Morgan eyed him, then grinned. “Well, yeah. I am better at breaking things. All right, General.”
“You and Malin will be on two different ships. Make sure it stays that way. I don’t want my command staff concentrated on one target.”
Her grin didn’t waver. “You also don’t want your command staff being cut in half if I got fed up with Malin and gutted him like a fish. Got it. But there was another thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Colonel Rogero. Alone here with her royal highness.”
“Do you mean President Iceni?” Drakon asked.
“Yes, sir.” Her smile fading, Morgan stepped closer. “General, we know Rogero had ties to the snakes, we know he has ties to the Alliance—”
“We’ve been over this.”
“—so how do we know he doesn’t have ties to Iceni? How do we know that he’s not feeding her stuff that only those closest to you are aware of?”
Drakon considered the question because he had learned to pay attention to Morgan’s instincts, too. “From the way you framed the question, I assume that you have no proof of that.”
“I can get it.”
“Real proof, Morgan. We’re not the ISS. We don’t find ways to prove someone is guilty by manufacturing evidence.”
She shook her head, looking unfazed by the rebuke. “No. I don’t have evidence. But I’m looking.”
“That’s part of your job,” Drakon said. “Are you suggesting that I leave you behind to keep an eye on Rogero?”
“No, sir. I’m suggesting that you do something about him before it’s too late.”
“No. That’s all, Colonel Morgan.”
* * *
TOGO stood before Iceni’s desk, his usual impassivity somehow seeming more stern. “I am concerned for your safety, Madam President.”
That didn’t sound good. Iceni focused her full attention on him. “What have you found?”
“General Drakon will be leaving the star system with most of his senior officers.”
“I am aware of that.”
“He will be leaving behind Colonel Rogero,” Togo continued. “The man who earlier attempted to kill you.”
Iceni shook her head. “I’ve double-checked Rogero’s record. He’s an excellent shot. If he had wanted to hit me when I stepped onto the battleship, he would have hit me.”
“We cannot know that with certainty. We cannot know whether he faltered in carrying out his orders.”
“You think that Colonel Rogero is being left behind to see that I am killed? Or to personally kill me?”
Togo nodded sharply. “While General Drakon is outside the star system. He will have perfect deniability.”
It was the flip side of the earlier argument. That didn’t mean the argument didn’t have logic behind it, though. “Do you have any information actually linking Colonel Rogero to an assassination plot aimed at me?”
This time Togo hesitated. “There are some very disturbing rumors concerning Colonel Rogero, Madam President. They call into question his loyalty and who he truly answers to.”
So some form of information about Rogero’s contacts with the ISS and that woman in the Alliance fleet had leaked out. “Rumors?” Iceni pressed. “You know how I feel about rumors.”
“I have nothing solid, but the nature of the rumors indicate that Colonel Rogero may be extremely dangerous. He should be dealt with before—”
“No.” Iceni leaned forward to emphasize her words. “That is not authorized. If you find proof, I want to see it. If all you have is rumors, I will not change my mind.”
“But Madam President—”
“Proof.”
“With all respect, Madam President, the proof may be your death.”
“I don’t think so.” Iceni sat back again, smiling slightly. “And I think too highly of your own abilities to believe that Colonel Rogero would pose a threat while you are nearby.”
Togo stood, irresolute, then nodded. “I will protect you, Madam President.”
“Of course.”
She watched him leave, then sighed and turned back to her work. Maybe Rogero was a threat, but she had no doubt that, whatever his orders, Rogero had deliberately avoided hitting her with that shot. A shot that had killed a snake whose intentions toward her didn’t have to be guessed. For that, Rogero deserved at least a little restraint on her part.
She had told Drakon that she wouldn’t order any more executions without informing him. Assassinations didn’t count as part of that agreement. Prudence, as exercised by Syndicate Worlds’ CEOs, meant erring on the side of ensuring that potential threats were eliminated.
But the words that Kommodor Marphissa had spoken to her, about the need to ensure that only the guilty were punished, still bothered Iceni. And Drakon had seemed to listen when she brought it up. Really listen, as opposed to nodding occasionally to fake interest in what she was saying. Not many people did that, of course, not when she had wielded the power of a CEO and currently the power of a president, but when she was younger, it had happened with discouraging frequency. Nowadays, the fake interest was much more carefully contrived. But Drakon had actually listened. For a moment there . . . no. You can’t afford to think that way. You let your guard down with him because you were so relieved to get back here safe, with the battleship and in time to scare off that flotilla, and to learn that he hadn’t moved against you. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t planning something, or won’t do something if you give him a good enough opportunity. Never trust anyone, but especially never trust another CEO. And that’s what Artur Drakon is even though he calls himself a general now.
Keep telling yourself that, Gwen. You can’t drop your defenses with him. If he ever got you in bed . . . oh.
Wow.
I wish I hadn’t thought about that.
* * *
AS Iceni had said, space travel could be very boring even with all the latest entertainment options at your beck and call. Not that a freighter was set up to deal with the entertainment needs of so many soldiers crammed into cargo compartments modified to offer life support and accommodations for half a brigade.
