’t in any position to offer me anything,” Marshall said, “except testimony that I have no intention of trusting.”

 “Then why are you in this cell?” he replied. “I’ll give you a signed confession, complete with all the details you could ask for, in exchange for being left behind here at Spitfire Station. I guarantee that you will never see me again.”

 “That quick?” Caine asked. “You turn traitor that quickly?”

 “By your judgment, I already am a traitor, aren’t I? Should you be surprised that I change sides once again?” He leaned forward, and said, “I promise you that my testimony will satisfy everything beyond your wildest dreams, and my disappearance should strengthen your case even further. Were you actually answering to any higher authority at the moment, I imagine that you would face censure for letting a criminal escape, but let’s be honest, you’re the one making the decisions.”

 Marshall turned to Caine, briefly tempted to take the man up on his offer. As tempting as it would be to see him rot in a detention facility for the rest of his life, it was a pretty impressive plea bargain.

 “I don’t buy it,” Caine said. “A few hours ago you were calling on us to surrender. Was that some sort of bluff? And your actions while you briefly sullied Alamo with your presence don’t really fill me with any confidence.”

 “Take this any way you like,” he replied, folding his arms.

 “No,” Marshall replied, “Should your side win, then you’d be left hanging. They’d want your hide for testifying.”

 Watson smiled, and said, “I’m counting on your abilities to prevent that from happening. I have confidence in you, Captain, and in your impending flight to Mars. I just don’t want to be a part of it.”

 “There’s something else, isn’t there,” Caine said. “Something you aren’t telling us.”

 Leaning back against the wall, Watson replied, “I’ve offered you my testimony. About all of it, names, places, dates. You have to decide whether your revenge against me is worth sacrificing that.”

 With a smile, Marshall replied, “I’ll offer you a letter of amnesty, signed by myself and the other senior staff that will clear you of this whole affair and allow you to continue your career. On the condition that you testify to the Senate in person.”

 “No deal,” he replied. “I want off this ship, right now. I need plenty of time to get clear before the dust settles. And no, I have no intention of telling you where I plan to go.” 

 Marshall glanced at Caine, then said, “You don’t think we’re going to get to Mars. There’s something out there to stop us, something that will prevent us getting back with our testimony. It doesn’t matter what you tell us if there is no way we are going to be able to deliver it.”

 His voice laced with sarcasm, he replied, “Are you telling me that the great Captain Daniel Marshall can’t get past a little thing like a Triplanetary trap? You certainly managed to dance around the Cabal effectively enough.” Shaking his head, he continued, “I would have thought that you would have been one of the ones wanting a war, or is it just that you don’t want to get your precious hands dirty?”

 “Only a fool seeks war,” Marshall said.

 Looking him in the eyes, Watson replied, “I’m fighting for the Confederation, damn it, and if that means a pre-emptive strike to win the war, I’m happy with that.”

 “Pearl Harbor,” Marshall replied. “That worked out very well for the Japanese, didn’t it. Do you really want to commit us to something like that?”

 “I’ve got news for you, Captain, you’ve already done it when you attacked Hades Station.”

 Standing up, Marshall said, “Watson, you’re going to be with us when we reach Mars. You might want to consider that any trap that destroys us is going to take you down as well. If you want to tell me what’s waiting for us at the far end of this journey, contact the guards and let them know you want to see me.” Turning to the door, he finished, “Otherwise I don’t see much point in our continuing this conversation, do you?”

 Marshall and Caine knocked twice on the cell door. As it slid open, Watson looked up for a second as if considering finally talking, but shook his head and remained silent. Once the door was closed safely behind them, Caine placed her hand on Marshall’s shoulder.

 “The battleships.”

 “I was thinking the same thing,” Marshall replied. “Then I dismissed it. They can’t actually attack another Triplanetary vessel, can they?”

 “If they’ve got control of the media, they can make up any story they like and make it stick. Claim it was an accident, that there was a mutiny on board, anything they want.” She looked up at him, and said, “You know already that they were willing to let us die at Hades. That’s why Frank Rogers is in the brig next door to Watson. Why not take this step for their glorious cause? In their eyes, we’re just another group of people dying for the Confederation.”

 Marshall took a deep breath, and replied, “Most of the crew have seen these new ships, and our tactical database has a lot of information on them. I want a full tactical briefing on tackling them by the time we enter hendecaspace. Draw on anyone you want for the analysis, and make it good.”

 “I’ll get right on it,” she said, heading for the elevator. Pausing, she continued, “I never thought that I’d be doing one of these on a Triplanetary capital ship.”

 “I never thought I’d be ordering one,” Marshall replied.

Chapter 18

 Cooper pushed his empty plate into the middle of the table, then looked around the empty mess, finally turning his attention back to his wife.

 “Funny having the whole place to ourselves,” he said.

 “That’s what comes of operating with a skeleton crew,” she replied, taking a bite of reprocessed salad. “I wish the Captain had at least let us top up on fresh food before we left. Alamo’s been out for four months, and it’s really beginning to show.” Making a face, she said, “This lettuce tastes like chicken.”

 He smiled, then said, “Everything does in this galley.” The two laughed together, then he added, “Thanks for coming out here.”

 “I should have gone with you in the first place, and to hell with flight school.” She shrugged, and said, “I’m ten years too old to take real advantage of it anyway. Only seven years before I’ll need a waiver to fly.”

 “Captain Marshall would give you one.” 

 “He won’t always be my commanding officer. In fact, I’d lay reasonable odds that he won’t be in the service for much longer.”

 Frowning, Cooper said, “If you think that…”

 “I knew that I was throwing my career away when I went AWOL. Don’t worry about it. Hopefully the two of us will at least avoid jail time.” She looked him up and down, and said, “After all, you’re a big hero now. Winner of the Second Battle of Hades Station.”

 “That’s a lot of crap.”

 “You wait until the press get hold of you. They’re going to want to salvage something from this mess. As for me, well, I’ve got the honorary Ragnarok citizenship that seems to be a common factor for everyone involved in this.” She pulled a badge out of her pocket, waving it in front of him, and said, “I’ve got the membership card and everything.”

 “There really wasn’t any choice.”

 “You volunteered. So did I. Maybe you’re right, and there really wasn’t any choice, not for us. Maybe we’ve been serving on this ship for too long, been out in deep space too long, under the same commanding officer for too damn long.” She looked down at her half-eaten dinner, and said, “Maybe Captain Marshall’s navy isn’t the same as the Triplanetary Fleet.”

 “I’d hate to think that.”

 “Perhaps the time has come for us to face it, as uncomfortable as we might feel about it. I don’t like it, I hate it, but back home...back home the politicians are baying for blood, and all of this is just an excuse. We’re going to make the galaxy safe for democracy, and we’re going to do it at the point of a gun. If they have their way, we’ll never be done fighting.”

 Shaking his head, Cooper replied, “There’s always a choice, Barbara, and we’ve made it. If the people want a war, then they’ll get it. The Cabal will only be too happy to oblige.”

 “And what about us?”

 “There’s always Ragnarok. Or further out, to the Perimeter.”

 “The UN Trust Territories?” She replied, scowling. “Please.”

 “Beyond that,” he said. “I hear that there are people pushing out that way, even colonies. Hell, it’s only a matter of time before we set up new ones ourselves.”

 “There were people talking about it before I left.”

 “Maybe that’s the answer.”

 Shaking her head, she replied, “Do you honestly think that we can run away from our responsibilities, just like that?”

 “Why not?” Cooper said. “No-one can say that we haven’t done our bit. Besides, the damn politicians sent us out to die. They trawled through the training program for the dregs and threw them at the Cabal as cannon fodder.” A bitter smile crossed his face, and he continued, “We won anyway, despite them, not because of them. Despite being given a fool as our mission commander, and a bigger one commanding our Espatier forces. They wanted some glorious defeat, but we went off-script and gave them a victory. A damn expensive one.”

 “It must have been terrible.”

 “Kids, Barbara. Just a bunch of kids. Not even as prepared as we were the first time around. They didn’t know what they were getting into, but they found out quickly enough.” He looked up, as though beyond the hull, and continued, “Most of them worked it out as they took their last breath.”

 “It wasn’t your fault.”

 Turning abruptly to face her, he said, “Of course it was my fault! I was in command, and it was my job to look after them. I spent their lives like water, watched half my platoon die, and hell, we had a good casualty ratio!”

 “No-one forced them to sign up, Gabe. No-one made them put on the uniform, and they knew that when they enlisted, it might mean that they were called upon to sacrifice their lives. They did it anyway.”

 “Sacrificing their lives is one thing, but this mission was designed to throw them away! That’s why they picked Hades Station, because we’d been given a bloody nose there before and they were counting on the Cabal to do it to us again.” Shaking his head, he said, “We should have aborted the mission right at the start. And you know the craziest thing of all? Most of my platoon – the survivors of that fight – are down in the barracks right now ready to do it all over again.”

 “I guess they trust you.”

 “They haven’t got any sane basis for that decision! I got their friends killed, injured, some of them crippled for life. They’re going to live with the consequences of my mistakes.”

 “Tell me something,” she said, softly. “Say you had refused to go, maybe even got yourself thrown into the brig for insubordination. What would have been different? They’d have still gone in, wouldn’t they, but under a different commander. Someone less experienced, who would have done a worse job.” Leaning forward, she said, “They might have lost the whole platoon, and failed to pull off a miracle and complete the mission to boot. As it is, those sacrifices at least were worth something.”

 “And if Newton throws all of that away at the peace talks?”

 “Then they died to buy peace for everyone else, and isn’t that why we’re out here? So that everyone back home can rest easy at night?” She shook her head, smiled, and said, “We have a honeymoon that lasted a grand total of three hours, haven’t seen each other for two months, and this is the best conversation we can have?”

 “I’m sorry,” he replied. “I’m not very good company, I know. I guess all of this is beginning to get to me.”

 “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “That’s what I’m here for. I had a word with the Captain, by the way. He approved me for fighter duty.”

 “That’s great!” Cooper said, forcing a smile.

 “Beats sitting around on the bridge,” she replied. “I might stick with shuttles though, long-term. Hell, Alamo hasn’t had a deck officer since Captain Marshall fired the one he found when he first arrived. Maybe I could have that job.”

 “What?”

 “Apparently he was working for the Callistan Patrol, making sure the ship was nicely stripped of spare parts before it was handed over to the Triplanetary Fleet.”

 “That was three years ago,” he said, shaking his head. “They never got a replacement?”

 “The berth was always being filled with someone else. Admin Officer, Science Officer, and I guess no-one ever made it enough of a priority, and Fleet never pushed it for some reason.”

 “Probably because they were too busy assigning Science Officers to warships.” He sighed, then said, “I’d far rather have one on board now, be heading back out to the frontier again. I guess that’s turning into the common dream around here.”

 “We can do that. Once all this is over,” she said. “The two of us could gang up on your uncle and get him to finance us for an expedition. Since Cornucopia collapsed, there are quite a few hendecaspace-capable ships going cheap.”

 He smiled, then said, “I don’t think my back pay would come close to covering it, but a little bit of trade pioneering might be fun. One thing we do know is that there are a lot of surprises out there, a lot of worlds waiting to be contacted. More than we could ever have dreamed of.”

 “See, it was worth it.” She looked around the room, then said, “We’ve opened up the damn galaxy, Gabe. Hundreds, thousands of stars out there waiting to be reached, pioneered, explored, and we’re going to get to do it. Never mind what’s happening now, this is something to be endured and suffered through. The recruiting poster promised strange new worlds, and I aim to collect.”

 “Something to look forward too. I’d guess we’ll get a lot of volunteers from the crew if it came to it, as well. Especially if we’re going to have to get used to civilian clothes again when this mission’s over.”

 “You were dreading that before,” she said.

 “Maybe I’m almost looking forward to it now.” He looked down at his shoulder, at the simple metal insignia, and said, “I never thought about being an officer. Never even occurred to me that I might do it. I’d have been perfectly happy just to stay as a Private, maybe try for promotion to Lance-Corporal, maybe Corporal. Being the one who gives the orders…”

 “I’ve seen you in action, remember,” she said with a smile. “You just start giving the orders whether you should or not. Remember Hydra Station, before you got promoted? I seem to remember that Lance-Corporal Cooper was pretty happy to give orders to Sergeant Forrest, and he seemed happy enough with it.” Placing her hand on his arm, she said, “Sometimes you need to look at yourself through the eyes of others, rather than looking in the mirror.”

 He looked down at his plate, back up, then said, “That’s why I married you, I guess.”

 Waving her arms in the air, she said, “That and my obvious physical charms.”

 “Naturally,” he replied. “Thanks. For everything.”

 “It works both ways,” she said. “Though I know you’ve been through a hell of a lot. I was talking to Sergeant Fuller…”

 “You were talking to my platoon about me?”

 “Just the senior NCOs. They’re worried about you as well. Forrest especially. You’ve been through a hell of a lot in the last two years…”

 “Tell me about it.”

 “And it’s going to all crash down on you at some point. What I’m trying to say is that you need some time off. I’ve had a word with Tabby and Forrest, and they’re both fine with the two of us having a few days off.”

 “Tabby?”

 “Quinn’s wife. I understand they’re sharing a cabin now.” She shook her head, and said, “This crew really has thrown a lot of the fraternization rules out of the window. Something’s changed.”

 “A year like we all had was bound to have an effect. It’s tied us together in a way that I don’t think I thought possible. We faced death together, not just once, but for weeks, months at a time. I guess it must have been the same after the last war, during the big demobilization.” He looked up, smiled, and said, “At least I got you out of the deal. Worth every moment.”

 “I’m glad you think so.” She stood up, abandoning the remnants of her meal, offering him her arm. “Why don’t we go on a tour of the ship? Maybe see if anything is happening down at the squadron bar.”

 “There’s a bar on Alamo? Why did no-one tell me?” 

 “I only found out about it this morning. I’m surprised the Espatiers never organized one.”

 “That’s the key word. Organize. I’m certainly interested. There’s a chance they might have some decent food down there.” As they left the room, his datapad chirped, and he pulled it out, his face falling as he scanned the screen.

 “Trouble?” she asked.

 “In a manner of speaking. It looks like I’ve been invited to come up with another method of dying gloriously for the Confederation. Remember those battleships?”

 “What about them?”

 Waving the pad in the air, he said, “Caine wants me to come up with a plan to capture one with my platoon.” Shaking his head, he continued, “To hell with it, it can wait until the morning. I need a drink.” He smiled, and said, “I don’t plan suicide missions well when I’m sober.”

Chapter 19

 Orlova staggered down the corridor, trying to avoid wincing at the pain shooting through her leg as she completed her daily exercises under the supervision of the embassy medics. Had she been transferred to a hospital, all of this would have been over and done weeks ago, and she chafed at being out of the action for so long, but realistically, the only hospital that the authorities would have allowed her to attend would have been one attached to a prison.

 At the far end of the corridor, Nelyubov was walking in, and she waved an arm to attract his attention, increasing her efforts to get to him. Seeing her discomfort, he hurried down the corridor, shaking his head.

 “You’re supposed to be taking it easy,” he said.

 “This?” she gestured down at her leg. “The damage is healed, it’s just sore as hell. A few more days and I’ll be fighting fit again. What’s going on out there?”

 “Harriet’s filing another story now. Turns out that Senator Norman has been having an affair with an officer both of us are familiar with.”

 “Tarrant?” she replied.

 “The very man. It’s not big enough to do any serious damage to her, though we’re getting it on the record in any case, but the dots are really beginning to connect themselves together now.”

 Quick footsteps echoed down the corridor, and they turned to see Senator Harper racing towards them, waving a datapad in the air, a beaming smile on his face.

 “It’s done! He said. I’m not going to say something stupid about ‘peace in our time’, but we’ve got a workable agreement. We don’t even have to give up Hades Station; it’s to be demilitarized under a Triplanetary administration, and become a free trade port.”

 “Intelligence is going to love the headache that’s going to give them,” Nelyubov said.

 “It works both ways, Lieutenant,” the Senator replied. “They’ll have every opportunity in the world to get their own people into the Cabal. I can see a pretty impressive intelligence war out there, but that doesn’t matter. The key thing is that we have a resolution that all of us can live with. It might only hold for a few years, but we’ll have the time we need to get ourselves ready.”

 “And after living together for a while, we might be able to work out how to get along, especially with trade links established. Work to drive change in the Cabal through more covert means, rather than by force of arms,” Orlova said, nodding.

 “We’ve got a long road ahead, Lieutenant, and there’s going to be a lot of work for the Fleet, but the immediate problem is resolved.”

 “Not quite, Senator,” Nelyubov replied. “We’ve still got to get it ratified by the Senate.”

 “But at least we now have something to ratify. I’m going out there now to present this, see if I can rally the troops for another push. Nice to have a few more cards in my hand again.” Clapping his hand on Nelyubov’s shoulder, he said, “I’ll be sure to get a few jabs in at Norman as well, while I’m at it. Nice bit of work, there.” 

 Orlova’s communicator – carried out of habit rather than need, started to chirp, and she pulled it out of her pocket, glancing at the data display. A signal from outside Mars-space, from the far Trojan point, coded for her eyes only. She looked at the others, frowning.

 “Anyone know about anything happening at Titov?”

 “Not that I’m aware of.” the Senator said.

 Holding up her communicator, she said, “Someone’s sending me a message. Big file, downloading direct.”

 “You aren’t linked into the network, are you?” Nelyubov asked.

 “Of course not.”

 “Then what’s the harm in seeing what the message says?”

 Shrugging, she tapped a button, and the voice of Logan Winter echoed through the corridor, sending Nelyubov racing to a wall display with a start.

 “Logan to Orlova. This message is going to you and Harper, independently, through enough back channels that there’s no chance of a back-trace. That’s in case either if you are out of the game. If you are still operative, Maggie, go out and talk to one of the journalists, in a manner that will indicate that you aren’t captive, and that it is not a delayed recording. Message to follow on that confirmation. Harper’s getting a slightly different version.”

 “He’s back?” Nelyubov said.

 “I guess so. There still a press pack outside?” she asked.

 “They’re down to a few dedicated hacks, but enough for a brief press conference. At least one of the networks is doing a live feed, I’ve got one of the grunts monitoring it.”

 “What did he do wrong?” Orlova asked. “Where’s Kristin?”

 “No idea,” Nelyubov replied. “Right now, probably working on her own response to the message. I’m guessing that Logan’s out there somewhere monitoring all channels.”

 “Then we can count on this getting to him quickly,” she said, heading for the airlock.

 Pausing for a second, Nelyubov said, “You realize that this might be a trap?”

 “Logan would find a way to warn us,” she replied. “Besides, I’m not leaving Embassy grounds, and if the security grunts were going to break in to get me, they’d have done it by now. Frank, I need you to look up something for me. I need a score.”

