Tarnished Knight

Chapter Sixteen

The response from the Free Taroans took about half an hour, about what he had expected from a group that seemed to think voting on everything was the way to do business.

He recognized the woman who answered, but in that haven’t-I-seen-her-before way rather than precise identification.

She saluted him. “Sub-CEO Kamara. I once served in a force under your command, General Drakon.”

Kamara? Now he remembered. Not the finest sub-CEO that he had ever worked with, but far from the worst. She had been good enough to impress herself on his memory. “You’ve joined the Free Taroans?”

“Yes. A number of the Syndicate troops did. We’re tired of being slaves.” She said that pointedly, eyeing Drakon as if it were a challenge.

“I’m not interested in becoming anyone’s new master,” he assured Kamara. “I brought forces to help the Free Taroans win here.”

“That comes as a great surprise to us. Naturally, we’re worried about other surprises. What is expected in exchange for your aid?”

Drakon smiled grimly. “What we get from the deal is simple. We win when you win. Midway doesn’t want the snakes to achieve victory here. I shouldn’t have to explain why. What we’ve heard of the third faction here makes it sound like they would be as bad as the snakes as far as we’re concerned. Taroa is our neighboring star system. We’d like it controlled by someone we can work with.”

“That’s it?” Kamara’s skepticism was clear.

“There are no preconditions though we’ll be interested in negotiating agreements once the Free Taroans are in power.”

“What about the docks?” Kamara pressed.

Drakon shrugged in a show of disinterest. He didn’t want to get into his and Iceni’s intentions for the docks until after the Free Taroans had committed themselves. “We’re also here to recruit workers. Shipyard workers, specialists, that kind of thing. No draft. No slave labor. Hiring. If someone wants to come back with us on those terms, I don’t want the Free Taroans telling them they can’t.”

Kamara didn’t answer for a while. “Of all the CEOs I worked with,” she finally said, “you were the only one who actually put himself on the line for his workers. Even though my common sense is telling me that you’re only doing this because it’s part of some scheme to control us, I don’t think we can afford to turn down this opportunity. Nor can we prevent citizens who want to accept your offer of employment from taking that offer as long as it is actually a free decision on their part. But I don’t have any final say. I’ll discuss it with the interim congress, and we’ll let you know our decision. How many troops do you have here?”

“Right now I have about half of one brigade.”

“Only half of a brigade? That’s not much, but it might be enough—” Her eyes shifted to one side. “We just spotted a force arriving at the jump point from Midway.”

“Right,” Drakon agreed, pleased that the others had finally shown up. “A heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, four Hunter-Killers, and five modified freighters carrying another two and a half brigades of troops.”

Kamara watched him, tension back in her posture. “That’s a substantial force. Enough to give anyone the edge here. I assume that if the Free Taroans don’t agree to accept your aid, you’ll offer it elsewhere?”

Drakon shook his head. “No. I told you. The Free Taroans are the only group here that we’re interested in helping.”

“And if we win with your help? How many of those soldiers stay?”

“On your planet? None of them.” This dock, on the other hand… “We need them back at Midway when they’re done here.”

Another pause, then Kamara made a helpless gesture. “We probably have no choice but to believe you. Are we allowed to speak with anyone up there? Any of the citizens?”

“Sure. Why not? The snakes managed to kill a few of the workers here before we got them all, but everyone else is safe. I’ve had the place locked down while we ensured everything was secure, but I’ve started lifting that. I’ll lift the comm restrictions, too.”

“I will talk to the congress,” Kamara said, but this time her tones carried more conviction.

Long ago, a large staff might have been required to plan and coordinate the movements of almost three brigades of soldiers from the orbital facility to the planet’s surface. But that kind of housekeeping work was what automated systems excelled at since the variables were few. Plug in current force data listing troops and equipment, shuttles and freighters, and the locations of all those, then let the software produce a detailed solution, issue the necessary instructions, and monitor progress. Malin and Morgan could easily keep an eye on everything to see if glitches developed and still have plenty of time to assist Drakon with other planning that was made much more complex by unpredictable human behavior.

