Contempt snarled in Gao’s voice. “Rebelled. Have you seen the videos? They show the Yormaks upset, because someone off-camera was provoking them. But the Yormaks never raised a hand in violence to a member of any other species, not in all their history. They had no technology more advanced than a stone-tipped spear, and yet they were supposed to have coordinated a rising that attacked members of the Yormak Bureau across the whole world, and on a single day?”
“You think it was Vijana who faked the rising?”
“No, that would be Lord Mehrang and his cousin the lord governor. They would have coordinated the goons that drove the Yormaks to protest, then killed my colleagues and blamed the Yormaks for it.” Gao took a deliberate breath. Her lips worked as if she wanted to spit on the floor. “Vijana was the butcher they called in to finish the job. He must have been part of the plot, but he didn’t start things. He just destroyed one of the intelligent species living under the Praxis, and he did it for a promotion and some grants of prime real estate.”
Land that Vijana had already mortgaged, Sula thought, to feed his gambling habit.
“Do you have evidence for any of this?” Sula said.
“Those fuel-air bombs were being deployed within days of the start of the action. As if they were already built and ready for action. That’s suspicious.” Gao shrugged. “But I have no real evidence, just my knowledge of Yormaks and the way the other species on the world hated them. A serious investigation would have uncovered a great deal, but no one on Esley investigated, thanks to the lord governor being a part of the Mehrang family and able to direct the police. I’m sure the thugs who started the conflict have been boasting about it in every bar on the planet.”
Sula considered this. “Who else have you told?”
Gao waved her hands. “Practically everyone—everyone we can get to listen.”
“We?”
“Those of us in the Yormak Bureau. They rounded us all up during the actions and put us under guard—‘for our protection.’” This was said with withering scorn. “We all know what happened, but we weren’t a witness to anything. We can’t get anyone to hear us, or to do anything!”
Sula considered Lord Mehrang and thought that perhaps it was lucky that Lamey was doing his best to take all his money.
“Any action will have to wait till after the war,” Sula said. “We can’t start a second civil war inside the Fourth Fleet.”
Gao’s voice hardened. “I know,” she said. “But it’s hard to stop thinking about it, especially when Vijana has been so rewarded and comes here blithering about killing other species.”
“One thing at a time, Lieutenant,” Sula said.
But returning to her quarters, she wondered why she should care about the Yormaks in any way. The Yormaks were insistently primitive, refusing such items of technology as were offered them, and learned the language of the Shaa only under compulsion. The Shaa themselves had given up trying to advance them and given them large reserves on Esley where they could follow their cattle and practice their traditional life.
The Praxis was strong on advancement through natural selection, which was one reason why improvement through genetic modification was forbidden. If you wanted a better human, you bred them, which of course was what the Peers thought they were doing within their own caste. But it could be argued that the Yormaks, with their refusal to change, were an evolutionary dead end. There was a case to be made that their extinction was inevitable.
But it had been accomplished by fraud and conspiracy, and the agents of evolution, Mehrang and Vijana, intended not to rectify nature’s mistake, but to make themselves rich. The level of corruption tolerated among the ruling classes had always offended Sula, and she considered her gangster friends honest by comparison.
But first things first. If the Restoration lost the war, then Vijana and Mehrang would die along with Sula, all her friends, and the Yormaks.
It was her job to make sure that Vijana and Mehrang survived the war long enough to be tried for their crimes.
“The war could have picked a better time to start than my transition,” said Alana Haz.
“If the war consulted you on its timetable,” Sula said, “then it would have to let everybody mess with it. Next thing you know, there wouldn’t be a war at all.”
Sula stirred another lump of sugar into her tea. Haz took a sip of Kailas, her favorite dessert wine. Its honeyed scent enriched the air, and Sula wondered what it tasted like. If it tasted anything like its scent, it would be glorious.
But, Sula reminded herself, Kailas had a lot of alcohol, and she didn’t drink. So she’d have to confine herself to enjoying its bouquet.
