Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

She walked up to him, offering the bottle once more. “It’s real. I told you that I’d buy you a drink someday. Your General said this is a popular drink here.”

“He was joking,” Rogero said, feeling dizzy. “The troops call it croak because of the taste. We use it to clean brass.”

“Oh, sorry.” She paused, looking at him. “You said you’d buy dinner.”

“Yes. I did.” Rogero shook his head. “I… I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been detached from the Alliance fleet with orders to serve as liaison officer to the Midway Star System.”

“It’s… not possible. General Drakon knows. He knows about us.”

“Yes. So does Admiral Geary.”

“Then… why?”

“Because they know us,” Bradamont said. “They know that we held to honor despite everything and that we never failed in our duties. We never betrayed them, we never betrayed our worlds, and we never betrayed each other. Maybe that qualifies us to show our respective peoples how to work together. There were some other reasons why I ended up being asked to volunteer for this assignment, but we can discuss those another time.”

Enough neurons finally started firing in Rogero’s brain for him to think. “General Drakon set this up? How did he know that the last thing you said to me was that you would buy me a drink someday?”

“I told him.” She smiled. “He seems like a hard boss, but a good one.”

“He’s a very good boss. He’s… he’s… Dammit, Honore, may I hold you? May I kiss you?”

“Why the hell are you asking instead of doing it, Donal? But be careful not to muss the uniform.”

Drakon waited until an escort arrived to get Bradamont safely to her quarters, telling them to wait until Colonel Rogero opened the door. As he walked away, he saw Morgan standing at the end of the hallway, her eyes locked on the door to the snack bar.

“Is what I heard true?” she demanded.

Instead of replying, Drakon bent a stern look her way. “Is that the proper tone of voice to use with me?”

She made an obvious effort to control herself. “Pardon me, sir. Is it true that an Alliance fleet officer is in that room and not under arrest?”

“We’re not at war with them anymore, Colonel Morgan. In fact, they’re acting a lot like allies.”

“Sir—”

“Yes. An Alliance fleet captain is in that room. She is an official representative to President Iceni and me, and she is under the personal protection of President Iceni and me. She is my scion. Understand? Nothing is to happen to her, and she is to be treated with the respect appropriate to her rank.”

“Your… scion .” Morgan stared at him, her eyes wide and alight with fury. “An Alliance officer. They killed—”

“We all killed, Colonel Morgan. The war has ended. We have plenty of enemies in common. We start over now. Even if that weren’t true, we need the backing from Black Jack that woman gives us. She might be the one thing that buys us enough time to get our forces strong enough to stand on our own.”

The way she regained full control almost instantaneously was startling and more than a little alarming. The fire in Morgan’s eyes died, replaced by a cold shield that revealed neither thoughts nor feeling. Her expression smoothed out into a similarly shielded exterior. “Yes, General. I understand.” Even her voice was now perfectly professional and properly respectful.

“Colonel Morgan… Roh… we need to do things differently. For a long time, the past, the present, and the future were all the same. The same war then, the same war now, the same war to come. That pattern has finally been broken. The future can be different than the past. The future can be better than the past.”

Emotion came back. Morgan nodded, smiling in total agreement. “Yes, sir. The future will be better. We will build our strength, and we will make a better future.”

“You understand that declaring Captain Bradamont to be a scion of myself and President Iceni is to ensure her safety?”

Morgan smiled and nodded. “It doesn’t mean she’s really your heir in any way.”

“That’s right. Come along with me. I want to talk about finding the snakes still hiding on this planet or elsewhere in this star system.”

“I’ve been digging. Got a few leads,” Morgan said as she walked beside him. They went out the front of the headquarters complex into the open area before it, guards automatically falling into place around Drakon. He glanced at the turf covering much of the plaza facing his headquarters, his mind as usual briefly recalling how much effort the Syndicate had insisted go into keeping that grass perfect, including the use of the most sophisticated genetic manipulation to create grass of just the “right” shade of green and just the right thickness of each blade of grass. He had looked at the official specifications for grass once, marveling at how much effort could be invested in something so relatively unimportant, especially given the Syndicate bureaucracy’s tendency to blow off issues regarding the safety of the soldiers who were prohibited from walking on the grass except during official functions.

Behind them, the front of the headquarters complex did not look like the fortress that it was, the armor and defenses hidden behind false windows, façades, and other decoration. In one of its odder decisions, the Syndicate bureaucracy had mandated no fences or other barriers or defenses on the other three sides of the parade plaza, declaring that ground forces headquarters must appear open and accessible to the citizens. Or perhaps the decision hadn’t been so odd since it had meant the snakes inside their Internal Security Service facilities had been better protected behind their defensive walls than the soldiers of the ground forces.

“We should fix some of this,” Drakon commented to Morgan. “Now that we can. Get some unobtrusive defenses set up along the outer perimeter of the parade area. No citizens are allowed on it anyway.” He scanned the other three sides of the plaza, where low, multiuse buildings of various designs sat across from an access road that formally separated the headquarters area from the rest of the city. A lot of the citizens were in sight, going about their business and, out of long habit, avoiding even glancing toward the headquarters. The snakes had liked to haul in anyone suspected of “surveillance,” even if the evidence for that had consisted only of a single fleeting look toward a government building.

“Now you’re talking,” Morgan agreed, and began describing a set of defenses that would have withstood a full-scale attack by an entire army.

“Maybe a little less than that,” Drakon suggested dryly, glad that he had gotten Morgan’s mind off the Alliance officer. “Have you found any leads yet on—”

Drakon would never know just what had tipped off one of his bodyguards. The woman had begun to shout a warning, her weapon out and coming up to aim, when alarms tied to automated sensors watching the area blared to life, followed a second later by shots erupting from three sides.

Iceni, head lowered in thought, bolted to attention as an urgent signal echoed in her office. “What is it?”

The staff official looking at her through the virtual window that had popped up beside her desk spoke rapidly. “We have reports of weapons being fired near General Drakon’s headquarters. Automated collection systems show an ongoing firefight.”

“A firefight ?” Iceni demanded. “Not just a few shots?”

“There are scores of shots already recorded, Madam President. I have dispatched emergency tactical teams from the nearest police stations and notified the nearest hospitals to send assistance.”