The headquarters of the Free Taroans had once been that of the Syndicate Worlds planetary forces, so it was well fitted out, though much of the equipment was older than that at the facilities on Midway since Taroa didn’t have the strategic importance or the priorities for upgrades that provided.

Drakon looked at a map floating above the table in the main command center. The virtual globe slowly rotating beside it allowed someone to choose an area to zoom in on and change the area shown on the map, but it was set to show most of the occupied southern continent. Taroa’s northern continent was big, but so high in latitude that it consisted of frozen desert plains and glacier-choked mountains. Aside from a few research and rescue stations with only a small number of occupants, no one lived there.

The populace so far had stayed on the much more pleasant southern continent, which straddled the planet’s equator. At some point in the not-too-distant past as measured by the life of worlds, something had ripped the planet’s surface there, causing masses of lava to boil up and form that new continent. Life had recovered from what must have been a catastrophic event by the time humans arrived to find a continent filled with knife-edged volcanic mountains and hills that separated lushly forested valleys.

“Screwed-up place to fight a war,” Morgan commented. “You take one little valley, and there’s a natural wall protecting the next.”

Sub-CEO Kamara nodded. “That’s one of the things that has kept us stalemated. It’s very easy to defend the ground on this planet. The airlift available to us and the other groups got knocked out early, so we couldn’t leapfrog over the ridges. A lot of the slopes between valleys are too steep even for armor to get up them, so it’s foot soldiers slugging it out meter by meter, up one ridge and down the next. It doesn’t take many ridges before you run out of foot soldiers.”

Morgan gave Kamara a disdainful glance. “How many soldiers did you lose learning that?”

Kamara returned the look. “Us? Very few on offensive operations. It’s the loyalists that have gotten chopped up trying to reestablish control over the areas that belong to us, and the Workers Universal, which sent some human waves up the ridges before we killed so many they ran low on wave material.”

“You’ve played it smart,” Malin said.

“I don’t know if it’s smart. I convinced the interim congress to hold off on attacks since we seemed more likely to win by waiting out the loyalists and the workers. But I’ve been under increasing pressure to stage some offensive operations because everyone has been worried about a Syndicate Worlds’ relief force showing up to reinforce the loyalists and pound us flat.” Kamara shook her head, sighing. “I knew I was just buying time. We couldn’t win, and we’d keep getting weaker relative to the loyalists.”

“You did the right thing,” Drakon said. “Maybe you couldn’t have won, but you damn well could have lost a lot faster if you’d bled your forces dry in futile attacks. The Syndicate Worlds government is busy in a lot of places and doesn’t have nearly as much strength to deal with rebellions as it would like. Taroa would be pretty low on their priority list unless they happened to have someone out this way for another reason.” A reason such as recapturing the Midway Star System, but there wasn’t any need to bring that up. “Something else could have happened to even the odds for you. And it did.”

“That was my thinking,” Sub-CEO Kamara said, looking pleased at Drakon’s words. “It’s been a progressively more lonely position to hold, though. So many people want instant results, without thinking about the chances of success or the costs.” She turned to the map, pointing out red splotches in some of the valleys where towns and small cities could be found, usually where those valleys let out on the coastline to allow easier access by water. “The main loyalist strongholds are in these areas.”

“Why hasn’t anyone tried assaults from the water?” Drakon asked. “Real narrow frontages, open fields of fire, jagged reefs just offshore, with thin channels dredged through them that make perfect kill zones, mines…” Sub-CEO Kamara shrugged, her bitter expression contrasting with the casual gesture. “It was tried a few times. I tried it, hoping the loyalists would be focused against ground attacks and overconfident about the effectiveness of defenses along the water. I was wrong. That’s where we took most of our losses.”

“Does CEO Rahmin still command the Syndicate loyalists?” Malin asked.

“She did until about two weeks ago. That’s when a suicide squad from the Workers Universal infiltrated the loyalists’ interim capital and blasted their way into her command center.” Kamara didn’t seem particularly upset at the loss of her former superior. “Now there’s a snake running the show over there. CEO Ukula.”

