The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword (9 page)

Iceni laughed. “I know how they go on about how honor is so important to them. I’m certain that some Alliance officers shade the truth a lot more than they admit to. But Bradamont does not seem to be one of those. She’s annoyingly honest in all matters. Well, if we’re not capable of enforcing some way of governing on other star systems, letting them do what they want as long as it doesn’t harm us or help the Syndicate might be a smart way to go. Most importantly, it is so different from Syndicate practice that it will defuse claims we’re trying to set ourselves up as a mini-Syndicate out here. Would you be upset if I expressed surprise that you thought of all this before I did?”

He smiled. “No. You’re a better CEO than I was in the sense of running a business. I didn’t think of it. Colonel Malin suggested we needed to think about it.”

“Colonel Malin?” She kept her tone of voice neutral as a welter of thoughts responded to that identification. “Colonel Malin appears to have many ideas.”

“He says he’s been thinking about things like this for a while,” Drakon said. “He didn’t think there would ever be a chance to do anything as long as the Syndicate remained too strong and the Alliance remained at war with us, but things happened.”

“Things happened,” Iceni agreed. “The old order has crashed and burned, and now . . .” Her voice trailed off as a memory fought to become clear.

Drakon waited, eyeing her, smart enough not to interrupt and chase away the image that Iceni was trying to recall. He did have some very good qualities even though sometimes their arguments were heated enough to start fires.

Fires. There it was. “A phoenix.”

“A what?”

“A phoenix,” Iceni said. “You said we need an image. I thought of this a while ago, that the phoenix might be useful. That’s why I didn’t name one of our heavy cruisers
Phoenix
. Do you know what a phoenix is?”

“Something that doesn’t actually exist,” Drakon said. “Wait a minute. Isn’t there a creature called a phoenix on a planet in Gladias Star System?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Iceni replied. “I’m talking about the real thing, which isn’t real.” He grinned at the joke as she continued. “It is very long-lived, a fire bird. Like a star. But that’s not all. When the phoenix is hurt, it regenerates. It can’t be defeated, you see? And when it dies, it burns up, then rises again from its own ashes. It can’t be beaten, it can’t be destroyed, but it’s not a monster.”

Drakon sat back, nodding. “Damn. That’s one hell of a strong symbol.”

“One hell of a strong symbol for whatever we’re building,” Iceni said. “Right? Something that will endure, something that will recover from any injury, something as powerful as the stars our worlds orbit.”

“The Phoenix Stars?” Drakon asked. “Rising from the ashes of the Syndicate?”

“Maybe.” Iceni nodded as well, to herself as well as in response to Drakon. “That leaves the exact nature of the association vague but projects a strong image, an image that has nothing in common with the Syndicate. But we don’t just need an abstract symbol. When were you planning on asking about the other thing?”

“The other thing?” Drakon shook his head. “What would that be?”

“The public face of our not-the-Syndicate-or-the-Alliance group of stars. You? Or me? Or both of us? What is the face of the Phoenix?”

He smiled slightly. “I was assuming both of us. Me to frighten people, and you to project that image of indestructible protection.”

She spent a long moment eyeing him, trying to figure out if Drakon had made a sarcastic jab at her. “Protection? That’s my image?”

“That’s what our citizens want from their president,” Drakon said. “And that’s how we want them to think, right? Protection from the sort of things that happened at Kane.”

That certainly sounded like a compliment, but Iceni still felt an odd irritation at the image. “Fine. But do you think I need you beside me to look frightening to our enemies?”

His smile grew but stayed enigmatic. “No. Your wrath can inspire plenty of fear, and for good reason.”

“I’m glad you realize that.” Her eyes narrowed as she thought. “There are advantages to being able to employ the old good cop/bad cop routine. I have no idea how long that tactic has been around, but I do know that it has endured because it works so often. I don’t want either of us locked into one of those roles, though. It might inspire someone to think knocking off one of us would cripple the other. We need to both look strong, but not menacing, to those inside our realm of control. We need to look strong
and
menacing to those outside.”

“Agreed.” Drakon gestured in the direction of the confinement cells. “Speaking of those inside and outside, Colonel Malin says CEO Boyens hasn’t been able to tell us much more.”

