Imperfect Sword

Chapter Fourteen

“Execute Maneuver Tango Victor,” Marphissa ordered her warships, then settled back to watch as all of her cruisers and Hunter-Killers accelerated away from the habitable world and toward the star Ulindi. Only the battleship Midway remained in orbit about the planet, an intimidating source of firepower should General Drakon need to either overawe or destroy any Syndicate holdouts.

Marphissa glanced to one side of her display, where a virtual window showed a dramatically different picture. In that view, all of her warships remained clustered near Midway, maintaining sedate orbits about the planet. “Confirm that the links and false feeds are stable,” she told Kapitan Diaz.

Diaz waited while one of his specialists ran checks. “All stable, Kommodor. The link data and access codes the ground forces found in abandoned equipment at the Syndicate ground forces headquarters all look solid.”

“Keep a close eye on it. It would be just like the snakes to plant something like that to fool us.”

“Yes, Kommodor. But everything is going great,” Diaz said. “Those snoop sats near the star that the Syndicate troop transports are using to keep an eye on us are showing the transports what we want them to see, thanks to that link data and those codes that let us access the sats and covertly mess with them.”

“Everything was going great a few days ago,” Marphissa reminded him, “right before a Syndicate battleship jumped out at us.” Still, she had to admit that the operation was proceeding flawlessly. Reverse-reading the snoop sats gave her warships views of the transports that were depending on the sats to watch Marphissa’s ships and stay hidden. Even though the troop transports remained behind the star relative to her warships, thanks to the snoop sats, Marphissa could see them maintaining orbits about three light-minutes on the other side of the star. The ten troop transports looked like a pod of immense whales swimming placidly through space. “We turned their snoop sats into traitor sats,” she remarked.

“Kommodor?” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla asked. “Is this similar to what the enigmas did to us for so many years?”

“No one has briefed you on that?” Marphissa asked, giving Diaz a look.

Diaz shook his head. “It’s not authorized. Classification Level Two, Special Circumstances.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Marphissa said. “Who are we keeping it secret from? The Alliance told us about it, the Syndicate got the same information from CEO Boyens, and the enigmas certainly already know all about what they were doing. Someone must have classified it that way when we first learned of it and never reviewed the classification level even when things changed.”

It would be half an hour before her ships got close enough to the sun to see around it and get visuals on the transports. Plenty of time to explain things to the specialists so they would understand their jobs better. She turned in her seat to look at Czilla and the other watch specialists. “What we are doing here is close to what the enigmas did to us, but not the same. We are feeding the Syndicate transports a false picture of what we are doing by using worms we inserted into the snoop sat control systems. The enigmas had placed worms into our sensor systems as well, but those worms completely blocked any detecting or sighting of enigma ships. That’s why we couldn’t see them at all. And the enigmas use some sort of worm that we can’t copy. The Alliance can’t copy them, either. They learned how to spot the enigma worms and cancel them out, but they can’t make anything like them.”

“That’s what the Alliance told us, anyway,” Diaz said, drawing mocking smiles from the specialists.

“That’s what Black Jack told President Iceni,” Marphissa corrected. “And Captain Bradamont told me the same.”

The specialists all nodded at that news. “The Captain,” Czilla said, “would not mislead us.”

“No, she would not,” Marphissa agreed, marveling that she could say something like that about an Alliance officer and really mean it. It was almost as amazing as the fact that to the crew of Manticore, Bradamont was the Captain.

“The sanitation routines we have to run daily in all the systems,” the weapons specialist said, “are those to find the enigma tricks? We’ve never understood how they work since they are nothing like any security or antiviral programs we are familiar with.”

“Yes,” Marphissa said. “That’s what they are doing. Do you want to become famous? Figure out how the enigmas do it. They code their worms using quantum-level programming.”

Jaws dropped among the specialists.

“All right,” Marphissa said, “keep a close eye on the links and false feeds. Every minute that we accelerate and draw closer to the star without the transports’ knowing we’re coming makes it less likely that the transports can have any hope of fleeing from us. But I want to nail them without any long chases,” she added as she turned back to face her display.

“It’s not the chases that are worrying you, is it?” Diaz asked in a low voice.

