“This is based off the old Roses mash.” Durrang said, taking another sniff of the amber colored liquid before tasting it. “As fine an imitation of old bourbon as you can find.”

“I didn’t have a house in the Cluster’s heart to sell to get a real bottle.” Matt said, seating himself behind his desk. They were back on the Outside Citadel, and it was just them. Rezkin, Patricia, and the others didn’t know that Durrang had come. Only Lanset.

“A forgivable offence.” Durrang said, taking another sip before setting the glass on Matt’s desk and crossing his legs. He considered the younger man across from him for a moment. “There are things that you and I need to say to each other, Ziggenbor, I think, before things can properly proceed.”

“I would agree.”

“As the host, I will defer to you.”

“Appreciated, Senator.” Matt raised his glass. “But as my guest I would field your questions first, if you are agreeable.”

“I am not.” Durrang said without bluster. “I have a feeling that my questions will take less time to answer than yours will.”

That gave Martin some pause. “Fair enough. When last we met you were disinclined to discuss the matters Senator Michaels was been pushing for so long. Why?”

“Because she was killed about three days after your meeting with her.” Durrang said simply. “As you might know.”

“I didn’t have a hand in that.”

“I know you didn’t, but someone did.” Durrang said. “And the list of bodies might keep growing, depending on who thinks who knows what, disregarding the facts and trying to clean up a mess that they think is already in progress.” Durrang sighed. “They’ve kept it quiet, though. I imagine that in a few days time we’ll see some tragic news of an accident, and someone more in line with less nasty ideas about the big nasty three will be set up in her place.”

“Five.” Matt corrected.

“Yes, five.” Durrang said. “But one is considered laid to rest and the fifth is still wild fantasy.”

“Robotics and nanites, clones and cyborgs.” Matt said in a casual tone. “How unlikely can alien contact be? Half the RAE corps is all but convinced they’re out there.”

“And the sensible half of the RAE corps knows better than to start talking about it. If you threw that onto the steaming pile of shit that vast majority of the Cluster turns their nose at… well, can you imagine trying to convince them it doesn’t stink?”

“I can imagine the fear it would cause.” Matt said. “Especially given the fact that they’re already closing their eyes to the threats we know. Asking them to accept one they didn’t know would be too much.”

“Indeed it would. And that’s the point of all this, isn’t it?”

Matt looked at Durrang. “That’s one of the bigger pieces.” He said. “There’s a lot of things up in the air. You’ve probably gotten that already.”

“Once a young Senator in his freshman term sat me down with an equally young political idealist and they bullied me into seeing what was right in front of my eyes, yes.” Durrang said.

“You’re not stupid, Senator.” Matt said flatly.

“Please, enlighten my grandchildren.” Durren huffed. “But you’re right.”

“You knew about Io.”

“I certainly did not.” Durrang sat up straight. “Ziggenbor, don’t mistake almost three decades of experience the navy as negligence of my duty as aRepublic Senator. I’m wise to Neerson because I know the man when not many people do.” He thought. “I’ve never been able to fully decide if that’s a blessing or a curse, but there you have it. Io was…” Durrang grappled with the words for a moment.

“It’s all there?” Matt supplied with a sardonic tone.

Durrang deflated. “Someone should be shot for that outrage.”

“Someone already was shot for another outrage.”

“Drowned in her home, but yes.” Durrang said.

The men sat in silence, drinking their whiskey for a time. Matt rose to refill their glasses and returned to the desk. He swirled the liquid while considering his next question. “I’ve got some relief to know who it was who didn’t scuttle the Olympus.” Matt said.

“You mentioned that the Nine did me one last favor in keeping that quiet. Considering who you are, that was a feat all by itself. I doubt even Neerson knows.

Matt thought to himself silently that if Neerson had known, he would have known too. He let the bait that Durrang laid out slide for a moment as he took another sip and put the glass down. “Why?”

“Why did I not scuttle the finest piece of naval ship engineering the Cluster had ever produced?” Durrang shook his head. “Young man, I would sooner lose a hand. Or are you referring to why did I leave the Olympus to the possibility of falling into enemy hands?”

“Yeah that’d be the one I was referring to.” Matt said, taking a gulp of whiskey. “But, before you say it, I can appreciate that there are other ways of rendering a ship inert without fully scuttling it. I’m fairly certain that Grand Admiral Rookwood, Reven, or any of the rest of the Nine would have had that information too. Knowing this, they still ordered you to scuttle it, and order which you refused. They had their reasons, you had yours.” Matt put his glass down and waited.

Durrang eyed him, as though trying to decide if he had made a mistake or not. “You’re very sure of your position, young man.”

“Senator Durrang, in my position you have to be sure of it especially when you have no fucking idea what you’re doing.” Matt smiled, forcing the expression. “There would have been a lot of dead people if I wasn’t sure.”

“Dead people?”

