“Well you were right about Prudence, Skip,” Ellie said. “I traced her comms logs and she got a call from Moses Staunton moments after Sully and Bart launched us in the Buster. As soon as she rang off, she was on the horn to Clement.”

“So,” Sharpe said, “not only did she know, she was passing the intel between Clement and Staunton. Any idea what was said?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. That’ll take a little longer…if it’s even possible.”

“Okay then. It’s just as I suspected. Keep at it. Knowing what they said will get us that much closer to the truth. Anyone else got something new?”

“Nothing definitive on the Sovereign Hauling front, Boss,” Liebner chimed in. “You’ll remember that’s Timms’s freight company on Neosho. There’s a bit of activity around the time of Sully’s escape that we can tie to Clement, but nothing that goes near Neosho and nothing that could tie them to anyone else of interest.”

“That doesn’t sound as promising as it could be, Frank, but see if there’s any evidence they dummied up the invoices in terms of destinations like they did the cargo manifests. No reason they can’t commit two kinds of fraud for the same client.”

“On it, Boss.”

It was Judy’s turn. “We’ve got nothing so far, Skip. Haven’t found anything on Clement’s comms logs linking him to Neosho or Timms either way.”

“Well, keep after it, Judy. There has to be something. Is there any way to determine if either Clement or Timms used a disposable comms link?”

“Don’t know, Skip. If they were both doing it, we’d never find it, not without going through the Abbey at any rate. You ready to go there or are we gonna assume the Abbey’s compromised?”

Sharpe thought for a minute. “No. You’re right. We have to assume we can’t trust the Abbey. If what we’re up to gets out to the wrong party there, we’ll be shut down in a heartbeat. Let’s try coming from the other direction. We should be able to get all the comms logs from the lockup on Neosho, including those of all their personnel. The Abbey’s probably already got them for one thing, and for another, that’s not going to arouse anyone’s suspicions. Look into that. See if you come up with anything.”

“You get anything useful out of Murphy?” Ellie asked.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Sharpe said. “He sure didn’t want to come clean, but I managed to persuade him that his pension was on the line. That’s probably the least of his worries, but it seemed to be the one thing that got his attention.”

“So, what’d he say?”

“He fingered Clement. Said Clement set the whole escape plan up. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t seem to know whether or not Clement set up the whole nuking an asteroid to take out Tonkawa thing, but he was at the middle of the escape. That much is sure. Of course, we already knew that much, but now we’ve got confirmation and, since Murphy’s already told me, he’ll have to testify if it comes to that. We’ve got Clement on the escape and we’ve got Clement on the murder of Moses Staunton. Too bad Clement’s off the field. We could use those two things to sweat the rest of it out of him. As it is, we just know we’re on the right track and that Sully and Bart weren’t just blowing smoke.”

“Okay,” Ellie said. “That’s good, right? Anything else?”

Sharpe clenched his teeth in an effort not to appear as sheepish as he felt.

“Yes,” he said. “There is one more thing…”

“What is it? Why are you being circumspect?”

“It’s Prudence. She’s not just passing messages. She’s in it up to her eyeballs.”

“Aw, Skip, aren’t you kind of sweet on her? That’s gonna be trouble, isn’t it?”

“It sure has the potential to be a problem. I’m going to have to manage the situation with a lot of care to make sure there’s no blow-back on me…or our investigation.”

Ellie got a strange look on her face, one Sharpe didn’t remember ever seeing before, at least not when it had to do with him.

“Does that mean you’re going to keep seeing her?” Ellie asked.

“I think so. I think I have to, especially now. If I quit seeing her, she’ll know something’s up. I’m sure she knows things we need to know. If she thinks I’m on to her, that’ll be the end of any hope I have of learning what those things are.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Skip. Just be careful, okay? I don’t want a new boss, and I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that.”

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“Now, wait just a minute, Sin,” Sharpe protested.

“I most certainly will not wait just a minute. I warned you about that woman. I warned you against letting yourself be sucked into her web.”

“It’s not like that. Not like that at all.”

“Really? Then tell me, how is it? You’ve compromised your own investigation.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Oh, please!? She’s a person of interest at a minimum and you know it. Chances are pretty good she’s at the center of the disinformation and the breaches of security that are keeping you from figuring out what’s really going on here. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong. That’s precisely the reason I went to see her.”

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There was something too slick and creepy about Todd Blaire and his constant affirmations of her value to the Gaspar Sector. These were almost always accompanied by some abstrusely suggestive reference to her appearance or her style. She didn’t think for a moment that he was interested in her sexually. What she thought was that he thought she would be flattered by such talk. She was not.

