Iceni went up stairs and along passages until she reached the massive, formal front entrance to her governing complex, gesturing to the guards there to open the armored doors and stand aside.
There was a vast plaza before the building, and in that plaza a vast crowd.
She walked alone across the entry portico as media zoomed in on her, walked down the flight of granite stairs, and stood right before the edges of the crowd, only one step above their level, one woman facing a mass of humanity.
She wondered about assassins as she faced so many strangers with no bodyguards anywhere close to her. There had to be some trained killers on the planet, the same who had tried to murder Colonel Rogero. But such assassins were careful planners. They watched where their targets went and what their targets did, and they prepared with special diligence to kill under just the right circumstances, as they nearly had with Rogero.
Which assassin would have predicted this, that she would be here, in the open, where she never came?
For a while, at least, she must be safe from that threat, having done the unpredictable and the unthinkable.
All she had to worry about instead was the raw power of tens of thousands of citizens who could erupt at any moment.
Iceni smiled as the crowd fell silent. “Everything is all right,” she said, her words amplified through the plaza. “I wanted to tell you that in person. There is no danger threatening us at this moment. As you have seen, Colonel Rogero is alive and well, and I am alive and well. The ground forces are not fighting, our mobile forces protect us, and your elected officials remain free and able to fulfill the roles you chose them for. There is no danger to you from any of your leaders. Most especially not from me. I am your president.”
She waited. The thousands of people here stared at her in disbelief. Very few of them would have ever seen a star-system CEO in person, and if so then only through a screen of heavily armed bodyguards. Countless other citizens must be watching the media feeds with equal incredulity. Syndicate CEOs did not go out among their people, not openly, not without enough bodyguards to fight off a small army. Iceni had been a Syndicate CEO, and to many of the citizens, she had remained tainted by that.
One young woman, bolder than the others, finally found her voice. “Why are you here?” she called.
“Because,” Iceni said, making sure her voice carried effortlessly across the crowd, knowing that her words would be picked up and transmitted everywhere on the planet, “I am not afraid of you. And I do not want you to be afraid of me.”
It was perhaps the biggest lie she had ever spoken, and there had been some truly majestic lies spoken by her over time. Iceni was desperately afraid, her heart pounding as she smiled serenely at the huge mob almost within arm’s reach of her. The words of every mentor, every superior, every teacher, every companion of equal rank came back to her. They are dangerous, they must be kept leashed and controlled, you must never expose yourself to them, you must never appear vulnerable or small before them, you must beat and subdue and force them into submission because if they ever believe that they can change their fates or exact revenge, then you will be torn to pieces by them.
A hand reached out of the crowd toward her and it took all of Iceni’s discipline and strength to avoid flinching back from it. But the hand did not threaten, it just reached, and after a moment Iceni forced herself to reach back and gently grasp it. “Greetings, citizen,” she said in the same placid-but-carrying tone of voice.
She felt it then, as if by touching that hand she had thrown a stone into a pond, the ripples spreading out from that gesture, the smiles appearing and the tension evaporating. That was how it was with mobs. When they tipped, they went all out, and this mob had tipped not into violence and rage but into reassurance and celebration. She felt it and she knew it and her fear was suddenly charged with a strange exhilaration. “For the people!” Iceni cried, raising her hands, and the words came repeated back to her by the mass of humanity in the plaza, a roar of support and approval that terrified her with the immensity and the force of it, the sound echoing back from the structure behind her with what felt like enough power to rock her on her feet.
Steeling herself, Iceni walked another step toward the crowd, citizens pushing to be closer to her, but still maintaining a slight distance through force of habit, touching, cheering, waving.
The tiny comm device in her right ear murmured with Colonel Rogero’s voice. “Congratulations, Madam President. You did it. All areas are reporting that the crisis ended when media showed your appearance outside your residence. The crisis has turned into an enormous party. We’re going to make sure all of the liquor outlets and drug outlets stay closed, so the partying doesn’t get out of hand.”
Iceni kept smiling even though she wanted to collapse with relief, tried to control the rapid beating of her heart, tried not to let her awe of the power of the mass of humanity before her show in her eyes, as she touched and smiled and waved back.
She had them, she suddenly realized. She had all of their strength in her hands at that moment. They would do whatever she asked, not reluctantly out of coercion, but enthusiastically out of belief in her, putting their hearts and souls into the task. This was the power that the Syndicate feared, this was the power that the Alliance claimed to wield, and it was hers. She had been afraid of these people before, afraid of the power of the mob, but now that she held their power to use or misuse, now that she finally held that which she had longed for, it scared the hell out of her.
Chapter Eleven
“Here comes another barrage! Into the shelters!”
Drakon sat down, feeling clumsy and massive in his battle armor, the seat creaking beneath his weight. The command center had few soldiers in it besides him and Malin. He eyed the information on his display about the incoming barrage, judging it through his way-too-extensive experience with being bombarded by enemy artillery. “It’s a little lighter than the first one. They must be running low on rockets.”
“There is a higher proportion of gun artillery,” Malin agreed. “Sir, we’re going to have to employ chaff from the base stocks if they hit us again after this. Everything blocking precision weapon targeting and sensors out there is starting to get thin.”
“This second Syndicate barrage will throw up more junk,” Drakon said. “Colonel Kai, Colonel Safir, how are your troops doing for ammo?”
“Fully resupplied, General, with more stocks in ready resupply right behind the forward positions,” Kai said.
“Same here, General,” Safir reported. “The troops are tired, though. It’s been a long day.”
“Up patches are authorized for anyone who hasn’t employed one yet,” Drakon said. Using too many of the stimulant patches too fast was a recipe for psychotic episodes, which was a particularly bad thing when heavily armed soldiers were involved. But it was probably past time to give his soldiers a mental and physical boost after all they had already been through.
“Yes, sir. My people believe that they have spotted preliminary indications of Syndicate troops massing opposite sector four,” Safir said.
Malin nodded in agreement. “From the small signs our sensors have picked up in the Syndicate positions, I estimate the next two attacks will come at sectors one and four.”
“They’ll do the same thing,” Kai said. “Failure is no indication of a flaw in planning.” Safir laughed sharply, drawing a puzzled look from Kai. “I was merely pointing out Syndicate tactical philosophy,” he said. “Do you disagree?”