Debt of War (The Embers of War)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  TYRE

  “You wanted to see me?” Peter raised his eyebrows as William was shown into his office. “That’s unusual.”

  William didn’t have the grace to look embarrassed. Peter found it hard to care. He had too many subordinates who couldn’t be relied upon to do anything without receiving written orders in triplicate and then having their hands held throughout the entire process. Peter didn’t have the time to micromanage one subordinate, let alone the millions who reported directly or indirectly to him. And he certainly didn’t have time to educate himself in matters outside his direct control; better to have reliable subordinates who could be trusted to handle things for themselves.

  “Yes, Your Grace.” William took the chair he was offered and rested his hands in his lap. “I wanted to discuss a potential . . . option . . . with you, one that cannot be discussed with anyone else.”

  “A potential option?” Peter felt a flicker of concern. “And one I have to keep to myself?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” William met his eyes. “If anyone gets wind of this before we try to do it, the plan won’t work.”

  Peter frowned. “And you want me to keep it from the rest of the council,” he said. He’d already spent far too long reassuring Israel Harrison that he hadn’t been deliberately excluded from the last meeting, although that wasn’t entirely true. He certainly didn’t want to risk Harrison discovering the truth about the king until matters were well in hand. “I think you’d better explain.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” William said. “I’ll be blunt. Kat doesn’t know the king ordered her father killed. She wouldn’t have gone along with him if she did.”

  “No.” Peter regarded his youngest sister with curiously mixed emotions. He’d been a grown man when Kat had been born and they’d never had a stable relationship, but he was sure Kat wouldn’t have gone along with a plot to murder their father. Kat had always been Duke Lucas’s favorite, although he’d hidden it well. “And you propose to tell her?”

  He smiled, humorlessly. “I thought you were the one who pointed out that it would be positioned as a smear campaign.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” William nodded. “If we made the allegations public, they would be treated as a smear campaign. Kat would have every reason to disbelieve the charges. She simply wouldn’t want to accept that she sided with the man who killed her father. And if we made our discovery public, it would be impossible to prove that we’re telling the truth. It isn’t as if we managed to capture the assassins, or secured footage of the king ordering the hit and cackling.”

  “No.” Peter ignored the forced levity. “And what do you have in mind?”

  “A covert approach,” William said. “We arrange a meeting—a face-to-face meeting—between Kat and myself. I tell her the truth, in a manner that will make it harder for her to simply dismiss.”

  Peter studied him for a long moment. “I don’t think the king will let you meet her,” he said quietly. “Not once the news broadcasts start hitting the StarCom network. He has to be aware of what else could have fallen into our hands.”

  “No.” William looked back at him evenly. “My brother has been opening lines of communication to the king as a smuggler with much to offer. I thought I’d ask him to take the message, then see what we could work out. Kat would have problems slipping away . . . on Caledonia, at least. We’d have to figure out the details, Your Grace, but the basic idea is sound.”

  “And we haven’t impeded your brother, because . . .” Peter lifted his eyebrows. “Is there a reason?”

  “He did useful work for us, during the war,” William said. “And he’s been trying to go legit, something that hasn’t been easy since the war came to an end. And the spooks figured it might be useful to have a pipeline into the king’s circles if we needed to mount a covert operation or two. The time is now.”

  Peter looked down at the desk. “Family ties always make things complicated, don’t they?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” William said. “But, in the end, family should always be there for you.”

  “Hah,” Peter muttered. His younger sisters ranged from very competent and helpful to wastrels who seemed to be doing their level best to exhaust their trust funds. And an outright traitor, if one counted Kat. It was a minor miracle his uncles and aunts hadn’t tried to force him to disown Kat completely. But they were looking to the future. If the king won, Kat would have to plead her family’s case to him. “Did your brother look out for you?”

  “He did, sometimes,” William said. “We didn’t have an easy childhood.”

