The Retribution Fleet had all the supplies it needed, locked up tight so some profiteering quartermaster couldn’t make a profit by selling them on the black market, yet some of the commanders were jerking Marius’s chain. The readiness reports on at least twenty superdreadnaughts would have been grounds for an immediate court martial during his first command. The commodore would have had the malefactors locked up and shipped home before they had known what hit them.
But Marius didn’t have that option. As it was, he’d been forced to pull rank to reshuffle the commands so that each superdreadnaught squadron was led by competent officers.
A quick tap on his terminal brought up the star chart. There was no way to know how Admiral Justinian had placed his ships, but the further the fleet proceeded, the more likely it was that they would run into trouble. In two weeks, they would enter Jefferson and pass through the Harmony Asimov Point. If Justinian didn’t show his hand before then, he would have to show it at Jefferson or fall back on the defensive.
He shook his head. Nothing he knew about the rogue admiral suggested he was a man who would be content to stay on the defensive.
There was no point in hoping that the fleet’s progress was a secret. The Senate had loudly proclaimed the launch of the Retribution Fleet—they’d had no choice, considering the Battle of Earth, much less the executions—and pledged to bring Justinian to justice. Marius knew that a single commercial ship with military-grade sensors could have tracked them as they passed through the Gateway, then made a wide dog-leg around the fleet, passed through the next Asimov Point ahead of the fleet, and then raced home. It would be easy for Justinian to track the fleet and plan his ambush.
But why hadn’t he attacked? In Justinian’s place, Marius would have harried the Retribution Fleet and slowed it down until he was ready to crush it. Standard military doctrine stated that the attacker required a three-to-one advantage for certain victory. Sure, the Retribution Force was more than powerful enough to beat Seventh Fleet in a straight up fight, but then, Justinian would know that, too. He would have something unpleasant up his sleeve.
Marius shook his head and keyed another switch. If nothing else, he would do his duty unless relieved or killed in action.
“Personal to Admiral Parkinson,” he said. “I have reviewed the latest exercise results. While I am happy to see that there has been considerable improvement, I feel that we need to concentrate on...”
* * *
Roman’s bottom hit the deck hard enough to sting, even through his protective “exercise suit.” The suit provided very little protection, as he’d felt each one of the blows, and he was starting to wonder if that was deliberate. The Marines seemed to feel that it was their duty to knock the weak-kneed Navy officers into shape, and didn’t mind bruising them along the way. Roman had heard from some of the other lieutenants that the Marines were working off their frustrations on the naval officers. It sounded plausible.
“You’re getting better,” Corporal Elf said. She made a show of wiping nonexistent sweat out of her eyes, then extended a hand to help him to his feet. “You almost had me.”
“Right,” Roman said. “I think with one more near-victory like that, I am ruined.”
Elf giggled. No one would have taken her for a Marine if they’d met her out of uniform. She was short and slight, with short elfin hair and bright blue eyes. The first time they’d met, he’d made the mistake of underestimating her and she’d soundly kicked his ass around the training room. He hadn’t ever been able to beat her yet in a straight fight, even at Circle. While he’d been training at Luna Academy, she’d been at Camp Heinlein on Earth and then Camp Paterson on Mars.
But then, all Marines were required to be deadly in both armed and unarmed combat.
Enterprise carried an entire Marine Regiment, one thousand men in all. Roman had given up asking why the Regiment’s crest—a strange, alien creature that looked like a green pile of poop, with big eyes and two unrealistically huge plasma cannons—was tattooed on every Marine he’d met. Marine Regiments had their own traditions, and they were not for anyone else to know. On the other hand, the Marines were encouraged to work with the Navy crewmen as much as possible, even though one of their roles was internal police force if something got out of hand.
“You are definitely getting better,” Elf confirmed, suddenly serious. “But you need a few more hours of practice.”
She winked at him, which he didn’t understand. Was she interested in him? He had no idea, but it wasn’t the first time they’d met in the training room. So why did it keep coming up?
The thought was both exciting and terrifying. The Federation Navy forbade relationships between crewmen in the same chain of command, but winked at relationships outside such bounds. It was one reason why Marines and Navy crewmen tended to spend more time together than an outside observer might expect. The Marines labored under even stricter rules on fraternization amongst themselves, but seemed to have no real issues with Naval officers as almost all of them were outside their chains of command.
He shook his head and snorted as he headed for the showers. It was tempting to ask if she would like to spend time with him while they were both off-duty, but he didn’t quite dare. What if he was wrong and she took offense?
Besides, he knew she was holding back in the training room. She could probably kick his ass with both hands tied behind her back.
Elf followed him into the showers, disrobed and stood under the hot water. Roman swallowed hard and looked away, soaping down as rapidly as possible. Elf seemed unaware of his near-panic, or perhaps she knew perfectly well. They made idle conversation about the mission as they showered, Elf bumping him gently from time to time. He couldn’t tell if she was coming on to him, or merely playing with his mind.
