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“You can lead a horse’s ass to facts, but you can’t make him think,” Decker grumbled after he and Talyn left the conference room after a particularly acrimonious discussion.
“I’ve never seen a bunch of people who were more frightened of their own shadows. If Verrill hadn’t shut that idiot Roste up, I swear I’d have reached across the table and throttled him myself.”
“That’s a tad harsh, Zack,” she chided. “You’re asking them to risk everything on a single gamble. And don’t tell me it’s a sure thing. You’re the one who keeps saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy.”
“Granted,” he said, trying to shake off his anger at the cold reception they’d been given by the rebellion’s command group. “But the longer they wait, the harder and bloodier it’ll get, something Ser Roste, for all his high and mightiness within the independence movement, seems singularly determined not to understand, no matter what I do.”
“I’ll remind you of something a Marine I sometimes sleep with likes to say.” She smiled at him, mischief dancing in her eyes. “You shouldn’t argue with a moron; he’ll just beat you down with experience.”
It was enough to break down the last bits of anger that still poisoned his mood and Zack put an arm around Talyn, hugging her.
“Trust you to use my words against me, sweetheart. I think if it hadn’t been for Roste, I might have swayed enough of them that we’d still be in there, looking more closely at the details. Maybe I should waylay the bastard tonight and take him out for a long hike in the woods that’ll see me come back by my lonesome.”
“No.”
“Just like that: no? So what do we do instead?”
“Focus on our mission. Remember, hunting and gathering? And once we have what our bosses need, we bugger off.”
He suddenly stopped and turned to face her, placing a hand on each of her shoulders.
“Want to try a bit of threat analysis, since we’re gatherers of disconnected facts that often merge into a coherent picture?”
“Dazzle me with your brilliance, big boy.”
“Not here. Let’s go visit the great outdoors.”
She gave Zack a surprised look but followed him to the back entrance, where a trail led to the mountain tarn they’d admired a few days earlier before.
When Decker figured they were far enough from indiscrete ears, he found a large rock and sat down, indicating with a nod that Talyn should join him.
“So?” She asked.
“Roste. He had the Jackals on his trail when we joined the other ships for the run to Garonne. They stuck with us until they were sure the weapons shipment would make it. Our analysts figure the bastards sometimes do wet work for the Sécurité Spéciale, and those buggers have been known to do the Coalition’s bidding. Now, he’s the one arguing the loudest against a decapitation strike that has a good chance of working and ending this before it sinks into an all-out, drag-down war. Do you see what I saying here?”
“To use another one of your favorite expressions in vain, once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence. I don’t see the third item that’ll convince me it’s all due to enemy action. Correlation does not imply causation. Rule number one for any good intelligence officer.”
He shook his head, frowning while he replayed the discussion with the rebel leadership in his mind.
“Sorry. With all due deference to your greater experience, my instinct tells me there’s fire under that smoke. It may not be what I think, but my gut is willing to bet on Roste having reasons of his own to shoot down the plan; reasons that aren’t related to tactical difficulties.”
Talyn analyzed Zack’s suspicions in silence before speaking again.
“Okay. For some reason I still can’t identify, I’m willing to humor you for now. I’ll have a quiet chat with Corde. She strikes me as a sensible sort, and we’ve bonded over long hours of sifting through data while you were playing tourist with a gun. But for now, you will leave it be, Chief Warrant Officer Decker. Maybe Verrill will think some more once he’s away from all the noise of a full council meeting. He was interested when you first broached the idea.”
“Someone needs to remind him that a military organization isn’t a democracy. The commanding officer makes the final decision.”
She chuckled at his vehemence.
“That’s pretty rich. As your commanding officer, I spend way more time arguing with you than I should.”
“Yeah,” he grinned back at her, “but as my commanding officer, you shouldn’t be having sex with me either and you don’t hear me complain.”
**
“Sorry about how the discussion went, Zack.” Verrill held out a mug of coffee. “As a former military man, you’ll appreciate how hard it is to bring together a bunch of folks with little to no experience of working in a command-driven environment. Be thankful I managed to squash the idea of putting orders to a vote in the early days of the rebellion.”
