Supremacy's Outlaw: A Space Opera Thriller Series (Insurgency Saga Book 3) by T.E. Bakutis (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📗

Jan believed it. Even people as despicable as Truthers wouldn’t sign up to irradiate their own families, but Commander Graham Esparza and his zealot core had no reason to tell the rank-and-file anything. Esparza likely thought his actions justified, a few thousand sacrificed to “save” Ceto.

The vast majority of Esparza’s Truthers must believe they were acting as extra security for the Armistice Day parade. They would be as shocked and angry as the rest of Star’s Landing after tomorrow’s mini-nuke went off ... at least, as angry as those who were still alive. Jan hated to admit how good a plan this was.

A mini-nuke going off on Armistice Day would both wipe out the vast majority of opposing Ceto senators and create a power vacuum with President Mendoza’s death. It would both prove the inability of the CSD to protect the city and unite the people of Ceto against their barbaric Advanced “oppressors.” And worst of all, when the Truthers rolled in to save the day, it would offer Esparza’s people the perfect platform to claim legitimacy.

Still, all this deadly nonsense didn’t answer Jan’s earlier question. “And we are now headed to Star’s Landing why?”

“Why do you think?” Emiko asked. “We’re going to blow the whistle on it. If we warn everyone today—”

“We can’t,” Jan said.

“We have to,” Emiko said.

“I’m not saying we let them blow up Star’s Landing, Em. I’m saying you can’t warn anyone.”

Emiko stared at him with wide eyes. “Why?” She pitched up noticeably at the end.

“Esparza’s mini-nuke is already in Star’s Landing.”

Emiko’s jaw fell open. The autotruck rumbled on. Then she closed her mouth and grimaced.

“You know I’m right,” Jan said.

Emiko nodded. “The Truthers have people in the CSD, in the government, in every agency.” She wasn’t even looking at him anymore. “One will intercept any warning we send, and it’s not like Esparza will just eff off and say ‘We surrender.’”

“No,” Jan said. “He will, instead, set off his bomb.”

“And Star’s Landing has almost a million people in it. They wouldn’t be able to evacuate even a fraction in time. The Truthers could still claim the Advanced bombed the parade, because, really, what proof would anyone have otherwise?”

“Exactly,” Jan said. “Though, I doubt Esparza plans to kill more than a thousand or so. His tacticians have certainly estimated the fallout radius and run casualty projections. Even the radius of a perfectly placed mini-nuke would only—”

Emiko slammed one flat palm down on Jan’s bed. “I’m a fucking mathematician, Jan! I know how to calculate radii!”

Jan captured her hand with his. “Of course.”

Emiko glared at him, but she didn’t pull away. “And just how do you know the nuke’s already there?”

“Rafe told me,” Jan said. “Or close enough.”

Rafe had told Jan yesterday that Esparza was done prepping for his operation, and the Truther base clearing out confirmed that. If the Truthers were still moving the mini-nuke into Star’s Landing, they wouldn’t have been “done.” Esparza wouldn’t mobilize his people unless everything was already in place.

“Right, about Rafe.” Emiko grimaced. “There’s something else you need to know.”

“He’s working with the Truthers,” Jan said.

“He sold you to the Supremacy.”

It took Jan a moment to absorb that information, square it with everything he already knew, and then add, “What?”

Emiko explained everything Fatima and Kinsley had explained to her, days ago, and as she did so, the vexing mystery of his five years in Tantalus prison clicked into place. The explanation he’d waited five years to learn arrived.

Jan smiled. He felt undeniably warm now.

“I’m sorry.” Emiko leaned close, brow furrowed. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

“It’s fine,” Jan said. And it was, finally.

Fatima hadn’t sold him out five years ago. She’d been betrayed as well, by Rafe, and Jan only now realized he’d always feared that he’d done something to deserve being betrayed. That he’d disappointed his family somehow.

That hadn’t happened, though.

One of them had simply colossally fucked up.

Jan pressed his other hand over Emiko’s. “No one is perfect.” And though Rafe’s own fuckup hurt, some, it was possible to bear because Jan understood why it had happened.

“I’d do anything to score a little bliss,” Rafe had said a day ago, as he sniffled his eyeballs out in their shared cell. “I did a lot of stuff I don’t even remember, and the stuff I do remember, I’m not proud of.”

Rafe had probably planned to break Jan out of CSD custody after he sold Jan out for his drug and/or gambling fix. He’d likely had no idea Captain Varik planned to seize Jan from the CSD and send him to orbit. The problem, with Rafe, was that he was just smart enough to think three steps into a four-step plan.

There had been no malice involved in Rafe’s actions five years ago, simply stupidity. Stupidity didn’t hurt as much. Jan focused his thoughts on the mini-nuke problem, because deciding how to deal with Rafe was going to take a while.

“We can’t let Esparza’s coup succeed,” Jan said, “but we also can’t send any warning the Truthers in the government might intercept. We will need to handle this ourselves.”

“Right,” Emiko said. “So we’ll just gun through a hundred or so Truthers, give or take?”

Jan tried to sit up, winced, and failed. “Actually, I have a plan that involves considerably less risk.” To his people, anyway. “When does Fatima return with Bharat and his family?”

“Tonight, if all went well.” Emiko shuddered. “Or never, if things went south over Phorcys.”

“Fatima succeeded,” Jan said. “Also, we’ll need the mimetic camouflage suits we salvaged off Phorcys six years ago.”

“For what?” Emiko demanded. “What can two half-invisible