Debt of War (The Embers of War)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “Nelson took two hits, both nukes,” Yagami reported. “Her shields handled it.”

  “Good.” The range continued to close. Kat hadn’t slowed, surprisingly. She had to be very confident that she could jump out before he smashed her ships to rubble. He wasn’t going to try. “Are we ready to jump out?”

  Yagami glanced up. “Yes, Admiral.”

  William heard a dozen unasked questions in the younger man’s tone. Why wasn’t William pressing their advantage? Why wasn’t he dealing a second blow to the king? William promised himself that he’d explain later, if there was a later. The dukes had signed off on the plan, despite their doubts. It all depended on factors outside their control, but the plan was designed to give them room to maneuver if things didn’t go as he hoped.

  “Open the vortexes,” he ordered. “Take us out of here.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yagami said. He keyed his console. “Vortexes opening . . . now!”

  “Admiral,” Kitty reported. “The enemy fleet is retreating!”

  Kat stared, unable to believe her eyes. She’d been wrong. All four enemy squadrons were real. The enemy commander had a decisive advantage, if he wished to use it. And instead . . . he’d just buggered off, without even bothering to fire a shot? It made no sense. Her gaze slipped to Fotheringay, a blue-green orb floating in the display. The planet’s skies were clear. The enemy fleet that had held the high orbitals had fled too.

  Her thoughts ran in circles. Whoever was in command had to be an idiot. Except . . . the House of Lords didn’t give commands to idiots. It would be William or . . . She couldn’t think of anyone who would give up a two-to-one advantage. He’d be in deep trouble when he got home. It wasn’t as if he had reason to believe he was outgunned. Kat hadn’t tried to convince him that she had a decisive advantage. She was fairly sure he wouldn’t have believed her if she’d tried.

  Maybe he just wanted to force us to expend our missiles. Shoot ourselves dry so we couldn’t put up a fight when they attacked Caledonia.

  Fotheringay was practically immaterial, as far as the war effort was concerned. The House of Worlds would be demanding action, action the king couldn’t take without weakening Caledonia’s defenses . . . Maybe that was the point. Give the king a taste of his own medicine without risking a battle that could have gone either way. But it couldn’t have gone either way. She knew she’d been seriously outgunned. The enemy shouldn’t have passed up the chance to smash her ships. She wouldn’t have let the opportunity slip away if she’d been in command.

  “Reverse course,” she ordered. “Take us to the planet. Once the StarCom is powered up, get me a direct link to the king.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Kitty said. She glanced at Kat. “We won, didn’t we?”

  “I don’t know,” Kat said. The king’s PR specialists would turn the engagement into a glorious victory. She knew better. The enemy had practically let them win. No, there was no practically about it. They’d retreated rather than risk an engagement. Her thoughts ran in circles. No matter how she looked at it, there was no logic. “Keep the fleet ready to depart at a moment’s notice. They might be on their way to Caledonia.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  William was gloomily aware of the perplexed mood in the CIC as the fleet dropped back out of hyperspace. The RV point was only a couple of light-months from Fotheringay, but it might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy as far as the planet’s long-range sensors were concerned. Tyre’s network of deep-space sensors might pick up a fleet that close to the planet, but Fotheringay didn’t have the resources to monitor interplanetary space, let alone interstellar space. They wouldn’t know the fleet was lurking nearby.

  Unless they followed us through hyperspace. But they’d have to be very lucky.

  He smiled rather thinly. Most people wouldn’t consider finding the fleet to be luck, unless they had a bigger fleet under their command. His fleet hadn’t even fired its missiles. He was as ready as ever to fight, while the enemy fleet had already expended its external racks. And that meant . . . he could go back if he wished, go back and recapture the planet. But Fotheringay really wasn’t that important.

  “Send a signal to Tyre,” he ordered shortly. “We’ve completed Phase One.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Yagami said. “Sir . . .”

  William felt his smile grow wider. “What’s the point? It depends. It really depends.”

