The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

by Jack Campbell

  “That’s it?” Kamara’s skepticism was clear.

  “There are no preconditions though we’ll be interested in negotiating agreements once the Free Taroans are in power.”

  “What about the docks?” Kamara pressed.

  Drakon shrugged in a show of disinterest. He didn’t want to get into his and Iceni’s intentions for the docks until after the Free Taroans had committed themselves. “We’re also here to recruit workers. Shipyard workers, specialists, that kind of thing. No draft. No slave labor. Hiring. If someone wants to come back with us on those terms, I don’t want the Free Taroans telling them they can’t.”

  Kamara didn’t answer for a while. “Of all the CEOs I worked with,” she finally said, “you were the only one who actually put himself on the line for his workers. Even though my common sense is telling me that you’re only doing this because it’s part of some scheme to control us, I don’t think we can afford to turn down this opportunity. Nor can we prevent citizens who want to accept your offer of employment from taking that offer as long as it is actually a free decision on their part. But I don’t have any final say. I’ll discuss it with the interim congress, and we’ll let you know our decision. How many troops do you have here?”

  “Right now I have about half of one brigade.”

  “Only half of a brigade? That’s not much, but it might be enough—” Her eyes shifted to one side. “We just spotted a force arriving at the jump point from Midway.”

  “Right,” Drakon agreed, pleased that the others had finally shown up. “A heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, four Hunter-Killers, and five modified freighters carrying another two and a half brigades of troops.”

  Kamara watched him, tension back in her posture. “That’s a substantial force. Enough to give anyone the edge here. I assume that if the Free Taroans don’t agree to accept your aid, you’ll offer it elsewhere?”

  Drakon shook his head. “No. I told you. The Free Taroans are the only group here that we’re interested in helping.”

  “And if we win with your help? How many of those soldiers stay?”

  “On your planet? None of them.” This dock, on the other hand . . . “We need them back at Midway when they’re done here.”

  Another pause, then Kamara made a helpless gesture. “We probably have no choice but to believe you. Are we allowed to speak with anyone up there? Any of the citizens?”

  “Sure. Why not? The snakes managed to kill a few of the workers here before we got them all, but everyone else is safe. I’ve had the place locked down while we ensured everything was secure, but I’ve started lifting that. I’ll lift the comm restrictions, too.”

  “I will talk to the congress,” Kamara said, but this time her tones carried more conviction.

  * * *

  LONG ago, a large staff might have been required to plan and coordinate the movements of almost three brigades of soldiers from the orbital facility to the planet’s surface. But that kind of housekeeping work was what automated systems excelled at since the variables were few. Plug in current force data listing troops and equipment, shuttles and freighters, and the locations of all those, then let the software produce a detailed solution, issue the necessary instructions, and monitor progress. Malin and Morgan could easily keep an eye on everything to see if glitches developed and still have plenty of time to assist Drakon with other planning that was made much more complex by unpredictable human behavior.

  The headquarters of the Free Taroans had once been that of the Syndicate Worlds planetary forces, so it was well fitted out, though much of the equipment was older than that at the facilities on Midway since Taroa didn’t have the strategic importance or the priorities for upgrades that provided.

  Drakon looked at a map floating above the table in the main command center. The virtual globe slowly rotating beside it allowed someone to choose an area to zoom in on and change the area shown on the map, but it was set to show most of the occupied southern continent. Taroa’s northern continent was big, but so high in latitude that it consisted of frozen desert plains and glacier-choked mountains. Aside from a few research and rescue stations with only a small number of occupants, no one lived there.

  The populace so far had stayed on the much more pleasant southern continent, which straddled the planet’s equator. At some point in the not-too-distant past as measured by the life of worlds, something had ripped the planet’s surface there, causing masses of lava to boil up and form that new continent. Life had recovered from what must have been a catastrophic event by the time humans arrived to find a continent filled with knife-edged volcanic mountains and hills that separated lushly forested valleys.