“Thanks.” He took a sip, and then helped himself to more sweetener. “No offense but this stuff tastes like burning camelot dung.”
“What the heck is a camelot?” The rebel leader raised a hand. “No. Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”
“I noticed that Roste was the most vocal in there,” Decker remarked, stirring in a glob of the syrupy stuff the mess hall had on offer.
“Yeah. He’s one of the more opinionated members of the inner council.”
“More opinionated?” Zack raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He’s got a stubborn streak and a mouth that would put the camelot I mentioned just now to shame. What’s his story?”
Verrill shrugged.
“Same as anyone’s. He came here from Celeste a long time ago to settle. The militia shut down his business on suspicion of spreading sedition when the independence movement started getting vocal. He lost nearly everything he worked for, and when I canvassed those in the movement willing to go beyond slogans and pamphlets, he was among the first to volunteer.”
“Military background?”
Verrill hesitated before answering.
“Yes. He and I served together in the Celeste National Guard before immigrating to Garonne at the end of our hitch.”
“Any chance either of you knows Colonel Harend personally from those days?”
Again, the hesitation, then Verrill nodded.
“We both do, but it was a long time ago when we were junior non-coms in the same regiment. He stayed in and went for a commission while Roste and I left the uniform and Celeste behind.”
“Neither of you was cut out for a military career?”
“Not in the National Guard at any rate.” Verrill grimaced. “But that’s all long in the past, well before Garonne turned into the latest case of home world oppression. Why the interest in Roste’s past?”
Zack stared down into his coffee for a few seconds.
“I’m trying to figure out why he was working so hard to shut down any discussion of the plan Hera and I presented. Most of the others seemed willing to explore the idea and see if it offered us a chance of ending the conflict before it got too bloody.”
“I’ll grant you that he was unusually aggressive, but he’s a bit of a hothead to begin with, and when a notion enters his mind, he takes it far more to heart than other people.” Verrill paused when he noticed Decker’s sardonic expression. “I’m sure that if he believed your idea had some merit, he’d have muted his opposition. None of us wants this to go on forever. We want our old lives back.”
Zack stared at the rebel leader with a raised eyebrow.
“Really? None of you want this to go on forever?”
“What are you trying to insinuate?”
“Insinuate? Verrill, doesn’t Roste’s vehemence sound suspicious, especially before we even discussed the details? We’re talking about the guy whose ship was trailed by the Confederacy of the Howling Stars all the way to the rendezvous and then to the edge of this system for all we know. I seem to recall you never got a satisfactory answer to that little incident. And now he’s afire to toss out something that just might short-circuit the militia’s idea of a small colonial war. I get that he doesn’t like me, and the feeling is mutual, but really?”
“Roste can’t be held responsible for the Confederacy and like I said, he’s quick with his temper.”
Verrill seemed to shrug the Marine’s words off, but there now was a spark of doubt in his eyes, and Zack figured it was time to change the subject to something more immediate: the on-going militia raids in every settlement within twenty kilometers of the Yangtze River and what the rebels could do about them.
It proved to be safer ground for both men.
**
Hera found Corde in the all-sources center, staring listlessly at a computer screen.
“Cred for your thoughts?” She asked, sitting across from the other woman.
“If it buys me something I can use to shut people up when they get thoroughly annoying, sure.”
“Roste?”
“Yeah. I can’t recall seeing him try to shoot down an idea with such vigor before and that’s saying something. He likes to think of himself as the conscience of the Movement’s armed wing. A lot of us think he’s more of a horse’s ass, but there you have it.”
Talyn related Decker’s earlier quip and Corde laughed.
“That just about sums him up when he puts his mind to it. Pity we can’t just write him off as a moron. He’s actually pretty smart in many respects.”
“Then why does he think, right off the bat, that the decapitation option has no redeeming qualities that might merit closer scrutiny?”
Corde shrugged.
“Beats me. My best guess is fear of failure and the consequences if we put everything we have in a single operation.”
“But you wouldn’t be doing that.”
“Sure, and I understand what you were getting at, but Roste and some of the others aren’t buying what you’re selling. It’s the whole recent arrivals telling us old-timers what to do syndrome.”
“Even though Zack’s a twenty year Marine command sergeant with more combat experience than any ten veterans you have in your ranks put together?”
