Debt of War (The Embers of War)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “We plan to take the fleet,” she said. It was all she could do, right now. If nothing else, removing eighteen superdreadnoughts from the king’s order of battle would give the House of Lords a decisive advantage. “And then we make our move.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Winters said. “I’ll speak to my men. They can speak to the other platoons.”

  “And hope no one has a crisis of conscience,” Fran said. Her voice was very cold. “Or simply says the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

  “Yeah.” Kat looked from face to face. None of them looked pleased, even if they had the bare bones of a plan. Kat didn’t blame them. In the space of a few short minutes, she’d turned their universe upside down. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “You did what you thought best,” Winters said. “I cannot blame you for that.”

  “Thanks.” Kat shook her head. “But I’ll spend the rest of my life blaming myself.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CALEDONIA

  Captain Sarah Henderson had been concerned when the entire command network had gone to priority-only status. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if the enemy had launched an invasion while Admiral Falcone was away, but her sensors revealed no sign of enemy activity. And yet, the planet seemed to be going on alert. It wasn’t until the emergency alert was forwarded to her from another ship that she’d realized the shit was about to hit the fan. Governor Rogan was about to launch his coup.

  She looked around her bridge, silently grateful that she’d been able to fiddle with the shore leave roster so a sizable percentage of the king’s loyalists were off the ship. The move had been chancy, given that her people were very sensitive to discrimination, yet it had apparently passed unnoticed. Mr. Soto and his men were still on the ship, unfortunately, but they were alone and isolated. There weren’t many people they could deputize if . . . when . . . all hell broke loose.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Honshu said. “There’s a priority-one signal coming in, aimed at Mr. Soto.”

  Sarah frowned. The king presumably had contingency plans of his own. Mr. Soto definitely had authority to take control of the ship, if nothing else. He and his team were armed to the teeth. They could take control. They’d have to be stopped.

  “Mr. XO, implement the lockdown procedure,” she ordered. She raised her voice, addressing the bridge. “The king can no longer be trusted. I’m taking control of the ship in the name of the Colonial Alliance. If any of you have a problem with this, step away from your consoles now. You have my word that you will be returned to loyalist forces as soon as reasonably possible.”

  A long pause followed. No one left their console. Sarah hoped that meant her bridge crew were loyal, to her if not the colonies. A single person in the right place could do a lot of damage. Sarah thought she knew her bridge officers, but too many of them had been moved into their posts on short notice. They didn’t know her well enough to give her unconditional loyalty. If word of the atrocity on Quist hadn’t already spread through the fleet, they might have sided against her or stepped to one side.

  “Captain, Soto and his men have broken the lockdown,” Commander Clinton Remus reported grimly. “They overrode the hatches and are heading this way.”

  “Secure the bridge,” Sarah ordered. Soto wouldn’t be able to use the intership cars to move around, not during lockdown. He’d have to use the tubes. It would take him longer than he thought, even if he’d brought hacking tools. Hopefully, he wouldn’t know the way. “Put suited personnel on guard outside the hatches.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Remus said.

  Sarah nodded, studying the near-orbit display. A handful of ships were breaking orbit, clawing their way into interplanetary space. The planetary defenses themselves hadn’t come online, yet, but it was just a matter of time. The majority of the fleet was far too close to the orbital defenses for comfort. They’d be blown away in seconds if the defenses opened fire before they raised their shields. And yet, there was no way to bring up the shields without raising the alarm. She had no way to know what was happening on the other ships.

  The communications channels are down, she reminded herself. She knew who else was involved in the bid to seize the fleet but couldn’t contact them without revealing that Merlin was in rebel hands. Again. Soto might have managed to get off a warning before he made his bid to recapture the ship . . . We have to assume the worst.

  “Bring up the drives,” she said. “And be ready to snap up the shields at a moment’s notice.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Remus said.

  Sarah gritted her teeth, feeling the seconds crawling by. The display showed a handful of internal hatches opening and closing, suggesting that Soto and his men were heading straight to the bridge. They were well trained, she noted, but not experienced. Someone with genuine starship experience would have realized that it would be easier to take the engineering or life-support departments, then force the crew to surrender. A handful of gunmen could render the entire ship powerless if they discarded all hope of recapturing her.

  She looked at Honshu. “Establish a laser link to Vigilance,” she ordered quietly. “Send my codes to Captain Wu and ask him . . .”

  “Emergency alert,” Remus snapped. “The planetary defenses are powering up!”

  “That’s torn it!” Sarah snapped. “Bring up the shields, then take us out of orbit!”

  The display seemed to explode with icons as the universe went crazy. A handful of starships raised their shields and opened fire, targeting the planetary defenses. The orbital fortresses seemed sluggish, slow to react even as missiles and energy weapons pummeled them from point-blank range. Two superdreadnoughts shut down their drives completely, falling out of formation. One drifted towards the planet itself, thousands of tons of metal and antimatter that would do immense damage if it hit the surface. The remainder of the superdreadnoughts brought up their shields and weapons, emergency transmissions flashing in all directions. Sarah stared at the display, watching as the tactical programs tried to determine who was on what side. The results were inconclusive. There seemed to be no fewer than five different sides, much to her surprise. How many plotters had there been?

