The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword (14 page)

Togo blinked. “I . . . understand, Madam President. My apologies for underestimating your subtlety and cunning.”

“You’re a lucky man,” Iceni told him. “Most of the people who learned not to underestimate me found out their error too late to save themselves. Tell the police to move ahead on busting the black-market operation. I want to see how that is handled under the changes to the legal system. After that, stop by the finance directorate and inform them that, if there is any further delay in approving payments for those freighter modifications, I will choose some executives from the directorate at random to accompany General Drakon’s ground forces during their assault. I’m sure the general can use a few special volunteers to spearhead his attacks.”

—

COLONEL
Roh Morgan, wearing the suit of a junior executive fifth class in the Syndicate ground forces, sat nursing a drink in one of the Junior Executive Break Networking Universal Training Personal Improvement Limited Refreshment Facilities inside the primary ground forces base on Ulindi. Like any Syndicate-designed military base, it was heavily fortified, prepared to withstand attack not only from the Alliance but also from the citizens of the planet if those citizens should be so foolish as to stage a rebellion. That had made it a little harder for Morgan to infiltrate, but with the snakes and other security forces combing the city itself for her, no one had spent much time checking the identification documents of a nondescript junior executive who was entering the base.

While Syndicate bureaucrats had over the decades added on one after another officially approved descriptive terms for what was essentially a blandly decorated bar that could also be used as a meeting room, those bureaucrats had adamantly refused to add on a single comma to the name. Since no one who actually used the facilities used the official name, instead just calling it the Jebnut, nobody actually worried about the odd lack of commas.

Jebnuts tended to be inadequately lighted, because the Syndicate used the terms “efficiently” and “cost-effective” where others might have thought “insufficiently” and “least-expensive” were the more appropriate words. However, the dim lighting suited junior executives who wanted to nap during mandatory “voluntary,” “informal” training sessions, and now suited Morgan well as she did her best to fade into the background. No one was likely to take notice of one more junior executive of the lowest salary grade who had no visible distinguishing characteristics. Morgan had taken a table against a wall and was once again wearing a combination of makeup and small facial prosthetics that combined with a slightly-too-large version of the standard junior executive fifth class suit rendered her appearance completely unremarkable. Having dealt with countless come-ons in bars and restaurants, Morgan had also perfected the ability to generate a “leave me alone” aura that effectively repelled any mammalian life-form except cats.

A booth a few tables down from her was occupied by several ground forces executives on lunch break from their duties at headquarters. Morgan didn’t expect to hear any major secrets because no one with any brains spilled major secrets in a Syndicate facility that was surely being monitored by the snakes, but a lot could be learned from routine talk among people who dealt with so many classified items that they no longer could tell what really mattered.

“It’s off-limits,” one of them was telling the others. “Sealed off.”

“Any idea why? We don’t have people deployed to that training area,” another asked.

“Maybe the . . . you know . . . security. Maybe they’re using it.”

“The Supreme CEO’s people? Maybe.”

“Then maybe we better talk about something else.”

There was a pause, then someone else started talking. “Did you hear about the comm stand-down? If you’ve got anything that needs to go out, better get it sent.”

“Stand-down? What are they standing down?”

“Everything. There’s some check of systems going to be carried out looking for unauthorized taps and security effectiveness and all that junk. It’s no secret. But everything will be silenced for seventy-two hours. Landlines, networks, over-the-air junk, everything.”

“How the hell are we supposed to get anything done during those seventy-two hours?”

“Does this mean I’ll have to talk to the people at the desks near me? I hope not.”

“They’re probably hoping the same thing.”

“Seriously, this isn’t some investigation? It’s just a complete comm-system check?”

“That’s the official word. They wanted a period of time when everything was quiet before they ran the check, so this means they’re not expecting any trouble during those seventy-two hours.”

“They better get all of those shuttle drills done by then.”

“Those still going on?”

“Yeah. Every shuttle is out at dispersed landing locations doing recertification drills. They got them going up into low orbit and down again all night long.”

“Maybe they’re running them that hard to get the drills done before the comm stand-down.”

“Yeah.”

Another pause, then a voice pitched lower than before. “My boss said to be ready for some deployments.”

“Deployments? Where? I thought CEO— I mean, the Supreme CEO only controlled this star system.”

“For now.”

“Could that be what the shuttle drills are about? Getting ready for combat drops?”

“Guys, shut the hell up. If it is, we shouldn’t be talking.”

“Yeah, especially now, what with . . .”

Another pause.

“It’s always been bad, but—”

“Shut up.”

“You must have heard about Jarulzki—”

“Shut up!”

Silence fell, a quiet that Morgan knew would last this time. She wondered what, if anything, the unfortunate Jarulzki had done. If the high rate of arrests among the citizens was any indicator, the snakes would also have been raking in for questioning higher than usual numbers of military personnel.

But the talk of a sealed-off training area was something new. And an upcoming comm moratorium. And intense shuttle training. Was Haris getting ready to launch an attack on another star system, or was this entirely related to internal security at Ulindi?

There was only one way to find out.

Given the time since she had left Midway, and the time required to assemble an assault force, Morgan guessed that General Drakon and his forces should arrive in Ulindi within the next few days. That left time to check on this information and ensure that it wasn’t anything the general would need to worry about during his conquest of Ulindi.

As Morgan made her way back out of the base, she spent some time considering who Drakon would be bringing. The entire division? Maybe. That would give her a chance to check on what Rogero was up to. Why Drakon had kept him and Gaiene in their command positions baffled her. Gaiene was bad enough, half-drunk half the time, but at least (unlike Rogero) his sleeping partners were harmless. Rogero, though, with his Alliance girlfriend, was another matter. He had also shown far too much interest in working closely with that Iceni woman. Was Rogero selling out to the Alliance, or to Iceni, or playing both to see who coughed up the best deal?

