But does he have the codes? Did Iceni turn on me to protect herself? Can Hardrad carry out his threat right now? How much longer before my troops can get to Hardrad’s office in the heavily fortified command center?
Drakon’s eyes rested on the display depicting his soldiers storming deeper into the ISS headquarters building. He could hear orders being passed, and other cries across the comm circuits as his soldiers exulted in finally striking back at an enemy they might have come to hate more than anything in the Alliance. And he wondered if, despite the brutal discipline exercised within Syndicate forces, it would be possible to get his troops to withdraw or if, no matter what he said, they would keep attacking until every snake was dead.
Or until this city, and numerous others, saw nuclear blooms blossom in their centers.
* * *
ICENI
stood perfectly still as her mind raced. Five minutes until the snakes on this cruiser got here. What if nothing had happened on the surface by then? Did she continue to trust Drakon?
She called Togo, her signal this time having to weave its way around several blocks set up in the comm system, requiring minute after minute before a clear path was finally located. “Have you heard from the ISS?” Iceni asked.
Togo nodded. “We have been told to freeze all systems and prepare for a security sweep. I can no longer make outgoing calls.”
“What is the situation in the city?” The question was too blunt, too likely to tip off the snakes that something might be expected to happen, but she had no alternative.
“Quiet.”
“I want you to—” Iceni stopped speaking as the call connection broke. ISS must have spotted her penetration and sealed off the access her own systems had located.
“Drakon.” Akiri made the name into a curse, his eyes reflecting growing uneasiness.
Iceni could feel the unsteadiness in the man, as if he were a satellite in an increasingly unstable orbit. “Stay with me, or yours will be the first name I tell them,” Iceni warned Akiri in a low voice.
Akiri glanced at the sole bodyguard who had followed Iceni through the tube and was standing well back but with his eyes watching everything. Akiri was smart enough to know his odds against that man and experienced enough to know that the snakes would roll up anyone even slightly suspected of disloyalty if Iceni called out that charge, so the cruiser commander licked his lips nervously, then nodded.
Iceni looked down the passageway to see four snakes approaching, their casual arrogance as unmistakable as their ISS suits. Five more minutes had passed, making it ten minutes since Drakon had promised his attack on the surface would begin.
She had a source very close to Drakon, and she had heard nothing from that source. Was it because Drakon had discovered that person was feeding Iceni information? Or because any comms now would be impossible to send to her? Even Togo didn’t know that source existed, so he couldn’t have relayed any information.
Behind the snakes came Executive Marphissa and several other crew, their paths apparently aimed at Akiri. Iceni could easily tell how nervous a couple of those crew members were, but fortunately the attention of the snakes was centered on her and not on those behind them. Despite what had happened in other star systems in the last few months, the snakes hadn’t really absorbed the idea that open revolt could occur. They had been the feared guardians of order for so long and so successfully that a group of them didn’t worry as much as they should have about citizens at their backs.
Marphissa and Akiri were both watching Iceni, the executive calm, the sub-CEO visibly tense, questions in their eyes.
The senior snake stopped before Iceni, smiling slightly. Iceni realized that she was effectively under arrest, but the snakes would pretend otherwise, acting as if they were simply escorting her to a meeting to coordinate action against Drakon. Until she was inside the walls of the ISS complex the snakes would follow polite form, treating her with respect. Paying no attention to Iceni’s bodyguard, the senior snake gestured toward the access tube. “If CEO Iceni would lead the way?”
Iceni smiled back, deciding to stall for a few more minutes.
If Drakon doesn’t do something before they order me onto that shuttle, I’ll have to act.
“The shuttle operator hasn’t been informed of our departure. I was supposed to be aboard this unit much longer than this.”
The senior snake turned to one of his subordinates. “Call the shuttle operator.” The call and response took perhaps another minute. “The shuttle is ready to depart. Honored CEO, please lead the way.”
