Shades of Gray (6 page)

“That’s Kezule talking.”

“No, it isn’t. I admire your Captain, Banner, and I hope that one day I’ll possess the skills and self-restraint he’s shown.” M’kou moved past him, indicating the desk and comm. “I’ll leave you to make your call. Please at least consider what I’ve said.”

Banner watched him leave before taking his seat. He was thinking through what M’kou had said—and what he hadn’t.

 

Kaid flicked an ear at him in greeting, his seemingly random slight finger movements enquiring whether Banner was alone or was being monitored.

“You look well,” he said.

“We’re all well,” Banner replied, signaling that he was alone and the call wasn’t being monitored as far as he knew. “We’ve been treated like members of the crew.”

Kusac sat playing idly with his stylus, ignoring the flicking images of K’hedduk’s ascension to the Throne of Light playing once more on the large screen behind Kezule, just as he’d automatically filtered out the sounds of the voices around him for the past hour. Back and forth the same arguments had gone among the same few people, principally Banner, Security head M’zynal, Captain Zhookoh, lately escaped with his crew from K’hedduk’s takeover of K’oish’ik, and Kezule.

He was still aware of Kaid—and through him of Carrie—holding their own briefing and planning session on the
Tooshu
. Unlike his present company, they’d come up with a couple of good ideas but nothing yet that made a complete plan. He let his mind drift, adding their own pool of knowledge, taking Kaid’s ideas and expanding on them, playing with various scenarios in his mind’s eye.

Just as his eyelids began to droop, Banner dug him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Kusac!” he hissed.

With a jerk, he sat up to find all eyes on him.

“If you’re not up to this meeting, Kusac,” said Kezule, his tone one of concern, “then go back to your quarters and rest. I’m sure Banner can brief you later. It’s only been a few hours since your fight with Dzaou.”

“I’m fine,” he said shortly, deciding he’d had enough and it was time for him to speak out. He leaned forward, searching among the sheets of briefing documents they’d all been issued. “I’m just tired of sitting here listening to the same arguments. We can’t wait for the
Couana
to get here. We need to act now, not sit on our butts talking!”

“They’ll be here in two days,” said Banner.

“And it takes another three to reach the Prime world! Plus none of you,” he glared round the small group of Primes and Banner, “have gotten even the germ of a workable plan yet!” Grabbing hold of a couple of sheets, he eased himself to his feet. “Well, I have.”

Pushing his chair back, he limped around the conference table to where Kezule sat watching him intently.

“Here’s a plan, one that will work if we act now, before K’hedduk digs himself deep into the Palace and gets its antiquated defenses up and running.” He tossed the first sheet in front of the General. “That’s a schedule of shipping expected at the Prime Orbital platform in the next few days. There’s only one, the U’Churian Rryuk family merchanter due in three days. They’re Warriors, and Clan allies of ours. I can contact them and arrange a rendezvous. If I take a small team with me, once we’re on board and we’ve docked, they’ll join us in taking the Orbital. You said there’s only a small crew there, all Prime pacifists. Even if K’hedduk has sent any of his implanted guards or the genetically modified warrior types up to supervise them, he’s only got a total of three hundred and twenty. He can’t spare more than about five, maximum. The U’Churians have a crew of seven, plus their four Cabbarans, and if I take another four with me, we can easily handle them.”

“What does that achieve?” demanded M’zynal. “What about the
Kz’adul
, berthed there?”

“What about her?” he asked, rounding on the young male, staggering slightly as he did so. “They’re on alert, so K’hedduk’s few warriors won’t leave her, and you know the six thousand odd crewmembers will run for cover if they hear a raised voice!”

“They’re not quite that bad,” murmured Kezule, hiding the ghost of a smile behind his already raised hand.

“Captain, take my seat,” said M’kou, getting to his feet and touching Kusac briefly on the arm.

Gratefully, he accepted it. “No one will be expecting us, M’zynal,” he said. “If you’ve got soporific gas canisters, we can use them. In our battle suits, we’ll be well protected.”

“Battle suits?” echoed Banner. “What battle suits? We don’t have any with us.”

“We’ve eight,” said Kusac, glancing across at him. “But they’re in my cabin on the
Venture
. The Primes installed a concealed armory there with the suits and a selection of munitions. As for what taking the Orbital will achieve, their weather is controlled from there, isn’t it? If I can take a couple of civilian engineers from here, they can create havoc on the world below. Meanwhile, we can contact the
Kz’adul
on one of the channels all ships use for unofficial ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore chat and get some of the friendlies to let us on board and point us in the direction of K’hedduk’s people.”

“Be a helluva lot easier if we had the shutdown codes,” muttered Zhookoh.

“Shutdown codes?” asked Kezule, looking across at him.

“The Emperor had codes he could use to shut down each ship in case of a coup. Leave ’em dead in the water,” explained Zhookoh. “It’s new. Ironically, we had it brought in because of K’hedduk.”

“We’d still have to deal with his genetically enhanced warriors at some point,” said Kezule, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “The idea has good points, Kusac, but if we start tampering with the weather, K’hedduk will know something is wrong on the Orbital, even if the crew keep in regular touch.”

Kusac pushed his second sheet in front of Kezule. “That’s where the asteroid belt around one of your outer planets comes in,” he said. “I assume that, like the
Kz’adul
, you have traction beams on your modern ships?”

“Yes, but you’re not seriously suggesting what I think, are you?” asked Kezule, sitting up to study the photograph, suddenly all attention.

“I am. Send the
N’zishok
and
Mazzu
out to collect a few thousand of them, including some larger ones. Single out those, put them at the front and attach remote detonation charges on them in case we need to blow them, then tow them close to K’oish’ik and let ’em go so they start heading toward it. If that doesn’t get the other three ships heading out to stop them, I don’t know what will. Meanwhile ...”

