Crown of Slaves

candidate. He more than anyone could act like a Masadan, as Anton Zilwicki had pointed out. Victor still wasn't sure if that was praise or insult. Probably both at the same time.

'Are you ready to support Thandi?' he asked Ruth now, and the princess nodded.

'Well, almost,' she qualified. 'We're still accessing, and the main security system looks like a stand-alone. But the com hierarchy ties it all together, and I've got access to the main system. And I've located the internal communications and surveillance systems. I'll be into them by the time she can get aboard the station, and I've already tapped the net between the station and Torch.'

Cachat grimaced. The ex-slaves had settled on a new name for Congo, after the liberation. 'Torch,'the planet would be called thenceforth. The debate had come down to a final decision between 'Beacon' and 'Torch,' and Jeremy had carried the day. A beacon of hope was all very well, he'd agreed, but their world was going to generate more than just light. It was going to ignite the conflagration which would finally reduce Manpower and all of its works to ashes and dust. From the perspective of an agent accustomed to operating in the shadows, Victor found the name a bit overly flamboyant, but the servant of the revolution inside him was firmly on Jeremy's side.

'So notify Thandi that Operation Spartacus is ready to roll,' he said almost curtly.

'Just did it,' replied Ruth cheerfully. 'God, is this fun or what?'

* * *

Thandi acknowledged the message from Ruth, then checked her chrono and nodded in satisfaction. She still had a few minutes-long enough for a quick last inspection of her troops. 'Quick' was the right word, too. She was now in command of a battalion-sized unit of troops, divided into four companies. Each of those companies was positioned in one of Felicia's large bays, so Thandi had to visit each of them in her inspection tour.

For all that the dispersal of her troops was a bit of a headache, Thandi found a grim satisfaction in the situation. It was ironic that the large bays Manpower had intended to permit the rapid murder of hundreds of slaves would also permit people wearing battle armor and Marine-issue armored skinsuits to launch a lightning mass assault on Manpower's space station. Anton Zilwicki called it 'being hoist on their own petard,' an archaic expression which Thandi understood once he explained, but still found a little silly.

She was a bit nervous at the prospect of leading such a large unit into battle, but not much. First, because she had the experience and steadying influence of Lieutenant Colonel Kao Huang at her side. Second, because although Thandi had never herself commanded anything larger than a company before, she'd been an assiduous student since she first joined the Marine Corps. So she'd observed the process at first hand-which, for the past year working with Huang, had put her in close proximity to one of the SLN Marine Corps' premier combat commanders.

But, finally-and probably most importantly-because this entire operation was so far outside normal Marine Corps practice that any amount of prior experience would have still left her jury-rigging almost everything. And, in practice if not in theory, she'd really only be leading a company-sized unit anyway. Her own company, as it happened. Bravo Company, Second Battalion, 877^th Solarian Marine Regiment, which she'd been leading for months since its former commandant, Captain Chatterji, had been placed on indefinite medical furlough for the treatment of severe combat injuries.

Bravo Company had been divided into its four platoons, and those platoons would be spearheading the assault on Congo's space station. In theory, they would do so as private volunteers acting as an integral part of company- sized units of the new 'Torch Liberation Army.'

It was a threadbare mask, perhaps, but not unheard of by any means. OFS frequently used the practice of 'granting leave' to entire units which then 'volunteered' to 'assist' some out-planet regime in the suppression of dissent. Or, more rarely, even in the outright conquest of someone else. The regular SLN and Marines did not, perhaps, but the precedent was there.

Besides, it was supposed to be threadbare, she reminded herself. At the proper time, everyone in the civilized galaxy was supposed to see right through it… although, naturally, no one would officially admit that they had.

So 'the Torch Liberation Army' it was. In theory. In practice-as Thandi had made crystal clear to the Ballroom gunfighters and Amazons who filled out the ranks of the battalion-her regular platoons would do all of the fighting. That was true for the assault on the space station, at least, whatever might wind up happening later when the assault on the planet itself occurred. The 'friendly fire' casualties and indiscriminate damage which would be sure to occur with a mob of amateurs storming a space station were enough to give her nightmares. The Ballroom and Amazon troops could tag along behind-and get most of the glory-but she wanted them in the back and effectively out of the action.

She'd expected a ferocious argument, but there hadn't been one. For the first time, she and Jeremy X had faced a potential clash-and Jeremy, to her relief, had sidestepped it neatly. She was beginning to realize that a very shrewd mind was at work beneath the superficial appearance of a maniacal terrorist. Jeremy was no fool, and understood himself that a military assault on a gigantic space station was a different matter than an assassination carried out by a small unit of killers. All the more so, since they wanted to capture the space station-as intact as possible-rather than destroy it. This would become Torch's critical space station, after all, which would be useless if it had been gutted in the taking.

So, in effect, she was leading a company-sized unit of Solarian Marines. Granted, in an operation which was hardly being done by The Book.

The memory of the expressions on her Marines' faces when they were informed they had all 'volunteered' to participate in the splendid project of liberating genetic slaves from Manpower could still bring a chuckle to her. Like all Solarian Marines, Bravo Company's people were hard-bitten professionals-the majority of them mercenaries, in all but name-with about as much in the way of idealistic impulses as so many Old Earth barracuda. But, they'd seemed more amused by the subterfuge than anything else. They certainly weren't going to argue the point-not with Lieutenant Colonel Huang scowling at them, and with their own several months' experience with Thandi in command. True, her Marines called her 'the Old Lady' instead of 'Great Kaja.' But they said the words in a tone of voice which her Amazons would have recognized.

* * *

That had been Captain Rozsak's proposal, which he'd advanced the day after Thandi's resignation at a meeting of all the central figures involved. Easily and smoothly, Rozsak had explained all the advantages to the ploy. Not the least of them being the mutual benefits to Torch and the Solarian League's Maya Sector of establishing a publicly close relationship from the outset. A benefit to Torch, because Maya Sector would provide the new nation with the safe and powerful neutral base which gave any liberation movement an invaluable reservoir.

From the other side, covering themselves with a thinly veiled halo of moral glory from their participation in the liberation of Congo would be of inestimable benefit to the Solarian political and military forces associated with Governor Barregos. Leaving aside the need to cover up the truth about Stein's murder-which only a few people knew about, after all-things were about to get very turbulent within the Solarian League. Barregos intended to stake out the moral high ground for himself, right from the beginning-and Congo was to be the proof of it.

Thandi had been a bit dubious, but Du Havel had agreed immediately. And then later, in private conversation after Rozsak and his Solarian staff were gone, had elaborated on the logic.

* * *

'It's a very smart move, on their part. Whatever else he might be, Barregos is as canny a politician as any in the Solarian League. That means, among other things, that while he doesn't fetishize public opinion, he also doesn't make the more common mistake of seasoned politicians of underestimating it either.'

Thandi's expression must have been cynical. Catching sight of it, Du Havel shook his head. 'Don't read the