We Few

"It won't include what we know," Catrone said. "It won't even include the Miranda Protocols."

"How do we meet him?" Marinau asked.

"Slipping our tethers will be harder than finding him." Catrone shrugged. "I know I'm being monitored. But finding him won't be hard; there's only a couple of places he can be."

"Meet him, again. Get a reading on him," Rosenberg said. "If you're all in agreement, we'll initiate the Miranda Protocols and gather the clans."

"Honal," Roger smiled tightly, controlling his gorge through sheer force of will, "the idea is to survive flying in a light-flyer."

The sleek, razor-edged aircar, a Mainly Fantom, was the only sports model large enough to squeeze a Mardukan into. It was also the fastest, and reportedly the most maneuverable, light-flyer on the market.

At the moment, Honal was proving that both those claims were justified, weaving in and out of the Western Range at dangerously high speeds. He had his lower, less dexterous, hands on the controls, and his upper arms crossed nonchalantly. There were some tricky air currents, and Roger closed his eyes as one of them caught the flyer and brought it down towards an upthrust chunk of rock. The flyer banked, putting the passenger side down, and Roger opened his eyes a crack to see the rocks of the mountainside flashing by less than a meter from the tip of the aircar's wing.

The car suddenly flipped back in the other direction, banking again, and stood up on its tail. Roger crunched his stomach, feeling himself beginning to gray out, as Honal left out a bellow.

"I love this thing!" the Mardukan shouted, rolling the car over on its back. "Look at what it can do!"

"Honal," Roger shook his head to clear it, "if I die, this plan goes to shit. Could we land, please?"

"Oh, sure. But you wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing, right?"

"You have successfully demonstrated that you can fly an aircar," Roger said carefully. "Most successfully. Thank you. The question of whether or not you can fly a stingship still remains; they're not the same."

"We've been working with the simulators." Honal shrugged all four shoulders. "They're faster than this, but a bit less maneuverable. We can fly stingships, Roger."

"Targeting is—"

"The targeting system is mostly automatic." Honal banked around another mountain, this time slower and further away from the rocks, and landed the car beside the more plebeian vehicle Roger had flown out to the site. "It's a matter of choosing the targets. Human pilots use mainly their toots, with the manual controls primarily for backup, but obviously, we can't do that. On the other hand—you should pardon the expression—humans only have one set of hands. We're training to fly with the lower hands... and control the targeting with the upper. I've 'fought' on the net with a few humans, including some military stingship pilots. They're good, I give you that. But one-on-one, I can take any one of them, and a couple of the rest of the team are nearly as good. Where they kick our ass is in group tactics. We're just getting a feel for those; it's not the same thing as riding a civan against the Boman. Go in against them wing-to-wing, and we just get shot out of the sky. The good news is that the squadron at the Palace isn't trained in group tactics, either. But they've got some pretty serious ground-based air defenses, and taking those out is another thing we're not great at, yet."

"Anything to do about it?" Roger asked.

"I've been reading up on everything I can get translated on stingship doctrine. But we've got a lot of studying to do, and I'm not sure what's relevant and what's not. We're not as far along as I'd hoped. Sorry."

"Keep working on it," Roger said. "That's all we can do for now."

"They're using Greenbriar," Raoux said. The sergeant major no longer looked like herself. Like the Saint commandos, Raiders often had to modify their looks, and she'd gotten a crash retraining in old skills since the coup. "He's on his way there at the moment."

"Why Greenbriar?" Marinau asked. "It's just about the smallest of the dispersal facilities."

"Probably the only one Kosutic knew about," Catrone said. "Pahner would've known more, but—" He shrugged. "We'll shift the base to Cheyenne quick enough if it goes well."

"You ready?" Raoux asked.

"Let's get our mission faces on."

"All right," Roger said, looking at the hologram of the Palace. "Plasma cannon here, here, here, and here. Armored and embedded. ChromSten pillboxes."

"Won't take them out with a one-shot," Kosutic said. "But they can only be activated by remote command from the security bunker."

"Autocannon here and here," Roger continued.

"Ditto," Kosutic replied. "Both of them are heavy enough to take out armor, which we can't get into the area in the first assault anyway, because the sensors all over the City would start screaming, and the Palace would go on lock-down."

"Air defenses," Roger said.

"The minute stingers get near the Capital," Kosutic said, "air defenses all over the place go live. Civilian traffic's grounded, and the air becomes a free-fire zone. Police have IFF; we might be able to emulate that to spoof some of the defenses. It's going to be ugly, though. And that ignores the fact that we don't have stingships. We might have to mount weaponry on those aircars Honal is using for training."

"Wouldn't that be lovely." Roger grimaced and shook his head. "A formation of Mainly Fantoms going in over the parade..."

"We make the assault in the middle of the parade, and we're going to cause enormous secondary casualties," Despreaux pointed out unhappily.

"It's still the best chance we have of getting close to the Palace," Roger replied.

"And every scenario we've run shows us losing," Kosutic said.

"And if you ran a scenario of our making it across Marduk?" Roger asked.

"Different situation, Your Highness," Kosutic replied firmly. "There, we had zip for advance information on the tactical environment. Here we know the relative abilities, the mission parameters, and most of the variables, and, I repeat, every single model we've run ends up having us lose."

"I guess you need a new plan, then," Catrone said from the doorway. Heads snapped around, and his lips curled sardonically as he stripped off the mask he'd been wearing. The two people with him were doing the same.

"And how did you get in here?" Roger asked calmly, almost conversationally, then glanced at Kosutic. "Son of a bitch, Kosutic!"

"I'd like to know that, too," the sergeant major said tightly.

"We got in the through a well-shielded secret passage... the same way we're getting into the Palace," Catrone told her. "If you can convince us we should back you."

"Sergeant Major Marinau," Roger said with an extremely thin smile. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Hey, dork." The sergeant major waved casually.

"That's Your Highness the Dork, to you, Sergeant Major," Roger replied.

"Glad to see you've a gotten a sense of humor." The sergeant major sat at the table. "What happened to Pahner?" he continued, coming right to the point.

"Killed by Saint commandos," Kosutic answered as Roger worked his jaw.

"Now that hasn't been part of the brief," Raoux said. "Greenpeace?"

"Yeah," Roger said. "The tramp freighter we were jacking turned out to be one of their damned insertion ships... and we weren't exactly at full strength, anymore. Thirty remaining marines. They all got pinned down in the first few minutes. We didn't know who they were; they didn't know who we were. It was a pocking mess."

"You were there?" Marinau's eyes narrowed.

"No," Roger said flatly. "I was in the assault shuttles, with the Mardukans. Arm—Captain Pahner had pointed out that if I bought it, the whole plan was through. So I was sitting it out with the reserve. But when they found out it was commandos, I had to come in. So, by the end, yeah, I was there."

"You took Mardukans in against Greenpeace?" Raoux asked. "How many did you lose?"

"Fourteen or fifteen," Roger replied. "It helped that they were all carrying bead and plasma cannon."

"Ouch." Marinau shook his head. "They can handle them? I wouldn't put them much over being able to use rocks and sticks."

"Do not underestimate my companions," Roger said slowly, each word distinct and hard-edged. "All of you are veteran soldiers of the Empire, but the bottom line is that the Empire hasn't fought a major war in a century. I don't know you." He jabbed a finger at Raoux.

"Joceline Raoux," Kosutic told him. "Raiders."

"You're Eva?" Raoux asked. "Long time, Sergeant."

"Sergeant Major, Sergeant Major," Kosutic said with a grin. "Colonel, according to His Highness, but we'll let that slide."

"The point," Roger said, "is—"

He paused, then looked at Kosutic.

"Eva, how many actions did you have, prior to Marduk?"

"Fifteen."

"Sergeant Major Catrone?" Roger asked.

"A bit more," the sergeant major said. "Twenty something."

"Any pitched battles?" Roger asked. "A battle being defined as continuous or near continuous combat that lasts for more than a full day?"

"No, except one hostage negotiation. But that wasn't a battle, by any stretch. Your point?"

"My point," Roger said, "is that during our time on Marduk we had, by careful count, ninety-seven skirmishes and seven major battles, one of which had us in the field, in contact, for three days. We also had over two hundred attacks by atul, atul-grack, damncrocs, or other hostile animals which penetrated the perimeter."

He paused and looked at the three NCOs for a long, hard moment, and then bared his teeth.

"You may think you're the shit, Sergeants Major, but you aren't worth the price of a pistol bead compared to one of my troops, is that clear?"

"Easy, Roger," Eleanora said.

"No, I won't be easy. Because we need to be clear on this from the beginning. Eleanora has been in the middle of more battles than all three of you put together. From the point of view of combat time, I've got everyone in this room—except Eva—beat. Yes, we took on a Saint commando company. In their ship. And we smashed their ass. They didn't have enough people left to bury their dead. And compared to a couple of things we did on Marduk, it was a pocking picnic. Don't try to treat us like cherries, Sergeants Major. Don't."

"You'd used that sword before on those damnbeasts," Catrone said evenly.

"We had to walk across a planet," Despreaux said angrily. "You can't carry enough ammunition. The plasma guns blew up. And the damned atul just kept coming!" She shook her head. "And the Kranolta, and the Boman. The Krath. Marshad..."

"Sindi, Ran Tai, and the flar-ke," Roger said. "That damned coll fish... We have a little presentation, Sergeants Major. It's sort of the bare-bones of what happened, call it an after-action report. It takes about four hours, since it covers eight months. Would you care to view it?"

"Yeah," Marinau said after a moment. "I guess maybe we'd better see what could take a clotheshorse jackass and... make him something else."

Roger left after the first thirty minutes. He'd been there the first time, and he'd watched the presentation once already. Adventures are only fun if they happen to someone else a long way away. Someday he might be able to just kick back and tell the stories. But not yet.

Despreaux followed him out, shaking her head.

"How did we do it, Roger?" she said softly. "How did we survive?"

"We didn't." Roger put his arm around her. "The people who went into that cauldron didn't come out. Some bodies came out, but their souls stayed there." He looked at her and kissed the top of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. "You know, I keep saying we need to do this for the Empire. And every time I do, I lie."

"Roger—"

"No, listen to me. I'm not doing this because I want the Throne. I'm doing this because I owe a debt. To you, to Kostas, to Armand, to Ima Hooker."

He frowned and tried to find the words.

"I know I need to protect myself, that it's all on my shoulders. But I don't want to. I feel like I need to protect you." His arm tightened around her. "Not just you, Nimashet Despreaux, but Eva, and Julian, and Poertena. We few who remain. We few who saw what we saw, and did what we did. You're all... special to me. But to do that, I have to do the rest. Rescue Mother—and, yes, I want to do that. I want Mother to be well. But I need to do the rest so you can be safe. So that you don't wake up every morning wondering if today they're going to come for you. To do that, I have to protect the Empire. Not a fragment, not a piece, not a remnant—the Empire. So that it's wrapped around you few like a blanket. And to do that, yes, I have to survive. I have to safeguard myself. But I think first about... we few."

"That's... crazy," Despreaux said, tears in her eyes.

"So I'm crazy." Roger shrugged. "Like I said, none of us survived."

"Well, that's enough of that," Raoux said, stepping into the corridor. She paused. "Oh, sorry."

"We were just discussing motivations," Roger said.

"Must have been a pretty intense discussion," Raoux said, looking at Despreaux.

"My motivation is pretty intense," he replied.

"I can see why," Raoux said. "I left when that... thing melted one of the troops."

"Talbert." Roger nodded. "Killerpillar. We figured out how to avoid them, and the poisons turned out to be useful." He shrugged. "You should have stuck around. You didn't even get to the Mohinga."

"The Mohinga?" Raoux's eyebrows rose. "That's a training area in Centralia Province. One nasty-assed swamp."

"We had one of our own." Roger looked at Despreaux. "Before Voitan, remember?"

"Yes," Despreaux said. "I thought it was bad. Until Voitan gave a whole new perspective to the word 'bad.'"

"Hey, you got to save my life. I still remember that really clear view of your butt. I thought I liked you before, but all I could think about all the time was what that butt looked like."

"Hell of a time to think of that!" Despreaux said angrily.

"Well, it was a very nice-looking butt." Roger smiled. "Still is, even if it's a bit... rounder."

"Fatter."

"No, not fatter, very nice..."

"Excuse me." Raoux folded her arms. "You guys want to get a room?"

"So, are we going to get your support?" Roger asked sharply. His smile disappeared, and he turned his head, locking onto her eyes. "From the Association?"

"Associations," Raoux said, turning slightly aside. "Plural."

The prince's expression, the way he moved and looked at her, reminded her uncomfortably of a bird of prey. Not an eagle, which had a certain majesty to it. More like a falcon—something that was no more than a swift, predatory shape wrapped around a mind like a buzz saw.

"We just call ourselves the clans," she continued. "Raider Association. Special Operations Association. Empress' Own Association. Lots of intermingling, what with people like Tomcat."

"All of them?" Roger asked.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Raoux countered. "I was never in the Pretty-Boy Club."

"And are we going to get the support?" Roger pressed.

"Probably. Marinau was a holdout, probably because he knew you. But if he can sit through that... briefing from Hell, I don't think he'll hold out for long. People change."

"That's what we were talking about," Roger said quietly. "I was just explaining to Nimashet that none of us got off Marduk alive, not really. Not the people that landed. We've all changed."

"Some for the worse," Despreaux said in a low voice.

"No," Roger said sternly. "You're my conscience, my anchor. You can't be my conscience and my sword. I've got people who can hold guns and pull triggers, and I can find more of them, if I have to. But there's only one you, Nimashet Despreaux."

"He's got a point," Raoux said. "And don't sweat combat fatigue—not after what I just watched. Anyone ever got hammered big time, it was you people. You've earned a change of duty assignments, and you've got your part to play."

"I suppose," Despreaux said.

"So what, exactly, are you bringing to the table?" Roger asked.

"Wait for the others," Raoux replied.

It didn't take long for Marinau to leave the room, as well, and Catrone followed shortly thereafter. Of the three NCOs, only Catrone was smiling.

"Christ," he said. "I wish I'd been there!"

"You would." Raoux shook her head. "You like nightmares."

"Okay, I'm convinced," Marinau said. "I kept looking for the special effects. There weren't any; that was real."

"As real as it gets," Roger said, his face hard.

Marinau cleared his throat, shook his head, and finally looked at the prince.

"I'm in," he said, still shaking his head. "But do you think you could have shown just a little bit of that when I was in charge?" he asked plaintively. "It would have made my job... well, not easier. More satisfying, I guess."

"Maybe I shouldn't have always shucked my guards when I went hunting," Roger said with a shrug. "But you all sounded like flar-ta in the woods."

"I'll tell you a secret," Marinau said, shame-faced. "We all figured it was your guides doing the hunting, and that you were just showing off and bringing back the heads. Shows how wrong I can be. And I'm man enough to admit it. I'm in."

"Raiders are in," Raoux said.

"Special Ops is in," Catrone said. "But only if we get a chance to get stuck in with some of those Mardukans. And I want the Earl of New Madrid. I'm going to spend the rest of my natural life torturing him to death. There's this thing you can do with a steel-wire waistcoat and a rock—"

"We'll discuss it," Roger said sternly. "Okay, back to the conference room."

"Here's the thing," Catrone said, when the playback had been turned down. Roger left the video playing, though, as a less than subtle point. "You know who the Strelza were, Your Highness?"

"No," Roger said.

"Yes," Despreaux, Kosutic, and Eleanora replied.

"What am I missing?" Roger asked.

"We got it on our in-brief to the Regiment," Despreaux told him, frowning at a distant memory. "Russian troops."

"Okay, ever heard of the Praetorian Guard?" Catrone asked.

"Sort of." Roger nodded. "Roman."

"Both the same thing," Catrone said.

"Not exactly," Eleanora said. "The Praetorians were originally Caesar's Tenth Legion, and—"

"For my point, they are," Catrone said, annoyed. "Both of them were guard forces for their respective Emperors. The equivalent of the Empress' Own. Okay?"

"Okay," Roger said.

"And both of them ended up deciding that they got to choose who was Emperor."

"I begin to see your point," Roger said.

"The Empress' Own is weeded really hard," Marinau said. "You can't just be able, you have to be... right."

"Pretty boys," Raoux said with a smile.

"That, too," Marinau agreed with a shrug. "But pretty boys thataren't going to be kingmakers. In a lot of ways, we're deliberately... limited. Limited in size—"

"And never up to full strength," Catrone interjected.

"And limited in firepower," Marinau continued. "Home Fleet can take us out anytime."

"If they want to kill the Empress," Roger said.

"True. But the point is that we can be taken down," Marinau said. "For that matter, garrison troops from outside NorthAm could do it the hard way, if they were prepared to lose enough bodies. As that bastard Adoula demonstrated."

"Some of this was deliberately set up by Miranda MacClintock," Catrone said.

"Who was one seriously paranoid individual," Marinau added.

"And a scholar," Eleanora pointed out. "One who knew the dangers of a Praetorian Guard. And while it's true you can be taken out, you're also the only significant Imperial ground force allowed on this entire continent. The brigade that attacked the Palace was a clear violation of Imperial regulations."

"But Miranda set up other things, too," Catrone said, waving that away. "This, for example." He gestured around himself at the facility. "You notice we're surrounded by skyscrapers, but none of them are here?"

"I did notice that," Roger agreed.

"Deliberate and very subtle zoning," Catrone told him. "To prevent this facility from ever being discovered. And you don't find out about some things until you've left the Regiment."

"Ah," Kosutic said. "Tricky."

"Some stuff has gotten passed down," Catrone said. "In the Association. Keywords. Secrets. Passed from former commanders and sergeants major to former commanders and sergeants major. Some of it's probably been lost that way, but it's been... pretty secure. You're out, maybe you've got some gripes with the current Emperor, but you've got this sacred trust. And you keep it. And you're no longer in a position to play kingmaker."

"Until now," Eleanora said, leaning forward. "Right?"

"Asseen," Catrone said, ignoring her and looking at Roger. "Are you Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock, son of Alexandra Harriet Katryn Griselda Tian MacClintock?"

Roger brushed his forehead, like a man brushing away a mosquito, and frowned in puzzlement.

"What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously.

"Answer yes or no," Catrone said. "Are you Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock, son of Alexandra Harriet Katryn Griselda Tian MacClintock?"

"Yes," Roger said firmly.

"Is there a usurper upon the Throne?"

"Yes," Roger said, after a moment. He could feel something searching his thoughts, looking for falsehood. It was an odd and terrifying experience.

"Do you attempt to take your rightful place for the good of the Empire?"

"Yes," Roger said after another pause. His quibbles about motivation didn't matter; it was for the good of the Empire.

"Will you keep Our Empire safe, hold Our people in your hands, protect them as you would your children, and ensure the continuity of Our line?" Catrone's voice had taken on a peculiar timbre.

"Yes," Roger whispered.

"Then We give unto you Our sword," Catrone said, his voice now distinctively female. "Bear it under God, to defend the right, to protect Our people from their enemies, to safeguard Our people's liberties, and to preserve Our House."

Roger dropped his head, holding it in his hands, his elbows on the table.

"Roger?" Despreaux said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay," Roger gasped. "Shit."

"It doesn't look okay," she said anxiously.

"God," Roger groaned. "Oh, God. It's all there..."

"What's there?" Despreaux turned on Catrone, her expression furious. "What did you do to him?!"

"I didn't do anything to him," Catrone said, his voice now normal. "Miranda MacClintock did."

"Secret routes here, here, here, here," Roger said, updating the map of the Palace through his toot. "This one is an old subway line. The control bunker is in the basement of an old rail station!"

"This was all in your head?" Eleanora asked in an almost awed tone as she gazed into the holo.

"Yes. Which—much as I hate to even think about it—makes me wonder if they could have gottenit from Mother."