Further, there were the interesting bits of information she’d picked up from Sullivan and Barteusiewicz while she was their captive about the events surrounding their act of terrorism on Tonkawa. She didn’t believe them, of course, but they had offered some compelling evidence that at least part of their story was true.

They had tried to blame the Blaires for their troubles. She wasn’t about to take that at face value, but she had to admit, to herself at least, that it put Todd Blaire’s more obvious machinations in a context that made sense. That troubling thought had her questioning almost everything Blaire said or did that impacted her campaign. It did not have her questioning her decision to run for the Senate, however.

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For those who came late and want to catch up and those, like me, who get confused, I am creating a table of contents that provides links to the chapters and entries in chronological order…that is the order in which I have posted them. This is also the order in which they unfold in the broader narrative as chapters or partial chapters. Hope this helps you keep track of where you are in the story. Click on the entry title (underlined) and the link will transport you to the proper place.

24.

25.

“What is it, Edwin?” she asked. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know, Sin. I’m back to square one here and it’s eating me up. I really need the resources of the Abbey, but someone there—maybe a lot of someones—is compromised. I’m off mission too, so far off in fact that I can’t even trust the people there who are still trustworthy. Anyone can dip me in the grease for being off mission. They don’t have to be bent. They just have to be strictly by the book.”

“You can always talk to me, Hon. You know that.”

“Of course I do. Here I am talking to you. Problem is, you’re not a detective. You don’t do forensics. You’re a counselor. You might help me keep my head on straight, and believe me I know that’s no small feat, but you can’t steer me in an investigation I’m not even supposed to be conducting.”

“You’re a smart detective, Edwin, probably smarter than you give yourself credit for. That said, you might not need the resources of the Abbey as much as you think you do. I believe, as someone who understands your capabilities and limitations better than anyone else in the Constabulary, that you are perfectly capable of working this out on your own. You know it too. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It just all seems pretty hopeless right now. I’ve been scared witless once. I just walked into a trap I wasn’t suppose to walk out of, and I only escaped because we learned of the trap in advance…by accident. Now my only real lead is probably dead and a compromised Command has all the evidence we’ve managed to collect so far. I haven’t accomplished anything. I don’t have anything to show for the work we’ve put in and the perils we’ve faced.”

“So, you’re back at the beginning again. You’ve been at the beginning before. You know what to do in general, and once you do that, you’ll know what to do next. Let’s get your head right and get you back to work. Okay, Sweetie.”

“Okay, Sin. I know you’re right. I just need reminding.”

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While Sinthea was talking Sharpe down from an emotional precipice, Blaire was negotiating next steps with Prudence. He’d gone to see her in person. He figured the value of gauging her manner and disposition in person would outweigh the risk of being seen and recognized in a brothel. Cunning strategist though he was, as a man of power and influence he also needed to remain, to all outward appearances, above reproach. He came in secret disguised in a wig and dark glasses and arranged to be brought in through the garage

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When he met Prudence after being ushered into her suite, he understood what all the hubbub was about. She was a very attractive girl, even to him. He was old enough and rich enough to be beyond base yearnings, and yet she stirred some long-forgotten whimsy in him just the same. He quickly tamped it down. He was, after all, Todd Blaire. He didn’t have needs. What he had was propriety and good manners.

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He and Liebner had taken another run at interrogating Timms on the flight over. They got him off in a corner at the back of the passenger cabin and took turns trying to break him down. Fruitless.

“Come on, Timms,” Sharpe had said at last, frustration getting the better of him. “You have to know something you’re not telling us.”

“So you say. I’ve already told you everything I know. There ain’t any more to tell.”

“Who was Clement working for? He didn’t come up with this scheme on his own. Someone put him up to it.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t know who it could’ve been. He never said.”

“You were together for the better part of two days. He must have said something.”

“He said a lot of things. Guy liked to hear himself talk. He never said that.”

“Well, what did he say,” Liebner jumped in.

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“How’d Command get it?” Sully wanted to know. “I thought you’d get the tip direct from Clement.”

“So did I,” Sharpe admitted, “but this way we have to act on it. If it had come from Clement, we’d be free to deal with it as we see fit, even to the point of ignoring it. This way, it’s an order. We have to come, and come now.”

“Do yourself a favor and armor up, my friend. We both know we’re not supposed to walk away from this.”

