The Barbarian Bride (The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Ruthven, 4102

  Roman couldn’t help feeling an odd mixture of excitement and concern as the shuttle settled down to the deck. The marines, once they’d boarded the courier boat, had reported the name and identity of the passenger, Commodore Hannalore Vincent. Roman had glanced at her file, while waiting for the marines to transfer her to Valiant and noted that she was very definitely Admiral Vincent’s oldest daughter. Her father, it seemed, had smoothed her advancement through the navy.

  And let’s hope she deserves it, Roman thought. The shuttle’s hatch hissed open, allowing two marines to step onto the deck. She might have no real talent of her own.

  He sucked in his breath as Commodore Hannalore Vincent followed the marines out of the shuttle, feeling an unwanted flush of arousal. She was stunning, her long blonde hair falling in ringlets down to her shoulders, her uniform expertly tailored to show off her curves without revealing a hint of flesh below her collar. Her face was perfect, too perfect; Roman would have bet half his salary that she’d either been enhanced while in the womb or spent time in a bodyshop, once she’d grown old enough to decide what she wanted. She was thirty-three, according to the file, but she barely looked old enough to drink.

  And that makes her dangerous, Roman reminded himself, sternly. He took a moment to compose himself, keeping his reactions under control. She’s smart enough to use her sexuality as a weapon.

  “Admiral Garibaldi,” Hannalore said. Her voice was a rich, warm contralto. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Thank you,” Roman said. Elf, thankfully, was standing right next to him or he might have done something stupid. It was possible, he’d heard, to engineer pheromones into one’s body to enhance attractiveness... had Hannalore done something along those lines to herself? Or was he merely reacting to the presence of a beautiful girl? It was hard to be sure. “If you’ll come with me, Commodore, we can talk in the briefing room.”

  Hannalore said nothing as they walked through the corridors, but her eyes kept flickering from side to side, taking in the giant superdreadnaught. Roman had a feeling she was looking for pieces of Outsider technology, but there was little of that inside Valiant. He couldn’t help noticing that Hannalore sucked in attention from the crew, their eyes following her as she strode past with nary a care in the world. There was definitely something about her that caught the eye.

  “I’m glad you agreed to speak with me,” Hannalore said, once they were in a conference chamber and the hatch was firmly closed. “My father sent me with a message — and power to negotiate.”

  “I guessed as much,” Roman said. These days, only a fool would rely on someone outside the family for sensitive negotiations. It explained a great deal about the Grand Senate, he felt. “I confess I don’t have much patience for bullshit, Commodore. Can we get right to the point?”

  If Hannalore was surprised by his tone, she didn’t show it. “My father would like to make a deal with you,” she said, simply. “He wants to switch sides.”

  “How... convenient,” Elf said, dryly.

  “The Emperor is going insane,” Hannalore said. “My father feels the Federation will be much better off without him.”

  Which is precisely what I want to hear, Roman thought. He found it easier to think when he wasn’t looking at Hannalore. So I should be wary.

  “I’m glad your father has recognized the problem,” he said. “Can we rely on him to attach his forces to my command?”

  “If we can come to an agreement,” Hannalore said. She gave him a brilliant smile. “As you said, let us cut through the bullshit.”

  She leaned forward, her hair shimmering under the light. “My father has been in command of the Tara Sector for three years,” she said. “In that time, he has promoted the development of local industry, assisted the growth of a self-defense force and expanded the defenses quite considerably.”

  “And made a hefty profit for himself into the bargain,” Elf commented.

  Hannalore didn’t bother to deny it. “My father wishes to retain his position,” she said. “He doesn’t believe the Emperor will leave him alone permanently, regardless of his loyalty to the Federation. The price for him joining you — and bringing both fleet and industry to aid your war effort — is recognition of his permanent possession of the Tara Sector.”

  “He wants to be king,” Roman said.

  “Crude, but essentially accurate,” Hannalore said. “He wants a position akin to the monarchs of Albion.”