"I won't say it's impossible," Catrone replied, "but it's set to dump if the subject is under any form of duress. Even harsh questioning would do it. I happen to know that you got updated, twice, after conversations with your mother."

"That figures," Roger said. "She always was one for... harsh questions. 'Why don't you cut your hair?' 'What do you do all day on those hunting trips?'" he added in a falsetto.

"The setup is incredibly paranoid," Catrone continued. "The doctors who handle the toot updates don't even know about it. It's a hack that's arranged by the Regiment, and the only thing they know is that it's an old mod. Hell, for that matter the hack that gave me the activation codes is handled the same way. Except—" his smile was crooked "—our toots don't just dump. They still have their active-duty suicide circuits on-line in case anyone tries to sweat us for what we know about the Protocols. As for the Imperial Family and the full packet, it's just one of the traditions of the Regiment. That's all most of us who know about it at all know. And the subjects aren't aware of it at all. None of them."

"You could slip anything in," Roger said angrily.

"So maybe we are kingmakers," Catrone admitted. "I dunno. Butwe don't even know what's in it. It's just a data packet. We get the data packet from the IBI. I think they're in charge of keeping the current intelligence info side of it updated, but even they don't know what it's for."

"It's more than just a data packet," Roger said flatly. "It's like having the old biddy in your head. God, it's weird. No, not having her in your head, but the way the data's arranged..."

His voice trailed off.

"What?" Despreaux finally asked.

"Well, first of all, the data's nonextractable." Roger was looking at the tabletop, but clearly not actually seeing it as his eyes tracked back and forth. "That is, I can't just dump it out. It's in a compartmented memory segment. And there's a lot more than just the Palace data. Assassination techniques, toombie hacks, poisons—method and application of, including analyses and after-action reports. Hacking programs. Back doors to Imperial and IBI datanets. Whoever caretakers this thing for the IBI's been earning his pay updating it with current tech and passwords. And there's more in here than I thought a toot had room for."

"Is there a way in?" Kosutic asked pointedly.

"I can see several. All of them have problems, but they're all better than what we'd been—" He held up his hand and shook his head. "Hang on."

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his float chair, swinging it from side to side. The group watched him in silence, wondering what he was seeing. Then he leaned suddenly forward and opened his eyes, crossing his arms and grinning.

Despreaux felt faintly uneasy as she studied that grin. It wasn't cold, by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was almost... mad. Evil. Then it passed, and he laughed and looked up at them.

"Now I know what Aladdin felt like," he said, still grinning.

"What are you talking about?" Kosutic sounded as uneasy as Despreaux had felt.

"Let's take a walk," Roger replied, and led them out of the room and down a series of corridors to the back of the south end of the complex. They ended up facing a blank wall.

"We swept this," Kosutic pointed out.

"And if it had been a normal door, you would've found it." Roger drew a knife out of his pocket and rapped on the solid concrete. "Asseen, asseen, Protocol Miranda MacClintock One-Three-Niner-Beta. Open Sesame!"

He slapped the wall and then stood back.

"Paranoid and with a sense of humor," Catrone said dryly as the wall started to slide backwards into the hill. The movement revealed that the "wall" was a half meter of concrete slab, pinned to the bedrock of the mountain ridge. The plug that had filled the corridor was nearly four meters deep, yet it slid backwards smoothly, easily. Then it moved sideways, revealing a large, domed room whose walls and ceilings reflected the silver of ChromSten armoring.

Ranked against the left wall were five stingships—a model Roger didn't recognize, with short, stubby wings, and a wide body—and a pair of shuttles. Opposite them were three light skimmer tanks, and both sets of vehicles were wrapped in protective covers.

"Wait." Roger held out his hand as Catrone started to step past him. "Nitrogen atmosphere," the prince continued as lights came on and fans started to turn in the distance. "You go in there now, and you'll keel over in a second."

"That up there, too?" Catrone asked, gesturing with his chin at Roger's head.

"Yep."

"Is there one of these at each dispersal facility?" Catrone asked.

"Yep. And a bigger set at the Cheyenne facility. You were the Gold sergeant major; you know about that one, right?"

"Yes. How many others?"

"Four, five total," Roger replied. "Greenbrier, Cheyenne, Weather Mountain, Cold Mountain, and Wasatch."

"Thirty stingships?" Rosenberg asked.

"Fifty," Roger told him. "There are ten each at Weather Mountain, Cold Mountain, and Wasatch, and fifteen at Cheyenne."

"I knew it didn't look right!" Catrone snapped. "That one's designated for the Empress, and I checked it out one time. The dome's too flat!"

"That's because the entire lower section is missing," Roger said. "All the stuff in there is under the known facilities. And this isn't part of the original facility; it was a later add-on." He glanced at a readout on the side of the tunnel and nodded. "That's long enough."

"I don't recognize those." Despreaux pointed at the stingships, as they crossed the chamber towards them. "Or the tanks, for that matter."

"That's because they're antiques," Rosenberg said, running his hand lovingly over the needlelike nose of the nearest. "I've only ever seen them in air shows. They date back more than a hundred years. Densoni Shadow Wolves—forty megawatt fusion bottle, nine thousand kilos of thrust, Mach Three-Point-Five or thereabouts." He touched the leading edge of one wing and sighed. "Bastards to fly. They used more aero-lift than modern ships—let them get away from you, and they went all over the sky, then hit the ground. Hard. They called them Widow-Makers."

"Not much good against Raptors, then," Roger sighed. "I thought we'd hit the jackpot."

"Oh, I dunno." Rosenberg pursed his lips. "It'll take good pilots, and I don't have fifty of those I can get in on this and be sure of security. It'd help if they're crazy, too. But basic stingship design just hasn'tchanged a lot over the last hundred years or so. Shadow Wolves are actually faster than Raptors, and, maybe, a tad more maneuverable because of the aero-surfaces. Certainly more maneuverable at high speeds; they'll pull something like thirty gees in a bank, before damping. But they sacrifice direct lift and gravity control, and the damping only brings it down to about sixteen gees at max evolution. The big difference is modern high-density fusion plants, which equates to more brute acceleration—better grav damping—and a considerably more powerful weapons fit. And, like I said, theirout-of-control maneuvers are a bitch. No neural interfaces, either." He looked over at Roger and cocked an eyebrow. "Ammo?"

"Magazine." Roger pointed to the exit corridor. "And an armory. No powered armor. Soft-suits and exoskeletons."

"They didn't have the power-tech a hundred years ago that we have now," Catrone said, striding down the corridor. "Powering ChromSten armor took too much juice. Weapons?"

"Old—really old—plasma guns," Roger replied. "Forty-kilowatt range."

"That won't do it against powered armor," Kosutic said.

"And I'm not too happy about the idea of old plasma guns," Despreaux pointed out. "Not after what happened on Marduk."

"Everything's going to have to be checked out," Roger said. "Most of it should be pretty good; no oxygen, so there shouldn't have been any degradation. And the guns may be old, Nimashet, but they weren't built by Adoula and his assholes. On the other hand, some of the stuff was stashed by Miranda herself, people—it's damned near six hundred years old. Most of the other bits and pieces were emplaced later."

"So somebody's been collecting the stuff," Catrone said. "The Association?"

"Sometimes," Roger said. "And others. But usually the Family took care of it directly. Which left the entire process with some kinks Miranda couldn't really allow for. There are some... time bombs in this thing. Like I say, some of this stuff was put up by Great Gran, using the IBI, and some of the Family have followed up over the years with more modern equipment. Like your Shadow Wolves," he said, looking at Rosenberg. "But I think..."

Roger frowned and looked up at the ceiling, clearly considering schedules.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "Mother should already have done some upgrades. I wonder why—" He paused. "Oh, that's why. God, this woman was paranoid."

"What?" Despreaux said.

"Bitch!" Roger snapped.

"What!?"

"Oh, not you," Roger said quickly, soothingly. "Miranda. Mother, for that matter. There are... familial security protocols, I guess you'd call them, in here. God, no wonder some of the emperors've gone just a touch insane." He closed his eyes again and shook his head. "Imagine, for a moment, a thought coming out of nowhere..."

"Oh, Christ," Catrone said. "'Do you trust your family? Really, really trust them?"

"Bingo." Roger opened his eyes and looked around. "The protocols only opened up if the Emperor or Empress of the time fully trusted the people he or she was going to use to upgrade the facilities. And the people they were upgrading the facilities for. If they didn't trust them, from time to time they'd be... probed again. According to the timetable, Mother probably was being asked as often as monthly if she really trusted, well, me."

"And she didn't," Catrone said.

"Apparently not," Roger replied, tightly. "As if I didn't know that before."

"We pull this off, and she will," Marinau said. "Keep that in mind."

"Yeah," Roger said. "Yeah. And it wasn't just Mother, either. Grandfather's head just didn't work the way Miranda's—or Mom's—did. He didn't want to think about this kind of crap... so he didn't, and the Protocols jumped over him completely. That's why the stingships we've got here date clear back to before he took the Throne, although the ones at Cheyenne are more modern." His mouth twisted. "Probably because these were the ones I was most likely to get my hands on if it turned out Mom was right about me."

"But at least they're here," Despreaux pointed out.

"And because they are, we've got a chance," Rosenberg put in. "Maybe even a good one."

"We can't use the Cheyenne stingships," Roger pointed out. "Not in any sort of first wave; they're too far away. For that matter, they'd have to run a gauntlet even after the first attack. Especially after the first attack."

"And I've only got one other pilot I'd bring in on this," Rosenberg said.

"Pilots... aren't a problem," Roger replied evenly. "But we're going to have to get techs in to work on this stuff. It should be in good shape, but there's bound to be problems. There are spares here, as well."

"And we're gonna need more armor," Catrone said.

"Well, that's not a problem, either," Roger said. "Or modern weapons. The plasma guns here are ancient as hell, but they're fine for general antipersonnel work, and there are some heavy weapons the Mardukans can handle, for that matter. And we've got another source of supply. We've got over twenty heavy plasma and bead guns, and some armor, as well."

"Oh?" Catrone eyed him speculatively.

"Oh." Roger seemed unaware that the older man was looking at him. "But the big problem is, we're going to have to rehearse this, and this op's just gotten a lot bigger than we can squeeze into Greenbrier here. Somehow, we've got to bring everyone together in one place, and how the hell are we going to do that without opping every security flag Adoula has?"

"Tell you what," Catrone said suspiciously. "If you'll ante up your suppliers, we'll ante up how to rehearse. And where the techs are going to come from."

"Okay," Catrone said when he and Roger were back in the meeting room. Despreaux, Kosutic, and Marinau were going over weaponry, while Rosenberg was doing an in initial survey of the stingships and shuttles. "We need to get one thing out of the way."

"What?"

"No matter what, we're not going to oppose you, and we're not going to burn you," Catrone said. "But there are still some elements that don't think too highly of Prince Roger MacClintock."

"I'm not surprised," Roger said evenly. "I was my own worst enemy."

"They do, however, support Alexandra," Catrone continued, shaking his head. "Which could create a not-so-tiny problem, since when we take the Palace, you're going to be in control."

"Not if the Association is against me," Roger pointed out.

"We don't want a factional fight in the Palace itself," Catrone said tightly. "That would be the worst of all possible outcomes. But—get it straight. We're not fighting for Prince Roger; we're fighting for Empress Alexandra."

"I understand. There's just one problem."

"Your mother may not be fully functional," Catrone said. "Mentally."

"Correct." Roger considered his next words carefully. "Again," he said, "we have... reports which indicate that. The people who provided the analysis in those reports believe there will be significant impairment. Look, Tom, I don't want the Throne. What sort of lunatic would want it in a situation like this one? But from all reports, Mother isn't going to be sufficiently functional to continue as Empress."

"We don't know that," Catrone argued mulishly, his face set. "All we have are rumors and fifth-hand information. Your mother is a very strong woman."

Roger leaned back and cocked his head to the side, examining the old soldier as if he'd never seen him before.

"You love her," the prince said.

"What?" Catrone snapped, and glared at him. "What does that have to do with it? She's my Empress. I was sworn to protect her before you were a gleam in New Madrid's eye. I was Silver's battalion sergeant major when she was Heir Primus. Of course I love her! She's my Empress, you young idiot!"

"No." Roger leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, and stared Catrone in the eye. "Being in that pressure cooker taught me more than just how to swing a sword, Tomcat. It made me a pretty fair judge of human nature, too. And I mean you love her. Not as a primary, not as the Empress—as a woman. Tell me I lie."

Catrone leaned back and crossed his own arms. He looked away from Roger's modded brown eyes, then looked back.

"What if I do?" he asked. "What business is that of yours?"

"Just this." Roger leaned back in turn. "Which do you love more—her, or the Empire?" He watched the sergeant major's face for a moment, then nodded. "Ah, there's the rub, isn't it? If it comes down to a choice between Alexandra MacClintock and the Empire, can you decide?"

"That's hypothetical," Catrone argued. "And it's impossible to judge—"

"It's an important hypothetical," Roger interrupted. "Face it, if we succeed, we will be the kingmakers. And people—everyone on Old Earth, in the Navy, in the Corps, the Lords, the Commons, all of them—are going to want to know, right away, who's in charge." He made a cutting motion with his hand in emphasis. "Right then. Who's giving the orders. Who holds the reins. Not to mention the planetary defense control codes. My information is that Mother's in no condition to assume that responsibility. What do your sources say?"

"That she's... impaired." Catrone's face was obsidian-hard. "That they're using psychotropic drugs, toot controls, and... sexual controls to keep her in line."

"What?" Roger said very, very softly.

"They're using psychotropic—"

"No. That last part."

"That's why the Earl is involved," Catrone said, and paused, looking at the prince. "You didn't know," he said quietly after a moment.

"No." Roger's fists bunched. His arms quivered, and his face went set and hard. For the first time, Thomas Catrone felt an actual trickle of fear as he looked at the young man across the table from him.

"I did not know," Prince Roger MacClintock said.

"It's a... refinement." Catrone's own jaw worked. "Keeping Alex in line is apparently pretty hard. New Madrid figured out how." He paused and took a deep breath, getting himself under control. "It's his... style."

Roger had his head down, hands together, nose and lips resting on the ends of his fingers, as if he were praying. He was still quivering.

"If you go in now, guns blazing, Prince Roger," Catrone said softly, "we're all going to die. And it won't help your mother."

Roger nodded his head, ever so slightly.

"I've had some time to get over it," Catrone said, gazing at something only he could see, his voice distant, almost detached. "Marinau brought me the word. All of it. He brought it in person, along with a couple of the other guys."

"They have to hold you down?" Roger asked quietly. His head was still bent, but he'd managed to stop the whole-body quivers.

"I nearly broke his arm," Catrone said, speaking each word carefully, in a sort of high, soft voice of memory. He licked his lips and shook his head. "It catches me, sometimes. I've been wracking my brain over what to do, other than getting myself killed. I don't have a problem with that, but it wouldn't have helped Alex one bit. Which is why I didn't hesitate, except long enough for some tradecraft, when you turned up. I want those bastards, Your Highness. I want them so bad I can taste it. I've never wanted to kill anyone like I want to kill New Madrid. I want a new meaning of pain for him."

"Until this moment," Roger said quietly, calmly, "we've been in very different places, Sergeant Major."

"Explain," Catrone said, shaking himself like a dog, shaking off the cold, drenching hatred of memory to refocus on the prince.

"I knew rescuing Mother was a necessity." Roger looked up at last, and the retired NCO saw tears running down his cheeks. "But frankly, if the mission would have worked better, if it would have been safer, ignoring Mother, I would have been more than willing to ignore her."

"What?" Catrone said angrily.

"Don't get on your high horse, Sergeant Major," Roger snapped. "First of all, let's keep in mind the safety of the Empire. If keeping the Empire together meant playing my mother as a pawn,that would be the right course. Mother would insist it was the right course. Agreed?"

Catrone's lips were pinched and white with anger, but he nodded.

"Agreed," he said tightly.

"Now we get into the personal side," Roger continued. "My mother spent as little time with me as she possibly could. Yes, she was Empress, and she was very busy. It was a hard job, I know that. But I also know I was raised by nannies and tutors and my goddammed valet. Mother, quite frankly, generally only appeared in my life to explain to me what a little shit I was. Which, I submit, didn't do a great deal to motivate me to be anything else, Sergeant Major. And then, when it was all coming apart, she didn'ttrust me enough to keep me at her side. Instead, she sent me off to Leviathan. Instead of landing on Leviathan, which is a shithole of a planet, I ended up on Marduk—which isworse. Not exactly her fault, but let's just say that she and her distrust figure prominently in why almost two hundred men and women who were very close and important to me died."

"Don't care for Alexandra, do you?" Catrone said menacingly.

"I just found out that blood is much,much thicker than water," Roger replied, cheek muscles bunching. "If you'd asked me, and if I'd been willing to answer honestly, five minutes ago if I cared if Mother lived or died, the honest answer would have been: no." He paused and stared at the sergeant major, then shook his head. "In which case, I would have been lying tomyself at the same time I was trying to be honest with you." He twisted his hands together and his arms shook. "I really, really feel the need to kill something."

"There's always those atul," Catrone pointed out, watching him work through it.

Frankly, the prince was handling it better than he had. Maybe he didn't care as much, but Catrone suspected that it was simply a very clear manifestation of how controlled Roger could be. Catrone understood control. You didn't get to be sergeant major of Gold Battalion by being a nonaggressive nonentity, and he could recognize when a person was exercising enormous control. Well, enough to prevent an outright explosion, at least. He wondered—for the first time, really, despite having seen the "presentation" from Marduk—just how volcanic Roger could be when pushed. Based on the degree of control he was seeing at this moment, he suspected the answer was very volcanic. Like, Krakatoa volcanic.

"Putting myself in the way of an atul right now would be stupid," Roger said. "If I die, the whole plan dies. Mom dies, and she... shit!" He shook his head again. "Besides, I've killed so many of them that it just wouldn't be satisfying enough, you know?" he added, looking at the sergeant major.

"Oh, yeah. I know."

"God, that hit me." Roger closed his eyes again. "At so many levels. Christ, I don't want her to die. I want to strangle her myself!"

"Don't joke about that," Catrone said sharply.

"Sorry." Roger sat motionless for another moment, then reopened his eyes. "We've got to get her out of there, Sergeant Major."

"We will," Catrone said. "Sir."

"I learned, a long time ago," Roger said, smiling faintly, his cheeks still wet with tears, "all of eleven months or so ago, the difference between being called 'Your Highness' and 'Sir.' I'm glad you're fully on board."

"Nobody is that good an actor," Catrone told him. "You didn't know. Your... sources didn't know?"

"I... think they did," Roger replied. "In which case, certain cryptic glances between members of my staff are now explained."

"Wouldn't be the first time staff held back something they didn't want their boss to know. Be glad it wasn't something more important."

"Actually, this is rather important. But I take your meaning," Roger said. "On the other hand, I think I'll just explain to them the difference between personal and important." He looked at the sergeant major, his face hard. "Don't get down on me, by the way, for considering Mother as a pawn. I saw too many friends die..."

"I watched," Catrone said, nodding to where the hologram had played.

"Yes, but even for someone who's been on the sharp end, you can't know," Roger replied. "You can't know what it's like to have to keep going every day, watching your soldiers being picked off, one by one, losing men and women that you... love, and the journey seems to never end. Seeing them dying to protect you, and nothing—nothing—you can do to help them that won't make it worse. So, I did. I did make it worse. I kept throwingmyself out there. And getting them killed while they were trying to keep me alive. Until I got good enough that I was keeping them alive. Good enough that they were watching my back instead of getting between me and whatever was trying to kill us, because they knew I was, by God, the nastiest, most cold-blooded, vicious bastard on that entire fucking planet.

