Victory Conditions (31 page)

“You can borrow it—”

“And so can the Nexus government, at lower interest. Now I’ll need authorization to talk to your senior commanders, whoever you’re going to put in charge—”

“What senior commanders?” Isaacs said. “We don’t have anyone capable of running a real defense. You know that. We’re just the local police force.”

Rafe looked around the luxurious office, bigger than his own as CEO. “You…you fraud. So…what do you want to do now? Quit? You must have someone you think has some ability, unless you’ve done nothing for six years but sit here until you filled your chair side-to-side. Call ’em in, tell ’em to take over. Not Malendy, of course; he’s an idiot.”

“I can’t believe it’s that bad…” Isaacs was shaking his head. “Your father—Lew Parmina—they never said—”

“My father never knew—Lew Parmina knew, of course, but he was hiding it. Look—we need to get the Premier in here, contact Mackensee right away, get the commanders—”

“There’s no time,” Isaacs said. “They’re on the way—they’ll be here any hour—” He looked outside at the blue sky streaked with wisps of cloud. “They could be entering the system now—”

Rafe suppressed a strong desire to grab Isaacs by his jowls and shake him. “They could not,” he said instead. “The early warning system’s fine; if something jumped in, we’d be told.”

“We?”

“I’m linked to ISC’s Emergency Report Center, aren’t you?”

“No…why should I be? That’s for a specialist…”

“Well, then: there is no enemy spacecraft in our system at this time—”

“You’re sure—how can you be sure?”

“The rubigilliam hypercontractivity generator,” Rafe said with a straight face. “Put into service only four days ago.”

“Oh. I didn’t know about that.”

The man was worse than Malendy. The man was insane. Could he possibly be dragged back to what must be done? And if the rest of the Defense Department was this brain-dead, which of his own staff and commanders might take over?

“The Premier,” Rafe said. “And Mackensee…”

“Must inform the Premier at once,” Isaacs said. “Shocking—impossible—must—” He looked grayer. “Something—something’s wrong—”

Rafe threw open the office door. “Secretary Isaacs is ill—he may be having a heart attack—”

Malendy and several others rushed into the room while Rafe moved aside. Odd. Very odd. Humphrey Isaacs hadn’t been that muddled when Rafe first called to tell him about the problem with ISC’s fleet. Something had happened to him in the interim. Something had happened…before the conference on Cascadia Station? After? And why hadn’t anyone in the government noticed?

He stepped into the outer office as a squad of medics arrived, and picked up the headset one of the secretaries had abandoned. The desktop had a direct link to the Premier’s office, as he’d expected.

The Premier’s secretary was sorry, but the Premier was fully engaged…if Ser Dunbarger cared to leave his number? Rafe explained that Secretary Isaacs was suddenly unwell, some kind of emergency, and that he had information of urgent import.

“Ser Dunbarger. What’s going on?” The Premier’s resonant, reassuring voice replaced that of his secretary.

“Secretary Isaacs had some kind of medical emergency while we were in a meeting; I called assistance and they’re with him now. He was on the point of contacting you himself—”

“Why would he do that? We have a regularly scheduled meeting tomorrow morning.”

“You’re aware of the situation on Moray?” Rafe said.

“An invasion beaten back by that force from Moscoe Confederation and Slotter Key? Yes, what of it?”

“When the Secretary reported that, did he tell you that Moray is reasonably sure the attacking force is now headed this way?”

“What? No! Where are they?”

Isaacs should certainly have told the Premier at the daily briefing—why hadn’t he?

“I don’t know, sir. I do know that Moray is a minimum twenty-day transit in FTL, plus time insystem.”

“Thank heavens we have your fleet to protect us! Will you need any assistance from insystem patrol?”

Rafe felt a ball of ice falling down through his body. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, you do have enough of your fleet here, don’t you? Or you can retrieve them from someplace. Humphrey—the Secretary—would have arranged that—”

“I’m afraid not,” Rafe said. “I told him back when our fleet was defeated at Boxtop—”

“Defeated? What? Where?”

