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“Lomax reacted perfectly to the trigger presented by his brother,” I said to Huavon.
A fortuitous passing encounter with Aeon had enabled me to implant a conversational suggestion containing one of Lomax’s triggers. On cue, the prince flipped, and everything had gone according to plan—except for the unexpected variable.
“So, what is the problem?” Huavon circled back. I’d hoped he’d forgotten.
“The prince has formed an attachment to a human.”
His bond with Kat Whalen made him resistant to mind control. When he’d thought of her during our sessions, he erected a mental barrier, and I’d had to crank up the electronic booster to break through. Reinforcement programming should have been completed in a couple of days; instead, it had taken a week.
I’d gotten the king and queen to bar them from seeing each other. Then I tried to undermine the human’s attachment under the assumption her stalwart support reinforced his infatuation. Men became enamored of females who appeared to adore them, who stroked their egos. If she doubted and rejected him, I reasoned, his attachment would collapse.
I’d caught her alone and begun whittling away her faith in Lomax when Nadir had appeared and foiled my plans—again. If Lomax had killed him, none of this would have happened. I knew from reading the prince’s mind he didn’t even like Nadir, but he respected him. Unable to brainwash two individuals simultaneously and to avoid drawing attention to myself, I had to retreat. Another opportunity to get to the human hadn’t arisen.
I couldn’t make another mistake like I had two years ago.
I’d tracked Lomax to Star Planet where I’d brainwashed him and erected the partition. The plans to disrupt the summit on Aurelia had been in the works for years. Although we’d suffered a setback when the authorities raided the township and nearly decimated our army, we had our HVA, and could still deliver a punishing blow to the LOP. We regrouped and went underground, proceeding with plans for “Lieutenant Lomax” to lead a raid. But then Nadir appeared, and the prince balked at executing him, which led to Lomax’s capture and further reduction of our forces. I hadn’t made the partition strong enough. Lomax had remembered too much.
Now, with an even more significant pan-summit on the horizon, we had one final chance to crush the enemy—if I could reacquire the prince. This time, the brainwashing had to be rock solid. I’d come up with the perfect cover as a mind-control-reversal expert, sneaked into the palace, finished the indoctrination, nabbed the prince, and hijacked an LOP vessel.
I’d been stunned when he had boarded the ship with his “hostage.” I’d almost blasted her, but the way he’d instinctively shielded her revealed remnants of the bond remained. I worried that if I killed her, the vestiges of the attachment might evoke grief and resentment toward me, which would present a whole new set of problems. I decided to work on him some more and then have him kill her to prove the bond had been severed permanently.
“His loyalty should be to us. Break the attachment,” Huavon ordered.
“I will.” Besides redeeming myself, ensuring Lomax’s full compliance had become a matter of personal pride. Nobody bested me. Certainly not a human. So, when she thwarted me, I’d expected my adversary to be extraordinary. Upon meeting her face-to-face, I was more astonished by her hold on the prince. She was unremarkable, insipid, timid, and weak. If Nadir hadn’t interrupted us, in another few minutes, I would have had her jilting the prince and doing backflips on the queen’s banquet table. Of course, if she’d rejected him, she wouldn’t have attended the banquet at all.
“That ought to be simple for a Mnemonian,” my commander said with an implied taunt. I was only half. Again, I read between the lines.
“The pan-summit is only a month away. Lomax must denounce the League of Planets and endorse Galactic Justice Warriors. We are risking what’s left of our army to put him in place. He must not falter. There can be no glitches. He must be convincing,” he said.
“He will be. I promise.” I had a month to prep him. Partitioned brainwashed assets could come across as robotic, wooden. Lomax needed to sound genuine and impassioned—the better for people to believe him and to mourn his death, which would further cement their beliefs.
“What is the status of the other asset?”
“Primed and ready. I took care of it before going to Araset. All it will take is for Lomax to utter the trigger.” As with the prince, I’d used the partitioning approach on the other asset to ensure he acted “normally” until we deployed him. Unlike Lomax, the asset had been easy to coerce. There’d been no glitches. No irrational attachment to a human.
“Keep me informed. Peace through chaos,” he said.
“Peace through chaos,” I repeated.
The screen went dark.
Chapter Eleven
Lomax
I took a seat on the bridge next to Seeher.
“Peace through chaos,” she greeted me.
“Peace through chaos,” I repeated.
Out the wide forward window, a commercial spacecraft zoomed toward Nomoru. On the rear-camera-feed screen, two small spaceships approached from the planet’s surface.
“Are they—”
“Private pleasure craft. Scan shows they’re too small for military ships, and they have no weapons. Araset probably doesn’t realize we’ve taken the LOP ship yet,” Seeher said. “But I’ve increased our speed to maximum.”
Under the treaty arrangement, Araset and Copa both would be duty bound to intercept the stolen LOP vessel—if they could.
