The Lost Stars: Shattered Spear (10 page)

“Thank you, sir!”

Gozen felt herself relaxing as she followed Drakon into the command center. There were several bodies still on the floor, the watch-standers who had apparently been killed without warning, and a dozen living soldiers present who were checking over the equipment to ensure no other sabotage had been committed by the vipers.

Colonel Malin stood next to what Gozen recognized as a portable nuke. His eyes swept across General Drakon, centered on Gozen, then his pistol came up, aiming straight at Gozen’s face shield.

GOZEN
was smart enough to freeze rather than try dodging to one side or bringing up her own weapon. She knew enough about Malin to know that he could put a shot into the most vulnerable part of her face shield even if she was leaping sidewise when he fired.

Knowing that movement could well mean death, she froze, waiting to see what would happen.

“What is the meaning of this, Colonel Malin?” General Drakon asked, his voice harsh.

“This attack was assisted from the inside,” Malin said, still emotionless. “Someone planted worms in our systems that assisted the vipers in reaching this command center without being detected.”

“And you have some evidence that Colonel Gozen was involved in that?”

A pause. “Not yet, sir.”

“Are you aware that Colonel Gozen was with me when the attack went down and played a major role in defending me against attack when the vipers located me?”

Malin hesitated again, though his pistol didn’t waver. “General, they broke into your office immediately after killing the watch-standers. If you had been present, you would not have been able to stop a dozen vipers even with the defenses in your office.”

Drakon raised one hand and gestured to Malin to lower his weapon.

After another moment, Malin did so, returning the pistol to its holster with one smooth movement.

“I wasn’t in my office because I was talking to Colonel Gozen,” Drakon said. “If she had not asked to speak with me, I probably would have been there. Why would she have gotten me out of that office and away from the command center if she was involved in a plot to kill me? Why wouldn’t she have killed me herself during the confusion when the alarms sounded, or while the vipers were charging me?”

Malin inhaled slowly, then nodded. “It appears unlikely, sir.”

“Colonel Malin, I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I am getting a little tired of my staff officers pointing weapons at each other. I don’t want it to happen again.”

Gozen felt herself stiffen at the tone of Drakon’s voice. Even though his words weren’t directly aimed at her, and even though she hadn’t pointed her weapon at Malin, she still had to fight down an urge to come to attention, salute, and promise never to do it again.

For his part, Malin sounded truly apologetic. “I am sorry, General.”

“You’re sure someone introduced worms from inside this building?” Drakon said, abruptly changing the subject.

“There was no external intrusion, sir. And no indications of any unauthorized person entering the headquarters complex.”

“Somebody did,” Gozen said. “Maybe that’s why my visitor showed up when he did. He or she had just finished inserting the worms. They wouldn’t have wanted to do that until just before the attack to limit any chance of the worms being spotted by our security routines. I should have realized that if they could threaten me they could have accessed the security systems in here.”

“That didn’t occur to me, either,” Drakon said. “It’s not like you wasted any time alerting me to the problem. Colonel Malin, there is a hidden access to Colonel Gozen’s quarters. Someone used it last night. That access may lead us to other hidden passages.”

Malin’s eyes narrowed. He nodded, then looked at Gozen again. “Some of the worms employed were the same as those among the snake software we captured on Ulindi. That’s why our armor systems were able to block the intrusion attempts.”

Gozen felt her face heating with anger. “You’re not still thinking that I—”

“No, Colonel Gozen,” Malin said. “Because I now recall that among your actions since we returned to Midway was your insistence on ensuring our armor software was upgraded to block everything found among the snake software on Ulindi. You have my apologies for suspecting you of involvement in this attack.”

“Accepted,” Gozen said. “In a Syndicate command, you would have shot me immediately then when proven wrong apologized for being too zealous in defending the CEO.”

“Yes, I would have,” Malin agreed.

“We need to find out who did plant those worms to open the path for the vipers,” Drakon said. “Are there any leads?”

“None, so far, General. Except for the absence of leads. Whoever did this left no trace of their actions.”

Drakon nodded, his expression darkening. “The lack of any mistakes does point in one direction. Colonel Malin, I know you’ve already been ordered to find President Iceni’s former aide Mehmet Togo. You are now authorized to neutralize him at the first opportunity.”

