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   “Maybe,” Marshall said. “Though at least I know how to handle this part. Go get the commanders back in, Deadeye. We’d better start planning the battle.”

  Chapter 3

   Orlova looked around the room, taking a sip from the champagne glass in her hand, trying to stick close to Harriet, her recently-acquired embedded journalist, and attempting to keep as low a profile as possible. Somehow, her unlikely colleague had managed to arrange invitations to one of the more exclusive parties taking place in Sagan City, one of a dozen arranged to allow the politicians to drum up support before the election from the movers and shakers of the Triplanetary Confederation.

   She felt sick, and it wasn’t the food.

   This wasn’t her job. She was meant to be out on one of the ships currently fighting for the future of the Confederation, not loitering around a cocktail lounge trying to overhear some gossip, some malevolent rumor that might be useful in their campaign to prevent the overthrow of the President. It didn’t help that she felt a target on her back; Margaret Orlova was wanted for treason, and while her forged identification had worked so far, it would never stand up to extensive testimony.

   “Excuse me,” a suave voice said. “I couldn’t help notice that you were over here by yourself. I can’t believe that someone could have stood you up.”

   She turned to see a man she vaguely recognized, one of the legion of press commentators gathering at such events. “I’m just taking a moment to decompress.”

   He smiled, and said, “Meaning that you’re trying to get over an argument with someone. If you want to make someone jealous, there’s plenty of room for two more on the dance floor.”

   “No thank you,” she replied. “Really, I just need a moment to myself.”

   Harriet walked over to her, and Orlova quickly kissed her on the lips, turning to the man before her surprise could show, and said, “As I said, I only needed a moment.”

   The man’s eyes darted from Orlova to Harriet, and with a smile and a quick bow, he headed off into the gathering in a bid to attract fresh game.

   “What the hell was that about?” Harriet asked. “My job is to tweeze out gossip, not provide it. You realize that we’ll be all over the networks by the morning.”

   “If they think I’m your lover, they probably won’t think I’m a spy.”

   “Never heard of Mata Hari?” she shook her head, then said, “Next time, ask first.”

   “Have you found out anything interesting?”

   “Senator Norman’s apparently on her third personal assistant of the year, and this one used to be a boxer. Whether he has any secretarial qualifications, I don’t know.”

   “I think we’re going to need more than that. Hell, even I knew that she was a man-eater, and I’ve spent most of the last three years several parsecs from here.”

   “Relax, Maggie. We’re getting quite a dossier built up.” She pointed over at the far side of the room to a tight tangle of gray-haired men, and said, “That’s an interesting little group right there. Senator Harper and his few remaining acolytes.”

   “He’s here? Damn.”

   “What’s wrong?”

   “We’ve got to get out of here now.”

   “Why?”

   “Harriet, he knows me. I don’t think he’s going to buy the cover story.”

   She glanced over at the Senator, evidently once too often. He moved away from his group, and started to pull something out of his pocket. Not waiting for him to call Security, Orlova began to move for the door, quietly at first, then without any attempt at deception. One of the bouncers, his finger on his ear, was moving to block the exit, but she quickly ducked past him, moving out onto the street, almost toppling over in her haste to leave.

   Ahead of her, a pair of guards waited, both of them wearing the uniform of the Sagan PD. She looked from left to right, but the pistols resting in their holsters and the lack of cover convinced her that she didn’t have anywhere to go. A police car pulled up, and she looked behind her to see the Senator walking down the steps, Harriet reluctantly on his arm.

   “Fancy meeting you here, Lieutenant.”

   Orlova looked across at the car, and saw a flash of green hair in the back seat. Suppressing a smile, she replied, “Bad pennies always turn up.”

   “Just get in the car,” one of the policemen said. “Both of you.”

   “I’ll ride along as well,” the Senator said. “I imagine you’ll want to interview me.”

   “If you don’t mind, Senator,” the other policeman said, glancing up at a security camera. “It will speed the whole process along.”

   “I’ve done nothing wrong!” Harriet said. “This is absurd!”

   Orlova shook her head, and replied, “I think we’ve lost this game. With a little luck we’ll have another chance later on.” She started to walk over to the car, and said, “Let’s get this over with.”

   As soon as the passenger door opened, her suspicions were confirmed, and she climbed in next to a beaming Kristin Harper, latterly of Alamo and Spitfire Station. The Senator sat opposite her, and Harriet, looking at the three of them in turn, paused at the door.

   “What the hell is going on?”

   “Get in,” the Senator said. “And quickly. We haven’t much time.” The door slammed shut, and the car began to speed down the street. He glanced out of the window, and said, “We’re heading for the nearest vehicular airlock. You’re damn lucky the Chief of Police is my old Operations Officer.”

   “This is a set-up.” Harriet looked at Orlova. “What is this?”

   “May I introduce Senior Spaceman…”

   “Technical Officer, Maggie. I’ve gone up in the world.”

   “Kristin Harper, the most insubordinate – and brilliant – hacker I’ve ever come across.”

   “Senator Harper’s daughter,” the journalist said with a smile. “I wondered where she’d gone. None of my sources would talk.”