“Not nearly as much as how many snakes are on each of those transports to keep their crews in line,” Marphissa said, “and whether the snakes have outfitted transports as well as warships with those devices that can cause power-core overloads on command. If those devices are on the transports, all it would take is one fanatic snake on each ship willing to give everything for the Syndicate and all we would end up with is ten balls of debris orbiting near this star.”

Would all that debris have time to form a ring of wreckage about the sun before the solar winds kicked it farther out? The vision surprised and haunted her for the next few minutes as she did the only thing that she could, keep an eye on the status of her ships and on what the still-unsuspecting Syndicate transports were doing.

“Our systems estimate twenty minutes until visual contact,” Czilla reported.

In a blunt reminder that estimate meant an approximate value and not a firm quantity, it actually only took eighteen minutes before Hawk got a direct visual on one of the troop transports. By then, Marphissa’s flotilla was only four light-minutes from the transports, spreading out to pass the star close by on all sides in a maneuver formally called a High-Velocity Stellar Close Approach and Transit but informally known among warship crews as a Hot and Flat. Close by in stellar terms meant less than a light-minute, or about eighteen million kilometers. When Marphissa had been new to the mobile forces and had first heard the distance translated into kilometers, she had thought it was very large. But when skimming past the enormous uncontrolled nuclear-fusion furnace that was a star, even eighteen million kilometers seemed far too close.

“It really brings home how very small we are, doesn’t it?” Kapitan Diaz murmured.

Marphissa didn’t answer. She was reaching for her comm controls now that the element of surprise had been lost. “Syndicate transports, this is Kommodor Marphissa of the Free and Independent Midway Star System. We can destroy you at will. You are directed to surrender immediately. Reduce your shields to the minimum safe level for your distance from the star and refrain from changing vectors. Any attempt to flee will be met with force. Any resistance to boarding parties will result in your ships’ being fired upon. Each transport is to acknowledge its surrender to me. For the people, Marphissa, out.”

She gestured to the comm specialist. “Repeat that every minute for the next ten minutes.”

“Yes, Kommodor.”

The transports would not see Hawk for another four minutes, and on the heels of seeing the light cruiser not only would see Marphissa’s other warships coming into view as they cleared the star but would also receive Marphissa’s demand that they surrender.

What would happen then? It would depend in great part on how many snakes were on each transport and how loyal the transport crews were to the Syndicate.

“The Syndicate never sent the best to troop-transport duty,” Diaz said, echoing Marphissa’s thoughts. “The transports are slower, not much armor, fairly weak shields, and no weapons except some point-defense grapeshot launchers. The Syndicate figured if someone was the sort most likely to mutiny or disobey orders in some other way, having them on a troop transport made a lot more sense than having them on a warship.”

“I’d heard that, too,” she said.

“But it’s true,” Diaz said. “It’s not just a rumor or a put-down of transport crews. My sister got sent to a transport, and she told me it was true.”

“Your sister?” Marphissa gave him a surprised look. She vaguely recalled a reference to a sister in the mobile forces in Diaz’s service files, but he had never spoken of her before.

“She died when her transport was destroyed,” Diaz said, looking steadily at his display, his expression that of a man recalling something that even now he had trouble believing had happened. “She and the rest of the crew and about five hundred ground forces soldiers when an Alliance warship got through the Syndicate escorts.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Marphissa said.

Diaz looked down, then over at her, his eyes shadowed. “How many sisters and brothers do you think I have killed? I have no idea. I can’t hate them, the crew of that Alliance ship. I wish they had never come near my sister’s ship, but the odds are very good that they all died, too. If not in that battle, then in another soon after. And they were just doing their job. Just like me. No, I hate the Syndicate that put my sister on that transport and sent that transport to that star without enough escorts and started the war and kept the war going. But my sister told me, and would have told you, that the crews of the transports knew they were chosen because they weren’t considered good enough or trustworthy enough to be on warships. It’s true.”

She had to look away. “Thank you… for informing me… of that important information, Kapitan.”

“It’s why I still fight, Kommodor.”

“I understand. The Syndicate killed my brother, and even though I was able to avenge myself on the one responsible, it could not bring him back. All I can do is try to protect others.”

There were about two minutes left before the Syndicate transports saw Hawk and received her surrender demand. Then, as the range kept closing, another three to four minutes before she would see whatever the initial reactions of the transports were.

Her warships raced past their closest point of approach to the star, bending in flat curves around its colossal mass and nuclear fires, their courses now converging on the Syndicate transports.

