God, God! he thought, calling out frantically to the deity he’d never really believed in. Help me! Help me!
There was no answer, and alloy and plastic were cold and hard as his teeth closed on the pulser’s barrel.
They were right. The frigging Manties were right all along, a tiny corner of his brain realized, like a last pocket of rationality in a hurricane of terror. The bastards do have some kind of nan—
His finger squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Thirty
It was very quiet in the file room.
People seldom came here, which was hardly surprising. The huge, cool chamber buried deep under the Solarian League Navy’s primary headquarters building was only one of several dozen given over to storage of backup records of critical files. Theoretically critical, at any rate. Although this particular storage chamber — Records Room 7-191-002-A — was carried on the Navy’s Facilities List as an active records repository, it was actually an archive. The “youngest” record in it was over eighty T-years old, which made it of purely historical interest even for something with the SLN’s elephantine bureaucracy and ponderous, nitpicking mentality.
Despite the age of the data stored in its files, the fact that it was listed as an active records repository meant not just anybody could come wandering in. Admittance required a certain level of clearance, which the four people who’d gathered there all happened to possess. Not that any of their superiors would have approved of their visit if they’d known about it.
Hopefully, none of them ever would.
“Damn,” one of the intruders said mildly, looking around at row after row of computer chip storage drawers. There were even what looked like filing cabinets for paper copies towards the rear of the room, and he shook his head. “This looks like a thoroughly useless pile of Navy crap, Daud. And a big one, too. Don’t you people ever throw anything out?”
The speaker was a tallish fellow in the uniform of the Solarian Marine Corps. He had wheat-colored hair, green eyes, and the collar insignia of a major. His right shoulder carried the flash of Marine Intelligence, technically a component command of the Office of Naval Intelligence, since the Navy was the Solarian League’s senior service. In fact, Marine Intelligence had gone its own way long ago, operating in its own specialized world — one the Navy had never understood…and one where reasonably accurate intelligence was critical.
“Very funny, Bryce,” Captain Daud al-Fanudahi said dryly. He was several centimeters shorter than the Marine and as dark as the major was fair. “And, yes, we do occasionally throw things out. Usually when keeping them might cause embarrassment for a senior officer. Wouldn’t want to have any unfortunate evidence lying around for the court-martial, after all.”
Captain Irene Teague, twenty T-years younger than al-Fanudahi and Frontier Fleet to his Battle Fleet, winced visibly. She also shook her head, brown eyes more than a little worried.
“Do you think it might be possible for you to indulge in witticisms that didn’t make me even more nervous, Daud?” she asked testily.
“Sorry about that,” al-Fanudahi said with a trace of genuine apology. “I thought it was funny, but I can see where not everyone might share my sense of humor in this case.”
“If there’s a word of truth to your suspicions, I don’t think anyone’s going to think it’s funny at all,” the fourth member of their group said. She was easily the smallest of the foursome and only a very little older than Teague. She wore the uniform of the Solarian Gendarmerie with lieutenant colonel’s insignia, and she had a sandalwood complexion, almond-shaped eyes, and close-cropped hair dark as midnight.
“Frankly, what I’m hoping is that you’re going to turn out to be a totally off-the-wall, lunatic nutcase, despite Major Tarkovsky’s having vouched for you,” she went on, waving one hand at the Marine Major, and her voice was hard. “Unfortunately, I don’t think you are. Not totally off-the-wall, at any rate.”
“I’d like to be wrong myself, Colonel Okiku,” al-Fanudahi said somberly. “I’m not, though. Mind you, I’m nowhere close to having all the answers — or even most of the answers — but I think I’ve least figured out the questions we need to be asking ourselves.”
“All of the questions?” Major Tarkovsky asked, opening his eyes wide. “Gosh, Daud! I thought we were just getting started!”
“Oh my God,” Teague muttered just loud enough for the others to hear. “He’s worse than Daud!”
“Oh, no, no!” Tarkovsky shook his head vigorously. “Nobody’s worse than Daud, Captain Teague, but I do try to be at least as bad.” He smiled very briefly. “It’s the only thing that’s kept me sane for the last few years.”
His voice was much harsher on the final sentence, and all four of them looked at one another.
“All right,” Lieutenant Colonel Okiku said after a moment. “I’m here at Bryce’s invitation, Captain al-Fanudahi, but I understand this is basically your show. Would you like to start the ball rolling?”
“I can do that,” al-Fanudahi replied, leaning back against one of the tall chip storage cases. “But first, how much do you know about the way ONI is organized?”
“Not a lot,” Okiku admitted.
“Then I’d better give you at least the high points before I get into all this.
“ONI’s divided into four sections. Section One is Operational Analysis, where Irene and Bryce and I all work, one way or another, under Admiral Cheng. In theory, we’re responsible for analyzing operational data — our own and reports on other navies — in order to identify trends and potential operational problems or shortcomings. We’re also supposed to generate intelligence in response to specific requests or needs — for an operation against a specific opponent or star system, for example — which means we should have been the lead analysts for ‘Raging Justice.’
“Section Two is the Office of Technical Analysis, Vice Admiral Hoover’s bailiwick, which is supposed to provide OpAn with current information on tech developments — our own and those of the various system defense forces and other navies — to support our analyses. Section Three is the Office of Economic Analysis, under Captain Gweon, though he’s practically brand new, which is responsible for tracking economic trends and information of specific interest to the Navy. And Section Four is the Office of Counter Intelligence, Rear Admiral Yau’s shop.”
He paused to give her time to digest that, then shrugged.
“Basically, I’ve been pretty much considered the Office of Operational Analysis’ pet paranoiac for the last several T-years. I’ve had this peculiar notion that the Manties might actually be developing something new in the way of war-fighting technology. Ridiculous, of course. Everyone knows the invincible Solarian League Navy’s technology is superior to that of everyone else in the explored galaxy!”
His tone could have eaten holes in an engine room’s deck plates, Okiku noted, and his eyes were more bitter even than his voice.
“I’ll confess that not even I had a clue just how far ahead of us the Manties had actually gotten,” he continued. “And it wasn’t really that I had any brilliant insights about Manticore to prompt my suspicions, either — not when I started. What I did know, was that OpAn, Technical Analysis, and ONI in general didn’t have any damned idea what was really going on anywhere. That wasn’t our job anymore. Our job was to come up with the feel-good reports that would tell our superiors they were still masters of the universe.