Shattered Spear

Chapter Eleven

The suite where Iceni lived, once designated by Syndicate laws and regulations as the Star System CEO Operations And Accommodations Suite and now simply called the President’s Suite, was one of the most heavily alarmed and protected places on the planet. The bedroom where Iceni slept in that suite was the most alarmed and protected place on the planet, with the possible exception of the bedroom in Drakon’s headquarters where he normally slept.

However, for a canny Syndicate CEO, even that level of security was not sufficient. After all, any alarm installed could be broken into by enemies, or the Syndicate Internal Security Service snakes, and rendered useless. Redundant and overlapping layers of alarms merely made the process of doing that more challenging. As the old inside joke went, there was a name for CEOs who underestimated the resourcefulness of their rivals, or the snakes, or embittered workers, and that name was “dead.”

And since her former close assistant Togo had gone missing, and apparently rogue, Iceni had been uncomfortably aware of how many codes and secrets he had been privy to. Even if he had supposedly not known some of the access codes, he could have found out what they were from his position on Iceni’s staff.

So Iceni had acquired other alarms, rigged up independently of the installed systems, and set them up. They were among the highest tech alarms available on Midway.

She had also set up a few other alarms, using perhaps the oldest such systems in the book, reasoning that someone focused on defeating the sophisticated threats might overlook the simple ones. A metal tray leaned against one door, ready to fall with a clatter if the door opened a little. A breakable glass object, hard to acquire in these days of enduraglass and permaglass, teetered on a ledge above another door, certain to drop and smash if that door began to open. And scattered on the floor in front of every other possible access were small contact caps, toys that would explode with a loud snap under the slightest pressure, something which delighted children, drove parents to distraction, and might trip up anyone clever and skillful enough to penetrate every other alarm.

She had spent the last two nights at Drakon’s headquarters, enjoying the comfort of having someone so close without worrying about how that someone might use her or betray her. And with only about two weeks left before the expedition left for Iwa, she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Drakon, knowing that there was a chance it might be all the time they would have. But he was elsewhere on the planet tonight, inspecting one of his brigades, so Iceni slept alone tonight. She had paused before scattering the contact caps, tired and not feeling like the effort, but had forced herself to do it as a small voice of experience or paranoia warned her that during her absence someone might have been able to test the defenses of her living area.

The pop of one of the contact caps in the darkest hour of the night jolted Iceni awake. She rolled out of her bed on the far side from the door, the wall at her back, one hand grasping the weapon she always kept handy and the other hand slapping the emergency alarm pad above her.

She hit the floor on her knees, the bed between her and the door to her bedroom, her pistol lined up on that door. The blare of the alarm covered up any more sounds from outside, but activating it had also summoned many guards, granted access for the guards into her suite, and alerted the entire building.

Iceni waited, tense, her pistol centered on the door. She breathed slowly and carefully, trying to calm the pounding of her heart. Who could have made it past every obstacle and into her living area? Even if Morgan was still alive she shouldn’t have had access to enough inside information to be able to pierce the layers of security around Iceni’s quarters. Only one other name came to mind, and if it was Togo out there, and he was determined to get in here, then Iceni knew that she would need not only great accuracy but also skill to take him out before Togo could get to her.

Yet even while focused on the need to ensure she hit Togo with her first shot and every shot, Iceni could not help wondering what his goal was, what his purpose was, and why someone who had been so loyal to her would now be threatening her.

The sound of the alarm ceased, telling Iceni that her guards had entered her suite and were now advancing toward her bedroom. She listened intently, her hand growing sweaty as she gripped her pistol tightly and kept it aimed at the door.

The clatter of the metal tray could be heard outside, followed by the crash of breaking glass. So much for those improvised alarms. Now people would talk about them, and she would have to come up with something else unknown to anyone but her.

The comm pad next to Iceni’s bed lit up, showing the senior watch supervisor at the star system command center that was located near Iceni’s headquarters. “Madam President, your guards have searched the outer living area and found nothing. They are poised outside of your inner living area and can see your door. There is no threat apparent on our sensors, but after you sounded the alarm a string of doors and accesses that should have immediately sealed instead remained open, and there were indications of movement near them.”

