"You know there once was freedom
You know how dangerous that can be
The people used to dance and sing
and they used to run wild in the streets"
--The Clash, Dictator
*
Admiral Lord Phillipe Vorventa was shorter than he had looked on the vid, with black hair and broad features. He was not a handsome man, by any means. Even aside from his unfortunate scrawniness, his face had that slightly inbred look all Barrayarans had to one extent or another in spades. She raised her hand and he kissed it with dry lips.
General Laisner did not kiss her hand – he was not Vor. She vaguely recalled his family background was in trade, making him well suited to understanding the political side of the Komarran occupation. He was flanked by Colonel Eliopoulos, a powerfully built man who Laisa immediately picked out as the most dangerous of the three. The weight of the nerve disruptor at her hip was surprisingly reassuring. Gere, having completed his escort duty, returned silently to her side.
"You're not at your posts, gentlemen," she said. They were unarmed, which was a testament to either their good intentions or their overconfidence. She had a sudden moment of unease. Had she and Galeni misjudged the threat of a coup? What was actually going on? Staring up, she caught Vorventa's eye as he straightened. "Is there an issue?"
The admiral and the general exchanged a look. "We've discovered information that leads us to believe the Emperor was betrayed from within," Vorventa said. His voice was vibrant and commanding… and agitated.
"Explain," Laisa said.
"Milady, you have been misled by your advisers," the admiral said. He pointed one skinny finger at Galeni, who almost flinched. "That man is a terrorist, and the son of terrorists. He is the one who has betrayed Admiral Vorkosigan to the enemy, because…"
"Admiral, I don't believe–" she interrupted.
"Because," Vorventa huffed, "He's not Galeni, he's Galen! From that family of outlaws. He knows these sociopaths, he worked with them on Earth."
Duv did not deny the accusation. How could he? Laisa blinked, stunned, as pieces fell into place. It was blazingly obvious, if only in retrospect. What else could he be, this well-spoken officer with a rebel past and a Barrayaran-style name? He'd subtly lied about who he was to get to his current post. Was he lying about everything?
Laisa had seen how far Galeni would go in the service of the Empire, but could even that be a front for his true intentions? She frowned, disturbed.
Vorventa looked around the room. "He killed men, in the Revolt. It's in his file. He confessed it to Lord Auditor Vorkosigan many years back, but the Vorkosigans suppressed it. Playing their integration game. And look what their charity has brought them!"
He wasn't trying to convince her, Laisa realized. He was trying to convince the men of ImpSec Komarr. And who was Duv to them, but an upstart set above them? These men had spent their lives rooting out Komarran terrorists. They were primed to see them in every park, in every apartment building.
She'd thought Rathjens loyal, to stay at his post while the others came here. Was he instead shrewd? After all, either way this turned out he won. Her father had realized when he stepped into this building that he was on enemy ground. She was slowly realizing it herself.
Aside from Duv, she was the only Komarran in the room.
She took a deep breath. If they had tried to convince her, she might have listened, but they weren't doing that. They were trying to incite a mutiny with soft words and slander, and they would have no more use for her after they'd destroyed Galeni than before.
"Commodore Galeni, do you have any answer to these men's allegations?" she asked, trying to reassert control of the room. He'd dealt with being the sole Komarran in his military peer group most of his life. Surely he was better at this sort of improvisation by now than her.
"Why don't you blame your colonel for being Greek while you're at it?" Galeni said to Vorventa and Laisner. There was a quiet rage behind his eyes, something Laisa had never seen in him before. He looked at her. "I'm no traitor, Laisa. They're not accusing me of anything specific except being foreign, and I can't deny that."
This is your home planet, Duv, Laisa thought.
"Milady," Laisner said, "you may have understandable sympathies with this man, but we must insist that you let us military officers handle these matters."
That was it. "If you're going to play shoot the Komarran, how about you start with the ones that aren't on your side," she said. Her voice was arctic. "All three of you are letting terrorist expatriates run rampant through the High Consulate while you conduct this little witchhunt. Never mind that the failure wasn't in ImpSec Komarr, but the military defense of Solstice…General. I am not amused." She stared up into Laisner's eyes to press the point home, wondering if she was laying on the ice queen act too much. This would be so much easier to pull off in spike heels.
