The Lost Stars 01-Tarnished Knight (12 page)

Making up her mind to confront a volatile issue, Iceni leaned forward. “Now that you’ve agreed with my plans for the mobile forces, I’d like some input on what your assets are doing. I understand that there are ground forces guarding the snakes’ family complexes.”

“That’s right.” Drakon met her gaze without flinching. “All snakes have been pulled from the complexes. All that’s left are families.”

“What do you intend doing with them, General?”

Drakon paused, then blew out a long breath. “I’m still considering options.”

To his left, Colonel Morgan managed to convey disapproval without moving a muscle or making a sound.

Togo spoke into the silence that followed. “They will never be welcome, or safe, within this star system.”

Once again, Drakon displayed simmering anger. “Then what are you proposing?”

“It is too late to let the citizens resolve the issue for us—”

“
I
don’t let someone else resolve issues in order to make it easier for me,” Drakon snapped at Togo.

Iceni kept her expression unrevealing as she watched Drakon. “They can’t stay here, and neither you nor I is willing to murder families en masse. That leaves one option. We put them on a ship and send them somewhere else. Back to Prime, perhaps.”

Morgan finally spoke. “Waste a ship on that? We’d never see it again.”

“That is likely,” Togo said. “It is not a cost-free option.”

“They’re all going to want vengeance,” Morgan insisted. “When you kill a nest of snakes, you kill them
all
. Otherwise, the young and the others will come after you someday.”

“That option,” Drakon said, “is not under consideration.”

Iceni nodded. “I agree.”

“General—” Morgan began.

“That is all,” Drakon said.

As Morgan sat back, her expression gone impassive, Colonel Malin nodded toward Iceni. “I believe that the ship suggestion may be our best option, especially if we contrive to impress the snake families with our military strength before they depart. C-625 will carry news of the forces here when it left. If we wait until C-625 departs, we could fool the snake family members into believing that our mobile forces have received new reinforcements and are far stronger than they are. That is what Prime would believe.”

“Planted disinformation?” Iceni said. “Under cover of a humanitarian action? I like the way that you think, Colonel.”

Togo made a small gesture of agreement. “One merchant ship would be a small price to pay for misleading the Syndicate government as to our strength.”

Left unsaid was something they all knew. With so many star systems spinning out of Syndicate control, the government on Prime had to choose which ones were marked for reconquest. Midway, with its hypernet gate, its access to multiple star systems, and its connection to space controlled by the enigma race, would be a priority for such a counterattack. It wasn’t a matter of whether or not Prime would send an attack force to try to reassert its authority, but when that would happen.

“It sounds like we’re agreed, then. Work with CEO Iceni’s staff on that plan,” Drakon ordered Malin.

“President Iceni,” she corrected with a small smile.

“President?” Drakon’s mouth twisted in a half smile in return. “What exactly does that mean?”

“Whatever I want it to mean.”

His smile grew slightly. “Good. Get rid of the Syndicate baggage once and for all.”

Colonel Malin rested his arms on the table, gazing at Iceni and Drakon. “That raises a topic I think we must address before it is forced upon us. We have all seen the crowds. They are happy today. The measures we have taken have maintained order. But tomorrow, they will wake up with hangovers, squint at the rising sun, and wonder what under that sun has changed.”

Morgan was now displaying disdain with the same lack of sound or movement.

“What are you suggesting?” Iceni asked.

Malin swept one arm to encompass the outside. “We all know how bad things were under the Syndicate Worlds. Only the highest echelons really benefited. For the vast majority of citizens, there was no sense of ownership. The need for security drove compliance with the government more than anything else, but that compliance went only as far as it had to go. Do I need to cite the estimated numbers for losses due to corruption and waste? How inefficient and unproductive our manufacturing and fabrication facilities often are? If this star system is to prosper, we need to get the citizens believing that they have a stake in that prosperity.”

Iceni gave him a polite but cool smile. “I have no intention of surrendering power to the mob.” That earned her another impossibly subtle reaction from Colonel Morgan, this one of approval.

“We have to stay in control,” Malin agreed. “But there are many levels below us. The lowest levels, the ward officers, council members, even mayors could be offered as truly elected positions.”

Drakon appeared as uncertain about that as Iceni felt.