  “Screwed-up place to fight a war,” Morgan commented. “You take one little valley, and there’s a natural wall protecting the next.”

  Sub-CEO Kamara nodded. “That’s one of the things that has kept us stalemated. It’s very easy to defend the ground on this planet. The airlift available to us and the other groups got knocked out early, so we couldn’t leapfrog over the ridges. A lot of the slopes between valleys are too steep even for armor to get up them, so it’s foot soldiers slugging it out meter by meter, up one ridge and down the next. It doesn’t take many ridges before you run out of foot soldiers.”

  Morgan gave Kamara a disdainful glance. “How many soldiers did you lose learning that?”

  Kamara returned the look. “Us? Very few on offensive operations. It’s the loyalists that have gotten chopped up trying to reestablish control over the areas that belong to us, and the Workers Universal, which sent some human waves up the ridges before we killed so many they ran low on wave material.”

  “You’ve played it smart,” Malin said.

  “I don’t know if it’s smart. I convinced the interim congress to hold off on attacks since we seemed more likely to win by waiting out the loyalists and the workers. But I’ve been under increasing pressure to stage some offensive operations because everyone has been worried about a Syndicate Worlds’ relief force showing up to reinforce the loyalists and pound us flat.” Kamara shook her head, sighing. “I knew I was just buying time. We couldn’t win, and we’d keep getting weaker relative to the loyalists.”

  “You did the right thing,” Drakon said. “Maybe you couldn’t have won, but you damn well could have lost a lot faster if you’d bled your forces dry in futile attacks. The Syndicate Worlds government is busy in a lot of places and doesn’t have nearly as much strength to deal with rebellions as it would like. Taroa would be pretty low on their priority list unless they happened to have someone out this way for another reason.” A reason such as recapturing the Midway Star System, but there wasn’t any need to bring that up. “Something else could have happened to even the odds for you. And it did.”

  “That was my thinking,” Sub-CEO Kamara said, looking pleased at Drakon’s words. “It’s been a progressively more lonely position to hold, though. So many people want instant results, without thinking about the chances of success or the costs.” She turned to the map, pointing out red splotches in some of the valleys where towns and small cities could be found, usually where those valleys let out on the coastline to allow easier access by water. “The main loyalist strongholds are in these areas.”

  “Why hasn’t anyone tried assaults from the water?” Drakon asked. “Real narrow frontages, open fields of fire, jagged reefs just offshore, with thin channels dredged through them that make perfect kill zones, mines . . .” Sub-CEO Kamara shrugged, her bitter expression contrasting with the casual gesture. “It was tried a few times. I tried it, hoping the loyalists would be focused against ground attacks and overconfident about the effectiveness of defenses along the water. I was wrong. That’s where we took most of our losses.”

  “Does CEO Rahmin still command the Syndicate loyalists?” Malin asked.

  “She did until about two weeks ago. That’s when a suicide squad from the Workers Universal infiltrated the loyalists’ interim capital and blasted their way into her command center.
” Kamara didn’t seem particularly upset at the loss of her former superior. “Now there’s a snake running the show over there. CEO Ukula.”

  Morgan waved at the map. “If we take out the snakes, do the regular troops keep fighting?”

  “That depends on whether they think they’ll die if they try to surrender.”

  “Will they?” Drakon asked.

  “Some units have committed serious atrocities. They’ll have trouble trying to surrender,” Kamara said as calmly as if she were talking about road conditions. “Others have been a lot better behaved.”

  Morgan smiled. “We can split the loyalist soldiers, then. All it takes is contact with the units that will be allowed to surrender.”

  “I can give you the identities of those units,” Kamara said. “Managing hidden contact with them may be—”

  “No problem,” Morgan said, her smile still in place but now wolflike. “I can handle it.”

  Kamara stared at her for a moment, then looked back at the map.

