Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

Trust? And she hadn’t used the word in a mocking way. “Are you sure?”

The smile faded away completely, replaced by a serious gaze at him. “No. I may never be sure. Can you live with that?”

“I have so far.”

“You’ve lived with far worse than that from me, General Drakon, even if you seem curiously unable to figure out such things. But you pushed me to approve an action that has left me in a far stronger position. Either you truly intend to work alongside me without betrayal, or you are the biggest fool in the history of humanity, or you are far more subtle and cunning than Black Jack.”

Drakon smiled sardonically. “I don’t think I’m a fool. Not usually, anyway. And I know I’m not Black Jack.”

“A man doesn’t have to be Black Jack to be important to— To this star system,” Iceni finished. “Thank you again, Artur.”

It was only after she had signed off that Drakon realized Iceni had been worried. Was that why she had been so upset at their last meeting—because she had known that if the attack on the battle cruiser succeeded, Drakon’s own soldiers would then have control of the most powerful warship in the star system? She hadn’t known for certain that he would abide by their agreement, their partnership, and turn the battle cruiser over to Iceni’s mobile forces personnel as soon as the warship was confirmed secure.

Why didn’t it even occur to me that I could have double-crossed her and ended up with both the most powerful mobile forces and ground forces here? But it didn’t. We made a deal. I don’t break deals. Even when someone is being as unpleasant and cold as…

She’s not going to betray me. If Iceni had planned to stick a knife in me, she would have been all sweetness and light the last few weeks, and especially the last week, trying to lull me into doing what she wanted. Standard CEO tactics. Of course I’m your friend… sucker. Then when she had her hands on the battle cruiser, she would have gone all ice and fire on me. But she did the opposite.

Why didn’t the option of keeping the battle cruiser occur to Malin? Maybe it did, but he just assumed that I must have already considered the option and rejected it. But that doesn’t explain why Morgan hasn’t gone ballistic at the idea of turning the battle cruiser over to Iceni. Morgan hasn’t objected to the operation at all.

Because, he realized, it had never occurred to Morgan that he would give the battle cruiser to Iceni. She assumed I was keeping it. When she finds out I didn’t—

Maybe when she sees that this is working to everyone’s benefit, that this sort of strategy and cooperation makes us all stronger, Morgan will finally make some progress on trusting and accepting other people again. I’ve spent the last decade trying to get her to realize that cynicism and manipulation only gets you so far, and wherever it gets you isn’t worth the price. Besides, it’s the Syndicate way, and she hates the Syndicate much more than I do.

But she is going to raise hell while I explain that all again.

“General?” his comm panel called. “Colonel Morgan is here. She says she needs to see you immediately.”

And, here we go. “Send her in.”

On the bridge of the heavy cruiser Manticore , Kommodor Marphissa awaited her flotilla’s imminent arrival at Indras Star System. She had just come from speaking with Captain Bradamont, who had spent most of the time since leaving Midway in her stateroom, where her presence was least disruptive to the crew. When Admiral Geary’s fleet came through Indras on the way to Midway months ago, the star system was still firmly loyal to the Syndicate Worlds, Bradamont had repeated. They didn’t try to oppose our movement through Indras, but then they lacked the means to oppose us or stop us.

What was at Indras now? Had they gained more warships, more defenses? Was Indras still loyal to the Syndicate or had its leaders, or its people, struck off on their own as so many other star systems had in recent months? She, and the rest of the Recovery Flotilla, would learn the answers in a few minutes.

Her display had a row of green lights indicating full-combat readiness on Manticore . The other warships of the flotilla should also be as ready as they could be. The freighters could do little but hope that the warships could defend them.

“One minute,” the senior watch specialist informed Kapitan Diaz.

“We are ready, Kommodor,” Diaz told Marphissa.

“Let’s hope so,” she muttered in reply. For a moment, she wondered where former Kapitan Toirac was right now. On President Iceni’s orders, Marphissa had sent Toirac under guard back to the primary world at Midway. She had wanted to avoid seeing him again, but a sense of duty had driven Marphissa to be at the air lock when Toirac was escorted off of the ship, her last sight of him being his accusing eyes staring at her from a slack and unanimated face.

She shook her head to dispel the image from her mind as the flotilla left the hypernet with the usual lack of any sensory effect. One moment, nothing surrounded the flotilla in its bubble of something. The next, the bubble was gone, the stars shone upon them, and the flotilla was moving away from the gate at Indras.

“What are communications telling us?” she asked the comm specialist.

The woman was watching her screens intently and listening. “They’re still Syndicate, Kommodor. All of the message traffic I can see and hear is consistent with that. There are snake ciphers being used for some of it. We can’t read them. The snake ciphers we captured at Midway must have been superseded.”

That settled the matter since those messages had been sent hours before the arrival of the flotilla and so couldn’t be a deception designed to fool the newly arrived ships. Marphissa adjusted her suit. As much as she detested Syndicate uniforms, it had been necessary to don one for this performance, though it was a suit for a much higher rank than she had ever actually achieved.

She adopted the look of haughty superiority that she had seen so many times in Syndicate CEOs, then tapped her comm controls. “To the authorities at Indras Star System, this is CEO Manetas, commanding a flotilla en route to an internal security mission at Atalia Star System. I do not require your assistance at this time,” Marphissa drawled with as much arrogance as she could manage. President Iceni had stressed the need for that. Syndicate CEOs never ask, and they never show any trace of humility or weakness.

“For the people, Manetas, out.” It had taken a special effort to say “for the people” in the standard Syndicate manner, rapidly, with the words slurred together into the meaningless phrase it was for the leaders of the Syndicate.

She ended the transmission and inhaled deeply. “We’ll see how well that works.”

Diaz bent an amused look her way. “I’ll bet you never expected to wear a CEO suit.”

“Never expected and never wanted,” Marphissa said. “I feel unclean in this thing. But the imposture is necessary. We need to convince the authorities at Indras that we’re a legitimate Syndicate flotilla on our way to hammer Atalia. If we can do that, then even if they learn the truth when we show up again on way back to Midway, they won’t have time to activate the hypernet gate block, however that works.”

“They might be able to do it from here,” Diaz suggested.

“But they won’t, not without approval from Prime,” Marphissa insisted. “Do you think Prime is going to authorize anyone but themselves the power to shut down hypernet commerce and military movements? Indras will have to ask permission, and by the time they get it, we’ll be home at Midway.”