“Human nature.” She met Talyn’s eyes. “I’m sure you know all about that.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“We?”
“You’re the number two in this outfit. Your voice should count for more with Verrill than any of the others, no matter how close they were before picking up a gun in the name of freedom.”
“And you?”
A faint smile appeared on Corde’s lips.
“I’m Zack Decker’s keeper. My job is to make sure his enthusiasm for a good fight doesn’t take us places we’d rather avoid and Iskellian isn’t one of them. In fact, it’s the only place we can’t avoid, either now or in the future. Only, the longer we wait, the harder it’ll get and the harder it gets, the bloodier it’ll be.”
“And the bloodier it is, the harder it’ll be to build a sane, free society afterward.” Corde nodded. “I’ve read the analyses of the Migration Wars and nearly every colonial conflict since the last one.”
“So why don’t you encourage Verrill to override the inner council and use his power as commanding officer?”
“If I thought it would do any good, I’d be nagging him until his ears fell off. It won’t. He respects the senior leadership and their opinions, and figures overriding them won’t be good for the Movement’s continued health.”
“A drawn-out war of attrition won’t be either. What’s going on right now is the first harbinger of the coming bitterness between factions. It hasn’t touched anyone beyond the river valley and the Tianjin district yet, but it’ll spread inexorably as the militia’s ranks and confidence grow.”
“What is the quaint expression I’ve heard so often from my late father? You’re preaching to the choir?”
“So? Let’s go out and convert some heathens, you and me.” Talyn grinned. “It beats sitting here, reading the latest depressing reports from the front lines.”
**
“Sergeant Steiger reporting to the Captain as ordered.”
“At ease.” Rika Kozlev waved towards the sole chair in front of her desk. “Sit.”
When Steiger had obeyed, Kozlev examined her in silence, head tilted to one side.
“You seem to have come through the mess of Ser Whate’s murderous rampage better than any of the others in my section.”
“I’ve been shot at often enough that the experience has lost some of its punch, sir.”
“Glad to hear it, because I’m about to send you into the closest thing we have to bandit country on Garonne outside of the highlands. The garrison commander in Tianjin has requested a qualified field interrogator so he can process more suspects on site rather than send them all the way to Iskellian under escort. With your counter-insurgency experience, it should be a good fit. I’ve noticed that you’re less than enthusiastic about the deeper kind of interrogation we practice here at HQ, and I hate wasting talent in a job that isn’t a good fit.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Though she kept a straight face and an even voice, she felt deeply relieved by the change in duties. She’d begun to fear that participating in Captain Kozlev’s treatment of civilian detainees was pushing her into a dark place from which she could never escape.
“You’ll be supporting Tianjin, but you will still be part of my unit and report to me. Any detainees you think need my personal attention, you will ship them here, and the garrison commander will have no choice but to assist.”
“Understood, sir. When do I leave?”
“On the next train headed east which would be,” she glanced at her tablet, “in two hours. Get packed and hand your open files to Mikkels. The duty driver will take you to the station.”
Steiger stood up, came to attention, and saluted. Then, when she was about to leave, Kozlev said, “Don’t disappoint me with this task, Miko. I thought you had more stomach for what needs to be done. You know things aren’t going to get easier any time soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
As she left the headquarters ng to collect her belongings, Steiger couldn’t help thinking that she might well be more useful to the rebellion in Tianjin.
The most direct route from Iskellian to the highlands ran right through it, as Decker had proven with his wild escape. One day, the rebels would have to strike in the other direction, hopefully in full force, and she intended to provide all the help she could from inside the enemy’s walls.
When she climbed aboard the passenger pod a few hours later, it occurred to her that the rebellion had so far left the train line along the Yangtze River undamaged, unlike that which led from Iskellian south to Zeli. It had been hit hard by a raid two nights ago and would likely be out of commission for a while, cutting the capital off from quick access to its favorite resort and more importantly, the planet’s second-largest spaceport.
Come to think of it, none of the lines leading to the other eastern districts had been hit either. Miko Steiger smiled at her reflection in the window as the train began moving. Now there was a thought she didn’t intend to share with Rika Kozlev or anyone else.
