Tarnished Knight

Chapter Fifteen

Drakon preferred simple plans. They had fewer things that could go wrong. Even the simple parts could turn into a total goat rope, but if you kept the parts limited in number, that at least offered a chance to limit the number of goat ropes you would have to deal with when the plan hit reality head-on. “Not bad.”

Malin checked his own readout of the plan, and Morgan gave Drakon a surprised look. They knew that “not bad” wasn’t the same as “good to go.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Morgan asked.

“Only one thing.” He pointed to the display over his desk where the plan for entering the Taroa Star System played out in three dimensions. “You’ve got one freighter loaded with half of one brigade coming in early and alone to surprise and capture the primary orbiting docks before the rest of the force shows up. That’s good. It’s critically important that we capture those docks intact along with whatever is being built there and the skilled workers building it. But your plan calls for you to use part of Gaiene’s brigade, with Morgan along to represent me, while Malin and I follow with Kai’s brigade, the rest of Gaiene’s soldiers and Senski’s local brigade.”

“I can handle it,” Morgan said, bridling.

“Yes, but in action you and Gaiene are both very aggressive. What’s needed there along with Colonel Gaiene is someone to watch the flanks and rear, someone to make sure we get whatever is being built in that main construction dock—”

“I’m just as good at that as Malin, there.”

“—and someone who can immediately deal with the Free Taroans before they realize that we stole their primary docking facility. That’s me.”

It was Malin’s turn to object. “Sir, that lead freighter is going in without any escort. If there is even one light mobile unit in the Taroa Star System, and it is under control of the snakes or Syndicate loyalists, then it could choose to intercept that freighter. That would put you at very great risk.”

“The last word we had is that there are no Syndicate or snake-controlled mobile units at Taroa,” Drakon said. “If one has shown up, it won’t be hanging around the jump point for Midway. It’ll be at the fourth planet, where most of the population is and the snakes and Syndicate loyalists are fighting the other two factions. Our freighter will be able to evade it for long enough if a warship like that comes for us, and once the rest of the force shows up, we’ll have enough firepower to make it run.”

“General, you are too important to risk yourself that way. If the loyalists have any nukes emplaced on those docks, they can blow the entire thing to hell if they realize in time what’s happening. I can—”

“No,” Morgan broke in. “I can handle it.”

“You’re both good,” Drakon said, “but this is my job. Morgan, you’ll ride with Colonel Kai, and Malin, you’ll be with Colonel Senski. End of discussion.”

They talked a bit longer about details, working those matters out, then Malin left.

Morgan paused before leaving, however. “If this is because you think that Gaiene would hit on me if we were on the same ship, you’re wrong.”

“That’s not it.” Not that exactly, anyway. The idea of Gaiene and Morgan cooped up together on the freighter for a few days had bothered him, but not for the obvious reasons suggested by Morgan’s allure and Gaiene’s randiness. They both knew when to rein in those aspects of themselves. Just why having them jointly on that freighter for this mission did concern him, Drakon didn’t know, but he had learned to listen to his gut feelings. And he did want to make sure that he, and no one else, was the first one talking to the Free Taroans. “It’s about my being in direct contact with the people on the primary inhabited planet at Taroa. Your ideas of diplomacy are a little more aggressive, and involve a little more firepower, than may be appropriate there.”

Morgan eyed him, then grinned. “Well, yeah. I am better at breaking things. All right, General.”

“You and Malin will be on two different ships. Make sure it stays that way. I don’t want my command staff concentrated on one target.”

Her grin didn’t waver. “You also don’t want your command staff being cut in half if I got fed up with Malin and gutted him like a fish. Got it. But there was another thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Colonel Rogero. Alone here with her royal highness.”

“Do you mean President Iceni?” Drakon asked.

“Yes, sir.” Her smile fading, Morgan stepped closer. “General, we know Rogero had ties to the snakes, we know he has ties to the Alliance—”

“We’ve been over this.”

“—so how do we know he doesn’t have ties to Iceni? How do we know that he’s not feeding her stuff that only those closest to you are aware of?”

