Mutineer's Moon

risk.”

“If we hang onto them too long, they’ll lose credibility,” Inanna pointed out. “Especially the ones in government. Some of them’re already going to lose their jobs for running when things got hot.”

“A few more days won’t make much difference, and the delay’s worth it to keep them alive if we’ve guessed wrong. Remember, the very fact that we hid them has marked them for Nergal’s bunch. If they do have the guts to go on, they’ll know exactly who to gun for.” Ganhar wanted to marshal weightier arguments, but he dared not. Inanna was his ally for now, but if she guessed what he was really up to…

“You’re right again, Ganhar,” Anu said expansively. “By the Maker, it’s almost a pity Kirinal didn’t get herself killed earlier. If you’d been running things, we probably wouldn’t have been taken by surprise this way.”

“Thanks, Chief,” the words were like splintered bone in Ganhar’s throat, “but I stand by what I said. There was simply no way to predict what they were going to pull. All we could do was see which way the wind blew and then hit back hard.”

He saw a trace of approval in Inanna’s eyes, for she, better than any, would know it was the right note to strike. Anu was feeling expansive just now, but soon he would settle back into his usual behavior patterns, and it could be more dangerous to be overly competent than incompetent then.

“Well, you did a good job,” Anu said, “and I’m inclined to follow your advice now. Start with the combat types—they’re easier to replace anyway.”

He nodded to indicate the meeting was adjourned, and the other three rose and left.

* * *

Ganhar felt the hatch close behind him with a vast sense of relief, then nodded to Inanna, gave Jantu a cold, dangerous smile, and stalked off. For the moment, his position was secure, and unless he missed his guess, he’d only need for it to stay that way a very little while longer.

The cold wind of mortality blew down his spine, and he’d put it there himself, but he still didn’t know exactly why he had. The events he’d set in motion—or, more accurately, allowed to remain in motion-terrified him, yet there was a curious satisfaction in it. One way or another, it would bring the eternal, intricate betrayal and counter-betrayal to an end, and perhaps it could go some way towards expiating the sickness he’d felt ever since he had replaced Kirinal and his had become the hand that personally managed the organized murder of the people of Terra.

And it would also be the gambit that ended the long, futile game. The consummate, smoothly-polished stratagem that set all the other plotting, scheming would—be tyrants at naught. There was a certain sweetness in that, and—who knew?—he might even survive it after all.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was very quiet on Nergal’s hangar deck. The command deck was too small for the crowd of people who had gathered here, and Colin let his eyes run over them thoughtfully. Every surviving Imperial was present, but they were vastly outnumbered by their Terra-born descendants and allies, and perhaps that was as it should be. It was fitting that what had started as a battle between Anu’s mutineers and the loyalists of Dahak’s crew should end as a battle between those same butchers and the descendants of those they had betrayed.

He sat beside Jiltanith on the stage against the big compartment’s outer bulkhead and wondered how the rest of Nergal’s people were reacting to the outward signs of their changing relationship. There were dark, still places in her soul that he doubted he would ever understand fully, and he had no idea where they were ultimately headed, but he was content to wait and see. Assuming they won and they both survived, they would have plenty of time to find out.

Hector MacMahan, immaculate as ever in his Marine uniform, entered the hangar deck beside a dark- faced, almost-handsome young man in the uniform of a US Army master sergeant, and Colin felt a stir rustle through the gathering as they found chairs to Jiltanith’s left. Only a few of them had yet met Andrew Asnani, but all of them had heard of him by now.

Horus waited until they were seated, then stood and folded his hands behind him. He had abandoned his ratty old Clemson sweatshirt for this meeting and, at Colin’s insistence, wore the midnight blue of the Fleet for the first time in fifty thousand years. His collar bore the single golden starburst of a fleet captain, not his old pre-mutiny rank, in a gesture that spoke to all of his fellow mutineers, even if they did not understand its full implications, and Colin had seen one or two of the older Imperials sit a bit straighter, their eyes a bit brighter, at the change.

“We’ve waited a long time for this moment,” Horus said quietly, looking out over the silent ranks, “and we and, far more, the innocent people of this planet, have paid a terrible price to reach it. Many of us have died trying to undo what we did; far more have died trying to undo something someone else did. Those people can’t see this day, yet, in a way, they’re right here with us.”

He paused and drew a deep breath.

“All of you know what we’ve been trying to do. It looks—and I caution you that appearances may be deceiving—but it looks like we’ve succeeded.”

A sound like wind through grass filled the hangar deck. His words were no surprise, but they were a vast relief—and a source of even greater tension.

“Hector will brief you on our operations plan in just a moment, but there’s something else I want to say to our children and our allies first.” He looked out, and his determined old eyes were dark.

“We’re sorry,” he said quietly. “What you face is our fault, not yours. We can never repay you, never even thank you properly, for the sacrifices you and your parents and grandparents have made for us, knowing that we are to blame for so many terrible things. Whatever happens, we’re proud of you—prouder, perhaps, than you can ever know. By being who you are, you’ve restored something to us, for if we can call upon the aid of people as extraordinary as you have proven yourselves to be, then perhaps there truly remains something of good in all of us. I—”

His voice broke and he cleared his throat, then stopped with a little headshake and sat. There was silence, but it was a silence of shared emotions too deep for expression, and then all eyes switched to Colin as he rose slowly. He met their assembled gazes calmly, acutely aware of the way the paired stars of his own Fleet rank glittered upon his collar, then looked down at Horus.

“Thank you, Horus,” he said softly. “I wish I could count myself among those extraordinary people you just referred to, but I can’t unless, perhaps, by adoption.”

He held Horus’s eyes a moment, then swung back to face the hangar deck.

“You all know how I came to hold the position I hold, and how much more deeply some of you merited it. I can’t change what happened, but everything Horus just said holds true for me, as well. I’m honored to have known you, much less to have the privilege, however it came my way, of commanding you.

“And there’s another thing. I insisted Horus wear the Fleet’s uniform today. He argued with me, as he’s done a time or two before—” that won a ripple of laughter, as he’d known it would “—but I insisted for a reason. Our Imperials stopped wearing that uniform because they felt they’d dishonored it, and perhaps they had, but Anu’s people have retained it, and therein lies the true dishonor. You made a mistake—a horrible mistake you—fifty thousand years ago, but you also recognized your error. You’ve done all that anyone could, far more than anyone could have demanded of you, to right the wrong you did, and your children and descendants and allies have fought and died beside you.”

He paused and, like Horus, drew a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was very formal, almost harsh.

“All of that is true, yet the fact remains that you are criminals under Fleet Regulations. You know it. I know it. Dahak knows it. And, if the Imperium remains, someday Fleet Central will know it, for you have agreed to surrender yourselves to the justice of the Imperium. I honor and respect you for that decision, but on the eve of an operation from which so many may not return, matters so important to you all, so