"Tell him I'll join him."

"But Colonel-"

"I have just as many questions for Koul as he has for me. You have your orders, Rumis." Cheloi's voice was brisk as adrenalin pumped through her system. She couldn't allow Koul to get Lith alone, especially not in front of any other loyal Perlim officer. "Let me know the details of when that meeting's going to be held and get a d.a.m.ned doctor in here. Now."

Effectively dismissed, Rumis had no choice but to obey. With a smart salute, he spun on his heel and left.

Lith had filled in a few more details during their journey back to Perlim territory. As Cheloi gritted her teeth and concentrated on the pale emerging dawn, Lith had shared some of her family history. Cheloi could tell it was torn from her, as though she didn't want to say a thing but was under a compulsion stronger than her will. It wasn't hard to put the scattered pieces together.

Cheloi sighed. She had gone ahead and fallen in love with an idealist. How Eys would laugh if she were still alive to hear about it. The cynical Laisen Carros, head over heels for a woman who thought she alone could somehow right an interplanetary wrong centuries old by taking a single, isolated action. But Lith was also pa.s.sionate and, as wrong-sighted as she was, Cheloi wouldn't-couldn't-take such fire away from her.

When the doctor arrived, Cheloi was blunt with her orders. There was a meeting scheduled for the following day that she absolutely had to attend. Pain-killers, stimulants, she didn't care what it took, but she wanted a viable c.o.c.ktail of drugs that would keep her upright and lucid by the morning. It was only after he beat a hasty retreat under her barrage of clipped words that Cheloi allowed herself to relax. With other inmates in the dormitory, Lith would be safe until the debriefing session in the morning. Then the battle would begin.

Day 1,537 of the War: The briefing room was already occupied when Cheloi entered. She walked in, hoping that only her relatively slow walking pace gave any indication of her injuries. She took a deep breath and made a mental note to commend the doctor on his efficiency. She barely felt a twinge as her lungs filled.

Koul's eyes widened at her entrance before he shuttered them. He was not pleased to see her.

Good.

Like a physical manifestation of the symbolic fight that lay ahead, the combatants arranged themselves according to their views. Koul was at one end of the small oval table. Lith, obviously discomfited, was at the other. Rumis sat in the middle, facing the door.

Cheloi flashed everyone a quick impersonal smile and sat down opposite Rumis. To her right, Koul cleared his throat.

"Colonel, it's not necessary for you to be here."

Not only was he right but it was a breach of protocol for her to even attend. As the other person involved in the escape, her attendance at the debriefing could indicate a clear conflict of interest. But she couldn't just throw Lith to her officers. Even Rumis wouldn't hesitate if he found something amiss in her story.

"Considering the fact that I was conscious almost during our whole adventure, Koul, I think my presence is most necessary." Her voice was smooth and slightly bored. "And by speaking with both of us, we might be able to clear this up as soon as possible and get back to work."

He wanted to argue with her. She could see that by the way he held his head and narrowed his eyes. But she had the weight of numbers in the room. Rumis was on her side and Lith would be too, once she caught on to what was happening. So Cheloi watched Koul and didn't allow even a breath of noiseless satisfaction to escape her lips when he eventually sat back, resigned.

Rumis took the movement for a.s.sent and began with their version of events. He covered a comprehensive timeline, from the time the junior communications officer arrived in her quarters with the meeting request, to the loss of contact mid-morning that fateful day.

"I remember the wheeler overturning," Lith answered. "The Colonel said she thought it was a tipper missile." She flicked an uncertain glance toward her superior officer but Cheloi kept her face impa.s.sive.

"So neither of you were hurt in the explosion?" Koul asked.

Watching him, Cheloi could see that Lith was right. Koul was definitely involved in the accident. Cheloi noted the merest sheen of perspiration on his upper lip. A nervous ghost? The edge of her mouth twitched. Four people in the room, and at least three sets of secrets.

"No," Cheloi answered. "Although they managed to club us unconscious while we were walking back to the nearest Perlim location."

"And you don't know where they took you?"

Cheloi let Lith answer that one. "No."

"How long were you unconscious?"

"Itwas difficult to say."

Koul frowned. "Difficult?"

"Like us, Drel hides himself underground," Cheloi explained. "I woke up first and realised we were in some kind of subterranean complex. It looked old." She hoped Koul would draw the obvious conclusion from her statement.

