Virtues of War (41 page)

Her eyes moistened, but he recognized them immediately as stage tears. She wasn’t stupid—though she apparently thought he was.

“Oh darling,” she said, throwing herself against him. “Hurry home soon.”

He kissed her head and gave her a gentle embrace. “I will, my love.”

He handed her over to the waiting Quinton and followed Chang. The entrance to the space elevator complex was only a short walk away.

* * *

He didn’t know how many times he’d taken the ride from Astral HQ up to the big orbiting base, but it seemed to Thomas that the elevator car was moving particularly slowly that day. He stood apart from his new course mates—a mix of junior officers and mid-level troopers—and stared out the window at the surface of the Earth as it fell away beneath him.

Chang had somehow produced a set of green Corps coveralls and black boots that fit Thomas well enough, and asked him politely but firmly to change into the standard course rig. The coveralls sported a Strike qualification pin, but Thomas hadn’t bothered transferring his Line qualification pin or his command star from his dress uniform. He just couldn’t summon the energy to explain to this group of students—who had greeted him with mild curiosity and basic courtesy—why, with two trade badges and a command on his record, he was a thirty-eight-year-old sublieutenant.

He’d called Admiral Chandler, and managed to get him on the line, but his mentor had been firm in his inaction. Although he was surprised by the verdict, and somewhat sympathetic to Thomas’s situation, there was no way he could overrule a decision made within a Fleet Marshall Investigation. Yet the Chandler he knew had no fear of bureaucratic procedures. No, it was clear that the admiral, like everyone else, was keeping his head down and hoping this investigation had claimed its final victim.

With a sigh, Thomas lifted his gaze away from the Earth and toward the looming mass of Astral Base One. Out among the spars he could just make out the arrowhead shape of the
Armstrong
, tiny in her berth next to one of the massive Astral cruisers. He shook his head at the irony, thinking of how he’d planned to use the little science vessel as a stepping stone to get himself into command of a warship, just like that cruiser.

Now Breeze was in command of
Armstrong
, and he was a sublieutenant on his way back to the mud. At least he could recognize when he was beaten, though. Astral politics were far more devious than he’d thought, and apparently he didn’t have what it took.

He glanced over at the scattered group of fellow students. They were all from the Corps, officers and troopers, ranging in age from a subbie who looked in her mid-twenties to a sergeant in his late forties. A few chatted among themselves, but most were quietly focused on their thoughts.

None of them were trying to chat up their instructors, or present themselves as the best and the brightest. They were just professional soldiers, looking to improve their skills. He remembered when the world had been that simple to him, when all that had mattered to him was being good at his job.

Maybe Korolev was right, after all.

* * *

The elevator docked without incident, and Thomas joined the rest of the students as they followed Chang and the other instructor into the depths of Astral Base One. Thomas had seen the inside of the station many times, but some of the younger troopers looked around with youthful interest. Some of these guys had probably been in the mud for the better part of the past decade—a tour of the Fleet would be quite a novelty.

The path they followed was surprisingly familiar to Thomas, and it wasn’t long before he realized that they were being led to the very spar at which the
Armstrong
was berthed. His heart sank when the head instructor paused at the Research ship’s airlock tunnel, and briefly explained how they were going on board for a tour of the engineering spaces. Feeling sick, he tucked in behind the tallest trooper and hoped no one on board would notice him.

Was Breeze behind this cruel, final slap in the face?

They were met on board by the acting executive officer, Sublieutenant Smith. While she was speaking, the lead instructor and the
Armstrong
duty guard sorted out the security necessities of bringing the group on board. Amanda looked exhausted, but she put on a good show of welcoming the group.

She explained that the ship was in a bit of disarray, but that the engineering staff had prepared a thorough tour. He stuck close behind the big trooper, torn between a strong desire to hide and the urge to help his young colleague. She was a year senior to Jack, he knew, but that hardly made her qualified to run a warship.

She turned to depart, and he decided to stick anonymously with his class. Chang placed a strong hand on his shoulder, slowing him down.

