Imperfect Sword

Chapter Ten

“We have to do something,” Kommodor Marphissa said. “Is there any way we can hit any of the escorts around Happy Hua’s battleship and still screen the surviving freighters?”

Manticore’s displays showed the expanding balls of wreckage that marked the ends of two of the freighters. As Marphissa had feared, Hua had let some of her escorts swing out far enough from the battleship to destroy the escape pods that the freighters’ crews had used in futile attempts to escape.

And she could still do nothing.

“Kommodor,” a message came in from Defender. “We have received a broken transmission from General Drakon. As best we can determine, he is asking us to immediately open fire on the enemy ground forces positions nearest his own soldiers. We have been holding back from firing our hell lances in order to save them for any further rocket barrages, aerospace craft attacks, or cruise missiles. Request instructions.”

Marphissa checked the distance. Manticore and Gryphon, in their futile attempts to screen the freighters and inflict some damage on Haris’s heavy cruiser, had moved about a light-minute sunward of the inhabited planet. Defender’s message was a minute old. The delay was bad, but not horrible.

She hit the reply command. “Follow General Drakon’s request and open fire on those ground forces positions. Do so as soon as you receive this message. Hit the ground positions as many times as you can before your hell lances overheat.”

Diaz was staring at his display. “Drakon must need that support very badly. But there’s nothing else we can do.”

“Maybe we should give up on trying to protect the freighters,” Marphissa grumbled. “All that we are doing is delaying the inevitable. Maybe if we all head back to the inhabited world and concentrate our fire on the enemy ground forces, we can help General Drakon.”

“But…” Diaz clenched his hands into two fists. “Maybe we should. We can’t save the freighters.”

Marphissa looked to where Hawk and Eagle were trying once more to come to grips with Haris’s light cruiser, which was once again dancing out of reach.

She reached for her comm control, but paused, wincing, as another alert sounded.

Another ship had arrived at Ulindi hours ago. And she did not expect any reinforcements, so it was probably more bad news.

Drakon glanced upward at the overhead that bounced and shuddered continuously. The base command center was buried under armor and rock, above it other subsurface rooms also protected by armor and rock, and above them the surface where a variety of buildings had once stood. Those buildings were now piles of rubble that splintered and flew under the hammerblows of the artillery barrage flaying the former enemy base.

Fine dust shifted down onto Drakon and the other soldiers in the command center. The emergency lighting didn’t waver, though, and the displays remained bright and steady. The base’s power plant was buried deeper than anything else, invulnerable to anything short of a massive orbital bombardment.

“They’re not scoring many direct hits on the outer fortifications,” Malin reported. “Their global-satellite positioning arrays were taken out by the Midway warships before we landed, and all of the chaff and dust in the atmosphere near here is interfering with direct targeting systems, so their accuracy is far from precise.”

“They’re getting some hits, though,” Drakon said. Most of his soldiers were huddled in the blast bunkers near the outer defenses of the base, riding out the barrage in as much safety as possible. “If they were dropping rocks on us from orbit, we’d all be chewing dirt right now.”

“The Kommodor must be keeping the enemy warships occupied.”

“If she doesn’t continue to keep that battleship occupied, it will drop a world of hurt on us. We can’t disperse over the surface as I’d hoped while we’re penned in here by those Syndicate ground forces out there.” Drakon turned as a prisoner was escorted up to him.

The prisoner saluted in the Syndicate fashion, right fist coming across to rest on the left breast. “Sub-CEO Princip.”

Drakon ran his gaze over the man’s precisely tailored suit. “Why weren’t you in battle armor when you were captured, Sub-CEO Princip?”

Princip gave Drakon a disdainful look even though he couldn’t hide his nervousness as the ground shook from more impacts above them. “I am not a front-line worker. I am a high-level manager.”

“No, you’re a waste of resources,” Drakon said, leaning closer, menacing in his own battle armor, his blank faceplate a few centimeters from Princip’s sweating forehead. “I want a full accounting of snakes in this base, and I want it now, or I am going to give you an escort up to the surface, where you can personally evaluate the effectiveness of the artillery striking this base.”

“I—I—I don’t have—”

“Get rid of him,” Drakon told Malin, turning away.

“Finley would know! Finley is the senior snake here! Get her!”

Malin nodded, smiling. “We have an Executive First Rank Finley among our prisoners. A logistics executive, she claimed.”

“Get her and find out what she knows. We’re getting hit hard from the outside, we’re about to get hit harder, and we don’t need any hits from the inside.”

“What about the sub-CEO?”

A thought of Conner Gaiene crossed Drakon’s mind, along with a temptation to order Sub-CEO Princip disposed of. But Conner hadn’t liked that sort of thing, and neither had his much-longer-dead wife Lara. “Put him with the other prisoners.”