Lord Alan Haz had been Sula’s premiere on Confidence during the Naxid War. He had been a vigorous, square-shouldered man, adept at sports and at encouraging the crew to greater exertions. After the end of the war Sula had lost touch with Haz, until she discovered that in the intervening years Haz had married, fathered two children, and then transformed, not quite completely, into Alana. Her wife, in whom Sula detected a dogged determination, had joined Alana in exile in Harzapid and brought the children with her.
Sula dined in Haz’s quarters, as her guest. Defense had been a Daimong ship, and its captain had decorated his quarters with hand-painted tiles showing scenes of oceans, islands, and sea life, scenery as far removed from the howling vacuum outside the ship as could be imagined.
“Fortunately the role of a military officer is somewhat stereotyped,” Haz said. “I know how to do that. I’m not quite sure yet how best to be myself.”
Sula was not very interested in discussions of the self but was willing to be a courteous interlocutor if courteous interlocution was called for. “The war aside,” Sula asked, “would you rather be doing something else?”
“Probably,” Haz said, “but I don’t know what that would be.” She sighed. “I thought that once I’d done my transition, my problems would be over, but all I’m seeing is more complications on the horizon. I’m changing, but I don’t know what I’m moving toward. Myself, I hope.”
“Let’s hope we all live long enough to find out,” Sula said. The morning’s Fourth Fleet exercise had not gone well for the Restoration, who had inflicted vast damage on a virtual enemy fleet, but in the end had been overwhelmed by numbers. Defense had spent a lot of time jinking at high accelerations in a futile effort to avoid enemy missiles, and Sula’s muscles were sore, she had a backache, and nevertheless she had to exert herself to be a pleasant dinner guest.
“The whole empire is in transition,” Sula said, “and we don’t know what it’s becoming. Sometimes I think absolutely anything is allowed.”
“We may be more ruthless now than the Shaa,” Haz said. “Who would have thought that was even possible?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Haz took another sip of her Kailas. “Perhaps we could change the subject,” she said. “Have you seen Squadron Leader Severin’s video of Puppet Tork?”
“No,” Sula said, “but I like the sound of ‘Puppet Tork.’”
“I can call it up if you like.”
Sula considered the matter. “If it’s not too long.”
It was something like twelve minutes, and it was hilarious, particularly if you knew Supreme Commander Tork. Puppet Tork stormed about the stage proclaiming his own greatness, bellowed at his interviewer for leaving her collar unbuttoned, and demanded painful death for traitors. He offered absurd defenses of Lady Gruum and other members of the Zanshaa administration. “Didn’t you like my stadium show?” he demanded. “It was the best ever, just as my victory at Magaria was the best ever—until the next, which will be even bester!”
Sula’s muscles, sore from accelerations, ached even more from laughter.
“I’ve never seen Severin’s stuff,” she said. “Is it all as good as this?”
“The humor usually isn’t as pointed,” said Haz. “But I’m devoted to his oeuvre. You could start with Lord Quisp, for example.”
&nbs
p; There was a soft knock on the door, and one of Defense’s signalers entered with an envelope. “Pardon me, your ladyships,” she said. “But there’s a priority message for Lady Sula from Harzapid.”
Sula held out a hand, and the signaler handed her the envelope. The signaler withdrew, and Sula drew a data foil out of the envelope. “If I may use your display?” she said.
“Of course.”
Sula put the foil into one of the wall displays along with her commander’s card. Michi Chen appeared on the display. She was looking a little drawn, having only a few days before endured the surgery to attach her new leg.
“This is Fleet Commander Chen,” she said. “I’m delighted to report that there has been a battle in the Shulduc system, and that Fleet Commander Martinez, aided by Captain Lord Jeremy Foote, has destroyed sixteen heavy cruisers at the cost of a single ship damaged. A full recording of the battle is attached to this message, so that you can use it in formulating your own tactics. In celebration of the victory, the Restoration has declared a holiday in thirteen days’ time. Please participate if your schedule permits.” The orange end-stamp filled the screen.
