Iceni cupped her chin with one hand as she studied Boyens. All of the interrogation-cell indicators glowed green, so either Boyens was amazingly talented at fooling interrogation gear or he truly believed what he was telling her. “We had some very good preoperational surveillance,” Iceni finally said. “It didn’t spot those reinforcements that you are claiming exist.”
“It wouldn’t! Nothing at Ulindi has any records of that! There are total cutouts between Ulindi and the rest of the Syndicate, just as if Haris had really broken off from the Syndicate. But any ISS sources left at Midway who spotted any of your preparations to hit Ulindi would have passed information back to the snakes, and the snakes would have timed reinforcements to get to Ulindi and hammer whatever you sent. Given the time lag involved in passing information, your sources at Ulindi wouldn’t have been able to get word back here of the reinforcements arriving at Ulindi before your attack force left.”
Boyens held both of his hands before him, palms turned toward her, his voice pleading. “Look, I know you have reason to be skeptical of me. But I don’t want you and Drakon to be crushed, and I know you guys can’t afford to lose a big chunk of what forces you have. I’m telling you that whatever you sent to Ulindi isn’t going to be enough. Your attack force is walking into a trap.”
Chapter Seven
Iceni shook her head, maintaining an impassive expression despite the riot of emotions inside her. “Ulindi is a trap? Why should I believe you?”
“Because—” Boyens broke off and laughed in a sad way. “Because I want to work the angles, the options, Gwen. That’s me, right? And I can’t work options if there aren’t any options. You see? Right now, and as far as I can tell, you and Artur Drakon are the only alternative to the Syndicate that has a chance out here. There are other star systems revolting against the Syndicate in other nearby regions, but I don’t know the people or the exact situations in those places, and a lot of them are just going to hell as different factions fight for control. If the Syndicate regains enough strength, it will roll up each of those other star systems. If the Syndicate just keeps trying to regain control of them, the back-and-forth struggles are likely to devastate those places no matter who ultimately wins.”
Boyens spread his hands and smiled ruefully. “I don’t want to gain temporary power over ruins. Hell, I don’t want ruins. I won’t lie. I want power, I want a secure position of authority. Look around, Gwen. Where do you see security and stability? Here. Not on Prime, where the knives are out, the CEOs are busy stabbing their rivals, and the snakes are getting rid of anyone who looks strong enough to threaten them. Imagine having Happy Hua at your back, ready to strike if you fail too badly or if you succeed too well. I don’t know how you and Artur figured out how to work together, but between that, breaking the snakes’ power here, Black Jack’s support, and the forces you’ve managed to accumulate, you’ve got a real chance.”
“You’re acting purely out of self-interest, then?” Iceni asked. “You believe that we represent your best chance to get what you want?”
“Damn right.”
“That I can believe.” Iceni paused to think through her options.
“You’ve got to send a ship after your attack force,” Boyens urged. “Recall them before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late. By the time any warning I send could reach Ulindi, the ground forces will have already landed. I need to send some reinforcements to even the odds.”
“Reinforcements?” Boyens looked around as if he could see through the walls confining him. “What have you got that could make a difference?”
“I’m going to find out,” Iceni said, hoping that she could come up with something big enough to make a difference. “Damn you! If Artur Drakon dies because you withheld this information until now, I promise you that you will die as well, and it will not be an easy death!”
The training area was well out in the country, far from the city, along routes normally traveled only by military vehicles. It had taken Roh Morgan far too long to cross that distance without being spotted, only to encounter a newly expanded and reinforced sensor field surrounding the training area. She was tempted to turn back at that point but realized that she had to know what all of those sensors were protecting. It had to be something significant.
The sensors were the latest models, the most sensitive yet created, but that was all to the good as far as Morgan was concerned. The more sensitive the sensor, the more it had to be adjusted and calibrated to ignore the presence and movements of native animals, birds, and insects as well as the movements of vegetation in the wind. With the right clothing and the right ways of moving, someone could mimic those native creatures and natural movements enough to keep the sensors from alerting.
The downside was that such travel was painstakingly slow, and this sensor field unusually wide.
By the time Morgan reached a vantage point looking down onto the training area, another several hours had been wasted. She raised the cam-nocs she had lifted from ground forces headquarters, using the same deliberate, careful movements that had brought her this far, zooming in the focus on the terrain below her.
The tents and equipment on the field were well camouflaged. Morgan knew she wouldn’t have seen them if she hadn’t known exactly what to look for.
Her curses stayed silent inside her, but didn’t lack for force. There was a lot of equipment down there, equipment that couldn’t be accounted for by the files that Haris’s snakes had maintained.
A shuttle dropped down so quietly that she knew it must be a full-stealth model. As it came to rest, a woman came out of a tent and hurried to meet it. Morgan zoomed in closer, identifying the woman’s suit as that of a sub-CEO. A sub-CEO implied this was a brigade-sized force…
The shuttle ramp dropped, and a man and woman came walking down it, the pair surrounded by several bodyguards. Morgan grimly focused on them, seeing what the presence of the bodyguards had already telegraphed.
A CEO, and another sub-CEO, both of their suits carrying the minor ornamentations that marked them as serving with ground forces.
That meant there could be an entire division of ground forces hidden here and in other training areas around the planet. A division that wasn’t in any of the snake files. Morgan respected the snakes too much to think that this could have been done under their noses, especially in this star system, where the snakes had insinuated themselves even more deeply into the ground forces than usual.
Haris hadn’t revolted. He hadn’t unilaterally declared himself Supreme CEO of this star system. It had all been theater, a trick to make it seem that Haris was no longer loyal to the Syndicate and could no longer be sure of Syndicate backing.
The show had to have a purpose, and this was it. They must have learned an attack force was coming from Midway, they had brought in this division only a few days beforehand, using shuttle drills as a cover for landing all of the soldiers and equipment, and the comm silencing period was designed to ensure no possible hint of the extra troops’ presence leaked out.
General Drakon must already be on the way. Must already be within a day or two of landing, expecting to encounter one understrength brigade of regular ground forces, not that brigade plus a division more. With the comm stand-down still in effect, trying to get a warning out would be a lot harder once she got to a transmitter, and just getting to a transmitter would take a while.