The Lost Stars 01-Tarnished Knight

by Jack Campbell

  “She will make a good commander of my mobile forces,” Iceni agreed. But something was still bothering her, something besides the snakes on HuK-6336. Why had Akiri been the assassin’s first target? Akiri’s skills as an executive had seemed marginal at best, yet Kolani had kept Akiri in command despite her reputation for relieving anyone who displeased her, and now an assassin had made him a primary target. Unfortunately, it was too late to stick Akiri in an interrogation cell to see what might be learned from him. “I want Akiri’s room and belongings thoroughly searched for anything out of the ordinary,” she told Togo.

  “May I ask if there is a particular focus for the search, Madam President?”

  “There are pieces in Akiri’s puzzle that do not fit. I want to know why. Find anything that doesn’t fit what we know about him.”

  A few minutes remained until twenty after the hour; then, as the other warships began preparing for battle, Iceni waited to see what would happen as she watched the activity around Marphissa. “Do you think the snakes on the HuK will immediately try to prepare for combat when they realize what is happening?” Iceni asked Togo.

  “I do not think so. Actual mobile forces executives probably would do that, but if these are ISS, trained to ask directions before they act?” Togo’s tiny smile flickered briefly to life. “They will call Sub-CEO Marphissa and ask what they are supposed to do.”

  Moments later, Togo’s prediction was confirmed. “Sub-CEO, this is HuK-6336. Are we supposed to be making combat preparations?”

  “No,” Marphissa replied.

  A pause. “The other mobile forces are preparing for combat.”

  “Yes. But you are to refrain from strengthening your shields and you are not to power up weapons. Do you understand, HuK-6336?”

  “No.”

  Whether that was a reply to Marphissa’s question or a denial of the orders was unclear. “HuK-6336 is powering weapons,” a line worker on Marphissa’s cruiser warned.

  “Are you certain?” Marphissa asked.

  “One hundred percent certainty, Sub-CEO. Shields are beginning to come up in strength as well.”

  “HuK-6336, cease strengthening shields and powering up weapons immediately. Power down shields and weapons. This is your final warning.” Marphissa paused for only a moment, then looked over to the line worker.

  “No change, Sub-CEO. HuK-6336 is continuing to prepare for combat.”

  Iceni saw Marphissa’s face harden, then she reached one finger to tap a preset command.

  Far above Iceni, in high orbit about the planet, particle beams shot out from three heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and five Hunter-Killers, their fire concentrated on nearby HuK-6336.

  The single volley was all that was required. HuK-6336 was close and at a dead stop relative to the other warships, so it had been impossible to miss. Hunter-Killers had very little armor, HuK-6336’s shields hadn’t even been at half strength, and on a unit of such small size almost every square meter contained critical equipment. The undersized warship was so badly torn up by that single volley that Iceni, watching the damage reports flashing onto Marphissa’s display, wondered why the HuK hadn’t broken into several pieces.

  Marphissa sat gazing angrily at the wreck for a moment, then jerked into sudden action. “All units! Accelerate at best available velocity away from HuK-6336! Rear shields at maximum! Do it now!”

  Togo gave Iceni a questioning glance. Iceni hesitated, then the reason for Marphissa’s order hit her. “The power core. She thinks HuK-6336 will suffer a power-core overload.”

  “But how can there be any survivors to order such an action?”

  “There don’t have to be. Not if the snakes loaded dead-man instructions into the core control systems. And that’s exactly the sort of action we’ve seen them employing.”

  An instant later, HuK-6336 vanished as its power core exploded.

  Iceni saw the cruiser that Marphissa was riding rock under the impact of the shock wave. “Only minor damage because the HuK’s power core was relatively weak, our shields were at full strength, and we were accelerating away like bats out of hell,” Marphissa reported to Iceni a short time later.

  “That was a good call,” Iceni replied. “You handled that entire situation very well, Sub-CEO. I am impressed by your ability.”

  It was about the strongest praise a CEO could provide, and Marphissa flushed with pleasure.

  Before Iceni could say anything else, Togo cleared his throat apologetically. “General Drakon is calling, Madam President. He wishes to know why mobile forces in orbit about this planet are firing upon one another.”

  “I’ll talk to him. Sub-CEO Marphissa, we’ll speak again in the morning.”

  But Iceni stopped as she began to turn away, looking at Marphissa’s display until the connection broke. On the display was portrayed a rapidly spreading cloud of dust that had once been a Hunter-Killer warship and perhaps twenty human beings. She could muster no sympathy for the humans, who had slain so many of their comrades, but she regretted losing that small warship.

  * * *

  DRAKON had appeared to be shocked by the news of the assassination attempts and Akiri’s death, as well as satisfied with her explanations last night, but the next morning he sought to speak with her privately, not depending on comm circuits but instead showing up outside her office complex without any bodyguards, without even either Colonel Morgan or Colonel Malin who usually accompanied him. Disturbed by that unusual behavior, Iceni ensured that her office defenses were all active and working properly before she instructed her bodyguards to allow Drakon access. “What is this about?” she asked as he entered.