Morgan waved at the map. “If we take out the snakes, do the regular troops keep fighting?”

“That depends on whether they think they’ll die if they try to surrender.”

“Will they?” Drakon asked.

“Some units have committed serious atrocities. They’ll have trouble trying to surrender,” Kamara said as calmly as if she were talking about road conditions. “Others have been a lot better behaved.”

Morgan smiled. “We can split the loyalist soldiers, then. All it takes is contact with the units that will be allowed to surrender.”

“I can give you the identities of those units,” Kamara said. “Managing hidden contact with them may be—”

“No problem,” Morgan said, her smile still in place but now wolflike. “I can handle it.”

Kamara stared at her for a moment, then looked back at the map.

Malin was running his finger across scattered purple blotches on the map, all of them concentrated in urban areas. “This marks areas controlled by the Workers Universal?”

“Roughly.” Kamara’s expression shifted to disgust. “If we can roll up the snakes and turn everything on the Workers Universal, I think they’ll fold pretty quick because they’ve hollowed themselves out. Sure, the workers have gotten lousy deals. But the ones who went with the Workers Universal are a lot worse off now. I told you about the human waves the WUs sent against us. Some real nutcases have taken over there. Their opposition in the workers’ leadership was accused of treason, arrested and shot, or simply disappeared. These days, the ones left in charge are killing as many of their own workers in purges as we are in fighting them.”

“Cannibalization of the revolution once the most radical begin competing for purity,” Malin commented. “It’s happened countless times in the past. Right now, many of those in this star system seeking stability are drawn to the loyalists as protection against the Free Taroans and the Workers Universal. But if the loyalists are defeated, then the choice for such people will be between—”

“Freedom and homicidal nutcases,” Kamara finished. “I figure we’ll look pretty good at that point to anyone wanting to choose sides.” She glanced at Drakon. “The loyalists offered to conduct joint operations with us against the Workers, but I knew better than to bite that poison apple.”

Drakon smiled crookedly, inwardly pleased that Kamara had not tried to keep that offer secret from her new allies. He studied the map, zooming in to identify some good locations for surgical strikes. “Colonel Malin, please get Colonels Gaiene, Kai, and Senski. We have a snake hunt to plan.”

“We can’t afford to lose a lot of infrastructure,” Kamara said. “Neither can the loyalists, which is the only thing that has kept them from dropping rocks on us from orbit.”

Morgan blew out a derisive breath. “You want us to defeat the loyalists without breaking anything?”

Kamara met her eyes soberly, nodding. “That’s right. The loyalists are sitting on some of the most critical facilities on the surface. If all we inherit is ruins, then our victory would be as hollow as they come.”

“The snakes have been following scorched-earth tactics every time we’ve fought them,” Malin said. “Once they know defeat is inevitable, they try to take us with them.”

“Then we try to make sure the snakes don’t know they’re losing until it’s too late to do anything about it,” Drakon replied. “Colonel Morgan, get the identities of the units you want to undermine from Sub-CEO Kamara and get started on that. I want to know what units those are, too, so we can work our plans around them and hit the other units first.”

“How often do you want updates on what I’m doing?” Morgan asked.

“Let me know what I need to know when I need to know it. Otherwise, you’re free to run with it.”

She grinned. “No problem.”

Kamara cleared her throat. “You’ve left two companies occupying the orbital dockyards. We’d be happy to send some of our militia up there to maintain control and free up your troops.”

Drakon smiled at her. I bet you’d be happy to gain control of those dockyards. Do you really think I’d just hand them over to you? “With our warships protecting the dockyards, it’s better that they deal with our own people there if any threats develop.”

After a pause, Kamara nodded. “Certainly. I understand.”

At least, she understood that the Free Taroans were in no position to demand the dockyards.

Colonel Rogero walked alone back to his quarters after a coordination meeting with President Iceni’s representatives. Meetings with people in locations remote from each other were easy to hold, everyone gathering in a virtual meeting place, but just as easy to tap into and monitor despite every possible security precaution. For routine matters, that was accepted as a fact of life. The ISS, and possibly someone else, would be listening. For anything important, or anything that shouldn’t be overheard, it had become habit for people to choose actual meeting places at the last moment. Much more secure, but it could also lead to long walks as twilight darkened the sky and streets grew dim before the gloom deepened enough to trigger streetlights to life.