  An alarm bleeped before he could explain. “Admiral, we have a freighter inbound,” Lieutenant Mumbai said. “She reads out as John Galt.”

  “Good,” William said. Scott had arrived. “Hail her commander. Inform him that his ship is cleared to dock, then get me a link to Commodore Tyco. He’ll be taking command of the fleet in my absence.”

  Yagami looked even more puzzled but obeyed. William sat back in his chair, wondering if he stood on the cusp of victory or total defeat. Total personal defeat, he supposed. He had a high opinion of himself, but not that high. The House of Lords had a multitude of officers who could be promoted into his seat, if necessary. Commodore Tyco was hardly incompetent. He could handle the remainder of the operation if William didn’t make it back.

  “Commodore,” he said when Tyco appeared in the display. “Phase Two is about to begin. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.” Commodore Tyco was the only other person on the fleet who knew the complete plan. “I’m ready.”

  William’s lips twitched. “Take command of the fleet. If you don’t hear back from me in twenty-four hours, or if you come under attack, assume the worst. Take the fleet to a random location, then report to Tyre and await orders. Do not try to retrieve me.”

  “Aye, sir,” Commodore Tyco said. “I . . . good luck, sir.”

  “Thanks.” William stood. “Once more into the breach, dear friends.”

  “Consign their parts most private to a Rutland tree,” Commodore Tyco countered. “Or would that be a mistake?”

  “Probably, at least here,” William said. If the mission turned to violence, it would have failed. And he’d probably be dead. “I’ll see you in twenty hours or so.”

  He handed squadron command to Captain Cavendish, then headed to the hatch. Scott would take him into the system, with the codes necessary to ensure a meeting with Kat. And then . . . William felt unsure of himself, no matter how much he tried to hide it. Kat was stubborn, just like her oldest brother. She’d be reluctant to admit a mistake. He stepped into his office, retrieved the datachips from his safe and pocketed them. Duke Peter had given him copies of the evidence. He’d just have to hope Kat didn’t dismiss them as obvious lies.

  And if she does, I won’t be coming home, he thought. He took one last look around the office before walking down to the airlock. It could all end very badly.

  “William,” Scott said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yes,” William said stiffly. He didn’t have time for Scott’s attitude, not now. His brother didn’t know what was at stake, beyond the war itself. William hadn’t risked telling him the full truth. “It has to be done.”

  Scott snorted as he closed the airlock. “You’ll go down in history,” he said. “But will it be as a great hero? Or history’s biggest boob?”

  “I’ll do my duty,” William said. “And history will say what it damn well likes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  FOTHERINGAY

  “Admiral,” Kitty said. “A freighter just dropped out of hyperspace. Her captain is asking for you, by name.”

  Kat blinked as she saw the IFF. John Galt? Scott McElney’s ship? Had the entire engagement been nothing more than an excuse to lure her away from Caledonia, to arrange a meeting well away from Jenkins and his ilk? The man himself was down on the planet, reassuring the planetary leadership they had nothing to fear from the king and his government. Kat had been rather hoping they’d be recalled to Caledonia so quickly that she’d have an excuse to leave him behind.

  “Clear him to dock,” she ordered
. The John Galt was tiny compared to the massive superdreadnought. Smugglers preferred speed to size, at least when they were operating along the fringes of civilized space. Scott would have no trouble docking his ship to hers. “And inform him that I’ll come aboard once he’s docked.”

  Kitty looked surprised but did as she was told. Kat was the admiral. Scott McElney should have come to her, not the other way around. But Kat was fairly sure Scott’s ship would be free of bugs. Her marines had carried out a handful of searches and discovered a number of unauthorized bugs scattered throughout the ship. Jenkins would be in real trouble, under normal circumstances. But things hadn’t been normal for years.

  Kat passed command to her second, then headed through the ship to the airlock. A pair of marines stood on guard, as per standard procedure. Kat wished, again, that Pat had lived. She knew General Timothy Winters and his subordinates fairly well, but they’d never been intimate. There was no way to know which way they’d jump if the shit hit the fan. They’d stayed with the king . . . or had they stayed with her? It was hard to be sure these days. She braced herself, nodded to the marines, and tapped the airlock. It opened, blowing a gust of air into her face. It smelled . . . different.

