The Lost Stars (19 page)

“You'd better post a guard at that Kapitan's stateroom as well,” Bradamont said.

“I'm sorry you saw that.” Marphissa made a muddled gesture, half-angry and half-frustrated. “Why did he make it so hard?”

“They always do,” Bradamont commiserated. “The ones who can't do their jobs always make everything as hard as possible for everyone else as well.”

“He was my friend.”

“Ouch. You got promoted pretty fast, didn't you? Welcome to the joys of higher rank. Being willing to do what you have to do, but don't want to do, is a big part of it. Some people can handle that. Some can't.”

Marphissa grimaced. “I'll miss you, Captain. Good luck once you leave
Manticore
.”

“You'll see me again, Kommodor. We'll need to convince your bosses to let you recover some prisoners of war even though it will mean sending some of your warships a long ways away. That's going to be a harder sell now. Admiral Geary is going to be leaving this star system soon since the Syndic flotilla has been chased off, so Midway will be on its own again as far as defenses
go.”

“PRESIDENT
Iceni, we have encountered an unusual situation. We can't access the hypernet gates at Indras, Praja, Kachin, or Taniwah,” Black Jack said. “CEO Boyens warned that the Syndicate government would make our journey back harder than we hoped, but we didn't expect that they would drop the Syndicate Worlds' hypernet system. According to our hypernet key, the only gate now accessible is at Sobek.”

Drakon, who had come to the command center to watch the departure of Geary's fleet, shook his head in disbelief at the message. “Prime dropped almost every hypernet gate? That will cripple what's left of the Syndicate Worlds. The economic impact alone will be huge, but it will also seriously hinder its ability to shift military forces to deal with internal and external threats. Did they kill their chances to hold some stars together in the Syndicate Worlds just to make Black Jack's journey home more difficult?”

“It does seem like tearing your hair out to avoid going bald,” Iceni agreed. She knew she had been moody lately and had been trying to shake it. But Boyens had escaped instead of having his flotilla destroyed. Black Jack's fleet was leaving, taking with it all the protection for Midway Star System that such a mass of warships could provide. There was at least one snake agent still hidden close enough to plant an agent inside the planetary command center. On top of all that, she had found herself increasingly bothered by a vague sense that there were other plans under way, involving people and events she wasn't even aware of, like the slow movements of continents that you did not feel except when earthquakes suddenly and devastatingly brought it all to your attention.

And now this.

“Where is Sobek?” Iceni asked, her brow furrowed with concern. The answer popped up on the display, a window showing a region of space much closer to the Alliance. “Why would Sobek's gate be spared?”

“It doesn't make a lot of sense,” Drakon said. “Maybe Prime ordered it and something went wrong at Sobek, so its gate didn't collapse as ordered.”

“But
that
doesn't make sense! Prime ordering the elimination of their own hypernet? Why not just commit suicide outright?” She lowered her head, fighting for control with an effort she knew must be obvious to those around her. “Do you have any idea what impact this will have on us? It means our gate has become nearly useless.”

“We still have all the jump points,” Drakon pointed
out.

“Yes. Relatively speaking, that will leave us with an advantage, but . . . damn them.”

“Could Black Jack be lying about this?”

“Why would he? The instant another ship showed up from another gate, it would tell us he had lied. Togo, I want our techs checking that gate. I want a full, remote diagnostic and a check of accessible gates using our monitoring software.”

“Yes, Madam President.” Togo paused in a listening attitude, one hand to the phone relay in his ear. “I had already ordered our technicians here to check on the remote status signals from the gate. They indicate no problems with the functioning of the gate.”

“If there's no problem with our gate, then all of those other gates really are gone!” Iceni said. “Get a ship out there. I want techs checking that gate in person, not remotely. Boyens was near that gate a long time. Maybe he managed to sneak something onto the gate-control mechanisms that is producing this problem.”

“In theory,” Togo said, “such a mechanism would be detected due to its interference with the gate-control mechanisms.”

“I didn't ask for a lecture on theory! According to what the Alliance found, the technology for those gates came from the enigmas. We know far too little about the hypernet and the gates. Do as I have instructed!” Iceni turned a furious look on Drakon. “What have those bastards who rule the Syndicate Worlds done to us? Are they pulling everything down around them just to ensure we lose as well?”

