The Lost Stars 01-Tarnished Knight (7 page)

“I see,” Akiri agreed hastily, then busied himself working with his display.

From the corner of her eye, Iceni could see a well-concealed but still-apparent look of disdain on Marphissa. None of the line workers on the bridge betrayed any signs of noticing what had happened, however, which implied that this sort of scene had played out before, most likely when CEO Kolani browbeat Akiri. When Iceni had heard that Kolani had more than once publicly raked Akiri over the coals, she had known that would make Akiri easy to recruit. But Iceni also found herself sympathetic to why Kolani would have chewed out Akiri and wondering why Kolani hadn’t already replaced him. Kolani wasn’t known for a high degree of tolerance for workers who didn’t do their jobs to her standards. And there wasn’t anything in Akiri’s personal record that should have inhibited Kolani from sacking him. There was an inconsistency in her treatment of Akiri, a problem that Iceni bookmarked in her brain to come back to and investigate when time permitted.

At the moment, though, she had to endure a forced period of waiting while still staying alert and focused. Waiting until replies came from Kolani and the other mobile forces ten light-minutes distant. Waiting until she knew how well Drakon’s attacks had succeeded. Or failed. Iceni found her eyes resting on the portion of her display showing the surface of the planet below this cruiser. ISS facilities were highlighted because of the fighting at those locations. If she received information that one or more of Drakon’s attacks had failed, it wouldn’t be hard at all to designate one or more of those facilities as a bombardment target. Point, assign, launch. Simple. And part of a city, and everyone living in that area, would be destroyed.

I launched bombardments at Alliance worlds. That wasn’t hard. I didn’t think about the citizens under those aiming points. Are people in the Alliance called citizens? Why don’t I know the answer to that? I killed them, and I don’t even know what they called themselves.

Of course, that made it easier to kill them.

I never had to participate in an internal stability operation, dropping a bombardment on one of our own worlds to quell rebellion or riot. I was lucky. But here I am potentially facing the same decision.

Was Black Jack really sent by the living stars to stop us? He also stopped the Alliance from bombarding civilians. Was he meant to? My father told me of the stars that watch over us all, but it has been so long, and I’m no longer sure how much of that I accept. I’ve seen that the men and women who gained the most power in the Syndicate Worlds were the ones who would stop at nothing. Why weren’t they stopped? I’ve seen the aftermath of Alliance bombardments of our worlds. I didn’t see many signs there of something caring about the helpless or the weak. You had to stay strong, or you got hurt. Why would something that cared about us wait so long to do anything?

But we did lose, and the Alliance won. And right now, the meanest, most unforgiving part of the Syndicate Worlds, the snakes of the ISS, are dying inside their own fortresses.

Her eyes were locked on one of the ISS symbols, one of the spots where she could order a bombardment to fall.
All right, living stars. My father said you were supposed to guide us as to right or wrong. You told Black Jack what to do? Tell me. Should I ensure that nest of snakes is cleaned out even if it costs the city and citizens around it? Or should I avoid doing the most practical and easiest thing because it would hurt those citizens that I’m responsible for even though those citizens can always be replaced?

Go ahead. If really you’re out there somewhere, tell me.

“Madam CEO,” the operations line worker reported. “The mobile forces with CEO Kolani have been seen to alter vector. They appear to be coming around to close on our position.”

Executive Marphissa nodded. “Based on the timing, they reacted when they saw the attacks against the ISS on the surface.”

Iceni’s own answering nod was sharp. Why hadn’t she heard from Drakon on how things were going? She couldn’t—

It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. The symbol for the ISS facility that Iceni had been watching had altered in the last few seconds. Instead of beaconing an ISS identification, it now glowed with an indicator saying that it belonged to the ground forces.

Other ISS facilities were changing as she watched, changing from poisonous yellow to bold green. “Try to get comms to CEO Drakon,” she ordered. “He—”

At that point, Iceni abruptly remembered her last thoughts before the line worker had interrupted them. She stared at those symbols for a second, then two.
Was I answered? It’s probably just coincidence. Surely just . . .

“Madam CEO?” Marphissa asked.

“Drakon should be at the main ISS headquarters. Try to get in touch with him there,” Iceni ordered, putting extra snap in her command to cover up her momentary loss of self-possession.

