Somehow, Kendric slugged the shame and the sickness back into the pit of his stomach with a grim and icy determination. The thought that he had been following orders rose, and he smashed that thought back as well. That was no excuse, but the the planetary defense complex was a legitimate military target. If the rebels had been careless enough or stupid enough to allow their families to live at the base, it was their own responsibility...
Nonsense. He, Kendric, had done the thing, and he would have to live with it.
"Are you all right, youngster?"
"Yes...yes, sir."
"You look pale. Are you well?"
"I am well...Admiral." He hoped that he would not suddenly get sick on the Admiral's carpet.
"Very well, Fraser. Return to your ship, and await my further orders." He gestured around the office. "We're almost done here."
Twenty-five thousand people. Fifteen thousand of them non-com-batants. Women and children. Old people.
"Good day."
It was a clear dismissal. "Aye aye, Admiral. Ave, Imperator!" Hail,
Commander.. .and how was he to live with himself now? Kendric turned on his heel and strode from the room. He managed to control himself until he reached a restroom elsewhere in the building. There he was violently and wrenchingly sick.
Ave, Fraser.. .Murderer!
Trothas will be an example to every sentient being in the Galaxy... —Excerpt from VLCA Transmission by Overlord Magnan Domi-tius Gracchi to Vice Admiral Graffen, Trothan Punitive Expedition, 9 Aug 6830, A.I.
The Imperial fleet was gathering.
Five days had passed since Kendric's interview with Vice Admiral Graffen, and in that time, the thousand-ship combined Imperial fleet had closed in, tightening its grip upon Trothas V.
Those rebel ships that had not escaped with the KessRith fleet immediately after the battle were boarded and escorted back to Trothas orbit under the guns of TOG warships. Their crews were shipped down to Trothas's capital while the few rebel leaders that could be found were taken aboard one or another of the mountain-sized Imperial dreadnoughts slowly circling in high orbit above the conquered world.
The leaders of Trothas's counterrevolution had, meanwhile, begun to rebuild their world.
Overlord Magnan Domitius Gracchi stood on the railed walkway above the bridge of Vice Admiral Graffen's flagship, the Imperatrix. Below him, the 200 men and women of Graffen's bridge crew worked at their consoles, struggling, Gracchi thought with an inner smile, to ignore his presence above them. Gracchi's red cloak swirled as he paced the walkway, the gold traceries along the hem catching the overhead lighting like a shower of sparks. Viewscreens lined both the narrow, forward bulkheads and the two long, slightly curved bulkheads to port and starboard. Trothas was visible as a slender white crescent to starboard. In all directions around the Imperatrix, for thousands of kilometers into space, the ships of the Combined TOG Imperial Fleet awaited his orders.
Overlord Gracchi was not entirely happy. The operation had gone well enough, bringing victory at surprisingly little cost to the fleet. But the utter collapse of the rebellion and the surrender of the planet had not been part of the original plan! Nor had matters concerning Severno and Fraser the Alban gone according to plan. Indeed, it had been the failure of the one, minor plan that had caused the second, greater one to fail, an irony that did not escape Gracchi. If Severno had lived, he would have carried out his role in the plan. That would have prevented Fraser from causing the precipitous collapse of the KessRith fleet, which led to the surrender of Trothas V! That double setback could prove difficult to overcome. One did not lightly tarnish the image of a genuine hero, not, at least, while the man still lived.
Vice Admiral Graffen stepped up behind Gracchi, interrupting his thoughts.
"All of our people are off the planet, Overlord," Graffen said. "At your command. The last of our shuttles reached orbit a few minutes ago."
"Very well. Tell your Communications Officer that I will address the combined fleet. Inform me when the communications net is open and ready."
"Yes, Overlord."
Gracchi turned back to face the Imperatrix's array of bridge screens and the massed might of the Terran fleet. It was barely possible that something could yet be salvaged from the situation. To do that would mean having to rely on a provincial, which deeply displeased the Overlord. To make it worse, Navarchos Fraser was proving to be most unpredictable in his actions.