“Meanwhile,” continued Kezule, “the small ones can’t be stopped, and as they hit the atmosphere and burn up, it gives us the cover to launch our drop pod assault! If we get the angle right, they’ll even think the Orbital has been hit, which would account for the weather fluctuations. I like it, Kusac, but if K’hedduk’s got the Palace gun turrets working, to say nothing of the force field, it could turn into a bloodbath for us.”

“The HALO drop isn’t the main plan,” said Kusac, sitting back and carefully easing his injured leg out in front of him. The healing wound was beginning to ache—and itch—again. He’d taken more of a beating from the late and unlamented Dzaou than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

Kezule looked at him over the top of the photo, one eye ridge raised questioningly.

“My team is,” he said. This was where his plan differed substantially from Kaid’s. “We go down on the shuttle and infiltrate the tunnel systems, making our way along them to the main Control Room under the Palace. Once there, we can work from inside to turn the defenses off or use them against K’hedduk. All your people have to do is create enough of a diversion to pull all K’hedduk’s warriors to the defense perimeter, by the force field relay towers. You’re the General, Kezule, you do what you do best—blend us all into one attack force.”

“If we fail, then the HALO team will be the main plan,” said Banner thoughtfully.

“HALO?” queried M’kou.

“High Altitude, Low Orbit insertion of troops or craft,” said Kusac.

Kezule studied the maps thoughtfully, then turned on the holo display. Instantly a 3-D image of the City and the Palace, showing every level, coalesced about six inches above the conference table.

Tapping a series of buttons set into the keypad in front of him, he rotated the image, then stilled it, decreasing the amount of detail until the bare minimum of the tunnels, the underground control complex, and the Palace above it remained.

“To go in without more intel, especially now we have six weeks, would be foolish,” said M’zynal.

“We don’t have ...” began Kusac and Kezule in unison, both stopping when they realized the other was also speaking.

As Kusac deferred to him, with the ghost of a smile, Kezule continued. “We don’t have six weeks, and we don’t need more intel. What our young Emperor is managing to get for us is enough.” He glanced back to Kusac. “You realize that the City is built on a hill comprised of sand and limestone?”

“It’s porous, I know. How else could the tunnels have originated or been so easily expanded to your ancestors’ purpose?”

“It also means that if we create the electrical storms, we disrupt communications between the Orbital and the ships, and those tunnels will be flooded.”

“Our battle suits can handle that,” he said confidently.

“We set traps in the tunnels,” said Zhookoh. “Some of them will still be active despite flooding.”

“Then I’ll take a couple of you with me to deactivate them,” Kusac said more calmly than he felt. He sensed Zayshul bringing analgesics for him and began to swear under his breath, knowing she’d picked up his discomfort. Drawing attention to the pain he was still suffering was not something he wanted right now.

“With respect, Captain,” said M’zynal, as the General’s wife entered and went over to him, wordlessly handing him a charged hypo. “I don’t think you’re yet fit to go on such a mission, let alone lead it.”

With little grace, he accepted the hypo, but he stuffed it into one of his belt retainers. “I’m fit. The armor is powered anyway. It takes very little effort to move in it.” He shot the Doctor a glance that dared her to say anything, but she left without a word. “Besides, we should meet very little resistance.”

“Your plan is good,” said Kezule, turning the holo image round slowly to study it again from every angle. “I can see only one major flaw. Only Zsurtul can turn off the Orbital’s safety devices and operate the Command Center. It needs to take a retinal scan from him.”

“I planned on including him with my team. He’s with Kaid on the Touiban ship.”

Exclamations of disbelief, ignored by both Kezule and Kusac, rippled round the table.

“Yet you don’t want to wait for the
Couana
to arrive,” said Kezule.

“The
Couana’s
on their battleship, the
Tooshu
, right now. They plan to leave it at the outer limits of the Prime system. We tell them to include Prince Zsurtul, then make for K’oish’ik, not here,” he said. “They wait out of scanner range, possibly masked by one of your ships using its chameleon shielding, for a signal from us saying we’ve taken the Orbital. Meanwhile, the rest of the Prime fleet will be picking up the asteroids on their sensors, and, hopefully, they’ll be moving away from the planet to intercept them.”

“That should draw at least the two smaller cruisers away from K’oish’ik,” said M’kou thoughtfully.

“Then Zsurtul contacts the
Kz’adul
on the private frequency I mentioned and finds out for us what the situation there is like. It may be that the crew can isolate any of K’hedduk’s people they have on board without violence and take back control of the ship,” said Kusac. “If not, we do it. I’m sure they can manage to conceal us docking with them. Finally, the
Couana
joins us on the Orbital, and Zsurtul deactivates the safety features. The regular crew can then take over from him, creating massive electrical storms and leaving him free to go downside with me.”

“If those on the Orbital or the
Kz’adul
are members of the implanted Palace Guard, then they can be rendered unconscious without a shot being fired,” M’kou reminded. “All we need is a remote tuned to their frequency, and we know that.”

“That’s true,” agreed Kezule. “If you have fifteen people when you land on K’oish’ik ...”

“Too many,” interrupted Kusac. “Ten, maximum, including the Prince. Surely six of your commandos can ensure Zsurtul’s safety in a battle suit?”

“Of course.”

“Six?” Banner asked sharply. “That means no other Sholans.”

“I want you to stay with Kezule and lead one of the HALO units with the rest of our crew,” Kusac said, shifting slightly in his seat in an effort to ease the still-increasing pain.

“No,” his Second said flatly. “I’m coming with you.”

Kusac locked eyes with him until Banner looked away. “I’ll take Khadui with me,” he compromised. “You and Jayza will be with Kezule and our people from the
Couana
.”