CHAPTER FIVE
The time for talk was over. The time for action had arrived.
Or so Commodore Rubo Santores had told Paul Broom before he’d loaded Marines aboard six of the Megalith’s fighter-transports and launched them from orbit toward the Caelian capital of Stronghold.
Seated in the command chair that had been wedged just behind the pilot and copilot, Paul gazed through the curved canopy, wondering uneasily what exactly the action Santores had promised was going to consist of.
And wondering why a broken Cobra like Paul Broom was aboard.
Santores had been talking about negotiation and conciliation while his men helped Paul into the fighter and strapped him in. The words had been soothing, and had made it sound as if Paul was the key to persuading Governor Uy to renounce his government’s decision to secede from the Dominion of Man and unite with Qasama.
But those soothing words had come before six fully armored Marines climbed into Paul’s fighter behind him. The conciliation speech had come before Paul had seen the other five fighters being prepped and similarly loaded with Marines. And the negotiation talk had come before Santores had announced to the strike force that the time for talk was over.
So why exactly was Paul here?
Stronghold was a faintly glowing spot on the nighttime horizon when he finally found out. “Governor Uy, this is Commodore Santores,” Santores’s voice boomed from the flight-deck speaker. “I know you won’t answer, because you’re afraid we’ll backtrack your transmissions and find out where you’ve gone to ground. But I know you can hear me. So listen closely, and consider this your final chance to end this before more blood is spilled.
“My troops are on their way. They’re accompanied by enough firepower to level your town and turn every one of you to blackened cinders. I don’t want to do that. But what you’re doing is treason, and treason against the Dominion of Man will not be tolerated.
“I know you’ll have your Cobras on hand to protect you. Consider their lives forfeit. You can ask Cobra Paul Broom what happens when your hundred-year-old technology comes up against battle-ready Dominion Marines.”
Paul stared out at the rapidly approaching spot of light. Stronghold was a little dot of civilization, a refuge that had been built in defiance of everything the planet’s hellish flora and fauna could throw against it, maintained by an underlying optimism that human beings could indeed live and thrive here.
And now, Santores was preparing to wipe out everything the people had fought and struggled and died for.
“You have one chance,” Santores continued. “The same chance you’ve had since the beginning. Renounce this insane secession document, return to the Dominion fold, and nothing more will be said.”
Paul clenched his teeth. No, nothing more would probably be said about the Caelians’ attempt to secede. But that didn’t mean Uy would be free and clear. There was still the matter of the Squire, Captain Lij Tulu’s missing courier ship, and Paul had no doubt that Santores would pursue that question with as much vigor—and firepower—as he deemed necessary.
On one level, Paul could hardly blame him. He’d caught a glimpse of the long canoe-shaped hole in the Algonquin’s side when he was taken aboard several days ago, and he could see why Lij Tulu wanted the ship back.
The overall design made no sense to Paul. Why would anyone build a warship that lost a section of its outer hull every time one of its courier ships went for a spin? But apparently it was reasonable to someone in the Dominion, because all three of the war cruisers seemed to have that same design.
Lij Tulu would certainly want the Squire secured in place before he headed into any real trouble. Santores strongly suspected the Caelians of having made the ship disappear, and he wasn’t going to let up until he got to the truth.
On a purely theoretical level, Paul was mostly with the commodore on this one, too. Making a ship that size disappear without a trace was a good trick, and he was rather curious to see how the Caelians had pulled it off.
“That offer ends when my fighters get within firing range of Stronghold,” Santores continued, his voice chillingly calm. “Once we engage, your choices will be to die or to surrender unconditionally.”
“Wait for it,” the copilot murmured, just loudly enough for Paul to hear.
“And in case you’re thinking about opening random fire on the fighters,” Santores said, “be advised that one of them is carrying your friend, benefactor, and deliverer: Cobra Paul Broom.”
The copilot half turned, offering Paul a mocking smile. “There you go, Broom. Time to find out how much they really love you.”
“You might be surprised,” Paul told him, a hard knot in his stomach. So that was it. No negotiations, no subtle but earnest attempt to barter Paul’s high standing with Governor Uy and the rest of the Qasamans for some kind of reconciliation. Santores had decided Paul’s best use was as a hostage and human shield.
“Surprised how?” the copilot asked. “How much they do? Or how much they don’t?”
Paul smiled. He had no idea what kind of response the Caelians were planning. There was no way to know whether Paul’s forced appearance in the battle zone had caught Uy by surprise, or whether he’d anticipated Santores’s ploy.
