“Donal, you’ve been open with me about what she means to you even now. I know this isn’t going to be easy for you, especially knowing that we’re using this to send our own spin on recent events to Black Jack.”
“I would rather be used by you and President Iceni than by the snakes, sir,” Rogero replied with a very slight smile. “I am all right with it, General. It will let me say . . . good-bye. We never had that opportunity.”
Drakon looked away, more uncomfortable than ever. “We’ll send the message openly since we no longer have to worry about the snakes asking questions. Record what you want. I won’t review that part. But you’ll have to add this text worked up by the President’s people. There’s nothing objectionable in there, just an update on things that makes us all look good. The elections and all, and what we did at Taroa. Then I’ll send it, personally, to Black Jack. There’s no guarantee that Captain . . .”
“Bradamont.”
It was amazing how much emotion could be invested in a single name, even when Rogero was clearly trying to suppress such feelings.
“That she’ll get it,” Drakon finished. “But I will ask Black Jack to forward it to her.”
“Yes, sir. May I have a few minutes alone to do this?”
“Take the time you need. And, thank you, Donal. I wish things could work out differently.”
“We both know that is impossible, sir. She is an Alliance fleet officer, and I was, until recently, a Syndicate ground forces officer. Fate brought us together, but neither of us ever believed anything but eventual separation would be the result.”
Less than half an hour after that, Drakon sat behind his desk and tapped the command to send a message to the Alliance flagship. “I am asking a personal favor, Admiral Geary. I understand that you have no reason to grant that to a former enemy. However, the favor is not for me, but for one of my subordinates. Colonel Rogero is one of my most highly trusted and highly regarded officers. He has asked me to see if the attached message can be delivered to one of your subordinate officers. In light of his loyal service to me and as one professional to another, I am requesting that you forward the message to its intended recipient. In case any question arises, President Iceni is aware of this communication and the contents of the attached message and has no objections to either. I will answer any questions you have regarding this matter if you communicate them to me.”
There. That was all he needed to say. But this was his first, and might be the only, individual message to Black Jack. Drakon imagined he could see the legendary Alliance admiral sitting across from him. Are you as real a person as you seem? I hope so. This is what I’d say if you are really that man, as one combat commander to another. “I’m glad we never met in battle during the war, Admiral. I’m not at all sure I would have survived that experience, though I would have given you the fight of your life before it was over. For the people, Drakon, out.”
He was still sitting at the desk a few minutes later when Colonel Malin called. Even if Drakon hadn’t been keyed up by recent events, he would have been alerted by Malin’s grim expression. “What happened?”
“The snake agent is dead, General.”
CHAPTER FIVE
DRAKON took a moment to calm himself before speaking. “How?”
“I took a full squad to the security cell to take custody of her, General,” Malin said. “When we arrived at her cell, we found her dead. Medical readings from the cell had been spoofed to make it appear she was alive and well. An initial inspection suggests quick-acting poison as the cause.”
“How long had she been dead?”
“Less than an hour. We’ll get an exact time when the autopsy is complete.”
The implications of that were pretty clear. “Someone didn’t want us getting our hands on her. Who knew you were coming?”
“Senior members of President Iceni’s staff,” Malin said. “We couldn’t just show up and take the prisoner without her knowledge.”
“No.” Iceni would raise hell if Drakon’s people tried to step on her toes that way. “I suppose the security monitoring systems at the agent’s cell show nothing?”
“Nothing,” Malin confirmed. “I’m having them analyzed, but I’m sure we’ll find that those systems were also hacked, and during the period when the agent was murdered, there will be false observations that reveal nothing. Sir, I take full responsibility for—”
“Don’t,” Drakon interrupted. “I should have told you to get that agent right away and personally called Iceni to approve the transfer. I let the snakes still hidden here get one step ahead of me. We need to start getting ahead of them.”
“General, there are many things vying for your attention. The snakes only have to focus on sabotaging you and the President. You and President Iceni have to focus on dozens of issues.” Malin nodded, his mouth set in determined lines. “I will work on this. And . . . I will notify Colonel Morgan if that is your wish. She needs to know about this since she is looking for hidden snakes.”
Drakon raised an eyebrow at him. “She does need to know what happened, but if you tell her, she’ll mock you for failing.”
“I deserve the mockery, General. It will . . .” Malin’s smile held a sharp edge. “It will motivate me to avoid any similar occurrence. I’ll provide you with a detailed report when analysis of the agent’s death and the circumstances around it is complete.”
“Thanks.” Drakon gazed past Malin, wondering why he had an odd sense of something left hanging. Something important? Or . . . something that should be important? “Colonel Malin, what was the agent’s name?”
“Excuse me, General?” Malin seemed startled by the question.
“Her name. What was the name of the snake agent?”
Malin consulted his data pad. “Yvette Saludin, sir. Is that significant?”
“It was to her.” Drakon closed his eyes. “The snakes were threatening her family if she didn’t cooperate. Where is that family?”
“In Chako Star System, sir. According to the last information we have, Chako remains under firm Syndicate control.”
