"I need to talk to you," she said, glancing around the compartment. "Privately." She half-smiled apologetically at the other Marine's present. "I'm afraid this is pretty much need-to-know stuff."
Watts looked at her for a moment, his eyes hooded somehow, then shrugged.
"No problem," he said. "Step into my office."
He gestured at a side passage, and Alicia followed him down it to a much smaller compartment. He waved her through the door, then followed her in, stepped past her, and seated himself behind the desk.
"Have a seat," he invited, pointing at one of the two chairs in front of his desk.
"No, thank you," she said. "I've got too much post-op adrenaline still pumping."
"Not too surprising, I suppose," Watts said as she began to pace back and forth across the cramped space. He watched her for several seconds, then cleared his throat.
"You said you needed to talk to me," he reminded her.
"Yes. Yes, I did."
Alicia paused in her pacing and stood facing him across his desk.
"Tell me, Colonel-Wadislaw," she said after a moment, "how long have you been in Intelligence?"
"Excuse me?" Watts looked puzzled, and her lips twitched another smile.
"Trust me, it's relevant. How long?"
"Just about since the Academy," he said slowly. "I caught the Office of Military Intelligence's eye in my junior or senior year. Why?"
"Back before Shallingsport, Vartkes Kalachian-you remember him? He was one of the guys in my squad? No?" She shrugged at his look of polite incomprehension. "No reason you should, I guess. But he was assigned to our embassy on Rishatha Prime, one of the embassy guards. He said he remembered you-probably because of the way the Lizards PNGed you."
"Kalachian? Kalachian." Watts pursed his lips, then shook his head. "No, sorry, Alley. I don't remember him. And I'm afraid I still don't see where you're going with this."
"Well, I know you've spent a lot of time since then working with the Cadre, as well as with Marine Intelligence. And I know Brigadier Sampson specifically requested you when he was alerted for Louvain. I hadn't realized until very recently, though, that you were one of the Corps' leading authorities on the Sphere."
"I wouldn't put it quite that way myself," Watts said slowly. "I've put in my time studying the Rish-I understand you have, too. And I've had a few successes against them. But I'd hardly call me a 'leading authority' on them."
"Really?" She tilted her head to one side. "I'm surprised to hear that."
"Why?" He was beginning to sound a little less relaxed, she noticed, watching him from inside the tick's time-slowing cocoon.
"You knew, of course, that Clan Theryian was responsible for the Louvain attack," she said, and his eyes narrowed at the apparent non sequitur.
"We all did," he said slowly, tipping back in his chair and opening the top drawer of his desk to withdraw a stylus with his left hand. He left the drawer open as he drummed absentmindedly on the desktop with the end of the stylus, obviously thinking hard.
"Of course, I doubt it was ever Theryian's idea," he continued. "Somebody on the Great Council of War Mothers with a grudge obviously engineered this 'honor' for them." He shrugged. "The Sphere is such a catfight that somebody always has a dagger out for somebody else."
"That's true," Alicia agreed. "On the other hand, when the Sphere has one of the clans 'volunteer' for something like this, they don't usually push it all of the way to mysorthayak. That's actually one of the things that bothered me about this operation from the beginning. Did it bother you?"
"Not especially." He shrugged. "I agree, it was unusual. But I was more concerned with the practical consequences than with wondering why it happened."
"Oh, I'm sure you were," she said softly, and his eyes widened.
"What are you trying to say?" he demanded, his voice harsher.
"You must really have been in two minds when you heard about this one," she said. "Clan Theryian, and mysorthayak-and there you were, Brigadier Sampson's specifically requested Intelligence officer. Tell me, how did it feel when they told you where you were going?"
The stylus stopped drumming. He sat very still behind the desk, his eyes fixed on her face, and her smile would have frozen the heart of a star.
"You knew, didn't you?" she said, even more softly. "You knew why Theryian drew Louvain. The Lizards aren't like humans in a lot of ways... including how long they wait, sometimes, for vengeance. Over six years in this case, wasn't it?"
"I... don't know what you mean," he said hoarsely.
"Oh, yes, you do. It was Theryian who served as the Sphere's conduit to the Freedom Alliance. Theryian was in charge of the entire Shallingsport operation."
"That's... insane! Shallingsport wasn't a Rishathan operation!"
"Yes it was," she said. "I doubt that very many of the FALA rank and file ever knew it, but it explains a lot, doesn't it? Like the Alliance's 'fundraising' ability. And the connection to surplus military hardware no one's ever been able to nail down. They didn't have any connection to nail down; it came direct through the Sphere, courtesy of Clan Theryian."
"For what conceivable reason?" Watts demanded. He was perspiring now, she noticed.
"For exactly the reason everyone assumed-to destroy a Cadre Company and, hopefully, provoke a bloodbath. To blacken the Cadre's reputation, weaken the Empire's prestige, provoke a shift in Rogue World public opinion, and, of course, do what the Sphere does constantly-test the Empire's resolve. And Theryian got the assignment because its Mother of Mothers was one of the Sphere's best intelligence analysts and planners... and something of a specialist in corrupting and manipulating human agents.
