The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

‘Two-knife,” he said, nodding to the Helot commander’s right-hand man.

“Niles,” the other answered, equally polite and noncommittal. The big Mayan had not minded when Skilly took the Englishman as her consort; that was the Donna’s privilege. Niles was privately certain that he would also have no hesitation in quietly killing an unworthy choice. . . .

The caves were larger than the old Base One that had fallen to the Royalists last winter, but the setup within was similar, down to the constant chill and smell of wet rock. Glowsticks stapled to the walls, color-coded marker strips, occasional wooden walls and partitions, rough-shaping with pneumatic hammers. There seemed to be a lot more modern electronics, though. He passed several large classroom-chambers with squads of Helots in accelerated-learning cubicles, bowl-helmets over their heads for total-sensory input. Then they went past alert-looking guards into a still larger chamber, where officers grouped around a computer-driven map table. One looked up at him.

“Hiyo, Jeffi,” she said quietly when he was close enough to salute.

Geoffrey Niles’ throat felt blocked. He had thought he remembered her, but Skida Thibodeau in the flesh was something different from a memory. Very tall, near two meters, much of it leg. Muscled like a panther and moving like one, a chocolate-brown face framed in loose-curled hair that glinted blue-black. High cheekbones and full lips, nose slightly curved, eyes tilted and colored hazel, glinting with green flecks. His nostrils flared involuntarily at her scent, soap and mint and a hint of the natural musk. And the remembered thrill of not-quite-fear at meeting her eyes, intelligent and probing and completely feral.

“Skilly is glad to see you back,” she said.

“Glad to be back, Field Prime,” he said. Realized with a slight shock of guilt that it was true. God, what a woman.

She smiled lazily, and sweat broke out on his forehead; then she dropped her gaze to the map table. “We having de post-mortem,” she continued. “Little training attack go wrong, a bit.”

He cleared his throat, looked around at the other officers. Many he recognized: von Reuter, the ex-CD major; Sutchukil, the Thai aristocrat and political deportee, a man with a constant grin and the coldest eyes Niles had ever seen. Kishi Takadi, the Meijian technoninja liaison. Another man he almost did not recognize. Chandos Wichasta, Grand Senator Bronson’s trouble-shooter. That was a shock; the last time he had seen the little Indian was back on Earth, during the humiliating interview with great-uncle Adrian at the Bronson estate in Michigan. The Spartan mission had been a last chance to redeem himself . . . Which means Grand-Uncle has managed to get two-way communication going. There were big glacial lakes in the Drakon foothills where high-powered assault shuttles could land and take off.

“Brigade Leader Niles,” Wichasta said discreetly. Another surprise; Niles had been Senior Group Leader—roughly a Major—in the SPLA in the last campaign.

Skilly smiled and shrugged. “You was right about Skilly’s plan last time, Jeffi,” she said. “Too complicated; or maybe we have de intelligence leak here. Or both; Skilly think both. Howsoever, de wise mon learn from mistake.”

“Ah . . .” Come on, you bloody fool, don’t sound like a complete nitwit ” . . . things seem to be well in hand.”

Skilly nodded. “Numbers back up some,” she said judiciously. “Lots more fancy off-planet stuff coming in—” she nodded to Wichasta “—and money, lots of money. The Royals, they doan’ know how much we have hid, too. We bleeding them pretty good now, gettin’ ready we give them the real grief.”

“Hmmm. Won’t the CoDo naval station on the Aegis platform—” He broke off at the ring of wolfish grins around the map table.

She laid her light-pencil down. “Field Prime think that enough analysis,” she said. “Von Reuter, you breaks up that group and uses the personnel at you discretion.” She looked at Niles, and the pulse hammered in his temples. “Brigade Leader Niles need a debriefing.”

CHAPTER TWO

Crofton’s Essays and Lectures in Military History

(2nd Edition)

Professor John Christian Falkenberg II:

Delivered at West Point, June 17, 2073

The soldier and the spy have always been uneasy bed-fellows doomed to unwilling cohabitation. First and foremost among the military virtues is loyalty, above all to one’s salt. Correspondingly, the most despised military sin—beyond even cowardice—is betrayal of the oath of service. There are, of course, sound and obvious functional reasons for this ethic; the primary emotional cement of armies is and must be, trust. Without it, no military force can operate for a moment. The spy proper—the clandestine operative—is above all one who wears a mask, who dons a uniform and takes an oath under false pretenses, who abuses trust to pass vital information to the enemies of those whom he infiltrates. Accordingly, none of the protections of the Laws of War apply to the spy. Indeed, historically some military forces have hesitated to use information from such “tainted” sources.

