Страница 40 из 57
He wanted that traitor unmasked and destroyed. There was, could be, no trace of mercy in him, but there was sorrow for the shame that traitor had brought to everything Keita himself held sacred.
"Excuse me, Sir Arthur, but you have a priority signal."
The voice broke into his reverie, and he turned to find it belonged to a youthful communications officer who extended a message chip to him.
Keita took the chip and frowned as he recognized the Cadre Intelligence coding. None of the flag bridge's readers could unscramble it, so he excused himself and made his way to Ta
"Well, I will be goddamned," it said softly, and her head whipped around in astonishment, for it belonged to Sir Arthur Keita, and he was gri
"Something new has been added," he a
"Pied Piper?" His eyes were positively glowing, Ta
"Our people couldn't get all the details-they're isolated from our official presence there, and the locals are playing their cards mighty close-but it seems Ben Belkassem turned up aboard a tramp freighter named Star Ru
"He did?" Ta
"He did. And six hours later the Monkoto Free Mercenaries, the Westfeldt Wolves, O'Kane's Free Company, the Star Assassins, and Falconi's Falcons were under way. Not some of them-all of them."
"My God," she whispered. "You don't think he-?"
"It would seem probable," Keita replied, "and please note that he appears to have gone directly to the mercenaries; not the Fleet and not the El Grecan Navy. Not to anyone who might have reported back to Soissons. He didn't tell us, either, but then he didn't know we were out here. If he's avoiding Soissons, he may have starcommed Justice HQ, but it'll take Old Earth another four days to relay to us if he did, and in the meantime … ."
He began feeding numbers into his terminal, and Ta
"I know that tone of voice, Uncle Arthur. What are you up to?"
"Our people may not have gotten everything, but they did find out where all those mercenaries are headed and when they're supposed to get there, and unless I'm mistaken-aha!" The result of his calculations blinked before him, and his grin became savage with delight. "We can get there within forty-one hours of their ETA if we move our departure up a bit."
"But what about Clean Sweep?"
"Soissons won't go anywhere, Ta
Chapter Sixty-Two
"Well it's about damned time," Commodore Howell muttered to himself.
He glared at the gravitic plot and reminded himself-again-that he wasn't going to climb down Alexsov's throat the instant he saw him. He suspected it wasn't going to be an easy resolve to keep.
He turned his back on the plot and interlaced his fingers to crack his knuckles. Alexsov was at least twelve days late, which would have been bad enough from anyone else. From the obsessively punctual chief of staff it was maddening, and vague visions of horrible disaster had haunted the commodore, only just held at bay by his faith in Alexsov.
He drew a deep breath and summoned a wry smile, wishing-not for the first time-that "pirates" weren't cut off from the Empire's starcom network. This business of relying solely on starships and SLAM drones wore on a man. And, his eyes narrowed again, speaking of SLAM drones, just why hadn't Gregor used one to explain his delay? His eyes lit with a touch of real humor as he realized he had at least one perfectly valid reason to tear a long, bloody strip off his chief of staff … and how much he looked forward to it.
Well, unless they're stone blind they've got us on their gravitics by now, Megaira commented.
Alicia only grunted in response. She sat in her command chair, clasping her hands in her lap to keep from gnawing her fingernails. She'd smelled enough fear on Cadre strikes, but drop commandos were passengers up to the moment they made their drops. Whether or not their targets would be there when they arrived was something their chauffeurs worried about, and she'd never realized how tense the final approach must be for Fleet perso
Calmly, Little One. We will find them and perform our appointed task.
She heard Tisiphone's tension, but it was a different sort of strain. The Fury never doubted they would find those they sought; eagerness sharpened her tone, not uncertainty.
"Yeah, sure," Alicia said, and twitched in surprise at the saw-toothed anticipation quivering in her own voice.
She felt Tisiphone's answering start of surprise-and something like concern behind it-and looked down with a frown. Her clasped hands were actually trembling! Confusion flickered through her for just a moment, a vague sense of something wrong, but she brushed it aside and reached for a thought to distract her from it.
"Think they'll bite, Megaira?"
Sure they will. I admit this is a bit more complicated than being Star Ru
Alicia nodded, though "a bit more complicated" grossly understated the task her cybernetic sister faced. Pretending to be a freighter was complex yet straightforward for an alpha-synth's electronic warfare capabilities, but this time the deception was multi-layered and far more difficult. This time Megaira was pretending to be a battlecruiser pretending to be a destroyer-and failing. The "pirates" were supposed to see through the first level of deceit, but not the second … and if they pierced the first too soon, Monkoto's entire plan would come crashing down about their ears.
"Definitely a destroyer drive," Commander Rendlema
"Still," Rendlema
"What?" Howell twisted around in his chair, eyes sharpening.
"I said there's some-"
"I heard that part! What d'you mean, 'odd'?"
"Nothing I can really put a finger on, Sir," Rendlema
Howell reached for his own headset. Unlike Rendlema
His frown deepened. Harpy was well inside his perimeter destroyers, little more than ninety minutes from Procyon at her present deceleration, and she hadn't said a word. She was still 17.6 light-minutes out, so transmission lag would be a pain, but why hadn't Alexsov sent even a greeting? He had to know how Howell must have worried, and … .
"Com, hail Captain Alexsov and ask him where he's been."
The message fled towards Megaira at the speed of light, and she raced to meet it. Eight hundred seconds after it was born, Megaira's receptors scooped it out of space, and Alicia swore.
"I wanted to be closer than this, damn it!" Her own displays glowed behind her eyes, and thirteen light-minutes lay between her and Procyon. She was already in the dreadnought's SLAM range … but Megaira mounted no SLAMs. She had to close another sixty-five million kilometers, fifteen more minutes at this deceleration, before her missiles could range upon her enemy-and seventy-two million before she could "break and run" on the vector to Monkoto's rendezvous.
"Can we steal enough delay, Megaira?" she demanded.
I don't think so, the AI replied unhappily. No reply will be the same as answering, unless this Howell's a lot dumber than we think, and battlecruiser three's in position to cut us off short of course change.
Better to answer, Little One. We are more like to gain time by tangling him in confusion, however briefly, than by silence.
A corner of Alicia's mind glanced at the clock. Eighty seconds since the signal came in, and Megaira was right; if she delayed much longer, her very delay would become a response … .
Something hot and primitive boiled in the recesses of her mind, something red that smoked with the hot, sweet incense of blood, and her lips thi
"Oh, the hell with it! Talk to the man, Megaira."
Transmitting, the AI said simply.
James Howell's fingers drummed on the arm of his command chair, and he frowned in growing, formless uneasiness. That had to be Harpy, but Gregor was taking his own sweet time about replying.