She wondered what their working relationship would have been like if there wasn't so much history to contend with.

A sympathetic member of Central Control had once told her that Koul considered himself the logical choice for the position of Commander of Territory Nineteen. He knew the terrain and had the combat experience. Upon the death of the territory's previous commander, he had considered his promotion a mere formality and was devastated when he didn't get it.

He wasn't pa.s.sed over because he was a stupid man. Koul exuded intelligence. It sweated out of his pale-skinned pores, a stink n.o.body interacting with him could avoid. He was also a brilliant tactician. But he was as cold and bitter as murky grey ice floes cut adrift in arctic seas. And if there was one thing Central Control had learnt, it was that soldiers did not like being ordered to their deaths by an iceberg dressed in an officer's uniform.

Cheloi Sie, on the other hand, was an officer with her own list of impressive battle gains and a reputation for deftness in logistics. When she nominated herself for the vacant command post, it met with little opposition from within the Control. Not that she had many rivals, besides Koul. A century of intermittent, continuously victorious warfare had turned the Empire's senior officers into military-minded politicians more than experienced combat commanders. Due to their lack of battle experience, the more cynical Perlim referred to such commanders, in hushed tones, as "recliner warriors", putting their own comfort ahead of the Empire's aims.

Such officers knew how valuable Territory Nineteen was to the Empire's war effort. They also pondered on the outcome if they took and failed to hold the Nineteen. The territory was the only way of moving forces by land from north to south and its collapse would inevitably mean a collapse of two continents. If that happened, the recliner warriors knew that the Emperor would not be pleased. Being humiliated and thrown out of the service would be the least of their worries. Only the supremely confident and unflinchingly ambitious saw opportunity in the Nineteen, and Sie and Grakal-Ski had been the only two contenders in the race to command.

Cheloi could have explained this all to Koul when she was first a.s.signed to the territory. She could have sat him down one night and, over a shared bottle of vintage tawny life-water, talked about Central Control's mindset and the reasons why she had been chosen over him. She could have suggested a partnership. She could have suggested a favourable recommendation upon transfer. She didn't because she couldn't. He just wasn't interested in talking to her on any subject that didn't directly touch on their daily duties.

Cheloi wasn't surprised. It was easier to blame an individual than Central Control and not as career-limiting a move. The hostility that began the moment she landed at the Nineteen's HQ had now settled into grudging and reluctant mutual respect, punctuated by occasional slanging matches, but it was too late to kindle any vestige of cordiality and friendship. That time was long gone.

After more than a year in their respective roles, all bristles and bad temper, Cheloi was convinced Koul's major remaining goal in life was to make her command of the Nineteen as difficult as possible. Which made the spontaneous move to replace her aide nothing less than extraordinary. Was Koul trying to plant an informant close to her? Both her previous aide (now deceased) and her adjutant, Rumis, had moved to the Nineteen with her, so she knew their pasts and could count on their loyalty. But what about this stranger, Lith Yinalna? Koul claimed to have met her only the week before. Was that true?

The problem was, she had to hold onto Yinalna for the present. In her arrogance, she had neglected requesting a replacement and Koul had outmanoeuvred her, may the Universe tan his pale hide. She needed time to replace his choice and, until that happened, she had to limit the fallout from his latest chess-move.

It wasn't going to be easy. She had spoken to Yinalna for only a few minutes, and already found it difficult to keep the woman out of her head. Was it those full lips that beckoned to her? Or those large tawny eyes, sparked with fire? Cheloi had felt such pulls of attraction before but not during a campaign. And never while in a combat zone. And now, instead of concentrating on trying to out-think Koul, she was imagining running the back of her hand along Yinalna's cheekbone. She knew exactly what she would do. She would angle her hand up, past the soft fur at the younger woman's temple, until they met the fine wisps of hair, taut and golden. She would circle the smooth, sensitive curve of ear, then gently stroke downwards along the jaw. She would lean forward- No!

Cheloi shut her eyes tightly then, after a long moment, opened them again.

She was here for a reason, not a liaison. She tried thinking of something else, a dry topic far removed from the luscious temptation of her new driver.

Menon IV. It was itself a dry, barren planet and fitted the bill admirably.

The atmosphere of Menon IV was the major source of the Empire's difficulties, Cheloi recited to herself. She mentally put herself back in one of many briefing rooms, ruthlessly quashing tantalising tangents.