But whichever it was, this was very likely going to be good. “Neither,” he told the copilot. “You’re just going to be surprised, that’s all.”
The copilot gave him an odd look, and turned back to his board without further comment.
Three minutes later—barely enough time for Uy to even get out of bed, Paul thought cynically, let alone surrender—the six fighters reached the city.
They did a quick pass first, weaving a complicated pattern barely a hundred meters above the town. The section of the outer wall that had been breached during the Troft invasion was largely repaired, Paul noted as they went by, though there was still a small gap covered by the improvised barrier the Caelians had thrown together in the last days of the war. The fighters finished their swoop and swung wide of the city, then came back around and settled into a circular formation over the entire wall, completely surrounding the town, with their noses and weapons pointed inward. “Broom, this is Strike Leader,” a voice came from the speakers. “Where does Uy live?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Paul said. In fact, the governor’s residence was simply the top floor of the government building, a structure he was pretty sure Santores had already tagged. But the idea of a top official living in the same building where he worked apparently hadn’t occurred to them, and Paul was in no hurry to enlighten them.
“Soldiers of the Dominion of Man,” Uy’s voice came from the speaker.
Paul tensed. Against Santores’s prediction—and all tactical logic—the governor had indeed chosen to answer the commodore’s demand.
“You have no right to be within Caelian airspace,” Uy continued. “You are ordered to leave at once, or you will be considered an invasion and met by force.”
“Got him,” a different voice cut in. “Three-omicron, three-story building. Three men standing in the middle of the roof.”
Frowning, Paul glanced at the grid overlay on the helm’s tactical display, found the proper square, and craned his neck to look out the canopy at the indicated spot. In the faint starlight he could see there were indeed three figures standing motionlessly in the center of the roof. He keyed in his telescopics, and in the zoomed-in view he could see that the three were Governor Uy and two of his Cobras, Popescu and Tammling.
Abruptly, Paul caught his breath as a sudden realization slammed into him like a brick.
He keyed in his telescopics?
But he didn’t have telescopics. Not anymore. Not since Lij Tulu’s MindsEye brain sifter had fried his nanocomputer.
Yet there was the scene, floating right in front of his eyes: an enlarged view of Uy and the two Cobras calmly gazing back at the circle of Dominion fighters.
Had Paul’s nanocomputer somehow rebooted or repaired itself?
Surreptitiously, he lifted his arm from the armrest. But no. The limb was as sluggish as ever, with his muscles forced to lift the extra weight of his bone laminae without the accustomed assistance from his servos. Whatever had happened to his nanocomputer, it wasn’t a complete restoration.
But then, the optical sensors were implanted in the skin around his eyes. Probably there was simply a direct linkage between them and his brain’s optical center that bypassed the computer completely.
Uy and the two Cobras were still just standing there, making no attempt to hide or run from the Dominion force. Were they the bait for some sort of trap? Were they waiting for assistance?
Were they waiting for Paul to make a move?
Because they had no way of knowing that Paul had lost his full capabilities. For all they knew, he was ready to spring into action at their signal.
Their signal.
Frowning, he lowered his gaze a bit. Tammling was doing something with his hands. Not an attack, or the preparation for an attack, but just rotating them slowly back and forth at his sides.
No, not rotating. Waggling.
He wanted Paul to waggle his fighter’s wings, or in some other way indicate which of the craft he was in.
Paul smiled tightly. That one he could do.
The pilot was peering out the canopy, his hand gripping the control stick. Carefully, Paul lifted his leg, pulled his knee to his chest, and kicked between the two seats, slamming his heel into the back of the pilot’s hand.
It wasn’t a hard blow—the hand and stick were just barely within reach. But it was enough. The fighter dipped slightly forward on its grav lifts before the pilot was able to pull the stick back into position. Paul just hoped Tammling had spotted it.
Certainly everyone else had. “Damn it,” Strike Leader’s voice boomed from the speaker. “Broom, you horking son of a—Three, Four: move in!”
Two of the fighters leaped forward, driving across the silent city toward the figures on the rooftop. The copilot grabbed at Paul’s leg, but Paul had already pulled it back behind the seats. “Pull something like that again and you’re dead,” the pilot snarled, rubbing the back of his hand where Paul had kicked it.
“Six, you go too,” Strike Leader added. “At least we know they won’t try to shoot you down.”
