The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword

by Jack Campbell

  Iceni sighed. “There’s been something I’ve been avoiding asking, but since we brought up the subject of crazy . . .”

  He didn’t need her to specify what she meant. “I don’t know whether or not Colonel Morgan is dead,” Drakon said bluntly, his voice harsh. “But, as of when I left Ulindi, she had not contacted any of our people or been found by anyone, and there were a lot of ways she could have died. Odds are, what’s left of her is buried in the rubble of the snake alternate command center.”

  Drakon shrugged before continuing. “If she didn’t die there, well, planets are big places, and that planet has a lot of smashed buildings and craters and rubble now. They’ll still be finding remains of people in the wreckage a century from now.”

  As much as she did not want to feel any sympathy for Drakon where Morgan was concerned, Iceni could see how his shrug was an unsuccessful attempt to cover up his own distress. “I know she served you well, but she also betrayed you. If she died in the line of duty, that may have been the best possible outcome.”

  “Yes. If she died,” Drakon agreed, nodding heavily.

  “You think she might still be alive?”

  “Until I see a body, I will not be sure. Morgan could be almost superhuman at times.”

  “And you are no longer concerned about the child, who by this time might already have been born?”

  Drakon sat looking at nothing for several seconds before replying. “Either Morgan’s fail-safe plans took effect, and the girl is already dead as well, or what Morgan told me about provisions being made was true, and the girl has been allowed to survive Morgan’s death. That will give me time to find her.”

  He focused on Iceni. “That makes one more person we need to find, but it seems to me the priority is to find your former assistant.”

  “We do not know he acted against us,” Iceni repeated. “He may be pursuing whoever did pass that information to the Syndicate.”

  Drakon let his skepticism show. “I’m sure that’s what he will say. If he shows up at your door. You changed all your codes, so he shouldn’t be able to get through that door.”

  Iceni shook her head. “If Togo wants to get somewhere, he’ll do it. The tougher the defense, the longer he will take to get through, but he will succeed.” She lightly tapped one sleeve of her jacket, the one from which Drakon had once seen a weapon appear with startling swiftness. “If necessary, I can defend myself, and I will shoot to kill, but my chances against him, if he has turned, are not nearly as good as I would like.”

  “Do you need extra security?” Drakon asked. “I can send over some people and some equipment.”

  “Me?” Iceni laughed. “Need extra protection? I’m invincible, General Drakon. The people idolize me.”

  “I saw the vids,” Drakon said. “You did look invincible.” It was hard to tell how he felt about that.

  “You didn’t see me once I got back inside this office,” Iceni said. She let her defenses slip. There was quite literally no one else with whom she could share this. “I am frightened, Artur.”

  He sat straighter, alarmed in a way that gratified her. “Of what?”

  “Them. The people. Not in the Syndicate way. I am frightened of what they will do for me, what I can ask of them. You weren’t there, Artur. You didn’t feel it.” Iceni ran both hands through her hair. “I got back into this office when it was over, and I swear I could hear the gods laughing at me. Have you ever held a weapon so dangerous that you were afraid to use it?”

  “It really felt like that?” Drakon asked.

  “Yes. I know that I can do some very big things now, Artur. But that means I can make some very big mistakes.” She closed her eyes, seeing the vast crowd again in her memory. “We’ve been worried about giving them more freedom, enough freedom, enough rights, that they wouldn’t revolt against us.”

  “Yes,” Drakon said. “The last elections should have kept them quieter longer than this.”

  “No!” She opened her eyes and glared at him. “They didn’t want more freedom from me. They wanted a leader. They wanted safety and security and surety. I could have reinstituted all sorts of Syndicate rules then and there, and they would have cheered me.”

  Drakon just stared at her. “You’re sure of that?”

  “Positive. They will do what I ask, but I still can’t force them. Does that make any sense? It’s true. Let’s lay this out. You must know from what Colonel Rogero told you that the ground forces can no longer be used to enforce our rule.”

  “Yes,” Drakon agreed. “Which means I can’t launch a coup against you.”

  She lowered her hands and deepened her glare. “That wasn’t my point. I still consider this a partnership.”

  “Even though you no longer have to consider it a partnership?” Drakon smiled thinly. “Thanks. It’s been trending this way for a while. I’ve seen it. To the citizens, and to the mobile forces, you’re the one in charge. I’m your senior assistant.”

  “You are my partner,” Iceni insisted.

  “Not to the citizens. And you were just talking about how much power they have given you.”

  “It’s not like I could order my warships to bombard the planet! I’m not talking about coercion! Don’t you understand that?”

  “Yes, I do.” Drakon shrugged again. “It’s called leadership. Real leadership. It’s why my division followed me here and why they followed me when we moved against the Syndicate. You’ve built something stronger than that with the citizens, and,” he continued, “you earned it. That was an incredibly gutsy move, facing that crowd with nothing between you and them but whatever defenses were worked into your suit.”

  “My suit’s defenses wouldn’t have accomplished anything against that many people except making them angrier,” Iceni said. “Thank you. You understand what it took for me to do that.”

  “And you surely understand how it feels to know your co-ruler could get rid of you and not fear any backlash or other trouble.”

