Crown of Slaves

"It wasn't our idea to hire those crazy Masadans, boss. In all fairness, it wasn't even Diem's—and Ringstorff tried to talk them out of it. If you want to blame somebody, kick it upstairs. It was the Council that made the decision."

Lassiter ground his teeth. Everything Takashi said was true. But Lassiter was the type of supervisor who fawned over his superiors and lorded it over his subordinates. He wasn't about to send a blistering message to the three Manpower top executives who were part of the Mesan task force lurking in the barren, u

"And we're almost out of time," Takashi pointed out. None of Lassiter's other subordinates would have been that bold. But Takashi had his own patrons in Manpower's hierarchy, and beyond a certain point didn't have to put up with Lassiter's temper.

Fortunately, Lassiter's tantrum had calmed him down a bit. He was still angry, but was able to think more or less clearly.

"I don't have any choice, do I?"

Takashi shook his head. "Not unless you want the big shots to hand your head on a platter to the Star Kingdom. And the Manticorans will demand it, if their princess gets killed, don't think they won't."

Lassiter had already come to the same conclusion. If Gauntlet had been commanded by some other officer...

But, she wasn't. Oversteegen, no less!

Scowling, Lassiter brought the display back on. The image of Abraham Templeton returned. The maniac was still studying his chrono, with an intentness that made Lassiter's blood run cold.

"All right, all right," Lassiter said hastily. "We agree. You can dock alongside the space station and we'll do the transfers there. Although I still think—"

"Forget it, Lassiter," rasped the religious fanatic. "There is no way I'll agree to a transfer using shuttles. That would give you too many opportunities for an 'unfortunate lapse.' You can still try to double-cross us once we're docked, of course. But I can guarantee you that I'll take out your very expensive space station as well as the Felicia, if you try it."

Lassiter had, in fact, pla

On the other hand, it had been a long shot anyway, given the need to keep the Manticoran royal alive. So, he mentally shrugged and made the best of a bad situation. A really bad situation.

"We'll be waiting for you," he said curtly. "We'll indicate the docking bay as you approach. Remember: just you and the Princess, that's all. Leave the cargo under lockdown."

A bit lamely, he added: "When I say 'you,' that means all of you."

Templeton didn't even bother to sneer. "Do I look like an idiot? I'll leave two of my men here, Lassiter, until the transfer is complete, the Princess is handed over to you, and we've got control of the ship we'll be leaving the system in. Then—I warn you—even after those two are transferred there'll still be both a remote-controlled detonator as well as a delayed-action detonator left on board the Felicia . You can probably block the remote-controlled one, once we're out of orbit, but I can guarantee you that you won't find the hidden one for at least several hours. Long enough for us to reach hyper-space, at any rate. I'll send you a message letting you know where it is, once I'm sure we're safe from ambush."

"How do I know you'll keep your word?"

Templeton bestowed on him a look which combined fury and contempt. "I swore on the name of the Lord, heathen. Do you doubt me?"

As it happened, Lassiter didn't. He found it hard to imagine himself, but on this subject his briefings had been clear. Crazed they might be, but the religious maniacs could be trusted to keep their word, if they took a holy vow.

"All right. Let's do it, then."

As soon as the contact was broken, Victor Cachat heaved a little sigh of relief and massaged his throat. "That damn rasp is going to give me a permanent sore throat," he grumbled.

From her seat, without looking up, Ruth said cheerfully: "Can't be helped, Victor. Nanotech will change your appearance or even adjust your vocal cords for the right timbre, but changing accents is harder. And—it's a bit shocking, really, for a secret agent—you've got a really thick Havenite accent and your attempts to mimic a Masadan one were pathetic. So, the rasp it is. Ah, the joys of combat injuries. Explains everything."

Victor would have scowled at her, but there was no point. Everything she'd said was true, after all. He'd tried for hours to get a Masadan accent down, and had failed just as miserably as he'd always failed at attempts to disguise his own. That had been one of the few subjects on which he'd been given a barely passing grade in StateSec's academy.

The other option would have been to let someone else undergo the nanotech procedures and try to pass himself off as the now-dead Templeton. But... everyone had agreed that, voice aside, Victor had been the ideal candidate. He more than anyone could act like a Masadan, as Anton Zilwicki had pointed out. Victor still wasn't sure if that was praise or insult. Probably both at the same time.