**
Decker found Roste sitting on a rock not far from the back entrance to the fortress, staring at the carpet of stars stretching from horizon to horizon. He sat beside the man without bothering to ask for permission.
“Do your colleagues know you’re taking money to make sure this little disagreement on Garonne’s future turns into a bloody civil war?”
Though Zack’s tone was conversational, it was a stab in the dark designed to unnerve the other man.
Talyn would likely have his balls if she found out about this little talk, but if got Roste to shut up and let them discuss the decapitation option at length, it would be worthwhile.
The rebel turned to stare at Decker, unsure that he’d heard right.
“What are you on about, asshole?”
“I’ve got a theory, see,” Zack grinned at him. “There are folks out there, in the big, wide galaxy, going to a lot of expense, time and trouble to build up both sides of this family spat. At this rate, they’ll make sure the lot of you can tear the planet apart to the point where it’ll take three Marine divisions to sort out and an Army division or two to sit on Garonne for a generation. And I won’t even mention the number of starships that’ll be necessary to blockade the system.”
“That’s a big, stinky load of manure, Decker. How a clueless bugger like you ever became a pathfinder is beyond me.”
Roste looked up at the stars again.
“Hear me out,” the Marine continued. “This decapitation option, if it works, will end the war before it gets bloody enough for outside intervention. So I have to ask myself why a smart guy like you, with time in a soldier suit, won’t even listen to it. Know what I answered myself?”
Roste shrugged. “Do I look like I care?”
“Of course you do. You want to know how much I figured out and with whom I’ve shared my thoughts.”
He held up his hand and ticked off his fingers one by one.
“Going with the second item first, there’s my partner Hera, of course; I share everything with her, including a lot of good times. There’s Verrill and Corde because they hired me as a military advisor, so I advise, but I haven’t yet brought this up with any of the others, out of respect for Verrill.”
“And what did you tell them?”
A hint of fear had crept into Roste’s voice. Zack smiled, knowing now that his stab in the dark had come dangerously close to the mark.
“My theory that says there’s a possibility you and others on Garonne no doubt, might have been handsomely paid – or blackmailed – to make sure a small rebellion turns into a re-enactment of the last Migration War. Now, what do you think of that, eh?”
He gave Roste a comradely pat on the shoulder.
“I think you’re full of it, Decker.”
“Perhaps. I’ve been known to bark up the wrong tree pretty often, but my gut instinct is telling me you’re the right tree this time. The question you have to ask yourself is what you’re willing to risk as one of the guiding lights of the independence movement. Even if it turns out to be nothing more than a lot of hot air, your colleagues won’t ever look at you the same way again once I speculate out loud. Your big mouth this morning has made sure of that.”
He paused to let his words sink in.
“Now about the decapitation option, are you going to shut your yap and let the leadership think it over, or do I share my theory with everyone?”
“You’re a right bastard.”
“For your general fund of knowledge, you should be aware that my parents were married.” Decker stood and looked down at the man. “Take the night to think about it. I’d like to resume the discussion after breakfast tomorrow.”
Then, whistling an off-key tune, he returned to the ruins and the hunt for a cold beer. He had the feeling that he’d deserved one tonight. All he had to do until morning was make sure Hera didn’t find out about his gross breach of protocol, orders and nearly everything the intelligence world held dear.
By noon the next day, with Roste still the sole, albeit muted dissenter, the inner council authorized detailed operational planning, to be completed within fourteen days. If they liked what they saw, preparations would be allowed to proceed.
**
That evening, when they were alone in their quarters, Talyn gave her partner the evil eye.
“Out with it,” she ordered. “What did you do to Roste last night? He didn’t change his attitude just because it’s Tuesday. I checked the security recordings, and they show the two of you sitting by the back door having a fine old chat.”
Decker’s smile was a hair away from turning into a satisfied smirk.
“We talked about this and that. I shared a theory or two with him. All very companionable. He’s actually a reasonable guy once you get to know him.”
“Bullshit.”
He shrugged. “Believe what you will.”
“I could order you.”
“To do what? Remove my clothes and await your pleasure? To quote a commander of my acquaintance: aye, aye, sir.”
He pulled her against him and lowered his head to meet her lips.