And Malin. That little slime would be up to something, too. Maybe here at Ulindi, his luck would finally run out. If there was only some way to nail him herself in such a manner that the general couldn’t possibly trace it back to her. But she had far too much respect for Drakon to assume he would not be able to track an assassination of Malin to its source.

Well, Haris’s forces might do the job for her.

The only thing she couldn’t understand, given the loathing she had felt for Malin since first meeting him, was why the thought of him dead caused any kind of mixed emotions in her.

—

MARPHISSA
waited for the drop out of jump space. The only good part of the mental jolt that left humans unable to think or focus clearly for up to half a minute after leaving jump space was that no one was immune. Unlike most ailments in which some people were never affected, such as motion sickness, the jump-space jolt was endured by everyone. Nobody got a free ride by virtue of genetics or experience or training. The universe might be fundamentally unfair, but at least in this one way all humans operated on a level playing field.

All humans. Did the enigmas, the Kicks, or the Dancers suffer the same way? She wished that Bradamont was here to ask.
Hell. I wish Honore was here for a lot of reasons. She has so much more experience than I do in just about everything.

“Departing jump in fifteen seconds,” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla warned.

Marphissa braced herself for the exit from jump space. Everyone did that, everyone always did that, even though it didn’t make any difference at all.

Manticore
fell out of jump space.

A moment before, the heavy cruiser had been apparently alone except for the occasional inexplicable lights that were the only relief from the dull grayness of jump space. Abruptly,
Manticore
was surrounded by the other ships of the flotilla, while the stars once again looked down upon them all from the endless dark of the universe.

Manticore
and the other warships, the heavy cruiser
Gryphon
, light cruisers
Hawk
and
Eagle
, and the small, swift Hunter-Killers
Sentry
,
Sentinel
,
Scout
, and
Defender
, all of them shepherding the twenty large, clumsy freighters carrying the two brigades of ground forces. The freighters normally looked awkward, but more so now with dozens of aerospace shuttles fastened to their exteriors like remoras clinging to whales.

Marphissa kept her eyes locked on her display, waiting for it to update with information on what was in Ulindi Star System. Certain things would definitely be here and unchanged, the things that had existed at Ulindi for untold years before humans came and gave the star a name, and would continue to be here when the last trace of humanity’s presence had crumbled into ancient dust. A star a bit cooler and a bit larger than Mother Sol, the standard against which all stars continued to be measured by humans. Ten orbiting objects large enough to qualify as planets, two of them swinging around less than two light-minutes from the star, far too close to it and far too hot by human standards. Another a bit farther out at four light-minutes, but still too close, so that its oceans had long since formed a permanent hothouse. Six more planets whose orbits ranged from ten light-minutes to nearly five light-hours from the star, too far out and too cold to be suitable for humans to walk around freely, getting progressively more frigid the farther they were from the sun, the middle three of them gas giants.

And one planet swinging around its star at seven and a half light-minutes’ distance. As planets went, it was just the sort of place humanity wanted. About sixty percent of the surface covered with water, a minor axial tilt so seasonal variations weren’t too extreme, and plenty of native vegetation and other forms of life that over millions of years had transformed a world of raw rock, water, and a heavily carbon dioxide atmosphere into a place of oxygen, dirt, and trees.

About a million humans made their homes at Ulindi, most of them on that planet. Some of the rest were in space, and some of those were on warships. “There’s the heavy cruiser and the light cruiser,” Kapitan Diaz said as the symbols appeared on his display. Both were orbiting the habitable planet, nearly six light-hours away from where the ships from Midway had arrived. Haris’s two warships would not know the attack on Ulindi had begun until they saw the light from the event reach them six hours from now.

The few other defenses that were visible at Ulindi all matched the descriptions Marphissa’s warships had received before leaving Midway. “That spy did good work,” she commented. “There’s nothing here that we didn’t expect to find, and no threats anywhere near us. As long as we keep those two cruisers away from the freighters carrying the ground forces, this shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Not compared to fighting off Syndicate flotillas,” Diaz agreed.

Marphissa gazed at the description of the habitable planet. “That’s a nice little world,” she said out loud.

Kapitan Diaz nodded and snorted at the same time. “Soon we’ll be dropping bombardment projectiles on that nice little world.”

“Not all that many compared to what a big flotilla could accomplish,” Marphissa said. “We’ll do some serious localized damage, but that’s it. A lot of nice little worlds like this were bombarded to hell and back during the war.”

“We’re not going to do that,” Diaz objected. “Like you said, just localized damage to military targets. And the snakes. We could never do what was done to Kane.”

“No. I hope not.” Marphissa looked over at Diaz. “I’ve talked to Honore Bradamont about that, about how horrified Black Jack was when he came back and found out the Alliance was bombarding cities and towns indiscriminately. Yes, that was true. Black Jack could not believe that his own people were doing that. Bradamont researched it afterward, trying to learn when the policy had changed, and found out there was never one big decision made. It was lots of little decisions, doing one thing, then another thing, each little thing justified when a big decision to just bombard cities never would have been approved. But before they knew it, there they were, and they didn’t even realize what had happened, what they were doing that would have horrified those ancestors they care about so much.”

“You believe her?” Diaz asked. “Maybe she was taught it happened that way, like we were taught that the Alliance started the war and everything else bad.”

“Oh, she was taught it was all the Syndicate’s fault,” Marphissa agreed. “But she researched it, using classified access to learn for sure what happened. And that’s important for us. For you and me. Between Black Jack’s time and not so long ago, the Alliance fleet gradually started doing things they never would have done. That could happen to us. We have to make sure it never does, and pass on to those who come after us that it must never happen.”