Blackcollar: The Judas Solution (46 page)

"You can't do that, either," Skyler countered right back. "There aren't nearly enough of you in the TDE

to control us without the collaborationist bureaucracy you've set in place. Your only option would be to bring in a bunch of troops to take their place. Only you can't, because if you do you won't have enough forces to keep back the Chryselli."

"You see, friend, you've suddenly run into military doctrine's number one blunder," Hawking put in.

"You've got yourselves a two-front war."

"Yae cannot 'ight us," Daasaa insisted again. "Re can destroy yaer cities rhene'er re rish."

"Can you?" Skyler asked pointedly. "Can you really? Aside from the defenses around your private enclaves and maybe a few hundred Corsairs, you have practically nothing in the TDE under your direct control. Most of the weaponry is handled by your tame Security forces ... who aren't going to be tame much longer."

For a long minute Daasaa didn't reply. Skyler listened to the distant chirping of the evening insects, mentally crossing his fingers. If Daasaa didn't go for this, the TDE was going to be in for a long, bloody nightmare of attrition that could end up being worse than anything they'd seen during the actual war itself.

"Re rill not gi' u' rithout 'attle," the Ryq said at last.

"But it's a battle you can't win," Skyler told him. "Oh, you can certainly kill a lot of humans, if that's what matters to you. But we have the numbers, and with Whiplash we'll have access to the weaponry, and the people, and the inner fortresses. Eventually, inevitably, you'll lose." He paused. "But there
is
an alternative."

Daasaa's dark eyes were steady on him. "I an listening."

"You leave," Skyler said flatly. "All of you—tonight, tomorrow, next week, but you all leave. You pull out your people and your troops—hell, take all the weapons you can stuff aboard your ships if you want to. But you pull out."

Daasaa barked a short, derisive laugh. "And this gains us rhat?"

"It gains you breathing space," Skyler said. "You see, if you pull out slowly, scorching the ground as you go, you'll give humanity time to organize and build back the political control systems we need to function as a cohesive society. But if you leave now—" he grimaced "—I guarantee months or years of chaos as your government flunkies try to hold onto power and the various Resistance groups try to seize it and everyone else just tries to figure out how the hell this freedom thing works. We've seen it happen time and time again when a nation or region is suddenly freed from tyranny. Trust me, it'll happen this time, too."

Daasaa snorted, his gaze drifting to the bodies of the two Security officers Halaak had killed. "Sone

'eo'les rere not neant to 'e 'ree," he said contemptuously.

"Sometimes I wonder about that myself," Skyler conceded. "And you're welcome to think that we're not fit to be anything but Ryqril slaves if that makes you feel better. Only believe me when I tell you it's the only way."

Daasaa shook his head. "The high connand rill not acce't this," he said. "Re need the 'actories and rea'ons 'roduction lines."

"They're gone, Battle Architect," Skyler said. "Your weapons plants will be the first things we go after. We'll infiltrate Whiplashed people and either take them over or blow them up."

"Thousands o' yaer 'eo'le rill die."

"So will dozens of yours," Skyler countered. "I've already said that you can hold on for a while if you really want to. But it'll cost you time and energy and people, none of which you can spare. And in the end you'll be forced out anyway."

He gestured up toward the sky. "Maybe you can win against the Chryselli while we're fumbling around trying to figure out who the mayor and governor and dogcatcher should be. Maybe you can't. But it's your only hope of avoiding a two-front war that you absolutely cannot win." Daasaa snorted again, but this time it was a softer, more contemplative sound. "I rill take yaer 'ro'osal tae the high connand," he said. "They rill decide."

"Just tell them to decide quickly," Skyler warned.

"I rill take that nessage." Daasaa hesitated. "It rill take nearly a nonth tae recei'e a decision," he said. "Rill yae halt yaer attacks until then?"

Skyler thought it over. Considering how miniscule an army they actually had at the moment, it would be a ridiculously easy promise to make. "Agreed, provided you take no action against us in the meantime," he said. "
And
provided you release the two Phoenix members you still have in custody."

"They rill 'e 'rought tae the western Athena gate taenorror norning," Daasaa promised without hesitation.

"Run o' they is injured and rill rekire an a'ulance."