There were bars he could have gone to, restaurants he could have dined at, but Rogero preferred burying himself in his work. Every time he visited a bar or a café, he would find himself looking for her, knowing she couldn’t possibly be there but still studying the crowd. Someday, I’ll buy you a drink, Bradamont had said at their last meeting. Someday, I’ll buy you dinner, he had replied. Neither had believed it could ever happen, but still Rogero found himself searching crowds.

She had been in the Midway Star System. She had sent him a message. But it was still impossible.

Tonight, then, he walked straight from the meeting to his quarters. But even though his course was a straight one, he didn’t actually walk in a straight line or at a steady speed. Reflexes from the battlefield had become natural to him, so that as Rogero walked, he would, without thinking, speed up or slow down between steps, veer a bit to one side or the other, move slightly to keep objects between him and open lines of sight that could become lines of fire. It made it hard for anyone to target him on the battlefield and annoyed the hell out of anyone who walked with him at other times, but it took a conscious effort to not do it, so when he walked alone, he gave in to instinct.

As a result of one such sudden jerk forward, the shot fired at his head instead grazed the back of Rogero’s skull.

He fell forward, rolling behind the nearest streetlamp base, weapon in hand as he searched the night for the assassin. The streetlights came on, triggered not by the oncoming night but by sensors that had detected the shot, and sirens hooted nearby. The police would be here soon, he would give a report, and they would search for the killer.

Rogero knew they wouldn’t find anyone. This felt too much like the work of a professional. He raised his free hand to touch the bleeding scrape across the back of his head. Someone had tried to kill him, but who that was mattered less than who had ordered the hit. Or had he escaped death? Could the shot have been aimed to miss, a warning? If so, from who? And would that warning have been intended for him or General Drakon?

But whoever had fired had known he would be meeting with President Iceni’s representatives and had known where that would be so they could predict what route Rogero would have to take back to his quarters.

“Launch the bombardment,” Drakon ordered. He stood in the Free Taroan command center, eyes on the big map display, which had rotated and risen so that he could watch everything play out. Ideally, he would be out there, with the attack, but there was too much going on this time, too many widely dispersed things happening, and he needed to be somewhere he could watch it all with the fewest possible distractions near at hand.

The tracks of kinetic projectiles fired by the warships in orbit appeared on the display, curving downward like a precise sort of rainfall. All of the projectiles were timed to hit at the same moment, and instead of falling across the three targeted valleys, they were aimed in curtains that dropped toward the defenses on the rims of the mountains surrounding the valleys and along the narrow coastlines where the valleys met the sea.

Massed along the other sides of those valley rims were Drakon’s brigades, supported by some of the Free Taroan forces. Three brigades, three valleys, each valley held by an understrength battalion. Overwhelming force deployed against the most hard-core portions of the loyalist ranks. Victory wasn’t in doubt, but if they couldn’t time it just so, and the snakes blew everything to hell, then the victory would be a hollow one, as well as costing the lives of more of his soldiers.

Drakon’s eyes rested on one of the falling projectiles. Just a chunk of metal, aimed precisely, gaining energy with every meter it fell. There were a lot of meters between orbit and the surface, and the projectiles were already moving fast when they were launched. The seconds to impact vanished in a flurry of numbers spinning by too fast to read; then the rounds hit.

It was as if volcanoes had erupted in long lines along the ridges, rock and dust flying upward, the ground trembling, a sustained roar of noise rather than single crashes from impacts. The defenses along the ridges vanished, replaced by rubble.

He had been close to bombardments like that. Drakon could have closed his eyes and seen the rocks hitting, sometimes those fired by Syndicate warships to batter Alliance defenses before he sent his own soldiers in to attack and seize the ground, sometimes rocks launched by Alliance warships against him. Men and women as well as structures disappeared under those bombardments, not simply killed but their bodies blown into fragments, leaving battlefields empty and strangely devoid of the dead. That’s what hell really is. Not those places with fire and demons but just a place where death has been, and nothing remains because humans have wiped out all trace that humans or any other life had ever been there.