But Drakon wasn't really listening to her, instead gazing at the display intently. She managed to damp down her anger before it exploded. “Is there something up there I don't see?” Iceni asked through clenched teeth.

“No.” Drakon shook his head, still half-lost in thought. “There's only one gate left, at Sobek. Why Sobek?”

“I already asked you that.”

“This means Black Jack has to take his fleet to Sobek,” Drakon pointed
out.

“Of course, it—” Iceni halted in midsentence as she realized the point of what Drakon was saying. “Prime wants Black Jack to go to Sobek, and only to Sobek.”

“Yeah.” Drakon frowned and shook his head. “That would explain why Sobek was the only gate left standing, so that Black Jack would be forced to take a path home that Prime wants him to take. And he has no choice, the way I read it. He has to stick his head in that lion's mouth in order to get back to Alliance space in any reasonable amount of time. Using jump drives all the way back would take way too long. But it doesn't explain why Prime would take the extreme step of dropping the rest of their hypernet in order to force Black Jack to go to Sobek.”

“The Dancers?” Iceni felt a coldness sweep through her at the thought. “Would stopping them from reaching Alliance space be worth that cost to the Syndicate Worlds?”

“That's possible.” Drakon looked even grimmer than before. “The first human contact with a nonhuman intelligence, if you don't count the enigmas, and I don't think you can. There's no contact with the enigmas. Just war. But the Dancers are different. It would be just like the CEOs on Prime to want to destroy the Syndicate Worlds if necessary in order to keep the Alliance from gaining friendly contact with an alien species.”

“That could explain it. There's also that superbattleship. Boyens kept pushing for access to that long after it was clear that Black Jack would never allow him within a light-hour of it. All Black Jack told us was that there was potentially new technology on that Kick ship and, hopefully, more information about the Kicks themselves. Maybe that's all he knows. But that Kick technology could be of immense value, and Prime would want to deny that to the Alliance as well.” Iceni made a fist and rapped it against her own forehead. “But, all of those are long-term concerns. Short term, the impact on business in the Syndicate Worlds would be catastrophic. I just don't see how they could do that. I'll tell Black Jack we have no idea what the problem is but that we'll do all we can to find
out.”

“Do you want to warn him about going to Sobek?” Drakon asked.

“Do I have
to?”

“No. If we saw the threat there, we can be certain that Black Jack saw it,
too.”

Iceni headed for the secure office off the command center that she had been using lately, followed closely by Togo. “When was the last time we know that the hypernet gate could access other stars than Sobek?” she asked Togo, as they walked.

Togo consulted his data pad. “Two days. A freighter came in from Nanggal.”

“Nothing since then? That's unusual but not too unusual. No wonder this came as a surprise.”

She entered the room, Togo behind her pausing to ensure the door closed securely, she glancing back to check the green glow of the lights pronouncing the room safe, reaching the desk, and beginning to walk around it to the chair—

“Freeze!”

Togo did not use that word or that tone of command unless it was very, very necessary.

Iceni jerked herself to a stop so quickly that a muscle protested. But she ignored that pain, concentrating on not moving.

She saw Togo come past her, studying one of his security devices, his eyes flicking toward the desk beside Iceni. His motions slowed, becoming very cautious and deliberate, as Togo knelt to look beneath the desk. He remained there for several seconds that felt much longer to Iceni, who was even trying to breathe without making any excess motion.

Togo stood up, his movements still careful but no longer minimized. “A bomb, Madam President, planted under the desk, invisible to the naked eye because it is formed into a thin sheet which was applied to the undersurface of the desk. Directional explosive. It would have cut you in half.”

“Am I still in danger?”

“Not where you are standing, Madam President. It is aimed at the chair.” Togo paused, no emotion visible on his face. “The fuse uses a biometric trigger, keyed to your physical traits.”

“Biometric.” Keyed on her. The bomb would not have exploded if anyone else sat in that chair. But if she had sat there again, she would have suffered certain death. “I've heard of those kinds of assassination devices. They're not easy to acquire.” She wondered why she suddenly felt so calm.

“The Syndicate government kept tight control of them,” Togo agreed. He had knelt again and was working under the desk. “It is deactivated.”