  Too many people in too close proximity, Kat thought as she stepped through the airlock. And perhaps too many orbital habitats.

  The ship’s interior looked . . . civilian. Kat peered around with interest. The ship was a mess, although her experienced eye could pick out that it wasn’t a true mess. Scott might not keep his ship in perfect shape, but he wasn’t cutting corners either. The man himself stood by an inner hatch, indicating a small compartment. Kat stepped up to him and looked inside. William was there, waiting for her . . .

  She felt her heart skip a beat. William had come to her, he’d trusted her . . . Her mouth was suddenly very dry as she realized the true magnitude of the risk he’d taken. She should arrest him. The king would order her to do so, if he knew William was on her ship. And there was no way in hell William would have taken the risk, would have done something that would have earned him a court-martial even if she didn’t arrest him, without permission from higher authority. Had Peter signed off on the mission? Or . . . She found it hard to believe William would have launched peace talks, particularly in such a manner, without clearance from the House of Lords.

  “I’ll leave you two to get on with it,” Scott said. “I’ll be on the bridge.”

  Kat glanced at him, then looked back at William. He looked older somehow, despite a series of rejuvenation treatments. He held himself like an old man. His face seemed lined, even though the wrinkles existed only in her imagination. And his gaze was severe as he studied her in return. She wondered what he saw. She wasn’t the jumped-up aristocrat she’d been, back when they’d first met. A lot of water had passed under the bridge.

  “Kat,” William said. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  Kat had to laugh. “Me neither,” she said. She indicated the blast chairs. “Should we sit down?”

  “Good idea,” William said. “You know, I tried to think of what I should say. I went through it, time and time again. And yet, here you are, and my mind has gone blank. Utterly blank.”

  “Mine too,” Kat admitted. William had always been open with her, once they’d learned to trust one another. It felt good to know they still had each other, even if they were on opposing sides. “It’s good to see you again.”

  William sobered. “You might not feel that way in an hour or so,” he said. “I wish there was another way to do this.”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed. “Are you here to ask me to take a message to the king?”

  But she knew, even as she spoke, that William had something else in mind.

  He didn’t need to engage in subterfuge if he wanted her to take a message to Hadrian. He certainly wouldn’t have worked hard to ensure she could talk to him without anyone knowing what she’d done, let alone . . . She tried to imagine how much the brief engagement had cost him and shuddered in horror. Whatever Peter had said, whatever he’d promised William, it might not be enough to make up for the bucket of crap that was about to land on his head. Every armchair admiral in the known galaxy was about to condemn his handling of the recent battle, if battle wasn’t too strong a word. And, for once, they’d be right.

  “No.” William held her eyes evenly. “I wanted to bring a message to you.”

  Kat looked back at him, reminding herself that she’d fought and won a dozen battles. She had no reason to be nervous, no reason to feel a mad impulse to turn and run or . . . She composed herself, resting her hands in her lap. She could handle whatever he had to say. She could.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” William admitted. “Can I start at the beginning?”

  “A very good place to start,” Kat said. His words didn’t make her feel any better. “I’m listening.”

  William looked down at his hands, then met her eyes again. “When the king fled, the House of Lords captured his palace, his bunker, and a number of installations that didn’t appear on any official record. Since then, they’ve had investigators going through the king’s files and trying to put together a picture of what he was actually doing before the war broke out. It’s been a very slow process. A number of datacores were destroyed. Others were missing or seemingly incomplete.”

  Kat frowned. “And . . . ?”

  William produced a handful of datachips from his pocket and held them in his hand. “We know, now, that the king deliberately conspired to lure the Theocracy into attacking Cadiz,” he said. “The timing was good, good enough to allow the Theocracy to score a victory without doing any real damage to the Commonwealth’s war-making power. Admiral Christian’s redeployment was intended, we believe, to ensure the Theocracy didn’t do more damage than the king wished.”

