They had taken the first cash payroll in midspace with devastating ease. Half of Miles's troops were Oserans, after all; several had even done the duty before. Presenting themselves to the Pelian courier as the Oseran pick-up had required only the slightest of adjustments in codes and procedures. They were done and far out of range before the real Oserans arrived. The transcript of the subsequent dispatches between the Pelian courier and the Oseran pick-up ship was a treasure for Miles. He kept it stored atop Bothari's coffin in his cabin, beside his grandfather's dagger. More to come, Sergeant, he thought. I swear it.
The second operation, two weeks later, had been crude by comparison, a slugging match between the new, more heavily-armed Pelian courier and Miles's three warships. Miles had prudently stepped aside and let Tung direct it, confining his comments to an occasional approving "Ah." They gave up maneuvering to board upon the approach of four Oseran ships. The Oserans were taking no chances with this delivery.
The Dendarii had blasted the Pelian and its precious cargo into its component atoms, and fled. The Pelians had fought bravely. Miles burned them a death-offering that night in his cabin, very privately.
Arde connected Miles's left shoulder joint, and began to run through the checklist of rotational movements of all the joints from shoulder to fingertips. His ring finger was running about 20% weak. Arde opened the pressure plate under his left wrist and pinned the tiny power-up control.
His strategy … By the third attempted hijacking, it was clear the enemy was learning from experience. Oser sent a convoy practically to the planet's atmosphere for the pick-up. Miles's ships, hovering out of range, had been unable to even get near. Miles was forced to use his ace-in-the-hole.
Tung had raised his eyebrows when Miles asked him to send a simple paper message to his former communications officer. "Please cooperate with all Dendarii requests," it read, signed, meaninglessly to the Eurasian, with the Vorkosigan seal concealed in the hilt of Miles's grandfather's dagger. The communications officer had been a fountain of intelligence ever since. Bad, to so endanger one of Captain Illyan's operatives, worse to risk their best eye in the Oseran fleet. If the Oserans ever figured out who had microwaved the money, the man's life was surely forfeit. To date, though, the Oserans held only four packing cases of ashes and a mystery.
Miles felt a slight change in gravity and vibration; they must be moving into attack formation. Time to get his helmet on, and make contact with Tung and Auson in the tactics room. Elena's tech fitted her helmet. She opened her faceplate, spoke to the tech; they collaborated on some minor adjustment.
If Baz was keeping his schedule, this was surely Miles's last chance with her. With the engineer out of the way, there was no one to usurp his hero's role. The next rescue would be his. He pictured himself, blasting menacing Pelians right and left, pulling her out of some tactical hole—the details were vague. She would have to believe he loved her then. His tongue would magically untangle, he'd finally find the right words after so many wrong ones, her snowy skin would warm in the heat of his ardor and bloom again …
Her face, framed by her helmet, was cold, austere in profile, the same blank winter landscape she had exhibited to the world since Bothari's death. Her lack of reaction worried Miles. True, she had had her Dendarii duties to distract her, keep her moving—not like the self-indulgent luxury of his own withdrawal. At least with Elena Visconti gone, she was spared those awkward meetings in the corridors and conference rooms, both women pretending fiercely to cold professionalism.
Elena stretched in her armor, and gazed pensively into the black hole of her plasma arc muzzle built into the right arm of her suit. She slipped on her glove, covering the blue veins like pale rivers of ice in her wrist. Her eyes made Miles think of razors.
He stepped to her shoulder, and waved away her tech. The words he spoke weren't any of the dozens he had rehearsed for the occasion. He lowered his voice to whisper.
"I know all about suicide. Don't think you can fool me."
She started, and flushed. Frowned at him in fierce scorn. Snapped her faceplate shut.
Forgive, whispered his anguished thought to her. It is necessary.
Arde lowered Miles's helmet over his head, connected his control leads, checked the connections. A lacework of fire netted, knotted, and tangled in Miles's gut. Damn, but it was getting hard to ignore.
He checked his comm link with the tactics room. "Commodore Tung? Naismith here. Roll the vids." The inside of his faceplate blurred with color, duplicate readouts of the tactics room telemetry for the field commander. Only communications, no servo links this time. The captured Pelian armor had none, and the old Oseran armor was all safely on manual override. Just in case somebody else out there was learning from experience.
"Last chance to change your mind," Tung said over the comm link, continuing the old argument. "Sure you wouldn't rather attack the Oserans after the transfer, farther from the Pelian bases? Our intelligence on them is so much more detailed …"
"No! We have to capture or destroy the payroll before the delivery. Taking it after is strategically useless."
"Not entirely. We could sure use the money."
And how, Miles reflected glumly. It would soon take scientific notation to register his debt to the Dendarii. A mercenary fleet could hardly burn money faster if the ships ran on steam power and the funds were shoveled directly into their furnaces. Never had one so little owed so much to so many, and it grew worse by the hour. His stomach oozed around his abdominal cavity like a tortured amoeba, throwing out pseudopods of pain and the vacuole of an acid belch. You are a psychosomatic illusion, Miles assured it.
The assault group formed up and marched to the waiting shuttles. Miles moved among them, trying to touch each person, call them by name, give them some personal word; they seemed to like that. He ordered their ranks in his mind, and wondered how many gaps there would be when this day's work was done. Forgive … He had run out of clever solutions. This one was to be done the old hard way, head-on.
They moved through the shuttle hatch corridors into the waiting shuttle. This must surely be the worst part, waiting helplessly for Tung to deliver them like cartons of eggs, as fragile, as messy when broken. He took a deep breath, and prepared to cope with the usual effects of zero-gee.
He was totally unprepared for the cramp that doubled him over, snatched his breath away, drained his face to a paper-whiteness. Not like this, it had never come on like this before—. He redoubled into a ball, gasping, lost his grasp on his grip-strap, floated tree. Dear God, it was finally happening—the ultimate humiliation—he was going to throw up in a space suit. In moments, everyone would know of his hilarious weakness. Absurd, for a would-be Imperial officer to get space-sick. Absurd, absurd, he had always been absurd. He had barely the presence of mind to hit his ventilator controls to full power with a jerk of his chin, and kill his broadcast—no need to treat his mercenaries to the unedifying sound of their commander retching.
"Admiral Naismith?" came an inquiry from the tactics room. "Your medical readouts look odd—telemetry check requested."