Niles lifted a flat rock. “Here we are. Canteens, to begin with. Water or whiskey?”
“Water. Whiskey would be great at first, but I don’t think it will help for long.” She drank deeply. “Let me have the whiskey,” she said suddenly. Niles handed the other canteen to her. She took a sip and gargled heavily, then spat it out. “That helps. Now if you’ll hand me that bandanna and look the other way—” She laughed. “Or don’t, Jesus, you’d think I’d be over any kind of modesty.”
Geoff fished in the crevice under the rock, carefully not looking at her.
“Ow. That stings,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’ve got some milder form of disinfectant?”
“No. I do have some more clothes. Including underwear. Jockey shorts, a bit large for you, but better than nothing.” He held them out behind him and felt her take them. “And some clean trousers and shirt. I made this cache when I heard they were bringing in a Legion prisoner, but I didn’t know you’d be a girl.”
“Girl,” Margreta said. “Lord, man, if this hasn’t made a woman of me, nothing will. But thanks, I think. You still haven’t explained what this is all about.”
“Actually, I did. I want out. Out of all this. Amnesty and a ticket off Sparta.”
“Look, we both know I’m not worth that much, not if you were part of anything serious.”
“I wasn’t. Not Lefkowitz, not Stora. I was in the Dales, poison gas, technically a violation of the Laws of War, but that was against military targets.”
“And the anthrax?”
“Anthrax?” Geoff said. “No, I didn’t know about that.”
“They used it. Ruined a whole farm valley. Look, I still don’t see where I come in.”
“You can talk to them. I know some things they will want to know,” Geoff said. “But if they shoot me before I can tell them that, it won’t do anyone any good. You they’ll listen to, and I presume you have ways to make contact with the Legion. They might even provide you transportation.”
“Sure, if you get me to a telephone. All right, you can turn around now. And thanks for turning your back.”
She looked better, but still awful. He found a bandanna and wet it from the water canteen, then added a dash of whiskey. “Hold still, I’ll clean your face. And here’s a comb.”
“If you have a mirror—”
“I do, but let me clean you up a bit first.”
“Oh. That bad?”
She tried to laugh, but he could see tears at the corners of her eyes. He wiped off the worst of the dried blood and semen from her face. It was hard to do without hurting her, and he winced as badly as she did when he had to touch some of her bruises.
“There were four of them,” she said. “One managed twice.”
“Miss Talkins—”
“I think under the circumstances, Brigade Leader Niles, you may call me Margreta,” she said solemnly.
“Margreta. Jesus, I’m sorry, Margreta. Uh—and I’m Geoffrey or Geoff, of course.”
“Not Jeffy?”
“My God no, never again. Speaking of which.” He held up a mini-uzi. “The moment of truth. I’m going to give you this now. If you want to shoot me in retaliation for what they did to you, please make it quick. I deserve that much. Margreta, I’m very sorry they did this to you, and if I could have prevented it I would have, but there was nothing I could do. God damn it! It was like Stora, nothing I could do! I could get killed and it still wouldn’t have changed anything! They’d have shot me and the rocket would have gone on schedule, and the same thing with you, until Skilly left I couldn’t interfere with—Sorry. You’re the one who was hurt, and I’m shouting about it.”
She didn’t say anything. After a moment, Geoff handed her the machine pistol. He stood and watched as she checked the loads. “They’re not blanks,” he said. “I’d invite you to fire a few rounds, but it might attract unwanted attention.”
“I’m not going to shoot you,” she said. “Back there in the cave I would have, you and them and then myself, but— Geoff, are we really going to get away?”
“I surely hope so. Now, how much of this can you carry? We still don’t have a lot of time. And I hope your Legion people think enough of you to come get you.”
“So do I. All right, find me that telephone.”
“Oh, that’s no problem. I have a communicator,” Geoff said. “All we have to do is get to a place where it’s safe to use it.”
“Let’s go, then,” she said. She sounded very small and vulnerable, and Geoff Niles had never hated the war so much. He took her hand to lead her, and after a moment she let him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The advantage which a commander thinks he can attain through continued personal intervention is largely illusory. By engaging in it he assumes a task which really belongs to others, whose effectiveness he thus destroys. He also multiplies his own tasks to a point where he can no longer fulfill the whole of them.
