The Shadow of Cincinnatus

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “Or disaster,” McGillivray said. His voice was very calm. “We could win the battle, even the war, but still lose the peace.”

  “I think so,” Kratman said. “I gave the problem to a set of analysts, with strict orders to keep their mouths shut. Depending on the assumptions they feed into the computers, Rupert, we would be looking at a total economic collapse within five to ten years.”

  McGillivray stared. “It can’t be that bad!”

  “If anything, that’s optimistic,” Kratman said. “I can show you the figures, if you’d like, or give you a general overview.”

  “The overview,” McGillivray said.

  “We have too many shortages in too many places,” Kratman said. “Freighters, for example, are now in short supply because thousands of them have been pressed into service to haul military supplies from one end of the Federation to the other. Admiral Justinian and the other warlords didn’t help with that either, as they captured every freighter they could too. And the Outsider raiding squadrons have been wiping out entire convoys, while the pirates have been snatching up individual ships...”

  Kratman shrugged. “In short, we’re running out of everything that makes the economy work,” he added. “Some star systems have even reported shortages of HE3 and antimatter because our production has been diverted towards the needs of the war. I have a feeling that quite a few systems have effectively dropped out of the Federation, simply because they have not been contacted for years. God knows if they can sustain themselves in the long run.”

  McGillivray sighed. “The Grand Senate wanted the colonials to remain dependent,” he said, darkly. “They didn’t listen to me.”

  Kratman nodded. Centuries ago, a rogue physicist had predicted that – one day – the Asimov Point network would reboot itself. The points would change, rendering existing star charts useless and forcing each star system to fall back on its own resources, at least until the Federation could start probing its way through the reformed network. The nightmare had seemed so persuasive that the Grand Senate had authorized a project to ensure that each and every colony world, no matter how young, could fend for itself. But, over the decades, the priority had faded to the point where the Grand Senate had actively tried to keep colony worlds dependent as long as possible. They’d even started shipping in food from other star systems when it wouldn’t have been hard to start sowing seeds on the new world.

  It was insane. But it had suited the Grand Senate perfectly.

  “So we have a war we cannot win without destroying ourselves,” McGillivray said. “I trust you have attempted to warn the emperor?”

  “He is determined to win the war,” Kratman said. “The idea of accepting a truce, of granting independence to the Outsiders, is utterly impossible for him to accept.”

  “It would have been impossible for us too, once,” McGillivray reminded him. “We support the unity of mankind.”

  “Not at the price of destroying mankind,” Kratman snapped. “What good is the Brotherhood without the human race?”

  “And, assuming we did grant the Outsiders independence,” McGillivray asked, “where would that leave the Federation?”

  Kratman sighed. The emperor had raised the same question. If the Outsiders gained independence, with their technological advantages, how long would it be until they were vastly more powerful than the Federation? Ten years of peace and military development might ensure the next war would be short and decisive. And there was little hope the Federation would be able to match the Outsiders, even though it had a far greater industrial base. The Outsiders had too many other advantages.

  But there was no guarantee the next war would be fought at all.

  “I think we have to put the future off until it arrives,” he said. “Right now, we may see the entire Federation collapse into ruins. What will that do to our chances of survival if another alien race arrives on our borders?”

  McGillivray stood up and started to pace the room. “I understand your concerns,” he said. “Now tell me, professor; what can we do about them?”

  And that, Kratman knew, was the five hundred thousand credit question.

  “The Grand Senate had ways to remove a Grand Senator who was unstable or completely insane,” McGillivray said. “It happened, on occasion. Not something we ever told the public, of course.”

  “Of course,” Kratman agreed. “But how do we remove an emperor?”

  They exchanged glances. The Grand Senate, for all its flaws, rested on a social structure that allowed for Grand Senators to be replaced by successors, if necessary. But there was no new emperor waiting in the wings to replace Emperor Marius. Even if Lady Tiffany became pregnant – and Kratman knew she had no intention of becoming pregnant until after her husband stepped down from his role – it would be years before the child was old enough to assume power. And his ascent would be challenged. Emperor Marius had a proven military record. The child’s sole claim to power would be having the right set of parents.

  “There’s no one else who can take his place,” Kratman said, slowly. “And there are no procedures to force him to step down.”

  “Then we consider assassination,” McGillivray said. The Brotherhood had assassinated politicians and alien sympathizers in the past, although few of the deaths had ever been traced back to those responsible. “Can’t we remove him by force?”

  “He’s guarded by an entire regiment of Marines,” Kratman said. “They’re loyal, both to the emperor and the memory of their former commanding officer. I doubt any assassin could get through the defenses and into striking range without being intercepted. Even a nuke would be hard-pressed to do real damage to the President’s House.”

  “Admiral Justinian smuggled a nuke into Navy HQ,” McGillivray mused.

  “He had the right access codes and a great deal of luck,” Kratman reminded him. “Procedures were tightened up, considerably, after the Battle of Earth. The Grand Senate closed all the easy access ways to the planet, let alone their personal mansions...”

