“Damn fine soldiering,” Miles panted to Sergeant Chodak in sudden silence. “I don't think they even saw what hit them.” So, I called him straight the first time. Haven't lost my touch after all. Bless you, Sergeant.
“You two aren't so bad yourselves, for men with both hands tied behind their backs.” Chodak shook his head in harried amusement, and trod forward to release the tangle-fields.
“What a team,” said Miles.
* * *
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A quick ring of boots from further up the corridor drew Miles's eye. He exhaled, a long-held breath, and stood. Elena.
She wore a mercenary officer's undress uniform, grey-and-white pocketed jacket, trousers, ankle-topping boots gleaming on her long, long legs. Still tall, still slim, still with pale pure skin, ember-brown eyes, arched aristocratic nose and long sculptured jaw. She's cut her hair, Miles thought, stupid-stunned. Gone was the straight-shining black cascade to her waist. Now it was clipped out over her ears, only little dark points grace-noting her high cheekbones and forehead, a similar point echoed at the nape of her neck; severe, practical, very smart. Soldierly.
She strode up, eyes taking in Miles, Gregor, the four Oserans. “Good work, Chodak.” She dropped to one knee beside the nearest body and probed its neck for a pulse. “Are they dead?"
“No, just stunned,” Miles explained.
She regarded the open inner airlock door with some regret. “I don't suppose we can space them."
“They were going to space us, but no. But we probably ought to get them out of sight while we run,” said Miles.
“Right.” She rose and nodded to Chodak, who began helping Gregor drag the stunned bodies into the airlock. She frowned at the blond lieutenant, going past feet-first. “Not that spacing wouldn't improve some personalities."
“Can you give us a bolt-hole?"
“That's what we came for.” She turned to the three soldiers who had followed her cautiously into view. A fourth stood guard at the nearest cross-corridor. “It seems we just got lucky,” she told them. “Scout ahead and clear the aisles on our escape route—subtly. Then disappear. You weren't here and didn't see this."
They nodded and withdrew. Miles heard a retreating mutter. “Was that him?"
“Yeah..."
Miles, Gregor, and Elena, with the bodies, piled cozily into the lock and closed the inner door temporarily. Chodak stood guard outside. Elena helped Gregor pull the boots from the Oseran nearest his size while Miles stripped off his blue prisoner's outfit and stood, revealing Victor Rotha's wrinkled clothing, much the worse for four days wear, sleep, and sweat. Miles wished for boots to replace the vulnerable sandals, but none here came close to his size.
Gregor and Elena exchanged looks, each warily amazed at the other, as Gregor yanked on grey-and-whites and plunged his feet into the boots.
“It's really you.” Elena shook her head in dismay. “What are you doing here?"
“It was by mistake,” said Gregor.
“No lie. Whose?"
“Mine, I'm afraid,” said Miles. Somewhat to his annoyance, Gregor did not gainsay this.
A peculiar smile, her first, quirked Elena's lips. Miles decided not to ask her to explain it. This hurried practical exchange did not in the least resemble any of the dozens of conversations he had rehearsed in his head for this first, poignant meeting with her.
“The search will be up in minutes, when these guys don't report back,” Miles jittered. He collected two stunners, the tangle-field, and the vibra-knife, and stuck them in his waistband. On second thought, he swiftly relieved the four Oserans of credit cards, pass chits, IDs, and odd cash, stuffing his pockets and Gregor's, and made sure Gregor ditched his prisoner's traceable ID. To his secret delight, he also found a half-eaten ration bar, and bit into it there and then. He chewed as Elena led the way back out the lock. He conscientiously offered a bite to Gregor, who shook his head. Gregor'd probably had dinner in that cafeteria.
Chodak hastily straightened Gregor's uniform, and they all marched off, Miles to the center, half-concealed, half-guarded. Before he could go half-paranoid at his conspicuousness they took to a drop-tube, emerged several decks down, and found themselves at a large cargo-lock, engaged to a shuttle. One of Elena's scout squad, leaning as if idle against the wall, nodded. With a half-salute to Elena, Chodak split off and they hurried away. Miles and Gregor followed Elena across the flex-seal of the shuttle hatch and into the empty cargo hold of one of the Triumph's shuttles, stepping from the artificial gravity field of the mother ship abruptly into the vertigo of free fall. They floated forward to the pilot's compartment. Elena sealed the compartment hatch behind them, and anxiously gestured Gregor to the vacant seat at the engineering/comm station.