  “I read your file,” Peter said. William hadn’t had a remotely easy childhood. He’d lost his parents at a young age, and everything had gone downhill until he’d joined the navy. “I’ll have to read his before I sign off on anything.”

  “Quite.” William nodded. “I do understand.”

  Peter met his eyes. “Tell me,” he said. “Suppose you do meet. Suppose you do convince her that the king is a murderer. What then?”

  “It depends.” William didn’t try to lie or dissemble. “She might simply surrender rather easily, the next time her fleet meets ours. And that would weaken Hadrian to the point we can end the war within the week. Or she might smuggle troops to Caledonia, ensuring they get a clear shot at the king. Or . . . there are a multitude of options, Your Grace. They depend pretty much on her.”

  “And then we’d have to decide how best to put an end to the war,” Peter mused. He’d already started putting out covert feelers to the colonials, but it would be a while before he received any results. Changing sides was always a tricky business. Anyone who wanted to do it had to make sure they jumped when their former side couldn’t harm them any longer, yet, at the same time, ensure they were still useful to their new side. “Or is that getting a bit ahead of ourselves?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” William said. “Right now, the plan is just a plan. It might misfire completely.”

  “Yeah.” Peter considered the strategy for a moment. Kat wouldn’t deliberately lure William into a trap, he thought, but the king would do it in a heartbeat. Worse, perhaps, he might seek to kill William, and Kat, if he suspected the true purpose of the mission. His sister might be branded a martyr who’d given her life for the king. The thought made Peter want to retch, but it couldn’t be denied. Hadrian would turn on Kat if he thought she was a danger to him. “And everything you know might fall into their hands.”

  “I know the risks,” William said. “And I’ll deal with them.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Peter said. “But I have to plan for the worst.”

  He kept his thoughts to himself as he pulled up the file and scanned it. William wasn’t that important, not in the grand scheme of things. He was a competent officer, true, but that wasn’t unique. A dozen other officers were already being marked and groomed for future greatness. They had the disadvantage of having families that would press their case, for better or worse, but . . . perhaps their advantages outweighed their disadvantages. Still, he wasn’t sure what would happen if William fell into enemy hands. A little conditioning and he’d make speeches condemning the House of Lords and praising the king . . .

  Kat would know there was something wrong with him, Peter told himself. And she’d do something about it . . . wouldn’t she?

  He shivered. Perhaps Kat would do something about it. There were limits to what one could rationalize away. Kat wasn’t the sort who’d accept a friend being brainwashed and turned into a propaganda tool. But the king would be laying the groundwork to deal with her if she turned into a problem. Kat was a naval officer, not a politician. She wouldn’t expect a knife in the back. If she hadn’t suspected the king had murdered her father . . .

  “None of us did,” Peter muttered. “It was blamed on the Theocracy.”

  William blinked. “Your Grace?”

  “Just woolgathering,” Peter said. He cleared his throat. “You have my permission, my verbal permission, to attempt to open a line of commun
ication and arrange a covert meeting with my sister. However”—he held up a hand—“I want you to make certain there are no records of the meeting, and I expect you to make very sure you don’t fall into enemy hands. Take a suicide implant and be ready to use it.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” William didn’t flinch. Peter supposed the naval officer was used to the prospect of death. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Take all possible precautions,” Peter said. “And . . . if you see a chance to kidnap her, take it.”

  William shook his head. “She’d see it coming,” he said. “And that would destroy all hope of getting through to her. Of having her work on our behalf.”

  “There are ways to get around any precautions,” Peter pointed out. His voice hardened. “And taking her off the board would be very useful.”

  “Perhaps,” William said. “Though we’d be unable to have her to take out the king.”

  Peter let out a breath. “Do as you see fit,” he said. “Bear in mind that she is the best he has.”

  “That may be true,” William said. “But she’s a double-edged sword in the right hands.”

  “True.” Peter met his eyes. “Good luck.”

  William looked back at him. “I can’t promise results, Your Grace. But we can at least try.”

