Justin shook his head. "And here I thought it was Romano Liao who was keeping you up nights."

Shang flushed. "Cute, Xiang. You're just jealous because she's got taste . . ."

Justin raised his hands in surrender. "Not me. I like sleeping the full five hours this job allows me." Justin's hands dropped as the door to his office swung open hard. Haggard and bleary-eyed, a half-dressed Alexi Malenkov burst into the room.

"What is it, Alexi?"

Alexi shot a glance at Shang. "Good. You're here too." He looked up at Justin and smoothed his hair down with his right hand. "Your father shut down our entire operation on Kittery!"

"What!" Both men's voices joined in a shocked shout. Justin returned to his desk and dropped into his chair. "What the hell happened?"

Malenkov drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Shang guided him to the leather chair he'd just vacated. Malenkov rubbed the last vestiges of sleep from his bloodshot gray eyes, and leaned heavily forward with elbows resting on his knees. "Reports are sketchy, but what I hear is that a Maskirovka termination team of a half-dozen individuals arrived on Kittery about a month ago. They tried to hit a group of Davion officers and NCOs who were out together at a restaurant in Shaoshan."

Justin stiffened. No. They can't have killed Andy Redburn . . ."Shaoshan's just outside the base where the First Kittery is stationed."

Malenkov nodded. "They tried to hit Captain Redburn and his staff before they transferred to the Davion Light Guards. I don't know if the MechWarriors were warned or not, but they managed to take the hit team apart. One of our men ran, and he ended up leading the Davion officers to one of our storehouses."

"Wait a minute . . ." Shang lay his left hand on Malenkov's shoulder. "Didn't we have native personnel there to protect the storehouse?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Malenkov growled. "The termination team came from Sian and commandeered the center. They ordered everyone out and consulted with no one about their plans. After the Davion officers had killed the last man, they had the center all to themselves. They captured lots of small arms as well as a large amount of data."

"What sort of an idiot would have ordered the assassination of a minor officer?" Justin muttered, shaking his head in dismay.

Malenkov looked up at Shang. "As near as I can make out, Lady Romano issued the orders."

Shang shivered. "But that's impossible. She said she wouldn't. . ."

Justin stood. "What are you talking about, Tsen?"

Shang hesitated, composing his face and his voice before he spoke. "Two months ago, she mentioned to me an idea for taking out Davion officers in a wave of terrorist attacks. We all know that she has a tendency to act before she thinks, so I told her that killing officers wouldn't affect the elite Davion units that much because of the depth of the Davion officer corps. In fact, I told her it would only increasethe CID's vigilance."

Shang hesitated. "Damn, though. To mollify her, I did toss off the speculation that assassinations of some officers—those assigned to green or training battalions—might affect morale in their units, but I didn't think she'd act on it."

Justin sank back into his chair and covered his face with his hands. His hands, flesh and steel, right and left, drifted apart and rubbed at his temples. Justin slowly opened his eyes and sucked in air through clenched teeth. "This is a disaster, but it's one we can control." He exhaled slowly and looked over at his aide. "Alexi, get some sleep. In the morning, I want two inventories of the material we lost in that warehouse. One will be complete all the way down to paper clips, tea cups, and dust in the corners. The other will be a less damaging list that we can present to the Chancellor without fear for our lives. Once we have preliminary drafts of those lists, we can see what sort of spin we want to put on this fiasco."

Grinning, he looked up at Shang. "Let's send urgent orders to the commanders at Taga and St. Loris countermanding and canceling all plans to invade Kittery."

Shang hesitated, then nodded as a sinister chuckle rolled from his throat. "Those orders will get to the CID swiftly enough and make them wonder what's going on."

"Right." Justin leaned back, stretching up his arms to relieve some of the kinks in his shoulders. "We'll give Davion a 'bigger picture' in which to place this incident." Justin narrowed his eyes. "See what you can do to get Lady Romano to calm down. And from now on, you'd do well to watch your speculations when you're around her."

Shang nodded and retreated toward the door as Justin stood to usher out Malenkov as well. "Rest easily, gentlemen. We'll cover this one and maybe even get some good out of it."

11

Sian

Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation

20 December 3027

Justin shut the door to his office and slumped with his back against the heavy oaken door. How could she be so stupid? There are times when she is too much like her father.

Justin levered himself away from the wall with a weary sigh, though he felt too restless to get any sleep now. He crossed to the French doors in the opposite wall and opened them onto the garden around which the palace was built. He closed the doors behind himself and padded along the crushed gravel walkway spiraling in through shrubs and fragrant night-blooming flowers to the center of the garden.

At the garden's hub was a weathered stone shrine whose sharply pitched roof stabbed into the heavens. Slivers and demi-lunes of three of Sian's four visible moons displayed themselves in shades of red and blue around the structure. The fourth moon, slowly rising full and bone-white, cast just enough light over the garden to glint from the gold Buddha sheltered in the shrine.

For Justin, even the enormity of Romano's idiocy somehow dwindled to insignificance in this place. Access to the garden and its peacefulness was probably the only privilege that made working on the crisis team worth it. He closed his eyes and slowly rolled his head around to loosen his neck. I'm still loaded with tension. Perhaps some tai chi...

Justin removed his black jacket and peeled off the sleeveless shirt underneath. The moonlight dulled the bronzed hue of his hairless torso and outlined the wiry muscles in dark shadow. The artificial limb replacing Justin's left forearm and hand reflected only the barest hints of the moon's glow from nearly invisible seams. The blackened-steel prosthesis at first mocked the garden's natural beauty, but once Justin had bent it to his will, it no longer seemed lifeless.

Slowly and deliberately, as with all the motions performed in t'ai chi chuan,Justin's metal fingers curled inward until the tips of the middle pair touched the top of his metal thumb. He took a deep breath, then straightened the fingers again as he moved his hand out to the side in a flawlessly smooth parry of an imaginary foe's attack.

As his body worked its way through the demanding series of familiar movements without conscious direction, Justin's mind floated free. Though he tried to concentrate on the flower perfumes rising from the garden on the gentle breeze or on the energy flowing more easily through his body, his thoughts rebelled, returning again and again to an urgent concern.

Why Andy Redburn? Romano could have sent her team against any number of similar commanders. The First Bell Training Battalion is closer to her own world of Highspire, and she feels no love lost for that unit after Galahad '27. Why cause an incident on a Davion world almost completely surrounded by her sister's St. Ives Commonality?