“Sixteen enemy ships destroyed,” Sula said. “That leaves only five hundred and fifty-seven available to Tork. We should be able to beat those without any trouble at all.”
“And a big party in thirteen days’ time,” said Haz. “Such fun to organize.”
“At least we won’t have to organize it ourselves,” Sula said. “Which of your lieutenants will you name party control officer?”
Haz laughed. “Pity Vonderheydte has been promoted to captain. He would be perfect.”
Vonderheydte, who had run off with Marietta Li, and whose war thus far had mostly been a kind of extended honeymoon—at least until his Declaration frigate had departed Harzapid, and even then Sula couldn’t be entirely sure he hadn’t smuggled Marietta on board.
Haz looked at her. “Will you send a message of congratulations to Fleet Commander Martinez?”
Sula took a sip of her tepid tea. “I’m sure he’s been congratulating himself every minute since the battle,” Sula said. “Anything I’d send would be redundant.”
Haz seemed curious. “I remember you and Martinez from the last war,” she said. “When you seemed to like each other.”
“With age comes wisdom,” Sula said, and then frowned. “I should announce the victory to the Fourth Fleet. And you should make your own announcement to the crew.”
“Yes, I suppose I should.”
Sula rose. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said. “I’ll make the transmission from my office.”
Alana Haz rose to her considerable height, a head taller than Sula, and braced. “Thank you for joining me, Lady Fleetcom.”
“Always a pleasure,” Sula said.
On her way to her suite, Sula thought, Sixteen enemy ships, no losses. Martinez will be insufferable.
Three days later Sula lay on her bed, her eyes closed, doing her best to think of nothing. Her mind had run at full speed all day, running a fleet exercise, analyzing the Battle of Shulduc, and playing host at yet another supper for yet another set of squadron captains. Now she desired nothing but silence and peace.
At least the nightmares had faded. It’s as if her system was so exhausted that it could no longer devote much energy to generating horrific dreams. Reality, perhaps, was scary enough.
There was a brief tone from the wall comm. “No outgoing video,” she said. “Answer.”
“Beg pardon, Lady Fleetcom.” The voice was that of Ricci, one of her signals lieutenants. “Priority, eyes only, from Fleet Commander Chen.”
Sula pulled herself out of bed, dragged on the tunic she’d thrown on a chair, and opened the door. Ricci braced and offered an envelope. Apparently the message had arrived when he was shaving, because half his face had dark stubble and the other half didn’t, and there was a bit of soap on his collar. Sula was too weary to laugh.
“Thank you,” she said and closed the door. She put the data foil in the wall video, slotted in her captain’s card, and told the display to play the dispatch.
The stern look on Michi’s face told Sula that she wasn’t going to like the message. Michi put on that face when she was issuing orders that might encounter resistance, and she wanted to preempt that resistance by being implacable from the very start.
“I want to begin by congratulating you on the way you’ve shaken down the Fourth Fleet,” Michi said. “You are doing a fine job of turning inexperienced, incomplete crews into models of efficiency, and you are giving me increasing hope for a victory in the upcoming battle against Tork.”
Oh, this is going to be bad, Sula thought. If Michi felt it necessary to butter up Sula to this extent, Sula absolutely knew that she was really not going to like the orders that followed.
“I have received a request—a demand, really—from Fleet Commander Martinez, for a competent new tactical officer.” Michi seemed to have to gather inner strength before delivering the next part of her message. “To that end, I have decided to appoint you to that position.”
Sula felt every molecule of her body vibrate with outrage. Michi hastened through the next part of her message. “I know that you don’t want or need a staff position right now, that after so many years of waiting you finally have a command worthy of your talents. But the need is great, and quite frankly you’re the best. At Naxas I saw the two of you work together, and together you’re better than you are apart.”
Michi took a breath. The hard part of her message was now over. “There’s no need for you to hurry on to join Division Two. You can remain with the Fourth Fleet until such time as Fleetcom Martinez rejoins, but I’d appreciate it if you communicate with him in the meantime. Message ends.”