   “She opted to follow her father into the fleet…,” the Senator began.

   “After it was made clear that it was a choice between one jail or another.”

   Looking at Orlova, Harriet said, “If nothing else – if nothing else – I’m getting an interview with her. That I can publish, and it’ll keep my editor at bay for a while. You realize I haven’t filed anything in a month? They’re beginning to forget I exist.”

   “We’ll talk later.”

   “Lieutenant,” the Senator said, “My daughter has given me as full a briefing as she can, and I have spoken with the President.”

   “Which one?”

   “Teddy.” He shook his head, then said, “The man is a fool.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me, sir,” Orlova replied. “Kristin, how long have you been in-system?”

   “I jumped ship when Alamo headed out.”

   “Alamo’s left Sol? They got away?”

   “From here, anyway, though I don’t know what happened next. It took me two weeks to sneak back here, and longer to get in touch with Dad.”

   “One phone call…,” the Senator began.

   “Would have been traced. I’ve had some recent experience with how fragile our communication-security infrastructure is.”

   “Give me some details and I’ll propose a bill on the subject, not that it will get through the current logjam. We’re going to be debating the impeachment right until the Senate rests.”

   “You’re stalling?” Harriet asked.

   With a smile, the Senator replied, “I don’t have to. They are. You see, the Progressives are milking this for every bit of publicity they can. Every moment this is in the spotlight, they gain votes. Ideally, they’ll have this declared the day before the end of the session, and they can go back to their constituencies and parade their successes.”

   “How long?”

   “Thirty-two days, and each one’s goin
g to be more torture than the last. Most of my party isn’t even showing up now. The Technocrats are loving it, but they’re torn between wanting the peace treaty and wanting to win the election, and I think they’re coming down on the side of winning the election.”

   “Will they?”

   Throwing his hands in the air, he said, “I honestly don’t know. I know that we won’t, but I don’t know if the Progressives can snatch enough Freedom Party supporters to make it count. We’re going to end up with the doves or the ultra-hawks, and the sane are going to have to sit out an election or two.”

   “All you are telling me is that I have a month to come up with some sort of a miracle, Senator. It’s good to have a time frame to work with.”

   “Everything I’ve heard about you is obviously true. You’re a born optimist.”

   “The universe has been trying to beat that out of me lately, but somehow I keep on going.” Leaning forward, she asked, “What I would like to know, Senator, is…”

   “Where I stand in all this?” He glanced across at his daughter, and said, “I don’t want a war, and I don’t want to leave us defenseless either. But I can’t afford to damage the Freedom Party any more than it has been already, which means…”

   “That you can offer any and all assistance short of actual help,” Harriet said. “We’ve heard that song already.”

   “What are you doing here, anyway?” Harper asked.

   “Can’t a journalist be a patriot as well?” She sighed, then said, “I got sucked in, I admit it. It’s the story of a lifetime, and the press need to be in on it. More than that, I can help.”

   “Lieutenant, I’m not going to leave you hanging out to dry. I’m pretty sure that I can get the charges against you dropped…”

   “I’m not in this for me, Senator. I’m in this to stop a war, and more than that, I’m in this to stop us being the aggressors in one! I don’t understand how the hell this can all have got started in the first place, damn it.”

   “Duty,” he said. “That’s the worst part of it. You have a President that’s managed to leave himself wide open to corruption charges, so the vultures start to descend. This President is rearming, earning the ire of the Technocrats, but proposing a peace treaty, so amazingly he’s got the hawks and the doves attacking him. As for the military, you tell me. You’re a soldier.”

   “A fleet that’s been getting ready for a war, building up forces and preparing to repel a surprise attack suddenly gets word that there is an opportunity for a strike, a chance to turn the tables on them,” she said, resigned. “And presuming that war is inevitable anyway, and knowing that a lot of the Senate will be behind them after the elections, they jump the gun and go early.”

   “Precisely,” the Senator replied. “Oh, we’re not saints. There are enough people on this bandwagon that are along for the goodies, but the key movers, though, they are convinced they are doing this for the right reasons, and there is nothing as dangerous as that.”

   “What if they are right?” Harriet asked.

   “Then we risk leaving the Confederation exposed to a surprise attack. I’ll follow the lead of the only in-system expert on the Cabal we’ve got. What do you think, Lieutenant?”

   “They’re too weak. Right now, we’re as safe as we’re going to be. That doesn’t mean we can ignore the danger.”

   Nodding, the Senator said, “We all assumed that we had time to rearm, maybe two to five years to get ourselves ready, and hoped that the very act of building up our forces would be a sufficient deterrent to war. I found the reports you sent back about conditions in the Cabal abhorrent, Lieutenant, but we’re not the universe’s policeman. We haven’t got the manpower, and the risk is too grave.”

   “I agree. Reluctantly. And I didn’t a few months ago. Given time and work, the Cabal will collapse anyway. We’ve already struck a few blows along those lines.”

   “Hang on a moment,” Harriet said. “You fought your way through Cabal space…”

   “They tried to trap us, and damn near succeeded. That was different.”