Iceni relaxed, standing up straight. She looked toward the door of the room and the panel above it, where the lights still glowed green to indicate there were no taps, no bugs, no bombs, no threats of any kind in this office. Obviously, someone had not only planted the bomb but also hacked the supposedly secure sensors that would warn of the bomb. And of other things.
How long ago was that done? Is this room bugged as well? How private have the conversations held in here really been?

The momentary calm was being replaced by anger again. “This room was compromised.
How?”

Togo lowered his head in apology. “I do not know, Madam President. I will find
out.”

“You'd damn well better. You saved my life, but if you'd done your job right, my life never would have been in peril. I need to know how someone got in here, everything they did, how the room got compromised without anyone's detecting it, and most importantly, who it
was.”

“I will find the answers, Madam President.” Togo indicated the desk. “But the answer to the last question may already be before us. This device contains explosives with military tags embedded in
it.”

Military? Snakes had access to their own explosives, which contained no tags allowing them to be traced to their sources. The only people on Midway who would have access to specialized military explosives of this sort would have to
be—

Togo was speaking again, his tone that of someone pronouncing sentence on the guilty. “General Drakon. Or someone on his staff.”

UNDER
the circumstances, Iceni thought she sounded appropriately concerned but not as rattled as someone who had narrowly escaped assassination. She had chosen another secure room in the command center at random, had it swept for hazards, then sat down to send her reply to Black Jack. “A freighter arrived two days ago from the gate with Nanggal and did not report any problems. I assure you that we are extremely concerned by the news you have given us. We cannot explain the problems you are having accessing gates elsewhere in the Syndicate hypernet. My information prior to our break with the Syndicate was that every standing gate had already been equipped to prevent collapse by remote means. I cannot believe that the new government on Prime would have deliberately destroyed almost all of their hypernet. The impact on corporate activity and profits would be incalculable.

“That said, we have no idea what has happened. There are no indications that our own gate is suffering any problems or malfunctions. We have closely monitored it for any signs of software or hardware sabotage, especially during the period when CEO Boyens's flotilla was in this star system.

“If you discover anything, or find any anomalies in the operation of the gate, we would be grateful if you would provide us with that information. For the people. Iceni,
out.”

As she gazed at the small display above the desk, it occurred to her that if Black Jack had departed as scheduled, the bomb aimed at her would have gone off either just after his fleet left this star system or so close to that time that news of the event could not have reached Black Jack before his fleet entered the hypernet gate.
Whoever did that did not want Black Jack to know. That tells me something very important—that Black Jack was not involved.

The big question now was what to do. Strike back? Syndicate etiquette called for an equivalent response, which would mean an attempt to put an end to Drakon.

Iceni kept her eyes on the display, but she wasn't seeing the play of ships through the star system anymore.
What am I feeling? Disappointment. No, something more than that.

How could Drakon have done such a thing? Or, if he didn't order the attempt, let someone like that insane Morgan go after me? They should have known that even if the plot succeeded the military-tagged explosives would point—

Her eyes refocused. So did her brain.

Yes. They
should
have known. Get a grip, Gwen. Would Drakon or one of his close staff, people with access to commercial explosives, people who overran and control the snakes' old headquarters facilities and so must have access to snake explosives, use
military
explosives that would clearly implicate them?

I must be getting old. Why did it take me so long to spot that?

She sat back, thinking, running through every fact, every event. After several minutes, Iceni keyed in a comm address. “General Drakon, I need to speak with you. Alone. Not at the command center. I have learned that at least some of the supposedly secure rooms here have been compromised.”

Drakon watched her, his eyes questioning. Concerned. She could tell he was worried, but his next words caught her off guard. “Are you all right?”

His first question was about her? She was what he was concerned about? Iceni's mind floundered for a moment, surprised. “I'm fine. Where do you want to meet? We need somewhere new, somewhere secure, where no one would have expected us to meet.”

“There's only one place I know of that fits that description, but you might not want to go there.”

“Tell
me.”

DRAKON
waited at the entrance to the office once occupied by CEO Hardrad, former head of the Internal Security Service in the Midway Star System. The snake headquarters complex had been badly shot up when Drakon's troops took the heavily fortified building, but Hardrad's office deep inside it bore only one sign of the fate of both CEO Hardrad and the snakes on this planet. On one wall, behind Hardrad's former desk, stains were still visible, marking where Hardrad had been standing when Colonel Morgan put a bullet through his head.