There was still a dangerous fire behind Duv's eyes. He moved to stand beside her.
"The operation to rescue the emperor cannot be…" Eliopoulos gestured a little with one hand, searching for the right word "…rushed. Need to know where he is." Not a native English speaker, his voice was heavily accented.
"And if you'd been listening," Laisa said, pointing at the vid-projection, "he would have told you because he mentioned it not thirty seconds ago. I'm half-minded to turn control of the military over to Naismith. He at least seems to know what he's doing."
Naismith was saying something quietly to his brother, pointing upwards. Vorkosigan nodded. "We're reaching diminishing returns," he said and shot the Komarran man with his stunner. Wincing as he stood, he leaned for a moment on his cane.
"Diminishing," Naismith said. He rolled his tongue thoughtfully. "Diminishing, diminishing, diminishing." With every repetition his voice drew closer to the Equinox brogue his brother had feigned, until he at last duplicated it. "Huh. Where'd you pick that one up?"
"I don't mean any offense, but that's…" Fazliu searched for a word.
"Creepy?" Naismith asked.
"Yes."
Laisa silently agreed. Eliopoulos, watching this, snorted. "The little boys should get out of the way," he said. "They might get hurt."
"Milady, you are overreaching your proper role as the mother of the heir." Admiral Vorventa said. "You are not qualified to make decision about military matters."
"Bordering on treason, Vorventa," Galeni growled. "Go back to your fleet. We'll have no coups here."
Laisa stared up at the admiral. "The question is simple," she said. "Will you obey me, or not?"
"You are not…" he began.
"Armsman, arrest this man," she said pleasantly. Both her guards stepped forward.
"Now wait one moment," Laisner said indignantly, appealing to the room. "You're Barrayarans. You're not going to stand for this!"
"That one too." Luckily, she had two armsmen.
Vorventa was not quite stupid enough to fight Gere, but he stared at her with fury. Eliopoulos made no move to intervene; he looked amused.
"I know a mutiny when I see one," she said, stepping closer. With quiet satisfaction, she watched as Galeni's men took the two officers away. Duv himself was looking uncomfortable – he was still getting suspicious looks from his staff.
"Are you going to give me any trouble, Colonel?" she asked the remaining member of their party.
"Oh, no." he said. She gave him a hard look. Despite his air of comfortable backcountry idiocy, no Greek hick got to his rank without being seriously talented. Laisa was tempted to arrest him too.
"Take your men and Vorventa's back to the Consulate and put yourself under General Rathjen's authority," she said instead. "We need to be able to move on a moment's notice."
"Might be tricky. The marines will not be happy."
"Then you'll have to be clever."
He gave her a wicked little grin. "We will get your husband out. No worries. Everything back the way it should be."
"I do hope you're right," she said. "Commodore, please have someone escort him out."
On the vid, Naismith's crowd was moving again with purpose. Laisa recognized the wide, curving corridor in the south end of the building, even though the windows were shuttered due to the security lockdown. The quarters she and Gregor had been using were nearby.
"Actually, the liege status is important," Vorkosigan was saying to Fazliu. "Even with those Komarrans upstairs. There's vastly different penalties for subjects and foreigners, and the categories aren't as clear-cut as you'd think. Many expats surrendered their shares and citizenship in exchange for keeping their other assets in an amnesty program the government offered. Moretti, even, though that won't save him."
"I didn't think… oh, Lutang did, right." Naismith said. "That whole area of law is a serious headache and has come close to getting me killed once or twice." His eyes gleamed. "But yeah, we've been waiting to spring that on Dag for years."
Vorkosigan pulled up. The corridor ahead of them was strewn with bodies, in undress greens, black fatigues and two liveries. Blood and plasma burns streaked the hallway.
"Well, we're here," he said hollowly, picking his way over a corpse. Bloody booted footprints tracked away from the scene.
"Where's Mother?" Naismith hissed.
"Father mentioned she was alive, somewhere," Vorkosigan said. "I need to get to the secure comconsole here in his quarters."
Naismith crouched by a body wearing maroon and gold livery, checking for life signs. The Vordarian heir had a post in the colonial government, Laisa recalled vaguely. He moved on to a man in Barrayaran uniform whose face was a river of blood. Staring down a moment, he said "This man's been tortured."