  Peter glanced at the terminal. “I know,” he said. “Like I said, good luck.”

  William was mildly surprised Duke Peter had accepted his proposal without a real argument. The risks were considerable, perhaps more than the civilian duke realized. William liked to think he was prepared to commit suicide if there was a reasonable chance of falling into enemy hands, but he’d been raised to consider suicide a mortal sin. He knew he might hesitate before triggering the implant, he knew he might be stunned before he got over his hesitation and did his duty . . . Kat wouldn’t betray him willingly, he was sure, but the king wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of the meeting if he caught wind of it.

  He kept his face under tight control as Yasmeena, the duke’s secretary, led him through a maze of corridors and up the stairs to the rooftop landing pad. His shuttle was waiting there, looking oddly fragile against the roof-mounted tractor beam projectors and heavy weapons emplacements. The entire city was bristling with weapons, despite the simple fact the king couldn’t mount an all-out attack unless he took down the PDCs and their shield generators first. William peered at the giant complex in the distance. Planetary Defense had gone through its personnel with a fine-toothed comb, rooting out anyone who looked even remotely suspicious, but it was impossible to be sure there was no one with ties to the king. The king had had access to all files and records, enough to make sure that his people looked perfectly legitimate. Hell, they were legitimate. Their paperwork could pass for legitimate paperwork because, in one sense, that was exactly what it was. It would be tricky, very tricky, to poke holes in their stories.

  The hatch opened as he approached, his pilot already powering up the drives. William took his seat, trying to ignore the way his datapad was blinking alerts. There was never any shortage of work that required his personal attention, even though he had more staff officers than he knew what to do with. Half of them couldn’t be employed elsewhere. The remainder knew their work, but . . . He shook his head. Admiral Greg Kalian’s empire building had left a baleful legacy. It didn’t help that William’s staff officers were fairly sure he wouldn’t be sticking around after the war.

  Which might well be true, he mused. He loved the navy life to the point he still kicked himself for leaving after the Theocratic War. Perhaps things would have been different if he’d stayed in the navy. But he’d lost two starships under his command, and that looked bad on anyone’s record. They might not want to keep me when the missiles stop flying.

  He leaned back in his seat as the shuttle climbed into the air. A pair of armored flyers fell into position beside them, providing an escort that was more appearance than substance. The civilians might be awed—or intimidated—by the paramilitary aircraft flying over their city, but William knew better. A handful of HVMs would be enough to clear the skies, wiping out the police flyers before they knew they were under attack. He scowled as he realized, not for the first time, what Duke Lucas’s final moments must have been like. The duke had probably had just enough time to realize he was under attack before being blown to atoms. Maybe he’d been lucky. Maybe death had come too quickly for him to know he was doomed. And then . . .

  William forced himself to relax as the shuttle banked over the city, following a preauthorized flight path that would eventually take them into orbit. The city looked as pretty as ever from high overhead, but he knew that a sizable majority of the population had either left or was trying to leave. They were fortunate, he supposed, that the city wasn’t that large. And yet . . . He shook his head. Tyre wasn’t ready for all-out war. The citizens were lucky the king wasn’t gambling everything on a desperate invasion.

  He might still have people on the ground, William warned himself. And they could be a real threat, if they came out of hiding at the right time.

  The shuttle rose into space, heading straight for William’s flagship. The massive superdreadnought slowly came into view, the hammerhead hull bristling with weapons, looking completely unstoppable. William knew better. The superdreadnought was heavily armored, but even she could be destroyed. In theory, no one would be able to pick the command ship out of the fleet; in practice, Kat and the king might already know where to aim their missiles. God alone knew how many people were spying for the king. William was morbidly certain the counterintelligence sweeps hadn’t netted all of them.