I know how Conor Gaiene feels. I’m tired of turning places into hell.

But I don’t know any other way to get this done that wouldn’t kill a lot more people.

The sentry gaping at the violence erupting along the ridges died without even knowing Roh Morgan was nearby. A moment later, the antiair vehicle the sentry had been guarding rocked as a limpet mine tore out its insides and killed its operator. Under the distraction of the bombardment hitting, commandos in stealth suits who had carefully infiltrated over the last few days struck at the same time, carrying out pinpoint attacks to destroy mobile defenses which had parked among the populace to discourage bombardments aimed at them.

A platoon of soldiers came pounding down the street, staring around for enemies. Morgan took careful aim and dropped their leader, who had made himself obvious by gesturing commands. Grinning, she gunned down two more soldiers, then shifted position as shots began hitting the area around her.

A panicked civilian racing across the street blocked her next shot. Annoyed, Morgan fired twice, both shots tearing through the civilian before slamming into the soldier behind him.

Green lights glowed on Morgan’s helmet display, showing the other commandos in the valley had completed their hits.

But all of it had been a distraction, designed to keep the snakes confused and overwhelmed as reports of activity and threats poured in from all sides. She had learned that about people at an early age—how easy it was to divert and disorient them by throwing too many ideas and images and emotions their way. Men were particularly prone to losing the ability to think when women tossed the right enticements in front of them, but almost any human could be knocked off-balance by enough of the right kinds of mental overloads.

Not her, though. Morgan could always see her goals with crystal clarity no matter the confusion around her. It had all snapped into focus after she had been pulled from that asteroid. She had been reborn then because she had a destiny. Drakon’s acceptance of her as an officer had been part of that destiny. He didn’t know that yet. But she had known it for a long time.

She leaned back calmly against the nearest wall, completely unfazed by the small-arms fire being sprayed out from the survivors of the loyalist squad, tapping out a coded command. Puppet master limpets that Morgan and her team had previously attached to critical junctions in the loyalist command network went to work, sending out bogus commands and false updates. In the flurry of incoming reports, the snakes would see many that said everything was going well, and their minds would seize upon the things that they wanted to see in that mass of information overkill.

“There are the signals,” Sub-CEO Kamara said, as major explosions occurred in all three valleys. “The commandos have softened things up inside the valleys.”

Drakon nodded. “All brigades, go.”

Shuttles hopped into the air, almost clipping the tops of the ridges as they crested the obstacles and burst through the still-falling dust to plummet toward the floors of the valleys. Many of those shuttles were Drakon’s, but others belonged to the Free Taroans, battered remnants of the aerospace forces that had once protected the skies and low orbits of this world. Those Taroan pilots who had survived this long were either very lucky or very good, and both qualities served them now as they led the Midway shuttles into the attack. Only a few scattered shots erupted from any defenders who still lived and hadn’t been disoriented or disabled or destroyed by the bombardments or the commandos.

Colonel Malin paused, eyeing the vapor barrier guarding the loyalist headquarters complex in this valley. The water misting out from the barrier would allow detection of someone wearing even the best stealth suit, protecting the headquarters from infiltration.

But that barrier also clearly identified the headquarters and isolated it from surrounding structures. Even though it was well hidden from overhead view, Malin could precisely locate it from his position.

It had also made it relatively easy to spot the buried communication lines radiating out from the structure. Puppet master limpets were already at work on those, providing reassuring updates and blocking alerts and activation codes. Malin somberly eyed the readouts from the limpets, ensuring that the protocols and ciphers acquired after the ISS headquarters on Midway was overrun were working to undermine the snakes on Taroa.

Take nothing for granted. Have backup plans for your backup plans. For reasons unknown, higher powers had left Syndicate space to the whims of gods of chaos. Finding harmony again would require riding the waves of chaos, finding the means to ease the tempest by degrees, using the right forces to calm the storm.

Sometimes, that meant unleashing other storms.