Commander Morganen stood by the railing next to Kendric's station, overlooking the Well of the bridge. He was worried. It had been his duty to assemble the entries from Commodore Severno's personal log as part of a final report on the Gael Squadron's role in the Battle of Trothas V. He could still remember the coldness, the tremor in his hands, as he'd opened the dead Commodore's log file and seen there the condemnation of Navarchos Kendric Fraser.
Fraser is insubordinate, disobedient, and disloyal, the report said. I have ordered him relieved of command, order pending the close of this action. The log had gone on to give specifics on how the battleship's Interceptor group had been given orders to screen the squadron ahead and how Kendric had changed those orders without authority. That alone would have been enough to have Kendric brought up on half a dozen counts at a general court-martial.
Morganen still did not understand his own actions entirely. When he saw the damning report there on the screen for the first time, he found himself siding fully with the man he had always thought of as "the one who took Cara away." Was it simply because he had seen Fraser lead the squadron so competently in the battle? Or was there some deeper force at work, a sense that, after all, they shared the same culture, the same homeworld, in a universe that was often hostile to them both?
Morganen had touched the key that would purge the Commodore's files. When he later delivered his final report, he explained that a power surge and systems failure on the Flag Bridge had resulted in the complete destruction of all computer records, including the Commodore's log. So far, no one had questioned that explanation, though Kendric had given Morganen a strange look when he heard that the Commodore's log was lost. The special computer files that stored such records were supposed to be able to survive even the destruction of the ship.
This whole experience had given Morganen a new view of himself, too. As much as he had always hated the Imperials, this was the first time he had ever acted against them directly. It made him feel proud, in a way, though he dreaded what would happen if anyone ever discovered his deed. The Imperials might even assume that Kendric had put Morganen up to it, and bring charges against him.
Damn the Imperials, anyway! What would happen next?
"Message incoming," Munro said from the Warrior's communications console. He looked up in surprise, his eyes meeting Kendric's from across the bridge. "Overlord Gracchi, Captain, aboard the Im-peratrix. He's making a general broadcast to the Combined Fleet."
Kendric stirred in the command chair. He had said and done little since his return to the Gael Warrior days before. Trothas V and her slain thousands still weighed with a dull heaviness on his soul. "Pipe it over intraship," he said at last.
He sensed Lenard Morganen at his side and looked up. The expression on the face of the Warrior's Exec was worried.
"Problem, Number One?"
Morganen looked as though he were about to say something, then changed his mind. He shook his head in a short, sharp negative. "No, Captain." The Exec's eyes strayed up to the bridge viewer. The arrayed fleet was displayed in hundreds of computer images, color-coded by squadron and unit designation, with identifiers tagging each. It looked as though the fleet were on parade against the brilliant blue and white backdrop of Trothas.
"Men of the Combined TOG Imperial Fleet!" Overlord Gracchi's voice was as heavy as the weight on Kendric's soul, and as dark. Kendric shivered at the touch of a chill along his spine. "Your valiant effort has broken the back of the Trothas Rebellion! Well done!
"One thing more remains, however. The source o
f this cancer of rebellion within our Galaxy must be excised, must be burned out at its source!"
Kendric exchanged glances with Morganen. Was the Overlord proposing that they go after the KessRith? It seemed obvious that the centauroids were somehow responsible for what had happened on Trothas.
"I call upon the loyal men and women of the Combined Fleet," Gracchi's voice went on. "As I speak, the last of our people have returned to our fleet here in orbit. At precisely 1700 hours, Fleet Standard Time, the Combined Fleet will turn its weapons upon the rebel world and utterly destroy it.
"All Fleet Weapons Officers will key their boards open. The Imperatrix will download target and acquisition data to individual fire control computers, effective immediately."
