The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

A week after Drakon had taken the shuttle up, his brigades were fully embarked, the agreements were in hand, and the freighters and warships broke orbit en route to the jump point for Midway. Having been moody for most of that week, Drakon wondered who would be happier to get back to Midway, himself or Kommodor Marphissa and the crew of the heavy cruiser, who would be able to bid farewell to him there.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DRAKON’S mood didn’t match his information.

“You seem to have succeeded in everything we agreed you should go to Taroa to do,” Iceni said.

“Not everything,” Drakon replied. “There wasn’t even the beginnings of a stable government when we left.”

“You could scarcely wait around until there was one. From what my representatives reported, Taroa is already leaning toward a formal alliance with us. That will be a start, and an incentive for other star systems near us to consider the same.” Iceni rubbed her eyes with one hand. “In less positive news, I assume that you’ve heard from Colonel Rogero.”

“And I assume that you’ve had no success in tracking down whoever tried to kill him.”

She lowered her hand to lock eyes with him. “I gave orders that Colonel Rogero not be harmed. If anyone connected with me attempted it, they did so against my orders, and I will ensure that they regret it.”

Drakon watched her for a moment before replying. “Are you implying that somebody connected with me tried to kill Colonel Rogero?”

“I have no information on it, General, so, no, I’m not implying that.” She wondered why Drakon had jumped on that possibility so quickly. Was he worried about someone close to him? Was her own source in danger of being compromised?

He shook his head. “I find it hard to believe that some citizen took a shot at him. But more hidden snakes . . .”

“Could be involved,” Iceni agreed. “Everyone is looking for such a nest.”

Drakon nodded this time, rousing from his moodiness. “I wanted to make a point to mention how well Kommodor Marphissa did. We had zero problems with coordination and support. I’ve never worked with a better mobile forces commander.”

“That’s very good to hear. I was going to give her command of the battleship when it becomes operational.”

“She should handle that easily,” Drakon said. “But I hope she retains command of more than that. She handled formations and multiple units well.”

“I’ll remember that.” Why was Drakon making such a point to praise Marphissa? They had both been on that heavy cruiser for a while. Drakon’s staff thought that Marphissa was their agent already. Had he actually turned Marphissa against Iceni or made enough progress toward that to want her somewhere with greater authority in the mobile forces? “You brought back a lot of good shipyard workers. They’ll enable us to get the battleship here operational much faster than anticipated.”

“How soon?”

“Two months.”

“That’s still one hell of a big threat window,” Drakon muttered, then, as if sensing that she might take that as criticism, glanced at her. “I appreciate that there’s little else either of us can do to get it ready faster. But we’ll want to get a lot of those workers back to Taroa as soon as we can to work on that second hull.”

Iceni sighed. “A year to finish that one. Let’s hope we’re granted that much time.”

“A year on the outside. Maybe we can push that, get more out of the workers now by offering real rewards.” Drakon eyed her defiantly. “Maybe bonuses for workers instead of executives.”

She raised both eyebrows at him. “I didn’t know you were such a radical. We need the executives and subexecutives on our side, too. Perhaps bonuses for all based on actual results?”

That brought a brief, sardonic smile from Drakon. “Basing bonuses on results? And you’re calling me a radical?”

“If you don’t object, we can see how such a system might work, knowing that our people have been taught by the Syndicate system to game any method of evaluation. There might be ways to keep them focused on producing the results we want. Is there anything else?” Iceni asked. His odd edginess was making her jittery, too. Something had happened. But what? Togo hadn’t reported discovering anything, but his sources weren’t that close to Drakon. “It’s good to have you back, General Drakon.”

He nodded heavily, then got up to go.

She would have to check with her best source. And not by message. Something about this required a face-to-face meeting despite all the risks that involved.

* * *

BACK inside her own offices, the door sealed and alarms activated, Iceni sat down. Why was Drakon acting guilty? The most likely explanation, and the most frightening one, was that he had decided to move against her but felt unhappy about that for some reason.