"We'll have something ready." Skyler looked over at Flynn. "And tell the high command one other thing," he said. "There aren't too many of us left who lived through the war and remember what Ryqril are truly like. The younger generation doesn't, and their overall attitude toward you is probably pretty casual." He lifted a warning finger. "But if you try destroying cities and slaughtering our people on your way out, they'll find out about you ... and when we and the Chryselli finally have you broken on the ground—and we will—you'll find out how vengeful we humans can be. Trust me; you do
not
want to see that." Daasaa held his gaze without flinching. "I ha' said I rill take yaer 'ro'osal tae the high connand," he said evenly. "I can 'ronise nothing else."

"Then go," Skyler said. "Call a spotter from Athena and go." For a moment Daasaa didn't move. Then, pulling a comm from his belt, he keyed it on and spoke a few words in Ryqrili. He was answered, said something else, then turned off the device and put it away.

"They rill cone," he said. He drew himself up to his full height, one last show of pride, and stared down into Skyler's eyes. "Re rill not neet again, hunan."

"No," Skyler agreed quietly. "We had better not."

Skyler had half expected a last-minute attempt at an ambush, either while Daasaa was still in their hands or just after he was taken away. But twenty minutes later, with the departing spotter a fading speck in the sky, there had still been no such move.

Perhaps the plumes of glowing smoke drifting across the darkening mass of Aegis Mountain had something to do with it. The Ryqril were rattled, straight down to the soles of their rubbery feet. And Daasaa, battle architect, held the key to their only way out.

"When did you get to Ramirez?" Bailey asked.

Skyler turned from his contemplation of the distant smoke. "Excuse me?"

"I know when you treated General Poirot," Bailey said. "I want to know when you turned Lieutenant Ramirez."

Skyler shook his head. "We didn't."

Bailey's eyes widened. "But Halaak called him a traitor. He
killed
him, for God's sake."

"He killed Poirot, too," Skyler said. "But the general wasn't a traitor, either. Despite the Whiplash treatment, he was never actually working with us. On the contrary, he was working just as hard as he could to nail us to the wall."

"That's impossible," Bailey insisted, his disbelief turning to anger. "Your plan was too neat to have happened by accident. The rescue, and then—wait a minute. If Ramirez and the general weren't working for you, how did you get to the team we sent into Aegis Mountain?"

"We didn't," Skyler said, his heart tightening as his eyes drifted back to the smoke. "We had a man already in the mountain. Jensen—you might remember him from the last time. He's the one who wrecked the Ryqril base."

Bailey's face tightened as he looked across the clearing to where Hawking and O'Hara had moved the bodies of his fellow officers. "So it was all smoke and mirrors," he said bitterly. "You don't have any secret army waiting to rise up and take Earth back from the Ryqril."

"No, but we could," Skyler said. "We
do
have Whiplash, and it
does
work as advertised. But at the moment, no, we don't have more than a few people, and they're in very lowly places. The best we could get out of any of them was the spotters' radio system for us to use during the rescue."

"So Halaak killed Poirot and Ramirez for nothing."

"For absolutely nothing," Skyler agreed. "Which is really the final irony of this whole thing. Once we've proved we
have
Whiplash, and proved that it works, we almost don't even need to use it on anyone. The Ryqril will shoot at every shadow, real or not, until they've torn down their command structure and their rule all by themselves."

"Only you
haven't
proved it," Bailey countered. "Stolen radio frequencies apart, you haven't proved Whiplash's abilities at all."

"We haven't proved it here, no," Skyler said. "But with a little luck, Lathe and his team should have just finished proving it in a much more spectacular fashion on Khala."

Bailey frowned. "On
Khala
?"

"Don't worry about it," Skyler advised. "The point is that, one way or the other, this is the beginning of the end for Ryqril rule in the TDE." He raised his eyebrows. "The question you have to ask yourself is where you want to be standing when that happens."

Bailey's lip twisted. "What do you expect me to say?" he demanded. "I'm a loyal servant of the Ryqril and the TDE government. I could never even think of betraying them."

"Of course not," Skyler said. "Do you remember, Colonel, back at Reger's house when I said you and General Poirot were about to graduate from the third type of person to the fourth?"