Drakon considered the question because he had learned to pay attention to Morgan’s instincts, too. “From the way you framed the question, I assume that you have no proof of that.”

“I can get it.”

“Real proof, Morgan. We’re not the ISS. We don’t find ways to prove someone is guilty by manufacturing evidence.”

She shook her head, looking unfazed by the rebuke. “No. I don’t have evidence. But I’m looking.”

“That’s part of your job,” Drakon said. “Are you suggesting that I leave you behind to keep an eye on Rogero?”

“No, sir. I’m suggesting that you do something about him before it’s too late.”

“No. That’s all, Colonel Morgan.”

Togo stood before Iceni’s desk, his usual impassivity somehow seeming more stern. “I am concerned for your safety, Madam President.”

That didn’t sound good. Iceni focused her full attention on him. “What have you found?”

“General Drakon will be leaving the star system with most of his senior officers.”

“I am aware of that.”

“He will be leaving behind Colonel Rogero,” Togo continued. “The man who earlier attempted to kill you.”

Iceni shook her head. “I’ve double-checked Rogero’s record. He’s an excellent shot. If he had wanted to hit me when I stepped onto the battleship, he would have hit me.”

“We cannot know that with certainty. We cannot know whether he faltered in carrying out his orders.”

“You think that Colonel Rogero is being left behind to see that I am killed? Or to personally kill me?”

Togo nodded sharply. “While General Drakon is outside the star system. He will have perfect deniability.”

It was the flip side of the earlier argument. That didn’t mean the argument didn’t have logic behind it, though. “Do you have any information actually linking Colonel Rogero to an assassination plot aimed at me?”

This time Togo hesitated. “There are some very disturbing rumors concerning Colonel Rogero, Madam President. They call into question his loyalty and who he truly answers to.”

So some form of information about Rogero’s contacts with the ISS and that woman in the Alliance fleet had leaked out. “Rumors?” Iceni pressed. “You know how I feel about rumors.”

“I have nothing solid, but the nature of the rumors indicate that Colonel Rogero may be extremely dangerous. He should be dealt with before—”

“No.” Iceni leaned forward to emphasize her words. “That is not authorized. If you find proof, I want to see it. If all you have is rumors, I will not change my mind.”

“But Madam President—”

“Proof.”

“With all respect, Madam President, the proof may be your death.”

“I don’t think so.” Iceni sat back again, smiling slightly. “And I think too highly of your own abilities to believe that Colonel Rogero would pose a threat while you are nearby.”

Togo stood, irresolute, then nodded. “I will protect you, Madam President.”

“Of course.”

She watched him leave, then sighed and turned back to her work. Maybe Rogero was a threat, but she had no doubt that, whatever his orders, Rogero had deliberately avoided hitting her with that shot. A shot that had killed a snake whose intentions toward her didn’t have to be guessed. For that, Rogero deserved at least a little restraint on her part.

She had told Drakon that she wouldn’t order any more executions without informing him. Assassinations didn’t count as part of that agreement. Prudence, as exercised by Syndicate Worlds’ CEOs, meant erring on the side of ensuring that potential threats were eliminated.

But the words that Kommodor Marphissa had spoken to her, about the need to ensure that only the guilty were punished, still bothered Iceni. And Drakon had seemed to listen when she brought it up. Really listen, as opposed to nodding occasionally to fake interest in what she was saying. Not many people did that, of course, not when she had wielded the power of a CEO and currently the power of a president, but when she was younger, it had happened with discouraging frequency. Nowadays, the fake interest was much more carefully contrived. But Drakon had actually listened. For a moment there… no. You can’t afford to think that way. You let your guard down with him because you were so relieved to get back here safe, with the battleship and in time to scare off that flotilla, and to learn that he hadn’t moved against you. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t planning something, or won’t do something if you give him a good enough opportunity. Never trust anyone, but especially never trust another CEO. And that’s what Artur Drakon is even though he calls himself a general now.

Keep telling yourself that, Gwen. You can’t drop your defenses with him. If he ever got you in bed… oh.

Wow.

I wish I hadn’t thought about that.