“It reminds me of the engagement in the Ob’enn System,” Elf commented as she dried herself. “We were surrounded by the rebels and cut off from any support—we knew that we were going to die. So the captain gets a squad of us up and tells us to act really dumb. We go out on patrol as if the enemy is millions of miles away and we’re having a picnic. We make ourselves really obvious targets.”
Roman frowned, keeping his eyes off her. “And they jumped you?”
“You’d think so,” Elf agreed. “But no, they left us alone and even pulled back! Someone on the other side was too smart for his own good and decided that the reason we were prancing around like a pack of planetary militia was that we had really strong forces in reserve waiting to hit them when they attacked us. I couldn’t believe it.”
“I see,” Roman said. He reached for his shipsuit and pulled it on, checking his internal chronometer as he dressed. He had twenty minutes before he was due to report for his next assignment, more training exercises. The pace hadn’t slacked off, even though they were now only a few days away from the Jefferson System. “And you think that that’s what Admiral Justinian has in mind?”
“I’m no expert on space warfare, but the principles are the same.” Elf shrugged at him. “He’s giving up territory to us without a fight. Why would he do that, but to gain time to prepare a counter-stroke?”
Roman thought about it from that angle. “It makes sense,” he agreed. “Have you asked the major about it?” Roman had been astonished by how informal the Marines were, compared to the Federation Navy. There seemed to be very little awareness of rank among them.
“The major has tried to convince the captain,” Elf said. “He says that the captain is convinced, but apparently the admiral is enjoying his victory march.”
Roman flushed. Speaking disrespectfully of a superior officer was a military offense.
Elf nodded in understanding.
“Or,” she added, “as our Regimental motto has it, sometimes you have fun, and sometimes the fun has you.”
* * *
Five days later, Roman took his seat on the secondary bridge as the fleet came to a halt near the Jefferson Asimov Point. Nothing barred their way into Jefferson, n
ot even a customs station. The thought made him smile. RockRats loathed customs officers, but no customs officer would try to halt the fleet to demand payment. The very thought was absurd.
“Now hear this,” the captain’s voice said throughout the ship. “Set condition one throughout the ship; I say again, set condition one throughout the ship. This is not a drill.”
Roman braced himself. Jefferson was the last place Admiral Justinian could intercept the fleet, short of Harmony itself. It seemed impossible that he would allow them to occupy the system without a fight.
On his display, the first recon probes reached the Asimov Point…and vanished.
Chapter Twelve
The rewards of power in the Federation are vast, but the task of gaining it legally is not easy. Those who intend to aim for the highest positions are ruthless, devious and utterly determined to succeed.
-An Irreverent Guide to the Federation, 4000 A.D.
Jefferson System, 4092
Admiral Justinian still remembered the day when he had realized—for the first time—just how rotten and decayed the Federation had become. He’d been promoted to captain only six months before Pinafore—his first command—had been assigned to a rebellious system and ordered to keep the peace. It hadn’t taken long for him to realize that there was little hope of preventing an insurgency that would either wreck the planet or force the Federation to land ground troops to suppress it. The local governor, the nominee of the interstellar corporation that had acquired the rights to develop and exploit the planet, treated the settlers worse than slaves. He’d casually broken some of the most sacred laws on the books and no one had bothered to do anything about it. The settlers had eventually been put down—in every sense of the word—by orbital bombardment.
Justinian had always been ambitious and watching the slow collapse of the Federation had turned his thoughts to how an intelligent and well-positioned person could take advantage of the chaos. He had seen the vast powers and responsibilities granted to Sector Commanders and, by the time he’d been promoted to commodore, he’d already been well on the way to building up a network of supporters and allies. The Senate was corrupt, the president was a non-entity and the Federation Navy was slowly coming apart at the seams. It had been easy to find supporters—and some backers who were prepared to forward money and political support. When he’d been appointed as Harmony’s Sector Commander, it had been the perfect opportunity to turn his plans into reality.
If he’d had another five years, as he’d planned, his fleet would have had no difficulty in occupying Earth, convincing the Senate to surrender and overawing the other admirals. As it was, he’d received word that the Senate was on the verge of recalling him to Earth, convincing him that he’d better move now or abandon years of careful planning. The strike against Earth had been chancy—even though early reports suggested that the first stages of the operation had succeeded better than he’d had a right to expect—and, like all smart commanders, he’d had a contingency plan. The moment he’d heard that Admiral Parkinson was being put in command of the Retribution Force, he’d placed his own plans into operation. Sitting and waiting for the enemy to come to him was galling, especially as he’d been known as a commander who always took the offensive, but it would be worth it.
Otherwise, he would die with his fleet.
He smiled. In days of yore, emperors—and would-be emperors—had led their forces from the front. The Senate, of course, never left Earth. He knew who he preferred to be in command, the man who took the same risks as his crewmen. And he knew that his crews responded to that.
He’d had years to build up a whole secret source of manpower for his fleet and they were his loyalists. The Federation Navy had no idea just how badly it was outmatched. And if the new weapons worked as advertised...
