Barbarians at the Gates

by Nuttall, Christopher

  Rupert smiled as they started arguing again. Brockington was opposed to all increases in taxation on principle, if only because the industrialists provided much of his Faction’s backing. The Socialists, on the other hand, had wanted to hit the industrialists with higher tax rates for centuries. Brockington’s supporters would not be happy, not the least because there was no guarantee that the Socialists wouldn’t insist on keeping the higher tax rates after the war was over. If the Socialists used the wedge they’d been given and forced through higher taxes—and penalties, and regulations—they could cripple the economy. Worst of all, they’d be using the money they gained to buy votes by distributing government largesse into the Core Worlds, ensuring that they couldn’t be easily removed from power. The results would not be pleasant.

  “With very strict limits,” Brockington said unhappily. “And we end the war as quickly as possible.”

  “That may take years,” Rupert said flatly. “Admiral Drake was clear on that. We have to rebuild, train new people and produce an entire new fleet. And then we have to smash our way to Harmony and crush Admiral Justinian in his lair. All of that assumes that Admiral Justinian is the only one we have to deal with. If another admiral turns rogue, we could be looking at a nasty civil war that will last for decades.”

  “And put far too much military power in the hands of Admiral Drake,” Alison observed. “There should be checks and balances.”

  “Interfering with his command could cause a disaster,” Rupert reminded her. It was a point he had to keep repeating. The Senators had been absolute masters of the Federation for so long that they had problems realizing that might have changed. “We either trust him or we don’t. There isn’t a middle ground.”

  “Right,” Brockington said. “We trust him—and we take a few precautions. My cousin’s youngest son is going to be promoted; right, we will promote him to commander and assign him as Admiral Drake’s aide. A Fleet Admiral needs an aide and that aide has to be well-connected himself, so he won’t be able to argue. And when the time comes that Admiral Drake is no longer needed...”

  He allowed his voice to trail off suggestively.

  No one bothered to argue.

  * * *

  The banquet following the second round of meetings—when the decisions taken by the leaders were hammered out into formal proposals that would be presented to the Senate—was as elegant as Rupert could make it. His servants served a luxurious meal coupled with the finest wines from across the Federation. He allowed himself a second glass of Brigadoon Whiskey as he contemplated his success. The other two didn’t realize it, as their Factions were currently occupied in sorting out the contracts for the new wave of military construction, all of which promised vast opportunities to skim from the government funds in all manner of barely-legal ways, but he’d gotten everything he wanted.

  He turned back to the table and smiled as the desserts were finally served. His maids, like the maids in all of the other mansions, wore skimpy uniforms and bracelets that marked their status as brain-burned criminals. The brain-burned—a punishment reserved only for the very worst of criminals—had no rights, but using them as personal servants was illegal. Not that it really mattered; for High Society, laws were something that happened to other people. The brain-burned made ideal servants. as they did what they were told, without question, and never betrayed their masters.

  It would have really upset his visitors, particularly the half-drunk youngster who was playing with one of his maids, to know that they weren’t brain-burned at all. It was astonishing what someone would say in front of someone they knew couldn’t understand them. The level of intelligence Rupert gathered was remarkable.

  The maid put a plate of cheese and biscuits in front of him and he ate it slowly, considering his next move. So far, everything was going entirely to plan. All of the variables had been successfully predicted and countered. So far, he reminded himself; ultimate success was not guaranteed. Nothing was ever guaranteed in life.

  Still, the Brotherhood would be pleased.

  Interlude One

  From: The Chaos Years (5023)

  As we have seen in preceding chapters, unnoticed by most of its citizens, the Federation’s moral authority was declining rapidly in the period following the Blue Star War. The social glue that held the Federation together was crumbling, creating an unrecognized state where corruption and ambition went hand-in-hand to shake the Federation to its foundations. Admiral Justinian was merely the first admiral to turn into an independent warlord; the Federation’s failure to crush him quickly meant that others would be tempted to try their luck. The Senate—nervous about its grip on power—only made matters worse. Admirals and governors who might have sat on the fence saw the Senate’s desperate attempts to shore up its power as a threat, one that might consume even the loyal.

  So it was that the three years following the Battle of Boskone—and the stalemate between the loyalists and Admiral Justinian that resulted—saw the Federation stumble from crisis to crisis. No less than seven Sector Governors and nine admirals declared independence, or attempted to turn their sectors into autonomous regions within the Federation. Two went rogue and turned their fleets into pirate forces, or headed out beyond the Rim to set up pocket kingdoms of their own. The chaos kept spreading. No one was safe.