Weariness and exhaustion had vanished. Sula paced her sleeping room in fury, shrieking at the silent screen a comprehensive series of rhetorical arguments crucially demonstrating that Michi was an idiot for thinking that she and Gareth Martinez could possibly work together again.
Not to mention that she’d finally got a command of her own where she could succeed on her own terms, and if she became tactical officer she’d become just another Martinez sidekick. No matter how much she contributed, he’d take credit for her ideas just as he’d take credit for the victory.
But of course Michi wouldn’t have a problem with that. Martinez was married to Michi’s niece, and the greater the glory that accrued to Martinez, the greater the reflected glory for Michi’s family as well as the Martinez clan. Sula could maybe expect a little sympathy from Michi, but it would be the kind of sympathy that wouldn’t change anything.
Yet her own self-respect demanded that she respond.
“What?” she sent. “Martinez can’t find anyone in his All-Victorious Division of Immortals capable of serving as a tactical officer? What does that say about his training methods?”
She snarled at the camera. “If I’ve got to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, I want full recognition for my contribution to any victory.” Sula drew her lips back in a parody of a winsome smile. “The Golden Orb would be nice, don’t you think?”
Martinez saw a fleet blossoming out of a wormhole gate on the other side of the system—there seemed to be hundreds of them, advancing like a great sparkling wave, their drives boosting them at a steady one gravity. For a moment his heart lurched, and he thought Tork’s Home Fleet had arrived, and he was about to face a fight of his sixteen ships against hundreds.
But then he realized that it was the Home Fleet, but only the Terran part of it, and that Kung had surrounded his sixty-three ships with a hundred or more decoys.
He sent a message welcoming Kung, but the message would take over nine hours to reach its destination. Kung’s own signal arrived just before his own message would have reached Kung’s flagship. Kung’s message was brief and to the point.
“This is Senior Squadron Commander Kung, to unknown warships. Please identify yourselves, or I will blow you to bi
ts.”
To Kung, the sensor image of Division Two would have looked identical to Rukmin’s squadrons, and so his declaration was understandable. And since Martinez had identified himself in a message sent nine hours earlier, Martinez wasn’t worried about the threat.
Division Two was locked in a heavy deceleration just as draining as the acceleration that had brought it to Shulduc. It had shot through the Shulduc system, then through Toley, and was now two systems beyond. Another few days should bring it to the point at which the deceleration would end, and an acceleration toward Toley, Shulduc, and Harzapid could begin.
The damaged Compliance had been unable to decelerate at the same rate as the rest of the squadron, and as a result had shot half a day ahead of the rest of the division.
Every inhabited world within reach of Division Two’s communications arrays had been informed that it had been liberated by the forces of the Restoration and were obliged to broadcast to their population messages from Michi Chen, Roland Martinez, and Lady Koridun welcoming them to the legitimate rule of the empire. Martinez also said that anyone, Terran or not, who felt they were being discriminated against by the Zanshaa government was welcome to contact him.
There was considerable response, mainly from Terrans who had been dismissed from their posts in government. Martinez, relieved there had been no wholesale evictions and arrests as on Chijimo, suggested to the leaders on these worlds that the Terrans be reinstated. As those on the inhabited worlds were staring up at close to five hundred rocket launchers, the suggestion was obeyed.
Martinez sent Kung congratulations at his successful escape from Zanshaa and asked if he knew where Tork and the Home Fleet might be.
“Tork has been joined by the Second Fleet and left Zanshaa system three days ago,” Kung said. “His combined force has been named the Righteous Fleet for Suppression of Dissension, which you have to admit is very much in his style. It’ll be over a month before he reaches here, I’m sure.”
This time Kung had sent his message by video, which showed a well-groomed square head, with brushy white hair and a mustache that spread like wings. His expression was benign and amused. Martinez, exhausted with weeks of deceleration, could hardly rise to such perfection.
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