He called the heavy cruiser, providing the coordinates for the drop, then faded away from the headquarters as fast as possible while not betraying his presence, while sending out an alert to the other commandos in this valley to beware of the impacts.

Seconds later, two bombardment projectiles fell through the atmosphere, moving too fast to be visible but leaving lethal streaks of light in their wake. The ground shuddered as the loyalist headquarters became a crater.

But on Malin’s display, the limpets reported information still flowing to and from the now-vanished headquarters. Clever. Even internal references have false position information. I need to find the real headquarters and get it shut down before it sends the wrong commands.

Malin and his commandos went back to work.

“Colonel Malin is showing red-status readout on mission accomplishment,” Colonel Senski reported.

Kamara rapped on her controls as if that would change the information on her display. “Your bombardment destroyed the target at the coordinates he provided,” she complained to Drakon.

“If Malin says the job’s not done, it’s not done,” Drakon replied, eyes narrowed as he took in the situation in all three valleys. “Colonel Senski, continue your approach and carry out your assault.”

“But, General,” Senski protested, “if the assault goes in, and the snake headquarters is still functioning, enough accurate information may reach them to trigger a decision to go doomsday on us.”

“The longer we continue the operation, the more chance we have of that happening anyway, Colonel. Get in there and take your objectives. If Malin needs something to cover his takedown of the snakes, your assault will draw their attention.”

Kamara stared at the display, her expression grim. “There could be a snake doomsday device in this city,” she said to Drakon. “The snakes want to recapture the rebellious portions of this planet if they can, not nuke it. But if CEO Ukula has time to realize what’s going down—”

“We get a real big kick in the butt,” Drakon replied, keeping his own voice casual. “I figured that might be the case. Pulling back now, hesitating now, will only worsen the risks.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Since both of our butts are on the line, too, I hope you’re right.”

Me, too. “Malin will take out the snake headquarters.”

The main bodies of the brigades were arriving at their objectives, shuttles landing hard to spray out armored soldiers in overwhelming numbers. The defenders, hurt, disorganized, and getting contradictory orders thanks to the limpets on the snake command lines, resisted in some places and surrendered in others.

“Command links severed in this valley,” Colonel Kai reported, looking perfectly composed even in the midst of battle.

“How can you be sure you got all the command links?” Kamara demanded.

“Because we have severed every comm link in this valley except our own. That part of your infrastructure will be much easier to repair than if this entire area is cratered,” Kai replied.

Before Kamara could reply, another transmission drew their attention.

“Bloody hell!” Colonel Gaiene roared.

Drakon hastily switched focus to Gaiene’s units, seeing a flurry of red markers intermingled with those of the soldiers with Gaiene. “Con, do you need me to send you the reserve?”

“Hell, no! They dropped us right onto the snake barracks for this valley instead of one street over! Lousy damned intelligence as usual!” Gaiene was firing as he spoke, pivoting to hit enemies popping up on all sides.

The snakes had managed to trigger local jammers. Between those and the disordered mass of soldiers and snakes mixed together, Drakon had trouble making out the situation as markers jumped, blinked out, and blinked back in again. “I’m sending in the reserve to you, Con.” He only had two platoons, but that might be enough. Unfortunately, those platoons would take a while to get there even if the shuttles moved their fastest.

“Don’t bother!” Gaiene retorted. “I’ve got plenty of ammo and plenty of soldiers. All we’re running short of is targets!”

Kamara stared as the red markers dissolved from the display like soap bubbles hitting a hot plate. “I thought he was just a drunken letch.”

“He’s that,” Drakon agreed, “but he’s also a hell of a good soldier in a fight.”

“Cut off everything!” Gaiene ordered his troops. “Sever any comm connection you find! We’ll worry about where they go later.”

Drakon looked at the situation in Gaiene’s valley and in the valley where Kai and Morgan were operating. The loyalists and snakes were being rolled up very rapidly. However, as comm connections were broken, the ability of the limpets to confuse and deceive snake command and control was also being knocked out. Malin. You’ve got very little time left before the snake commander figures out how bad things really are.

