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Andreas Bauchan, one of the Secretary General of the Commonwealth’s most senior advisers and head of the secretive Sécurité Spéciale, raised his head when a tall, striking brunette swept into his formal office inside the ancient Palace of the Stars on the shores of Lake Geneva. She dropped into one of the chairs, stretched out her long legs, and crossed them at the ankle.
“How goes it?”
Warrant Officer Miko Steiger of Naval Intelligence’s Special Operations Division, known on Earth as Britta Trulson of the Deep Space Foundation, smiled at Bauchan. They’d become close enough since their first meeting that she enjoyed unfettered access because of a carefully planned scheme to gain the Sécurité Spéciale’s confidence by feeding Bauchan verifiable intelligence. He now thought of the Deep Space Foundation as one of his private-sector assets, more reliable than the organized crime and military corporations he relied on to evade the Fleet’s unwanted attentions.
The truth, however, was much different. Admiral Talyn had turned the Deep Space Foundation into an undercover Naval Intelligence branch by planting agents among the senior staff and co-opting its information gathering resources.
Rather than smile back as usual — after all, they were more than just business partners — Bauchan grimaced.
“I’m not having a good day, my dear. Two operations, or rather an operation in two parts, failed spectacularly a few days ago. News arrived this morning. We’ve lost a good agent along with hundreds of auxiliaries and five starships and nothing to show for it.”
He tapped his desktop with his fingertips, a gesture Steiger had learned to recognize as a sign of growing irritation, and she remained silent.
“They should have succeeded against the forces in place. The plan was sound. The auxiliaries were among the best and the agent in charge, who vanished and is presumed dead, never failed us before. I can only conclude something critical changed between the time we launched and the actual clash, and that has Rear Admiral Hera Talyn’s fingerprints all over it. Her direct action specialists have been a step ahead of us for quite some time. It almost makes one believe in prescience. If anyone has it, she does.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But yes, Talyn is a redoubtable foe, and she employs the best of the Special Forces community to good effect. Perhaps that’s what she did in this failed operation — substitute the adversary you were expecting with her deadliest assets once it was too late for a change in plans.”
Steiger figured Bauchan’s operatives faced her Ghost Squadron friends head-on and lost. They were Talyn’s go-to for short-fuse missions ever since Colonel Decker took command. But she couldn’t afford the slightest hint of speculation on the matter since Britta Trulson wasn’t privy to the inner workings of SOCOM’s most dangerous elements.
Bauchan nodded absently, eyes on the antique clock adorning a sideboard, fingers stilled.
“Yes. That is her style. But I can’t help wondering whether she’s turned one or more of my people or embedded a few of hers in my organization. This latest failure simply adds fodder to the theory she’s not just unbelievably fortunate.” He turned his hard, soulless gaze on her. “Even a spymaster of Hera Talyn’s caliber cannot score so many wins, one after the other, without help. I simply refuse to believe so.”
Steiger bit her lower lip in an affected manner she knew he enjoyed. “If I understood more about this failure, perhaps I could find answers for you.”
He studied her for a few heartbeats.
“Let us posit a Fleet installation on an airless world operated entirely by contracted civilians, with a Marine Corps company as security. We infiltrated an agent to prepare the way and sent a team of Holy Shadow Warriors to neutralize the defenses so that a three-ship PMC contingent from the Protectorate could seize it. A further two ships crewed by Holy Shadow Warriors were to arrive simultaneously or not long afterward for a separate mission next door to this installation. All failed. The Holy Warriors who didn’t die in combat committed suicide as per their creed rather than surrender, while the PMC crews were either killed or surrendered. To a single Marine Corps company. What does that tell you?”
“My best guess is Talyn replaced the garrison with a contingent from the 1st Special Forces Regiment. Which means she had foreknowledge of something. Or perhaps merely a pricking in her thumbs.”