“I am a sub-CEO!” Princip protested. “I should—”

“Shut up while you’re ahead,” the senior soldier among his guards cheerfully informed Princip. “General Drakon is already treating you a whole lot nicer than you deserve. Get going.”

Cringing as well as outraged to be talked to that way by a mere worker, Princip left the command center under the prodding of the barrels of weapons. Drakon knew his soldiers would not disobey him by killing Princip, but he suspected that the sub-CEO would “accidentally fall down the stairs” at least once on the way back to the other prisoners.

A medic came into the command center, attention focused on her helmet display. “Who needs a patch and a pill? You.”

She rapidly applied a combat wound patch to a soldier’s arm, pushed three tablets into the soldier’s mouth, then, with another look at her display, began to leave.

“Medical specialist,” Drakon said.

“Do you need—?” Her eyes focused on him, and she went to attention, saluting. “I’m sorry, General, I didn’t—”

“Never apologize for doing your job,” Drakon said. “Were you one of those out in the open bringing in the casualties?”

“We all were, sir.”

“Pass the word around that I told you how much I admire all of you medical personnel for doing your best to save our wounded while under enemy fire.”

“Yes, sir.” The medic sounded a bit confused as well as very tired. “That’s our job, sir. Our responsibility.”

“You do it well. All of you. Thank you. I’ll make a formal announcement to everyone when this is all over.”

“Uh… yes, sir.” The medic left, heading for the next soldier who her display indicated needed help.

Drakon sensed the next event a second before his display alerted him. “The barrage is lifting.”

Malin nodded, his hands moving rapidly over his display. “Colonels Kai and Safir are ordering their soldiers out of the blast bunkers and into the outer fortifications. Surviving base automated defenses are already engaging attackers.”

“They sent the first wave in too close to the barrage,” Drakon said with disgust. In an attempt to catch the defenders still in their blast bunkers, the initial attacks had gone in while the barrage was still under way. That was risky enough when precision guidance was ensuring the artillery fell pretty close to exactly where intended. With precision guidance on the artillery badly impaired, it was too risky for any commander who cared about their soldiers.

But, then, the commander of the Syndicate forces was a Syndicate CEO, and to him or her, the soldiers were workers, faceless creatures whose fates did not matter.

Heavy artillery or rocket rounds falling short of the base ravaged the front ranks of the attackers. As the survivors staggered out of the blasts, no longer screened by chaff clouds this close to the base, a wall of fire from the base’s defenses and Drakon’s soldiers hit them and wiped them out.

No one cheered. Like Drakon, many of them had been sent on similar attacks in the past while still under command of the Syndicate, lucky enough to survive and knowing too well how it felt.

Enemy warbirds darted closer through the skies overhead, continuously testing the base’s antiair defenses and preventing any of those weapons from shifting to engage ground targets.

Another wave of enemy soldiers erupted out of the murk, going all out. “Colonel Safir is reinforcing sector six with her reserve company,” Malin reported. A single drop of sweat trickled down his face, clearing a meandering path through the dust. “She’s going to need more.”

“We haven’t got more,” Drakon said, eyeing the disposition of his soldiers through the base. “They want us to short Kai’s forces because they’re going to hit there next.”

Malin, his voice calm, pointed. “We have a lot of soldiers tied up watching the prisoners.”

“No. I will not murder the prisoners to free up those soldiers.”

“General, this is a matter of pragmatics,” Malin argued. “If we do not survive, if you do not survive, all we have fought for will be lost.”

Drakon shook his head. “You miss the point, Bran. If I start doing whatever I think needs to be done purely on a pragmatic basis, then I’ve already lost.”

“I can give the order.”

“Outsourcing murder doesn’t outsource the responsibility,” Drakon said. “I want you to evaluate each prisoner holding location and reduce the guards to the minimum number. If we can seal off the entrances to a location and just post guards on each entrance, that will do. See how many we can free up.”

Malin hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, sir.” He bent over the display, eyes intent, hands once more moving rapidly.

Drakon opened a window to see the view from Safir’s armor, immediately giving him front-line perspective again. Safir was moving through the defensive strong points in her brigade’s sectors, personally checking on the soldiers and bolstering their morale. As Drakon watched, Safir’s weapon came up and she joined with a platoon pouring fire at a wedge of attackers charging one of the strongpoints. The wedge shattered under the blows, Syndicate soldiers falling back or going to ground, but another wave came through right behind them.

“How does it look?” Drakon asked Safir.

“Ugly, General,” Safir replied, aiming and firing as she answered. “Wait one. Tanaka! Pull a squad from Badeu’s platoon and shift it ten meters to the left! Here, where I’m designating. Got it? General, they’re breaching the perimeter in spots. We’re sealing every penetration so far, but I’m running out of assets, and ammunition is getting low in many units.”