“Sir, can you come with me, please?”

He turned in surprise. “Where now, Sergeant?”

“This way, sir.”

He’d given up questioning, and followed along in silence as the rest of the students headed aft down the passageway toward engineering. Amanda was still visible up ahead and he watched as she disappeared into the main lab. That was no surprise, but curiosity turned to confusion when Chang activated the lab doors, and entered behind her.

The room was deserted except for Amanda. Thomas’s eyes immediately went to the central deck area, and he was amazed at how little evidence remained of the violence. The usual clutter of equipment was piled against the bulkheads to his left, and except for the eerie lack of crew, everything appeared to be normal.

Amanda looked up, noted Chang and then spotted Thomas.

“XO!” she gasped. He stepped forward and squeezed her shoulder with a little smile.

“I think that’s your title now, Amanda.” He looked expectantly at Chang. “Would you like to explain what’s going on, Sergeant?” Any response, however, was interrupted by the lab doors swishing open once again.

Jack burst in. “Okay, that torpedo’s loaded but I still don’t—” He stopped dead as he spotted Thomas. “Sir, you’re back!”

Thomas nodded at his epaulettes. “You don’t have to call me ‘sir’ anymore, Jack.”

The pilot looked closer, his eyes widening. “Oh my God, what happened?” He realized the absurdity of his question as soon as it passed his lips, and he reddened slightly, mumbling an apology.

Thomas turned his eyes back to Chang.

“What’s next, Sergeant?” he asked, emboldened by the sheer absurdity of the situation. “Will Helena Grey be joining us?”

Chang had removed a small device from one of his pockets and placed it on the nearest workstation. With a tap he activated it, and the power in the lab dimmed for a fraction of a second.

“This is a stealth field,” he explained simply. “It will hide everything that happens in this room, starting with an overwrite of the last two minutes of the security cams. This meeting never happened—is that understood?”

Though it really wasn’t, Thomas nodded. He heard affirmative sounds from the two subbies. Chang produced a holographic ID, and displayed it briefly.

“I’m with Special Forces, and we are in a state of emergency,” he said, as if that explained anything. “We require your full and immediate cooperation.”

* * *

Katja took a deep breath of the hot, dry air and enjoyed the feel of the light wind through her newly shorn halo of hair. She knew that it wasn’t wise to keep her helmet off for long, but as the powerful drugs of the combat cocktail started to take effect, she felt the urge to experience reality in its full vitality, one last time.

Standing on the roof of what appeared to be nothing more than one of the many hotels in the central core, she had a perfect view of Lake Sapphire. Sunlight sparkled off the blue water from a cloudless sky, obscuring the dozens of boats plying their leisurely route across the man-made expanse. The boardwalk eight stories below her was busy with pedestrians enjoying the day, and on the far shore she could see the first of the Army units moving into position on the Astral College parade grounds, preparing for a scheduled demonstration.

The space elevator cables stretched upward as always, acting like a series of gigantic pointers that gave her a visual reference to Astral Base One and the assets poised high above.

She glanced back at a small, gray, capped pipe that poked only a few centimeters above the surface of the roof. Inside was a direct line to Korolev in the command center, eight stories and two basements below her. Unlike any communication device she’d ever used before, it was designed to amplify the Cloud-link between operatives.

she said.

It was strange enough to hear another person’s voice in her head, but through the amplifier his tone was utterly flat. It was like speaking to a dead man, she thought.

A time check confirmed that Breeze’s Baryon was blaring away as she made her way via cab to the public docks at the end of the boardwalk, off to the right. Katja looked again at the boats floating near the docks, and tried to guess which one held the Centauri agent. Breeze had agreed to meet Kit Moro at the docks at 17:00. That timing, Katja suspected, was no coincidence.

She closed her eyes, stilling her mind and sorting the links between the diverse aspects of what was likely to occur. The Centauris had figured out how to create jump gates on a planet’s surface, much akin to the Special Forces jump suits. However, if they could send warships through, despite the presence of a gravity well, that could be catastrophic. And if the plan was to do so today, they had to be stopped.

