The Lost Stars Read Free Page B

display with one forefinger. “Where do you think the enigmas will go first?”
    â€œIf it were me, I’d head for the hypernet gate. They have to be worried about that now that we know how much damage one of those gates can do when it collapses.” Drakon nodded again, this time slowly. “You know, we do have a secret weapon. Maybe not so secret, but it’s nasty enough that even though we may lose here, we can make sure they don’twin.”
    â€œCollapse the hypernet gate?” Iceni asked as casually as if Drakon had commented on the weather. She raised her hand, tapping one of the bracelets about her wrist. “I can send the command any time I wantto.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œOf course you did. I know that you’re thorough, and finding out whether I could do that would have been an obvious thing to check on before we even started our rebellion.” Iceni lowered her arm. “The command will disable the safe-collapse system and cause a collapse of the gate that generates the maximum-level burst of energy. About point seven nova-scale, I was told by the technicians who did the work.”
    There wouldn’t be very much left at Midway if a point seven nova-scale burst of energy rampaged through the star system. The planets might remain, but scoured of their atmospheres and with ravaged surfaces. The star would be badly disrupted. Asteroids and comets would be vaporized or hurled into the darkness between stars.
    Nothing human would survive.
    But nothing belonging to the enigmas would survive, either.
    â€œDo you think they’d believe us if we threatened them with that?” Drakon asked. “Get out now, or we destroy everything?”
    â€œI’m sure they would believe us capable of carrying out such a threat,” Iceni said. “We are human, after all, and humans do things like that when our backs are to the wall. But the enigmas may be able to stop us from carrying out that threat. The information the Alliance gave us, which implied the gates were originally enigma technology deliberately leaked to us, would mean the enigmas know more about the gates than we do. We’ve learned how to stop the enigmas from collapsing the gates and destroying human-occupied star systems, but they may still have a backdoor means to halt us from doing the same thing.”
    It felt odd, Drakon thought. This was a crisis situation. He could see the enigma attack fleet and the Syndicate flotilla as well as the mobile forces under the command of Iceni. Yet the opposing forces were light-hours distant. What he was seeing of the enigmas was what they had been doing four and a half hours ago. And no matter what they were doing now, it would take days for any forces to come into contact. “It can’t hurt to try to bluff the enigmas.” If Iceni
was
talking about a bluff rather than a cold-blooded plan to ensure mutual destruction if the enigmas were on the verge of wiping out the humans here.
    â€œHow far do you think can we trust CEO Boyens?” she asked.
    â€œWe both know Boyens.” Drakon held up one hand, the forefinger and thumb barely a centimeter apart. “We can trust him about that far, in my opinion.”
    â€œHe does some have some good qualities.”
    â€œAnd right now those qualities are focused on riding the waves of change rolling across Syndicate-controlled space so that he ends up alive, afloat, and adorned with high rank.”
    Iceni cocked her head slightly to one side as she thought. “That leaves room to appeal to his self-interest.”
    â€œIt does,” Drakon agreed. “What do we offerhim?”
    â€œWe will submit this star system to his control without resistance or damage to any facilities as long as he works with us against the enigmas.”
    â€œHe’ll never believe it. Boyens knows we’d never keep such an agreement.” Drakon frowned. “But it might be the best offer he can hope