If any of the transports had immediately decided to surrender, she would have received their transmission by now.

“All units,” Marphissa said. “Combat readiness at maximum, so the Syndicate ships will know we are ready to engage them, but no one is to fire on any of the transports until I specifically authorize each encounter. We want these transports intact if possible.”

“We’ve got a couple of runners,” Diaz noted.

Marphissa’s display highlighted the same two transports, which had lit off their main propulsion at the same time as their thrusters pitched them up and over toward a vector aimed at the jump point for Kiribati. She tapped the transports, and her display immediately presented vectors which would allow fairly quick intercepts. “To the two Syndicate transports attempting to flee, you know we can intercept and destroy you without difficulty. Brake your movement immediately to remain in your current orbits.”

“Incoming transmission from Syndicate Unit HTTU 458,” the comm specialist announced. “We are complying with your orders and submit to your authority.”

The symbol that represented Heavy Troop Transport Unit 458 was not one of those who were trying to run. “Gryphon, alter vector to a direct intercept on HTTU 380. Hawk, alter vector to a direct intercept on HTTU 743,” Marphissa ordered.

“We have received surrender messages from HTTU 236, HTTU 643, and HTTU 322,” the comm specialist reported.

An alarm sounded as one of the symbols on Marphissa’s display vanished. “HTTU 481 has been destroyed by a power-core overload,” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla said, his voice grim.

“The signature of the event matches that of the snake power-core-overload device,” the engineering specialist said, her words full of impotent anger.

“How will that inspire the others?” Marphissa said to Diaz. “Fear or defiance? We’ll see.”

“Ten minutes until we are within weapons range of the transports,” Czilla said.

“I am detecting power core shutdowns on HTTU 333 and HTTU 712,” the engineering specialist announced.

“There is your answer, Kommodor. Someone is trying to preempt the snakes,” Diaz said with satisfaction. “Ah, HTTU 380 is braking.”

“But 743 is still trying to run,” Marphissa grumbled.

“HTTU 532 has surrendered.”

Hawk’s commanding officer called in. “I’m almost within range of 743, Kommodor, and he’s not showing any signs of slowing down.”

“Try warning shots,” Marphissa directed.

“Kommodor,” the comm specialist reported, “HTTU 333 and HTTU 712 have surrendered but say they must restart their power cores.”

“Inform all surrendered units that they must report to me the status of any snakes aboard them,” Marphissa said.

“No response to warning shots,” Hawk’s commanding officer said. “Still accelerating all out. I can stay with HTTU 743 as long as you want, Kommodor, but— There are escape pods coming off.”

Marphissa watched as the transport’s entire complement of escape pods shot free in a staggered volley.

“We have communications with the escape pods,” Hawk reported. “They say the snakes on 743 have control of engineering and the bridge, that they have barricaded themselves into those compartments.”

“Transports don’t have citadels,” Diaz said. “The snakes must have improvised something.”

“That doesn’t leave us any choice,” Marphissa said. “Hawk, fire upon HTTU 743. Target main propulsion units.” She glared at her display, knowing that a substantial fraction of 743’s crew must be stranded aboard since there hadn’t been enough escape pods for the whole crew. She wondered if the crew had selected places in the pods in a disciplined and fair process, or if there had been bloody rioting at the pod bays as men and women fought for what could well be their only chance at life.

“Kommodor,” Diaz said. “From the reports from the surrendered transports, they each had three or four snakes aboard. Two transports say they took one of their snakes prisoner. The other snakes are all reported to have been killed.”

“Two snakes left alive?” she asked. “That’s odd.”

“Maybe they weren’t bad, for snakes.”

“Maybe. The snakes wouldn’t occasionally execute one of their own if they didn’t sometimes let someone with a tiny bit of humanity through the cracks of their selection system. Have word sent back to those two transports to ensure those two snakes are heavily guarded, under constant visual watch by multiple people, and cannot access anything.”

Hawk had matched velocity to HTTU 743 and swung in directly astern, slamming shots at the transport that collapsed its relatively weak rear shields and went on to impact on 743’s main propulsion units.

Unable to accelerate anymore, but still moving at the same rate through space, HTTU 743 hurtled helplessly toward the distant jump point for Kiribati.