“True, but we’re not supposed to know we’re walking into a trap either. If we show up bristling with fire power, they’re going to know we got tipped off.”

“Yeah. So?”

“They’re a crackpot militia group, Sully. You’ve surely seen them in your travels. They’ve all got different agendas, but beyond the ideologies, they all look the same. Overweight, over-gunned, festooned with useless combat paraphernalia, their pockets full of energy snacks and amphetamine laced performance drugs. Most of them are so amped up and edgy, they can’t shave properly without cutting their faces to shreds. They get one look at five constables in tactical gear and full-auto blasters, they’re going to run for the nearest exit.”

“And that’s a bad thing how?”

“Well I for one want to talk to them. You should too. Just a bit of proper interrogation will get us the proof we’ve been looking for. It’ll help clear your names, tell us who is behind all the shenanigans, put an end to this fools errand we’ve been calling a mission.”

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The same theory applied to the smuggler’s ship. The whole fight would be confined to the landing pad. All the opposition would be eliminated, and the Boiz would escape into the void with their new weapons cache and hardly any amo spent.

Meanwhile Timms’s own ship was hidden away on the far side of the asteroid and Timms and his men were deployed behind such cover as they could find. Timms surveyed the scene and found it to his satisfaction. Clement, who was along for the ride, seemed to agree. The place looked like what it was every other day, an abandoned mining depot, not a deadly trap.

Timms’s comms guy came on air, “Ship approaching, sir.”

“Constables or smugglers?” Timms asked.

Their comms were short-range and encrypted. Clement was listening in.

“Neither by it’s signature. Looks like a mining ship, a seismic test ship. You think it’s legit?”

“Goddammit to hell.” This from Clement.

Timms looked over at his benefactor, who was crouched next to him behind one of the out-buildings. He could just make out the pulsating vein on the man’s forehead, even through the tinted face shield of his exo-suit.

“Something wrong, Mitchell?” Timms asked.

“You’re damn right, something’s wrong. Either the constables or the smugglers are onto us and running a scam or some dumb sumbitch has picked this very moment to gum up the works by accident. Why can’t something just go right for a change?”

Timms was full of confidence and bravado. “Don’t worry so much, Mitchell. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it when they get here.”

Aboard the Buster, Bart was viewing the intel from the recon drone. “Seems you were right to call these guys bozos, Inspector. They don’t have a clue what’s coming for them.”

“Don’t count them out just yet,” Sharpe said. “You just never know for sure.”

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The place was small, tucked in between an electronics parts outlet and an emergency care facility meant to serve the techs and mechanics working the maintenance hangars. A small sign above the door read, simply, ‘EAT.’ Timms was already inside sitting in a booth while two of his militia guys occupied a nearby table. They wore urban camo exo-suits, full auto blasters slung around their necks, helmets in their laps. Their heads swiveled right to left and back again in a mechanical cadence, sweeping the place, Clement imagined, for threats. He shook his head in mild amusement.

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Timms rose to shake hands. The goons remained seated, caressing their weapons as if they were pets that needed calming. Clement took a seat opposite Timms and ordered a coffee from the touch-screen menu. It arrived moments later atop an automated cart. Clement sipped the tepid, tasteless brew. It was just as bad as he remembered.

“Pleasant trip?” Timms asked.

“I got here, didn’t I?” Clement said.

“Was there some kind of problem?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. Would it kill you to provide some snacks and a beverage or two, help pass the time? And how about a seat with some proper padding. I could just as well stay in the crate they loaded me in. Wouldn’t be any less comfortable.”

“It’s a cargo vessel, Mitchell. What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. More.”

“Yeah, well, sorry it didn’t meet your expectations. We’ll try to do better next time.”

Timms’s voice oozed sarcasm. Clement felt chastened for a moment, then angry to have been chastened. The vein in his forehead began to throb again. Never a good sign. He took a deep breath and let the air out in a slow stream between his teeth.

“I need a squad of men,” he said, “maybe two, to run an op.”

“Wet?”

“Very. No survivors.”

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There were religious groups of every stripe, all Christian in fundamentals but different enough in the particulars to condemn one another to judgment nonetheless. There were meat-eaters, fish-eaters, and vegans. There were various martial arts groups, hand-to-hand combat purists and fully weaponized ones, Luddites and tech-savvies, ideologues and tribalists. They were all militant, untrusting, and insular. Some were deadlier than others, but rooted in their own brands of ignorance, they were also largely ineffectual. Some were downright silly.