  It was Admiral Lafarge who has been commonly credited with posing the worst threat to the Core Worlds. Lafarge, commander of a sector far too close to the Core Worlds for comfort, risked a drive on Earth, convinced that the Senate intended to recall and murder him. (No amount of historical research has provided convincing evidence that this belief was actually well-founded.) His incursion, destroyed by Home Fleet in the brief and bitter Battle of Terra Nova, only provided the impetus to the Senate to proceed with its plans for internal security—even at the cost of alienating other potential allies.

  An outsider, looking at the Federation from a mythical objective vantage point, would have wondered if the edifice was going to collapse within years, perhaps months. Rogue and rebel admirals, Outsider raids and even rebellions on hundreds of human and alien worlds threatened its integrity. Had the Federation’s many enemies succeeded in working together, its defeat and dismemberment would have been a certainty.

  And so it was that Admiral Drake, now promoted to Fleet Admiral, set plans in motion to keep its enemies off-balance and suspicious of one another. It was the only hope of savaging something of the Federation from disaster.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Assault cruisers were designed to serve in a variety of roles, from intelligence gathering to commerce raiding and other roles. Although the class was originally designed in the years following the Blue Star War, the first examples only entered regular service during the Chaos War, after the Battle of Terra Nova.

  -Jane’s All The Universe’s Starships, 4160 A.D.

  FNS Magnificent, Boskone System, 4095

  It was an older and more confident Roman Garibaldi that strode into Fleet Admiral Marius Drake’s office on the superdreadnaught. He wore a captain’s uniform as if he’d been born to wear it.

  Marius accepted the younger man’s salute and returned it before waving Garibaldi to a seat. The newly-minted captain took it without the hesitation he’d shown on their first meeting, three years ago. Marius smiled as he returned to his own seat. It wasn’t the first time he had mentored a promising junior officer, but Garibaldi was something special. Very few people had the combination of skill and luck that Garibaldi displayed in abundance. The Promotion Board clearly agreed. At twenty-five, Garibaldi was the youngest captain in the Federation Navy—and in history.

  The thought made Marius smile momentarily as he nodded to his steward, who had prepared cups of coffee for the admiral and his guest. Too many promising young officers had died since Admiral Justinian had started his rebellion, killed in battle or captured by one of a dozen factions that were tearing the Federation apart. Admiral Justinian’s second attempt to punch through th
e Asimov Point and capture the system had been bad enough, but the revolution on Maskirovka had been bloody and futile...and the other rogues had been worse. Marius knew that he’d been lucky to get even the reinforcements he’d been given, not with too many other flashpoints requiring a permanent Federation Navy presence. The Senate’s growing panic had ensured that large forces were kept on permanent standby around nodal points, limiting the ships that could be deployed on offensive operations. It was total bloody chaos.

  “My congratulations on your promotion,” Marius said as they sipped their coffee. “I read the citation. Your little stunt at Terra Nova could have gone spectacularly wrong.”

  “Yes, sir,” Garibaldi said. “I believed that the risk was justified.”

  Marius had to smile. The younger man was more focused than he’d been as a junior officer. War did that to young officers, those who survived the first few years of their careers.

  “So did the Promotion Board and your own captain,” Marius agreed. “I read both his report and the more private message he forwarded to me. You nearly gave him a heart attack.”

  He smiled at Garibaldi’s expression. “You deserve command of Midway, certainly,” he added, changing the subject. “Command of the first of a new generation of starships! Not too shabby, not at your age.”

  Garibaldi hesitated, and then must have realized that he was being teased.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. “I’m very proud of her.”

  “I read the readiness reports.” Marius tapped the datapad on the table. “You’re doing very well, certainly better than some believed. I think you have a bright future ahead.”

  He shrugged, dryly. “And since you’ve come all the way from Earth, do you have any personal messages for me?”

  “There’s a locked information store that I brought over to you from the Senate,” Garibaldi informed him. “And Professor Kratman gave me a datachip that I was to place into your hands alone.” He reached into a sealed pocket, produced the unmarked chip, and passed it over to Marius, who took it gingerly. A secure datachip would be rigged to disintegrate if someone tried to break into the encoded data store. “He sends you his regards.”

  “I served with him,” Marius said absently. He placed the datachip in a secure drawer on his desk and closed it with an audible thump. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Garibaldi said, sounding excessively formal. “It is good to see you again too.”

  He wasn’t used to the informality of higher-ranking officers, Marius noted, certainly not among those under his command. But he’d learn.

