bikini.
“Okay, yeah.”
She splashed him. “Told you so.”
He tipped her under the water. She shot up again laughing gleefully, a mermaid Venus.
“What about the asteroid?” Al asked. “Did we get the First Admiral?”
“Don’t think so,” Patricia said. “Seems like the antimatter went off outside. The asteroid is still intact, but it’s completely screwed.”
Al cocked his head to one side, listening to the multitude of voices murmuring at him, each one suffused with a plea. Rummaging through the nonsense which made up most of it took a while, but eventually he built up a picture of the disaster.
“So what happened?” Jezzibella asked.
“Kingsley didn’t get inside. Guess the security nazis were on to him. But he came through all right, Jee-ze did he ever. Wiped out a whole spaceport full of their warships, and a shitload of hardware got busted up with it.”
Jezzibella circled round in front of him, and embraced him passionately. “That’s good. Smart propaganda.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Blew up all their machines, but didn’t kill too many people. Looks like you’re the good guy.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his nose against hers, hands moving round to cup her ass. “Guess I am.”
Jezzibella shot Patricia a sly look. “Has anyone broken the good news to Kiera, yet?”
“No. I don’t think so.” Patricia was smiling again. “You know, I think I’ll go tell her.”
“She won’t let you in her little ghetto,” Al said. “Just invite her to the celebrations.”
“We’re having a celebration?” Jezzibella asked.
“Hey, girl, if this ain’t worth one, I don’t know what the fuck is. Give Leroy a call, tell him to break out the good booze in the ballroom. Tonight, we are gonna party!”
Kiera stood in front of the lounge’s window, staring down at the hellhawks on their docking pedestals. The yammering, pitiful voices of the beyond were intent on explaining the magnitude of the Trafalgar disaster to her. The Organization’s triumph infuriated her. Capone was turning out to be a lot harder to crack than she’d envisioned at the start of her little rebellion. It wasn’t just the mystique of his name, or his cleverly insidious hold on the Organization’s power structure. Those two facets she could have worn down eventually. He was getting far more than his fair share of luck. For a while the elimination of the antimatter station had tilted events in her favour. With the cancellation of the seeding flights, the fleet had been getting edgy again. Now this. And Capone was well aware of her less-than-loyal actions, even though nothing was out in the open. Yet.
She couldn’t see it from this window, but a third of the way round the docking ledge, that little nerd Emmet Mordden was trying to rebuild one of the nutrient fluid refineries that she’d disabled. If he succeeded, then she was going to lose, and lose badly. One voice, pathetically eager to please, told her that at least one squadron of voidhawks had perished in the awesome explosion.
“Fuck it!” Kiera stormed. She refused to acknowledge any more of the insidious incorporeal babble. “I didn’t know he was cooking this up.”
Her two senior co-conspirators, Luigi Balsamo and Hudson Proctor, gave each other a look. They knew how dangerous life became when she was in this kind of mood.
“Me neither,” Luigi said. He was sitting on one of the long settees, drinking some excellent coffee and watching her carefully. “Al used a quantity of antimatter for a secret project a while back. I never guessed it was for anything like this. Gotta give him credit, this is going to skyrocket his credibility among the crews.”
“That barbarian wouldn’t have the intelligence to plan this out by himself,” she snapped. “I bet I know who put the idea in his head. Little whore!”
“Smart for a whore,” Hudson Proctor said.
“Too smart,” Kiera said. “For her own good. I shall enjoy telling her that some day soon.”
“It’s going to make life difficult for us though,” Luigi said. “We’ve been getting through to a lot of people recently. There was plenty of support for all of us heading down to the planet.”
“There still is,” Kiera said. “How long is this triumph going to last for him? A week? Two? Ultimately, it changes nothing. He has nothing else to offer. I’ll take the Organization with me to New California, and Capone and his whore can freeze their asses off up here until the remainder of the Confederation Navy comes knocking. See how he likes that.”
“We’ll keep plugging away,” Luigi promised.
“I might be able to turn this to our favour,” Kiera said thoughtfully. “If the crews can be made to see that it’s mainly a propaganda stroke, one that’s got the remaining ninety-nine per cent of the Confederation Navy badly pissed off with us.”
“And are likely to come and settle the score,” Hudson finished excitedly.
“Exactly. And there’s only one place we’ll be truly safe from that retaliation.”
A bleep escaped from an AV pillar on the glass table in front of the settee. Kiera walked over to it in annoyance and keyed an acknowledgement. It was Patricia Mangano, calling to tell them, if they hadn’t already heard, the fabulous news about Trafalgar. And they were all invited to the victory party Al was throwing that evening.
“We’ll be there,” Kiera replied sweetly, and switched off.
“We’re going?” a startled Hudson Proctor asked.
“Oh yes,” Kiera said. Her smile upgraded to pure malice. “This is the perfect alibi.”
How long has that been going on for?he asked pran soo in singular engagement mode.
Two days now.
Anyone know what they’re doing?
No. But it’s nothing to do with Kiera.
Really? The only systems on the ledge are connected with voidhawk and blackhawk maintenance and service.
Gaining the ability to provide us with nutrients is an obvious move for Capone,pran soo said. It would appear our options are finally starting to open up.
Not for me,rocio said. Capone only wants us to compliment the Organization fleet. No doubt he will offer better terms than Kiera’s ever done, but we will still be drawn into the conflict. My goal remains achieving complete autonomy for all of us.
There are now fifteen of us who will provide whatever covert assistance we can. If the Almaden equipment can be made to function, we believe most of the others will join us. With a few noticeable exceptions.
Ah yes, where is Etchells?
I don’t know. He still hasn’t returned.
We can’t have gotten that lucky. Did you check with Monterey’s net to see if the electronics we require are in stock?
Yes. Everything is there. But I don’t understand how we can get them out. We’ll have to ask the Organization direct. Are you going to negotiate with the Organization? The fleet still needs us to patrol local space around the planet; it is not a combat duty.
No. Capone won’t take kindly to my deal with Almaden; we’ll be depriving him of their industrial capability. I believe I can obtain the electronics without the assistance of outside groups.
Rocio used the bitek processors in
