Imperfect Sword

by Jack Campbell

  “That’s true.” Drakon finally sat back again, watching her. “But I can’t believe it. Donal Rogero. If he could so cold-bloodedly plot to murder me and two-thirds of the others in the division, along with Conner Gaiene, who was his friend, then he’s so good at being a snake that I don’t know how I survived this long.”

  She grimaced, then nodded. “You’re right. Especially since he could have very easily died when he exposed himself to the crowds along with his soldiers. That action would make no sense if he intended to survive as your successor.” Iceni took a deep breath. “Which leads us back to my side of the table.”

  “I am confident that Kommodor Marphissa is loyal,” Drakon said.

  “As am I. Not all of the former Reserve Flotilla members have been fully screened, but none of them had access to the departure information early enough to have alerted the Syndicate.”

  “Who does that leave?” he asked.

  Iceni tapped her desk surface lightly to cover up the turmoil inside her. “My personal assistant.”

  “There isn’t anyone else?” Drakon said, startled.

  “Not on my end. We kept it to those who needed to know until the ships actually started moving,” Iceni said.

  “Where is your assistant?” He looked around, his hands moving in ways that she knew must be readying the hidden weapons and defenses built into his uniform.

  “I don’t know.” She met his surprised gaze with her own level look. “Mehmet Togo disappeared shortly before the mobs took to the streets. I have not been able to find out anything regarding him since that time.”

  Drakon twisted his mouth, looking into the distance. “Your Togo struck me as someone who would be pretty hard to take out.”

  “Extremely hard. If someone did eliminate him, they must be a very dangerous threat.”

  “If?” Drakon asked. “You think he may have chosen to go into hiding?”

  “I don’t know.” She indicated her desk. “I’ve taken the precaution of resetting every password and access that Togo knew. I’ve also reset the passwords and accesses that Togo was not supposed to have known.”

  “If he gave that information to the Syndicate—”

  “I know!” Iceni calmed herself. “But he can’t be loyal to the Syndicate. If that were so, he would have tipped them off before we revolted. Neither one of us would have survived. And, if he wanted only you dead, all Togo had to do was pass word of your plans to the late and unlamented CEO Hardrad early enough that my own involvement could have been covered up.” She chewed her lip, gazing worriedly at Drakon. “Togo knows a great deal. There are means available to extract information from even those capable of withstanding standard interrogation methods.”

  “If he’s not choosing to give that information freely,” Drakon said. “But those means of forcibly extracting information that you’re talking about don’t leave anything recognizably human behind.”

  “I know that. I also know that they are not foolproof, and can sometimes destroy the information they seek, and so even the Syndicate rarely employed them. But I can’t disregard the possibility. Perhaps Togo betrayed me for reasons I don’t know. Or perhaps the information he carried was harvested. I don’t know. I am bending every effort to locate him.”

  “Colonel Rogero didn’t mention being involved in that.”

  “I haven’t asked the ground forces to assist,” Iceni said, waving a cutting gesture of denial with one hand. “It seemed to be a purely internal matter.”

  “It might have been until we learned someone fed the Syndicate information,” Drakon said. “I would like to inform my staff. Your assistant knows a lot of my secrets, too, secrets that I shared with your office.”

  “Damn.” Iceni slapped her forehead. “Codes. Togo would have been able to gain access to some of your codes as well. Yes. Yes. Tell your workers so they can take the necessary steps to protect your data and networks.”

  Drakon frowned downward, then back at her. “If your assistant did have a deal with the Syndicate, they were going to betray him. The Syndicate plan included a quick follow-on attack here. Wipe us out at Ulindi, then bring all of those soldiers and CEO Boucher’s flotilla here to hit you before you had any warning.”

  She inhaled deeply, taking in that information. “CEO Boucher would not have shown any mercy to me or anyone else no matter what deal Togo might have made. Togo was involved in enough executive actions to know that the Syndicate has a history of making many promises to turncoats, publicly hailing them, then privately eliminating them to ensure that they could never turn their coats again. Though we still don’t know that he betrayed me. Why disappear if he was certain that you would die at Ulindi?”

  “I hope you won’t mind my remaining suspicious,” Drakon said with obvious sarcasm. “Speaking of secrets being spilled, how did you find out about the trap at Ulindi? All Freya and Bradamont knew was that you had received some highly credible information.”

  “CEO Boyens told me.” She saw the immediate skepticism in him. “It was a matter of self-interest.”

  Drakon snorted. “That makes it plausible. I wish Boyens had coughed up that information before I left.”

  “I made it clear to him how disappointed I was,” Iceni said.

  “Is he dead? Or just wishing he was?”

  “Neither. Yet.”

  “I might want to have a personal talk with him about it,” Drakon said. “His little game of withholding information almost cost us everything.”

  “You don’t have to emphasize that to me.” She looked down at her hands. “Until Midway came back with the news of your survival, of your victory, I spent some time coming up with imaginative means of making Boyens regret not speaking earlier. But here you are. Still in one piece. Coming home with more soldiers than you left with, and more ships than you left with. You really are amazing, you know.”