The pilot's and co-pilot's seats were filled. Arde Mayhew grinned cheerfully over his shoulder at Miles, and waved/saluted hello. Miles recognized the shaved bullet-head of the second man even before he turned.
“Hello, son.” Ky Tung's smile was far more ironic than cheerful. “Welcome back. You took your sweet time.” Tung, arms folded, did not salute.
“Hello, Ky,” Miles nodded to the Eurasian. Tung had not changed, anyway. Still looked any age between forty and sixty. Still built like an ancient tank. Still seemed to see more than he spoke, most uncomfortable for the guilty of conscience.
Mayhew the pilot spoke into his comm. “Traffic control, I've traced that red light on my panel now. Defective pressure reading. All fixed. We're ready to break away."
“About time, C-2,” a disembodied voice returned. “You're clear."
The pilot's swift hands activated hatch seal controls, aimed attitude jets. Some hissing and clanks, and the shuttle popped away from its mothership and started on its trajectory. Mayhew killed the commlink and breathed a long sigh of relief. “Safe. For now."
Elena wedged herself across the aisle behind Miles, long legs locking. Miles hooked an arm around a handhold to anchor against Mayhew's current mild accelerations. “I hope you're right,” said Miles, “but what makes you think so?"
“He means, safe to talk,” said Elena. “Not safe in any cosmic sense. This is a routine scheduled run, except for us unlisted passengers. I know you haven't been missed yet, or traffic control would have stopped us. Oser will search the Triumph and the military station for you first. We may even be able to slip you back aboard the Triumph after the search has passed to wider areas."
“This is Plan B,” Tung explained, swiveling around to half-face Miles. “Or maybe Plan C. Plan A, on the assumption that your rescue was going to be a lot noisier, was to flee at once to the Ariel, now on picket-station, and declare the revolution. I'm grateful for the chance to bring things off a little, er, less spontaneously."
Miles choked. “God! That would have been worse than the first time.” Pitched into an interlocking chain of events he did not control, drafted gonfalonier to some mercenary military mutiny, thrust to the lead of its parade with all the free will of a head on a pike.... “No. No spontaneity, thanks. Definitely not."
“So,” Tung steepled his thick fingers, “what is your plan?"
“My what?"
“Plan,” Tung pronounced the word with sardonic care. “In other words, why are you here?"
“Oser asked me that same question,” sighed Miles. “Would you believe, I'm here by accident? Oser wouldn't. You wouldn't happen to know why he wouldn't, would you?"
Tung pursed his lips. “Accident? Maybe.... Your ‘accidents,’ I once noticed, have ways of entangling your enemies that are the green envy of mature and careful strategists. Far too consistent for chance, I concluded it had to be unconscious will. If only you'd stuck with me, son, between us we could've ... or maybe you are simply a supreme opportunist. In which case I direct your attention to the opportunity now before you to retake the Dendarii Mercenaries."
“You didn't answer my question,” Miles noted.
“You didn't answer mine,” Tung countered.
“I don
't want the Dendarii Mercenaries."
“I do."
“Oh.” Miles paused. “Why don't you split off with the personnel who are loyal to you and start your own, then? It's been done."
“Shall we swim through space?” Tung imitated fish fins with his waving fingers, and puffed his cheeks. “Oser controls the equipment. Including my ship. The Triumph is everything I've accumulated in a thirty-year career. Which I lost through your machinations. Somebody owes me another. If not Oser, then...” Tung glowered significantly at Miles.
“I tried to give you a fleet in trade,” said Miles, harried. “How'd you lose control of it—old strategist?"
Tung tapped a finger to his left breast, to indicate a touche. “Things went well at first, for a year, year and a half after we departed Tau Verde. Got two sweet little contracts in a row out toward the East-net—small-scale commando operations, sure things. Well, not too sure—kept us on our toes. But we brought them off."