“Sure.” Matt said casually. “Someone would have killed me, and my little brothers would have killed whoever it took to get to that person. The body count might have been exactly two, but Neil wouldn’t give a shit if there were a couple more zeros attached to that.” Matt continued smiling. “I trust you, Durrang, as far as I trust people who call my bluff. You’re one of two, so far. But like you’ve said, I like to stay up late reading too. So, if ever there was a time when you thought it might be more advantageous for you to question my position, or betray it, remember this: Neil likes shooting people. And Martin can put him wherever he needs to be to do it most effectively.”

That brought a deafening silence to the room. Neither man touched their glasses any more than Matt’s smile touched his eyes.

“I am not Michaels.” Durrang said, the tone of the statesman gone, replaced once again by the naval officer. “I am not as easily intimidated by threats and ultimatums.”

“Consider it useful information.” Matt said, fingering his glass again. “I want you on my side, Durrang, but you’re skating on thin ice on a couple subjects and it wouldn’t be right to let you proceed without knowing who the Ziggenbor brothers are.”

“And what are you, exactly?”

“You said it yourself.” Matt said, his smile vanishing. “We’re the sons of Norman Ziggenbor.”

Durrang picked up his glass but didn’t drink, cold eyes on Matt. Matt returned the gaze, his heart beating a little faster than it had been. He hadn’t meant to delve into these waters, and he hadn’t wanted to either. But now he hoped that the Hound of the Navy still had his reputation firmly ingrained into the older generation.

It appeared Durrang’s memory was long. “He was a terrifying individual, for a man of his size.” Durrang grunted, his usual tone returning as he took a sip of whiskey. “The things they would send him to do--”

“Are not the subject of this meeting.” Matt said.

“I meant no offense.”

“None taken, but change the subject.”

The Senator shuddered slightly. “I will.”

“Change it to the Olympus.” Matt snapped. “Why didn’t you scuttle her?”

“Because she was the pride and joy of the navy, for starters, and because there was no reason to with the technology that she was decked out with.” Durrang said a bit quickly. “State of the art cloaking technology and black out stealth. The lot. I vented her and set her to drift on set course, scrambled her computers with uncrackable encryption after I cloaked her and hard copied the information.”

“That information’s whereabouts?”

“I placed it into the hand of Grand Admiral Reven myself.” Durrang said. “That was the end of my involvement with the Olympus, for all I know the man went back and blew her to bits to finish the job.”

“No.” Martin shook his head. “That’s not his style. Forrester or Marshall, maybe, but not him.”

“You know the Nine?” Durrang hissed with his eyes wide.

Matt looked at him pointedly. “I know the ones that are currently accounted for.” He said. “And two that are not.”

“My god.” Durrang said. “Then I’m right about you.”

Matt sighed. “More whiskey, Senator? You’re starting to stress me out.”

“Please.”

Matt obliged and reseated himself. “You’re right about me being an upstart fledgling in the Senate, and you’re also probably right in thinking I’ve got more information than just about anyone else in the Cluster. At the risk of you thinking I’m threatening you again, I’d encourage you to cinder carefully what else exactly you want to be right about, we can keep going back and forth. If you want to get down to what it was you actually wanted to ask me, we can do that to. I’m not assed about it one way or another.”

Durrang nodded. “To be frank, I’m a bit more concerned about picking your brain about things than I was even at that damned meeting of the representatives.”

“A mutual friend of ours would call that prudence.”

“Indeed he would.” Durrang said over the top of his glass. He fell silent for a moment before saying, like a dark prayer, “St Angel.”

“St Angel.” Matt repeated.

“They are very much active?”

“More so than they have been since Martin destroyed the Crime Circles. I knew they were still out there, but for a long time they put up a good front of actually doing what was right for them. I thought they were just laying down to die.”

“We all did. When did you find out otherwise?”

“I got word from the Black Bear that they were getting readings from Ashwind. Someone was trying to turn it back on. You know that, but you probably don’t know what’s behind a feat like that.”

“I’m afraid you’re right about that. It would be a sizable amount of manpower, I’m assuming?”

“It’s not just the manpower that concerns me.” Matt said. “Back when the evacuation happened they hit Ashwind with its own personal EMP blast. Knocked the project offline, but they didn’t give it enough juice.”

“Hard to do math on the fly when there’s an army of killer robots trying to wipe out the whole damn race.”

“Sure, but the robots had already been eliminated. It was actually the evacuation itself that fucked it all up. There was enough power being used to just keep everyone alive they didn’t have enough to do the job right, and now it’s coming back to haunt us.”

“I never understood why they didn’t stay after they’d wiped out all the metal men.”

“You don’t?” Matt shook his head. “They thought if they missed even one that it would be too many. Their artificial intelligence was evolving more rapidly than we can quantify even now. They wanted to put as much space as they could between them and the thing they feared.”

“A very human response.”

“One of the most human responses.” Matt agreed, rubbing one temple. “And now St Angel is getting closer to turning it back on. Like I was saying, the manpower is one thing, but the caliber of person it takes to work on what’s been chalked up as a dead technology for a while now is another. They’ve got the people on their side that they need, too.”

