Chapter Fourteen

Day 1,536 of the War:

“Laisen, you made it.” The smile on Copan’s face was understated but sincere.

Cheloi couldn’t repress an answering smile. “It was a near thing, Doctor.”

“Sit down. Tell me about it. We have lots to discuss.” There was an edge to his voice. “But before we get to that, where are you now?”

Cheloi eased herself into the familiar armchair.

“I’m at the Nineteen’s headquarters, at the clinic. Thankfully I have no organ punctures or they would have shipped me to one of the major medical centres.”

He nodded. “Where a deep scan could reveal your non-Perlim origins.”

“Quite possibly. The Fusion can work wonders but not genetic miracles.”

The knowledge-immersion was undoubtedly the easiest part of any mission. At least that was something Cheloi could control. Unlike the operations to physically alter her, internally and externally.

This time the Fusion’s bodywork specialists had left her a bit shorter than her usual height, modified her features and lightened her skin. They opened her up, fortified her anatomy and moved organs around, keeping them in their new positions with barely-visible fat-skein nets. Despite their wondrous technologies, however, the Fusion was not infallible. If Cheloi was to keep up the masquerade, she had to stay as far away from a fully-equipped hospital as possible.

With this in mind, the Fusion waited until the real Cheloi Sie had passed all the deep scans and was already on Menon IV before murdering her. Laisen replaced her at the tail-end of a battle where most of the senior commanders had already perished. It was as neat an insertion as anybody could have wished. And it kept her secret safe.

Until now. Lith’s secret had the potential to blow her entire mission six ways past the Menon sun.

Cheloi briefly related to Copan what had happened in Drel’s underground tunnel complex and the method of her escape. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, but said nothing until she ground to a halt.

“So the rebels know Lith is Fusion?”

“Yes.”

Cheloi thought she might have been able to salvage every situation, except the one she now found herself in.

“What do you see as your options?”

She shook her head. “None of them are good. I could expose Lith as a Fusion agent.”

“Except you’ve developed feelings for her.”

Cheloi looked sharply at the psychiatrist, who smiled. “Come now, Laisen, did you think I wouldn’t know? I’ve been living in your cortex for years now. I know your responses the moment a synapse fires.” He looked at her, not unkindly. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t want—”

“I don’t think it’s ever a question of want. You’ve fallen for Lith because she’s intelligent and passionate and you’ve been keeping yourself aloof from romantic entanglements for too many years. In my report on your suitability for this mission, I pointed that out as one of your vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, you have a singular inability to fuck then walk away. I tried suggesting that as a strategy for you, but should have known it was a doomed hope.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yet you did encourage me to start a physical relationship with Lith in the first place.”

Copan shrugged. “That was when I thought she was Perlim. In the end, you would have had no choice. You would have been forced to leave her. But in the meantime, it would have kept you balanced and mentally healthy.”

She looked at him for the space of two heartbeats. “You’re a bastard, Doctor.”

He ignored the remark. “What are you going to do?”

Her gaze bored into his for a moment before she set aside her anger. “If I expose Lith as Fusion, the mission can be saved.”

“But she will probably be executed.”

Cheloi exhaled. A long slow breath. “Yes, that’s true. Or I could kill Drel to keep him quiet.”

“And how would you find him?”

“I don’t know. Set up a barrage of the area and hope it gets him. I think I can pinpoint where I was being held.”

“You would be killing a lot of other people.”

“I know.”

Sab-Iqur all over again.

“I could spread disinformation,” she said absently. “Say that was a lie, a ploy, on Lith’s part to escape.”

Copan brightened. “Would it work?”

“No.” She paused and straightened. “Maybe. After all, the reason I doubted her loyalty in the first place was because her family came from a world just on the border of Fusion space. The medical facilities on Menon are known to be basic. Nobody would believe a guerilla leader would have access to sophisticated medical tests to be able to verify her statement.”

“So you’re thinking that what made you doubt her, may have reassured Drel. Which is why you were able to escape?”

She grimaced. “Possibly.”

“What if,” Copan said slowly, “she’s playing you both for fools? Telling both you and Drel what you want to hear?”

That was a truly unpalatable thought.

She shook her head. “If I start down that path, I’ll be creating conspiracies within conspiracies.”

“Just remember,” he warned. “If your disinformation plan doesn’t work, you may have to make the hard decision, Laisen. Lith Yinalña or the Fusion.”

“I’m well aware of that, Doctor.”

