Honor Bound

small, private bathroom-notionally private: Jameson was sure it was being monitored as well, though at the moment there was no one in the chamber other than their party and the doctor.

Standing at the center of the cell was a tall, broad-chested man with a face off a Roman coin: aquiline nose, deep-set dark eyes and cheekbones carved from the side of a mountain. A bushy mustache shot with grey completed the mental picture that Jameson remembered very well both from history lessons and the videos he had seen of the invasion.

“I remember you,” Sergei Pavlovitch Antonov said slowly, staring intently at Jameson, one hand resting lightly, palm out, against the transparent enclosure. His voice was being amplified by some system in the cell, because Jameson could hear him with no problem despite the intervening wall. “The hostage.”

“Yes, well… look who’s talking,” Jameson returned, cocking his eyebrow at the irony. He glanced aside at Riordan. “And you’ve actually had him here since the war?”

“His ship never left the asteroid belt,” Riordan confirmed with a self-satisfied nod. “From what we gathered under chemical interrogation, he had to alter course to avoid a Fleet intrasystem patrol ship and ran out of fuel. He probably would have drifted right out of the solar system if a couple Belt pirates hadn’t noticed him. They’d seen him on the reports from insystem and took him to one of the corporate mining stations, thinking we might be interested in making a deal.” He grinned. “We landed him for one hundred tons of soy protein.”

“Genius,” Jameson said, admiration in his voice as he stared at the former dictator. “And then you squeezed him like a grapefruit until you got the key to the wormhole network. But how did you handle the rest of them? I can’t see them all giving up just because you had Antonov.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Riordan couldn’t hold back a laugh. “They don’t even know. We had him record messages for them… they think he’s still in command, directing them from a remote location where he’ll be safe from ‘American spies.’ He’s told them all about the great allies he’s found here… that would be us. And like the good allies we are, we’ve provided them with some extra ships they can use however we direct them to… our own, secret, ready-made fleet.”

“Which will make just the bogey-man you need to justify nearly anything,” Jameson finished for him. “And I assume you have some way to neutralize the advantages you’ve given them if they become too troublesome.”

“Of course,” Riordan confirmed. “As I’ve told you: I’m ambitious, not stupid.”

“Well, I’ve certainly seen and heard enough to convince me,” Jameson told him. “O’Keefe has to go and you’ve got the plan to get rid of him. What you need is an inroad to the military and I can give you that. Shannon Stark trusts me; I am sure I can throw her off your trail and salvage things.”

The whole time he and Riordan were speaking, Jameson was keeping a sideways eye on Antonov-mostly because the man gave him the creeps-and for some reason the Russian was smiling broadly. That bothered him greatly for some reason that he couldn’t put his finger on.

“It’s great having you aboard, Greg,” Riordan pumped his hand enthusiastically. “I have to admit, the one part of this whole operation that’s always bothered me is Dominguez… the man is too squirrelly for my tastes. Bringing him in was always Kevin’s idea.” He shot Fourcade a baleful glare.

“He was willing,” Fourcade protested, “and having the Vice President working with us was a damn sight better than nothing!”

Jameson frowned slightly, looking back and forth between the two of them, but quickly corrected his expression. He closed his mouth on the question he’d been about to ask, yielding to an instinct that asking it would be giving away more information than he’d gain.

“Gentlemen,” he said instead, striking a conciliatory tone, “let’s not waste time on recriminations. We’re all working towards a common goal: to preserve the Republic as we know it. Vice President Dominguez will serve his purpose, as will I, and we should think about how to best use each asset we have.”

“You’re dead right, as usual, Greg,” Riordan relented. “What we need to concentrate on is getting rid of O’Keefe before he does any more damage.”

“Before he starts a civil war trying to stop us,” Jameson amended for him. “If it comes to that, we’ll lose everything.”

Behind them, Antonov laughed loud and long.

“Riordan doesn’t know,” Shannon mused thoughtfully, staring at the readout on her tablet. She, Ari and Roza were gathered around the table of the Houston safe-house, listening to a recording of the conversation inside the bunker. They hadn’t been able to chance bugging Jameson, but they had still had that Trojan on Fourcade’s ‘link… and knowing when the meeting was happening, they’d activated the device’s recorder and then later had it send a data squirt over the ‘net with that sound file.

“He doesn’t know what?” Ari asked, confused. He and Roza had been floored by the revelation that Antonov was on Earth and a captive of the Executive Council, but Shannon had, surprisingly, taken it in stride.

Stark looked up from the tablet, a fierce glint in her eye. “He doesn’t know about the Patton,” she expanded. “He doesn’t know that’s why Dominguez is cooperating. But Fourcade knows, and he’s not sharing the information with his boss.”

Ari suddenly remembered Dominguez’ statements when he’d been drugged at President O’Keefe’s house, when he’d said that Fourcade knew about the Patton. “You’re right, ma’am!” he exclaimed. “But what game is he playing?”

Roza’s face grew thoughtful for a moment, then she grabbed the tablet and typed in a request. Realization dawned on her face and she turned the tablet back around so they could see the readout. “This is the roster of the Patton.”

“Holy shit,” Ari said. “We never thought to look for him there.”

“Kevin Fourcade was on the Patton,” Shannon breathed.

Roza nodded firmly. “He was working for the mining multicorps, checking the damage to the facilities on Aphrodite. We didn’t pay attention to the lists of corporate employees that were on the ship,”

“You know what this means,” Ari told Roza and Shannon. “Riordan thinks he’s running Antonov… ”

“But Antonov is running Riordan,” Shannon finished for him. She picked up her ‘link and tapped in a message. “I need to talk to the President.”

* * *

“Holy mother of God,” Nunez breathed softly, subconsciously whispering as if the Protectorate ships on the screen could hear him from thousands of kilometers away.

“Where the hell are they all coming from?” Pirelli asked, shaking her head.

On the Tactical display she could see one ship after another transitioning from the wormhole through which they’d entered the system and then moving in a conveyor-belt line to one of the system’s other gates. Behind them the system’s primary glared harshly, while in the foreground the brown, blue and now mostly white surface of Peboan gleamed in its distant light and scant warmth.

“I assume they’re coming from Novoye Rodina,” McKay replied, hanging from the railing behind her bridge station so he could look at the readouts over her shoulder. “I guess we know now why they fought so hard to keep us out of here.”

“Thank God we got here before they started coming through,” Nunez commented, crossing himself. “And that they we were able to move out of the area before they spotted us.”

The Sheridan had arrived insystem hours ago and the convoy of Protectorate ships hadn’t ceased since then. There were dozens of them and they were still coming through with no end in sight.

“That leaves us with a big problem still, though,” McKay reminded him. “They’re heading for Earth; nothing else makes any sense. And if we go through the same way, we’re going to have to fight our way through them.”

Nunez looked at him sharply. “Colonel, we don’t have the antimatter or the missiles left for that kind of fight.”

“Hence the whole big problem thing, Commander,” McKay replied dryly. “We only have one real choice, and it sucks.”

“We have to go back to Earth using our Eysselink drive,” Nunez realized, dismal resignation in his voice, “which will take nearly six weeks.”

“If the enemy ships are heading for Earth, too,” Pirelli objected, “they could be there long before that.”

McKay regarded her with strained patience. “Yes, Commander Pirelli; hence the whole ‘it sucks’ part of my