Perilous Shield

by Jack Campbell

  “Citizens,” Boyens began in the tone of a disappointed father. “You’ve been misled and misdirected. Doubtless you have been forced to take actions that you have not wished to take. Now you face serious threats and have no one to count on to protect you and your families except the dictators who call themselves President and General. You need not bow to their will any longer.”

  Boyens’s standard smile was replaced by the standard Syndicate CEO insincere look of sincerity. “I am authorized to grant you all immunity for any actions taken contrary to the laws of the Syndicate Worlds and for any actions against the people of the Syndicate Worlds. It is more important to reward the loyal than to try to punish those who mistakenly trusted in the wrong authorities. Take control of your ships once more. Bring them under my authority, where I can protect you from not only the brutal forces of the dictators but also from the fist of the barbaric Alliance forces with which the dictators have allied themselves.

  “You will be welcomed, you will be protected, and you will be rewarded. All you have to do is act in the interests of yourselves and of the people. For the people, Boyens, out.”

  Marphissa glared sourly at where Boyens’s image had been. His message would have sounded a little more genuine if he hadn’t rushed over that last “for the people” in a monotone. How should I reply to this?

  “He thinks we’re fools,” the senior communications specialist growled.

  “He does,” Marphissa agreed. “What would you say to him?”

  The specialist hesitated through force of habit. Workers in the Syndicate system were trained not to speak their minds, and learned quickly enough that invitations by executives and CEOs to offer their opinions were simply traps. But he had seen how things had changed since the Midway Star System gained independence, how former-executive-now-Kommodor Marphissa led her crews, and so the specialist committed the formerly foolish acts of looking directly at her and saying what he really thought. “Kommodor, I would tell him that we are not fools. That we are not simple enough or crazy enough to believe the promises of a Syndicate CEO. That . . . that we have experienced the rule of the Syndicate Worlds and know it has nothing to do with the welfare of the people. That President Iceni and General Drakon have given us more freedom than we have ever known, and have also given us reasons, and the power, to laugh at the lies of a CEO!” The specialist stopped speaking, looking worried by the sort of outburst that would have resulted in serious punishment under Syndicate rules.

  Marphissa looked around the bridge, seeing agreement with the specialist’s speech on the face of every specialist and supervisor present. “I can’t improve on your words, Senior Specialist Lehmann. Would you like to send that reply to the CEO?”

  Lehmann looked taken aback, then more worried, then defiant. “Yes, Kommodor. If you would permit me to.”

  “I’ll introduce you, then say what you did before. You don’t need to make it longer or more elaborate. Just words from the heart.” Marphissa tapped the transmit command, ensuring that the reply would go not only to Boyens but also to every warship in the CEO’s flotilla as well as all of Marphissa’s warships. “CEO Boyens, no one here will accept your offer. If anyone on any of your units wishes to find freedom, they are welcome to join us. Here is one of our senior specialists with his reply to your words.”

  Marphissa waited until Senior Specialist Lehmann had finished repeating his words, then refocused the pickup on her. “For the people,” she said, stating each word slowly and with emphasis, “Marphissa, out.”

  She had let a line worker berate a CEO to his face. Marphissa felt a surge of elation at the act that overrode the fears of such an action created by a lifetime of experience and training.

  The workers in Boyens’s flotilla would hear the words of Specialist Lehmann, would hear her words. Perhaps they would act on them even though the snakes aboard Boyens’s ships must be on constant alert and in larger numbers than before. It was a small hope, to cause some rebellion in the Syndicate warships, but all she could do besides watching others decide the fate of her star system.

  “A message for both of us from Black Jack?” Drakon asked. He had come quickly when Iceni notified him. They could have linked displays, held a virtual meeting, but that would have involved an insane level of risk given the chance that someone would break into the link and monitor everything. Only a personal meeting, in a room confirmed clean of monitoring devices by both her and Drakon’s techs, could offer enough security.

  “Yes. Watch it, then tell me what you think.” She tapped her controls, and the image of Black Jack appeared over the table.

  Admiral Geary looked and sounded as formal as she had ever seen him. “President Iceni, General Drakon, I have two matters I need to place before you. First of all, President Iceni, I have to inform you that while in space controlled by the enigma race, we were able to locate and free some humans who had been kept prisoner by the enigmas, apparently for study. All of them, except those born in captivity, originated from Syndicate Worlds’ colonies or ships. All have been checked as thoroughly as possible, and no signs of biological or other contamination or threat has been found.

  “It is important for me to emphasize that none of them know anything about the enigmas. They were sealed inside an asteroid and never even saw any of their captors. They can tell no one anything about the enigmas. They have all been impacted mentally, physically, and emotionally by their long imprisonment. Given their condition, I intend taking the majority of them back to Alliance space, where I can arrange care and transport back to their home star systems elsewhere in the Syndicate Worlds. However, three of the prisoners say they or their parents came from Taroa, and fifteen others say they came from this star system. Those eighteen wish to return home now. We want to accommodate those wishes, but I desire first to know whatever else you can tell me about conditions at Taroa, and second to know your intentions toward the fifteen who came from Midway. I feel an obligation to see that they are treated well now that they have been freed.”