“No.” Iceni flipped her hand in the same direction, giving the gesture equal measures of disdain and aggression. “Boyens is spending his time trying to get information out of us instead of answering our questions. I think he’s trying to build the best picture he can of conditions here so he can decide which way to commit.”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Drakon said. “If he’s already on the run from the Syndicate, he can’t just jump back into their laps.”

“That’s the question. Is he on the run from the Syndicate? Was he sent here with information we would consider valuable but that the Syndicate didn’t think would enable us to stop their flotilla?”

Drakon thought about that, his brow lowering. “Which would potentially give him a chance to get inside our operations again. Is Boyens their fail-safe if that flotilla didn’t succeed?”

“I asked you first.” Iceni glared at the interruption as an urgent tone sounded to indicate someone wanted to come into her office. “What is it?”

“An urgent communication,” Togo’s image replied without visible emotion.

Something he didn’t want anyone but her hearing, apparently. But Drakon had already heard the exchange and was watching her. “Come in,” she told Togo.

Togo entered, walking to stand beside Iceni’s desk, then waited until the door had once again sealed before replying. “It is Kahiki, Madam President.”

“Kahiki? It’s been quiet there.”

“It is quiet again if this communication is truthful,” Togo said. “Kahiki has overthrown Syndicate authority and requests our protection.”

“Kahiki,” Drakon muttered. “Have you been there?” he asked Iceni.

“No. There isn’t much there there, is there?”

“Depends what you’re talking about. There’s a lot of rocks and a lot of bugs. I was sent to inspect the ground defenses, remember? About six months before our revolt. There’s not a lot of good real estate at Kahiki. The only habitable world is a bit too close to the star, so it’s livable but hot, mostly desert with some decent-sized seas. At each pole there are swampy jungle areas that are cool enough for humans to manage though they’re not comfortable by any means.” He paused. “Let’s see. The total system population was about two hundred thousand. Two cities, one at each polar area, and a scattering of towns, including orbital installations at that planet and a couple of others. One brigade of regular Syndicate ground forces.”

“Jump points allowing access to only one other star system besides Midway,” Togo added, his voice actually sounding stiff at Drakon’s having provided some information to Iceni first.

Iceni glanced at Drakon to see if he had noticed and saw him looking back at her with a bland expression but sardonic amusement in his eyes. “Most importantly,” Drakon said, “Kahiki has some major research and development labs intended to support the Syndicate war effort and exploit anything that was ever recovered from the enigmas.”

“Ah, yes,” Iceni said. “I remember that now. Planet of the nerds, my predecessor called it. Supposedly analyzing everything known about the enigmas to determine what they were really like and how to beat them.”

“Yeah. They’d been working on that for forty years or so before Black Jack came back and found the real answers in a few months. I imagine they’re kind of sore about that.”

“I imagine that Syndicate CEOs were dictating the researchers’ every
creative
thought,” Iceni said dryly. “You know what a handicap that can be to actually discovering anything. So, a star system set up for research. They would be a liability at the moment if they want us to protect them, but a very valuable ally to have in the long run. How many snakes were at Kahiki?”

“Not too many,” Drakon said. “There was a satellite headquarters rather than a full system headquarters for the snakes.”

“Two hundred twenty ISS agents are listed as having been present at Kahiki according to captured records,” Togo added quickly.

“That is minimal,” Iceni said. “Or rather, was minimal. I doubt there are still two hundred twenty snakes alive there. What did Kahiki do with its snakes?” she asked Togo.

“Their message did not say.”

Iceni switched her attention back to Drakon. “Who was in charge of that brigade of ground forces?”

He frowned in thought again. “Sub-CEO . . . Santori. She struck me as very by-the-book, very cautious. It was easy to see that she browbeat her staff. They were scared of her but also sabotaging her in subtle ways.”

“Which came first? Santori’s treatment of them, or the sabotage?”

“I don’t know, but Santori didn’t impress me.” Drakon looked at Togo. “I’d like to see this message from Kahiki.”

Iceni nodded to Togo, who nodded back, then touched a control on his data pad.