“Copy,” the pilot said. He shoved the stick forward, and the fighter shot inward over the city. “And don’t think you’re not going to be the first one out,” he added over his shoulder to Paul. “They start shooting, you’re the first one dead.”
“I doubt they’re going to kill anyone,” Paul said.
One of the Marines behind Paul snorted. “You got that right.”
The first two fighters were nearly to Uy’s building now, both aircraft slowing as they neared the spot. One of them angled down toward the roof, apparently planning to land, while the other angled up into a high-cover position. “If your friends try to play this cute—” Paul’s pilot said.
And without warning, a brilliant blue light flashed from somewhere to the left, turning the red glow from the higher fighter’s grav lifts into an explosion of yellow flame. Paul had just enough time to see the fighter spin away from the rooftop, crabbing sideways in a barely controlled slide, before it disappeared from sight behind some of the other buildings. Before anyone could react, a second shot blasted into the underside of the lower fighter, dropping it with a spine-wrenching thud to the rooftop.
“There!” someone snapped as Paul’s fighter swung toward the spot the shots had come from. Something was on the move: an aircar, rising from the forest beyond the hulk of the Troft ship that had been toppled in the war. The aircar turned away from the city, heading for the deep Caelian wilderness—
And exploded into yellow fire as multiple shots of laser fire blasted at it from the circle of Dominion fighters. “Got him!” Paul’s pilot bit out.
“Three, Four—report,” Strike Leader cut in.
“Four: we’re on the street. No casualties, but this bird isn’t flying again soon.”
“Three: on the roof, ditto on casualties. Marines now heading to—what the hell?”
“Three?”
“They’re gone,” Three’s pilot snarled. “Where the hell did they go?”
Paul looked back at the building. The crashed Number Three fighter was disgorging its cargo of Marines onto the roof.
Three’s pilot was right. Uy and the two Cobras had vanished.
“Down or in are the only options,” a brisk voice put in. “We’ll check the roof for trap doors.”
“Six, get in close,” Strike Leader ordered. “Fly low cover. One, Two: grid search of the streets. Five, high cover over—”
He broke off as another blue flash lanced out from the forest, slicing across the underside of one of the other fighters as it moved inward into the city. The fighter twitched up and sideways as if trying reflexively to get out of the line of fire, then angled sideways and slid into its own controlled crash onto the Stronghold streets.
Apparently, the weapon hadn’t been on the fleeing aircar the fighters had destroyed.
Strike Leader had come to that belated realization as well. “Damn it!” he swore viciously. “Five, take out that damn laser.”
“On it.” The fighter that had been rising to high-cover altitude swiveled around on its grav lifts and laid out a withering pattern of laser fire into the trees where the shots had come from. “Where the hell are they getting heavy weapons from, anyway?”
“Use your brain, and check the data stream,” Strike Leader growled. “That Troft hulk down there? One of the heavy lasers is missing. Looks like they pulled it out and got it working.”
Paul pursed his lips. That much he’d figured out with the Caelians’ first shot.
Though it was certainly fitting. He and the other Cobras had had to face those lasers. It seemed only fair that the weapons be pressed into service on the Caelians’ side.
The question he still hadn’t figured out was how the Cobras were aiming them so precisely. They couldn’t be using the original Troft targeting rangefinders—the Dominion fighters would surely have picked up those emissions and realized the fleeing aircar was a decoy.
“Not anymore they don’t,” Five’s pilot said grimly. “There’s nothing alive or functional anywhere in that half-hectare now.”
“Unless they’ve got another one,” someone else warned.
“They don’t,” Strike Leader said. “Check the data stream—the survey team scan shows all the other lasers still in place. Marine Three: any luck?”
“Got a trap door here, all right,” another voice came on. “Welded shut, of course. We’ll get out our—what the hell?”
“What?” Strike Leader snapped.
“Shotguns,” the Marine said, sounding more incredulous than angry. “They’re firing shotguns at us.”
“Damage?”
“Of course not,” the Marine said. “In fact…this isn’t even shot. It’s some kind of liquid. Berries or something.”
“Acidic?”
“Doesn’t seem like it. Definitely not hurting our armor. Don’t know what this was in aid of.”
Paul cleared his throat. “If I were you, Marine Three,” he called toward the flight deck microphone, “I’d pull my men back inside the fighter. It’s about to get very unpleasant out there.”
“Why?” Strike Leader demanded.
“Check the data stream,” Paul said. “Look under roseberries.”