“Put a boarding party on him and find out the exact situation,” Marphissa ordered.

But as Hawk moved in to attach a boarding tube, thrusters fired on HTTU 743, creating vector changes. “We can’t get a boarding team over as long as the snakes can fire those thrusters and jerk the ship around,” Hawk’s commanding officer reported with frustration.

“All right,” Marphissa said. “Match vectors with 743 as best you can, then use your hell lances to hit his bridge. Hit him enough times to be sure nothing is left working on the bridge.” Which would also mean no one was left alive on the bridge, but that didn’t need to be said.

“I understand, Kommodor.”

Normally, hitting a specific place on an enemy ship was simply impossible when tearing past each other at fractions of the speed of light with engagement times measured in tiny pieces of a second. Simply hitting the enemy at all was an amazing achievement under those circumstances.

But with Hawk positioned near the crippled transport, matching speed and direction of travel, it was like shooting at a stationary target while also sitting still. And since the HTTU 743 was a Syndicate design, Hawk had a perfect set of deck plans for the transport, telling the warship exactly where to find the Syndicate ship’s bridge.

It took a lot to stop hell lances. The streams of extremely-high-energy particles went through most obstacles without hindrance, leaving large, neat holes in hulls, equipment, and any humans unfortunate enough to be in the way. With 743’s shields down, and with only the light armor that transports boasted, Hawk’s hell lances could pierce right through the transport.

The light cruiser fired again and again with merciless precision, tearing holes deep into HTTU 743 and completely through the transport’s bridge. Marphissa watched, trying not to feel sick at the thought of what was happening to everyone on the bridge of the transport. She managed to maintain her composure by switching her attention for brief periods to the process of her other warships’ intercepting, surrounding, and matching vectors with the eight troop transports that had surrendered.

“I need to rest my hell lances,” Hawk reported. “They’re overheating.”

“Understood,” Marphissa said. “Try to get a boarding party over again. Give me a link to whoever leads it.”

This time no thrusters fired when Hawk moved in close to HTTU 743 and latched a boarding tube onto the transport.

Marphissa activated the link to the head of the boarding party from Hawk and called up a view from that person’s survival-suit helmet. She watched as breaching tape opened an access in the side of the transport where the boarding tube was attached, and as Hawk’s boarding party entered the transport.

“Got some dead,” the officer leading the boarding party reported tersely. “Looks like they were fighting over places in the escape pods. Only here, though.”

The transport was big inside, big enough to carry hundreds of ground force soldiers and their equipment. Hawk’s boarding party headed for the bridge to see what was left, the passageways of the transport spooky with only emergency lighting on and all atmosphere vented through damaged areas of the hull so that only the exact spot where a beam of light fell was illuminated, pitch-blackness reigning instantly beyond the margins of the beam.

Marphissa pulled herself out of her focus on that, concentrating once more on the bigger situation. “Do we send boarding parties onto all of the surrendered transports?” Diaz asked.

“No,” she decided. “We’ll have them go the planet, where Midway is waiting with all of the people in her crew to back up our boarding parties, and we’ll deal with all that there. As it is, we’re going to have our hands full picking up the survival pods from 743.” She tapped their current orbit, then a location in orbit about the habitable planet, waiting impatiently for the second it took for the automated systems to recommend a vector. Then she had to do it again because the automated systems had assumed only the warships were going back and had used accelerations based on that. After specifying this time that all ships here were going to the planet, the maneuvering systems produced a different vector that took into account the slower acceleration of the troop transports. Having spent way too much time shepherding around freighters, which made the clumsy troop transports look like sleek greyhounds of space, Marphissa didn’t waste any effort being annoyed at the extra time it would take for all of the ships to get to the planet.

“Kommodor, our landing party has established contact with surviving crew members of 743,” Hawk’s commanding officer reported.

Marphissa glanced at the small virtual window that now showed the leader of the landing party facing a group of transport crew members in survival suits.

“All of the snakes aboard 743 are dead,” Hawk continued. “Our fire killed everyone on the bridge, and while we were destroying the bridge, the crew members remaining aboard were able to get into the engineering control compartment and finish off the two snakes there. But they tell me the engineering controls are wrecked, and the entire main propulsion section aft was torn up when we shot out their main propulsion units.”