“And speaking of hard decisions,” he paused. “You’ve no doubt guessed about the trigger of my program during abnormal times of stress.”

“Your voice yelling in my head is not something I’m liable to forget.”

“The trigger happens for a reason. And one of them is when an agent is thinking of committing suicide.” He searched her face. “If it was up to me, I’d pull you from the mission right now.”

“No,” Cheloi objected, her voice sharp. “I’m too close now. It’s all about to come apart for the Empire, I can feel it.”

“Really? In which case, why were you so ready to throw it all away just two days ago?”

She remained silent.

“Unfortunately,” he said with a sigh, “I’m not in a position to act on my inclinations. We’re too far away from the Fusion and I can’t force you to activate the displacement signal in your wrist.”

Cheloi brightened. “No, you can’t.”

“But I still have grave concerns regarding that episode in Drel’s interrogation room. It will be part of my official report, Laisen Carros.”

Hopefully, by the time the wetware module was extracted and downloaded, it would be too late to do anything.

“Whatever you say, Doctor.”

And he had to be satisfied with that.

“No.”

Rumis took a deep breath. “Colonel—”

Cheloi plastered the most forbidding look she could muster on her face. “No, Rumis. For the tenth time, I’m not getting shipped to Regional Medical.”

Rumis’ lips twitched. “I’m sure that was only the sixth time, Colonel.”

The bed was so comfortable, Cheloi thought, she could close her eyes and sleep for days. Her eyelids fluttered briefly as they matched action to image. There were no windows in the underground infirmary, but she was being well looked after. There was no bare ground under her fingers, no rough burlap to lean against, no teetering boxes to watch out for.

She and Lith had made it to the nearest Nineteen Perlim outpost during the early hours of the previous morning and had been transported immediately to the territory’s HQ. There was a flurry of activity and both women were separated. Cheloi knew she should have been worried about such things but she was too tired to care. As she told Copan, there were no serious injuries to treat. The rebels had wanted her in reasonable shape for her show-trial, and the slight anatomical fortifications the Fusion had given her had worked well. She was confident she could get all the medication and treatment she required locally. Anything the Perlim doctors missed could be put right by the Fusion later on.

“What if you need a treatment we don’t have?” Rumis asked, pressing the point. “Maybe your leg will give you more problems? Why take the chance, Colonel?”

For more reasons than you’ll understand.

Cheloi gazed at her adjutant and once again felt that uncomfortable mixture of affection and despair. The time would come when she’d have to leave him behind. Would he remember her with affection? Would he want to remember her at all?

“Because my cynicism knows no bounds, Rumis.” She flicked her eyes meaningfully to the open door of the small room. He tightened his lips and nodded, unhappy that she had chosen to delay the conversation by implying there were other ears listening to the conversation. Delay, because Cheloi knew the subject had only been filed away for future retrieval, not discarded. Rumis’s tenacity was a two-edged blade.

“How is the lieutenant?” Cheloi asked.

She had been waiting to ask that question, had choked down waves of impatience so she sounded concerned rather than frantic. Rumis’s eyes lit up briefly.

“Doing well.”

“She’s in the dormitory ward?”

He nodded. “There was an accident with one of the explosives teams. It was nothing fatal,” he hastened to add, “but she’ll have company for a few days. She, er, didn’t seem to be in as bad shape as you when you came in.”

“They wanted the Butcher of Sab-Iqur, Rumis,” she reminded him gently, “not a lackey.”

But she could see he remained unconvinced.

“We didn’t get much time to talk.” She shifted position and winced at the sharp pain. “Maybe when I’m feeling better, we can organise a debriefing session.”

“Colonel Grakal-Ski has already asked me to set one up between him and the lieutenant for tomorrow.”

Suddenly, Cheloi was wide awake.

“Tell him I’ll join him.”

“But Colonel—”

“I have just as many questions for Koul as he has for me. You have your orders, Rumis.” Cheloi’s voice was brisk as adrenalin pumped through her system. She couldn’t allow Koul to get Lith alone, especially not in front of any other loyal Perlim officer. “Let me know the details of when that meeting’s going to be held and get a damned doctor in here. Now.”

Effectively dismissed, Rumis had no choice but to obey. With a smart salute, he spun on his heel and left.

Lith had filled in a few more details during their journey back to Perlim territory. As Cheloi gritted her teeth and concentrated on the pale emerging dawn, Lith had shared some of her family history. Cheloi could tell it was torn from her, as though she didn’t want to say a thing but was under a compulsion stronger than her will. It wasn’t hard to put the scattered pieces together.