At the fire control consoles below and in front of him, Kendric saw Lee Fairfax turn and look up at him, eyes wide with mingled horror and uncertainty. Voices raised from around the bridge, some loud enough that Kendric could make out individual statements.
"They can't do that!"
"I thought the rebels had surrendered!"
"Hey, what about the Trothans who put the rebellion down! They can't have evacuated all them!"
"Silence on the bridge!"Kendric rapped out the order, then stopped in the sudden silence, completely at a loss for further words. What could he tell these men, his crew...his countrymen? That they were horrified at the order to blast a populated world into oblivion was obvious in the expression on every face. Kendric tried not to keep his own expression from revealing the further shock to his soul that the responsibility for carrying out that order would be his own.
Munro broke the silence first. "Captain! I'm getting heavy traffic from the other ships in our squadron. They want confirmation of that last order. Some of them are requesting permission to withdraw from the line."
Kendric touched his throat mike. "Tell them all to hold, Alec. Wait for my order."
His thoughts whirled. His first concern had been for his own crew, and the crews of the Gael Squadron, but the more immediate problem pushed those worries aside almost at once. What was he to do? He was still wrestling with the overwhelming guilt of having been the one responsible for killing thousands of noncombatants. Now, this Terran Overlord was demanding that he and his people take part in the massacre of millions more. Millions!
Kendric touched a control on his console that linked his main display screen to the FCO board. Words and numbers scrolled there as the Imperatrix dumped target data into the Gael Warrior's fire control computers. His eyes narrowed as he translated numbers into images. Nuclear strikes would transform every city, every major population center into radioactive slag. Each ship in the fleet was to contribute to the bombardment, thousands of main weapons and primary batteries combining to generate an unstoppable torrent of energy that would boil Trothas V's seas, set fire to every shred of vegetation, transform its very atmosphere into superheated gases blasting out into space. It was estimated that a fourteen-hour bombardment would be sufficient to reduce Trothas V to a sterile desert and that a two-day bombardment would turn it into an airless, waterless, red-glowing cinder.
The thing had been done before. At the Academy, Kendric had learned of similar cases. General Ivanolo Buntari—later Caesar Bun-tari—had been forced to destroy Durmella as part of his successful campaign against the KessRith Empire. There were times when such drastic measures were necessary.
But why was it necessary here, now? Trothas V had surrendered! It was under the control of people loyal to TOG, people who had fought and died to defeat the rebels and restore the loyalist planetary government!
To question a commanding officer's orders was not merely a breach of military courtesy, it was wrong...and irresponsible. An Imperial Naval officer had to assume that those who commanded him knew more about the bigger picture than he did, that they had facts and figures at their command that were beyond the scope of a mere ship Captain, or Squadron Commander. When that commanding officer was an Overlord of TOG, to question those orders changed from being irresponsible to treasonous. An Overlord was the personal representative of Caesar himself. Not even Fleet Admirals were above his law!
Yet to destroy a world, and all of its hundreds of millions of inhabitants for no reason.. .What crime could possibly justify such destruction? To reduce an entire planet to ashes, to murder on a planetary scale when the planet had already surrendered and was lying open and helpless against the guns of the fleet...that was monstrous...inconceivable. It was also diametrically opposed to Kendric' s understanding of the Terran Overlord Government and what it stood for.
He glanced at a chronometer reading on his console. Scarcely fifteen minutes remained before the final order would be given to fire. On the main bridge viewer, the colored lights and symbols were already beginning to rearrange themselves in anticipation of the attack on the planet below.
"Comm. Open a line to the Imperatrix. Request a conference channel with Overlord Gracchi."
"Aye, sir."
"Route it through my console only."
"Aye, Captain."
Minutes crawled, with no word from the Imperial flagship. What was he to do? What could he do? To refuse the Overlord's orders was treason. To do so on behalf of his ship and squadron made the officers and crews of the Gael Warrior and every ship in his squadron liable for treason as well.
