On the other side of the perimeter, Morgan responded in a tone that mimicked Malin. “Everything looks routine. We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s the problem?” Drakon asked. They were speaking over a shielded comm line run overland through every obstacle. A major pain in the neck, but the only way to minimize the chances of any ISS surveillance gear that hadn’t been sabotaged picking up some of the transmissions.
Two tin cans on a string. Millennia of communication advances and in the end we’re still depending on two tin cans on a string to make sure no one else hears us.
“The problem,” Morgan insisted, “is that everything looks normal. Even though we’ve spoofed the surveillance networks, the snakes must have picked up
something
from all of their other distributed monitoring gear. But they haven’t reacted at all that we can see. No messages to you or anyone else about the troop movements or anything. Routine security around the complex as far as we can tell. It stinks.”
“They could be uncertain,” Malin argued. “Trying to decipher the fragments that they’re seeing. We can’t afford to blow the element of surprise.”
“It’s already blown, moron.”
“That’s enough.” Drakon thought about Morgan’s argument as he studied the ISS complex again. “I haven’t had any messages from the snake brass today. They usually jump on me every day about what my troops are doing just to let me know I’m being watched. I think Morgan’s right. Has anyone seen any vipers moving around?”
“No,” Malin said.
“No,” Morgan added with a touch of triumph.
“Then everything isn’t routine. There are usually a couple of vipers outside running laps or exercising some other way, aren’t there?” Drakon blew out an angry breath. The ISS special forces, nicknamed vipers, had an ugly reputation for brutality and for fighting ability. An independent combat force, answering only to Internal Security, and thus doubly hated by the military of the Syndicate Worlds.
“You think the vipers are activated?” Malin asked, then answered himself. “We have to assume they are.”
“Right. Armored and ready to fight. This screws up the assault plan.”
Morgan came back on. “We need to hit them with everything we’ve got. If we go in piecemeal like we planned we’ll get cut to ribbons by those vipers.”
“If we go in all out we blow our chances of surprise!” Malin said. “The sooner the snakes realize we’re actually launching an all-out assault on their headquarters complex, the longer they’ll have to activate any doomsday retaliation devices they still have control over. They’re going to be overconfident, certain that they can handle whatever we’ve snuck in to hit them here. We have to take them out before they realize we have enough force on hand to take the complex.”
They were both right, Drakon realized. “We need to modify the assault plan. Infiltration to clear our way inside isn’t going to work now even with scouts in full stealth gear, but we can’t send in everything at once without presenting massed targets and panicking CEO Hardrad into setting off his dead-man retaliation devices. Instead of sneaking in by squads, we’ll go in by platoons around the entire perimeter at once and shoot our way in. The first barrage is to include the full range of concealment rounds. Sequence the platoons as they jump off to keep from clustering too many personnel in one spot and to keep the snakes from spotting how many soldiers we have here before we’ve knocked out their external surveillance. Once inside, every platoon is to advance as fast as it can toward the snake operations center. The vipers will be able to block some of the routes, but there aren’t enough vipers to stop platoons coming in along every possible approach. How long to get the revised plan uploaded and everyone ready to jump off?”
“Twenty minutes,” Morgan replied.
“Make it half an hour,” Drakon ordered before Malin could suggest something longer. Morgan always tended to push time constraints a bit too closely. “That will shove the assault time back fifteen minutes. I’ll notify the other commanders to move their assaults back fifteen minutes as well and let them know the snakes are prepared here. Let me know when everyone is ready to go.”
Drakon linked in to another landline, this one leading back to his headquarters complex. “Sub-CEO Kai, I’ve been held up at an appointment. They were waiting for someone but only partially prepared for me, so our briefing later this afternoon will be delayed fifteen minutes. Acknowledge.” The message went by the landline to his headquarters, then was transmitted along normal channels so it appeared to have originated at the headquarters. Kai replied within moments, then Drakon called Sub-CEOs Rogero and Gaiene with the same message.
