La couronne des esclaves, tome 4 : To End in Fire

“That ends.” She tapped her right index finger on the tabletop. “It ends now. Maybe not instantly, if it turns out we’ve underestimated their defensive strength, but it ends.” Her finger tapped again. “This isn’t another star nation we’re fighting. Not this time. This is a cancer, and we’re going to cut it out and cauterize the wound. Whatever it takes, we will do it.”
She let her final sentence settle into their bones, then folded her hands on the table and leaned forward.
“But we will not become them in the process,” she said softly, quietly. “We’ll remember who we are. We’ll remember that our navies and our star nations fight with honor and a sense of decency. We will destroy the Mesan Alignment and consign it to the ash heap in the corner of Hell reserved for genocidal perversions. But when we do, we’ll also remember that the initial labor force that built the Alignment’s fortress consisted of slaves. Slaves who had no voice in what they did, or how they did it, or for whom. Those slaves’ descendants are undoubtedly still there, still with no voice, no choice, but to do the Alignment’s bidding, and we will not massacre innocents just because the Alignment doesn’t care who or how many of the people we loved it’s killed. So, whatever else happens, there will be no Eridani Edict violations.
“Believe me when I say I understand the desire to turn their planets and their habitats into cinders. To pay them in their own coin. To stand back and watch as they burn to the ground. I’ve been there. I’ve wanted that so badly I could taste it, like poison. And I almost did it.”

“But here’s what you need to understand. Vengeance is the weapon of the weak. It’s not the tool of the strong. And today, those of us whose genetic heritage was misused by Manpower and its creatures are strong. We are no longer weak. We have our own nation, on the planet of Torch. And we now also have a position of great power on Mesa, the planet where we were first abused and brutalized—not unilateral power, because we share it with others, including all of you in this room—but it’s still great power.”
“So we’ve given up vengeance.” He spread his hands wide. “We no longer need it, because our self-respect is now assured. And that being the case, to continue to exact vengeance would simply diminish us.”

“I think you’re right about his sense of humor,” Umebayashi said, then looked up from his minicomp’s display. “And I hope you’ve got a sense of humor, Kondraty.”
“What?” Akdag’s eyebrows rose, because there was something odd about Umebayashi’s tone.
The other man didn’t reply. Instead, he looked over his shoulder at a much younger fellow.
“Cameras are down, Indy,” he said.
“All right!”
The young man had set his personal carry-on bag on the table in front of him and opened it. Now he reached in and brought out a military-grade pulser.
“Hey! What—?!”
Akdag’s blurted question was interrupted as “Indy” tossed a second pulser towards Umebayashi…who caught it neatly without seeming to actually look at it at all.
Akdag, on the other hand, looked at it very closely. That tended to happen when someone aimed a pulser directly between his eyes.
“Now, don’t get excited, Kondraty.” Umebayashi’s tone was calm, almost soothing. “First, we’re the good guys, not the bad guys. Secondly, I doubt very much that you’re one of the bad guys, either. So there’s no need for any unpleasantness, as far as I’m concerned. How do you feel about that?”

“Then we’re done for the moment.” Cachat rose. “Let me introduce you to some of the people waiting outside.”
The first person they encountered after leaving the pavilion was a tall, powerful looking blonde.
“Here’s one of your commissioners,” Cachat said. “Yana Tretiakovna. And here are a couple of others.” Two more people came from around the side of the pavilion. “The one on the left is Indiana Graham,” he said.
But all three of the PNE officers’ eyes were fixed on Indy’s companion. Or rather, on his companion’s companion, who rode his human’s shoulder.
“That’s a treecat.”
There was more than a trace of protest in Trevithick’s tone, and Cachat glanced at him. The dispassionate, almost bored expression was back.
“What part of ‘I am a very difficult person to betray’ are you having the most trouble with, Citizen Commander?”

Finally, Tretiakovna glanced at Zilwicki with one eyebrow raised. The Manticoran looked back, then checked his chrono just a bit conspicuously, and nodded.
“All right, Victor,” she said. “Time’s up! What’s more ridiculous than a one-armed bimbo?”
Cachat’s lips might—might—have twitched slightly, but he gave no other sign that he’d even heard her. Instead, he gazed down at the table for another several seconds before he looked up.
“The answer to your question,” he told her, “is organizing an expedition to find out what happened in that star system, using some of the Attila ships captured at the Battle of Torch. And we need to do it with a reasonably powerful force. I’m figuring at least a cruiser and two or three destroyers.”
Tretiakovna rolled her eyes. Daud al-Fanudahi frowned. Most of the others only looked confused, however, and Zilwicki smiled to himself.
Welcome to Victor’s Wild Ride, he thought. I’d call it Cachat’s Folly if he hadn’t pulled these schemes off way too many times.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tarkovsky demanded.

“So now what?” he asked.
“Don’t look at me,” Tretiakovna said. “The last time I got involved with the dwarf—” she jerked her head at Zilwicki “—I got turned into a bimbo and lost an arm. And if there’s anything in the universe more ridiculous than a one-armed bimbo, I can’t imagine what it is.”
“I can think of several possibilities,” Cachat said.
“Like what?” she demanded suspiciously.
“I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”
“Oh, hell.” Tretiakovna looked at Tarkovsky and waved him away from the chair he’d abandoned. “Move. I’m going to need to sit down after all. Victor Cachat thinking is the stuff of nightmares.”

She limped across the office. She no longer needed her crutches, despite the fact that she was one of those unfortunate souls who responded poorly to the regeneration therapies, but the cane still came in handy. It took her a while to get there, but then she settled into the other armchair. They faced one another as the director resumed his own seat, and she took a moment to study the man.
The man being the now famous Saburo Lara, formerly Saburo X—one of Jeremy X’s top subordinates. For someone from Barrett’s background, this was a bit like meeting Satan would have been for someone from a JudeoChristian background.
Well…like meeting Beelzebub or Moloch, anyway. Satan himself would be Jeremy X.
She couldn’t say he wasn’t what she’d expected, because she’d had no idea what to expect. She wouldn’t have been completely astonished to discover that Director Saburo had cloven hooves, horns, and a tail.
But…
He didn’t. She was sure about the horns, because his hair was close cropped and there was nowhere they could have been hidden. She was almost as sure about the feet, because she could see his shoes and she didn’t think any kind of hooves could have fitted into them. The tail…maybe, but she didn’t think it was likely.
First, because he seemed to be sitting completely at his ease in the armchair, which she’d think would be awkward for someone with a tail. Mostly, though, it was because he just plain didn’t look like a devil. And didn’t seem to be acting like one, either.
He was taller than she was, by perhaps eight centimeters. Given that she was only a hundred and seventy centimeters, that made him a bit shorter than the average male. Average Mesan full citizen male, that was. Slaves—former slaves—varied a lot when it came to height and weight.
His physique wasn’t exactly stocky, but she suspected there was plenty of muscle hidden under the loose garments he favored. He’d probably looked pretty good in the new uniform of the MUMP, because the green would match his eyes and go well with his almost bronze skin color.
She wondered why he wasn’t wearing that uniform. Was its absence a statement on his part? She felt herself relax a bit further at that possibility. Perhaps Saburo actually intended to run the MUMP as a police agency rather than a paramilitary organization like the MISD had been.