Bauchan exhaled, tapping his fingers on the desktop again. “That was our assessment as well. Yet, it bothers me that Talyn knew when to put her pet killers across our path. That question urgently needs an answer.”
She held his gaze for a few seconds. “I should think you sprung a leak, darling. Someone privy to your operations who plays for the other side. I’m afraid that sort will be found in any organization, even Talyn’s. Perhaps a good house cleaning might be in order.”
Steiger figured a useless snipe hunt after a failed operation was what the plan to destabilize the Sécurité Spéciale needed. But Bauchan’s people getting even that much information on said mission’s failure so quickly meant Admiral Talyn faced another round of internal investigations as well, which wasn’t good news. However, from reading the files, she knew that the Black Sword purge a few years earlier didn’t eliminate every last traitor in the Fleet’s ranks.
“Yes.” Bauchan looked away once more. “It’s so hard to hire reliable help these days, isn’t it?” A pause, then he turned his eyes on her again and frowned. “Is your visit purely social, or was there something that couldn’t wait until tonight?”
A sudden chill ran up Steiger’s spine. Did Bauchan suspect her? His tone and mannerisms were a little off, more than she could attribute to annoyance at the operational failure he mentioned.
“Social, nothing more. I met with the Education Secretary’s staff on a Deep Space Foundation proposal for university research grants in psychohistory and thought I’d pop in and say hi before heading back to the office. We haven’t seen each other in what? Five days? I simply missed you.”
“I was a little preoccupied.” He absently tapped his desktop again, eyes sliding back to the clock on the sideboard.
“And you obviously still are.” She gave him a fond smile she hoped didn’t look forced and stood. “So I’ll leave you to it.”
Steiger waited for a moment, but Bauchan remained seated instead of coming around the desk to give her the usual hug.
“Until tonight, then.” She blew him a kiss, turned on her heels, and left.
As her taxi exited the Palace of the Stars and headed for downtown Geneva and the Deep Space Foundation’s offices, she wondered whether Bauchan remembered mentioning an exciting development in the Rim Sector a few weeks ago while they lay in his bed, enjoying a little pillow talk. Though it was in passing, without further details, Steiger informed her Naval Intelligence superiors that something was afoot. Obviously, Admiral Talyn used her warning to good effect if Bauchan’s operation failed. His Holy Shadow Warrior mercenaries had enjoyed a string of successes since the Sécurité Spéciale first harnessed their fanaticism, and this was, as far as she knew, their first defeat.
Then a thought struck her. Bauchan, like most of his sort, was a superb actor, even though he possessed nothing that might resemble a human soul. Perhaps he nurtured suspicions and was testing her to see if she would be spooked into blowing her cover, maybe via an unexpected recall to the Foundation’s home office on Cimmeria. But she’d invested too much time and effort in her mission to run at the first sign of danger.
No, whatever may come, Miko Steiger would remain Britta Trulson, the Deep Space Foundation’s liaison with the Sécurité Spéciale until the bitter end. Besides, she knew from studying the memorial wall outside the Chief of Naval Intelligence’s office that undercover field agents operating alone, especially those who belonged to the Special Operations Division, faced a much higher casualty rate than any other branch of the service. And she’d made her peace with that the moment she signed on.
However, Steiger would embed the code word indicating her cover was potentially blown in her next routine report to the Foundation, from where it would be retransmitted to Fleet HQ by another undercover agent. Perhaps the Admiral might have other intentions for her. Even though Talyn and Bauchan were more alike than either would admit, at least she cared about the people under her command. Bauchan, on the other hand, probably never shed a tear for another human being in his entire life.
By the time she entered the offices she shared with two Foundation staffers from Cimmeria, neither of whom were even remotely connected to Naval Intelligence, and a locally engaged employee who Steiger knew was actually one of Bauchan’s agents, she’d regained her equanimity. After all, what was the point in living dangerously if one didn’t face the risk of capture and execution by the enemy? A senseless thrill ride?