Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Five

Waiting and Watching

Colonel Austin Burnell

Alive … for now.

Having heard the grim report from Major Crawley and seen the size of the pool of blood on the floor of the conference room before the maintenance team set to work cleaning it, I was honestly expecting the worst.

But I suppose I should have expected that General Reed's grip on life would be tenacious. What kind of a life it will prove to be when he awakes is more problematic, and in the meantime I have Commodore Tucker to deal with. Perhaps it would be conceited of me to say 'guide', but I'm not yet aware of whether he has any suspicion yet of who was responsible for that faked communication which so nearly succeeded in what it was intended to achieve.

I myself have 'suspicions', reinforced by rather than based on what Lieutenant Cutler said. I can imagine no reason why she should accuse Admiral Hernandez if she didn't hold her responsible for sending the video, and there's no doubt that the deception was as clever as it was cruel; it might not have resulted in the horror that it has, but at the very least it was bound to have caused trouble. Presumably Hernandez felt that if her own involvement became known, as it almost certainly would, she could simply claim to have forwarded the message to Lieutenant Cutler 'out of compassion for a friend'. I have been aware of greater contact between the two women lately, but while a powerful senior female officer mentoring an influential younger woman might be unusual within the Fleet, it only becomes suspicious in light of recent events.

The deeply disparaging reference to Commodore Tucker (as well as the potential threat of what else might have been said after the clip closed) will bear intense scrutiny. At a guess, the known dislike between him and Admiral Hernandez is probably the reason why she failed to notify him that she had received such a recording, but if she believed it to be authentic, it was her duty to act on it by forwarding the message to Imperial Security for investigation. On the other hand, given her rank and the status of the others involved, namely General Reed and the commodore, she could understandably claim that she had been trying to avoid putting me in a compromising position by uncovering the unknown person to whom the general was supposedly speaking. (Whether she actually instituted an investigation would be irrelevant – she does not have access to experts like Jignesh; but in the event that her course of action was ever questioned, she could also add that in the event of ultimate failure she had intended to refer the matter to me regardless, knowing that I have better investigative resources at my disposal.) The commodore may have been able to detect that the recording was a forgery, but other such recordings may have been made and disseminated elsewhere, to those who have no means of knowing they are fake. It does not bode well for the stability of the Empire; in fact, depending on what was sent and to whom, it could present a threat of many orders of magnitude. The creation of such a recording was an act of such reckless daring that presumably the maker felt it worth the risk of what would happen if he or she was caught. I can only hope that the recognition of how great that risk was might have deterred them from making more.

There is, of course, the possibility that the admiral might have sent it to her as genuine, without herself being aware that it was not. On the whole I'm inclined to disbelieve this theory; Occam's razor may be a philosophical concept, but its premise that the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is the one most likely to be true fits into criminology quite as well as it does into philosophy.

Erika Hernandez is certainly one of the most powerful admirals in Starfleet. She may have made overtures of late that appear to suggest she's willing to come to an accommodation with General Reed, thus removing one of his most serious threats, but I've neither forgotten nor forgiven the occasion when her 'encounter' with Commodore Tucker was very nearly the end of him. At a guess, the commodore kept the details of the incident a secret from Reed – whether out of embarrassment or from an unwillingness to rock the Imperial boat, or even a combination of the two, I'm not in a position to speculate; I rather doubt that Hernandez would have survived this long if the general had known that her antics had almost been the death of the man who keeps Jupiter Station the powerhouse that it is. Maybe Tucker felt that leaving her in position was vital for the stability of an already rather unstable situation at the time, and that when Reed had consolidated his grip on power an accounting could then be demanded. I can't believe that he could simply have decided to let such an incident pass without any accounting at all.

Personally, I think that the admiral presents the severest threat yet to the peace of the Empire. If she could get rid of Reed, then Empress Sato would be utterly vulnerable. What would follow then is child's play to imagine: a forced marriage, a short shared reign and then either a tragic accident or an unexpected, fatal illness. The history of the throne's littered with such developments.