Cheloi sighed. She had gone ahead and fallen in love with an idealist. How Eys would laugh if she were still alive to hear about it. The cynical Laisen Carros, head over heels for a woman who thought she alone could somehow right an interplanetary wrong centuries old by taking a single, isolated action. But Lith was also passionate and, as wrong-sighted as she was, Cheloi wouldn’t—couldn’t—take such fire away from her.

When the doctor arrived, Cheloi was blunt with her orders. There was a meeting scheduled for the following day that she absolutely had to attend. Pain-killers, stimulants, she didn’t care what it took, but she wanted a viable cocktail of drugs that would keep her upright and lucid by the morning. It was only after he beat a hasty retreat under her barrage of clipped words that Cheloi allowed herself to relax. With other inmates in the dormitory, Lith would be safe until the debriefing session in the morning. Then the battle would begin.

Day 1,537 of the War:

The briefing room was already occupied when Cheloi entered. She walked in, hoping that only her relatively slow walking pace gave any indication of her injuries. She took a deep breath and made a mental note to commend the doctor on his efficiency. She barely felt a twinge as her lungs filled.

Koul’s eyes widened at her entrance before he shuttered them. He was not pleased to see her.

Good.

Like a physical manifestation of the symbolic fight that lay ahead, the combatants arranged themselves according to their views. Koul was at one end of the small oval table. Lith, obviously discomfited, was at the other. Rumis sat in the middle, facing the door.

Cheloi flashed everyone a quick impersonal smile and sat down opposite Rumis. To her right, Koul cleared his throat.

“Colonel, it’s not necessary for you to be here.”

Not only was he right but it was a breach of protocol for her to even attend. As the other person involved in the escape, her attendance at the debriefing could indicate a clear conflict of interest. But she couldn’t just throw Lith to her officers. Even Rumis wouldn’t hesitate if he found something amiss in her story.

“Considering the fact that I was conscious almost during our whole adventure, Koul, I think my presence is most necessary.” Her voice was smooth and slightly bored. “And by speaking with both of us, we might be able to clear this up as soon as possible and get back to work.”

He wanted to argue with her. She could see that by the way he held his head and narrowed his eyes. But she had the weight of numbers in the room. Rumis was on her side and Lith would be too, once she caught on to what was happening. So Cheloi watched Koul and didn’t allow even a breath of noiseless satisfaction to escape her lips when he eventually sat back, resigned.

Rumis took the movement for assent and began with their version of events. He covered a comprehensive timeline, from the time the junior communications officer arrived in her quarters with the meeting request, to the loss of contact mid-morning that fateful day.

“I remember the wheeler overturning,” Lith answered. “The Colonel said she thought it was a tipper missile.” She flicked an uncertain glance toward her superior officer but Cheloi kept her face impassive.

“So neither of you were hurt in the explosion?” Koul asked.

Watching him, Cheloi could see that Lith was right. Koul was definitely involved in the accident. Cheloi noted the merest sheen of perspiration on his upper lip. A nervous ghost? The edge of her mouth twitched. Four people in the room, and at least three sets of secrets.

“No,” Cheloi answered. “Although they managed to club us unconscious while we were walking back to the nearest Perlim location.”

“And you don’t know where they took you?”

Cheloi let Lith answer that one. “No.”

“How long were you unconscious?”

“It–was difficult to say.”

Koul frowned. “Difficult?”

“Like us, Drel hides himself underground,” Cheloi explained. “I woke up first and realised we were in some kind of subterranean complex. It looked old.” She hoped Koul would draw the obvious conclusion from her statement.

“First? Were both of you held in the same room?”

“Almost all the time,” Cheloi answered easily, not even daring a glance at her driver. She willed Koul to keep his eyes on her.

Yes, Koul. Come along the path I’ve prepared for you. I’ve even sprinkled crumbs to make it easier to follow.

“Did you meet the rebel leader?”

“Drel? Yes I did. Although the lieutenant,” she paused and looked at Lith then, pouring every scrap of a casualness she did not feel into that gaze.

“No, I didn’t meet him,” Lith said faintly.

“Was Drel responsible for your mistreatment, Colonel?”

Cheloi lifted her eyebrows. “Actually, no. He was surprisingly civil. He mentioned something about a show trial, so I assumed he was keeping me in good condition to show what a fair and civilised man he was. In contrast to us Perlim scum, of course.” Her quick grin was without humour.

“How long were you in Drel’s custody?”

