The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

Using his first name meant that Dun intended treating this as a conversation among equals. But since he had no means at hand to slap her down, he would have to live with that attitude for a little while. “What’s this I hear about you giving Colonel Malin a hard time . . . Sira?”

Dun grinned a little wider. “I see no need to submit to an inferior position in this new setup. Not when I’m literally looking down on you.”

“You’re not looking down at the mobile forces controlled by President Iceni.”

“President? Interesting. You’re right. But if those mobile forces try anything, I’ll see it long enough before it gets here that I can launch a doomsday barrage. And if I see anybody suspicious coming close, I’ll do the same thing. I assume you’d like to avoid that.”

“What is you’re looking for?” Drakon asked.

“It looks like you and Iceni are planning to run things as a pair. I want that to become a triumvirate.”

You just made a big mistake by giving me the perfect excuse to stall. Maybe a fatal mistake. Outwardly, Drakon made a noncommittal shrug. “I can’t decide that alone. I need to talk to Iceni.”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. Geosynchronous orbit, you know.” Dun laughed outright. “Talk to you later.”

Drakon mimed punching the air where the comm window had been, then called Iceni. He couldn’t discuss his plans, not when Dun might be able to intercept the conversation, but he could use certain phrases known to CEOs that would indicate that he wanted the response process strung out as long as possible.

Two hours later, Malin and Morgan returned, entering together but immediately going to opposite corners of the room. Malin bobbed his head slightly up and to the side, indicating the general direction of the orbiting station. “We based the plan on the fact that Colonel Dun has spent most of her time in industrial assignments. That was the justification for giving her command of the station. Her military time has been with strategic systems.”

“Nukes?” Drakon asked.

“For the most part. Planning and design.”

Morgan smiled lazily. “She’s going to be looking for a big attack. Missiles, large assault ships, something on that order. Colonel Dun doesn’t have any experience with ground ops, special ops, or really, any ops.”

“How many stealth suits do we still have operational after the attacks on the ISS?” Drakon asked.

“Enough.” Morgan’s grin widened. “They’re in the plan.”

Drakon called it up. One talent he had worked hard to acquire was the ability to quickly review and absorb the essentials of an operational plan. Getting bogged down in details could cause a commander to miss the bigger picture, and even whether the overall plan made any sense.

This one did, but he had expected nothing less. “Two assault forces.”

Malin nodded. “One to go after any troops loyal to Dun and take her out by whatever means necessary, and the other to make sure nothing gets launched from that facility by securing and overriding all controls that could do that. We think Colonel Kai—”

“Kai’s not doing it. Neither is Gaiene or Rogero. Dun may be overconfident, but we can’t assume she’s careless enough not to have someone tracking where my top field commanders are and where I am. If I or any of those three colonels heads for orbit, or can’t be spotted down here conducting business as usual, Dun will know.”

Morgan’s eyebrows rose. “Does that leave who I think it does?”

“Yes. You two. Malin will command one assault force and you take the other.”

“Dun may be watching us, too,” Malin said.

“Maybe, but she doesn’t have infinite resources to devote to surveilling people down here, and she probably thinks she can safely assume that wherever I am, you two are also.”

“Sweet.” Morgan slowly flexed the fingers of one hand as if preparing to go into action right then and there. “I want the force that goes after Dun.”

Malin shrugged. “Fine by me. General, you asked about the reason for Dun’s assignment to this star system.”

“Yeah. What did she do?”

“We found her ISS files. There’s nothing about the reason for exile.”

Drakon peered at him. “Nothing?”

“Yes, sir. Very unusual. I’m beginning to wonder if Dun isn’t a snake herself, operating under deep cover.”

“She doesn’t match the usual profiles for someone like that,” Morgan added, “but we can’t rule it out, and if it’s true then Dun could be more dangerous than we think. There’s too much detail we could check on her career to doubt any of that, so we know her experience, but she might also be operating right now on fail-safe contingency orders from the snakes.”

“How long before you can nail her?”

“We can hide the troop movements in routine lifts to the facility and other orbital sites near there, but it will take time. Twenty-four hours. I wanted to push that until we found the blank spots in Dun’s ISS records. Now I want to make very sure we don’t tip her off.”