  No one knows who is fighting for whom, she mused as a superdreadnought appeared to switch sides. And we’re out of contact with the rest of the fleet.

  “Captain, they’re breaking into Officer Country,” Remus snapped. “They’ll be here in a moment.”

  “Vent the access corridor,” Sarah ordered coldly. If Soto hadn’t thought to carry masks and life-support gear, it would put an end to his countercoup before it even got off the ground. “Tell the marines to fall back to the bridge.”

  And put their masks on. A low rumble ran through the ship. A grenade? How many weapons had Soto and his men brought aboard? This could end very badly.

  “They’re hitting the hatch,” Remus warned. “Captain?”

  “Helm, put as much distance as possible between us and the orbital fortresses,” Sarah said. “And be ready to shift command to engineering, if they take the bridge.”

  She drew her pistol. “And prep the datacore for shutdown,” she added. “If they capture the ship, I want her to be useless.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “The people aren’t happy, Mr. Ambassador,” the driver said. “I have to advise you . . .”

  Francis understood the driver’s point and his unspoken concern for their safety, but he shook his head. He couldn’t delay visiting the king, not now that reports were spreading through a planetary communications network that was supposed to be shut down. The colonials had clearly spent a lot of time preparing for this day, even if they hadn’t realized who they’d be fighting. The network was erratic, but it was still functioning. His intelligence officers believed it couldn’t be shut down completely.

  Not that it matters, he thought as the aircar flew over the city. Word of mouth is carrying the message everywhere it needs to go.

  He scowled. Dawn was breaking over
the city, shedding light on an ever-growing crowd of angry protestors. His officers, monitoring the police bands, had warned him that cops were being called in from all over the planet to reinforce the locals, but he couldn’t see any law enforcement on the streets. The police themselves probably had mixed feelings, he figured, being colonials themselves. The reports that the king had ordered an entire planet scorched might be exaggerated, but who knew? There was no quality reporting from trusted media figures . . . as if they even existed! The locals believed the story, and that was all that mattered. The king and his government were heading towards catastrophe.

  The aircar passed over the troops defending the palace and dropped towards the landing pad. Francis felt sweat prickling his back as he spotted the HVM teams, hastily deployed to protect the palace from aerial threats. If they decided he was hostile . . . He shook his head again as the aircar landed with a thud, rocking gently as the hatch opened. He could hear shouting and gunshots from outside the perimeter. Smoke was rising in the distance, suggesting that the brewing riot had already turned nasty. The colonials were probably intent on causing as much trouble as possible. He peered at the towering skyscraper, Governor Rogan’s headquarters, and wondered what the man was doing. His intelligence officers had never managed to get someone into the governor’s lair.

  He clambered out of the aircar and submitted, meekly, to an intensive pat down from the guards. It was unusual for guards to search ambassadors, instead of merely scanning their bodies before allowing them to enter, but he supposed the guards were on edge. There was enough firepower surrounding the palace to wipe out a marine division, yet . . . there was no way to tell if the soldiers would actually fire. They might turn on the king, if they were ordered to slaughter the crowd. Who knew what would happen if things really got out of hand?

  “Ambassador.” Sir Reginald looked terrible. His pallid face was sweating so badly that Francis half expected him to faint on the spot. “Thank you for coming.”

  Francis nodded, stiffly. “My pleasure,” he lied. His security officers had protested in a body when he’d insisted on visiting the king. They’d pointed out that no one, not even the king himself, could guarantee his safety. The entire city was about to explode. “I trust His Majesty is well?”

  Sir Reginald gave him a cutting look, then led the way into the building and down a long flight of stairs. They passed through two more guard posts, each one insisting on a full search before allowing them to proceed. Francis was tempted to ask if the guards would be buying him dinner later, but swallowed the impulse before it could get him into trouble. He had diplomatic immunity, but that wouldn’t protect him from bullets. His government could hardly retaliate against a foreign government that no longer existed. Hell, they’d have hard questions to answer about what Francis had been doing there in the first place.

  And that could get embarrassing. They wouldn’t want to answer those inquiries.

  The king looked tired, tired and worn, as Sir Reginald showed Francis into the war room. He was surrounded by holographic displays, each one showing images from the streets outside or the high orbitals. Francis was no military expert, but even he knew that friendly ships firing on each other was not a good sign. The king’s forces appeared to be collapsing into chaos. A superdreadnought was drifting towards the planet, spewing lifepods in all directions. Francis hoped the planetary defenses would blow the ship to atoms before it hit the planet itself.

  “Ambassador,” the king said. He sounded tired too. Princess Drusilla sat next to him, her hand resting on the king’s hand. “I am surrounded by traitors.”

  Francis didn’t bother to dispute the statement. “What actually happened?”

  “They’re lying about me,” the king said. His voice rose. “They’re saying I killed an entire world!”