—Helmuth von Moltke
* * *
Crofton’s Encyclopedia of Contemporary History
and Social Issues (3rd Edition):
The Ban: The proudest achievement of the CoDominium era was the near absence of employment of nuclear weapons in an era of nuclear plenty. The one issue that united the Fleet, from the lowest Line Marine recruit to the Grand Admiral was insistence that the Fleet and only the Fleet had the right to possess nuclear weapons, and only the Fleet could use them: and it would not do so except under nuclear threat. Not even the Grand Senate could order nuclear bombardment.
Nuclear weapons remained a theoretical last resort to the Fleet no matter what the opposition, but the only times they were ever used was in retaliation for first use by others; on those occasions the vengeance of the CoDominium Navy could be terrible . . .
* * *
The Royal Messenger had a grim expression. “General Owensford, Prince Lysander’s compliments, and can you come to the war room right away.”
“Certainly,” Peter said. Something in the Messenger’s tone made him send for his chief of staff.
Peter was almost finished dressing when Andy Lahr came in. “Trouble at Fort Plataia. Good morning, sir.”
“Trouble?”
“There’s a CoDominium squad at the gate, with an official order that no one is to enter or leave the Fort without CoDominium permission.”
“Jesus Christ. What did Captain Alana do?”
“Nothing,” Lahr said. “Didn’t acknowledge, pending orders, but he has told everyone to stay inside, and put the Fort on alert.”
“Sounds good. Tell him to hang onto that until I know what’s going on.”
“Already did. You got any idea of what’s going on?”
“No, but I expect I’m about to find out.”
Both Kings and Prince Lysander were in the war room.
“Good morning.” Peter bowed. “This looks serious.”
“It is,” Alexander said. He held out a document. “This appears to be authentic,” he said. “It’s an order from the CoDominium Sector Headquarters, In the name of Vice Admiral Townsend but actually signed by General Nguyen. Sparta is directed to surrender all units of Falkenberg’s Mercenary Legion to the CoDominium, for transport from Sparta to a neutral world to be agreed to after the Legion units are disarmed and embarked.”
“I see. That’s ridiculous,” Peter said. “It’s invalid on its face. Vice Admiral Townsend hasn’t that authority, and certainly no Marine general acting in the admiral’s name does! For that matter, the CoDominium hasn’t the authority to order you to do any such thing, even if it’s enacted by the Grand Senate.”
“They may not have the authority,” King Alexander said, “but they have the power. They brought a battle-cruiser and a troop transport with a regiment of Line Marines. The Marines are to be stationed on Sparta ostensibly to protect our independence from foreign invaders—which means you. You’re to be taken off-planet in the troop transport.”
“What does Clay Newell have to say about this? Or Commodore Guildford for that matter? He’s a trimmer. If he obeys this order he’s thoroughly committed to Bronson and he knows it. I can’t think he wants that.”
“We don’t know,” Alexander said. “I’ve sent for Admiral Forrest. The whole War Cabinet and Privy Council. But the fact is, we’ve been unable to talk to anyone in CoDominium headquarters except this newcomer, a Colonel Ciotti, who is coming here shortly to present his demands. His regiment is landing now. They didn’t ask permission, they sent us a courtesy information, and that after they’d landed the lead elements.”
“There’s more,” Lysander said. “We’re also directed to cease all fraternization with CoDominium personnel, and dismiss from our service any CD officers who retired less than five years ago. Some new regulation. Henceforth all communications with CoDominium personnel are to be official business through the proper channels, and no informal contacts allowed. A full interdict is laid on Sparta until we—” he found a place on the paper he was holding and read “—demonstrate good faith efforts to comply with the directives in paragraph two, to wit, to disarm and surrender to the proper CoDominium authorities all persons at present enrolled in or in the direct employ of the organization known as Falkenberg’s Mercenary Legion, sometimes known as the Forty-Second, and paragraph three relative to fraternization and employment of retired CD officials. All CoDominium Marine units stationed on Sparta are directed to cooperate in enforcement of these orders.”