  Malin was running his finger across scattered purple blotches on the map, all of them concentrated in urban areas. “This marks areas controlled by the Workers Universal?”

  “Roughly.” Kamara’s expression shifted to disgust. “If we can roll up the snakes and turn everything on the Workers Universal, I think they’ll fold pretty quick because they’ve hollowed themselves out. Sure, the workers have gotten lousy deals. But the ones who went with the Workers Universal are a lot worse off now. I told you about the human waves the WUs sent against us. Some real nutcases have taken over there. Their opposition in the workers’ leadership was accused of treason, arrested and shot, or simply disappeared. These days, the ones left in charge are killing as many of their own workers in purges as we are in fighting them.”

  “Cannibalization of the revolution once the most radical begin competing for purity,” Malin commented. “It’s happened countless times in the past. Right now, many of those in this star system seeking stability are drawn to the loyalists as protection against the Free Taroans and the Workers Universal. But if the loyalists are defeated, then the choice for such people will be between—”

  “Freedom and homicidal nutcases,” Kamara finished. “I figure we’ll look pretty good at that point to anyone wanting to choose sides.” She glanced at Drakon. “The loyalists offered to conduct joint operations with us against the Workers, but I knew better than to bite that poison apple.”

  Drakon smiled crookedly, inwardly pleased that Kamara had not tried to keep that offer secret from her new allies. He studied the map, zooming in to identify some good locations for surgical strikes. “Colonel Malin, please get Colonels Gaiene, Kai, and Senski. We have a snake hunt to plan.”

  “We can’t afford to lose a lot of infrastructure,” Kamara said. “Neither can the loyalists, which is the only thing that has kept them from dropping rocks on us from orbit.”

  Morgan blew out a derisive breath. “You want us to defeat the loyalists without breaking anything?”

  Kamara met her eyes soberly, nodding. “That’s right. The loyalists are sitting on some of the most critical facilities on the surface. If all we inherit is ruins, then our victory would be as hollow as they come.”

  “The snakes have been following scorched-earth tactics every time we’ve fought them,” Malin said. “Once they know defeat is inevitable, they try to take us with them.”

  “Then we try to make sure the snakes don’t know they’re losing until it’s too late to do anything about it,” Drakon replied. “Colonel Morgan, get the identities of the units you want to undermine from Sub-CEO Kamara and get started on that. I want to know what units those are, too, so we can work our plans around them and hit the other units first.”

  “How often do you want updates on what I’m doing?” Morgan asked.

  “Let me know what I need to know when I need to know it. Otherwise, you’re free to run with it.”

  She grinned. “No problem.”

  Kamara cleared her throat. “You’ve left two companies occupying the orbital dockyards. We’d be happy to send some of our militia up there to maintain control and free up your troops.”

  Drakon smiled at her. I bet you’d be happy to gain control of those dockyards. Do you really think I’d just hand them over to you? “With our warships protecting the dockyards, it’s better that they deal with our own people there if any threats develop.”

  After a pause, Kamara nodded. “Certainly. I understand.”

  At least, she understood that the Free Taroans were in no position to demand the dockyards.

  * * *

  COLONEL Rogero walked alone back to his quarters after a coordination meeting with President Iceni’s representatives. Meetings with people in locations remote from each other were easy to hold, everyone gathering in a virtual meeting place, but just as easy to tap into and monitor despite every possible security precaution. For routine matters, that was accepted as a fact of life. The ISS, and possibly someone else, would be listening. For anything important, or anything that shouldn’t be overheard, it had become habit for people to choose actual meeting places at the last moment. Much more secure, but it could also lead to long walks as twilight darkened the sky and streets grew dim before the gloom deepened enough to trigger streetlights to life.

  There were bars he could have gone to, restaurants he could have dined at, but Rogero preferred burying himself in his work. Every time he visited a bar or a café, he would find himself looking for her, knowing she couldn’t possibly be there but still studying the crowd. Someday, I’ll buy you a drink, Bradamont had said at their last meeting. Someday, I’ll buy you dinner, he had replied. Neither had believed it could ever happen, but still Rogero found himself searching crowds.