  Roman forced himself to think. On one hand, Admiral Vincent commanded three battle squadrons, hundreds of smaller ships and over forty fortresses. Getting that force on his side was worth almost any price. But, on the other hand, it would be a betrayal of everything the Outsiders — and the Federation — stood for. Who knew what the local population thought of their Admiral, a man imposed on them by Earth. Did they love him... or were they just waiting for the Outsiders to arrive before they launched an uprising?

  “Albion had a great deal to offer the Federation, back when they were integrated into the fold,” Elf said. “Does your father have enough to make the price worthwhile?”

  Hannalore smirked. “Would you prefer to batter your way through the defenses of the sector?”

  “Point,” Roman conceded.

  He ignored her smile as he dug through his memory for what little he recalled of the monarchs of Albion. They’d set up a network of colonies of their own, funded without recourse to federal funds... the same funds the Federation used as its excuse for dominating the outer colonies. And they’d embedded themselves so thoroughly at the heart of their system that digging them out would ruin the economy completely. The Federation had agreed to recognize their position, if he recalled correctly, in exchange for Albion joining the Federation. Perhaps, on some level, the Grand Senate had recognized a set of kindred souls.

  And they were largely autonomous, he thought, grimly. But then, they did enjoy a degree of popular support.

  “Your father intends to set up a dynasty of his own,” Roman said.

  “Correct,” Hannalore agreed. “He believes that the Federation failed because the Grand Senate, in the end, did not inspire love. The Emperor, by contrast, threw away his love as he turned into a tyrant. Father... has other ideas.”

  “So did Marius Drake,” Roman commented. “And good intentions led him right into hell.”

  He sighed, inwardly. There was no way he could avoid feeling out of his depth. His sole experience with interstellar politics, before the Battle of Nova Athena, had been Emperor Marius’s determination to reunite the Federation. There had been no need for negotiation with others, let alone an awareness that the Federation would be profoundly changed by the war. And now he had to negotiate, with Admiral Vincent as well as the Outsiders. The hell of it was that Vincent’s offer was extremely good.

  “It will have to be discussed by the council,” he said. “Do you have anything else you wish to say?”

  “Just this,” Hannalore said. “Father was very interested in sealing this alliance the old-fashioned way. He wishes to offer you the hand of his daughter, my hand, in marriage.”

  Roman stared at her in disbelief. Admiral Drake had been forced to marry into the network of families that made up the Grand Senate, but it hadn’t saved him from an assassination attempt after Admiral Justinian’s death. He could see the logic, yet he found it repulsive. He wouldn’t be able to put down his burdens after the war if he had a family tie to the newest dynasty. And besides, there was Elf. He didn’t dare look at her, to see how she reacted, but he was damned if he was dumping her for political reasons.

  And did your father send you in the hopes you would seduce me, Roman thought darkly, or is that merely a bonus?

  He found it hard to grasp why anyone would arrange their daughter’s marriage. Or their son’s, for that matter. The parents weren’t the ones who would have to live with the unwanted spouse. But then, from what little he’d heard of the Grand Senate, some husbands and wi
ves didn’t even live together. All that mattered was that they had children and that could be done in an exowomb.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said, firmly. “If we accept the offer, Commodore, we will stick with it.”

  “My father believes a blood tie can only be beneficial,” Hannalore said.

  “But we don’t,” Roman said. He bit down several nasty comments that came to mind. She’d be better off marrying someone from the Tara Sector, really. “I thank you for the offer, Commodore, but we won’t need a blood tie to make us keep our word.”

  He couldn’t help feeling a stab of sympathy for Hannalore. Her father would have groomed her to be the perfect daughter, to marry well to help his career. It was one way of getting ahead, even though Roman found it sickening. But it was equally possible, he reminded himself, that she might be playing a role. There would be a definite advantage in being underestimated by her enemies.

  “Assuming we do accept your father’s offer,” he said, “how do you plan to proceed?”