“Mr. Premier, I believe I should brief you immediately, but not over this unit. We have a situation.”

A moment of silence, then the Premier said, “How soon can you be here?”

“Twenty minutes,” Rafe said. He heard a muffled cry from the Secretary’s office. “Just a moment—” He stepped to the door. Isaacs was stretched on the floor, medics working on him. “Excuse me,” Rafe said to the nearest person, someone he vaguely recalled sitting at a desk outside. “The Premier’s on the com. What should I tell him?”

“Give me that!” Malendy said, turning abruptly and striding toward Rafe. “I’ll deal with him.”

“I’m on my way,” Rafe said to the Premier before handing the headset to Malendy.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Malendy said. “It’s all your fault.”

“No,” Rafe said. “It’s not, and I’m to go to the Premier’s office as soon as possible.”

“Why? So you can kill him, too?”

“I did not kill the Secretary,” Rafe said. “I wasn’t even—”

“You probably poisoned him or something,” Malendy said. “He was perfectly healthy before you showed up. And you threatened me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rafe said. “I had no reason to kill either of you. Even if it weren’t illegal. Secretary Isaacs had a heart attack or a stroke or something. I had nothing to do with it.”

“You’re a dangerous rogue,” Malendy said. “You always have been; you always will be.”

Rafe just stopped himself from saying that Malendy was an idiot and always had been and always would be. So far, no security personnel were in the room to hear Malendy’s accusations, but they were probably on their way.

“I’m going to meet with the Premier,” he said, in his mildest voice. “Thank you for all your help.”

Malendy’s jaw dropped; in that moment of confusion, Rafe slipped out of the office and—instead of going to the elevator his own security was already holding for him, he signaled that he would take the utility stairs. He removed the official visitor’s pass he wore as he walked down the hall, peeled off the telltag on its back, and—hardly breaking stride—opened the door to a men’s toilet and slapped it onto the inside wall above the light switch. From his inner jacket pocket he took the small packet containing an apparent twin to the telltag, slipped it out, and pressed it onto his pass. Preprogrammed for just such occasions, the “tag” now deactivated door alarms and informed area controls that he was authorized anywhere in the building and also for unplanned entrances and exits.

Nobody stopped him on the way down to the ground floor; the stairs there opened into a side passage invisible from the main entrance, and one of his own team was there to meet him. “Elevator stopped on four—Security let Curran go when you weren’t in it; he’ll meet us outside.”

“Idiots,” Rafe said. “Did you retag?”

“Not yet.”

“Do it now,” Rafe said. Even Gary, always suspicious, had thought providing the entire security detail with fake telltags was unnecessary. Rafe had agreed, but insisted on having them anyway.

With his escort retagged, Rafe led the way toward one of the utility entrances. Guests were not normally allowed in this area, but the few employees who saw them were obviously more interested in the break room they passed than in strangers in the corridor.

No live guard at the entrance, even. There was a full suite of electronic surveillance, but the loop for storage was brief and the equipment was old, not working properly even before Rafe contributed a little more damage. They had come out into a small paved space; Rafe’s other escort stepped out from behind a trash bin.

“Best this way,” he said, and led them along a paved lane just wide enough for a trash truck, between windowless walls, to a larger parking area. A sidewalk led off to the left, around the corner of the building and probably, Rafe thought, to the front, but his escort nodded instead to the car park itself. Just beyond, his car waited.

“The parking attendant hadn’t heard?” Rafe asked.

“Small alterations,” his escort said. “And this car park has a separate exit.”

Moments later he was in the car, reporting to Gary what had happened. “Malendy’s going to claim I killed the Secretary,” he said.

“I’ll alert your legal team from here,” Gary said. “You’d better get back here—they’ll expect that, but—”

“They think I’m headed for the Premier’s office,” Rafe said. “I’m supposed to meet him—”

“Don’t,” Gary said. “They’ll be ready for you.”