But to obey...
Trothas V turned beneath the keels of the fleet in peaceful, blue-white splendor. Alec Munro reported normal radio traffic on the surface. They didn' t know! Their world was moments away from being transformed into a lifeless cinder, and they didn't know!
Could he send them a message? Kendric had to quickly dismiss the thought. What good would that do? Trothas V no longer had a fleet, no longer had a single functional surface-to-orbit missile. The world was helpless, and nothing Kendric could do would change that.
What then? Attack the fleet? As that thought tugged at the edge of his consciousness, it appalled him. For years, he had thought of himself as an Imperial officer. Was the veneer of a loyal warrior in the service of Caesar Julianus so thin? Perhaps the gibes and insults about newpies and provincials were well-founded after all. Besides, it was ridiculous to think that ten ships could accomplish anything in an attack on a thousand.
Well then, attack the Imperatrix! Perhaps the fleet could be thrown into disarray...
Kendric brought both his hands to his face, pressing them against his eyes. His eyes burned, as though he were close to tears, and his breathing was coming in short, shallow gulps. Attacking his own ships was no answer, even if such a farfetched attempt could succeed. Kendric brought his hands down and held them open in his lap as he stared at them. With stunning clarity, he realized that he was as helpless as the world full of people below them. There was nothing he could do to prevent the murder of those people. He could only decide whether to participate in the horror or to refuse the order, thereby condemning himself and his people to become traitors.
His display gave a warning bleep, then coalesced into the lean, dry features of Overlord Gracchi.
"What is it, Alban? I haven't much time."
"My...my Lord," Kendric began uncertainly. What was he going to say? "I must...I must respectfully decline your order to fire on Trothas V."
Kendric was not sure what response his words would raise in the Overlord—anger, bluster, or bored indifference. What he did not expect was the sharp glitter in Gracchi's eye, or the way he leaned closer to the screen. "Tell me more, Captain," the Admiral said.
"My Lord, Trothas V has surrendered! The rebellion has been put down, the rebel leaders overthrown by loyalist Trothans. You can't... you can't possibly mean to burn them and their world! It's not right!"
"You have a curious notion of the word 'right,' provincial," Gracchi said. "Are you aware that my word carries with it the authority of Caesar himself?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"I order you and your squadron to obey my command and to join in the attack as ordered."
"My Lord, are you recording this conversation?"
"You can count on that, Alban."
"Then I wish to state, for the record, that I must refuse your order to join in the attack on Trothas V. I take full responsibility for this decision and do state, for the record, that the men under my command had no part in making this decision. I am ordering them not to join in
the attack..."
The Overlord appeared to consider this. "Their liability will be determined at a court-martial, Alban. At your court-martial. Put your First Officer on."
Lenard Morganen stepped forward at Kendric' s signal. As Kendric rose to let him sit in the command chair, he took Morganen's elbow and whispered in the man's ear, just beyond the pick-up range of the console's comm monitor lens. "Whatever he tells you, agree! Don't worry...just do what he tells you!"
Morganen sat in the command chair and leaned toward the communications display, obviously confused. He had heard nothing of Kendric's conversation with the Overlord.
"You are the Gael Warrior's Executive Officer?" Gracchi demanded.
"Yes, my Lord. Pluiarchos Lenard Morganen, ad tuum impera-tum."
"For deliberate and willful disobedience of lawful orders issued in the name of Caesar Julianus by Caesar's personal representative, Navarchos Fraser is hereby immediately relieved of his command. Pluiarchos Morganen, I direct you to take command of both the Imperial battleship Gael Warrior, and of the Gael Cluster Squadron. Kendric Fraser is to be placed under close arrest immediately and held over for court-martial at my convenience. You will give the orders personally to deploy your squadron for its part in the attack on Trothas V, as ordered."
William Keith Renegades Honor Page 13