Drakon looked at Malin, who had straightened up. “Two platoons,” he told Drakon.

“Load them up with ammo from the base stockpiles and send them to Safir. Colonel Safir, I’ve got two platoons with ammo resupply on the way to you. Put them where you need them.”

“Thank you, sir!”

Malin was watching his display. “The Syndicate forces should hit Colonel Kai any second now.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Standard tactics, trying to get the opponent to shift forces to counter a major assault, then hitting the weakened areas with assaults at least as powerful. Alerts sounded at sector two. “There they are.”

“Kai will hold them if anyone can,” Malin said.

“I know. He’s my rock.” Others had complained about Kai’s slowness, his careful evaluation of aspects before making decisions, his caution on the attack. But, on the defense, Kai would not be moved. “Colonel Kai, let me know if you need anything.”

The view from Kai’s armor showed a mass of Syndicate soldiers coming into view, the attack wide enough to cover most of the second sector’s frontage. “We might need some more ammunition,” Kai said judiciously. “This is a very target-rich environment, General. I’ll let you know if any problems develop.”

Kai’s soldiers and the remaining base defensive weaponry in sector two opened up, tearing holes in the attacking ranks.

Malin was watching, too, and now shook his head. “We need to be prepared to fall back on inner defenses, General. Kai simply doesn’t have the firepower to stop that heavy an assault. The Syndicate commander is sending them in without regard to losses.”

Drakon checked Safir’s status, seeing that her brigade was still being heavily pressed and that no forces could be shifted from her to help Kai. “Set up a plan for the fallback. What are our odds if we have to abandon the outer fortifications?”

“Poor,” Malin said.

“Do the best you can.” Drakon watched the wave of Syndicate troops lapping against Kai’s positions, masses of more attackers crossing the open area behind, saw the ammo status of Kai’s troops dropping far too rapidly, and knew the line would fall within minutes. “Get it done fast.”

He barely had time to notice the alert on his display before several massive explosions erupted outside the base, tearing huge gaps in the forces attacking sector two. The entire base trembled as the shocks rolled through the planet’s upper layers like minor earthquakes.

Malin’s mouth had fallen open in surprise. He shut it with an audible snap. “Orbital bombardment. Kommodor Marphissa must have saved a few bombardment projectiles, General, and managed to get her ships back overhead despite the enemy warships.”

The attack against Kai’s brigade had been shattered, the Syndicate attackers closest to the base suddenly isolated and panicking, breaking off the fight and fleeing into the newly spawned craters where the bombardment projectiles had fallen. Kai’s forces kept firing as long as they had targets, riddling the retreating enemy ranks.

Drakon checked with Safir, seeing the Syndicate attackers falling back there, as well. “I think they’re worried there may be more rocks falling,” Safir announced with glee.

“There probably aren’t,” Drakon said. “Our warships probably just shot their last load. But that one barrage hurt the Syndicate badly.”

“Their CEO has been throwing their lives away to keep the pressure on us,” Safir said. “Unless they’ve got another division in the rear, they’re not going to be able to keep that up.”

“Yeah,” Drakon agreed. “It almost worked, but after the losses they sustained, they’re going to have a hard time hitting us that hard at multiple points again.”

Maybe, just maybe, the situation had swung from hopeless to not-quite-hopeless.

Assuming that Kommodor Marphissa had figured out how to handle that Syndicate battleship.

Marphissa felt a sudden surge of hope as she realized that the new ship had arrived at the jump point from Midway.

It was a big ship.

Pele. It must be the battle cruiser. Pele wouldn’t even the odds, but it would give them more of a chance. “I don’t believe it!” Marphissa cried out loud. “Thank you, Madam President! How could she have known?”

Kapitan Diaz was staring at his own display. “It’s not Pele.”

“What? How can it not be Pele? That’s too big to be anything but—” Marphissa couldn’t say anything else for a moment as Manticore’s sensors produced a unit identification for the new ship. “It’s the Midway.”

Marphissa could hear the bridge crew unsuccessfully trying to suppress cries of joy. Diaz was grinning like a fool. “Our battleship. This more than evens the odds!” Diaz said.

Had they forgotten that Midway’s weapons were still being fitted, activated, and integrated? Would a bluff work again, on the attack? Marphissa was about to dump cold water on the enthusiasm when Midway’s status feed arrived. “Do you see that?” she asked Diaz, amazed. “Look at her status!”

“They’ve got almost all the main armament operational,” Diaz said, still grinning.

“How did they—? How did President Iceni know we would need her? Is it for real?”

