Chapter 36: The Benevolent Spy?

After hearing that the battleship had been destroyed, Talia was glad she had been on the first batch of ships out of the system. She still hadn't trusted herself to pilot a ship under the circumstances, however, so she'd flown out on Jake's freighter. It was, however, chilly enough on Siberia that she prefered to stay inside a ship whenever possible. The Rabbits didn't seem particularly uncomfortable, though. She envied their fur.

The freighter hatch opened and a blast of cold air pricked Talia's skin. Mike and a woman she didn't recognize came in and closed the door behind them. The woman was wearing a navy blue pilot's jacket marked with the Death Dancer sign.

"Ah, there you are, Talia," Mike said. "I'd like you to meet Marina Shea. She just arrived from the Coventry system."

"A pleasure," said the woman. She sat down across from her, Mike leaning against the wall near the door.

Talia instinctively scanned her, and became quite glad she did so. Working under orders of the Empress herself? And not the Chancellor? That was interesting. And further that her intention was only to report whether the pirates intended to overthrow the Empire itself. Stranger still, Marina had no recognition of Talia's name, and apparently didn't know about her arrest or the bounty on her head. Talia decided to keep quiet for the moment.

"Have you heard anything about what a Koala named Blake is planning?" Talia asked, feigning innocence.

"No," Marina said. "I haven't heard of any such person."

"Yeah, that's the problem here," Mike said. "We've been trying to stop this Koala, but the Empire keeps interfering for some reason."

"What's he trying to do?" Marina asked.

"We believe he may be attempting to create super weapons with which to take over the galaxy," Talia said. "We suspect that he may be able to contrive some sort of weapon that could destroy or severely damage entire planets, if he isn't stopped."

"You're serious? I haven't heard anything about this," Marina said.

"It's thanks to Kalli that we got the prototype Nova away from him, or he may have already begun raiding the Karzan worlds," Mike said.

Whatever Marina had expected, this clearly was not it. Talia added, "It's too bad the Empire insisted on attacking us in Transylvania. We almost had our fleet ready to go track him down and destroy him. Now we pretty much have to start from square one again, giving him more time to get his own projects ready."

"Do you have any idea where he might be?" Marina asked.

"He was last seen on planet Darwin," Mike said. "He has no doubt moved on to a more secret location by now, after Kalli stealing that ship right out from under their noses."

"I.. heard about the incident up in Toronto. Was that you?"

"Yep, that was us," Mike said. "Kind of crazy, really. What kind of tactical idiot would try to solve any problem by just throwing peolple at it?"

"What do you mean?" Marina asked.

"Well, they didn't make any effective effort to stop us from leaving," Mike said. "They just threw a bunch of people in our way to make us have to cut our way through them and delay us. Seems kind of peculiar really. I wonder what they were really up to."

Marina was genuinely puzzled. "Ai! I always knew Primos threw away lives pointlessly, but I didn't realize they'd do something quite so utterly useless as to stop Death Dancers with sheer numbers."

"And not even just that," Mike said. "They might have succeeded if we were out in the open, but we had the tactical advantage of a hallway and a doorway. They couldn't even get close to us. They just kept throwing themselves at us."

"Okay, that's just stupid," Marina said. "Who the buttsex was in charge there?"

"The Chancellor," Talia said.

Marina blinked slowly. "Are you certain of that?"

Talia nodded ruefully. "Absolutely."

Marina frowned thoughtfully, leaning her elbow against the table. She seemed to believe them. "This is a most interesting turn of events," she murmured. "What are you intending to do next?"

"Set up a base in this system," Mike said. "Salvage what we can from Dracula Base. Secure the system from further incursions from the Empire. Prepare for battling Blake."

"We should be pretty safe here," Talia said. "They can't send a battleship through a jump hole, to be sure. They'd have to attack with fighters, and our Novas are more than a match for their fighters."

Marina nodded slowly. She was formulating a message to send back to the Empress. "I'll help in any way possible," she offered.

Mike nodded. "We've got freighters heading off to the fringe worlds to procure supplies. We're setting up a network of sensor buoys near the jump holes into the system to alert us to any intrudors. Right now, the Death Dancers are the last line of defense in this system. We should be able to hold off anything small enough to get through the jump holes without too much trouble, at least."

Marina nodded again. "I'll go confer with my wingmen. See you later."

"Bye," Mike said. Marina stood and opened the hatch. Talia shivered at the brief breath of cold air before Marina went outside and closed it again.

Once she was outside, Talia said, "She's a spy."

"What?" Mike said. "Why didn't you let me know earlier?"

"Don't worry," Talia said. "She's going to send a message back to the Empire. I suggest letting her wingman go without question."

"I'm confused."

"She's working for the Empress, not the Chancellor," Talia said.

Mike raised an eyebrow. "What difference does it make?"

"All the difference in the world," Talia replied distantly. "The Empress only wanted to know if we were intending to attack the Empire. And to leave us be if not."

"That's an interesting development," Mike commented. "So you think the Empress and the Chancellor aren't really working so closely together as you'd normally think they would be?"

Talia nodded. "So it appears. Marina is loyal solely to the Empress, and couldn't care less what the Chancellor says or thinks. She'd probably even kill him herself if there were sufficient evidence that he's working against the Empress."

"Damn, I didn't realize psykers could get that much information," Mike said. "I thought you could only read surface thoughts?"

Talia smiled softly. "You get to learn some shortcuts when you've been at it for years. You get all the dots, you just have to know how to connect them. That's why it's important to talk verbally about what you want to know more about. The information is much more likely to come to the surface that way. Now, the question is just what to do with that information..."