“As senior CEO in this star system, I’m responsible for all Syndicate Worlds’ assets.” Iceni waved one negligent hand around to indicate the ship. “I’m conducting an inspection.”
“No inspection was on your schedule.”
“I prefer surprises,” Iceni said. “You accomplish more that way.”
“That is true,” Hardrad agreed. A lesser man would have betrayed some feeling then, some darkly humorous acknowledgment that they were both speaking primarily about the ISS and its tactics. But not Hardrad. His expression didn’t even flicker. “However, your inspection will have to take place on another day. I need to see you in person. Right away.”
She put on her best expression of affronted dignity. “Because CEO Kolani, who commands the most deadly forces in this star system, is accusing me of doing something which is probably the fault of her own communications staff? I don’t control military communications.”
“No. You don’t. We need to talk about who does. You understand?”
So Hardrad suspected Drakon? That was reasonable under these circumstances, and yet… If he’s also finally received his own orders, Hardrad wants me in his headquarters so he can find out every disloyal thought I’ve ever had. What better way to get me into that building than by implying that we’re going to act jointly against Drakon?
Assuming that Drakon hasn’t really betrayed me.
“We should discuss this right away, Gwen,” Hardrad continued. She had never liked the way he used her first name in conversations like this, implying not only familiarity but also inferiority compared to him. “I’ve notified the ISS representatives on C-448. Some of them will escort you back down to the planet.”
Iceni spent a long moment looking at the blank screen after Hardrad’s image had vanished. For all his power, Hardrad knew that he had to at least feign respect for senior CEOs. He was acting far too confident by making such an open move against her now. What does he know? She checked the time, and her breath caught. Drakon’s attack should have started two minutes ago.
“Your orders?” Akiri asked softly.
Strike now at the ISS representatives on this warship and the other warships as well? But if Drakon’s move had just been delayed, if he hadn’t outright betrayed her to the snakes, then starting her own move now would betray Drakon’s impending assault which had to succeed. Hardrad would know almost immediately if the status feed from his representatives aboard C-448 was broken. At that point, Iceni might as well broadcast the news that she would be assuming command of all of the mobile forces and her demand that Kolani submit to Iceni’s authority. Without Drakon’s actions on the surface triggering her agents on other ships she would have to do that, before the snakes on those other ships could strike at the regular unit officers or activate disabling worms that Internal Security was known to plant in every critical system.
Akiri took a message on his own comm unit, then faced Iceni. “The ISS representatives aboard this unit will arrive in five minutes to escort you back to the surface.”
What the hell is Drakon up to? How much longer does he need? Or has he already backstabbed me? In which case, I need to act now to try to save my own skin.
“Your orders?” Akiri repeated, his own tone growing not just urgent but also anxious.
Chapter Two
Time crawled for Drakon as the assault troops made minor changes to their prepositioning, every movement careful as they worked to always remain concealed from the ISS headquarters. Drakon kept his eyes on the ISS complex, seeing nothing at all out of the ordinary across all passive visual spectrums and comm frequencies, but now viewing the ordinary as menacing.
“Assault Force Three is ready,” Morgan reported.
“Good. Watch out for those vipers when we go in, Roh. They’re tough.”
“We’re tougher. And every soldier with us hates them. Who doesn’t know someone who got hauled off to a labor camp or worse by vipers or other snakes?”
Drakon nodded to himself, thinking of the worries he had lived with for decades, wondering day by day no matter where he was if a door would come crashing open, followed by a squad of vipers with orders from Internal Security to take him off for interrogation about crimes he might or might not have contemplated but would surely confess to after enough physical and mental duress. He wondered if anyone in the Syndicate Worlds had ever been safe from that worry. Snakes. The common nickname for ISS personnel spoke to the general attitude toward them, but the ISS had been vicious and efficient enough to keep dissent down nonetheless.
Until now.
Morgan spoke again, sounding annoyed. “The unit leaders want to know what the policy is on prisoners. Do we take any vipers alive?”
That one was easy. “They won’t know anything worth sweating out of them, assuming they aren’t conditioned to suicide once captured. It doesn’t matter anyway. Do you think any vipers will try to surrender, knowing how the soldiers feel about them?”
Morgan chuckled, her voice delighted this time. “No. They’ll fight to the death because they know what’ll happen if they’re captured alive. I hope we do capture a few.”
About a minute later, Malin reported in. “Assault Force Two ready.”
“How do your people look?” Drakon asked him. “Any signs of wavering?”
“No, sir. These are the cream of our forces. They’ve been waiting for this day. And you’re not just another CEO. You’re the only CEO who ever showed any concern for their personal welfare. They’re loyal to you. You’re going into battle with them, and how many CEOs do that? It may take time to get all the rest of the planetary troops behind you, but you’ve got a good reputation among them.”
A reputation based on actions that had resulted in his being exiled to Midway, Drakon thought ruefully, along with Morgan and Malin, who had chosen to follow him here. “It hasn’t done much for my promotion potential in the past, but maybe that’s about to change.” Assuming he won, and survived, he would go from being a rather low-level military-specialist CEO within the sprawling bureaucracy of the Syndicate Worlds to being the seniormost military commander in an independent star system.
Tense from waiting, stuck waiting six more minutes for the new time line to run out and looking for something to distract part of his mind, Drakon seized on the idea of change. Iceni wanted to go back to calling mobile forces “warships.” Maybe some other changes were worth considering. “What do you two think about going back to the old rank structure? Dropping the CEO and civilian pay scale stuff and using military titles again?”
“We’ve been doing it this way for about a hundred and fifty years,” Malin said. “It’s what the troops and everyone are used to.”
Unsurprisingly, that made Morgan jump in on the other side. “I think it’d be a great idea to go back to the old ranks, General Drakon.”
He liked the sound of that. General Drakon. And uniforms for high-ranking military leaders again instead of corporate suits. Something besides an executive specialty and assignment code to indicate what he was. And not just what he was but, in a lot of ways, who he was. “We need to break with the past, and maybe the best way to do that is to go even farther into the past.” Just decide it and get it done. Don’t go through a hundred layers of corporate bureaucracy, then wait for years before a decision finally wends its way back down saying no, and why the hell are you thinking instead of doing what you’re told? Was it that bad in the Alliance? They hadn’t been able to beat the Syndicate Worlds in a century of fighting, not until Black Jack reappeared, so the Alliance probably didn’t offer any perfect world, either.