Iceni breathed out slowly, relaxing herself. “Full search. Nothing by remote, all eyes-on and hands-on. All rooms in this building, all doors and accesses. Find out how those open doors were hacked. I want to be absolutely certain that whoever got into my living area has not faked a retreat and is still hiding somewhere, waiting until things calm down to make another try.”

“I understand and will comply,” the supervisor said, saluting and beginning to issue the necessary orders.

Iceni slumped back against the wall of her bedroom, then realized that anyone who knew where she slept and that she would roll out of bed in this direction and have her back to that wall might be able to set a trap on the other side. She jerked herself away from the wall and moved in a crouch to another location in the bedroom, her weapon now aimed between the door and the area where she had previously been.

She settled herself comfortably, resting the pistol on one knee so it remained up and pointed in the right direction. The sort of search she had ordered would take considerable time. It was going to be a long night.

Even when warships could zip across thousands of kilometers of space in seconds, it took a while to cover planetary distances when hindered by atmosphere. By the time General Drakon arrived at midmorning, Iceni was behind her desk and sipping hot tea. “You are all right, Gwen?” he asked, knowing that she might have concealed an unpleasant truth for the sake of political stability.

“I’m fine.” She offered him a seat, trying to act more casual than she felt. “I am also tired, and achy, and more than a little annoyed.”

“Annoyed.” Drakon, reassuring in his presence and his strength, sat down and smiled slightly. “I’m a little more than annoyed.”

“Colonel Malin’s suspicions must be correct,” Iceni said. “Only Togo could have gone undetected as far as that intruder did last night.”

“We can’t be certain it was him,” Drakon said. “I understand that you’ve ordered Malin to review your security systems and make some changes.”

Iceni nodded, taking a slow drink to steady her jumpy nerves. “The access codes had already been changed, of course, but they’re going to be changed again. I suspect all redundant versions of my security software are infected by worms that my intruder activated. My software specialists swear that the activations will leave footprints that will allow them to find and neutralize those worms.”

Drakon snorted with derision. “If there was one undetected set of worms in that software, there could be more.”

She nodded, feeling a flash of the old anger. “I want to punish someone, Artur. Order some supervisors to be shot for failing in their duties. I know that would be stupid, that if I get rid of trained, experienced personnel before I even know who if anyone has actually made a mistake, that I will be just weakening my own security instead of strengthening it.” Her voice trembled slightly with fury. “But the part of me that is still stuck in the Syndicate really wants to kill someone right now.”

“I’ll help.”

For some reason that matter-of-fact offer helped cool her rage. “Thank you.” Iceni sighed and took another drink. “You haven’t asked, but I am screening everyone in my building again to ensure none of them have turned traitor on me.”

“If they had,” Drakon pointed out, “they would have already bolted.”

“I know. But I still have to check out the possibility.”

“Malin will find anyone who let you down,” he said.

She gave him a quizzical look. “Why aren’t you angrier about this? I don’t want you to be. I need a stable anchor right now. But why aren’t you stomping around threatening to kill whoever threatened me?”

Drakon smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was the sort of smile that gave Iceni a pleasant shiver up her back. “I am angry. But anger makes me more focused. It makes me want to ensure I make the right moves, that I get whoever is responsible, and not whoever makes a handy scapegoat.”

“That’s a nice talent,” Iceni approved. “I should have realized that about you before now. You’ve shown plenty of signs of it before this. No wonder you managed to survive the Syndicate. The more they screwed with you, the more focused you must have gotten.”

“That’s right.” He looked grim once more, then nodded upward. “Maybe it would be a good idea for you to take up residence aboard the Midway sooner rather than later. Not that I want you up in space instead of down here with me, but if you’re on that battleship it will be a lot harder for anyone to get to you.”

“It’s supposed to be impossible for anyone to get to me here,” Iceni said, her voice getting sharp again. “But I see your point. I’ll miss seeing you in person, but I can handle my presidential tasks from orbit, and it will make it easier to oversee the preparations for the expedition to Iwa if I am up there.” She bent a crooked smile at Drakon. “You tried to talk me out of going to Iwa, and now here you are urging me to get going. Is that what you do with all of your lovers?”

“No,” he said.

