The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

“Yes,” Togo said again. “As you know, the Syndicate government was desperate for any information about the enigmas. For the first couple of decades, the enigmas gave no sign that they were aware of the operation, but when some of the asteroids began approaching the inner system, the enigmas started to target and destroy them, one by one. A decision was made to attempt a recovery of any surviving commandos, and two, including Morgan, were picked up by a special automated craft that, for some unknown reason, the enigmas did not destroy.”

“That’s odd,” Iceni said. “That the enigmas let two commandos be recovered, yes, but mostly that some CEO approved risking those kinds of resources to save the lives of two junior workers.”

Togo made an apologetic gesture. “The intent was not to save the workers. It was desired to recover their asteroids intact so they could be carefully examined for whatever might have betrayed their special characteristics to the enigmas. That Morgan and the other commando survived was simply a by-product of the recovery.”

“Oh. Naturally.” She didn’t bother asking whether the examination had found anything, because she knew it couldn’t have. The asteroids, like every other Syndicate Worlds’ action in connection with the enigmas, had failed because of quantum-level worms the aliens had successfully seeded into every Syndicate automated system. Thanks to those worms, the enigmas had always known exactly what the Syndicate Worlds was doing and could even spoof Syndicate sensors in invisible ways. The Syndicate Worlds had never found those worms, undetectable by normal computer-security means. No, it had been the Alliance that had done that. Black Jack, to be specific, then he had given the secret of finding and neutralizing those worms to the Syndicate Worlds. The embarrassment of that Syndicate failure had been the final blow for Iceni, the last straw that had led her to begin planning for revolt.

Togo tapped his reader. “There were some problems with the awakening of Morgan and the other surviving commando. While their period in survival sleep was roughly twenty years, that should not have been long enough to cause difficulties. I could find no details of what the problems were, just vague references. Some of those references led me to believe that there may have been some special mental conditioning of Morgan and the others before the mission.”

“Special mental conditioning?” That could mean many things, many of them very ugly.

“I do not know for certain, Madam President. Morgan’s psych evals after awakening rated her within acceptable limits, but erratically so. She was rejected for further duty with the commandos. Morgan was eventually released for duty in the regular ground forces. This happened just as the ground forces were facing a serious shortage of junior officers as a result of some failed major offensive operations that had resulted in an even higher-than-usual rate of casualties among junior officers. A large number of worker-level ground forces personnel were designated for immediate promotion to junior subexecutive, and one of those was Morgan.”

Iceni eyed Togo skeptically. “She was chosen for promotion to subexecutive rank despite her history and evaluations?”

“I could not determine why, Madam President. There is a medical evaluation declaring her fit for immediate promotion, but no explanation for it. Morgan herself could not have been in any position to bribe or influence anyone with authority to make that call, but there is no trace of any patron who would have intervened on her behalf and no room in her history for such a patron to have been acquired.”

“When you said that Colonel Morgan’s history was interesting, I didn’t expect it to be quite this interesting,” Iceni commented.

“Unfortunately for Sub-Executive Roh Morgan, no ground forces commander would accept her assignment to their command because of the oddities in her record and the less-than-standard psych evals. Finally, Drakon accepted her in his command on the grounds that she deserved a chance.”

Iceni raised an eyebrow at Togo. “Is that your assessment, or do you have firm evidence that was his reasoning?”

“Drakon’s acceptance message said, ‘This officer deserves a chance to succeed.’ His decision to give her that opportunity formed the foundation for Morgan’s intense loyalty to him, though my sources say she is also now very admiring of Drakon’s skills as a leader and a combat commander.”

That was indeed intriguing. “So Colonel Morgan is actually your age?”

“She was just short of eighteen when she volunteered for the suicide mission. Chronologically, she is now older than me, Madam President. Physically, because she did not age during survival sleep, she is twenty-seven years old. She has served with Drakon for eight years now.”