"I wasn't fighting this battle for Mother, Sergeant Major; I was fighting it for them. To get that damned Imperial Warrant off their heads. To make sure they could go to bed at night in reasonable certainty that they'd wake up in the morning. So that the dead could be honored in memory, their bodies brought home to lie beside the fallen heroes of the Empire, instead of being remembered only as losers in a failed coup. As incompetent traitors. That was no way to remember Armand Pahner. I'd use anyone—you, the Association, Mother, anyone—to keep them from—"

He shrugged angrily, and his nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath.

"But, yeah, I just found out that blood is thicker than water. Before, I only wanted Adoula... moved aside. He was another obstacle to be removed, period. Now... ?"

"New Madrid is the real bastard," Catrone ground out. "He's the one—"

"Yes, he is." Roger flexed his jaw. "I agree with that. But I'll tell you something else, Sergeant Major. You're not getting your wire waistcoat."

"Like hell," Catrone said uncomfortably. "You're not going to let him walk?"

"Of course not. And if the timing is right, you can shoot the bastard, father of mine though he is—genetically speaking, at least. Or I'll hand you my sword, and you can cut his pretty head off. But in all likelihood, if he doesn't get accidentally terminated during the operation, or if he's not in a position where early termination is the best course, we're going to turn him over to the courts and slip a nice little poison into his veins after a full and fair trial."

"Like hell!" Catrone repeated, angrily, this time.

"That's what's going to happen," Roger said sternly. "Because one of the things I learned in that little walk is the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys don't torture people just because they want vengeance, Sergeant Major. No matterwhat the reasoning. I didn't torture that damned Saint bastard who killed Armand Pahner after he'd 'surrendered.' I shot him before I left Marduk, and given the Saints' violation of Imperial territory and the operations those Greenpeace commandos carried out under his orders—not to mention killing so many Imperial Marines right there in Marduk orbit—it was completely, legally justified. I won't pretend for a moment that I didn't take a certain savage satisfaction out of it; as Armand himself once pointed out to me, I am a bit of a savage—a barbarian—myself. But I didn't torture even the sons of bitches who killed him and tried to kill me, and I never tortured a damncroc for killing Kostas. Killed quite a few, but they all went out quick. If there's areason to terminate New Madrid as part of this operation, he'll be terminated. Cleanly and quickly. If not, he faces Imperial justice. Ditto for Adoula. Becausewe're the good guys, whatever the bad guys may have done."

"Christ, you have grown up," Catrone muttered. "Bastard."

"That I am," Roger agreed. "I was born out of wedlock, but I'm my mother's son, not my father's. And not evenhe can turn me into him. Is that clear?"

"Clear," Catrone muttered.

"I can't hear you, Sergeant Major," Roger said without a hint of playfulness.

"Clear," Catrone said flatly. "Damn it."

"Good," Roger said. "And now that that little UNPLEASANTNESS—" he shouted "—is out of the way, I'll give you one more thing, Sergeant Major."

"Oh?" Catrone regarded him warily.

"I've taken a shine to you, Sergeant Major. I didn't understand why, at first, but you remind me of someone. Not as smooth, not quite as wise, I think, but pretty similar in a lot of ways."

"Who?" Catrone asked.

"Armand Pahner." Roger swallowed. "Like I said, none of that trip would have worked without Armand. He wasn't perfect. He had a tendency to believe his own estimates that damned near killed us a couple of times. But... he was very much like a father to me. I learned to trust him more than I trust ChromSten. You with me, Sergeant Major?"

"Pahner was a hell of a man," Catrone said. "A bit of a punk, when I first met him. No, not a punk—never a punk. He was good, even then. But, yeah, cocky as hell. And I watched him grow for a bit. I agree, he was more trustworthy than armor. Your point?"

"My point, Tom, is that I've come to trust you. Maybe more than I should, but... I've gotten to be a fair judge of character. And I know you don't want to play kingmaker... which is why that's exactly what you're going to do."

"Explain," Catrone said, wary again.

"When we take the Palace," Roger said, then shrugged. "Okay, if we take the Palace. And we rescue Mother. You are going to decide—right then, right there."

"Decide who gets the reins?"

"Yes, who gets the reins. If Mother is evensemifunctional, I'll step back. Give her time to get her bearings, time to find out how damaged she is. But you, Thomas Catrone, are going to make the evaluation."

"Shit."

"Do you think Adoula has this?"

Buseh Subianto had been in the IBI for going on forty years. She'd started out as a street agent, working organized crime, and she'd done it well. There'd been something about her fresh face and dark-green eyes that had gotten men, often men who were normally close-mouthed, to talk to her. Such conversations had frequently resulted in their incarceration—frequently enough, as a matter of fact, that she'd been quickly promoted, and then transferred to counterintelligence.

She'd been in the counter-intel business for more than twenty-five years, now, during which she'd slowly worked her way up the ladder of the bureaucracy. The face wasn't so fresh any more. Fine lines had appeared in her skin, and there was a crease on her brow from years of concentrated thought. But the green eyes were still dark and piercing. Almost hypnotic.

Fritz Tebic had worked for his boss long enough to know when to avoid the hypnotism. So he swallowed, then shrugged, looking away.

"He may have it," he replied. "He's seen the report on the Mardukans who met with Helmut's courier. And New Madrid was definitely having Catrone followed. Catrone went to the Mardukan restaurant here in Imperial city, and a week later, he's meeting with the hard-core members of the Associations. But... there are a lot of threads. Adoula's people might not have connected them. Might not."

"If they had, we'd already have an Imperial arrest warrant for treason for Catrone and..." she looked at the data, frowning, the thin crease getting deeper, "this Augustus Chung. What gets me is that the players don't make any sense. And where are the materials Chung's been receiving coming from?"

"I don't know," Tebic said. "OrgCrime Division's already looking at this Marduk House pretty closely—they think Chung is laundering money. But they don't have the information on the shipments. I haven't put any of this into the datanet. The original report on the meeting with Helmut's officers is in there, but none of the connections. And... there are a few Mardukans running around. They don't have any skills, so they tend to end up as heavies of one sort or another. Some do work for orgcrime, so basically, the Sixth Fleet link looks like a false-positive unless you also have the information on the equipment Chung's been receiving. Ma'am, what are we going to do?"

It was difficult to hide much from the Imperial Bureau of Investigation. Most money was transferred electronically, as were most messages, and everything electronic went past the IBI eventually. And the IBI had enormous computing power at its disposal, power that sifted through that enormous mass of data, looking for apparently unconnected bits. Over the years, the programs had become more and more sophisticated, with fewer and fewer false hits. Despite draconian privacy limitations which were—almost always—rigorously observed, the IBI had eyes everywhere.

Including inside the Imperial Palace. Which meant the two of them knew very well the actual condition of the Empress.

Tebic remembered a class from early in his Academy days. The class had been on the history of cryptography and information security, and one of the examples of successful code-breaking operations had been called Verona, a program from the earliest days of computers—even before transistors. The code-breakers had successfully penetrated an enemy spy network, only to find out that the other side had agents so high in their own government that reporting the information was tantamount to committing suicide. At the time of the class, Tebic's sympathy for them had been purely intellectual; these days, he connected with them on a far more profound level.

A few key people in the IBI knew that Adoula and the Earl of New Madrid had the Empress under their complete control. They even knew how. The problem was, they had no one to tell. The IBI's director had been replaced, charged as an accessory to the "coup." Kyoko Pedza, Director of Counterintelligence, had disappeared within a day afterwards, just before his own arrest on the same charges. It was five-to-one odds in their internal pool that he'd been assassinated by Adoula; Pedza had been a serious threat to Adoula's power base.

But the problem was that the IBI wasn't the Empress' Own. It wasn't even the Navy, sworn to defend the Constitution and the Empress. The IBI's first and only mission was the security of the Empire. Yes, Adoula had effectively usurped the Throne. Yes, he'd committed a list of offenses a kilometer long in doing so. Perjury, murder, kidnapping, and physical and psychological torture. Technically, they should lay out the data, slap a set of restraints on him, and lead him away to durance vile.

But realistically, he was too powerful. He had a major base in the Lords and the Commons, de facto control of the Empress, and control of most of the Navy, and Prime Minister Yang had obviously decided it wasn't time to challenge him too openly. Whether that was because of the chaos Yang feared would overwhelm the Empire if he did so, or because he was more concerned about his own power than he was about the Empress and the Constitution was impossible to say, although Subianto had her own suspicions in that regard.

But whatever the Prime Minister's thinking, as Navy Minister, Prince Jackson was effectively in control of all of the Empire's external and internal security organs, especially after he'd replaced Tebic and Subianto's superiors with his own handpicked nominees. If they wanted to arrest Adoula, they'd need to present a list of charges to a magistrate. And even if they found one stupid enough to sign a warrant, they'd never live to process it. Besides, Adoula had already done too much damage. He'd managed to destroy the Imperial Family, and Subianto and Tebic, unlike all too many citizens of the Empire, knew precisely how vital to its stability House MacClintock had been. Without it, there was only Adoula, however corrupt, however "evil," to hold things together. Without him, what did the Empire have? An Empress who was severely damaged. Probably civil war. And no clear heir to the Throne.

And now they had this. Smuggling of illegal and highly dangerous materials. Collusion with a foreign power—they were pretty sure about that one, although which foreign power was less clear. Conspiracy to commit treason—sort of; that one depended on the definition and whether or not it was technically possible to commit treason against someone who had treasonously seized power in the first place. Illegal monetary transfers—definitely. Falsification of identity without a doubt. Assault. Theft.

But...

"No chance of getting eyes and ears into the building?" Subianto asked.

"No," Tebic replied unhesitatingly. "Security is pretty unobtrusive, but very tight. Good electronics—very good, very professional. And those Mardukans literally sleep at the warehouse and the restaurant. The restaurant has countersurveillance devices—two agents have been asked to leave for trying to get floaters and directional mikes inside—but plenty of restaurants in Imperial City would've done exactly the same thing. Too many conversations nobody wants overheard."

"Who are they?" Subianto whispered to herself. "They're not the Associations. They're not with Adoula. They're not those idiots in the Supremacy Party."

"They're acting like they're going to counter Adoula," Tebic said. "But the Associations have to know the Empress isn't in the best condition, and there's no clear alternate Regent, much less a clear Heir, other than this fetus Adoula and New Madrid are growing." He paused and shrugged. "We've got three choices."

"I know." Subianto's face was hard and cold. "We can turn the data over to Adoula, and they disappear—or, maybe, get tried. We can do nothing, and see what happens. Or we can contact them."

"Yes, Ma'am," Tebic said, and waited.

His superior's face could have belonged to a statue—one of the old Persian emperors, the omnipotent semideities, often more than just a little insane, who had gifted humanity with such enduring phrases as "killing the messenger" and "maybe the horse will sing" and "the Sword of Damocles." This was a Sword of Damocles over both their heads, hanging by a thread. And the way those omnipotent emperors had wandered into the borderlands of sanity, Tebic knew, was from making decisions which would determine the fate of far more than just their own empire... and when they'd known their own lives, and their families', were on the line.

"I think," Subianto said, then paused. "I think, I'm in the mood to try some new food."

"When were you planning on doing this?" Catrone's voice was still cold, but he was focused again, had his mission face on once more.

"During the Imperial Festival," Roger replied. "We were going to have to do the attack fully on the surface—frontal assault. We were going to be in the parade that passes the Imperial Park. Mardukans in all their finery, civan, flar-ta, the works. We knew we could take down the outer perimeter guards with the Mardukans, but we couldn't get any further than that."

"Adoula's rarely at the Palace," Catrone pointed out. "He's either at the Lords, or in his offices in the Imperial Tower."

"I'll be honest," Roger said. "I've got a hard-on for Adoula, more than ever now, and I know we have to keep him from getting away. But mostly, I've been concentrated on getting to Mother and the replicator. Capture the queen and bring in impartial witnesses, and Adoula's out of power. Maybe he can make it off-planet, especially with his control of Home Fleet, but he's not going to be holding the Empire."

"True, but we have to take him out as well. We don't want him breaking off his own section of the Empire. And he's got a good many of the Navy's commanders in his pocket. For that matter, he's got Greenberg in his pocket. Taking the Palace isn't going to do us much good if Home Fleet drops a kinetic weapon on our heads. Or drops all their Marines on us, for that matter. The most we're going to be able to field is a very short battalion of guys who are mostly out of practice. We do not want to take on the Home Fleet Marine contingent supported by the ships."

"Okay," Roger sighed. "Cards on the table time. We're in contact with the Alphanes, and they have solid intelligence that Adoula intends to try to bring them into the Empire as soon as Mother is out of the picture."

"Is he nuts?" Catrone demanded. "No, he's not nuts; are you nuts? You're sure?"

"The Alphanes are—sure enough that if wedon't get this working, they're going to jump Third Fleet. Adoula hasn't completely filled the command and staff there with his cronies, yet, but he's positively, according to them, planning on using Third and Fourth Fleets against them. Fourth is already his, but he can't divert too much of it from watching the Saints, or they may jump him from behind, so he needs Third, too. But once he's been able to make sure he has it, all the evidence says he's going after them. He doesn't believe they can't be conquered, and although they've got a sizable fleet, as Admiral Ral pointed out, the Empire has six fleets their size."

"Of course we do, but they won't back down," Catrone argued. "Not even if you take the orbitals. The bears are nuts about honor. They'll all die fighting, to the last cub."

"I know that," Roger said, shaking his head. "You know that.Adoula's advisers know that. But Adoula doesn't believe it. So if the command and staff of Third Fleet changes, the Alphanes are going active. That's something we have to keep an eye on."

"And they're your source of supply?"

"They're our source of supply," Roger confirmed. "Armor and weapons. Even armor for the Mardukans, which you'll have to see to believe. But nothing heavier than that, and it's been hard enough to hide even that much."

"I can believe that. Security on this is going to be a bitch. Somebody is going to notice, sooner or later. You do realize that, right?"

"We'll just have to hope it's later." Roger shrugged. "If the IBI starts sniffing around Marduk House, they'll discover what's pretty obviously a cover for money laundering."

"Show them what they expect to see?"

"Right. The only problem is, there is more money going out than coming in. But the money coming in is clean, too. So they're looking for a negative if they try to build a case. It's not exactly clean—it's from the Alphanes. But it's not anything they can tie to anything illegal."

"All right," Catrone said. Not because he was happy about it, but because he recognized that all they could do was the best they could do.

"Home Fleet," he continued, continuing his methodical examination of Roger's plans. "Any ideas there?"

"Well, how about a complete replacement of command and staff?" Roger replied lightly. Then his expression sobered. "The current plan is to take Greenberg out, simultaneous with the attack."

"Assassination?" Catrone said levelly.

"Yes," Roger replied unflinchingly. "There's no way to ensure we can simply grab him and move him out of the loop. And there are officers who will follow Greenberg just because he is the designated Home Fleet commander. Take him out of the loop, and they're going to have to make up their minds who to back. To be honest, if they're willing not to shoot at us, I don'tcare if they just sit the whole thing out. But I do not want Greenberg in charge, and the only way to ensure that, distasteful as it may be, is to kill him. There's already a team in place."

Catrone's face worked for a moment, and then he shrugged angrily.

"You're right, and I don't like it."

"Do you have a better solution?" Roger asked calmly.

"No," Catrone admitted. "And I agree it's necessary. But I still don't like it."

"We do a lot of things we don't like, because they're necessary. That's the nature of our business. Isn't it, Sergeant Major?"

"Yes," Catrone admitted again. "So... where are we?"

"Taking out Greenberg ought to put Wallenstein in command, as his exec," Roger continued, "but our intel says that whole thing's not as clear as it ought to be. Apparently, Captain Wallenstein... is not well thought of in the Navy. Something to do with his career track and the fact that he's never commanded anything bigger than a single cruiser.

"So with Greenberg gone, and Wallenstein labeled a paper-pusher in Adoula's pocket, that leaves Kjerulf with a damned good chance of taking over command... if he has a reason to try. And if we can prime him just a bit, I think he will try, which should at least muddle the hell out of Home Fleet's command structure. The other staff and commanders loyal to Adoula will want to intervene, but Kjerulf is going to wait and see what's going on. I'd expect some response from Home Fleet, but without Greenberg, it'll be uncoordinated."

"Even an uncoordinated response will be bad," Catrone pointed out. "Maybe worse. Desperate men will try desperate measures."

"Well, we've also got a fleet of our own," Roger said.

"Who?" Catrone asked, then nodded. "Dark Helmut, right?"

"Yes. We sent a team to contact him. They reported having made contact with one of his ship commanders, who'd arranged to transport them to meet with him, and Sixth Fleet's moved since then. It might be coming to warn Adoula, but if so, the warning should already have been here. If Helmut were working Adoula's side—which I doubt strongly—we'd already be in custody."

"So how do you get word to Sixth Fleet to coordinate things?"

"If they're on schedule, they'll pick up a standard data dump from the Wolf Cluster in—" Roger thought about it and ran some calculations on his toot, then shrugged. "In three days or so. They'll get a message that we're in place and preparing the assault, and they'll send a message telling us whether Helmut's on our side or not. But we won't know one way or the other until just before the assault. Time lag."

"Got it." Catrone looked unhappy, then grimaced. "Ever think how nice it must have been to be a general or admiral back in the good old days, when everyone was stuck on one planet and you didn't have to worry about messages taking days, or even weeks, to get to their destinations?"

"I'm sure they had their own problems," Roger replied dryly.

"Yeah, but a man can dream, right?"

"We'll have to send out our message giving the timing for the assault before we know whether or not Sixth Fleet is going to be available," Roger continued, ignoring Catrone's chuckle. "Impossible to avoid."

"Security on that?" Catrone asked more seriously.

"Personal ads," Roger said with a shrug. "What else?"

"You ever wondered how many of those personals are covert messages?" Catrone asked with another grin.

"Not until recently. A lot, I'd guess."

"I'm beginning to think they're the majority." Catrone's grin faded into a frown. "Security on covert ops gives me ulcers. There's a reason my hair is gray."

"Yeah," Roger agreed, then reached out through his toot to reactivate the updated hologram.

"We've been looking at the best schematic of the Palace we could put together before you and Great Gran Miranda came along, trying to come up with a plan that isn't suicide." He loaded the simulation of the best plan they had so far, and the two of them watched it in fast-forward as the attackers' blue icons evaporated. None of them even made it into the Palace.

"So far, we haven't found one," Roger observed dryly.

"Obviously," Catrone said with a wince. He sat back, scratching his nose, and frowned thoughtfully.

"There's a rhythm to taking the Palace," he said after a moment. "There are uniformed guards at these locations," he continued, highlighting the positions. Most of them had been filled in already, but he put in a few more that were in "Gold" and "Silver" sectors Kosutic hadn't known about. "But the real problems are the armored reaction squad you've got here," he highlighted the position, "the automated defenses, and the bulk of the guards, who are in the barracks."

He highlighted the other two threat locations briefly.

"I was in charge of the Palace's security for a long time," he said sourly, "and one of my background thoughts was always how I might take the place. I decided that, based on some of my own changes—well, the various commanders' changes which I sort of suggested—it would be a bitch. But I also knew that no matter what I could do, there was a weakness. The key is Number Three Gate and the North Courtyard," he said, highlighting them.

"Why?"

"The North Courtyard has two manned defense posts." Catrone pointed them out, "but it's accessible via Gate Three. This assumes that the automated defenses are down, you understand that?"

"Yes."

"The courtyard is also the parade ground for the Empress' Own. It more or less severs the barracks and the outer servants' wing from the Palace proper. There are connecting corridors, but they're all covered by the courtyard. Take the courtyard, and you can use it as a landing zone for support forces. The only thing stopping them would be the defensive positions, but they're lightly manned, normally. Even upgraded security doesn't increase those guards, because they aren't guarding the principles directly, understand?"

"Yes." Roger was studying the schematic intently. "Take the gate, pin most of the garrison down in barracks, and seize the courtyard as an LZ. Then bring in your troops, use most of your support to reduce the bulk of the guards still in their barracks, and punch a group into the Palace. What about air support for the guards?"