On any other planet, a fleet of cruisers...o...b..ting the planet, pinpointing strategic targets from orbit, would have been enough to quell a fomenting rebellion. With a more resistant planet, simultaneous landings at the world's capitals would have sufficed. On Menon IV, the Empire could do neither. The hot solar winds from the young yellow star brushed against an idiosyncratic planetary ionosphere to create ionic storms of a magnitude unique to that region of s.p.a.ce. The resulting flares interfered with a whole host of the Empire's equipment. In one swipe, it rendered proven tactics and technologies useless.

Which brought her to her command of the Nineteen and the latest orders she'd debated with Koul. In her opinion, the Empire's military arm had underestimated the terrain her forces were commanding. The Empire had not fought a land-based campaign in centuries and moving forces in s.p.a.ce was completely different to moving them on a planet's surface. Central Control couldn't seem to grasp the difference. And now that she had the added burden of trying to preserve the soldiers, it made her job that much more difficult.

Soldiers. Equipment. She preferred protecting equipment. It was easier. Equipment was tougher, came with its own formidable armour and didn't require food and water every day. Soldiers were fragile, high maintenance and sometimes unpredictable.

A soldier could be a model fighter for months, then suddenly snap....

Pull out some lethal weaponry and blow everyone to pieces....

Turn collaborator at the promise of a juicy bribe....

a.s.sign a new driver to the territory's commander.

"Aargh!" Cheloi gave herself the luxury of a short, pained cry. She rubbed her forehead with stiff fingers.

Did Koul have any idea how much potential danger the young lieutenant posed to her sanity? Was this another ploy on his part to gain command? If it was, he had just played an extraordinarily smart move. Yinalna was lush, attractive, and diverting. Cheloi's brain was in overdrive, imagining peeling the uniform from her driver's body, exposing the smooth curves underneath, running her tongue over the heated skin...and all she'd done was trade one handshake with the younger woman. What would happen if they were thrown together more frequently, as their duties would inevitably demand?

Cheloi groaned and tried hard not to think about that option at all.

It turned out to be a busy day. It was well past the late afternoon rendezvous she had mentioned to Rumis before Cheloi found time to talk to her new aide again. Eliciting answers to a few queries on her possible whereabouts, Cheloi finally emerged aboveground and into a deepening dusk.

This was the first time she had ever commanded a campaign from underground. Usually, she relayed her orders from far orbit or even shuttling between s.p.a.ce and planetside, trapped in the small fast shuttles so beloved of military command. This time was different. She felt claustrophobic in the underground command complex. Maybe it was the psychic weight of the compressed silt and sandstone under which she worked. It felt unnatural. Temporarily free of it, she drew a deep breath of relief and looked around.

Headquarters for the Nineteen was in a shallow valley formed by a collapsed and extinct volcano, a natural formation of sheer rock that helped shield any stray electromagnetic radiation from rebel sensors. Its protection was complemented by an invisible dome-shaped shield that heightened the illusion of lifelessness, stopping aimless ricochets of heat, energy and noise from escaping the caldera and giving their position away. At this time of day, much of the terrain was in shadow, the rocks merging with the tough gra.s.sy vegetation to form smooth formless swatches of black. On the valley's rim, Cheloi noted the movement of individual soldiers, moving in and out of shadow as they changed watches.

Along one of the steep craggy faces, a small group was carrying out an exercise in climbing and clearing hostile guerilla crevices. Their sergeant was gesticulating wildly, pointing up and down the small valley. The last feeble traces of sunlight caught the edges of an e-pad hung around her neck. Cheloi could tell from the amount of explaining she was doing that the soldiers were newer recruits, unused to the difficulties of fighting for every centimetre of ground on the ground, scrabbling through the disconcerting novelty of cloying dust, sharp stones and pointy twigs and leaves.

With a relaxed tread, she circled the encampment, activating the 'scope over her left eye that turned the encroaching blackness to clear blue night vision. The valley was deathly dark and quiet, giving nothing away, except for flashes of light high up in the atmosphere. She had become so used to the ionic storms by now that she tended to filter them out of her view. Manic aurora. The new recruits eyed them balefully, half fearful that some errant beam would blast them where they stood, but old hands like her had seen enough to ignore the impressive light show.

She continued walking, squinting at a point two-thirds of the way up the caldera's slope, looking for the ammunition batteries she knew had been recently blasted into the rock. They were positioned on both sides of the slope, more of them facing out than in, and she could barely discern their blunt snouts among the careless piles of boulders and tufts of hardy gra.s.s that littered the high ledges and scrubby plain. The team had done good camouflage work. Impressed, she moved on.

