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  Lith shook her head. “Colonel…Sie….”

  The two hoarse words had a magical effect on Koul. He widened his eyes and a slight smile curved his lips. With a nonchalant twist, he abruptly let go of her throat although the blaster was still jabbing into her flesh. She sagged against the wall.

  “Why?” he asked, but his voice was a bit more relaxed now. “Why kill the Colonel?”

  Lith wanted to stroke her throat, massage away traces of the painful grip, but she didn’t dare. Grakal-Ski might misinterpret the movement and blast her innards all over the subterranean ochre rock behind her.

  “We think she’s one of the most important,” she coughed and the weapon’s butt stabbed into her, “important figures in the war. The Fusion won’t do anything, won’t interfere.”

  “‘We’?” The blaster’s barrel pressed further.

  “We’re a small group. We believe in more direct Fusion dialogue,” she coughed again, “with other systems.”

  “More interference, you mean,” he growled.

  “We’ve tried several times to speak to the Lower Convergence about this,” she said, naming one of the Fusion’s two legislative assemblies, “but they refused to table our petition.”

  Grakal-Ski relaxed momentarily and Lith pushed her advantage, her tone changing from desperation to explanation. “Each appeal was met with refusal. A-a group of us finally decided that the only thing to do was take direct action.”

  “Come to Menon IV and do your own dirty work, you mean.” His eyes, pale and glittering, watched her intently.

  “I really do come from Laeyek Omni B,” Lith continued, her voice quick but still hoarse. “I wasn’t lying about that. But it’s at the edge of Perlim space. When I was young, my parents left the planet to make a new life in the Fusion. But they still taught me the Perlim tongue. I can speak it fluently.”

  “And that’s why you were chosen?”

  She nodded.

  “And who are you people, if you’re not part of the Fusion government?” The barrel of his weapon prodded her again.

  “Originally we were part of the Free-Perlim Council. But,” Lith lifted her hand cautiously and rubbed her throat, “they did nothing. I belong to a splinter of the main group.”

  “And does the Fusion know about you?”

  Lith shook her head slowly. They would have shut them down in moments if they had. That was the beauty of the strategy, Nils told her. They were small enough not to be noticed and smart enough to figure out that all it took was one carefully placed person at the right moment to achieve their goal. Stop the campaign, save the planet, and start the downfall of the Perlim Empire.

  “So how were you planning to kill the Colonel?”

  “I–we didn’t know. I was just supposed to wait for an ideal opportunity.” He looked puzzled. “To use my initiative,” she added.

  “That seems rather foolish. What if I hadn’t toured Blue sector the day we met?”

  “I had already put in for a transfer to the Nineteen’s general staff before Commander Mazhin was killed.”

  “And did you kill him?”

  Lith’s eyes widened with shock. “No!”

  Koul regarded her coolly. “If it frightens your Fusion sensibilities to kill someone less important in order to further a mission, how can you possibly kill the Colonel?”

  “Th–that’s different. Commander Mazhin wasn’t in charge of the most important territory in the campaign. Colonel Sie is.”

  “I see.”

  He hesitated for another second then put away his weapon with a practised move. When he walked back to the desk, showing her his back, Lith knew she had found an unlikely ally.

  “Then you and I are in agreement,” he said. “We would both like to see the Senior Colonel out of the war.”

  Lith let the wall take her weight as the full import of his words hit her. Grakal-Ski as an ally? For a mission she had already given up as impossible? She had already created several excuses to feed Nils. The opportunity never came up. The Colonel was too well guarded. Everyone within HQ walked around armed.

  Knowing her previous sincerity, he’d believe her and probably come up with another half-baked plan to deliver the galaxy from the Perlim Empire. One he could act upon himself. There might be many contradictions and suppositions floating around her at the moment, but Lith was firmly of the mind that her ties with Nils were at an end. He just didn’t know it yet.

  But now, with the formidable Colonel Koul Grakal-Ski supporting her…. In one violent move, he had just resuscitated a corpse.

