The sex-sweat had begun to evaporate off the diplomat’s skin by then, and Wilmot shivered as she pulled a badly rumpled sheet up over her ample breasts. The photos taken on Jericho, and subsequently sent to Madame X, were entirely unambiguous. Nankool was alive. Or had been very recently. “Yes,” she said cautiously. “He could be dead by now. . . . But I think it’s too early to be sure. Especially since there has been no demand for payment from Orno.”
“Which is why you want me to approve a rescue mission.”
“Yes. Because later, after details of the prisoner massacre have been publicized, everyone will know you tried your best. And that will silence the Nankool loyalists.”
“Who continue to plot against me,” the vice president said darkly.
Wilmot frowned. If plots were afoot, why hadn’t he told her earlier? Because she had yet to earn his full trust, that’s why. “They’re plotting against you?” she inquired gently. “In what way?”
“In this way,” Jakov answered, as he lifted a remote.
“I’m building my own organization within General Booly’s staff one transfer at a time. . . . Eventually, after the massacre on Jericho, I’ll force the bastard into retirement. In the meantime, I’m learning all sorts of interesting things about what the general and his cronies have been up to. Watch this.”
As Wilmot looked on, a holo blossomed over the foot of the bed and a legionnaire appeared. The soldier wore a hood to hide his face and his voice had been electronically altered to protect his identity. What light there was came from above. “Rather than wait for authorization from the vice president, offi?cers acting on orders from a secret cabal of politicians, senior offi?cials, and the Military Chief of Staff, are working to recruit and train a special ops team for the purpose of landing on Jericho,” the informant reported. “Where, if the mission is successful, they plan to rescue President Nankool.”
“Which supports what I’ve been saying,” Wilmot put in, as the image exploded into a thousand motes of light.
“Dozens of people including your informant know Nankool is alive. That will leak eventually. . . . Especially if the Nankool supporters become suffi?ciently frustrated. So let them send their mission, knowing it will most likely be intercepted by the Ramanthians or land only to discover that all the POWs have been killed. Including the president.”
The suggestion made sense, a lot of sense, especially since there would be no need to reveal the extent to which the secret cabal had been compromised. “You are not only beautiful, but brilliant,” Jakov said, as he pulled Wilmot close. “It shall be as you say.”
Wilmot should have felt a sense of pleasure, because here was the power that she had sought for so long, even if her role was somewhat obscured. But for some reason the diplomat’s skin was cold—and Jakov’s embrace did nothing to warm it.
PLANET JERICHO, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
Oliver Batkin felt the bullet rip through his electromechanical body and knew he was injured as the beam of light washed across Tragg’s metal roof. But the cyborg was far from defenseless. As the guards learned when the sphere burped blue light, and the tower they were fi?ring from took a direct hit. One of the structure’s four legs was severed, and even as their minds worked to assimilate that piece of information, a horrible creaking noise was heard. That was followed by a loud crack as a second support broke under the increased strain, and a chorus of Ramanthian screams, as the entire tower began to topple. It landed with a crash, broke into a dozen pieces, and sent splinters of dagger-sharp wood scything through the air. One of them took the sergeant of the guard’s head off and sent gouts of blood shooting upwards before his body collapsed. With no information to go on, the guards in the surviving towers quite naturally assumed that the prisoners were involved somehow, and aimed their searchlights at the electrifi?ed fence, where they expected to witness an escape attempt. Meanwhile, Batkin took advantage of the confusion to lift off, but hadn’t fl?own more than a hundred feet when his main repeller failed. Fortunately, the cyborg wasn’t very high at the time—and the mud cushioned his fall.
But the same Sheen robot that had alerted the guards to the cyborg’s presence in the fi?rst place was closing in on Batkin. It fi?red as it came. Thankfully, the alien machine’s armor was no match for the spy’s energy cannon, and the robot fl?ew apart as a blue bolt struck its chest. That was when two quick-thinking marines emerged from the surrounding darkness. “What the hell is it?” one of them wanted to know.
“I’m a Confederacy cyborg!” Batkin announced desperately. “And I have important information for your superiors. Can you hide me?”
“Holy shit,” the fi?rst marine said uncertainly. “Let’s fi?nd the sarge and ask him what to do.”
“We ain’t got time for that,” the second jarhead replied pragmatically. “The bugs are going to be all over this area ten minutes from now! Let’s put him in the supply locker.”
Batkin didn’t know what “the supply locker” was, but soon found out, as he was transported into a prefab barracks and placed on the fl?oor. The rest of the grunts assigned to that particular building were outside trying to fi?gure out what was going on, so the long, narrow room was empty. Lights swept across the outside walls, and alarms continued to bleat, as the marines pried up a section of fl?ooring and set it off to one side. Thirty seconds later the cyborg was lowered into a rectangular hole that was already half-full of stolen tools and other supplies that the marines had been able to scrounge from the camp. A wooden lid was lowered into place after that, dirt was raked over the top, and the precut section of fl?oorboards was lowered back into place.
With no exterior light, and nothing to hear other than the occasional indecipherable thump, Batkin was left to wait in what might be his grave. Especially were something to happen to the marines. But rather than focus on things like that, the cyborg triggered a diagnostic program. The results served to confi?rm his worst fears. His propulsion system had been severely damaged—and the nearest repair facility was more than a thousand lightyears away. Meanwhile, up on the surface, and outside the barracks, the entire camp was in an uproar as Commandant Mutuu, the War Mutuu, and Overseer Tragg all marched about shouting orders. There had been an escape attempt, or that’s what they assumed, so the POWs were ordered to stand in formation for a head count.
Then, when it turned out that all of the prisoners were present, or accounted for, another head count was called for as Tragg and the surviving robots walked the perimeter and inspected the fence. But the second head count was consistent with the fi?rst, and there were no signs of an escape attempt.
That led the Mutuus to conclude that some sort of ex149
ternal force had been at work—a theory corroborated by the use of an energy weapon. Hastily convened combat teams were dispatched to sweep the surrounding jungle for any sign of an incursion, and the entire camp was subjected to a thorough search, even as the commandant continued to heap abuse on the prisoners.
