Rumors of Glory (The System States Rebellion Book 1) (7 page)

It took almost two days for rescue shuttles to dock with
the coasting wrecks. The one hit by the 10 KE missiles was so badly torn up
that the rescue shuttle couldn’t dock at all. The other shuttle found half a
dozen injured survivors on the other wreck. Engineers sent along determined
that neither ship was worth trying to salvage, but at least they were able to
download data from the least damaged ship.

The casualties at the spaceport were equally grim. All
six security guards had been killed, along with three others, and almost two
dozen had been injured from flying shrapnel. The media promoted the battle as a
major victory. Drake knew better. Yes, it was a victory, but he was certain it
would pale in comparison with battles yet to come.

Day 297/2539

When the 102 boat landed and powered down, Drake and his
tired crew were transported to the main building at the navy spaceport. The
debriefing went quickly, but it was dark by the time he and his crew were free
to go their own ways for their scheduled seven day rest period. As Drake headed
for the exit, a Lieutenant wearing the armband of naval security came up to him
and handed him a note.

After reading it, Drake said, “You have GOT to be
kidding.” The Lieutenant shook his head.

“No kidding, sir. Her identity’s been confirmed.”

Drake sighed and handed the note back. “Okay, Lieutenant,
lead the way.”

He followed the junior officer down into sections of the
naval building that he hadn’t known existed. The security in this section was
very tight. When the Lieutenant led him into a room, he saw a bank of video
screens, some consoles and a desk with a naval security Commander sitting
behind it.

“You’re Roland Drake?” asked the Commander.

“That’s right.”

The Commander looked at Drake with suspicious eyes. “Why
does this prisoner ask for you by name? Does she know you personally?”

Drake nodded. “We were at the Academy together. We
ah…were quite close for a while, if you know what I mean.”

The Commander snorted. “You mean you were fucking her.”
It wasn’t a question.

Drake was tempted to explain that there’d been more to it
than mere sex but then decided it was none of this belligerent security puke’s
business, so all he said was, “Yeah.”

The Commander laughed in a nasty kind of way. “Okay,
well, we normally don’t pay any attention to prisoner’s wishes, but my superior
thinks that she might reveal some interesting information if we let you talk
with her. So go ahead and talk, and we’ll be listening in. Lieutenant, take
Commander Drake to interview room A1.”

Drake followed the officer to a lower level, where there
was a small, windowless room, with a table and four chairs, all bolted to the
floor.

“Have a seat, Commander. We’ll bring the prisoner here
shortly,” said the Lieutenant.

Drake sat down and looked around. There were no obvious
signs of surveillance, but he was sure someone was watching and listening.
After a short while, the metal door opened again, and she came in. Her hands
were secured to a security belt that had been added to the flight suit, which
had her Federation Navy insignia and her name tag. Lt. Lorelei Remington.

Drake looked at her face carefully to see if there were
any obvious signs of physical abuse, but he saw none. She stood there just
inside the room as the door closed behind her. Her face had the same blank
expression that he’d seen her use many times in poker games at the Academy.
Whatever she was feeling was being held back.

“Are you going to sit down, Lor?” asked Drake. After a
slight hesitation, she sat down opposite him, put her hands on the table and
leaned forward.

“I didn’t know if they’d let me see you,” she said in a
carefully controlled voice.

He said nothing and waited.

“I see that you’ve joined the rebellion, and you’re a
Commander now. I suppose congratulations are in order,” she said.

Her tone was not quite so controlled anymore. He thought
he detected an overtone of accusation in it, or was that just his imagination?
Just a few months ago he’d been a lieutenant, like her, but promotion was fast
in the SSU.

“The SSU Navy is expanding fast, Lor. I was hoping that
maybe you’d resign from the FED and join us.”

“I take my oath to the Federation seriously, Roland.”

There definitely was accusation in that tone. Drake
sighed. They were sliding down the path that he had dreaded. “My loyalties have
always been to my home planet, Lor. I was born here on Sparta. So were you. My
family is here. Did you really think I’d fight against my family? Don’t you
know me better than that?” When she didn’t respond he said, “Why did you
volunteer for this mission, Lor? My God! You tried to kill our Chancellor! He’s
not just the leader of the SSU, he’s also the President of your home planet.”

“I wanted to see you again to find out which side you
were on, Roland.”

“So you were willing to kill the Chancellor just to see
me one more time? Do you really expect me to believe that, Lor?”

She nodded. “The guards tell me that the Chancellor was
injured but not seriously. He was most of the way inside the armored limousine
with one of his guards between him and the shuttle. Tell me something, Roland.
If the shuttle had exploded two seconds sooner, do you think the Chancellor
would still be alive?”

Drake replayed those terrible few seconds in his mind.
Two seconds before the blast, the Chancellor was still standing between the two
rows of security people, with nothing between him and the shuttle.

“No. He’d be dead. What of it?”

“I was told to set the timer for six seconds. I actually
chose eight. My escape pod could have avoided most of the blast with a
six-second lead and I would still have survived. Check the video if you don’t
believe me. Your Chancellor’s alive because of me, Roland.”