As Iceni had said, space travel could be very boring even with all the latest entertainment options at your beck and call. Not that a freighter was set up to deal with the entertainment needs of so many soldiers crammed into cargo compartments modified to offer life support and accommodations for half a brigade.

Drakon had the luxury of his own room, a closet-sized affair that offered privacy and little else. Taroa wasn’t too far as jumps went, but the journey to the jump point took a while, then there were four and a half days in jump space, followed by a long, tense trip toward the fourth planet in the Taroa Star System.

There weren’t any mobile forces units at Taroa, but that didn’t mean some couldn’t show up at any moment, and even a HuK or a corvette would be more than a freighter could handle. The small fast attack craft that had once served as defenses just outside planetary atmospheres had been swept up in a recall from Prime months ago, sent to some star systems far from here apparently in a harebrained scheme to fight Black Jack’s fleet. They hadn’t come back and had never been replaced by new units, so even that threat was at least temporarily gone.

Twelve hours’ travel time out from the main docks orbiting the fourth planet, Drakon walked through the modified cargo compartments and other habitable parts of the freighter. The civilian crew members were deferential in the manner of people who knew they could die in a heartbeat if they offended him. Drakon had considered telling one of the nervous crew members that their deference offended him just to see how they would react but decided that would be gratuitously cruel. He knew from his own experiences when he was much more junior in rank that jokes like that were only funny to the superior who made them.

Everywhere else he went, his soldiers greeted him with feigned surprise as they worked on equipment, or studied advancement courses or tactics, or worked on virtual trainers. Drakon knew full well that he was being tracked by his soldiers everywhere he went on the freighter, and they were busy keeping each other apprised of where he was headed next. With some work and deceptive movements, he could probably surprise some of his soldiers in the middle of gambling or unauthorized unarmed-combat competitions, but it wasn’t worth the trouble, especially since his soldiers knew better than to engage in any wild parties so close to a combat operation. So Drakon kept to an easily forecast path, threading through crowded cargo compartments and along passageways lined sometimes on both sides with soldiers sitting awake or asleep. He gave them a calm, confident demeanor that was only part masquerade and they gave him a professional and prepared appearance that was also only part pretense but would be full reality when it came time to attack.

Finally on his way back to his own room to do some final preparations of his own, Drakon came across the brigade commander. Colonel Gaiene sat in a passageway, back against one bulkhead, facing the bulkhead across from him since no one else sat on that side. If they had to describe Conor Gaiene’s appearance in one word, most people would have chosen “dashing.” Or maybe “gallant” or perhaps “swashbuckling.” Even sitting on the deck, he somehow seemed ready to leap up and lead a charge.

That was how he appeared until you noticed his eyes, dark and weary even though Gaiene was still a few years shy of middle age. Now those eyes looked up as Drakon approached. “Good afternoon, General.”

“Good afternoon.” There were few other soldiers near the command deck, and those were giving their brigade commander as much room and privacy as current circumstances allowed, so Drakon took a seat next to Gaiene. “How are you doing?”

“I’m sober. And alone. Alas.” A female soldier walked by, and Gaiene watched her appreciatively though discreetly. “No sleeping with subordinates. Is that rule really necessary?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Most CEOs don’t care. Most CEOs right now would have a drink in one hand and one of their subordinates in the other.”

Drakon grinned. “I’m not most CEOs.”

“No. You’re not.” Gaiene looked toward the far bulkhead, his expression pensive. “For which I am smart enough to be grateful.”

“You’re brilliant in battle, Con.”

“And the rest of the time I’m a royal pain in the butt.” Gaiene ran one hand through his hair, and Drakon caught a glimpse of the ring on one of his fingers. How long ago had she died? Ever since then, Gaiene had tried to forget her with every woman who was willing and every bottle he could crack open. But he still wore the ring. “I don’t know why you keep me around.”

“I have my reasons.”

“Any other CEO would have had me in a labor camp long before this,” Gaiene remarked. “As one of the guards or as one of the inmates.”

Drakon nodded. “And that would be a real waste.”