She found Lith Yinalna with Rumis when she scouted one of the higher command outposts on the camp's eastern side, halfway up a barren escarpment. The approach to their elevated position was hidden by clumps of serrated-edged succulents and a wizened tree whose narrow twisted branches sprouted dry, sharp leaves. Cheloi slipped past the tree and climbed the last three steps to enter the outpost.

Both officers were talking. She could see their wavering forms and roughly gesticulating arms but didn't hear a word until she penetrated the zero-detect dampening field-commonly called a "mute bubble"-that surrounded the small post.

"-but of course all brothers tell you that," Rumis was saying with a smile.

He was regaling her with stories of his family? Already? That was fast work.

Cheloi looked from one to the other, noting the too-casual body language of her adjutant. So Rumis was on the prowl, was he? And why not? He would have been blind not to notice how attractive Yinalna was.

The new aide, however, tensed the moment she noticed who had stepped onto the stony landing. She straightened and that half-fearful look reappeared in her eyes.

Both officers saluted. "Colonel."

Cheloi returned the salute in an abbreviated gesture. "As you were."

"I was just telling Lith about my family back on Perlim Prime," Rumis explained, leaning against the roughly chipped wall, a lazy smile on his face.

"You'll be the hero of the clan once we secure the Nineteen," Cheloi commented, and suppressed a twist of guilt at her own words. "I'll make sure to personally put in for a Black Comet for you." She cited the Empire's highest military honour.

Rumis laughed, his eyes crinkling with mirth. "People keep asking me to transfer to their unit. But they don't offer the same incentives you do, Colonel."

Do they indeed?

Cheloi wondered who his pet.i.tioners were but kept the expression on her face benign.

"I skimmed through your brief record earlier today, Lieutenant," she said, shifting her attention to the bubble's other occupant. "Unfortunately, the detailed transcript will take a while to come through. Possibly weeks. Red tape in s.p.a.ce is the worst kind."

She paused.

The fear was still there in Yinalna's eyes and Cheloi wondered again what had Koul told her? Had he referred to her by his favourite nickname? Conveyed rumours of a bloodthirsty appet.i.te? Exhibited the civilian casualty lists for the past year?

No, she wanted to say. I'm not like that. You don't understand....

With a quick movement, she clicked off her 'scope, allowing darkness to envelop the post. Better not to see any expression at all than continue seeing that one. And why was it even of concern to her? She was here to complete her mission and, in the s.p.a.ce of a few short hours, her valued focus had already been shot to pieces by a pair of beckoning eyes and hair the texture of golden silk.

"You're not from Perlim Prime?" she asked, hiding her turmoil with a smoothness born of long and hard practice.

"No." There was a stammering hesitancy in her answer. "I'm from Laeyek Omni B."

Cheloi, turning to stare out into the encroaching darkness, knew that of course. She had read through the lieutenant's truncated dossier as if drinking fine wine, savouring every sip, committing each spa.r.s.e word to memory.

She nodded at the Lieutenant's answer. "That's near the border with the Fusion, isn't it?"

"Yes," the reply came quick enough, "that's correct."

She didn't need to see in the dark to know that Rumis stiffened. He was young, intelligent, ambitious, but predictable, and the truncated shuffle of his feet was a dead giveaway. He knew exactly where the conversation was leading.

Cheloi stared into the darkness, listening only to the tone, the intonation, the emphasis, of voice. There was something niggling at her, an intuition that she knew better than to ignore.

"An internal Empire poll of two years ago found that fifty-four percent of Laeyek's inhabitants would have preferred membership in the Fusion," she said, blatantly fishing.

"But doesn't that mean that forty-six percent preferred the Empire?" the darkness countered.

Cheloi heard the thread of directness in Yinalna's voice and her lips twitched at the filament of refreshing astringency within a stream of warm honey.

"Just so. But that begs the question, which rough half do you belong to?"

Rumis knew better than to interrupt, but Cheloi heard his breathing, quick and indignant. Her adjutant still had a lot to learn.

"Surely my presence here proves that I'm a loyal officer to the Perlim Empire."

Cheloi liked that answer too. It described her own situation well.

