fencer at the academy.
After it was clear that no enemy warships lurked in the Aspa Darla system, Michi stood most of the crew down from action stations. Martinez rose from his couch with a growing optimism in his heart, and then a thought occurred to him.
“My lady?” he said. “Shall we send crew mail and dispatches withLord May ?”
Michi agreed, and the crew’s messages home, plus a brief message from Michi to the effect that they’d entered Aspa Darla after a journey from Protipanu free of incident, were coded and sent to friendly territory courtesy of Captain Hansen. Included was Martinez’s long serial letter to Terza, plus briefer messages to other members of his family, all save Roland, to whom he had very little to say.
Martinez had, some time ago, asked Michi to censor his mail personally on the grounds that it might contain Chen family business, and Michi had agreed with perfect amiability. There was no Chen family business in the messages, not unless Martinez’s speculation about the development of the Chen heir counted as business, but Michi did not complain, and Martinez was pleased that Fletcher wasn’t reading his messages.
At Martinez’s request Hansen sent recent news to Illustrious . The Naxid news videos trumpeted the fact that Zanshaa had fallen without a fight, though they lamented that “pirates in the employ of the renegade government” had destroyed its ring. Civil government was in the process of being established on Zanshaa, and would be throughout the empire as soon as the renegade government was hunted down and received their just desserts. The Naxids admitted to a hard-fought action at Hone-bar, but did not mention its results. Martinez found the omission annoying. Anyone used to living under the censorship would find it obvious enough that Hone-bar had been a Naxid defeat, simply from the fact no victory was mentioned.
They might at least have mentioned my name.
We are continually involved in attacking the enemy’s ability to make war,Martinez began in a new letter to Terza.There is little or no danger to ourselves, but great harm to the enemy’s economy.
I think of you constantly, and hope you are well.
Sparing Lord May was the only deviation from the plan that Martinez had devised for the Aspa Darla raid. The Naxid administrators of the two planets’ rings, with no force to stand between them and the oncoming loyalists, obeyed Lady Michi’s orders. All ships on the ring were jettisoned; the repair and construction bays were all opened, and ships under construction shoveled out into the vacuum. Antimatter missiles found all these targets as well as the ships moving in or out of the system, and by the end of the raid a hundred and three ships were destroyed. A few managed to accelerate through Wormhole 2 to Bai-do before loyalist missiles could find them, but Chenforce would catch them there.
Two pinnaces passed close to each ring, cameras trained on the open construction bays to make certain that Michi Chen’s stern orders had been obeyed. The pinnaces were recovered without incident at the far end of the system.
As Chenforce flashed past, another order was given to the Naxids. “You will broadcast the following message on all communications channels every hour until we leave the system. We will be monitoring your communications to assure compliance.”
The message featured Squadron Commander Chen sitting in her office, wearing her viridian dress uniform and gazing at the camera with solemn eyes.
“This is Squadron Commander Chen,” she said. “Loyalist forces operating under the authority of the Convocation and the Praxis have returned to your system. Do not believe rebel propaganda claiming the war is over. Loyalist forces are advancing into rebel areas and have already destroyed two rebel fleets at Hone-bar and Protipanu.
“We will be leaving your system soon in order to fight the rebels elsewhere, but please believe that we will soon return. Those who cooperate with the rebel government or military will be judged and punished. Those who remain faithful to the Convocation and the Praxis will be rewarded. Until the return of lawful government, good citizens will not cooperate with rebels and other enemies of the empire.”
The message was still being broadcast five days later, when Chenforce left the system.
SEVENTEEN
Cousin Marcia gave birth to a boy two days after Sula’s meeting with Hong. Weight was not mentioned. Sula already knew the Naxids were landing, because she’d heard the sonic booms rattle the windows as the shuttles came in, and had been counting.
The Naxids were coming down in groups of eight. If the shuttles were standard military type, each would carry eighty Naxids plus their gear, and the total would not land an armed force very quickly. They had probably brought in just enough shuttles to secure the ground termini of the space elevators so that they could send their main force down from the ring. Without the ring, this deployment was going to take quite a while.
After four trips, the sonic booms ceased. The former government had ordered the destruction of all suitable fuel stocks, and the Naxids presumably returned to orbit to refuel. Sula wished she knew how much fuel the enemy fleet brought with them.
She knew from her readings in Terran history that things such as ground-to-air missiles had once existed, and she longed for a battery of them. But the Fleet did not have such things, because the Fleet did not fight from the ground. And the police didn’t have them, either, because they didn’t need missiles to arrest criminals—and if there was civil disorder, well, either the police crushed the riot with their small arms or they called in the Fleet to turn the rioters into a cloud of raging plasma.
Team 491 sat in the small apartment at Riverside, the video a constant murmur in the background; news when it wasn’t Macnamara watching sports. The Naxids had decreed a full schedule of summer sports, diversion for a population suffering from spot shortages and the electricity ration, and Andiron was on top of the ratings and delighting its fans. Macnamara watched the games obsessively, crosslegged before a spread oilcloth on which he disassembled and cleaned the team’s weapons.
Spence stayed in the bedroom she shared with Sula and used the wall video to watch a long succession of romantic dramas. Sula tried to avoid overhearing any of the dialogue. She figured she knew pretty well how those romances turned out in real life.
Sonic booms rattled the windows again, sixteen landings altogether, and then the booms stopped. The Naxids had probably run out of whatever fuel they’d scavenged. Sula pictured Naxid constabulary pouring into some chemical refinery and demanding they alter their output.
Sula worked her way through three volumes of mathematical puzzles and a volume of history—Europe in the Age of Kings—before her comm chirped with a text message from Blanche for a breakfast meeting at 05:01 at the Allergy-Free Restaurant in Smallbridge, a district of the Lower Town. Sula looked at the message and felt her skin prickle hot with a sudden rush of blood. Trying to control the sudden urge to pant for breath, she rose from her seat and walked with care toward where her team waited, their eyes on her. Sula’s feet seemed to sink into the floorboards beneath her feet, as if she were walking on pillows.
“It’s tomorrow morning,” she said. “Nine hours from now.”
Mr. and Madame Guei held hands as they sat on the sofa, their eyes wide as they watched Action Team 491 turn their pleasant apartment into an ambush site. Their infant son dozed on his father’s lap, and their nine-year- old daughter, having rapidly grown bored with the three heavily armed soldiers who had appeared in their quarters before sunrise, played games on the video wall.
Sula had told the Gueis that they were allowed to do nothing else with the video wall, or any other form of communication in the house. They were particularly urged not to call the police. The action team was there to fight Naxid rebels, not to interfere with their lives, but their liveswould be interfered with if necessary.
The Gueis complied quietly. They seemed to comprehend easily enough that no one had given them a vote in whether their apartment was going to be turned into a battlefield.
The drive to the Axtattle Parkway was accomplished in the dead of night and without trouble. Due to the electricity rationing, there was very little activity on the streets at that hour. Somewhat to Sula’s surprise, they even found a legal parking space half a block from their destination.
Another team had arrived before them, had awakened the building manager, shown him their warrants, and had him surrender his passkeys. They now held the manager and his family incommunicado in one of the other apartments. One of the advance team let Group 491 into the building, and their team leader let them into the