“I’m just teasing, Artur. To help calm myself. Bear with me.” Iceni thought about what it would take to move herself up to the battleship today, but then another thought intruded. “What if my intruder goes after you once I’m no longer available?”

“I’m hoping he or she does,” Drakon said, showing that smile again.

She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t underestimate the danger.”

“I’m not. Like you said, getting through your defenses to this point was impressive. But I have a few tricks even he, or she, might have trouble with.”

Iceni found herself smiling, feeling calmer in the face of Drakon’s steady assurance. “Good. When I get back from Iwa, let’s make this relationship formal.”

“Limited time or open-ended?” Drakon asked.

“Open-ended, if you’re good with that.” She kept her voice casual, but felt tension inside as she waited for his answer.

“Yeah,” Drakon agreed. “I’m good with that. When you get back.”

“It’s a date.” After he had left to personally speak with Malin, Iceni sat at her desk for a while, pretending to work. It had been important not to hurry to make the commitment before she left, to not project any image to the citizens of appearing to fear whether or not she would return. She could tell that Artur had understood that. But it now left her worried whether, with her promise to handle that important task when she returned, she had just jinxed both of them.

As much as he disliked meetings, Drakon realized that occasionally there was no substitute for them. As long as whoever was in charge kept the discussion moving and worthwhile instead of meandering into endless blind alleys.

And this time his brigade commanders had asked for the meeting, which hopefully meant that someone had thought of something useful.

To Drakon’s surprise, it was Colonel Kai who led the discussion about plans for Iwa. But Kai soon provided the reasons for his role.

“After careful thought,” Kai said, as if he did not always think carefully before acting and speaking, “I believe that a certain tactic employed during the second and third decades of the war with the Alliance might give us insight into how the enigmas might defend their installation.”

Kai brought up a virtual window that was visible to not only Geary and Colonel Gozen, but also to the other two brigade commanders who like Kai were attending this briefing virtually. The relatively tiny distances involved on the surface of a planet meant that there were none of the time delays that Drakon had heard bedeviled virtual conferences in space. “At the time,” Kai explained, “the Alliance was rebounding from initial setbacks and threatening to seize Syndicate installations in several star systems. Having bled out its own ground forces in a series of futile offensives, the Syndicate could not adequately defend those installations. Therefore, a policy of calibrated self-destruction was adopted.”

Drakon studied the new window and the images on it. “The installations were wired for self-destruct, but not so the whole place would blow at once.”

“Yes, sir,” Kai said. “As Alliance forces seized one portion of the installation, that portion was destroyed. When another portion was captured, it too was destroyed.”

“Along with any Syndicate ground forces or citizens left in those portions?” Colonel Safir asked in amazement. “That’s harsh even by Syndicate standards.”

“But it worked,” Kai said. “The Alliance realized what was happening after suffering serious casualties every time a newly captured or almost-captured area blew up around the victorious Alliance forces. The Alliance had to pause its offensives in various star systems in order to develop new attack methods and tactics.”

“But the Syndicate stopped using that tactic when its own ground forces were able to get back up to strength?” Drakon asked.

“Yes, sir. By accessing highly classified files previously restricted to snake CEOs, I was able to determine that the negative morale aspects of the tactic were threatening to undermine Syndicate defenses as badly as the lack of ground forces had.”

Colonel Rogero nodded, smiling bitterly. “Of course. Once the soldiers figured out that the place they were defending might blow up at any moment, instead of standing their ground they started retreating as fast as possible to avoid being killed by their own side. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Colonel Kai said. “However, from what Black Jack’s fleet saw of the enigmas, individual enigmas rarely appeared to balk at suicidal tactics aimed at protecting their privacy. That would make this a plausible tactic for them, and, again according to Black Jack’s reporting as well as our own observations of the aftermath of space battles in this star system, the enigmas have a tendency to employ self-destruction to avoid any compromise of their secrets.”

“Good job,” Drakon said. “I bet you’re right. Ground tactics built around blowing up an entire installation as soon as it was attacked would just lead to quick defeat of the enigma race. But holding out until the entire installation was nearly occupied would give away too many of their secrets. Blowing up their bases in segments would allow them to tailor the self-destructs to match the situation, and discourage any attempts to capture those bases.”

