New orders went out to the commanders of the task force at Thurien, who prepared their vessels for immediate transfer back. But they were in VI5AR-controlled space, and JEVEX reported that its attempts to project entry ports into that region were being jammed; the ships could not be brought back without getting clear of Gistar first. Broghuilio had no choice but to extend his deadline by an extra day and order his force to get away under its own power. An hour later it was streaming in full ifight back toward the edge of the Thurien planetary system.
“Phase One completed successfully,” Caldwell announced with satisfaction from Thurios as he watched the data displays being presented inside the Government Center. “We’ve got the bastards on the run. Now let’s make sure we keep things going that way.”
chapter thirty-five
The transfer ports were ready and waiting outside the system of Gistar as arranged, and the Jevienese warships peeled out of formation to enter them in relays with crisp, disciplined, military precision. What they didn’t know was that by then VISAR was controlling the transfer system, not JEvEX, and such were VISAR’S manipulations of JEvEX’s internal functions that JEVEX didn’t know it, either. Upon exiting back into normal space, one squadron found itself at Sirius, another at Aldebaran, and another near Canopus, while the rest reappeared strewn in ones and twos across Arcturus, Procyon, Castor, Polaris, Rigel, and assorted other stars in between. Thus they were out of harm’s way for the time being and could be rounded up later. That completed Caldwell’s Phase
Two.
With a cigarette in one hand and a cup of black coffee in the other, Hunt stood on the patio outside Sverenssen’s house, watching a protesting group of people in brightly colored garb being herded into an Air Force personnel carrier by the pool while a vigilant semicircle of Special Forces troopers looked on from a short distance back. The most recent captives had arrived at Sverenssen’s expecting a party, but had found the CIA waiting instead. With VISAR controlling the surveillance there was no longer any need to conceal the activity around the house from orbital observation, but Clifford Benson had decided to maintain a low proffle all the same, mainly to take advantage of just this kind of o~5portunity to extend further his suspect list of Sverenssen’s acquaintances. But that was really just a precaution to identify any collaborators that might have been recruited locally. VISAR had found included among JEVEX’S records a complete organizational chart of the Jevlenese operation on Earth, and with that information now in Benson’s and Sobroskin’s hands, the rest of the network would soon be mopped up.
A concentration of Ganymean spacecraft had been building up
on the periphery of the Jevlenese planetary system, and at that point it would have been possible for VISAR to shut off all of JEVEX’S services from the Jevlenese in the same way that it had done with the Jevienese element across the Thurien-administered worlds. The problem, however, was that the Jevlenese had clearly been preparing for a war situation for some time, and there was no way of telling what other stand-alone and backup systems they might possess that were capable of operating without JEVEX. Hunt and Caldwell therefore decided that simply pulling the plug, sending in the Ganymeans, and hoping for the best was not the way to go. Instead they opted to continue applying pressure until either they obtained the unconditional surrender that Verikoff had demanded, or the Jevlenese operation somehow fell apart from the inside. Also they hoped that the reactions they observed inside the Jevlenese War Room would reveal whether or not, and if so to what degree, the Jevlenese could in fact carry on without JEVEX.
Behind Hunt, a flap opened in the plastic sheeting with which the back of the house had been temporarily repaired, and Lyn stepped out through what had been a glass-panel wall of the corner room. She moved over to where he was standing and slipped an arm lightly through his. “I guess this place is off the list for the party rounds from now on,” she said, looking across at the VTOL down by the pool.