Working with a number of special forces operatives, Koralev had sorted through a variety of scenarios, trying to cover as many eventualities as possible. The real trick, he’d explained, was to prepare defenses without alerting any Centauri agent who might be scanning Terran communications. They would cancel whatever they had planned, leaving the Astral Force once again utterly unprepared.

No one could be trusted.
Been there, done that
, Katja thought. A lake seemed an odd place to open a gate, she mused, but then she remembered that many of the Centauri war machines didn’t require a solid surface on which to operate.

Her father’s Army unit was scheduled to perform a demonstration to the Astral College student body. Special Forces had ensured that the ammunition supplied to the Army was real, although no one knew that yet.

Thanks to Jack Mallory, the one Astral platform capable of pinpointing a tiny Centauri jump gate was
Armstrong
. The CO, Breeze, wasn’t on board, having come ashore. No one else had been granted the command-level authority to direct the ship’s sensors, but they had snuck a Corps sublieutenant on board, thus ensuring that a competent commander would be in place.

In the process Thomas Kane’s career had been destroyed. His demotion was a part of the public record, and given the secrecy with which this mission had to be conducted, under the auspices of the Special Forces, there would be no going back. But the security of Terra was at stake, and no single individual was too important to sacrifice. She was living proof of that ideal.

Chang reported that all orbital assets were in place.

She took one last breath of hot, dry air and donned her helmet. The visor slipped down and encased her in the extra-dimensional suit. Unrestricted movement would be essential. Her
official
role was to observe Centauri movements and provide on-scene direction, but she had another objective—one which came directly from Korolev.

She was going to find that bastard Kit Moro, and take him down.

* * *

There was a cool breeze coming off the lake, though Kete hardly noticed it as he maneuvered his rented boat alongside the public docks. The blue water sparkled in the brilliant sunlight, but all he saw was a reduction in visibility. Careful to keep his movements smooth and casual, he scanned the light crowds moving along the boardwalk.

As idyllic as the scene was, Kete was tense, his senses on high alert. Everything had been going according to plan. Agents were in place at various locations on Earth, equipment delivered and timings confirmed. His own crew had carried out their tasks efficiently and in complete anonymity.

Then Price had gone missing.

One of the support agents, he had departed Abeona through the personal jump gate, but had never returned to Longreach. His internal tracking beacon had gone silent, suggesting that his body, had he been killed, was nowhere to be found. If he wasn’t on Earth, then he had to be back home. But he wasn’t.

Absolutely nothing unusual had appeared in the Terran security network. No mention whatsoever in the Astral or Army networks. He found it difficult to believe that the Terrans could capture a Centauri agent without
something
making it into the official channels—the Terrans simply weren’t that sophisticated that they could bury something without a trace.

That had left the disconcerting possibility that the jump gates didn’t work as well as they had been told. The results could be catastrophic, considering the operation that was about to begin. Yet without a tangible reason to abort, they had to proceed. There were too many moving parts in place. Such an opportunity might never again become possible.

Thus his orders were unchanged, and they were clear.

Proceed.

The two-seat motor launch bumped up against the dock, losing the last of its momentum. Kete quickly tied off the bow and stern lines and stepped ashore. He forced himself not to look out toward the middle of the lake, to where a one-meter buoy floated just above the surface of the rippling waves. On it rested a larger version of the bronze horseshoe that he’d used for personal jumps. Within that, he knew, slumbered a gateway to hell.

He paused on the dock, closing his eyes in a show of appreciating the beautiful weather, but in fact casting his mind out one more time, searching the Terran security net for any sign of alert, any unusual activity. There was no change to the number of police on the nearby streets, nor any modification to their routine patrols. The Astral Force headquarters was on normal security alert, and the only Army unit anywhere near Longreach was the storm banner currently in the process of setting up a demonstration at the Astral College. That had been planned for months.