  She looked at his back as he fiddled with the trinkets on her desk, the uniform accentuating his breadth of shoulder.

  After a minute, he turned to face her.

  “What if I manufactured a trip that you and the Colonel needed to take? One that would result in capture by the rebels? Would you do it?”

  Lith hesitated.

  “If you can prove you’re Fusion, the rebels will let you go,” he insisted. “But I’m sure they’ll take care of the Colonel for you. There’s a substantial bounty on her head.”

  Grakal-Ski packaged it all up so neatly. A way to accomplish her task and get away, while leaving him in charge of the Nineteen. A win for him, a win for her. And if she refused, she knew she’d be turned over to the Perlim authorities as a Fusion spy. It was like cutting a deal with a scorpion.

  “All right.” She didn’t even realise the words had left her mouth until she saw the smile widen on his face.

  She had wanted to refuse. She couldn’t.

  “Very good, Lieutenant. In that case, I’ll be in touch.” He walked to the door and paused just as he reached it, sending an oblique look her way. “And Lieutenant, please don’t discuss this with anybody. It can take hours to clean blood off these walls.”

  Even from a distance, the spraen taunted him.

  Koul forced himself to calmly walk back to his quarters, even though he was nursing a heady mix of anger and excitement.

  So, some amateur terrorist Fusion group thought Sie was a critical resource. True, the commander was brilliant and ruthless. Koul himself had pored over her record. It had been solid but lacklustre until the defeat in Territory Thirty-Five more than two and a half years ago. There had been sparks of sound tactical thinking leading up to that debacle, blossoming into a terrible searing flame when she was reassigned to the Eight. He had seen it happen before. Not often, but occasionally a combat officer found his or her true calling only when he or she was knee-deep in blood and looking death in the face. It was a baptism forged in the underworld itself.

  After her battlefield conversion, Sie quickly became the poster-child for Central Control. Koul had heard of her formidable reputation. By that stage, who hadn’t? But what did he care? All he had to do was wait out his incompetent commander at the time, Senior Colonel Samnett, and ascend to leadership of the Nineteen after the man’s inevitable court-martial.

  It was there, a bright shining light, the pinnacle of his career, the pennant to shove into his in-laws’ faces. Until Cheloi Sie arrived and snatched it away from him.

  Koul reached his quarters, entered and locked the door behind him. He needed privacy to ensure his thinking was crystal-clear.

  Despite what Sie’s loyal adjutant, Swonnessy, thought, he had nothing to do with the Colonel’s accident several months ago. But that didn’t mean the seed of an idea wasn’t planted in his mind. He already knew he couldn’t get rid of the Colonel through conventional channels. His personal anguished pleas to Central Control had fallen on deaf ears and he was afraid he was starting to sound like a whining pup. Maybe if he switched to less direct methods….

  With the identification of Lith Yinalña as an enemy of the Empire, an entirely new strategy had opened up.

  Lith Yinalña, a Fusion spy. How much more delicious it would be to use the Fusion to destroy his greatest enemy. He could destroy her, using Yinalña as the catalyst, all while keeping his own hands clean.

  One b
lot marred the glorious horizon. If people found out that it was Yinalña who betrayed the Nineteen’s commander, delivering her into rebel hands, obvious questions would be asked. Matters might lead back to him and the fact that he was the one who had moved her from Blue sector to HQ in the first place.

  Koul bit his lip, thinking. It would be better all round if, like her commander and perverted lover, Yinalña also met with a fatal accident. He would have to think more on how best to achieve that but maybe the rebels might take care of the problem for him. After all, what rabble leader would take time to verify the ravings of an hysterical woman?

  Lith Yinalña.

  Who had sent her on such a mission in the first place? Didn’t they see that she had no spine for taking a life? No matter. Fate had dealt him a strong hand of cards and he wasn’t about to fritter away such a rare advantage. If everything went according to plan, she didn’t even need to aim a weapon or pull a trigger. All she had to do was follow one simple order. Nothing clumsy and nothing that could be traced back to him.

