“I will, too,” the senior of the three added after a brief hesitation.
The third averted his eyes, shivering as he stared at nothing. Drakon, well aware of how stress could break anyone, spoke to all three of them. “I appreciate your volunteering. None of you will be required to go. All of you would need medical clearance before you can go, and that may take more time than we have before the assault force leaves here. Your observations, your experiences, anything you saw on Iwa, could be immensely valuable to us. When my people come by to ask you about them, be as accurate and complete as you can.”
“Yes, hon— Sir?”
“General. General Drakon.”
“You are no longer Syndicate?”
“No,” Drakon said. “We are free. And we will free Iwa.”
“Kommodor Marphissa has shuttled down to the planet for a conference on the Iwa operation,” Iceni told Drakon as she prepared to leave his headquarters. “We’re going to be discussing how many warships to send. Do you want to attend?”
Drakon shook his head. “Not unless you want me there. I’d just endorse whatever you decided.”
“How sweet.” Iceni shook her head back at him. “That’s not a requirement for being in a relationship with me.”
He grinned. “Good thing, since I wouldn’t always do it. But in this case, I don’t know much about mobile forces. You do, and you’ll be talking to the mobile forces commanders, who seem to be very good at their jobs. Is Bradamont going to be there?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’d just be taking up space and consuming oxygen other minds might be needing.” Drakon gestured back toward the inside of his headquarters. “What I do need to be doing is figuring out how to take that underground enigma base.”
“You deal with your area of responsibility, then, and I’ll deal with mine.” Iceni blinked and looked away. “How many are going to die this time, Artur?”
“I don’t know, Gwen.” He sought for the right words. “If we don’t do this, if the enigmas dig into Iwa and fan out from there, they’ll take down Imallye and every star system in this region. How many would die if that happens?”
“Too damned many.” She sighed, then forced a smile as she looked back at him. “Isn’t it odd to feel superior because you want to limit how many people die because of your orders? But we are better than the Syndicate, and whatever their reasons are we are better than the enigmas who would kill so ruthlessly and give us no opportunity to make a deal both sides can live with.”
“I think we’re better than Imallye, too,” Drakon said.
“That just leaves Black Jack, doesn’t it?” Iceni asked sarcastically. “We can’t claim to be better than him, can we?”
“We’ll have to try to better him,” Drakon said. “That’s the only way we’ll beat Imallye, the enigmas, and the Syndicate if they decide to throw in, too.”
Another conference room, this time in Iceni’s complex. Just outside was the star system command center, with a truly awesome and immense display that sometimes seemed capable of showing entire planets at one-to-one scale. Iceni had learned that such displays were traps, though. Looking at them, it was far too easy to believe that they showed everything, in perfect detail. What was far harder to realize was that anything the sensors could not see, anything unknown, would not be shown on the display. As capable as they were, the automated routines running the displays were incapable of conceiving of the possibility that their image of the universe was incomplete. Of course, they weren’t capable of conceiving anything, just processing known data as they had been programmed to do, but that was very easy to forget when gazing at the godlike perspective a command center display offered.
She entered to find Kommodor Marphissa and Captain Bradamont already waiting, standing beside their seats. Two other places at the table were actually empty, but apparently occupied by the virtual presences of Kapitan Mercia and Kapitan Kontos also standing at attention. “Take your seats,” Iceni directed.
Marphissa and Bradamont sat down at the same time as Iceni, but the two officers attending by virtual means remained standing.
Iceni glanced at the time delays glowing beside the two images. Mercia aboard Midway was several light minutes from the planet, which would mean an annoying but endurable level of delay in any inputs she had to the meeting. Kontos, though, was nearly a light hour distant aboard Pele. This meeting would very likely have been over for a while before Kontos’s image finally sat down in response to Iceni’s direction. But even though he would not be able to provide his own opinions and advice, Kontos would get to see the deliberations and send onward later any suggestions he might have.
She nodded toward Marphissa. “You did a very impressive job at Iwa and Moorea. I regret not being in the command center to greet you in person when you arrived, Kommodor.”
Marphissa hesitated in her reply. “I… understand… that you were… otherwise occupied, Madam President.”
Iceni frowned at Marphissa, puzzled by the vague wording. “General Drakon and I have established a personal relationship. There is nothing remotely odd about CEO sleeping arrangements changing. Why is everyone tiptoeing around the matter?”
“I don’t know,” Marphissa confessed. “It just doesn’t feel appropriate with you and the General. Talking about it, I mean.”
Bradamont looked amused. “Congratulations, Madam President. You’re transcending your previous role as a Syndicate Worlds CEO.”
Iceni switched her frown to focus on the Alliance officer. “What does that mean?”
“They don’t see the rules for a CEO applying to you,” Bradamont explained. “They’re treating your personal life with respect, not because it is demanded of them but because they think you deserve it.”
“I will never understand workers,” Iceni muttered, lowering her gaze to the table. Yet the implied compliment, if Bradamont was right, did make her feel very good. She composed herself, raised her eyes, and pointed to the two women who were present and the images of Kontos and Mercia. “We’re here not to talk about my love life, but about how to handle the operation at Iwa. I am open to opinions as to how many warships to take to Iwa and how many to leave here to defend Midway, and as to who should remain at Midway in command of that defense force.”
“The basic problem with the command question,” Bradamont said, all business now, “is that your best two possibilities are both commanders of your two strongest assets. I would nominate Kapitan Mercia, but you will want the battleship Midway at Iwa, so if she stays behind to command the defense that would require passing command of Midway to someone else not long before an extended combat operation.”
“I could leave Kommodor Marphissa here and command the flotilla at Iwa,” Iceni prodded, wanting to see how they could respond.
Bradamont exchanged a single glance with Marphissa before replying. “Madam President, I have reviewed the operations that you have commanded. You have some skill. But Kommodor Marphissa is very much your superior at commanding warships in battle. I would strongly urge you to assign her in command of the forces at Iwa.”
“A very blunt reply, Captain,” Iceni said. “Also, I believe, a truthful one. I need to be at Iwa to provoke an attack by Imallye there, but I agree that the Kommodor should command our warships against Imallye. Kapitan Mercia, reply with your suggestions as to who might serve as commander of Midway if you remain here to oversee the defense of this star system.”