Blake Raistlin had bragged, once, of dinners his family had held for their fellow Grand Senators. Roman had felt sick when he’d explained that half the food was wasted, wondering why anyone would indulge themselves so badly. He’d been raised to waste nothing, after all. But now, he thought he understood. It wasn’t about the food, it was a display of status, of demonstrating that they could afford to buy and waste the finest foodstuffs from all over the Federation. The emperor – or his protocol staff – were doing the same.
He felt sick at heart as the fifth course was served. Marius Drake had once eaten the same rations as his men, the same meals in the Wardroom as were served in the Mess. Now, he was stuffing himself with delicacies, along with his subordinates. And drinking so much Roman was mildly surprised he hadn’t fallen face-first into his plate. It wasn’t a good sign either.
By the time the dinner finally came to an end, Roman just wanted to get away.
“Check the shuttle for bugs,” he ordered, once they had disengaged from Thunderbird. He’d decided to fly the craft himself, rather than risk having a third pair of ears in the shuttle. Elf had raised her eyebrows when he’d asked her to bring her security kit with her, but she’d done as she was told. “See if we’re safe to talk here.”
“It looks safe,” Elf said, after sweeping the shuttle. “I can set up a jammer too, if you want.”
Roman shrugged. The jammer would probably disrupt the shuttle’s control systems too.
“You saw the emperor,” he said. “What did you make of him?”
“Someone on the edge,” Elf said. “Why?”
“He’s not the man he used to be,” Roman said. He’d already told her about his meeting with the emperor, then Professor Kratman. The professor himself had not been in evidence at the dinner, somewhat to Roman’s surprise. It might have been a long time since Kratman had served as a commanding officer, but he was still permitted entry to the wardroom. “And I don’t know what to do.”
He sighed. Federation Navy regulations admitted of only one way to remove a commanding officer who was showing signs of instability. The ship’s doctor had to conduct an exam, then – if he or she thought the captain was not in a fit state to command – relieve him of duty, at least until higher authority had a chance to take a look at him. It was rarely used in practice, Roman knew; there had to be very strong reasons for believing the captain unfit, as the Admiralty frowned on anything that weakened the captain’s authority over his ship.
And there were no grounds for removing an admiral – or an emperor – at all.
He considered the problem as he guided the shuttle back to Valiant. The standard procedure if there were grounds for concern was to send a message to Earth, detailing the complaint and requesting permission to relieve the commanding officer. Offhand, Roman couldn’t recall if any of those complaints had been heeded. The Admiralty might have taken a dim view of subordinates relieving captains, but they positively hated the idea of anyone questioning admirals. In this case, the message would go to Emperor Marius or whoever he’d put in command of the Admiralty on Earth. There was no chance he’d receive permission to do anything more than stand in front of a Board of Inquiry.
The only other way to handle the problem was to call a Captain’s Board. If there was no way to contact the Admiralty – which had happened, more than once, during the Inheritance Wars – the senior captains could pass judgement on their superior. But careers had been wrecked through participating in such a meeting, even if the admiral had been cleared. The Admiralty had always taken a dim view of such proceedings, technically legal or not.
Elf nudged him. “I think you’d be better off trying to counsel him,” she said. “This might be a holiday for him.”
“We’re splitting up tomorrow,” Roman reminded her. He wondered, suddenly, if the idea of splitting the fleet had been the emperor’s – or had it come from one of his subordinates? Had someone wanted to minimise Roman’s influence over the emperor? “There won’t be time to talk to him.”
He docked the shuttle at the hatch, then passed through the security scan and walked into the ship. A Midshipman manning the desk jumped, then hastily got to his feet and saluted. Roman concealed his amusement – he’d had boring duties too, when he’d been a midshipman – and returned the salute. The young man’s hand twitched towards his communicator, ready to call the captain and inform him that the admiral had returned, before he caught himself. Roman nodded politely to him, then stepped through the hatch. It was technically against regulations for anyone to report the admiral’s progress, but one sign of a happy ship was officers willing to skirt that regulation for a decent commander.
They said nothing else until they were in his cabin. Elf ran another security sweep as Roman poured them both glasses of water, then swallowed a sober-up pill. The effects, as always, left him feeling a little queasy, but sober. He’d drunk more than he cared to admit at the dinner.
Better to call it a feast, he thought, morbidly.
“Interesting,” Elf said. “I found two bugs; audio and visual.”
Roman felt cold ice running down the back of his neck. “Where?”
Elf pointed towards the light fitting. “Not a good place to hide them,” she noted, dispassionately. “Anyone with real experience of warships would know better than to put them somewhere they could interfere with the datanodes. And they definitely weren’t there yesterday.”
Roman watched as she removed both of the bugs, then glanced around to see what the bugs would have seen. One of them would have monitored the bed; the other would have monitored his desk, although he rarely worked in the cabin. He felt a sudden flush as he realized the bugs would have recorded their nightly activities, then a wave of anger so strong it shocked him. Who would dare to bug his quarters?