Iceni nodded but did not move. “Sub-CEO Akiri, my inspection will take place at another time. Since I appear to be having communications difficulties, inform CEO Kolani of that.”
“It will be done,” Akiri replied.
“And, Sub-CEO Akiri, ensure that—”
“Honored CEO,” the senior snake broke in, now openly frowning, “it is necessary to depart.”
“CEO Hardrad did not indicate haste was necessary,” Iceni said, playing a card that might gain more time.
“There may have been some misunderstanding, CEO Iceni. Our orders were that your safety would be imperiled if we did not get you into a secure area as soon as possible.”
Her safety would be imperiled? There was more than one possible way to interpret that statement. Iceni looked back at the snake as if she hadn’t heard him clearly, stretching out a few more seconds, then glanced back at her bodyguard. Alone, he wouldn’t stand a chance, face-to-face against four snakes.
* * *
“GO
to hell, Hardrad.”
For the first time in Drakon’s experience, he saw Hardrad’s composure crack. “You will be the one who dies when I destroy this rebellious city! You and everyone with you!”
“Then I’ll personally kick you through the gates when we both get to hell,” Drakon said with a laugh. “Since when have you made deals with people? You never bargain, you just bring the hammer down. Offering me a deal means you don’t really have those codes.”
“I have them! I’ll use them!”
“CEO Hardrad, if you had those codes, you’d just use them. No threats. No deals. Just take everyone else down with you because dying to you is a lot less important than making sure no one else ever wins. You gave me too much of a chance to watch you work, too many opportunities to see how you do things. But I guess you didn’t spend as much time learning how I do things.” Maybe he had made the wrong assessment about Hardrad’s being more willing to die than to lose, but Drakon knew with absolute confidence that Hardrad couldn’t be trusted to keep any deal. For Drakon and for Iceni, it was a matter of winning or dying.
Drakon broke the connection so that he could focus on the fight once more. If he spoke to Hardrad again before either of them died, it would be face-to-face in the snake command center.
Perhaps the distraction had helped him. Checking the display after not looking at it for a few moments, Drakon could now see an opening that he could exploit in the movements and fighting among soldiers and snakes. Drakon ordered the soldiers with him into motion again, down one hallway, through a door, past another hall, then to a corner. They came out behind two viper fire teams blocking attackers coming from the other direction. Drakon leveled his own weapon as his soldiers hit the vipers from the rear. His targeting sight glowed as it registered a good shot, the weapon jerked as an energy pulse blasted out, and a viper in the act of turning lurched against the nearest wall. Two more hits from other weapons tore the viper in half.
As expected, the vipers fought to the death, the last one turning her weapon on herself to avoid being taken alive by those she had helped torment.
“That way!” Drakon ordered the other platoon, then led the platoon still with him deeper into the complex, following his helmet display’s directions toward the ISS command center.
“—floor clear!” he heard Morgan call, then the connection broke.
“Morgan! If you can hear me, send a few platoons up to clear the top floors and get the rest down here!” According to their information, the upper floors had very little in the way of defenses, being regarded as too vulnerable to attack and bombardment compared to those floors going below ground level where Drakon was. Naturally, that meant those upper floors also held the lowest-ranking members of the ISS, who could be rounded up at leisure once the lower floors had been cleared.
He didn’t know if Morgan had received the command, but his display showed patches of assault troops streaming through passageways above and to the sides, some penetrating to the next floor down, while clusters of defenders blinked in and out of contact, sometimes disappearing as attackers rolled over them.
Something hit Drakon’s shoulder, knocking him back, then the soldiers near him were firing down the hall at another viper strongpoint. One of the soldiers aimed a squat tube down the hall and fired, followed by a terrific concussion that knocked the soldiers with Drakon off their feet.