"But the operation went south on them, didn't it?" Watts sat silently, staring at her. "Charlie Company wasn't wiped out-not completely. And only a handful of the hostages died, and none of the FALA troops got off the planet alive. So what was supposed to be a total defeat for the Cadre, turned into something else. Instead of dying, like we were supposed to, we got the hostages out. We turned all of the things they wanted to accomplish around, because... we... didn't... all... die."
Her voice was deathly soft, and Watts' hands began to move nervously on his desk top.
"But the Sphere's never been very patient with its own, has it? And, like you just said, it's always a catfight between the clans, there's always someone looking for an opportunity to cripple a rival. And that's what happened to Theryian. When the Louvain operation came up, Theryian was given a chance to 'atone' for its failure at Shallingsport. It was sent in to do the testing this time, but the clan's enemies weren't willing to settle for seeing Theryian's fighting strength reduced, costing it hundreds of its war daughters, or even its best war mothers. Oh, no. Not this time. Instead, they sent the clan's farthi chir-its Mother of Mothers. They sent her in, and they ordered her to hold Louvain at all costs, even a mysorthayak defense. And she couldn't refuse, because she owed an honor debt to the Great Council because of the Shallingsport failure. She had to go, and because she was here, because her honor now demanded that the clan hold Louvain at all costs, not one of her line-daughters could surrender as long as she was alive. And she couldn't order them to surrender, because of her honor debt.
"Louvain was supposed to be Clan Theryian's grave just as surely as a Shallingsport was supposed to be the Company's."
The silence in the small compartment was total, and Alicia's eyes were emerald ice.
"And here you were," she said. "You knew who that was down there, and you really are an 'expert' on the Rish. So you knew why she was down there, too. You must have been terrified."
"I don't -" Watts swallowed hard. "Why should I have been anything of the sort?" he demanded.
"Because you couldn't be certain. You couldn't know which of her senior line-daughters might have known, might have been captured and given up the information under interrogation. Not even a mysorthayak defense can be guaranteed to kill everyone involved, can it? But you had an answer for that,
too, didn't you?"
She showed her teeth and flowed closer to his desk.
"I checked, Wadislaw," she half-crooned. "You said Brigadier Sampson had instructed his fire support ships to begin planning for HVW strikes. But what you didn't say, when you were talking with Uncle Arthur and me, was that you were the one who suggested that option to the Brigadier in the first place."
"I... I... "
Watts shrank back in his chair.
"It would have worked, too, if not for my own little brainstorm," she told him, and her voice was completely calm now, almost conversational. "The HVW would have gone down, and every single Rish down there would have been dead, and so there wouldn't have been any prisoners, anyone to tell us which human intelligence specialist has been a double agent, working for the Sphere ever since his initial assignment to Rishatha Prime. Or to explain to us why that double agent's assignment to Fifth Battalion was the decisive factor in choosing Shallingsport and Charlie Company. Or to tell us how that double agent was supposed to control the operational briefing and make certain no one looked closely enough at Shallingsport to realize what we were actually walking into. Make certain we picked the right LZ for their ambush."
Wadislaw Watts looked into those frozen eyes and Death looked back at him.
He lunged forward, his right hand darting into the opened top drawer of his desk. His fingers closed on the butt of the CHK in it, and his eyes widened in astonishment and the beginning of hope as he actually got the drawer open, got the pistol out of it, while Alicia only watched.
But Alicia was riding the tick.
She watched him, watched his hand moving slowly, so slowly. She watched his hand start forward, watched it touch the pistol. She saw him pick it up, saw his thumb disengage the safety, and only then did she move.
Watts cried out in shock as her left hand flashed across the desk like a striking cobra. Its bladed edge slammed into his wrist in the fairche leagadh, the mallet's fall, of the deillseag •rd, and his cry of shock became a scream of pain as that wrist broke. The pistol went off, sending a three-shot burst into the top of his desk, and the recoil threw it from his suddenly strengthless grip.
The penetrators punched neat, splinter-feathered holes through the desk's heavy extruded plastic, and the thunder of the pistol's discharge was deafening, but Wadislaw Watts scarcely noticed. He was too busy screaming in terror as Alicia DeVries' right hand reached out and pulled him effortlessly across the desk towards her.
He was at least a centimeter taller than she was, and he kept himself fit, but it didn't matter. His left hand hammered at her right wrist, and her left hand drove the tips of her fingers into the inside of his elbow joint like a splitting wedge in the corraigh bruideadh [finger stab: check Gaelic]. He screamed again, and she released her grip on him. Her knee drove the desk back, out of the way, and her right hand slammed into his rib cage. Bone splintered, and he shrieked as her left hand slammed up into his groin like a hammer.