Vorkosigan paused in the doorway, his face a mask.
"He was ImpSec, that's probably why," the admiral continued. "His Horus-eyes got shoved through his eyeballs."
Fazliu edged away a little.
"Somebody went and made sure all these people were dead." Naismith sighed. He looked at another fallen man in brown and silver, seeming bitter and pensive.
"These are all Barrayaran bodies." Fazliu said. "Were they all killed just like that?"
"The winners recover their dead." Naismith pointed. "Someone was wounded or worse there, but men in armor versus men without doesn't work too well. I think the mercenaries came through on the first sweep and the Komarrans after that." He shook his head. "I still don't understand. It doesn't add up."
"What doesn't?" Fazliu asked.
"Costs for an operation like this. The money. Too much to all be laundered through Obis. That little punk said they came at us through Sergyar and the Reach and that doesn't make sense either."
"There's plenty of reasons to use the Reach as a point of attack," Vorkosigan said. "Especially if you want to cover your trail. The Komarrans needed to escape the surveillance on them."
"I was just out there," Naismith said. "This isn't five years ago. It's about the most militarized border in the Imperium right now. You can't get a mercenary mother ship and four drop shuttles through without being searched."
"Bribes, perhaps," Lord Vorkosigan said. "Or our systems were compromised."
"The risk/reward just doesn't work out. It'd be easier to go in through Escobar or Pol or Rho Ceta." Naismith shook his head. "What idiot would take this sort of contract? It's a suicidal death pact. They won't get out. Moretti can't win. He might be able to force Barrayar into civil war, but an independent Komarr is a delusion. Its neighbors are too powerful and too close, and its population is too tiny."
"Moretti's not thinking rationally," Vorkosigan said. "Or politically. Unfortunately, that makes him even more dangerous."
Naismith frowned. "I keep coming back to the Cetagandans, as I try to work this out. Benin knew more than he was telling."
"Yes, I thought so as well."
Footsteps echoed from the direction they'd come. Taura unslung her massive gun, but the man who approached them at a dead run was no Komarran. His black and silver livery was intimately familiar to Laisa, and she even knew his name, Vandyke. He had a weapon out, but was nervously looking behind him and didn't notice the group for several seconds. He stopped twenty feet away, stared wildly at Taura, and then noticed the Vorkosigan armsmen.
"What's goin-" Lord Vorkosigan started.
The thud of boots echoed from around the corner. The armsman's eyes widened. "No, run, I'm being..."
Sergeant Taura's head jerked up. A plasma arc bolt screamed over everyone's head.
"Fuck," Lord Vorkosigan breathed. About a dozen heavily armored men and women came down the corridor towards them.
"Down," the leading man snarled. "Drop your weapons. Hands where I can see them."
Vorkosigan stiffly motioned the group to comply.
Naismith was concealed from the newcomers behind the armsmen and his bodyguard. The admiral eased his nerve disruptor out of its holster, thought better of it, and eased it back in. He crouched to the floor, looking between Taura's legs at the intruders, silently counting. His eyes screwed shut, and for a moment he looked utterly bleak.
The gray matte armor of the mercenaries was unmarked and unadorned, but two men had more complicated helmets than the others. Another woman, near the back, was wearing a white armband marked with a crescent in red.
"Ah," one of the leaders said. "Armed resistance. Cute." The accent was Komarran. A fringe of straight black hair stuck out from his command helmet, framing his sallow face. "Hello again, Lord Vorkosigan. I take it those corpses back there are thanks to you?" His eyes narrowed at Naismith's bodyguard. "Drop the gun."
"Shit, it's Sergeant Taura," a female mercenary said, brushing forward through the crowd. Her face was barely visible behind her helmet, obscured by a translucent gray hood with a silvery net of wires running through it.
"I am fast enough to take out three of you before you can kill me," Taura growled. She bared her teeth in defiance, still brandishing her massive plasma cannon.
"Yeah, but you'll be paste," the officer said. "I know you're there, Naismith. You're not fooling anyone."
