David Weber - Path of the Fury

Enough Elysium survivors had been interviewed to conclusively prove that Commodore Trang had been duped into letting the enemy into decisive range without even alerting the planet. The colonel had run every possible reason for such suicidal overconfidence through the tactical simulator, and only one of them made any sense. The pirates had to have been detected on the way in, and that meant they had to have been identified as friendly. And, given the high degree of alert the entire sector had maintained for months, no system commander could have been fooled. Therefore, the incoming warship must have been friendly … or else have arrived at such a time and under such circumstances that Trang's people had very good reason to "know" it was.

So. Either it had been a real Fleet unit, or else it had timed its arrival to coincide with a scheduled arrival by something that was. Only there had been no scheduled traffic. McIlheny knew, for he'd personally read every official communication to Elysium. There were many ways pirates could have gotten their hands on ex-Fleet hulls-some members of the Ministry had argued for years that Fleet disposal policies were badly in need of overhaul-yet that wouldn't have helped without proper transponder codes and a scheduled arrival. A low-level agent might have provided the codes or, at least, enough data to cobble up something that looked legitimate, but no one below flag rank could have engineered a false shipping report to open the door.

No. Someone of the rank of commodore or-McIlheny shuddered-higher must have inserted a fake schedule into Trang's routine message traffic. Someone with access to the authentication protocols required to sneak it in and the ability to extract and wipe the routine acknowledgment Trang must have sent back. Worst of all, someone who knew there would be no heavy units in the system when the raiders arrived.

The penetration was worse than he'd thought. It was total. Whoever was behind it must have access to his own reports and Admiral Gomez's complete deployment orders-must even have known El Greco was pulling its units out of Ringbolt for maneuvers.

He closed his eyes in pain at the scale of the treason that implied, but it wasn't really a surprise. Not anymore.

All right. No more than forty people had access to all of that data, and he knew precisely who they were. Any one of them might, conceivably, have passed it to someone outside the loop who had the command authority to doctor Trang's starcom traffic, but if they could do that without his spotting them, their chain of communications had to be both short and hellishly well-hidden. In his own mind, it came down to no more than a dozen possible suspects … all of whom had passed every security check he could throw at them. It couldn't be one of them, and at the same time, it had to be.

He straightened and lifted a chip from his desk, weighing it in his fingers. Thank God he'd arranged a link to Keita. He was becoming so paranoid he no longer completely trusted even Admiral Gomez, and the deadly miasma of distrust and fear was getting to him. He'd started seeing assassins in every shadow, which was bad enough, if not as bad as the sense that nothing he did could stop the inexorable murder of civilians he was sworn to protect.

But worst of all was his absolute conviction that whatever twisted strategy lay behind these "pirates" was winding to its climax. Time was running out. If he couldn't break this open-if he was not permitted to live long enough to break it open-the vermin orchestrating the atrocities were going to succeed, and that was obscene.

He stood, face hard with purpose, and slipped the chip into his pocket beside the one already there. One would be dropped into his secret pipeline to Keita; the other would be delivered to Admiral Gomez, and both contained his conclusion that someone of flag rank was directly involved with the raiders. But unlike the one to Keita, Admiral Gomez's stated unequivocally that he would know the traitor's identity within the next few weeks.

Benjamin McIlheny was a Marine, bound by oath and conscience alike to lay down his life in defense of the Empire. He would deliver those chips, and then he would take a little vacation time … without extra security. It was the only way to test his theory, for if he was right, the traitor couldn't let him live. The attempt to silence him would confirm his theory for Sir Arthur, and Sir Arthur and the Cadre would know what to do with it.

And who knew? He might actually survive.

Alicia took another swallow and decided she'd been wrong; Ching-Hai did have one redeeming feature.

She rolled the chill bottle across her forehead and savored the rich, clean taste of the beer. Monsieur Labin's offices boasted what passed for air-conditioning on Ching-Hai, but the temperature was still seven degrees higher than the one Megarea maintained aboard ship. No doubt the climate helped explain the locals' excellent breweries.

The old-fashioned office door rattled, and she straightened in her chair, lowering the bottle as Gustav Labin, Yerensky's Ching-Hai agent, stepped through it. Unlike Alicia's, his round, bland face was dry, but he didn't even crack a smile as she wiped a fresh drop of sweat from her nose. Not because he lacked the normal Ching-Haian's amusement at off-worlders' want of heat tolerance, but because he was afraid of her. Indeed, he regarded her with a certain fixed dread, as if she were a warhead which might choose to. detonate any time. He'd been looking at her that way ever since he arrived to find her sitting amid the ruins of the botched hijacking. Tisiphone had needed only a single handshake to confirm that Labin had known nothing of his (now deceased) partner's intentions … and that "Captain Mainwaring's reputation as a dangerous woman had been made forever.

Now he lowered himself into his chair and cleared a nervous throat.

"I've completed the manifest verification, Captain. It checks perfectly, as-" he hastened to add "-I was certain it would." He drew a credit transfer chip from a drawer. "The balance of your payment, Captain."

"Thank you, monsieur. It's been a pleasure." Alicia kept her face straight, but it was hard. Those poor, half-assed hijackers had been totally beyond their depth. Killing, even in self-defense and even of scum like that, never sat easily with her afterward, yet Labin's near terror amused her. If he ever saw a regular Cadre assault he'd die on the spot.

"And the universe would be a better place for it," Tisiphone observed. "This man is a worm, Little One."

"Now, now. He's all of that, but he's also our ticket to Dewent … whenever he gets around to mentioning it"

The Fury sniffed, but it was her probe which had discovered Labin's shipment. Given its nature and the stature Alicia enjoyed in his eyes, they hadn't even had to "push" him into seeing her as the perfect carrier.

"Ah, yes. A pleasure for me, as well, Captain. And allow me to apologize once more. I assure you neither Anton nor I ever suspected my colleague might attempt to attack you."

"I never thought otherwise," Alicia murmured, and he managed a smile.

"I'm glad. And, of course, impressed. Indeed, Captain, I have another small consignment, one which must be delivered to Dewent, and your, um, demonstrated expertise could be very much a plus to me. It's quite a valuable cargo, and I've been concerned over its security. Concerned enough," he leaned forward a bit, "to pay top credit to a reliable carrier."

"I see." Alicia sipped more beer, then shook her head. "It sounds to me like you think your 'concern' could end in more shooting, monsieur, and I prefer not to carry cargoes I know are going to attract hijacks."

"I understand entirely, and I may be worrying over nothing. Certainly I have no solid evidence of any danger. I merely prefer to be safe rather than sorry, and I'm willing to invest a bit in security. I thought, perhaps, an increase of fifteen percent over your fee to Anton might be appropriate?" "My fee to Mister Yerensky didn't include combat expenses," Alicia pointed out, "and shuttle missiles are hard to come by out here. I expect replacing expenditures to cut into my profit margin on this trip."