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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

TFNS Ishtar

Odysseus Planetary Orbit

Bellerophon System

Free Worlds Alliance

January 17, 2553


Terrence Murphy sat back from the display, rubbed his eyes, and reached for his coffee cup. Chasing paperwork had never been his favorite sport, and it was even worse than usual right now.

Why am I always playing cleanup? he thought, sipping from the self-heating cup. I am so frigging sick and tired of digging through the wreckage.

At least it wasn’t as bad as Inverness, he reminded himself. Not proportionately, at least. In absolute terms, the death toll was far higher than that of Inverness, but Odysseus’s population was almost fourteen hundred times the size Inverness’s had been. That would make the final numbers no less horrendous when they had them, but at least Alaimo and his butchers hadn’t managed to kill off an entire planetary population.

It would be a while before they did have those totals, he thought grimly. Unlike Gobelins, though, this time they would. There’d be no cover-up, no “disappeared” people who were simply swept under the rug and conveniently omitted from any official inquiries. The Xeneas Administration was just beginning to sort through the rubble, come up with some sort of rough count for total casualties, but they were going to account for every damned one of them in the end, and every single name would be remembered.

It was a monumental task, and it would be a heartbreaking one, and it wouldn’t be completed for far too long. On the other hand, they’d gotten a running start, at least on the executions.

In less than ninety-six hours, Alaimo’s pet monster Diana Steinbolt had “conducted trials” for 146,712 men, women and children. Most of those trials had consisted solely of recording the “accused’s” names and alleged offense. Every single verdict had been “guilty,” and every one of the convicted “traitors” and “insurgents”—some of them as young as eight years old—had been executed. A hundred and forty-six thousand people—hell, call it a hundred and forty-seven thousand—slaughtered in Markos Botsaris Stadium, the planetary capital’s biggest soccer stadium, alone. Ffty-six hundred a day. Five hundred per “firing squad.” The sound of gunfire had been virtually continuous, hammering home the horror for every ear in Kórinthos.

Entire families executed—murdered—while parents held their children in their arms. And Steinbolt had recorded all of them in meticulous detail.

That was only the capital’s total, of course. There’d been “tribunals” and firing squads in half a dozen other cities, although none of the others appeared to have been quite as…efficient as Steinbolt’s round-the-clock operation in Kórinthos. Their files were sloppier, too, although they’d still made the mistake of recording more than enough to justify the verdicts the people behind those tribunals and firing squads would receive in turn.

Then there were the K-strikes. Xeneas’s and Tolallis’s decision to launch reprisal strikes had almost certainly prevented an even more ghastly death toll, even if Alaimo himself had been safely sheltered in Kórinthos and knew it. He’d obviously understood that the Odyssians weren’t going to destroy their own largest city, but he hadn’t brought unlimited manpower to Bellerophon with him, either. He’d lost the equivalent of two complete brigades, over a third of his total Army strength, to BSDF ground attacks and retaliatory K-strikes. That hadn’t stopped him from calling more in—like the one on Chios—but there was no question in Murphy’s mind that it had at least slowed him down.

Which hadn’t prevented him from killing another seven million Odyssians, including the death toll from the Lake Orestiada atrocity.

And then the murderous bastard had blown himself up to avoid capture. To deny the people of Odysseus—and Terrence Murphy—any chance to administer the consequences of his actions.

Don’t dwell on it, he told himself sternly. There’s only so much you can do. Focus on that.

He put the coffee cup back on its saucer and let his chair come fully upright. He was due at Ithaca House for a conference with President Xeneas and Mollie Ramsay—assuming the medicos let her attend—in another three hours, so—

The comm chimed, and he glanced at the caller ID, then tapped acceptance.

“What can I do for you, Harry?” he asked as O’Hanraghty’s image replaced the report.

“I think you should drop what you’re doing and head for Briefing One,” O’Hanraghty said. “President Xeneas, General Tolallis, and Commissioner Ganatos are inbound, and they say they need to talk to you.”

“About…?” Murphy’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I’m supposed to be talking to them down there in only about three hours!”

“I know. And they didn’t say a word about why they need to talk to you now, instead. Which I find very interesting, don’t you?”

* * *

“Mr. President,” Murphy said, coming to his feet and holding out his hand as Konstantinos Xeneas strode into the briefing room. It was located in one of the enormous carrier’s spin sections, which imparted a comfortable sense of up and down, and O’Hanraghty, Menelaus Tolallis, and Lazaros Ganatos, both of the latter in uniform, followed the president through the hatch.

“Admiral Murphy.” Xeneas clasped Murphy’s hand in both of his own and shook it firmly. “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice.”

“It’s not really a sacrifice,” Murphy replied with a crooked smile. “After all, you were going to be seeing me in about—” he glanced at the time display “—two and a half hours, anyway. Under the circumstances, I had to assume what brings you here was at least moderately pressing.”

“You might say that.”

There was something about Xeneas’s smile, Murphy thought. Something…hungry. He didn’t know exactly why that adjective had occurred to him, but he knew somehow that it was the right one.

“First, though,” Xeneas continued, his expression sobering, “please let me tell you how grateful everyone on Odysseus is that you’ve managed to recover all of Commodore Carson’s surviving people. God only knows what would’ve happened if they hadn’t inflicted so much damage when Alaimo and his killers arrived.”

“I’m afraid Lauren doesn’t see it that way.” Murphy shook his head, his eyes dark. “The way she sees it, she let Alaimo past her.”