From a covered position across the street, Bran Malin studied the nondescript building that his stealth suit’s sensors told him was packed with defenses. He had seen armored figures moving within, flitting past windows almost too quickly to spot, and none had left despite the roar of battle as the main body of Colonel Senski’s brigade had landed all around the valley. Partly that was due to the limpets leaving the snakes uncertain as to what was happening, but with combat near enough to hear, it was odd that not even one scout had been sent out to check on things personally. That could only mean whoever was inside had given staying hidden the highest priority.

Extensive landlines with full security shielding had led to the structure from the crater where the original headquarters building had been. Malin had followed them, and now he evaluated the building. There were apartments in the upper stories, providing both deceptive camouflage from overhead observation as well as citizens going in and out by day and night to further mask the nature of the structure to anyone spying from above. That meant there were probably still citizens in those apartments even though none could be seen.

Call in another orbital strike and ensure the snakes could not order any doomsday strike with their dying gestures? Malin looked at the apartments, knowing he had mere seconds to decide.

You do what must be done. Sometimes, some must be sacrificed. The decision and the wrong are mine.

He called the cruiser, then faded back only a short distance in the brief time before three more projectiles tore through the atmosphere, through the building, and into what must have been reinforced bunkers beneath. Malin lay flat as pieces of all that had once been in that location fell to earth in the wake of the bombardment, trying to keep his mind centered not on those who had died but on the larger purpose he served.

A blinking alert told Malin that the limpets were no longer able to find any snake command nodes active. Walling away any sense of triumph behind the same barriers where regret lay, he sent the mission-accomplished report.

Drakon felt tension bleed out of him as Malin’s mission-status marker switched to green. “All right. Let’s wrap this up,” he sent to his commanders.

“All done here,” Colonel Gaiene reported on a private line that only Drakon could hear rather than using the command net. “We ran out of snakes to kill. The citizens are all being extremely well behaved. But we had about a company’s worth of the loyalists surrender. They belonged to various units, but all of those units are on the Free Taroans kill-not-capture list.”

Drakon glanced at Sub-CEO Kamara, who was busy talking to some of her own commanders about moving into the valleys that Drakon’s soldiers had captured. “I suppose,” Drakon said, “that all those who surrendered say some other guys committed any atrocities?”

“You suppose correctly. I could kill them all now,” Gaiene added offhandedly, “or turn them over to the Free Taroans, which would just mean they died a little later, or I have some empty shuttles waiting in case wounded need to be evacuated to the orbital docks. We do need every good soldier.”

“That would give us time to, uh, triage everyone,” Drakon agreed. “Get those ‘wounded’ up to the orbital docks, but make sure they don’t have weapons, and have a strong escort keeping an eye on them. Find out if they are really clean under full interrogation sensors, and we’ll deal with any who aren’t.”

“As you wish, General. I’m so glad we had this conversation.”

“I enjoyed it, too, Colonel Gaiene.”

Colonel Kai reported in next, sounding slightly peevish. “We have a holdup.” Through the remote video feeds, Drakon could see a large building, the exterior already battered, from which weapons fire erupted every time any of Kai’s soldiers showed themselves outside.

“Diehards forted up in a building full of citizens,” Kai added, as if annoyed at the citizens for getting themselves into that situation. He probably was annoyed at them. Kai disliked anything that complicated the smooth completion of operations. “At least platoon strength, with heavy weapons. I can destroy the building easily enough, but you told us to avoid killing citizens.” This time, Kai sounded accusatory because Drakon’s instructions were preventing the simplest solution to the problem.

Sub-CEO Kamara had a stern expression. “He should get those loyalist diehards.”

Drakon raised an eyebrow at her. “Even if he kills all the citizens in that building? It’s pretty big. You’re probably talking hundreds.”

“We’re willing to pay that price.”

“That’s noble of you,” Drakon remarked with heavy sarcasm. “You’re willing to let them die. I know you’ve been fighting a civil war here, but you’d better start thinking of those citizens as your citizens. Do you want your citizens to die, Sub-CEO?”

Kamara scowled. “They’ve got a building full of hostages. What else do you suggest?”