“A waste. Yes. We know all about that, don’t we? Scarred lives and damaged souls. We’re all damned, you know,” Gaiene went on in a conversational voice. “Everywhere we’ve fought, we’ve left a little piece of ourselves and replaced it with a small piece of the hell we found in that place. Now most of us is scattered in a hundred little pieces in a hundred places where death walked. I see those places. I see them all the time. Usually in my dreams, but sometimes I see them when I’m awake.”

Gaiene could be moody when sober, but this was worse than usual. “Are you all right?” Drakon asked. “Can you handle going into another fight?”

“I’m fine. The psychs say I will soon achieve emotional equilibrium again. They’ve been saying that for a very long time. I will go on, though,” Gaiene added, his tone now slightly distant. “I will go on until the day I end; then you will give me a proper warrior’s burial, and you will go on.”

“Unless we both end together that day,” Drakon said.

“Ah, no, General. It’s not for you to talk of endings. You still have a future.”

“So do you.”

But this time Gaiene did not reply. He sat, his eyes on the opposite bulkhead, but looking at another place and time.

There were a great many things that Drakon needed to be doing. But he sat next to Gaiene for a long time without talking, shoulder to shoulder against a future that was uncertain and a past too clearly remembered.

“Five minutes to docking,” the announcing system on the freighter declared. The operator of this particular freighter had chosen a woman’s voice using an odd and strong accent, producing an effect that combined attention-getting for the strangeness and annoyance over the difficulty of understanding some of the words.

“Probably the voice of the owner’s mistress,” Gaiene commented. He and all of his soldiers were in combat armor, ready to go when the freighter docked.

“I can’t think of any other explanation.” Drakon’s armor was tied into the freighter’s own systems, so he could monitor the approach directly. On visual, the shape of the dock ahead of them stood out brilliantly white against the black of space. “No sign of any special— Wait. Looks like a squad of local troops in armor.”

Colonel Gaiene sighed with exasperation. “Now we’ll have to waste ammunition on them.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. They don’t look tense.” The troops waiting on the dock were being careless, moving so they were clearly silhouetted against the bright white of the dock walls instead of keeping to shadowed locations or cover. And they stood holding their weapons casually, propped over one shoulder or resting nose first against the deck. He had seen similar carelessness and postures before, when commanding detachments who had felt what these soldiers clearly felt, though he hadn’t let them get away with those kinds of behaviors. “Looks more like they’ve been on alert too long. They’re going through the motions, but they’re bored by it all. They’ve probably been doing the same drill when every ship arrives.”

“Do you want to try to take them alive?”

Drakon thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s critical that we keep the snakes on this facility from realizing what’s happening until it’s too late for them to trigger any self-destruct. The sooner we start shooting, the less time we’ll have. How do we surprise them with overwhelming force and keep them from sounding an alarm?”

Gaiene smiled. “Contraband in one of the freight compartments. The sort of contraband that bored soldiers would love to get their hands on. They’ll have to go check it out in person before anyone in authority confiscates it.”

“What kind of contraband?”

“Hmmm… happy dust.” A mythical drug, undetectable by any means, nonaddictive, no side effects, cheap, and the nearest thing to feeling like a god.

“Happy dust doesn’t really exist,” Drakon pointed out. “It’s an urban legend. Or I guess just a legend since I’ve never been anywhere that hadn’t heard of it.”

“Which means we don’t actually have to have any,” Gaiene pointed out in turn. “Sergeant Shand!”

A stout soldier trotted forward. “Yes, Colonel.”

“Get out of your armor and into a survival suit. You are a drug smuggler. You have a cargo of happy dust. You are willing to bribe the squad of local soldiers with some of it as long as they let you keep the rest. Get them all into this freight compartment.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

By the time the freighter shuddered gently as the grapples locked it into the dock, Sergeant Shand was ready, looking remarkably seedy and dissolute in a grubby survival suit pulled out of the freighter’s emergency locker. Shand went to the compartment access, while Gaiene dispersed his troops around the compartment itself, hidden behind anything that would serve.