  He sighed, bitterly. The insistence on inspecting every starship that entered the system was yet another nail in the economic coffin. He didn’t want to think about just how many man-hours – to say nothing of credits – were being lost, simply through forcing the starship crews to hold for boarding and thorough searches. And then there were the complaints about the security officers molesting the crews...

  And how could I blame any starship crewman, he asked himself, for refusing to return to Earth?

  “So we can’t talk him into standing down,” McGillivray said, “and we can’t remove him by force. Where does that leave us? Stuck.”

  “Not quite,” Kratman said. “I’m hoping to find an excuse to go out to Boston, sooner rather than later. I’d have a chance to talk to Admiral Garibaldi.”

  “Who happens to be our beloved emperor’s protégée,” McGillivray sneered. “He’ll report you for treachery. And if he doesn’t, we’ll just end up with another emperor or a civil war.”

  “I wasn’t going to urge him to launch a coup,” Kratman said. “He may be the only one who can talk the emperor into bringing the war to a close, before it’s too late.”

  “Good thinking,” McGillivray said. “But tell me...do you think it may already be too late?”

  “I hope not,” Kratman said. If he’d believed it was truly hopeless, he would have booked passage to a stage two or stage three colony world somewhere out of the way. There would be a fair chance of living out his final years in peace. “But we have no choice, except to play our last card.”

  “I’ll start seeing what other options there might be,” McGillivray said. “But you do understand our resources are limited?”

  “I know,” Kratman said. “I...”

  His terminal beeped. He pulled it off his belt and glanced at it.

  “There’s been a major battle,” he said. “And we have been victorious, although there aren’t many details. I’ve been summoned back to the President’s House.”<
br />
  “Then go,” McGillivray said. “Let me know when you find out what actually happened.”

  Kratman nodded, then rose and left the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  But the problem with victory is that it can lead to victory disease. Put simply, victory disease is the sense that one is invincible, completely unbeatable. It makes it impossible to rationally calculate the odds of future victories, let alone the course of the war.

  -The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

  Earth, 4100

  “This is a very interesting report, Admiral Ness,” Marius said, coolly. “A very interesting report indeed.”

  He eyed the Admiral for a long moment, knowing that it had been a mistake to send the older man to Boston. Admiral Ness didn’t have the determination to become a warlord, true, but he didn’t have the courage of his convictions or even the ability to support his superiors either. Marius didn’t blame Ness for resentment – his superior officer had been nearly seventy years younger than him – yet he couldn’t condone an officer trying to undermine his superiors.

  “This report states that Operation Sword is doomed to failure,” Marius said. “That Admiral Garibaldi took too great a risk in sending five battle squadrons away from Boston in an attempt to lure the enemy into a battle. That the inevitable end result is the loss of Boston to the Outsiders. Is that correct?”

  “Sir,” Ness said. “I...”

  Marius spoke over him. “And here,” he said, picking up a terminal, “is the official report from Admiral Garibaldi, General Yaakov and several other officers. All agree that Operation Sword was a great success and the Outsiders took a major bloody nose. Which of them should I believe, Admiral? Or are you implying that seven officers worked together to send me a pack of lies, complete with faked sensor data?”

  Ness paled. “Ah...Your Majesty...I...”

  “...Have nothing better to do with my time but write reports undermining my superior’s position,” Marius said, overriding the older man with effortless ease. “I would expect you to admit you were wrong, once or twice in a while. It isn’t the end of the world. Hell, it isn’t even the end of your career.”

  He met Ness’s eyes. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t order your immediate dismissal from the Navy?”

  Ness lowered his gaze. “I did what I thought was right,” he said. “And if I was wrong, I...”

  His voice trailed off. Marius was unsurprised. Ness was a bureaucratic warrior par excellence, capable of putting the cat among the pigeons with a single memo to the right pair of eyes, or citing obscure rules and regulations to justify sitting on his ass and doing nothing. It almost made up for his lack of connections, which might well have saved his career when Marius started his purge. Quite a few officers with aristocratic connections had been thrown out of the Navy without ceremony.

  “You were wrong,” Marius said. He nodded to the Marine, standing by the door. “You will be taken from this room to a small office. There, you will have a day to decide if you wish to resign from the Navy or face a Board of Inquiry into professional misconduct in the face of the enemy.”

  Ness opened his mouth, but the Marine caught his arm and led him out the door before he could say a word. Marius laid a small bet with himself that Ness would resign – a Board of Inquiry would note that Ness had been completely wrong, then pass judgement against him – and then turned to face his cabinet. They looked as pleased as he felt by the victory. Even if the Outsiders managed to regroup in time to prevent minor counterattacks from shoving them back into the Beyond, the losses they’d taken made their eventual defeat inevitable.

  “Well,” he said. “This has been a good day.”

  He nodded to Captain Sitka Rani, who stepped forward.

  “We’re still studying the raw sensor records,” she said, as she activated the holographic display. “However, based on our preliminary studies, we can confirm the destruction or capture of sixty-seven superdreadnaughts, while the remainder all took damage from minor to significant. The enemy actually scuttled a number of their ships before they left the system, leaving us with quite a few hints as to just how much damage they took. They presumably could not enter FTL.”