But Togo nodded. “I felt the power of the crowds. They will not accept business as usual. We need to throw them a bone. One with real meat on it. Or perhaps a synthetic substitute that they will accept as real meat.”

“Low-level positions?” Drakon asked.

“And where would you draw the line?” Morgan demanded. “Give them council members, and they’ll demand the right to choose their own mayors, then regional controllers, then generals and presidents! Do we want some citizens off the streets rummaging through the files of what we’ve done in the past?”

“We cannot control the crowds using only force—” Malin began.

“I can! Give me the authority and the troops, and I’ll have the streets cleared and every citizen saying ‘yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full’ before sundown!”

After a pause in which Iceni tried not to stare at Morgan, General Drakon spoke. “That’s an option, but it has significant downsides. One of them is that if our troops are tied up garrisoning our own population, that means we can’t use them elsewhere.”

That argument seemed to get through to Colonel Morgan where others had not. “That’s true. But we could end up facing the same garrisoning problem if the citizens are allowed too much latitude and start thinking they don’t need to do as they’re told.”

“Yeah. That’s a problem. How do we give them enough to keep them happy but not too much so that they think they can demand more?”

Malin answered. “We can’t satisfy all of the citizens. Some, a few, will demand total democracy tomorrow. We can highlight the problems that would bring and offer enough evidence of change to keep the great majority of the citizens on our side.”

“Just enough evidence of change?” Togo asked.

“And how do we determine what that is?” Morgan asked. “Give too little, in
their
eyes, and they’ll demand more. If you give in then, they’ll think you’ll keep giving in.”

Bloodthirsty she might be, but Morgan had some good arguments. Iceni glanced at Togo. “General Drakon has already played the security card. Keep your homes and families safe. What else can we use to put the brakes on citizen desires to rule themselves?”

Togo looked upward, frowning in thought. “Divide and conquer. A very ancient tactic but very effective. What happens if the citizens can vote what they want? Will the cities take all for themselves since they have more voters? Will the cities be denied what they wish because power blocs of other voters seize control of elected positions out of proportion to their numbers? Change must be careful to ensure that no one is hurt. By keeping the individuals in upper-level positions appointed by President Iceni with the full advice and consent of General Drakon, who all can trust to work in the interests of the citizens since they expelled the snakes from Midway, we will ensure that everyone’s interests are protected.”

Drakon smiled crookedly. “Damn. You almost make me believe that you’re sincere.”

“The best propaganda is always anchored on a seed of truth that offers stability and the illusion of legitimacy to the arguments attached to that seed.”

Even Morgan looked impressed this time.

“However,” Drakon added, “I want an even split on who nominates people for positions. President Iceni can nominate half, with my advice and consent, and I’ll nominate the other half, with her advice and consent.”

“Fair enough,” Iceni agreed.

“The low-level election process will require preparation,” Togo continued. “The software must be confirmed to be reliable at actually counting votes instead of simply producing the desired vote totals. Back doors into the software that could allow manipulation of results must be blocked. Except for those hidden back doors that President Iceni and General Drakon wish to continue to exist, of course. Candidates must be found, campaigns must be waged. The process cannot be rushed without denying prospective candidates the opportunity to compete. It will be a long process.”

Iceni nodded, smiling outwardly, and wondering why inside she felt a strange sense of discontent.
Wasn’t this the solution I wanted? It seems like it. But the Syndicate system
failed
, and isn’t this just an attempt to perpetuate it?

I need time to think. Togo’s solution will give me that time, but I will think.

She looked across the table at Drakon. Did his eyes mirror the same dissatisfaction? Or was she imagining that? “Let’s do it,” Iceni said, and no one objected.

* * *

AS
he reentered his headquarters complex, Drakon felt himself relaxing for the first time in a very long time. It had been a hard day, but he had done it. He and Iceni had done it.

He had learned a bit more about her, too. Unless Iceni was an excellent actress, she had been genuinely rattled by the losses suffered in the mobile forces engagement. That was reassuring. Leaders who simply wrote off human losses as the cost of doing business were also, in Drakon’s experience, fully capable of writing off allies in the same way.

