The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

She stared at him, then laughed. “General, your logic cannot be faulted.”

“When do you leave? And do we let the citizens know?”

“As soon as possible, and . . . there are good arguments for telling them and good arguments for keeping them in the dark.” Iceni’s eyes were back on the star display. “If I can’t be found, too many people will conclude that General Drakon might have disposed of the competition. Once my flotilla jumps for Kane, I will have my own staff tell the citizens that I am leaving on a special mission to . . .”

“Try to bring peace to our neighbors?” Drakon asked mockingly.

“Oh, that’s good. Yes. A mission of mercy.”

“I wasn’t serious. What happens when you get back, and they learn that you were actually on a snatch-and-grab mission for a battleship?”

Iceni smiled at him again. “I’ll have a battleship. Why should I care how anyone feels?”

This time, Drakon didn’t return the smile. “Anyone? Including me? You’ll have a huge amount of firepower under your control.”

“Yes. You’ll just have to trust me.”

At least she didn’t use a derisive tone when she quoted him. “What are you going to use to capture it? Assault parties from the crews of the mobile forces?”

“What can you give me?” Iceni asked.

“A lot more than you can use. Can you bring up the current status on your mobile forces?” Drakon studied the information as it popped up on the display. “Very limited free berthing capacity, and you’ll only be able to haul three shuttles with you. I recommend providing you with three squads of special forces. That’s way too few to tackle the crew of a fully operational battleship, but if this one is still working with a skeleton crew it should be enough.”

“I will accept your recommendation,” Iceni said. “Who will command your special forces?”

“Normally a force that small would be commanded by a lieutenant or a captain at the most.” He saw her uncertainty at the new titles. “That would be subexecutive or junior-executive rank. But you need someone senior enough to be in control of a battleship, someone we have no doubt of in terms of loyalty and reliability, and the more experienced the better.”

Drakon paused to think again. Normally, he would be considering sending either Morgan or Malin, but Morgan was still acting too much like a loose cannon at the moment, and after Malin’s actions during the assault on the orbital facility Drakon didn’t feel comfortable having him out of sight for a while. “Colonel Rogero. He’s the best for this. Aggressive and capable, as reliable as they come, and his subordinates won’t have any problems handling his area of responsibility down here until he gets back.”

“Rogero?” Iceni questioned. “Reliable?”

She knew about the Alliance battle cruiser commander. Drakon had briefed Iceni on that when the message had come for Rogero while Black Jack’s fleet was here. “Absolutely.”

“What about your other senior commanders?”

“Kai is solid but can be slow. He prefers to plan things out, then go by the plan. You need someone who will move fast and be more agile. Gaiene is aggressive enough, too much so sometimes, but on his own he can get a little wild. You don’t need someone willing to take too many chances when you’ve only got three squads to play with. I’m also not comfortable with how well Gaiene’s subordinates are set up to operate without his oversight.”

Another long look at him, as if she were trying to read his mind, then Iceni nodded once. “All right. I need your soldiers and Colonel Rogero in orbit as soon as possible.”

Drakon did some quick estimating in his head. “Two hours.”

“Can you make it one?”

“No. Besides, a two-hour scramble I can pass off as being part of a training exercise. A one-hour panic party will arouse way too much attention.”

“Then I agree. Two hours. I will see you again when I return, General Drakon.”

* * *

EVEN though Iceni had decided that she had no alternative to going to Kane, the idea of trusting Drakon not to stab her in the back in her absence left her in an even worse mood than before as she hastily prepared to take a shuttle up to C-448. She would be risking her control of the star system and putting herself back at the mercy of the crews of the warships. They had sworn loyalty to her, but they had also made similar oaths to the Syndicate Worlds. Every CEO knew that inconvenient oaths were easily disposed of, but now those crews certainly knew it, too.

Those crews had also learned how easy it was to dispose of authority figures. The workers were becoming privy to the same rules that the higher levels had followed for generations, and that could not be a good thing for those in the higher levels.

Nor could she take any bodyguards along on an extended voyage on something as small as a heavy cruiser. There was no room for them, and the potential for a misunderstanding and violence in the cramped quarters of a warship too high.