Diaz indicated his display. “The weapon status is on the classified feed. Kapitan Mercia would try to fool the enemy with false appearances, but she wouldn’t be sending us that information unless it was true.”

“I knew they were getting close to integrating the weapons into the combat systems and bringing the whole thing online, but she must have really cracked the whip to get them that far that fast.”

On the heels of the light showing the arrival of the Midway came a message addressed to Marphissa.

“Greetings, Kommodor,” Freya Mercia said. She was seated on the expansive bridge of the battleship, looking gratifyingly confident and composed. “It appears that we got here in time. I will be proceeding at my best speed in-system toward the main inhabited world until I receive other instructions. President Iceni had concerns about our warships and about General Drakon’s ground forces, and I can see those concerns were more than justified. I await your orders, and assure you that Midway is ready to strike the enemy and avenge the citizens of Kane.”

The view of Kapitan Mercia panned slightly to one side, revealing another figure in the seat next to her, a woman wearing a very different uniform. “We have also brought Captain Bradamont along. She knows a few things about fighting Syndicate battleships, after all. Please inform CEO Boucher for me that this star system will be her graveyard. For the people, Mercia, out.”

Marphissa pointed at Diaz. “Kapitan, give me a vector to get Manticore and Gryphon back to the planet and over General Drakon’s troops again. I’ll order Hawk and Eagle to join up with us there. If I know CEO Boucher, she’s going to stop worrying about the freighters, collect Haris’s two cruisers, and head for an intercept with the Midway.” She straightened, adjusted her uniform, put on her best command face, then touched her comm controls. “Kapitan Mercia, Captain Bradamont, we are very happy to see you. Remain in your current vector. I expect CEO Boucher to alter vector to attack you. We will give the ground forces what remaining support we can, then head to meet up with Midway before you encounter the Syndicate flotilla. For the people, Marphissa, out.”

“Kommodor,” Diaz said after she ended the transmission, “Happy Hua might decide to strike at General Drakon before heading to attack the Midway.”

“No, she will not.” Marphissa turned a fierce look on Diaz. “The Syndicate was waiting for us here. They knew a lot about our plans and our forces. They will have told CEO Boucher that the Midway’s weapons are still not operational, and using Syndicate standards, Hua will feel safe in assuming those weapons could not possibly have been brought to operational status in this short a time. She will be furious that Midway’s bluff chased her from Midway Star System last time. She will want to counter what she believes to be another bluff. Happy Hua’s priority will be to catch and destroy Midway before she can escape from Ulindi.”

Diaz smiled. “Hua is going to close her hand on a bear trap.”

“And we’re going to be there when she does. But first, we’re going to give the ground forces what support we have left.” Marphissa called up an image of the last-known status of the ground forces. “Are they still in the buildings or have they taken the base? We can’t drop a bombardment if we don’t know. Have your comm people try to get in contact with the ground forces.”

“Get on it,” Diaz ordered the bridge comm specialist. “Tell comms I want to punch through to the ground forces.”

“Yes, Kapitan,” she replied. “There is still a lot of jamming and other interference, and the ground forces’ transmitters are relatively weak. But we will do it if it can be done.”

Diaz leaned back, looking pensive as he gazed at his display. “I worked for a sub-CEO once who would have told me to do it even if it couldn’t be done.”

“I worked for one like that, too,” Marphissa said. “Three like that. At least we’re closing on the ground forces’ locations. Maybe when we get close enough, we can talk to someone.”

“Half an hour until we should be in orbit directly over the ground forces,” Diaz said.

Marphissa stirred, touching a comm control. “Sentinel, have you or other Hunter-Killers been able to monitor activity on the surface?”

Sentinel’s reply took almost six minutes. “Negative, Kommodor. We have seen fighting and figures moving, but our ability to see through all of the smoke and chaff is pretty low. All we can tell you for certain is that fighting is still under way around the base.”

Marphissa waved away the virtual window showing Sentinel’s commanding officer. Asking the Hunter-Killers had been a long shot. They were small, they had relatively limited and weak sensors compared to those on larger warships, and as Sentinel had said, there was so much junk in the atmosphere that seeing what was going on at the level of detail necessary to distinguish between Midway soldiers in Syndicate battle armor and Syndicate soldiers in Syndicate battle armor would have required a miraculous level of luck.

“Kommodor,” Senior Specialist Czilla announced. “We have firm tracks on both of Haris’s cruisers.”

Marphissa checked that portion of her display, smiling as she saw that the vectors for both cruisers were heading to an intercept with the Syndicate flotilla. We walked into your trap, Happy Hua. Now you are doing what we expect and what we want, and the trap will spring on you.