He still hadn’t decided whether to contact her again later, just the two of them, to explain about the four snake sentries and their families who were being given new identities and new homes. It didn’t seem likely that Iceni would demand their blood, but you never knew. The alternative was sticking them on the same transport as the other snake families, but how would those four snakes explain their survival when all the rest of their comrades were dead? No, that would be a betrayal of his promise to them. Without their aid, he couldn’t have gotten to that main surveillance node. He paid his debts.

Which also meant he owed Iceni, but it would be best not to make that too clear in case she saw an acknowledgment of debt as a sign of dependency.

Malin’s comm unit buzzed urgently. Malin consulted it, his face losing emotion as he read. “General.”

So much for relaxation. “What is it?”

“We’ll have to modify what we told President Iceni regarding your control of all important off-planet facilities.”

CHAPTER SIX

“WHO
and where?” Drakon asked.

“Colonel Dun.”

Drakon glanced upward without thinking, even though he was inside a building and couldn’t have actually seen the main orbiting facility for this world even if it had been nighttime. “What’s she doing? The last report we had from her said that the snakes on that station had all been neutralized, she had firm control, and she accepted my authority.”

“I’m afraid that Colonel Dun’s firm control may now be the problem. I passed on some of your earlier instructions and just received a reply. Instead of indicating that she would carry out those orders, Colonel Dun said, ‘I will consider my options.’”

“Her options?” Dun wasn’t one of the subordinates Drakon had brought to Midway. She had come from another place, for a reason he didn’t know. “Remind me why Dun was still in command of that facility instead of someone we knew we could trust.”

Morgan shrugged. “She had ties to the snakes. She was giving reports to them though supposedly only under duress. That’s why she wasn’t part of our planning. And trying to ease Dun out of command of the station couldn’t be done without attracting a lot of attention and raising warning flags with the ISS. Of course, Dun
could
have been assassinated, opening a way for us to get someone better up there, but no one else wanted to pursue
that
option.”

“Maybe I should have let you do that.” Drakon walked into his office, Morgan and Malin following.
This isn’t their fault,
he told himself. The ISS had plenty of experience with spotting excessively ambitious CEOs who were maneuvering too many followers into too many critical positions. Moving against Dun would have been too obvious.

Morgan stopped just inside the doorway, leaning against one wall with her arms crossed. “Dun is smart enough to know what kind of leverage control of that station gives her. She can threaten to drop large, heavy objects on this planet and do what the snakes didn’t manage to accomplish. She’s also stupid enough to try blackmailing you.”

“I agree with Colonel Morgan’s assessment as to Colonel Dun’s smarts and Colonel Dun’s stupidity,” Malin said.

Drakon brought up data on the facility Dun controlled, seeing bad news that confirmed what he remembered. The orbiting facility contained extensive manufacturing plants, fed by ore brought in from asteroids, and those stockpiles of ore would make simple, impossible to stop, and horribly destructive bombs if just dropped onto the planet from orbit. The soldiers under Dun’s command were up there to ensure no rebellious crazies did that, but now Dun herself was the rebellious crazy. He imagined the impacts of tons of ore falling from orbit. As Morgan said, the devastation would easily equal that of the nukes the snakes had sought to detonate. “Options? Can we get to her soldiers? Get them to turn on her?”

“They’d all have to turn at once,” Morgan replied. “If half turned, and the other half didn’t, that gives someone plenty of time to drop rocks. I don’t think that option has much chance of success.”

“I suggest we talk to her,” Malin said. “She’ll make demands. Keep talking, give in on a few, small things, while we plan and execute an operation to take her out.”

Morgan grinned. “Even idiots get it right sometimes.”

“Neither of you think that Dun herself can be co-opted? Turned into a loyal subordinate?” Drakon asked.

Malin shook his head.

Morgan laughed. “Dun will be safe when she’s dead.”

“Then I’ll talk to her, make her think that I’m willing to play along. Meanwhile, you two get started on a plan to take that station. I need a good one, and I need it fast. First priority, ensure nothing gets dropped from that facility onto the planet. Second priority, remove Colonel Dun on a permanent basis. Oh, one other thing. Check the snake files we captured and see if any of the intact ones provide the reason why Dun got exiled here.”

“Why does that matter?” Morgan asked.