Drakon watched, keeping his breathing even, his heart rate under control. Gaiene could be trusted to handle the assault, but Drakon had to remain calm and focused, ready to spot problems before they developed and make sure nothing hung up anywhere.

When one of the bored soldiers opened the access to plug in and check the manifest, Shand was there, talking suit to suit with the soldier on the crew circuit as he gestured in alternately enticing and pleading ways.

More soldiers showed up. Sergeant Shand waved invitingly inside.

They followed him. Drakon counted a full squad as the last cleared the access. His outside view showed no one visible on the dock.

A sudden rustle of motion marked a couple of companies of soldiers leveling weapons at the shocked local troops, all of whom were wise enough to freeze into total immobility.

Motion on the dock, a single figure in battle armor coming out, pausing long enough to take in the situation, then heading toward the freighter access like someone who was very unhappy and ready to unload that emotion upon others. “Is their squad leader with them in here?” Drakon asked Gaiene.

The reply took only a moment. “No.”

“He or she just figured out that the squad is all inside the freighter and is heading this way, no doubt mad as hell.”

A few seconds later the sergeant came storming through the access, then stopped as four of Gaiene’s soldiers near the door planted weapons against the sergeant’s helmet.

Gaiene clucked a disappointed sound. “The sergeant tried to send an alert. Our jammers blocked it inside the hull. She has an impressive grasp of profanity.”

“She can exercise it on her squad while they’re all locked up aboard here,” Drakon said, as the locals were disarmed and herded away. “We’ve got a couple of minutes more at best before somebody notices that they’re gone from the dock.” He switched to the command circuit that went to every one of his soldiers. “Don’t forget to let any of the soldiers defending the facility surrender if they don’t fight us. We need to move fast, and we don’t need any last stands holding up the attack. Move!”

The elements of the brigade exploded from the freighter, using the big cargo-loading hatches. Soldiers swarmed along the dock, heading for objectives loaded into their combat armor. There had been plenty of copies of the layout of the facility available at Midway, and the soldiers had spent a lot of their time on the trip running virtual assaults. Now they didn’t hesitate as they attacked the real thing.

Just inside the facility access, a snake sitting at the personnel screening desk died before she knew what was happening, her alarm untouched. A group of civilian workers fled in panic, some huddled against the deck in fright, but the soldiers ignored them until one reached for an alarm panel, only to be knocked sprawling against the nearest wall.

Drakon stayed back, trying to remain near the center of the mass of soldiers as they spread through the facility. He focused not on the action in the area right around him but on the big picture shown on his helmet display, watching for trouble, especially with any of the units heading for the main construction dock and those charging toward the control compartment for the orbital docks.

Colonel Gaiene seemed to be everywhere, always in the lead, pushing his troops in a race to occupy as much of the facility as possible and overrun as many local soldiers as they could before alarms sounded.

A team of combat engineers locked into the control circuitry of the docks and began downloading software to take over systems and prevent any new commands from being entered by the defenders.

Still no alarm as Gaiene’s troops charged through still-open hatches and down undefended passageways. The barracks nearest the docks got swamped by a wave of attackers, the surprised defenders blinking in amazement as they were suddenly confronted by overwhelming numbers of armored soldiers. None were foolish enough to resist.

The attack spread through the facility in a ragged bubble as different sections were overrun. A break room full of off-shift workers was seized. A workshop occupied. “Secondary docks cleared,” a battalion commander reported to Gaiene and Drakon. “Heading into the main dock now.”

Drakon focused on the displays from unit leaders charging into the dock. The security doors were unmanned, using automated readers that were overridden in instants, then soldiers were swarming into the main construction dock. “Hot damn,” one of the unit leaders exclaimed as he saw the object hidden inside until then. “Battleship or battle cruiser. Sure as hell.”

“It’ll be one of those things someday,” another leader commented. “Right now, it’s just a shell.”

Startled late-shift workers were dropping tools and raising their hands as the soldiers swept among them. “No resistance here. No guards. Main construction dock is secured.”

“Make sure there are no charges planted to sabotage that hull,” Drakon ordered. “Go over the whole thing with some of those workers in tow.”