“Amateurs,” Elf said. She dropped the remains of the bugs into a secure box, then stuck it in her uniform jacket. “There’s a reason Marines tend to do surveillance and counter-surveillance duties onboard ship. These bugs would have triggered the alarms as soon as they started to signal, I think. They should have stuck them somewhere else.”
“But who?” Roman asked. “And why?”
“Who? Probably the emperor’s security staff,” Elf said. Only someone who knew her well would have heard the anger in her voice. “And why? They may have wanted to keep an eye on you. I’ll have your office swept too, I think. Routine bug sweeps are part of our work, in any case. Damned fools didn’t even know it.”
Roman nodded. The Outsiders had shown themselves to be quite inventive when it came to sneaking bugs onto starships. A handful of subverted officers had done more damage than a thousand long-range sensor probes. But they’d all been caught, in the end; he’d just kept the sweeps going as a matter of routine. Emperor Marius would have known it, too. Oddly, it was the one hopeful sign. Whoever had placed the bugs hadn’t discussed it with the emperor first.
“Bastards,” he snarled. He had hoped to spend the night in bed with her. Instead, they would have to talk and plan instead of sleeping together. “What the hell do we do now?”
“You try to talk to the emperor,” Elf said. She paused. “It’s all you can do, for the moment.”
“Very well,” Roman said. Kratman had been right. Some of the emperor’s subordinates were acting without his permission, but using his authority. God alone knew where it would end. “But I don’t know what else to do.”
“Consider the worst case first,” Elf advised. She tapped the bed, firmly. “But do it tomorrow morning. You’re in no fit state to think and plan now.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The only way to make a complex plan work is to break it down to as many simple pieces as possible.
-The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199
Spinner/Nova Athena, 4101
“Captain,” Lieutenant Regis said. “I’m picking up activity near the Asimov Point.”
Captain Teresa Robbins nodded, unsurprised. The Asimov Point led directly
into the Boston System, where the ill-fated offensive had met its doom. She’d expected to see the Federation Navy sooner or later; indeed, she was surprised it had taken so long.
“Move us away,” she ordered. “Send an emergency signal to the platforms, then start downloading data into the drones. We may need to launch them soon.”
“Aye, Captain,” Regis said.
Teresa smiled, then turned her attention to the display. There was nothing unconventional about the assault on the Asimov Point; the Federation Navy had deployed the standard assault package of missile pods, small craft and gunboats, sweeping their way ruthlessly through the layers of mines placed around the Asimov Point. Hundreds of missiles died, but none of the smaller craft were harmed. Teresa cursed under her breath, yet she’d known – without fixed or mobile defenses – it was only a matter of time before the Asimov Point fell to an unimaginative attack.
Pity we didn’t have time to set up fortresses of our own, she thought. There had been plans to convert asteroids into fortresses, but the need to keep moving had put all such plans on the backburner. We might have been able to give them a very nasty surprise before they won.
The last of the mines flashed and died, leaving space clear. Moments later, the first flight of heavy cruisers appeared, sensors probing local space for possible threats. Teresa wished, bitterly, that she’d had something that could be used against them, but there was nothing. Instead, all she could do was watch as the heavy cruisers moved off the point, only to be followed by what looked like an endless tidal wave of superdreadnaughts and smaller ships. There was enough firepower entering the system, she saw, to crush almost any system between them and her homeworld. For the first time, she began to consider the possibility of defeat.
“Keep moving us back,” she ordered, as the Federation ships spread out. “And then send a signal to the platforms. The enemy is on its way.”
* * *
“Local space is clear, Admiral,” Lieutenant Thompson reported. “The enemy didn’t bother to try to cover the mines.”
Pity, Roman thought, although he wasn’t surprised. Given the disparity in firepower, any attempt to cover the mines could only have one outcome – and the Outsiders knew it as well as himself. They’d save their strength for the final battle.
“Raise the emperor,” he ordered. It felt strange to hold tactical command, but know there was a superior officer in a nearby ship. He wasn’t even sure why Emperor Marius had allowed him to retain command, unless it was a gesture of favor. “Inform him that we are ready to proceed with phase two.”
He took a moment to survey the display. The Spinner System had been classed as useless until two new Asimov Points had been discovered, both leading further into the Rim. There were no gas giants and only one reasonably-sized world, a rocky planet that bore more resemblance to Mars than Earth. It was inhabited by a religious sect that wanted to keep itself to itself and took no interest in the affairs of the Federation. Given how useless their homeworld was, the Grand Senate hadn’t bothered to press the issue. Roman found it hard to blame them.
The Outsiders hadn’t done much, either. There were a handful of radio sources near the Asimov Points, but nothing else. They hadn’t attempted to mine the asteroids, set up industrial nodes or anything else that might have benefited the system in the long run. But then, there had been no point. Spinner was simply too close to the front to be given anything, save for a handful of limited defenses.
“Launch two probes towards the planet,” Roman ordered. “We may as well...”
“Signal from Thunderbird,” Lieutenant Thompson interrupted. “The emperor is ordering you to proceed with phase two.”