  Drakon stood looking at her, scowled, looked away, then finally spoke in a low, rough voice. “Thank you for not accusing me of involvement in last night’s activities.”

  “I think more highly of you than that, General,” Iceni said. “If you had planned those attacks, more of my people would have died.”

  He bared his teeth in a pained smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I came over here, alone, for two reasons. The first to demonstrate my willingness to put myself on the line as a sign that I should have nothing to fear from you. Because I had nothing to do with those hits. Do you want me to say that again in another part of your office complex?”

  She shook her head. “No, General Drakon. You need not submit yourself to interrogation to convince me. You wouldn’t have made the offer unless you knew you could pass such a test. What is the second reason for your visit?”

  He swallowed, chewed his lip, then spoke abruptly. “I want to apologize to you.”

  “You . . . what?”

  “Apologize.” He seemed to be having trouble getting the word out.

  Small wonder. Iceni was having trouble believing that she had heard right. Apologies among CEOs were rare enough that Iceni couldn’t remember ever having received one. Or even heard of one. Was “rare” even the right term for something that had never happened to her knowledge? “You . . . have you done something to me?”

  “Not on purpose.” Drakon took a deep breath and finally looked directly at her again. “I neglected to tell you something that might have helped you figure out that HuK was a problem. Back when we took out Colonel Dun, she managed to get off a message to that snake-controlled cruiser before it bolted through the hypernet gate. We haven’t been able to find any clues to what the message was. Just some update, I figured. Maybe word to her snake bosses that Dun had been nailed and they should let her family go, or something like that. I was advised to tell you, but I didn’t think it was important.”

  Iceni gave him a quizzical look. “But now you think you know what it was about?”

  “I think it was word to that cruiser that Dun had been found out, that she was being taken down, and they needed someone else to take over the hidden-among-the-r
anks-of-this-star-system’s-defenders job.”

  “Oh.” That did make sense. “The snakes on the cruiser then ordered the ones on the HuK to wipe out the officers and disloyal crew members, so they could pretend to escape from the other units controlled by the snakes, move here, and be part of our plans and deliberations? You’re right. It could well have happened that way.”

  “And you might have thought of that,” Drakon continued heavily, “if I’d told you about the message. So . . . I am . . . sorry.”

  “For . . . ?”

  “I should have kept you fully informed, not decided what you needed to know. I don’t want someone else deciding what I need to know, and I should give you the same courtesy.” Drakon shook his head, looking angry, but the emotion clearly wasn’t aimed at her. “I’ll try not to slip up that way again.”

  Iceni stared at him. Drakon really had just apologized to her. And done so unambiguously, not some halfhearted too bad if I made you screw up. What was she supposed to say? It had been so long since anyone had said “I’m sorry” except subordinates who were groveling before her, and the accepted responses to that ranged from “you’re fired” to “you’re going to be shot” to “if it happens again, you’ll be fired or shot.” None of those phrases seemed appropriate now, though. “I . . . understand.”

  “You do?” Drakon seemed as uncertain as she did of the proper protocol.

  “Yes. It . . . was . . . a . . . reasonable . . . error. I . . . Damn. Why don’t we have words for this?”

  “We haven’t needed them,” Drakon said, sounding bitter and amused at the same time.

  “Perhaps we will need them in the future. I will say this, I am not at all certain that I would have made the connection between Dun’s message and what HuK-6336 did. I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t have. But I do wish to know anything like that that comes up from now on.”

  “You will.”

  It sounded like a promise. If so, there would be no better time to test it. “Is there anything else?”

  Drakon hesitated, and she could easily imagine the thoughts running through his mind. “I’ve had all the ground forces commanders screened to see if any others were like Colonel Dun. As far as I can tell, none of them are.”

  “That’s good to hear.” She waited.

  “Um . . . Colonel Rogero. You already know about him.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I know of four surviving snakes and their families who are still on this planet.”

  Iceni stared at him. “Explain, please.”

  He did, and when Drakon had finished Iceni spent a moment rubbing her chin to give her time to think. Why hadn’t Togo spotted that information before Drakon had told her? “These snakes are under constant observation?”

  “Constant and complete.”

  “What if I insisted that they be shot?”

  Drakon glared at her. “I promised them they wouldn’t be killed.”

  “I see.” She let alternatives tumble through her mind before looking back at him. “All right, General. They’re your responsibility. If they do anything, if they contact anyone, I expect to be informed.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Are there any more surprises for me, General?” Iceni asked.

  Another pause as Drakon frowned in thought. Would he tell her about Malin’s apparent assassination attempt against Morgan? Her source had already given her all the details of that, but would Drakon say anything at all?

  “Yeah, one more thing. I had a serious incident on my staff. But it’s been resolved.”

  That was something. More than she had expected. “Good. I will also try to keep you informed in the future. If the hits had been only against your workers last night, I’m certain that your suspicion would have turned my way.”

  He gave her that crooked smile of his. “If you’d planned hits against me, I probably wouldn’t have survived to register any complaints.”

  “How nice of you to say so. But now we will have no secrets from each other.”