"You're in serious breach of contract, Lieutenant Moretti," Naismith's voice was flat and nearly murderous as he stepped out from around his bodyguard. A few of the mercenaries shifted, their eyes intensely focused on him. "As I'm sure you know."
"Captain Moretti," he said. Laughter danced in his dark eyes. "You're behind the times. Wasn't expecting you to show up."
"I thought I might see you here, Mike," Naismith said, his voice a soap bubble of calm on an underlying sea of incandescent fury. "I wasn't expecting you to drag nearly a hundred people to hell with you." He looked at the woman who had spoken up. "You've been betrayed, Phillipi. Do you realize it yet?"
The younger Moretti smiled, "I've seen you work before, Miles. You're brilliant at making something from nothing, but that only works on the unsuspecting. You've got nothing. Tell your sergeant to put the gun down, and I promise not to toss you to the Cetas."
"No wonder that ship was on the cleared list," Galeni breathed. "It's one of Naismith's."
"That's not true," Naismith said. "Taura is perfectly capable of killing you, leaving your motley crew at loose ends. They might even start to realize you don't have an exit plan here. You never did."
Moretti smiled again. "You've played the victory or death game yourself. Dagoola. That suicide rush through the Reach. I watched and I learned. Sometimes the stakes are important enough."
"A new set of martyrs, for a new Komarr," Lord Vorkosigan said, very dry. "I don't suppose you asked for volunteers."
"Oh, we'll win," Moretti said. "Regardless." He drew his needler.
Naismith crossed his arms. He was facing away from Fazliu, and his expression was thus invisible, though he seemed to be looking past Moretti at the other troopers.
"Uh, Mike...," the mercenary woman Phillipi said. The dark-skinned man wearing the other command helmet looked sideways at Moretti.
"You don't seem to be surrendering, Naismith." The needler swung to point at Lord Vorkosigan's head. "Please correct that, now."
"You shoot him and I rip your head off," Taura snarled, coiling back to a anticipatory crouch. Her teeth were bared, and the pure threat in her tone made Phillipi take a step back. A few of the other troopers aimed at her.
"This is going to end badly," Galeni whispered.
"You do not want to play this game with me, Mike," Naismith said after a moment.
Moretti sneered. And then a lot of things happened at once.
A blue bolt from behind the vid perspective hit Moretti, splashing harmlessly off his armor. The mercenary captain's finger tightened on the trigger, but Taura was a blur of motion, hitting him in the chest.
Moretti's needler fired. Lord Vorkosigan collapsed. Phillipi nearly shot at the holocam - at Fazliu? - but instead scrambled back as Taura hooked her claws into the back of Moretti's armor and scythed two other mercenaries out of the way to smash him headfirst against a wall. Two people shot at her with plasma arcs, but she was faster, using the mercenary captain's armored body as a shield. The shots harmlessly diffused off his portable plasma mirror.
"Hold fire!" the other mercenary commander snapped. "For God's sake put him down, Taura."
She looked back at Naismith, smoldering. Naismith looked down at his brother.
"Framingham, you fucking..." The armor was good. Moretti was still conscious, though he'd lost his helmet after Taura sprung the catches.
Lord Vorkosigan wasn't moving. Naismith crouched down by his bleeding brother and gently borrowed his stunner. Walking up to the mercenary captain, he reached up and shot him under the chin, execution style.
The mercenaries shifted, but none of them fired. Laisa's eyes were drawn to Naismith. Something had changed about the way he moved, and there was no doubt he was now in total command of the situation. Moretti dangled from Taura's grasp now, unconscious.
Taura dropped him.
Admiral Naismith stepped away from his bodyguard, staring up at the half-squad of armored mercenaries. He was so furious he was twitching.
"You realize," he said, "that you're all dead. All of you."
The man named Framingham looked thoughtfully at him. "We wouldn't have dropped if we knew you were downside, but we're not going to let you get in our way if it comes to that."
"You think your ship's still there, sergeant?" Naismith growled. He shook his head. "You've gone well past the point of no return."
Framingham frowned. "We'll chat, Naismith, but this isn't your army. I want to make that perfectly clear."
A small noise from the tiny, crumpled body on the floor. "That was really stupid." Lord Vorkosigan hissed. His eyes flicked open, and focused murderously on Fazliu. "Staggeringly moronic. Worthy of certain idiot relatives of mine, except they're not that dumb either. What the fuck possessed you to go after an armored guy with a stunner?"