"Stingship squadron." Catrone highlighted the hangar embedded in the sprawling Palace. "Only half strength, according to my information; it took a beating in the first coup, and finding more people for it is harder than finding the sort of grunts Adoula's been willing to settle for. It takes them at least fifteen minutes to go active. The reaction squad, if it's fully trained, can be armored up in three minutes, and react anywhere in the Palace within ten. Guards are full up in less than an hour. Completely down and surprised, when I was in charge, everyone was in armor and countering an assault in forty minutes, but an hour is the standard."

"Their communications will be dislocated," Roger said. "I can turn those off, scramble their internal communications, with the Protocols. Leave Temu Jin in place to keep them scrambled."

"Which means taking the command post first." Catrone highlighted one of the new, hopefully secure routes. "You'll have to do it. You're the man with the codes, and most of them will only respond to you."

"Agreed."

"Send the first-wave Mardukans in to take the gate," Catrone continued, and Roger nodded.

"They can scale the wall if they have to. They've done it before. And I have codes for opening the gate, too."

"However they do it, they get in," Catrone said, "and take the courtyard away from the duty company before the rest of them get organized."

"With swords and pikes against bead guns." Roger winced. "But they can do it."

"Once they have the courtyard, the shuttles come in," Catrone continued. "Can they use human weapons? There'll be some lying around."

"Like pistols," Roger said. "Again, something they've done."

"This takes, say, five minutes," Catrone said. "More. They've got to cross the Park just to reach the gate."

"A thousand meters." Roger pursed his lips. "Two minutes for civan at a run; not much longer for the Diasprans. Say seven to ten minutes to take the courtyard."

"Which means the reaction team is up."

"Yeah, but they're busy dealing with an armored force that's already well into the Palace," Roger countered, highlighting the route from the command center to his mother's quarters.

"You're important," Catrone said warily. "Which means you're in the command post, right?"

"Wrong. Because I have to open doors here, here—lots of doors," he said, highlighting them. "That's why there will be fifteen armored troops—to protect me."

"Okay, okay." Catrone obviously didn't like it, but he recognized both necessity and intransigence when he saw them. "So probably the reaction squad is off chasing you when our forces land and punch into Adoula's mercenaries. One group detaches to take the Palace proper."

"The automated defenses will go to local control when the command post is compromised," Roger pointed out. "I can keep the secondary CP from going on-line, but I can't keep the automatics from going local."

"We'll deal with it," Catrone said, and stood back from the hologram. He and the prince studied it together for several silent seconds, then Roger tossed his head.

"I think we got us a plan," he said.

"Yeah," Catrone mused, still looking at the schematic. "You really trust the Mardukans that much? If they don't get that courtyard, we're going to have over a thousand heavily armed mercs swarming over us."

"I trust them with my life. More—I trust them with the Empire. They'll take the gate."

"Did you know that the Empress' Own Association's annual meeting is scheduled during the Imperial Festival?" New Madrid demanded as he strode into Jackson Adoula's office.

"Yes." Adoula didn't look up from the hologram on his desk.

"And so is the Raider Association's... and the Special Operations Association's," New Madrid continued angrily.

"Yes," Adoula replied calmly.

"You don't think there might be some minor problems stemming out of all that?" New Madrid asked, throwing up his hands.

"My dear Earl," Adoula said, still looking at his hologram, "we have the Saints poking around on the border in fleet strength. We have the Alphanes massing for what looks very much like an attack. There's another bill in Parliament for an evaluation of the Empress—this time pressed by my opponents, and thus much less easy to quash—and even that gutless trimmer Yang has stated that his last meeting with the Empress was less than satisfactory. Apparently our good Prime Minister considers that having her simpering at you during the meeting was... odd. As was the fashion in which she kept constantly referring all questions to your judgment."

"That bitch has got a mind like steel," New Madrid said tightly, "and her natural resistance to the drugs is high, and getting higher. And I can't afford to leave any noticeable bruises. So even with the... other controls in place, we've got to keep her dialed down to the level of an amiable moron if we want to be sure she doesn't say something we can't spin the right way. She can't even remember how many planets we have, much less what sort of infrastructure is best where. And she certainly can't keep track of whose districts they're in."

"Neither," Adoula said angrily, looking up from the hologram at last, "can you, apparently. I gave very clear instructions on what she was supposed to say during the negotiations. We both know why she couldn't follow them; the question is why you couldn't either."

"Your 'instructions' covered sixty separate star systems!" New Madrid snapped.

"Then you should have brought notes!"

"You said nothing written!" New Madrid shouted.

"In this case, apparently," Adoula's cold, level tone cut through the earl's bluster like a scalpel, "we have to make an exception. And the point which apparently escaped you was that nothing that could be tied to me was to be written down. For the next meeting, however, I will ensure you have precise, written instructions as to what is to be spent, and where. I'll even ensure that they're written in very small words. In the meantime, your worries about those idiot Associations are duly noted. I'll have my guards on high alert in case they come over to make faces at the Palace. A Palace with walls, ChromSten gates, automated defenses, a squadron of stingships, and hundreds of armed guards. Is there anything else on your mind?"

"No." New Madrid thrust himself angrily to his feet.

"In that case, I have real work to do." Adoula waved at the door. "Good day."

He didn't bother to watch New Madrid flounce—that really was the only verb for it—out of his office. It was a pity, he thought, that the powered door couldn't be slammed properly.

He keyed up the next list and shook his head. There were far too many MacClintock loyalists in the IBI, but his supply of people loyal to him was finite. Getting reliable people into all of the necessary spots was going to take time.

Who was it who'd said "Ask me for anything but time"? He couldn't remember off the top of his head, but he knew he was asking himself for it.

Just a little time.

"You seem pretty tense," Despreaux said as she slid onto Roger's arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Uh-huh."

"It's going well," she added. "The Association, the supplies. This is as good as its looked in a long time."

"Uh-huh."

"So why in hell are you answering me in monosyllables? Something I don't know?"

"More like something I think you do know and didn't tell me," Roger said, jaw muscles clenching. "Something about my mother?"

"Shit." Despreaux sat up and eyed him warily. "The Association knew?"

"Catrone, at least. He assumed my so-capable sources had already informed me. I think he was wondering why I was so... calm about it."

"Why are you so calm about it?" she asked.

"I'm not," he replied. "I'm what you might call livid about what's been happening to my mother. And I'm almost as livid about the discovery that nobody told me about it. It wasn't like I wasn't going to find out. And if I'd first found out when New Madrid or Adoula were in reach—" He shook his head. "I don't want to think about what I might have done."

"I know," she said unhappily. "We've been discussing it."

"Yeah? Well, you were discussing it with the wrong person." He looked at her finally, and his eyes were hard. "You were supposed to discuss it with me. Remember me? The Prince? Boss-man? The Heir? The guy who's killed people for a whole hell of a lot less than torturing and raping his mother for months at a time? The guy who really needs to not start his reign by chopping off the heads of major political players out-of-hand? Roger? Me? Remember me, Nimashet?!"

"Okay, we pocked up!" She threw her arms up. "Maybe we're not as strong morally as we are physically! Do you really think we wanted to tell you? The Phaenurs werequite clear that they did not want to be around you when you found out. Neither did I, okay?"

"No, it's not 'okay.' The purpose of a staff is to manage the information so that the boss gets the information he or she needs. I needed that information. I needed to not be blindsided by it—not when we finally got my mother out, nor in negotiations with a still not particularly trustworthy ally!"

"You don't trust the Association?"

"I don't trust anyone but us and the Mardukans. And now I'm wondering if I should trust you."

"That's not fair!" she said angrily.

"Why is it not fair? Hello! You kind of forgot to tell me something very important about the operation, about postoperation conditions, about my responses... Why is it not fair?"

Her face worked, and it was obvious she was fighting not to cry.

"Damn it, Roger," she said quietly. "Don't do this. Don't pound me for this. Okay, we pocked up. We should have told you. But do not pound on me to get your mad out."

"Shit." He slid down and wrapped his head in a pillow. "Shit." He paused and shook his head, voice still muffled. "I'm sorry."

"I am, too," she said, openly crying.

"You're right," he said, still with his face in the pillow. "I did need to bring it up, but this wasn't the time or the place. I'm sorry. How the hell do you put up with me?"

"Well," she said lightly, even while tears still choked her voice, "you're good-looking. And you're rich..."

"God."

"Why didn't you bring this up earlier today?" she asked after a moment.

"The time wasn't right." Roger shrugged. "Too much going on. We sure as hell didn't need a big internal fight in front of the Association guys. But I couldn't keep it in once we got to bed. And I'm still angry, but now I'm angry at myself, too. Christ."

"Roger," Despreaux said quietly, "this is what's called a pillow-fight. There are rules for those."

"One of them being don't bring up business to beat up on your girlfriend?" he asked, finally pulling his head out of the pillow.

"No, the rules don't work that way. Not about what we fight about, so much as how we fight about it. And this is the rule you need to keep in mind—either we work it out while we're still awake, or you go sleep on a couch."

"Why do I have to sleep on the couch? I'm the prince. For that matter, this is my room."

"You sleep on the couch because you're the guy," she said, batting her eyelashes at him. "Those are the rules. It doesn't matter if this is your room or my room—this is my bed. And you can't use one of the other bedrooms. You have to sleep on a couch. With a blanket."

"Do I get a pillow?" he asked plaintively.

"Only if you're good. Otherwise, I get all of them."

"I... I don't like these rules."

"Too bad. Them's the rules."

"When I'm Emperor, I'm going to change them," Roger said, then shook his head. "God, that brings it up again."

"And so on, and so forth," she said. "Until one of us gets tired enough for you to go to the couch."

"Don't hide important things from me," Roger said quietly, "and I'll try not to use business to beat up on you. Okay?"

"Fair." Despreaux lay back down and leaned her head on his arm once more. "We'll discuss the more advanced techniques for quarreling another time. What's allowed, what's not, what works, what just makes things worse."

She yawned and snuggled closer.

"I get to sleep here?"

"Are we done?"

"I guess so," he said. "I'll take out the rest of the mad on Adoula."

"Do that."

"Hey, we just had a lovers' quarrel, right?"

"Don't go there..." she muttered, then yawned again. "So, other than that, is it working?"

"Too soon to tell. Too many things that can go wrong." It was his turn to yawn, and he pulled her closer to him. "For now, all we can do is keep to the path and hope nobody notices."

"Ms. Subianto," Roger said, stopping by the woman's table. "A pleasure to have you in Marduk House. I hope you're enjoying the basik."

"Lovely," Subianto replied, touching her lips with a napkin. "A truly new taste sensation. That's so rare these days."

"And this atul is great," Tebic said, cutting off another bite. "I can't believe it's so tender."

"We use a special tenderizer," Roger said with a quiet smile. "The rarest ingredients. Marinated for thirty-six hours."

Said ingredients consisted of killerpillar flesh-dissolving enzymes, diluted a hundred-to-one. One of Kostas' discoveries on the long march. The prince forbore to elaborate, however.

"You certainly got this restaurant up and running very quickly," Subianto said. "And in such a... prime location."

"Hardly prime," Roger demurred. "But the neighborhood does seem to be improving. Probably by example."

"Yes," she said dryly. "The physicians at Imperial General have noticed some of the... examples."

"I hope that's not an official complaint?" Roger raised one eyebrow. "Surely a lonely extraterrestrial has the right to self-defense?"

"It was not, in fact, a complaint at all," Subianto said. "The local PD's gang team thinks you're the best thing since... roast basik." She smiled. "And many of Parliament's staffers appreciate a restaurant with such... elaborate, if quiet, electronic security."

"The privacy of my guests is important," Roger said, smiling in turn. "As much a part of Marduk House's services as anything on the menu, as a matter of fact After all, this is a town with many secrets. Many of them are ones that you're supposed toprotect, right?"

"Of course," she said smoothly, "others are ones we're supposed to penetrate. Such as who Augustus Chung really is? Why certain of his associates are meeting with an admiral who's been... remiss about responding to orders from central command? Why one Augustus Chung has been receiving heavy weaponry and armor from an off-planet source? What Mardukans are doing training in stingship operations? Why Mr. Chung has been meeting with representatives from the Empress' Own Association? Why, in fact, such representatives—who are notoriously loyal to the Empress—are meeting with him at all?"

"I suppose I could say I have no idea what you're talking about," Roger replied, still smiling faintly. "But that would be a rather transparent, and pointless, lie. I guess the only answer is another question. Why haven't you reported this to Prince Jackson? Or, more to the point, to your superiors, which we both know would be the same thing."

"Because, whatever his current unusual position," Subianto said, "the IBI is in the service of the Empire, not Prince Jackson or his cronies. The evidence we have all points in one direction, Mr. Chung. So I'm here, sampling your excellent basik, and wondering what in the hell you think you're doing. And who you really are. Because simply capturing the Palace isn't going to help the Empire one bit, and if you have nothing more in your head than that—rescuing Her Majesty from her current admittedly horrible conditions—then... other arrangements will have to be made. For the Empire."

She smiled brightly at him.

"The IBI is a department of the executive branch of government, correct?" Roger asked carefully.

"Correct." Subianto eyed her host warily. She'd already noted that her normal charms seemed to slide right off of him. He'd noticed her as a woman, and she was sure he wasn't gay, but beyond that he seemed totally immune.

"And the Empress is the head of the executive branch, your ultimate boss, also correct?"

"Yes."

"And we might as well drop the pretense that the Empress is not under duress," Roger pointed out. "Which means the control of the executive branch goes to... whom?"

"The Heir," Tebic said with a frown. "Except that there isn't one. John and Alexandra, and John's children, are all dead, and Roger is reported to be at large and to have been instrumental in the supposed coup. But he's not. Adoula had him killed. The ship was sabotaged and lost in deep space. We know that."

"I hope like hell you found out after it happened," "Chung" said, showing signs of emotion for the first time.

"Afterward." Subianto frowned at the intensity of the reaction. "We found out through information received after Adoula took control, but we have three confirmations."

"In that case, Ms. Subianto, I will leave you," Roger said, smiling again, if somewhat tightly. "But in parting, I wish you would join Mr. Tebic in trying the atul. It really is as tender as... a fatted calf. Please ponder that. Silently." He smiled again. "Have a nice meal."

As their host walked away, Tebic looked at his boss and frowned.

"Fat—" he began. He could recognize a code phrase when he heard it, but this one made no sense to him.

"Don't," Subianto said, picking at the remaining bits of basik on her plate. "Don't say it."

"What... ?"

"Not here. I'm not sure where. I don't trust our secure rooms to not be monitored by us. You're a Christian, aren't you, Tebic?"

"Um." Tebic shrugged at the apparently total non sequitur. "Sort of. I was raised Armenian Orthodox. My dad was Reform Islam, but he never went to mosque, and I haven't been to church since I was a kid."

"I'm not sure it's translated into Armenian the same way," Subianto said, "and I'm Zoroastrian. But I recognize it. It's a phrase from the Bible—Emperor Talbot version, I think. That's still the most common Imperial translation."

"I can run a data search—" Tebic started to say, looking inward to activate his toot.

"Don't!" Subianto said, more sharply than she'd intended. Panicked might have been a better word. "Don't even think about it. Don't write it down, don't put it on the net, don't say it in public. Nothing. Understand?"

"No," Tebic said, going gray. "But if you say so..."

"I do," Subianto said. "Get the check."

The next day, late in the morning, Subianto walked into Tebic's office with a book in her hand. An actual, honest-to-God paper book. Tebic couldn't remember seeing more than half a dozen of them in his life. She set it on the desk and opened it to a marked page, pointing to a line of text.

At the top of the page was the title: "The Parable of the Prodigal Son."

"Holy..." Tebic's voice trailed off as his eyes widened.

"Yes." Subianto picked up the book, took out the marker, and closed it. "All that's holy. Let's hope it stays holy. And very, very quiet."

"You told her?" Catrone yelled.

"There wasn't much she didn't already know." Roger shrugged. "If they'd wanted to arrest us, we'd already be taken down or in a firefight."

"The Bureau won't be monolithic in these circumstances," Temu Jin said with a frown. The IBI agent had been managing the electronic and physical security aspects of the mission, keeping out of sight in the Greenbrier bunker. Of them all, he was the only one whohadn't had a body-mod. No one could possibly discover his connection to Roger without actually going to Marduk and piecing things together, and any attempt to do that would run into major resistance from the locals who were the prince's partisans. Those who'd been his enemies were no longer around to be interviewed.

There wasn't even much danger of Jin being noticed as "out of cover" by the IBI if that organization should happen to spot him. He was openly listed as a communications technician on the staff of the restaurant, and if the IBI used the right protocols, they might spot him as one of their own and realize they already had an agent in place. In which case he was in position to file a wholly false report on a minor money-trafficking operation, with no clue as to where the money was coming from.

Then again, he'd been a Counterintelligence and Imperial Security operative, and the head of that division had vanished under mysterious circumstances. He'd also sent out codes telling "his" agents they were in the cold, which meant, in all probability, that the records of one Temu Jin had been electronically flushed. So as long as no one who might recognize him by sight actually saw him, he was probably clean. But Buseh Subianto—who'd been in the same department, if not in his chain of command—might just possibly have been able to do exactly that. He'd certainly recognized the video of her and her companion, Tebic.

"Subianto is one of the really straight players," he continued. "Apolitical as anyone in Counter-Intel can get. It's why she's been in her current position so long; go higher, and you're dealing with policy, and policy means politics."

"She's playing policy now," Catrone muttered. "If she'd filed a report, we'd have Marines or IBI tac-teams swarming all over us. But that doesn't mean she's on our side, Roger."

"She was going to keep pushing," Roger said calmly. "She's an IBI agent, even if she doesn't work the streets anymore, and curiosity is what they're all about. But if I'm the Heir, then any decision she makes is policy. My estimate, based on her questions and the manner in which they were presented, was that she'd just keep her head down if she knew who I was. And I was the person handling it; I had to decide how I was going to handle it right then. It was my decision to handle it in that way."

"There's another aspect to consider," Eleanora said. "One of our big weaknesses is current intelligence. Up to date intel, especially on Adoula's actions and movements. If we had a contact in the IBI—"

"Too risky." Catrone shook his head. "She might be willing to keep her head down and ignore us. For that matter, I think Roger's probably right, that she is. But we can't risk bringing her in, or trying to pump her for information."

"Agreed," Roger said. "And if that's settled, let's move on. Are we agreed on the plan?"

"Home Fleet is still the big question," Catrone said with a frown.

"I know," Roger replied. "Macek and Bebi are in position, but we need a read on Kjerulf."

"Contacting him would tip our hand." Catrone was shaking his head again.

"That depends on Kjerulf," Roger pointed out. "And we're finding friends in the oddest places."

"I know him," Marinau said suddenly. "He was my CO when I was on Tetri." He shrugged. "I'd say he's probably more likely to be a friend than an enemy."

"You can't contact him, though," Catrone objected. "You're needed to arrange the rehearsals. Besides, we can be damned well certain Adoula's keeping an eye on you."

"Eleanora could do it," Roger said. "He's stationed on Moonbase. That's only a six-hour hop."

"Contacting him for a meet would be... difficult," Marinau pointed out.

"Is there some code he'd recognize as coming from you?" Roger asked. "Something that's innocuous otherwise?"

"Maybe." Marinau rubbed one ear lobe. "I can think of a couple of things."

"Well, even after everything else I've done, I never thought I'd stoop to this," Roger said, "but we'll send out a spam message, with your code in the header. He'll get at least one of the messages and recognize the header. I hope."

"I can set that up." Catrone grimaced. "The software's out there. Makes me sick, though."

"We've done worse, and we'll do it again," Roger said dryly. "I know that's hard to believe when we're talking about spam, but there it is. Are we in agreement otherwise?"