“Forced service?”

“Doubtful. That’s not his usual method?”

“His?”

Matt picked up his glass. “Thin ice, Senator.”

“Shall I start jumping?”

“Go for it.” Matt took a sip. “But if you decide you can’t handle the cold, I won’t pull you out.”

“I’m a bit past that now, am I not?”

“Are you kidding?” Matt said without scorn. “I have conversations like this all the time. There’s enough people who are on the same track as you that if they just believed in the Three of Silence they’d be able to have the set. But they don’t. It’s like Io. Everything is all right out there in the open, Senator. The difference between you and most others is that you’re going against basic human instinct. Most people skate away from thin ice. You’re getting ready to, as you say, jump. But idiots talk about classified information all the time.” Matt went on. “They connect the dots without realizing it, get close to the right conclusion, and skate away. There’s enough bad that we’ve created for ourselves here that the don’t want to believe in the bad out there. You can do the same, walk away, and it’ll be nothing but a young rip of a Senator picking the brain of an old fucker like yourself.” Matt took a sip. “One thing to know, though. This would never happen again.”

Durrang nodded once. “St Angel.”

“St Angel.” Matt echoed.

“They need to be stopped.”

“Sooner rather than later.”

“And Neerson is going to do it?”

Matt thought about that. “Yes.” He said. “Or he’s going to get a lot of people killed trying, starting with himself, I think.”

“He’s willing to do terrible things to get the job done.”

“For the sake of this conversation, and in the context you’re meaning it, yes. He already has, some would say, though if you want lessons on how to skate protocol and regulation--”

“There’s no finer teacher, yes.” Durrang waved a hand. “What’s he doing out there on Titan?”

“Around Titan, in point of fact, and you’re not honestly expecting me to give you a straight answer on that, are you?”

“You would be surprised how often the direct route yields the most effective results.”

“Yeah.” Matt smiled. “You let me know how that one works out with Neerson. Better you than me.”

“I’ve known him longer than you, boy.”

“And I know him better than anyone.” Matt snapped. “Sir.”

Durrang glared. “You’re quite certain about that, aren’t you?”

“Are you a betting man?”

At that, Durrang actually let out a bark of a laugh. “Based on what I’ve learned tonight, fuck no, not on that front. I’ve always prided myself on knowing when to walk away.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “You still can.”

But Durrang shook his head, his face grave. “No. No, I’m afraid I can’t. Not with grandbabies that need to grow fat and ugly like their grandpapa has. If there’s a threat to this small, feeble, stupid pocket of humanity I will be the first to the top of the hill to die there.”

These words seemed to draw Matt’s mind away for a time, though he stared intently at the older man, as though he were weighing scales that needed to be precisely balanced. “Trust is not something that we are used to handing out lightly.” Matt said finally. “There’s a demon inside everyone that can make them do horrible things. And I don’t rightfully trust you, Senator Durrang.”

“A mutual friend,” Durrang said with a small smile. “Would call that prudence.”

“But there’s an animal inside every man too.” Matt continued. “I might not trust you, but I’ll trust what drives you. I’ll use that to know where you stand.”

“That same friend would call that securing a tactical advantage.”

“And,” Matt said, standing and extending his hand. “He would call knowing whom you can truly know and placing confidence in them--”

“Wisdom.” Durrang said, slapping his hand into Matt’s. “I know I don’t miss him as much as you do. But damn, what I would give to have one more conversation with the Hound.”

Matt allowed himself a small smile. “Me too.”

--

Mars was dark, the winds were soft, and three points of deeper shadow descended from the heavens toward where Cody and Silas stood. Cody shifted uncomfortably, but Silas stood tall, his weathered face set as the ships touched down. Jared has noted their presence three hours earlier, though no one except those looking would have seen it. And just then there was no one else.

Shielding her eyes from the dust, Cody watched as six figures got off the center ship and came towards them. Two walked between with two flanking them, these in a ready position as they moved with a purpose. The ships powered down, leaving them in silence save the occasional footfall. Cody wouldn’t have heard or seen anything out of the ordinary otherwise, and that made her nervous. Silas drew a small light from his pocket and powered it on, covering half of it with his hand to show the two still coming forward. It was a tall, lean man and shorter, old woman. Thorough she was not dressed in military uniform, Cody felt as though she was the one controlling the situation there.

The old woman smiled as she came up to Cody. “You must be Madaline Kodiak.” She said, and though her voice was warm it also bore the unmistakable resonance of one who had years of speaking with authority. “My name is Miriam Rayne. Richard Neerson sent you word that I was going to be coming, I think.”

“He did, ma’am.” Cody said. “Will you follow me?”

“Two,” The man in uniform said, and two of the men went to Rayne’s side as she followed Cody.

Silas stepped forward and looked the man up and down. “You’re looking good, Jeremy. First Sergeant suits you.”

The lean man nodded once. “Good to see you again, Grand Admiral.”