“Kommodor,” the comm specialist said, “we do not know whether any of our messages have reached General Drakon’s forces, but we have just received a text-only message for you from the planet. Our ground forces must have gained access to a more powerful transmitter, but it appears text-only is all they can get through the jamming that Haris’s forces are maintaining.”

“What does it say?” Marphissa asked, resting her chin in one hand while she gazed at the old depiction of the ground situation.

“Have taken enemy base,” the comm specialist recited. “Drakon forces now inside base. Under heavy attack from estimated division-strength Syndicate ground forces outside base. Request any assistance possible.”

Diaz shook his head. “How can we believe that? Haris could have sent it, trying to fool us into bombarding Drakon. What if it is our own ground forces that are still outside, attacking Haris’s forces inside the base?”

“That’s a very good point,” Marphissa said, frowning. “Every text message looks the same, no matter who sent it. How can we tell one side from the other when we’re looking down at a ground battle from orbit, and both sides are wearing the same battle armor? Is that the entire message?” she demanded of the comm specialist. “Was there anything else?”

“Just a section at the end that must have gotten garbled, Kommodor,” the comm specialist replied.

“What does it say?”

“It says… wash your sins away in the tide. That’s what it says, Kommodor. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Wash—?” Marphissa sat straight. “Show it to me. Show me the entire text message.”

A window popped into existence next to her, the lines of text marching across it. There at the end was the phrase the comm specialist had repeated. “Wash your sins away in the tide,” Marphissa repeated out loud, smiling with relief.

“Does that mean something?” Diaz asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means, Kapitan, that whoever sent that text message is a person entrusted by President Iceni with certain phrases that allow other trusted people to recognize them. President Iceni trusted the person who sent this text message enough to give them that phrase. I will believe that the message is true.”

“But what if Haris learned the phrase?” Diaz objected.

“If that is true, if he knows that much, then we are lost,” Marphissa said.

“But… the message claims they are under attack from an entire division of Syndicate ground forces that we didn’t know were there? An entire division?” Diaz asked.

“You would make a very bad yes-man,” Marphissa said. “That’s one of the things I like about you as a Kapitan, but don’t take it too far. Think about it, and it makes sense. That Syndicate division is the ground forces equivalent of the Syndicate battleship that was hidden, waiting for us in space. I don’t know how they managed it, but it’s a classic snake trick. Let someone think they have the upper hand, let someone believe that they are in control, and then when they have stuck their necks out, bring the axe down.”

“That’s right,” Diaz said. “So we assume that General Drakon’s forces are inside the base?”

“Yes.” She turned to look at the comm specialist. “See if you can get a message back down to them. I want to—” The comm specialist got a look that caused Marphissa to stop speaking. “What is it?”

“Another text-only, Kommodor, but only partial. Barrage incoming. Require assis— And then nothing.”

“Does that make sense?” Diaz asked Marphissa.

“Yes, it does,” Marphissa replied. “I talked about this once with someone who had encountered it. Transmitters at fortified bases are buried beneath the surface so they won’t be destroyed, but in order to send a message, they require antenna links leading up to the surface. Barrages that destroy objects on the surface will break the links, so that even though the transmitter still works, it cannot get a signal through the rock above it.”

“Is that what happens?” Diaz asked. “I never thought about that.”

“Of course not! Up here, we never have to deal with that problem unless we’re trying to send a message straight through a planet, and how often does a planet block our line of sight to another ship or planet without any other ships or objects to relay the transmission?” Marphissa jerked her chin at her display. “That’s how they tricked us here. We’re used to seeing everything that’s out there, being able to talk to anything. We don’t think in terms of hidden enemies or obstacles, not unless we’re really close to a planet.”

“I can promise you,” Diaz said, “that I will be thinking much more about those things from now on.”

“You and me both.” Marphissa switched her attention back to the image of the captured enemy base and the area around it. “As soon as we can spot targets, we’ll plan the bombardment. We don’t have many bombardment projectiles left, but maybe we’ll find something worth taking a shot at.”

They were five minutes out from the planet when the combined data from the sensors on the Hunter-Killers and Marphissa’s cruisers finally produced a partial but ugly picture. “Lots of ground forces in the open, here and here,” Diaz noted.

“Yes. It looks like a lot more on this side, though. All of the other areas around the base have some soldiers, but they’re spread out.” Marphissa reached out, touching several spots not far from the base where the masses of enemy soldiers were heading. What if I am wrong? What if those are Drakon’s soldiers, making a last-ditch attempt to take the base? But there are so many of them.

Look how many are dying. I can see them, even from this far away, the masses surging against the obstacle of the fortifications and dying. Honore Bradamont told me that General Drakon doesn’t do that. He doesn’t waste the lives of his people in human-wave attacks.

It is a Syndicate mind that is ordering those attacks.

They are the enemy.