The presence of so much plotting and suspicion made Unega and its surrounds the focus of a lot of Federation attention, but those same qualities also gave the place a kind of immunity from direct Federation intervention. So long as the Unegan factions kept to Unega, the Federation left them to their own devices. It was only when they strayed into other sectors and jurisdictions that the various Unegan militias ran afoul of Federation authority, including the Constabulary.

All of these things conflated to make Unega a good place for fugitives like Sully and Bart to hide out—not perfect, but workable. There were problems. The underlying mistrust of the locals made it dangerous. One had to be careful not to offend any of the myriad sensibilities of the place. Also, although the Federation might be loathe to intervene in direct ways, they were more than happy to surveil the place in all the ways available to them.

Comings and goings were watched and logged. Communications were recorded and analyzed. As a result, cloaking and encryption technologies had become boom industries on Unega, and these were indeed the very reasons that Sully and Bart had come: cloaking to make the Buster look like something that it was not, and encryption to keep their communications secret enough to avoid betraying their whereabouts.

The cloaking tech would take days to install, but the encryption software was easy and quick. Once the encryption was done, Sully called Prudence to see if there were any new developments. Specifically, he wanted to know whether she had relayed his message to Sharpe.

“Of course, Jimmy,” she purred, and he was forced by her tone to remember their shared intimacies.

“What did he say? Anything?”

“He seemed confused by the references. He thought maybe your message was actually intended for someone else.”

“He said that?”

“He did. He thought maybe it was for someone in the Constabulary—someone outside his investigation who might read the files over his shoulder so to speak.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, he also thought it might be for me or someone else I might share it with.”

“Oof! I’ll bet that stung. Sounds like he doesn’t trust you.”

“I’m a big girl, Jimmy. I don’t get stung.”

“Okay, Pru. I hear you…but did you?”

“Get stung?”

“No. Did you share my message with anyone else?”

“No, Jimmy, of course not. Whom would I even tell such a thing?”

“Clement comes to mind.”

“Seriously? You think I would take a cryptic message like that to Clement? What must you think of me to even imagine that? We were lovers once, or have you forgotten?”

Sully, forced yet again to muse on Pru’s carnal delights, paused to edit his reply. “No, Pru, I have not forgotten and I probably never will,” he said at last. “I’m just trying to be realistic. I’m in a difficult fix here. I have to be careful. I don’t mean to offend, but surely you can appreciate where I’m coming from.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t be mad, Pru.”

“I’m not mad. Just disappointed to be held in such low regard, especially after all we meant to each other.”

Sully relaxed to hear the passive-aggressive tone creep into her voice. It meant two things to him. First, she remained as manipulative as she had ever been, and second, she had absolutely shared his message with Clement…just as he had intended.

“Look, Pru,” he said, “don’t be disappointed either. My hope, sincerely, is that one day when all these troubles are behind me, you and I can rekindle what we used to be.”

“You mean that, Jimmy?”

“I do.”

“Listen, I almost forgot. I’ve got a message for you. It’s kind of a strange one. Todd Blaire called the other day looking for you. Said he figured you’d be reaching out to me sooner or later. I don’t know what made him think that, but he did. He wanted me to have you get in touch with him, and he left his contact details.”

And there it is, Sully thought. His deliberately puzzling message for Clement was already paying dividends. Blaire had to be a player in all this. Blaire was the juicy center of everything.

“He say what he wanted?” he ask, striving not to let any excitement creep into his voice.

“Not even,” Prudence said.

As soon as he rang off from Prudence, Sully called the contact number she had given him for Blaire. No time like the present, he thought. Blaire connected immediately.

“I’m in the middle of something,” he said. “Call me back in fifteen.”

“This is…,” Sully began, thinking Blaire must have been confused.

“I know who this is. Fifteen minutes.” And Blaire was gone.

Sully marveled at the abruptness of the exchange. Blaire had reached out to him after all, not the other way around. Was it too much to expect a little decorum? On the other hand, Blaire was one of the wealthiest and therefore perhaps busiest men in the known universe. Given that, Sully thought, he ought to have been surprised to get connected at all without having to run a gauntlet of secretaries and gate keepers. In the end, he was just overwhelmed with curiosity as to what Blaire could possible want with him. Fifteen minutes was going to take hours to unwind. He set a timer and went to check on the status of their cloaking tech installation.

When the timer chimed, he counted to ten and re-keyed Blaire’s number.

“Sully,” Blaire answered. “May I call you Sully? I read that’s your preferred nickname.”

“Sure. Why not.”

