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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

City of Kórinthos

Planet Odysseus

Bellerophon System

Free Worlds Alliance

January 15, 2553


“There’s a personal message to you from Vice Admiral Thakore.”

Alaimo paused the recording of Governor Ramsay’s introduction to the fine art of waterboarding and looked up at Rayko Hepner with an almost petulant frown.

“And just what does he want now?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Hepner replied. “It’s encrypted. Your personal encryption, Sir.”

Alaimo’s frown segued into a scowl.

Thakore’s initial comm message to Odysseus had come in only twenty minutes earlier, and it had made it abundantly clear that the vice admiral intended to be a pain. His distaste for some of what his comm sections must have picked up from the planetary datanet was obvious, and although Alaimo was completely covered by his orders and the preemptive pardon he’d been issued, Thakore’s family wasn’t one to trifle with. And while Gerard Perrin was far more powerful than Kanada Thakore, he was also a man who chose his battles with cold pragmatism. If it became expedient to sacrifice a tool, he wouldn’t hesitate.

Hopefully, Alaimo’s own reply to Thakore, subtly emphasizing his authority as System Governor of Bellerophon, had warned the naval officer that some sleeping dogs were best left alone. Under other circumstances, he would have been confident that it had, given the Thakore clan’s vulnerability in the face of Terrence Murphy’s shenanigans. But Thakore had just more than repaired any damage the family name might have taken. Trouncing and capturing his own brother-in-law? Returning him to face trial—and, no doubt, execution, after what had happened at Jalal—would burnish the Thakore halo remarkably with the rest of the Five Hundred.

And the fact that he’d chosen to use Alaimo’s personal encryption, made sure that none of his staff would see whatever he had to say, suggested Alaimo wouldn’t enjoy hearing whatever it was, either.

“I suppose I’d better take a look,” he said. “Put it through.”

The imagery on his display disappeared, replaced by a standard access screen, blinking a request for his encryption code. He glowered at it, then entered the code and offered a palm to the DNA sniffer built into the touchscreen. The software considered for a moment, then unlocked the message, and Rajenda Thakore looked out of the display at him.

“General Alaimo,” he said, “I expect you’ll be receiving a burst transmission from Admiral Jorgensen sometime in the next ten minutes or so, depending on how long it took your communications people to process this message. I’m afraid that transmission will come as something of an unpleasant surprise to you, so it occurred to me that common courtesy suggested I should break the news to you personally.”

Alaimo frowned, wondering what in the hell the idiot was talking about now.

And then he jerked upright in his chair as the face on his display abruptly changed. The compact, dark-skinned vice admiral disappeared, transformed into a far larger man with sandy hair and gray eyes.

“Computer-generated imagery can be a very useful thing, don’t you think?” the man who’d replaced Thakore said in quite a different voice and with a thin, cold smile. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Murphy. Terrence Murphy.”

Alaimo sat frozen, unable to move.

“I would have preferred to wait until my ships were actually in orbit around Odysseus and I could see your response to this revelation in real time,” Murphy continued, “but I can’t prevent Admiral Jorgensen from alerting you to what happened to his task group about fifteen minutes ago. Since I’m still just over forty minutes out and I’ve been monitoring the situation on the planet, I thought it would be best to speak to you now, because someone like you could do a great deal of damage in that much time. And I’m sure someone like you would want to do a great deal of damage, because, after all, that’s what sick, sadistic, murdering bastards do. However, you might want to rethink that.

“By the time you see this, the Navy units you’ve been using to slaughter this planet’s population will already have been informed of the change in management. I don’t think they’ll be carrying out any more K-strikes for you, and I’ve ordered them to take out any Fulmens you may have in orbit. Given the firepower coming at them, I’m confident they’ll do just that. But that leaves your forces dirtside. I allowed a four-minute window between this transmission and the next one, because it seemed only courteous to give you a little advance notice. But my next message will be a general broadcast on all civilian and military channels. One directed to all Federation personnel in this star system. And what it will tell them, General, is that they’ll at least get trials for anything they’ve done before my arrival. If a single one of your personnel kills a single Odyssian after my message reaches them, however, there will be no trial for that person. There will be a bullet behind his or her left ear.

“And to be perfectly clear, that includes you.

“I look forward to meeting you in person—briefly, at least—very soon.

“Murphy, clear.”



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