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"Precisely. You and I know, Major, that the Cadre isn't perfect, whatever the Empire as a whole may believe. We make mistakes. Not often, perhaps, but we make them, and when we do, they can have ... major consequences. Shallingsport was one such mistake."
"Mistake!" Alicia hissed like a curse, then caught herself and pressed her lips together. Keita frowned, but he didn't reprimand her. He simply went on speaking to Ta
"Alley's right," he told her. "It wasn't a mistake that killed ninety-three percent of your company. It was a crime, because those casualties—" he laid his palms on the tabletop, as if for balance "—were completely avoidable. Colonel Watts had in his possession data which gave an accurate picture of the opposition you faced. Data which he suppressed."
Gateau's race was white, twisted with disbelief and anguish, and Keita folded his hands together and frowned down at them.
"He thought he could get away with it, hide it," he said softly, "and he very nearly did."
"But ... but why, sir?"
"Blackmail. The ... foreign power actually behind the Shallingsport terrorists had suborned him. He'd been feeding them information—minor data, but valuable— for seven years before the raid, and he'd been very, very clever. He went through several routine security checks and one regular five-year close scrutiny, and we never realized. But when Shallingsport came up, his employers informed him that he could either cook his intelligence analysis to guarantee a blood bath that ended in failure, or be exposed by them."
"You're saying we were set up," Gateau whispered.
"Exactly. You were supposed to be wiped out and 'push' the terrorists into massacring their hostages, thus blackening the Cadre's reputation and branding the Emperor with the blame for a catastrophic military adventure. That plan failed for only two reasons: the courage and determination of your company and, in particular, of Master Sergeant Alicia DeVries."
Alicia glared at him, hands taloned in her lap under the table edge, and horror boiled behind her eyes. Captain Alwyn and Lieutenant Strassman dead in the drop. Lieutenant Masolle dead two minutes after grounding. First Sergeant Yussuf and her people buying the breakout from the LZ with their lives. And then the nightmare cross-country journey in their powered armor, while people—friends—were picked off, blown apart, incinerated in gouts of plasma or shattered by tungsten penetrators from auto ca
It was impossible. They couldn't have done it—no one could have done it—but they had. They'd done it because they were the best. Because they were the Cadre, the chosen samurai of the Empire. Because it was their duty. Because they were, by God, too stupid to know they couldn't ... and because they were all that stood between two hundred civilians and death.
"The plan failed," Keita's quiet voice cut through the surreal flashes of hideous memory, "because of you people, but we didn't know how the intelligence had gone so horribly wrong. We looked—I assure you we looked— but we never found the answers. And then, two years later, on Louvain, Captain DeVries captured a dying Rishathan War Mother. Her medics did their best for the Rish, but she was too far gone. And because she was dying and Alley had spared her war daughters' lives, she repaid her honor debt."
More memories wracked Alicia, and Tisiphone rushed to harvest their rage, gathering it up and storing its fiery strength. Alicia remembered the dying Rish. She remembered the beautiful golden eyes blazing in that hideous face as the matriarch discovered she was that DeVries and bestowed the priceless, poisonous gift in the name of honor.
"There was no proof, no record, only the word of a dying Rish, but Alley knew it was true. And because she had no proof, she returned to the command ship, found Colonel Wadislaw Watts, the mission's assistant intelligence chief, and challenged him with what she'd learned. He panicked and tried to run, confirming his guilt, and she shattered his skull, his ribs, and both legs with her bare hands before they could pull her off him."
The room was very quiet, and Alicia heard her own harsh breathing while echoes of savagery burned in her nerves. Only her hate had spared Watts's life. Only her need to make him feel it, to return just a taste of what her people had suffered. If only she'd kept control of herself! One clean blow—-just one!—would have left the medics nothing to save.
"And that," Keita said sadly, "was when the cover-up began. Baron Yuroba was Minister of War at the time. He decided no breath of disgrace could be permitted to mar our success at Louvain, and Minister of Justice Canaris agreed for reasons of his own. The reason for Alley's attack was hushed up, and she was given her choice: resign or face trial for assaulting a superior officer. No scandal. No messy media circus and gory court martial to befoul the honor we'd won at Louvain or provoke a fresh 'incident' with the Rishatha. Watts was retired, stripped of his pension, and turned over to Justice, who—in return for his secret testimony and assistance in breaking the Rishathan espionage net which had run him—amnestied him for his crimes."
Tears trickled down Gateau's face, and her eyes were sick.
"That's why Alley won't talk to 'spooks,' Ta
"I trust you, sir," Alicia said very quietly. "I know how you fought it—and I know I only got off as lightly as I did because of you."
"That's crap, Alley," Sir Arthur replied. "They wouldn't have dared push it in the end—not when they'd have had to explain why they were breaking one of the three living holders of the Ba
"Maybe. But it doesn't change anything, sir. I would have forgiven them anything but letting Watts live—letting him keep his honor by purging the record. My people deserved better than that."
"They did, and I couldn't give it to them. We live in an imperfect universe, and all we can do is the best we can. But that's the real reason they sent me clear out here in person. Countess Miller's read the sealed records. She knows how you feel and why, but she's been instructed by His Majesty himself to discover how you managed to survive and evaded all of our sensors. I am directed to inform you that this matter has been given Crown priority, that I speak with the Emperor's own voice, as your personal liege. No doubt the intent is to duplicate the capability in other perso
His eyes were almost pleading, and she looked away. He still wanted to shield her. Wanted to protect her from those less wary of her wounds or what their questions might cost her. But what could she do? If she told him the absolute, literal truth, he'd never believe her.
"Little One," the voice in her mind was soft, "I like this man. He has the taste of honor."
"He is honor," she replied bitterly. "That's why they gave him this assignment. Because he'll do what his oath to the Emperor demands, however much he may hate himself for it."
"What will you tell him?"
"I don't want to lie to him—I don't even know if I could make myself try, and he'd spot it in a minute if I did."
"Then do not," Tisiphone suggested. "Tell him what he asks."
"Are you out of your mind?! He'll think I'm crazy!"
"Precisely."
Alicia blinked. She actually hadn't considered this possibility when she decided to maintain her semblance of insanity. She should have realized she would be forced to confront the Cadre and her past directly, but the old wound had been too deep for her to consider all its implications, and she'd never guessed the Emperor himself might insist on probing the matter.
But suppose she told Keita the whole story? He had a built-in lie detector no hardware could match. He'd know she was telling the truth ... as she believed it, at any rate. What would he do with her then?
What his orders dictated, of course. He'd return her to Soissons for further investigation—and, no doubt, treatment for her insanity. That might even be good, since the sector capital would be a much more practical base from which to begin her own search for the pirates. But because he would know she was far, far over the edge, he'd also do what the book demanded and shut down her augmentation through Ta
"And if he does?" Tisiphone had followed her internal debate. "We have already determined I can reactivate it any time I choose, and would it not aid our escape if they believe your augmentation is useless?"
Alicia looked back up and met Keita's pain-filled gaze. She couldn't tell them everything. Even if they didn't believe in Tisiphone, they might be alarmed enough to take precautions against the Fury's ability to read thoughts and handle her augmentation. But if she cut off, say, with the day Ta
"All right, Uncle Arthur," she sighed. "You won't believe me, but I'll tell you exactly where I was and how I got there."