"Yes," Marinau replied. "It looks like the best we can cobble together to me. I'm still not happy about the fact that there's no reserve to speak of, though. You want a reserve for more than just somebody to retreat on."

"Agreed, and if I could provide one, I would," Roger said. "At least there's the Cheyenne stingship and shuttle force. If they can get here in time. And if it runs long, we can probably call on the Sixth Fleet Marines."

"How's the training on your Mardukans coming?" Catrone asked.

"From what I hear," Roger said with a grin, "the biggest problem is shoehorning them into the cockpits."

"This is pocking cramped," Honal complained.

The bay under the main Cheyenne facility was much larger than the one at Greenbrier... and even more packed with equipment. There were fifteen of the later and considerably nastier Bearkiller stingships, four Velociraptor assault shuttles, ten light hovertanks, and a series of simulators for all of them. Honal was currently stuffed into one such simulator, trying out the new seat.

"It's not my fault you guys are oversized," Paul McMahon said.

The stingship engineer had been between jobs when Rosenberg shanghaied him—hiring him off the net for "secure work at a remote location without the opportunity for outside contact." The salary offered had been twice his normal pay rate, but when he found out who'd hired him, there'd been a near mutiny, despite the fact that Rosenberg had been his CO before he retired from the Imperial Marines. He'd only agreed to help under duress and after receiving a sworn statement that he was not a voluntary participant. Rosenberg's recorded, legally attested statement probably wouldn't keep him out of jail, but it might let him at least keep his head, although he wasn't wildly enthusiastic about his prospects under any circumstances.

Of course, the engineer might have felt even less sanguine if he'd known who he was really working for. So far as he knew, Rosenberg was simply fronting an Association operation to rescue the Empress; he had no clue that he'd actually fallen into the toils of the nefarious Traitor Prince. Rosenberg didn't like to think about how McMahon might have reacted to that little tidbit of information.

At the moment, however, the man's attention was completely focused on his job, and he frowned as Honal popped the hatch and climbed out of the simulator—not without a certain degree of huffing, puffing, and grunting.

"It wasn't easy changing those seats, you know," he continued as Honal shook himself vigorously, "and the panel redesign and legroom extension were even tougher, in some ways. This model was already a bit like a whole-body glove when all they wanted to put in it was humans. And forget ejecting. The motivator is not designed for your weight, and we don't have time to redesign it. Not to mention the fact that you'd rip your legs off on the way out; they're in what used to be the forward sensor array."

"Hell with my legs—I can barely move my arms," Honal pointed out.

"But can you fly it?" Rosenberg asked. "That's the only thing that matters. We can't hire pilots for this, and I've only got a few I'd trust for it. We're really laying it all on the line. Can you fly it?"

"Maybe." Honal grimaced, lowered himself back into the simulator, and began startup procedures. "This isn't going to be fun," he observed.

"Tell me about it," Rosenberg sighed.

"How's the rest of the training going?" Honal asked.

"Nominal."

The team moved cautiously down the corridor, every sense strainingly alert, each foot placed carefully.

The corridor walls were blue plasteel, with what appeared to be abstract paintings every couple of meters. They'd looked at one of the paintings, and that had been enough. Within the swirling images, mouths screamed silently and demon faces leered. There was a distant dripping of water, and occasional unearthly howls sounded in the distance.

Raoux held up a fist as they reached an intersection. She pointed to two of their point guards and signaled for them to check it out. The first guard rolled a sensor ball into the intersection, bouncing it off the opposite wall, and then sprang forward, covering the intersection as the rest of the team bounded past. The second point moved down the corridor—then checked as a screamer abruptly appeared, apparently out of a solid wall.

The screamer was nearly as tall as a Mardukan, and had similar horns, but red skin and scales that were at least partially resistant to bead rifle fire. Despite that, the point engaged with a burst of low-powered beads which went downrange with a quiet crack and caught the screamer in the chest.

Unfortunately, the screamer lived up to its name and began howling. Alarms began to shrill in the background.

"We're blown," Marinau snarled. "Plan Delta!"

The team began to move faster, but as they passed a corridor, a blast of plasma came down it, and took out the team member who'd been covering the movement element's advance. Flamers—bigger versions of the screamers, with heavier armor that could at least partially resist the team's heavy weapons—came down the side corridor, while more flooded in behind them. Then things like flowers started popping out of the walls, throwing liquid fire that burned their armor.

Raoux blinked her eyes as she came out of the VR simulation, then cursed as more of the team members popped into the gray formlessness of "between" with her.

"Well, that didn't go too well," Yatkin observed with truly monumental understatement.

"No, it didn't," Raoux agreed dryly, shaking her head.

"There ought to be a way we can mimic the flamers, Jo," Kaaper mused.

"Paint ourselves red?" Raoux said bitingly.

"You know what I mean," Kaaper replied as two more figures formed.

One of them was a humanoid, tiger-striped tomcat, a bit short of two meters tall, cradling a bead rifle. The other figure was short, overweight, and young, with mussed hair and messy clothing. It was a standard Geek Mod One, the normal first-timer's persona avatar in the Surreal Battle matrix. He wore holstered, pearl-handled bead pistols for weapons.

"Hey, Tomcat," Raoux greeted, and looked over at the other figure. "Who's this?"

"I'm Sabre," the geek said. "Can I play?"

"Great," Yatkin said. "Just what we need. For cannon fodder."

"Can I play? Huh? Huh? Can I?" Sabre bounced up and down.

"Sure." Kaaper waved a hand, and a screamer appeared out of the air and turned towards the capering figure.

A bead pistol appeared, gripped in both of Sabre's hands. Even as he continued to bounce in excitement, the pistol began spitting beads. The screamer was spun in place as beads took off both arms, then the head. The rounds continued long after the magazine should have quit firing, and the head was blown into pulp before it even hit the ground.

"I got it!" Sabre squealed. "I got it!"

"Hacks are not going to help!" Yatkin snarled.

"No hacks," the human-sized tomcat said.

"Bullshit," Yatkin replied.

"No hacks," Sabre said, and changed. Again, it was an off-the-shelf mod, one styled to look slightly like Princess Alexandra. It could be used for male or female; Alexandra had been a handsome woman and made a damned handsome man. It looked very unlike Prince Roger, though, except in the eyes. The mod kept Alexandra's long, light brown hair, and now wore a torn, chameleon-cloth battle suit, patched with odds and ends of much less advanced textiles. Beside the bead pistols, which were now standard IMC military models, the figure carried a sword and had a huge chem-powered rifle across its back.

"Not hacks—experience. In a hard school," Sabre added in cold tones, and there was no trace of the excited kid anymore.

"Have to be a pretty damned hard school," Kaaper replied mockingly.

"Death planet, one each," Roger said to the VR system, and the formlessness changed. Now they were standing on a ruined parapet. Low mounds, the vine-covered ruins of a large city, stretched down the hill to a line of jungle. Rank upon rank of screamers were emerging from the jungle, and a voice spoke in the background.

"I'm sorry... scriiiitch..." the voice said, breaking up in static. "Forget that estimate of five thousand. Make it fifteen thousand... ."

A hot, moist wind carried the smell of jungle rot as the endless lines of screamers lifted their weapons and began a loud chant. They broke into a run, charging up the hill, soaking up the fire of the defenders, climbing the walls with rough ladders, swarming up the sides, pounding on the gate. Spears arced up and transfixed the firers, hands reached up and pulled them off the walls, down into the waiting spears and axes.

Through it all, Sabre left a trail of bodies as the sword flicked in and out, taking attackers in the throat, chest, stomach. Arms fell and heads flew as he carved the howling screamers into ruin, but they came on. The wall's other defenders died around him, leaving him practically alone against the screamer horde, and still the sword flashed and bit and killed... .

The scene changed again. It was dark, but their low-light systems showed a line of ax-wielding screamers, at least a thousand, charging a small group in a trench. Sabre spun in place, a large chemical pistol in one hand, sword in the other. Bullets caught the screamers—generally in the throat, sometimes the head—as the sword spun and took off a reaching arm, the head of an ax, a head. The trench filled with blood, most of the defenders were down, but still Sabre spun in his lethal dance.

A throne room. A screamer king speaking to Sabre, weird intonations, and a voice like a grave. Sabre nodding and reaching back, pulling each strand of his hair into place in a ponytail. He nodded again, his hands ostentatiously away from the bead pistols on his hips, not watching the guards at his back—not really looking at the king. Eyes wide and unfocused.

"You and what army?" he asked as the hands descended, faster than a snake, and the room vanished in blood.

"Lots of fun," Yatkin said after a minute.

"Oodles and oodles," Sabre replied.

"Yeah, but the firing had to be a hack," Kaaper pointed out. "Too many rounds. The old infinite-bead gun."

"Oh, please," Sabre said. "Watch." He summoned a target and drew the bead pistol at his right hip. He didn't appear to be trying to impress them with the draw, but it simply appeared in his hand. And then he fired, rapidly, but not as rapidly as he had.

"Not particularly hard," Sabre said, lifting his left hand up for a moment to fire with a two-handed grip.

"You just reloaded," Yatkin said, wonderingly. "You'd palmed a magazine, and you reloaded on the fly. I caught it that time. Son of a bitch."

"Don't talk about my mother that way," Sabre said seriously. Then he lowered his arm and shook it, dropping a cascade of magazines onto the gray "floor."

"Sorry," Yatkin replied. "Sir. But can you really... ?"

"Really," Sabre replied.

"So..." the tomcat said. "He in?"

"I dunno." Raoux rubbed the back of her neck. "Can he handle armor?"

"Wanna death match?" Sabre inquired with a grin.

"No," Raoux said, after a long pause. "No, I don't think I want to death match."

"The VR training on the rest of the teams is going well," Tomcat told Sabre. "Can't bring in your oversized buddies very well, the sets aren't made for them, and they don't have toots, but their job is pretty straightforward, and they'll have trained teams leading them. I think our opponents are going to be remarkably surprised when we go for the big push."

"Gotta love net-gaming," Raoux said with a nasty smile. "And I've always thought Surreal Battle was the best around. How's our support coming?"

"Well, that's sort of hard to know," Tomcat said, frowning and waving a hand. "Sort of hard to know..."

"What fun," Helmut said, shaking his head. "During the Imperial Festival? Why not just put up a big sign: 'Coup in progress!' Security is always maxed during the Festival."

He sat behind the desk in his day cabin. Much as he trusted his personal command staff, this was one message he'd had no intention of viewing anywhere outside the security of his personal quarters. Now he looked across his desk at Julian with what could only be described as a glare.

"Roger will have his reasons—good ones," Julian replied. "I don't know what they are, but I'm sure of that. Anyway, that's the signal."

"Very well. Since Sergeant Julian is certain His Highness has good reasons for his timing, I'll prepare to move the Fleet." Helmut frowned as he consulted his toot and routed orders through it, then nodded. "We're on our way to the next rendezvous point."

Julian blinked. Given the movement schedule Roger's message had included, there was no need for quite that much rush. By his estimate, they had at least ten days' leeway, but he reminded himself that interstellar astrogation was definitely not his strong suit.

"What now, Sir?" he asked after a moment.

"Now we ponder what we'll find upon entering the system."

Helmut hopped off his station chair and walked across to the far side of his cabin, where a large section of deck had been cleared. The architect responsible for designing the admiral's flagship had probably intended the space for an intimate chair and sofa arrangement. Now it was simply a well-worn section of rug, and its function became evident as Helmut folded his hands behind him and started striding up and down it, nodding his head in time with his strides while he considered the skeletal plan and the intelligence updates on the Sol System which had accompanied the message.

"I have to admit," he said after several moments, whether to himself or Julian it would have been hard to say, "that Roger—or whoever put this together—isn't a complete idiot. At least he's grasped the importance of the KISS principle and applied it as far as anyone could in an operation this fundamentally insane. I think, however, that we might be able to improve on it just a bit."

"Sir?" Julian's tone was so cautious Helmut grinned tightly at him.

"Don't worry, Sergeant. We'll do exactly what His Highness wants. I simply think it may be possible to do it a bit more effectively than he envisioned. Or do you think he'd object to the exercise of a little initiative?"

"Master Rog generally thinks initiative is a good thing," Julian said. "Within limits."

"Oh, certainly, Sergeant. Certainly." The admiral's grin turned decidedly nasty.

"The key to his current plan," he continued, "is that we're to arrive four hours before the attack on the Palace kicks off, correct? We'll be almost ten hours flight time out from the planet at that point, but the system recon platforms will pick us up, and that should draw Home Fleet out to meet us. At the very least, given the dispositions in the intelligence packet, it will almost require them to concentrate well away from Old Earth, between us and the planet and out of range to interfere with the attack on the Palace when it kicks off, or risk letting us run over individual squadrons and mop them up in detail. Right?"

"As I understand it, Sir," Julian agreed, still cautiously, watching in fascination as the diminutive admiral began to pace faster and faster.

"Well, that's sound planning, given how many imponderables your Prince—or his advisers—had to juggle to come up with it. We'll pose a threat the other side must honor. But suppose we could find a way to simultaneously pose a threat they don't realize they need to honor?"

"Sir?" Julian was confused, and it showed.

"Roger intends to assassinate Greenberg," Helmut said. "Good start. Wallenstein's his XO, but everyone knows he's only there because Adoula owns him as completely as he does Greenberg. And unlike Greenberg, he's a chip-shuffler, never had a serious field command in his entire useless life. So he's not going to have a support base with Greenberg gone, and that ought to put Kjerulf in as temporary CO, at least until one of the other squadron commanders can get to Moonbase. Even then, the odds are that Kjerulf isn't going to just cede that command. So! There are—how many squadrons in Home Fleet, Sergeant Julian?" he barked, spinning on one heel to glare at the Marine.

"Six, Sir!" Julian replied.

"Very good." Helmut spun back to his pacing. "Always remember that fleets and squadrons are not just machines, Sergeant; they're human beings!A regiment is only as good as its officers. Who said that Sergeant Julian?" he asked, spinning again to glower at the noncom.

"I don't..." Julian began, then frowned. "Napoleon?"

"You've been learning, Sergeant," Helmut said, and nodded and resumed his pacing.

"The Prince told me that, I think."

"Then he had good tutors." The admiral frowned thoughtfully. "So, six carrier squadrons, effectively without a head. In that situation, they devolve to local command, whatever The Book says. Which means we must read the minds of those local commanders if we want to predict their actions and reactions. Pro-Adoula? Pro-Roger? Sit it out? Neutrality? Informed neutrality? Nervous breakdown?"

His sentences came out in a staccato. Despite the relentless, machine-gun pace of his questions, it was clear they were rhetorical—that his thoughts were already racing far ahead of even his rapidfire questions.

"I don't even know, off the top of my head, who the squadron commanders are, Sir," Julian said, "much less anything about their personalities."

"Eleventh Carrier Squadron, Admiral Brettle," Helmut told him. "Recent promotion via Adoula. Impetuous, but not particularly bright. Two hundred and fifteenth out of a class of two hundred and forty at the Academy. Classroom brilliance doesn't necessarily equate to brilliance in the field, of course, but he's done no better since. Unlikely to have made much advancement, for both personality and ability reasons, without pull from higher up. He had such pull, having long ago given his allegiance to Adoula. Owes one of the Prince's banks a bit more than five years' earnings for an admiral. No indications that he's behind on payments, but I'm sure he is. He spends too much not to be."

"Twelfth Carrier Squadron," Helmut continued. "Admiral Prokourov. Good deceptive tactician. Only middling at the Academy, but much better standing at Command and Staff College, and excellent in exercises. One command in a brief skirmish with the Saints—Saints came off a distant last. I know him—as well as anyone does. Hard to say exactly where his loyalty lies, or what contact he had with Adoula pre-coup. I'd've thought he was loyal to the Empire, but he's still in command, so maybe I was as wrong about him as I was about Gianetto. Operationally, he started as a fighter pilot and likes fighters. Always look for his fighter wings to be where you don't want them to be... ."

"Sir, are you consulting your toot?" Julian asked quietly.

"If you have to consult records for this sort of thing, you don't deserve a command," Helmut snapped, and his eyes narrowed as he paced faster.

"Larry Gianetto, Larry Gianetto, Larry Gianetto," he half-sang, and did a slight skip in his pacing. "Ground force commander. Never particularly liked him, but that's neither here nor there. Good commander, well-liked in the Marines, considered a really honest man. Clearly a bad reading on many people's parts. But he's a ground commander, no experience running a space battle. Leaves the work of Home Fleet to Greenberg, by and large. Still a bit of a micromanager, though. Probably passes some orders, to known Adoula squadrons, directly—undoubtedly pissing Greenberg off. Last report has Fourteenth Squadron as the most solidly Adoula, so..."

He hummed the tune he'd been singing to himself for a moment, then nodded.

"Admiral Gajelis has the Fourteenth, and it's been reinforced by a third carrier division. Makes it fifty percent stronger than any of the other squadrons, and four of his six carriers have had their COs switched out since the coup. Very heavy-handed fighter. A cruiser officer—uses them for his primary punch. Thinks fighters are purely for defense.

"Gianetto," he sang again. "Gianetto's going to... put Fourteenth in somewhere near Mercury orbit. He'll figure they can react from there in any direction. A 'central reserve' to watch the inner system while he deploys the rest of his forces where they can close in behind any attacker. Very much in keeping with ground force tactics—ground-pounders don't think in terms of light-speed lag the way spacers do. He's overlooking the fact that his outer maneuver units won't know to start maneuvering until he tells them to. And if the intel's right, he's using Twelfth to sandwich Old Earth from the outside, same distance towards the periphery as Fourteenth to sunward. Which says things we may not like about Prokourov's loyalties."

The admiral went back to his humming, eyes unfocused, then shrugged.

"On the other hand, it probably also means Gianetto doesn't trust Prokourov quite as much as he does Brettle or La Paz, with the Thirteenth. Sure, he's got him in close to cover Old Earth, but by the same token, he's got Fourteenth close enough to cover him. So he's got his 'central reserve' either side of the planet and uses Gajelis to keep an eye on Prokourouv at the same time. Then he scatters the rest of Home Fleet out to watch the approaches.

"Greenberg may've squawked about that—he damned well should have!—but probably not. He knows about me, but he doesn't know about the Prince. So he also 'knows' that I know I don't have a hope in hell of accomplishing anything while Adoula controls the Palace and the Empress. I'm not going to hit Imperial City with KEWs—not when the Empress is the only person who could possibly rally resistance to him—and I don't have enough Marines to take the Palace against its fixed defenses before the entire Home Fleet closes in on me, signal-lag or no. So he's probably content to let Gianetto put Gajelis and Prokorouv wherever makes Gianetto—and Adoula—happy, while he covers the outer arc of the system with Eleventh and Thirteenth, which he can be confident will fight for Adoula if he needs them."

"What about Fifteenth and Sixteenth, Sir?" Julian asked.

"Out on the periphery with Eleventh and Thirteenth," Helmut said positively. "I'm not certain about Admiral Mahmut, with the Fifteenth. He's going to be an Adoula loyalist, but his carrier skippers may have other ideas. Hard to say. Admiral Wu, on the other hand, is not going to be one of Adoula's strong supporters."

Julian looked at him, and the admiral shrugged.

"Look, Sergeant, a lot of the officers who aren't actively opposing Adoula right now are sitting it out because they simply don't see a viable alternative. The Prince is dead, as far as they know, and even if they knew differently, his reputation isn't one to engender confidence in him. So they may hate Adoula's guts and still see him as the only alternative to chaos the Empire simply cannot afford. I've taken pains for years—with, I might add, the Empress' explicit private approval—to build a cadre of ship commanders and senior officers here in Sixth Fleet which is prepared to blow hell out of Adoula and his lackeys anyway. Which is why Sixth Fleet 'just happened' to be stationed way the hell out on the frontier when the ball went up back at Sol. And also the reason Adoula's cronies at Defense HQ finagled ways for years to whittle Sixth down to the smallest carrier strength of the numbered fleets.

