He looked back into the display as the shuttles began to lift, and his mouth curled in an ugly smile. The fact that the "pirates" had one of Fleet's cast-off CAs would spill no beans, but Intolerant's weapons would more than suffice to destroy the El Grecan ship if she got close enough to be a problem. Besides, she'd be … distracted after Intolerant nuked Raphael, and -
"Sir! The shuttles!" someone shouted, and Howell's face went white as the Stiletto teams opened fire.
Nine of his thirty-one surviving shuttles became falling fireballs as he stared at the display.
Admiral Simon Monkoto stood on the bridge of the destroyer Ardent, staring at the view screen, and his carved-marble face was white as the silver at his temples. There had been no way for Ardent to know what was happening on Ringbolt until she dropped sublight, but the radiation counters were going mad. Whoever had nuked Raphael had used the dirtiest warhead Admiral Monkoto had ever seen on the city … and on Arlen.
Dark eyes, hot and hating in his frozen face, moved from the view screen to the gravitic plot. He could have overhauled the raiders. It would have been close, even with their freighters to slow them, for his destroyer had been on the wrong approach vector, but he could have caught them.
And it would have done no good at all against a heavy cruiser.
He'd almost done it anyway, but he hadn't. He couldn't throw away his crew's lives-or his own. Even more than he wanted those ships, he wanted the people who'd sent them, and he couldn't have them if he died.
His jaw clenched, and he turned away. Ardent's last shuttle was waiting for him, waiting to take him down to the planet where his brother had died to do what he could. But he'd be back, and not with a single destroyer.
He promised himself that-promised Arlen-and his expression was as hellish as his heart.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Ching-Hai lay barely 14.8 light-minutes from the F5 star Thierdahl, with an axial tilt of forty-one degrees. It was also dry-very dry-with an atmospheric pressure only three-quarters that of Old Earth, all of which conspired to produce something only the charitable could call a climate. Alicia couldn't conceive of any rational reason to choose to live here, and not even Imperial Galactography knew why anyone had. The handbook's best theory was that the original settlers were League War or HRW-I refugees who'd found in Ching-Hai a world so inhospitable neither the Empire nor the Sphere would want it. As guesses went, that one was as good as any; certainly their descendants had no better one four hundred years later.
Which probably explained their attitude towards other people's laws. They had to make a living somehow, and their planet wasn't much help, she thought, crossing to the coffeemaker and watching with a corner of her brain while Megaira slipped them into orbit. They were a few hours early, and Alicia was just as glad. She'd recovered-mostly-from the experience Tisiphone had unleashed upon her, but she welcomed a little more time to settle down before she had to meet Yerensky's local contact.
She carried her cup back to the view port. Ochre and yellow land masses moved far below her, splashed with an occasional large lake or small sea. It all looked depressingly flat, and there were very few visible light blurs on the nightside. The one official spaceport was well into the dayside at the moment, but whoever was in charge hadn't even bothered to assign her a parking orbit, much less mounted any sort of customs inspection.
You didn't really expect one, did you? Megaira asked.
"No, but this is so … so-"
Half-assed? the AI suggested helpfully, and Alicia chuckled.
"Something like that. Not that I'm complaining. I don't know how Yerensky got those medical supplies out of the Empire and onto Maguire without any customs stamps, but I'd hate to try explaining it to someone else."
There would be no need. Alicia and Megaira both bristled, but the Fury sounded totally unaware of any resentment they might harbor. Their inspectors would see precisely what we wished them to, no more and no less.
Alicia didn't reply. She suspected herself of sulking, and she didn't really care. The reminder of all the unresolved hate and violence still locked away within her had frightened her. Not that she hadn't known it was there, but knowing and feeling were two different things, and -
Whups! Heads up, Alley-I've got our landing beacon.
"So soon?" Alicia's eyebrows rose.
Well, it's in the right general spot. A mental grid superimposed itself over Alicia's view of the planet, and a green dot winked on the nightside. There-about midnight, local time. And it's the right beacon code.
"I don't like it. Yerensky didn't say anything about night landings."
But neither did he say it would be a daylight landing, Tisiphone pointed out, and this time Alicia and Megaira were too intent on their problem to bristle. Indeed, there was no thought in his mind either way, so I would judge he trusts the discretion of his local agent. In that case, might there not be some valid reason for choosing to unload under cover of night?
"On this planet?" Alicia frowned. "I wouldn't've thought there was any reason to hide medical supplies. They're valuable, sure, especially on some of the lower-tech Rogue Worlds, but I can't see needing to hide them."
She hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged.
"Put on your Ruth face and ask for the countersign, Megaira."
On it, the AI replied. A few moments passed, then, They came back with the right response, Alley. Far as I can tell, this is them.
"Damn. Well, I guess we don't have much choice." Alicia sighed. "Load up the shuttle with the first pallets."
Yes, Tisiphone agreed, but I trust your instincts, Little One. May I suggest that this is a time for Top Cover?
"You may indeed," Alicia murmured, and felt Megaira's total agreement.
The cargo shuttle slid downward through the hot Ching-Hai night, cargo bay packed with counter-grav pallets, and Alicia lifted the combat rifle into her lap and slipped in a magazine.
Megaira and Tisiphone had both wanted her in battle armor, if for slightly different reasons. The AI worried about her safety, but the Fury wanted to see the armor in action, for its destructive capabilities fascinated her. Of the two, Alicia had found Megaira's argument more telling, yet she'd decided against it. No free trader could have gotten her hands on Cadre armor-Cadre Intelligence would have chased her to the ends of the galaxy to get it back if she'd tried-and someone might conceivably recognize it.
Besides, if some ill-intentioned soul was waiting for her, he faced certain practical constraints. His only objective could be her cargo, which meant he couldn't use anything big and nasty enough to take out the shuttle. She, on the other hand, had no compunctions about what she might do to him.
That sounds strangely little like "justice," Tisipohone jibed gently.
"On the contrary." Alicia jacked a discarding sabot round into the M-97's chamber and settled her left hand briefly on the forestock to activate its computer systems. "I won't do a thing to them unless they intend to do something to me."
Indeed?
"Indeed. But if they do have something planned, I intend to do unto them first."