  Geary paused. “The second matter concerns formalizing our relationship with the new government of Midway.”

  Iceni had already heard this once, but still felt her heart leap at the words. Formalizing our relationship. He’s officially recognizing this star system as independent, and both Drakon and me as the legitimate rulers here. This is better than I had hoped for.

  “I am proposing,” Geary continued, “to assign a senior Alliance officer here to represent the Alliance, to make plain our commitment to your star system, and to render whatever advice or assistance you might ask for in matters of defense and in your transition to a freer form of government. The officer whom I propose to assign here is Captain Bradamont, who has been serving as commanding officer of the battle cruiser Dragon. She is an excellent officer, and because she was at one point a prisoner of war, she has had some prior contact with Syndicate Worlds’ officers and can work with them. Captain Bradamont has already agreed to this official posting, but I require your consent for such an assignment, which I think will be to the benefit of everyone involved. The emissaries of the Alliance government accompanying this fleet have already approved the posting of Captain Bradamont here, so all we require is the acceptance of your government.

  “I await your reply on both of these matters. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

  The message ended, yet Drakon sat for several seconds without saying anything. Finally, he looked at her. “Formalizing our relationship. Does that mean what I think it does?”

  “Yes. He’s giving us something very important, official recognition from the Alliance, official recognition from Black Jack himself, but with two complications.”

  “Let’s tackle the easier one,” Drakon suggested. “Those people the enigmas had.”

  “That’s easier?” She regarded him steadily. “Do you believe Black Jack that none of them know anything about the enigmas?”


  “Yes.” Drakon grimaced. “Not because I tend to believe Alliance officers but because there wouldn’t be any point in his lying about that if he intends giving them to us. If he were keeping them? Yes, then I’d be very suspicious. But after we get them, we can ask them anything we want.”

  “Once again, Black Jack proves he’s a brilliant politician. He’s giving us the truth and a deal we can’t refuse.” Iceni drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “Those citizens. We have to take them. If word ever got out that we’d been offered them and turned Black Jack down, there would be hell to pay. We’d be accused of conspiring with him to keep those citizens’ knowledge of the enigmas hidden.”

  “Like you’ve said, he’s tricky.”

  “If he has boxed us in on this issue, where can we put them? Where did he say the enigmas held them?”

  “Inside an asteroid.” Drakon rubbed his chin, thinking. “It sounds like they had spent a long time there. They wouldn’t want to be dumped on a planet’s surface. It would mess them up to have that much open around them.”

  “How do you know that?” Iceni asked. “Black Jack said they had been impacted by their imprisonment, but he didn’t offer any details.”

  Drakon paused as if deciding whether to answer, then shrugged. “I knew some people who got released from a labor camp after a long time confined. They were . . . very uncomfortable without four walls around them.”

  Iceni wondered what to say. How many of us know someone who was sent to the labor camps? Not many of us got to meet someone released from the camps, though. Too many died in them. “Were these people friends of yours?”

  “Yeah.” Drakon looked down, his expression hard and closed off.

  All right. I won’t ask more. I’ll even change the subject for you. “What are you suggesting for these former prisoners of the enigmas then?”

  He looked up, obviously relieved that she had not pressed for more personal information. “The main orbiting facility. It’s limited in size, it’s somewhat like what they were used to, it’s a mixed-use facility with military and citizens, security won’t be a major issue since it will be easy to control access, and no one will be able to accuse us of locking them up for our own purposes.”

  “Hmmm.” Iceni smiled. “We might even get some credit out of it with the citizens. Look! For the first time, someone has been brought out of space controlled by the enigmas. And here they are, free again, thanks to our relationship with Black Jack.”

  Drakon nodded, then fixed his gaze on her. “They’re not really the first.”

  “To come out of enigma space?” Iceni asked. “I suppose Colonel Morgan does have the right to claim that. One thing you didn’t tell me was why. Do you know why she volunteered for a suicide mission when she was barely eighteen years old?”

  “No. She had been raised in an official orphanage, both parents dead in the war, but Morgan never says one word about it. However, she got a medical waiver to be commissioned after that mission.”

  “Oh? What does it say?”

  Drakon scowled. “It doesn’t say much beyond approving her for duty. She needed that waiver. Otherwise, Morgan would have been sent into combat as worker-level soldier cannon fodder. That’s what happened to the other guy who was recovered from that mission. He died within a month of being shipped off to one of those battles where we and the Alliance kept feeding in men and women and ships and equipment as if eventually we could choke the machinery of slaughter by giving it enough victims.”

  She watched him, knowing the sorts of battles of which Drakon spoke and the awful sense of futility they had created, as if nothing and no one could stop the senseless dying. “But Morgan was saved from that fate when she was commissioned?” Iceni asked as if she had not already known that because of Togo’s investigations. “She must have had a patron to get that waiver. Do you have any idea who her patron was?”