“There’s nothing we can do for them, then.” Drakon opened his eyes and focused on Malin again. “Does that bother you?”
“Me, General?” Malin shook his head, perplexed. “No, sir. We had no alternative but to arrest her, and once she started working for the snakes, her eventual fate was certain. She was dead from that moment. I do regret not being able to use her to get leads on the covert snakes still hidden among us.”
“Sure.” For all his talk of rejecting the Syndicate system, Malin could be remarkably cold-blooded. Morgan would kill with a rush of fire in her veins, while Malin would do it with ice filling him. They were opposite sides of the same card, because the result would be the same for whoever had the misfortune to get in their sights. “Anything new on Boyens’s flotilla?” Drakon asked, feeling a sudden desire to change the subject.
“No, sir. The mobile forces sent a light cruiser to drop surveillance satellites along the path between the Alliance fleet and the Syndicate flotilla. We have picked up a few transmissions, but they all consist of CEO Boyens inviting Black Jack and his fleet to leave and Black Jack or one of his subordinates telling CEO Boyens after you.”
“I just sent Black Jack a message,” Drakon said. “I don’t know what impact it’ll have. We’ll have to wait and see.”
THE message from the Alliance fleet had come not from Black Jack but from a woman identifying herself as Emissary of the Alliance Government Victoria Rione. Iceni regarded the image of the Alliance civilian skeptically. An emissary? How much power does she actually have?
But the woman’s words quickly caught Iceni’s attention.
“We have been speaking with CEO Boyens,” Emissary Victoria Rione said. “As you are doubtless aware. Those discussions have not been particularly fruitful. He is eager for us to leave, for reaso
ns you and I both know. CEO Boyens has already progressed from urging us to depart to issuing not-particularly-subtle threats, and when those do not work, I expect the threats to become overt.
“President Iceni, there is no question that CEO Boyens does not possess sufficient strength to threaten the Alliance forces here. I am told by the officers in this fleet that the flotilla CEO Boyens commands dares not leave the vicinity of the hypernet gate while we are here.”
Rione’s expression became more intense. “The next step is likely to be a threat to something that is very important to you and to us, something that CEO Boyens could strike at without moving his flotilla.”
Iceni bit off a curse. The hypernet gate. If Boyens threatens to damage it badly enough to cause it to collapse, we wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop him. I’m not at all certain that Boyens would carry out such a threat because the Syndicate government would be very unhappy at the loss of that gate, but can we afford the consequences if he did? We would still have the trade traffic generated by our jump points, but the gate gives us access to a lot more.
“There is a possible course of action that would frustrate such a threat,” Rione continued.
As she listened, Iceni began smiling. I’ll need to convince Drakon.
“YOU want to give the Alliance part ownership of the hypernet gate?” Drakon was staring at her as if wondering when insanity had set in. He had agreed without any argument to another private meeting in the former snake conference room that served as neutral ground for them. That quick agreement had left Iceni both pleased and wary of Drakon’s motives, because as the old Syndicate saying went, every gift horse needed to be looked in the mouth.
“It checkmates Boyens,” Iceni explained. “He can’t threaten to damage the gate if it is partly owned by the Alliance. That would be an attack by the Syndicate Worlds on Alliance government property.”
“It would break the peace treaty?”
“Clearly and without any doubt. Boyens has already identified himself as a representative of the Syndicate government and his flotilla as forces of that government. He could not possibly claim his actions were anything but an act of the Syndicate Worlds.”
“The Syndicate government at Prime would have his head on a platter.” Drakon stopped speaking, thoughts rushing behind his eyes. “How much?”
“How much of the gate? It doesn’t matter how small the Alliance’s ownership stake is. An attack on the gate would still be an attack on the Alliance. Would you be willing to consider one percent ownership for the Alliance?”
“One percent? What are we getting in return?”
“We already got it. We would grant the partial ownership in grateful acknowledgment of the defense of this star system from attacks by the enigma race.”
Drakon thought some more. “Is this your idea?”
“I wish it had been. There’s an Alliance politician with their fleet who proposed it. Rione is her name. We don’t have much information on her, but what we do have identifies her as a vice president of the Callas Republic and senator of the Alliance.”
“Sounds important,” Drakon observed.
“It does. Which makes it odd that she only identified herself as an emissary of the Alliance government. We’re a very long ways from the Alliance, but we’ve picked up faint rumors of disruptions there in the wake of the war. Nothing like the Syndicate Worlds has been facing, but problems.” Iceni paused. “If Black Jack has taken over the Alliance, he would need politicians to handle some of the heavy lifting of ruling all those star systems. Rione’s new title as an emissary, a personal emissary of Black Jack, might well be a lot more powerful than her former position.”
Drakon nodded, glancing at the image of Rione visible on the display over the table. “She’s good-looking enough. How personal do you think her relationship with Black Jack is?”
“I think,” said Iceni, feeling the frost in her voice, “that this Rione struck me as very skilled, perhaps the closest to a Syndicate CEO’s skills I have seen in anyone from the Alliance. I doubt she has had any need to use her body to advance her position.”