And then, it was too late. The roseberry packets the Caelians had fired at the invaders had been burst by the auto-fire lasers in the Marines’ epaulets, as had probably a fair percentage of the berries themselves. But momentum had carried the juice the rest of the way to splash onto the Marines’ armor.
And now, drawn through the night by the aroma of the juice, swarms of mothlike fluffers were converging on the rooftop.
The first warning was a sputter of laser fire from one of the Marines as the first wave of fluffers came within his epaulet computer’s defensive kill zone. The rest of the squad had just enough time to turn around—
And suddenly, the rooftop exploded into a dazzling light show as the Marines’ lasers went into full attack mode against the incoming swarm.
It was, Paul knew, likely to be a long battle. Uy would have instructed his gunners to be more than generous with the roseberry juice, and the planet itself had far more fluffers than anyone wanted or needed. He was rather surprised that the lasers were able to target something that small, but the defense screen system seemed to be serving the Marines well.
The fluffers themselves were not even remotely dangerous, of course. The big problem—and a crucial fact that the Marines probably didn’t know—was that blasting all those fluffers into charred puddles would quickly attract the attention of split-tails, jigsaws, and other, far nastier birds. Assuming the lasers’ power supplies held out, the Marines would soon be neck-deep in combat without the Cobras having to lift a finger. If their power did dry up, even the intruders’ fancy armor was going to be in trouble.
And if Uy decided the situation was desperate enough for him to risk bringing a few screech tigers into Stronghold, the Marines were going to be in a fight for their lives.
For now, though, they were well up to the challenge. “Marine Three: crouch and brace,” Strike Leader ordered. “We’ll toss some concussion grenades at your position and see if we can clear out some of the clutter.”
There was another flicker of blue light, this one coming as a muted reflection from the buildings near where the other fighter had gone down. Paul silently counted to five; and suddenly, that area also erupted with a light show as the fluffers found a second target. Apparently, that Marines squad had run into a second batch of roseberry juice.
There was a muffled double crack. Paul turned back to the rooftop in time to see the crouching Marines begin regaining their balance after the concussion blasts, their epaulet lasers momentarily gone quiet. Again Paul started a silent count, and this time he got to ten before the automatic defenses began blazing away again as the fluffers who’d been outside the grenade’s blast range continued on in.
Or maybe something else had joined the party. The flying things being shredded by the Marines’ lasers seemed bigger this time. Paul keyed his telescopics and zoomed in on the view.
He’d been right. Those weren’t fluffers, but split-tails.
And with split-tails on the scene, jigsaws and rainbirds wouldn’t be far behind. “Strike Leader, you may want to pull your people out,” he called toward the mike. “The fauna’s been mostly a nuisance up to now, but from here on it starts getting dangerous.”
“We appreciate your concern,” Strike Leader growled sarcastically. “But my men can handle anything this planet can dish out.”
“I wasn’t just thinking of your men,” Paul countered. “There are other people in Stronghold, including women and children. You’re drawing dangerous creatures into the city—”
“We’re not drawing anything anywhere,” Strike Leader cut him off. “It’s Uy and his Cobras who are doing this. If you want it to stop—”
He broke off with a yelp as another blue flash of laser fire burned into the underside of his fighter. “Five, what the hell—?”
“New contact—twelve-delta,” one of the pilots snapped. “South of the landing field.”
“Shred it!” Strike Leader ordered. His fighter was going down, Paul saw, with the same marginally controlled fall as the two earlier aircraft. Whoever was handling the laser attacks was achieving some impressive pin-point accuracy, doing just enough damage to the grav lifts to kill the upward buoyancy without dropping the fighters like rocks into the city. Paul’s fighter swiveled toward the landing field, and he saw multiple trails of fire arrow out from both of its flanks. The missiles spread out toward the landing field—
An instant later, the entire field exploded into flame, tearing up the ground, ripping up the vegetation, and roiling the air into a distorted mushroom cloud.
“Hope you’ve got some more friends on the ground,” Paul’s pilot snarled over his shoulder, grim satisfaction in his voice. “Because that’s it for that bunch.”
“I’ve got plenty of friends,” Paul assured him, his heart pounding. He was pretty sure he knew what had just happened down there, but there was no way to know for sure. If he was wrong, he had indeed lost some friends. “I’d be more concerned right now about their friends. Don’t forget, you thought this was over before.”
“So they played it cute.” The pilot was yawing the fighter’s nose gently back and forth, probably doing a more thorough sweeping of the area with the aircraft’s active sensors. “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got the high ground, and we’ve got superior firepower.”
