Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [60]
And even if you were successful-even if you com-pleted your mission and returned safely-there was no glory, no medals, no parades at home. If you were very lucky, you got to live a quiet, low-key life without hav-ing extensive parts of your memory sponged away by "your" side.
Spying was not a job for one with pale courage. You had to be made of something stronger than the strongest steelcrete to withstand the stress of being an undercover agent, no matter which side you worked for, no matter how strong and valid your reasons for doing the job.
Valid? Oh, yes, the spy’s reasons were certainly that. The reasons were old and far away, but undiminished nonetheless. Even so, it was impossible to smile at these people and not mean it, because they were good people. None of them had participated in the atrocity that had made all this necessary-all of them, in fact, would have been horrified at the event.
Decent beings on any side of any war would be. But it wasn’t the decent be-ings who caused such things. And it was the indecent ones who had to pay for their crimes. You had to resolve early on that the innocent might have to suffer, and you had to strive to make them suffer as little as possible, but suffering was unavoidable. People died in war, just as the spy’s people had died, and there was little to be done about it, save to make it happen as cleanly and quickly as possible.
Some of them were attractive, bright, skilled... all the things the spy sought in friends and lovers. And yet they would die. That resolve had to remain steadfast. War was a cold business. The tears would have to come much later...
It was time for bed. Tomorrow would bring whatever it would bring, and rest, if allowed by happenstance, was always necessary.
At least once a month, Admiral Bleyd did a tour of the Rimsoos. It was a cursory inspection, to wave the flag and pretend he cared about the troops and medics toiling on this tropical mudball he had come to so thor-oughly detest. When the next Black Sun agent ap-peared, it was not Bleyd’s intent that there be anything unusual in his own routine.
The inspection tour was scheduled and, without compelling reason to call it off, would proceed as normal. Business as usual.
It was largely a waste of everybody’s time. They knew when he was coming, had had plenty of time to polish and prepare. He would not see anything amiss unless it happened by accident, and right in front of him.
He couldn’t even take time off to go hunting-but then, there was nothing worthy of his skill on this sod-den world.
Bleyd always used his personal lighter for the flight to the surface, a small craft traditionally called that be-cause its namesake’s original purpose had been to "lighten"
vessels on planetary seas by moving cargo ashore. His craft, a modified Surronian Conqueror as-sault ship, was not the standard vessel for an admiral of the fleet. The vessel was small, less than thirty meters in length, and its cargo-carrying capacity was limited-it wouldn’t lighten any ship of size to any noticeable de-gree, which was normal enough. It ran, however, a clus-ter of eight Surronian ion engines, four A2s and four A2.50s, and was the fastest thing in the atmosphere on this planet by far. Enemy guns set to track ordinary transport and starfighters would be shooting at empty air far behind the ship when Bleyd cranked it up. Expo-sure to the spores was also more limited than in other craft. On a good flight, with no local storms to slow him down, he could leave the flight deck and land at ground stations in half the time any other transport available