 “A score?”

 “Of a game, anything.”

 Looking at his watch, he said, “You realize it’s 0200, right? The middle of the night?”

 “Somewhere on this planet, someone is playing a game, and it is being transmitted live. That’s how I tell Logan that I’m sending this message now.”

 Shaking his head, he replied, “I’ll get right on it,” and pulled out his datapad.

 As the group walked to the airlock, the Senator asked, “What are you going to say?”

 “I’m going to answer some questions about the Cabal.”

 Rubbing his hand against his chin, he replied, “You could tell them about the peace treaty.”

 “Not yet. Not until we know what Logan has to tell us. For all we know, there’s a Cabal attack in progress.” She paused, then said, “We’ve been assuming that our forces have captured Hades Station.”

 “Of course.”

 “What if they haven’t? What if Marshall, Cooper and the others are prisoners right now, and a new group of diplomats is coming to negotiate their release?”

 “If that happened, we’re at war. Just as those idiots want.” Nodding, he continued, “Quite right, Maggie.”

 “Don’t get me wrong, I’m damn sure they pulled it off, but I’m just playing the percentages.”

 “Lieutenant,” the medic still hovering behind her said, “You really don’t need to stress that leg too much.”

 “I’ll sit down once I’m done with this,” she said. Then she smiled, and added, “Thanks, Doc. You’ve just given me the topic of my press conference.”

 Outside, the word had someone got around that she was about to speak, and a group of journalists were gathering around. At some point over the last month, they’d received permission to set up a temporary dome connected to one of the Embassy airlocks, moving from spacesuits to shirt-sleeves as a result. That was going to make this easier. Tapping a control, she opened the double locks, and looked into a dozen faces and a trio of cameras focused on her position. 

 “Lieutenant Orlova,” one of them started, but she held up her hand.

 “I have a statement to make, and then I will answer questions for a short time. My doctor has advised me that I shouldn’t stay on my leg for too long, so this will be brief.” A hand tapped her on the shoulder, offering her a datapad. Glancing back for a second at Nelyubov’s sheepish face, she said, “And for the record, Yang Zie has just won his fourth game in the final of the Interplanetary Chess Tournament, putting him two-one up, with a draw, against Alison Bates.”

 “A few weeks ago, you will have seen me being brought back to the Embassy after a firefight, and I know there were some rather wild speculations about how I suffered those injuries. I will tell you now that these were not sustained in any action with the security services. I was temporarily held captive by a group running an illegal drug lab out in the desert. Their operation has since been terminated with the cooperation of the Ragnarok Embassy.” She looked around, and said, “Three questions. Make ‘em good.”

 She pointed at the first person who raised his hand, who said, “Tom Stewart, Sagan City Newsbeat. What were you doing out on the desert in the first place? We were under the impression that you were in the embassy.”

 “I can’t give you any details, but I can say that I was securing information that will prove that I am not the spy they are looking for.” 

 “Magda Raskova, Callisto Tonight. You are, then, denying the charges of espionage?”

 With a smile, she said, “I am currently operating under some rather unusual sealed orders, but those permit me to tell you that there is a Cabal intelligence network on Mars and that I am not a part of it.”

 “Are you investigating it?” she pressed.

 “I’ll have to let you use your own judgment on that one, and then thank all of you for being of use in completing the current phase of my assignment.” She smiled, and said, “Perhaps someday there will be an opportunity to fully brief you.”

 “Lieutenant,” another voice said.

 “No,” she replied, “I said three questions, and you had them. Now I need to rest, as per doctor’s orders.”

 “Get well soon, Lieutenant,” a journalist at the back yelled, as the door slid shut.

“That was a bit close to the truth, wasn’t it,” the Senator said once she was back in the corridor. “Telling them that there is a Cabal intelligence network here.”

 “There almost certainly is; that’s a guess, but I think a fairly safe one. Whether they have anything to do with our would-be putschists is another question entirely, but at least I’ve given some more cover for anything that leaks out later. A Cabal plot will be a lot easier to swallow.”

 “Yes, but you might have just given some ammunition to the Progressives.”

 With a shrug, she replied, “The people have reason to be worried right now. In any case, Logan will have been watching, and as soon as the time-lag permits, I suspect that I’ll be getting the rest of the message.”

 After less than a minute, her communicator chirped again, and Logan’s voice said, “Chess, Maggie? Wow. Still, I guess I’ve got what I was looking for and I’m glad – but not surprised – that you are still free.”

 “Now for the meat – I’m back in Sol, with at least a few reinforcements. We’ve got more coming. Alamo’s on its way home. Hades Station has been captured by the Triplanetary Fleet, the Cabal forces driven off, and a task force destroyed, though our forces in-system aren’t in much better shape. I understand that everything’s still being held up at your end, and that’s excellent news.”

 “Alamo’s bringing back at least two witnesses to testify before the Senate. Captain Marshall intends to head direct to Mars orbit to deliver his witnesses. Knowledge of what is going on has been kept reasonably tight, but the crew of Alamo know what is happening. Lieutenant Esposito is with me. We should be on the surface by tomorrow, but I don’t plan to make any direct contact with you. I’m in a fallback position here, running interference if something goes wrong. I’m on this channel now, so if you need to tell me something, feel free.”

 “The ship won’t get into orbit,” Nelyubov said. “The planetary defense network will shoot it down.”

 “They couldn’t get away with that!” the Senator yelled.

 With a sigh, Orlova nodded, and said, “No, they’ll try it. Someone will be court-martialed for the terrible error, but they don’t even have to destroy the ship. Just slow it down for a few hours.”

 “We’ll have to deal with it, then,” Nelyubov said, nodding.

 “How? All of us are known, and there’s no way we could run a successful infiltration.”

 Harper walked up, looking around, and said, “I presume you got Logan’s message?”

 “Yes,” Orlova said. “Where have you been?”

 “Satisfying the conditions he set down. You’re going to hear on the news that Clarke City’s Independence Day laser display has gone off three weeks early. Quite a show.”

 Shaking her head, Orlova replied, “We’ve got to get the planetary defense network off-line.”

 Her eyes widening, the hacker said, “For once, even I couldn’t do that. You’re looking at a sealed bunker that is deliberately kept independent of all outside networks. We’d have to get inside.” Frowning, she added, “If we did, I might be able to handle it. At least for a while.”

 The Senator stepped forward, and said, “You can’t seriously be thinking of sending my daughter to commit an act of treason.”

 “It isn’t treason if she gets a direct Presidential order,” Orlova replied. “How about it, Kristin? Are you willing to volunteer?”

 “You don’t need to ask me twice,” she replied.

 “Then it’s settled.” Ignoring the seething Senator, Orlova opened the channel, and said, “I’m sending Kristin Harper to meet you on the surface, details to follow, with some orders for you direct from the President. The general gist is this; we need you to knock out the planetary defense network.”

 “Details to follow?” Nelyubov said. “That’s the understatement of the century.”

Chapter 20

 It had been almost four years since Logan had last set foot on Mars, and as he recalled, he’d had good reason to keep his presence quiet during that visit as well. He walked down Central Street, moving as fast as possible away from Sagan City’s spaceport, with Esposito and Boris flanking him on either side, the three watching each other’s backs and looking around for anyone who might be monitoring them. A precaution that was probably meaningless with security cameras around, but it might provide a split-second of warning that would give him the time to get out of the way. 

 Harper was waiting for them in a backstreet chop shop, specializing in magnetic implants, a tool favored by electrical engineers, but one that generally tended to be expensive. This was the equivalent of a second-rate tattoo parlor, but the hacker seemed to know it well enough. Not the sort of place he would have chosen, though; too out of the way, too few people around. The group they were up against loved working in the shadows where it was nice and quiet, where no-one could watch their misdeeds.

 Gesturing almost imperceptibly with his hand, Logan turned down the side street, and walked up to the access ladder, one that would take him almost up to the roof of the dome where a series of old control centers hung. In some places, these would have been high-value apartments, but Sagan City had seen better days. The sort of tenants who might take up such facilities simply didn’t live here anymore. Instead, the City government had essentially left them to rot.

 It was a long climb for someone who had spent too much time in zero gravity, almost an eighth of a mile, and the concentration he required meant that he wasn’t paying enough attention to his surroundings. At one point he saw a something that might have been a drone, zipping behind one of the skyscrapers near the middle of the city, but it could easily just have been a trick of the eye. Even if it was a drone, enough journalists had smelled that something was going on that there was no way of knowing who was watching the feed at the other end.

 He reached the top, climbing carefully onto the platform, looking down at the half-dozen shops on either side, all of them at best semi-legal. He guessed that the climb tended to put off the local security services, that or they’d decided to keep all the rotten eggs in one easily observable basket. Which didn’t bode well for keeping his presence on Mars a secret. Looking down, he saw Boris slowly making his way up after him, Esposito hopefully in position to keep an eye on what was going on at street level.

 The view was extraordinary; he could just make out the beginnings of the great northern ice cap glinting in the sun, and the long, century-old roads carved into the landscape by the early colonizers, the remains of the original settlements, abandoned when the city-domes were constructed by the middle of the 21st century, still dormant and waiting for some future use. He smiled, pondering that it was likely that someone was making good use of them now, no doubt on some enterprise that no-one was meant to know about.

 Stopping to take a drink from a nearby fountain, he walked down the short street, trying to avoid looking down at what lay beneath a really rather flimsy platform, and made his way to Magneton, Harper’s picked hangout. He began to feel safer as he noted that many of the people up at this level looked like she did. If she’d found a place where the hackers felt safe, so did he. In a world of computerized surveillance provided by the lowest bidder, anyone with talent could make himself invisible to casual detection.

 Walking through the open doors, he looked around what looked far more like a bar than anything else. A dozen chairs were sprinkled around three tables, a drinks dispenser on the wall specializing in exotic alcoholic blends. At the back of the room was a door, notably cleaner than the rest of the room, presumably where the doctor dwelt. Harper was sitting near the front, sipping a drink, a man with neon blue hair and a matching thin mustache opposite.

 “Logan, over here,” she said, and he raced towards her.

 “Might not want to shout it too loudly,” he replied, taking a seat.

 With a smile, she replied, “Relax, Logan, everyone here’s already in the know. You don’t get up here without being checked out first, but don’t worry, I vouched for you.”

 “No wonder you managed to secure such nice accommodation.”

 “Just a home away from home, especially for people who like to break through firewalls. This is Jordan, by the way, an old friend of mine, who is to hardware what I am to software.”

 The blue-haired man smiled, nodded, and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

 “Not enough to know to cut out the ‘sir’,” Logan replied. “Though if Harper says you can be trusted, that’s fine with me. What about everyone else in here?”

 “Oh, here you have the great and the good of the information underworld,” Jordan said, gesturing around. “None of us want the security freaks taking over. Things are restrictive enough as it is.”

 “What do they want?” he asked.

 “To be left alone,” Jordan said. “We’re in this for the fun of doing it, not because anyone tells us what to do. It’s the challenge we’re looking for, the journey, not the destination.”

 Waving a thumb at him, Harper said, “Jordan considers himself something of an amateur philosopher. He’s got a piece of paper somewhere that claims a degree in it.”

 “But engineering is my passion, especially building the better cybertrap.” He looked at Harper, then said, “I think I’m up, now. Got to get the old fingers fixed up. I’ll catch you later.”

 “Later,” she said as he rose, heading to the back room. “Lot of old friends here,” she said to Logan.

 “Lots of potential recruits,” he replied.

 “Most of these people are even less happy with authority than I am.”

 With a beaming grin, he replied, “When have I ever thrown my rank around?”

 “True, but most of those stuffed shirts aren’t like you. And it’ll get a damn sight worse if certain people take charge.” Looking around, she added, “And before you say anything else, this gang figured out something was going on before I got back. None of them know the whole picture but,” she slid a datachip down her sleeve, “this is the accumulation of everything they have.”

 Taking it, he shook his head, and said, “I presume none of this is admissible in court.”

 “Certainly not,” she said.

 “Still, it’ll throw a scare into a few people if we show them what this contains.”

 “Besides,” Harper replied, “I thought the whole point was that none of this was ever to get anywhere near an open court.”

 “What do they think around here?”

 “That the Progressives want to institute a full security crackdown, which will wipe out all the little data havens like this one. I’d bet that they would, as well.”

 “You might be right about that.” He glanced around at the nearby tables, and said, “I gather you have instructions for me.”

 She nodded, then said, “We’ve got to knock out the planetary defense network, to allow Alamo to get through.”

 Logan’s eyes widened, and he replied, “I assumed the President would be able to…”

 “Apparently not,” she said. “Which leaves it to you, me, and Boris. Assuming he’s the one taking forever to get up the ladder.”

 Sitting back in his chair, he replied, “Four of us. Four of us to break into the most secure facility in the Confederation, without any help or assistance.”

 “Nothing is impossible,” Harper said. 

 “This is about as close as I ever want to get to that.”

 “I presume we can call upon some help from Ragnarok’s infantry if we need it.”

 He looked up at her, shaking his head, and said, “A platoon of half-trained troopers lurching towards the target? That’s the last thing we need. It’s going to have to be an infiltration.” He looked around again, and said, “I hope your friends are damn good at forgery, because otherwise, we might as well just turn ourselves in right now.” 

 “Get me into the base, and I think I can make enough of a mess to keep anything from firing for a while.”

 Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw something moving in the distance, and reacted quickly enough to tip the table and throw Harper behind it, pulling his pistol out of his pocket. A trio of figures were in the door, and immediately, bullets cracked in the air, firing semi-indiscriminately around the room at potential targets. Logan caught one of them in the shoulder, sending him staggering back, out over the handrail – with a quarter of a mile to contemplate what he had done.

 The remainder hurled themselves into cover, but before they could do anything, there was a smell of ozone in the air, and one of them jumped up, his hair standing on end, perfect for a picked shot by Harper, who dropped him to the floor. The remainder turned around, only to stumble into the tardy Boris, who unceremoniously slammed him on the head with his fist; he folded to the ground, unconscious.

 “Sorry I was late to the party,” he said. “There are half a dozen more outside. Esposito’s blended in and will hook up later, but we’re going to have a lot more company any moment now.”

 “Damn it, Harper, that spook of yours has brought the bastards up here,” one of the patrons yelled.

 “This spook will make it up to you later,” Logan replied, “but right now we need to get the hell out of here. You must have a way of escaping.”

 “Sure,” Harper replied, dragging him over to the side of the bar. She pulled open a locker, removed an ungainly piece of metal and fabric, and tossed it to him. “We’ve been raided up here before. It never lasts long.”

 “What is this?” Logan asked, looking at the device in his hand.

 “Follow me,” she said, racing outside. Logan looked down the ladder, and could see half a dozen people coming up – but unlike the rest, they were on a well-secured portable winch, slung up in the top framework of the dome. Clever; anything hasty he tried would stand an excellent chance of causing a pressure breach. Harper pulled a lever on the device, then stood back as it unfolded and clicked into position, forming a set of wings with a harness underneath.

 “Hang gliders!” she said, gesturing to the far end of the structure, where half a dozen people were already taking off, a flight of birds soaring into the air. “Anyone with a warrant on them is taking off right now. Come on.”

 Logan looked at Boris, shrugged, and threw the switch on his glider, waiting for it to expand. The thought of simply trying to shoot it out did occur to him, but they were right at the top of the dome, and the danger of a breach was all too real. Besides, nine dead bodies would attract attention, and that was the last thing they wanted; hopefully the attackers who had already fallen could be dealt with by the people staying behind.

 Strapping the wings onto him, he looked down at the city below, nerving himself to take the jump, trying to pick out his landing spot. Servos on the wings started to adjust, the mechanism fine-tuning the weight distribution for him. Taking a deep breath, he leapt from the platform.

 Immediately, the wings swept back, putting him onto a perfect glide-path. In retrospect, it should have been obvious that a haven of hackers would have added all sorts of features to the wings, and he could settle back and enjoy the ride. He took a few tweaks to the left, putting himself into a steeper decline, and started to experiment; the control computers were happy to let him do anything that wouldn’t endanger him, and Mars gravity was rather forgiving.

 He looked back at the platform, and saw the would-be assailants looking ruefully after him. Two of them had moved off to retrieve their fallen comrades, and the others started the long journey back to the street. Doubtless they would be attempting to track him down on the ground, but that was something to worry about later.

 Over to his right, Boris was playing it as safe as possible, keeping his wings extended, but Harper was having fun, swooping around and diving down, laughing as she caught some of the eddies from one of the air circulators that sent her racing to the side, down in a cross-wind. Logan adopted a course in between the two, happy to test out the wings, but not wanting to take too many chances.

 He spotted his target, the roof of one of the lower buildings, one he vaguely recognized as an upmarket brothel frequented by some of the local politicians, which meant that the patron would be both used to keeping secrets and easily bribable. A winning combination. He gestured at the others to follow, and adjusted his aim towards it, happy to find that the navigation systems picked up on his intended course quickly, helping adjust his trajectory.

 Swooping over a series of buildings, he turned for the final run in, spilling air to descend more rapidly, but hopefully keeping his speed down sufficiently that he wouldn’t break anything when he landed. As the ground reached up to grab him, he felt a brief sense of regret, before finally dropping down to the deck, gently stepping down onto the flat roof.

 “That was fun,” Harper said, diving down beside him.

 “You speak for yourself,” Boris grunted as he slammed into a near-crash landing.

 “Never mind, you two,” Logan said. “We need to go underground for a bit and work out how we’re going to pull this off. Boris, go grab Esposito; she should be heading to Ortega’s House of Tea.” Shrugging off his wings, he said, “I’m going to have a word with the Madame about a private room.”

 “Dare I ask how you know about this place?” Harper asked with a smile.

 “Purely in the line of duty,” Logan replied. “Of course, duty has taken me to some very strange places in the past.”

 “I think it still is,” Boris said.

 “Get going,” he said. “We’ve got a hell of a lot to do in the next five days.” Glancing up at the sky through the dome, he said, “When Alamo arrives in orbit, we need to make sure they get a decent welcome.”

Chapter 21

 Never in all his life had Marshall been so nervous. All Alamo was doing was making its way to Titov Station, the little-used spaceport at Mars’ trailing Trojan point. It should at the very least be a matter of routine; the crew ought to be looking forward to going on leave, to seeing their families after a too long absence, catching up with everything that had happened while they were away.

 Certainly, they shouldn’t be at battle stations.

 Caine was looking over her board, running a series of final checks, making sure that all the combat systems were ready, and that Alamo could fight a battle if it needed. The thought that it might have to was abhorrent, but he couldn’t afford to take any risks. All eyes were locked on the viewscreen, waiting for it to clear.

