This part is reusing an idea I worked into Exotrooper Anya. In the process of working on it, I looked up a list of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record. That's the kind of research I've always done.

Fiona and Steven cooked dinner together. He maneuvered around the kitchen in a compact chair he kept at home. She had no trouble keeping her feet out of the path of the chair, though there were several times she ran into his chair or felt him brush past her. When he bumped her from behind as he backed up, she looked over her shoulder. He looked back at her with a smile. "Not quite the same with the chair, is it?" he said. "Or so I'm told."

"It's fine," she said. She took his hand. "Actually, it's better than fine." As she turned back to her work, she squeaked as he slapped her hip.

She carried a small casserole to the table, smiling. Steven pulled up expectantly. She carved out a generous first serving for him, then sat down. "How was your trip?" he asked.

"It was fine," she said.

"Nielsberg, wasn't it?" he said. "It's a nice place, if you have time to look around. They were out of the way of the wars, apart from the draft. Most of the old buildings are still standing. The new buildings… Well, you can't have everything."

"Yeah," she said. "Actually… I rooted out a separatist cell in an abandoned tenement."

"Huh," he said. "Then they weren't mine or yours, were they?" He smiled. Then he held up the book she had picked up from Franky. She belatedly realized she had put it in the back of his power chair without retrieving it. The photo of Luwen slipped partway out. "I see you picked up some reading for the ride home."

She managed a smile. "I wanted to know more," she said.

"It is true," Steven said. "I was flying this plane that day. We always had birds in the air. That day, they called off the usual flybys to try out what we had. If you read the book, you know the specs. Fast, low profile, with some extras that are still classified. The team said it would be invisible to radar. Our own tests showed it was better, not great. They still wanted a field test. It was supposed to be poking the badger. We made it obvious something was coming. We just wanted to see if they could figure out what." He paused, then folded his hands. "It was a prototype, Fiona. Unarmed. All I had was cameras and radio gear."

He took another bite. "I started taking pictures," he said. "I caught a couple artillery units popping off at each other. They had both reported the other had crossed the border. They were both wrong. Maybe the quiet spooked them, but the same thing happened somewhere every damn day. The real trouble was, the border was such a pretzel that our guys were between yours and the town. By the time our people got orders to stand down, there were even more of yours to the north returning fire. Badly. I caught a photo of a shell coming down on what we had marked as an abandoned munitions dump in the Luwen suburbs."

"And then the town blew up," Fiona finished.

He nodded. "I felt it, at 2,000 meters altitude and 20 km range," he said. "But what mattered wasn't what I saw. It was what I heard. I could pick up everything on our side and yours. Nobody knew what had happened. Everyone was scared. They were calling it in as a nuclear detonation. Half of them put it in the wrong place. Artillery units were calling in falling debris as follow-up bombardment. I found out later, some of that hit my plane. I could hear our commanders settle on one thing, from the sergeants up to the generals and back down: They said it was part of a classified operation, meaning it was our weapon. So, they gave the order to attack. That was all."

Fiona looked back at him. "You said the plane was unarmed," she said. "What could it carry?"

"You read the book," he said with a wiser, sadder smile. "It was supposed to carry 2000 kilos of bombs. We would have been lucky to get to 1200. That wasn't a problem. It was supposed to get in, hit a specific target and get out before an enemy could respond. Like you."

He served himself from a dish of mashed potatoes. "I like talking to you about what I have done," he said. "If I ramble, you will listen. You ask questions. I can tell you want to know. So tell me, do you think I have lied to you?"

"No," she said. "I don't think you ever have."

He came back around to his usual smile. "Unfortunately, I must disappoint you," he said. "I have never told you an untruth. Sometimes, however, I have been, you might say, loose with the truth. But I would not lie to you about this. Now, I have a question. You said you knew someone was there. It's Loid Forger, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said.

He reached across the table and cupped her cheek. "Did he ever say he saw a plane in the sky?" he asked sadly. "Did he tell you he saw a bomb fall?"

"No," Fiona answered. She wiped a tear from her eyes. "He just said Ostania did it."

"Then he did not lie," he said. "Not entirely. He is as good a man as you say."

She slapped his hand away. "He's a lying dog focker!" she screeched. She slammed her fist down. The table and everything on it shook. A blob of potato nearly took to the air before collapsing audibly back into the main mass. She stared across the table at Steven.

"Loid told me he was in the munitions warehouse, as a child," she said. Her sultry voice was hoarse with strain. "He said it was full. That meant something to him. He told me the kids didn't talk about it, because they thought it would get them in trouble." Her expression softened. "There's something I have to tell you. Those people I stopped weren't on our side. They aren't with the SSS, but the SSS didn't stop them, either. The only explanation is that they were backed by people the SSS won't investigate- or can't. If I'm ever- gone, you have to tell Chloe. Tell someone."

"Don't worry," Steven said. "You will make it. Longer than me, at least." She clambered into his lap as she wept.