Roman nodded. He didn’t like the idea of splitting the fleet, even if there was something to be said for preserving his formation from the sycophants infesting the other formation. The amount of crawling they’d done as he fought to get the fleet ready for departure had been staggering. Why couldn’t the emperor have picked crawlers who were actually competent?
“Signal the fleet,” Roman ordered. “Phase two begins...now.”
* * *
“They’re splitting their fleet,” Lieutenant Regis said.
“It looks that way,” Teresa said. Five battle squadrons were heading towards Point Beta, while six more were proceeding towards Point Charlie. Each of them had more than enough firepower to blow through anything they were likely to encounter in the nearest systems. “Send an update to the platforms, then bring us about and set course for Point Charlie.”
“Aye, Captain,” Lieutenant Higgins said. He paused. “Where do you think they’re going?”
Teresa felt her lips thin. Informality was not something she encouraged on her command deck, even when the crew members were largely reservists from merchant ships.
“I think they’re heading for the Rim,” she said. There were several possible targets, some more likely than others. “Right now, they can go pretty much wherever they want to go.”
* * *
Marius settled back in his command chair as Task Force 5.2 started its long trek towards Asimov Point Beta. There was nothing in the system worth his attention, so he pulled up the files and started to read through the survey reports from the probes Admiral Garibaldi had sent out after the Battle of Boston. The first serious problem would come when his ships punched their way into the Von Doom System. There were a handful of captured fortresses there, according to the scouts.
He pushed his concerns aside as he relaxed. This – command of a fleet, where everyone knew their place and did as they were told – was what he was born to do. There were no pettifogging bureaucrats trying to tell him what to do, no whiners coming up with nothing but excuses; hell, the political commissioners the Grand Senate had appointed were gone too. He could sit back and issue orders, in the certain knowledge they would be obeyed. It was nothing like being emperor on Earth.
“Sir,” Commander Ginny Lewis said, breaking into his thoughts. “Our drones are reporting a complete absence of defenses at Point Beta.”
“Lucky for us,” Marius said. He smiled again, brightly. There had been no defenses in the Spinner System prior to the war and the Outsiders, it seemed, hadn’t had time to do more than fortify Point Alpha. “Launch a flight of sensor probes, just in case, then detail half of them to head through Point Beta.”
Commander Lewis frowned. “Wouldn’t that reveal our presence?”
“They are unlikely to be in any doubt of our presence,” Marius pointed out. There had been no starships detected within the system, but he would have been astonished if there wasn’t a cloaked picket somewhere nearby, watching their every move. As long as her commander was careful, there was no real chance of being detected. “And besides, we want them to know we’re coming. It might encourage them to surrender.”
He rubbed his hands together with glee as he settled back in his chair. This was precisely what he’d wanted. Why the hell hadn’t he stuck someone else in the emperor’s chair on Earth and retained command of a fleet for himself? But who could he have trusted with so much power? The only people he thought wouldn’t be corrupted by it were too young or too innocent...like Garibaldi.
The thought made him sigh. Garibaldi was young...too young, really, for his post. But he’d done well...and besides, there were few other candidates with the skill he actually trusted. And yet, he was naive in some ways, despite his girlfriend’s constant presence. Too naive, perhaps...
Marius understood – God, he understood – why someone would want to treat POWs in line with the conventions, even if they weren’t precisely legal combatants. It was the decent thing to do. But sentiment had no place in a war. They couldn’t afford to let their feelings distract them from finding the most effective way to smash the enemy flat, whatever the cost. He would arrange for the POWs to be treated well, or as well as possible, but he wouldn’t shrink from doing whatever had to be done to get intelligence out of their heads. The sooner they knew where to find the Outsider base
s, the better...
And there was a voice. “Emperor...Emperor?”
Marius jerked upwards. Had he fallen asleep on the command deck? Midshipmen had been busted all the way down to the bottom for falling asleep on duty, if their commanding officer hadn’t taken the semi-legal step of sending them to box with the Marines. And his head was throbbing and...
He paused, confused. When had his head started to hurt?
“I’m calling the doctor,” the woman’s voice said. It took Marius a moment to remember she was Commander Lewis. “I...”
“Don’t,” Marius croaked. He forced himself to sit upright, then reached for the pills he’d stuffed in his uniform pouch. They were alone, at least. Thank heaven for small mercies. “Don’t mention a word to anyone.”
“But sir...”
“I said don’t mention a word to anyone,” Marius roared. The mere effort of shouting left him badly drained. It was all he could do to swallow two pills, without slumping back in his chair. The compartment seemed dimmer, somehow. “There’s nothing they can do for me.”
Commander Lewis looked pale, but determined. “What...what can I do to help?”
Marius could think of one answer to that – he’d felt much better since Tiffany had made love to him – but refused to say it out loud. “Just say nothing about it, to anyone,” he said. If he was lucky, no one else would ever know about the attack. “I mean it. Don’t say a word.”
He forced himself to stand, cursing his wobbly legs. Normally, any officer who’d suffered...whatever the hell it was he’d suffered...would be relieved of duty by the ship’s doctor. Part of Marius would even have welcomed it. But who could relieve an emperor?
The Shadow of Cincinnatus Page 36
