The Lost Stars (7 page)

“Yes, sir,” Malin said, saluting and departing in a single, swift motion.

Iceni took a seat behind the desk, indicating the chair to her right. For a second, Drakon pondered the idea of sitting on her left just to emphasize that Iceni didn't tell him what to do, but his common sense very quickly quashed the notion.
Save it for something important, so you don't seem insecure and petty.

He sat down to Iceni's right while her assistant Togo adjusted the field of view for the transmission. “What do you want to say?” Iceni asked.

What do I want to say? This is primarily a space engagement until someone tries to land troops somewhere, and space is Iceni's playing field. Besides, this is Black Jack. I don't want to sound stupid the first time I talk to him.
“I'll just introduce myself this time. You can handle the rest.”

“Really?” Iceni leaned close. “Are you really beginning to trust me, General Drakon?” she teased.

But he knew there was a world of meaning behind that apparently amused comment. And, with at least two groups of powerful enemies vying to kill him right now, Drakon suddenly decided to stop playing the games he had been forced into for many years. “Yes . . . Gwen.”

Iceni just looked at him in reply, skeptical, her own defenses still up, before finally smiling slightly. “Thank you . . . Artur.” Settling in her chair again, she nodded to Togo. “Start.”

“This is President Iceni of the independent star system of Midway.” She stopped speaking.

Drakon kept his own voice professionally sharp. “This is General Drakon, commanding officer of Midway's ground forces.”
There. He knows who I am. That's good enough for
now.

“We are happy to welcome your fleet back into our star system,” Iceni continued when she was certain that Drakon was done. “Especially considering current circumstances and previous agreements between us. We will do our utmost to defend our star system against invaders and ask only that you assist us in that task until the people of Midway are once again secure. Kommodor Marphissa, our senior warship commander, has been sent orders to follow your directions unless they conflict with her obligations to defend this star system.

“Be aware that the battleship located at our main military dockyards has functional propulsion but not working shields or weapons at this time, so it cannot be counted upon to assist in the defense of this star system.

“This is President Iceni, for the people,
out.”

The transmission ended. Drakon relaxed. “By the time we get a reply, there'll have been a lot of fighting.”

“Yes,” Iceni agreed. “Perhaps that will let us see what those six new ships can
do.”

“We've committed our mobile forces, so Black Jack won't have any reason to doubt our resolve. I wonder how Boyens will react to Black Jack and those new players with
him?”

Before she could answer, Colonel Malin returned almost as swiftly as before. “General . . . Madam President, my research on those six new ships was interrupted by the results of my attempts to localize the tight-beam burst transmission sent earlier from this planet to the Syndicate flotilla. That transmission came from within two kilometers of this command center.”

Drakon looked steadily at Malin as he considered what that implied, what it might mean in terms of the woman he still sat beside. Had she been dealing under the table with him the entire time? “Or from within this command center?”

“I can't rule that out,
sir.”

ICENI
turned a gaze on Togo, which must have communicated a message, because he nodded once and slipped out of the room.

“Find Morgan,” Drakon said to Malin, not willing to trust in whatever Iceni's lackey aimed to accomplish. “Tell her, from me, that there may be a . . . snake agent in the command center. I want her to find that person.”

Malin hesitated. “Sir, Morgan's methods—”

“She can be as subtle and sneaky as a demon when she wants to be. You know that. I want her on this. The odds against us are bad enough. I don't want a snake, or anyone else, feeding Boyens information on what we're doing before we do
it.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“And tell Morgan I want the agent identified, then notify me so a decision can be made on what to
do.”

“Sir,” Malin said with careful formality, “I feel compelled to remind you that if you target Morgan on someone, she may not act in a restrained manner. I also feel obligated to point out one other thing. The tight-beam transmission was sent toward CEO Boyens's flotilla. That does not mean the transmission was intended for CEO Boyens.”

Iceni picked up on that immediately. “The Syndicate flotilla surely has ISS representatives on board. Or are you implying there may be other players as well?”

“I am saying there are other possibilities, Madam President.”

Malin's statement was clearly aimed at Drakon as well. He regarded Malin, wondering why he was bringing this up in front of Iceni. If she had been contacting the snakes aboard Boyens's ships . . .

But why would she do that? Iceni wasn't a fool. She knew the snakes wanted her blood. Iceni, the senior CEO in the star system, hadn't only revolted against the Syndicate Worlds. She had also, along with Drakon, ensured the slaughter of the snakes in this star system. The families had been sent back to Prime, but the ISS surely wanted to make a memorable example of Iceni to avenge their dead comrades and make anyone else think twice before massacring snakes.

There's no one who wants me dead as much as they want her dead. She knows that. She probably sent her man Togo to make sure I didn't send that message.

Whatever else Malin might have said was interrupted by a call from the command center's main room. “The enigmas are moving!”

