He heard Manpower’s professionals pouring into the embassy’s great vestibule. He could see the vestibule through the opening door.
There’s not supposed to be anybody here, except Bergren and a squad of Marines. Newbie recruits.
The huge hand holding him by the scruff of the neck tightened. He could sense the powerful muscles tensing, ready to hurl him into the room beyond.
“Don’t call me Rafe!”
“Hero of the Revolution! Posthumous, of course.”
He was sailing into the vestibule. He landed on his feet and stumbled. He stared at the Manpower professionals swinging their pulse rifles. Call them mercenary goons if you would, they were still trained soldiers. Ex-commandos. Hair-trigger reactions.
He was still trying to remember how to use the gun when the hailstorm of darts disintegrated him.
Thereafter
The admiral and the ambassador
Sitting behind his desk, Admiral Edwin Young glared up at the captain standing at attention in front of it.
“You’re dead meat, Zilwicki,” the admiral snarled. He waved the chip in his hand. “You see this? It’s my report to the Judge Advocate General’s office.”
Young laid the chip down, with a delicate and precise motion. The gesture exuded grim satisfaction. “Dead—stinking—meat. You’ll be lucky if you just get cashiered. I estimate a ten-year sentence, myself.”
Standing at the window with his hands clasped behind his back, Ambassador Hendricks added his own growling words.
“By your insubordinate and irresponsible behavior, Captain Zilwicki, you have managed to half-wreck what should have been our greatest propaganda triumph in the Solarian League ever.” Glumly, the ambassador stared down at the teeming streets and passageways over a mile beneath his vantage point. “Of course, it’ll blow over eventually. And Parnell will be giving his testimony to the Sollie Human Rights Commission for months. But still—”
He turned away, adding his own fierce glare to the admiral’s. The stocky officer who was the object of that hot scrutiny did not seem notably abashed. Zilwicki’s face was expressionless.
“Still!” Hendricks took a deep breath. “We should have been able to start the whole thing with a flourish. Instead—” He waved angrily at the window.
Young leaned forward across his desk, tapping the disk. “Instead, all everyone’s talking about is the so-called Peep–Manpower War. Who wants to watch testimony in a chamber, when the casters can show you a half-wrecked Peep embassy and a completely wrecked Manpower headquarters?” He snorted. “Not to mention the so-called”—his next words came hissing—“ ‘drama’ of Mesa’s slave revenge. With most of their pros gone, Manpower was a sitting duck. Especially with that terrorist Jeremy X on the loose. Christ, they didn’t leave anyone alive over there.”
For the first time since he’d entered the admiral’s office, Captain Zilwicki spoke.
“None of the secretaries in Manpower’s HQ were so much as scratched. Your Lordship.”
The glares were hot, hot. But, still, the officer seemed unconcerned.
“Dead—stinking—meat,” Young repeated, emphasizing each word. He straightened up. The next words came briskly.
“You are relieved of your duties and ordered to report directly to Navy headquarters in the Star Kingdom to account for your actions. Technically, you are not under arrest, but that’s purely a formality. You will remain in your private quarters until such time as the next courier ship is ready to depart. In the meantime—”
“I’ll be leaving immediately, Your Lordship. I’ve already made the arrangements.”
The admiral stumbled to a halt, staring at Zilwicki.
That moment, the admiral’s secretary stuck his head through the door. The admiral had deliberately left the door open, so that the entire staff could overhear his dealings with Zilwicki.
The secretary’s face was a mixture of concern and bewilderment.
“Excuse me for interrupting, Your Lordship, but Lady Catherine Montaigne is here and insists on seeing you immediately.”
The admiral’s frown was one of pure confusion. From the side, the ambassador gave a start of surprise.
“Montaigne?” he demanded. “What in the hell does that lunatic want?”
His answer came from the lunatic herself. The Lady Catherine Montaigne trotted past the secretary and into the room. She bestowed a sunny smile on the ambassador. Her cheerful peasant face clashed a bit with her very expensive clothing.
“Please, Lord Hendricks! A certain courtesy is expected between Peers of the Realm. In private, at least.”
She removed the absurdly elaborate hat perched on her head and fluttered it. “In public, of course, you’re welcome to call me whatever you want.” The smile grew very sunny indeed. “Now that I think about it, I believe I once referred to you as a horse’s ass in one of my speeches.”
The smile was transferred onto Admiral Young and grew positively radiant. “And I am quite certain that I’ve publicly labeled the entire Young clan as a herd of swine. Oh, on any number of occasions! Although—” Here the smile quirked an apologetic corner. “I can’t recall if I ever singled you out in particular, Eddie. But I assure you I will make good the lack at the very first opportunity. Of which I expect to have any number, since I’m planning a speaking tour immediately upon my return.”
It took a moment for the last few words to penetrate the indignation of the ambassador and the admiral.
Hendricks frowned. “Return? Return where?”
“To the Star Kingdom, of course. Where else? I feel a sudden overwhelming impulse to revisit my native land. Thinking of moving back permanently, in fact.”
She glanced at her watch. The timepiece seemed more like a mass of precious gems than a utilitarian object. It quite overwhelmed her slender wrist. “My private yacht departs within the hour.”
The smile was now bestowed on Captain Zilwicki. And what had been a radiant expression took on warmth as well.
“Are you ready, Captain?”
Zilwicki’s square head jerked a nod. “I believe so, Lady Catherine.” He peered at the admiral. “I think the admiral is finished with me. His instructions were quite clear and precise.”
Young gaped at him.
Zilwicki’s shoulders twitched in a minute shrug. “Apparently so. With your permission then, Your Lordships, I will do as I am commanded. Immediately.”
Young was still gaping. Hendricks found his voice.
“Zilwicki, are you mad? You’re in enough trouble already!” The ambassador goggled the tall and slender noblewoman. “If you return to Manticore in the company of this—this—”
“Peer of the Realm,” Lady Catherine drawled. “In case you’d forgotten.”
The smile made no pretense, any longer, of disguising its contempt. “And—in case you’d forgotten—I am thereby required to provide Her Majesty’s armed forces with my assistance whenever possible. That is the law, Lord Hendricks, even if that herd of Young swine and your own brood of suckling piglets choose to ignore it at your convenience.”
She laid a slim-fingered hand on the shoulder of the captain. As broad and short as he was, they made an odd looking pair. She was a good six inches taller than he. Yet, somehow, Zilwicki did not seem to shrink in the contrast. It seemed more as if Lady Catherine was in orbit around him.
“So—I must see to it that Captain Zilwicki is brought before the Judge Advocate General as soon as possible, to face the serious charges laid against him. And since I was leaving at once anyway, because of my other pressing responsibility to the Crown, I would be remiss in my duty as a peer if I did not provide the captain with transport.”