Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

“Mind?” said Dendridan. “We’d be delighted. Please send word to your people, and ask if they’d like a diplomatic escort.”

Peter laughed. “I can already tell you, the answer is yes. But the way Pew drives, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got here before your escort reached them.”

Dendridan hissed a chuckle and spoke into his com-unit. “It is on its way,” he said with a nod.

“Thank you,” Harriet whispered.

“And now,” said the Narseil, “weren’t you almost ready to make that posting to the net?”

Harriet forced her gaze back to the screen, scanning the work they had done. “Yes,” she said softly, and reached out to begin the transmission.

Jenkins Talbott poured himself a double shot of lace-bourbon and sat back in front of the com-console in his living room. The news feeds were coming in, and they were damned depressing.

Especially after his dressing down today, with Colonel Paroti and a few others, right there in the Strength offices…

“…What the hell’s the matter with you people? You call yourselves soldiers? Officers? I send you on a few errands, and you can’t get even the simplest, most basic things done right!” It was Ottoson North at his most arrogant—and since the man usually never even let himself be seen or associated with them in any way, you knew he was pissed. He’d been lighting into one of them after another. Now it was Talbott’s turn. “You!” North pointed a finger right at Talbott’s face. “You can’t grab a comatose woman without getting shot to pieces—and then you come away empty-handed? Are you just incompetent, or were you trying to screw up?”

“Well, it wasn’t quite like that—”

“And you!” North, ignoring Talbott’s protests, turned next on Paroti. “I ask you to stop a van—a fucking van! How hard can that be? And you botched that one, too, even though I told you it was urgent, but you fucked it up, and now I’ve got this Mahoney bitch spreading lies about me all over the fucking worldnet!”

“We did our best, Commissioner,” Paroti said, his face as red as a beet. “But since we were forbidden to use weapons…”

“Excuses! Don’t give me excuses,” North said in disgust. “Well, now we’re knee-deep in shit. Listen, if I need your help, I expect you to be ready to jump when I say jump. Let’s see if you morons can do it right, next time.”

“Of course, sir,” Paroti muttered. “If I might say—”

But North’s holoimage had already winked out, leaving Paroti, Talbott, and other loyal Strength officers standing stunned…

Humiliated.

Angry.

They didn’t deserve this kind of crap.

Talbott squinted, sighing, looking around his living room as if he’d never seen it before. God, what a shithole. Had it always been this bad? Empty food cartons, dirty clothes, and data-cubes everywhere—not quite the military spit and polish. The damned place looked like it was going to seed. But then, so the fuck what? His living room was no one’s business.

Talbott was still angry, very angry. And why shouldn’t he be? North wasn’t even the worst of it. Everything just kept going from bad to worse. His shoulder hurt like christo from the thistlegun wound. Thistlegun , for chrissakes! The Fabri dinks! Who’d’ve expected them to butt in? They’d damn near killed him. And though he’d bite off his tongue before he’d admit it in public, he owed his life to Lieutenant Bitch, who’d pulled him to safety.

His pride hurt more than his shoulder, though. All these years he’d worked to get where he was in the org; and just when it was starting to count—they finally had the makings of a decent assault fleet for when the time came to use it—everything just went to shit. Not just his personal pride, either; his pride in Strength, too. They’d failed to grab Maris O’Hare; they’d failed the grab of Harriet Mahoney; and now Mahoney was just warming up with her skewering of Ottoson North, who could spill a hell of a lot more than those yokels on the outside knew. Talbott never did trust the bastard. But if North went down talking, he could take a lot of people with him—Talbott included. He’d managed to keep from being publicly connected with Strength so far (not counting that horseshit a couple years ago about the arms sales, but that had blown over). The heat was on now, though. With Mahoney putting that stuff out on the net, people were coming out of the woodwork to back it up.

Talbott paged grimly through some of the accusations that were making the rounds. Bad stuff. With the vultures of the press on it, Strength could be in some serious trouble. They weren’t ready yet to make their move for control of the government—and now it might never happen.

He paused to take a long pull on his lace-bourbon. Shuddering as it went down, he morosely turned the glass in his hand, glaring at the reddish-orange liquid, waiting for the burning to subside. Why the hell did he drink this stuff, anyway? Because it feels good, once you get over that first belt … He shrugged and took another swallow.

Come to think of it, he reflected through the numbness, North was the cause of a lot of Strength’s troubles—besides just being a supercilious asshole. No one in command wanted to talk about it, but it was true. Ever since that rigger escaped from Carlotta—and North blew it as far as keeping Legroeder out of trouble—everything had gone to hell in a handcart. Everything the dedicated Strength members had been working for, for years and years… just slipping away like sand through your fingers.

Christ, look at this stuff on the net…

Talbott didn’t mind if North himself went down. But somebody was going to have to watch real close , to make sure the rest of them didn’t go with him.

He drew a deep breath, pulled the keypad into his lap, and began typing instructions to his group leaders. Maybe Command was paralyzed by this—he’d gotten no answers to his questions about what the hell they should be doing to respond—but at least he could get his own crews ready. “ …Essential to be prepared for any eventuality. If group security is compromised, we must be ready to act independently. All militia units, ground and space, are to be at full state of readiness. This is what we trained for, people…”

When you got right down to it, Talbott reflected, it was possible that someone would have to be prepared to silence North. The thought gave him goose bumps; he didn’t like the idea of removing a commanding officer, even one who fucked up this bad. But it might have to be done. And it would take someone who cared more about mission and destiny, and about Centrist Strength, than about his own life.

Jenkins Talbott had never been afraid of sacrifice. That was really what it was all about, right? Damn straight.

He squirted the message and scanned more of the news feeds with growing gloom, and hardening determination.

He took another swallow of lace-bourbon.

Yeah, sacrifice is what it’s all about. No guts, no glory…

Maris O’Hare arrived that evening, brought in by Morgan and Peter’s men. She looked pretty shaky, and more than a little wary, but Morgan had spent the trip back to Elmira briefing her on what their relationship was to Legroeder—and why they’d had to take refuge in the Narseil embassy. Maris was a dark-haired, muscular woman; but she looked hurt, and walking was obviously an effort. Her face was lined, her neck bandaged, her eyes tired and wary. It was a wonder she was alive at all. She followed the embassy staff to a room where she could rest while they all got acquainted. The rapid appearance of a robodoc and a Narseil physician seemed to reassure her.