   “How?”

   Orlova shook her head, and said, “Because they were building up a force to attack us, and they fired the first shot. We sent a message that we were strong enough for them to leave alone, and that we would go to any lengths to get back our people, but we did not engage in acts of aggression. Helping a few people free themselves from the Cabal is one thing, but we didn’t strike a base without warning.”

   “Now we have,” the Senator said. With a sigh, he continued, “We might be at war whether we want to be or not, but I think we could still get the peace treaty ratified, with enough bonuses that we might be able to convince the Commandant to go along with it. We’re going to need your help for that.”

   “My help? I’m not a negotiator.”

   He glanced across at his daughter again, then replied, “I understand you have covert operations experience.”

   Orlova sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, and said, “You want me to break the Commandant out of the nice warm jail cell he’s been thrown into. Don’t you have your own people for this sort of thing?”

   “Triplanetary Intelligence isn’t returning my calls, and I don’t keep commando units on hand. Borrowing a police car for an hour or two is one thing, but I’m talking about something a lot more extensive. Besides…”

   “You don’t have any connection to the party,” Harper said, looking at her father. “Nor do I. You’ll have me as back-up on this, and your journalist girlfriend as well.”

   “I’m not her girlfriend,” Harriet said.

   “I saw the two of you in there on the cameras,” the hacker said with a smirk. “So, you’ll do it?”

   Orlova looked at the Senator, and said, “Then what?”

   “He negotiates a new treaty with the President, and we get it in front of the Senate, somehow. I’m not sure how.”

   “There has to be an easier way of doing this.”

   “Probably, but I can’t think of one right now. If you have any better suggestions…”

   “No,” she replied with a sigh. “And it’s got to be better than another cocktail party.”

   “Almost certainly.”

   “And given your current faux-neutral status, should I be caught on this hare-brained scheme of yours, I can presume that I will be…”

   “Disclaimed as a traitor, and in all probability shot. Under the circumstances, this has to be a volunteer mission, Lieutenant.”

   With a smirk, she said, “You’re not in the chain of command to give me orders anyway. Though I presume this comes direct from the President.”

   “It does.”

   “Then I guess I volunteer. Just make sure you spell my name right in my obituary.”

  Chapter 4

   “Signal confirmed, Captain,” Spinelli said from his sensor station, turning to face Logan in the command chair. “Transport by the looks of it, though we’d be the only ones who’d recognize it as Triplanetary.”

   “Why is that, Spaceman?” Ryder asked, turning from her position at Tactical.

   “Because it’s the Ouroboros, ma’am, but with new markings.”

   Logan frowned, then asked, “Are you sure, Spinelli? There must be other Cabal ships of that type.”

   “Very probably, sir, but every exterior detail matches. I’ve got some excellent resolution shots of that ship now, and I can match it completely.” He looked up from his console, and said, “Trust me, sir, I know that ship far too damn well.”

   “Interesting,” Logan replied. “A superficial attempt to transform a Triplanetary ship into a Cabal vessel. Are they responding to our hails?”

   “Still silent, sir. Now sixty minutes since they jumped into the system, and I’m not getting any response,” Weitzman said, eyes darting from display to display.

   “No chance of an intercept?” Logan asked.
>
   “We’re scheduled to leave the system in two hours,” Ryder noted. “We might be able to get out that far in time, but we’d be days late getting to Hades. Of course, sir, it’s your call.”

   It didn’t take long for Logan to decide, “I can guess what is on board that ship; I don’t see the point in wasting four or five days to satisfy my curiosity. We’ll let them go, but Weitzman, you make it damn clear that we know what they are up to.” He stood up, then said, “I’ll be in the office if you need me. Ryder, take the conn.”

   Still it was ‘the’ office, not ‘his’ office. Five weeks he’d been officially in command of the Battlecruiser Alamo, and he was still reluctant to take the jump and consider it as his ship. As he stepped through the door, he looked down at Captain Marshall’s desk, the empty chair behind it, and shook his head.

   “Why the hell aren’t you sitting there, damn it? This isn’t my job.”

   The door behind him slid open, and Ryder walked in, replying, “Right now it is, Captain.”

   He turned with a start, and said, “You want it?”

   “Not yet. Maybe in four or five years.”

   “Figures.” He moved over to the desk, staring out at the starscape, and continued, “You think I made the right call?”

   “It isn’t my place…”

   “Don’t give me that crap. You know how far over my head I am. I can play-act for almost everyone out there, but you know better. I need you to watch my back, and if you don’t tell me when I screw up, we’ve had it.”

   “I think you made the right call. It would have been nice to go and get that ship, but we don’t need it, and we need to get to the task force as fast as we can.”

   “If it isn’t too late already.”

   “What do you mean?”

   Sighing, he said, “If I’d been commanding that task force, I’d have taken along a couple of ships that I could use as couriers, to report the success of my mission.”

   “Scoutships, surely.”

   He shook his head. “Remember that the people commanding that task force are playing fast and loose with their orders. They won’t necessarily want just everyone to know what they are doing, and that means using covert means.”