  And the king was smart enough to keep some of his clients concealed from the others, William thought. If the king had patronized, in all senses of the word, Admiral Morrison, he could easily have built up a covert network of clients. In hindsight, it was the sort of thing no one would have thought to look for. The patronage system was so deeply embedded right across the Commonwealth, with patrons drawing their power from the number of clients under their control, that no one would seek to conceal their clients. But the king had, and, William admitted, the move had paid off for him. Clever murdering bastard.

  “Admiral.” Commander Tom Thomas met him at the airlock. “I have the latest set of reports for you.”

  “Forward them to my terminal,” William ordered. Commander Thomas was young, too young to realize the difference between reports his superiors needed to see at once and reports that could wait for a spare moment. “Inform my staff. I want a full meeting at 1700.”

  “Aye, sir.” Thomas saluted. “I’ll see to it personally.”

  William smiled as he stepped into his office, the hatch hissing closed behind him. The compartment was huge, easily two or three times the size of his cabin on Uncanny. And it was his office, not his suite. He wondered, sourly, how some of his former commanders had found time to enjoy the palatial suites the navy gave them. William was aware he wasn’t getting anything like enough sleep, let alone anything else. The cabin should probably have been assigned to the reporters. They might be useless oxygen thieves, but at least they’d make some use of the space.

  He sat down at his desk and activated the privacy shields, then opened a locked drawer and retrieved a single datachip. Scott McElney had given it to him years ago, when he’d been trying to lure William into leaving the navy and joining him. William had never used it, not even when Scott had been working for the Commonwealth. The time had never seemed quite right. It had been something for him, not for the navy.

  “Well,” William said, “let’s see what we can do.”

  He plugged the chip into the terminal, then cleared his throat. “We need to meet,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “On Tyre. Let me know the place and time.”

  The message glimmered in front of him as the chip automatically encrypted it, then uploaded the compressed data into the StarCom queue. Someone might try to decrypt it, but . . . William shook his head. The message itself proved not
hing. It wouldn’t be the only encoded message flowing through the network, automatically booting itself to its final destination. Scott had sworn blind the encryption scheme was unbreakable. William doubted that was true, but no matter. Scott was the only one who’d know William had sent it and how to get back in touch with him. And even if someone traced it back . . .

  We have to win the war quickly, William thought. Compared to that, nothing else matters.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CALEDONIA

  Kat could feel the tension in the air as she followed Sir Reginald Grantham into the House of Worlds. The building had been designed for Caledonia’s aristocratic assembly, a gathering that had never really taken shape before the civil war had seen its proposed home handed over to the Colonial Alliance and turned into its representative parliament. Fifty boxes were crammed with ambassadors from all over the Commonwealth, while on the floor below it was standing room only. Kat quietly groaned as she realized she’d be sharing a box with Sir Reginald. The king’s fixer wasn’t someone she liked, and he knew it. She wouldn’t have cared for him even if he hadn’t tried to interfere with the navy.

  She took a seat and calmed herself with an effort, listening to the angry muttering running through the hall. The datapacket she’d read during the flight to the surface made it clear that the House of Lords had launched a new propaganda offensive, branding the king a mass-murderer who’d deliberately started the war with the Theocracy. Kat hadn’t studied the claims in any great detail, but she had to admit they sounded pretty unlikely. The king could have started the war by ordering an offensive, if he’d wished, not lowering his guard and waiting to be hit. The plan sounded as if it had too many moving parts to be particularly workable. She’d been a naval officer long enough to truly understand the wisdom of “Keep it simple, stupid.”

  The datapad buzzed against her hip. She glanced at it, noting how stories were trending right across the Commonwealth. The House of Lords was sparing no expense to make sure the stories poured into Caledonia and the rest of the alliance, pushing their version of the truth and the supplementary documents everywhere they could. The Alliance’s PR specialists were returning fire, but they looked to have been caught on the hop. Their early responses looked too defensive to be believable, at least outside their bubbles. They’d need time to assess what the House of Lords was saying, then devise a counterplan. And it looked as if they weren’t going to be given that time.