Great. Marphissa glowered at the image of HTTU 743. I have a big ship with no bridge and no engineering controls clumping its way toward the jump point for Kiribati. “I need your estimate as to whether it would be worth the trouble to take that hulk in tow and get it back to the planet with us.”

She could tell the question had been relayed when every surviving crew member of the transport that she could see began shaking their heads with varying degrees of violence.

“They all say no, Kommodor. I agree,” Hawk’s commanding officer added. “From what our landing parties have seen, the 743 really is a hulk. The snakes burned out every system and circuit they could before they died, the hull structure took damage from our firing on it, and the power core is shaky because of something the snakes did to its controls.”

The other issues could have gone either way, but not a power core that was less than stable. “I want that power core rigged to self-destruct. Can you take aboard all of the surviving crew members?”

“Yes, Kommodor. It will be tight, but we can do it.”

“Keep them under guard until we can sort them out,” Marphissa said. “Set the power core to blow a half hour after you break contact with 743.”

“Only half an hour?”

“Yes. If something goes wrong, if it doesn’t blow, I don’t want to have to chase that ship halfway to the Kiribati jump point to catch it and make sure it is destroyed.”

Marphissa scanned her display again irritably. “Hawk can’t take aboard any of the crew members from the escape pods,” she told Diaz. “She’s going to be full of those who were stuck on 743.”

After glowering at her display for a moment, Marphissa tapped her comm controls. “Gryphon, Eagle, detach immediately, proceed to pick up escape pods from HTTU 743. Kapitan Stein on Gryphon is in command until your units rejoin our flotilla.”

Thirty minutes later, the remains of HTTU 743 disappeared in a flash of energy as the ship’s power core overloaded. Hawk was returning to rejoin the flotilla, and Gryphon and Eagle were beginning to recover crew members from the escape pods, as Marphissa gave the order for the rest of the ships to head for Ulindi’s habitable planet.

Defeats were always bad, but even victories could be messy.

This small portion of the surface of the habitable world orbiting Ulindi looked like some kind of construction site, sticking out as a dirt-shaded scar amid green fields and stands of trees. Drakon walked down the shuttle ramp and nodded to the local officials who stood nervously awaiting him. “This is it?” he asked.

“It’s one of the places,” a young man said, his voice trembling.

Drakon moved to the side of a fresh excavation, looking down at tumbled bodies still encrusted with the dirt that had recently covered them. The mass grave appeared to contain the remains of at least a few hundred men and women. “They look like they died a few weeks ago,” Drakon said, letting his disgust be clearly heard.

“Yes, honored—I mean, yes, General,” an older man said. “We knew there had been many arrests, that the snakes had been rounding up not only anyone they even slightly suspected but also apparently citizens at random to terrorize the rest of us into submission. But we thought they were being placed in labor camps.” His voice broke on the last words.

“Do you have any idea how many?” Drakon asked.

“Our records are a mess,” a woman said, sounding weary as well as sad. “The snakes detonated virtual bombs in all our databases and networks when it looked like they were going to lose. We’re back to paper and pens and trying to reconstruct the data from whatever unauthorized backups saved portions of the destroyed records.”

“At a guess,” the young man said, “we’re dealing with thousands of dead.”

“How about during the fighting?” Drakon asked. “How many got hurt while my forces were fighting the Syndicate and Haris’s forces?”

“Your… military losses… General?” the older man asked, puzzled. “We don’t know—”

“No,” Drakon said patiently. “Citizens. I understand most were evacuated from the city before we landed. How many got hurt during the fighting?”

They all looked shocked at a senior supervisor expressing concern for casualties among the workers and their families. “Not too many,” someone said. “Citizens were ordered out of the city you attacked even before the snake headquarters was bombarded.”

“They were afraid we would rise up and attack the Syndicate troops that were attacking you,” another said. “We had no weapons, we had no leaders, we couldn’t have done anything. But the snakes see enemies everywhere.”

“That’s funny, isn’t it?” the old man said. “They saved a lot of our lives because they thought we might be enemies and so forced us to leave the city before the fighting broke out.”

“Are there any leaders left among you?” Drakon asked.

