Carnifex

UEPF Spirit of Peace

The ship was quiet, or as quiet as it ever was. There were still sounds from the vents refreshing the air. If one listened carefully, one could hear the crew going about the business of keeping the ship in space. High Admiral Martin Robinson was oblivious to all that, concentrating instead on the scene being played out below.

The big Kurosawa in Robinson's quarters showed it in all its gory detail. Starting in the southeast, and at this point about halfway through the Nicobar Straits, the "bloody, bastard, never-sufficiently-to-be-damned, mercenary swine" were doing their best to scour the Straits free of pirate life. Word was spreading faster than the fleet moved, however, so many of the little villages and towns were emptying themselves before the first shell came in or bomb dropped, before the first sound of a helicopter ferrying in troops reached them.

Even so, some of those troops were landing in the brush to either side of the straits. Robinson noted that the aerial attacks away from the coastlines, and the naval gunfire from the newly recommissioned heavy cruiser upon those refugees, tended to match where small teams of troops had been landed.

"It's not a total loss, Martin," Wallenstein comforted. "The people will be back, and back to their old occupation, in time. We can set things up again to support that useful pig, Mustafa."

Robinson said nothing, at first. Instead, he turned to manipulate his computer to have the Kurosawa zero in on the smoking ruins of Parameswara's fortress. A few hours ago there had been armed legionaries swarming the place. Now there was nothing but shot and hanged men, and women and children left with nothing but their eyes to weep with.

"I don't think so, Marguerite," Robinson said. "Not for one hundred local years. That's how badly those people are going to be terrorized."

"Well . . . the Tauran Union and the World League, down below, have issued very strongly worded condemnations," Wallenstein said. At that, even she had to laugh. "Condemnations. Like the mercenaries care about condemnations."

"They care as much as Mustafa does," Robinson said. "And why shouldn't they? They're Mustafa's children." And, I suppose, mine.

"I'm sorry, Martin," was all Wallenstein could say. "What now?"

"Now, I am afraid, I am going to have to do what perhaps I should have done years ago." Robinson hesitated before continuing; what he had in mind was a serious step. "I've contacted our people in Hangkuk. I'm going to purchase and, if necessary, deliver to Mustafa what he's been asking for all these years."

Wallenstein shook her head. "Oh, Martin, I can't tell you what a really bad idea that is."

"Would you rather see our world destroyed, Captain Wallenstein?"

The mention of her rank, and the implication of the caste that kept her there, shut Wallenstein up completely.