“I won’t know if it does matter until I know the reason. See if you can find it, and get that plan done.”

Malin looked resigned, and Morgan rolled her eyes, but they went off together. Despite their mutual antagonism, Morgan and Malin could work well together when it came to producing plans. Drakon had never been able to figure that out, wondering if it was the product of some bizarre love-hate relationship, even though the idea of Morgan and Malin hooking up seemed to be not just impossible but also somehow indecent.

His first look at Colonel Dun when his call to her went through didn’t cause Drakon to second-guess his decision.

Dun sat at ease, smiling like a cat that had just cleaned out a fish tank. “Congratulations, Artur,” she began.

Using his first name meant that Dun intended treating this as a conversation among equals. But since he had no means at hand to slap her down, he would have to live with that attitude for a little while. “What’s this I hear about you giving Colonel Malin a hard time . . . Sira?”

Dun grinned a little wider. “I see no need to submit to an inferior position in this new setup. Not when I’m literally looking down on you.”

“You’re not looking down at the mobile forces controlled by President Iceni.”

“President? Interesting. You’re right. But if those mobile forces try anything, I’ll see it long enough before it gets here that I can launch a doomsday barrage. And if I see anybody suspicious coming close, I’ll do the same thing. I assume you’d like to avoid that.”

“What is you’re looking for?” Drakon asked.

“It looks like you and Iceni are planning to run things as a pair. I want that to become a triumvirate.”

You just made a big mistake by giving me the perfect excuse to stall. Maybe a fatal mistake.
Outwardly, Drakon made a noncommittal shrug. “I can’t decide that alone. I need to talk to Iceni.”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. Geosynchronous orbit, you know.” Dun laughed outright. “Talk to you later.”

Drakon mimed punching the air where the comm window had been, then called Iceni. He couldn’t discuss his plans, not when Dun might be able to intercept the conversation, but he could use certain phrases known to CEOs that would indicate that he wanted the response process strung out as long as possible.

Two hours later, Malin and Morgan returned, entering together but immediately going to opposite corners of the room. Malin bobbed his head slightly up and to the side, indicating the general direction of the orbiting station. “We based the plan on the fact that Colonel Dun has spent most of her time in industrial assignments. That was the justification for giving her command of the station. Her military time has been with strategic systems.”

“Nukes?” Drakon asked.

“For the most part. Planning and design.”

Morgan smiled lazily. “She’s going to be looking for a big attack. Missiles, large assault ships, something on that order. Colonel Dun doesn’t have any experience with ground ops, special ops, or really, any ops.”

“How many stealth suits do we still have operational after the attacks on the ISS?” Drakon asked.

“Enough.” Morgan’s grin widened. “They’re in the plan.”

Drakon called it up. One talent he had worked hard to acquire was the ability to quickly review and absorb the essentials of an operational plan. Getting bogged down in details could cause a commander to miss the bigger picture, and even whether the overall plan made any sense.

This one did, but he had expected nothing less. “Two assault forces.”

Malin nodded. “One to go after any troops loyal to Dun and take her out by whatever means necessary, and the other to make sure nothing gets launched from that facility by securing and overriding all controls that could do that. We think Colonel Kai—”

“Kai’s not doing it. Neither is Gaiene or Rogero. Dun may be overconfident, but we can’t assume she’s careless enough not to have someone tracking where my top field commanders are and where I am. If I or any of those three colonels heads for orbit, or can’t be spotted down here conducting business as usual, Dun will know.”

Morgan’s eyebrows rose. “Does that leave who I think it does?”

“Yes. You two. Malin will command one assault force and you take the other.”

“Dun may be watching us, too,” Malin said.

“Maybe, but she doesn’t have infinite resources to devote to surveilling people down here, and she probably thinks she can safely assume that wherever I am, you two are also.”

“Sweet.” Morgan slowly flexed the fingers of one hand as if preparing to go into action right then and there. “I want the force that goes after Dun.”

Malin shrugged. “Fine by me. General, you asked about the reason for Dun’s assignment to this star system.”

“Yeah. What did she do?”

“We found her ISS files. There’s nothing about the reason for exile.”

Drakon peered at him. “Nothing?”