If I'm to make a move of my own, I must make it before that happens. Let Hernandez step up to the throne and the value of my discoveries is rendered all but worthless, except insofar as it renders Commodore Tucker completely vulnerable to her manipulation. If I'm to profit from both his and General Reed's removal, I have to beat her to the kill.

Sato herself, if she has any sense (and so far she's shown herself to have quite a decent grasp on reality) must know she can't continue indefinitely as sole ruler. Except for the extremely rare few women who've ever amassed a huge power base like Hernandez's, power in the Empire is a man's province. I've been waiting hourly for the announcement that General Reed is to mount the throne beside her, and I'm guessing that Admiral Hernandez has been waiting for much the same thing, with very different emotions. Presumably she now thinks that the announcement is imminent, and has acted to pre-empt it.

There was a time when, had I been an ordinary Human, I'd have regarded the possibility of General Reed becoming the Empress's consort with absolute dismay; it would have been equivalent to handing the keys of an enormous hen-house to a starving fox. Lately, however, his approach appears to have greatly moderated. His actions no longer suggest a man who regards any opposition as something to be steam-rollered by any means possible, but as something to be dealt with firmly within the law.

It introduces an element of regret into the necessity for destroying him. If I'd remained ignorant of the programme he and Commodore Tucker are carrying out, I might well have approved of his accession. As it is, it's now academic to dwell on what might have been.

Just as they are within the Pack, fairness and firmness are respected within the Empire. No doubt few people will altogether forget the spectacle of a man cut to ribbons in front of the television cameras as an object lesson of what happens to traitors, but most are of the opinion that convicted malefactors should be dealt with harshly. The fact that the general is now hard on those who deserve it rather than indiscriminately vicious to any and all opposition is swinging public opinion behind him, and even though the Empire can be in no wise described as a democracy, still public opinion carries weight. Sato will certainly be monitoring it carefully.

If the circumstances hadn't changed the way they have, and if he did somehow survive to take that final step, and we managed to fend off any attack from Admiral Hernandez, it would almost certainly have been good news for me. Though it wouldn't have meant any significant change to my hopes of supplanting him sooner or later, and everything I've found out about the smuggling operations from Jupiter Station would have become effectively useless (however praiseworthy my investigations may have been, he could simply issue a blanket pardon to the commodore and everyone else involved), the chances were that I'd have stepped up into his place as Head of Imperial Security. That in itself wouldn't have been something to be sneezed at, and after all it would have put me in an excellent position to watch him for weakness.

That watch is now superfluous. I have him and the commodore the moment I decide to move. But as yet, I'm holding my hand and watching how things play out.

Still, we have most of another day to get through before the situation clarifies itself. Commodore Tucker informs me that Doctor Lucas has placed the general in an induced coma to allow his traumatised body the best possible opportunity to begin recovery, and during that time we're appallingly vulnerable if we don't take the appropriate precautions.

Thus far, I've been thinking like a Human – like the MACO officer that I'm supposed to be. But another part of me, the Pack part, is raging at the attack on my alpha; not an honest attack, that would be accepted, understood and even applauded if successful, but a cowardly strike using a weapon he would never have suspected might be used against him. I admire Lieutenant Cutler, I respect her place among the Pack if not in it, and I'm filled with fury at the realisation that a woman who has done so much for our wounded service personnel has been used in this despicable way against the man she loves.

This is not Pack fighting. This is Human fighting. Treacherous and deceitful. Conniving. I despise it, and in this moment I despise them too. They should be ruled by Pack, to teach them courage and honesty, to teach them to look a man in the eye before you bury your teeth in his throat or feel his sinking into your own.

I've hesitated over whether to reveal what I know. Commodore Tucker has an impulsive side, and already has ample grounds for resentment and dislike towards Admiral Hernandez. But to leave him in the dark over a threat that is now so immediate is to risk everything. While General Reed is unconscious and at death's door, she may sweep in and destroy everything before I have time to make my move.

I hit the comm. button.

"Burnell to Commodore Tucker.

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