 “One minute,” Steele said, still monopolizing the helm. She looked tired, and no surprise; Alamo was short-handed enough that they were on twelve-hour watches at the moment, rather than the usual eight. At least in a week, it would all be over. One way or another.

 “All decks report ready, sir,” Ryder reported, turning back to him from her station briefly before returning to her work. He wondered how she felt, sitting at that station as Alamo’s Exec. It had been an odd road for her in the last three years, tours with Alamo to Ragnarok, Desdemona and Jefferson, then serving on Spitfire Station before essentially returning herself to ship duty. If he’d told the old-for-her-rank Sub-Lieutenant when she’d first reported on board that she’d be the youngest Senior Lieutenant in the fleet at the end of Alamo’s cruise, she’d never have believed it.

 What felt odd, still, was the people who weren’t here. He half-expected Mulenga to be standing at the rear of the bridge, maybe running through his navigational calculations one last time, or Cunningham ready with a remark to drag him back down to Earth, or Orlova to buoy him up with her usual confidence. His crew were scattered all across Triplanetary space. Those who weren’t dead.

 That it itself seemed strange. Triplanetary Space. When he’d reported to Alamo as commander, that consisted of just Mars, Callisto, Titan and the Asteroid Belt, with a few outposts on Triton, at Proxima and Barnard’s Star. Now their outposts were scattered further than he could have dreamed, out as far as Jefferson, to stars that they didn’t even know existed three years ago. He’d wanted the stars, and he’d got them, but never could he have imagined the price that he would pay for his wish. The galaxy was open now in a way it never had been before, with all its wonders, and all its terrors.

 “Thirty seconds to go,” Steele said, her hands poised over the controls.

 “Combat systems are good to go, Danny,” Caine added. “Orders?”

 “Shoot if we’re shot at, Deadeye. Otherwise hold your fire. We’re among friends, here.”

 “I certainly hope you are right about that.”

 “Steele, as soon as we leave hendecaspace, you are to make course for Mars orbit at maximum acceleration. Don’t wait for clearance or permission, and ignore any orders to the contrary. Just get us the hell out of Titov’s combat radius as fast as you can, and go for best-speed. We’ve got to get Watson and Rogers to Mars before the Senate rests.”

 “Do you think Watson will testify?” Caine asked.

 “He will if we make it, to save his skin.”

 “Coming up in ten seconds, sir.”

 Caine looked up at a readout, and said, “At least Titov’s just a whistle-stop. Just a few missile batteries and a frigate, which we can easily outpace.”

 “Let’s hope you’re right about that, but ride hard on those countermeasures.” Tapping a control, he said, “Quinn, we’re going to need every pound of thrust you can give us in a few seconds.”

 “Already on it, sir. I’ve overridden a lot of the safety cut-offs for the occasion. It’ll be a short life and a merry one for the primary engines, but they’ll certainly get us to Mars in a hurry.”

 “Good,” Marshall replied.

 “Though whether they’ll get us anywhere else again is another question entirely.”

 “For better or for worse, we make our stand in Mars orbit, Mr. Quinn.”

 “Two. One. Now,” Steele said, and the stars appeared in the screen, Sol dead center. It was still a beautiful sight, the star that had shone on mankind as it grew to maturity. To the right, a small disc, Mars in the distance, shining in welcome.

 “Course implemented, Captain,” Steele said, ignoring the moment. “Implementing now.”

 “Threat warning!” Spinelli said from the sensors. “Battleship to our rear, closing rapidly.”

 “A battleship?” Caine replied. “Damn it, Danny, we’re outmatched.” 

 “Are we in its combat radius?” Marshall asked.

 “For another hundred and nine seconds. I’m not getting any energy spikes…”

 “They’re hitting our firewalls hard,” Caine said. “If Logan and Harper hadn’t built in some modifications, they’d own our systems by now.”

 “Make all speed, Steele. Run the systems ragged. We’ve got to get clear.”

 “Captain, we’re being hailed. It’s the Battleship Zeus.” Weitzman looked up at Marshall, his eyes wide, and said, “Lieutenant-Captain Zakharova commanding.” 

 “What?” Caine said. “Danny, she was in prison for mutiny, for twenty years!”

 Steele turned, and asked, “Who is she?” 

 “My first Exec,” Marshall replied, ruefully. “During the Ragnarok mission, she tried to lead a mutiny in the name of Callistan separatists, and damn near succeeded.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Put her on, Weitzman. We might as well hear what she has to say.” 

 “Enemy missile tubes are opening, sir,” Spinelli said. “They must have a good target lock, and I’m getting signs of buildup from her laser cannons. Eighty-nine seconds to go.”

 Zakharova’s face appeared on the screen, on a bridge at least twice the size of Alamo, far more modern in design and appearance, though oddly devoid of people; only two others were in shot, both at aft consoles and going to lengths to keep their faces turned away from the pickup.

 “I’m going to make this quick,” she said. “Stand down, and prepare to accept a boarding party. I have orders to take all of you into custody.”

 Looking back at her, Marshall replied, “Where from?”

 “President Ackerman.”

 “I see mutiny is a habit for you,” he said. “No surprise that they bounced you out of your cell. Are the rest of your crew jailbirds as well?” Leaning forward, he said, “If you want us, come and get us. If you can.”

 “Fifty-one seconds,” one of Zakharova’s crew said, and the channel closed.

 “More speed, Steele,” Marshall said.

 “Energy spike!” Spinelli yelled. “We’ve got a missile launch in progress. Ten missile salvo on the way.”

 “Get a salvo out to stop it,” Marshall said. “Full evasive maneuvers, Steele!”

 She worked her controls, sending Alamo into a tight dive just in time to miss the laser blast that raced from Zeus’ forward section, while the ship rocked from the launch of Caine’s missiles, six speeding into the darkness against the ten pursers.

 “Level course, Steele,” Ryder said. “They won’t be able to recharge quickly enough to get off a second shot while we’re still in range.”

 “Shuttles launching, sir,” Spinelli reported. “On intercept course. Profile suggests Espatier assault.”

 “Can we outpace them?” Marshall asked, fearing the answer. 

 “In the long-haul, yes we can,” Ryder said. “Interception is currently scheduled for two minutes, thirty seconds from now, well out of the attack range of Zeus.” Looking down at a screen, she said, “We’ve got them, sir. We can outpace them nicely. Best estimates show us getting to Mars two and a half hours early.”

 “Knocking them down, Danny!” Caine said, triumphantly. “Four enemy missiles destroyed for two of our own, six running. Countermeasures are doing their job.”

 “We’ve got a laser pulse of our own, sir,” Steele said. “I can set up a shot without too much trouble. Zeus isn’t running an evasive pattern.”

 “They fired on us,” Danny,” Caine said.

 “No,” he replied. “Not yet. If we can get away from this without firing on one of our own ships, I’m very happy with that outcome.”

 “Another one down, and I’m slamming in with our remaining missiles,” Caine said.

 “That leaves us one short,” Marshall said.

 “Use the laser, and they’ll have time for another salvo,” Ryder warned.

 Pausing for a second, looking up at the tactical display, Marshall said, “Knock it down if you can, or we’ll just have to take the hit.”

 “Aye, sir,” Caine said, furiously working over her controls. Within a few seconds, almost all of the incoming tracks cleared from the screen, leaving only a single one remaining as it tracked in closer and closer, Steele revolving the ship to present the least vulnerable aspect to the enemy. Marshall gripped the armrests of his chair, bracing himself for the impact, counting down the seconds.

 “Detonation,” Spinelli said. “Missile exploded nine hundred meters short.”

 With a deep sigh, Marshall said, “Good work, Deadeye.”

 Shaking her head, she replied, “Thanks for the compliment, but I didn’t do anything. Someone must have set if off at the far end.”

 “Maybe they wanted us to get away,” Steele said.

 “Or perhaps we’ve got friends on board,” Marshall mused. “Assessment, Deadeye?”

 “It’s a damn powerful ship, but they aren’t using it to their best capability. My guess is a small and inexperienced crew on board. Zakharova didn’t actually have that much time in the center seat, and she’s been in prison for three years. Not much chance to keep up with the state of the art.”

 “Something else this confirms is that they don’t have many people to work with. If they’re scraping the barrel this low, then we must really be pushing their manpower,” Ryder said. “How many people do they need, anyway? This must be concentrated in the political and officer grades. They wouldn’t necessarily require that many people from the lower ranks. After all, if they pull off their plans, they’ll have control of the Fleet by default.”

 “Sir,” Spinelli said, “You should take a look at the tactical situation.” He punched series of buttons, and the tactical display expanded to show the whole system. “All three battleships appear to be in position. Ares is at Mariner Station, and Cronus at Carter.” Glancing down at a display, he said, “Ares is on the move, sir. Heading for Mars. Estimated time of arrival is three hours and nine minutes after we arrive.”

 “Which means we have an edge,” Marshall replied. “As long as we can pull this off quickly, we stand an excellent chance of winning this battle.”

  “Why Zakharova, though?” Ryder asked. “There must be other officers who could have the command.”

 With a smile, Caine said, “My bet would be plausible deniability. If anything goes wrong, they can blame everything on a rogue officer who, I suspect, will have been reported as breaking out of confinement fairly recently.” Her smile turned to a frown, as she said, “That suggests that they knew what we were doing.”

 Shaking his head, Marshall replied, “Not necessarily. Titov was always going to be our best way into Sol System; they'd have assumed we'd find the others too well-defended. What about the shuttles?”

 “Turning back to rendezvous with Zeus,” Spinelli reported. “Zakharova couldn’t have thought that we’d just let them on board.”

 “Maybe she thought just that,” Caine said. “Or was just going through the motions. Danny, we’re being herded to Mars.”

 “Which is exactly where we’re wanting to go,” Marshall replied. “Weitzman, get me the President. The real President.”

 “Aye, sir.”

 “At least we got away from them,” Steele said.

 Her face going white, Ryder replied, “I don’t think we did.”

 “What do you mean?” Marshall asked.

 “They’re not heading for us, they’re heading for Mars.” She turned, looking at him, and said, “Dead on, right for the outer atmosphere.”

 “Mars’ atmosphere isn’t up to much…,” Steele began.

 “But if they get it right, they can aerobrake enough of their velocity that they can start their deceleration later than us,” Ryder said. “Sir, I don’t know that this is what they are doing, but that’s what I would do if I were in their place.”

 “Run a projection,” Marshall said.

 “I have,” Caine replied, “Just now. The answer is just about zero, Danny. They’ll reach Mars orbit – and a potential intercept – less than twenty seconds after we get there. With matching velocities that will give them all the time in the world to wipe us out.”

 “Sir,” Weitzman said, “I have the President.”

 Marshall looked ahead for a second, silent, then said, “I’d better brief him. Ryder, take the conn, and try and work something...anything out.”

 He glanced up at the clock as he walked into his office, counting down. In twenty-one hours, they’d be closing in on Mars. The way it seemed now, they’d die within sight of it.

Chapter 22

 “Wake up, Maggie,” a voice said, shaking her as she lay in her bed. She blinked twice and looked up to see Nelyubov standing over her, another figure – President Newton – behind him.

 “Not often I get woken up in the middle of the night by the President,” she mumbled as she rubbed her eyes. “What’s going on?”

 “All hell’s broken lose. Alamo jumped into the system nine minutes ago…”

 “They’re back?” she replied, instantly awake.

 “And fought a brief skirmish with Zeus on their arrival before heading right for here.”

 “Skirmish implies that both sides fought, Lieutenant,” Newton said. “Alamo did not fire at the enemy, and only discharged missiles to disable those of its enemy. Commendable constraint. I’m not sure I would have done the same in his place.”

 Senator Harper raced in, and said, “I’ve got to get back in forty-five minutes. The Senate’s been called into emergency session. Joint request of the Progressives and the Technocrats.” Looking at Newton, he said, “I think there is an excellent chance that you will no longer be President within the hour.” Looking down at the bed, he added, “Good morning, Lieutenant.”

 “Let me clear my head for a second. As soon as the Senate session opens, they’ll immediately vote for impeachment?”

 Nodding, Newton said, “They could have done it at any time over the last four weeks. The only thing holding it up is the desire of the Progressives to win the election, dragging some of the Technocrats with them. They wanted maximum advantage from the scandal, but now Captain Marshall’s going to end their little game.”

 “And once they get the impeachment through, no peace treaty. We’re at war, and the Progressives get Ackerman in as a puppet.”

 “Don’t underrate him,” Newton said. “He’s smart enough to be dangerous.”

 “We’ve got to do something to stop them,” Nelyubov said. “Senator, can’t you hold things up? Alamo will be here in less than a day. There must be some sort of procedural mechanism for this.”

 “I’m afraid my credit is just about exhausted,” he replied. “Even some of my own party loyalists are talking about replacing me after the election. We need a miracle.”

 “I’ll testify,” Orlova said. “Right now.”

 “You wouldn’t get within a mile of the Senate, Lieutenant,” Newton said. “The place will be bristling with security.”

 “What if we sent our troopers with them?” Nelyubov asked.

 “A firefight outside the Senate Dome?” Newton said, shaking his head. “No, thank you. I’d rather resign in disgrace than be the President who ordered troops into the Senate.”

 “Damn it, sir, we don’t have any other options. We’ve got to get Maggie into that building to tell what she knows.”

 Looking at the frustrated officer, the Senator said, “Even if we did get her into the building, there is no guarantee that anyone would listen.”

 Joining the gaggle outside the room, Sub-Lieutenant Chambers, latterly Logan’s Political Officer, appeared, “That’s correct. The Senate is only obliged to listen to its own.”

 “Great,” Nelyubov said. “Who wrote this stupid set of laws? Unless we can make Maggie an instant Senator, we’re stuck.”

 “She is constitutionally eligible,” Chambers said. “You’re what, twenty-seven?”

 “Last month,” Orlova replied.

 Chambers looked at the Senator, whose eyes lit up. “Get the Ambassador here, right now!” Turning back to Orlova, he said, “Come on. We’ve got to get you to a conference room. Get changed, and quickly. We’re light on minutes.”

 As the others ran from the room, Orlova struggled with her uniform, Nelyubov tossing her jacket over to her from the chair she had left it resting on the night before.

 “What are they planning?”

 “No idea,” he replied, “But we’d better hurry up. Hell, the Senator’s going to have trouble getting back in the time. It’s a good forty-minute flight from here.”

 “Makes you wonder why they put the Embassy so far out of the way.”

 The two of them raced down the corridor to the nearest conference room, where the bleary-eyed Ambassador from Ragnarok stood in his nightgown, the orange an odd contrast with the flag hanging on the wall behind him.

 “Have you got him yet?” Newton yelled at a technician, working the controls on a viewscreen.

 “Senator Morley coming on the line now, sir,” he said, and the image of a middle-aged woman appeared on the screen, the only one of them not obviously just woken up, wearing a pressed suit.

 “What is the problem, Mr. President? You know you have my full support in the vote, though I don’t have any say myself.”

 “Senator,” Newton said, “I need you to resign, right now. The Ambassador can accept it.”

 “Just a minute,” she said, “You don’t get to tell me that.”

 “What the devil is all of this about?” the Ambassador asked.

 “It’s quite simple, really,” Chambers said. “We need to get Maggie into the Senate, and we need her to be able to speak. Senators are accorded immunity from arrest, and she might not have a vote, but she will be able to make herself heard.” Turning to her, she said, “You’re going to have to stall them as long as you can.”

 “Don’t I need to be elected?” Orlova asked.

 “Actually, no. In the event of a Senator from anywhere in the Confederation resigning, there is a by-election, but representatives from a Territory are appointed by local authorities, not elected. In this case, the Ambassador here acts as the representative of the President of Ragnarok.”

 “Who needs to confirm my choice,” he said. “Which would take weeks.”

 “But until then, your choice still has the job, yes?” Newton pressed. “We don’t need to worry about what happens in the next two weeks, we need to worry about what happens in the next twenty-four hours.”

 “Wait, wait,” Orlova said… 

 “It’s all quite legal,” Newton said. “Lieutenant...Maggie…we need you to do this. You’ve got the credentials that enough of the Senate will listen. Senator Harper will run interference and get you started.”

 Nodding, the Senator said, “I still have enough supporters to give you at least a fighting chance, Maggie. Of course, whether or not you will be able to pull it off is entirely up to you.”

 “What the hell,” Morley said. “If this goes wrong, I’ll be leaving tomorrow anyway. I might as well get a head start on packing my bags.” Standing straight, she said, “Ambassador, I formally tender my resignation as the Acting Senator for Ragnarok. I’ll get it to you in writing as fast as I can.”

 “Very well,” he replied. “Maggie, are you up for this?”

 “Do I have a choice?”

 “Yes, you do,” Newton said. “There’s a good chance this will still mean time in a cell, and every possibility that the Senate will simply throw you out before you say a word. You’ll have to be quick on your feet and with your wits. Twenty-one hours of hell before Alamo gets into orbit, and no-one will be able to help you.” With a sigh, he continued, “I sound like I’m about to send you alone into enemy territory, and in a way, that’s exactly what I am doing.”

 “I don’t know the procedures,” she said, her protests dying away.

 “I’ll brief you on the ride over,” Chambers said. “That really isn’t a problem. And as for the official announcement, I’ll go and see if our press corps is awake. This ought to get them moving.”

 Closing her eyes, Orlova said, “I guess there isn’t a choice after all, is there. What do I have to say?”

 Newton handed her a datapad. “I can witness this, along with Senator Harper and the Ambassador. It’ll be legal.”

 “Though naturally your term will expire in twenty-five hours when the Senate rests,” Chambers added. “Which I think will give you a record for the shortest term in history.”

 Taking a deep breath, Orlova read, “I solemnly swear to uphold the constitution of the Triplanetary Confederation, to defend it against enemies foreign and domestic,” she fought to stop herself from smiling at that last line, knowing that she was being recorded, “that I will maintain full allegiance to my nation and my people, and that I enter into this agreement of my own free will, owing my loyalty only to my country, to the cause of liberty, justice and freedom, and to the people I pledge myself to represent.” She gulped once, then concluded, “So I swear.”

 “That’s that, then,” Newton said. “Did you get that?” he asked the technician.

 “I hope so,” Orlova said. “I’d hate to have to do a retake.”

 “No, that’s all fine,” he replied. “I’ll get a copy across to the Archives now.”

 Senator Harper’s communicator beeped, and he said, “Word’s already out that the Senator from Ragnarok has resigned. I’m already getting some pretty worried messages. I’d bet the journalists know already.”

 “That quickly?” Nelyubov said.

 “The pundits are on this one round the clock,” Newton said. “I doubt anyone’s ever paid this much attention to the last day of a session before.”

 “Come on,” Senator Harper said. “You’d better go and meet your public. Mr. Nelyubov, will you get the shuttle ready for launch?”