"But the point is, Wu's as apolitical as a flag officer can be these days. She's loyal to the Empire, but she's also cold-blooded enough to put the good of the Empire ahead of the good of the Empress. But she's also too good, and too popular with her officers and spacers—most of whom are going to follow her lead if the shit hits the fan—to fire without a really good reason. So Gianetto—and Greenberg—are making what they consider to be the best use of her. They figure they can count on her to resist outside attacks on the system, but maybe not to stay out of it if there's some sort of trouble planet-side. So they stick her out with Eleventh and Thirteenth, but covering a less critical section of the Tsukayama Limit."

"That... seems like a good idea," Julian said bemusedly.

"The target is Old Earth, Sergeant," Helmut snapped. "Yes, our fleet can come in from anywhere on the TD sphere. But if we come in from the other side of the system, or off-ecliptic, we've got a long drive across the system. That gives Gianetto all the time in the world to maneuver inside of us. If the squadrons are near Old Earth. But if they're still distributed the way they were when our last data packet was dropped, everything except Fourteenth and Twelfth is far too widely dispersed, trying to cover too much of the system's volume. Not concentrated. They're going to have to be assembled from all over the system from a cold start to defend the planet when we turn up. Figure four hours actual transit time to Old Earth orbit for Fourteenth and Twelfth, but over twelve for the farthest out. We'll be to Old Earth in less than ten, and they won't even know to begin moving to intercept us till they get light-speed confirmation of our arrival. So we'll have had a lot of time to start building velocity for Old Earth before they do. That's precisely the weakness the Prince—or whoever thought this up—picked up on. They'll have to begin reshuffling their dispositions when we turn up, because they're so badly out of position to begin with.

"What Gianetto should be doing is worrying about covering the planet, and the hell with the outer system. And he should be putting only forces he knows he can trust in close. But Gianetto will go the other way, and Greenberg will let him. Instead of parking Fourteenth directly in Old Earth orbit, where it would already be in position, he's got it stationed way the hell in-system. And instead of allowing only forces he knows he can trust in-system, he's got Fourteenth double-tasked to keep an eye on Twelfth. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, where you can keep an eye on them—that's what he's thinking... when he should be concentrating on the fact that he's got the rest of his units so scattered that they'll find it harder than hell to concentrate before we get to Old Earth ourselves."

"What about Moonbase?" Julian asked.

"A point," Helmut conceded. "And to be fair—which I don't much want to be—probably the real reason Greenberg didn't bitch when Gianetto started spreading Home Fleet all over the backside of hell. Moonbase has the firepower of at least two carrier squadrons' ship-to-ship weapons all by itself, so in a way, he does have a task group—without cruisers, of course—in position to cover the planet at all times. But if Kjerulf can take over when Greenberg goes down, that gives him control of the Moonbase launchers and emplacements. Assuming he has the current release codes for them, at any rate. Best-case is for him to come in on our side and have the codes, but we can live with it if he only manages to deny Adoula's people access to them."

"That's fixed weapons, Sir. What about the Moonbase fighters?"

"They could be a problem. But there are two companies of Fleet Marines on Moonbase, and I've been careful to ensure that all the worst rumors I've gotten about the Empress' condition were dumped on the sites where Marines grouse to each other. I don't even have to guess what the response has been, do you?"

"No, Sir," Julian admitted.

"I've kept the Moonbase fighter wing in my thoughts," Helmut told him with a thin smile. "I'm sure the Marines have, as well. And Kjerulf, I know, has access to the same intelligence."

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, then," Helmut folded both hands behind him and frowned as he resumed his pacing. "The point is, Sergeant, that while Home Fleet will almost certainly move to concentrate between us and Old Earth, as predicted, when we arrive, the fleet's options are going to change rather abruptly when the planet goes up in flames behind them. What will they do then?"

"Turn around to go after the planet after all?"

"No," the admiral said firmly. "That's precisely why the Prince—or whoever—specified that we arrive so early. Gajelis is stationed a tad over four hours from Old Earth on a zero/zero intercept profile. That means that if he wants to stop and drop into orbit around the planet, he'll have to go to decel roughly two hours after he begins accelerating towards the planet. But he'll have been accelerating for three and a half hours—it'll take about thirty-five minutes for Perimeter Security to pick up our TD footprint and get the word to him—before anything happens on Old Earth. He won't be able to decelerate and insert himself into orbit. In fact, by the time he overran the planet, decelerated to relative zero, and then built a vector back towards it, we'd be running right up his ass."

"So they're screwed, Sir. Right?"

"Assuming—as I do—that Home Fleet's loyalty to Adoula is going to come unraveled in a hurry when Greenberg buys it and the fleet's officers realize someone's mounting an attempt to rescue the Empress, then, yes, Sergeant. Screwed is exactly what they'll be. But if they react quickly enough, they'll still be able to cut their losses and run for it. They'll be inside us, Sergeant. They can break for any point on the TD sphere, and the range will still be long enough for them to avoid us without much difficulty. Which means we could face a situation in which quite a lot of Adoula loyalists will get away from us. And if he gets away, as well—a distinct possibility, I submit; he's the sort of man who always has a rathole handy to dash down—we're going to be looking at a civil war whatever your Prince wants. In which case, I further submit, it would be nice if he didn't have any more ships on his side than we can help. Yes?"

"Yes, Sir," Julian said fervently.

"I'm so happy you agree, Sergeant," Helmut said in a dust-dry voice, then wheeled to give him another ferret-sharp smile. "Which is why we're leaving a little early, Sergeant Julian. I have a small detour I need to make."

"Who are these guys?"

"I dunno, Mr. Siminov," the gang leader said, standing as close to attention as he could manage.

Alexi Siminov referred to himself as a "businessman," and he had a large number of fully legitimate businesses. Admittedly, he owned only one of them—a restaurant—on paper; the rest he owned through intermediaries as a silent, and senior, partner. But the legitimate businesses of his small empire were quite secondary to its illegitimate businesses. He ran most of the organized crime in the south Imperial City district: racketeering, "protection," illegal gambling, data theft, illegal identities, drugs—they all paid Siminov a percentage, or they didn't operate at all.

"I thought they was just a restaurant," the gang leader continued, "but then I had to wonder. They smelled fishy. Then I guessed they was probably your people, and I made real nice to them. Besides, they've got heavy muscle. Heavier than I wanted to take on."

"If they were one of my operations, I'd have let you know," Siminov said, angrily. "They're laundering money. It's not my money, and I'm not getting my share of the action. That makes me upset."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Siminov." The gang leader swallowed. "I didn't know."

"No, you didn't," Siminov conceded. "I take it you shook them down?"

"We had to come to an agreement," the gang leader said with a slight but audible gulp. "They were pretty... unhappy about an... arrangement."

"And if they were one of my operations, do you think they would have come to an agreement?" Siminov's eyes flickered dangerously.

"Uh..."

"I suppose that logic was a bit too much for you." Siminov's lips thinned. "After all, you don't hold your position for your brains."

"No, sir," the gang leader said with a wince.

"Youdid come to an agreement though, right?" Siminov said quietly. "I'd hate to think you're losing your touch."

"Yes, sir. And you got your cut, sir."

"I'm sure. But not a cut of the action. Very well, you can go. I'll handle the rest."

"Thank you, sir." The gang leader backed out of the office, bowing jerkily. "Thank you."

Siminov rubbed his chin in thought after the gang leader's departure. The fool had a point; this group had some serious muscle. Mardukans were few off-planet, and of that few, quite a number of them worked as "muscle" in one organization or another, but always in tiny numbers. He didn't have any, and he'd never seen more than one of them at a time, yet this guy, whoever he was, had at least fifty. Maybe more. And they all had that indefinable air of people who could be unpleasantly testy.

Which meant the direct approach to enforcing his rules was out. But all that meant was that he'd need to use subtlety, and that was okay with him. Subtle was his middle name.

"Captain Kjerulf," Eleanora O'Casey said as she shook his hand. "Thank you for meeting with me."

They were in a fast-food establishment in the low-grav portion of Moonbase. She noticed that he showed no trace of awkwardness moving in the reduced gravity.

Kjerulf really did look a lot like Gronningen, she thought. Same size, just a shade over two meters, same massive build, same close-cropped blond hair, blue eyes, and square jaw. But he was older and, she could tell by his eyes, wiser. Probably what Gronningen would have been like if he'd had the time to grow up.

"There are people who handle supplemental supplies, Ms. Nejad," the captain observed, shaking his head as he sat down across the table from her. "I'm afraid I can't really help you in that."

His casually apologetic, meeting-you-to-be-polite tone was perfect, but he knew the meeting wasn't about "supplementary supplies." Not with that "roses are red and sauerkraut's yellow" message header.

"I realize that this isn't, strictly speaking, your area of responsibility, Captain," Eleanora said. "But you are a very influential individual in Home Fleet, and the Mardukan comestibles we can supply would be a welcome change for your spacers and Marines."

"I don't handle procurement, Ms. Nejad," Kjerulf said in a slightly cooler tone, and frowned.

"Perhaps. But I'm sure you have some influence," she said. "Left. For now."

He'd opened his mouth to reply before she finished speaking. Now he closed it, and his eyes narrowed. With Adoula replacing everyone who hadn't been bought and paid for, she had a point. But not one that a comestibles supplier would make. It might be one that... someone else would make, but whether that was good or bad would depend upon who she represented. On the other hand, Marinau had ended up as a sergeant major in the Empress' Own, he knew that. So—

"Perhaps," he said. "A few of the captains might accept a suggestion or two. But that would depend entirely upon the quality of the... supplies."

Eleanora considered the captain's background carefully, and hoped like hell that he'd had the same general upbringing as Gronningen.

"Some of our atul," she said, quietly, "are as moist as a fatted calf, Captain."

Kjerulf sat there for a moment, his face unchanging. Perhaps too unchanging.

"Impossible," he said finally.

"No, really," Eleanora replied. "They may be predators, but they're just as tasty—tasty enough even an Armaghan satanist would swear by them. I think you'd like one. They're vicious and deadly to their natural enemies, yes, but they provide a very fine... main course."

Kjerulf reached forward and picked a handful of fries off of her plate. He stuffed them into his mouth and masticated slowly and thoughtfully.

"I've never had... atul," he said. "And I've heard it's not very good, to be honest. And rare. To the point of extinction."

He dusted his fingers against each other to get the salt off, and looked at them distastefully. Finally, he wiped the grease off with a napkin.

"Your information is out of date," Eleanora replied. "They're very much alive, trust me."

"And you have them in-system, where they could be delivered promptly?" Kjerulf asked, still wiping his hands.

"Yes," Eleanora said. "And other fleets have added them to their supply list and found the taste quite acceptable. Much better than they'd expected from some other people's reports."

She picked up a fry of her own and squirted ketchup from a bulb down its length. As she bit delicately into the fry, her other hand squirted out the word "O'Casey" on her plate. Then she picked up another fry and wiped out the ketchup with it.

"I take it you're a senior member of this business venture?" Kjerulf said.

"I'm in charge of marketing and sales." Eleanora finished eating the fry which had erased her name. "And policy advising."

"And other fleets have found these supplies satisfactory?"

"Absolutely," Eleanora replied. "I want you to understand, Captain, that those people you can convince to try this new taste sensation will be in on the ground floor. We're planning on being a big name in the business here in the Sol System. Very soon."

"I'm sure you are," Kjerulf said dryly. "There are, however, many competitors in any business. And..." He shrugged and frowned.

"We realize that," Eleanora replied. "And, of course, there's the question of monopoly markets," she added, having thought long and hard about how not to use the words "Empress" and "Palace" in the conversation. "It's never easy to get started when someone else controls access to the critical markets. But we intend to break those monopolies, Captain, and free those markets. It's central to our business plan. Depending upon the quality of the businesses we find participating in the present monopolies, we might be interested in a buyout. That would depend upon the quality of those businesses' management, of course. We've heard they may have some internal problems."

"And your competitors?" Kjerulf said, puzzling over that rather complicated metaphor string.

"Our competitors are going to find out just how deadly to their future marketing prospects our ability to supply genuine atul really is."

"How are your projections?" Kjerulf asked after another pause.

"I'll admit that sales to Home Fleet are a big part of our expansion plans. But they're not essential. Especially since other fleets are already in our supply chain. But I'd hate to have any bickering between the various fleets' supply officers, and sales to Home Fleet would be very helpful. With them, our projections are excellent. Without them, they're... fair."

"I couldn't guarantee sales to the whole fleet," Kjerulf said. "I could make suggestions to some of the captains, but my boss—" He shrugged.

"During the expansion phase, your boss won't be an issue," Eleanora said coldly. "And if our expansion is successful, he won't become an issue, either. Ever."

"Good," Kjerulf said, and showed her his first smile. It was a little cold and thin, but it was a smile. She'd seen Gronningen smile that same way so many times it made her hurt. But, on the other hand, it also made her fiercely glad. Things were looking up.

Three days had passed since O'Casey's return from Moonbase. And the pace was picking up. Which explained why none of Roger's human companions were on-site when the visitors arrived at Marduk House.

The human in the lead was a pipsqueak, Rastar thought. The two guys following him were pretty big, for humans, but Rastar towered over them, and Fain and Erkum Pol were watching from the back door of the restaurant. One of the Diasprans was ostentatiously pitching live basik to the atul, for that matter; that usually tended to bring salesmen down a peg. But this guy wasn't backing up. One of his "heavies" looked a little green—glancing over his shoulder as one of the big female atul crashed into the side of her cage, ignoring the squealing basik as she tried to reach the Diaspran, instead—but the leader didn't even blink.

"It's really quite important that I speak with Mr. Chung," he said. "Important to him, that is."

"Isn't here," Rastar said, thickening his accent. He'd actually gotten quite fluent in Imperial, but the "big dumb barb" routine seemed the way to go.

"Perhaps you could call him?" the man suggested. "He really will wish to speak to me."

"Long way," Rastar replied, crossing all four arms. "Come later."

"Perhaps you could screen him. I'll wait."

Rastar stared at him for a moment, then looked over his shoulder.

"Call Mr. Chung," he said deliberately speaking in High Krath. "See what he wants me to do. Off the top of my horns, I'd say kick their asses and feed them to the atul." He turned back in time to see the leader twitch his face. So, they did have updated Mardukan language packs, did they? Interesting. He hoped Fain had noticed.

"Roger," Despreaux said, leaning in through the door to his office. "Krindi's on the com. We've got some heavies of some sort who want to see 'Mr. Chung.' They're pretty insistent."

"Crap." Roger glanced at Catrone. "Suggestions?"

They'd been refining the plan for the Palace assault and looking over the reports from VR training. So far, it was looking good. Casualties in the models, especially among the unarmored Vasin and Diasprans who were to make the initial assault, were persistently high, and Roger didn't like that one bit, but the plan should work.

"Play for time," Catrone advised. "Sounds like you're getting shaken down again."

"It's times like this I wish Poertena were around," Roger said. "Nimashet, rustle up Kosutic. Let's go see what they want. And tell Rastar to let them wait inside."

The visitor was dressed in an obviously expensive suit of muted bronze acid-silk, not the sort of garish streetwear Roger had anticipated. The two heavies with him, both smaller than Roger and nothing compared to the Mardukans, were sampling some Mardukan food at a nearby table. Their culinary explorations didn't prevent them from keeping a close eye on their surroundings, where Mardukans—most of them Diaspran infantry—were setting up for the evening. Erkum Pol and another Diaspran, in turn, were keeping an eye on them. Not at all unobtrusively.

"Augustus Chung." Roger held out his hand. He'd found a tailor who was accustomed to handling large customers, and he was dressed less formally, although probably at even greater expense, than his visitor.

"Ezequiel Chubais," the visitor said, standing up to take Roger's hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Chung."

"And what can I do for you, Mr. Chubais?" Roger sat down, waving Despreaux and Kosutic to chairs on either side of his own.

"You've got a nice place here," Chubais said, sitting back down himself. "Very classy. We're both businessman, though, and we're both aware that the restaurant isn't all the business you're conducting."

"And your point, Mr. Chubais?"

"My point—more importantly, my boss's point—is that there's a protocol about these things. You don't just set up a laundering operation in somebody else's territory, Mr. Chung. It's not done."

"We're already paying our squeeze, Mr. Chubais," Roger said coldly. "One shakedown is all you get."

"You're paying your rent for operating a restaurant, Mr. Chung," Chubais pointed out. "Not a laundering operation. There's a percentage on that; one you neglected to pay. You've heard the term 'penalties and fines,' right?"

"And if we're disinclined to acquiesce to your... request for them?"

"Then we will, with great reluctance, have to take appropriate action." Chubais shrugged. "You've got a lots of muscle, Mr. Chung. Enough that it's a big question in our minds if you're just setting up a laundering operation, or if you're contemplating something a bit more... acquisitive. My boss doesn't like people horning in on his territory. He can get very unpleasant about it."

"We're not horning in on his territory," Roger said softly. "We've set up a quiet little operation that has so little to do with your boss that you wouldn't believe it."

"Nonetheless," Chubais said. "It looks like you've pushed through right on two million credits. The percentage on that would be two-fifty kay Penalties for failure to associate us with the operation, and failure to pay previously, are five hundred kay."

"Out of the question," Roger snapped. He paused and thought about it, frowning. "We'll ante up the percentage, but the penalties are out of the question."

"The penalties are nonnegotiable." Chubais stood and nodded to his guards. "We'll expect full payment within three days."

"Chubais, tell your boss that he really does not want to push this," Roger said very softly as he stood, as well. "It would be a very bad idea. Possibly the last one he ever has. He has no idea who he's pocking with."

"Pocking?" Chubais repeated, and one cheek twitched in a grin. "Well, Mr. Chung, I don't know where you come from, but you're in our territory now, and it's apparent that you have no idea who you are... pocking with. If you fail to pay, however, you'll find out."

He nodded, then left, trailed by his heavies.

"Roger," Despreaux said quietly, "our next transfer from our... friends isn't due until next week. We don't have seven hundred and fifty thousand credits available."

"I know." Roger frowned. "Kosutic, I know everyone's already on alert, but pass the word. They'll probably try to hit us either at the restaurant or the warehouse. I'd guess they'll try to stage something at the restaurant, probably when it's operating. Push the perimeter out a little bit.

"Will do," the sergeant major acknowledged. "It's going to play hell with our training schedule, though."

"Needs must." Roger shrugged. "If it was easy, it wouldn't need us, would it?"

"He was remarkably... unresponsive," Chubais said.

"Not surprising." Siminov touched his lips with a napkin. He was having dinner in his sole "legitimate" establishment and enjoying a very nice pork dish in wine sauce. "He's got enough muscle that we'd have to bring in every gang we have. And then we'd probably bounce."

"It would cause him a fair bit of trouble," Chubais pointed out. "Cops would be all over it."

"And they'd find a perfectly legitimate restaurant that was having gang problems." Siminov frowned. "Maybe they'd harass him a little bit, but not enough to shut him down. No, I want what's mine. And we're going to get it."

"Sergeant Major," Captain Kjerulf said, nodding as the NCO entered the secure room.

"Captain," Sergeant Major Brailowsky said, returning the nod.

"Have a seat," Kjerulf invited, looking around at the four ships' captains already present. "I've had my own people sweep the room. The posted agenda is readiness training and the next cycle of inspections. That is not, in fact, accurate."

No one seemed particularly astonished by his last sentence, and he turned back to Sergeant Major Brailowsky.

"Sergeant Major, do you know Sergeant Major Eva Kosutic?" he asked coldly.

"Yes, Sir," the sergeant major said, his face hard. "She was in my squad back when we were both privates. I've served with her... several times."

"So what do you think about the idea of her being involved in a plot against the Empress?" Kjerulf asked.