The locals exchanged glances. None of them seemed eager to claim the title of leader or offer up any names. He knew why. They didn’t trust him not to also round up anyone who might be a leader among the citizens. “Listen up, all of you,” Drakon said as if speaking to his troops. “Neither I nor my soldiers intend staying at Ulindi. We had to get rid of Haris and the Syndicate because they were a threat to this entire region. But we aren’t going to rule Ulindi. It’s your star system. You need to put together a government to make decisions and plan and coordinate actions. You’ve had your fill of the Syndicate. One of your decisions will have to be whether you want to voluntarily align yourselves with Midway Star System. Nobody is going to be forced to join, but we’re trying to set up a mutual defense arrangement to protect the local star systems from the Syndicate, from warlords, and from the enigmas.”

They were staring at him again. One finally spoke. “The… enigmas?”

“You must have heard rumors of them even though the Syndicate did its best to keep them secret.” Drakon waved toward the sky. “An alien species, intelligent and hostile. They pushed the Syndicate out of star systems like Hina and Pele, and have tried to take Midway Star System more than once.”

“There have been rumors,” a woman confirmed. “You know this is true?”

“They’ve attacked Midway Star System. I’ve seen their ships.”

“You just came to get rid of Haris and the Syndicate?” someone else asked in a bewildered voice. “But if they are gone and you leave, who is in charge?”

“Who do you want to be in charge?” Drakon said. “I’m going to leave you all some records we have of events that have taken place recently at star systems like Taroa, Kane, and Midway. We, and by we I mean the soldiers of my ground forces and the crew members of our warships, are giving you a gift. It’s a dangerous gift. We’re going to let you decide who will rule you and how. We’ll offer advice. We’ll show you what happened elsewhere and the choices others made, and you’ll see the mistakes others made.”

“We… we need to be safe,” the old man faltered. “Why did you get rid of the Syndicate just to leave us without any protection? At least they—”

Drakon pointed at the mass grave. “They did this. Look at it. Do you feel safe when you do? That’s the Syndicate form of protection, where you die to keep them in power. I have no interest in killing any of you, nor do I have any interest in any of my soldiers dying to make you do what I want. I’ve already lost too many people here. As long as you don’t threaten Midway Star System, or ally with someone who threatens us, I don’t care what you do. But the decision will be yours. Figure out who you want to speak for you. We’re leaving you what amounts to a reinforced brigade of ground forces, made up of the remnants of the ground forces that used to be here and those soldiers from the Syndicate division who want to stay here and help you guys defend yourselves.”

“But who will be in charge of those ground forces?” a woman demanded. “Who will tell us what to do?”

Drakon paused as he was about to head back to the shuttle, turning to face them all once more. “If you want my advice, and that’s all it is, advice, because I’m not going to tell you what to do, I would tell you to get together and decide which people you think can run things pretty well, who you know have looked out for the people around them and under them when they didn’t have to, and even when it caused them problems, and who don’t want the job of helping to run the planet. Put them in charge, and the minute any of them start acting like they’re better than you, replace them. You know how to run things. Just like every other place in Syndicate space, you’ve been keeping things running despite the Syndicate bureaucracy that existed to serve itself and the Syndicate CEOs who were just out for themselves and the snakes who did their best to weed out anyone who was ethical or smart or thought for themselves. So run things. There are lots of references in the underground library that talk about ways to run a star system that aren’t the Syndicate way. Whatever you decide on won’t be perfect, it never is, but if you start shooting at each other, that means you’re doing it wrong.”

He walked toward the shuttle but stopped and pivoted to say one more thing to the citizens who were staring after him. “And if you keep the labor camps open, if you lock up people for saying the wrong thing or for disagreeing with you like the Syndicate does, then you’re doing it wrong. Some of my people died to give you a chance at doing things better. A chance at freedom. Don’t waste it.”

As Drakon walked up the ramp and inside the shuttle, he wondered when he had become such a radical. Freedom. It had only been about survival and maintaining their own power when he had joined Gwen Iceni to revolt against the Syndicate.

Hadn’t it?

He settled into his seat as the shuttle rose into the sky, slewed about, and headed back toward the former Syndicate base. After a few moments of watching landscape scroll by on the display before his seat, Drakon called Malin. “Anything new?”

Malin nodded, his expression shadowed. “I picked up some interesting fragments of information, General. Not long before the snake alternate command center was bombarded and destroyed, there was a lot of chatter about Supreme CEO Haris having been assassinated.”

“Haris assassinated?” It would be nice to confirm the death of the former Supreme CEO who had overseen the murder of so many citizens, but… “Is there anything about who did it or how?”