  Koul smiled.

  It won’t be long now, Taelsa my love. Just wait a little while longer and I’ll come home to you covered in glory.

  I promise.

  Chapter Ten

  Day 1,530 of the War:

  “So what do you think will happen, Rumis?”

  The young man picked up one of the two small glasses of life-water on the Colonel’s desk and took a sip. He looked deeply unhappy.

  “I think my sister will marry him and I’m not even there to vet her choice.”

  It was after dinner and Cheloi and her adjutant had retired to her quarters for one of their occasional sessions of light drinking and heavy talking.

  The Colonel smiled. “So you think the war has dragged on too long?”

  “I think all wars drag on too long.” He sighed. “But yes, this one bites especially deep.”

  “There are some who say,” Cheloi chose her words carefully, “the Empire should come to some diplomatic negotiation with the Menon. Maybe even change their status from vassal to semi-autonomous.”

  Rumis laughed. “Is that a trick question, Colonel? If the Emperor does that, he might as well hold elections on every one of his planets. Or join the Fusion.” He laughed again. “That would be funny, wouldn’t it? The sops wouldn’t know what to do with us.”

  She pinned a look of sceptical consideration on her face. “The Fusion is a big galactic body. I don’t think they could have grown so much, achieved so much, if they were a bunch of cowards.”

  “Not cowards,” he corrected. “Hedonists. I wasn’t born into the Empire so I could see it crumble into the grasp of those selfish pleasure-seekers.”

  She nodded slowly. “You’re probably right.”

  Her door chimed and, after a quick flick at her console, Koul entered.

  “Colonel,” Cheloi greeted, “what a surprise.”

  “I brought some late despatches,” Koul explained with an incline of his head. His left hand held several flimsies.

  “Bring them here. Would you care to share a drink with us?”

  Koul looked from one officer to the other. “Why not?”

  “Excellent.” Cheloi walked to the bureau to get another glass. “We were just talking about that perverted body called the Fusion.” She returned to her desk and poured a shot for her second-in-command, taking the opportunity to refill the other two stubby containers as well. “We’ve decided that they’re formidable but soft.”

  Koul pulled the second chair in front of the desk towards him and sat down. Reaching for the glass, he sipped deeply of his drink, draining half of it in one swallow. He lifted an eyebrow in appreciation.

  “That thinking, Colonel, if you forgive me for saying so, is a little too simplistic.”

  Cheloi sat back, watching him. “Oh?”

  Rumis grinned, deeply dimpling his cheeks. “Are you a Fusion sympathiser, Colonel Grakal-Ski?”

  Koul didn’t rise to the bait. “I don’t have to be a sympathiser in order to respect them, Major. You may see the Fusion as soft and flabby, but they are also cunning and multi-tentacled. It doesn’t serve the Empire well to belittle our strongest foe.”

  “But they haven’t made a single move against us,” Rumis argued, “beyond hurling sanctimonious sermons at our heads. Doesn’t that indicate they don’t have the stomach for a fight?”

  “What it indicates,” Koul replied, enunciating each word clearly, “is beyond any of us in this office to speculate upon.”

  Her door chirped again.

  “Busy night,” she murmured.

  Her aide entered and Cheloi had to hold herself still to stop from reacting. She looked into those hazel eyes and tried to convince herself again that, yes, she had done a good thing in terminating their brief relationship. No, not just good but necessary. Lith was easily as corrosive to her resolve as the strongest acid.

  She watched as the Lieutenant looked from one face to another.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “That’s quite all right, Lieutenant,” Cheloi answered. “We’re just debating the finer points of interstellar politics. How may I help you?”

  Thankfully she was far enough away that Cheloi couldn’t catch her intoxicating scent or she would have been over the desk, crushing the young officer against the wall, before anyone could draw a breath.

  “You asked for a report from the field hospitals, Colonel.” Lith held up a e-pad. “I have it here.”

  “Fine–”

  For the third time, the door beeped, and Cheloi threw a hand up in exasperation. “Rumis, are you expecting anyone?”