Alarms finally blared as someone, somewhere realized that trouble had arrived. But with Drakon’s engineers confusing the information coming into the control compartment, no one yet seemed to have grasped that an attack was under way. Bewildered automated systems trying to figure out exactly which emergency was the problem mixed the tones of various alerts, the onboard fire alarm switched to the object-collision alarm, which became the riot alarm, which changed to the decompression alarm, which turned back into the fire warning.

Where the hell are the snakes? Drakon wondered, scanning his display for any sign of them. “Do we have all control circuits locked down?”

“No, sir,” the reply came from the combat engineer commander. “There are some redundant, totally independent circuits that we haven’t been able to reach yet.”

“Colonel Gaiene, make sure your soldiers get access to all circuits for the engineers as soon as possible. Bypass other objectives if necessary until we get everything under control.”

One platoon found a snake barracks filled with ISS personnel hastily trying to don battle armor. After a single instant in which both sides stared at each other, Gaiene’s soldiers launched grenades into the bunched snakes, followed by a rush in which the soldiers fired at anything that still moved, some of them continuing to flay the bodies with shots until their commanders slammed fists against their helmets.

Drakon snarled with frustration as he saw red markers on his display showing vital circuits and compartments not yet seized. But the civilians on this facility were all awake, some piling into the passageways in panic and slowing down Drakon’s attack. He couldn’t put off the next step any longer. “Broadcast the message.”

Over the pulsing of the different alarms still clamoring for attention, voices boomed over the internal announcing system hijacked by the comm specialists with Drakon’s troops. “This facility is now under the control of soldiers of the Midway Star System under the command of General Drakon. Do not resist. Any citizens and soldiers who surrender will not be harmed. Return to your quarters and remain there. Do not offer resistance.”

Another snake barracks, this one alerted but with only a few occupants, who fought viciously before being wiped out.

“Colonel, we’ve got a platoon holed up near engineering control. They’re… Damn! Got a soldier down. These guys are fighting.”

“Take them out,” Gaiene ordered. “They had their chance.”

Soldiers converged on the holdouts from three sides, overwhelming the defenders with a barrage of fire before charging in and finishing off any who were still alive.

Drakon watched it all, remembering so many fights just like it. Then the enemy had been Alliance soldiers. We were taught to fight without mercy. They fought without mercy, too. Now we’re fighting ourselves the same way.

Is that why Black Jack told his people to start taking prisoners again and stop bombarding citizens? Because he realized that if merciless behavior becomes habit, you can end up turning those tactics on yourself? The Syndicate government has been willing to do things like that for a long time, and here we are, without the Syndicate ordering it or the snakes forcing it on us, repeating that pattern.

We’ve got to break out of it. “This is General Drakon. Everyone will provide opportunities to surrender to any defender at any point. Only if they keep fighting are they to be killed.”

“General?” Gaiene questioned. “Your orders going in—”

“Have changed. We’re not snakes.”

“. . . Yes, sir.”

Drakon’s eyes went to part of his display. He frowned, wondering what had drawn his attention, then saw an anomaly warning pop up near the main construction dock. “Heads up at the dock. There’s someone coming your way!”

Moments later, a hatch blew open, and snakes and loyalist soldiers poured through it toward the massive hull under construction. Fire from Gaiene’s soldiers pummeled them while Drakon started moving himself, calling to some of Gaiene’s nearby units. “To the main dock! Now!”

Why should it matter? What could a few dozen snakes and soldiers do to something as massive and uncompleted as that hull? But they were fighting like hell to get to it, so there had to be some important reason. “Hold them!” he ordered the soldiers inside the dock. “Keep them away from that hull!”

“Too many!” one of Gaiene’s soldiers cried, the signal cutting off abruptly on the last word as fire ripped into her.

Reinforcements entered the dock from three locations, one group led by Drakon. They could see the force of snakes and loyalist soldiers moving toward the hull, their advance hindered by the stubborn defense from Gaiene’s original occupying force. Drakon’s force had come in from the side, giving them clean shots at the attackers. Leveling his weapon, Drakon sighted on a snake dashing forward, his shot hitting home moments before two others, the combined blows taking out the snake.