  She tried to hold her temper in check, because she did know how that would feel. “If you think I could dispose of you and not have a lot of trouble from the likes of Colonel Rogero, you are seriously mistaken. I will admit that because I came up through the Syndicate system, just as you did, I could not help but realize the option existed for me to simplify the ruling arrangements in this star system. But,” she added, letting her voice harden, “I hope you realize that I am capable of seeing where such an action would lead. It would take me right back into the Syndicate system no matter what name I gave it. I do not want that legacy, Artur Drakon. I also do not want to spend however much life I have left swatting down anyone who might threaten my control of this star system.”

  “I don’t want to be pushed aside,” Drakon said, “but I won’t threaten what you have. I will not pull down the stars in an attempt to lessen your authority.”

  She did not answer at once, trying to think through the right thing to say. “Do you understand that I am not attempting to lessen your authority?”

  This time he took a moment to answer. “Actually, you did. That bit with the people. The mob that worshipped you. That was all about you.” Drakon held up a restraining hand as Iceni began to respond, hot words ready to fly. “But. You didn’t have any choice. You had to make it all about you. I can see that. I’m unhappy, but I can’t fault you. You did what you had to do, and I think you understand as well as I do that you and I could destroy this star system very effectively if we started really trying to undercut each other.”

  “Yes,” Iceni said, keeping her answer short to avoid saying something angry and wrong, wanting to disagree but unable to find grounds for doing that.

  “Let’s talk about what stirred the people up,” Drakon suggested. “Snake agents must have been involved, but I can’t shake the feeling that there are other parties playing in this game.”

  “I have the same feeling,” Iceni said. “If . . . if Mehmet Togo is working his own agenda, he could be one of those parties.”
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  “Could be,” Drakon agreed. “One of them, but not all of them.”

  “Not even close. You already said it. We have to stand together. Any division between us will offer leverage to those wanting to pry apart this star system.”

  He smiled crookedly. “We’d better not stand too close. There are already rumors about you and me.” Before she could comment on that, Drakon went on. “I’ve brought back a lot of new people, as did your Kommodor. We need those people, but, obviously, they represent potential danger. As I’ve been reminded repeatedly lately, the snakes would pay almost any price to get someone close enough to you or me.”

  “Agreed,” Iceni said, grateful that Drakon’s transition to the new recruits meant that she didn’t have to discuss the rumors about her and Drakon with the man himself. “We finally have plenty of crew members for all of our warships. But our security screening processes are overloaded. How confident are you of the loyalty of the soldiers you acquired at Ulindi?”

  “Fairly confident,” he said. “For some of them, extremely confident. But they are all getting screened.”

  She blew out a breath in exasperation. “Eventually, they will all get screened. The new soldiers you recruited, the crew members from the transports, and the survivors from some of the Syndicate ships destroyed at Ulindi.”

  “Your Kommodor didn’t want any of the crew members who survived the destruction of CEO Boucher’s battleship. I agreed with her.”

  “So do I,” Iceni said. “Even if they were reliable, they helped destroy much of Kane. We don’t need any trace of that legacy among our crews.”

  “Even if snake agents are among our new people,” Drakon said, “they shouldn’t sabotage our defense against the enigmas if a larger force shows up based on what the enigma scouts reported. And we took out a lot of Syndicate power at Ulindi. The ground forces, the flotilla, all of the snakes there, and Ulindi itself, which won’t be able to serve as a Syndicate base without being conquered by the Syndicate again.”

  “You’re saying our primary external worry in the near future is the enigmas?” Iceni fell back in her seat, gazing at the ceiling. “We can’t forget about or underestimate the Syndicate. That almost caused total disaster for us at Ulindi. And there are other concerns. We’ve received information about warlords in other sectors.”

  “We’ve been worrying about nearby warlords for a while. Is this information about threats anywhere close to us?” Drakon asked.

  She lowered her gaze back to him. “Close enough. Moorea might be threatened. Or it might already be part of someone else’s sphere of influence.”

  “Moorea? Should we have sent Pele and the transport to Iwa?”

  “If there are problems at Moorea, if Moorea has shifted from the Syndicate to some warlord’s dominion, Pele might be able to learn something about it while she’s at Iwa,” Iceni said. “I told Kapitan Kontos to find out all he can. If he doesn’t learn anything there, I might consider sending a heavy cruiser on to Moorea on a scouting mission.”

  Drakon nodded with a rueful expression. “Trying to preempt trouble at Ulindi nearly got us wiped out, but I still think trying to spot and deal with problems before they hit us is a good policy.”

  She sat forward, her eyes intent. “Then we need to spot and deal with the internal problems as well. Whatever our enemies are planning in this star system, they will never assume that you and I are working together as closely as possible.”

  “I agree,” he said. “But, Gwen, can we do it? Can two people raised and trained as Syndicate CEOs actually work together without constantly keeping their guards up against each other? Especially when we have things like that trap at Ulindi to worry about? If it wasn’t your assistant Togo who tipped off the Syndicate, then we have someone still close to us who is working against us.”

  “And if it was Togo, he will remain a serious threat until eliminated. Do you believe that I am working against you?”

  He gazed back at her. “No.”

  Did he mean it? “No matter what our subordinates do, if you and I do not figure out how to work without any suspicions between us, Artur Drakon, the next trap set for us will not fail.”