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EPILOGUE

Terrence Murphy stood on TFNS Ishtar’s flag bridge. His hands were folded behind him, and the duilleog airgid of the Order of Craeb Uisnig, cleaned of Alan Tolmach’s blood, gleamed above his ribbons as he watched the main plot. The incoming Fasset signature had just strobed its ID.

Ningishzidu with TG One-Sixty-Four,” O’Hanraghty said, listening to the transmission which had accompanied the identifier. “Captain Yildiz in command. They say they’re here to join us.”

“Task Group One-Sixty-Four is out of Strammer…and wasn’t under Yildiz’s command, if I remember right,” Murphy said.

“Correct, Sir,” Ortiz said. “Yildiz is from Ryukyu, not the Heart. To get here this quickly, it sounds like he must have led a quick revolt against his commanding officer when news of the sector’s secession reached Strammer.”

“Not the first time we’ve heard that story,” O’Hanraghty observed. “With all the defections coming in…”

He looked at the force organization status board and shrugged. Ships had been trickling in for weeks now, as word of events in New Dublin spread like wildfire though the Concordia Sector and its neighbors. Few of the system pickets out here were as powerful as Murphy’s original force, but most of them had been built around at least one FTLC. Even with Granger still sitting on Diyu—at least, they hoped she was still sitting on Diyu—Ningishzidu’s arrival would give Murphy an even dozen carriers. And he’d captured enough of Xing’s parasites to leave New Dublin with a massive sublight covering force and still fill every rack his FTLCs had.

“This isn’t going to play well back home,” he observed now.

“What was that you said about wolves?” O’Hanraghty asked in reply, then shook his head. “And it’s not just people like Yildiz. I wasn’t all that surprised when Granger only smiled and nodded when you detailed her to sit on Diyu, but Tremblay?” He shook his head again. “I won’t say he’s happy about it, but the man’s got grit, and once you rubbed his nose in it, he couldn’t go on loyally spouting the party line. He’s not the only one, either.” He pointed at the icon in the display. “We’re going to see more of this, Terrence. In fact, I won’t be all that surprised if we start seeing some from neighboring sectors.”

“Good and bad,” Murphy said.

“Bad? How is there bad?” Callum limped over on a stiff prosthetic foot. He rubbed a knuckle against his temple next to his eyepatch.

“I wanted to go back to Earth with enough combat power to dissuade anyone from firing on us,” his father told him. “But if we have too many warships, it’ll look like I’m leading a coup.”

“Dad, they’re going to say it’s a coup anyway. Only logical.”

“We’ve sent Silas ahead to put out the word among his network that this isn’t a coup,” Murphy said. “I’m going to make my case to the Five Hundred and the Oval that the Rish are a genuine threat to the Federation and do my damnedest to get a survey team sent out to Diyu. And then…I’m going to resign my commission and turn myself in. Hopefully I can talk the—what’s the sector calling itself?”

“The Free Worlds Alliance,” O’Hanraghty said. “Just formally decided that this morning. And it’s not just the Concordia Sector anymore. Three more systems in the Acera Sector have declared as well.”

“Wonderful.” Murphy’s nostrils flared, and he shook his head, then drew a deep breath. “Hopefully I can talk Dewar and the rest off this cliff before anyone else gets killed. That’s a bargaining chip that just might keep us all out of prison.”

“Hooray,” Callum said unenthusiastically. “Exile from the Heart Worlds is our best bet. Still sounds better than letting the Federation keep its head in the sand about the Rish, though.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.” Murphy sighed, then squared his shoulders. “But we can’t let this—” he gestured at the incoming Ningishzidu’s icon “—keep building. We need to save the Federation…and not destroy it in the process.”

He looked over his shoulder at the comm link to the command deck.

“Captain Lowe, has Commander Creuzburg laid out a course back to Earth?”

“Aye, Sir. With a first stop at Jalal Station.”

“Good. XO, once we’ve gathered in Ningishzidu and her brood, order the fleet to dock parasites and then break orbit and take us into wormhole space,” Murphy said.

* * *

TFNS Ishtar broke Crann Bethadh orbit and turned for the Powell Limit.

Terrence Murphy had arrived with three FTLCs; he was leaving with twelve, including TFNS Nüwa and Pangu, fully repaired and operational courtesy of Diyu’s automated systems.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Ed,” Tanaka Prajita said quietly. She and Ortiz stood at the rear of Ishtar’s flag bridge, well behind Murphy and O’Hanraghty, watching the displays. “This—” she jabbed her chin in the direction of the master plot “—is going to look an awful lot like an invading fleet to anybody in the Heart.”

“Not much choice,” Ortiz replied, equally quietly. “If he doesn’t have a big enough stick, they won’t listen to him.” He smiled wryly. “You know how that works, I think?”

“Yeah.” Tanaka no longer looked as if the admission gave her physical pain, but she shook her head. “Problem is, I’m afraid they won’t listen, anyway. It was hard enough for me, and I was there. Circumstantial evidence they can explain away?” She shrugged. “The establishment view’s pretty damned well dug in. I’m looking at a lot of things in a different light these days, especially after Lipshen tried to arrest him, but the Five Hundred?” She shook her head again. “I didn’t want to accept the truth because it seemed so damned preposterous. That whole arrest thing tells me they won’t want to accept it because of all the rice bowls it threatens. Which suggests they won’t send anyone out to Diyu and risk finding evidence that isn’t circumstantial.”

“Of course they won’t.” Ortiz didn’t look a lot happier than she did.

“So what happens when they don’t want to admit the truth and we turn up with this much firepower?”

“If they’re smart, they listen to him and they do send their own teams to Diyu. Or at least take a good, hard look at Nüwa’s and Pangu’s gizzards. Especially their Fasset drives.”

“Smart?” Tanaka looked at him. “We’re talking about the Five Hundred, Ed. When was the last time ‘smart’ trumped ‘corporate profits’ where the Five Hundred was concerned?”

“Then we don’t do it the easy way,” Ortiz said grimly. “We do it the hard way.”

“Ed, he’s one man—one man—against the entire Heart. I’ll grant you he’s a hell of a lot smarter, tougher, and more dangerous than I thought he was when we first shipped out. But he’s still just one man.”

“One man with twelve carriers at his back.” Ortiz’s smile was a razor. “I hadn’t really looked much deeper beneath the surface than you had when we first shipped out. I have now. These people—” he moved one hand in a gesture that encompassed the entire task force; no, the entire fleet “—will follow that ‘one man’ wherever he goes. And one thing I can damned well tell you for sure about Terrence Murphy, Prajita.”

“What?” Tanaka arched an eyebrow.

“Whatever it takes to get the job done, he’ll do it.”


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