The other two reinforcing elements opened fire as well, putting the snakes and loyalist soldiers in a cross fire coming from three directions on top of the shots still pummeling them from the defenders of the hull.

A loyalist soldier jumped up to run, only to fall as the nearest snake pumped a shot into him. A second later, the snake died, too, as the loyalist soldiers turned on the ISS agents among them.

“Hold fire!” Drakon ordered as the last of the snakes on the dock died and the loyalist soldiers dropped their weapons, then stood with empty hands raised in surrender. For an instant of time, the fate of the loyalists balanced on the knife-edge of veteran soldiers fighting their own instincts and experience to kill without mercy.

But no more shots were fired. As Drakon took a deep breath and refocused on the situation elsewhere, he heard one of the loyalists broadcasting an appeal in a shaking voice. “You guys know us! We’ve fought together! Don’t scrap us!”

And the reply from one of Gaiene’s soldiers. “Frost out, brother. We don’t work for some CEO. We’re General Drakon’s troops. His orders are to accept surrender.”

“Drakon? Praise our ancestors! Hey, the snakes said they needed to reach two places inside that hull. We don’t know why. Here are the readouts.”

“Let’s check those locations,” a captain ordered some of her soldiers. “You two engineers, come with us in case something needs disarming.”

“General?” Colonel Gaiene’s voice came.

“Yeah.” Drakon finally relocated Gaiene on the map on his helmet display, seeing Gaiene leading a force down the passageway toward the primary control compartment. “They tried to get to the hull. Don’t know why yet. How are things on your end?”

“We’re about to knock on a door.”

Drakon called up direct video from Gaiene’s armor, seeing a soldier leveling a Ram tube at the reinforced hatch protecting the control compartment. The Ram fired, blowing the hatch completely off its mountings, and before the hatch had hit the deck Gaiene led a force through the hatchway into the main control compartment. Inside, screaming workers were trying to flee a half-dozen snakes in armor who were firing into them. “Try someone who can fight back!” Gaiene shouted as his first shot shattered the faceplate of one of the snakes.

The other snakes died in a flurry of fire, leaving a curious stillness around the soldiers. Through Gaiene’s armor, Drakon could hear the shuddering gasps and pained cries of the surviving civilian workers, who were watching the soldiers with dread. “Start first aid and get some medics in here fast,” Gaiene ordered his troops, then spoke to Drakon. “System operators. It looks like the snakes were going to kill them all, then try to blow the system controls. Totally pointless since we’ve already remotely seized command of those circuits. Just senseless, bloody slaughter.” Gaiene took a step to stand over one of the snakes lying lifeless on the deck, pointed his weapon at the head of the dead body, and fired another shot. “Bastards.”

Who would you be if you weren’t you? Iceni’s question came back to Drakon then. Who would those snakes have been? In a different place and time, would they have still been willing to do such things? Was it because they had been taught that such actions were right? Or had the ISS sought out those who were always to be found among humanity in every place and time, the ones who for a cause or for no reason at all would kill the helpless without blinking? The answer didn’t matter just then. He and Gaiene had to deal with who the snakes were. “Good job, Colonel.”

The main control deck had been one of the last places to be reached where resistance could be expected. Elsewhere, the flood of soldiers continued to spread rapidly through the rest of the facility, but aside from an occasional isolated loyalist soldier who stood with empty hands raised in surrender, no more defenders were left. “How’s it look to you, Colonel Gaiene?”

“I’ve got teams checking a few last spots right now, General. But it looks like we’ve got this one put away.”

A few minutes later, Gaiene called again. “All secure,” he reported. “Odd that one force tried so hard to get to a hull that couldn’t have gotten under way without several months of work.”

“We should hear from the soldiers who went in to check on that real soon.” Drakon studied the lists of data being downloaded from Gaiene’s armor. “We took a few casualties.”

“It could have been far worse, General. It was for the defenders.” The elation and excitement was draining from Colonel Gaiene’s voice, replaced by weariness and gloom. “I have a report from those who are inside the hull. They’ve found the packages the snakes wanted so badly.”