"Yes," Bailey said, nodding. "I wondered what you meant by that."

"It's from something my high school physics teacher wrote in my yearbook," Skyler said, his mind drifting back to a distant, simpler past. A past before war and conquering Ryqril and blackcollars. "It goes this way: 'There are four types of people in the world:

" 'He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not. He is a fool; shun him.

" 'He who knows not, and knows that he knows not. He is simple; teach him.

" 'He who knows, and knows not that he knows. He is asleep; wake him.

" 'And he who knows, and knows that he knows. He is wise; follow him.' " For a long minute Bailey was silent. "And what is it you think I know?"

"I don't know," Skyler said. "Life, maybe, or loyalty, or service, or sacrifice. The question is, how interested are you in finding out?"

Bailey shook his head. "You know I can't make a decision like that." He took a deep breath. "But then, I'm your prisoner, aren't I? Prisoners never get to make their own decisions."

"I understand," Skyler said quietly. Reaching into his belt, he withdrew a hypospray from his medkit. "

'He is asleep.'"

Bailey's gaze drifted again toward where the bodies of Poirot and Ramirez lay. " 'Wake him,' " he murmured.

* * *

Mordecai had a pair of patches from his medkit on Galway's bleeding fingers by the time Lathe and Spadafora returned. "You all right?" Lathe asked, his eyes flicking to Taakh and then back to Galway.

"I can travel," Galway said, wincing as Mordecai helped him to his feet. "I'm just glad you got my message."

"Actually, Mordecai was already on his way back," Lathe told him. "We'd gotten a warning that no one outside could find Taakh anywhere."

So that was what had sparked Judas's sudden burst of courage. "Ah."

"I
did
make it a point to hurry when you leaned on the tingler, though," Mordecai added. "Speaking of which, are we taking him with us?"

"I don't know," Galway said, looking at Judas. "Karl? You want to be able to go back to what you were a year ago?"

"I don't know," the young man admitted. "It seems so utterly unthinkable." He hesitated. "But I
do
know I'd like to see my family again."

"Close enough," Lathe said. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in sampling freedom, Prefect Haberdae?"

"Go to hell," Haberdae snarled. "All of you can go straight to hell."

"I'd say that's a no," Spadafora murmured.

"Maybe some day," Lathe said, springing a knife and cutting Judas free from his chair. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

* * *

Full night had fallen by the time Jensen finally pulled himself up the last few rungs of the rope ladder and reached the tunnel leading out into the forest. For a minute he stood there, gazing out the air vent a dozen meters away, wondering what kind of reception Security might have left for him.

"You're late," a voice said from just inside the grating.

Jensen had a
shuriken
in his hand before his fatigued mind caught up with the voice. "
Flynn
?" he asked disbelievingly.

"You were expecting the Ryqril high command?" A long dark bundle lying at the entrance pulled itself out of the shadows and reformed itself into a human being. "Or did you just think we'd all pack up and take off without you?"

"Frankly, I'd have put the high command higher on my probabilities list than you," Jensen said, crossing to him. "You didn't come out here all alone, did you?"

"Oh, no, the whole gang was here for a while," Flynn said. He whipped something up and around, and Jensen found a blanket settling down around his shoulders. "You missed a fun party, too—Security officers, blackcollars, even a couple of Ryqril stopped by."

"Ryqril?"

"Don't worry, we dealt with them," Flynn assured him. "The
khassq
is dead, and the battle architect went off to deliver Lathe's ultimatum. No casualties on our side, either, now that you're here." His silhouette cocked its head slightly. "It was Toby, wasn't it?"

"You mean who wrecked the Ryqril base?" Jensen nodded. "He insisted on taking that honor for himself."

"Probably the right thing to do," Flynn said. "He was a pilot, then?"

"Lieutenant Sam Foxleigh, TDE Air Defense," Jensen confirmed. "How did you know?" Flynn shrugged. "There was just something about him that reminded me of you." Jensen snorted. "Bullheadedness is hardly a quality unique to pilots," he pointed out. "What did you mean, it was the right thing to do?"

"I meant that if he was a pilot, it was right for him to take on the job." Flynn hesitated. "And that it was right for you to let him take it."