“For those reasons, General,” Kai added, “I believe it is safe to assume that the enigmas will have developed a flexible self-destruct capability in their ground installations that can be tailored to meet requirements. They can probably quickly and easily designate exactly which portions of the installation to destroy and immediately carry out the task.”

Drakon sat back, one hand to his mouth, still looking at the old diagrams and thinking. “How do we beat that?”

“If we simply want to destroy the installation piece by piece,” Kai suggested, “then send in robotic scouts. We would need a lot of scouts, though, as we must assume the enigma defenses would inflict serious losses on anything trying to enter their base.”

“We don’t have that many, not even close, and the enigmas must have watched humans try to employ robotic combatants often enough to have seen all of the countertactics the Syndicate and the Alliance have used over the last century,” Drakon said. “The command and control links are too easily severed by jamming, or intruded upon.”

“The enigmas have demonstrated extensive capabilities to mess with software on our warships,” Safir said. “They can surely do the same to our battle armor and other ground forces software.”

Drakon stared at her as Safir’s words penetrated and he realized the implications. “Where is the armor those three soldiers from Iwa were wearing?”

“Still on that ship, I think,” Rogero offered. “It was going to be brought down on a routine shuttle run.”

“The code monkeys on that ship can scan for enigma quantum-coded worms in their own software, right? Did they do any scans like that of the battle armor software that came off Iwa?”

Everyone else finally understood. “Our system software might also already be laced with enigma worms?” Safir said, horrified. “If we went into a fight against them like that—”

“They’d wipe us out,” Rogero finished. “Maybe that’s what happened to that unit the three soldiers were in. Maybe enigma worms provided the long-range targeting. But then how did going passive save the three soldiers from death?”

“Let’s see if we can find out,” Drakon said. “Colonel Kai, what tactics did the Alliance ultimately develop to use against the Syndicate’s calibrated self-destruction?”

Kai spread his hands. “I could find nothing in the files available to us that speaks specifically about Alliance countertactics. There are just general statements that such tactics had been or were being developed.”

Drakon turned to Gozen, who had been sitting silently to one side of Drakon’s office, listening to the discussion. “Colonel Gozen, take the lead on working with the space apes to check the armor of those three soldiers for enigma worms. Let me know if any are found. If that battle armor is infected, we’ll have to check every set of armor and every system down here as well.” He turned back to face the others. “Colonel Rogero, check with Captain Bradamont on whether she ever heard anything about Alliance countertactics against that calibrated self-destruction. I’m not expecting her to have ever heard of it, but maybe somebody mentioned something.”

“Would Black Jack know anything about it?” Safir asked. “He’s from back around then, right?”

Rogero shook his head. “Black Jack was lost in survival sleep after one of the first battles of the war. All he knows of the first decades of the war is what he might have read in old reports. But I will ask Captain Bradamont.”

Hunching forward over his desk, resting his arms on the surface, Drakon eyed his colonels. “This job keeps getting more difficult. I know that can be discouraging. However, we have never met a challenge we could not overcome. I have the utmost confidence that together we will figure out a way to kick the enigmas out of their underground base at Iwa and not lose our own butts in the process.”

When Gozen reported back two hours later, her eyes were wide. “Those space code monkeys say the three sets of battle armor from Iwa are pumped full of so many enigma worms that they feel like fishing bait buckets.”

“Great.” Drakon considered his first response, then repeated it in more enthusiastic tones. “Great. We’ve discovered some of the enigma weapons that would have been used against us. Those warships know how to scrub out all the worms, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Gozen said. “It’s sort of weird. Instead of anti-malware software like we’re familiar with, the stuff the warships use scans the operating software for stable, persistent patterns at the quantum level, and if it finds any it cancels out the patterns using quantum wave interference. Whoever thought of that was a genius.”

“So I understand,” Drakon said. “She was an Alliance battle cruiser commander. Someone whom Captain Bradamont knew.”

“Knew?” Gozen asked.

“She died at Varandal, fighting our own Reserve Flotilla.”

Gozen shook her head. “More waste. How much human potential did that war grind into dust? And our side, the Syndicate, killed the person who might provide a critical boost to our efforts to beat the enigmas?”