Miles glanced at Elena. “I'd heard about those, yes."
“On the third, we got into troubles. Baz Jesek had gotten more and more involved with equipment and maintenance—he is a good engineer, I'll give him that—I was tactical commander, and Oser—I thought by default, but now I think design—took up the administrative slack. Could have been good, each doing what he did best, if Oser'd been working with and not against us. In the same situation, I'd have sent assassins. Oser employed guerrilla accountants.
“We took a bit of a beating on that third contract. Baz was up to his ears in engineering and repairs, and by the time I got out of sickbay, Oser'd lined up one of his no-combat specials—wormhole guard duty work. Long-term contract. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But it gave him a wedge. With no actual combat going on, I...” Tung cleared his throat, “got bored, didn't pay attention. Oser'd outflanked me before I realized there was a war on. He sprang the financial reorganization on us—"
“I told you not to trust him, six months before that,” Elena put in with a frown, “after he tried to seduce me."
Tung shrugged uncomfortably. “It seemed like an understandable temptation."
“To bang his commander's wife?” Elena's eyes sparked. “Anyone's wife? I knew then he wasn't level. If my oaths meant nothing to him, how little did his own?"
“He did take no for an answer, you said,” Tung excused himself. “If he'd kept leaning on you, I'd have been willing to step in. I thought you ought to be flattered, ignore it, and go on."
“Overtures of that sort contain a judgment of my character that I find anything but flattering, thank you,” Elena snapped.
Miles bit his knuckles, hard and secretly, remembering his own longings. “It might just have been an early move in his power-play,” he put in. “Probing for weaknesses in his enemies’ defenses. And in this case, not finding them."
“Hm.” Elena seemed faintly comforted by this view. “Anyway, Ky was no help, and I got tired of playing Cassandra. Naturally, I couldn't tell Baz. But Oser's double-dealing didn't come as a complete surprise to all of us."
Tung frowned, frustrated. “Given the nucleus of his own surviving ships, all he had to do was swing the votes of half the other captain-owners. Auson voted with him. I could have strangled the bastard.
“You lost Auson yourself, with your moaning about the Triumph,” Elena put in, still acerb. “He thought you threatened his captaincy of it."
“Tung shrugged. “As long as I was Chief-of-Staff/Tactical, in charge during actual combat, I didn't think he could really hurt my ship. I was content to let the Triumph ride along as if owned by the fleet corporation. I could wait—till you got back,” his dark eyes glinted at Miles, “and we found out what was going on. And then you never came back."
“The king will return, eh?” murmured Gregor, who had been listening with fascination. He raised an eyebrow at Miles.
“Let it be a lesson to you,” Miles murmured back through set teeth. Gregor subsided, less humorous.
Miles turned to Tung. “Surely Elena disabused you of any such immediate expectation."
“I tried,” muttered Elena. “Although ... I suppose, I couldn't help hoping a bit myself. Maybe you'd ... quit your other project, come back to us."
If I flunked out of the Academy, eh? “It wasn't a project I could quit, short of death."
“I know that now."
“In five minutes, max,” put in Arde Mayhew, “I've either got to lock into the transfer station traffic control for docking, or else cut for the Ariel. Which is it going to be, folks?"
“I can put over a hundred loyal officers and non-coms at your back at a word,” said Tung to Miles. “Four ships."
“Why not at your own back?"
“If I could, I would have already. But I'm not going to tear the fleet apart unless I can be certain of putting it back together again. All of it. But with you as leader, with your reputation—which has grown in the retelling—"
“Leader? Or figurehead?” The image of that pike bobbed in Miles's mind's eye again.
Tung's hands opened noncommittally. “As you wish. The bulk of the officer cadre will go for the winning side. That means we must appear to be winning quickly, if we move at all. Oser has about another hundred personally loyal to himself, which we're going to have to physically overpower if he insists on holding out—which suggests to my mind that a well-timed assassination could save a lot of lives."
