“I don’t think it’s just that. Kommodor Marphissa and Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos in their reports to me both said they did not feel Bradamont was holding back on them. Yet I see that sense of reserve in her when dealing with us.”
Drakon snorted derisively. “Kommodor Marphissa was a lower-midranked executive. She didn’t make decisions, but she paid the price for decisions made by her superiors. That’s even more true of Kontos. You and I were CEOs, part of the hierarchy of the Syndicate Worlds. We called the shots.”
“Not as much as we would have liked to,” Iceni said, her voice subdued.
“Yeah. That’s why we’re here. But it’s not surprising that, to an Alliance officer, we’re in a different category from more junior personnel. We were CEOs. We did things.”
She looked back at him for a while before answering, trying to sort out her feelings. “I did what I had to do. So did you.”
“Yeah,” Drakon repeated.
Only one word, yet the feeling behind it came through clearly to Iceni. A feeling she understood all too well. “I did what I had to do” isn’t what anyone would want carved on their memorial. Unhappy at the direction the conversation had taken, Iceni gestured upward. “The Syndicate is ahead of us on tricks with the hypernet. I have a strong feeling the Alliance is even farther behind than we are.”
“A feeling?” Drakon pressed.
“There are some facts. Black Jack wanted the device from me that would keep a gate from being collapsed by remote command. That meant the Alliance didn’t have it.”
“You gave him that?”
She paused, then nodded, not looking at him. “Yes. It was a deal.”
“Are there any other deals?”
Iceni turned her head to look directly into his eyes. “None that you are unaware of. I made that deal with Black Jack before we revolted, Artur. I couldn’t coordinate it with you, I couldn’t even talk to you about it, not with the snakes still everywhere. Do you know what I find most intriguing about that interview with Captain Bradamont?” It was a very clumsy change of subject. Why am I never at my best with Drakon anymore? He’s rattling me for some reason.
Drakon didn’t call her on the awkward segue though. “No. What did you find intriguing?”
“The bit about Black Jack’s rank. Despite Captain Bradamont’s impassioned defense of his honor, Black Jack must have manipulated his rank to technically avoid violating Alliance rules about marrying a subordinate. But why? Why bother with the theater? Why did he then choose only to advance back to the rank of admiral? And what do we know about this Captain Desjani?”
Drakon poked in a query. “Battle cruiser captain. Dauntless. Rated highly effective based on what we were able to learn of her. As a lieutenant, led a boarding party in an operation that won her the Alliance Fleet Cross. That’s about it. No, wait. In the report Morgan and Malin gave me when they got back from talking to Black Jack to set up that trick we pulled on Boyens. Captain Desjani was there. Black Jack insisted that she be present. That confirms the relationship that Bradamont told us about.”
Iceni rested her chin on one hand as she thought. “The whole show must have something to do with Alliance rules and protocol. Maybe he had to justify what he did to their fleet and their citizens. How that translated into playing games with rank, I don’t know. Maybe, with time, Captain Bradamont will tell us more about it. I didn’t want to push her during this meeting. She’s acting very open with us, as if there’s not a secret in her pretty little head. But she has a hidden agenda. People always have hidden agendas.”
He took a few moments to reply, looking steadily toward the far wall, then finally glanced at Iceni. “My first impressions of her were that she was exactly what she looked like. Not much hidden. I’ve talked to Colonel Rogero again since then, and he says she is trustworthy. That evaluation means a lot in my mind.”
Iceni laughed sharply before she could stop herself. “A man in love trusts the object of his affections? Just how many tragedies have been set into motion by that?”
“That’s… a point.”
Iceni gave him another searching look. “What I just said didn’t make you happy.”
“Is it that obvious?” Drakon shrugged. “You know Colonel Gaiene. That is, you know who he is now.”
“A drunken letch who always seems to be seeking out the next woman to share his bed. But I saw the reports for Taroa. He was highly effective. Are you saying he trusted the wrong woman?”
“In combat, he can forget for a few moments. But it wasn’t a matter of betrayed trust. It was exactly the opposite.” Drakon grimaced, clearly unhappy at the memories this conversation was calling up. “Here’s the quick and dirty. Lara was a major in another unit. She and Conner Gaiene never had eyes for anyone else. Conner’s outfit got caught in an ambush and were being cut to ribbons. I had my hands full repulsing a major counterattack. Somehow, Lara pulled together all of the soldiers close to her and punched through to Gaiene. She saved Conner and about half of his unit, but she never knew that because she died during the final push that broke through the Alliance forces trapping him.”
“Oh.” Iceni looked away and didn’t speak for several seconds. “That’s why he’s like that.”
“Yes. Conner Gaiene had his dream woman once. Just about every day I’m reminded of what happened to him when he lost her.”
“And you don’t want to see that happen to Colonel Rogero.”
“No. If this Bradamont is bad, and I don’t think she is, she’d hurt him. If she’s as good as she seems, she could hurt him a lot worse.”
“Not every man falls apart when he loses a woman,” Iceni said. Have you avoided relationships out of fear of that, Artur Drakon? The snakes and the Syndicate couldn’t break you, but you worry that a woman could? “You must have lost someone in the past.”
“This isn’t about me,” Drakon objected, a little too fast and a little too emphatically.
“What if it were?”
He looked down, away, then back at her. “It isn’t.”
“Then you listen to me, Artur Drakon,” Iceni said heatedly. “From what you say, this Lara was an exceptional woman who gave her all to save the life of the man she loved. And that man has rewarded her sacrifice by wasting the life she died to save. If I ever gave my life to save a man I loved, that man had damned well better live the rest of his life in a manner that justifies the sacrifice that I made for him! Is that clear?”
Drakon looked steadily back at her. “Absolutely clear. Why do I need to know that?”
“I don’t know! But now you do. Be certain that you do not forget it.”
“I won’t.”
She sat alone in the room for a while after Drakon had left, staring at the display but not really seeing it. Why am I more upset about the attempt on his life than I am about the bomb aimed at me?
It’s because I do like that big lunk. He’s a better man than he realizes he is. He’s—
I like him too much.
You can’t do this, Gwen. Mixing personal feelings and politics is a guarantee for disaster. He is a man, and he obviously doesn’t have any particular feelings for me, so he would either use my feelings to get what he wants, or if he’s not quite that awful, he would laugh at me. Either of those would be better than his feeling pity for me because he couldn’t return such feelings. I will never accept pity from anyone.
Never.
The hopefully named Recovery Flotilla had departed only the day before. Drakon had watched it go, taking along with it not only Colonel Rogero and six platoons from his brigade, but also a substantial portion of the warships available to defend this star system. The Alliance captain had been right. Even all of the warships they had couldn’t adequately protect Midway. But that was something the brain knew. The gut still watched those warships go and felt the desperate need to call them back.