“With all due respect for the Commodore, that’s bullshit, Admiral,” Tolallis said flatly. “I’ve read Captain Rodoulis report, and I’ve spoken with both Madelien Hoveling and Khairi al-Massoud, as well. Nobody could have done a better job than they did. And it’s obvious Hathaway didn’t see them coming until the very last moment.” He shook his own head. “I don’t know what gave them away—we’ll never know. But she came within minutes of taking out Hathaway’s entire vanguard without a single hit in return.”

“I know. I’ve told her the same thing. And, intellectually, she knows it, too. But what she also knows is that Jorgensen’s task group got by her, and she knows what Alaimo did to Odysseus while she couldn’t do one damned thing to stop him. She’ll be a long time letting go of that.”

“Then we’ll just have to convince her she’s the only one who feels that way,” Xeneas said. Murphy looked at him, and the system president’s smile had turned much gentler. “The Senate’s already confirmed the award of the Chrysós Stavrós, Admiral. That’s the Golden Cross of Courage. It’s our planet’s highest award for valor.”

“She’ll try to refuse it,” Murphy warned the Odyssians.

“I’m sure she will.” Xeneas nodded. “We don’t know her as well as you do, of course, but we knew her well enough to figure that out. That’s why we were crafty enough to write the citation to include everyone who fought and died under her command.”

“That probably will work,” Murphy acknowledged with a smile of his own.

“Yes, but that’s not why we’re here,” Xeneas said, and that hungry edge was back.

“So I gathered,” Murphy said, waving the visitors into chairs.

“Actually,” Xeneas said, settling into the indicated chair, “this is really Lazaros’s bailiwick.”

“Ah?” Murphy looked at the tall, gray-haired police commissioner.

“I wish I could claim credit for the brilliant investigative work that led to this, Admiral,” Ganatos said, “but I can’t. It just sort of fell into my lap. And it only did that because I met someone a bit like you and Governor Ramsay.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A Heart Worlder with a conscience and a sense of responsibility.” Ganatos shook his head. “A month or so ago, I wouldn’t have believed in mythological creatures. In fact, thirty-six hours ago, I wouldn’t have believed in them, after what the Heart sent out to massacre my home world. But then there’s you, and the Governor—my God, what that son-of-a-bitch did to her—and to my considerable astonishment, there’s Richard Cuvillier.”

“Excuse me?” Murphy cocked his head.

“Richard Cuvillier. He’s the Chief Financial Officer for Malik Nanotech. It’s one of the Société Auchan’s more profitable operations here in Bellerophon, and the Société doesn’t hand assignments like that to people it doesn’t expect to follow the corporate line. For that matter, he’s a Heart and a member in good standing of the Five Hundred himself. Some sort of cousin of Madison Dawson’s. And he’s had his fingers in at least a dozen kickback schemes here in Bellerophon.”

“That doesn’t exactly sound like the bio of a philanthropic humanitarian,” Murphy said dryly when he paused, and Ganatos snorted.

“No. No, it doesn’t. But it would seem Mr. Cuvillier has at least some unsuspected depths. Which is why he walked into my office this morning and told me Alaimo is alive.”

Murphy snapped upright in his chair and O’Hanraghty muttered something pungent under his breath.

“Alive?” the admiral repeated sharply.

“According to Cuvillier, Alaimo evacuated from Parnassus before that battalion went rogue on him.” From Ganatos’s tone he was one of the many—very many—Odyssians who regarded Lieutenant Colonel Lopez’s attack on Alaimo’s HQ as primarily an attempt to buy clemency for his own actions. “He wasn’t even in Kórinthos by the time the attack went in, and he’d planned that explosion to cover his escape from the get-go. Given the way his head works, I doubt very much that he told any of his security detail what he had in mind. Hell, for that matter he may have wanted them all dead, just to keep them from testifying against him.

“At any rate, he contacted Cuvillier within five minutes of receiving your comm message. And it’s pretty obvious he expected Cuvillier, as a loyal employee of the Société Auchan—and someone scared to death of Gerard Perrin and the Five Hundred—to cover for him. Because what he demanded was that Cuvillier smuggle him, his staff, and the dozen or so members of his detail he didn’t blow up to Euboea Island.”

“Euboea Island?” Murphy repeated, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, his eyes intent.

“It’s a large island in the Thálassa Krasioú, Admiral,” Tolallis said. “Malik’s primary business is nanotech, but it controls about a third of the seafood industry here on Odysseus, as well, and a quarter of the island is devoted to the fisheries. But the rest of it’s been preserved in a pristine state, aside from some very nice recreational facilities for Malik’s top executives and their families.”

“And Alaimo’s there?”

“According to Cuvillier,” Ganatos said, “and I can’t conceive of a reason for him to have invented this out of whole cloth. According to him, Alaimo plans to lie low there until our inevitable defeat at the hands of the heroic Federation.” The bitter hatred in those last two words would have melted asbestos. “And he also seems to have suggested that it might be possible for a truly resourceful chief financial officer who didn’t want Gerard Perrin and the Hand going after his family to figure out a way to smuggle him back to the Heart even sooner than that.”

“Classic sociopathic megalomaniac,” O’Hanraghty said. “I’ll bet you that, deep inside, he truly can’t believe he won’t win in the end.”

“Then I suppose it’s time we taught him otherwise.” Murphy’s smile was a razor. “A job for Logan, I think, Harry. Let’s get him in here and up to speed.”



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