Rych took himself out of our hotel suite so Norian could have his few words. I figured the words were going to come from his side and all the listening was going to come from my side. Well, I had experience with this. I thought about sending him to work with Gavin for a while.
"Lissa Beth," Norian paced in front of me. I'd chosen to sit on a nice sofa inside the living area of our suite. If he intended to yell, I wanted to be as comfortable as I could be while he did it.
"Norian Keef," I muttered.
"Lissa Beth, I want to hug you and yell at you at the same time," Norian stopped his pacing for a moment and stood in front of me. "They'll know something is up when one of theirs disappears. You should have left the prisoners there," Norian began his chastisement. "You need to learn control. We have to take them unawares, if we can. This will allow them time to pull together and form a battle plan."
"Then why didn't you stop me before we went? You know I'm not going to sit still and watch them mistreat babies."
"I know why this upsets you so much. Please try to see it from my perspective. It is my duty to take them down. Half of them could be on their way off-planet by now and we'll lose contact with them. I have a handful of my men at the space station, but we don't have all the names involved in this yet. Do I need to point out the problems with a blown cover?"
"No, you don't have to point that out," I turned my head away from him and hugged myself as tightly as I could. "But you killed six moles yourself, earlier. Do you think your cover wasn't already blown?"
"We haven't moved against them yet. Until now. They thought the moles were protecting them. Now they'll try to make contact and none of the moles will respond. New Dawn will know for sure. If they don't attack that bogus hotel suite we set up by tomorrow night, then they're incompetent."
"We can be there, waiting on them as mist," I offered.
"Lissa Beth," Norian ran a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture. "Neither I nor Rych like to be mist for more than a few minutes at a time. We've talked about this—we're used to being more solid and substantial."
"You just don't want to give up control," I grumped.
"That, too," Norian nodded at my assessment. "We've been doing this for a while and turning to mist is an unsettling experience."
"Then why drag me into this? You don't like the way I do things—leave me at home. I have enough crap happening there to keep me busy for a while." I still wasn't looking at him.
"I know your life is complicated and I know you're not spending enough time running things on Le-Ath Veronis. Nevertheless, you're our best bet for taking these Solar Red spin-offs down quickly and quietly. I have to use what I have at my disposal."
"And the Queen of Le-Ath Veronis is at your disposal, because the Founder and Twenty Charter members thought she should be." I turned to look at Norian, now. "Don't think for a minute that I don't see their hand in this. I don't jump when they say, they can dump Le-Ath Veronis and we'll be out of the Alliance. Why don't you just go ahead and say it, Norian?" I laid all my fears before him. It had worried me from the beginning; I just hadn't said anything about it until now.
"You make it sound as if they're blackmailing you."
"Aren't they?"
Norian gave a frustrated sigh and turned away. "Lissa Beth, they use whatever they have to protect the Alliance. Surely you can see the reason in that."
"Uh-huh. I just used what I had to protect some children who were being tortured. You let me know by mindspeech when you need me the next time, Norian Keef." I went straight to mist and then to energy and got the hell out of there.
* * *
"I don't know where she is." Norian sat across the tiny café table from Rych and sipped his tea.
"Boss, I don't like to tell you your business, but you probably should have told her what you wanted in the beginning." Rych was venturing onto uncharted seas by pointing out what he considered Norian's flaw in the plan.
"Hmmph," Norian grumbled.
"You think she'll really come if you call?" Rych went on.
"I hope so," Norian stared into the dark liquid inside his mug. "If she doesn't, I'm not sure what to do—what we can do. She told me she feels coerced and that's not what I wanted. She thinks Le-Ath Veronis will be thrown out of the Alliance if she doesn’t jump and run when we tell her to."
"Boss, none of the others did anything close to what she's done for us. If not for her, I'd probably be dead and some look-alike would be sitting across from you right now. Where do you think you'd be, then?"
"Most likely headed toward oblivion," Norian muttered. "I figure I'd be dead too, if you want the truth."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll contact the one and see what he says."
"I don't envy you."
"I know." Norian shrugged into his heavy coat and Rych was right behind him as they left the café.
* * *
"You've become a liability, since the ASD knows the real thing is dead." Seturna Odnard examined Tork's face as he stood on the other side of the Seturna's desk. The study had been lavishly decorated—Odnard intended to have a long and comfortable stay on Trell.
"Then send me elsewhere. I can still benefit the brotherhood."
"Perhaps. But there's something I'd like you to do, first," Seturna Odnard steepled his fingers and smiled at Tork.
"Name it and it will be yours," Tork nodded. He knew how precarious his position had become with Odnard and the others. He was lucky he wasn't already inside one of the temple's dungeons, awaiting torture of some kind. They all took pleasure in it—it was what drew them to the religion in the beginning.
"Good. We lost one of our brothers earlier tonight and several of our prisoners. We want you to kill the Director of the ASD—we feel he is behind this. Unusual for him to tip his hand so early, but perhaps he is playing a deeper game. We'd like him killed before the plan goes into full effect. Money is currently keeping the crown quiet. Eventually we'll control that, in addition to everything else here. Kill Norian Keef for me and you'll not have to worry about who your face resembles."
"How would you like him to die?"
"As painfully as possible."
"I think I can manage that." Tork gave a quick nod and left Odnard's study.
Odnard waited for a few moments before tapping a code into his private communicator. When it was answered, Odnard gave a short message. "I have a tail on the director—I expect him to be dead by tomorrow evening."