Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(65)

The knife was left out and within easy reach for a reason. Gau had already said he intended to reveal the traitor; he said he knew without a doubt who it was; he said the punishment for the traitor would include death. The traitor would already be convinced he would have nothing to lose by attempting the assassination then and there. But Gau's advisors didn't usually carry around killing implements on their person; they were bureaucrats and didn't carry anything more dangerous than a writing stylus. But a nice sharp stone knife carelessly left lying around would be just the thing to convince a desperate would-be assassin to take a chance. This was also one reason why the general's guards (and Hickory and Dickory) were stationed at the perimeter of the room instead of near the general; we had to give the illusion to the assassin that he could get in a stab or two before the guards got him.

The general wasn't stupid, of course; he was wearing body armor that protected most of the parts of his body susceptible to stab wounds. But the general's head and neck were still vulnerable. The general thought it was worth the risk, but now as I watched the general trying to move to protect himself, I came to the conclusion that the weakest part of our plan was the one where the general presumably avoids being stabbed to death.

Il was bringing down the knife. None of the general's guards or Hickory or Dickory was going to get there in time. Hickory and Dickory had trained me how to disarm an opponent; the problem was I was on the ground and not in any position to block the knife blow. And anyway the Ghlagh were a Conclave race; I hadn't spent any time learning any of their weak points.

But then something occurred to me, as I lay there on my back, staring up at Il.

I may not know much about the Ghlagh, but I sure know what a knee looks like.

I braced myself on the floor, pushed, and drove the heel of my foot hard into the side of Lernin Il's most available knee. It gave way with a sickly twist and I thought I could feel something in his leg go snap, which made me feel sick. Il squealed in pain and grabbed at his leg, dropping the knife. I scrambled away as quickly as I could. General Gau launched himself out of his chair and took Il all the rest of the way down.

Hickory and Dickory were suddenly by me, dragging me off the riser. Gau shouted something to his guards, who were racing toward the general.

"His staff!" Gau said. "Stop his staff!"

I looked over to the bar and saw three Ghlagh lunging at their equipment. Il's people were clearly in on the assassination and were now trying to signal their conspirators that they'd been discovered. Gau's men skidded to a stop and reversed themselves, leaping over the bar to get at Il's staff. They knocked away their equipment, but not before at least one of them had gotten a message through. We knew that because all through the Conclave headquarters, alarms began stuttering to life.

The space station was under attack.

About a minute after Il had made his clumsy attack on General Gau, an Impo battle cruiser named the Farre launched six missiles into the portion of the Conclave space station where Gau's offices were. The Farre was commanded by an Impo named Ealt Ruml. Ruml, it turns out, had reached an agreement with Nerbros Eser and Lernin Il to take command of a new Conclave fleet after Gau was assassinated. Ruml would then take the entire fleet to Phoenix Station, destroy it and start working down the list of human worlds. In exchange all Ruml had to do was be prepared to do a little flagrant bombing of Gau's offices and flagship when signaled, as part of a larger, orchestrated coup attempt, which would feature Gau's assassination as the main event and the destruction of key battle ships from races loyal to Gau.

When Gau revealed to his advisors that he knew one of them was a traitor, one of Il's staffers sent a coded message to Ruml, informing him that everything was about to go sideways. Ruml in turn sent coded messages of his own to three other battle cruisers near the Conclave station, each captained by someone Ruml had converted to the cause. All four ships began warming up their weapons systems and selecting targets: Ruml targeted Gau's offices while the other traitors targeted Gau's flagship Gentle Star and other craft.

If everything went as planned, Ruml and his conspirators would have disabled the ships most likely to come to Gau's aid - not that it would matter, because Ruml would have opened up Gau's offices to space, sucking anyone in them (including, at the time, me) into cold, airless vacuum. Minutes later, when Il's staff sent a confirmation note just before getting their equipment kicked out of their paws, Ruml launched his missiles and readied another set to go.

And was, I imagine, entirely surprised when the Farre was struck broadside almost simultaneously by three missiles fired from the Gentle Star. The Star and six other trusted ships had been put on alert by Gau to watch for any ships that began warming up their weapons systems. The Star had spotted the Farre warming up its missile batteries and had quietly targeted the ship and prepared its own defense.

Gau had forbidden any action until someone else's missiles flew, but the instant the Farre launched, the Star did the same, and then began antimissile defenses against the two missiles targeting it, sent by the Arrisian cruiser Vut-Roy.

The Star destroyed one of the missiles and took light damage from the second. The Farre, which had not been expecting a counterattack, took heavy damage from the Star's missiles and even more damage when its engine ruptured, destroying half of the ship and killing hundreds on board, including Ealt Ruml and his bridge crew. Five of the six missiles fired by the Farre were disabled by the space station's defenses; the sixth hit the station, blowing a hole in the station compartment next to Gau's offices. The station's system of airtight doors sealed off the damage in minutes; forty-four people were killed.