Prologue
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Runcible System
Daglyte Seam
Commander of Agents presided over a desk awash in failure and dismay.
The Scouts, the damned meddling Scouts, ever more temerarious, brazenly pursuing their agenda of eradication. Not satisfied with the destruction of Sinfreed Hub, the Department’s last intact communications and data center, the Scouts had pressed on, capturing Engthrelt and Oonabrij. While neither facility had ever been as vital to the Plan as Sinfreed, and each had taken significant damage in the confusion immediately following Clan Korval’s terminal strike on Prime Headquarters, they had been functional to a degree none of those remaining began to approach.
There was more.
She had ordered a force assembled from their stores of Old Tech, the last and most potent of their strike forces. Specific engines, known by name, which had served the Department well in the past. Several had come forward to receive their orders.
Others had not.
Others, in fact, were—gone. Absent. Disappeared.
At first, it had seemed that the inventory systems, as all else, were made unstable by the destruction of so much of the network.
A team had been sent to investigate; she had their report in hand.
In fact, equipment was missing; a measurable—a significant—number of specialized engines had vanished from the ranks, as if they had been sent out on assignment. There had been no protest from the devices; there had been no sign of sabotage or of forcible removal. It was as if their proper operators had simply relocated them according to orders.
Save that no such orders had been issued.
The fact that among the missing were the eldest and most destructive of the Department’s accumulated machines, could only add to the general state of failure and alarm.
Teams—she could spare so few!—teams had been dispatched, to locate the missing and bring them back. If they proved recalcitrant, the order was to decommission. They could afford no rogues wandering the space lanes, acting on their own necessities.
There was more…
A few days ago had come a scattering of reports that Healers and others of the Department’s dramliz had fallen into sudden faints, or woken from sound sleeps or trance, screaming and clutching their heads. There had been no new instances reported, and one might be tempted to assume a mere affliction of the nerves; those of the dramliz being oversupplied with nerves. However, Commander of Agents left nothing to chance. She passed the reports on to the Unit Head for follow-up, with a request to share her findings.
So, those, the smaller failures.
There remained one larger failure, overshadowing all other errors. Large enough, indeed, that it might well bring the Department to its knees, its purpose unfulfilled.
The team sent to acquire, or terminate, Shan yos’Galan Clan Korval had failed in its mission. Four senior field agents had been killed. The two surviving had been taken into custody by the local police, from whom they could have been expected to rapidly extricate themselves—save for the timely arrival of Scouts, bearing warrants of extradition and a long list of crimes for which the captured pair were wanted, on Liad…
Given repeated failures to bring Val Con yos’Phelium, rogue Agent of Change, back to Headquarters, in order to refresh his training and reaffirm his loyalty to the Department, the repurposing of yos’Galan into a weapon crafted to destroy Korval from within had become the centerpiece of the New Plan to destroy Korval. That failure was dire.
Alternatively, the actions to discredit Korval tradeships at key ports, and the blacklisting of Korval traders was going well. Indeed, Pale Wing, a major Korval trader, second only to Dutiful Passage herself, had been compromised most effectively at Liltander.
Had they sufficient time, the Department would see Korval broken in the markets, the last choice remaining to the delm the dissolution of the clan. Lacking powerful allies, Korval would be absorbed by the barbaric Terran hordes, nameless, with neither melant’i nor wealth to shield them. Their blood would be polluted, the so-called Korval Luck diffused…
Eventually, oh, yes—eventually, the Department could see these things done.
Time, however, was in short supply; the Department in a disarray that hourly grew more profound. They were so disordered that the loss of even small systems became a significant difficulty.
They should, perhaps, Commander of Agents thought, have pulled back, regrouped, repaired systems…Korval would have believed the threat gone, themselves safe. The danger there had been that, while the Department healed and increased its strength, so, too, did Korval. A decisive strike while the enemy was weak…that had seemed the certain path to success.
Commander of Agents closed her eyes.
She was weary. Even that admission was a failure; Commander of Agents did not tire, did not become befuddled with lack of sleep; did not surrender to despair.
For a moment only, inside the privacy of her skull, Commander of Agents considered the unthinkable.
She considered disbanding the Department. It was within her power to do this thing; she knew it. The precise procedure eluded her at this present, but she was certain that she could retrieve it, if she merely concentrated…
Commander of Agents took a profoundly deep breath. She felt renewed, alert, and in control. There had been setbacks, yes, of course there had. Korval was a cunning and resourceful enemy; its delm had been one of the Department’s best, before he had broken training and turned his hand and his considerable talents against them.
None of it mattered.
Were they vulnerable and in disarray? They were; and yet—not even the masters of the Accountants Guild had been able to find all of the Department’s cash reserves.
Did they lack operatives?
No matter: Operatives could be bought, after all.
The Department would destroy Clan Korval. Utterly.
It would happen; and not only would it happen on her watch…it would happen within the Standard.
One needed only to embrace the bold course—and stay on target.