  “No, Colonel.”

  “Koul?”

  He shook his head but continued to sip the remainder of his life-water.

  “Come in.”

  It was one of the junior officers from Communications. With a startled glance, he looked from one face to another then hurriedly handed a note to Cheloi, saluted quickly and exited.

  Cheloi looked down at the small sheet in front of her and frowned.

  “Vanqill wants to meet me tomorrow. He says he has urgent business he needs to discuss.”

  “Can’t he come here?” Koul asked.

  “Seems not. And he says it’s too hot to even send encrypted. He emphasises that it’s of the utmost importance that he speak to me in person.” She scanned the short series of numbers that accompanied the message. “At a set of coordinates he supplied.”

  She hesitated for a moment then looked up. “Lieutenant, sign out a skimmer for tomorrow morning. Make it one of the latest models. We’ll take it low and fast.”

  “Do you need me along?” Rumis asked, his body tensed as if it was about to vault out of the chair.

  Cheloi shook her head. “I can handle him.” She lifted her glass with her free hand. “Let’s find out what Sub-Colonel Vanqill has to say that can’t be trusted to our regular despatches.”

  Day 1,531 of the War:

  Cheloi referred to the navigation e-pad on her lap and frowned. She raised her head and pointed to the left.

  “Maybe he’s waiting further west. Damn this dust!”

  They were travelling through one of the driest border areas of the Nineteen. The skimmer, speeding fast and low, kept throwing up clouds of fine desiccated brown soil that obscured everything but the way directly in front of them, kept clear by jets of compressed air.

  “I’m going to have Vanqill’s balls for this,” she muttered, “asking for a meeting this far out. What could be going through that man’s head?”

  Lith let the Colonel’s words wash over her, hoping the white noise would soothe her jangled nerves and fill the rip inside her. It wasn’t working. She poured as much concentration as she could into piloting the skimmer, leveraging what flat ground she could to maximise their speed, before moving to the more shielded rocky terrain. Under any other circumstances, without the tension tagging along for the ride and squeezing her head whenever it had th
e chance, she might have even enjoyed the irregular manoeuvring between tors.

  In the end, it was all for the best, she kept telling herself. What was she thinking getting intimately involved with the woman she had sworn to kill? There would be other people in her life, other men or women to fall in love with. Ones that she might even consider as a life partner, rather than a hurried screw in a fucking war zone!

  Her knuckles tightened on the controls. She was so filled with anger, she wondered how her body could contain it. She wanted to hit the controls with the heel of her palm but knew that would start a discussion for which she was ill prepared. She had been so proud of her strength and sense of conviction. Yet, at a critical point, she had let her own desires rule over her head. And, worse still, it had taken the self-restraint of a mass murderer—not a rational and moral being like herself, but a fucking mass murderer!—to put a stop to it. Lith didn’t know who she despised more, the Colonel or herself.

  The sun was arcing through the sky and the temperature was rising steadily outside the skimmer’s air-conditioned bubble, adding to her unease. Her mind segued back to the strangely-intimate meeting in the Colonel’s quarters the night before: the concentration of senior officers and the look on Grakal-Ski’s face when the courier interrupted them. Even though the message from Vanqill in Green sector seemed to arrive as a surprise to all, she wondered about the glint she saw in his eye. Was this the opportunity he had alluded to in their previous meeting? Was she actually leading Cheloi into a trap?

  And if she was, what could she do about it? As the sub-Colonel had pointed out, capture by rebels was an elegant solution to both their problems. She would be set free the moment her Fusion credentials had been confirmed. Perhaps she could even negotiate a quiet exit off the planet with the rebels as a reward for delivering Sie into their hands. Grakal-Ski would gain command of the Nineteen and the Colonel….

  It had to be done. She had promised Nils and the rest of the faction.

  “I’ll give it ten more minutes,” Cheloi was saying, “then we’re turning back. We’re too close to the boundary of secured territory as it is.”