Chapter Fifteen

Day 1,539 of the War:

Her door chirped, as she knew it must. With tightened lips, Lith moved to grant access, turning carefully as Koul strode past her. There was no pretence of courtesy.

She touched her hair. She had just finished her shower and it was loose and damp, not yet coiled into its customary bun. The lack of preparedness made her feel vulnerable. It made her want Cheloi there in the same room with her.

How strange for her to think of Cheloi Sie as her refuge and Koul Grakal-Ski as her nemesis. His name never came up much in the discussions she had with Nils or with the rest of his cohorts. She knew Grakal-Ski was the second-in-command of the Nineteen, but there was little information available beyond that. At one point, when he discovered her in Blue Sector and had her moved to Headquarters, she had entertained the slight notion that he was an ally, but that was when she was young and foolish, filled with idealism and fire and Nils’ simplistic solutions.

In the end, she had hidden in the infirmary for another day, happy to remain quiet and listen to stories from other injured soldiers. The fact that the small ward was always occupied short-circuited any ambitions Grakal-Ski might have had to confront her while she was still in a hospital bed, but she knew the refuge couldn’t have lasted forever. And she was right.

The Sub-Colonel whirled around, pinning her with a glare.

“What happened?”

“What do you mean?” Lith kept her voice even.

“I’m talking about that nonsense the Colonel fed us in the briefing room the other day.” Grakal-Ski spat out the words. “What really happened?”

“It was as the Colonel said,” Lith told him firmly.

“No, it can’t be.” Lith got the feeling he was rehashing an old argument as she watched him pace the room. She could see now the immaturity in the man, illuminated by Cheloi’s dry comments on his character.

“How did she manage it?” he muttered. “Drel is easily as bloodthirsty as any Perlim.”

Lith wanted to twist her lips in a cynical parody of a smile. It wasn’t her, you fool, she wanted to say. Cheloi didn’t free us from the rebels, I did! But it was obvious that the Colonel had assumed enormous stature in Grakal-Ski’s mind. As she watched him pace, Grakal-Ski diminished himself in Lith’s eyes and her fear of him began to recede.

He spun suddenly, facing her again. Disbelief was etched on his face. “Didn’t you even try?”

There was no need to elaborate on what she was supposed to try. She was sure that Grakal-Ski’s recollection of their last meeting was as crystal-sharp in his mind as it was in hers. Just the thought of that conversation, with the hard butt of his energy weapon angled up against her body, made her quietly angry.

“I tried.” She enunciated clearly. “Twice. But, as the Colonel said, I missed.”

She heard her own words only when they left her mouth. Cheloi had given her the perfect way out. The commander had joked to the two men in the briefing room that she thought Lith was trying to kill her instead of shooting at their non-existent attackers in the ruins of Sab-Inuk. But that meant….

“And was that the only chance you had?” Koul was visibly upset.

Lith froze as the import of her thoughts hit her.

She knew.

The Butcher of Sab-Iqur knew Lith’s mission was to kill her. But how?

“Things moved so quickly.” That much was true. “The wheeler, then the rebels’ underground complex, then,” she swallowed, “our escape.”

“The Colonel was injured at the ruins of Sab-Inuk.” It was a half-question.

“Yes.” Lith didn’t think she could have added anything more to that one word.

“That spraen has more luck than the Emperor himself,” Koul spat out, and Lith knew the immediate danger was past. She could tell from the preoccupied frown on his face and the way he chewed his lower lip, that his thoughts were turning inwards. Putting together another scheme perhaps? She hoped not. But now that she had fallen in with his plans once already, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to put her in a similar situation again. And what would she do then?

Absently, he lifted his gaze and frowned, as if only now aware of where he was. He directed a hard look at her.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said abruptly and exited with a quick slap on the door’s access panel.

Lith made sure the door was locked before she let herself relax. She knew her mission was dangerous but this was so far beyond that that she could barely wrap her mind around it. She walked over to her bed, closed her eyes and threw herself back onto the mattress.

What had she been thinking? Had she really been so stupid and idealistic?

“Yes,” she murmured.

Both she and Nils thought it was difficult, but not impossible, to get close to Senior Colonel Sie and blow her brains out. Did Nils even wonder how she was going to extricate herself from the situation when the job was done?

“No.”

It was no use blaming him too much. To be honest, she hadn’t thought of it either. Both of them fed off each other, supported each other in their mutual blindness. It was like one rotten tree trunk collapsed against another.

Only two things occupied their minds. Infiltrating the Perlim military structure, and a distant future free from Perlim influence. Everything in between didn’t seem to exist. Did Nils even expect to see her again, she wondered bitterly.

She jackknifed into sitting position, burying her head in her hands and letting her damp hair fall forward over tense fingers.

“Stupid, stupid,” she repeated to herself softly.

Why had it taken so long to understand the complexity of the situation? Of course there would be other dynamics at play beyond her own simple-minded assassination plans. Games within games being played out in the most strategic territory on the planet. And she had betrayed herself into becoming Grakal-Ski’s pawn.

Lith felt the heat of her cheeks through her hands. All she could do was wish again that she could have her time over again. She wished she was more sensible and less idealistic. She wished she had never even heard of Cheloi Sie.

And she definitely wished she wasn’t in love with her.

Day 1,551 of the War:

Cheloi slowly walked the circumference of the camp while her mind worked furiously. She took a deep breath, expecting the customary jab in her chest, but the doctors had patched her up well. Even her limp was better, improved by rest and a strict medication regime she had been forced to take.