Iceni arrived with a couple of bodyguards, whom she told to wait outside before entering. She looked around, grimacing. “I have no fond memories of this room.”

“Me, neither,” Drakon agreed, gesturing to Colonel Malin to close the door and remain outside. “But the one place on this planet guaranteed to be without recording or listening devices is this office.”

“Ironic, isn't it?” Iceni said. She glanced at the desk and Hardrad's former chair, shook her head, then sat down in one of the comfortable chairs arrayed about a small table to one side of the office. “The snakes bugged every place they could except the office of their boss.”

“Snake CEOs don't want anyone to know what they've done, or ordered,” Drakon observed, taking a seat opposite Iceni. “What happened?”

She eyed him for a few seconds before replying. “Someone tried to kill me. Or someone tried to make it look like someone tried to kill
me.”

Drakon's face went cold and hard. Inside, he felt the same way. “An assassination attempt? Aimed at
you?”

“There was a biometric trigger on the bomb.”

He could feel warmth rushing to his face now, anger replacing the coldness. “I'll— Hold on. You said someone might have
tried
to make it look like an assassination attempt?”

“Possibly.” Iceni watched him, looking puzzled. “You are a dilemma, General. Let me be frank. The bomb aimed at me contained military-tagged directional explosives.”

“What?” She kept throwing revelations at him, and it was taking time to absorb each new one. “Military-tagged?” The implications hit, and his anger grew. “Someone tried to implicate me in it? Someone wanted you to think I authorized that?”

“You didn't?”
“No!”

The vehemence of his reply surprised him, but Iceni just gazed back at him speculatively. “What about members of your staff? Someone close to
you?”

“Absolutely not,” Drakon said. “You mean Colonel Morgan, don't
you?”

“Among other possibilities.”

“It wasn't Morgan,” Drakon said, “because if it had been her, you would be dead. How did the bomb get spotted?”

“Someone detected it before I sat down.”

“Lucky they were behind the desk.”

Iceni paused. “Why do you say that?” Her voice sounded a bit too calm, too controlled as she asked the question.

“You said it used directional explosives,” Drakon explained. “The trigger would only have been scanning in the direction the explosives would strike.”

“Yes,” Iceni agreed. “So the trigger could only be detected in that direction? Interesting.”

Drakon gave her a demanding look. “Why?”

She watched him again for a while before replying. He wished he could hear the thoughts behind Iceni's eyes.

Suddenly, Iceni made a small movement that caused a compact but very lethal and powerful weapon to appear in her hand. “You know that I could kill you right
now.”

“I know that you could try. You must know that I have the same sort of defenses.”

“Yes.” Another twitch and the weapon disappeared into concealment again. “Why didn't you tense when I displayed my weapon?”

Drakon gestured toward her face. “I was watching your eyes, not the weapon. When someone intends using a weapon, you can read it in the eyes first. You didn't have the look.”

“I'll have to work on that. I thought maybe you . . . trusted me. My experience in life,” Iceni said, “everything I have learned while climbing to the rank of CEO in the Syndicate, tells me to trust no one. There is only one person in this star system who I can be certain is not working against
me.”

He started to smile, only to stop as she continued.

“That person is the Alliance liaison officer. I know she is not a snake. I know she is not working for you, or for any other faction in this star system, or for anyone in any nearby star system.”

“You think she doesn't have any agendas?” Drakon challenged, his voice harsh.

“I know she does. And I know those agendas should correspond to mine.”

“Really? Are you ready for those free-and-open elections the Alliance always boasts about?”

Iceni didn't answer immediately, instead sitting back and running one hand through her hair as she looked to the side. “You brought that up before. The citizens seem to be content with the bones we're throwing them,” she finally said.

“I assume you've seen the same reports that I have,” Drakon said, pushing his point. “Some elements are already dissatisfied, already pushing for elections for all positions up to and including yours.”

Her eyes went back to him, challenging this time. “But not yours.”