Iceni walked quickly out of the office, but Drakon held up a restraining hand to Malin when he moved to follow. It felt silly to rush to see something that had happened over four hours ago, especially when this offered a good opportunity for private conversation with Malin without attracting anyone's notice. “There's a possibility that you didn't mention,” Drakon told Malin. “The chance that the President herself sent that tight-beam message, a prerecorded offer for a secret deal that cuts me out in every sense of the word.”

Malin spoke carefully as he replied. “General, I have no information indicating that President Iceni has undertaken such a move. Nor would such a move make sense.”

“I know, and I have too much respect for Iceni to think she doesn't know that as well. But old habits die hard. How good is your information on what she's doing
now?”

“I feel confident that I would know if she was planning to move against you,
sir.”

“Hmmm.” Drakon glanced toward the doorway leading into the command center. “That's your assessment, or you have solid information?”

“Both, sir.” Malin sounded confident, assured, as if he knew all the angles.

He sounded, in fact, like Morgan did at such times. Despite their immense dislike for each other, and despite being different in many ways, Malin and Morgan sometimes seemed disturbingly similar. “Keep your eyes open, anyway, and make sure you question everything you think you already know.”

“Yes, sir.” Malin smiled. “You have taught me that. It's a good rule to follow in planning any operation.”

“I learned it the hard way, Bran. Get going.”

After Malin left, Drakon walked into the command center to join Iceni where she was watching the display. Even a ground forces soldier like him had no trouble seeing what was playing out. “The enigmas are moving to intercept Black Jack.”

The two forces, Alliance and enigma, were hurtling together at velocities a ground forces officer had trouble grasping. More than point two light speed. Drakon did the math.
About sixty thousand kilometers every second. How can any human get their mind around that kind of speed? I'm used to dealing with an environment on the surface of planets, where a kilometer is a significant distance.

Nor did ground forces rush together as these warships did. He knew the reasons for the ways that spacecraft fought. The ships could see each other across huge distances, yet the warship weapons had such short ranges relative to the vast reaches of space and the tremendous speed at which the spacecraft moved that warships had to get close to each other in order to fight. They could waltz around forever, avoiding contact, if one side didn't want to fight and didn't have to go to some specific objective such as a hypernet gate. “Forever” wasn't all that long in this case, of course, being limited by the fuel and food supplies on the ships.

I don't like it.
Drakon felt his jaw tightening as he watched the two forces rushing into contact.
Space warfare is too mechanical. You never see the enemy as people, just as ships. They can fly all over space, across distances so great it takes hours for light itself to make the journey, but in the end they have to bash head to head. How can you really use tactics when the other side can see everything you do no matter how far away you are? When there's nothing to hide behind and no way to conceal yourself? It all comes down to two groups of people running up to each other and hitting the other guys as hard as they
can.

But then how did Black Jack blow away the mobile forces of the Syndicate Worlds in battle after battle? There's got to be something else here, something different from what I know.

He looked around the display at the rest of the star system: the planets swinging in leisurely, nearly circular orbits; comets and asteroids following their own orbits along paths in any shape from circular to huge, narrow ellipses running from the cold dark near the edge of the star system to the bright heat near the star itself; the hypernet gate looming off to one side; the occasional group of warships; and a gratifying number of commercial ships, mostly transports passing through on their way to somewhere else and currently doing their clumsy, lumbering best to stay out of the way of the warships. It all made for a very different battlefield than those he was accustomed
to.

Though as battlefields went, Midway was also different than the average star system. Drakon knew that jump points had roughly the same influence on space battles as passes through mountain ranges or bridges across major rivers had on surface fights. Anyone coming or going had to use them. Whereas the average star had two or three jump points, and an exceptional star might have five or even six, Midway boasted a remarkable eight jump points that led to eight other stars—Kahiki, Lono, Kane, Taroa, Laka, Maui, Pele, and Iwa. That alone had earned Midway its name.

Then, about forty years ago, the Syndicate Worlds had constructed the hypernet gate here as well, a massive structure orbiting slowly about five light-hours from the star. The gate gave direct access to any other star in Syndicate space with a gate of its own. All of this made Midway the junction for a lot of trade, for ships carrying cargo and people to any number of other stars, and for defense of this region of space. But it had also made Midway a target, even though officially there had been no enemy here, on the far side of Syndicate space from the Alliance.

The large Reserve Flotilla guarding this region of Syndicate space had lacked any admitted purpose because only a very few of the most high-ranking Syndicate officials were advised of the existence of an intelligent nonhuman species beyond Midway. So little was known of this race that they were called the enigmas, but they had pushed the once-expanding boundaries of the Syndicate Worlds back to Midway. Syndicate ships in the border regions would sometimes disappear without a trace, but enigma ships were never seen, even during the long-distance negotiations that consisted mainly of enigma demands.