"Colonel Grakal-Ski tells me that you requested a position at the front." Above her, the dusk had segued to darkest blue. The mute bubble cycled through its frequency range, blurring the sky's light show to fuzzy streaks of dancing light.

"I believe it's part of every citizen's duty to progress the Empire's aims."

Did people even believe that any more?

"You could do that behind the front," Cheloi countered. "Behind the Nineteen. We have the highest casualty rates of any territory on Menon."

Maybe she could persuade Yinalna to request a transfer herself? Koul would lose. She would regain her focus.

"I know. Colonel Grakal-Ski explained all that to me."

Did he? Cheloi willed her eyebrows not to launch into the stratosphere.

"But I still told him I wanted to be a.s.signed to Territory Nineteen."

Nothing. Yinalna wasn't giving her anything to work with.

"Were you Commander Mazhin's aide?" Cheloi asked, trying a different tack.

"Er, no."

Finally! Some hesitation. Cheloi locked onto the falter like a missile on a heat-source.

"I was with the Commander's staff in an auxiliary position. But," Lith hurriedly stressed, "in addition to being a competent engineer, I have also driven most cla.s.ses of vehicles currently in operation on Menon and am familiar with a commander's routine. Colonel Koul thought those skills would be useful."

Rumis snorted. "Nice of him to think of the Commander's needs after all this time."

Cheloi couldn't help the smile that curved her lips, knowing it had a cynical tilt to it. She had lost her last aide two months ago in the same accident that had injured her leg. Had it really been a stray rebel missile? Or something else? The investigation had cleared her second-in-command but her doubts remained.

For the time being, Cheloi was conceding defeat. There were too few data points. She would have to wait for the detailed dossier to come through and keep her eyes open in the meantime.

"Your skills are exactly what I need," she interjected smoothly. "And I'm glad to have you as a member of my staff."

"Major Swonnessy was briefing me on my duties."

I bet he was.

"He said I'm to be your driver, oversee your wardrobe and act as general, er, errand-runner."

"I mentioned that you're still recovering from your injury, Commander," Rumis added, "and so need someone to do courier work for you even within the HQ complex."

"I'm happy to do that," the young officer said.

From the way Yinalna's voice changed, Cheloi knew she was looking from Rumis to her.

"You didn't have much military experience prior to the Menon campaign," Cheloi said, drawn back to her previous train of thought.

"None," she agreed.

"Yet...."

Yinalna antic.i.p.ated the obvious question. "Why did I request a.s.signment at the front? My family thought it was stupid of me but I felt a driving need to do something to help the Empire. And it was a way to get some independence from my parents."

Cheloi heard the shy laughter in her voice. Here, under a cloak of darkness, if she just controlled her own expression, she could enjoy Yinalna's rich voice without any painful facts intruding. Cheloi stopped listening to the words, letting only the musical voice with its myriad intonations wash over her. What if they were somewhere else? What if she wasn't a combat officer with the Perlim Empire and Yinalna wasn't an aide appropriated by Koul? Under such conditions, was there even the slightest chance in the cold, vast universe that Yinalna would be attracted to her?

"Colonel?"

It was only when Rumis repeated the word for the second time that Cheloi realised Yinalna had stopped talking. She turned and gestured to the two officers with a casual flick of her finger.

"Sorry, I was just thinking over the latest orders from Central Control."

Liar!

"Rumis, perhaps you'd like to show the lieutenant where we normally take our evening meals? I'll not join you tonight. Have a tray sent to my quarters instead."

She heard the scuffing as two sets of shoes moved to attention.

"Yes, Senior Colonel!"

Cheloi stayed in the bubble until she knew the stars that had begun their journey at the horizon were edging almost to the black sky's zenith.

She needed to remember why she was here and it was all because of the Fusion. The Perlim Empire was overplaying its hand because of the Fusion. It used and encouraged brutal techniques and heartless efficiencies because of the Fusion. And Menon IV was haemorrhaging blood because of the Fusion.

This was the one rare area where she and Koul were in complete agreement. The Fusion was the ahnol-muncher that the Empire was reacting to while pretending it didn't exist, the Emperor ordering battalion after battalion of his troops to land on the planet's surface, daring the atmosphere to smash the transports into hard rock. He commanded his soldiers to eat dirt and carry out up-close-and-personal attacks and counter-attacks against the tenacious Menon rebels, apparently mindless of the high casualty rates. And he did this to set an example to the Fusion, to show them that the ageing Perlim Empire was still a force to be reckoned with.