 “I’m on it,” he said, shaking his head. “Never had two Senators and a President in my passenger cabin before.”

 “I’ll wait for you at the shuttle,” Chambers said. “You’ve got a lot of homework to do in not much time, Maggie. I mean, Senator.”

 “Keep calling me that enough and I might even start to believe it,” Orlova replied. “Lead on, sir.” 

 The two of them walked down the corridor, Orlova looking down at her uniform, frowning.

 “Should I be wearing this?” she asked.

 “There were quite a few Senators in uniform during the war, but it might give off the wrong message. I’ll make sure you have a change of clothes in the shuttle.” He paused, then said, “I know this is daunting you, but just think of it as if you were about to lead a ship into battle. You’ve just got words instead of missiles.”

 “I’m no diplomat,” she replied. 

 “That’s a pity,” he said, “but you’re all we’ve got.”

 “How the hell did we get this desperate?” she asked.

 He stopped at the airlock door, then said, “The truth of the matter is that I don’t really know. I guess we just ran out of choices. Two sets of people sharing the Senate who both want diametrically opposite things, and the choice never gets more stark than that between war and peace.”

 “They’re wrong,” she said.

 “I think so, you think so, the President thinks so, but the people are what really matter in all of this. In about six weeks from now they’re going to tell us what they want in an election, and none of the polls, none of the debates, none of all this talk is going to mean a damn thing. If they want war then, they’ll tell us by voting Progressive. I’m sure they could find some way to abrogate the treaty.” 

 “Then why the hell have we gone through all this, Senator?” she asked. “What was the point of it?”

 “I want the people to choose for themselves what they want, instead of having it presented to them by smiling pundits on the news. The Progressives are out to give them a fixed deck, a choice that is no choice at all. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I spent a long time in a uniform not that different to yours to make sure that they had that choice, and I don’t want to see it thrown away so quickly.” With a sigh, he said, “Not that our side is much better. Newton’s all talk, and old friend or no, he’s guilty as sin.”

 “The lesser of two evils.”

 “Welcome to the wonderful world of politics, Senator Orlova,” he said. “I wish I’d stayed in uniform.” Gesturing at the airlock, he said, “Go on, Maggie. You don’t want to keep your public waiting. And console yourself that you only have to stay in the pigpen for a day or two. Some of us have condemned ourselves to it for the rest of our lives.”

 With a last glance at the Senator, who suddenly looked extremely tired, she tapped a hand on the control and stepped out into a babble of conversation.

Chapter 23

 Cooper sat at the far end of the briefing room, looking at Captain Marshall at the far end as he scanned a datapad. Sergeant Forrest was sitting to his right, Barbara at his left; Quinn and Dixon were sitting next to each other on the left side of the table, Ryder and Caine on the right. It was beginning to feel more like a family meeting than a tactical planning session, but the hovering holographic image of the battleship in the middle of the room rammed home the enormity of the task at hand.

 “Steele’s checked the course three times, and it matches with Ryder’s suspicions,” Marshall said. “Also, we’re getting some odd chatter from Mars, something about Senator Orlova.”

 “Senator?” Caine asked.

 “No idea. Hopefully it’ll become clear shortly. Weitzman’s trying to monitor as many channels as he can. The main problem remains the same, though, how do we get past that battleship and get to Mars?”

 “What about the orbital defense network?” Dixon said. “That’s not an insignificant problem. Any two of those laser satellites could tear us to pieces.”

 “Logan says he can deal with it,” Ryder replied. “I haven’t the faintest idea how he’s going to pull it off, but I’ll trust that he can find a way. In any event, I don’t see we have much choice except to see what he can pull off – there’s nothing we can do about it from up here.”

 Caine glanced up at the battleship, then said, “From a straight tactical perspective, we’ve had it. If we had three fully-crewed battlecruisers at our disposal, then I might be able to do something, but Alamo’s at half-strength or less and has been patched up once too often.”

 “We can’t just give up,” Marshall said.

 “I didn’t say that. I just mean that Alamo is no match for that ship, even in a straight fight. Her laser cannon is half again as powerful as ours, with a significantly reduced recharge time, and she has ten missile tubes to our six – and again, her reload time is faster. She can carry two squadrons of fighters, and from what I can see, is. They’ve been doing some practice launches.”

 “That tells us two things,” Dixon said. “We know that they have the pilots and the fighters, but also that they haven’t trained much. I took a look at the tactics, and it was all refresher stuff, so I’m guessing we’re looking at old retreads being put back into service for the occasion.” Sighing, she said, “There’s been a lot of discontent in the fighter community for the last few years, ever since the drone fighter project really got going.”

 Ryder’s face reddened, and she said, “That project is the rational future of the fighter community. It isn’t my fault that you’ve been using out-of-date tactics all these years!” 

 “Ryder,” Marshall snapped. “No-one blames you for this, and I know that you suffered as a result of that hostility, but Dixon isn’t the enemy.”

 “No, sir,” she replied. “I apologize.”

 Dixon added, “Partly my fault, as well. My mouth tends to run ahead of my brain at times; I’d forgotten that Ryder was involved in that project. Point is that there are a lot of discontented pilots out there, but a lot of them haven’t done much flying lately.” Shaking her head, she said, “I probably know some of them.”

 “We all probably know people on that ship,” her husband said. “Though I still hate to think it. I’ve been going over Zeus with all our sensors, and they did a hell of a job on it. She’s a little slower than us, a little less responsive, but in all other respects is superior.”

 “No weak spots?”

 “Not that I can find, no. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t any, and I’ll keep looking.”

 Marshall looked around the table, and said, “This is not acceptable, people. There is no other option open to us; we must take down that ship.”

 “There is an answer,” Cooper said, glancing across at Barbara then back to the Captain. “Our assessment is that Zeus is somewhat undermanned, correct?”

 “Almost certainly,” Caine replied.

 “And I doubt they have many Espatiers on board,” he continued.

 “On what basis, Ensign?” Ryder asked.

 “They’d have sent them to Hades or Hydra. Us coming home like that was unexpected, and they’re having to improvise. Hence liberating Zakharova from jail to command that ship. If they’d had time to prepare something better, I rather think they would have.”

 “What about the shuttles they launched at us?” Caine asked.

 “Decoys,” Cooper said. “Designed to trick us. We wondered why they launched them, then turned them around so quickly. They want us to think that they have more people on board than they do.”

 “That’s...actually well reasoned,” Ryder said.

 “Say you are right,” Marshall said. “What does that give us?”

 “A chance to launch an assault on Zeus.” Cooper tapped a series of controls, highlighting three points. “Normally I wouldn’t try anything like this…”

 “Ensign, that looks suspiciously like the strategy Major Burke gave us to attack Hades,” Forrest said, frowning.

 “As I said, normally this would be crazy, but if we’re attacking an undermanned opponent, it becomes a practical possibility. Besides, we don’t have time to take the entire ship. Just the bridge, engineering and weapons stations.”

 “Take the ship with twenty-one men?” Caine said.

 “Gabe, it’s suicide. You’d never get in. They’d shoot you down before you got halfway there,” Barbara said. 

 “Ensign, taking that ship in the limited time we’ll have…,” Marshall began.

 “I’m assuming four minutes, sir. From when we hit the deck to securing the departments. Otherwise we move to Plan B.”

 “What’s that?” Marshall asked, as the room grew silent.

 Looking at Forrest, Cooper said, “We detonate three low-yield bombs, which we can fabricate from ship’s stores in the time. It’s a lot easier to destroy a ship from the inside than it is throwing missiles at it from outside.”

 Nodding, Quinn said, “That would turn Zeus into tumbling wreckage.”

 “Wait a minute,” Ryder said. “What stops the bombs being disarmed, or jettisoned?”

 With calm eyes, Cooper replied, “Each of the bombs will be guarded until the time of detonation, to prevent that from happening. One per device should suffice; the rest of the platoon can make for the escape pods.”

 “Who stays?” Barbara asked, her voice a monotone.

 “That would be a matter for volunteers.”

 “Which means you, Sergeant Forrest, and Lance-Sergeant Fuller,” Caine said. “Am I right?” 

 “Yes, ma’am,” Cooper replied. “The rest of the men will have a fighting chance of getting clear of the blast zone, and naturally, we will warn the remainder of the crew of the Zeus to evacuate.”

 “This is crazy,” Barbara said. “You’d be throwing your life away, and you couldn’t get in anyway. How do you get through their defenses?”

 “A fighter escort,” Dixon replied. “All four of us in arrowhead formation. If all we were doing was running defense, and we tied all the fighter and shuttle computers into a single network, we might have a chance.”

 “I can handle the engineering,” Quinn said. “And can fly one of the shuttles.”

 “Lieutenant, you’ll be needed here on Alamo,” Marshall said. “Does anyone have another idea?” Silence filled the room, and he continued, “Ensign, I would want it understood that destroying that ship is a last resort. This is not a suicide mission. As far as I am concerned, you are coming back.”

 “Of course, sir. I’m not in any hurry to die.”

 “You could have fooled me,” Barbara said.

 “This is the only way we’re going to stop that ship,” Cooper said, “and if we don’t get past it, everyone on this ship is dead anyway. I’m willing to take the chance.”

 “There is another possibility,” Ryder said. “Get Alamo to Mars orbit, then have everyone pile into the escape pods with copies of all the material we’ve gathered. Someone might make it down.”

 “Or they might just pick off everyone at will on their way down,” Marshall replied. “I don’t think Zakharova is particularly merciful, do you?”

 “Probably not,” Ryder said. “I was just trying to come up with another option. On balance, I endorse Cooper’s plan. Request permission to accompany the attack force.”

 “Denied,” Marshall said. “Your place is on the bridge. We have enough shuttle pilots for the job.” With a thin smile, he said, “I’m half tempted to go along myself and turn command of Alamo over to you, Ryder. I’ll stick it out here if you do.” Looking around the room, he said, “Only the Espatiers on the shuttles, along with the pilots. The fighter wing I’ll leave to Dixon’s discretion.”

 “Then my plan is approved, sir?” Cooper asked.

 “Reluctantly, yes, I agree. I don’t like it, Ensign, I don’t like it one bit.”

 “Neither do I, sir.”

 “Dixon, you will command while the formation is making its way across to Zeus, with Cooper taking over as soon as you get to the airlocks. Understood?” 

 “Yes, sir,” Dixon said.

 “Aye, Captain,” Cooper added.

 Looking at the two of them, he said, “You’ve got a little over nineteen hours to get yourselves ready. I suggest you brief your people, then make sure they get some rest before the mission.” He paused, then said, “I wouldn’t be going along with this if there was any other way.”

 “We understand, sir,” Dixon said. “I think it’s a good plan.”

 Standing up, Quinn said, “I’ll get started on the charges now, Cooper. I think I can give you some nice toys to play with; have your people head over to the armory in about six hours for a briefing.”

 “I thought these were standard models?” Caine asked.

 “Theoretically, they are, but I’m pretty sure that I can make a few improvements. I might as well do the best job I can.”

 “Why do all engineers have a fascination with blowing things up?” Ryder asked, trying for a smile and almost succeeding.

 “I think we’re all masochists at heart, Lieutenant. Or we wouldn’t be in the job in the first place. By your leave, Captain.”

 “One more thing,” he said. “All hands are to get at least eight hours’ sleep in the next eighteen. No protests, that’s an order. That goes especially for all watchstanders; if you can’t get any sleep, get something from the doctor.”

 "Are you going to do that, Danny?” Caine asked.

 “You want to come into my cabin and watch me sleep?”

 “I might take you up on that someday,” she said with a smile.

 “Then dismissed, everyone,” Marshall said, leading the way out of the room.

 “Bradley,” Dixon said as she left, “Head down to the flight deck. I want you and the others briefed on our formation, then we’re going to hit the simulators for a few hours.”

 “Yes, ma’am,” she said. After a moment, she and Cooper were alone, and she said, “What do you think you are doing?”

 “My job, Barbara. Hell, you think you’ve got problems? Quinn’s got to sit down in engineering and watch his wife go out to fight. You at least get to fight during the battle.”

 “And you get to kill yourself.”

 “You’d have been riding fire whatever happened. This way we get a chance of actually winning this one.”

 “Damn it, Cooper…”

 “Look,” he said, softly, “I’ve been living on borrowed time since the first go-around at Hades Station. So have we all, in a way, everyone who went on that mad flight through Cabal space. Think about Forrest. He was held captive by those bastards for months, and still went on for another crack at them.”

 “It’s not fair, dammit. You’ve done enough.”

 With a smile, he replied, “I don’t necessarily disagree with you. Life isn’t fair, at least not for us grunts.”

 “You don’t have to stay with the bomb,” she said. “Lomax, or…”

 Shaking his head, he replied, “Don’t automatically assume that I’m going to fail. I want to take that bridge, see home again. Maybe I’ll finally get to go to OCS. But if it comes to it, and we have to blow up that ship, I have to be one of the ones who stay. It’s my decision, and my command, and my responsibility.”

 “Damn it, Gabe,” she said, blinking away tears. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that this isn’t what you are meant to be doing.” Grabbing his arm, she said, “Win, damn it. Come back alive. You understand?”

 “If there’s any way to live through this madness, I’ll find it. You have my word on that.”

Chapter 24

 The shuttle banked low over the Senate Dome, already in violation of a dozen flight regulations, as Nelyubov played the thrusters to bring it down as close to the entrance as he dared. Orlova stood in the airlock, already wearing her spacesuit, Senator Harper standing next to her.

 “We’ve got to take off as soon as you get out,” Chambers said. “Are you sure you’ve got everything?”

 “No,” Orlova replied. “We’re going to have to trust to luck, that’s all. What’s the count?”

 “Nineteen hours and fifty-seven minutes from my mark. Mark,” she said. “Got that?”

 “I’ve got it,” she said.

 “Give ‘em hell, Maggie,” Chambers said, clapping her on the shoulder as the shuttle landed. “We’ll be watching for as long as we can.”

 The two suited figures stepped into the airlock, Nelyubov opening the outer door before full depressurization to save time, sending them both staggering out into the dust. Not the most dignified way to arrive, but the fastest. Press cars were everywhere outside, most of the occupants likely already clustered inside for the kill, a few unlucky ones remaining to cover the landing.

 As the shuttle took off, a pair of uniformed guards raced forward, both of them with pistols in their hands pointed at Orlova, stern expressions on their faces.”

 “Lieutenant Margaret Orlova,” one said, “you are under arrest on charges of espionage, conspiracy and treason. If you will come with us?”

 “I am Senator Orlova,” she replied, “not Lieutenant, and as such have immunity from arrest. Or are you going to shoot me in cold blood outside the Senate with all these nice people from the press watching.”

 The two of them looked at each other, and the first one said with a sneer, “We’ll be waiting outside, Senator, and I don’t think your tenure is going to last very long. Have fun.”

 Walking quickly past them, Orlova and Harper made their way through the tall, ornate airlock, sweeping past a security checkpoint to a waiting throng of people inside. As she suspected, the entrance hall was filled with journalists, pundits, and political hangers-on. A cluster of Republic democrats stood at the far end, looking with interest. She wondered which side they were on in this conflict.

 “Senator Harper, Senator Orlova,” a severe-looking woman in a suit said, “Session will commence in ninety seconds. If you come with me, I will show you to your seats.”

 “Any statement, Maggie?” one of the journalists yelled.

 “Not right now,” she replied, “but hang around. I think you’re going to get a good story out of this, whatever happens in the next few minutes.”

 Long ago, when she was in school, she was taken on a tour of the Senate Dome, a trip that most children made at some point, a chance to personally look at the beating heart of their democracy. Her class had visited while the Senate was resting, one of the periodic breaks to allow the representatives to return to their constituencies to consult the people they were representing, so she hadn’t seen them at work, but as compensation, they had been allowed to look around the Senate Chamber itself. It had impressed her then, and as she was ushered in by the clerk, it impressed her once again.

 A huge circle, divided into four clusters of chairs, representing Mars, Callisto, Titan, and the smaller group from the minor Jovian moons, the Belt, and now Ragnarok. Normally, the Vice-President would sit between the Martian and Jovian delegations, the Chairman of the Senate, but with him temporarily holding the office of the Presidency, he was replaced by the Father of the Senate, the longest-serving member, Senator Olongo, a Titanian and elder of the Freedom Party – and according to Harper, passionately devoted to the middle-of-the-road. He would be fair.

 Sitting close to Harper was Senator Norman, the fiery leader of the Progressives, with Wilcox of the Technocrats over at the head of the Callistan delegation, looking at her with a vague air of disgust, as if some sort of vermin had entered the chamber. Orlova lamented inside that she hadn’t paid more attention to politics in the past; she could barely name a tenth of the eighty people in the room, and there had been no time for more than the most cursory briefing.

 Moving to her seat, she sensed that the other Senators in her group, more than half of which were non-voting, with speaking rights only like she, seemed to move away from her, as if wanting to remove any potential for guilt by association. Most of them, she noted, were Technocrats, and were they to win the election, a lot of them stood to gain voting rights – a key part of their manifesto.

 The crack of a gavel opened the session, and Senator Olongo began, “Our first order of business, nearly our last order of business of this session, is the vote on the impeachment of President Newton.” 

 Standing up, Orlova said, “Mr. Chairman, I wish the floor to debate this matter.”

 “The matter is settled, the debate is done,” Wilcox said. “I move for an immediate vote!”

 “I have a right to speak,” Orlova said.”

 “You should not be here at all,” one of the Belter Senators said. “I move that Senator Orlova be stripped of her office and protection, and turned over to face trial for the serious charges laid against her. Having such a person in this chamber degrades us all.”

 “We have a vote!” Wilcox said, but Olongo interrupted.

 “A move to impeach a Senator has priority over any other business of this body, as you very well know. The Senator from Vesta has made a motion, do I hear a second?”

 “Aye,” Senator Norman said. “I agree. Her presence is a disgrace.”

 “Then I call for a vote,” Olongo said. “All those…”

 Still standing, Orlova said, “I have a right to speak in my own defense!” Both she and Chambers had expected this. It was one of the contingencies they had made sure to cover in some detail.

 “Only if someone else wants to hear your mad rants,” Wilcox said. “Let’s get this over with and get back to our real business.”

 “I second Senator Orlova’s motion to speak,” Harper said, standing up. “I for one want to hear what she has to say.”

 A woman sitting next to him hissed, just loud enough to be heard, “Damn it, David, you’ll be impeached yourself if you do this. Let it go!”

 Senator Olongo looked at Orlova, and said, “Senator, you have been granted permission to speak in your own defense by this body. Your remarks must relate only to the charges against you. You have the floor, Senator.”