“Yeah,” Drakon said. There really wasn’t any need for more words than that.

She sighed, then saluted him. “I’ve already arranged through Colonel Malin for warship code monkeys to come down here and run our people through the drills so they can scan all of our stuff. Colonel Malin gave it priority from the president’s office, so it should only take three hours for the shuttles to get those monkeys to us, then an estimated hour longer for scans to start.”

“Good.”

“And Colonel Rogero asked me to tell you that when he asked Captain Bradamont about an obscure aspect of Alliance ground forces tactics eighty years ago he received in reply a quote blank stare unquote.”

Drakon couldn’t suppress a grin. “That’s what I expected. Anything else?”

“The docs say that one of those three soldiers from Iwa is broke too bad for him to get back into combat condition,” Gozen reported. “From what they got out of him and the other two, his unit had been chewed up fighting a rebellion-suppression mission at some star about two dozen jumps from here. Instead of sending the survivors in for treatment, the Syndicate broke up the unit and sent the survivors out piecemeal as replacements to units that needed the warm bodies.”

His smile vanished as Drakon clenched a fist. “Already nearly broken and the Syndicate just sent him out again, without even the support his former comrades could have offered. He’s the one who couldn’t talk to me? I suspected something like that. Tell the docs to see what they can do and to take their time. Maybe they can pump enough happy pills into him to help him be functional again in some non-combat job.”

“Already told them that, sir.”

“What about the other two?”

“Not nearly as settled as they ought to be,” Gozen said. “But good enough if you want to take them along with the assault.”

“I’ll get a final appraisal on them just prior to the assault force leaving before I make that decision,” Drakon said. “You do realize that I am not going to Iwa?”

Gozen nodded. “Permission to ask a question, sir?”

“In my headquarters, officers do not have to ask permission to ask questions, Colonel. What is it?”

“Why not, sir? It’s going to be one tough fight, and, well, you’re pretty damned good.”

“Thank you,” Drakon said dryly. “I’m not happy about it. But President Iceni has to go to Iwa. Between you and me, I’m not happy about that, either. That means I have to stay at Midway as leader of the government in the president’s absence.”

Gozen grinned. “Is that going to make me some kind of high-ranking government official who can take her pick of any guy who catches her eye?”

“No, it’s going to make you a colonel with a smart mouth, which is what you already are,” Drakon added. “Let me know what we get from the software scans of our systems.”

One of the things that Drakon had vowed never to do if somehow he ended up in charge of everything was to rush through preparations for an operation in the name of sticking to a timeline, even when critical questions remained unanswered. Critical questions such as just how his ground forces would take an installation very deep beneath the surface of a planet and defended by fanatical paranoids willing to die in massive explosions rather than permit a glimpse of themselves.

But this operation was being driven as much by the need to lure Imallye into an attack at Iwa as it was by the need to cut off at the roots the attempt by the enigmas to establish a base inside human-occupied space.

So it was that Drakon found himself riding in an armored VIP limo toward the spaceport. Gwen Iceni, who had always sat on the opposite side of the vehicle, now sat with him. On the virtual windows on both sides of the limo, crowds of citizens could be seen lining the streets.

“They look worried,” Drakon said.

“I noticed.” She tapped the control to talk to the driver. “Stop the vehicle. The general and I will be walking from here.”

“Walking?” Drakon said.

“Yes. The people have to see me confident as I go off to fight the ogre. Or the dragon. Or whatever we want to characterize Imallye and the enigmas as. And we want to be absolutely certain that Imallye knows that I am going to Iwa. The best way to do that is to make a big event out of it and announce our intentions to everyone, as if we were totally confident of the outcome. So you and I will walk and wave and look completely certain of victory as we proceed on foot the rest of the way to the spaceport.” She gave him a sad look. “This will be our last private moment. Before I return. Take care of yourself, Artur.”

“You, too.” He found himself tongue-tied again, so Drakon just held her very tightly for a long moment before Iceni sighed, broke away, and released the locks on the armored doors to the limo’s passenger compartment.

The people cheered when Iceni stepped into sight. She smiled and waved, offered her hand to Drakon as he also left the limo, and the cheers redoubled.