  “Of course not.” Drakon mimicked her own sarcasm in a shared joke about how untrustworthy CEOs actually were. Neither she nor he would really believe the other wasn’t withholding some secrets.

  Drakon gave a gruff farewell and left, leaving Iceni looking at her door after he had closed it. An apology and a promise, both of which appeared to be at least partly sincere. Damn you, General, you’re providing far too powerful a good example for me.

  Is it just an act?

  * * *

  DRAKON walked steadily back toward his headquarters, hardly noticing the citizens who were hastily clearing a path for him, now with every sign of enthusiasm rather than fear. He wished he could believe that the emotions the citizens showed him were genuine, but over the centuries people at every level of Syndicate society had gotten very good at hiding their true feelings, instead projecting whatever they thought they were expected to show.

  Just like CEOs. He wished he could believe that Iceni was sincere.

  Why did I tell her about Malin and Morgan? I didn’t tell her much, but I still revealed that my staff had a serious problem with dissension, and that’s exactly the sort of thing CEOs always want to know so they can try to exploit that dissension. Why did I tell Iceni that there was a possible crack in my defenses that she could exploit?

  Of course, she might think that was a trap, designed to see if she would make a move in that direction.

  I did intend to say I was sorry for not doing my job well enough. I made a mistake. The one thing I hated most in my bosses over the years has been their failure to admit when they screwed up. That was one of the pillars of the Syndicate Worlds, I guess. Never admit a mistake. I can’t remember the government ever doing that. Hell, even when Black Jack was knocking on their door with a fleet the previous Syndicate supreme council would rather have died than admit they had made any errors. And so they did die. But I doubt the new bunch at Prime is any better.

  They’re CEOs, aren’t they?

  But, then, so is Iceni. And so am I.

  Can you teach old dogs new tricks? But I never learned the old tricks. That’s how I got here, exiled for not being self-focused enough, for not being willing to write off the lives of subordinates as the cost of my own promotions. And Iceni was exiled, too, for reporting on illegal activity instead of just trying to grab a piece of it for herself. Neither one of us fit properly into the Syndicate system.

  Malin is right when he says the failure to admit mistakes means you can’t learn from them. I have plenty of experience to prove that.

  Maybe it’s a good thing I told Iceni a bit about the mess between Malin and Morgan. Even though I wasn’t intending to set a trap, not consciously anyway, that’s what it is. If Iceni tries to contact either Malin or Morgan without my knowledge, I’m certain that they’ll tell me.

  And then I’ll know something more about Iceni, and I’ll have to decide what to do next.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A display showing nearby stars floated above the center of the conference table. Iceni wasn’t looking at it, though. She seemed to be lost in thought, staring at the virtual window and its peaceful beach as if she wasn’t really focused on it.

  “What’s up?” Drakon finally asked. “You wanted to meet on neutral ground, no aides or assistants, just you and me.”

  She inhaled slowly, as if coming back to full alertness, then gazed at him. “Yes. We have some very interesting news from Taroa. The HuK I sent there returned several hours ago. Have you seen its report yet?”

  “Yes.” Drakon glanced at the star display, where Taroa glowed brighter for extra emphasis, as did the star Kane for some reason. “Three-way civil war. They didn’t have that many troops on hand, so the fighting isn’t too severe, but it’s widespread. Since Taroa doesn’t have a hypernet ga
te, there weren’t nearly as many snakes or Syndicate troops there, so the loyalists can’t put down the other two factions.”

  Iceni nodded, and he noticed that now she was looking toward not the depiction of Taroa, but that of Kane. “There was another item reported to me by the commander of the HuK. It’s not even in the classified report. He managed a face-to-face meeting with the commander of the light cruiser at Taroa, which so far has remained neutral in the struggle and may join us here.”

  “That’s nice.” One light cruiser, more or less, hardly seemed that critical an issue to have Iceni so distracted.

  “It’s what else that light cruiser commander told us that’s important. You know the shipyards at Taroa engaged in some significant construction for the Syndicate Worlds. Nothing compared to the major shipyards at places like Sancere, but still large projects. Taroa’s shipyards are much better than ours since the Syndicate government judged that they weren’t in as much danger from direct enigma attack and put more money into them.” Iceni’s eyes locked on his, and she leaned forward. “Taroa’s shipyards have nearly completed construction of a battleship. It only has a skeleton crew and is still fitting out.”

  Drakon stopped breathing for a moment. “A battleship?” he finally said. “You told me there were only light mobile forces at nearby stars.”

  “Yes. That’s what I believed to be true. The official story was that the battleship had been sent to another star system much closer to Prime for final fitting out so the Syndicate government could ensure control of it. But what actually happened was that the CEO on Taroa sent it to Kane, thinking that he might really need a battleship someday and thinking that he could get away with pocketing the battleship in the chaos following Black Jack’s victory at Prime.”

  “Good guesses on his part.”

  “Weren’t they? But we need that battleship more than he does. If we gain control of that battleship, we will have enough firepower to have a decent chance of fighting off any attacks on this star system.”

  “Can we finish the work on it here?”