 A groan went up from the Technocrats, and a more panicked look from some of the Progressives. They knew that there was a deadline involved here. For most of the Senators, this was just an embarrassment they wanted to be over; for a few, they saw their plans and schemes beginning to unravel. She looked up at the crowded gallery, a thousand and more watching this display, and felt a pang of regret at what she must do first.

 “Mr. Chairman, before I begin, I spy strangers.”

 Olongo frowned, then said, “The Senator from Ragnarok having requested that the gallery be cleared, I so instruct the Sergeant-at-Arms. Senator Orlova, if you will wait for five minutes before beginning your statement, to permit the evacuation of the viewing areas.”

 “Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

 “What’s the problem, Senator?” one of her neighbors., another Belter with ‘Yashimoto’ on the desk in front of him, said. “Scared of the public?”

 Turning to him, she replied, “I don’t want them to hear what I must say, and once you’ve heard it, I suspect that you will agree with my decision.”

 “I await your testimony with appropriately bated breath.”

 As the jeering crowds above were firmly but courteously removed from the room, Orlova took the opportunity to collect her thoughts, and skim through her datapad for notes. Under the conditions she had established, all communications in and out of the room would be blocked, the official records sealed for fifty years, long enough for all of this to be long-forgotten history.

 “Very well,” Olongo said as the doors slammed shut. “You have the privacy you wanted, Senator. The floor remains yours.”

 “Thank you,” she began. “I am permitted to speak on the reasons for my impeachment only, and I am very grateful that I have such wide latitude in my statements. The charges against me – the reasons that you find my presence unsuitable – have been raised to conceal a conspiracy against the very Senate itself, one that has led to countless deaths, and has brought us to the brink of war.”

 “Objection!” Norman said. “Mr. Chairman, I resist this. She must speak only on the reason for her disqualification as Senator!”

 Before Olongo could reply, Orlova said, “My appointment may have been somewhat unorthodox, but is completely in accord with both the Constitution and the rules of the Senate.”

 “That’s correct,” Harper said. “I witnessed it myself.”

 “In that case,” Orlova continued, “Your only objections can be to my actions before being appointed to this office, and it is of those that I speak.”

 “Senator Norman, I must agree with Senator Orlova,” Olongo said. “Nevertheless, I do agree that the accused should perhaps focus her statements.”

 “Very well, Mr. Chairman,” she replied. “I am charged with treason, espionage, and conspiracy. I have committed none of these crimes. My crime, if it could be called that, is that when I was invited to join a group of officers and Senators who were attempting to bring down the President and start a war with the Cabal, I opted instead to notify higher authority, and refused to take part in such an illegal action.”

 A gasp echoed around the Senate, and Yashimoto said, “Unsubstantiated rumor!”

 “Plenty of evidence is on the way, Senator,” Orlova said, “Enough to satisfy even you, I suspect. I was not the only one who was involved in this action. Acting far beyond the limits of their orders, certain senior officers launched an attack on Hades Station, an attack designed not to win, but to lose, to create martyrs to incite the population to war.” Looking at Norman, she said, “It doesn’t take much imagination to see just who could gain from such an action.”

 “I am being slandered!” Norman yelled. “I demand the right to defend myself!”

 “I will not yield this floor!” Orlova shouted back.

 “Senators, please!” Olongo said. “No names were mentioned, Senator Norman, and unless you are confessing to these crimes, I do not see you have anything to defend.”

 Glaring at Orlova, she said, “I retract my statement.”

 Tapping her watch, Orlova said, “I can tell you all now that the Battlecruiser Alamo, under the command of Captain Daniel Marshall, is heading for Mars with two witnesses willing to testify to all I have said and more besides, as well as other physical evidence. He seeks to present this evidence to the Senate, as material in…”

 “In what? The impeachment of the President?” Norman said. “That cannot possibly be germane.”

 “I must agree,” Olongo said. “That is a separate matter.”

 Thinking quickly, Orlova replied, “No, Mr. Chairman. I agree that you are correct, but these are now material witnesses to my impeachment, are they not?”

 The floor erupted in shouting, Norman sitting in rueful silence at the heart of it all. She’d spotted the trap, but enough of her supports hadn’t that she’d been stuck into the current position. Nevertheless, she rose to her feet, shouting for quiet.

 “Mr. Chairman, I call for an immediate vote. We have important business to undertake in this session.”

 Harper stood up, turned to her, and said, “So we ride roughshod over the rights of our own members for the sake of expediency? What sort of precedent does that set for the future?”

 With a smile, she replied, “On the contrary. I have come to appreciate the logic of Senator Orlova’s argument. I withdraw my support for her impeachment.”

 The room seemed to spin, the plans that Orlova and Chambers had concocted tumbling down like a house of cards. There were still more than nineteen hours to go before Alamo entered orbit.

 “I do not withdraw my motion!” Wilcox yelled. “I support it!”

 “I second it!”, another Technocrat said. “I also call for an immediate vote.”

 “Gentlemen,” Olongo said, “Senator Orlova still has the floor, and as there still appears to be a case for her to answer, I invite her to continue.”

 “Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” she said. “I was about to say that the Battleship Zeus is also on its way to Mars, with orders to intercept and destroy Alamo before it can testify.” Glancing down at her watch, she said, “All of this is to take place in approximately nineteen hours and ten minutes from now.”

 The furor rose, and the woman near Harper leapt to her feet and said, “Are you suggesting that two Triplanetary ships are about to fight it out in orbit over Mars?”

 “Yes, Senator, I am,” Orlova replied.

 “Then we must take immediate action. I call upon the floor to be opened, so that we can communicate with the proper military authorities.”

 “Senator Orlova, will you yield the floor to allow such action to be undertaken?”

 “No, I will not,” she replied. “With all due respect, Senator, I have no way of knowing what message will be sent, nor what additional forces might be mobilized to stop Alamo.” Looking around, she said, “People have died out there already. I don’t think there will be any compunction about more deaths.”

 “These are the ravings of a madwoman,” Wilcox said. “I don’t see why we should listen to this anymore.”

 “Because,” Harper said, “You will not get the four-fifths majority required to shut her up, Senator. I think enough of us are interested to hear what else she has to say.”

 “It gets rather less interesting from here,” Orlova said. “President Newton has, in co-operation with Cabal diplomats, completed a new draft peace treaty taking account of what has happened at Hades Station, where, for the record, the Triplanetary flag now flies. Despite the best attempts of the conspirators, despite the unprovoked attack we made on a Cabal facility, we can still have peace.”

 “Treason!” Norman said.

 “Sanity,” Orlova replied. “I urge the Senate to ratify this treaty.” Looking around, she said, “I know what will happen if you don’t. Once President Newton is impeached, President Ackerman will withdraw the treaty, and then we will be at war.” Locking eyes with Norman, she said, “A war that we will have begun, ladies and gentlemen. A war of aggression, pure and simple. I call for the charges of impeachment against myself and President Newton to be withdrawn, and that an immediate vote be taken on the ratification of the new peace treaty with the Cabal.”

 “You cannot simply demand that the Senate do as you say!” Wilcox said.

 “Why not?” Harper asked. “Isn’t that exactly what you and the Progressives have been doing for the last two months? Demanding that the rest of us march to your tune. Or do you want war, Senator?”

 “I want an illegal Presidency to end.”

 “None of this is new!” Orlova said, waving a datapad. “Senator Harper, how long have you known about the President’s affair?”

 She was entering into dangerous territory here, and knew it full well, but after a long pause, he answered, “Nine months. And I’m not the only one.”

 That was the testimony of a brave man, and she replied, “Of course not. I’m sure the people behind the impeachment process have known about it for as long, and held off to make maximum use of it for their own political gain.” Looking around the room, she said, “I didn’t actually expect the Senate to agree to my requests. When Alamo enters orbit, all of this will be over, one way or another, but know this. Your refusal is going to cost lives, the lives of men and women in uniform, fighting in the defense of the ideals you purport to represent.” Pointing up at the ceiling, she said, “A battle will be fought in your name, and each and every one of you is as responsible for the casualties as the conspirators who brought it about.”

 With a smile, she said, “So, it seems I have to hold this floor for something on the order of nineteen hours, by the rules.”

 “Objection!” Wilcox said. “Senator Orlova is holding this chamber to ransom for her own ends, by her own admission!”

 Olongo said, “And also indicated that she would only hold the floor by the rules of the Senate. The moment she breaks those rules, Senator, I will force her to yield. Until then, the floor remains with her. Is that understood?” she said, looking around. “Senator Orlova?”

 Nodding, she said, “Perhaps the best place to start is to review the rules I am meant to have broken.” Holding up her datapad, she said, “I need to consult my notes.” As the Senators groaned, she read, “Standing Orders and Rules of the Senate, Seventh Revision, 2163. Introduction…”

Chapter 25

 “I still don’t see how we’re going to do it,” Esposito said, looking through her binoculars at the squat bunker ahead. “There’s only one way in, and it’s well guarded and protected.”

 “Not that well guarded,” Harper replied, looking up with a smile. “We can get through the first set of doors without much trouble.”

 “And nine layers of security after that,” Esposito replied. “Logan, this isn’t going to work.”

 Glancing across at her, he said, “We only have to get inside, not out, for a start. For another,” he said, glancing down at the watch on his suit, “In less than fifteen minutes, Alamo enters orbit. We’ve just got to stop any satellites from firing until the battle upstairs is over, twenty minutes at the most. After that, we’ve either won…”

 “Or we’re dead,” Jordan said, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I agreed to come with you guys anyway.”

 “Three words, kid,” Boris said. “Unlimited expense account. For any engineer, that’s heaven. We’ll get your head turned around the right way yet.” Gesturing down at the bag at the young mechanic’s belt, he said, “I just hope those gizmos you’ve got there work.”

 “They’ll work,” he replied with a shaky confidence. “As long as we get deep enough.”

 Pausing for a second, Esposito said, “It really shouldn’t be possible at all to do this. I’m beginning to realize what we’re trying to do, and…”

 “For anyone else, this would be impossible, but we’ve got an advantage,” he said, gesturing at the bunker. “I was around when this place was being built, remember.”

 Harper smiled, and said, “You put in a backdoor.”

 “Let’s just say that this eventuality did occur to some of us in the past. We just need to get to one of the terminals of the internal network, and I can do the rest.”

 “There’s a backdoor in Planetary Defense?” Esposito said, her voice rising. “I can’t think of anything more irresponsible!”

 “Well, we considered that at some point a group of military officers might decide to use their muscle to take control of the Confederation, and that it might be a good idea to provide a way to stop them taking over the laser sats.” A grin spreading across his face, he continued, “Almost as though we could see into the future.”

 “What’s the word from the Senate?” Boris asked.

 Tapping a control on her datapad, Harper replied, “Still in closed session, which I guess means that Maggie’s still hanging on. Nineteen hours and then some.” Shaking her head, she said, “She's got a damn sight more patience than I have.”

 “She’s probably reading the dictionary to them by now,” Logan said with a smile, “which would still be more interesting than most of the gabble they get through there. Well, my watch says its’ time to move. Jordan, feel free to hit the button.”

 Pulling a crude-looking box out of his pocket, jammed with next-generation components Logan had managed to scavenge, he tapped a pair of controls, frowned for a second, and then tried again, this time rewarded with a light on the far side. Looking through his binoculars, Logan saw the alert guards racing off to the far side of the perimeter, warned of an intruder alert in progress.

 Without any hesitation, he raced to the bunker, the others hard on his heels. The reserve guard would be in position in less than a minute, and he had to beat them to the punch. Doctrine called for the ones on the surface to continue towards the threat they had detected, trusting that the security would keep any other intruders out. Evidently the one who wrote it didn’t have enough imagination, and it had been far too easy for him to get hold of that document. There was a lot of arrogance, here, and he was hoping that it was not justified.

 He skidded to a stop just short of the access terminal, Harper by his side jamming a pair of datarods into the slots. After just a few seconds, the doors opened, and with quick moves Logan and Esposito grabbed the suited figures that emerged, turning down the pressure in their suits, quickly rendering them unconscious. Such an action was meant to result in the doors instantly slamming shut, but Harper’s program had done its job, and they stayed open.

 “Come on,” Logan said, racing into the bunker. The elevator was locked at the top, but they weren’t going to bother with it; he quickly opened the inspection hatch on the floor, peered down into the gloom beneath, and snapped a box into position by its side, pulling it to test that the magnetic lock had activated. Pulling open the top, he snapped one of six cables into position on his suit, and then jumped down through the hatch.

 Even in Martian gravity, a fall of three hundred feet would be incredibly dangerous, and the cable spooled out as he descended, lights flashing by on each side. Up above, he could hear the rest of his team joining him, each taking their turn on the cables. In a few minutes, this route would be cut off as the decoyed guards returned; they were probably already at the bunker, making sure that there were no more enemies outside before blocking their retreat.

 That was the essence of Logan’s plan; he had not counted on getting out. Either the Senate was going to order them released, or the conspirators would have them shot. No other options existed, and unless they moved quickly, the first would soon cease to be possible.

 He seemed to be rushing down towards the ground awfully quickly, and the cable snapped to a stop with only a few feet to spare, the buckle disengaging to drop him the remainder of the way. Not waiting for the others, he raced down the corridor to the next level of security, holding a metal sphere in his hand. Hearing footsteps up ahead clanging on the floor, he rolled the sphere in front of him, counted to three, and turned off his optical display for a second.

 When his vision began to work again, he saw two more guards stumbling around ahead; Harper had caught up to him by now, and between them they managed to knock out their pressure regulators, sending them into unconsciousness.

 “Nice toy, that,” she said.

 “Don’t go for the man, go for the mechanism,” he replied with a smile. Cameras were watching their every move, and more security would be on the way; the elevator was likely already on its way down, blocking their escape, but he had a few more tricks left up his sleeve.

 Harper was moving ahead now, and with Jordan next to her, they started to work on the next of the hatches. The question was whether the commander of the garrison would try and leave them bottled up, or whether he would send reinforcements to capture them. Fortunately, the latter was true, and a light winked on to indicate the airlock cycling.

 Ready with her reprogramming, Harper turned up the pressure to fifty times normal, while Jordan made sure that the occupants wouldn’t have any idea what was going on from the wall systems. Their suits would notice, of course, but once the airlock thought that it had finished its cycle, the doors would open unless someone could stop them in time.

 “Heads down!” Logan yelled, throwing himself to the floor. The airlock doors ripped open, sending the six guards inside tumbling down the corridor, sucked out into the vacuum beyond. Wasting no time, Logan raced through the ruined doors, activating a manual override to open the inner door, and triggering a series of decompression alarms. As he worked, he knew that all of the compartments beyond would be locking themselves down, all of the control systems isolated from the outside, and the personnel scrambling to work out what was going on.

 Carefully, he stepped into the now airless corridor beyond, walking up to a nearby terminal; they were now far enough in that any of them would be connected to the network, though under normal circumstances, that shouldn’t matter. The systems were kept up-to-date, and even if someone with Harper’s talents could get access to them, it would take hours to break in. They had seconds.

 “Well,” Esposito said, racing up to him, “Are you ready?”

 “We need some cover,” he replied. “Get one of those doors open, we’ll hide inside.”

 “Hide?”

 “All we need is ten minutes or so,” Logan said, “Alamo will be coming into orbit any time now.” Plugging his suit into the terminal, he said, quite calmly, “This is Logan Winter. Disarm until countermanded.”

 “That’s it?” Esposito said. “Just ‘disarm’? No codewords, passwords, secret combinations, or anything even slightly resembling security?”

 “We didn’t see the point in making it overly complicated. Just a voiceprint confirmation.”

 “Verified,” the console said in an overtly-robotic voice. “Orbital defense network disarmed.”

 Before he could move, the group was surrounded by guards wearing space armor, all of them heavily armed. Response might have been slow, but it was still fast enough to catch him. One of the figures walked over to the terminal, tapped a sequence of controls, and shook his head.

 “Who is in charge here?” a voice came over Logan’s communicator.

 “Who’s asking?” he replied.

 “General Myers, Martian Defense Force. Whom am I speaking too?”

 “Lieutenant-Captain Logan Winter, Triplanetary Intelligence.”

 “I demand that you release control of the defense network immediately. A hostile vessel is approaching, and you are leaving Mars totally defenseless!”

 “Would that be the Battlecruiser Alamo?” Logan asked. “I have no intention of releasing control of the systems. Your hackers should be able to override my control in due course.” With a smile, he said, “You might want to get back to your command center. Right now every military base on the planet has been notified about what’s happened here. I suspect that you can expect calls from your superiors any second now.”

 The General pulled a pistol out of his pocket and leveled it at Logan’s helmet; it was an old sidearm, an antique, with a caliber that would rip a hole through his suit, his head, and out the far end.

 “I will kill you, Captain, right now, if you do not release the control.”

 “General, in about ten minutes you are going to get one of two calls from the Senate. Either you will be relieved of your command and instructed to release us, or you will be ordered to go ahead and put us in front of a firing squad. I suggest you wait for them to decide.” Looking down the barrel of the gun, he said, “As nothing you can threaten me with will make me release those controls. Whether you like it or not, your ability to handle the situation in orbit has diminished to nothing.”

 “Damn it,” the General said, dropping the pistol. “Lieutenant Mandeville, take them to a holding area. Full guard detail. I’d better get back to Control.” He started to walk down the corridor, and turned back to face Logan. “I hope you can live with what you are doing today. I hope all of us have the chance.”

 Logan decided to let him have the last word, and followed the guards into the room. All six of them filed silently in, then the guards stepped back, the door slammed shut, and with a loud hiss, the compartment began to pressurize. After his suit showed green, he cracked open his helmet and took a deep breath of air.

 “That went about as well as I could have expected,” he said.

 “Yes, but Alamo won’t know what happened,” Esposito said. “They won’t have any idea that they are in the clear.”

 “Of course they will,” Logan replied. “When I said every installation, I mean every installation. Right now the news networks will be carrying this live. A fail-safe we built in, just in case one of us went rogue one day. What I did was as public as it was possible to make it.”

 “So now what?” Harper asked.

 “We wait and see if Captain Marshall can pull off a miracle in orbit. There’s still a battleship in between him and safety.” He looked down at his watch, and said, “My guess is that they’ll be settling into orbit about now.”

Chapter 26

 “Sir, he’s done it!” Weitzman yelled from the communications station. “We’re getting messages from all over the place, the newsnets are alive with it. The planetary defense system is out.”

 “That’s not so good,” Caine said. “If the UN finds out that we’re vulnerable, they might get tempted to do something about it.”

 “I’m sure our old friends in the Martian Space Service will have the network up and running in a little while,” Marshall replied. “As long as we’ve got our window to engage the enemy, we’ll manage. Weitzman, any signal from Zeus?”

 “No response to our hails, sir.”

 Frowning, he said, “Tightbeam laser transmission, then, Weitzman. I want person to person, and if there is any way that you can make sure that the maximum number of people on that ship hear me, so much the better.”

