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 ho
ur 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.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“SO, what’s the plan?” Colonel Safir asked as she formally took over responsibility for the areas of the planet where Colonel Rogero’s brigade normally provided security.
“We’re still working on that,” Rogero admitted.
“If we were still under the Syndicate,” Safir reminisced, “they’d order us to send in a worker to make the aliens blow a segment of their installation, then send in another worker to blow up another segment, and so on until either the aliens ran out of segments or we ran out of workers.”
“I have a feeling the enigmas have a way of dealing with a tactic like that,” Rogero said. “They must have a way, because according to Black Jack’s people the enigmas have likely fought among themselves. They have to have developed a means of fighting a ground opponent that doesn’t guarantee victory to the commander most willing to send someone in to die.”
“Yeah,” Safir agreed. “Because from all we know the enigmas don’t have any problem with dying in the line of duty. Hey, you know what might work?”
“If this is a new idea, I’d love to hear it.”
“If they had some way to blind attackers,” Safir said. “Not just what we think of as jamming. I mean, block everything. Visual, infrared, radar, comms, sound. You’re fighting them, you’re in the installation, but you can’t see anything or hear anything, so the enigmas wouldn’t have to blow a section until they actually lost control of it.”
Rogero stared at her. “What made you think of that?”
“I used to explore caves when I was a kid. One time my light failed and . . . it was dark.” Safir shuddered. “I just remembered that, and how I could have been surrounded by stobor or fuzzies or anything and I wouldn’t have known.”
“I think you figured it out. Now all I have to do is figure out how to counter whatever means the enigmas have for full-spectrum blinding and sound suppression.”
“Your transports won’t be pulling out for a little while yet. I’ll talk to Kai and the general and see if we can’t come up with some ideas.” Safir made an ancient sign, the sort of thing that would have been prohibited under Syndicate rule. “Good fortune.”
“Thank you. Take care
of things around here while I’m gone.” Rogero returned the gesture that his own family had secretly passed down, then headed back to his unit to oversee their lift up to the troop transports waiting in orbit.
* * *
IT only took two of the big troop transports captured from the Syndicate at Ulindi to carry all of Colonel Rogero’s brigade. The brigade’s soldiers, who had stayed at Midway to provide security during Ulindi and had since endured considerable taunting for “missing the hard fight,” were in generally good spirits despite the rumors about the difficulties of their impending mission. That was at least partially because the troop quarters on the transports, which were of the usual Syndicate bare-bones type for workers, were still much superior to the cramped accommodations on converted freighters which the soldiers had endured on earlier missions.
Rogero stood on the bridge of troop transport HTTU 332 along with Leytenant Mack, the commanding officer. Mack, like HTTU 332, had been Syndicate before being captured at Ulindi. Mack and his crew had been happy to change allegiances, but he appeared to be far from enthusiastic about taking the soldiers to Iwa to confront an alien enemy. He had nonetheless handled every part of the embarkation efficiently enough to impress Rogero.
“Can I ask you something, Colonel?” Mack said during a pause in shuttle arrivals.
“Of course,” Rogero said.
“These aliens I’m hearing about. They control space beyond Pele Star System?”
“That’s right,” Rogero said. “The Syndicate had expanded into that region a century ago, but then started getting rolled back by a mysterious opponent whose ships were invisible to Syndicate sensors. The Syndicate ended up being pushed back as far as Midway over the next several decades, then not long ago what we call the enigma race tried to take Midway as well.”
“And you guys stopped them,” Mack said, visibly impressed.
“Black Jack’s fleet stopped them,” Rogero corrected. “He’d just ended the war with the Syndicate, and came here to save Midway from the enigma attack.”