“Nope. If there are any more snake sleepers out there, none of them are in command positions in the ground forces,” Morgan declared confidently.
That was good news. If anyone could have found those sleepers, it would have been Morgan.
Sub-CEO Akiri never knew what killed him.
The assassin who entered his room through bypassed alarms and locks stabbed a nerve paralyzer into Akiri’s neck, waited a moment to confirm that Akiri was dead, then headed for the next target.
Mehmet Togo, blessed with keener instincts or perhaps the protection of guardian ancestors that he had secretly continued to revere despite official Syndicate discouragement of such “superstition,” awoke as the assassin entered his bedroom. Grabbing his weapon, rolling off the bed, and firing as he dropped to the floor, Togo watched dispassionately as the killer fell backward and lay unmoving. In his haste, he had aimed a killing shot rather than an incapacitating one, an inexcusable failure which meant the assassin would be answering no questions.
Sub-CEO Marphissa’s life was saved by an unauthorized secondary hatch alarm that she had rigged up and bribed the cruiser’s electrical officer to ignore. The silent alarm woke her in time for Marphissa to seize the hand weapon that every prudent Syndicate CEO, sub-CEO, and executive kept near at hand in the event that someone else sought improved promotion opportunities. As the assassin finished bypassing the regular alarm and entered her stateroom Marphissa put a shot into his chest, then, despite strict regulations to capture intruders so they could be subjected to exhaustive interrogation, slammed three more shots into him as he hit the far bulkhead.
Regulations be damned; she had no intention of letting the killer get back up again.
Sub-CEO Marphissa’s call came in as Iceni was receiving Togo’s report. “I have alerted all mobile forces, but it appears that there was only one assassin,” Marphissa said. “No others have been detected, and no one was killed, so I was either the first target or the only target. I do not think this was a… routine… assassination attempt.”
“I agree,” said Iceni. “We also had an assassin strike down here. Sub-CEO Akiri was not as fortunate as you. He and the assassin are both dead.”
“Someone struck at both me and Sub-CEO Akiri?”
“That’s correct. In the same night.” Iceni looked at Togo. “Have my bodyguards found anyone else inside the complex?”
“No, Madam President. I have analyzed how the assassin penetrated the complex, and it does not appear that she could have reached your living area. The means she had to penetrate security were not good enough to overcome those defenses.”
“Good. Have you identified the assassin on your cruiser, Sub-CEO Marphissa?”
Marphissa made an angry noise before she answered. “He is a blank. Not part of the crew, not listed on any mobile forces registry. But we’re nowhere near any occupied orbiting facilities. No one could have reached this unit from a distant location without being detected!”
Togo’s voice stayed unperturbed. “The assassin here is also a blank. No identity files match her, not ground forces, or mobile forces, or any citizen files.”
“How is that possible?” Marphissa asked. “ISS surveillance software would have spotted the presence of someone who wasn’t in the files even if they were never seen. I know that. Someone like that leaves a hole, a place where someone is doing things but that has no one apparently in it, that’s obvious to the software.”
“The assassin here could have come from many places,” Iceni said.
“Sub-CEO Marphissa is correct, though, that the killer would have needed assistance to remain undetected on the planet,” Togo said. “Someone in a high position.”
Iceni eyed him. “Are you prepared to name that person?”
“I note only that General Drakon has not notified us of an assassin striking his staff this night, Madam President. There have been no alarms or unusual activity from any ground forces location.”
That could be a damning bit of evidence, except that Iceni was certain Drakon knew how to do things like this right. Identify someone expendable on your own staff, someone you didn’t mind getting rid of, and off them at the same time as assassins hit your opponent. It provided cover and helped get rid of deadwood on your own staff. That was basic CEO tactics. If she had judged Drakon even remotely right, he couldn’t have been stupid enough to leave himself unmarked if he had targeted Iceni’s people this night. “How could General Drakon have gotten a killer onto Sub-CEO Marphissa’s cruiser? Sub-CEO, you say the assassin on your cruiser could only have come from one of the warships near you?”
“Yes, Madam President.”
“What if he used one of those ground forces stealth suits?”
“We would have found it after we killed him,” Marphissa said. “We did find a standard survival suit in a waste receptacle that hadn’t been purged, but it could have come off any unit.”
“The killer disposed of his survival suit?” Iceni asked. “Then it was a suicide mission, not just an assassination.”
“Yes, Madam President. I would have to agree.”
A suicide mission. That didn’t sound like Drakon’s ground forces. It sounded like—“ISS.”
Marphissa gazed at Iceni uncomprehendingly. “You think there were still snakes among the crews on our mobile units? But every one of these units has purged Syndicate loyalists from the crews, and no one could have left a unit, even just in a survival suit, to come over to this cruiser without someone on that unit detecting the departure.”
Iceni glanced at Togo. “These purges were thorough?”
“Yes!” Marphissa insisted. “Look what happened on HuK-6336 when they left the other loyalist units. Two-thirds of that crew died in the fighting!”
“That would seem to—” Iceni stopped speaking, recalling that when she had first heard that HuK-6336 had left the other loyalist warships, she had recently finished talking to Drakon.
About the discovery of a deep-cover agent for the ISS. Someone who did not seem to be ISS.
“Sub-CEO Marphissa,” Iceni said, trying to keep her voice calm, “did you not tell me once that you never spoke with the officers aboard HuK-6336 prior to the overthrow of the snakes?”
“Yes, Madam President,” Marphissa replied, plainly surprised at the question. “They had arrived in this star system only a week prior to our operation and spoken only with CEO Kolani.”
“Then your first personal knowledge of the officers on HuK-6336 came after they said they had killed all of the snakes aboard as well as all Syndicate loyalists?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know any of the officers on HuK-6336 prior to that? Did anyone on any of the other units with you?”
“No, Madam President, but that’s far from impossible. The mobile forces have many officers in them.”
Togo understood. He had realized what Iceni was driving at and had tensed.
“How,” Iceni asked, “do you know that the men and women you have spoken with actually are mobile forces officers?”
“I… we looked at the crew roster they provided when they joined up… but what—” The sub-CEO’s mouth fell open. “Do you mean… ?”
“I mean, perhaps what actually happened was that the snakes and firmest Syndicate Worlds loyalists aboard HuK-6336 slaughtered the real officers and any of the crew whose loyalty was in any way doubted, then replaced the actual crew roster with one showing the snakes as the officers and identifying the real officers as the dead snakes. HuK-6336 didn’t surprise C-625 by staying behind when the cruiser took the hypernet gate. That was an act to fool us. The snakes on HuK-6336 had orders to stay behind.”