Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

Iceni bit off a curse. The hypernet gate. If Boyens threatens to damage it badly enough to cause it to collapse, we wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop him. I’m not at all certain that Boyens would carry out such a threat because the Syndicate government would be very unhappy at the loss of that gate, but can we afford the consequences if he did? We would still have the trade traffic generated by our jump points, but the gate gives us access to a lot more.

“There is a possible course of action that would frustrate such a threat,” Rione continued.

As she listened, Iceni began smiling. I’ll need to convince Drakon.

“You want to give the Alliance part ownership of the hypernet gate?” Drakon was staring at her as if wondering when insanity had set in. He had agreed without any argument to another private meeting in the former snake conference room that served as neutral ground for them. That quick agreement had left Iceni both pleased and wary of Drakon’s motives, because as the old Syndicate saying went, every gift horse needed to be looked in the mouth.

“It checkmates Boyens,” Iceni explained. “He can’t threaten to damage the gate if it is partly owned by the Alliance. That would be an attack by the Syndicate Worlds on Alliance government property.”

“It would break the peace treaty?”

“Clearly and without any doubt. Boyens has already identified himself as a representative of the Syndicate government and his flotilla as forces of that government. He could not possibly claim his actions were anything but an act of the Syndicate Worlds.”

“The Syndicate government at Prime would have his head on a platter.” Drakon stopped speaking, thoughts rushing behind his eyes. “How much?”

“How much of the gate? It doesn’t matter how small the Alliance’s ownership stake is. An attack on the gate would still be an attack on the Alliance. Would you be willing to consider one percent ownership for the Alliance?”

“One percent? What are we getting in return?”

“We already got it. We would grant the partial ownership in grateful acknowledgment of the defense of this star system from attacks by the enigma race.”

Drakon thought some more. “Is this your idea?”

“I wish it had been. There’s an Alliance politician with their fleet who proposed it. Rione is her name. We don’t have much information on her, but what we do have identifies her as a vice president of the Callas Republic and senator of the Alliance.”

“Sounds important,” Drakon observed.

“It does. Which makes it odd that she only identified herself as an emissary of the Alliance government. We’re a very long ways from the Alliance, but we’ve picked up faint rumors of disruptions there in the wake of the war. Nothing like the Syndicate Worlds has been facing, but problems.” Iceni paused. “If Black Jack has taken over the Alliance, he would need politicians to handle some of the heavy lifting of ruling all those star systems. Rione’s new title as an emissary, a personal emissary of Black Jack, might well be a lot more powerful than her former position.”

Drakon nodded, glancing at the image of Rione visible on the display over the table. “She’s good-looking enough. How personal do you think her relationship with Black Jack is?”

“I think,” said Iceni, feeling the frost in her voice, “that this Rione struck me as very skilled, perhaps the closest to a Syndicate CEO’s skills I have seen in anyone from the Alliance. I doubt she has had any need to use her body to advance her position.”

“I didn’t mean— Look, you know how things work. The one in charge decides the terms of employment, regardless of what the subordinates want and regardless of what the laws that everybody ignores say. It may not have been her choice if Black Jack wanted her.”

“I know how things work in the Syndicate system,” Iceni admitted, relenting. “You’re right. He could have demanded that of her. But from the little I’ve seen and heard of Black Jack, he doesn’t seem the type. Not everyone, even in the Syndicate, abuses their subordinates that way.”

“I agree with you,” Drakon said. “But we can safely assume that if this idea was presented by Black Jack’s emissary, it actually came from Black Jack.”

“It’s the sort of extremely clever political maneuvering we’ve seen from Black Jack,” Iceni agreed. She let Drakon see her internal unease for a moment. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint Black Jack since we still need his protection. But we’ll also be setting a precedent, in which we do as he… asks.”

Drakon nodded twice. “There’s not much we can do about that, is there? One percent. That’s fine with me. The deal benefits both of us. I have to admit, I’d love to see Boyens’s face when he hears about it.” He gazed at the star-system display near one wall of the office. “Revolting against the Syndicate was a matter of survival for us. I didn’t give much thought to some aspects of independence. Formal agreements, like this one with the Alliance. The one we’ve proposed to Taroa. Do we know enough to make sure we’re doing them right?”

“Are you worried about my skills, General Drakon?”

“No. But we’re going into very deep waters, here.”

“Agreed.” She altered the star display to show the entire region of nearby space. “We’re building a fortress of sorts with these agreements, adding strength to our own by drawing on the strengths of others. If we did this wrong, we’d be draining our strength into theirs. But I am confident that we will get as much or more from these agreements as our partners in the deals.”

“If we have enough time for their benefits to play out,” Drakon said.

“Yes. We need time as well as more allies among nearby star systems. Taroa wants to intervene in Kane.”

“I know.” He grimaced. “Kane is a tar pit from all I’ve seen. The last thing we need is to show up and become the one guy everybody else there will combine to fight. I’m also a bit concerned about Ulindi.”

“What have we heard from Ulindi?” Iceni asked.

“Very little. There’s an information blockade. I’m trying to find out what’s going on there that someone doesn’t want outsiders to know about.”

“Good. Unlike Ulindi, we’re dependent on the space traffic using our jump points and hypernet gate and can’t block ship movement to prevent anyone from learning what’s going on here.” She ran one hand through her hair. “Our preferred candidates appear to be well on their ways to winning the elections here. That will ensure stability.”

“We shouldn’t win every post,” Drakon argued. “That will make it look like we did the Syndicate thing and just faked the results.”

“We won’t win all of them. Just enough.” Iceni laughed. “And we won’t have to manipulate results, apparently. Our stock, and that of our supporters, is very high after our heroic stands during the enigma attack. Does that feel strange to you?”

“What?”

“We’re in charge because the people want us to be, not because we have the power to make them do what we want. Isn’t that odd?”

“And if the people change their minds?”

“We still have the power if we need it,” Iceni pointed out.

Kommodor Asima Marphissa sat on the bridge of her flagship, the heavy cruiser Manticore , painfully aware that of the various factions with mobile forces in Midway Star System, hers was the smallest and weakest. Half of her heavy cruisers remained at the gas giant, guarding the mobile forces dock there, leaving her to confront the Syndicate flotilla commanded by CEO Boyens with only two heavy cruisers, five light cruisers, and twelve Hunter-Killers. Her little flotilla would have been lost amid the Alliance fleet and was badly overmatched by the Syndicate flotilla of one battleship, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and ten HuKs. She was inordinately proud of the tiny force, but she had no illusions about its size or capabilities.