Bodyguards got out of the armored escort vehicles ahead and behind them on the road, but Iceni gestured to them all to maintain their current distance rather than closing in tightly around her and Drakon as the bodyguards normally would have done.

The several blocks left to be walked to the spaceport were nothing in terms of physical exertion, but Drakon found them stressful all the same. The need to conceal his worries for Gwen, and the need to constantly scan the masses of citizens for anyone who looked dangerous, wore at him.

But it was heartening to see that Gwen had been right about how much the people had taken her to heart as their leader. Mixed in with the approval was clear concern for her welfare.

At the entrance to the spaceport, where security loomed to block the crowds from entering, Iceni stepped up onto a security barrier and turned to face the crowd that filled the entire street behind them. “Thank you!” she cried loudly. “I am going to Iwa to personally deal with threats to this star system. To deal with threats to you. Our warships will depart within a few weeks, with me leading them. I will leave this star system in the capable and dependable hands of my partner, General Artur Drakon, who has always been my close coworker in liberating this star system from the greedy grasp of the Syndicate and in making it a place that is for the people!”

The cheers echoed and reechoed from the surrounding buildings. Drakon, still accustomed to the staged enthusiasm of Syndicate mandatory celebrations, felt his breath catch at experiencing the real thing at such an intensity. “The people of Midway really do love you. You’re their champion.”

“That’s the problem, Artur.” Iceni waved again, her smile remaining fixed in place, as she spoke in a voice just barely audible to Drakon. “I know how to deal with being hated, with being feared. I know how to make people do things that they don’t want to do. The Syndicate taught us how to do that. But these citizens… they believe in me!”

“So do I,” Drakon said.

“It’s not quite the same thing. I didn’t worry about letting down the citizens when we were all still Syndicate. I was expected to let them down. But now I have this awful power and responsibility.”

“Gwen,” he said, turning to face her fully. “You always cared about them. You always worried about them. You just pretended not to. The only thing that has changed is that now they know it. Just keep being who you always were.”

“Damn.” She searched his eyes, her smile becoming genuine again. “You are good. I want them to know that, too.” She bent down and leaned in close, her kiss lingering to show real affection and not just duty, and the crowd responded with another roar of approval.

After her shuttle had left, leaping upward to meet the battleship Midway which had come into orbit about this world, Drakon watched the dwindling shape of the shuttle until it vanished. He had long since lost track of how many times he had vowed to stop caring about people, because he didn’t want to keep feeling the pain that followed when something bad happened to them. Maybe it was time to stop pretending that he could ever stop caring.

General Artur Drakon walked out of the spaceport to where the vast crowd of Iceni’s people, who were his people as well, awaited him.

Like anyone else, high-ranking or not, Drakon had a hierarchy of callers loaded into his private comm. The tones assigned to the different groups told him instantly whether a call was from a watch center, or one of his brigade commanders, one of his aides, or Gwen Iceni. Once, there had been a special tone to alert him to a call from whoever was the local snake CEO, but he had with great pleasure deleted that after snake CEO Hardrad had his brains blown out by Colonel Roh Morgan just before Hardrad was able to detonate the nuclear weapons once buried under the cities on this world.

He had kept some tones even after the people they were assigned to had died or apparently died, though. Drakon would never delete the tone he had assigned to calls from Colonel Conner Gaiene. Nor had he deleted the tone assigned to Morgan despite all of the evidence pointing to her death on Ulindi.

So when his private comm suddenly shrilled in the hours before dawn, Drakon woke instantly, recognizing Morgan’s call. He had the comm in his hand, responding, within seconds, but the call had already terminated. As was to be expected from Morgan, she had hacked her own comm so there was no hint on Drakon’s comm of exactly where the call had originated from.

That seemed to settle decisively the question of whether Morgan was still alive. But why would she have called him at such an hour and then hung up the instant he answered it?

To wake him up.

To warn him.

Drakon lunged out of his bed, weapon in hand. He took up a position that allowed him to cover most of his outer office, waiting for some sign of whatever Morgan had intended warning him about.

The sign came from an unexpected source. His comm chirped, indicating that its sensors had picked up traces of something bad in the air.