Marphissa touched the commands that turned her indicated points into targets for bombardment, using the six projectiles remaining. Only six, but they would cause tremendous damage where they hit. She paused, taking one last second to ensure she really wanted to do this, then touched the commands to authorize the bombardment and for it to launch automatically when her cruisers reached the right point. “Give me a vector to join up with Midway,” she told Diaz. “We’ll move onto it as soon as the bombardment launches.”

Two more messages to send. “General Drakon, I don’t know if you will hear this, but please accept this close-bombardment support with the compliments of the mobile forces.”

And, finally, “Sentry, Sentinel, Scout, Defender, you are to join up with the main formation as we swing by the planet. Take up your assigned positions in box formation one.

“We have a battleship to destroy.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Iceni’s tone could have sliced through solid diamond, but of course the image of Kapitan Kontos before her did not flinch. Kontos was light-hours distant and this message had been sent hours ago.

“Watch the different stars,” Kontos repeated, as if he were responding to her question even though he couldn’t have heard it for hours yet. He must have known that Iceni would want the message restated. “The Dancers sent us that message, marked for the symmetries of this star system. I believe that is intended to mean you and General Drakon, since you are the two governing leaders here. That was the entire message.

“We have not yet heard anything from Black Jack’s force. I await your orders. For the people, Kontos, out.”

As Kontos’s image disappeared, Iceni looked at the virtual windows providing views of the many places where restive citizens were still gathered, waiting for either something that would calm them or the trigger that would cause them to explode. She had kept the police in their stations and their substations, guessing that with all forms of communication media shut down and no other stimuli provoking them, the citizens would mill about indecisively.

But that state of affairs could not last. She had to defuse the citizens. As soon as she heard from Colonel Rogero that his preparations were complete, she would find out whether or not Rogero’s gamble would work. If it didn’t work… well, Rogero had already said it. There wouldn’t be any way to try anything else except huddling inside fortified areas and waiting for the rioting to burn itself out.

Gwen Iceni had a lot of practice at hiding her true feelings and projecting what her audience wanted to see. That was a necessary survival tool in the Syndicate, where most superiors did not care if they were being lied to as long as the lies were the ones those superiors wanted to see and hear. It was also a very important skill to use with the workers, who would believe the lies because the lies held the only hope the workers could have, and the workers needed hope, even false hope, to continue on day after day.

Now, despite the anxiety she felt and her anger at those who had engineered these crises facing her, despite her worries about the fate of the forces sent to Ulindi and in particular (admit it to yourself, Gwen, even if you never will to him) worries about the fate of Artur Drakon, Iceni presented an image of calm confidence as she touched the command to transmit a message to Black Jack. “Admiral Geary, my friend, I am hoping it is you who have returned to this star system.” Even though you haven’t contacted me yet. Are you waiting to see what I do about the mobs? “We are currently undergoing some minor domestic disturbances, which I regret to say are occupying my full attention. General Drakon is at Ulindi, assisting the people there in throwing off the chains of the Syndicate. You will be pleased to hear that your Captain Bradamont has proven to be an exceptionally valuable resource in our attempts to both defend this star system and to create a more stable system of governance for it. I regret that she is currently aboard our battleship Midway, which is also at Ulindi, and cannot speak to you directly. I assure you that she is both safe and highly respected by the officers and specialists of our military forces.

“From what I can see, it appears that the aliens called the Dancers are returning home. I would appreciate confirmation of this.” I hate begging. Why did you make me ask, Black Jack? I suppose you’re just reminding me how much power you have compared to me. “They sent us a message directly. Watch the different stars. We have no idea what that means.” Would Black Jack? When last here, he had claimed to have only basic communication with the alien minds of the Dancers, but perhaps in the time since then, some breakthroughs had occurred.

“I am certain that our current domestic disturbances are the work of foreign agents.” And perhaps some local sources. But who are they? “I will be focusing my efforts on calming the situation here without resorting to Syndicate methods.” Those methods are no longer available to me even if I wanted to use them, but I might as well present the whole mess in the best possible light.

“Please advise me of your plans. I remain your friend and ally, President Iceni.” Don’t make me crawl! You need me, too, whether you realize it or not! “For the people. Out.”

It would take nearly eight hours to receive a reply if Black Jack sent one. Space is too damned big, Iceni thought. Where is—?

A special tone sounded on her comm system. Iceni’s hand darted out to touch the receive command and watched Colonel Rogero’s image appear once more. He was in a clean uniform now, but his sidearm holster was empty. “The ground forces have been briefed and prepared, Madam President. Everyone fully understands what the risks are, what we are to do, and what must not be done. We are ready.”

“Why are you unarmed, Colonel?” Iceni asked.

“I will go out there with my soldiers.”

