Storm Force: Book Three of the Last Legion Series by Chris Bunch

for being illtempered. He assumed there were other more sophisticated eyes in the room continuing to record.
    In fact, a few minutes after he examined the wreckage, his eventual reputation was well deserved.
    The set did include a primitive lens and transmitter. Yoshitaro had hoped he would be able to replace its chip with one of the ones he’d brought, somehow jack up the power supply, and use that as his transmitter to the satellite and then to Cumbre.
    The spyeye was a one-piece block, as was the rest of the television’s guts. No doubt an experienced tech could have figured a way to modify them, but Njangu Yoshitaro was a thug, not an electronics engineer.
    He kicked petulantly at the pieces of television, woke Pyder, told her to get certain devices and restraints, and come with him to Brythe’s room.
    The next morning, the television had been replaced, and no one made any reference to Yoshitaro’s fit of rage.
    But he still had no way of communicating with that satellite, assuming it was there, and Cumbre.
    Which meant that all of his scheming and cleverness, so far, was useless.
    And the back of his mind kept wondering just what form Redruth’s retaliation against Cumbre would take, and when and how in the hell he could send a warning.

CHAPTER
7

Cumbre/D-Cumbre
    “Nothing from Yoshitaro, Jon?” Garvin asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
    “Flipping nothing,” Hedley said. “An E-month, and zed flipping zed.”
    “He’s probably having trouble finding a pay com that’ll take Cumbrian coins.”
    “Probably,” Hedley said. “So did you have any other reason to bother me, other than to see how cheerfully I lie about not being worried?”
    “As a matter of fact, I did,” Garvin said. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t be bothering Larix and Kura more than we are. Larix is probably still on alert after our last debacle. So let’s send a nice, small team in on Kura, and bash its rural sleepy head a little bit.”
    “With you, of course, on point.”
    “Why not?” Garvin said. “I’ll let Penwyth, who hasn’t been doing squat lately except making sure Angara meets the proper number of Rentiers, take over II Section, and go out with some of Njangu’s thugs.”
    “ ‘Kay,” Hedley said. “I’m listening. Insert shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and I don’t mind the idea of pulling the tiger’s tail a little. What about getting out?”
    “If we mess with them just on the ground,” Jaansma said confidently, “they shouldn’t be looking to space. Plant a relay satellite like we just did for Njangu, and when I holler, come in with three or four
velv
, a couple of the new destroyers, and we scamper, with no casualties except to the goblins.”
    Hedley gnawed at his upper lip. “Could work. But I’ll run it past the old man.”
    • • •
    “It’s a wash,” Hedley said. “Angara says way, way too risky without any more data on Kura. Sorry.”
    “Goddamit, boss, the only way we’re going to lick Redruth is to hit him here, there, and everywhere. Like that old song has it, ‘call me the wind or whatever, since I keep blowing down the road.’ ”
    “Wind,” Hedley said. “Try a serious bit of storming. Praise the Buddha without a flipping bellybutton that we’re not in the bad old days when you first came aboard, or somebody’d be putting out bulletins calling us Stormforce or some other rabid-ass piece of silliness. Remember, we used to be, what, Swift Lance, or whatever?”
    “You’re changing the subject and trying to cheer me up,” Garvin complained.
    “I am that.”
    “So what am I supposed to do? Keep waiting on Njangu to call in?”
    “Flipping exactly.”
    • • •
    Three days later, Protector Redruth’s response to the two pinpricks came.
    A ship patrolling off D-Cumbre reported three ships, one an unknown destroyer-class, the other two Nana-class Confederation patrol crafts in-system, not having been reported by any of the outer planets’ warning posts.