“There are references to a lone assassin and gunfire, General. No other description.”

“Do we need more?” Drakon asked. “One person who penetrated security at a snake command center and killed their CEO with a gun?”

Malin smiled grimly. “It does sound like Colonel Morgan, sir.”

“What happened to her?”

“Unknown, sir. There is chatter about the assassination, a few details like the ones I mentioned, then nothing as the roof of the snake alternate command center literally fell in when Midway’s bombardment hit.” He gave Drakon an unreadable look. “At least it narrows down our search. If Colonel Morgan was in the snake alternate command center soon before it was destroyed, she must still be nearby.”

“Or in the rubble,” Drakon said, deliberately being brutally direct. “Bran, if Roh made it out alive, why hasn’t she contacted us?”

“You are asking me to rationalize the actions of Colonel Morgan, sir?”

He snorted a very brief laugh. “That’s a good point. But why did she go after Haris? That wasn’t part of her assignment here.”

Malin shook his head, looking down. “I don’t know, sir. Whatever reason Colonel Morgan had, it was a reason that made sense to her.”

“I’m sorry, Bran.”

“I’m not sure that I am, General,” Malin responded, his brow furrowed as if trying to solve the puzzle of his own emotions.

“Have we run into any hitches in the mop-up operations?” Drakon asked to spare Malin from having to internally examine in any detail his relationship to Morgan.

“No, sir. The few Syndicate support units still intact are surrendering as soon as our soldiers arrive. Ulindi is still a frontier world, with only a few cities of any size and not many towns worthy of the name, so we haven’t had to secure all that many locations.”

“If we had faced the problem of dealing with a really large population, we wouldn’t have tried this with only two brigades,” Drakon said. “Any word from the Kommodor?”

“We just received a message from her that eight of the ten Syndicate troop transports were captured. One other was destroyed by the snakes aboard it and the last sustained too much damage during its capture to be worth salvage and was scuttled.”

“Scuttled? What’s scuttled?”

“I believe Kommodor Marphissa picked up the term from Captain Bradamont,” Malin explained. “‘Scuttled’ is an ancient word still used by the Alliance fleet. It means ‘blown up.’”

“I suppose that’s better than the official Syndicate term ‘dissolution of the asset.’ Eight transports is more than enough troop-carrying capacity given the ground forces we have,” Drakon said, feeling a lift to his spirits. “We owe Executive Gozen a big debt for letting us know they were there.”

Malin frowned again. “You do realize, General, that the snakes would consider the loss of ten troop transports as a small price to pay for getting one of their undercover agents close to you.”

“You’ve cautioned me about Executive Gozen about a dozen times already, Colonel. I assure you that I have paid full attention to you each time,” Drakon said. “Especially given what I learned not long ago about secrets my closest aides were keeping from me.”

Malin had the good grace to openly flinch. “I understand, General. I just feel a duty to—”

“That’s fine. I don’t mind your watching Executive Gozen. If you find anything, any solid grounds for identifying her as a possible snake agent, I want to know it.”

“Yes, sir.” Malin hesitated. “Executive Gozen has asked to meet with you.”

“Patch her through. I have time to talk to her on the way back.”

“In person, sir.”

He thought about that, then nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. I can evaluate her better face-to-face than through a comm link. I’ve been thinking I should take a personal look at her soldiers, as well.”

Malin nodded resignedly. “Yes, sir. How many escorts, sir?”

“Just a couple. No battle armor. I want guards on hand if someone lunges at me, but I shouldn’t need more.”

“General, you do need more—”

“No. This is about my being so confident of my authority and my strength that I don’t need a swarm of bodyguards. I need to impress these soldiers, Bran, so none of them start thinking they can get away with anything. But I don’t want to impress them as being like a Syndicate CEO, and a lot of bodyguards would show them exactly that image.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was amazing how much emotion the normally impassive Malin could pack into two short words.

“Executive Third Class Gozen,” she said, standing at attention and saluting.

Drakon returned the salute with enough care to show that he respected the person who had rendered it. “You look like hell,” Drakon said.

Gozen had put aside her battle armor, its surface scarred from the recent fighting, and stood in her working uniform, which was considerably the worse for the days it had been worn under armor and through combat. She had smudges on visible skin, and her short hair was grimy and matted from being continuously under a battle armor helmet for days. Her eyes were shaded by fatigue and her lips badly chapped.

