Free Rumors of Glory (The System States Rebellion Book 1) by Dietmar Wehr

let me see you,” she said in a
carefully controlled voice.
     
    He said nothing and waited.
     
    “I see that you’ve joined the rebellion, and you’re a
Commander now. I suppose congratulations are in order,” she said.
     
    Her tone was not quite so controlled anymore. He thought
he detected an overtone of accusation in it, or was that just his imagination?
Just a few months ago he’d been a lieutenant, like her, but promotion was fast
in the SSU.
     
    “The SSU Navy is expanding fast, Lor. I was hoping that
maybe you’d resign from the FED and join us.”
     
    “I take my oath to the Federation seriously, Roland.”
     
    There definitely was accusation in that tone. Drake
sighed. They were sliding down the path that he had dreaded. “My loyalties have
always been to my home planet, Lor. I was born here on Sparta. So were you. My
family is here. Did you really think I’d fight against my family? Don’t you
know me better than that?” When she didn’t respond he said, “Why did you
volunteer for this mission, Lor? My God! You tried to kill our Chancellor! He’s
not just the leader of the SSU, he’s also the President of your home planet.”
     
    “I wanted to see you again to find out which side you
were on, Roland.”
     
    “So you were willing to kill the Chancellor just to see
me one more time? Do you really expect me to believe that, Lor?”
     
    She nodded. “The guards tell me that the Chancellor was
injured but not seriously. He was most of the way inside the armored limousine
with one of his guards between him and the shuttle. Tell me something, Roland.
If the shuttle had exploded two seconds sooner, do you think the Chancellor
would still be alive?”
     
    Drake replayed those terrible few seconds in his mind.
Two seconds before the blast, the Chancellor was still standing between the two
rows of security people, with nothing between him and the shuttle.
     
    “No. He’d be dead. What of it?”
     
    “I was told to set the timer for six seconds. I actually
chose eight. My escape pod could have avoided most of the blast with a
six-second lead and I would still have survived. Check the video if you don’t
believe me. Your Chancellor’s alive because of me, Roland.”
     
    Drake did believe her. Lorelei Remington was good at a
lot of things, but lying wasn’t one of them. She had correctly figured out how
to maximize her chances of keeping some kind of relationship with him. There
was no way for her to know which side he was on before the mission. If Drake
had stayed loyal to the Federation, they’d both be prisoners and maybe be able
to be together. Since he had gone over to the opposition, she had given herself
enough credibility in his eyes to prevent a total break, but that didn’t alter
the fact that she was a prisoner of war, and he was on the other side of the
war.
     
    He nodded and smiled at her. He wanted to tell her that
he still had feelings for her, but he didn’t want that Security Commander
hearing them. She responded with a small smile of her own that told him she
understood.
     
    “They’re listening to this aren’t they?” she asked.
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “So I guess I have to be careful what I say to you, and
you have to be careful what you say to me,” she said.
     
    “Yes.”
     
    She nodded ever so slightly. The security people would
think she was referring to military secrets, but Drake knew she was referring
to personal secrets. “Then there’s nothing more to say for now, Roland.
Whatever we might want to say will just have to wait for this war to be over.”
     
    Drake nodded again. “Until then.” He got up and walked
over to the door.
     
    Before he got there, she said, “They didn’t tell me what
happened in space after the explosion. Did Stacker get away okay?” Drake kept
his face turned away from her and from the surveillance to hide his smile.
Under the guise of an innocent question, she had just revealed the name of the
officer in charge of