“You’re missing my point,” Paul said. “According to your data stream, there was only one heavy Troft laser unaccounted for. Only now you know there were actually two of them. What makes you think there aren’t three? Or four? Or five?”
“Because it doesn’t matter how many they are,” the copilot said. “We’ll find them, we’ll ash them, and we’ll ash whoever’s firing them. We’re going to win, Broom. It’s just a question of how many people die before Uy gives up.”
“Hell,” Strike Leader’s voice came over the speaker. “Got more of the damn juice over here. No, wait—this time it’s small fruit. Fruit in juice, about the size of oranges, catapulted or something onto the canopy.”
Paul frowned. Juice and small fruit? He knew the roseberry trick—the Caelians had used it against the Trofts during the invasion.
But roseberries were tiny little things. What was with this escalation to orange-sized fruit? He wasn’t even sure which type of fruit the Cobras were using.
Unless…
It was risky, but at this point risky was probably all that Uy had. And it would be just like him to try something like this. “Commodore Santores, pull your men and ships back,” he called urgently. “Right now. All of them. Call them back.”
He counted off three painful seconds of silence. “Explain,” Santores said.
Paul took a deep breath. “Your people did a quick survey of Caelian,” he said. “I’m guessing they concentrated their attention on the area around Stronghold. If so, I guarantee you missed some of the animals. Including some that can rip right through the canopy, grav lifts, intakes, and anything else on these aircraft that isn’t solid hullmetal. If you don’t want your men and fighters turned into bloody scrap, you need to get them out right now.”
There was another pause, this one lasting five seconds. “Strike Leader, what’s your OpSit?” Santores asked at last. “Can you get home?”
“Yes, sir, we can,” Strike Leader said. “But there’s no need to pull out. Whatever this planet thinks it’s got—or whatever ghosts Broom’s jumping at—we can handle it.”
“I’m sure you can,” Santores said. “But we’ve seen what this planet can do, and I’m not willing to risk good men and irreplaceable fighters. Full withdrawal. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” Strike Leader said between obviously clenched teeth. “Okay, Marines, you heard the Commodore. Withdraw to your fighters, and make damn sure you don’t bring anything live in with you. Five and Six, you still at full power?”
“Yes, sir,” Paul’s pilot confirmed.
“Affirmative,” Five’s pilot added.
“We’ll need a tow to altitude,” Strike Leader said. “Five, you’re on Two and Four. Six, you’re on One and Three.”
“You sure you don’t want us on high cover instead?” Paul’s pilot asked. “What if the bastards have another laser stashed somewhere?”
“They won’t fire,” Paul said. “You’re leaving, and that’s all they care about.” He hesitated, but he couldn’t resist. “Governor Uy understands that the ultimate goal is to win the game, not destroy the pawns.”
“Yeah, keep laughing, Broom,” Strike Leader growled. “It’ll make for a better-looking corpse. Five, Six—get towing.”
Paul had wondered how exactly the fighters were going to attach the requested tow cables, as well as how long the procedure would take. The answers: quite easily, and very quickly. He watched through the canopy in fascination as Five hovered over one of the downed fighters, unreeled a cable from its underside, and locked the end into a self-centering connector about a third of the way back from the bow. The fighter’s grav lifts brightened as it raised the crippled aircraft into the air, swiveled around, and dropped another cable to the other damaged fighter. This second cable snaked around the side of the first aircraft and continued on another five meters, leaving the three fighters in a hanging stack where no one’s thrusters or grav lifts would interfere with anyone else’s. Even as Paul’s fighter made its own second connection, the first hanging stack headed for the sky.
It was a remarkable demonstration of power, even given that the limping fighters’ grav lifts were providing at least part of the upward boost. Still, it was yet another sobering reminder of how much more advanced Dominion’s equipment and weapons were compared to those of the Cobra Worlds.
A medtech and gurney were waiting just inside the hangar bay hatchway when the Marine at the rear of Paul’s fighter popped the hatch and lowered the ramp. Beside the medic, to Paul’s surprise, was Commodore Santores.
“I must say, Broom, your Governor Uy is nothing if not imaginative,” the commodore commented as Paul trudged his slow and painful way toward them. The Marines from the other fighters were streaming past on both sides, most nodding briskly to the commodore as they passed him. None of them spared so much as a glance for Paul. “I’ve been studying the data stream since you headed back,” Santores continued, “and I haven’t been able to learn what exactly you were so worried about with that fruit barrage. Would you care to enlighten me?”