 “Firing range in seventy-five seconds, Danny,” Caine said.

 “Acknowledged, Deadeye.”

 “You have your channel, sir,” Weitzman said.

 “This is Captain Daniel Marshall, of the Triplanetary Battlecruiser Alamo. We wear the same uniform, and we’re on the same side. I implore you not to launch an attack on a fellow ship in the Fleet. You are operating under illegal orders, and I call on you to stand down, and let us present our case to the Senate. If they instruct, I will turn myself in for arrest.”

 The screen cleared, and a new figure appeared, Vice-President – currently Acting President – Ackerman, who began, “This is the President of the Triplanetary Confederation. You are under arrest, Captain, you and your entire crew, and will surrender at once or face the consequences of your actions.”

 Blood seemed to rush to Marshall’s head. He’d fought battles before, more than a dozen of them during his time in command of Alamo, many more than that during the War. He’d had independent command for a lot of them, had the ultimate responsibility for deciding the outcome of the struggle. This was different. This time he knew who he was fighting.

 “Spaceman Weitzman,” he said, “Close the channel.” He took a deep breath, turned to Tactical, and said, “Senior Lieutenant Caine, fire at will.”

 She looked at him, nodded, and said, “Aye, sir. Firing range in sixty seconds.”

 Ryder turned and said, “Fighters and shuttles are ready for launch. Optimum window is in one hundred and ninety-one seconds.”

 “Three minutes,” Marshall said. “Three minutes we’ve got to live in that fire. Steele, don’t wait for orders, use every trick in the book. We’ve got to get close into Zeus.”

 “Energy spike from the enemy,” Spinelli said. “Laser cannon charging, and all missile tubes show hot. My guess is that they will fire when they get into range.”

 “Better make sure we aren’t where they were expecting, then,” Steele muttered, slamming a series of controls that sent Alamo lurching down, hundreds of meters from its former trajectory, slowing the ship to take it into a slightly lower orbit, then ramming the thrust back to maximum to bring it back up again. Caine held her hands over the laser controls, ready to take a shot of opportunity.

 “Firing range in fifteen seconds,” Spinelli said.

 Zeus was bobbing up and down as though it threatened to go out of control, its trajectory rocking back and forth as its helmsman struggled to keep up with Steele’s evasive maneuvers. Just as she seemed to be establishing a pattern, something that the enemy could cope with and predict, she changed it, swerving in a different direction, trying to keep them guessing. Given time, a skilled pilot might be able to match it, but she wasn’t going to give them that chance.

 “Firing solution in five seconds,” Steele said, her eyes locked on her console.

 “Ready,” Caine replied.

 “Energy spike!” Spinelli yelled. “Three seconds early, missile salvo away! Fanning out in front of the ship on parallel course plot.”

 “Clever,” Ryder said. “Anti-missile screen to block our first shot.”

 “Hold your missiles, Deadeye,” Marshall said. “Wait for the fighters.”

 “Laser firing!”

  For less than a second, Alamo lined up for a perfect shot on Zeus, giving the enemy tactical officer a split-second opportunity to get a retaliatory shot of their own onto the target. An expert would have managed it, but their blast came an instant too late. Alamo, on the other hand, burned an angry scar down the side of Zeus’ hull, wisps of air leaking away into space where deck plating had ruptured.

 “Good shot!” he said. “Where did we get them?”

 “Looks like forward thrusters and auxiliary control. That might make it a bit easier.” She looked up at her controls, and said, “I’m firing a missile salvo, plotted to go just ahead of us. Might increase the odds for the fighter assault.” Alamo rocked as the missiles raced away, forming up into an arrowhead formation, their trajectories interlocking with the warheads already in the air.

 Marshall watched the screen, looking at Zeus up ahead. Normally, there would only be a few minutes’ opportunity to exchange blows, but both ships were close enough together in course and velocity that it could be measured in hours. Alamo might have drawn first blood, but any moment now, Zeus would take the gloves off and it would become a very different story.

 “Salvo from Zeus, aiming directly!” Spinelli said.

 “Anything from the surface, Weitzman?” Marshall asked.

 “Nothing, sir. Traffic volume’s going up, though. I think we've been noticed.”

 “How the hell are we going to explain this one away?” Ivanov said from the engineering station.

 “Let’s hope that’s our problem, Spaceman,” Marshall replied.

 The missiles raced towards Alamo while Caine struggled with the countermeasure systems, working on knocking them down with a combination of intrusion programs and guesswork. Then, abruptly, all ten disappeared from view, exploding in a brief flash of light.

 “What the hell happened?”

 “It wasn’t me,” Caine said.

 “It’s the ground!” Weitzman said. “We’re getting a message, coded, from someone working with Harper! The hacker underground’s got our backs!”

 His eyes widening, Marshall said, “By damn, we might win this yet!”

 “It won’t take them long to switch to dumb-shot mode,” Caine warned.

 “Get a salvo up, target combat-critical areas of Zeus. Start punching some holes in them.”

 “Already on it,” she replied, Alamo rocking back as she fired. Almost as soon as they left the tubes, the missiles detonated, and the color began to drain out of her face. “It works both ways,” she replied. “Damn it, I should have thought of this. They’ve got the whole resources of all the countermeasures on Mars to help them. We might as well throw our missiles away for all the good they’re going to do us today.”

 Without warning, the lights on the bridge flickered, and Ivanov raced over his controls while Steele cursed in the background, the ship spinning away as she struggled to regain control.

 “Report!” Marshall yelled.

 “Laser hit, aft section. We just lost a lot of the power control interface, the backup realspace drive, and aft sensor array.” The engineer looked up, and said, “It was a damn good shot, sir.”

 “Retaliate as fast as you can!” Marshall told Caine. “Steele, get us closer. How long before we can get our birds into the sky?”

 “Sixty-four seconds,” Caine said. “Laser recharge in ten seconds, but the shot after that will take a lot longer. We lost a lot of our network in that last hit.” Looking across at another display, she said, “Damn it, Ivanov, when were you going to tell me about the radiators!”

 “What?” the engineer said, glancing across to a second panel. “Bozhe moi. We’ve got tears in the port radiator, Captain. We’re not going to be able to radiate all the heat properly.”

 “Consequences of firing?”

 “Systems failures in a lot of the outer parts of the ship.”

 “Take the shot, Deadeye. Or they’ll get a chance to do worse to us.”

 “Steele,” Caine said, “I want their laser. Give me the best shot you can.”

 “I’m not dogfighting,” the helmsman replied. “The ship’s wallowing like a pig!”

 “Hold it together, Sub-Lieutenant,” Marshall said. “Hold it together.”

 “We’re getting stand-down orders from the ground, sir,” Weitzman said.

 “From the Senate?”

 “No, sir. Colonel-General Clyde.” 

 “Wrong fleet,” Marshall replied. “Clear the channels.”

 “Damage control teams ready for the shot, Captain,” Ivanov said.

 “Two seconds!” Steele yelled, and Alamo swung into position, a precise series of pulses from the thrusters dragging it around. At the precise instant, the computer fired, and once again the two ships were briefly connected by a pulse of laser light. This shot hit home, right into the bowels of the ship, and a faint red glow appeared for a moment before flickering out. Then the screen faded to black, and sirens started to wail on the bridge.

 “Damage report!”

  “Both radiators are gone, sir,” Ivanov said. “Couldn’t handle the overload. Hull temperature way beyond design tolerances but cooling rapidly.”

 “Casualty reports coming in,” Steele added, as the screen flickered back on, static now laced with the display.

 “We’ve lost more than half of our sensor pickups and the rest are damaged, long-range communications are out, two of our missile launch tubes are non-operational,” Ivanov read. “It’s a long list, sir.”

 “What about Zeus? Spinelli, can you clear that static?”

 “Negative, Captain,” the sensor technician replied. “Bandwidth’s shot to hell, I’m having trouble putting anything into the feed. I think we got a clean shot at their laser array, but I can’t pick up any power readings from the enemy ship – none at all, so I think that some of my detectors are out. I need diagnostics, Ivanov!”

 “You’ll have to wait your turn,” the engineer barked back. “Right now I’m making sure we still have life support. We have hull-breaches from burn through in nine places, micro-fractures in dozens more places, and Mr. Quinn is inventing new swear words by the second.”

 That forced a smile from Marshall, who replied, “Do the best you can. With our missiles useless and our laser cannon inoperative, I think our fight’s over.”

 “Closing in on launch trajectory,” Steele said. “Twenty-nine seconds to optimum strike window.”

 “Once we’re clear, try and veer off.”

 Shaking her head, she said, “I’ve lost most of my thrusters, sir. It’s hard enough to hold a straight course. I think we’re locked on this trajectory until damage control can fix us up.”

 “Shuttles coming up from the surface,” Weitzman said. “Estimated time to interception is twelve minutes.”

 “The Martian Marine Corps on the march,” Caine said, turning to Marshall. “Too late to affect this battle, but we must have done some serious damage to Zeus.”

 “Getting better feeds now from ground pick-ups,” Spinelli said. “Getting quite a bit of outgassing, but they’ve already got teams on the outer hull.”

 “Not that any of this will matter in the slightest if the orbital defense network comes back online,” Caine noted. “I just hope Logan did a comprehensive job.”

 Marshall sat back in his chair, looking at the strategic overview. In one brief spasm of fury, Alamo had disabled its target, but had wrecked itself doing it. His console was running up a series of status updates from all over the ship, none of them encouraging. In less than an hour, the battleship Ares would be on them, ranging in from Mariner Station at full speed, and the full resources of Mars were now arrayed against them. The Marines would have an easy time of it when they came in for a landing.

 Still Zeus drifted out there, proud and fierce, hastily repairing the damage inflicted on her. Had she had a full, experienced crew, had the tables been reversed, Alamo would have had no chance at all, that much was clear. The seconds counted down, and Marshall waited to play his last hand.

 “Assault group, immediate launch.”

 Nodding, Ryder tapped a control, and said, “Raven Squadron, launch, launch, launch. Shuttles One, Two, Three, launch now. Clearance on request.” Alamo shuddered as the ships dropped out into space, their engines throwing them towards their target.

 “Oh, God,” Spinelli said, looking up from his console. “Enemy fighters incoming. Twenty-four fighters, half of them on intercept course for the shuttle, the remainder for us.”

 “Get your missiles ready, Deadeye,” Marshall said, “and Weitzman, see if Harper’s friends can do anything for us. This battle isn’t over yet.”

Chapter 27

 Bradley was pushed back into her couch by the acceleration, throwing a series of switches to lock her into the projected course. She smiled as she looked at the electronic warfare panels to her right, all a mess of confused static. There was so much interference from all around her that this battle was going to be more like an old-fashioned dogfight than anything she’d experienced before. No dueling computers, no interlocked networks, just one-on-one action. Even the communication systems were fading in and out, and while Tabby Dixon, her flight leader, was trying to issue instructions, only one word in three was coming through.

 Worse, false orders kept flashing up on the screen, her navigation computers receiving fake feedback; before launching, she’d set all her signal discriminators to maximum, blocking almost everything from outside, and certainly stopping it from having any effect on her onboard systems.

 She was keeping as tight a formation as she could, with the three shuttles just behind her, the rest of the fighters just ahead. Her job was to act as backup, if – or, more realistically, when – one of the others dropped out of the formation for whatever reason, she would be able to take their place, and give the group the punch it needed to get through.

 Up ahead, twelve fighters ranged in towards her. Another enemy formation was swooping overhead, burning their engines hard in a bid to make a run on Alamo, but that wasn’t her main concern. Caine could, hopefully, deal with that, prevent them from doing too much damage. What did worry her was that they were facing odds of three-to-one against. With Cooper on the lead shuttle, heading towards Zeus with her platoon.

 Tapping a series of controls, she computed the combat window. Less than thirty seconds, but she was sure that they would concentrate on the shuttles, not on the fighters. They constituted the real threat to the battleship. As it stood, they’d have plenty of opportunity to unleash enough death on the shuttles that none of them would get through. That left only one answer. 

 She ramped up her acceleration, amused to see that Dixon had beaten her to it by a split-second, then threw herself on a new trajectory, deliberately increasing the amount of time she would spend in the firing line. A series of warnings flashed on her heads-up display, but she ignored them – the duty of an escort was to protect, not to destroy. Checking that her missiles were set on independent track, she waited for the window to open up, made a few adjustments to the on-board programming, then fired.

 Normally, a missile was a very smart piece of equipment, designed to mesh with others in its salvo to work as a distributed network, or even with the fighters that fired it. In the current electronic environment, none of that would work, and would only guarantee that the missiles would vanish in a moment. Over to her left, she saw a couple of flashes close to enemy fighters whose pilots had obviously been less careful about their firing solutions before pulling the trigger.

 More warning lights flashed on, and she smiled, she’d done her job. Seven missiles were heading her way, and nine for Dixon just ahead of her. With two missiles per fighter, that left only eight for the shuttles, and the other fighters could deal with them. Especially as she’d set her missiles to run back as an additional escort for the shuttles, after superficially heading for the fighter screen ahead.

 Now came the tricky part. She had seven missiles on her tail, and would be extremely fortunate to live through an impact by one. Bailing out in her spacesuit was a risky option. There would soon be enough shrapnel around on her trajectory that she’d stand an excellent chance of being shredded alive. There remained one possibility, and that was the surface, the great red desert below. Mars didn’t have much of an atmosphere, but enough of a one to give some real problems to the missiles. To be fair, her fighter wasn’t designed for it either, but she’d have a lot more control in the descent.

 As she spun her fighter around, tail towards the enemy, she noted that the missiles paused for a second, seeming to hesitate, and for a heartbeat she wondered if there was some trick in their programming that would cause them to lock onto a secondary target. She was spending fuel at such a prodigious rate that within a few seconds she would sweep past the point of no return, out of the battle.

 Just as she was about to spin around again, pull back up into orbit, with only the vaguest idea about what she would do when she got there, a series of alarms sounded once again, and the missiles locked back on. Seven incoming targets, first impact in thirty-nine seconds. Another light flashed on as she dropped below escape velocity, and her navigation computer started to glare urgently, as if angry that she was putting the fighter into a course from which it could never escape.

 Taking one last glance up to the battle, she longed to be able to send a last signal to Cooper, wishing him luck at the very least. She might have managed this landing a thousand times before in shuttles, but never in a craft that was solely designed for the vacuum of space. The brass were working on a exo/atmospheric fighter design, shapes that looked like something out of the last century, but last she heard, they’d barely reached the prototype stage. Glancing to her left, she saw a point of light on a parallel course, and tagged her sensor display to check it. Dixon’s fighter, the veteran pilot trying the same trick. Oddly, that felt comforting. At least this wasn’t just her crazy idea.

 Twenty-five seconds to impact, but she was slowing down awfully quickly now, the pull really beginning to bite, the missiles also turning to optimize their firing pattern. An altimeter popped up on her panel, and she watched the numbers trickle towards zero as she slowed, throwing in a series of evasive maneuvers to discourage the incoming warheads. A faint glow began to build, the fighter digging into the Martian atmosphere, and now her plan began to come into its own in a serious way; the leading missile, unable to compensate for the changed environment, spiraled away out of control, tumbling over to the right.

 Two more went the same way; had they been able to network, they could have adapted to the pressure and gravity, at least for a time, but on their own, they were just lumbering dumb brutes. Something of a metaphor. That still left another four missiles on their way, and they seemed to be coping a lot better with the conditions. Less than fifty seconds to impact. Three minutes before she was on the surface.

 The glow was beginning to fade, and she pulled the fighter around again, facing forward, and fired the engines at full, biting back into the atmosphere again as she struggled to accelerate, throwing off the missiles. Her fuel gauge was hitting the critical mark, but her prey had far fewer reserves than she did. Surely that would make the key difference. Two more missiles dropped away, destined to crash into the surface, but two remained on her tail.

 Less than twenty thousand feet above the surface, she began to fasten her helmet. She was still supersonic, and even gaining speed, but she knew that this was a race she couldn’t win. Fifty-nine seconds to impact, and only one way left to increase the odds. She turned around, and piled on the power to bring herself to a dead stop, the fighter beginning to fall like a rock down towards the surface, the missiles racing in.

 There was no time for perfection, no time for prayer. With one last quick check of her suit, she tapped a control, and the fighter dropped away beneath her as the cockpit canopy cracked, sending her tumbling and free. No need for an ejector seat; the residual atmosphere threw her far enough clear, and she fired up her suit thrusters. Her altitude was five thousand feet, and she slammed on at full power, hoping that she could slow her descent in time to make her return to Mars survivable.

 Two explosions filled the air, one close enough that the sound reached her even through the thin atmosphere, another a few miles to the north, presumably Dixon’s fighter. The desert raced towards her as she used every ounce of fuel in the suit’s tanks, then started to burn off some of the stored oxygen as well, anything to buy her a chance. There were a series of domes nearby, close enough that help would be on hand, but she still didn’t know whether it would be first aid or a burial party.

 She tapped her distress beacon, hearing the squeal echo in her helmet, a dull throb that resounded in her skull. Only two things mattered; her altitude and her fuel gauge. Less than five hundred feet to go, and the ruins of her fighter close at hand, an angry scar on the planet to herald her arrival. Two hundred feet. One hundred. Impact.

 A loud crack set her face grimacing, pain flooding in as her legs shattered, the suit medikit pumping her full of painkillers and tranquilizers, the temperature rising to help ward off shock. Somehow, she held on to consciousness, a combination of chemicals and willpower, and looked up at the sky. A trail was still descending down, and she realized what it must be. Dixon’s fighter.

 She hadn’t bailed out, hadn’t taken the risk. Instead the pilot was trying to ride her chariot down to the surface, trying an unpowered descent, the rear of her fighter an angry, dull red from the missile impact. Even if she’d wanted to leave, she’d left it too late now, and she swooped around in a vain attempt to arrest her descent. Bradley willed her friend down, hoped for a miracle, as if she could somehow lower the local gravity or increase the air pressure, give her something to work with.

 Her hopes were in vain. With grim finality, the fighter slammed into the ground, a cloud of dust and smoke rising, the ground shaking with the force of the impact, then again as the fuel tanks ruptured. Fighting tears, Bradley looked out across the plain, trying and failing to comprehend the enormity of what happened.

 Voices were calling for her, whispering in her ear, and it took a moment for her to realize that a rescue party was on the way. The pain had gone, replaced with a blank feeling, but one look down at her suit – which, miraculously, had not been damaged past the point of auto-repair – told her that she was badly wounded. She felt strange, as though she had been able to isolate herself from her body, an effect of the overdoses of medication her suit had pumped into her.

