“Quite,” Chansa said. “He has been fighting the Gael and they are tricky opponents. I’ve promoted him twice for courage and initiative.”
“What say you, Tur-uck?” Reyes said, grinning at the orc. “Should you be killed as a bad product? Or are you a loyal and capable orc?”
“I am loyal, Master,” Tur-uck said, definitely. “I will be loyal to you beyond death!”
“Yours or mine?” Reyes mused. “Can you obey orders?”
“Always, Master,” Tur-uck said, then temporized. “I would obey any order from a Master or a Lesser Master, no matter what the order. I have twice disobeyed orders from legion superiors when I saw advantage to the Masters.”
“You see!” Celine shouted. “Untrustworthy!”
“And both times he was right,” Chansa noted. “He was the only one to survive that debacle in Norau, including Conner, and he brought word of what was happening. The other time he took charge of a sub-unit while fighting the Gael and mousetrapped a group of Chudai, which is tough as hell I’ll tell you.”
“Chudai?” Reyes said, his eyes widening. “You have Chudai in Gael? Those bastards…”
“We have Chudai,” Chansa ground out. “The Gael are bad enough, the Chudai are bastards to fight. The only time we’ve killed any number of them, it was when Tur-uck disobeyed orders.”
“If he can kill Chudai, he is good enough for me,” Reyes snorted. “Those bastards made our retreat from Alabad a nightmare. The Durgar hardly got a sniff of them until they attacked. They cut us up again and again.”
“They do the same to my legions,” Chansa sighed. “It’s one of the reasons Gael is such a tough nut, besides the Gael themselves, who are no joke. But Tur-uck has fought them and won. By thinking. Take him. You will need him.”
“And you don’t?” Reyes said, suspiciously.
“We’re… reconsolidating our forces,” Chansa said, clearing his throat.
“Retreating?” Reyes asked. “Since when?”
“Our intelligence is that Talbot intends to bypass Breton and hit the Ropasan coast directly,” Chansa said. “I’ve moved out of the Gael hills and am moving troops back to the Ropasan continent. We took quite a few casualties in Balmoran, so I need the troops.”
“We can make more Changed,” Celine said, shaking her head.
“The farming Changed can’t produce food for shit,” Chansa said. “I need the normal humans for support, not more useless Changed! I’m bleeding troops in a dozen directions, so I’m pulling back troops from Breton. My war, my decision!”
“I’ll take him,” Reyes said, cutting off the argument. “What else do you have for me?”
“We have one Dark One left,” Celine said, angrily. “I can’t make more until somebody captures me another elf or the pods grow to maturity, which will be at least five more years. You can have him. His name is Tragack.”
“And what else?” Reyes said, interestedly.
“Oh, I have a few ideas,” Celine said, smiling happily.
As she said that a scuttling sound began to come from the forest of pillars.
Chapter Twelve
“Tell Herzer I’m sorry as hell about this, Lieutenant,” Colonel Torill said, shrugging and gesturing at the paper on his desk. “I’d give you all sorts of reports to baffle you with bullshit, but the bottom line is that we’ve got nothing in the way of intel on New Destiny’s intentions. Anything that I told you, Herzer’d already know. Chansa and Celine are going to be involved. That means monsters and probably orcs. They have to take the ship and get the fuel. After that, zippo. There’s no mass movement going on, that’s for sure, but it’s a small unit action so that doesn’t affect you guys.”
“What about observation in and around the reactors, sir?” Destrang asked desperately. “That’s where they’ll have to board. It’s early, yet, but we might at least get a feel for their forces.”
“As far as I know, we have no such observers,” Torill sighed. “Most of them are deep in New Destiny territory and they’re surrounded by troops. Then there’s the problem of real-time intelligence. We’re talking about getting the message across oceans unless there’s a communicator involved and the way we’ve been rolling up New Destiny rings is communications. I’m sorry, son, but we’re screwed for intel.”
“Yes, sir,” Destrang said, gritting his teeth. He’d expected it to be bad, but not this bad. “I’ll head back to discuss this with my superiors, sir.”
“Do that,” Torill said, grinning. “And tell Herzer I said hello.”
“Yes, sir,” Destrang said, getting to his feet and nodding as he left the office.
Torill’s office was located in the special operations section of the War Department. The department had originally been in an ancient castlelike structure that over the millennia had served various purposes, most notably as a museum. As the need for more and more bureaucracy grew, or at least appeared to grow, buildings and wings had been hastily added to the structure and they now surrounded it in a giant growth that resembled nothing so much as an out-of-control cancer.
SpecOps was set well back from the main road, out on the fringe in more ways than one. The hodgepodge of buildings was cut by dirt roads, walkways, breezeways and cul-de-sacs in a chaos that had caused more than one unlucky ensign to wander into the office of a senior officer so confused he could barely remember his name.
Destrang had navigated the maze before but he only knew certain paths and stuck to them religiously. He was just passing out of the SpecOps section and into SouthWestern Command Logistics when he heard his name called.
“Destrang, right?” a colonel said, wandering over and putting a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Been looking for you, lad.”
“Yes, sir?” Destrang said, frowning slightly.
“Give me a moment of your time, lad?” the colonel said, gesturing towards one of the breezeways. “Shouldn’t take long.”
“Yes, sir, of course,” Destrang said. He briefly had a paranoid thought related to his current assignment, but he was in the middle of the War Department. If New Destiny could slip an agent in here it was one thing. Bashing a lieutenant over the head and smuggling him out was another.
“So what do you think of your new assignment?” the colonel asked bluffly. “Going to space and all that? Worked out the plumbing, yet, eh? Eh?” he added with a hearty laugh.
“I’m not sure what assignment you’re referring to, sir,” Destrang replied. “You’re here at the War Department?”
“Logistics old son,” the colonel said, grinning. “Bullock trains and whatnot. Done a bit of personnel work as well, you know, a commander works from sun to sun but a staffer’s work is never done, eh? Had my eye on you when you were in Officer Basic but you got scooped up by that old scamp Edmund, what?”
“I’ve met the duke, sir,” Destrang admitted. It was certainly open source.
“What do you think of working for Herrick, eh?” the colonel asked. They had passed through SouthWest Logistics and were now in Army logistics where the breezeway was somewhat more crowded.
Destrang considered that question and then nodded.
“Major Herrick is a good officer,” he allowed. “Do you know the major, sir?”
“Never met him,” the colonel replied, turning into a small building. He nodded at a heavy-set triari sergeant, then opened up an inner door. “He’s tighter than a gnat’s ass,” he added to the man behind the desk. “I’m not sure he’d have admitted his name if it wasn’t sewn on his uniform.” The colonel’s accent had drifted away and his manner had become brusque to the point of rudeness. If the person in civilian clothes behind the unadorned desk took offense it wasn’t apparent.