Then the Reserve Flotilla had been called away, ordered by the government at Prime to confront the Alliance that under Black Jack Geary had shattered the other mobile forces of the Syndicate Worlds. The Reserve Flotilla had gone, had met Geary, and had not returned. Months later, as the enigmas pressed to take over this star system as well, Black Jack had showed up here, unthinkably far from Alliance space, with the news that the war was over. After expending countless lives and uncountable resources, the Syndicate Worlds had lost the war it had begun.

Already tottering from the human and material costs of the war, the Syndicate Worlds began coming apart in the aftermath. Drakon and Iceni had led the revolt here, destroying the hated Internal Security Service presence in this star system. The crumbling of the Syndicate Worlds had also impacted neighboring stars. Kane had descended into anarchy as the Syndicate rulers fled and workers' committees feuded. Taroa had experienced a three-way civil war, which only a military intervention led by Drakon had resolved in favor of the Free Taroa faction.

Now the Syndicate Worlds was back with a flotilla to reconquer Midway, the enigmas were back with the intention of taking this star system for themselves, Black Jack's fleet had returned battered and apparently still fighting the enigmas but maybe or maybe not the Syndicate flotilla, the Midway Flotilla was going to help Black Jack's fleet unless it found Black Jack doing something it shouldn't assist, and the intentions of those six new ships were a mystery.

In some ways, space combat could be pretty complicated.

“Another front-row seat as we watch how Black Jack leads his forces,” Drakon commented.

“That is no small thing,” Iceni replied.

But he found it hard to stay engaged while watching depictions of two forces “rushing” toward each other at what seemed to be a snail's pace because of the scale of the battlefield. Especially since whatever happened when they met had already happened. Eventually, the light from that event would reach here, hours after the actual clash.

Drakon's thoughts strayed to the problem of finding out who had sent a message to the Syndicate flotilla from this command center. The software governing the many functions of the systems here was riddled with subprograms, worms, and sentries, many inserted by official actors in the name of monitoring activity, security, safety, and reliability.
Or, as the workers call it, Aim the Blame. They know if anything happens, the people in charge want to have enough data to be able to pin the fault on whichever scapegoat they choose.

But Drakon knew there was also a welter of unapproved, unofficial, and outright illegal subprograms, worms, and Trojan horses woven through software that had become too complex to ever be purged of invaders. He had made use of such things himself at times in order to learn things he wasn't supposed to know, or to accomplish things he wasn't supposed to do. Another CEO had once speculated to him that half of whatever the Syndicate Worlds got done was the result of working around the system.
And I told him I thought half was way too low a figure. There's irony for you. For all that we disliked, or hated, the Syndicate system, we're the ones who kept it going by finding ways to get the job done even when that system tried to make it impossible.

Right now, Malin and Morgan were both using their own methods to dig through the morass of software to spot the signs of their quarry. If someone had sent a message to the Syndicate flotilla using the comm systems in this command center, then there would be some trace of that activity somewhere. Like hunters nosing through the underbrush in search of a bent twig or a twisted stem, Malin and Morgan would find some sign. Once they had one hint of their quarry, one or both of them would use that to find other tracks. The tracks would form a trail, and the quarry would be run to earth. The only unknowns were how long it would take and whether both Malin and Morgan would nail the prey, or if one of them would manage to run it down first.

Iceni's right-hand man Togo had come back, leaning close to Iceni and whispering some report to her. It must have been something sensitive that he wouldn't want to risk being intercepted or overheard on even a supposedly secure comm circuit, but Drakon was certain Togo hadn't yet found the source of the transmission.

I don't doubt that Togo is good. Iceni wouldn't have him around, and so close to her, if he wasn't very capable. But Togo isn't driven by the intense rivalry between Malin and Morgan. That rivalry can be a real pain to deal with, but it's also invaluable a lot of the time.

I wonder what does drive Togo? That could be important to know.

“General,” Malin said in a way that immediately brought Drakon out of his contemplation of Togo and Iceni's relationship.

Had Malin won the race already?

But as Drakon looked at Malin, he saw that the colonel wasn't displaying triumph. Instead, Malin was looking toward the entrance to the command center.

Morgan had come strolling in. She didn't appear to be in any hurry, moving with the leisurely certainty of a panther closing in on trapped prey. One of her hands had reached down and was in the process of drawing the hand weapon holstered on one
hip.

And Morgan was walking straight toward President Iceni.

Drakon moved forward, but not as fast as Togo. Iceni's bodyguard/assistant swung about with startling speed, coming between Morgan and Iceni. A series of moves and countermoves occurred almost too fast to follow, ending with Morgan and Togo pointing weapons directly at each other's faces at point-blank range, while their free hands were locked together off to one side, each straining for advantage.