“First, let me apologize for the blunt manner in which I answered your call. I really was in the middle of a rather important meeting, but I didn’t want to leave your call unanswered. I knew it was you of course. No one else has this number except our mutual friend Prudence, and I had no reason to think it might be her.”

“Okay,” Sully said. “No worries. I have to say though, I’m baffled as to why you want to talk to me.”

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“Simple. I want to make you an offer of employment.”

Sully laughed. “You can’t be serious.”

“I assure you, Sully, that I am.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“You’re familiar with Mitchell Clement?”

“Mitchell Clement? The guy who contracted with us to deliver a nuclear device to an asteroid, and left us holding the bag for an act of terrorism? That Mitchell Clement? They guy who broke us out of solitary confinement on Neosho, and then tried to blow us up in deep space with a ship full of constables? Is that the Mitchell Clement you’re talking about?”

“The very same.”

“Yeah, I’d say we’re familiar. You happen to know where I can find him?”

“I can’t help you there, but I can tell you that Clement has been working for Blaire Industries as a fixer of sorts. He handles problems for us that can’t be handled through overt channels.”

“You mean problems like a couple of alleged terrorists who know more than they ought.”

“Precisely.”

“So it was you that tried to have us killed?”

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The team had convened in a conference room at the local constabulary barracks. Murphy had adopted a more helpful attitude after Staunton’s suicide, especially when Sharpe pointed out to him that the event would be seen by Internal Affairs as a failure of leadership and possibly lead to a disciplinary action unless Sharpe intervened on his behalf. Now Murphy was going to some lengths to at least appear cooperative. Hence the conference room, access to local servers, and even coffee service and pastries. A little leverage could be a wonderful thing, Sharpe thought.

They’d congregated at one end of a long conference table. Sharpe sat at the head, Bull and Ritchie on one side, Liebner and Epperly on the other. Bull was brushing crumbs off his tunic with one hand while holding a cup of coffee in the other at arm’s length to avoid spilling it on himself. He looked up to see everyone staring at him.

“What?” he asked.

Ritchie shook her head in mild amusement. “Try to focus, Bull. The Skipper is making a point.”

“I’m listening,” Bull said. “I can listen and drink coffee at the same time.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ritchie said, “You’ll notice that we’re all doing that, but it’s like you can’t drink coffee without making a spectacle of yourself.”

“Spectacle? What’s that suppo…”

Sharpe cleared his throat and everyone turned their attention back to him.

“Sorry, Skip,” Ritchie offered.

“Clement,” Sharpe said. “We’ve got to find him. The sooner the better. You’ve all been through the trove of docs and evidence Sullivan left for us. Who’s got something we can use?”

“I’ve been through all the comms,” Liebner said. “It was all encrypted and proxied. The encryption was easy enough to bust. Proves Sullivan’s contention that their whole operation was directed by Clement. He’s clearly at the center of everything, but there’s nothing there to tell us where he might be now. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I didn’t expect this would be easy. Anybody else?”

Blank looks went around the table. Ritchie summed up with an expression—hands raised, fingers spread, lips compressed in a flat line. Nothing.

“Then we’re going to have to get creative,” Sharpe said. “Find his family and friends if he has any. Where are they? Do they have any contact and how often, that kind of thing? Check the commercial transport lines and see if we can get a handle on his travel schedule. Call his office. Judy, I want you to do this. See if you can sweet talk his secretary into giving up his calendar logs and access to their transaction records without us having to get a subpoena. She already gave me a peek at his calendar before I went to meet with the Blaires, so I’m hoping she’ll be agreeable to a deeper dive into his affairs. Maybe we can scare up any travel arrangements he may have made in the past. He might use them again. Also, see if he made any reservations under or for another name. He might have an alias we don’t know about. If none of that turns up anything useful, we’ll consider tapping his comms, although I don’t want to get a court order if we don’t have to. I’m pretty sure we’ve got a mole at work somewhere and I don’t want to tip them off.”

While the team went about their hunt for Clement’s digital footprints, Sharpe found a private office and summoned Sin

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“Trouble, Edwin?” she asked.

“I’m just feeling inadequate here. I’m spinning my wheels and nothing’s going to come of it.”

“It’s still early days, Hon. Progress is always slow at this point. You sure it’s not something else?”

“I don’t know, Sin. It is early days. You’re right about that, so I don’t expect to be making much progress at this point. What’s bothering me is this nagging suspicion there is way more going on here than we know about—things I don’t think we’re supposed to discover.”

