“What better time to ensure that The Republic of the Sphere’s resources are being properly employed, Countess? Don’t worry; you are not the object of my investigation.”
“Who is?” Tara Bishop asked with characteristic bluntness.
The Asian eyes appraised her calmly. “Captain Bishop—I hope I’ve not made a terrific gaffe and got your name wrong?”
“I’m Captain Tara Bishop.”
He nodded. “Captain Bishop, that information is confidential and need-to-know—apologies for the security mumbo-jumbo.
“However^—he looked at Tara Campbell—“Ican tell you that my mission concerns events that preceded our learning about the Falcon war fleet, as well as your presence on Skye. Not much real mystery there.”
“I see,” Tara Campbell said. She did:Jasek’s defection with the heart and spine of the Republican Skye Militia.
Without preamble she flipped the badge holder at him. He fumbled it, dropped it, picked it up grinning apologetically. TB’s stern face cracked in a smile.
But she wasn’t ready to let go. “Look, Mr. Systems and Resource Auditor Laveau—”
“Paul, please. Or if you must, Mr. Laveau. The rest is too awful to say aloud.”
“Paul. All respect, but aren’t you a little light in the pay grade for a job this big?”
Paul shrugged. “Of course you’re right, Captain,” he said. “An investigation of such magnitude would normally be handled by a Knight of the Sphere. But as I’m sure you already suspect, The Republic has a
good many more emergencies on its hands right now than it has Knights to attend them. I was what was available; the next planet to tumble into crisis is liable to get a stockroom clerk.”
“What exactly is the nature of your business with the Countess?” Tara Bishop demanded. “I have a need to knowthat, I think you’ll concede.”
“Your manner suggests I damned well better, Captain,” he said. “Good for you. A person needs loyal friends, as a public person requires zealous assistants. The answer: simply, I have come to ask a favor of your boss.”
“A favor?” Tara Bishop echoed.
“Ask,” said Tara Campbell. “I’ve got to warn you, Exarch’s combat accountant or not, there’s not much I can spare you.”
“Your kind cooperation is all I need. I am unfamiliar with Skye. For that matter, I don’t know anything truly about you: I am not so encumbered with a bureaucrat’s soul as to believe a dossier can tell me anything truly vital about anything so complex as a world—much less a person.”
Tara Bishop whistled admiringly. “The Republic diplomatic corps took a major hit when you opted for chartered accountancy, Mr. Laveau. You could preach pacifism on Sudeten with a delivery like that.”
Laveau laughed delightedly. “You truly think so? My great-grandmother always tells me I’m too glib for my own good. I am most appreciative, Captain Tara Bishop, although I think you do me too much credit. The truth is, a field accountant needs quite an array of talents, many of them unlooked for.”
“Since you’ve done your homework you know I’m a bit preoccupied here,” Tara said. “But I can spare you a little time, I suppose. Your work’s important to The Republic too.”
“Far from the same level as yours, Countess. Still—might I take up a fraction more of your time now, please?”
Tara sighed, considered. “Why not? Shall we sit down?”
“Why not ride?” he asked.
“Ride?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “There are excellent riding stables not far from this gloomy pile, with most appealing bridle paths through the woods. If the brochures are to be trusted, of course, although the evidence of my eyes tends to bear them out. You do ride, Countess, and well, as you do everything you turn your hand to; I trust the mass media that far at least.”
She shook her head. The short pelt of platinum hair, not currently spiked, shifted as to a breeze. “I don’t know—”
All this time Tara Bishop had been studying Paul Laveau with a penetrating eye.
“She accepts,” she said abruptly.
“But—” Tara started.
“Go.” Her aide made shooing motions.
“My duty—”
Tara Bishop snorted. “Yourduty is to take better damnedcare of yourself! There’s only so much you can do, you need to rely more on your staff, and you won’t do anyone a bloodybit of good if you’ve fatigued yourself into a coma or psychosis when the Falcons finally blow into town. The best thing you can do for Skye right now is get some fresh air, exercise, and then about fourteen hours’ sleepMa’am.”
She braced to attention and fixed her eyes above the top of the break room door. “You can now bust me back to private and assign me to waste-burning detail in perpetuity for rank insubordination, Countess Campbell, ma’am.”
Tara was shaking her head. Laughing. But tears glittered in her eyes.
“I had no idea you felt so strongly, Tara,” she said. “I hardly know how to respond.”
Paul Laveau cleared his throat discreetly. “Might I be allowed to suggest: with humble pride at inspiring such devotion in a warrior the caliber of our Captain Bishop? And also, by accepting my invitation, of course.”
And he turned his side to her and offered his crooked elbow.
To her entire amazement, Tara Campbell slipped her arm through his, and allowed him to squire her out the door.
19
Chaffee
Lyran Commonwealth The Republic of the Sphere
1 July 3134
With the shortest distance to travel and only one combat objective before the climactic confrontation on Skye, Galaxy Commander Beckett Malthus and his Turkina Keshik spent several weeks solidifying the Clan’s grip on Chaffee before advancing to their intermediate destination, Glengarry.
It was a grindingly frustrating time for Bec Malthus. Malvina Hazen’s destruction of the city of Hamilton had put an end to organized resistance to Clan occupation on the planet. Yet the majority of the planet’s widely scattered citizenry continued simply to ignore the Jade Falcon writ—as, the invaders’ collaborators reluctantly revealed, it had ignored the indigenous government. The settlers were far too dispersed to be rounded up by the few Falcons Malthus had at his disposal. Raids by VTOL-borne commandos tended to turn up empty homesteads. But they did lose troops, to snipers and booby traps.
Malthus responded by rounding up more civilians in the cities and executing them publicly in retribution. But the hinterlanders, it developed, were none too fond of city folk. The net result was increased unrest, uncooperation and sabotage in the cities themselves.
Meanwhile, the fractious minded discovered that while direct attacks on Clanners or Clan assets brought immediate smashing vengeance—no matter how seldom it managed to land on actual perpetrators—native collaborators, including the civilian police and military, bound by the surrender terms to serve the Falcons, offered far more available targets. Neither Malthus nor his subcommanders was going to burn scarce Expedition resources because some local cop with a hastily manufactured cloth falcon-and-katana brassard wrapped around his arm got his brains splashed on some alley wall, or a bush ranger or ten got smoked in a back-country ambush.
Attempts to set up native-run centers in the back country for Chaffeeans to turn in their now-proscribed personal arms produced nearly one hundred percent casualties among the staff sent to run them inside three days. When indigenous rank-and-file enforcers simply refused to accept the duty, Malthus had to back down—unless he wanted to try policing the whole planet with the handful of Solahma retreads he could afford to leave behind as