“Jolly. I think you and Oser have been working together too long, Ky. You're starting to think alike. Again. I did not come here to seize command of a mercenary fleet. I have other priorities.” He schooled himself not to glance at Gregor.
“What higher priorities?"
“How about, preventing a planetary civil war? Maybe an interstellar one?"
“I have no professional interest in that.” It almost succeeded in being a joke.
Indeed, what were Barrayar's agonies to Tung? “You do if you're on the doomed side. You only get paid for winning, and only get to spend your pay if you live, mercenary."
Tung's narrow eyes narrowed further. “What do you know that I don't? Are we on the doomed side?"
I am, if I don't get Gregor back. Miles shook his head. “Sorry. I can't talk about that. I've got to get to—” Pol closed to him, the Consortium station blocked, and now Aslund become even more dangerous, “Vervain.” He glanced at Elena. “Get us both to Vervain."
“You working for the Vervani?” Tung asked.
“No."
“Who, then?” Tung's hands twitched, so tense with his curiosity they seemed to want to squeeze out information by main force.
Elena noticed the unconscious gesture too. “Ky, back off,” she said sharply. “If Miles wants Vervain, Vervain he shall have."
Tung looked at Elena, at Mayhew. “Do you back him, or me?"
Elena's chin lifted. “We're both oath-sworn to Miles. Baz too."
“And you have to ask why I need you?” said Tung in exasperation to Miles, gesturing at the pair. “What is this larger game, that you all seem to know all about, and I, nothing?"
“I don't know anything,” chirped Mayhew. “I'm just going by Elena."
“Is this a chain of command, or a chain of credulity?"
“There's a difference?” Miles grinned.
“You've exposed us, by coming here,” Tung argued. “Think! We help you, you leave, we're left naked to Oser's wrath. There's too many witnesses already. There might be safety in victory, none in half-measure."
Miles looked with anguish at Elena, picturing her, quite vividly in light of his recent experiences, being shoved out an airlock by evil, witless goons. Tung noted with satisfaction the effect of his plea on Miles and sat smugly back. Elena glared at Tung.
Gregor stirred uneasily. “I think ... should you become refugees on Our behalf,” (Elena, Miles saw, heard that official capital O too, as Tung and Mayhew of course could not) “We can see that you do not suffer. Financially, at least."
Elena nodded understanding an
d acceptance. Tung leaned toward Elena, jerking his thumb at Gregor. “All right, who is this guy?” Elena shook her head mutely.
Tung vented a small hiss. “You've no means of support visible to me, son. What if we become corpses on your behalf?"
Elena remarked, “We've risked becoming corpses for much less."
“Less than what?” snapped Tung.
Mayhew, his eyes going briefly distant, touched the communications plug in his ear. “Decision time, folks."
“Can this ship go across-system?” asked Miles.
“No. Not fueled up for it,” Mayhew shrugged apology.
“Not fast enough or armored for it, either,” said Tung.
“You'll have to smuggle us out on commercial transport, past Aslunder security,” Miles said unhappily.
Tung stared around at his recalcitrant little committee, and sighed. “Security's tighter for incoming than outgoing. I think it can be done. Take us in, Arde."
* * * *
After Mayhew had docked the cargo shuttle at its assigned loading niche at the Aslunders’ transfer station, Miles, Gregor, and Elena lay low, locked in the pilot's compartment. Tung and Mayhew went off “to see what we can do,” as Tung put it, rather airily to Miles's mind. Miles sat and nibbled his knuckles nervously, and tried not to jump with each thump, clink, or hiss of the robotic loaders placing supplies for the mercenaries on the other side of the bulkhead. Elena's steady profile did not twitch at every little noise, Miles noticed enviously. I loved her once. Who is she now?
Could one choose not to fall in love all over again with this new person? A chance to choose. She seemed tougher, more willing to speak her mind—this was good—yet her thoughts had a bitter tang. Not good. That bitterness made him ache.
“Have you been all right?” he asked her hesitantly. “Apart from this command structure mess, that is. Tung treating you right? He was supposed to be your mentor. On-the-job, for you, the training I was getting in the classroom..."