“Because I don't fill that kind of job. But those elements of the citizens expect me to obey whomever they elect to
your
job. I'm not thrilled at the idea,” Drakon added. “At some point, we'll have to confront those citizens. That means keeping the majority of the citizens on our side and the majority of the elected offices on our side. I understand what that means. So do you. That Alliance officer? Very likely
not.”

Iceni nodded, her eyes still on him. “You're right. What are you telling me, Artur?”

“I'm telling you that the reason we decided to work together in the first place is still valid. If we're going to survive, if we're going to win, we need to work as a team.”
I don't know why I want her to believe that so badly, but I do. Anyway, it's true. Alone, either one of us will be toast.

She finally smiled. “I wanted to hear you say that. I agree with you, but I wanted to know that you still understood what we're facing. But does everyone else understand? Everyone who works for
us?”

“No.” There wasn't any sense in beating around the bush. “Not for me, anyway.”

“Not for me, either.” Iceni stood up, then reached a hand toward him. “Is there anyone
you
trust in this star system?”

He had to think carefully before answering, then stood as well and very briefly grasped her offered hand. “Yes.”

He knew Iceni was waiting to hear more before they both headed for the door, but, still smarting from her statement that she could only trust the Alliance liaison officer, Drakon said nothing else.

BLACK
Jack's fleet had departed but had left something behind that required Drakon's personal presence in the main orbiting facility. The Syndicate citizens who had been captured and kept imprisoned by the alien enigma race had all chosen to stay at Midway, all three hundred and thirty-three of them. Black Jack had offered them eighteen, but at the critical moment, when the former prisoners would have been separated from each other, the rest of the group had changed their minds. It was the sort of thing you would expect from people suffering the effects of long imprisonment together. But now they were all free, and they were all coming here. They knew nothing about the enigmas, but their presence at Midway would still be a diplomatic coup of sorts.

Drakon sat alone in the passenger compartment of a military shuttle as it rose above the atmosphere. The large display at the front of the compartment was set for a split screen, one half looking upward to endless dark and endless stars, the other half down to where white clouds drifted above vast expanses of water broken by chains of islands and a couple of small island-continents. He had a sensation of being suspended between extremes, a feeling that his own decisions and actions could keep him here, balanced between the heavens and a living world, or propel him down to a fiery reentry or up to be lost in the cold dark.

The urgent chime of his comm unit provided a welcome interruption to the disturbing reverie. “What's up?” he asked as the image of Colonel Malin appeared. “Is President Iceni going to be delayed?” Iceni was taking her own shuttle up. While the public image of them riding together might have helped cement the citizens' view of Drakon and Iceni as co-rulers working in what passed for harmony under a Syndicate definition of the term, the risk of having two extremely lucrative targets in one vehicle had been judged far too great. Besides, accidents did happen. Real accidents, as opposed to the sort of accidents that conveniently removed rivals.

“No, sir,” Malin replied. “The President's shuttle has lifted. But we have an interesting development. A freighter arrived at the hypernet gate a few hours ago. It came from Taniwah.”

He started to dismiss the news as inconsequential, then stared at Malin. “Taniwah? Not Sobek? You're certain?”

“Yes, sir. When the freighter showed up, Kommodor Marphissa ordered
Kraken
to approach the gate and search for destinations. Every known gate in the Syndicate Worlds hypernet, except those like Kalixa, which were previously destroyed, was listed as an option.”

Drakon sat back, rubbing his chin. “We've got access to the entire hypernet again. The CEOs on Prime didn't destroy the Syndicate hypernet.”

“No, sir. What they did do was somehow temporarily block access to any gate except Sobek for any ship or ships leaving here.”

“I didn't know that was possible.”

“It's not supposed to be possible,” Malin replied. “We don't know how to do it. However, we have to assume that Prime now knows how to do
it.”

“Wonderful. Where did you get this information?”

“It was forwarded to us from the planetary command center by order of President Iceni, General.”

“What are the chances that our spies in Syndicate space can find out how to work that trick with the hypernet, and maybe how to counter
it?”

“I will send instructions to our sources in Syndicate-controlled space,” Malin said. “But since the instructions must go along with routine freighter movements that will take circuitous routes to avoid the official Syndicate blockade of us, it will take some time for those instructions to be received, and I do not know whether any of our sources can achieve the access needed to get that information. The Syndicate is certain to be holding it in the most-highly-classified channels.”