"First? Were both of you held in the same room?"

"Almost all the time," Cheloi answered easily, not even daring a glance at her driver. She willed Koul to keep his eyes on her.

Yes, Koul. Come along the path I've prepared for you. I've even sprinkled crumbs to make it easier to follow.

"Did you meet the rebel leader?"

"Drel? Yes I did. Although the lieutenant," she paused and looked at Lith then, pouring every sc.r.a.p of a casualness she did not feel into that gaze.

"No, I didn't meet him," Lith said faintly.

"Was Drel responsible for your mistreatment, Colonel?"

Cheloi lifted her eyebrows. "Actually, no. He was surprisingly civil. He mentioned something about a show trial, so I a.s.sumed he was keeping me in good condition to show what a fair and civilised man he was. In contrast to us Perlim sc.u.m, of course." Her quick grin was without humour.

"How long were you in Drel's custody?"

"Almost a day."

Rumis shifted and Cheloi saw he was uncomfortable with what he was about to ask.

"A day?" he repeated. "But Drel said he had you for three."

That news would have come from their informants.

"Of course he'd say that, Rumis. What would happen to his reputation if he admitted that two Perlim officers managed to escape him and his rebels within a day? Has there been any corroborating evidence of his claim? Eyewitness accounts of us from any of the other rebel leaders he boasted were to attend my show trial?"

Rumis' eyes cleared as he shook his head. He started looking happier by the moment.

"So you have the lieutenant's and my word that we were held for a day. And the word of Drel and his propaganda machine that we were held for three days. Is that the sum of it?"

"Yes, Colonel."

A fluttering began in her stomach, but Cheloi fought to keep herself relaxed. She kept her shoulders loose and her posture relaxed above an increasing tension. Were her meds wearing off? Her head pounded and she was pressing her feet into the floor.

I can't let Koul win, she told herself, keeping her gaze steady and the faintest of smiles on her face.

Her second-in-command flicked a glance to her hands as they rested on the table, but the fingers were lightly curled and relaxed.

"Then where, and how, were you injured?" he asked when Rumis appeared satisfied with the answer.

"I forget the name of the village. Lieutenant?"

"I believe it was Sab-Inuk, Colonel," Lith supplied softly. Again, Cheloi didn't dare look at her.

"We cleared Sab-Inuk more than a year ago," Koul countered. "Razed the village to the ground."

"They could have come back," Rumis suggested. "Maybe they thought it would be safe again, especially if we weren't actively monitoring it."

"We thought it was safe too, but I was obviously mistaken. We were caught in an ambush."

"Yet you were apparently injured in that ambush, while the lieutenant was hardly touched." Koul's voice was as silky as a predator's. "Any idea why that might be, Colonel?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"How many of them were there?"

"They came out from behind the ruins so I'm not sure. Perhaps five or six."

Koul turned to Lith. "Lieutenant, was that your recollection?"

"It was difficult to say," she replied. "When they started attacking, II reacted instinctively. There were people everywhere, moving in and out of cover. I can't give you an exact number."

Cheloi's feet still threatened to descend to subterranean depths but she stripped her voice of any tension. Koul was no fool. "There were a few close calls. A couple of times, I thought the lieutenant was trying to kill me instead of our attackers. They captured us, held us for a few hours but we managed to exploit a lapse in their concentration."

She saw Rumis smile and answered it as if they were all colleagues sharing another war story.

Nothing here but another blackly humorous close call.

She knew Koul well enough to know he would hunt down Lith and demand that she tell him her version of events but Cheloi hoped she had set up enough of a framework for her driver to successfully embellish.

"You killed them?"

"What did you expect me to do, Koul? Of course we killed them. I couldn't move for two days after that but the lieutenant patched me up and we got going again." She gestured with her hand. "And here we are now."

"So if we go back to Sab-Inuk now, we'll find five or six rebel corpses?"

"They'll be cold and rotting by now. As Rumis points out, Sab-Inuk probably isn't the safest destination at the moment. But yes, if you're feeling foolish you could certainly take a trip there and verify what we've said."