“There has already been one recent attempt to assassinate you, Colonel. Did something about the event cause it to not register on your mind? Were the explosions too small?”

Rogero smiled in the face of her wrath. “I understand the risk, Madam President. I do have a concealed weapon. But I believe it is critically important that I go out there with my men and women, and I cannot look as if I am threatening my own soldiers by being armed when they are not.”

“Colonel Rogero,” Iceni said in her most even voice, “you do realize that, if our fears regarding Ulindi come true, you may be the senior surviving ground forces officer? That the future security of Midway Star System may already be dependent on your survival and your steady hand?”

This time, Rogero hesitated a moment before replying. “Madam President, I would not be going out there if I did not believe it was absolutely necessary to ensure that Midway has a future. There is an old saying that he who will not risk cannot win. I am certain that applies here.”

“What about me?” Iceni asked. “Will there be a requirement for me to risk in a similar fashion? Do you believe I should expose myself as well?”

Another moment of hesitation, then Rogero shook his head. “Not immediately. I would recommend waiting to see how things go when the ground forces deploy. Most of the soldiers are workers in the eyes of the citizens, and our officers are relatively junior supervisors. We all take orders. You, on the other hand, give orders. That’s how the citizens see it, so you represent the ultimate level of authority for them. If you decide that the situation remains in the balance despite our efforts, an open appearance from you at that time could make all the difference.”

“I agree,” Iceni said. “Make sure you do not die, Colonel Rogero. I shall be extremely upset with you if that happens.”

He grinned, accidentally revealing his own tension in the quickness and tightness of the expression. “I will keep that in mind, Madam President. We will move out in five minutes.”

“I will have media reactivated as you do so,” Iceni said. “I am assured that the worms and bots that previously prevented us from controlling what went out along media channels have now been deactivated, and we once again control all media.”

“Excellent,” Rogero said. “If anything we don’t want gets through despite that—”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that, Colonel. I asked my techs how many software engineers it would take to deactivate a bomb in the same room with them, and none of them seemed eager to learn the answer through experimental trials.”

“Well, that would be another hardware problem, wouldn’t it?” Rogero saluted, then nodded to her. “I will report in after this is over, Madam President.”

“See that you do.”

She checked her clothing. A nice suit, not the standard Syndicate CEO suit, which she had grown to loathe, but rather something that had no trace of the Syndicate to its cut and color. A suit that projected authority and power but not ruthlessness. Iceni took a good look at her hair and face. Neither was perfect, but that was all to the good. If the citizens needed to see her, they needed to see her as human, as one of them in some ways. Being a president had proven to be much more of a challenge than being an autocratic CEO, but she had already learned a lot.

Then she waited, watching the many virtual windows.

“Madam President? Should we open media broadcasts as scheduled?”

“Yes. Do it.”

She saw random patterns of reaction moving through the restive crowds as media access was restored, and citizens began searching for information.

The ground forces appeared. Not just Colonel Rogero’s, but all of the local soldiers as well.

None of them wore armor. None of them carried weapons. They wore their uniforms neatly, proudly, and walked with slow, confident strides as they marched in many small formations along the streets and toward the plazas and parks where the crowds were massed.

Iceni zoomed in some views, knowing that every media channel would be showing similar images. The citizens nearest the soldiers were watching them, instinctive fear and hostility toward the traditional enforcers of Syndicate control shading into bafflement at the lack of riot-suppression equipment.

The soldiers smiled and waved as they marched, small clusters of uniforms isolated amid the mobs. If the mobs turned on them, they would be swamped in moments.

There was Colonel Rogero, walking with some of his soldiers, looking as if he had not a care in the world.

“Everything is fine,” Iceni heard some of the soldiers saying.

“No problems,” from others.

“Do you need anything?”

“Is everyone all right?”

Iceni eyed the scenes, listened to the voices, watched various media channels showing actions and reactions. She let her instincts evaluate all of those things, let her next action be dictated not by cold calculation but by processes operating below the level of conscious thought. She had risen through the Syndicate ranks by reading people, by sensing their moods and their attitudes, and at the moment that particular skill told her something very important.

The efforts of Rogero’s ground forces weren’t enough. The crowds were still wavering, still uncertain. They knew the ground forces would be following orders, her orders, and if she was following the old Syndicate ways, she would not be worried about what would happen to those soldiers if everything went bad.

The people needed another push, another demonstration, one dramatic enough to finally tip the balance.

Iceni looked down, closed her eyes, centered herself internally on the calm, cool place inside where her emotional core lay.

She got up and walked out of her office.

Her bodyguards leaped into position around her as she walked, but Iceni waved them back. “Stay here.” She felt naked in her vulnerability, wondering once again what had happened to Togo, but kept walking with a firm, steady stride as the bodyguards stopped moving, obedient to her command but staring after her with uncomprehending eyes.

