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

the second occasion the Cumbrians have bothered me,” Redruth said. “They can rest assured that this time there’ll be a response they shall not like at all. I do not need to consult your expertise on the system to know
that
.
    “The reason I summoned you is to make you aware I allow no error from my servants. You warned us of one attack, not the second. A job partially completed is the same as one not begun.
    “Remember that, Yohns, in the future. I’m not pleased with you at the moment. So take this as a lesson, learn to concentrate on the job at hand instead of your own private pastimes, and don’t make the mistake again.”
    Njangu bowed, turned, and left.
    He was trebly pleased.
If
anything goes awry, no matter whose fault it is, or if it’s no one’s, there clearly must be someone to blame, and it’s never the Protector. Good. That keeps underlings from wanting to report not only failure, but problems as well
.
    And all the time
, he thought piously,
spent with my companions, hasn’t been hem-hem wasted. Redruth clearly thinks I’m sex-happy, and therefore more of a dolt, and it’s never bad to be thought stupid by an enemy
.
    But his main joy came from what appeared to be the success of the intrusion. The first ship, entering the system far distant from Larix Prime, had been a drone, intended to be discovered, tracked, and destroyed.
    Its only purpose was to cover the second ship, which shouldn’t have been discovered at all. It had, which wasn’t good, but it also appeared that the Larissans had lost track of the ship during the critical moments of its insertion. That ship carried a relay satellite, which should have been, and hopefully was, planted on one of Larix Five’s moons.
    Now all he had to do was figure out a way to talk to it, assuming it was there.
    • • •
    Ideally, Njangu had hoped Ab Yohns was entitled to a transceiver, which could be modified to his purposes.
    Next most likely would be for him simply to buy a nice, powerful com, slide in one of the chips he’d brought, so the set broadcast on an off-frequency, code his transmissions, use a couple of recorders to transform the transmission into a blurt, and send it, keeping one eye open for any direction finders in the neighborhood.
    Njangu had figured he was closely watched, and any such purchase would be regarded with lifted eyebrow. He’d planned to resurrect one of his civilian talents and steal such a receiver.
    Protector Redruth, however, had matters well in hand. There were
no
transceivers in civilian use. All coms were controlled by the security services, and were sealed units, preset on the state’s frequencies. Yoshitaro thought if he could acquire one of those sets, and try to pry it open, either he wouldn’t have the skills to do the mod, or the set would self-destruct on him, probably howling on some frequency that a social misfit was messing with it.
    Even the transceivers in aircraft were sealed and preset to the needed frequencies.
    As for finding a store that sold electronic parts, none such seemed to exist, nor would Njangu have the slightest idea of what to buy and how to put it together from scratch.
    He considered the omnipresent vids, and wondered if they might not be more than a box on which to watch sports, news, or government directives. It would be very simple to add a small spyeye to each set, and further tighten Redruth’s hold on Larix.
    One night Yoshitaro pretended to get drunk, no doubt depressed by Redruth’s chiding, a sad and solitary figure with a bottle, glowering at some sports show. Reception was very bad, evidently, for he whacked the set every now and again, without improving the transmission quality.
    Finally, after a bottle and a half had vanished, going unobtrusively down various drains instead of his gullet, Yoshitaro could stand no more. He stumbled over, picked up the set, lifted it overhead and sent it crashing to the floor, to explode in flinders.
    That would get him a reputation