Yet there is no substitute for HUMINT—direct intelligence of the inner councils of an opponent. Even where the full panoply of technical intelligence-gathering is available, HUMINT is priceless; it gives direct access to the intentions of the enemy, always the most difficult aspect of military intelligence-gathering. Just as important, the knowledge that one’s own ranks have been infiltrated is a powerful tool, sowing suspicion and dissolving the bonds of mutual loyalty that sustain the operational capacity of a military unit.

* * *

Both principal intelligence officers of Falkenberg’s Legion sat at the table. Captain Jesus Alana was a short man, dark and slim with a well-trimmed mustache on his upper lip. His wife Catherine was two fingers taller and flamboyantly red-haired, and also a Captain. As the joke ran, virtually everybody in the Legion was; the chain of command depended on your job, not your pay-scale. Apart from them the office in Fort Plataia was empty The spring rain was falling, mild here only a few kilometers outside Sparta City; it carried a smell of wet adobe clay through the slit of open window. Over that came a sound of boots splashing down on wet gravel and a voice counting heep . . . heep. Cadence for another group of recruits; they were pushing them through as fast as possible. Three Legion battalions now, spawned by the 5th, and the Royal army had doubled and redoubled.

“Not very hopeful,” Jesus Alana said.

The files lay in front of him, in hard copy. Only two names . . .

“Not very hopeful, that one, eh, mi corazon?”

“Thick as a brick,” Catherine replied. “He could take the biofeedback, but he’s hopeless for anything requiring an imagination. With luck, he’ll make a passable rifleman.”

“That leaves the young woman.”

“From the file, much more hopeful. Finished basic training, and non-com school. Very reasonable to make her an officer. Higher IQ. Also, lots of determination, with that background.”

“I know. Yet—”

“Yet you’re a romantic, Jesus. She got out of a Welfare Island.”

“Yes,” he sighed, and touched a control on the table. “Recruit Talkins, please.”

Margreta Talkins was a young woman. The russet eyes were harder than her twenty years would justify. Medium height, olive skin and dark-mahogany hair cropped to a short cap of curls, with a wary edge to her expression. Looking a little weary; neither the Royal army nor the Legion accepted women for combatant positions, but their basic training didn’t reflect that. We may not want them to fight, but it happens often enough, Jesus thought. Firm body, looks good on her. She will have no difficulty seducing her targets. Talkins returned Jesus’s hard look, then her eyes darted to the equipment on the table, a set of flat screens and a few crackle-finished milspec electronics modules.

“Sir. Ma’am.” Her Anglic was North American, almost-but-not-quite Taxpayer class, the voice of someone who carefully copied the upper-class accents on the Tri-V.

“Please sit, recruit Talkins,” Catherine said. “Now, I’m going to ask you a series of questions. The answers aren’t important in themselves—just say what comes into your head.

“First, how do you feel about the Helots?”

When the interrogation finished an hour later, Talkins’ hair was plastered to her forehead, although her face was still calm.

“Perfect,” Catherine said. “Not only can she do it, she’ll volunteer to do it.”

“Volunteer for what, ma’am?” Talkins said.

Jesus Alana leaned forward. “Clandestine operations. Very secret, very dangerous.”

“Will this hurt the Helots?”

“If it works, it’ll be very damaging to the enemy. We need your agreement, first.”

Silence stretched; then she nodded with a bitten-off: “Yes, sir.”

“Why?” Captain Jesus Alana said to the young woman in recruit coveralls. “The machinery—” he indicated the book-sized display unit, open on the table “—tells us you mean it. But that doesn’t tell us why you are willing to take the risk.”

There was a trace of anger in her voice; Alana frowned slightly at that, then recognized it. She was volunteering, and she had the slightly bitter self-accusatory air of a veteran cursing himself as he volunteered for something he knew was stupid. The young woman spoke at last.