“So, in other words, you believe Sullivan?”

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Clement paced around Prudence’s boudoir office. He was uncomfortable with the daintiness but too agitated to regulate his movements accordingly. It didn’t help matters that Prudence herself sat too primly on the velvet divan watching his every move.

He’d come to Eufala that morning on corporate transport. Thank god he didn’t have to travel commercial anymore. Travel was bad enough when it came with the perks of private accommodation. If he’d had to queue up with the riff-raff and get stuffed into a tiny seat next to a garlic chewing peon, he’d really have been off his game.

Prudence sipped coffee from a tiny cup, little finger curled, the picture of Victorian elegance. A slight smile played at her lips, which irritated Clement even more than the surroundings. They were discussing Sully’s cryptic message.

“But what does it mean?” Clement wanted to know.

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Well part of it should be obvious, even to you. We know he’s got Babbish. Babbish and Bart have to be the friends ‘waltzing’ in the galley. But what’s ‘ten cents a dance’ have to do with anything?” He paused and stretched his neck from side to side as if that might shake loose an inkling. Then he went on, “You shared this with that detective?”

“Just as I said.”

“And he didn’t know either?”

“Just as he said, although to be fair, he might have been lying about that. He went on to speculate though that the message might have been intended for someone else, possibly someone in the Constabulary or someone I might share it with.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I wouldn’t be sharing it with anyone but him. I can’t be sure he believed me, but I think he did.”

“That’s naive, Pru. He’s talked to Sully. We have to assume Sully told him about me at the very least, and maybe you as well. There’s really no one else for him to know about unless he’s way smarter than he seems.”

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The Blaire brothers were usually of one mind, not just because they were twins, but because they had been swaddled from birth in a system calculated to make them think along the same lines as their forebears. From the proverbial silver spoons of their infancy to the secret society they had joined in their college years, everything they did, whether on their own or orchestrated for them by parents and their surrogates, was meant to convey and reinforce their pride of place and sense of entitlement. It was little wonder then that their only significant concessions to charity were their regular contributions to the institutions that reinforced the notion that their lives were more worthy than others.

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It would take her a few minutes to get her wits about her. No point in engaging her until that happened. She was sure to be in a bad mood as well, and Sullivan didn’t think that was likely to wear off as quickly.

She shook her head and looked around. Bart was sitting in the pilot’s seat pretending to be busy with the controls, but Sullivan knew that he was not. They were tucked into an asteroid belt again, hiding, a simple but effective way of laying low from their smuggling days. There was nothing to do really but monitor the ship and its surroundings.

Bart surely didn’t want to be the first of them to engage Monica in conversation. He was still embarrassed, Sully knew, by the egregious fabrications that had come out at their trial. The love sick cadet carries a torch for decades and finally goes crazy and blows up a planet. Every news source in the Galaxy picked it up and ran with it full tilt because it was so deliciously salacious.

“Well, well, well,” Monica said when Bart’s presence registered on her gathering consciousness. “Stanley Barteusiewicz. Be still my heart.” Apparently, sarcasm was going to be the advance guard of her re-marshaled forces.

Bart didn’t react. Instead, he twisted a dial on his console and slid an index finger across the screen, skidding the display to a new page. If Monica was paying any attention, she knew this to be a ridiculous display done for her benefit. She was, after all, an experienced Fleet Captain, fully aware of the meaning and significance of ship’s status and navigational icons on the monitors.

Sullivan cleared his throat. Monica shifted her gaze to him.

“Hello, Monica,” he said.

“Sully. You two taking me back to your lair? Going to turn me into a rebel warrior woman? Make me a sex slave?”

“No, sorry. Nothing quite so romantic.”

“What then? Does Bart here think he’s won me over, destroying a planet to get my attention? He think I’m going to decide I made a mistake all those years ago because I wouldn’t give him a slot on my dance card? C’mon. Tell me what it is you two fools hope to accomplish.”

“Actually,” Sully said, “we need some money so we’re hoping to collect a fat ransom for your safe return.”

Monica exploded in derisive laughter. “Ransom! You’ve got to be kidding me. Who in the world do you think is going to pay you a ransom for me?”

“Your dad, for one.”

“Really? That’s just delusional. First of all he doesn’t have enough to make it worth your while. And second, he’s one of those hard-liners, doesn’t believe in negotiating with criminals or terrorists, not even where I’m concerned.”

“Okay, what about your fans then? You’re a popular girl. I even saw on the news where you might be running for a Senate seat. Somebody will front the money.”