The virtual window that appeared next to him showed a half dozen men and women seated at a conference table. Iceni watched and listened, paying less attention to the words than to the tones of voices and the body language of the six people who said they now ruled Kahiki. “What do you think?” she asked Drakon when it finished.

“The woman on the far left wasn’t Sub-CEO Santori. She was Santori’s executive officer.” Drakon rubbed his chin. “From what I remember, she struck me as unhappy but professional, trying to keep things running despite Santori’s lack of leadership. It looks like she’s in charge of the ground forces at Kahiki now.”

“We lost some sub-CEOs when we revolted,” Iceni commented.

“I imagine Santori took a short trip out of a high window courtesy of the executives she had been abusing. Commanders don’t need their troops to like them, but they’d damned well better give the troops grounds to respect them, or sooner or later those troops will find a way to even the score. Those guys who say they’re running Kahiki are definitely scared,” Drakon added.

“Yes. Either that, or they are very good actors.” Iceni tapped her lips with her forefinger as she studied the last image. “They said that what happened at Kane motivated them to revolt. CEO Boucher’s attempt at intimidation appears to be backfiring.”

“It’s plausible,” Drakon said. “But only because we’re here. You heard them. They’ve learned that we now have a battleship and a battle cruiser, and that we’ve repulsed more than one Syndicate attack, so they think we offer potential protection against the Syndicate’s doing to Kahiki what it did to Kane.”

She gave him a significant glance. “But can we offer protection? We barely managed to repel that last Syndicate attack on us.”

“Like you said, at the moment, they’re a liability.” Drakon gestured toward the star display. “But a limited liability. As your aide said, there’s only one other jump point to Kahiki besides us, and that’s to Tuvalu. There’s nothing at Tuvalu except a lot of space rocks and an automated emergency station in case anyone passing through needs help. There isn’t any simple way for the Syndicate to get an attack force to Kahiki. More importantly, the normal path for communications from Kahiki to Syndicate authorities was right here, through Midway. It’s going to take a while for the Syndicate to even learn that anything has happened at Kahiki.”

“You’re sure?” Iceni asked. “The Syndicate didn’t have alternate communications paths in use?”

“I inspected the defenses,” Drakon reminded her. “That included reviewing comm paths and contingency plans. In an emergency, if Midway fell to the enigmas, Kahiki was to hunker down and use any available spacecraft to send word through Tuvalu. With the lack of a dedicated courier ship or other interstellar craft, and the time involved in getting word out through Tuvalu, everybody at Kahiki knew what that really meant.
You’re on your own, and don’t forget to kiss your butts good-bye.
”

Iceni smiled, though the expression had more ferocity than humor to it. “How many times during the war with the Alliance was that the only contingency plan? More than I care to think about. But it’s true that if Midway had fallen to the enigmas, Kahiki would have been indefensible. The Syndicate would have had a lot of trouble doing anything to save or evacuate Kahiki even before Black Jack annihilated so many of the Syndicate’s mobile forces. All right. I am in favor of extending our protection to Kahiki, of inviting them to ally with us.”

Drakon sat hunched over slightly, his eyes looking off into the distance, then finally nodded. “I agree. But let’s keep the agreement secret for now, along with the fact that Kahiki has revolted. The longer it is before the Syndicate finds out, the longer it will be before they try to come up with a counterattack.”

“I’ll send a senior official to negotiate the deal. Something along the lines of what we agreed to with Taroa. Is that acceptable? Let me know which representative you want to send for the negotiations.”

Once again, Drakon spent a while thinking before answering. “Gwen, as long as the agreement is along the same framework as we used with Taroa, there’s no reason for me to insist on having someone looking over the shoulder of your representative.”

Iceni raised her eyebrows at him, surprised that Drakon had openly expressed that degree of trust in her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Togo reacting before he could cover it. Oddly enough, he had reacted at the start of Drakon’s statement, not at the end.

Togo had reacted when Drakon called her Gwen.

What had she seen in Togo in that brief, unguarded moment? Surprise? Worry? Anger? It was impossible to tell. “That is all,” she told Togo.