  Drakon sat back, giving her an enigmatic look. “If you really believe that, perhaps you’ll explain something else that I’m curious about.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “I had some time to talk to your Kommodor.” Drakon cocked his head to one side, still gazing at Iceni. “She said she got a text from my command that told her we had taken the base, and needed some help with the Syndicate troops attacking us from the outside. But there’s one thing about that message that I don’t understand. Kommodor Marphissa said she knew the message was authentic, and not a Syndicate trick, because of a code phrase it contained. A code phrase that she said President Iceni had provided to a few trusted people to use in emergencies.” Drakon leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he looked at Iceni. “Your Kommodor thought I was the one who had sent the message with the special code phrase in it. Only, I didn’t.”

  Iceni managed not to reveal her feelings. Damn. This is going to be awkward. And right after I protested against him suspecting me of anything. “Really? Who did?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d like to know.”

  She sighed and held up both hands in mock surrender. “Colonel Malin. It must have been him. I had, purely as an emergency measure, given him one of the code phrases.”

  “Why Colonel Malin instead of me?” Drakon asked. He sounded and looked curious, not angry, but that meant nothing. When he really wanted to, the man could hide his true feelings as well as any CEO.

  “I could lie—” Iceni began.

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  That had come out with more force than Drakon had probably intended, Iceni thought. “—but I’ll tell you the truth,” she continued smoothly. “I wanted a backup. I knew that Kommodor Marphissa would accept something that she knew was from you. But you were going into battle. Something might have happened to you. I wanted Colonel Malin to have a means of letting the Kommodor know that he could be trusted.”

  Drakon studied her, looking perplexed. “You trust Colonel Malin? When did that happen?”

  “Over time,” Iceni replied with a shrug.

  “Even aft
er you found out he was Morgan’s son and had kept that information from me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know what the hell to think of that.”

  Iceni met his eyes. She didn’t have to pretend to be speaking the truth as she continued. “Artur, I felt confident that Colonel Malin would not betray you. If Colonel Rogero had been going along, I would have given him the code phrase, but he stayed here. It was about ensuring that Kommodor Marphissa would know when a critical message was authentic, and it worked as intended. Without that code phrase, she could not have learned the situation on the ground in time to intervene as she did.”

  Blowing out a long breath, Drakon sat back again, his eyes hard. “I would have preferred knowing. As it is, even though it indeed worked very well, it feels like a measure taken not as insurance for me but insurance against me.”

  “That’s not true.” Iceni surprised herself with the heat of her reply. “It was not based on any fear of you, or distrust of you. But I thought if you knew Colonel Malin had the code phrase, it would cause you to distrust him, or anyone else with such a phrase.”

  Drakon nodded. “That’s probably right. I know you didn’t trust Conner Gaiene.”

  She looked away, distressed. “I am very sorry that he died, Artur. He was not my favorite man, but his death ennobled him.”

  “Conner was always that noble man inside. He had just gotten very good at hiding it,” Drakon said, his voice heavy. “You and Colonel Kai haven’t interacted much, that I know of—”

  “We haven’t,” Iceni said.

  “So it makes sense that you would have entrusted Malin with that code phrase.” He looked straight at her again. “But I would very much not want to have that sort of thing happen again without my knowledge.”

  She could tell that Colonel Malin would have some pointed questions directed at him when Drakon got back to his headquarters. If Drakon stopped trusting Malin at all, it would greatly lessen his effectiveness as a source of information for her. “I should also tell you that Colonel Malin thought you were already aware of the arrangement.”

  Drakon paused, searching her face. “You misled him as well?”

  “That’s what we do, isn’t it?” She had been hoping for more openness with Drakon, for a lowering of barriers, but he obviously had plenty of defenses up, so she could scarcely afford to lower hers. “But I will not take such actions again.”

  He took several seconds to answer, then spoke with care. “There are forces working to keep us distrustful of each other. We can’t afford to let them succeed.”

  “Forces?” Iceni asked. “Do you mean the Syndicate?”

  “Certainly the Syndicate. Divide and conquer is an old CEO tactic. But maybe your assistant Togo as well. And maybe . . .” He gave her a look that carried an admission of his own failure. “Maybe that’s part of what Colonel Morgan wanted.”

  Iceni’s smile was hard and cold. “I don’t know about you, but I hate being yanked around on anyone’s strings.”

  “I never cared for it, either.”

  “Then let’s move forward,” she said. “We can’t lose sight of the fact that we did win both here and at Ulindi.”

  He nodded to her. “Or the fact that we won at Ulindi because you sent the battleship there.”

  “Oh, hell, Artur, that battleship could have done nothing but avenge you if you hadn’t saved yourself and your soldiers.” She looked back at the star display. “Speaking of being yanked around, have you been told the message the Dancers sent to us?”

  “Colonel Rogero passed it on,” Drakon said. “Watch the different stars. Do we have any idea what that means?”

  “I talked to our astrophysicists,” Iceni said, “and according to them, all stars are different. No two stars are identical.”

  “Why would the Dancers tell us to watch all stars? And if they wanted us to do that, why wouldn’t they say watch all the stars? What is it the Dancers expect us to do?”