Gazes locked, Cheloi and Koul looked at each other, both searching for a weakness, a lie, a loose thread. He was more fl.u.s.tered than he wanted to admit, Cheloi noted, her eyes drawn to a slight irregular twitch under his left eye. If he wanted to play this game, then she could have told him he was nothing but a rank amateur. He was only the most ambitious and ruthless officer in the Perlim Empire, while she was a trained Fusion operative.

"Is that all, Koul?"

"We want to set up a barrage of the position where you were held. The lieutenant mentioned it was near a village?"

"That's right. Lieutenant, give the Colonel our starting coordinates. Let's teach the Menons the price for abducting two Perlim officers."

If Drel was as smart as he appeared, he would have abandoned his complex as soon as he found she and Lith were missing. As for the hapless town or village that was chosen for bombardment.... Whether as joyous survivors or martyred innocents, the fate of the inhabitants would also boost Drel's reputation as a determined rebel leader. And it wouldn't hurt the Fusion's grand strategy either. Again, all it would take was another ma.s.sacre.

Koul nodded and took down Lith's subdued reciting of coordinates with tight and bloodless lips. He wanted to say more but finally satisfied himself with a closing comment through gritted teeth. "It was a most fortunate escape, Colonel. My compliments."

Chapter Fifteen.

Day 1,539 of the War: Her door chirped, as she knew it must. With tightened lips, Lith moved to grant access, turning carefully as Koul strode past her. There was no pretence of courtesy.

She touched her hair. She had just finished her shower and it was loose and damp, not yet coiled into its customary bun. The lack of preparedness made her feel vulnerable. It made her want Cheloi there in the same room with her.

How strange for her to think of Cheloi Sie as her refuge and Koul Grakal-Ski as her nemesis. His name never came up much in the discussions she had with Nils or with the rest of his cohorts. She knew Grakal-Ski was the second-in-command of the Nineteen, but there was little information available beyond that. At one point, when he discovered her in Blue Sector and had her moved to Headquarters, she had entertained the slight notion that he was an ally, but that was when she was young and foolish, filled with idealism and fire and Nils' simplistic solutions.

In the end, she had hidden in the infirmary for another day, happy to remain quiet and listen to stories from other injured soldiers. The fact that the small ward was always occupied short-circuited any ambitions Grakal-Ski might have had to confront her while she was still in a hospital bed, but she knew the refuge couldn't have lasted forever. And she was right.

The Sub-Colonel whirled around, pinning her with a glare.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?" Lith kept her voice even.

"I'm talking about that nonsense the Colonel fed us in the briefing room the other day." Grakal-Ski spat out the words. "What really happened?"

"It was as the Colonel said," Lith told him firmly.

"No, it can't be." Lith got the feeling he was rehashing an old argument as she watched him pace the room. She could see now the immaturity in the man, illuminated by Cheloi's dry comments on his character.

"How did she manage it?" he muttered. "Drel is easily as bloodthirsty as any Perlim."

Lith wanted to twist her lips in a cynical parody of a smile. It wasn't her, you fool, she wanted to say. Cheloi didn't free us from the rebels, I did! But it was obvious that the Colonel had a.s.sumed enormous stature in Grakal-Ski's mind. As she watched him pace, Grakal-Ski diminished himself in Lith's eyes and her fear of him began to recede.

He spun suddenly, facing her again. Disbelief was etched on his face. "Didn't you even try?"

There was no need to elaborate on what she was supposed to try. She was sure that Grakal-Ski's recollection of their last meeting was as crystal-sharp in his mind as it was in hers. Just the thought of that conversation, with the hard b.u.t.t of his energy weapon angled up against her body, made her quietly angry.

"I tried." She enunciated clearly. "Twice. But, as the Colonel said, I missed."

She heard her own words only when they left her mouth. Cheloi had given her the perfect way out. The commander had joked to the two men in the briefing room that she thought Lith was trying to kill her instead of shooting at their non-existent attackers in the ruins of Sab-Inuk. But that meant....

"And was that the only chance you had?" Koul was visibly upset.

Lith froze as the import of her thoughts. .h.i.t her.

She knew.

The Butcher of Sab-Iqur knew Lith's mission was to kill her. But how?

"Things moved so quickly." That much was true. "The wheeler, then the rebels' underground complex, then," she swallowed, "our escape."

"The Colonel was injured at the ruins of Sab-Inuk." It was a half-question.