Drakon lay blinking for a moment in confusion, his armor blaring alarms about damage and a near breach where the viper shot had hit home. His focus on what was happening had broken completely this time, and for that instant he could see and feel nothing but chaos. Drakon clamped down on his nerves, concentrating fiercely until the muddle on his display resolved once again into a recognizable flow of events, then struggled back to his feet. His soldiers were already up and racing to the end of the hallway, where stunned vipers were still trying to gather their wits, only to be slaughtered by close-in fire before they could stand. As Drakon watched them die, he experienced a curious lack of feeling, elation and vengeance also locked away inside him for the moment.
Another soldier loomed through the smoke, stepping out of a hole blown by the concussion charge. “Are you all right, sir?” Malin asked.
“Yeah.” Drakon’s display showed that they were not far from the command center, which was still one more floor down. “What have you got with you?”
“Two squads.”
“I’ve got most of three squads. Head over that way and try to blow an access into the command center from overhead. That may make the snakes think we’re only trying to get in that way. I’ll take mine down and through here, and hit them from the east.”
“Yes, sir.” Malin vanished into the countermeasure-created murk, then Drakon took his small force down some stairs that stretched unnaturally long for a flight only going down one level. But that told him the stolen schematics which had revealed a substantial layer of armor above the ISS command center had been proven right again. The lead soldier in the group finally hit a landing, only to be thrown back and to the side as the explosion of a mine rocked the stairwell. Leaping over the new hole in the landing, Drakon followed as his soldiers pounded down another passageway.
More heavy fire came down the corridor, lashing at the assaulting soldiers. Drakon huddled against one wall, breathing heavily, feeling the sweat coating his face under the helmet and face shield of his armor, wishing that he could wipe off the sweat and wishing that he had another concussion weapon at hand.
A subsection leader dropped to the floor near Drakon. “We think this is automated, sir. Last-ditch defenses for the command center and survival citadel.”
“Pretty damned heavy for last-ditch defenses,” Drakon mumbled, scrolling through his display. As far as he could tell through the interference, Malin’s force hadn’t yet been able to punch through the command center’s massive overhead armor. That was mainly intended as a diversion, though, and other assault forces were converging on the command center.
How long do we have left until the snakes activate whatever doomsday defenses they have? Iceni swore that without the codes she held as system CEO the snakes would need extra time to engage the override codes, but she didn’t know how much extra time.
The entire complex shook from a prolonged explosion so heavy that Drakon wondered if the structure overhead was about to collapse. In the wake of the big explosion, the building shuddered again, a prolonged and diffuse trembling as if parts of it were indeed caving in. He felt a chill inside, almost frozen by fear that Hardrad had gotten the codes from Iceni or managed the work-around and carried out his threat to nuke the city.
But his suit hadn’t registered any radiation burst, and the shock had seemed to come from within the building rather than hitting the outside in the kind of seismic blow that would have been felt when the subsurface nuke created a massive ground shock in the center of the city.
Drakon realized that the defensive fire from ahead had faltered substantially. His display had fuzzed out almost completely except for the floor-plan schematics, but then it flickered to show assault forces streaming into the command center from the side opposite him. Red symbols marking snakes and vipers were melting away from the assault, some winking out as they were destroyed and others moving fast toward the hallway he was in. “Hold positions!” Drakon yelled, readying his weapon. “Snakes on the way!”
Armored figures appeared ahead, mixed with others wearing only survival suits, all of them fleeing toward Drakon’s position. He and the soldiers with him opened fire, cutting down the snakes trying to escape from the trap their own command center had become.
The last one of the routed snakes stopped and held out hands in surrender, then slammed backward and down as a shot went dead center into the snake’s chest. “Oops,” one of the soldiers said without emotion. “My finger slipped.”
Drakon didn’t bother getting the soldier’s identity. He had known going in that no mercy would be shown the snakes; but then the snakes had never to his knowledge shown mercy to the general populace.
A momentary pause came, Drakon cursing as his display fluttered and blurred again. Green symbols popped up at the other end of the hallway, and the automated defenses ceased firing completely. Moments later, Drakon’s display cleared as the last snake active countermeasures were shut down and clean links were established with soldiers throughout the ruin of the ISS complex.