“That Colonel Kai promise them that if they leave the building, none of Kai’s soldiers will fire upon them.”

“You can’t be serious! Do you know what the unit those soldiers belong to has done? We can’t let them go.”

Drakon’s smile held no humor. “Did I say that? I agree that we can’t reward anyone for taking hostages, especially people who’ve committed the sort of atrocities you’ve shown us records of. It won’t be my fault if those loyalists don’t read the fine print on any promises made to them. “

“I cannot yet confirm that CEO Ukula is dead,” Malin called in. “But all indications are that he, his personal guard, and his command staff died when we destroyed the alternate headquarters location. It will take time to sort out and identify DNA fragments amid the wreckage, though.”

“Understood,” Drakon said. “Nice job locating that secondary command location. The holdup had us worried. Did you run into any problems taking out the alternate headquarters?”

Malin’s expression revealed nothing as he shook his head. “Nothing you need concern yourself about, General. I took care of it. Colonel Senski has informed me that her brigade is mopping up a few small pockets of resistance, but otherwise, this valley is yours, General.”

“Thanks, I’ve always wanted one.”

After a series of back-and-forth negotiations with Colonel Kai, the loyalists came out of the building.

“They’ve got citizens around them as shields,” Kai remarked disdainfully. “Even though I promised them my soldiers would not fire.”

“You’d think they didn’t trust us,” Morgan replied. “Ready when you are, General.”

“Wait until you have clean shots, then take them. Your call when to fire,” Drakon ordered.

The loyalists were halfway to the shuttle that was supposed to lift them to safety when Morgan’s hidden commandos fired, knocking down half of the enemy platoon in the first volley. The others hesitated, unsure whether to flee, fire back, or start slaughtering the citizens they were using as shields. By the time the survivors made up their minds, all but two were dead. One tried to surrender, but died before the dropped weapon hit the ground, and the other got off only one wild shot before also falling.

“All right. Do the act,” Drakon ordered.

Morgan and the other commandos killed the stealth circuits on their suits, walking out toward the citizens standing frozen with fear amid the bodies of their former captors. Colonel Kai and his soldiers came from another angle, Kai raising his helmet shield to frown at Morgan. “I had promised them my soldiers would not shoot if they let the citizen hostages go free,” Kai said loud enough for the citizens to hear.

“I didn’t promise them anything,” Morgan replied just as clearly. “And I don’t work for you. These commandos are under my command, not yours.”

“The Free Taroans did not want any citizens harmed,” Kai pointed out.

“Then they should be happy,” Morgan replied. “All we killed were the snakes and anyone helping them.”

Kai shrugged, the motion oddly amplified by his combat armor, then turned to the citizens. “You are free to return to your homes. If there are wounded citizens inside the building, my medics will see to them.”

“The citizens can’t possibly believe that was real,” Kamara protested back at the Free Taroan headquarters. “Your Colonel Kai sounded wooden, and Colonel Morgan sounded like she was joking.”

“Colonel Kai almost always sounds like that. I don’t keep either him or Morgan around for their acting ability,” Drakon replied. “To those citizens, as scared and shook-up as they are, it probably sounded real enough. We just bought you some good publicity with the citizens in that valley. Make sure you don’t waste it.”

Sub-CEO Kamara nodded at Drakon, her expression thoughtful, then gradually acquired a gleeful look as she took in all the results of the operation. “That was the last pocket of resistance in the three valleys. This guts the loyalists. We’ve got their most important valleys, all of the support infrastructure in them, and we’ve wiped out their leadership. Their remaining forces can’t hold out now. We’ve already heard from the commanders in two of the areas still held by the loyalists, asking for terms of surrender.”

“Good.” He couldn’t feel too elated at the outcome. The casualty lists were coming in. Not too many dead and wounded for such an operation. But still some.

Kamara was happily talking to the other members of the Interim Congress of Free Taroa. Drakon gazed at the display, where the patches of loyalist-controlled territory had shrunk dramatically. Outside, the sun glowed dimly through the clouds of volcanic dust drifting across the sky.