She felt a surge of fury, a desire to fling herself down the slope, to kill until she reached a transmitter. But she knew how likely that was to fail. If she died before she reached a means of sending a warning to General Drakon, then there would be no one to warn him at all.
And there was another mission that must be completed to ensure that Drakon survived. If she didn’t ensure that some critical control lines remained disabled in ways that weren’t apparent to the snakes, General Drakon would not survive the victory that he might still be able to achieve despite the dramatic change in odds.
Morgan gritted her teeth, calmed herself with an effort of will that left her gasping, then began slowly, methodically sneaking back out of the sensor field.
Life on the crowded freighters was so unpleasant that Drakon found himself looking forward to combat as an alternative to staying in the cramped accommodations, breathing air fragrant with the smells of too many men and women who hadn’t bathed in too long. Right now he was crammed into his grandly named stateroom, which in any surface dwelling would have been classified as a closet, along with Colonel Conner Gaiene. “What did you need to talk about?”
Gaiene made a face. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Seriously?” Drakon asked.
Gaiene’s expression shifted into a grin. “I still do that on occasion. Not every brain cell is dead, yet, and I have done this sort of thing a few times.” The smile faded, replaced by that haunted look from eyes that had seen too much on too many battlefields. “The plan calls for using the warships to conduct a preliminary bombardment.”
“Right,” Drakon said. “The cruisers don’t carry nearly as many bombardment projectiles as battleships or battle cruisers do, but they have enough to cause some real damage to one big target.”
“So I see. We’re going to turn snake headquarters on Ulindi into a big crater made up of a lot of little craters. But the snakes will have an alternate command post.”
“Of course they will,” Drakon agreed.
“How do we keep them from setting off the buried nukes? We are assuming that the snakes have buried nukes under the cities and big towns of this planet, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we’re assuming that,” Drakon said. “Colonel Morgan will make sure the alternate command post can’t send the detonation orders.”
Gaiene bent a skeptical look on Drakon. “How is she going to do that all by herself? It would be a tough job for a company of special forces troops.”
“You know Morgan.”
“I certainly do,” Gaiene said in a tone of voice that held great depths of meaning. “Though never in any physical sense, I assure you.”
“Then you know that you don’t ask her how and you don’t tell her how,” Drakon said. “You just tell her what you want done and pull the trigger.”
“As smart weapons go, she is in a class by herself,” Gaiene admitted. “But…”
“But, what? If you’ve got concerns, I want to hear them, Conner.”
“There was that prolonged comm silence.”
Drakon nodded, his expression grim. “The timing was suspicious, but it started well before we got here, and it ended yesterday. Now, of course, there’s a lot of talk about our being here, but that’s to be expected.”
“We didn’t catch any unguarded comms from before we arrived,” Gaiene pointed out. “Those usually provide important information.”
“I agree. And Colonel Kai has raised the same concern. Do you believe that period of comm silence justifies calling off the assault?” He waited for the answer, knowing that Gaiene would tell him whatever Gaiene believed and not what he thought Drakon might want to hear.
Gaiene paused for a long moment, his eyes averted, the pose almost that of a man listening to something he couldn’t quite make out. “No. Based on what we know, I believe that we should go ahead with the assault.”
“Is something else bothering you?”
Another pause, that same attitude of almost-listening, then Gaiene shrugged. “I don’t know, General. Just a feeling. Have I ever thanked you? For overlooking my failings in the last few years?”
“You’ve earned your keep, Conner,” Drakon said, eyeing Gaiene. He knew Gaiene could get moody at times, especially the last few years, but this felt different. “You’re sure there’s nothing specific bothering you?”
Gaiene smiled. “Just a feeling,” he repeated. “I’ve been running away from the past for a long time. I… almost feel that it will catch up to me here.” He laughed. “I’m sure Lara hasn’t been happy with me.”
Drakon didn’t know what to say for a moment. “You haven’t said Lara’s name for a long time.”
“She’s been far away. She’s closer now.” Gaiene looked straight at Drakon, his eyes dark. “Thank you, General.”
“Can you lead your troops into this fight?” Drakon asked. Gaiene had acted fey before, but not like this.
“Yes, sir. All the way. Not a problem.” Gaiene smiled once more and suddenly seemed his usual self again. “I feel better than I have in a long time. Is drop time still in fourteen hours?”
“Yes. The Kommodor will let me know when we’re exactly two hours out. I’ll pass word to you and Kai then, so you can get your troops prepared for the assault. The shuttle pilots have already gone over their birds and can be ready to go in half an hour after I alert them. The bombardment will go out twenty minutes before we launch the first wave.”
Gaiene looked at one bulkhead, his eyes obviously not seeing the bare metal but something from the past, his expression wistful and distressed in equal measure. “Do you remember how many times we’ve watched assault forces coming? Sitting there on the surface, you and me and the rest of us, seeing any friendly mobile forces around trying to fight off the attackers, watching the enemy assault transports get closer and closer as each day, then each hour goes by? Watching the bombardment launch and bracing ourselves for the impacts as the ground shook and shook and men and women died? And then the shuttles coming down through our defensive fire, dropping off loads of Alliance ground forces or maybe Alliance Marines, and the fights that took forever and no time at all and never seemed to stop. Or all the times we were the ones dropping into the fight, knowing that if we failed in the assault, no one might be able to get us out of there again. How many friends have we watched die, you and I?”
“I stopped thinking about that a long time ago,” Drakon said, his voice soft.
“You only pretended to stop thinking about it,” Gaiene corrected him.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Conner, it’s different now. We’re not fighting for the Syndicate, we’ll take as many prisoners as are willing to surrender, and when this is over, we’ll go back to Midway and only fight to defend ourselves or to help others who need our assistance.”
Gaiene nodded. “It’s different. Yes. We know that. But the weapons we fire don’t know that, General. All they know is how to kill, and they don’t care why the triggers are pulled or what the target is.” He saluted before leaving.
Drakon stared at the hatch after it closed, trying to remember if Conner Gaiene had ever before saluted him when they were in private.
Iceni was sitting in her office, clasped hands before her mouth, brooding, when an urgent alert sounded. Muttering a curse, Iceni spun to look at her display. What she saw made her anger change to a jolt of anxiety.
“An enigma ship arrived at the jump point from Pele,” her watch-center supervisor reported anxiously.