She looked surprised at his words, then grinned. “I feel like hell, sir. I don’t want you to think I’m hiding anything.”

“Let’s walk.” Drakon strode alongside Gozen as she led him through the nearest portions of the ruined buildings that had been part of the Syndicate positions. The buildings were packed with surrendered Syndicate soldiers who gazed back at him with sullenness, or resignation, or hope, or curiosity. He stopped to talk to some of them, getting a feeling for their mood that couldn’t be conveyed by reading reports or watching vids.

Drakon stopped before one old soldier who was sitting hunched over, staring at nothing. “Weren’t you at Chandrahas?”

Startled, the soldier looked up, then leaped to his feet as he realized who Drakon was. “Devon Dupree, Combat Systems Worker First Class, Heavy Weapons, Fifth Company—”

He broke off as Drakon made a chopping gesture. “You don’t need to recite that. Were you at Chandrahas? About ten years ago?”

“Yes, honored CEO,” the soldier replied, rigidly at attention, looking straight ahead.

“Sit down,” Drakon ordered. The man sat. “Now, relax. You were with the… Three Hundred Seventh Division then, weren’t you? You were one of the soldiers who held a position for six hours against heavy Alliance attacks.”

The old soldier blinked at Drakon in surprise. “Yes, honored—”

“I’m not a CEO. Not anymore. Damn,” Drakon continued in an admiring tone. “You guys did an amazing job. I thought you were being given early discharge and retirement as a reward for the heroism.”

“Yes, they told us that,” the soldier said, looking at Drakon in dawning wonder. “And then a month later, when we got out of the hospital and the news vid crews had left, they told us we had done such good jobs that we were too valuable to lose. We were sent back to our unit. You’re CEO Drakon?”

“I used to be CEO Drakon.”

“You’d just taken over the Hundred Sixteenth Division back then, hadn’t you?”

“That’s right.” Drakon waved back toward the base. “That’s who you were fighting, two brigades of what was the Hundred Sixteenth.”

“Well, damn, no wonder we got beat.” Dupree shook his head. “That’s weird. I don’t feel so bad now, knowing who we were fighting.”

Drakon sat down next to the old soldier, aware of all of the nearby soldiers watching and listening. “What are your plans?”

“Try to survive, I guess,” the old soldier answered. “The usual.”

“Ulindi can use someone like you. So can I.”

“That’s for real? Why?”

“Because I got sick of seeing soldiers like you treated the way you were.”

Specialist Dupree nodded back at Drakon, his eyes serious and searching. “Your workers always fought really hard for you. I can’t stay at Ulindi, though. It’s got some rough memories now. And the Syndicate is out even if I wanted to go to a star they still controlled. I killed two snakes myself. Young fools who didn’t think an old worker like me was anyone to worry about. You’re going back to Midway? I’ve never been there.”

“There’s a lot of water,” Drakon said.

“Good beer?”

“We’re a major trading junction because of the hypernet gate and all of our jump points. We get a lot of good beer.”

The old soldier smiled broadly and sat straight. “If you’ve got any interest, uh…”

“General,” Drakon said. “I dropped the CEO as fast as I could.”

“Yes, sir. General. If you’d take me, I’ll join you.”

Drakon reached out and clapped the man on the shoulder. “One of the soldiers who held the point at Chandrahas? I’ll always have room for the likes of you. And, heavy weapons, you said? We could use a veteran heavy-weapons specialist.” He stood up, looking around at the crowd watching silently. “You’ve been told the choice is yours, and it is. This isn’t the sort of trick the Syndicate pulled. Just before I met Executive Gozen, I was told that our mobile forces have captured the troop transports that brought you here. We’ll use one or more of those transports to take anyone who wants to a star where they can get a lift back to Syndicate space. Or you can stay here and see what kind of star system can be built at Ulindi free of the Syndicate. Or you can ride those transports with my people and join us at Midway. It’s your call.”

He spent another hour that he couldn’t really spare walking among the defeated Syndicate soldiers, then back into the open area where the fighting had raged. “Give us some room,” Drakon told his two guards, who had not been needed and now faded back until they were ten meters away. He turned to face Gozen. “What about you, Executive Gozen?”