Drake did believe her. Lorelei Remington was good at a
lot of things, but lying wasn’t one of them. She had correctly figured out how
to maximize her chances of keeping some kind of relationship with him. There
was no way for her to know which side he was on before the mission. If Drake
had stayed loyal to the Federation, they’d both be prisoners and maybe be able
to be together. Since he had gone over to the opposition, she had given herself
enough credibility in his eyes to prevent a total break, but that didn’t alter
the fact that she was a prisoner of war, and he was on the other side of the
war.

He nodded and smiled at her. He wanted to tell her that
he still had feelings for her, but he didn’t want that Security Commander
hearing them. She responded with a small smile of her own that told him she
understood.

“They’re listening to this aren’t they?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“So I guess I have to be careful what I say to you, and
you have to be careful what you say to me,” she said.

“Yes.”

She nodded ever so slightly. The security people would
think she was referring to military secrets, but Drake knew she was referring
to personal secrets. “Then there’s nothing more to say for now, Roland.
Whatever we might want to say will just have to wait for this war to be over.”

Drake nodded again. “Until then.” He got up and walked
over to the door.

Before he got there, she said, “They didn’t tell me what
happened in space after the explosion. Did Stacker get away okay?” Drake kept
his face turned away from her and from the surveillance to hide his smile.
Under the guise of an innocent question, she had just revealed the name of the
officer in charge of the FED mission. It was for his benefit. However limited
it might be, he could now claim credit for getting something useful out of her
that might make it easier for him to visit her again.

“Yes, his ship got away. The other two didn’t.” When it
was clear that she wasn’t going to say more, he knocked on the door and the
guard outside let him out

The Security Commander looked disgusted when Drake
re-entered his office. “That’s it? You talked with her for two seconds and you
got nothing out of her!”

“Not true. She revealed the name of the FED officer in
command of the mission. Stacker. Commodore Stacker last I heard.”

“So you got one lousy name. I knew this would be a waste
of time.”

Drake put his hands on his hips and gave the Commander a
stern look. “Just how much secret intel do you think she knows? She’s only a
lieutenant for God’s sakes! Do you think they’d pump her full of sensitive
information and then send her on a mission where she’s sure to be captured? Use
your head.”

The security commander’s expression showed that he didn’t
like being spoken to like that, but he and Drake were the same rank, and there
was nothing he could do about it.

“You two have a history together. Maybe you still feel
something for her. If you care about what happens to her here, you might want
to be more careful about what you say to me, Commander.”

Drake kept his face blank while he evaluated what kind of
response he should make. The security commander struck him as having a nasty
streak that far too many guards develop with regards to their prisoners. Giving
in to his threat wouldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t mistreat Lor anyway. If
the security commander wanted to play rough, then Drake could play rough too.
He slowly walked over to the desk, put his hands on the desk and learned over
it as far as he could.

“Listen to this carefully, Commander. I’m one of two
officers commanding a missile boat. I speak with Chief of Space Operations
Admiral Janicot just about every day. If I even suspect that you or your people
are mistreating Lieutenant Remington, or any other FED prisoner, the CSO’s
going to hear about it. How often do you talk with Admiral Janicot, Commander?”
The security officer’s face lost all its color. Drake could see fear in his
eyes.

“I’m just trying to do my job,” he said in a low voice.

Drake decided to throw him a bone. “I know you are, and I
know you won’t do anything to bring discredit to that uniform. I think we have
an understanding then, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. I’ll be back every now and then to visit with
Lieutenant Remington. I’ll see you then, Commander.” Without waiting for a
reply, Drake turned and walked out.

                                             * * *

Belloc grimaced with pain as he slowly sat down in the
padded chair at the head of the conference table. The broken arm he suffered
when the shuttle blast overturned his limo with him bouncing around inside was
not the cause of the pain. That was caused by the wounds on his back from the
shrapnel that flew through the open door before the vehicle tipped over.

“I’ve called this meeting of the SSU Cabinet to discuss
one and only one topic. Now that the FEDs have thrown down the gauntlet,
there’s no reason why we shouldn’t strike back. How and when is what we’re here
to discuss.”

Belloc’s voice had a harder edge to it than usual,
thought Sorensen. Whether from anger or stress caused by the pain she had no
idea. When Belloc turned to look at her, she knew it was going to be her turn
at bat first.

“Okay, Mandy. What can you tell me?”

“I’m sorry to say that our options at this point are
limited. While it’s true that four FED cruisers have been captured, they’re
still scattered over several hundred light years, and it’ll take time to get
them all here in order to execute a coordinated attack. In terms of what we
could use them against, my staff has assumed that we’re not yet prepared to
escalate this war to the point of attacking civilians.” She paused to see if
Belloc either confirmed or denied that assumption. He nodded. Good. If he was
ready to go that far, she was prepared to resign in protest. “With civilian
targets off the list, the military targets that are defended lightly enough to
minimize our own casualties are few. It’s my staff’s opinion, which I share,
that the best target in terms of vulnerability AND impact on the FEDs is their
Navy base orbiting around Xanadu. Its strategic location and repair and
maintenance capability make it very valuable to the FEDs, and because it’s not
on a planet or moon, it’s vulnerable to a high speed fly-by missile strike.”
She paused to let that information sink in before continuing.

“The size of our strike force depends on how quickly our
cruisers can get here. We can launch a strike with two ships within four weeks.
That would be risky. If we want to use three cruisers, we’ll have to wait seven
weeks, and all four will take 13 weeks. After careful consideration, I’m
recommending waiting the seven weeks and going with the three-ship strike.”