A Storm Is Brewing

"First, he's an Imperial Spy. Only then is he a defector."

There was a note of confidence in Commander Adam's voice. He seemed to have already formed a picture of Amber, the Imperial defector, in his mind.

"So he knows exactly how the Empire treats defectors, especially after learning that it's about to launch a surprise attack."

At that, Tailstinger nodded thoughtfully.

"I think I see what you mean. He doesn't dare reveal that he's a defector right now."

"Exactly. I suspect he's waiting to see how things play out."

Commander Adam snapped his fingers.

"If the Federation survives the attack, he'll side with it without hesitation."

"But if the Empire succeeds and destroys the Federation's forces on this planet, then as far as he's concerned, he never defected."

Having said his piece, Commander Adam smiled at Tailstinger and fell silent.

"Hmph. He's worked out a nice little scheme for himself."

Tailstinger's synthesized voice still carried a trace of disdain. "So how do you plan to handle him?"

"By getting the most value we can out of this 'fledgling,' naturally."

"Won't your people be working with him and Margaret? Once they've sabotaged the Communications Center, silence them both."

Commander Adam drew a finger across his throat.

"You mean Margaret too?"

"Of course. She's a senior undercover operative, yet she failed to notice that an Imperial Spy had defected. That's a dereliction of duty."

Seeming to sense Tailstinger's hesitation, Commander Adam added another point.

"Besides, isn't she one of the princess's people? Haven't your Regent and the princess's faction become bitter enemies?"

Tailstinger's expression shifted several times at Commander Adam's retort. Fortunately, his full-face helmet hid it.

Hearing a Federation defector comment so freely on his country's factional struggle left Tailstinger feeling both unsettled and annoyed.

But he had to admit that the fat pig in front of him wasn't wrong.

As the reigning emperor grew older, his grip on the Empire had weakened to an all-time low.

The struggle between the Regent's camp and the princess's had intensified as a result.

Purges, assassinations, and acts of sabotage between the two sides had grown increasingly frequent.

The surprise attack on the Federation, set to begin in three days, had passed the Imperial Parliament unanimously.

But anyone with eyes could see that the Princess Faction and the Regent Faction, each of which held half the seats in parliament, wanted to win greater prestige from the war.

That would give them more leverage in the struggle for the throne that might lie ahead.

And the Regent had near-total control of every intelligence agency except the Naval Intelligence Directorate.

As a member of the Star Dragon Fang, Tailstinger had effectively been forced to side with the Regent.

So he couldn't pass up this chance to eliminate someone from the princess's faction with a perfectly reasonable excuse.

"Understood. I'll make the arrangements."

As he spoke, Tailstinger tilted his head toward Major Mars.

"What do we do with him?"

"Send him back to his room. By the time anyone notices something's wrong, it'll be too late."

Tailstinger gave no reply. A honeycomb pattern of blue light swept across his combat suit, and he vanished into thin air.

The next second, Major Mars stiffly raised a hand in salute, like a puppet on strings.

Then he left the office with an awkward, rigid gait.

"So that mind control isn't perfect after all."

Watching Major Mars's clumsy movements, Commander Adam raised an eyebrow from his chair.

"But it only has to cover us for three days. It'll do."

In the officers' mess, Amber's breathtaking looks left the other male officers hopelessly outclassed.

The female officers, meanwhile, couldn't take their eyes off him.

In the short time he'd been there, Amber found that a long string of private messages had appeared on his personal terminal.

Some coyly asked, "Hey, handsome, want to be friends?"

Others went straight for, "Hey, handsome, want to date?"

A few even sent outright invitations to hook up.

Amber had to admit that, with a face like his, he might just deserve to be called an "incubus."

Despite the little stir he'd caused, Amber had to admit that Dallas was remarkably good at bringing people together.

By the end of a single lunch, the distance between Amber, the "Psychic Agent," and the other officers had narrowed considerably.

Many were still wary of him, but at least they would strike up a conversation now.

After lunch, the others still had several departments to visit before they could wait for their final assignments.

Amber, whose assignment had already been settled, said goodbye to everyone and returned to his apartment.

He thought back to his earlier contact with Margaret and his private talk with Major Mars.

Suddenly, Amber felt that the battle for Robert IV might not be so straightforward.

It might not even follow the course of history he knew.

With his thoughts in a tangle, Amber walked over to his apartment window.

To make emergency deployments easier, the officers' apartments and enlisted barracks were both fairly close to the warehouses and hangars.

Looking into the distance, Amber could see the HCP hangar at Yasin Base.

Several Federation HCPs in gray mottled camouflage were walking out of the hangar, guided by ground crew waving light batons, and heading away.

HCP stood for "Humanoid Combat Platform."

These humanoid machines, averaging eight to nine meters in height, were an indispensable part of every human faction's armed forces.

At first, though, their predecessor had been the Outer-Space Humanoid Engineering Machine.

It was a platform designed to help humans carry out engineering work in space.

Asteroid surveys, ship search and rescue, engineering repairs, cargo handling at spaceports.

Those had been its original uses.

With the aid of its motion-following control system and automatic dynamic mass-balance control, it could work flexibly in space.

It was like a scaled-up human fitted with numerous maneuvering thrusters.

Then fusion reactors and superconducting battery packs grew increasingly compact, while plasma propulsion arrays were adapted from warships and came into widespread use.

The Outer-Space Humanoid Engineering Machine, once on the verge of obsolescence, found a new lease on life.

It gained more power, longer operating times, and greater mobility.

Its modular design also made it adaptable to more environments and missions, making the "general-purpose" label truer than ever.

Naturally, humanity, ever the warlike species, soon developed a military use for it.

The HCP was born.