“Or what? You guys going to kill me when that doesn’t pan out?” She turned to address Bart. “How about it, Stan. You want to cut me up into pieces or you still want that dance?”

She sat back and folded her arms as if that was the end of the conversation. Bart looked up from the controls noting her smug expression.

“God, you’re really full of yourself, aren’t you, Mon,” he said.

She didn’t reply, but her self-satisfied smile faded a bit.

“Let me ask you something,” Bart said. “Do you actually remember me asking you to dance?”

“Sure,” she said. “How could I forget. It was all over the news.”

“I’m not asking you what you remember from the news or from the trial,” Bart said. “I’m asking you if you remember me asking you to dance twenty years ago at Fleet Academy.”

Monica’s expression sank a bit more. “That was a long time ago.”

“You don’t remember is what you mean, and there’s a reason for that. It’s because it never actually happened.”

“Of course it happened. It came out in testimony during your trial. I was there.”

“Oh, dear, sweet Monica, I’m going to tell you something that didn’t come out at the trial, but something that has the distinction of being true nonetheless. I did not destroy a planet pining away over some imagined slight because you wouldn’t dance with me. You never turned me down for a dance because I never asked you, and the reason I never asked you is because I am now, and always have been, a gay man.”

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“Let me just say at the outset, Inspector,” Todd began, “we have of course heard of your little misadventure at the hands of those escaped criminals, and we want you to know how pleased we are that you managed to escape unharmed.”

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By morning Sharpe had developed a plan of sorts, but it was upset first thing by a summons from Constabulary HQ on Galena. The team was to report to Abbey Headquarters next day for interviews pursuant to an official inquiry into circumstances surrounding their abduction and subsequent release by Sullivan and Barteusiewicz. That meant they’d have to suspend their activities on Eufala and leave for Galena in the early afternoon. Still time to get a few things done.

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The team discussed their approach over a grease laden breakfast at the diner where Bart had found his precious galabkis. They realized that their mission had been compromised somewhere, possibly from within the Constabulary itself, and that it was therefore incumbent upon them to proceed with a certain amount of discretion for the time being. In short, they couldn’t tell anyone at the inquiry the whole truth about Sully’s allegations—not if they were going to proceed investigating those same allegations.

Sharpe set Ellie to drafting an initial report for them to review en route to Galena. He thought it best if they not mention anything, at least initially, about Mitchell Clement or the mysterious cabal directing the initial destruction of Tonkawa and, according to Sully, orchestrating his and Bart’s conviction as well as their subsequent escape. If there was someone within the Constabulary feeding information to Sully’s alleged mastermind, any hint that they were actually tracking leads in a re-opened case would severely compromise their ability to get to the truth.

Ritchie was a little nonplussed. “Skip, are you seriously suggesting that we stonewall an official inquiry? Not saying there isn’t a reason to try. It just doesn’t seem like you.”

“I know, right? I’m struggling with this myself. Tell you what let’s do. We’ll create a second report—complete in every detail—that lays it all out. We’ll encrypt that one and file it away so that it will come to light if anything happens to us. That way at least it won’t look like we set out to thwart an internal investigation. We’ll lay out our suspicions and reasons and trigger it to come to light when and if we need it. It might just save our asses, or if worse comes to worst, it will give someone a basis to continue looking into this if someone succeeds in blowing us to kingdom come.”

He sent Bull off to find and question the salvage yard manager, Moses Staunton, who surely knew much more than he had pretended before he let them on board the Buster. Epperly and Liebner were to review the documents they had copied from Sullivan and look for any connections that might exist between his wild allegations and operators with whom he and Bart were known to have engaged before their spectacular crime.

Sharpe himself would start at the top of the pyramid of deception that Sullivan had described for them—with the Blaire brothers. He did this for reasons that explained much about his approach to police work. One, if there was a power directing the action, it would be moneyed and well-established. Second, pillars of society like the Blaires would have to be civil, at least in person, but whatever reactions he might be able to catalyze from them, if any, would be swift and definitive. And third, depending as they would on a veneer of respectability and influence, they would be easier to rattle than common criminal riff-raff—harder to prosecute surely, but easier to trip. He opened his comms and set himself to the task of getting an appointment at Blaire Tower on Galena for the following day—after the inquiry at Constabulary HQ.