"She'd cut her own throat first," Brailowsky said without a trace of hesitation, his voice harsh. "Same with Armand Pahner. I knew him, too. Both as one of my senior NCOs and as a company commander. I was first sergeant of Alpha of the Three-Four-Two when he had Bravo Company. Sir, they don't come any more loyal."

"And I would have said the same of Commodore Chan, wouldn't you?" Kjerulf said, looking around at the other captains. One of them was... looking a tad shaky. The other three were stone-faced.

"Yes, Sir," Brailowsky said. "Sir, permission to speak?"

"You're not a recruit, Brailowsky," Kjerulf said, smiling faintly.

"I think I am," the sergeant major said. "That's what this is about, right? Recruiting?"

"Yes," Kjerulf said.

"In that case, Sir, I've known half the NCOs in Bravo of Bronze," Brailowsky said, "and I know what they thought of the Prince. And of the Empress. Between the two, there was just no comparison. That Roger was a bad seed, Sir. There was no way they were going to help him try to take the Throne."

"What if I told you they'd changed their minds?" Kjerulf asked. "That while you're right about their nonparticipation in the so-called coup attempt, they'd come to think rather better of Roger than you do? That, in fact, they're not all dead... and that he isn't, either?"

"You know that?" Captain (Senior-Grade) Julius Fenrec asked. He was the CO of the carrier Gloria, and he'd been listening to the conversation with a closed, set expression.

"I met someone who identified herself as Eleanora O'Casey," Kjerulf admitted with a shrug. "It could have been a setup to try to get me to tip my hand, but I don't think so. Can't prove it, of course... yet. But she says Roger is alive, and she used the parable of the prodigal son, which I think has more than one level of meaning. She also slipped to me that Eva Kosutic is alive, as well. And fully in the plan. I don't know about Pahner."

"That's not much to go on," Captain Atilius of the Minotaur said nervously.

"No," Kjerulf agreed, his face hard. "but I've seen the confidential reports of what's going on in the Palace, and I don't like it one damned bit."

"Neither do I," Fenrec said, "And I know damned well that Adoula thinks I'm too loyal to the Dynasty to retain my command. I'm going to find myself shuffling chips while some snot-nosed commander who owes Adoula his soul takes my ship. I don't like that one damned bit, either."

"We're all going to be shuffling chips." Captain Chantal Soheile was the CO of HMS Lancelot. Now she leaned forward and brushed back her dark hair. "Assuming we're lucky, and we don't have an 'accident.' And the rumors in the Fleet about what's happening to the Empress—I've never seen spacers so angry."

"Marines, too," Brailowsky said. "Sir, if you're going to make a grab for the Empress... Home Fleet Marines are on your side."

"What about Colonel Ricci?" Atilius asked.

"What about him, Sir?" Brailowsky asked, his eyes like flint. "He's a Defense Headquarters pussy shoved down our throats by the bastards who have the Empress. He's never had a command higher than a company, and he did a shitty job at that. You think we're going to follow him if it comes to a dynastic fight, Sir?"

He shook his head, facial muscles tight, and looked at Kjerulf.

"Sir, you really think that jerk Roger is alive?"

"Yes." Kjerulf shrugged. "Something in the eyes when O'Casey was dropping her hints. And I don't think O'Casey is the woman who left Old Earth, Sergeant Major. If the Prince has changed as much as she has... well, I'm going to be interested to meet him. Roast the fatted calf, indeed."

"Are we going to?" Soheile asked. "Meet him?"

"I doubt it," Kjerulf said. "Not before whatever's going down, anyway. I think they're getting ready for something, and since they seem to be planning on its happening soon, I'd say around the Imperial Festival."

"And what are we going to do?" Fenrec asked, leaning forward.

"Nothing. We're going to do nothing. Except, of course, to make sure the rest of Home Fleet does nothing. Which is going to take some doing."

"Hell, yes, it is," Atilius said, throwing up his hands. "We've got four carriers! We're talking about four carriers from three different squadrons taking on six full squadrons!"

"We're liable to get some help," Kjerulf said.

"Helmut," Captain Pavel of the Holbein said. He'd been sitting back, quietly observing.

"Probably," Kjerulf agreed. "You know how he is."

"He's nuts for Alexandra," Pavel said.

"So are you—which is why you're here."

"Takes one to know one," Pavel said, his face still closed.

"You in?" Kjerulf asked.

"Hell, yes." Not even the most charitable would have called the expression which finally crossed Pavel's face a smile. "I figure someone else will get Adoula's balls before I get there. But I'm still in."

"I'm in," Fenrec said. "And my officers will follow me. Regular spacers, too. They've heard the rumors."

"In," Soheile said. "If Roger doesn't move—and, frankly, I'd be astonished if he's changed enough to grow the balls for that—I say we do it ourselves. The Empress is better dead than what's going on, if the rumors are true."

"They are," Kjerulf said bleakly, looking at Atilius. "Corvu?"

"I've only got two more years to pension," Atilius said unhappily. "A desk is looking good about now." He looked miserable for a second, then straightened his shoulders. "But, yeah, I'm in. All the way. What's the line about sacred honor?"

"'Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,'" Pavel said. "That's what we're putting down for sure. But this had better be about restoring the Empress, not putting that pissant Roger on the Throne."

"If any of us survive, we'll see to that," Fenrec said. "But how are we going to signal commencement? I assume the idea is to keep the fleet from getting close enough to support Adoula's forces with kinetics and Marines."

"Ain't one damned Marine going to board a shuttle, Sir," Brailowsky said. "Except to kill Adoula."

"The Marines are going to have another job, Sergeant Major," Kjerulf said. "What the Marines are going to do is put down an attempted mutiny against the Throne by their own ships."

"Damn," the sergeant major said, shaking his head. "I was afraid it would be something like that."

"That, and certain duties on the Moon," Kjerulf said, and looked around at the others' faces, his own grim. "I don't know everything Greenberg and that weasel Wallenstein have been up to. I may be chief of staff for the fleet, but they've cut me out of the loop on a lot of stuff, especially right here on Moonbase. I've got a really bad feeling that Greenberg's changed the release codes on the offensive launchers, for instance, but there's no way to check without his knowing I've done it. If he has, I'll be locked out for at least ten to twelve hours while we break the lock. That's if everything goes well. And it's also why I need you and your ships in close to the planet."

"Speaking of Greenberg..." Soheile murmured, and Kjerulf smiled thinly.

"I have it on the best of authority that he won't be a factor. Ever again," he said.

"Oh, good," she said softly, showing her teeth.

"But for right now, he definitely is a factor," Kjerulf continued. "On the other hand, there are a few things I can get away with—routine housekeeping sorts of things—without mentioning them to him, either. Which is how the four of you got detached from your squadrons. I picked you because I figured I knew which way you'd jump, sure, but sliding you and Julius both out of CarRon 13 is also going to make a hole in one of the squadrons Greenberg's been counting on, Chantal."

"Umf." Soheile frowned thoughtfully, then nodded. "Probably the right call," she agreed. "I was thinking that having the two of us in the middle of his squadron might make La Paz think twice about jumping in on Adoula's side when he couldn't be sure who we'd fire on, but you're going to need us here worse, especially with the way Gianetto's reinforced Fourteenth."

"And not knowing which way Twelfth's going to jump," Fenrec agreed sourly, and looked at Kjerulf. "Any read on that?"

"No more than you've got," Kjerulf admitted sourly. "The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that Prokourov's captains will back him, whatever he decides. And whatever I may think, Gianetto trusted him enough to give him the outer slot covering Old Earth."

"Yeah, but the one thing Gianetto's dispositions prove is that as an admiral he's a freaking wonderful ground pounder," Laj Pavel pointed out.

"That's true enough, and one of the few bright points I see," Kjerulf agreed. "We're still going to get the piss knocked out of us holding on, even if Prokorouv decides to sit it out with Twelfth. If I can get the launchers on line, Moonbase can cover the outer arc while you people fend Gajelis off, but in the end, they'll plow us under no matter what unless Helmut gets here on schedule."

"He will," Fenrec said, then barked a harsh laugh. "Hell! When was the last time any of us ever saw him miss his timing, however complicated the ops schedule was?"

"There's always a first time," Atilius pointed out dryly. "And Murphy always seems to guarantee that it happens at the worst possible time."

"Granted." Kjerulf nodded again. "But if I had to pick one admiral in the entire Navy to depend on to get it right, Helmut's the one, when all's said. No one ever called him a sociable soul, but no one's ever questioned his competence, either. And if he comes in where I expect he will, and if Thirteenth is already down fifty percent..."

"I see your logic," Chantal Soheile said, and gave him a tight smile. "You really are killing as many birds per stone as you can, aren't you?" She grinned at him again, then frowned. "But this is all still way too nebulous to make me what you might call happy. I know a lot of it has to stay that way, under the circumstances, but that brings us back to Julius' point about the signal to start the op. Was O'Casey even able to set up a channel to tell us when to move?"

"No. But I think we'll probably get all the signals from Old Earth we're going to need to know when to start the music. We'll just ignore the orders we don't like. The orders I've already had cut to move all your ships back to the L-5 Starbase, preparatory for overhaul, should be good long enough to get us through the Festival. If nothing actually happens, then we play things by ear. But that'll keep you all semidetached from your squadrons at least through the end of the Festival. Not to mention keeping you inside all the ships that aren't actually in dock. And I'll make sure all the ships in dock stay in dock.

"When the ball goes up, you four move to hold the orbital positions, and hold off Gajelis—and Prokourov, if it comes to that. You may have to deal with the Moonbase fighter force, if I can't get them to stand down. God knows I'm going to be trying like hell, as well as trying to get the missile batteries up and talking to all the captains that aren't bought and paid for by Adoula. All we have to do is hold the orbital positions, far enough out that they can't get accurate KEW down to the surface, until Helmut gets here. At that point, with Helmut outside and us inside, Adoula's bastards are either going to surrender or be blown to hell."

"If we don't get blown to hell first," Atilius said.

"Our lives, our fortunes..." Pavel said.

"I got it the first time," Atilius said.

"They're not going to be at their best, Sir," Brailowsky said. "Leave that to us. And when the time comes, you can bet we're going to be having some serious discussions with the Moonbase fighter force, Sirs." He wasn't grinning, but it was close.

"Glad you're enjoying yourself, Sergeant Major," Soheile said.

"Ma'am, I've been pretty damned mad about what was happening on Old Earth," Brailowsky said soberly. "I'm very happy to have a chance, any chance, to do something about it."

"Vorica, Golden, Kalorifis, and all the rest of CarRon Fourteen are Adoula's," Soheile said, shrugging at the sergeant major's elan. "Eleventh is going to be split, but I think it's going to go three-to-one for Adoula. Thirteenth won't be split anymore—not with me and Julius both here—but there's a good chance Fifteenth will be. Sixteenth... I don't know. Wu's been playing her cards as close as Prokourov has. But Brettle, La Paz, and Mahmut are as much Adoula's as Gajelis, and so are their flag captains. So figure all six of Gajelis' carriers, two of La Paz', three—at least—of Brettle's, and probably at least three of Mahmut's, from the Fifteenth. That's fourteen to our four, and all of them are going to fight like hell. That's damned near four-to-one odds. Even if the rest sit this one out. If Prokourov gets off the decicred and comes in on Adoula's side, as well, then we are truly screwed if Helmut doesn't get here right on the dot. And, sorry, Sergeant Major, that's going to be despite the Marines. There's only a squad or two on each of those ships."

"I didn't say it was going to be easy," Kjerulf said.

"How's he going to tell the sheep from the goats?" Ferenc asked. "Helmut, that is. Even if he's fast, we're going to be pretty mixed up at that point."

"Simple," Kjerulf said, grinning ferally. "We'll just reset our transponders to identify ourselves as the Fatted Calf Squadron."

Nimashet Despreaux was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a clotheshorse. Certainly not in comparison to her fiancé. She'd grown up on a small farm on one of the border worlds, where hand-me-downs had been the order of the day. A new dress at Yule had been considered a blessing during her childhood, and she'd never really felt any pressure, even after she joined the Marines and had a bit more spending money, to dress up. Uniform took care of any business-related sartorial requirements, and slacks and a ratty sweater were always in style off-duty, in her opinion.

Still, certain appearances had to be maintained under the present circumstances. She had only three "dressy" outfits to wear at the restaurant, and some of the regulars had to have noticed by now that she was cycling through them. So whatever her personal wishes, it was time to get a few more.

She stepped out of the airtaxi on a fifth-story landing stage and paused, frowning, as she considered the mall. She could probably get everything she needed in Sadik's. She hoped so, anyway. She'd never been one of those odd people who actively enjoyed the task of shopping, and she wanted to get this chore done and out of the way as quickly as possible. Thirty-seven seconds would have been her own preference, but this was the real world, so she'd settle for finishing within no more than an hour.

As she started for the mall, an alarm bell rang suddenly in her head. She was a highly trained bodyguard, and something about the too-casual demeanor of two rather hefty males headed in her general direction was causing a bit of adrenaline to leach into her system.

She glanced behind her as an airvan landed on the stage, and then whipped back around as the heavies she'd already spotted abruptly stopped being "casual." They moved towards her with sudden purposefulness, as if the airvan's arrival had been a signal—which it almost certainly had been. But they weren't quite as perfectly coordinated as they obviously fondly believed they were, and Despreaux flicked out a foot and buried the sole of her sensible, sturdy shoe in the belly of the one on her left. It was a hard enough snap-kick, augmented by both training and Marine muscle-enhancing nanites, that he was probably going to have serious internal injuries. She spun in place and slammed one elbow towards the attacker on the right. Blocked, she stamped down and crushed his instep, then brought her other elbow up, catching his descending jaw and probably giving herself a bone bruise. But both thugs were down—the second one just might have a broken neck; at the very least he was going to have a strained one—and it was time to run like hell.

She never heard the stunner.

"Has anyone seen Shara?" Roger asked, poking his head into the kitchen.

"She was going shopping." Dobrescu looked up from the reservation list. "She's not back?"

"No." Roger pulled out his pad and keyed her number. It beeped three times, and then Despreaux's new face popped up.

"Shara—" he said.

"Hi, this is Shara Stewart," the message interrupted. "I'm not available right now, so if you'll leave a message, I'll be happy to get back to you."

"Shara, this is Augustus," Roger said. "Forgotten we're working this evening? See you later."

"Maybe you will," Ezequiel Chubais said from the doorway, "and maybe you won't."

Roger turned the pad off and turned slowly towards the visitor.

"Oh?" he said mildly as his stomach dropped.

"Hello, Ms. Stewart," a voice said.

Despreaux opened her eyes, then closed them as the light sent splinters of pain through her eyes and directly into her brain.

"I really hate stunner migraines," she muttered. She moved her arms and sighed. "Okay. I've been kidnapped, and since I have little or no value as myself, you're either planning on rape or using me to get to... Augustus." She opened her eyes and blinked, frowning at the pain in her head. "Right?"

"Unfortunately," the speaker agreed. He was sitting behind a desk, smiling at her. "I suppose it might be 'b' and then 'a' if things don't go as we hope. There are certain... attractions to that," he added, smiling again, his eyes cold.

"So what are you asking? Penalties and fines?"

"Oh, the penalties and fines have gone up," the man said. "I'm afraid that, what with my costs associated with persuading your gentleman friend, you'd better hope you're worth a million credits to him."

"At least," Despreaux replied lightly. "The problem being that I don't think he has it on hand as spare cash."

"I'm sure he can make... arrangements," Siminov said.

"Not quickly," Despreaux said angrily. "We're talking about interstellar transit times, and—"

"—and, in case it's not clear to you, the money isn't all mine to distribute," Roger said angrily.

"Too bad." Chubais shrugged. "You'll have the money ready in two days, or, I'm sorry, but we'll have to send your little friend back. One small piece at the time."

"I've killed people for less than telling me something like that," Roger said quietly. "More than one. A great many more than one."

"And if I end up as food for your pets," Chubais said, his face hard, "then the first piece will be her heart."

"I doubt it." Roger's laugh could have been used to freeze helium. "I suspect she's worth more to me than you are to your boss."

"Chop away," Despreaux said, wiggling her fingers. "I'd prefer anesthetic, but if you'll just hold a stunner on me and toss me a knife, I'll take the first finger off right here. I might as well; we don't have a million credits sitting around at the moment!"

"Well, Mr. Chubais," Roger stood and gestured to Cord, "care to tell me where to send whatever remains there are?"

"You wouldn't dare."

Chubais glanced over at his guards, and the two men got up. They reached into their coats... and dropped as an oaken table, designed to seat six diners comfortably, came down on their heads. Erkum looked up at Roger and waved one false-hand.

"Was that right?" he asked.

"Just right," Roger said, without even looking at Chubais as he opened the case Cord held out and withdrew the sword. He ran one finger down the edge and turned it to the light. "Cleaning up the mess in here would be a bother. Take him out back."

Erkum picked up the no longer sneeringly confident mobster by the collar of his thousand-credit jacket and carried him through the restaurant, ignoring his steadily more frantic protests.

"Roger," Cord said, in the X'Intai dialect, which couldn't possibly have been loaded to Chubais' toot, "this is, perhaps, unwise."

"Too bad," Roger ground out.

He andhis asi followed Erkum out into the slaughtering area, and Roger gestured to the atul pens. Erkum carried the mobster over and lifted him up against the pen. The atul inside it responded by snarling and snapping at what looked very much like dinner.

"Care to tell me where you're holding my friend?" Roger asked in a deadly conversational tone.

"You wouldn't dare!" Chubais repeated, desperately, his voice falsetto-high as the atul got one claw through the mesh and ripped his jacket. "Siminov will kill her!"

"In which case, I'll have precisely zero reason to restrain my response," Roger said, still in that lethally calm voice. "Gag him. And someone get a tourniquet ready."

When Chubais was gagged and Rastar had produced a length of flexible rubber, Roger took the mobster's wrist in his left hand and extended his arm. Chubais resisted desperately, fighting with all of his strength to wrench away from Roger's grip, but the prince's hand pinned him with apparent effortlessness. He held the arm rock-steady, fully extended, and raised the sword to take it off at the elbow.

But as he did, Cord put his hand on the sword.

"Roger," he said, again in The People's dialect, "you will not do this."

"Damn straight I will," Roger growled.

"You will not," Cord said again. "Your lady would not permit it. The Captain would not permit it. You will not do it."

"If he doesn't, I will," Pedi Karuse said flatly. "Des—Shara's a friend of mine."

"You will be silent, asi," Cord said gravely. "There will be another way. We will take it."

"Ro—Mr. Chung!" Kosutic came barreling through the door from the kitchen, followed by Krindi Fain. "What the hell is going on?"

Roger held the sword, still poised for a stroke, and began to tremble in pure, undiluted rage. Silence hovered, broken only by the atul's hungry snarls of anticipation and the gangster's ragged breathing. Finally, the prince twisted his sword hand's wrist, and the blade moved until its razor edge just kissed the mobster's throat.

"You have no idea who you are dealing with," he said, deadly calm once more. "No pocking idea at all. You and your boss are two slimy little problems which are less than a flea to me, and killing you would have about as much meaning to me. But a Mardukan barbarian just saved your ass, for the time being. He had more control, and more moral compunctions about chopping up a little piece of shit like you, than I ever will. Care to tell me where you're keeping my friend while I'm still inclined to listen to you?"

The mobster eyed the sword, obviously terrified, but shook his head convulsively.

"Fine," Roger said calmly. "I'll try another route. If, however, I'm unable to find the information that way, I'll give you to this young lady." He gestured at Pedi. "Have you ever read Kipling?"

Despite his fear, the mobster's eyes widened in surprise, and he produced another spastic headshake.

"There's a line from Kipling which you'll find appropriate if I don't find the information I want very quickly indeed." Roger's almost caressing tone carried an edge of silken menace. "It begins: 'When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plain, and the women come out to cut up what remains.'" He showed his teeth in a sharklike smile. "If the approach I'm about to try doesn't work, I'll leave you, as they used to say, 'to the women.' And she won't be cutting off your arm."

