Mutineer's Moon

No one, Colin reflected as he watched the Council file into the command deck, could accuse Hector MacMahan of thinking small. Merely to consider attacking such a powerful enemy took a lot of audacity, but it seemed the colonel had chutzpah by the truckload. And who knew? It might just work.

The council settled into their places in tense silence, and he tucked his hands behind him and squared his shoulders, feeling their eyes and wondering just how deep his rapport with them truly went. They’d had barely a month to get to know one another, and he knew some of them both resented and feared him. He couldn’t blame them for that; he still had reservations about them, though he no longer doubted their sincerity. Not even Jiltanith’s.

Thoughts of the young woman drew his eyes, and he hid a smile as he realized he, too, had come to think of her as “young” despite the fact that she was more than twice his age. Much more, if he counted the time she’d spent in stasis. But his smile died stillborn as he saw her expression. She’d finally managed to push the active hatred out of her face, but it remained a shuttered window, neither offering nor accepting a thing.

In many ways, he would have preferred to exclude her from this meeting and from all decision-making, but it hadn’t worked out that way. She was young, but she was also Nergal’s chief intelligence officer, which officially made her MacMahan’s Imperial counterpart and, indirectly, his boss.

Colin wouldn’t have considered someone with her fiery, driven disposition an ideal spy master, but when he hinted as much to one or two council members, their reactions had surprised him. Their absolute faith in her judgment was almost scary, especially since he knew how much she detested him. Yet when he’d checked the log, her performance certainly seemed to justify their high regard. The Colorado Springs attack was the first time in forty years that the southern Imperials (as distinct from their Terra-born proxies) had surprised the northerners, and he knew whose fault that had been. Given the way the Council felt about her, he dared not try removing her from her position. Besides, his own stubborn integrity wouldn’t let him fire someone who did her job so well simply because she happened to hate him.

But she worried him. No matter what anyone else said or thought about her, she worried him.

He sighed, wishing she would open up just once. Just once, so he could know what she was thinking and whether or not he could trust her. Then he pushed the thought aside and smiled tightly at the rest of the Council.

“I’m sure you all know Colonel MacMahan far better than I do.” He gestured at the colonel and watched the exchange of nods and smiles, then put his hand back behind him. “The reason he’s here just now, though, may surprise you. You see, he proposes that we attack Anu directly—without Dahak.”

One or two members of his audience gasped, and Jiltanith seemed to gather herself like a cat. She never actually moved a muscle, but her eyes widened slightly and he thought he saw a glow in their dark depths.

“But that’s crazy!” It was Sarah Meir, Nergal’s Terra-born astrogator. Then she blushed and glanced at MacMahan. “Or, at least, it sounds that way.”

“I agree, but that’s one of the beauties of it. It’s so crazy they’ll never expect it.” That got a small chorus of chuckles, and Colin permitted himself a wider grin. “And crazy or not, we don’t really have much choice. We’ve been sitting on dead center ever since my … arrival—” that provoked a louder ripple of laughter “—and we can’t afford that. You all know why.”

Their levity vanished, and one or two actually glanced upward, as if to see the stars beyond which the Achuultani swept inexorably closer. He nodded.

“Exactly. But the thing that surprised me most is that it might just work.” He turned to MacMahan. “Hector?”

“Thank you, Colin.” MacMahan stood in the center of the command deck, his erect figure and Marine uniform as out of place and yet inevitable as Colin’s own Fleet blue, and met their intent eyes levelly, a man who was clearly accustomed to such scrutiny.

“In essence,” he said, “the problem is time. Time we need and haven’t got. But we do have one major advantage: Anu doesn’t know we’re on a short count. It’s obvious he thought Colin was one of us when he hit the Tudors—” Colin saw Jiltanith twitch at that, but she had herself well under control … for her “—so it seems extremely unlikely he realizes a genuinely new element has been added. He’ll evaluate whatever we do against a background that, so far as he knows, is unchanged.”

He paused, and several heads nodded in agreement.

“Now, we all know we hurt them badly at Colorado Springs.” There was a soft growl of agreement, and he rationed himself to one of his minute smiles. “We’ve confirmed seventeen hard kills, and two more probables—more damage than we’ve done in centuries. They must be wondering what happened and, hopefully, feeling a bit on the defensive. Certainly that ties in with the efforts they’ve been making to find us ever since.

“At present, they no doubt see the entire skirmish as exactly what it was: a defensive action on our part, but what I propose is that we convince them it was an offensive act. I propose that we attack them—hit them everywhere we can—hard enough to convince them we’ve opened a general offensive. It’ll be risky, but no more so than some of the things we’ve done in the past.”

“Wait a minute, Hector.” The colonel paused as Geb, one of the older Imperials and Nergal’s senior engineer, raised a hand. “There’s nothing I’d like better than a shot at them, but how will it help?”

“A fair question,” MacMahan acknowledged, “and I’ll try to answer it, Geb. It may sound a bit complicated, but the underlying concept is simple.

“First, some of their people are actually more vulnerable than we are. They’ve always been more involved in world affairs than we have, and we’ve been able to identify more of them than they have of us. We know where several of their Imperials are, and we’ve got positive IDs on quite a few of their Terra-born. More than that, we’ve identified the terrorist groups they’re currently working through and positively located several operational centers and HQs. What that all boils down to is that even though the bulk of their personnel are far better protected than we are, the ones who are actually outside the enclave are more exposed. We can get to them more readily than they can get to us.”

He looked around his audience and nodded, satisfied with the intent expressions looking back at him.

“What I propose is an organized assault on their exposed points in order to make them react the way they always have when things got hot—by pulling their Imperials and important Terra—born into the enclave to protect them while their hard teams try to trap and destroy our attack forces.

“But,” he said softly, “this time that will be the worst thing they could possibly do. This time, they’ll let us through the door right behind them!”

For a man with an inexpressive face, Colin thought, Hector MacMahan could look remarkably like a hungry wolf.

“How so?” Jiltanith’s voice was flat. She had herself under the tight control Colin’s presence always provoked, but she was asking a question, not raising an objection, and it was clear she spoke for many of the others.

“As I say, the background maneuvers’ve been a bit complicated,” MacMahan replied, “but the operational concept itself is simple, and my own position as the CO of Operation Odysseus is what may just make it work.” Jiltanith nodded tightly, and he glanced at the other council members.

“As ’Tanni knows,” he continued, “I was placed in command of Operation Odysseus, a USFC operation to infiltrate Black Mecca, two years ago. The brass knew it wouldn’t be easy, and we’ve had too many leaks over the years to make them happy. We, of course, know why that is: Anu hasn’t been too successful in infiltrating USFC, but he’s penetrated the senior echelons of the intelligence community deeply. But because of those leaks, the whole operation was made strictly need-to-know, and I determined who needed to know. Which means I was able to put two of our own Terra-born inside Black Mecca. One of them, in fact, is a deputy commander of their central action branch. And, people, he’s on the ‘inside’ in more ways than one. He’s established as a valuable, corruptible mercenary, and Anu’s people co-opted him five months ago.”

A rustle of surprise ran through the command deck.

“Now, all of you know we’ve been feeling out Ramman and Ninhursag,” he went on, and Colin watched