Two minutes passed, while Iceni’s glower deepened and Akiri began looking desperate again, himself glaring at the comm line worker.

Fortunately for the line worker, another message came in.

CEO Kolani hadn’t looked so unhappy since the Alliance fleet had last waltzed unhindered through this star system. She stared at Iceni so viciously that it was as if she were actually seeing Iceni before her. It took Iceni a moment to recall that this message had been sent ten minutes ago. “Former CEO Iceni, you are hereby relieved of all authority and ordered to surrender yourself to loyal representatives of the Syndicate Worlds. I am assuming full authority in this star system until the unlawful actions of the ground forces have been halted and their leaders, including former CEO Drakon, have been dealt with.”

“She sent this five minutes after the ISS facilities on the surface were attacked?” Iceni asked.

“Yes, Madam CEO.”

For some reason that made Iceni want to laugh, so she did. “CEO Kolani didn’t even give me a chance to rebel before she tried to take over.” But then Kolani had been talking to Hardrad about that delayed order and implicating Iceni in that matter, if Hardrad could be trusted on that count.
Hardrad can’t be trusted on any count, but in this case telling me the truth about Kolani’s suspicions would have served his purposes, and I already knew how Kolani feels about me.

She looked at Akiri. “Tell the mobile forces with us to bring themselves to full combat alert, and make sure their true readiness status is sent onward to Kolani’s group.”

An alarm sounded, followed by a rippling of Iceni’s display before the virtual images solidified again. “What happened?”

“A virus,” Marphissa reported. “Delivered in the net connecting us to the rest of the flotilla. It tried to activate the worms planted by the snakes, but we’d already purged them.”

Damn.
“Can we put filters between us and the mobile forces loyal to Kolani?”

“That’s what stopped the virus, Madam CEO. I can’t guarantee that the filters will stop the next one.”

Double damn.
“Break the net connections to Kolani’s warships.”

“War—?” Marphissa started to ask, then caught herself. “Yes, Madam CEO. What about the . . . warships at the main facility? Anything they tried to send would take an hour and a half to get here, and anything CEO Kolani tried to relay through them would take more than three hours.”

“Keep them in the link for now.” Iceni gave her display an irate look. Instead of getting accurate updates from those other warships, she would now have to depend on the sensors on the cruisers to know what was really happening.

Accurate updates?
“They were already falsifying their data feeds to us, weren’t they?” Iceni asked.

The operations line worker nodded. “The movements we’re seeing don’t match what their updates were telling us. It was . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Say it.” Iceni’s own voice wasn’t loud, but it carried very well to the line worker and everyone else on the bridge.

“Yes, Madam CEO. It was clumsy.” Now that he had voiced a criticism of superiors, even though they were on other units, the line worker seemed defiantly eager to keep talking. “They could have matched their false feeds to their actual maneuvers, knowing that we would see any discrepancy; instead, they just kept sending us data saying nothing had changed.”

Iceni watched the line worker, who had flushed as he returned her gaze with worried eyes. She wondered if any line workers on Kolani’s units had realized the need to tailor the false data feeds but hesitated to appear to question or contradict superiors. “That’s a good assessment,” she finally said, drawing a hastily concealed look of disbelief from the line worker. “We need to think of things like that before we give away any information to CEO Kolani. What is your rating?”

“Senior line worker class two, Madam CEO.”

“You’re now a senior line worker class one. Keep thinking, and tell me what I need to know.” Iceni turned back to face Akiri. “Make that promotion happen. I am pleased to see that your crew is well trained and knowledgeable.”

Akiri, who had been on the verge of scowling, perked up and bestowed an approving look on the line worker.

“I . . . I have a connection with CEO Drakon,” the comm line worker cried with relief.

The window that opened before Iceni showed Drakon in combat armor, smoking wreckage in the background. It took her a moment to realize that the wreckage had once been the ISS command center. She had toured that facility once, but only once, feeling half a prisoner already until safely outside the ISS headquarters again.

Drakon’s eyes seemed to hold more weariness than triumph, but he waved around in a casual gesture. “We’ve got it. There are individual snakes still running loose, but the heads are all dead, and we’ll catch the rest pretty quick.”