Drakon had the luxury of his own room, a closet-sized affair that offered privacy and little else. Taroa wasn’t too far as jumps went, but the journey to the jump point took a while, then there were four and a half days in jump space, followed by a long, tense trip toward the fourth planet in the Taroa Star System.
There weren’t any mobile forces units at Taroa, but that didn’t mean some couldn’t show up at any moment, and even a HuK or a corvette would be more than a freighter could handle. The small fast attack craft that had once served as defenses just outside planetary atmospheres had been swept up in a recall from Prime months ago, sent to some star systems far from here apparently in a harebrained scheme to fight Black Jack’s fleet. They hadn’t come back and had never been replaced by new units, so even that threat was at least temporarily gone.
Twelve hours’ travel time out from the main docks orbiting the fourth planet, Drakon walked through the modified cargo compartments and other habitable parts of the freighter. The civilian crew members were deferential in the manner of people who knew they could die in a heartbeat if they offended him. Drakon had considered telling one of the nervous crew members that their deference offended him just to see how they would react but decided that would be gratuitously cruel. He knew from his own experiences when he was much more junior in rank that jokes like that were only funny to the superior who made them.
Everywhere else he went, his soldiers greeted him with feigned surprise as they worked on equipment, or studied advancement courses or tactics, or worked on virtual trainers. Drakon knew full well that he was being tracked by his soldiers everywhere he went on the freighter, and they were busy keeping each other apprised of where he was headed next. With some work and deceptive movements, he could probably surprise some of his soldiers in the middle of gambling or unauthorized unarmed-combat competitions, but it wasn�
�t worth the trouble, especially since his soldiers knew better than to engage in any wild parties so close to a combat operation. So Drakon kept to an easily forecast path, threading through crowded cargo compartments and along passageways lined sometimes on both sides with soldiers sitting awake or asleep. He gave them a calm, confident demeanor that was only part masquerade and they gave him a professional and prepared appearance that was also only part pretense but would be full reality when it came time to attack.
Finally on his way back to his own room to do some final preparations of his own, Drakon came across the brigade commander. Colonel Gaiene sat in a passageway, back against one bulkhead, facing the bulkhead across from him since no one else sat on that side. If they had to describe Conor Gaiene’s appearance in one word, most people would have chosen “dashing.” Or maybe “gallant” or perhaps “swashbuckling.” Even sitting on the deck, he somehow seemed ready to leap up and lead a charge.
That was how he appeared until you noticed his eyes, dark and weary even though Gaiene was still a few years shy of middle age. Now those eyes looked up as Drakon approached. “Good afternoon, General.”
“Good afternoon.” There were few other soldiers near the command deck, and those were giving their brigade commander as much room and privacy as current circumstances allowed, so Drakon took a seat next to Gaiene. “How are you doing?”
“I’m sober. And alone. Alas.” A female soldier walked by, and Gaiene watched her appreciatively though discreetly. “No sleeping with subordinates. Is that rule really necessary?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Most CEOs don’t care. Most CEOs right now would have a drink in one hand and one of their subordinates in the other.”
Drakon grinned. “I’m not most CEOs.”
“No. You’re not.” Gaiene looked toward the far bulkhead, his expression pensive. “For which I am smart enough to be grateful.”
“You’re brilliant in battle, Con.”
“And the rest of the time I’m a royal pain in the butt.” Gaiene ran one hand through his hair, and Drakon caught a glimpse of the ring on one of his fingers. How long ago had she died? Ever since then, Gaiene had tried to forget her with every woman who was willing and every bottle he could crack open. But he still wore the ring. “I don’t know why you keep me around.”
“I have my reasons.”
“Any other CEO would have had me in a labor camp long before this,” Gaiene remarked. “As one of the guards or as one of the inmates.”
Drakon nodded. “And that would be a real waste.”
“A waste. Yes. We know all about that, don’t we? Scarred lives and damaged souls. We’re all damned, you know,” Gaiene went on in a conversational voice. “Everywhere we’ve fought, we’ve left a little piece of ourselves and replaced it with a small piece of the hell we found in that place. Now most of us is scattered in a hundred little pieces in a hundred places where death walked. I see those places. I see them all the time. Usually in my dreams, but sometimes I see them when I’m awake.”
Gaiene could be moody when sober, but this was worse than usual. “Are you all right?” Drakon asked. “Can you handle going into another fight?”
“I’m fine. The psychs say I will soon achieve emotional equilibrium again. They’ve been saying that for a very long time. I will go on, though,” Gaiene added, his tone now slightly distant. “I will go on until the day I end; then you will give me a proper warrior’s burial, and you will go on.”
“Unless we both end together that day,” Drakon said.
“Ah, no, General. It’s not for you to talk of endings. You still have a future.”
“So do you.”
But this time Gaiene did not reply. He sat, his eyes on the opposite bulkhead, but looking at another place and time.
There were a great many things that Drakon needed to be doing. But he sat next to Gaiene for a long time without talking, shoulder to shoulder against a future that was uncertain and a past too clearly remembered.