 “Who are you?” a voice asked, and she turned her neck with an effort to see a trio of people with work suits, two of them carrying a stretcher. She struggled to focus as they repeated the question. “Who are you? Where are you from?” 

 “Sub-Lieutenant,” she paused and gasped, the painkillers already beginning to fade out, “Barbara Bradley. Battlecruiser Alamo.” Pointing at the crash, she said, “Senior Lieutenant Dixon.”

 “Relax, Lieutenant,” a calming voice said, “We’re going to get you back to Third Landing, get you into our medical bay. We’ve already got a doctor on the way from Sagan City.”

 “Tell Alamo,” she said, looking up at the opaque helmets. “Tell them what happened. My husband,” she gasped again, “and Dixon’s. They need to know.” She struggled to fight off the gray fog beginning to overwhelm her, and said, “Tell them!”

 “We’ll try,” the voice said.

 Nodding, Bradley relaxed, and let the fog carry her away.

Chapter 28

 Cooper looked out of his viewport, watching his wife’s fighter dive away from the formation, heading for Mars with a host of death on her tail, his eyes widening as she swept down towards the atmosphere. He felt a hand on his shoulder, tapping him twice, and looked up to see Sergeant Forrest standing behind him.

 “Game face on, sir. Time for our party.” Looking past him, he said, “She’ll make it. She’s a damn good pilot. You want something to worry about, take a look at that big beast up ahead.”

 Nodding, Cooper switched his view to look at the battleship. Somehow, it hadn’t seemed that large when they were looking at it in the simulators. Almost a mile of twisting metal, revolving along and internal core, festooned with equipment, missile tubes, launch bays. At full strength, it would carry a crew of nearly five hundred, including a hundred Espatiers, enough to dwarf Alamo’s complement of a hundred and fifty. If they had anything like those numbers on board, this battle was going to end almost as soon as it started.

 “We’re on the spin,” Cooper said as the shuttle began to thrust up, heading towards its designated airlock, close to the command section of the ship. He hoped. “Stand by to deploy as soon as we hit the deck.” Looking around at the all-too-eager men with him, people who had gone to battle with him before more times than he could count, he continued, “I don’t need to tell you what this fight means. You all know. A lot of people are depending on us to make this work, sixty million of them. Let’s put on a good show.”

 The shuttle turned around, ramping on the deceleration as it closed on its target, and he said, “Remember. Our mission today is strategic. We’ve got to take our three objectives in five minutes or it’s all over. If you haven’t received the word after that time is up, set your charges and pray.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “We don’t have time to spare for anything other than getting to our targets. Don’t give the enemy a break, and don’t stop. Lethal force authorized, and don’t let them get the first shot in.”

 He shocked himself, perhaps more than he shocked his men, with that. That he was boarding a Triplanetary ship in earnest was difficult enough to take, but that he’d just ordered his men to fire first and ask questions later in such a raid was harder still. He tried to tell himself that these were escaped prisoners, that they had chosen their course of action, and that far more people would die in the war they were fighting to prevent, but none of that helped.

 Oddly, the thought of his wife spiraling down to the surface, a likely casualty of that war, that helped. With an effort, he pushed it to the back of his mind, tried to ignore it. This was business, not revenge, and that couldn’t be a part of what they were doing today, no matter how justified it might be. His personal business could be postponed. For five minutes, in any case.

 With a loud slam, the shuttle locked into position, the locks remaining stubbornly closed for a few seconds before the intrusion software forced them open. Cooper led the charge into the ship, racing down the docking corridor to the main entry terminus. A pair of troopers – Triplanetary Espatiers – were waiting for them at the far end, and despite his order, he couldn’t bring himself to shoot them, his gun useless in his hand.

 Lomax and Forrest proved to have no such compunctions, firing snapshots that beat their rivals to the punch, dropping them to the deck.

 “Problem, sir?” Forrest said, locking eyes with him.

 “Negative, Sergeant. You head for Engineering, I’ll take the Bridge. Good luck.” Looking around, he said, “Second Squad, to me!”

 As his men rallied towards him, he heard a loud noise from behind, a clattering on the deck, and a quintet of troopers charged at his assembling men, guns in their hands. This time he turned and fired, a shot narrowly missing the lead trooper, who returned fire with his rifle. Cooper felt himself being thrown to the deck, and the mass of Forrest lay on top of him, his breath reduced to hacking coughs, his chest a bloody ruin.

 “Get those bastards!” Lomax screamed, leading a counter-charge, bullets flying in all directions as Cooper tried to ease Forrest into a more comfortable position, looking to see if there was anything he could do to save his friend’s life.

 “Gabe,” he rasped, “Finish this mess.” The grizzled veteran coughed, sending blood splattering onto Cooper’s uniform, and said, “Do better next time. Tell those bastards. Do better.” His voice trailed away, and gently, Cooper laid him on the deck, running his hand across his eyes to close them.

 “We’ve got them, sir,” Lomax said, pointing at three bodies – three more dead Espatiers – down the corridor. “Two of them are running.”

 “Take First Squad, Lomax,” Cooper said.

 “But Corporal…”

 “Take First Squad! Take Engineering! And if you can’t, blow this god-damned ship right back to the hell it came from! Is that clear!”

 “Yes, sir,” the stunned trooper said, pausing for a breath before racing down the corridor, five men following. Cooper looked around, gestured in the other direction, and started to run, not waiting to see if anyone was with him.

 Four minutes and thirty seconds to go. A loud grinding noise started to whine from the far end of the corridor, someone opting to close the blast doors in an attempt to contain the attack. Doubling his pace, he sped down, ducking under it, only two others making it through in time, the rest futilely pounding on the metal.

 “Blow the damn thing!” Cooper yelled into his communicator. “Follow when you can!”

 Everything was building up inside him, a white-hot ball of rage that threatened to carry him away. His wife, almost certainly dead, and Sergeant Forrest, his oldest remaining friend in the service, shot by one of his fellow Espatiers. When another pair of Zeus crewmen turned around the corridor, pistols in their hands, he didn’t hesitate for a second before unleashing a pair of shots into them, sending their bodies sprawling to the deck.

 There wasn’t time to find out if they were alive or not, and a part of his mind was disgusted when he realized that he didn’t really care. He jumped over the bodies and turned down the corridor, leaving them behind. Behind him, he heard an explosion, and paused for a second before realizing that the rest of his force must have got through the blast doors and were on their way to join him.

 It was then he realized that he was lost. He looked down the corridor, then up a side shaft, and couldn’t work out where to go. His knowledge of the interior of the ship was vague enough anyway, and in the heat of battle he’d moved too quickly. Three minutes and forty seconds before he had to set the charge that the last trooper was carrying, then try and get the rest of his squad out of there.

 No time for anything other than guesswork, and knowing what was at stake, while cursing himself for losing track earlier in his rage, he picked a direction and ran, his squad on his tail, not knowing that he didn’t know where he was going. He smiled as he saw the wall consoles get more complicated – a good sign. Backup systems monitors, extra life support telltales, and a series of escape pods along one wall. A lot of important people worked on this deck.

 Just over a minute later, he turned a last corner and walked into a firefight, half a dozen shots cracking through the air. Instinctively, he tumbled to the ground, dropping and rolling away, and somehow managed to get back into cover without being hit. The trooper behind him was less lucky, staggering back with a bullet through his shoulder, blood spilling out onto the newly-carpeted corridor.

 “That’s far enough!” a voice yelled. “We’ve got your other teams contained, it’s all over!”

 “Not yet it isn’t!” Cooper said. “If we don’t take that bridge in two minutes, we’ll blow your damned ship to pieces!”

 There was a brief pause, and he said, “You’re bluffing. None of you would get out of the blast radius in time. You’d be torn to pieces in the escape pods.”

 Replying with a brief bark of laughter, Cooper said, “When I joined up, I was told that I might have to die in this uniform. That’s fine with me if it stops you!”

 Counting to ten, Cooper waited as the murmuring dissent around the corner built, some of the troopers obviously arguing for them to come to terms, and then screamed, “Now!” at his men, and rolled back around the corner, firing on instinct.

 His first bullet hit home, catching one of the troopers – another Ensign, by his rank insignia – and sending him falling to the deck. It was over in seconds, shots all around, screams and cries filling the air as the two sides exchanged fire. No cover, no skill, just random luck deciding who lived and who died.

 Cooper looked around, cautiously getting to his feet. Three of his squad were still mobile. At the far end of the corridor, a young Lance-Corporal had tossed his rifle away, and had his hands raised in reluctant surrender. He looked down at him, then at the body of the Ensign on the floor, and shook his head. If things had only been slightly different, that might be him lying there, dead in the defense of his ship.

 “Can you open these?” he asked the surviving guard.

 “If I could, I wouldn’t.”

 “Ninety seconds, sir,” one of his troopers said. Their names and faces seemed to blur. For a second Cooper thought he could see Zabek’s face instead, and he was back on Hades Station fighting the Cabal. He closed his eyes, allowing himself a few precious seconds, then looked around.

 “Crack it.”

 “We could take out the corridor…”

 “Crack it, Private! Hull integrity be damned!”

 Two of his team moved forward, setting charges in preselected places, working quickly but methodically as Cooper watched, covering the Lance-Corporal with his rifle.

 “Why, Corporal?” he asked.

 “I’m doing my duty to save the Confederation,” the prisoner snapped back.

 “Funny,” Cooper replied, “That’s what I’m doing as well.”

 The charges prepared, the squad retreated back out of the blast area, dragging their reluctant prisoner behind them. Less than thirty seconds before they would have to set a rather larger bomb, and they still had no word from the other squads. If Lomax and Fuller had failed, none of this was going to matter. All three attacks had to succeed.

 It felt like the ship was already being smashed into pieces. The charges had not been conservative, and the deck shook, debris falling to the floor, shrapnel raining through the air. Blind to the risks, Cooper raced forward, not waiting for his men, charging through the breach screaming like a banshee, waving his gun dangerously around.

 “That’s it!” he yelled. “Everyone move away from their stations!” He looked around, saw the surprise on the face of the technicians snapping their hands away as though their controls had become white-hot. Ackerman – according to about half the Senate, the President of the Triplanetary Confederation – was sitting in the command chair, and slowly turned to face him, a tall, blonde woman standing by his side. She raised her pistol to shoot him, but Cooper fired first, and she folded to the floor, clutching her side. He quickly raced up, and kicked her weapon away.

 Cooper’s communicator crackled, messages queued for his attention, and barked, “We’ve taken Engineering. Ninety seconds to go!” Another voice, badly distorted, added, “Weapons secured.”

 “Mr. Vice-President,” Cooper said, mustering as much decorum as the situation permitted, “You are under arrest on charges of treason.” It was only then that he saw the pistol nestled in his hand. “We hold this ship, sir.”

 Nodding, he replied, “That is my understanding.”

 “I want the fighters recalled, right now. They are to jettison all remaining missiles and land on Phobos.”

 “Irwin,” Ackerman said, “Do as the Ensign commands.”

 “Sir…”

 “Do it, Spaceman. We’ve lost this game.”  He gestured at the rifle, and said, “Are you really planning to shoot me, Ensign?”

 Dropping the barrel to the deck, he shook his head, saying, “No, sir.”

 “Pity,” he replied, raising his pistol to his forehead in one quick motion, pulling the trigger before Cooper could even move. Blood and brains spilled out onto the chair and the deck behind him, and Ackerman’s body slumped forward to pile onto the deck, while one of the technicians began to scream.

 “Ensign!” Cooper’s communicator yelled. “This is Alamo! What’s going on? Status report, and make it quick!”

 His face white from shock, he replied, “We’ve secured Zeus, Captain. Fighters recalled.” Looking at the blood still spilling out onto the deck, he continued, “Ackerman’s dead. He shot himself before we could take him.”

 “Cooper, we got word from Mars…” Marshall said, before the signal faded out for a moment. He looked down at his rifle, smiled, and wondered if Ackerman perhaps hadn’t had the right idea.

 “She’s alive. Badly hurt, but alive. Ryder’s on the way with a prize crew to take command, her shuttle will take you down to the surface.”

 Lomax raced through the hatch, a smile on his face until he saw the corpse of the Vice-President on the carpet. With a grimace, he shook his head, and clapped Cooper on the back.

 “We did it, sir! We won!”

 “This is victory, is it? It sure as hell doesn't feel like it.” Looking around the room, he continued, “Take command, I’m going down to the shuttle deck.”

 “Sir?” the stunned Lance-Corporal asked.

 “I don’t see anyone else here on our side, Lomax. Ryder will be up in a few minutes. Until then,” he said, gesturing around, “you have the deck.”

 Looking around the room with the first traces of panic on his face, he replied, “Aye, I have the deck.”

 Cooper raced to the elevator, jabbing for the hangar deck. He needed to see his wife, but even more than that, he needed to get off this ship. Though he had a feeling that he’d be coming back whenever he tried to sleep, at least for a while.

Chapter 29

 Orlova took a swig of water, from a three-liter jug that had been full when she started, and glanced down at her watch. By now, it must all be over, one way or another, up there in orbit. It was time to bring this to an end, and she suspected that the bleary-eyed Senators around her agreed. In less than two hours, they were to rest in any case.

 “Mr. Chairman,” she said, “I have spoken at length to those assembled…”

 “Damn right,” a dejected Yashimoto said.

 “And I think that it is time to bring these proceedings to an end. By now, Lieutenant Geoffrey Talbot, a citizen of Ragnarok, will be waiting outside with a report for me; I request his admittance that he can brief the Senate on, ah, current events.”

 “I second the motion,” Senator Harper said.

 “How do we know he’ll tell the truth?” Norman replied.

 Shrugging, Orlova said, “I have a feeling some of your people will be outside as well. Captain Tarrant, perhaps. I have no objection to their presence in the chamber also, to confirm the veracity of Lieutenant Talbot’s report.”

 Senator Wilcox, rising to his feet, said, “We’ve been here too long as it is. If this will convince Senator Orlova to cease her filibuster, then I’m willing to allow this. Hell, I want to know what’s happened as much as the rest of you.”

 “I still dissent,” Norman said, but the mood of the room was obviously against her. “Nevertheless, I am not unsympathetic to Senator Wilcox's argument. I withdraw my protest.”

 The doors opened, and two people walked in; Lieutenant Talbot, wearing a dazed expression, and a stony-faced Captain Tarrant. They entered side-by-side, but neither seeming to acknowledge the other’s existence.  

 “Lieutenant Talbot,” Orlova said. “If you could brief the Senate on what has happened.” She was holding her breath, trying to read his expression. “Please?”

 Nodding, he said, “The Battleship Zeus has been captured by forces deployed from the Battlecruiser Alamo; Alamo is currently in orbit, and a shuttle is on its way down right now with key witnesses to a conspiracy to bring down the Senate.” He glared at Tarrant, and said, “Vice-President Ackerman is dead. He took his own life, rather than be captured. We have recordings of his action if you wish to view them.”

 “No!” Norman yelled. “He can’t be dead!”

 “He is!” Tarrant said, storming over to her. “We picked a weak sister, damn it, and he shot himself right on Zeus’ bridge. It’s finished, Melody. We’re all finished. Even the Planetary Defense Control’s switched sides, Lieutenant-Captain Winter’s running it for the moment.” Turning to Olongo, he said, “I will testify to the truth of Senator Orlova’s accusations. I don’t ask anything for this. I just want it all over with, for the good of the Confederation.”

 “You damn traitor!” Norman said.

 Orlova rubbed her eyes, trying to wipe away tears of relief, and said, “I move that the impeachment of President Newton be immediately dismissed.”

 “I second!” Harper yelled.

 “No,” Norman said, racing forward. “The man is a disgrace to his position!”

 “You’re no better,” Wilcox said. “I instruct the Technocrats to vote to dismiss charges of impeachment.”

 “A motion has been proposed, and will now be put to the question. All those in favor of dismissing the charges of impeachment, raise their hands.” Orlova tried to count, and got to thirty-two. With seventy-five voting members, it just wasn’t enough. She tumbled to her chair, the world beginning to spin.

 “Those opposed.”

 Another forest of hands, all of the Progressives and a few of the Technocrats. Twenty-nine. Orlova looked up, eyes darting around the room.

 “Those abstaining.”

 Fourteen hands, mostly Technocrats, a couple from the Freedom Party, and the lone independent. Pulling herself to her feet, she looked at Olongo, who smiled.

 “A majority of the votes cast having been in favor of the motion, I hereby announce that the motion to dismiss the charges of impeachment against President Newton is dismissed.”

 Before anyone could say anything more, Harper rose, and shouted, “I move to ratify the modified peace treaty with the Cabal.”

 The second vote was far more one-sided than the first; forty-nine against twenty-one, with five abstentions. The parties were far more unified this time. Technocrats and most of the Freedom lobby in favor, the Progressives unsurprisingly opposed. Harper shook his head, as though he couldn’t believe that the tide had turned that quickly.

 “With a majority of the members of the Senate so voting, I hereby announce that the peace treaty with the Cabal has been ratified.”

 “This isn’t over,” Norman said. “We’ll see what happens after the election.”

 “After this debacle, I think a lot of us are going to have to find new jobs,” Harper replied.

 “Given the late hour and the length of the day,” Olongo began, “I propose that the Senate rests.”

 “Wait!” Orlova said. “I propose charges of impeachment against President Newton.”

 The room exploded in a wave of fury, shouts and cries from all corners of the room, disbelief on Harper’s face while Norman’s eyes seemed to bulge out of her sockets. Olongo slammed his gavel on the desk, attempting to bring order to the chaos.

 “I will clear the room if I must!” he yelled. “Senator Orlova, once again,” he sighed, “has the floor.”

 “You just spent twenty hours trying to clear him!” Yashimoto yelled.

 “I spent twenty hours getting a peace treaty passed, and exposing a conspiracy against the Triplanetary government,” she replied. “That doesn’t make what he did any more excusable, and it certainly should not be ignored by this chamber. We are a nation of laws, not men, and while I acknowledge that there is no time for a proper debate, I want it on the record.”

 “What’s the point?” Wilcox asked. “Nothing will happen. You just tossed the Freedom Party on the scrap heap.”

 “Permit me to surprise the hell out of all of you. I voted Progressive at the last election, and I think their chances of victory just dropped through the floor as well. This is not a matter for party politics, but a simple question of ethics. I had to clear him to stop a greater sin from happening, but at no point did I disprove the allegations against him.” Pointing at Harper, she said, “You knew, for months, what he had done, and did nothing.”

 He nodded, then said, “Yes. I admit that. There were reasons.”

 “Senator Norman, I don’t suppose you’ll answer me if I ask, but I’m damn sure that you were sitting on this as well, waiting for the election. If the chance to start the war you wanted hadn’t come up, I presume that it would have been suddenly discovered with a few days to go, enough for it to do the rounds of the media.” Raising a hand, she said, “Don’t bother answering.”