He had barely finished when his comm system alerted him to a call from CEO Hardrad. Drakon blew out a long breath, settling his nerves and settling his expression and posture into the appearance of routine activity. It helped his display of confidence to know that his five subordinates who knew everything, who could have betrayed him, were all loyal. Malin, Morgan, Rogero, Gaiene, and Kai had all been with Drakon a long time. He didn’t hesitate to share his secrets with any of them, and he was certain none of them would have told Hardrad anything.
Activating a digital background to make it appear he was answering from his office, Drakon accepted the call.
Hardrad look mildly annoyed. That expression alone was enough to make nearly every inhabitant of this star system tremble. “I need to discuss something with you, Artur.” The ISS CEO routinely used first names with other CEOs. It wasn’t a gesture of comradeship but rather a lessening of their status compared to him and a not-so-subtle reminder of the power he wielded over them.
“Go ahead.”
“First, tell me why there’s a false background on your image,” Hardrad said. Of course, the snake systems had spotted that.
“I just got out of the shower.”
“An odd time of day for a shower,” Hardrad observed.
“Not if you work out. What is it you need to discuss?”
“A message in the comm system. It was high priority, intended for me, and yet held up within this star system for several days.”
Drakon frowned. “It came through military channels?”
“No.”
That only left one alternative, the comm systems controlled ultimately by Iceni, as both Drakon and Hardrad knew though neither named her. Avoiding saying names in conversations like this was a precaution so elementary that CEOs followed it automatically, since security bots scanning transmissions for information and warnings keyed on names first and foremost. “Good,” Drakon said. “Heads would roll if my systems suffered that kind of failure.”
Hardrad paused again, eyeing Drakon. “I’d like to speak with you in person, CEO Drakon, regarding the reasons for that failure. Here at my headquarters. The subject is sensitive enough that I wouldn’t want to entrust the conversation to any form of transmission.”
Smooth. Drakon found himself admiring the skills of Hardrad despite his hatred of what the man stood for and his anger at what Hardrad had done in the past. Hardrad had led the conversation in such a way that it seemed he suspected only Iceni of wrongdoing and wanted to coordinate with Drakon before taking action.
But even if Hardrad didn’t suspect Drakon of involvement with the delay in that order from Prime being received, he certainly intended to carry out those orders, which meant getting Drakon into ISS headquarters for a full security screen and interrogation.
Drakon pretended to be thinking through his schedule. “All right. How big a rush is this?”
“The sooner the better. I’ll send an escort.”
Sure he would. A platoon of vipers in full combat armor. “I don’t want to do anything that attracts anyone’s attention. You understand. I don’t need an escort. My bodyguards can handle anything that might come up.” He said it with calm arrogance, a CEO sure of his status and power, and Drakon saw Hardrad relax slightly, like a cat who saw a mouse strolling closer and oblivious to danger. “How about if I start over there in about . . . half an hour?”
A long pause this time, while Drakon wondered if he were starting to sweat and whether or not Hardrad could tell, then the ISS CEO nodded and smiled thinly. “Half an hour. If you’re delayed, I’ll be . . . concerned.”
“Understood. You’ll be seeing me soon.” If Hardrad had a deception analyzer on this circuit he wouldn’t spot any falsity in Drakon’s voice because Drakon fully intended to be entering the ISS headquarters complex less than half an hour from now.
Should he warn Iceni that Hardrad had finally received the orders to do a security screen on all CEOs? But with Iceni already well on her way toward that heavy cruiser there wasn’t any means to safely pass on such a warning, not without Hardrad’s very likely detecting the transmission. And Hardrad would be watching for exactly that, for co-conspirators to begin panicking and sending out warnings that the ISS was closing in. “Malin, Morgan, the snakes are gearing up not because they know what we’re doing but because Hardrad finally got that message and he’s anticipating trouble after he arrests me. He’s expecting me to show up at ISS headquarters in half an hour.”
Morgan sounded like she was almost choking with mirth. “Oh, yeah. We’ll all be knocking on that door in half an hour. Boom, boom, baby.”
“Can you communicate the delay in our jump-off to CEO Iceni, sir?” Malin asked. “She might be worried when we don’t attack as scheduled.”
“She won’t like the delay. I don’t like the delay. But it’s necessary. If you can figure out a way to tell Iceni about the delay that doesn’t run a serious risk of being intercepted by the snakes, let me know.”