“Where’s Hardrad?”

“That’s sort of a metaphysical question now.”

Iceni had to pause to realize what that meant. “I didn’t know you had such a dark sense of humor, CEO Drakon.”

“It’s now General Drakon. Like you said, we need to cast off Syndicate ways of doing things.”

“I see.” A unilateral decision on Drakon’s part. Not a decision she could protest, but still a worrisome move. “Make sure you examine whatever remains of Hardrad carefully before disposing of it. There may be tiny data-storage devices hidden within him.”

“There were,” Drakon said. “But they were all dead-manned to his metabolism. When he died, they autowiped.”

“Pity. Since I now know that you have the planetary surface under control, I must focus on my own task. There’s a battle to fight up here.”

“Maybe Kolani will rethink that once she learns the snakes on the planet have been wiped out.”

“I’ll make sure that she knows,” Iceni said. “I will contact you again once the battle is over.”

But Drakon shook his head. “What’s to keep Kolani from dropping rocks on us during your fight?”

“She’ll want an intact planet to offer to her masters,” Iceni replied. “Restoring a battered ruin to their control will not impress them. If she did that, she would be blamed for the losses far more than she’d get credit for any success. I am certain of that.”

“I’m glad that you’re certain of it,” Drakon replied, “seeing as how you don’t have to worry about any of those rocks hitting you on the head. Have a nice battle.”

“Thank you.” The window closed, and Iceni gazed morosely at the place where Drakon’s image had been. Working with him was going to be challenging, but positioning herself to eliminate him would be a very long-term project.

Assuming that she wanted to eliminate him. She had noticed that CEOs who concentrated on getting rid of anyone who could be competition ended up getting rid of those who could do their jobs well, and that always produced long-term disaster.

Iceni’s eyes moved slightly to her display, where the representations of Kolani’s forces were steadying out on a direct intercept with the path of the units with Iceni. “She’s coming straight at us.”

Akiri nodded morosely. “CEO Kolani will focus her fire on this cruiser. She will want to kill you, thinking that will cause the other units to surrender.”

“Just as I need to kill her, so I won’t have to destroy all of the units following her.” Iceni scowled at the display, where automated calculations were summing up projections for an engagement. She had three heavy cruisers to Kolani’s two, but Kolani had more smaller warships. In a straight head-to-head exchange of blows, the firepower ratios would be very nearly equal. Victory or defeat would rest on chance, on how many hits went home on the primary targets, on where those hits struck, on which vital systems got knocked out.

She hated depending on chance. “How can we knock out the heavy cruiser carrying CEO Kolani without facing an equal chance of losing this one?” she asked Akiri and Marphissa.

Both looked back at her with puzzled expressions. “We go in hard and fast,” Marphissa finally said. “A clean, straight-on firing run. That will give us the best chance.”

“Black Jack never uses clean, straight-on firing runs,” Iceni said.

Akiri spoke cautiously. “The actions of Geary and the results of his engagements with Syndicate Worlds forces have been classified. We have not seen any official reports on those matters.”

Of course not. Stupid, mindless Syndicate Worlds security classification, keeping essential information from its own personnel rather than from the enemy. “To put it bluntly, Black Jack repeatedly inflicted horrendous losses on Syndicate Worlds flotillas, while suffering much smaller losses in exchange. He used tactics that we’re still trying to analyze but which seemed to me to vary by situation.”

“The rumors were true?” Marphissa asked, appalled.

“Yes. The mobile forces of the Syndicate Worlds have been decimated. There’s very little left. You’ve seen what the Alliance still has.”

“Can you also—?”

“No.”
I’m not Black Jack. I’ve studied what we know about those engagements, and I still don’t understand why he did things the way he did, how he timed his movements, how . . .

Can I pretend to be Black Jack? What would he do? Not slam straight into the opposing force with the odds so even. He would . . . change the odds.
“But I do have an idea.” She called up a maneuvering recommendation for intercepting Kolani’s force, a simple maneuver since Kolani was coming right at them, aiming to intercept the spot where they would be if Iceni’s force remained in orbit about this planet as it continued along its own track around the star. “All units, accelerate to point one light speed, alter course to port three two degrees at time one four.”