More than twelve days had passed since she and Lith reached Perlim territory and there was still not a breath of scandal around their return. Could it be that her luck was holding? She had half-expected Drel to appear on a national pirate broadcast, denouncing her driver as a Fusion infiltrator. She didn’t know what she would have done in that case. But there was only silence. With nothing to imply otherwise, Koul was forced to accept her story at face value.

But now there were other more significant events unfolding. In another twenty plus days, she was expecting a member of Central Control to pay a rare visit to her territory. And from more than two years of wearing another’s skin as her own, Cheloi knew what that meant. A major offensive of some sort was in the works.

Time to start the end-game rolling?

She smiled to herself, turning it into a public acknowledgement as she passed a small group of soldiers. After so long, she should be glad of the opportunity to leave the dusty tempest-laden planet behind her, but there were still so many unresolved issues.

Koul was the easiest. Although one of the more ruthless opponents she had faced, he was nothing more or less than the kind of ambitious officer she had years of experience dealing with. She’d be able to leave him behind without a backward glance and might even reminisce fondly on his arrogant foibles should she ever stumble across his name in the future.

The soldiers. Soldiers were soldiers. They were worth a bit more in this war because of their relative scarcity, but that only meant that they were more expensive to replace, not irreplaceable.

Rumis. Now it was starting to get difficult. Despite Copan’s rebuttals, she felt there should still be some way she could ease him into a better life, some loophole she could exploit. Rumis was important to her. There had to be a way she could free him of the Perlim. But he compounded the problem by being a loyal officer of the Empire, damn his sense of honour. And even if she did manage to transplant him to the Fusion, what was she going to do about his family? He was part of a close-knit network of relatives. What about his sister’s wedding, which he was probably going to miss? The annual gatherings? The opportunity to settle down in a familiar and comfortable environment? No, the obvious solutions didn’t work. She still needed to think her way around her adjutant.

And that left—

Lith. Fusion, originally from Laeyek Omni B, but where did she call home now? Was their aborted passion for each other just a result of the war, or was it a sign of something deeper? Maybe there was a lover waiting for her back in Fusion space. Maybe she was merely dallying with Cheloi because she saw this as a transitory thing, doing to her what Copan had recommended she do to her aide.

What a shame Cheloi didn’t agree. She had not felt so heart-poundingly distracted since Eys. She thought her heart had petrified into a small, hard lump when she heard of her beloved’s death. And now, here she was in enemy territory, thinking too much of a particular warm and lusciously honeyed body and wondering if they would ever have a future together.

Gravel crunched beneath her feet, the sound only impinging on her hearing when she paused in her thoughts. The sky was darkening, readying itself for its night-time show. It would be time for dinner soon. Ever since she returned from Drel’s clutches, the commander’s table was always full. Koul, previously an occasional visitor, now rushed to the evening meal. Cheloi, attuned to his body language through years of observation, could read the unsuccessful quelling of his agitated breathing. Rumis hadn’t missed many dinners either. Whether he was still contemplating the pursuit of Lith, or wished to keep either Koul or herself under his watchful gaze, Cheloi didn’t know. Lith herself probably and quite rightly saw the dinner as a refuge from further harassment from her second-in-command. It was the one place where she could not be intimidated or coerced by him.

The dinners were courteous, sometimes serious, sometimes entertaining, but always with an undercurrent of wary suspicion. Koul had done this with his plot to remove her from command, and she had done it with an explanation for their escape that all present knew skirted the bounds of probability. It was just as well that Central Control was visiting soon. Cheloi didn’t know how much longer she could have held out under such circumstances. Months perhaps, but certainly not years.

So where did that leave her for the next few weeks?

In Lith’s bed?

The errant thought popped into her head with the power of an incendiary bomb.

No.

She might think there were only weeks to go before the Nineteen unravelled but Cheloi knew that a lot could happen in only a matter of days. Koul would try to kill her again. She didn’t know when, but the man didn’t understand the concept of giving up. It was both a weakness of his and a strength. What if he decided to make his move while she was distracted, indulging herself in the honeyed warmth of her aide? More to the point, just because Lith had rescued her, it didn’t mean that she would be amenable to the resurrection of a relationship Cheloi herself had ended.

Stupid, stupid, she told herself. Although she knew she had the best of reasons for doing so, terminating intimacy with Lith was like hacking off one of her own limbs with a blunt saw. Just watching the younger woman as she moved around the complex was enough to fill Cheloi with a surfeit of tenderness. She couldn’t not watch that golden figure, a compulsion beyond her self-discipline to rein in.

But.

What was the alternative? Knowing the chaos of warfare, Cheloi knew she was just as likely to be blown to bits by a stray rebel missile. Her mind circled back to the original question. How would she rather die? As a frustrated Fusion agent? Or a satisfied woman?

And Lith comes from the Fusion!

If anyone could keep a secret, Cheloi reasoned, it would be another member of the Fusion. Especially one who had been trying to kill her. Her lips quirked. She should feel insulted, but instead only felt a strange sense of pride. More than anything else, that told her how besotted she was with her driver. But who couldn’t love a passionate, idealistic woman? One who believed principles trumped reality?

I think I want to keep this one.

She was through with denying herself. For once, Cheloi decided, she would follow her heart and to hell with the consequences.