Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

“I wish the hell I knew.”

He had barely left Iceni’s secure office when his comm unit buzzed urgently. Very urgently. “I need to see you in your office right away, General,” Morgan said.

“What’s it about?”

“A threat to you. A threat right next to you.”

“Morgan, this had better be—”

“You wanted evidence. I have it.”

He paused. “All right. I’m on my way.”

His thoughts on the short trip to his headquarters were a tumbled mess. Did Morgan really have conclusive evidence against Malin? Or had she finally gone too far down a road that had threatened her for a long time? I wish I knew more about the medical waiver she got after that mission messed her up. It couldn’t have been patronage pulling strings for her, so there must have been solid grounds for declaring her stable enough for service. But more than once I’ve wondered, especially lately.

Morgan was waiting as he entered his office.

Consumed by thoughts, he hadn’t realized that Malin had fallen in behind him, oblivious to events. His first notification of that was when Malin began speaking as the door closed, his tone as normal as if everything was routine. “General, I—”

“I finally found you out!” Morgan yelled. “I know what you are!”

To Drakon’s astonishment, Malin’s weapon was out in an eyeblink, the barrel leveled at Morgan’s head, Malin’s face drawn and rigid.

Morgan had been surprised as well, but only for an instant. She had shifted her posture, her lips drawn back in a frightening smile, hands posed for the sort of strikes that had killed before and would surely do so now if she attacked Malin.

“Stand down, both of you!” Drakon shouted.

Malin didn’t seem to hear Drakon, his eyes fixed on Morgan, his expression rigid, his weapon aimed directly at her face.

Morgan looked back at Malin, scorn and anger radiating from her, ready to leap into attack.

“Colonel Malin,” Drakon said again, this time in a more controlled voice but putting all of his command authority behind it, “lower your weapon. Colonel Morgan, don’t attack when Malin drops his weapon, or I swear I’ll shoot you myself. Now, both of you follow orders and follow them now or both of you will regret the days you were born.”

Malin took a long, deep breath, blinking as if coming out of a daze, and took one step back, the hand holding his sidearm lowering as if it had been forgotten.

Morgan’s eyes twitched toward Drakon, judging the ferocity in his gaze. She slowly dropped her hands to her sides and also stepped back.

“If this ever happens again,” Drakon said in a voice that didn’t sound like his own, “you are both gone from here. Do you understand? Out of this headquarters, off this planet, out of this star system, and out of anywhere within a hundred light-years of here. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Malin said, his voice now calm and composed.

“Yes, General Drakon,” Morgan said.

“The Syndicate is preparing another attack on this star system. It could come at any time. We need to be getting ready for that, focused on that, and not on internal rivalries and behavior so out-of-control that I don’t know why I’m giving you two a chance. But there will not be another. Now get out of here before I order you both to be arrested, and don’t come within a hundred meters of each other for the next two days.”

Morgan shook her head. “General, I came here for a reason. A very important reason.” She turned a once-more-contemptuous look on Malin. “Colonel Malin has some questions to answer, and once you read this,” she added, holding up a data coin, “you’ll want to ask them.”

“Questions about what?” Drakon asked, not ready to give in at all to Morgan.

“DNA,” Morgan said. “Colonel Malin’s actual DNA,” she continued with the cadence of a judge pronouncing sentence on a condemned prisoner, “which I recently acquired by using a sampler in my hand when I grabbed his wrist, does not match the DNA reference contained in the official service file of Colonel Bran Malin. Does it?” she challenged Malin.

“That’s all?” Malin asked. “The DNA doesn’t match?”

“That’s enough,” Morgan snarled. “You’re a phony, someone else claiming to be Bran Malin.”

Drakon held out his hand. “Give me the coin. Morgan, if you’ve manufactured false evidence—”

“You can get another DNA sample from him right now, General, and check it against the official record.”

Taking the coin that Morgan smugly offered, Drakon looked at Malin. “Bran? Do you have anything to say?”

“Yes, sir. I will answer every question to your satisfaction, but”—he gestured toward Morgan—“I request in the strongest terms that Colonel Morgan not be here when I do.”

“Why?”

“You will understand once I have answered your questions, sir.”

Morgan spoke up again, shooting her words at Malin. “You have no right to demand any terms, Colonel Malin, or whoever the hell you are.”

“Quiet.” Drakon stood looking at the two colonels in the total silence that fell after his single word of command. He studied Morgan and Malin, recalling what he had asked of each of them in the past, remembering what they had done for him. What did he owe each of them now? “Colonel Morgan, if your information is on this data coin, then you need not be present when I look at it. Therefore, I will grant Colonel Malin’s request. If I am not fully satisfied with his answers, I will be able to bring you in afterward.”

Morgan scowled, but bit off whatever she had been planning to say, and instead turned her gaze on Malin. “You can’t lie your way out of this one. You wouldn’t have had to if you’d had the guts to kill me before I told the General, but you’ve always been a worm. I know General Drakon can handle you if you try anything, and I know what he’ll do to you once he sees that evidence. Have a nice trip to hell.”

Malin looked steadily back at Morgan. “I’ll keep a place there free for you. A nice warm spot.”

Drakon held out his hand again. “Your sidearm, Colonel Malin.”

Shifting his grip on the weapon slowly so that he could no longer fire it, Malin offered the sidearm to Drakon.

Drakon placed Malin’s sidearm on the desk, close at hand. “You may go, Colonel Morgan. Since Colonel Malin desires privacy, please return to your quarters while I speak with him.”

Morgan bared her teeth in a vicious grin and saluted. “Yes, sir.”

She left, deliberately turning her back on Malin and walking slowly as if flaunting her vulnerability to him during those moments.

The door sealed again. Malin waited, watching the security lights above the door shift from red to green to indicate that no surveillance devices could penetrate the room, then he faced General Drakon. “You should look at what Colonel Morgan gave you, sir.”

Drakon pointed to a chair before his desk. “Sit down.” He wasn’t being courteous with the command, and Malin knew it. Sitting down would handicap Malin if he tried to attack Drakon or flee, that chair was the focus of more than one concealed weapon, and the chair contained a variety of sensors for determining whether someone was lying or telling the truth as they knew it.

As Malin took his seat, Drakon fed the data coin into his desk unit. Twin images of standardized DNA profiles appeared, one from Colonel Bran Malin’s service record and the other from what was identified as a sample from the Bran Malin sitting before Drakon.

A segment of the DNA profiles was highlighted in red. Negative match. “You said you’d answer my questions,” Drakon began. “Do you know what this shows?”

“Yes, sir,” Malin said.

Drakon frowned at Malin, wondering why Malin sounded relieved. “And that is?”