Iceni went up stairs and along passages until she reached the massive, formal front entrance to her governing complex, gesturing to the guards there to open the armored doors and stand aside.

There was a vast plaza before the building, and in that plaza a vast crowd.

She walked alone across the entry portico as media zoomed in on her, walked down the flight of granite stairs, and stood right before the edges of the crowd, only one step above their level, one woman facing a mass of humanity.

She wondered about assassins as she faced so many strangers with no bodyguards anywhere close to her. There had to be some trained killers on the planet, the same who had tried to murder Colonel Rogero. But such assassins were careful planners. They watched where their targets went and what their targets did, and they prepared with special diligence to kill under just the right circumstances, as they nearly had with Rogero.

Which assassin would have predicted this, that she would be here, in the open, where she never came?

For a while, at least, she must be safe from that threat, having done the unpredictable and the unthinkable.

All she had to worry about instead was the raw power of tens of thousands of citizens who could erupt at any moment.

Iceni smiled as the crowd fell silent. “Everything is all right,” she said, her words amplified through the plaza. “I wanted to tell you that in person. There is no danger threatening us at this moment. As you have seen, Colonel Rogero is alive and well, and I am alive and well. The ground forces are not fighting, our mobile forces protect us, and your elected officials remain free and able to fulfill the roles you chose them for. There is no danger to you from any of your leaders. Most especially not from me. I am your president.”

She waited. The thousands of people here stared at her in disbelief. Very few of them would have ever seen a star-system CEO in person, and if so then only through a screen of heavily armed bodyguards. Countless other citizens must be watching the media feeds with equal incredulity. Syndicate CEOs did not go out among their people, not openly, not without enough bodyguards to fight off a small army. Iceni had been a Syndicate CEO, and to many of the citizens, she had remained tainted by that.

One young woman, bolder than the others, finally found her voice. “Why are you here?” she called.

“Because,” Iceni said, making sure her voice carried effortlessly across the crowd, knowing that her words would be picked up and transmitted everywhere on the planet, “I am not afraid of you. And I do not want you to be afraid of me.”

It was perhaps the biggest lie she had ever spoken, and there had been some truly majestic lies spoken by her over time. Iceni was desperately afraid, her heart pounding as she smiled serenely at the huge mob almost within arm’s reach of her. The words of every mentor, every superior, every teacher, every companion of equal rank came back to her. They are dangerous, they must be kept leashed and controlled, you must never expose yourself to them, you must never appear vulnerable or small before them, you must beat and subdue and force them into submission because if they ever believe that they can change their fates or exact revenge, then you will be torn to pieces by them.

A hand reached out of the crowd toward her and it took all of Iceni’s discipline and strength to avoid flinching back from it. But the hand did not threaten, it just reached, and after a moment Iceni forced herself to reach back and gently grasp it. “Greetings, citizen,” she said in the same placid-but-carrying tone of voice.

She felt it then, as if by touching that hand she had thrown a stone into a pond, the ripples spreading out from that gesture, the smiles appearing and the tension evaporating. That was how it was with mobs. When they tipped, they went all out, and this mob had tipped not into violence and rage but into reassurance and celebration. She felt it and she knew it and her fear was suddenly charged with a strange exhilaration. “For the people!” Iceni cried, raising her hands, and the words came repeated back to her by the mass of humanity in the plaza, a roar of support and approval that terrified her with the immensity and the force of it, the sound echoing back from the structure behind her with what felt like enough power to rock her on her feet.

Steeling herself, Iceni walked another step toward the crowd, citizens pushing to be closer to her, but still maintaining a slight distance through force of habit, touching, cheering, waving.

The tiny comm device in her right ear murmured with Colonel Rogero’s voice. “Congratulations, Madam President. You did it. All areas are reporting that the crisis ended when media showed your appearance outside your residence. The crisis has turned into an enormous party. We’re going to make sure all of the liquor outlets and drug outlets stay closed, so the partying doesn’t get out of hand.”

Iceni kept smiling even though she wanted to collapse with relief, tried to control the rapid beating of her heart, tried not to let her awe of the power of the mass of humanity before her show in her eyes, as she touched and smiled and waved back.

She had them, she suddenly realized. She had all of their strength in her hands at that moment. They would do whatever she asked, not reluctantly out of coercion, but enthusiastically out of belief in her, putting their hearts and souls into the task. This was the power that the Syndicate feared, this was the power that the Alliance claimed to wield, and it was hers. She had been afraid of these people before, afraid of the power of the mob, but now that she held their power to use or misuse, now that she finally held that which she had longed for, it scared the hell out of her.