“I expect Governor Uy would prefer to keep that a surprise,” Paul said as he eased himself onto the gurney. In theory, his muscles should be getting stronger as they adapted to handling his body’s extra weight. In practice, though, the advanced anemia induced by his bone laminae put a severe limit on how much exertion he could manage before fatigue set in. “But I do want to thank you for not uselessly sacrificing your men.”
“As well as sacrificing the Caelians in Stronghold?”
“That, too,” Paul said. “I’m sure there’s a better and more peaceful solution to all this than an all-out invasion.”
“There’s certainly a more useful way for us to spend our time,” Santores agreed, falling into step beside Paul as the medic guided the gurney through the hatch into the corridor.
Paul frowned. There’d been something in the commodore’s voice…“I presume you’re talking about negotiation?”
“That may come later,” Santores said. “While you were battling roseberries and repurposed Troft lasers we had a visitor: the Iris.” He looked down at Paul. “One of the Dorian’s courier ships.”
Paul felt his stomach tighten. No. Oh, no. “Qasama?”
“Exactly,” Santores said with grim satisfaction. “Captain Moreau’s located the system, and made initial contact with the locals. As soon as the Iris reaches us and has been refueled, we’ll be leaving.”
Paul nodded, determined not to let his true feelings show. After everything the Cobra Worlds had been through—after all he himself had been through—and now all of it for nothing. “Well, good luck to you,” he said, keeping his tone civil. “Bear in mind that they won’t be nearly as docile or as easy to conquer as Aventine was.”
Santores shook his head. “Aventine hasn’t been conquered, Cobra Broom.” But his eyes drifted away from Paul’s as he said it, and there were fresh tension lines in his cheeks.
“You don’t seem convinced of that,” Paul suggested.
The tension lines deepened. “There’s been some trouble.”
“I know,” Paul bit out. “I was there.”
“I mean more trouble.” Santores looked at Paul, then looked away again. “In fact, I may send you back to Capitalia with the Iris to see if you can help mediate things.”
“Because that worked so well here?”
“Touché,” Santores conceded. “Though to be fair, I didn’t really give you much of a chance with Uy.”
“Nice of you to at least point that out. What makes you think Captain Lij Tulu will actually listen to anything I have to say?”
“I’m thinking more along the lines of the Aventinian Cobras listening to you.” Santores pursed his lips. “More specifically, your wife and son.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Paul had to smile at that one. “You are joking, I presume,” he said. “If they’re on any kind of war footing—”
“This is not a war!” Santores snapped. “This is insurgency containment. Nothing more.”
Paul waited until they’d gone another two steps down the corridor. “Fine,” he said. “If they’re on any kind of insurgency containment footing, they’ll know better than to accept any deal or negotiation that involves a hostage.”
“You wouldn’t be a hostage.”
“Wouldn’t I? Lij Tulu would just set me down in Capitalia and let me go? Free and clear and unmonitored?”
“I’d give him orders to that effect.”
“And he’d be required to obey them?”
“Of course.”
“Even if he decided the situation warranted action outside those orders?” Paul persisted. “Because if that’s not legal then you’re telling me that Colonel Reivaro had explicit orders permitting his men to open fire on Archway’s Cobras even if they didn’t fire first.”
Santores threw him another glare. “Of course the commander on the scene has final authority,” he growled reluctantly. “Just as a field officer always has responsibility for making sure his men are in the safest and most defensible position possible, consistent with their orders and mission.”
“Right,” Paul said. “In other words, once you leave for Qasama, Lij Tulu can do anything he damn well pleases.”
They’d made it to the elevator before Santores spoke again. “If you go back to Aventine, you may be able to save the lives of your family,” he said as they entered the car. “If you go to Qasama, they’ll be on their own. I’ll let you decide.”
“How about we add a third option?” Paul suggested. “We both go back to Aventine, you fix whatever mess Lij Tulu has made, and then we both go to Qasama.”
Santores shook his head. “I’m pushing my timing to the limit as it is. If we’re going to get Qasama ready in time, we have to start right away.”
“What are we getting them ready for?”
“The same thing we’re getting Aventine ready for,” Santores said. “A Troft incursion.”
Paul felt his stomach tighten. “Thanks, but we’ve already done that.”
“Not like this,” Santores said grimly. “The last invasion was for conquest. This one will be for annihilation.” He looked down at Paul. “And like it or not, we’re the only ones who can keep that from happening. Keep that in mind when you think you want to fight against us.”