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His problem was not psychosis at this point. Although he could feel the oppressive miasma of gray futility beginning to envelop him. His real problem, the one that kept his mind occupied to the exclusion, hopefully, of depression, was what to do next. When the team reconvened in the morning he would need to have a plan that took Sullivan’s little dog and pony show into account. It would also need to deal, officially, with the fact that they’d been abducted by the guys they were chasing and let them get away. They would have to convince the upper reaches of constabulary command that they were still on top of the situation, that they could get the job done, and that they had leads and a plan of action. Then they would have to appear to be working that plan while they launched a clandestine investigation into Sullivan’s allegations—an enterprise that promised to be difficult enough on it’s own without having to also constantly run interference and look like they were doing something else entirely.

“Man, it sucks to be me,” he said.

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Sharpe regarded Sullivan across the short expanse of the bridge. He was broad-shouldered, wiry, just over average height, crew cut, and bow legged. He moved with great animation and assurance. Sharpe put him down immediately for an alpha type—impatient, intense, and frequently unfocused but determined beyond reckoning. In Sharpe’s experience these types were usually honest if only because it was so hard for them to pay attention to developments long enough to carry off an effective lie. Didn’t mean they couldn’t do it. It was just more difficult for them than for most.

Nothing would have made Sharpe happier than to take the bastard down, but he had to assume that what Sullivan had just claimed about the ship being wired up with explosives was true. He figured odds were about 70/30 against it being the case, but he couldn’t risk the whole team on a hunch. His only option for the time being was to listen to whatever Sullivan had to say. It was sure to be interesting if nothing else.

Sharpe and his team were seated around the bridge. Liebner and Ritchie had the pilot seats at the control console. Epperly and Constabile had taken a pair of observer jump seats that folded down out of the bulkhead wall. Sharpe sat on the edge of the console itself with one foot on the floor. Sullivan paced in front of them, working off nervous energy to settle into the rhythm of his speech. A large monitor behind him flickered with shadowy images of the surface of a craggy asteroid. Sharpe had no idea where they were—not far from Eufala he imagined, tucked into a belt of rocks and space detritus where someone would have to know where and how to look in order to find them.

“The first thing you need to ask yourselves,” Sullivan said, “is why would we kidnap a bunch of constables and claim that we were framed if we were actually guilty. I mean, apart from the easy conclusion that we’re so dumb we somehow think we can get our convictions overturned by just feeding you all a line of bullshit. Trust me, we’re not that dumb. We are perfectly aware, if we get through to you at all, you’re going to vet everything we say and weigh it against the evidence that’s already been presented.

“You’re probably convinced that we’re guilty. I know that. Even if you’re not, it hardly makes any difference now we’ve been convicted. Not to you lot anyway. You don’t really need to do anything but take us into custody and lock us up. End of story. Justice doesn’t really enter into it at this point, does it? Justice has already been served. The system says so.”

Sharpe cleared his throat. Sullivan looked at him.

“Something on your mind, Inspector?” Sullivan asked.

“Is there a point to all this or do you just like the sound of your own voice?”

“I’ve got two points, if you must know. The first thing I want you to understand is that Bart and I would be a hell of a lot better off if we just disappeared. It doesn’t make any sense for us to try to clear our names unless there is something bigger at stake. We’re already used to operating on the fringes of whatever passes for polite society out here in the hinterlands. Burrowing underground with new identities wouldn’t be much of a burden for us.”

“And the second?”

“Your lives are at risk.”

“You’ve already made that clear. ‘Blow us all to dust,’ I think you said, although I have to tell you I don’t actually believe you’ve wired your ship up to explode.”

Sullivan smiled. “The explosives are real enough, but you’re right that I didn’t put them on board.”

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Clement spluttered to himself a bit in his office on one of the lower floors of Blaire Tower. He had depended on Prudence to monitor Sullivan for him. Her tab on the escapees was key to this stage of the plan. Now he had to call both Styles and Blaire about this new development. Both calls would be difficult although for different reasons. Styles and Blaire had different agendas and different levels of engagement in the same enterprise.

Since the plan was Blaire’s to begin with, there was considerable overlap in the two men’s expectations, but where Styles hoped to avoid any revelations that might jeopardize his tenure as governor, Blaire saw things through a much wider and more detailed lens. Blaire hoped to expand his influence at the heart of Federation politics.

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“The Buster just took off. Thought you ought to know.”

“Thank you, Moses.”

She depressed the cradle to break the connection and uttered a terse command into the mouthpiece. The new call trilled at the other end. A voice answered.

“Clement.”

“Mitchell, it’s Pru. Sully has taken the constables off planet in the Buster.”

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