Rolly and Lash both laughed at the joke and departed.
Carter looked over at his daughter. She was making the same face she had about the steak. Carter smiled apologetically at her.
She seemed too young to get that joke. Or maybe he just needed her to be. Everyone was getting older, and he still had so much work to do.
Lash and Rolly found a secluded room and set their plates down on a table. Lash wasted no time cutting into his, speaking through a mouthful to say, “Let’s catch up, big man.”
Rolly read a status on his datapad and then stuffed the device back into his pocket. “Okay, we’re clear. No one’s listening in.”
Lash nodded and motioned for the big man to take a seat. “In case anyone walks in. Eat up, boy.”
“‘Boy,’” said the man called Rolly. “I can outlift, outfight, outrun, and out eat you. Don’t call me boy.”
“Can’t outrun me,” Lash said, wiping his mouth. “Not with them cybernetic legs you got, Bear.”
“The point is—” Bear threw up his arms and gave a sigh. “Why am I arguing this. You sound like Masters, Lash.”
Lash gave a wink. “Maybe he rubbed off on me.”
“Well, make it stop. I like the quiet operator Lashley infinitely more than the supersized version of that little twerp.” Bear leaned back in his seat, grabbed a grilled spear of asparagus, and took a bite. “Whatcha got?”
“Not much that we didn’t already have prior to me embedding. Nilo is who we thought, and best I can tell, he’s the top dog.”
“And plans for Kublar?”
“Yeah, man. I mean, he’s getting credits by running the spaceport at the Soob, but the koobs still make out way better than anything they ever had before.”
“The ones who survived.”
“Right. But unless there’s a double cross, I dunno. He seems sincere about it. I think he wants that planet to self-govern. He at least believes his own hype. Kicked the last of the H-O-R off-planet. Eliminated the zhee Keller-style.”
“Okay. So he’s who we thought he was. And he either believes his message or he’s still hiding behind his cards. What else? You didn’t signal for me to come out here from Intrepid just for that.”
“Two things. One, he’s developed a new sort of hybrid blaster. Slug thrower combined with typical charge pack accelerator. A lot like the mods Chhun had developed for the N-18s for use against the Cybar back on Utopion. These things do damage. Went through vests like nothing. S’posed to do the same to Legion armor.”
“You get one?”
“Yep. It’ll be in your room for you to take off-world.”
“What else?”
Lash leaned in close. Despite the all clear saying the room wasn’t bugged. Despite the thick doors and walls that come with high-end construction. “Savages.”
“Like the Savage Wars Savages?”
“He’s after Savage tech. Someone cleaned out a vault on Kublar beneath the museum. Carter went inside, told me a little bit about it. I didn’t pry because he wasn’t offering. But that’s the team’s next job. Hunt down a Tennar who stole the tech first.”
Bear sighed. A lot of his Dark Ops teams had been kept busy retrieving, protecting, or relocating caches of Savage tech that the Republic stockpiled for future R&D purposes. Goth Sullus in his brief time at the top had made a point of doing the same. No one knew how much there was out there. It was all illegal. All not supposed to exist. Impossible to account for.
“I knew it. I knew this kid had some ulterior motive.”
“Nilo? Maybe. Maybe not. Carter said ‘means to an end.’ But he thinks the end is a good one.”
“What about him? He fought on Utopion. Can he be flipped if we need it?”
“I have an eval in my report. Plus everything else I gathered on Kublar.” Lash handed over a wafer-thin data membrane.
Bear took the device and placed it in his mouth, letting the membrane sync to the bottom of his tongue. Just another cellular layer until he retrieved it.
“Okay,” Bear said, rising to his feet, his steak finished. “Good catching up. I got an early flight tomorrow. Wish I could stay longer.”
“Any word from home?” Lash asked.
“They miss you,” Bear said, speaking of the kill team Lash belonged to. A kill team he had left to undertake an undercover mission at the urging of Bear and Aeson Ford, the last Dark Ops leej to step out into the cold. “But we know what you’re doing is important. If we can’t stand it any longer, we’ll come visit.”
Lash looked down. His time out in the cold, away from his unit, extended indefinitely. “Understood.”
He would continue to fight for Black Leaf.
Nilo smiled at the holocam, taking in the wide angle shot of his operators and their extended families. This was one of the things he first enjoyed about wealth. Doing things for others they could never afford to do on their own. And he’d since acquired several fortunes beyond the meager starting sums that first allowed him to show favor to those who needed it. He’d conquered the business world—conquered a whole planet. But this, this was better. This filled him with… contentment.
The faces smiling back had just been serenaded by words of appreciation. For the operators, and for the families supporting them. Dangerous work. But they were professionals. And they were right. The galaxy would follow their crusade. They held the moral high ground. They were objectively making life better for Kublarens. Polls showed an overwhelming approval rating for what had happened on Kublar.
Free people had the right to govern themselves. Had a right to seek their own welfare, particularly when it didn’t come at the expense of others. It was a radical message for a galaxy raised by a House of Reason who made every effort to control their lives. Right down to their very thoughts. And it was a
