Finally, the armored hatch leading onto the bridge loomed ahead. “That hatch was forced, too,” the probe operator said, her own voice sounding strained.
Iceni looked at the bodies visible around the hatch. “They lost a lot of people doing it.” Bridges were meant to be citadels for the officers in the event of a mutiny, thus they had active defenses as well as armor protecting them. Some of those defenses had probably been knocked out during the fight with Iceni’s warships, but enough had survived to decimate the attackers.
“The bridge is also in vacuum.” The probe approached the hatch cautiously, transmitting the codes that should disarm any surviving defenses, and eventually reached the portal.
From the hatch, the bridge appeared mostly intact, but Iceni could see bodies sprawled around. Had the bridge crew fought among themselves as well? The senior ISS agent aboard would have been there, and armed. Kolani’s officers would have been loyal to her. But what about the others, the line workers and executives of C-990’s crew?
From the viewing angle they had, it was apparent that Kolani still sat in the command seat, her back to the hatch, wearing a survival suit with her CEO markings clear in the light from the probe. But Kolani didn’t move, her body rigid. “No signs of life,” the probe operator said. “No life data coming in from any survival suits, no warm spots on infrared. Everyone on the bridge must be dead.” The probe began to move onto the bridge, while Iceni readied herself to order it stopped. She had already accumulated enough horrible memories in her life to sometimes trigger night sweats as it was. She did not want to see Kolani’s lifeless face to add to those.
But before Iceni could say anything, an alarm blared. “The probe tripped some sort of circuit,” the operator said. “Power surge detected. Some sort of command seems to have been—”
Iceni’s image from the probe went blank as a much louder alarm shouted for attention.
“C-990’s core overloaded,” Marphissa reported in a low voice. “There must have been a booby trap set, so when someone entered the bridge it would trigger the overload. We’re on the edge of the danger zone, so there’s no threat to this unit.”
Iceni kept her eyes on the spot where the image from the probe had been. Kolani had done it, she was sure. In her last moments of life, Kolani had set a trap for those who would come to gloat over her defeat. Perhaps in those final moments Kolani had had time to hope that Iceni herself would be part of that team. Sorry to disappoint you. “Gather the flotilla and return it to orbit about the planet. Let me know the moment we hear from C-625 or any other unit at the gas giant.”
They were about six light-minutes from the planet. Information would be a little time-late, but not too much. Iceni closed her eyes, massaged her forehead with the fingers of one hand, then looked for messages from Drakon.
There were several. As Iceni viewed the first messages, she had a sudden chilling vision in which the fratricide and destruction aboard C-990 had just been a prologue to similar scenes to be played out on the surface of the nearby planet.
“They need to see you,” Malin insisted.
“Going out in those mobs,” Morgan shot back, “is a good way to ensure he dies.”
As usual, both Malin and Morgan had good points. Drakon eyed the reports streaming in on multiple comm windows, seeing reluctant police forces and far-more-reluctant local administrators filtering in small groups among the massive crowds of celebrants. Moving discreetly behind both were platoons of soldiers, usually with more platoons watching the leading platoons.
Here and there, brief spasms of violence played out as someone tried to break into a liquor store or other business and was repulsed by quick and brutal use of first nonlethal riot-control agents, then direct gunfire on anyone who resisted. But such incidents stayed few as the great majority of those celebrating showed no sympathy for lawbreakers. Generations of conditioning on the need to obey authority could not be shed in a day, not when authority was on the streets and acting only against those who were clearly breaking laws.
But still, there was a sense, something that Drakon felt even if he couldn’t quantify it, that the situation was balanced on a knife-edge. The mood of the crowds oscillated around a tipping point, giddy, happy, irresponsible, reckless, an ocean of humanity whose waves could shift the wrong way in a heartbeat.
“They’re happy to see the soldiers,” Malin said. “They see our troops as liberators because we slew the snakes. You need to personalize that, General Drakon. You need to be the liberator, the man who freed this star system from the grip of the Syndicate Worlds and the fear of the ISS.”
“They’ve seen him,” Morgan replied. “Everyone saw him when he made that broadcast.”
“It’s too remote, too isolated. He needs to be among the citizens.”
“Where any nut can decide to take a shot at him!”
Drakon let the sound of their debate subside to a buzzing at the back of his head as he considered his options. Malin and Morgan had a good habit of clearly stating their positions and the rationales behind them right up front, as well as a bad habit of then restating the same points in endless back-and-forth argument. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he finally said, putting an instant stop to the debate.
A couple of minutes later, still wearing his combat-battered armor but with the helmet and face shield open, Drakon strode out of his headquarters and out among the crowds. Malin and Morgan both followed a few paces behind, wearing only their black skin suits but carrying unobtrusive and deadly weapons as they watched the crowds around Drakon. As Drakon had expected, all eyes went to him in his armor, paying little attention to those who followed him. In that armor he loomed a bit taller and wider than the citizens, appearing to be a figure literally larger-than-life.
The first mass of citizens he encountered paused in their celebrating, uncertainty in their eyes, as they realized that a CEO was among them. Drakon smiled at them, the same sort of comradely-but-I’m-in-charge smile he would give his soldiers. “It’s a good day!” he called. “This is our star system now, our planet, and we’re going to take care of it!”
The crowd cheered, ripples of reaction running away from Drakon like rings in a pond in which a rock has fallen. He walked slowly but deliberately through the crowd, the omnipresent security cameras picking up his image and sending it everywhere on the planet. Citizens reached out tentative hands to touch his armor, some straining to touch the scars of recent combat against the snakes. Drakon felt the power of the mob as if it were a single vast organism, huge and immensely powerful, and fought down his wave of fear. He had seen armored troops pulled down and overwhelmed by masses of civilians on Alliance planets and had a healthy respect for what an aroused mob could do. But he tried not to show any concern, instead holding that smile and maintaining his steady pace as he called out occasional vague words about order and law and safety.
A younger citizen, just coming to draft age by the look of him, eyes afire with emotion, thrust himself before Drakon, heedless of the weapons that Malin and Morgan immediately trained upon him. “When are the elections? When will we truly choose those who govern us?”
“We’ll get to that,” Drakon replied loudly. “Things have changed.” No one spent a lifetime dealing with and working among the Syndicate Worlds bureaucracy without developing a skill at mouthing meaningless reassurances that promised nothing.
The passionate young man looked uncertain, then he was pushed aside by other citizens and lost in the crowd. But Drakon had a bad feeling that his question would not be so easily disposed of in the days to come.