  “You would need to take Marble,” Hannalore said. She reached into her jacket pocket and produced a datachip. “There are four Asimov Points within the system, three of which can start you off on your voyage to Tara Prime. My father suggests that you punch through the defenses covering the Yellowstone Point, then head via Folkestone and New Redeye to Tara Prime. He’s been establishing a blocking chokepoint at Maben.”

  “I see,” Roman said. On paper, it was good... but leaving the other fortresses at Marble would allow them to send messages through the Asimov Points to Tara Prime. If the whole scheme was an elaborate trap. Admiral Vincent would know precisely where to find his fleet when the time came. “And then?”

  “You enter Tara Prime and my father joins you,” Hannalore said, simply. “He has his loyalists on the entire fleet. Switching sides would be relatively simple. You’d then have ample time to restock, using the supplies at Tara Prime, before proceeding to Howarth and Maidstone.”

  “And from there, proceed to the Gateway and Sol,” Roman mused. It was very tempting, he had to admit. Getting through Tara Prime without a fight, alone, would definitely be worth just about any price. But there were limits. “It will have to be discussed with the council.”

  He rose. “I’ve taken the liberty of having a cabin prepared for you,” he said. “The marines will escort you there.”

  “And you want me to remain there until you have an answer,” Hannalore said. She rose and smiled, cheekily. “I do understand.”

  Roman nodded. It was possible that Hannalore was nothing more than what she seemed, but it was equally possible that she was a spy, that her father was trying to play both ends against the middle. Trying to play games with Marius Drake was risky, Roman knew, regardless of how much the Emperor valued audacity. But, just in case she’d earned the rank she carried, he’d take precautions to make sure she didn’t see anything that might offer the Emperor a tactical advantage.

  “Interesting,” Elf said, once Hannalore was out of the compartment. Her voice was very cold. “Just what we’ve been waiting for.”

  “Yeah,” Roman agreed. “I don’t trust her. And I definitely don’t have any interest in her.”

  “Good,” Elf said.

  Roman nodded. “It might be better to look this gift horse in the mouth.”

  He looked up as the marines showed Chang Li and General Stuart into the compartment, then motioned for them to sit down.

  “You’ll want to watch this,” he said, keying the console. “I took the precaution of recording the whole conversation.”

  “Good grief,” Chang Li said, once the recording had finished. “Is she serious?”

  General Stuart had a different question. “Is she really Admiral Vincent’s daughter?”

  “Her DNA was checked against the code on file,” Elf said. “It checks, General. There are some ways to subvert the system, but they require massive genetic modification that would be instantly recognizable, if it was there. I had the marines do a very deep scan.”

  Roman cleared his throat. “It is possible it could be a trap of some kind,” he said, flatly. “I don’t think we can afford to take her message on faith. Emperor Marius could be pulling the strings, making sure Admiral Vincent put forward the right offer.”

  “He knows you,” Elf said, quietly. “He’d know how to make you an offer you couldn’t refuse.”

  “True,” Roman agreed, feeling a stab of bitter pain. He’d trusted and respected the older man, even viewed him as a mentor. The thought of watching helplessly as his mentor prepared to kill billions of people still terrified him. Emperor Marius would definitely know how to tempt him. “And yes, this is an offer we can’t refuse.”

  General Stuart smiled. “Does that mean you’re going to marry her?”

  Roman shook his head. “No,” he said. Better to dismiss that idea before someone tried to talk him into it. “Do you want to marry her, General?”

  Stuart snorted. “I think not,” he said.

  “Hah,” Roman said. He cleared his throat, loudly. “But can we accept their offer?”

  “We have recognized other autonomous governments before,” Chang Li said. “But can we allow him to dominate one of the richest sectors outside the Core Worlds?”

  “Military necessity commits us to accepting his offer, once we’re sure it isn’t a trap,” General Stuart said, flatly. “The chance of getting through the Tara Sector without having to fight alone is too good to let pass.”