“Yes, sir. Very unusual. I’m beginning to wonder if Dun isn’t a snake herself, operating under deep cover.”

“She doesn’t match the usual profiles for someone like that,” Morgan added, “but we can’t rule it out, and if it’s true then Dun could be more dangerous than we think. There’s too much detail we could check on her career to doubt any of that, so we know her experience, but she might also be operating right now on fail-safe contingency orders from the snakes.”

“How long before you can nail her?”

“We can hide the troop movements in routine lifts to the facility and other orbital sites near there, but it will take time. Twenty-four hours. I wanted to push that until we found the blank spots in Dun’s ISS records. Now I want to make very sure we don’t tip her off.”

When Morgan advised caution, it was uncharacteristic enough to emphasize how important it was to listen to that opinion. “All right. Twenty-four hours. President Iceni and I will spin out discussions with Dun to help keep her distracted. I don’t want to hear from either one of you again until you’re in control of that facility and calling in to tell me.”

“I can run you a tight-beam link to the assault-force data feeds,” Malin offered. “Slightly time-delayed because it’ll have to run through relays to keep Dun’s people from spotting it, but we need to do that anyway for team coordination, and the link should be safe from any intercept.”

That was tempting, especially since he would have to sit here while they faced danger without him. Drakon nodded. “Thanks. Make that happen.”

* * *

ICENI
had proven adept at stringing along Colonel Dun, dangling major concessions continually just out of reach. Drakon had found himself increasingly admiring her skills. That didn’t equate to trusting her, of course. In fact, watching how well she spun Dun made Drakon wonder how well he was being spun or could be spun if Iceni decided that was necessary.

He hadn’t been able to monitor the forces going up piecemeal in shuttles and boosters, packed in with normal shipments. If Dun was tracking anything, it would be whatever Drakon was watching.

It wasn’t a major assault by any means. Colonel Dun only had about forty soldiers under her command on the facility, and those were locals whose experience and training were both limited. Against that, Malin and Morgan were leading two assault teams of fifteen commandos each, all the soldiers highly trained veterans. If not for the risk of something heavy being dropped on the planet, Drakon wouldn’t have had any concerns about the outcome. But that one concern was a huge one.

An alert signal pulsed on his desk. Taking a long, slow breath, Drakon linked to the incoming signals and a multipaned window opened before him with views from the assault force.

He concentrated, blocking out all else, focusing only on the vids before him which portrayed the images seen from the stealth suits being used by the commandos. Twelve panes in the window. Two of those panes were from Malin and Morgan. The other ten marked section leaders, each controlling a team of two other commandos plus themselves.

About half of the commandos were already on the facility, some popping open specially designed crates to emerge inside warehouse compartments, others on the outside of the facility in the cold emptiness of space, the remainder coming in on long leaps from neighboring orbital locations, their stealth suits keeping them as invisible as the ingenuity of humans could devise. Malin’s head turned, his range of vision sweeping across a stretch of utilitarian fixtures that marked one section of the outer shell of the facility. Though invisible to others in their suits, the links to their fellows allowed the commandos to be “seen” by Malin as ghostly images painted on the exterior view.

Morgan’s group had also reached the facility and spread out along other portions, phantoms flitting carefully toward their targets. One of the section leaders passed a security camera watching that part of the exterior, the camera blindly tracking across the commando without pause.

The sections had reached accesses leading into the facility at different points. Some were air locks for maintenance workers to use when repairs were done, some were vents and tunnels never intended for human use. In some cases, commandos already inside cracked the air locks for their fellows. Everywhere else, the small, complex devices still known as skeleton keys after some sort of ancient means of opening locked doors were placed against key points and began breaking access codes and manipulating security bolts until barriers swung open.

Commandos began entering, each covering the others with ready weapons, some now in lighted passageways within the facility, others in still-darkened areas cluttered with canisters and boxes where only the occasional robotic minion trundled past with single-minded focus on its particular task.

It had all been silent up to now, almost unreal, as the phantom figures barely seen on the helmet displays of their fellow commandos moved without a word through the plan they had memorized and uploaded into their suits’ tactical systems. But the commandos in the passageways could now hear the sounds of human activity, while those in maintenance and storage areas could detect dull thuds and thumps being transmitted through the structure of the facility.