* * *
“FIVE minutes to docking,” the announcing system on the freighter declared. The operator of this particular freighter had chosen a woman’s voice using an odd and strong accent, producing an effect that combined attention-getting for the strangeness and annoyance over the difficulty of understanding some of the words.
“Probably the voice of the owner’s mistress,” Gaiene commented. He and all of his soldiers were in combat armor, ready to go when the freighter docked.
“I can’t think of any other explanation.” Drakon’s armor was tied into the freighter’s own systems, so he could monitor the approach directly. On visual, the shape of the dock ahead of them stood out brilliantly white against the black of space. “No sign of any special— Wait. Looks like a squad of local troops in armor.”
Colonel Gaiene sighed with exasperation. “Now we’ll have to waste ammunition on them.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. They don’t look tense.” The troops waiting on the dock were being careless, moving so they were clearly silhouetted against the bright white of the dock walls instead of keeping to shadowed locations or cover. And they stood holding their weapons casually, propped over one shoulder or resting nose first against the deck. He had seen similar carelessness and postures before, when commanding detachments who had felt what these soldiers clearly felt, though he hadn’t let them get away with those kinds of behaviors. “Looks more like they’ve been on alert too long. They’re going through the motions, but they’re bored by it all. They’ve probably been doing the same drill when every ship arrives.”
“Do you want to try to take them alive?”
Drakon thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s critical that we keep the snakes on this facility from realizing what’s happening until it’s too late for them to trigger any self-destruct. The sooner we start shooting, the less time we’ll have. How do we surprise them with overwhelming force and keep them from sounding an alarm?”
Gaiene smiled. “Contraband in one of the freight compartments. The sort of contraband that bored soldiers would love to get their hands on. They’ll have to go check it out in person before anyone in authority confiscates it.”
“What kind of contraband?”
“Hmmm . . . happy dust.” A mythical drug, undetectable by any means, nonaddictive, no side effects, cheap, and the nearest thing to feeling like a god.
“Happy dust doesn’t really exist,” Drakon pointed out. “It’s an urban legend. Or I guess just a legend since I’ve never been anywhere that hadn’t heard of it.”
“Which means we don’t actually have to have any,” Gaiene pointed out in turn. “Sergeant Shand!”
A stout soldier trotted forward. “Yes, Colonel.”
“Get out of your armor and into a survival suit. You are a drug smuggler. You have a cargo of happy dust. You are willing to bribe the squad of local soldiers with some of it as long as they let you keep the rest. Get them all into this freight compartment.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
By the time the freighter shuddered gently as the grapples locked it into the dock, Sergeant Shand was ready, looking remarkably seedy and dissolute in a grubby survival suit pulled out of the freighter’s emergency locker. Shand went to the compartment access, while Gaiene dispersed his troops around the compartment itself, hidden behind anything that would serve.
Drakon watched, keeping his breathing even, his heart rate under control. Gaiene could be trusted to handle the assault, but Drakon had to remain calm and focused, ready to spot problems before they developed and make sure nothing hung up anywhere.
When one of the bored soldiers opened the access to plug in and check the manifest, Shand was there, talking suit to suit with the soldier on the crew circuit as he gestured in alternately enticing and pleading ways.
More soldiers showed up. Sergeant Shand waved invitingly inside.
They followed him. Drakon counted a full squad as the last cleared the access. His outside view showed no one vis
ible on the dock.
A sudden rustle of motion marked a couple of companies of soldiers leveling weapons at the shocked local troops, all of whom were wise enough to freeze into total immobility.
Motion on the dock, a single figure in battle armor coming out, pausing long enough to take in the situation, then heading toward the freighter access like someone who was very unhappy and ready to unload that emotion upon others. “Is their squad leader with them in here?” Drakon asked Gaiene.
The reply took only a moment. “No.”
“He or she just figured out that the squad is all inside the freighter and is heading this way, no doubt mad as hell.”
A few seconds later the sergeant came storming through the access, then stopped as four of Gaiene’s soldiers near the door planted weapons against the sergeant’s helmet.
Gaiene clucked a disappointed sound. “The sergeant tried to send an alert. Our jammers blocked it inside the hull. She has an impressive grasp of profanity.”
“She can exercise it on her squad while they’re all locked up aboard here,” Drakon said, as the locals were disarmed and herded away. “We’ve got a couple of minutes more at best before somebody notices that they’re gone from the dock.” He switched to the command circuit that went to every one of his soldiers. “Don’t forget to let any of the soldiers defending the facility surrender if they don’t fight us. We need to move fast, and we don’t need any last stands holding up the attack. Move!”
The elements of the brigade exploded from the freighter, using the big cargo-loading hatches. Soldiers swarmed along the dock, heading for objectives loaded into their combat armor. There had been plenty of copies of the layout of the facility available at Midway, and the soldiers had spent a lot of their time on the trip running virtual assaults. Now they didn’t hesitate as they attacked the real thing.
The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight Page 31