  “The king has already discredited that claim,” Kat pointed out. She had an uneasy feeling in her stomach. Hadrian’s statements were logical, but she knew and trusted William. “Why would he need to bother?”

  “Even fanatics can be convinced to stay their hand, if they believe they’ll get their asses kicked,” William pointed out. “The king, we think, didn’t want to take chances. Admiral Morrison’s orders were to keep the defenses down, so the Theocracy wouldn’t think they’d lose. The only thing he didn’t expect was Morrison being captured instead of killed. That’s why he was killed on Tyre, when you brought him home. He knew too much.”

  “Impossible,” Kat said. “You’re talking treason.”

  “Yes,” William said. “The king didn’t care about Cadiz. He didn’t care about Hebrides or any of the other worlds that got attacked. He wanted a war and he got one, a war that allowed him to consolidate his position and make a grab for supreme power.”

  Kat took a breath. “That’s a basic conspiracy theory,” she pointed out. “And it relies on everything going right. It assumes there’s an angel in the whirlwind, directing the storm . . .”

  She shook her head. “It’s absurd.”

  “Is it?” William tapped one of the datachips. “You can study the proof for yourself, if you like.”

  “I will,” Kat said. She had a feeling they weren’t done. William had nothing to gain and everything to lose by bringing her a discredited conspiracy theory. “Why . . . ?”

  William seemed to understand. “There’s something we didn’t make public,” he said quietly. “The king was operating black ops units on Tyre. They carried out missions for him, ranging from assassinating Admiral Morrison to attacking the House of Lords, when the shit really hit the fan. Kat . . .”

  He met her eyes. Kat looked back at William, bracing herself. There was nothing but compassion in his eyes. She knew she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, that there was no way for him to sugarcoat his words.

  “Kat,” William said quietly. “They assassinated your father.”

  Kat felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She wanted to be sick. It was impossible. Unthinkabl
e. It was . . . Her stomach churned as she realized it was all too thinkable. If the king was prepared to start a war, if he was prepared to manipulate his way to power . . . her thoughts spun in circles. Duke Falcone—her father—and the king had been allies, hadn’t they? But the duke had been trying to find out who’d backed Admiral Morrison right from the start. He’d held the purse strings during the war. And . . . Her legs trembled. If she’d been standing, she would have collapsed. Her father had been assassinated by the king . . . ?

  She tasted bile in her mouth as the pieces fell into place. Her father had worked with the king during the war, but . . . he’d never been one of the king’s servants. He had a power base of his own, a network of clients that made him independent . . . and loyalties to a class in direct opposition to the king. The House of Lords had wanted the wartime economy to be dismantled as soon as the war came to an end, and her father would have done it, if he’d lived. Instead, he’d died and policy had drifted . . . giving the king a chance to take control. And he’d taken the chance and run with it and . . .

  He wasn’t wrong, she thought, desperately. She knew, even as she thought, that she was trying to rationalize her decisions. Her instincts were telling her William was being honest. Her intellect was connecting the dots. And yet, she didn’t want to believe it. He wasn’t wrong to insist we keep our debts of honor.

  She shuddered, realizing now just how thoroughly she’d been manipulated. How everyone had been manipulated. The king had used the Colonial Alliance as a tool, nothing more. He’d used the liberated worlds as an excuse to keep the wartime economy in being . . . an economy that placed vast powers in his hands. And he’d killed her father. She could understand his position. She could sympathize with his position. But she couldn’t overlook her father’s death. She couldn’t. She wanted to believe it wasn’t true. She couldn’t even do that!

  Her hands shook, helplessly. How many people had died, under her command, because she’d led them to the king? How many people had she killed, fighting for the king, because they were on the wrong bloody side? Except it was the right side . . . Her thoughts churned. The king hadn’t been entirely wrong, damn it. She knew that was true. But he’d also killed her father, the one man who might have prevented outright civil war . . .