  Iceni smiled humorlessly, leaning back in her seat. “Or, what is it the Dancers are trying to manipulate us into doing? I get the impression that the Alliance is taking the Dancers at their words, as if they are completely sincere, truthful, and guileless.”

  Drakon raised both eyebrows. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Whereas you and I know that no one, no matter their external shape, is completely sincere, truthful, and guileless. The Dancers have an agenda. They want us to do certain things, which may be to our benefit, or may be to the benefit of the Dancers.”

  “They did save this planet,” Drakon pointed out.

  “Agreed. Which would give them every right to express their wishes openly to us because we owe them payment for that debt. Instead, they offer vague warnings.”

  Drakon shook his head, looking stubborn. “That doesn’t make sense. It’s hard enough to make people do what you want when you directly tell them what you want. Trying to manipulate them with vague statements is likely to make them do the opposite of what you want.”

  “Maybe the Dancers don’t realize that. Maybe they’re using a tactic that works with Dancers.”

  “Maybe.” Drakon eyed the star display, rubbing his chin as he thought. “Let’s assume that for whatever reason, the Dancers think that message is useful. Different stars. All right. I spent a lot of time in the Syndicate ground forces as opposed to the government or industry branches. To me, watch is a cautionary word. It means you’re looking for danger, or guarding something.”

  She sat forward. “Then the Dancers would be telling us to guard or be on guard somewhere? That’s nothing we don’t already know.”

  “Somewhere different,” Drakon said. “Which would mean not the usual places, or the places we’re already doing that.”

  Iceni indicated the star display. “We’ve had a couple of enigma ships show up at the jump point from Pele while you were gone. They appear, turn, and jump back to Pele.”

  “Scouts,” Drakon said. “We saw one right after we got back.”

  “Yes. Keeping an eye on us and what we’re doing. The first one showed up while there were only a few cruisers and Hunter-Killers here, plus our battle cruiser Pele. That worried me that the enigmas would launch an attack as soon as possible, having seen our relative weakness. But the second enigma ship showed up after you and the Midway had returned.”

  “So they saw we have some teeth,” Drakon said. “But the Dancers must have known we are already watching the jump point from Pele. That can’t be what they were talking about.” He paused. “A warning to watch different stars. It has to be related to the enigmas, not the Syndicate. The only place we know of that the enigmas can access human space is through Pele, then here at Midway. Were the Dancers telling us to worry about the enigmas being able to reach other stars? Different stars than Midway?”

  Iceni gave him a startled look. “That is plausible. Black Jack gave us some star charts showing enigma territory.” Inwardly cursing Togo’s absence, which meant he wasn’t here to do this, Iceni played with the display’s controls until it zoomed out and framed a wide region of space. “There. This is the picture Black Jack’s fleet put together from actually traversing part of enigma space and from what they could get out of the Dancers.”

  Drakon studied the star chart, shaking his head. “If that chart is complete, then Pele is all the enigmas can reach for a long way using jump drives. They could go scores of light-years up, down, right, or left and find other access points to human-occupied space, if there’s nothing blocking them from going those directions, but nothing else near here. And it also matches our experience since the Syndicate boundaries got pushed back from Pele. The only place that has shown evidence of enigma activity since then is here at Midway.”

  What had she been told about jump drives? Iceni frowned, thinking, then nodded. “Captain Bradamont told me something, confirming what I had seen in a Syndicate intelligence report. Do you remember when Black Jack’s fleet hit Sancere?”

 
“Not really. That was a big Syndicate shipbuilding star system, right?”

  “Yes,” Iceni confirmed. “The thing is, Black Jack’s fleet shouldn’t have been able to reach Sancere from the star system where they entered jump space. But he knew some tricks, from the old days, that allowed the range of the jump drives to be extended a bit. The Syndicate had guessed that was what he had done, and Bradamont confirmed it for me.”

  Drakon gazed at the star display again, plainly reevaluating his earlier assessment. “If the enigmas can jump farther than we think, far enough to access human space from other stars, why haven’t they done it already?”

  “Maybe they’re trying to figure out how to do it. But how would the Dancers have learned of that?” She glared at the glittering stars on the display in frustration. “Every question we have just leads to more questions.”

  “One thing I do know,” Drakon said. “Speaking in military terms. When you hit an obstacle, there are two approaches you can try. The first is to keep hitting it, trying to break through it. That happens a lot. The other approach is to go around it, to try to find some way of bypassing the obstacle. I don’t care how enigmas or Dancers think. Those are basic realities. The enigmas have tried going through Midway twice, and they’ve been thrown back twice. That’s another reality. So, either they keep trying to push into human space through Midway, or they try to find a way around us.”

  “A different star?” Iceni chewed her lower lip as she looked at the star display. “It doesn’t help much, does it? If we don’t have a range to work with, any human star could potentially be within range of the enigma jump drives. Which ones are the different ones that we’re supposed to watch?”

  “Maybe the astrophysicists can give us some clues,” Drakon suggested.

  “Maybe they can. I’ll tell them to get together with our best jump-drive technicians.” Iceni smiled. “It will drive them crazy. Theoretical physicists hate dealing with engineers.”

  “And vice versa,” Drakon pointed out.

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