  “So I hear,” Francis said. The king should have realized that shutting down the communications network—worse, unsuccessfully trying to shut down the communications network—would only give credence to the rumors. It might have been better if he’d mocked the stories, like he’d mocked the charge that he’d started the last war. “What actually happened?”

  “I gave orders to punish the planetary government, nothing more,” the king snapped. “And now my people rebel against me!”

  His voice grew louder, but there was a nasty edge to it Francis didn’t like. “I’ll punish them all. I’ll make sure they never rise against me again!”

  Francis nodded, keeping his face as blank as possible. The king was losing it. His cause had taken a major blow, perhaps even a mortal blow. If his fleet was racked by civil unrest, it wouldn’t be able to put up a fight when the House of Lords launched its long-awaited attack on Caledonia. The displays flickered and updated, revealing that one of the superdreadnoughts was trading fire with an orbital fortress. It wouldn’t be long until the remainder of the fleet took sides and opened fire.

  And that leaves us with a problem. Can we still make use of the king? Or should we back off now?

  He looked up as Lord Gleneden and Earl Antony entered, the former looking badly shaken and the latter grimly determined. They were the king’s dove and hawk, he recalled, if the files were accurate. He knew from bitter experience that the dossiers might be completely wrong.

  “Your Majesty,” Lord Gleneden said. “We must seek terms.”

  “Treason,” Earl Antony snapped. “We cannot surrender!”

  “Right now, the entire planet is revolting,” Lord Gleneden insisted. “The fleet is falling apart at the seams. You have to come to terms or . . .”

  “I will not surrender. I will certainly not surrender to liars and betrayers and . . .”

  He stood, pacing the room as he ranted. Francis watched him, realizing, deep inside, that the king might have outlived his usefulness. The man was coming apart, right in front of him. And yet . . . there was still something to be gained by supporting him. If nothing else, they could secure the border stars and dare the House of Lords to do something. The Commonwealth couldn’t keep fighting without risking everything . . .

  And they already know the dangers of fighting a war to promote unity, he mused. They won the last war, and it left them with more problems than ever before.

  “We cannot surrender, not now,” Drusilla said. She touched her abdomen. “My child will not grow up in exile.”

  Lord Gleneden glared at her. “With all due respect,” he snapped, “the situation is dire. Your child will not grow up at all if we don’t seek terms! Now!”

  He looked at the king, dismissing his wife. “Your Majesty, we need to speak to Tyre,” he said. “I can talk to some of my contacts, get you terms . . .”

  The king spoke, very quietly. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sell the cause out . . . sell me out . . . for whatever you can get. You’d like that. You could go home to your estate and spend the rest of your days in comfort, while I . . .”

  His voice grew stronger. “I am surrounded by betrayers and traitors and . . .”

  Francis flinched as the king produced a gun and shot Lord Gleneden through the head. He was no stranger to the theory of violence, but he’d never seen a man killed right in front of him. He stepped back as the body hit the ground, blood staining the carpet. Lord Gleneden had been a good man, according to the files. Francis barely knew him, but . . . Francis didn’t think Lord Gleneden deserved to die. Not like that. Not shot down by his master.

  “We will not surrender,” the king said. The building shook, gently. Alerts flashed up on the displays. “We will not give in.”

  “I think they’re screwed,” Lieutenant Allot said. “They’re firing on each other.”

  Captain Sonny Greenbank nodded in agreement. The spy ship had been holding position several light-minutes from Tyre, where they could monitor the enemy fleet without straying into detection range, but they were close enough to see all hell breaking loose. Starships were firing on each other or flying away from the planet and dropping into hyperspace. He could see a dozen
merchantmen crawling away, trying desperately not to be noticed as they put as much distance as possible between themselves and the warring parties. A couple of them had already been blasted out of space, in passing. The two sides were fighting at point-blank range. They didn’t have time to be sure of their targets before they opened fire.

  “Power up the StarCom,” he ordered. “Let Admiral McElney know.”

  He smiled, coldly. Their orders were clear. They were to alert the admiral the moment something, anything, happened that might give the fleet a clear shot at Caledonia. It was a risk—the moment they powered up the StarCom, they’d set off alarms right across the system—but there was no choice. An enemy civil war was greatly to be desired. By the time Admiral McElney reached Caledonia, the enemy fleet might have destroyed itself.

  And then he’ll put an end to the war, Sonny thought. It will be the end.

  “Got two squadrons of battlecruisers and supporting elements dropping out of hyperspace, sir,” Allot warned. New icons flickered onto life on the display, a single light-minute from the planet. “They look pretty pissed.”

  “As long as they’re not targeting us,” Sonny pointed out. He frowned as he studied the display. The enemy ships looked as if they’d redlined their drives, trying to get back to Caledonia before . . . before what? They had no way of knowing all hell had broken loose on the planet. The StarCom had been shut down hours ago. “We’ll let the admiral know, and then we’ll go into hiding.”

  “And we’ll have a front-row seat to Armageddon,” Allot said.

  Sonny shot him a sharp look. The intelligence corps was notoriously informal, but there were limits. “That isn’t a good thing,” he said. An enemy ship vanished from the display. “A lot of people are about to die.”