Daasaa snorted, his gaze drifting to the bodies of the two Security officers Halaak had killed. "Sone
'eo'les rere not neant to 'e 'ree," he said contemptuously.
"Sometimes I wonder about that myself," Skyler conceded. "And you're welcome to think that we're not fit to be anything but Ryqril slaves if that makes you feel better. Only believe me when I tell you it's the only way."
Daasaa shook his head. "The high connand rill not acce't this," he said. "Re need the 'actories and rea'ons
'roduction lines."
"They're gone, Battle Architect," Skyler said. "Your weapons plants will be the first things we go after.
We'll infiltrate Whiplashed people and either take them over or blow them up."
"Thousands o' yaer 'eo'le rill die."
"So will dozens of yours," Skyler countered. "I've already said that you can hold on for a while if you really want to. But it'll cost you time and energy and people, none of which you can spare. And in the end you'll be forced out anyway."
He gestured up toward the sky. "Maybe you can win against the Chryselli while we're fumbling around trying to figure out who the mayor and governor and dogcatcher should be. Maybe you can't. But it's your only hope of avoiding a two-front war that you absolutely cannot win."
Daasaa snorted again, but this time it was a softer, more contemplative sound. "I rill take yaer 'ro'osal tae the high connand," he said. "They rill decide."
"Just tell them to decide quickly," Skyler warned.
"I rill take that nessage." Daasaa hesitated. "It rill take nearly a nonth tae recei'e a decision," he said.
"Rill yae halt yaer attacks until then?"
Skyler thought it over. Considering how miniscule an army they actually had at the moment, it would be a ridiculously easy promise to make. "Agreed, provided you take no action against us in the meantime," he said. "And provided you release the two Phoenix members you still have in custody."
"They rill 'e 'rought tae the western Athena gate taenorror norning," Daasaa promised without hesitation.
"Run o' they is injured and rill rekire an a'ulance."
"We'll have something ready." Skyler looked over at Flynn. "And tell the high command one other thing," he said. "There aren't too many of us left who lived through the war and remember what Ryqril are truly like. The younger generation doesn't, and their overall attitude toward you is probably pretty casual."
He lifted a warning finger. "But if you try destroying cities and slaughtering our people on your way out, they'll find out about you ... and when we and the Chryselli finally have you broken on the ground—and we will—you'll find out how vengeful we humans can be. Trust me; you do not want to see that."
Daasaa held his gaze without flinching. "I ha' said I rill take yaer 'ro'osal tae the high connand," he said evenly. "I can 'ronise nothing else."
"Then go," Skyler said. "Call a spotter from Athena and go."
For a moment Daasaa didn't move. Then, pulling a comm from his belt, he keyed it on and spoke a few words in Ryqrili. He was answered, said something else, then turned off the device and put it away.
"They rill cone," he said. He drew himself up to his full height, one last show of pride, and stared down into Skyler's eyes. "Re rill not neet again, hunan."
"No," Skyler agreed quietly. "We had better not."
Skyler had half expected a last-minute attempt at an ambush, either while Daasaa was still in their hands or just after he was taken away. But twenty minutes later, with the departing spotter a fading speck in the sky, there had still been no such move.
Perhaps the plumes of glowing smoke drifting across the darkening mass of Aegis Mountain had something to do with it. The Ryqril were rattled, straight down to the soles of their rubbery feet.
And Daasaa, battle architect, held the key to their only way out.
"When did you get to Ramirez?" Bailey asked.
Skyler turned from his contemplation of the distant smoke. "Excuse me?"
"I know when you treated General Poirot," Bailey said. "I want to know when you turned Lieutenant Ramirez."
Skyler shook his head. "We didn't."
Bailey's eyes widened. "But Halaak called him a traitor. He killed him, for God's sake."
"He killed Poirot, too," Skyler said. "But the general wasn't a traitor, either. Despite the Whiplash treatment, he was never actually working with us. On the contrary, he was working just as hard as he could to nail us to the wall."
"That's impossible," Bailey insisted, his disbelief turning to anger. "Your plan was too neat to have happened by accident. The rescue, and then—wait a minute. If Ramirez and the general weren't working for you, how did you get to the team we sent into Aegis Mountain?"
"We didn't," Skyler said, his heart tightening as his eyes drifted back to the smoke. "We had a man already in the mountain. Jensen—you might remember him from the last time. He's the one who wrecked the Ryqril base."
Bailey's face tightened as he looked across the clearing to where Hawking and O'Hara had moved the bodies of his fellow officers. "So it was all smoke and mirrors," he said bitterly. "You don't have any secret army waiting to rise up and take Earth back from the Ryqril."
"No, but we could," Skyler said. "We do have Whiplash, and it does work as advertised. But at the moment, no, we don't have more than a few people, and they're in very lowly places. The best we could get out of any of them was the spotters' radio system for us to use during the rescue."
"So Halaak killed Poirot and Ramirez for nothing."
"For absolutely nothing," Skyler agreed. "Which is really the final irony of this whole thing. Once we've proved we have Whiplash, and proved that it works, we almost don't even need to use it on anyone. The Ryqril will shoot at every shadow, real or not, until they've torn down their command structure and their rule all by themselves."
"Only you haven't proved it," Bailey countered. "Stolen radio frequencies apart, you haven't proved Whiplash's abilities at all."
"We haven't proved it here, no," Skyler said. "But with a little luck, Lathe and his team should have just finished proving it in a much more spectacular fashion on Khala."
Bailey frowned. "On Khala?"
"Don't worry about it," Skyler advised. "The point is that, one way or the other, this is the beginning of the end for Ryqril rule in the TDE." He raised his eyebrows. "The question you have to ask yourself is where you want to be standing when that happens."
Bailey's lip twisted. "What do you expect me to say?" he demanded. "I'm a loyal servant of the Ryqril and the TDE government. I could never even think of betraying them."
"Of course not," Skyler said. "Do you remember, Colonel, back at Reger's house when I said you and General Poirot were about to graduate from the third type of person to the fourth?"
"Yes," Bailey said, nodding. "I wondered what you meant by that."
"It's from something my high school physics teacher wrote in my yearbook," Skyler said, his mind drifting back to a distant, simpler past. A past before war and conquering Ryqril and blackcollars. "It goes this way: 'There are four types of people in the world:
" 'He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not. He is a fool; shun him.
" 'He who knows not, and knows that he knows not. He is simple; teach him.
" 'He who knows, and knows not that he knows. He is asleep; wake him.
" 'And he who knows, and knows that he knows. He is wise; follow him.' "
For a long minute Bailey was silent. "And what is it you think I know?"
"I don't know," Skyler said. "Life, maybe, or loyalty, or service, or sacrifice. The question is, how interested are you in finding out?"