"Are you ready to support Thandi?" he asked Ruth now, and the princess nodded.

"Well, almost," she qualified. "We're still accessing, and the main security system looks like a stand-alone. But the com hierarchy ties it all together, and I've got access to the main system. And I've located the internal communications and surveillance systems. I'll be into them by the time she can get aboard the station, and I've already tapped the net between the station and Torch."

Cachat grimaced. The ex-slaves had settled on a new name for Congo, after the liberation. "Torch,"the planet would be called thenceforth. The debate had come down to a final decision between "Beacon" and "Torch," and Jeremy had carried the day. A beacon of hope was all very well, he'd agreed, but their world was going to generate more than just light. It was going to ignite the conflagration which would finally reduce Manpower and all of its works to ashes and dust. From the perspective of an agent accustomed to operating in the shadows, Victor found the name a bit overly flamboyant, but the servant of the revolution inside him was firmly on Jeremy's side.

"So notify Thandi that Operation Spartacus is ready to roll," he said almost curtly.

"Just did it," replied Ruth cheerfully. "God, is this fun or what?"

Thandi acknowledged the message from Ruth, then checked her chrono and nodded in satisfaction. She still had a few minutes—long enough for a quick last inspection of her troops. "Quick" was the right word, too. She was now in command of a battalion-sized unit of troops, divided into four companies. Each of those companies was positioned in one of Felicia 's large bays, so Thandi had to visit each of them in her inspection tour.

For all that the dispersal of her troops was a bit of a headache, Thandi found a grim satisfaction in the situation. It was ironic that the large bays Manpower had intended to permit the rapid murder of hundreds of slaves would also permit people wearing battle armor and Marine-issue armored skinsuits to launch a lightning mass assault on Manpower's space station. Anton Zilwicki called it "being hoist on their own petard," an archaic expression which Thandi understood once he explained, but still found a little silly.

She was a bit nervous at the prospect of leading such a large unit into battle, but not much. First, because she had the experience and steadying influence of Lieutenant Colonel Kao Huang at her side. Second, because although Thandi had never herself commanded anything larger than a company before, she'd been an assiduous student since she first joined the Marine Corps. So she'd observed the process at first hand—which, for the past year working with Huang, had put her in close proximity to one of the SLN Marine Corps' premier combat commanders.

But, finally—and probably most importantly—because this entire operation was so far outside normal Marine Corps practice that any amount of prior experience would have still left her jury-rigging almost everything. And, in practice if not in theory, she'd really only be leading a company-sized unit anyway. Her own company, as it happened. Bravo Company, Second Battalion, 877th Solarian Marine Regiment, which she'd been leading for months since its former commandant, Captain Chatterji, had been placed on indefinite medical furlough for the treatment of severe combat injuries.

Bravo Company had been divided into its four platoons, and those platoons would be spearheading the assault on Congo's space station. In theory, they would do so as private volunteers acting as an integral part of company-sized units of the new "Torch Liberation Army."

It was a threadbare mask, perhaps, but not unheard of by any means. OFS frequently used the practice of "granting leave" to entire units which then "volunteered" to "assist" some out-planet regime in the suppression of dissent. Or, more rarely, even in the outright conquest of someone else. The regular SLN and Marines did not, perhaps, but the precedent was there.

Besides, it was supposed to be threadbare, she reminded herself. At the proper time, everyone in the civilized galaxy was supposed to see right through it... although, naturally, no one would officially admit that they had.

So "the Torch Liberation Army" it was. In theory. In practice—as Thandi had made crystal clear to the Ballroom gunfighters and Amazons who filled out the ranks of the battalion—her regular platoons would do all of the fighting. That was true for the assault on the space station, at least, whatever might wind up happening later when the assault on the planet itself occurred. The "friendly fire" casualties and indiscriminate damage which would be sure to occur with a mob of amateurs storming a space station were enough to give her nightmares. The Ballroom and Amazon troops could tag along behind—and get most of the glory—but she wanted them in the back and effectively out of the action.

She'd expected a ferocious argument, but there hadn't been one. For the first time, she and Jeremy X had faced a potential clash—and Jeremy, to her relief, had sidestepped it neatly. She was begi