Drakon didn’t think he would have time to don battle armor, so instead he yanked out the survival suit kept in a special hidden alcove and shoved himself into it, activating the seals. His comm chirped again, more urgently as the canary app warned of dangerous gas, until he silenced it.

He waited, weapon ready. He could call the command center on the survival suit’s comm, but if the intruder was half as good as Drakon expected that would tip him off, and Drakon was pretty sure whoever was coming was a him.

The outer door to his office opened. It had been locked, sealed with his personal physical characteristics, and alarmed in multiple ways. But he could see it open noiselessly, and as easily as a simple sliding partition.

Drakon didn’t see anyone entering, though. That was not a good thing.

His shot was aimed at the fire sensor in the ceiling. It went off with a wail and misters began filling the room with water which outlined the shape of someone in stealth armor.

That someone was already turning toward where Drakon had fired. Shots tore through the mist as Drakon fired rapidly at the revealed figure, and as that figure moved with incredible speed to fire back.

Drakon had already flung himself to one side, behind a substantial chair that bore substantial hidden armor under its comfy exterior. The assassin’s shots tore into the chair, but none penetrated.

Other alarms were sounding now in the headquarters complex. On-call guards would be racing toward Drakon’s office, and other guards taking up positions to seal off every possible way into and out of the complex. “The attacker is wearing a stealth suit,” Drakon sent to his command center, abandoning comm silence now that all hell had broken out. “He is in my outer office. Be aware that there are atmospheric contaminates in this area.”

The shots aimed at Drakon ceased. He launched himself across the office toward another chair, catching out of the corner of his eye a glimpse of something flying in a low arc toward where he had been sheltered. Drakon rolled behind the second chair to put it between him and the first chair a bare second before a thunderclap and a flash of light marked the grenade’s detonation.

He rose fast, weapon lined up, but there was no longer any shape visible in the water mist. “Intruder has left my office. Flood hallways and rooms with smoke and find him!”

“I understand and will comply,” the duty officer responded. “Sir, what are our engagement parameters?”

“Shoot to kill. If you don’t, the intruder will. I want him neutralized.”

Squads of soldiers were racing into position, some of them cautiously checking the area just outside Drakon’s office and then the office itself. Drakon changed into his own battle armor, monitoring developments throughout his headquarters.

“The intruder is definitely no longer in your office or anywhere nearby,” the lieutenant in charge of the nearest unit reported to Drakon.

Togo must be running, trying to get clear to fight another day. Drakon checked his display, seeing that every access that could be used by someone wearing stealth armor was physically blocked by soldiers. It should only be a matter of time before they ran Togo to ground, and then—

“General, we have locked doors and escape hatches opening in a line leading out of the complex,” the duty officer reported. “Another worm is overriding our security software. We’ll kill that worm, but in the meantime the opened doors are being blocked by our soldiers.”

It was too obvious. “He’s not going out that way. It’s a diversion.”

“Yes, sir! We’re maintaining security everywhere while more soldiers are activated to conduct wall-to-wall searches.”

But as time wore on no one reported any contact with the intruder. Drakon watched the progress of the search with growing impatience. He was missing something. He had to be. What was it? After Gozen’s late-night visitor, every wall, ceiling, and floor had been painstakingly swept to ensure that any hidden ways into or out of the complex were found and sealed so completely that using them again would require major excavation work.

Gozen called him from the command center. “Sir, I’ve ordered an inventory of battle armor in our armories.”

“Why?” Drakon asked.

“Just a hunch, General.”

Half an hour later, as the search was grinding to a halt without results, Gozen called again. “Sir, we’ve got an extra set of armor. Full stealth. With some very recent damage to it.”

Realizing what that must mean, Drakon took a moment to rap his fist against the side of his own head. “The intruder got to an armory, removed his own armor, then left through some series of accesses just big enough for a person not wearing armor.”

“Or mingled with soldiers who hadn’t armored up yet,” Gozen agreed. “I’ve got our people searching for human-sized accesses that should be sealed but aren’t.”

Drakon confirmed that the air inside his living quarters was safe again and pulled off the survival suit with quick, angry movements. Not only had Togo, because it must have been Togo, nearly succeeded in killing him, but Togo had then escaped despite everything thrown up to stop him.