  “At the price of condemning the local population to slavery,” Chang Li pointed out. Her voice was very cold. “We wouldn’t be liberating them from their ruler.”

  “We don’t know he’s a bad ruler,” Roman said. He gestured towards the holographic image of Ruthven. “The Federation is still surprisingly popular on Ruthven.”

  “We don’t know he’s a good ruler either,” Chang Li reminded him. “And whatever the merits of his rule, we built our federation on the principles of freedom and self-determination.”

  “And, if we take those principles as fixed, we have to fight our way through Tara Prime,” General Stuart said. “Even if they haven’t done any improvements to the defenses since the last update, it’s still going to be a nightmare.”

  “That’s true,” Roman agreed. “Our best simulations agree that we’ll lose at least a third of our battle line, merely entering the system.”

  “And the local population might just overthrow him,” Elf said. She smiled as they looked at her in surprise. “You assert that your economic policies lead to economic booms.”

  “They do,” Chang Li said. “It’s astonishing what people can do without interference from Earth.”

  “Well, yes,” Elf said. She leaned forward. “If we win the war, because of this, Tara Prime will find itself surrounded by systems enjoying an economic boom, purely because of your lack of meddling. I suspect Admiral Vincent will find himself pressured to adopt a very similar political platform, purely out of expediency. And if he doesn’t... well, I imagine the best and brightest will soon start leaving the system for good.”

  “Or we could simply stab him in the back once we win the war,” General Stuart added. He smiled, rather thinly. “It isn’t as if we owe him anything.”

  “Keeping our word is important,” Chang Li said. “We’d be committed to whatever deal we made until Admiral Vincent is overthrown or otherwise compelled to change his ways.”

  Roman hid a smile. Did General Stuart intend to discard him, too, after the end of the war? It would be hard to blame him, although Roman had no real intention of doing anything beyond taking a ship past the Rim and out into the Beyond. Marius Drake, after all, had turned himself into a monster by trying to run the Federation.

  He put the matter aside as he looked down at his hands. “There’s no time to send word back to Boston, let alone Nova Athena,” he said. The remainder of the council couldn’t be consulted in less than two months, perhaps longer. “The decision rests with us. Do
we accept or not?”

  Chang Li frowned. “I have always hated the idea of making decisions because they’re expedient,” she said. “Because it’s easier to do what’s expedient than what’s right. But in this case, we don’t seem to have a choice. It’s take up the offer, while it’s on the table, or face a far harder struggle for the sector.”

  “And perhaps weaken ourselves fatally,” General Stuart said. His face darkened as he contemplated the odds. “The Federation still outguns us.”

  Roman nodded. He had no idea how long it would take Emperor Marius to muster the remaining border fleets — it would be dangerous to thin the naval patrols too much — but the Emperor wasn’t a man to let the grass grow under his feet. He’d be straining every sinew to reinforce the Tara Sector, to say nothing of Home Fleet and Earth. And time, in a sense, was on his side.

  “So we accept,” he said. He made a mental note to demand pieces of information, either from Hannalore or her father, that would help prove their trustworthiness. It hadn’t escaped his attention that they wouldn’t be able to keep Hannalore as a hostage either. “And advance once the pods have arrived.”

  “Just in case they’re planning something,” General Stuart said. “We’ll be watching carefully, I assume?”

  “Of course,” Roman said. With the right IFF codes, he should be able to sneak a ship into Tara Prime before the main body of the fleet arrived. It would help detect any planned ambush before the jaws of the trap could swing closed. “And if this is a trap, we can make sure that Admiral Vincent regrets it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Matters were not helped, in the final years of the Federation Navy, by a growing corps of spies, informers and political commissioners. The first two made it impossible for anyone to know when a remark would be taken out of context (and used as proof of disloyalty), while the latter ensured that military operations would be dictated by political concerns, often directed by commissioners whose actual military experience was minimal.

  —The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199