Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

“Colonel Rogero?” Marphissa had to concentrate to remember who that was. “One of General Drakon’s brigade commanders. He is your friend?”

“Yes.”

The single word held more emotion than friends usually inspired. “Ah. All right. There must be an interesting story behind that.”

“There is.” Bradamont leaned back, draping one arm over the back of her chair. “The bottom line is that I knew, because of Colonel Rogero, that Syndics were human, too. That some of you were not just human but very fine humans. That couldn’t change things during the war. I had to keep fighting all of you, and I had to do my best, because regardless of who each of you were as individuals, you were all fighting for something that I couldn’t allow to win.”

“I see.” Marphissa sighed heavily, looking at the unfinished top of the table. “I didn’t want the Syndicate to win, but I was afraid of what might happen when the Alliance won. They showed us pictures of the planets that had been fought over, bombarded— Don’t. I know. We did it, too. I wanted to protect my home. That was all. They taught us you started the war. Did you know that? As kids, they told us it was all the Alliance’s fault. Once you got old enough and high enough in the executive ranks you could learn the truth, that the Syndicate chose to start the war. But, by then, what were you going to do with the knowledge? By then… there wasn’t anything left to do but keep fighting because what else could you do?”

Bradamont gazed back somberly. “You could have revolted while the war was still going on.”

“Some did. Didn’t you hear of those?” Marphissa shuddered and took a long drink, then refilled her glass. “When the Syndicate had mobile forces in abundance, they could deal with rebellion very easily. Traitors died,” she said bitterly. “The worlds of traitors were reduced to ruins, the families of traitors died or were left to struggle amid the rubble of their cities, and the snakes were everywhere. Breathe the wrong words, and you disappeared. Offend a CEO, and your husband or wife or children disappeared. We could have revolted? Dammit, don’t you think we tried?”

“I’m sorry.” Bradamont sounded like she meant it. “In the Alliance fleet, we often complain about fighting our own government. But we’ve endured nothing like that. Nothing like that.”

“They call us traitors now, the Syndicate,” Marphissa continued. “But we’re not. Do you know the funny thing? The entire Syndicate system encourages betrayal. Of your friends and your coworkers and even your spouse or your parents or your children. But then it says you must be loyal to the boss who has no loyalty to you. Damn them. Damn all of them.” Why am I saying this to her? But I could never say it to anyone. Not for all my life.

Bradamont broke an uneasy silence. “But Iceni is different?”

“Yes.”

“What about Drakon?”

“General Drakon? He supports the President. That’s all I need to know.”

“I thought he was a co-ruler,” Bradamont said.

“I suppose technically he is,” Marphissa conceded. “But I respond to orders from the President. What is Black Jack really like?”

“He’s…” Bradamont frowned at her glass. “Not what anyone expected. Not less. More. He’s real.”

“Is he—? They say he— I mean, there’s talk that he is more than—”

“He’s human,” Bradamont said.

“But was he sent? Is he an agent of more than the Alliance?” Marphissa demanded.

“He never claimed to be. I don’t know. That’s way above my pay grade.” Bradamont bent a questioning look on her. “I thought Syndics didn’t believe in that sort of thing.”

“Religions? Faith? All of those have been officially discouraged. We were only supposed to believe in the Syndicate. But people hung on to the old beliefs.” Marphissa shrugged. “Sometimes that was all we had to hang on to. Some people believed in the Syndicate, like somebody else would believe in a divine power, but a lot of them here were shaken in that faith when the Syndicate abandoned us to the enigmas. Did you really see some of the enigmas?”

Bradamont nodded, not fazed by the change in topic. “We saw one. Part of one. We actually learned very little about them. Admiral Geary is convinced that the enigmas would commit racial suicide to keep us from learning more.”

That took a while to sink in. “A race even crazier than humanity? Wonderful.”

“To them,” Bradamont said, “it’s not crazy. To the enigmas, what they’re doing makes perfect sense. Kind of like how the war made sense to humanity.”

“No, there you’re wrong,” Marphissa said, refilling her glass and Bradamont’s as well. “We’ve all known the war was crazy. No one could figure out how to end it. Fighting a war because we couldn’t figure out how to end it. I guess the enigmas aren’t crazier than we are after all. What about the fast ships we saw? The beautiful ships. Can you tell me about the ones in those?”

“The Dancers?” Bradamont couldn’t help smiling. “They’re very, very ugly. And they seem to think in some different ways than us. But there’s still a connection there. They helped us.”

“They saved our primary planet.” Marphissa raised her glass in salute. “I couldn’t believe it possible, actually managing to divert a launched bombardment. To the Dancers!”

“To the Dancers,” Bradamont echoed. “But they are really ugly. Here’s an image.” She offered a data pad. “I’m going to deliver a report on them to your President.”

Marphissa gaped at the image. “Like a wolf and spider having offspring. Seriously? This is how they look? But they drive ships like the ships were part of them. Incredibly graceful. How do their maneuvering systems manage that?”

Bradamont rolled a drink around in her mouth before swallowing it. “We’re pretty sure they drive their ships manually.”

Marphissa jerked in involuntary reaction. “Those kinds of maneuvers at those speeds? Done by manual control rather than automated systems? That’s impossible.”

“It is for us.”

“What can you tell me about the huge ship?” Marphissa pressed.

“The Invincible ? We captured it from the Kicks.” Bradamont squinted as she studied the play of light in the amber liquid partially filling her glass. “They’re cute. The Kicks. And crazy. Not leave us alone crazy like the enigmas. Take over the universe if they could crazy. And absolutely fanatical fighters. To the death. They’re in the report for your President, too. Hopefully the Kicks will never make it to human space, but you need to know why you don’t want to go to space controlled by the Kicks.”

“Thank you.” Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the shared experiences in warships. But Marphissa felt herself relaxing and smiling at Bradamont with real welcome. “I hope that includes how you captured that huge ship.”

“It was… challenging,” Bradamont commented. “Yeah. We can talk about how we, Admiral Geary’s fleet, that is, beat our enemies.”

Marphissa met the Alliance captain’s eyes, feeling an inner chill that fought her previous sense of warming toward Bradamont. “Like us. How you beat the Syndicate mobile forces.”

“Yes,” Bradamont said in a softer tone as if sensing Marphissa’s feelings. “I meant it when I said that. To help you work out ways to defeat the Syndicate Worlds’ forces that come here to try to regain control of this star system. I can talk about what was done in different engagements, from Corvus all the way to Varandal. Admiral Geary authorized me to do that.”

“Varandal? Isn’t that Alliance space?”

“Yes. That’s where we fought your Reserve Flotilla.”