A flicker of a smile appeared on Malin’s lips. “Elimination of the threat by any means is authorized?”

“Yes. Maybe he does think he’s doing this to help President Iceni, but for all we know she would be his next target. Find Togo and kill him.”

“I do not believe it will be difficult to convince her of the threat
posed by Togo, General, but she may still be reluctant to order his elimination.”

“When she hears that Togo assisted vipers in reaching this planet and staging an attack, I don’t think President Iceni will have any reluctance at all.” Drakon paused, inhaling sharply, then gave Malin a questioning look. “I’m so used to having you around that I’d forgotten you were supposed to be acting as the president’s aide. What brought you to the command center?”

“A hint among security intrusion attempts, General,” Malin said. “Something that concerned me even though it is hard to define. I traced it to this headquarters and came over as quickly as I could to follow up.”

“You should have issued an alert before you got here,” Drakon said. “Why didn’t you?”

“I thought such an alert might tip off the enemy and did not put sufficient weight on the possibility that the enemy might be moving so quickly.”

“That was a reasonable judgment call,” Drakon said gruffly. “But next time put a little more weight on the enemy’s moving faster than we expect. How the hell did Togo get vipers onto the planet without anyone spotting it?”

“I will find out, sir.”

“Get back to the president and give her a report on what happened here. Turn over the security sweep supervision to Colonel Gozen. Tell President Iceni that as soon as I am convinced my headquarters is secure I will visit her to discuss the matter. Has my office been swept for booby traps and bugs?”

“Yes, sir.” Malin waited until Drakon had headed into his office before turning an intense gaze on Gozen. “Do you understand how important both he and President Iceni are?”

She gave him a level look in return. “I’ve seen other star systems, and I’ve seen Midway. They freed this star system from the Syndicate
without trashing the place in the process, and they’ve kept it free. Yeah, I understand.”

“
Both
of them,” Malin emphasized. “It may look at times as if Iceni is the senior partner, but without General Drakon she turns into one more dictator. A currently beloved dictator, it is true, but one person who controls everything and without whom everything falls apart. There must be two, so both have authority and neither one finds it foreign to share that authority with another. That’s the only path to long-term stability.”

“Long term?” Gozen’s gaze at Malin turned appraising. “Not a few years long term? Decades?”

“Longer.” Malin, his eyes sparked with fire that contrasted with the coldness of his expression, swept a hand upward as if including all of space in the gesture. “This part of human-controlled space needs a strong alternative to the Syndicate. One that can hold off the enigmas and any other alien threat for as long as necessary and won’t suffer from the flaws and weaknesses of the Syndicate.”

“There’s always the Alliance,” Gozen said, probing for Malin’s reaction.

“That name is poison in this part of space,” Malin said in dismissive tones. “We can use some of their methods, but we can’t acknowledge where they came from. This has to be something credited to people here.”

“But you don’t have any problem with help from Black Jack?”

“Black Jack isn’t the Alliance we fought,” Malin said, a ghost of a smile appearing. “He’s what the Alliance always should have been. We can ally with Black Jack. We can use his help. You accept that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Gozen bit her lip, thinking. “I guess that’s how I’d been thinking about it. Help from Captain Bradamont was okay because she is one of Black Jack’s officers. How closely are
you
tied to Black Jack, Colonel Malin?”

Malin gave another one of his ghost smiles. “Are you asking if I’m his agent? The answer is no. We have similar goals, I think. Do you share those goals?”

“I don’t know, yet.” Gozen jerked a thumb toward Drakon’s office. “But I’m going to back whatever he does.”

“That’s good enough. Do you have any questions regarding the security sweep?”

Gozen studied the big display where markers indicating individual soldiers and their units moved through a vast 3-D schematic of the headquarters complex. Cleared areas glowed light green. Uncleared areas were yellow. As she watched, several short, small passages appeared and glowed red. “Those are the entrances to the routes used by my visitor last night, I’m guessing.”

“Very likely, yes. They are to be searched very carefully. Assume the entrances and the passages are booby-trapped until they have been scanned down to bedrock.”

“I figured they’d be rigged to nail anyone who tried a quick pursuit.” Gozen faced Malin and saluted formally, her right fist coming across to tap her left shoulder. “I’ve got it, Colonel.”