"Ms. Bordeaux," Roger said, after the three mobsters—one of whom would never again be a problem for anyone, thanks to Erkum's table—had been flown off to the warehouse in a van. "I need you to go see someone for me."

"Mr. Chung—" Kosutic began.

"I'm in no mood to be 'handled,' Ms. Bordeaux," Roger said flatly, "so you will shut the hell up and listen to my orders. You need to somehow arrange a meeting with Buseh Subianto. Now."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked, blanching.

"No. But it's the only idea I have short of chopping that silly little shit up into pieces. Would you prefer I do that, Ms. Bordeaux? Make up your mind, because I'd much prefer it!"

"No." Kosutic shook her head. "I'd really prefer that you avoided that."

"In that case, get with Jin and find her," Roger snapped. "If she knows where Ni—Ms. Stewart is, we'll go from there. If not, that guy is going to be walking and eating with stumps."

"I thought you said the good guysdon't torture people?" Catrone said evenly.

"In the end, I didn't," Roger replied coldly. "And I might argue that there's a difference between torturing someone for vengeance and because you need information they won't give you. But I won't, because it would be an artificial distinction."

He looked at Catrone, with absolutely no expression.

"You should have listened more carefully, Tomcat. Especially to the part about Nimashet being my 'prosthetic conscience.' Because I'll tell you the truth—you'd rather have one of my Mardukans on the Throne than me without Nimashet."

Roger's eyes were cold and black as agates.

"Chubais is an operator for a rather larger fish named Alexi Siminov," Fritz Tebic said. His voice cracked at least a little of the tension between Catrone and the prince, and the IBI agent flashed a hologram of a face. "We have a long list of potential offenses to lay against Siminov, but he's rather... tricky in that regard. Nothing that we can take to court, in other words."

"I've known Siminov professionally for years," Subianto said.

It had been difficult for the two of them to disappear, especially without warning, but Buseh had worked undercover for years, and she hadn't lost her touch. They'd made it to the warehouse before Roger got there, and the two of them were now bemusedly working a sideline to what was apparently a countercoup.

"He was just starting his rise back when I was in OrgCrime," she continued. "Very smooth operator. Worked his way up in a very tough business. Did some strong-arm work to establish his rep, and clawed his way up, over the dead bodies of a couple of competitors, since. Polished on the surface, but more than a bit of a mad-dog underneath. Kidnapping is his style. So—" she glanced sideways at the prince "—is 'disappearing' the kidnap victim to avoid arrest or to punish an adversary."

"He's associated with several operations," Tebic said. "Theoretically, he could be almost anywhere, but he often uses this building for meetings." Another hologram appeared: a four-story building with some rather large men hanging around the front door. "It's a neighborhood association, technically. In fact, it's where he often meets with the groups he controls. We've tried to bug it several times with no success—very tight security. Armed security, by the way, legally authorized to carry weapons."

"What Fritz is saying," Subianto said, "is that because of our interest in Siminov, this particular building is always under electronic surveillance. And a woman matching the height and shape of your 'Shara Stewart' was seen being carried into the building. Since there was no missing persons report on her, it was assumed she was a street prostitute who'd run afoul of Siminov for some reason. The ImpCity PD wanted to do an entry on the basis that what we were seeing was a kidnap, assuming we could get a warrant. But the idea was shot down. If we did the entry and the presumed hooker had either 'disappeared' or refused—as she probably would—to swear out charges, we'd look like fools. Who is she, by the way?"

"Nimashet Despreaux," Roger ground out. "Sergeant Nimashet Despreaux. She's also my fiancée, which makes her a rather important person."

"But not an identity we can use," Subianto pointed out sourly. "Somehow I don't think you want me going to a judge to report that Siminov has kidnapped a woman wanted for high treason under an Imperial warrant. Which means we can't use ImpCity tac-teams to spring her."

"I wouldn't trust ImpCity SWAT to walk my dog," Catrone said contemptuously, "much less to do an entry with a principal this important."

"They're very good," Tebic protested.

"No, they're not," Catrone said definitely. "This is my profession. Trust me, they're not very good at all, Mr. Tebic."

"We know where she is," Roger said, "and we don't have the ransom. So I'd best go get her."

"Like hell," Catrone said. "Leave it to the professionals."

"Sergeant Major," Roger snapped, "again, get the wax out of your ears. I am the professional!"

"And you're indispensable!" Eleanora snapped back at him. "You're not going off on a Galahad mission, Roger. Yes, you'd probably be the best for the job, but you're not getting in the line of fire. Get that through your head."

"Try to stop me," Roger said coldly.

"We're on a tight schedule, here," Catrone pointed out, "and we don't have the personnel, associated with the main mission, or the time, to go rescue your girlfriend."

"We are not going to leave her to be chopped into pieces," Roger said, coming to his feet with dangerous grace.

"No, we're not," Catrone agreed calmly. "But you are essential for gaining entry to the Palace, and you can't be in two places at one time. If you walk out of this room, I'm walking out of the mission, and so is everyone I'm bringing to the table. I can handle this; you don't have to get any nearer. Do you know what I do for a living?"

"Raise horses," Roger said, "and draw your munificent pension."

"And train tac-teams," Catrone said angrily. "You can't get a weapon anywhere near Siminov's offices; I can. And he's got legal bodyguards that are armed; a sword isn't going to do you a damned bit of good!"

"You might be surprised," Roger said quietly.

"Maybe." Catrone shrugged. "I've seen you operate. But, as I said, let the professionals handle this—and I know the professionals."

"Ms. Subianto," Roger said, "I imagine it's pretty clear what's going on here."

"It was clear before our first meeting," Subianto said. "I wasn't aware it was this far along, but it was obvious what was going on. To me at least. I'm fairly sure no one else has connected the dots."

"We could use your help. Especially on current intelligence on movements and on details of Imperial City police security."

"I hate politics." Subianto shook her head angrily. "Why can't all you damned politicians solve your problems in council?"

"I wish it could be so," Roger said. "But it isn't. And I hate politics, too, probably more than you do. I tried to avoid them as hard as I could, but... some are born to them, some force their way into them, and some are forced into them. In your case, the last. In mine, the first and last. Do you know what they're doing to my mother?" he finished angrily.

"Yes," she said unhappily. "That was why I decided to ignore what was going on when you slid me that nice little 'fatted calf' code phrase. But that doesn't mean I want to help you. Do you know what sort of a nightmare this is going to cause in Imperial City? In the Empire?"

"Yes, I do. And I also know some of Adoula's plans that you don't. But I also know what there is of you in the public record, and what Temu said about you—and that you're an honorable person. What's happening is wrong. It's bad for the Empire, and it's going to get worse, not better, and you know damned well which side you should be on!"

"No, I don't," Subianto said, "because I don't know that what you're doing is better for the Empire."

"Here we go again," Kosutic groaned. "Look, forget everything you think you know about Master Rog unless you're prepared to puke up your guts for about four hours."

"What does that mean?" Tebic asked.

"She's right," Catrone said. "Ms. Subianto, you know something about me?"

"I know quite a bit about you, Sergeant Major," Subianto said dryly. "Counter-Intel considers keeping an eye on the Empress' Own to be just good sense. You hear too many secrets to not be considered a security risk."

"Then trust my judgment," Catrone said. "And Sergeant Major Kosutic's. Roger isn't the worthless shit he was when he left."

"Why, thank you, Sergeant Major." Roger actually managed a chuckle. "Nicely... put."

"I'm starting to get that impression myself," Subianto said dryly, "although I'm not so sure he hasn't gone too far the other way. Almost cutting a suspect's arm off to get him to talk doesn't make me particularly thrilled about his judgment."

"You're going to need to block out four hours some time, then," Roger said. "After that, you'll understand what I consider 'appropriate'—and why. And that brings us back to Nimashet. Probably the only reason I didn't cut off the bastard's arm was Cord's very cogent point that Nimashet would not approve. Even to save her," he added bleakly.

"I need to speak to this IBI agent you have attached to you," Subianto said equivocally. "I don't recognize his name."

"And there's no record of him in the files," Tebic said. "He's a nonperson, as far as we're concerned."

"He's at the restaurant at the moment," Roger said. "We need to get this operation to pull Despreaux worked out, though. I'll get him headed over right away."

"I'll call my people," Catrone said. "Good thing we've got the datanet wired from here."

"This will not be a legal operation," Eleanora pointed out.

"I know. I'm not saying they'll be happy to do it; I said they would do it. I thought about bringing them in on the main op, but... Well, I trust them, but not that far. Besides, they're not combat troops—they're tac-teams. There's a fine line, but it's real. For this, though, they're perfect."

"Jin," Roger said, as the IBI agent stepped into the meeting room at the warehouse. "You recognize Ms. Subianto, and this is Mr. Tebic."

"Ma'am." Jin came to something like attention.

"Mr. Jin," Subianto replied with a nod.

"There's some question about your ID, Temu," Roger said, raising an eyebrow. "You don't appear to be listed in Mr. Tebic's records. Anything you'd care to tell me?"

"I was deep cover on Marduk," Jin said uneasily. "Kyoko Pedza's department. I got a coded message to go into the cold when this supposed coup occurred. I've sent two counter messages, requesting contact, but no response. Either Assistant Director Pedza has gone to ground, or he's dead. I would estimate the latter."

"So would I," Subianto sighed. "Which angers me. Kyoko and I have been good friends for many years. He was one of my first field supervisors."

"Assistant Director Pedza managed to dump lots of his files before he disappeared," Tebic pointed out. "It's not unlikely that Jin's was one of them."

"And Jin has been... an extremely loyal agent," Roger said. "He started covering for us long before we ever even met, and he was instrumental in getting us the weapons we needed to take the spaceport on Marduk. Capable, too; he cracked the datanet on the Saint ship in really remarkable time."

"Saint ship?" Subianto asked.

"It would take far too long to explain even a fraction of our story, Ms. Subianto. The point is that Jin has been an extremely loyal aide. Loyal, I think, to the Empire first. He's been assisting me because he sees it as his duty to the Empire."

"Yes, Sir," Jin said. "I'm afraid I'm not one of your Companions, Your Highness—only an agent assisting in what I see as a legitimate operation under Imperial law against a conspiracy of traitors."

"But," Subianto said, still frowning, "while I know a great many of our operatives, at least by name, I'm sorry to say that I don't recognize you at all."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ma'am," Jin said politely.

"What was your mission?"

"Internal security monitoring," Jin replied. "Keeping an eye on what the local governor was doing. I'd been compiling a report I was pretty sure would have landed him in prison, at the very least. But that's not an issue anymore."

"No, it isn't," Roger said. "Based on the evidence against him, I gave him a field court-martial and had him executed."

"That was a little high-handed," Subianto said, arching her eyebrows. "I don't believe even the Heir Primus has the authority to arbitrarily order executions, however justified."

"It wasn't 'arbitrary,'" Roger said a trifle coldly. "You did hear me use the phrase 'court-martial,' didn't you? I'm also a colonel of Marines, who happened to be on detached—very detached—duty. I discovered evidence of treason while operating under field conditions in which reference to headquarters was not, in my estimation, possible. It's covered, Ms. Subianto. Every 'i' dotted and every 't' crossed."

He held Subianto's gaze for perhaps two heartbeats. Then the IBI agent's eyes fell. It wasn't a surrender, so much as an acknowledgment... and possibly a decision not to cross swords over a clearly secondary issue.

"Mr. Jin," she said instead, focusing on the other agent, "I'm sorry to say that Marduk is a fairly minor planet. Not exactly a critical, high-priority assignment, whatever the governor may have been up to. So I have to ask this—what is your IS rating?"

Jin cleared his throat and shrugged.

"Twelve," he said.

"TWELVE?" Roger stared at him. "Twelve?"

"Yes, Your Highness," Jin admitted. Twelve was the lowest Imperial Security rating possible for a field agent of the IBI.

"Agent Jin," Subianto said gently, "how many assignments have you had in the field?"

There was an extended pause, and then Jin swallowed.

"Marduk was my first solo field assignment, Ma'am," he said, gazing at the wall six centimeters above her head.

"Holy Christ," Roger muttered. "In that case, Ms. Subianto, I would say Agent Jin is one hell of a credit to your Academy!"

"And it also explains why I don't recognize your name." Subianto smiled faintly. "On the other hand, I have to agree with the Prince, Agent Jin. You've done well. Very well."

"Thank you, Ma'am," Jin sighed. "You understand..."

"I do," Subianto said, smiling openly now. "And, I'm sorry, but you're still officially in the cold until we can figure out some way to bring you in again."

"Oh, I think we can do something about that in about two days," Roger said. "God willing. And if nothing goes drastically wrong."

"Jesus, look at the signature on that van!" the monitor tech said. "Hey, Sergeant Gunnar, look at this!"

"Imperial permit IFF," the supervisor replied.

"I know, but... geez, that's some serious firepower."

The supervisor frowned and used her toot to dial the van.

"Vehicle Mike-Lima-Echo-Three-Five-Niner-Six, approaching Imperial City northeast, this is ImpCity PD Perimeter Security," she said. "Request nature of mission and destination."

Trey tapped the van's communicator and smiled at the female officer in the ICPD uniform who appeared in the HUD.

"Hey, thought you'd be calling," he said. "Firecat, LLC, Trey Jacobi. We're doing a demo for the Imperial Festival. Check your records."

The supervisor frowned and looked inward with the expression of someone communing with her toot, then nodded.

"Got it," she said. "You can understand why we were wondering. You're radiating wide enough they're probably picking you up at Moonbase."

"Not a problem." Trey chuckled. "Happens all the time."

"Mind if I come by for the demo?" Gunnar asked.

"Not at all. Monday, 9 a.m., Imperial City Combat Range. They say there's going to be a big crowd, so I'd get there early."

"Can I use your name to get a good seat?"

"Absolutely," Trey replied. "Take care," he added as he cut the connection.

"Be an even better demo tomorrow," Bill said from the passenger's seat. "And not at the range."

"Couldn't exactly invite her to that," Dave replied from the back. "Today, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to demonstrate how to smear a group of heavily armed mobsters and retreat before the police arrive," he added in a fast, high, weird voice. "Failure to properly plan and conduct the operation will result in severe penalties," he added in a deep, somber baritone. "If any of the members of your organization are captured, or killed, the department will disavow all knowledge of your existence. This van will self-destruct in five seconds."

"Could somebody please shut him up?" Clovis said from the seat next to Dave. "Before we're one short on the mission?"

"Well!" Dave said in a squeaky, teenaged female voice. "I don't think that's a very nice thing to say! I swear, some of the dates I agree to go on..."

"I'm gonna kill him," Clovis muttered "I swear it. This time, he's gonna bite it."

"B-b-but Cloooovis," Dave whined, "I thought you were my friend!"

The airvan pulled up in front of a hastily rented warehouse several blocks from the Greenbrier facility, then floated inside as the doors slid open. It eased to a stop in the middle of the empty warehouse, and Roger watched as Catrone's "friends" unloaded.

The driver looked remarkably like Roger had before his bod-mod. Shorter—he was probably 170 centimeters—but with long blond hair that was slightly curly and fell to the middle of his back, and a chiseled, handsome face. He moved with the robotic stride of a well-trained fighter, light on his feet, and had hugely muscled forearms.

"Trey Jacobi," he said, crossing to where Roger waited beside Catrone.

"Trey's a very good general operator," Catrone said, "and a former local magistrate. He's also our defense lawyer, so watch him."

"Who's my newest client?" Trey asked, holding out his hand to Roger.

"This is Mr. Chung," Catrone replied. "He's... a good friend. A very important person to me. He'd probably handle this on his own, but he has a pressing business engagement tomorrow."

The individual who climbed out of the driver's side rear door was a huge moose of a man, with close-cropped hair. He strode over like a soldier and stopped, coming to parade rest.

"Dave Watson," Catrone said. "He's a reserve officer with the San-Angeles PD."

"Pleased to meet you." Dave stuck out his hand, shook Roger's, and then resumed his position of parade rest, his face stern and sober.

"This is Bill Copectra," Catrone continued, as a short, stocky man came around the front of the van. "He does electronics."

"Hey, Tomcat," Bill said. "You're going to owe us one very goddammed big one for this. If you had a daughter, that would be the down payment."

"I know," Catrone replied, shaking his head.

"I had a hot date for this weekend, too," Bill continued.

"You've always got a date," the last man said. He was a bit taller than Bill, and wider, with oaklike shoulders, short-cut black hair, and a wide, flat face. He walked with a rolling stride which suggested to Roger either a sailor or someone who spent a lot of time on civanback. Make that horseback, this being Old Earth.

"This is Clovis Oyler," Catrone said. "Deputy officer with the Ogala department. Entry."

"That's usually my spot," Roger said, nodding as he shook Oyler's hand. "Charge?"

"Usually a modified bead gun," Oyler replied. "You can't stay on the door with a charge. And there's not many doors that won't go down with a blast from a twelve-millimeter bead."

"With a twelve-millimeter, you're not going to have many shots left," Roger pointed out.

"If you need more then three or four, you're in the wrong room," Oyler answered, as if explaining to a child.

"Tac-teams." Roger looked at Catrone and nodded. "Not combat soldiers. For your general information, Mr. Oyler, I usually do the entry in a tac-suit or powered armor and ride the entry charge through. Sometime we'll see who's faster," he added with a grin.

"Told you there was a difference," Catrone said. "And Clovis' technique does tend to leave more people alive and unmangled on the other side of the door."

He shrugged, then turned back to Copectra.

"Bill, we've got an address. We need a surveillance setup. Dave will emplace—taps and external wire. We need a schematic on the building and a count on the hostiles. Clovis, while Bill and Dave take care of that, you do weapons prep. Trey, you do initial layout."

"What are you going to be doing?" Trey asked with a frown. Catrone normally took layout himself.

"I've got another operation to work on," Catrone replied. "I'll be here for the brief, and on the op."

"What's the other op?" Trey asked. "I'm asking as your counsel, here, you understand."

"One of the kind where, if we need an attorney, he won't do us much good," Roger replied.

"Prince Jackson," General Gianetto said over the secure com link, "we have a problem."

"What?" Adoula responded. "Or, rather, what now?"

"Something's going on in Home Fleet. There've been a lot of rumors about what's happening in the Palace, some of them closer to reality than I like. I think your security isn't the best, Prince Jackson."

"It's as good as it can get," Adoula said. "But rumors aren't a problem."

"They are when the Navy gets this stirred up," Gianetto noted. "But this is more than just rumors. CID picked up a rumor about a mutiny brewing among the Marines. They're planning something—something around the time of the Imperial Festival. And I don't like the codename one bit. It's 'Fatted Calf.'"

Adoula paused and shook his head.

"Something from the Bible?" he asked incredulously. "You want me to worry about a Marine mutiny based on the Bible?"

"It's from the parable of the prodigal son, Your Highness," Gianetto said angrily. "Prodigal son. You roast the fatted calf when the prodigal son returns."

"Roger's dead," Adoula said flatly. "You arranged that death, General."

"I know. And if he'd survived, he should have turned up somewhere within the first few weeks after his 'accident.' But it looks like somebody believes he's alive."

"Prince Roger is dead," Adoula repeated. "And even if he weren't, so what? Do you think that that airhead could have staged a countercoup? That anyone would have followed him? For God's sake, General, he was New Madrid's son! No wonder he was an idiot. What was the phrase you used about one of the officers I suggested? He couldn't have led a platoon of Marines into a brothel."

"The same can't be said for Armand Pahner," Gianetto replied. "And Pahner would fight for the Empress, not Roger. Roger would just be the figurehead. And I'm telling you, something is going down. The Associations are stirring, the Marines are contemplating mutiny, and Helmut is moving somewhere. We have a serious situation here."

"So what are you doing about it?" Adoula demanded.