Iceni was going to have to trust him. That was a hell of a lot for one Syndicate Worlds’ CEO to expect of another CEO.
He thought about the mobile forces overhead. For the first time in a long while, he wished there was something to ask for help, something that would listen to a prayer that the delay wouldn’t cause problems for Iceni and her plans to deal with those mobile forces.
Between the pitiless, ironfisted facts of life under Syndicate rules and the apparent randomness of life and death on the many battlefields he had seen, Drakon had long ago stopped having faith that anything cared about what happened to him. At times like this, he missed the comfort that might have brought and couldn’t help hoping that he was wrong.
* * *
ICENI
walked briskly through the tube mating the shuttle to Mobile Forces Unit C-448/Cruiser/Heavy/Combat, trying to reveal no signs of concern but frowning around slightly in the usual manner of a CEO, which was calculated to immediately put subordinates onto the worried defensive.
The commanding officer of C-448 saluted in the Syndicate manner, bringing his right fist across to lightly rap his left breast. “Welcome to my unit, CEO Iceni. We are honored and surprised by your personal visit.”
Iceni sketched a very brief smile back at him. “Thank you, Sub-CEO Akiri. I’ve long believed that not every inspection should be announced in advance. Are you prepared to storm the gates of hell?”
Akiri blinked at the code phrase, took a deep breath, then tried to nod calmly. “We are ready to follow you, CEO Iceni.” Turning to the woman standing beside him, Akiri gestured aft. “Make all necessary preparations.”
Her smile a little too tense and eager, the woman saluted him. “Five minutes.”
Iceni watched her walk off, not fearing betrayal from that source. Executive Marphissa, the second-in-command of C-448, had once had a brother. That brother hadn’t been killed fighting the Alliance but had been arrested by Internal Security before dying during interrogation of what the snakes always called “heart failure.” Having done her homework, Iceni knew how badly Marphissa wanted to avenge that death.
Find the tools and use the tools,
the voice of one of her old mentors came back to Iceni.
We’re artisans, Gwen, who use people to shape outcomes. Just pick the right people, point them in directions they already want to go, and they’ll do your work for you. And they won’t leave any of
your
fingerprints showing after the deed is done, unless of course you want to take credit for it.
“She’s capable,” Akiri murmured to Iceni as Marphissa left. “But you have to watch her very closely.”
Cutting down subordinates wasn’t all that unusual (after all, every executive needed someone to blame if anything went wrong), but that Akiri had done it in such a blunt and clumsy way lowered Iceni’s opinion of him a bit more.
Have you wondered yet, Sub-CEO Akiri, why out of all the mobile forces unit commanders who pledged loyalty to me, I chose your cruiser to personally command from? Do you think that was a compliment? I know when a subordinate needs to be closely watched, and Marphissa isn’t the one I’ll be watching.
Akiri started to say something else, but Iceni held up a restraining hand as her high-priority comm alert sounded. She didn’t have to entirely fake a look of irritation as she thumbed the accept command, seeing the image of her all-purpose personal assistant and occasional hired gun, Mehmet Togo.
“We have received a summons from ISS headquarters,” Togo began in an emotionless voice. “They are in receipt of a message from CEO Kolani claiming that you intentionally delayed her receipt of orders from the government at Prime.”
Damn.
The order to Hardrad had already been impeded to the limit they could expect to delay it, but the order to Kolani should have been stuck in the comm system for days yet. Some comm tech too smart for his or her own good must have spotted it and pried it loose from the code hobbles that were supposed to keep the message hung up inside the message-processing software.
Despite all of the security codes and scrambling protecting this conversation on her private line, Iceni knew better than to assume the conversation was private. Those who didn’t assume that Internal Security was always listening tended to pay very high prices for their carelessness. So Iceni put on a look of puzzled anger. “Orders? What orders?”
Togo spread his hands, pretending bafflement as well. “I do not know.”
“How are we supposed to respond to the ISS without knowing what orders were allegedly delayed?” Iceni demanded. “Military orders? Shouldn’t those have come through those channels?”