“Almost a day.”

Rumis shifted and Cheloi saw he was uncomfortable with what he was about to ask.

“A day?” he repeated. “But Drel said he had you for three.”

That news would have come from their informants.

“Of course he’d say that, Rumis. What would happen to his reputation if he admitted that two Perlim officers managed to escape him and his rebels within a day? Has there been any corroborating evidence of his claim? Eyewitness accounts of us from any of the other rebel leaders he boasted were to attend my show trial?”

Rumis’ eyes cleared as he shook his head. He started looking happier by the moment.

“So you have the lieutenant’s and my word that we were held for a day. And the word of Drel and his propaganda machine that we were held for three days. Is that the sum of it?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

A fluttering began in her stomach, but Cheloi fought to keep herself relaxed. She kept her shoulders loose and her posture relaxed above an increasing tension. Were her meds wearing off? Her head pounded and she was pressing her feet into the floor.

I can’t let Koul win, she told herself, keeping her gaze steady and the faintest of smiles on her face.

Her second-in-command flicked a glance to her hands as they rested on the table, but the fingers were lightly curled and relaxed.

“Then where, and how, were you injured?” he asked when Rumis appeared satisfied with the answer.

“I forget the name of the village. Lieutenant?”

“I believe it was Sab-Inuk, Colonel,” Lith supplied softly. Again, Cheloi didn’t dare look at her.

“We cleared Sab-Inuk more than a year ago,” Koul countered. “Razed the village to the ground.”

“They could have come back,” Rumis suggested. “Maybe they thought it would be safe again, especially if we weren’t actively monitoring it.”

“We thought it was safe too, but I was obviously mistaken. We were caught in an ambush.”

“Yet you were apparently injured in that ambush, while the lieutenant was hardly touched.” Koul’s voice was as silky as a predator’s. “Any idea why that might be, Colonel?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How many of them were there?”

“They came out from behind the ruins so I’m not sure. Perhaps five or six.”

Koul turned to Lith. “Lieutenant, was that your recollection?”

“It was difficult to say,” she replied. “When they started attacking, I–I reacted instinctively. There were people everywhere, moving in and out of cover. I can’t give you an exact number.”

Cheloi’s feet still threatened to descend to subterranean depths but she stripped her voice of any tension. Koul was no fool. “There were a few close calls. A couple of times, I thought the lieutenant was trying to kill me instead of our attackers. They captured us, held us for a few hours but we managed to exploit a lapse in their concentration.”

She saw Rumis smile and answered it as if they were all colleagues sharing another war story.

Nothing here but another blackly humorous close call.

She knew Koul well enough to know he would hunt down Lith and demand that she tell him her version of events but Cheloi hoped she had set up enough of a framework for her driver to successfully embellish.

“You killed them?”

“What did you expect me to do, Koul? Of course we killed them. I couldn’t move for two days after that but the lieutenant patched me up and we got going again.” She gestured with her hand. “And here we are now.”

“So if we go back to Sab-Inuk now, we’ll find five or six rebel corpses?”

“They’ll be cold and rotting by now. As Rumis points out, Sab-Inuk probably isn’t the safest destination at the moment. But yes, if you’re feeling foolish you could certainly take a trip there and verify what we’ve said.”

Gazes locked, Cheloi and Koul looked at each other, both searching for a weakness, a lie, a loose thread. He was more flustered than he wanted to admit, Cheloi noted, her eyes drawn to a slight irregular twitch under his left eye. If he wanted to play this game, then she could have told him he was nothing but a rank amateur. He was only the most ambitious and ruthless officer in the Perlim Empire, while she was a trained Fusion operative.

“Is that all, Koul?”

“We want to set up a barrage of the position where you were held. The lieutenant mentioned it was near a village?”

“That’s right. Lieutenant, give the Colonel our starting coordinates. Let’s teach the Menons the price for abducting two Perlim officers.”

If Drel was as smart as he appeared, he would have abandoned his complex as soon as he found she and Lith were missing. As for the hapless town or village that was chosen for bombardment…. Whether as joyous survivors or martyred innocents, the fate of the inhabitants would also boost Drel’s reputation as a determined rebel leader. And it wouldn’t hurt the Fusion’s grand strategy either. Again, all it would take was another massacre.

Koul nodded and took down Lith’s subdued reciting of coordinates with tight and bloodless lips. He wanted to say more but finally satisfied himself with a closing comment through gritted teeth. “It was a most fortunate escape, Colonel. My compliments.”