Mercenary's Star

"I don't know, Sue Ellen, but a lot of the Old Families on Verthandi are Scandanavian, with Scandanavian names. If Carlyle was supposed to meet with one of the Old Family people, it's possible...just possible..."

"Wait! Where are you going?"

Vincent Mills threw back the covers and groped for the trousers he had flung over a chair earlier. "Darling, you may have just given us the one bit of information we need to burn that bastard Carlyle once and for all."

"But..."

"You go back to sleep, my love. I've got to talk to someone about it, fast!"

* * * *

Governor-General Nagumo knew about the name Ericksson even before Captain Mills had finished putting on his uniform. They had not told Mills about the microphone installed in the bedroom because Dr. Vlade and others feared that it might make the young captain self-conscious during his sessions with the young prisoner.

The technician monitoring their love-making that night had a call into Nagumo's office almost at once. Normally, the major on duty would have had to decide whether this bit of information was important enough to warrant waking Nagumo in his quarters, but this night Nagumo was still in his office, going over the reports of that afternoon's fiasco in the jungle.

By the time Mills had crossed the central compound of Regis University and asked to see Nagumo on urgent business, Nagumo's computer Techs had pulled Gu

Nagumo began issuing orders, assembling his forces. His final order dispatched two men from his personal guard to Captain Mills' quarters. The Klein girl had served her purpose, and she could not be trusted. Better to bury her below the Tower for the time being.

Nagumo forgot about Sue Ellen Klein almost as soon as he gave the order to pick her up. He was already engrossed in the display map on the wall of his office. Yes, there it was, right where the computer had located it.

Fox Island...

* * * *

There was another romantic rendezvous that night, this one deep in the shadows that edged the perimeter of the Fox Island plantation. Here, too, the orange sickle of Verthandi-Alpha illuminated sky and trees with ruddy light, though the moon's sweep was bisected by the black shadow of the forest and the bulk of the Basin Rim cliffs.

These lovers' conversation also turned to the subject of Grayson Carlyle.

"Is it that you don't trust him?" the woman asked as she snuggled closer within the curve of the man's arm. They lay together on a mossy hummock well away from the plantation clearing, under the spreading blackness of the forest canopy. Moonlight edged her profile and the leaves overhead.

Carlotta Helgameyer often met her lover in this spot, because there were reasons—political reasons—why they could not openly admit their love.

"I supposed it's that I don't understand the man," Tollen said. He paused for a moment, his teeth grinding in unconscious habit while he thought. "I trust him, I think...but I don't understand him."

"What is there to understand?"

"He's...He doesn't act like a mercenary."

"You mean, he doesn't act like you think a mercenary oughtto act."

"Well, yes. I suppose. But he's thrown himself into his mission here with such...such energy. As though there's more to it for him than the money."

"I would have thought that was obvious."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's obvious he cares for his people."

"I think there's more. He shares our hatred of the Dracos."

"And that's wrong?"

"I didn't say that. Of course it's not wrong...not from where weare! But we probably should have tried to find out more about the man before we hired him."

"Most of us on the Council were against the idea, you'll remember."

Tollen laughed. "It wasErudin's idea, wasn't it, Carlotta?"

“Thorvald thought he was trying to arrange some sort of power play against the Old Families. Old Gu

He squeezed her tighter. "Yeah, well, you Old Families had better watch yourself now that us latecomers have the Gray Death on our side!"

"It's not fu

"I know. I'm sorry. But this hiding what we feel for one another. It...gets to me."

"Me, too. Maybe things will change after the war's over.”

“That'll be the day."

She remained quiet for a bit, then decided to change the subject. "Our people and the mercenaries did pretty well in the battle yesterday, didn't they?"

"Yes." He thought about it, teeth grinding once more. By any standards, the ambush had been a splendid success. They'd captured two of the four enemy ‘Mechs, the Stingerand the cripple-legged Trebuchet,killed twenty-two Kurita soldiers and taken another thirty-six. Their own losses were only two killed and five wounded, and three of those wounded had been injured by their own explosives rather than by enemy fire.

They'd sent the Stingerand the prisoners back to Fox Island, while a band of rebel and mercenary Techs descended on the Trebuchetand on the hulks of the three bombed-out troop transports. With a few hours' grace, it was possible that the Trebuchetwould be moving under its own power again. It had taken the Techs only minutes to strip the hovercraft of circuit boards, wiring, weapons, instrument fittings, engine housing, and an endless stream of useful items that might be handy later, in unlikely places or vehicles.

"They did very well, indeed," Tollen said, "and I have to admit that that youngster knows more about combat than I ever will. I don't know if it's just that he knows all the tricks or if he's some kind of tactical genius."

"Then it's good he's here. We haven't had such successes in the whole ten years of the war."

"Yeah, but it's become hiswar, somehow. Is that right, that we should step aside, and let him win the war for us? And what about afterward? Are we going to be able to get rid of him?"

"I thought you trusted him."

"I don't know what to think anymore. This idea of his, to carry the war to the villages..." The teeth-grinding noises came again. Carlyle had said that the enemy had to be hit again and again, he had to be kept off-balance, kept inside his containments and garrison camps. More important, he insisted that the people must be enlisted in the fight against the invaders. Tollen knew that meant more towns like Mountain Vista would be reduced to rubble before this was over. More of his people would die in fire and horror. What was right?

"We're leaving tomorrow," he said at last.

"I heard."

"We're heading west. A raid in force, Carlyle calls it. To Scandiahelm. There's a Kurita garrison there."

Carlotta ran her hand along his chest. He could sense her compassion for his own pain, his uncertainty. "You'll come back to me?" she said.

"Carlotta mine," he whispered, sweeping her close, inhaling the scent of her, enfolding her warmth. "Nagumo's whole army couldn't keep me away, beloved..."

* * * *

Lori, too, was thinking about Grayson that night, but the thoughts were not pleasant. She came awake in her quarters in the rebel compound, her skin glistening with sweat, the paralyzing fear of the nightmare still close. In the moon-spilled darkness, she sat breathing hard, trying to collect herself.