“Admiral, the enemy is sending recon drones through the Asimov Point,” Captain Caitlin Bowery reported. Tall, dark and strikingly pretty, Caitlin served as his Flag Captain. She had been his subordinate on his first command, and he had kept her with him as he had risen to admiral. His wife didn’t like it, but if she wanted to be empress—and social queen on Earth—she would have to live with it. “They’re ready to advance.”
Justinian nodded. It would have been unwise to expect Parkinson to charge into the system without bothering to check it out first. Even he could see that the Asimov Point was the perfect spot for an ambush. The unimaginative clod would do what The Book ordered and probe the system first, and then—if there was an enemy fleet drawn up to meet him—bombard the Asimov Point with antimatter missiles until the enemy fleet was forced back from the maelstrom.
“Good,” he said. Perversely, it would be some hours before the two fleets came to battle, even under the worst-case scenario. “Bring the fleet to condition two, but keep us under cloak. We don’t want to risk discovery before it is too late for them to escape.”
* * *
Roman’s heart was beating so loudly as the Enterprise jumped into the Jefferson System that he was surprised no one else could hear it. He’d braced himself for the possibility of an enemy ambush, but nothing appeared to challenge their presence. He swallowed hard, cursing his dry throat, even as his mind mulled over the tactical situation. Doctrine said, quite clearly, that allowing an enemy unchallenged access into your system—and time to deploy and prepare for action—was equivalent to accepting eventual defeat.
“Launch ready fighters,” the captain’s voice ordered. “Prepare the remaining squadrons for immediate launch.”
Roman did nothing. The command wasn’t addressed to him and, in any case, he was locked out of the command systems unless something happened to the main bridge. He would be a helpless spectator in the coming battle.
Instead, he watched the system display.
The Jefferson System was unusual in several ways. It was a nexus of Asimov Points, with no less than nine Asimov Points orbiting the local star. That wasn’t uncommon in and of itself, but as a general rule, the nexuses tended to orbit massive stars—like the blue giant Sapphire. Jefferson’s primary, on the other hand, was a fairly common G2 star like Sol, with an inhabitable planet and several gas giants and asteroid belts for mining. The colonization rights had been snapped up by the Williamson Corporation, who had formed a development corporation and settled a colony on the inhabitable world. Oddly, the planet’s settlers had paid off their debts fairly quickly and couldn’t be legally sodomized by the Senate-supported interstellar corporations. With access to so many Asimov Points—and the legal right to collect tolls on interstellar shipping—the system had a bright future ahead of it. He scowled. It was easy to see why some Senators were salivating at the chance to place their own people in control of the system. Jefferson had played no part in the Inheritance Wars, but if the system was legally declared in rebellion against the Federation, all local authority could be disbanded and the planet placed into the hands of a Federation Governor. The locals would have no say in the eventual disposition of their system.
Enterprise slowly moved away from the Asimov Point, her escorts spread out around her. Even though everything seemed fine, Roman felt the tension level on the auxiliary bridge as it rose—apparently no one trusted what was going on, if he was any judge—and fought hard to stay calm. The unknown, the tutors had warned him, was more terrifying than any known threat, but he hadn’t believed them until now. Somehow, staring at a display that showed absolutely nothing, apart from friendly units and the system’s planetary bodies, really bothered him.
The enemy had to be out there somewhere. So where was he?
He thought briefly of Elf—felt a sudden stab of regret that he hadn’t mustered the courage to ask her out—and then focused on his display. Behind Enterprise and the first part of the fleet, the heavy superdreadnaughts were flickering into the system, one by one. No one took chances with superdreadnaughts, as it took two years to build a superdreadnaught, even in the Jovian Yards, and it would take almost an hour to get them through into the
system.
But where was the enemy?
* * *
Marius was having similar thoughts as Magnificent emerged into the Jefferson System. His first inclination had been to assume that the enemy was lying doggo under a cloaking field, perhaps waiting for the superdreadnaughts to arrive before opening fire. If he’d been in command, he would have launched a squadron of light cruisers and destroyers into Jefferson first and had them survey the Asimov Point before he risked the flagship and her escorts. Admiral Parkinson, however, had refused to listen to him—and Marius had to admit that he might have been right.
Except...why would anyone abandon their best chance to give the Retribution Force a bloody nose?
He called up the system display and scowled. Every five minutes, a new superdreadnaught emerged through the Asimov Point and fell into formation. The Federation’s position was growing stronger—even with Enterprise and her escorts already heading towards the Harmony Asimov Point—all the time, which was convenient, but suspicious. One thing he’d learned on his very first cruise under then-Captain Kratman had been that any plan that seemed to be working perfectly was just about to fail spectacularly. That was why the very emptiness of the space seemed to be mocking him.
Something was drastically wrong, and he needed to figure out why. Fast.
“Launch additional recon probes,” he ordered. Admiral Parkinson hadn’t ordered anything of the sort, but Marius didn’t need to tell anyone that. What he was doing was in the best interests of the Retribution Force, and he knew it. He’d tell Admiral Parkinson that later, if they all lived through whatever was coming. “I want a shell of them around us at all times—in fact, replenish them at random intervals and have recon fighters move up to plug any holes in our coverage.”
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