He folded up around the agony, and her right kneecap came up to meet him. It crunched into his jaw, and his head snapped back up as more bone shattered. Her left hand caught his hair, wrenching his head back, and the edge of her right hand shattered his left cheekbone. Then it arced back and crushed his other cheekbone. Blood fountained from his crushed nose and mouth, and her left knee came up into his ribs-not once, but again, again, and again.
He was no longer screaming. He sounds were those of a trapped animal, desperate for the agony to end, and she pulled his head back again, baring his throat for the death blow.
And that was when the hands closed on her from behind.
Watts flew back away from her, thudding heavily across the desk, and she turned her head-slowly, slowly-as the two Marines seized her. They'd responded more quickly than she'd expected, a corner of her brain noted. Had it been the pistol shots? Or had Watts' screams been their first warning?
She twisted, throwing one of them off, and reached for Watts again. But the second Marine still had a grip on her, and he heaved backward desperately. Her left leg flexed, maintaining her balance, but he'd slowed her just enough for the first Marine to lunge back to his feet between her and Watts.
She gazed at the face in front of her. The face of a young man who didn't understand what was happening, who only knew that his own superior officer was under attack. Who didn't want to hurt Alicia, but who was reaching for his holstered sidearm.
He didn't even guess, she thought almost pityingly. Didn't have a clue what he truly faced. If she chose, his hand would never reach that pistol. She was riding the tick, and his throat was open, his solar plexus... the entire front of his body was wide open to her attack. She could have killed him three different ways before he touched that gun.
But she knew the look in his eyes. The only way she could get to Watts was through him, and she couldn't do that. She couldn't kill him, however much Wadislaw Watts deserved to die.
And so she allowed the Marine behind her to pull her back. Let the two of them tackle her, drive her to the decksole. And as she hit, she watched Wadislaw Watts ooze off his desk and slither bonelessly to the deck with her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sir Arthur Keita turned from the windows as the door opened.
Alicia DeVries stepped through it, her head high, and pain twisted in his heart as he saw the two uniformed cadremen who'd "escorted" her to this meeting. Behind him, outside his palace office's windows, summer sunlight spilled down over the Court of Heroes and the towering spire of the Cenotaph. He'd always treasured that view as one of the perquisites of his rank, but now his jaw clenched as he remembered the last time he and Alicia had visited Sligo Palace together.
Sir Arthur Keita had never married; he had no children, for he had invested his entire life in the service of his Emperor and the Terran Empire. Yet if he had no children of his own, he'd had hundreds-thousands-of sons and daughters. Sons and daughters who had worn the same green uniform he had. Who had served proudly, well. Too many of whom had died in the serving. His pride in them had been too deep, too powerful, to ever be shaped into mere words, and in all those years, he had never been prouder of any of them than he was of the daughter who faced him now, green eyes calm, head unbowed.
The daughter he had failed.
"Alicia," he said quietly.
"Uncle Arthur."
She stood regarding him calmly, her hands at her sides, and he inhaled deeply.
"Please, sit," he said, waving his right hand at the comfortable chairs around the coffee-table that floated on the sea of dark imperial green carpet.
She cocked her head. For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse. But then she shrugged ever so slightly, crossed to the indicated chair, and settled herself into it.
He seated himself in another one, facing her across the table, and for just a moment, he looked every year of his advanced age. He scrubbed his face with his palms, then lowered his hands.
"General Arbatov and I have just come from a meeting with Baron Yuroba and Minister of Justice Canaris," he said. "The subject of that meeting was Wadislaw Watts."
Her lips tightened ever so slightly, but no other expression crossed her face, and her green eyes looked back at him steadily.
He would almost have preferred some more visible sign of emotion, even if the emotion were rage or fury. But she'd shown very little emotion, of any sort, since the MacArthur Marines had pulled her off of Watts.
Keita knew, although he doubted the Marines had realized it, that she'd let them pull her off. And would she have let them if she'd guessed where this was all going? he wondered. But even as he did, he knew the answer.
Yet even as she let them subdue her, handcuff her, she hadn't said a word to explain what she'd done, or why. Brigadier Sampson hadn't had a clue what to do with her, but he'd known she'd assaulted a superior officer who was barely alive after the savage beating she'd delivered. The fact that the officer in question had produced a weapon he wasn't supposed to have in his off
ice and put three rounds from it through his desktop suggested that her actions might at least have begun as self-defense. But even if they had, they'd obviously gone far, far beyond what would have been required to disarm him, and her refusal to speak had left the brigadier little choice but to slap her into one of MacArthur's brig cells.
And then Sampson had personally played back the recording from the hidden unit his investigators had found in the bottom drawer of Watts' desk.
At least he'd had the good sense to immediately com Keita, and Sir Arthur's face had twisted in furious anguish as he listened to the recording of Alicia's indictment. There'd been no question in his mind-or Sampson's-that every single word of it had been accurate, but neither had there been any corroborating evidence. The Rish matriarch who'd told Alicia was dead, Watts was unconscious-the surgeons had given him only a slightly better than even chance of ever regaining consciousness-and Alicia was in a cell.