  She paused, her dark eyes flickering to Marius’s face. “Our losses were, as of the last count, thirty superdreadnaughts, ten fortresses and dozens of smaller ships,” she continued. “The death toll was in excess of fifty thousand spacers.”

  Marius winced. The butcher’s bill for an assault on a heavily-defended star system was always shockingly high. Losing the fortresses alone had cost Roman Garibaldi dearly, all the more so as he’d deliberately lured the enemy into attacking his command. Marius understood, in a way, what had driven Admiral Ness. In peacetime, such tricks could not be tolerated. But this was war.

  And all necessary means are to be embraced to win as quickly as possible, Marius thought, coldly. The sooner the war is ended, the better.

  “Overall,” Sitka concluded, “the battle was a success. Probes through Asimov Points Delta, Echo and Gamma revealed an enemy in disarray. That was, of course, weeks ago.”

  Marius nodded. By now, Roman Garibaldi might have launched a counterattack that had pushed the enemy back to the Rim, or he might have lost Boston System if the Outsiders had managed to throw a second attack in through the undefended Asimov Point. Still, the victory would give new heart to the Federation and discourage unrest and outright rebellion. Given time, they could win the war. And then there would be time to breathe.

  He cleared his throat. “We need to take advantage of this as quickly as possible,” he said. “I believe we should immediately move to...liberate the worlds occupied by the Outsiders.”

  “Those worlds, in many cases, willingly joined the Outsiders,” General Thorne pointed out, dryly. “We will need to put together a much larger pacification force to ensure that unrest is kept under control.”

  Marius nodded. It was almost a shame that the old pacification units had been disbanded, their troopers dumped on penal worlds. They’d known how to deal with unrest. He’d been appalled at their sheer brutality, years ago, but that was then. Now, he understood precisely why the Grand Senate had needed their servants. Brutal repression was the only way to buy time to rebuild the Federation into something workable.

  “Start recruiting at once,” he ordered. Recruitment centers had already been opened, but they would have to be expanded as quickly as possible. What did it say about the pre-war Federation when one couldn’t even recruit enough thugs in time to make a difference? “And have them prepped for their journey to the Rim.”

  “Yes, sir,” Thorne said.

  “Admiral Garibaldi will require reinforcements,” Marius continued. A thought occurred to him and he smiled. “I intend to detach four battle squadrons from Home Fleet and take personal command, once the reinforcements are ready. My wife will remain on Earth, with full powers in my absence.”

  Lawrence Tully coughed. “Emperor...are you seriously planning to leave Earth?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am,” Marius said. “Do you require my constant supervision?”

  Tully looked irked. “With all due respect, Emperor, our new government is dependent upon you,” he warned. “You are the center of government. Your absence will weaken the framework we have been building over the past two years...”

  “Would you like a towel,” Marius interrupted, “to wipe my shit off your lips?”

  He stormed on before Tully could say a word. “This government is intended as a temporary measure,” he said. “I do not intend to remain emperor forever, Comptroller. The government should be capable of operating without me, at least for a few months.”

  “The civil service has been badly damaged by the war – the wars,” Tully said. His face had gone completely blank. “It may not survive your absence.”

  “Then make sure it does,” Marius said.

  He sighed, inwardly. Part of him knew it was stupid to leave Earth, but he wanted – he need
ed – a break from it all. The Grand Senators, fuck the lot of them, had had holiday worlds they could visit if they needed a vacation where their every whim was catered to by pleasure slaves. But the Grand Senators had had families who could take up the slack, if necessary. Marius only had Tiffany and, as much as he loved her, he had to admit that she lacked his experience in military affairs.

  And besides, it might be good to remind the Federation’s population of his military skills.

  “My wife will have full authority in my absence,” he said. “And I will be leaving some of you behind to advise her.”

  There was a long pause. It was finally broken by Professor Kratman.

  “This victory will certainly knock the Outsiders back,” he said. “It gives us an opportunity to gather ourselves and take some of the pressure off our industries. We could lower production demands and start fixing problems...”

  “Out of the question,” Marius said. He hadn’t forgotten the lessons of the Inheritance Wars and he was surprised that Kratman had. The Colonial Alliance had slowed production before the Battle of Athens, believing the Federation Navy was effectively stalemated. They’d been disastrously wrong. “We cannot afford to slow production until the war comes to an end.”

  The Professor met his eyes, reprovingly. “Then we will risk more disasters like the loss of AMP Thirty,” he said. “And each successive disaster will cause more disasters, more delays in production, more long-term headaches for the Federation.”

  Marius’s hand twitched. He wanted a pill. He wanted one desperately. But he couldn’t take one in front of his cabinet...

  “We will have time to breathe when we have won the war,” he said. “There can be no other threat on such a scale out there, can there?”

  There was no answer. But then, there didn’t need to be. No one had really understood the sheer scale of the Outsider threat until they’d attacked the Federation. If there was yet another hostile alien race out there, the Federation might have no warning until the shit hit the fan. And a third war would take the Federation apart at the seams.