  She had been in the Midway Star System. She had sent him a message. But it was still impossible.

  Tonight, then, he walked straight from the meeting to his quarters. But even though his course was a straight one, he didn’t actually walk in a straight line or at a steady speed. Reflexes from the battlefield had become natural to him, so that as Rogero walked, he would, without thinking, speed up or slow down between steps, veer a bit to one side or the other, move slightly to keep objects between him and open lines of sight that could become lines of fire. It made it hard for anyone to target him on the battlefield and annoyed the hell out of anyone who walked with him at other times, but it took a conscious effort to not do it, so when he walked alone, he gave in to instinct.

  As a result of one such sudden jerk forward, the shot fired at his head instead grazed the back of Rogero’s skull.

  He fell forward, rolling behind the nearest streetlamp base, weapon in hand as he searched the night for the assassin. The streetlights came on, triggered not by the oncoming night but by sensors that had detected the shot, and sirens hooted nearby. The police would be here soon, he would give a report, and they would search for the killer.

  Rogero knew they wouldn’t find anyone. This felt too much like the work of a professional. He raised his free hand to touch the bleeding scrape across the back of his head. Someone had tried to kill him, but who that was mattered less than who had ordered the hit. Or had he escaped death? Could the shot have been aimed to miss, a warning? If so, from who? And would that warning have been intended for him or General Drakon?

  But whoever had fired had known he would be meeting with President Iceni’s representatives and had known where that would be so they could predict what route Rogero would have to take back to his quarters.

  * * *

  “LAUNCH the bombardment,” Drakon ordered. He stood in the Free Taroan command center, eyes on the big map display, which had rotated and risen so that he could watch everything play out. Ideally, he would be out there, with the attack, but there was too much going on this time, too many widely dispersed things happening, and he needed to be somewhere he could watch it all with the fewest possible distractions near at hand.

  The tracks of kinetic projectiles fired
by the warships in orbit appeared on the display, curving downward like a precise sort of rainfall. All of the projectiles were timed to hit at the same moment, and instead of falling across the three targeted valleys, they were aimed in curtains that dropped toward the defenses on the rims of the mountains surrounding the valleys and along the narrow coastlines where the valleys met the sea.

  Massed along the other sides of those valley rims were Drakon’s brigades, supported by some of the Free Taroan forces. Three brigades, three valleys, each valley held by an understrength battalion. Overwhelming force deployed against the most hard-core portions of the loyalist ranks. Victory wasn’t in doubt, but if they couldn’t time it just so, and the snakes blew everything to hell, then the victory would be a hollow one, as well as costing the lives of more of his soldiers.

  Drakon’s eyes rested on one of the falling projectiles. Just a chunk of metal, aimed precisely, gaining energy with every meter it fell. There were a lot of meters between orbit and the surface, and the projectiles were already moving fast when they were launched. The seconds to impact vanished in a flurry of numbers spinning by too fast to read; then the rounds hit.

  It was as if volcanoes had erupted in long lines along the ridges, rock and dust flying upward, the ground trembling, a sustained roar of noise rather than single crashes from impacts. The defenses along the ridges vanished, replaced by rubble.

  He had been close to bombardments like that. Drakon could have closed his eyes and seen the rocks hitting, sometimes those fired by Syndicate warships to batter Alliance defenses before he sent his own soldiers in to attack and seize the ground, sometimes rocks launched by Alliance warships against him. Men and women as well as structures disappeared under those bombardments, not simply killed but their bodies blown into fragments, leaving battlefields empty and strangely devoid of the dead. That’s what hell really is. Not those places with fire and demons but just a place where death has been, and nothing remains because humans have wiped out all trace that humans or any other life had ever been there.