 Looking around the room, she said, “You have a job to do, and I think most of you still remember what that is. Some of you have forgotten. The President should have been impeached as soon as the allegations came out. They should have been investigated, and if true, action should have been taken.”

 “Damn it,” Harper said, “we needed those battleships in the fleet, not tied up in Senate investigations for ten years. Politics isn’t about black and white…”

 “It’s about the tough decisions,” she said. “I’ve been in the center seat enough times to know what that’s like, but you do the right thing. Not the easiest thing, not the most expedient thing. There were avenues you could have taken, Senator. Don’t try to deny that.”

 Olongo said, “You shame us, Senator.”

 “That is not my intent. Lieutenant Talbot, have you got a report for me?”

 “I do,” he said, passing her a datapad. “I think the end is the most important section.”

 She skimmed it for a second, looked up, and said, “One thousand and ninety-three.”

 “What does that mean?” Norman asked.

 “The Triplanetary casualties in the Battle of Hades Station, and in the battle we fought overhead. Add to that another fifteen hundred or so on the Cabal side. Those are the lives you played with, Senator. You killed them as surely as if you had pulled the trigger yourself.” Looking around the room, she said, “None of you are free of this guilt! All of these deaths are on your conscience, and I hope you wake up screaming in the night when their ghosts come back to haunt you.”

 Wilcox stood up, frowned, and said, “The Technocrats have always opposed war…”

 “But you played the game as well, Senator, didn’t you? Assumed that there would be another chance to make peace, and that the electorate would vote you in rather than face a certain war.” Slamming the datapad on the desk, she said, “This is not a game! This is real life! Most of you have worn the uniform in the past. You know better than this.” Gesturing at the room, she said, “Sixty million people count on you, and you let each and every one of them down.”

 “We can’t bring back the dead,” Harper said.

 “No,” she replied, picking up the datapad again. “I’ve just learned that an old friend of mine, Sergeant William Forrest of the Espatiers, died in action on Zeus. Senator Wilcox?”

 “Yes?”

 “I’m no expert, but I’d say that the Technocrats now have an excellent chance of taking the Presidency at the election. Which will give you the job, will it not?”

 “Should my party win, I am the nominated candidate, yes.”

 “Then Sergeant Forrest’s last words are for you. Just four words. Do better next time.” The words echoed around the room, and she said, “You could all do worse than remember that. Senator Olongo, I hereby resign the office of Senator. If anyone wants to arrest me, they can go ahead.”

 “I move that all charges against Captain Marshall, Lieutenant Orlova, and the others involved in preventing this conspiracy be dropped,” Senator Wilcox said.

 “I second the motion,” Yashimoto said.

 Olongo nodded, then asked, “Is anyone going to be foolish enough to object? No? In that case, Lieutenant, I will see that the relevant authorities are instructed that the charges the Senate made against you and your comrades are dropped.”

 “Thank you, Senator.”

 “I move that the Senate rests,” Senator Harper said. No-one objected, and Olongo banged his gavel three times, ending the session. The Senators stood up, and Wilcox immediately made his way over to Orlova, pushing through the crowd.

 “Lieutenant,” he said. “If you want, I’d be happy to give you a place on our lists for the election. You could be a Senator again in three weeks, and I think you’d give extremely valuable input.”

 “No, thanks,” she replied. “This isn’t my place.”

 “No,” he said with a frown. “You’re obviously too good for this job.”

 With a deep sigh, she said, “I don’t understand this world, Senator. It isn’t something I know. I came here to do a job, and I did it. I wouldn’t know where to begin in a regular session.”

 “Most of us were the same when we started,” he said. “Though given what happened, I don’t think that’s a good argument to make.”

 “You want to do something for me, Senator?”

 “What?” he said, the beginnings of a scowl emerging.

 “Remember what Forrest said. You’re going to be the President of the Triplanetary Confederation. Do a better job than your predecessor. And speaking purely from a military point-of-view, don’t let fleet strength drop. The Progressives had a point; I don’t believe that the Cabal will stop working against us because a piece of paper said so.”

 “On one condition,” he replied.

 “And that is?”

 “If I ever write you for advice, I expect a good, honest, prompt answer. And I suspect I will.”

 She smiled, and held out her hand, “I’ll hold you to that.” He took it with a surprisingly firm grip, shook it, and then headed off into the crowd. Talbot moved up to her side, tapping her on the shoulder.

 “I’ve got a shuttle waiting outside,” he said. “Ready to take us to Captain Marshall. He’ll be down on the deck in ten minutes. Captain Winter will be there as well.”

 “Good,” Senator Olongo said, moving over to her. “I'm third in the line of succession, remember. You just made me the Acting President, I believe I have a mess to clear up in my limited time in office. I’m glad that I’m not running for re-election. Shall we go?”

Chapter 30

 “I'm sorry, Jack,” Marshall said, looking across at the dejected Quinn standing next to him, still staring at the crash site where the clean-up team was trying to extricate the remains of his wife. “She didn't die for nothing. She saved the ship.”

 “From our own people,” he said, shaking her head. “What the hell is the point of it all?”

 “Keeping the darkness away for one more day,” he replied. “That isn't nothing.”

 Looking up at his commander, tears staining his eyes, he said, “I'll bury her myself. Out in space. That's what she'd have wanted.”

 “You can take all the leave time you want.”

 “To be frank, I'm tempted just to tell the service to go to hell. I'm a veteran; I can get out whenever I want.”

 “But you aren't going to do it.”

 After a long pause, he shook his head, and said, “That's not what she'd have wanted. It still hurts, damn it, and it always will. There's no point losing my ship as well, though.”

 “Your ship?” Marshall said, forcing a smile.

 “You ship masters are all alike,” he said, trying to find relief in the banter. “You just fly the shuttle. The engineers own it.” He paused, shook his head, and said, “Maybe I should take a while.”

 “All the time you need,” Marshall replied, clapping him on the shoulder. “I know what you are going through. I've been there.”

 “Does it ever get any easier?”

 Taking a deep breath, he said, “I've still got a gaping hole in my soul. Sometimes I can bury it. That gets easier with time.” Looking out over the desert again, he added, “Stay with the family, Jack. Assuming I can keep it together.”

 Nodding, he replied, “They'll have to drag me off that ship.” With a sigh, he said, “By your leave?”

 “Go,” Marshall said. Quinn nodded, then walked out of the room, the doors opening onto an argument that Orlova seemed to be having with a blonde woman wearing civilian clothes.

 “What do you mean I can't publish anything!” she yelled.

 “I did warn you,” Orlova replied.

 “This is just a lot of...,” her voice was cut off by the door slamming shut, Caine stepping in at the last minute.

 “Danny, the shuttle’s on final approach. They’ll be here in a minute,” she said. “How's Jack?”

 “Hurting like hell. One more casualty of this nightmare. Another of the perpetual walking wounded.” Shaking his head, he continued, “I want to get away from here. Get clear of this mess.”

 “I know what you mean,” Logan replied, walking into the room. “I got tired of waiting. Orlova's really having fun out there.”

 “Good work at Planetary Defense, by the way” Caine said.

 “I’m spending most of the next week updating their intrusion protocols for them,” he replied. “Hours of paperwork and inspections, but maybe some good will come of it in the long run.”

 “How can you be so sanguine about this?”

 “I’m a damn good actor, Captain,” Logan said.

 The door opened, and Orlova walked in, hurriedly closing the door behind her. Marshall ran over to her and wrapped her in a bear hug, Caine heading over to clap her on the back.

 “Hey, I need to breathe!” she said. “It’s good to see you guys too, though.”

 “I’m sorry for leaving you to handle this mess,” Marshall said. 

 “You thought you were leaving me at Staff College, remember.” Shaking her head, she said, “My erstwhile teacher is singing to the prosecutors right now. I managed to break away from the gaggle for a moment; I don’t know what Sena...President Olongo has in mind, but I wanted to see you first. How many dead?”

 “Forrest, Dixon, maybe a dozen others. Mostly Espatiers. Cooper’s pretty shaken up. He’s in with his wife right now. I’ve already signed off on three month’s leave for both of them to sort themselves out. Alamo can manage without them for a while.”

 “You’re assuming that they’ll still be on Alamo,” Caine said.

 “A safe enough assumption, Lieutenant,” Olongo said, walking into the room with Senator Harper behind him. “They will be, and as long as they stay out of the way, I have no objection to their taking leave.”

 “I think Cooper’s uncle’s arranging them passage on one of his ships to Ragnarok. They don’t want to be bothered either.”

 “Tell me, how is Sub-Lieutenant Bradley?”

 “She’ll walk again,” Marshall said. “Though it’s going to be a long recovery period.”

 “Pass on my regards to her. To all of your crew. We owe them all a debt we can never repay.” Turning to Orlova, he said, “I understand you turned down the offer of a Senate position from the Technocrats. You might not be aware that the Patriots have made you a similar offer.”

 “Who?”

 “The Progressive Party has shattered into two; the Patriots are the larger, breaking away from Norman. I think it likely that she will lose her seat at the election, something which does not displease me. Captain Marshall, you likewise have received similar offers.”

 “Not interested.”

 “That, too, does not displease me.” He looked out of the window, and said, “I’m going to concede that what you did was necessary, and that there are persons in the Senate who let things go too far. Hopefully the electorate will punish them.”

 “Certainly,” Harper said, “We’re going to do the best we can to make sure of that. There’s some information we can leak. Perhaps your journalist friend will oblige, Ms. Orlova. I understand she has ambitions to become a political columnist.”

 “Journalist friend?” Caine asked.

 “Long story,” Orlova replied. “Long, long story.”

 Turning to face Olongo, Marshall said, “Why do I have the feeling that you are about to do something to us that I’m not going to like.”

 “All of us in this room agree on one thing, I presume. That what has happened here cannot become public knowledge. If it came out that we danced this close to a coup, confidence in the military and political arms of the Confederation would collapse. We could easily have a real civil war.”

 Nodding, Caine said, “We took steps to restrict the information as much as possible.”

 “You aren’t going to let them get away with it,” Orlova said. “And how the hell do you explain what happened in orbit?”

 “Operation Talon,” Olongo said. “The Battlecruiser Alamo was instructed to attempt a simulated attack on Mars, testing the capacities of the Battleship Zeus in actual combat conditions. Enemy agents – Cabal, UN, we don’t know – managed to sabotage the missile guidance systems remotely, causing what looked a lot like a battle.” He smiled, then said, “There was so much jamming going on up there, there are few reliable records in any case.”

 “We’re on the case,” another voice said, and Fleet Captain Paine, head of Triplanetary Intelligence, stepped into the room. “By tomorrow, the orbital engagement will be properly concealed. That leaves the human factor.”

 “Everything else happened outside the system,” Olongo said, “and was witnessed only by serving officers. Some of which are to be arrested under charges of treason.” Turning to Orlova, he said, “You very helpfully indicated that there was a Cabal conspiracy going on to the press. I’m happy to report that we have caught something on the order of thirty traitors, all of whom have agreed to testify in exchange for sentence reduction. Tarrant, Rogers, Watson, a host of others.”

 “As long as they face justice,” Orlova said. 

 “We’re sending them to Driftwind, to join the Cabal prisoners out there already. It seems a logical place to dump them, and there they are in no position to tell anyone anything.” He paused, then said, “Certainly their crime merits a life sentence. All of them have already agreed to the plea bargain that will give them their one-way ticket.” Looking at Marshall closely, he said, “That leaves you and your crew, Captain Marshall. The only others who know the truth.”

 “Are we going to be dumped on Driftwind as well?” he said with a scowl.

 “No, Captain, I will not do that. For one thing, you are a hero. Word of what happened at Hades Station has begun to spread, and your actions in commanding the forces that secured that facility have not gone unnoticed.”

 “What, then? Are we to be spread across the galaxy again?”

 Taking a seat, Olongo said, “It goes a lot further that just you, Captain. More than a hundred Fleet officers have resigned in the last hour, using a combination of disagreement about the treaty and blame for the Cabal spy ring as their reasons.” He smiled, and said, “All confusing enough that the press will quickly come up with their own story. That includes the top five officers in Personnel, the top four in Deep Space Operations, all but one of the Combined Chiefs.” He shook his head, “Those officers will of course be replaced. Tomorrow. For today, the chain of command has been shattered.”

 “Meaning?”

 “That today, we can pretty much do what we want to do. What state is Alamo in, Captain?”

 “We’d need repairs before a battle, and I just lost my Systems Officer.”

 “Can you find a new one?”

 “Maybe.”

 “Pick anyone you want, and that goes for your crew. I’m sending you to Hunter Station to make repairs.”

 “Ragnarok? That's only a tripwire outpost at the moment.”

 “With enough maintenance facilities attached to allow you to spend as much time as you need putting the pieces back together. You see, Captain, I have the notion that you ought to be out on the frontier, for everyone’s sake. I need you and your crew out of the way for a few years, to buy time for this all to fade away into the past. At least four years.”

 “After the election after next,” Caine said.

 “Exactly. Captain Winter was wise enough to ensure that none of the crew who went out with you had families back home.”

 “I can’t run Alamo with that small a crew…”

 “You don’t have to. Take anyone you want. I mean that quite literally. The only ones who have to stay out there are the ones who know the truth.”

 “They won’t talk,” Marshall said. “They’re loyal.”

 “And they never get drunk? Couldn’t be snatched off the streets and interrogated with drugs?” Shaking his head, Olongo said, “This isn’t fair, I know, but I can soften the blow. Tell me, Captain, what is your dream assignment?”

 “Deep space exploration.”

 “Heard of Yeager Station?”

 “I have,” Orlova said. “A small outpost at AD Leonis, one jump out from Ragnarok. Established last year, just after we left for Spitfire.”

 “Right now that’s all it is, but I think it can be something more. To one side, there is the Cabal. To the other, uncharted space. Your job is to watch the border in that region, and to launch a four-year mission of exploration beyond. To see what lies beyond our ramparts.” With a smile, he said, “And I am promoting you, officially for what you did at Hades Station, to Fleet Captain.”

 “Why?”

 “Because your current rank is worthless to you. As a Fleet Captain, you can command both Alamo, and at least a small task force. I’m assigning two more ships to you, to meet you at Ragnarok, crews to be selected at your discretion.” He looked up at Marshall, and said, “Isn’t this what you wanted? To get your ship back, and to get a long-range mission. No-one back home will interfere with you, as long as you don’t start any wars.”

 “That’s in pretty bad taste,” Orlova said.

 Looking up, he said, “You also are promoted. To Senior Lieutenant. On the grounds that you have made sufficient enemies back home that you are unlikely to rise through the ranks on merit, but I am assured that you are worth keeping in the service.”

 “A bribe?”

 “You can do the job, Maggie,” Logan said. “I presume you’re going to be Alamo’s Operations Officer again? Doesn’t that normally require the Senior Lieutenant rank?”

 “I’ve been in the service for less than four years…”

 “Rather active years, though,” Olongo said. “Captain Marshall...Fleet Captain Marshall, I beg your pardon, what do you think?”

 “I agree, and the job is hers if she wants it.”

 She looked at him, and nodded, “I’ll take it. For a while, anyway.”

 “You have the crew you want, the mission you want, and be honest with me, do you really want to come back here any time soon?” Olongo asked, looking at Marshall.

 “I can’t wait to leave.”

 “Then this seems like an eminently suitable solution to all concerned.”

 “What about me?” Logan asked.

 “You are to be assigned as commander of the scout squadron. Which incidentally will be boosted to three ships as soon as Wyvern finishes her repairs.”

 “That makes less sense than sending me to Spitfire did.”

 Stepping forward, Paine said, “You’re in charge of the Cabal Desk, Logan. Permanently. We both know that the job needs to be done from the front, and where better to start getting agents into the Cabal, work to bringing it down? Think of those scoutships as intelligence assets. There's method to our madness.”

 “We’ve bought some time today,” Olongo said, “but we all know that the Cabal are still going to work against us. You said so yourself, Ms. Orlova. We need to build up our defenses, and to prove that point, Ares will be taking your friend the Commandant home.  We must also work to infiltrate operatives, build up an intelligence network. Another job for you, Captain Marshall. A critical one.”

 “It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

 “Our major bases are to be at Ragnarok, Spitfire and Hydra,” Harper said, nodding. “Our efforts must be forcued there, which means that our ability to support you long-term is likely to be limited. We can manage one big convoy of materials and personnel, but the rest is up to you.”

 “Or, Captain, you could refuse my offer, and likely end up in Public Relations, touring schools and the like. Of course, the Senate remains an option.”

 “And my crew?”

 “Scattered across the galaxy, as Lieutenant Caine suggested.”

 Marshall looked out over the window, back at the crash site again. Caine walked up to his side, her arm on his shoulder, and followed his gaze, while the others waited at the far side of the room.

 “We still have a job to do, Danny. We can do it out there.”

 “We?” he asked.

 “I’ll stick while you do. You need someone to keep you on your toes.”

 He smiled, then said, “I’ll want Ensign Cooper to command my Espatiers when he gets back. He’ll likely want to train them himself.”

 Harper looked at Olongo, then said, “We’ll arrange it. A training command at Ragnarok, attached to you. You can bring them in when they are ready.”

 “And Alamo needs to be loaded with everything it needs. Nothing left out. Fighters, shuttles, the works. A full science team, as well.”

 “Personnel is your business, Captain.”

 “In that case, I agree.”

 “Splendid,” Olongo said, rising to his feet. “I’ll cut the orders immediately. Alamo can shape for the hendecaspace point as soon as the funeral services are completed…” 

 “Immediately,” Marshall said. “They were our people. We'll handle their burial.”

 “As you wish.” He smiled, then said, “I won’t ask you to shake my hand. I will simply wish you the best of luck in your new assignment.”

 The two politicians walked out of the room, and Caine said, “Orders, sir?”

 “Are there any leave facilities on Ragnarok?”

 “Last I heard, some outfit was going bust trying to set up adventure holidays out there,” Logan volunteered.

 “They're about to catch a break. Have them all booked for us. We’re going to get leave, even if it is out on the wild frontier.”

 “Don't tell the Rockies that's what you think of them,” Orlova said.

 With a smile, Marshall added, “Then we’re going to get Alamo ready for a cruise, and go back out again. Let’s see what’s out there.”

 He looked out at the horizon, then up at the stars. One of the lights moving across his field of vision was Alamo. His ship, once again. For a year he’d raced to get back to Mars, but it was only now that he was really going home.

Thank you for reading 'Traitor's Duty'. For information on future releases, please join the Battlecruiser Alamo Mailing List at http://eepurl.com/A9MdX for updates. If you enjoyed this book, please review it on the site where you purchased it.

The writer's blog is available at http://tinyurl.com/pjl96dj

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30