“I know that,” Rafe said. “But I still need to talk to him. Isaacs hadn’t told him about Boxtop; the Premier still thought ISC’s fleet would be able to protect this system.”

“Isaacs was in on it—”

“Must have been.” Rafe sighed. “I knew he was taking bribes, but I thought he was greedy, not a traitor. Just when I think it can’t get worse, it does. Dammit, I can’t save the world all by myself. Somebody else has to be honest and competent—”

Gary laughed. “Come on, boyo. You know this is more fun than sitting in your fancy office looking at spreadsheets.”

“It was fun when it didn’t mean a billion people could die if I screwed up,” Rafe said.

Gary snorted. “I still can’t get used to you being all sober and responsible. I’ve seen you at it for three seasons now, and I keep expecting you to break loose and do something crazy.”

“I’m reverting to my boring corporate roots,” Rafe said.

“From what I see of these guys, they’re as crooked as you ever were. That’s not boring…”

“No, right now it’s terrifying. Our fleet’s worth zilch, except for that one special unit; Nexus Defense has nothing that can stop Turek, and I have no doubt he’s coming. We’re the helpless virgin as the barbarian comes in the gates—”

“Don’t go literary on me,” Gary said. “What about Admiral Vatta? You could ask her.”

“I could, if she weren’t dead,” Rafe said.

“What!”

“Last night. Heard it last night. Fleet action at Moray System—twenty-day FTL jump from us. She drove off the enemy attacking their naval yard, but in the process her ship blew up.”

“Rafe—I’m sorry.”

“I knew it was likely,” Rafe said. “I told myself,
Just think that she’s died, don’t think about her
…we’re not supposed to be…aren’t…anything to each other.”

“Are you sure she’s dead?”

“As sure as the Moray officer who told me,” Rafe said. “Her ship blew up; she was in it.” He struggled to keep his voice steady. “Of course, our brilliant government refused to ally with Moscoe and Slotter Key, so even if she were alive, she might not come.”

“You think the alliance wants Nexus to fall?”

“No, but I think they won’t come without being asked by the government, and if the government is convinced I killed—or attempted to kill—the Secretary of Defense, then they are less likely to yell for help.”

ISC’s headquarters loomed ahead. Farther ahead, something with flashing lights sped toward them. Too close. “Use the tunnel,” Rafe said to the driver. The car turned aside, drove a short distance between nondescript buildings, and went down a ramp to an underground loading dock, then made a sharp turn into what was actually an underground parking garage. At the bottom level of that, a blank wall slid aside, revealing a narrow tunnel. The car eased in; the wall slid closed behind them. The tunnel ran down, curving slightly to the right, then emerged into a cavernous dark space; the headlights picked out something shiny in the distance. “At one time,” Rafe said to his escorts and driver, “I would have thought this high adventure. Now it’s a nuisance.”

Shiny was a grate, which slid up at their approach, letting them into a car-sized lift. To one side was a smaller lift for personnel and a hardwire comport. Rafe stepped out of the car and plugged into the comport.

“Gary?”

“Here. Front gate’s crawling with cops. No sign any of them spotted your car. You did button up the tunnel—”

“Yes, Gary. Both ends. Can’t do anything about the thermal into the garage, though. I’m in sublevel C. Best route?”

“I’ll send a truck in to start foxing the thermal. Your best route—leave the car down. Take the lift up to sub A, turn right, take the second corridor to the left, second staircase, right again, there’s a lift to the eighth floor. Go into Archives, and at the back left there’s another lift. I’ll meet you there.”

Rafe followed this complicated path without incident, except for dodging someone in a Technical Services tunic pushing a wheeled cart with a big gray metal box on it down the corridor. The man quickly pulled the cart to one side and Rafe strode past, nodding thanks. The door dragon at Archives, where he’d been before, simply smiled and said, “Good day, Ser Dunbarger. Can I help you find anything?”