  “No. I had to assume she passed the waiver requirements, because Morgan has no connections to anyone who could have arranged a deal.”

  “No connections that you know of,” Iceni pressed.

  “I’ve looked pretty hard,” Drakon said in a way that made it clear his search had been exhaustive. “But you already know that about her, that she came back from enigma space. I brought that up because, well, we both know Morgan’s got a few issues.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Some of those issues could have predated that mission and explained why she volunteered. There’s no way to know. And,” Drakon pushed on, “this all applies to these citizens who were held by the enigmas. We don’t know who they are, what they did, how they ended up in enigma hands. If the enigmas have hands. Some of them might have issues now, too, and need a lot of help.”

  “I see.” Iceni nodded judiciously. “I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, until the citizens are evaluated, we can’t just turn them loose. That will more than justify limiting access to them and keeping them secure. The fact that it’s a valid reason will help keep anyone from questioning our motives.”

  “Do we have other motives with them?” Drakon asked.

  She had to pause and think. “If they truly don’t know anything? Probably not. I think your ideas for the released citizens are very good ones. We can keep the ones from Taroa up there, too, until we hear back from the Free Taroans.” Iceni smiled wryly. “Though it may take a very long while for the still-interim government of Free Taroa to make a decision on the matter as they debate and argue and discuss.”

  “Hopefully, the Taroan citizens won’t have died of old age while waiting,” Drakon agreed. “We’re already paying out enough bribes and applying other pressure to get the defense agreement approved before anyone at Taroa realizes how tightly they’ll be tied to us by that agreement. We can’t afford to invest effort right now into getting the Taroans to take the prisoners, too. Now, the other deal. You know about this Alliance officer, Bradamont.”

  “I know,” Iceni said, careful once more to choose her words, “that she is linked to Colonel Rogero. And I know that we just used that link to pass our own version of events to Black Jack. I also know the snake records we captured contained a file on this Bradamont that identified her as a source code-named Mantis. Do you know the full story behind that?”

  “I guess it’s my day to talk about my staff.” Drakon looked away, one hand to his mouth as he thought. “The short version is this. Several years back, Colonel Rogero and a small group of soldiers returning from visits home were drafted to serve as guards on a modified freighter hauling Alliance prisoners of war to a labor camp. On the way there, the freighter suffered a serious accident. Rogero let the Alliance prisoners out of confinement to save their lives, then let them assist in repairing the damage to the freighter to save everyone’s lives.”

  Iceni shook her head. “The wise thing, the right thing, but also the contrary-to-regulations thing.”

  “Right. When they reached safety, Rogero was arrested. The CEO involved decided that since Rogero cared so much for the Alliance prisoners, he could spend more time with them by being assigned to the typically hellhole labor camp where they were confined. While serving there . . .” Drakon spread his hands. “Rogero and Bradamont fell in love.”

  “Rather odd circumstances for that,” Iceni observed.

  “Yes, but you see, they knew each other. Rogero told me Bradamont led the Alliance prisoners during the accident and while fixing the damage. She impressed the hell out of him. And she had seen Rogero risk his neck to save the Alliance prisoners.”

  Iceni nodded, finally understanding. “They knew some very important things about each other.”

  “While that was going on, I had been trying to find out why Rogero hadn’t made it back from leave. I had just tracked him to the labor camp when the snakes there found out about him and Bradamont. I was told that the only question regarding Rogero’s future was whe
ther he would join the inhabitants at another labor camp or just be executed.”

  “What saved him?”

  “I saved him,” Drakon said, matter-of-factly and without any hint of boasting. “I suggested to the snakes that they could use Bradamont’s affection for Rogero. Use that to turn this Bradamont so she’d report on Alliance stuff from the inside.” Drakon grinned. “The snakes loved the idea. Of course, implementing it meant getting Bradamont back in the Alliance fleet, so the snakes arranged for her to be transported near the border with the Alliance and leaked the information. Her transport got intercepted, she got liberated by Alliance Marines and sent back to the Alliance fleet. Meanwhile, Rogero got sent back to me. I was told that was so he could pretend to send good intelligence to the Alliance in exchange for whatever Bradamont sent him, just as I’d proposed. But Rogero told me flat out that the snakes wanted him to spy on me, too.”

  “Naturally. But, by knowing who their spy was, you could better protect yourself from the snakes.” Iceni rested her forehead on one palm. “The relationship is real? It seemed so from that message from Rogero that we passed to Black Jack.”

  “It’s real.”

  “Did she really spy on the Alliance for us?”

  “I seriously doubt it. What the snakes had Rogero send her was stuff the Alliance already knew, along with false information to mislead the Alliance. From what Rogero could tell, the stuff he got from her was the same sort of junk.”

  Iceni glanced at Drakon. “Do you think Alliance intelligence was using her the same way the snakes were using Rogero?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “So she has been an agent of Alliance intelligence for some years already.”

  “Why else would they want to assign her here?” Drakon pointed out. “But she’s also been, as Black Jack said, commanding officer of an Alliance battle cruiser.”