They found the intruder’s escape route eventually. A series of vents and ducts that were barely big enough for someone to have slid through, their governing mechanisms and status sensors all hacked.

“He’s real good,” Gozen commented, then noticed the glower from Drakon in response. “In a bad way, I mean.”

Drakon blew out an angry breath and made a fist, relaxed it, then tightened it again as he looked at his hand. “I underestimated him, even though I was warned not to. How long was he planning to go rogue on President Iceni? There is no telling how many worms and other malware he planted in how many systems, and how many other plans he has already done all the preparations for.”

“He did fail, though.”

“Not on account of me, Colonel,” Drakon admitted.

“But… what alerted you, sir?” Gozen asked.

Drakon tapped his comm unit. “I got a call that woke me up, then the canary routine in my comm reported something bad in the air.”

“Yes, sir. An incapacitating agent. I am raising hell with our security folks to explain how someone was able to introduce that into your living area without setting off a million alarms.” Gozen looked puzzled. “Why not just use a lethal agent if he wanted to kill you?”

“Because,” Drakon said heavily, “he wants to kill me. Not by remote means or by using some agent, but by lining up a weapon on me and firing it himself.” He paused. “But I am increasingly accepting your suggestion that Togo does not mean harm to President Iceni. He wants me out of the way and her completely in charge. I don’t know what he intended when he broke into her living quarters, but there was no incapacitating agent used that time.”

“Maybe he was going to explain to her what he was doing,” Gozen said. “Maybe he was planning on getting to her in a way that no one else would know he had been there, so he could sit down and monologue to the president about his reasons and everything.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” Drakon said. “If Togo does consider himself still loyal to President Iceni, it must bother him that she considers him a dangerous traitor. But that sort of why-I-am-doing-this talk usually only happens in stories, not in real life. Usually all anyone can do is guess at the motivation behind acts by others, because someone willing to do what Togo is doing is also very willing to lie even to himself as to why he’s doing it.”

“We’ll get him, sir,” Gozen vowed. “Who was it that called, by the way? Good timing on that.”

“That’s because it was a deliberate warning,” Drakon said. “The call was from Colonel Morgan. She is indeed also after Togo and must have spotted him entering this headquarters and guessed his target.”

“Did Colonel Morgan say why she didn’t tell us she didn’t die on Ulindi?” Gozen asked.

“She didn’t say anything. I can only guess at her motivations right now, too.”

“Is Colonel Morgan a threat?” Gozen asked in the tones of someone who didn’t really want to know the answer but knew she had to ask.

“Not to me,” Drakon said. “But I have no idea who else she might decide to go after.”

“Maybe it was her, not Togo, who broke into the president’s quarters.”

Drakon stared at Gozen. “I hope you’re wrong.” Two trained killers who had both slipped their leashes and were now seeking out targets on their own. It was the unstated worry of everyone who employed assassins, that such deadly weapons would turn upon their former owners, or would simply begin choosing their own victims.

When he was assured of total privacy, Drakon gazed at his comm, remembering not only how lethal Roh Morgan was but also the many times her talents had proven extremely valuable. Arguably, Drakon had long owed his own life to Morgan, since it was she who had successfully deleted any information that might link him to the escape of a subordinate whom the snakes wanted to arrest. The snakes had seen Drakon exiled to Midway anyway, but they had chosen to wait for him to trip up again, and perhaps expose other disloyal Syndicate personnel, rather than nail him immediately.

He owed her. Even now.

Drakon tapped the comm to call Morgan’s number. The comm waited patiently for an answer, finally informing Drakon that no one had acknowledged the call and that, for reasons unknown to the comm unit, the location of the comm called could not be determined at all. But he could leave a message. “Roh, whatever you’re doing, please contact me. I want to talk. I promise no attempts to trace your location. If you are hunting Togo, that’s what I would order you to do if I could speak with you. But no other targets, Roh. No. Other. Targets. President Iceni is not to be harmed. Oh, and thank you. You saved my life. Again. I have not and will not forget how loyal and capable you are. But no other targets, Roh. Call me. Drakon, out.”

If Morgan did go after Iceni out of some twisted sense of loyalty, he would have to kill her.