“I didn’t mean— Look, you know how things work. The one in charge decides the terms of employment, regardless of what the subordinates want and regardless of what the laws that everybody ignores say. It may not have been her choice if Black Jack wanted her.”
“I know how things work in the Syndicate system,” Iceni admitted, relenting. “You’re right. He could have demanded that of her. But from the little I’ve seen and heard of Black Jack, he doesn’t seem the type. Not everyone, even in the Syndicate, abuses their subordinates that way.”
“I agree with you,” Drakon said. “But we can safely assume that if this idea was presented by Black Jack’s emissary, it actually came from Black Jack.”
“It’s the sort of extremely clever political maneuvering we’ve seen from Black Jack,” Iceni agreed. She let Drakon see her internal unease for a moment. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint Black Jack since we still need his protection. But we’ll also be setting a precedent, in which we do as he . . . asks.”
Drakon nodded twice. “There’s not much we can do about that, is there? One percent. That’s fine with me. The deal benefits both of us. I have to admit, I’d love to see Boyens’s face when he hears about it.” He gazed at the star-system display near one wall of the office. “Revolting against the Syndicate was a matter of survival for us. I didn’t give much thought to some aspects of independence. Formal agreements, like this one with the Alliance. The one we’ve proposed to Taroa. Do we know enough to make sure we’re doing them right?”
“Are you worried about my skills, General Drakon?”
“No. But we’re going into very deep waters, here.”
“Agreed.” She altered the star display to show the entire region of nearby space. “We’re building a fortress of sorts with these agreements, adding strength to our own by drawing on the strengths of others. If we did this wrong, we’d be draining our strength into theirs. But I am confident that we will get as much or more from these agreements as our partners in the deals.”
“If we have enough time for their benefits to play out,” Drakon said.
“Yes. We need time as well as more allies among nearby star systems. Taroa wants to intervene in Kane.”
“I know.” He grimaced. “Kane is a tar pit from all I’ve seen. The last thing we need is to show up and become the one guy everybody else there will combine to fight. I’m also a bit concerned about Ulindi.”
“What have we heard from Ulindi?” Iceni asked.
“Very little. There’s an information blockade. I’m trying to find out what’s going on there that someone doesn’t want outsiders to know about.”
“Good. Unlike Ulindi, we’re dependent on the space traffic using our jump points and hypernet gate and can’t block ship movement to prevent anyone from learning what’s going on here.” She ran one hand through her hair. “Our preferred candidates appear to be well on their ways to winning the elections here. That will ensure stability.”
“We shouldn’t win every post,” Drakon argued. “That will make it look like we did the Syndicate thing and just faked the results.”
“We won’t win all of them. Just enough.” Iceni laughed. “And we won’t have to manipulate results, apparently. Our stock, and that of our supporters, is very high after our heroic stands during the enigma attack. Does that feel strange to you?”
“What?”
“We’re in charge because the people want us to be, not because we have the power to make them do what we want. Isn’t that odd?”
“And if the people change their minds?”
“We still have the power if we need it,” Iceni pointed out.
KOMMODOR Asima Marphissa sat on the bridge of her flagship, the heavy cruiser Manticore, painfully aware that of the various factions with mo
bile forces in Midway Star System, hers was the smallest and weakest. Half of her heavy cruisers remained at the gas giant, guarding the mobile forces dock there, leaving her to confront the Syndicate flotilla commanded by CEO Boyens with only two heavy cruisers, five light cruisers, and twelve Hunter-Killers. Her little flotilla would have been lost amid the Alliance fleet and was badly overmatched by the Syndicate flotilla of one battleship, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and ten HuKs. She was inordinately proud of the tiny force, but she had no illusions about its size or capabilities.
Of course, I have a battleship, too. The Midway, which can move but not fight. Actually right now it can’t even move since Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos is still busy removing all of the braces tying the battleship to the main mobile forces facility. Only someone like Kontos could have figured out a way to use a battleship with no weapons to save that facility from the enigma attack.
I wonder how badly Kontos wants my job? Can President Iceni and I trust someone that ambitious and brilliant once the battleship has working weaponry?
“Kommodor, we have a transmission from the Syndicate flotilla,” the senior communications specialist reported, breaking into her gloomy train of thought.
“CEO Boyens has finally condescended to speak with me?” Marphissa asked. She had moved her flotilla much closer to the hypernet gate, less than five light-minutes from the Syndicate flotilla, openly taunting CEO Boyens and daring him to start a fight in which Black Jack and his fleet would hopefully intervene.
“It is not addressed to you, Kommodor. It was broadcast to our entire flotilla.”
“Let me see it.” She knew that workers and supervisors on every ship in the flotilla would be viewing that message, regardless of rules and regulations. Best to find out what Boyens was saying to them.
CEO Boyens wore the standard CEO smile for conversations with underlings (which naturally differed from the standard CEO smiles for conversations with equals or superiors). Marphissa had seen the patently insincere and patronizing expression often enough to instantly identify the smile, its exact shading based on the audience, and its lack of real meaning.
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