Malin gazed at her for a long moment, then returned the salute. “I stand relieved. Inform the general that I have left for President Iceni’s office.” He spun on one heel and walked away.

Colonel Safir showed up ten minutes after Malin had left, walking into the command center along with a squad from her brigade. “They put you in charge already?” she asked, familiar with Gozen from their encounters at Ulindi. “I got word of trouble here, but by the time we could scramble an assist force you guys had put out the fire. Just stopping by to see things for myself.”

“We’re still picking up the pieces, but it’s under control,” Gozen said.

Safir was looking at the display. “That’s the sort of force dispersal that General Drakon would have set up. Did he do it and hand the task over to you?”

“No. Colonel Malin set it up.”

“That explains it.” Safir grinned at Gozen. “Are you two pals?”

“Me and Malin?” Gozen shook her head. “Does he have any pals?”

“Not that I ever heard of.” Safir’s grin turned into a speculative look. “Malin had a long feud going with Colonel Morgan before we lost her on Ulindi. I was wondering if he’d start acting the same way with you.”

“No, no trace of going to war on his side,” Gozen said. “He is suspicious of me.”

“Malin suspects everybody,” Safir said with a smile of derision. “If he tries moving on you without good evidence, the general will shut him down.”

“The general did,” Gozen agreed. “But even when Malin’s been accusing me it hasn’t come across as heated. Malin’s just . . .”

“Cold?”

“Yeah,” Gozen agreed. “Cold and driven. I guess he’s always been like that?”

Safir paused, looking away, her expression troubled. “Always a bit like that. He’s gotten colder and more driven lately though. Especially after Morgan apparently bought it. Like what little human warmth he had went with her.” She glanced at Gozen. “It’s enough to make someone wonder if they were lovers or something, and all that infighting was just a cover. But if it was a fake, it was the best damn fake I ever saw. There are rumors making the rounds, some of them pretty wild.”

“I don’t know enough people around here yet to hear the good rumors,” Gozen said. “But from what I’ve heard of Morgan, she and Malin weren’t exactly a match made in the heavens. Seems he’d be celebrating, not torn up about her dying on Ulindi.”

“She’s not confirmed dead,” Safir said.

“She was in the snake alternate command center on Ulindi when it was blown to hell.”

“Maybe she was still in there,” Safir said. “Maybe not. If you’d ever met Roh Morgan, you’d know why the rest of us aren’t willing to write
her off in the absence of a body. And even if she is dead . . . well, Morgan’s exactly the sort who would reach out of her grave to pull down whoever put her there. Know what I mean?” Safir nodded toward Drakon’s office. “Is the boss accepting visitors?”

“He didn’t tell me otherwise,” Gozen said.

“Drakon isn’t a micromanager. He expects us to use our heads without being given explicit instructions all the time. But I gather you’re picking up on that.” Safir gestured to her soldiers, waiting off to one side of the command center, to stay where they were, then strode toward Drakon’s office.

Gozen inhaled slowly as she studied the security sweep, now almost complete. A few bugs concealed by the vipers had turned up, but nothing else. The vipers, it seemed, had only one mission, to kill Drakon.

Colonel Malin obviously wasn’t the only one who understood how important Drakon was.

*   *   *

JASON
Boyens had endured a good many things in his rise to CEO status, including the exile to the Reserve Flotilla, capture by the Alliance, the close personal attention of the deadly Happy Hua, and a prolonged imprisonment on Midway while wondering whether Gwen Iceni and Artur Drakon would forgive his latest twists and turns or choose to get rid of him once and for all. By all rights he should be dead a dozen times over. But he had survived this far.

So he could endure this, too, walking up to a customs checkpoint at the orbital facility where Midway’s HuK had dropped off him and the nervous young man named Dingane Paige who had been Ulindi’s representative at Midway. The checkpoint bore the scars of fairly recent fighting when Drakon’s soldiers had wiped out the snakes who had once controlled this facility. The men and women occupying the security checkpoint wore obviously new uniforms and had the awkward stances of those new to their jobs.

Jason Boyens had to wonder how those new guards, whose world had been the scene of large-scale massacres by the Syndicate Internal Security Service, would take the appearance of a former Syndicate CEO.