Video popped up on one side of Drakon’s helmet display. “Two nukes,” an engineer reported. “Sealed behind false bulkheads. We severed the command links before they could be remotely detonated, so the only way the snakes could set them off was by getting to them.”

“They sure didn’t want anyone making off with this hull,” the captain who had led the searchers commented. “If they’d blown those, it would have also trashed this whole dock facility.”

“Get the nukes disarmed, disassembled, and removed,” Drakon ordered. Had news of what Iceni had accomplished at Kane already reached Taroa, resulting in an extra measure of security against someone’s stealing an uncompleted warship? Or did this just reflect snake paranoia of possible rebellion on the dock? He remembered the cooperation some of the prisoners had rendered and how they had turned on the snakes with them. “Colonel Gaiene, I want the loyalist soldiers who surrendered evaluated for candidates to come over to us. What I’m seeing shows that they’re all Syndicate troops as opposed to Taroan locals.”

“That matches my information,” Gaiene said. “Apparently, the snakes didn’t trust locals up here.”

“They don’t seem to have trusted the loyalist regulars all that much, either. With good cause.”

Gaiene’s smile mixed melancholy and satisfaction. “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer nest of reptiles. We’ll put the option of joining your forces to these soldiers and see what happens. I assume we want full screening of each and every one of those volunteers before we accept them?”

“You assume correctly. There have been way too many deep-cover snake agents showing up at Midway.”

“And the civilians?”

“We’ll screen them gradually. For now, I’ll keep the facility at lockdown for another hour, then relax it by stages. That should keep any civilians from doing anything dumb and any snake agents among them from doing anything until we’re ready to deal with it.”

Feeling exhausted but grateful that coming down off the adrenaline rush from an operation was eased by the need to concentrate on cleanup details, Drakon called the freighter. “Put me through to Senior Line Worker Mentasa.” There were risks involved in using Mentasa, but those were more than balanced by the advantages in having someone known and trusted by the workers here. Mentasa also had firsthand knowledge of which specialists were most needed to finish out the work on the battleship at Midway.

“Here, General Drakon,” Mentasa said, doing his best to stand in a military posture even though the cramped quarters on the freighter made that difficult, and even though his citizen-worker appearance made his attempts to look military seem a little silly.

“The facility has been taken. It’s still on lockdown, but I want you to get on the comm system. I’m sending you an authorization so the blocks we put on it will let you through. Start talking to people you know. Tell them who we are, reassure them that they are safe, tell them what we want, find out what they’ve been building in the main construction dock, and see if anyone is interested in being hired to work at Midway. I also want to know everything you can find out about the hull in the main construction dock. Battleship or battle cruiser, how far along, how long it will take to finish, and whether Taroa has everything needed to complete it.”

“Yes, General.” Mentasa hesitated. “General, is it permissible to contact anyone on the planet?”

“Personal business or business?” Drakon asked, already knowing the answer by the look in Mentasa’s eyes.

“Both. If that’s—”

“It’s fine. After you talk to the citizens up here and get me that information on the hull that’s under construction, feel free to talk to citizens down on the planet. Let your people know that you’re all right. By the time you talk to them, I’ll have let the Free Taroans know why we’re here.”

Drakon took a few moments to check out his appearance, trying to look impressive but not too intimidating. The Free Taroans had open comm links, of course, broadcasting their propaganda and seeking recruits. Drakon’s comm software easily hijacked one of the those circuits. “This is General Drakon of the Midway Independent Star System. My soldiers now control the primary orbiting dockyard in this star system. We have come here to assist the Free Taroans. The leaders of the Free Taroans are to contact me as soon as possible using this circuit.”

That ought to produce a quick reaction.

How the Free Taroans would react to this unasked-for help had been the biggest variable in the planning. If the Free Taroans balked, if they were more afraid of Drakon’s aid than they were eager to win, then things might get a bit complicated when he insisted on holding on to the docks.

He would have to wait and see. There were some things that couldn’t be solved with soldiers.