"It always works in the vids," Fazliu said in self-defense, sounding a little embarrassed. Phillipi's eyeroll was visible even behind her helmet.
"Komarrans," Vorkosigan snarled. "You're all insane." Blood was streaked across his face, and his left shoulder was a gory mess. His voice shifted back to the Equinox Dome accent. "It's the Emperor's Birthday, let's go throw rocks at commando squads!"
"You'd better see to him, Voa," Naismith said to the woman in the far back with the armband. "Piotr's the only remaining man in the building with the authority to cut a deal with you. If you're lucky, he's feeling more merciful than I am."
Unlike her companions, the medic was unarmed, with just a medical stunner at her belt. She ran it over Lord Vorkosigan's shoulder and he immediately looked better, or at least less liable to pass out.
"You were on Kamin, right?" Naismith said to the medic. "I'm assuming one of the senior surgeons took you aside at one point and gave you a rundown on my bone issues. Yes? Good. Keep that in mind."
The medic nodded. She took out a small hand tractor, and carefully immobilized the razor strand trailing out of Vorkosigan's shoulder so she could sever it with her laser scalpel.
"And… uh." Naismith stared down at his brother. "Are you a seizure risk right now?" he asked awkwardly.
Lord Vorkosigan's eyes slitted open. "No. Fortunately."
"You're up to handling this?" Naismith inclined his chin toward the mercenaries.
"Yes."
"Stop squirming," the medic said. She frowned. "You have a laceration on your head too."
Vorkosigan reluctantly held still, staring into space. "I'm not going to offer you money, to turn against your employer," he said to the mercenaries generally. "Or free escape. Your ship's blown up, and even if it isn't you're in such total breach of your loan contract that my brother is obliged to repossess it. Assuming it's—"
"Should be Wild Thing," Naismith said. "If I haven't completely lost track."
Framingham crossed his armored arms. He was a big man, more than twice Naismith's weight.
"The Imperium will be confiscating it, of course," Vorkosigan said to his brother.
"No issue," the admiral sighed.
Galeni leaned forward over the table, looking intently interested.
"You can keep whatever you were paid by the Komarrans," Vorkosigan continued, "assuming, of course, that you were sensible enough to get paid in advance.
"Mike was handling that..." Framingham said.
Laisa couldn't see Naismith's face, but from his body language he was rolling his eyes.
"I will also offer all non-Barrayaran subjects safe passage to their home planets. We will not waive the charges, but we will not attempt to extradite. You will not be permitted to step foot on our planets or pass through our space again. I will add that this is extremely generous of me."
"Uh," one of the troopers said. He was a tall, slim, effeminate man. A silver and white decal was sketched on his face, half-hidden by the helmet and his gray hood. His accent was galactic-tinged, but recognizably Cetagandan.
Naismith looked sideways. "Can we work something out...?" he asked carefully.
Vorkosigan frowned. "We'll consider special cases. In exchange, I want you to disengage from your defense of the building - without alerting your Komarran friends - and escort the main group of hostages to the shared underground bomb shelter for the complex."
"That's it?" Framingham asked.
"That's it," Vorkosigan confirmed.
"Hmm," he said. A flash of white teeth as he smiled without humor. "And how are you going to prevent that army of yours from jumping us as soon as they realize the roof's unmanned?" You don't have comms either."
"...good point." Naismith said. He looked thoughtful. "Are you thinking this through, Piotr? Ser Moretti's going to realize pretty fast that something's up. As soon as the hostages start moving, the clock starts ticking. Everything from then out goes straight into irrevocable territory. It might take them a few minutes to realize they've been had if we're quiet, but..."
Lord Vorkosigan leaned over and picked up his cane from where he had dropped it with his working hand. The medic drew her hands back, looking very annoyed. With some difficulty, the Auditor levered himself to his feet. "Let's chat more privately," he said to Framingham. "You, me, my brother. In here."
He stepped through the door to Count Vorkosigan's empty quarters. The medic swore under her breath as he started to escape and went after him. The other two men looked at each other, then at their respective subordinates, and followed.