  “You may change your mind,” Marius told him, and smiled at his nonplussed expression. “I have a particular task for you and your ship. I’m afraid another tempting opportunity to get yourself killed in the line of duty beckons.”

  Garibaldi showed no overt reaction.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  * * *

  Admiral Drake, according to rumor, had been offered another Star Carrier—perhaps even the Enterprise herself—as a flagship, but had chosen to continue to fly his lights on the Magnificent. Roman had only been onboard her once, when he had been relieved from command of Enterprise and officially promoted for the first time, so he’d never seen the briefing room. It was large enough to hold every captain in the fleet, but only a handful of people were seated at the table today: a brown-skinned woman without any rank tabs, a very dark-skinned man he’d never seen before, a Marine Major General who looked oddly familiar…and Blake Raistlin, who turned towards Roman with a welcoming smile. He wore the tabs of a commander and the white and blue uniform of an admiral’s aide, which struck Roman as odd. The Raistlin he remembered had been determined to win a command.

  “My father didn’t like the thought of me risking myself,” Raistlin muttered when Roman asked. “I’m his only heir, you see, and he felt that I shouldn’t be risked on board a smaller ship. I haven’t told him that when the admiral takes us back on the offensive, I’ll be on this superdreadnaught and under fire from enemy ships. It would only upset him.”

  “If we could all be seated,” the brown-skinned woman said, “we can begin.”

  The room locked and sealed itself as Roman took his seat. Admiral Drake joined them, seated at the head of the table, along with a man Roman recognized; Admiral Mason, who looked as if he hadn’t changed much from the days when he’d flown his flag on Enterprise. Mason gave him a thin nod.

  Of course, back then, Mason hadn’t thought much of his flagship’s commander and hadn’t hesitated to make his feelings known. Roman had been told that some officers had opposed his promotion to captain and wondered, absently, if Mason had been one of them. And what, precisely, was he doing at the briefing? The last Roman had heard, he was still in command of the fleet’s starfighter force.

  “I am Commodore Arunika, for those of you who don’t know me,” the brown-skinned woman said calmly. “My companion”—she indicated the black man—”is known as Uzi. His real name is highly-classified and he assures me that he has forgotten it himself. His precise role here will be explained in the privacy of this briefing room and may not be discussed outside a secure compartment. Anyone found leaking the data to any unauthorized person will be facing a court martial before they can blink.”

  She smiled thinly. “With the admiral’s position, I will review the current situation before going on to outline Operation Kidd,” she said.

  Drake nodded.

  “Admiral Justinian has been content to play a waiting game since his failure to punch through the Asimov Point a second time and the defeat—the destruction—of the rebellion on Maskirovka,” she told them. “The sudden upsurge of violence and rebellion all across the Federation—and the rise of the new warlords—may have helped encourage him to remain quiet, for now. We do not expect that happy state of affairs to last, nor are we able to go on the offensive. The bottom line is that we believe he is currently building up his forces with the aim of taking advantage of our weakness before we can overcome the other threats and crush him.”

  A holographic star chart appeared over the table, a number of stars blinking bright amber.

  “Six months ago, Governor Pyotr Eustasovitch Hartkopf abandoned the pretense that he was a loyal and able servant of the Federation,” she continued. “Hartkopf’s name was a byword for corruption and decadence long before Admiral Justinian kicked off the war, but powerful friends in high places prevented him from being recalled to Earth to face an investigation. An investigatory commission was, in fact, being pulled together when Hartkopf, perhaps realizing that time was running out, chose to declare himself a warlord. He subverted or overcame loyal units of the Federation Navy and established himself in full control of the Zathras Sector.

  “As you can see from the star chart, this poses us with a series of problems unseen since the Inheritance Wars. Hartkopf’s positions are connected to Federation territory through an outstandingly long chain of Asimov Points and diverting the firepower necessary to crush him would mean leaving other bases and locations uncovered, for months at least. Worse, his territory effectively borders Admiral Justinian’s and it is possible that the two will come to an alliance. While Hartkopf doesn’t possess the level of firepower that Justinian has at his disposal, their alliance would open up new angles of attack for Justinian into Federation territory. Our psych profiles of Justinian do not suggest any great enthusiasm for an alliance with Hartkopf, but we feel that the possibilities would make his doubts moot.”

  She tapped her terminal and the star chart focused on a handful of stars along the borderline between the two warlords. “Our intelligence networks were torn apart during the first rebellions, both ONI and Federation Intelligence, but we have been working to pull them back together. That hasn’t been an easy task. The Asimov Point in this system has been blocked and we are therefore forced to fall back on the longer paths into enemy space, making communication difficult. What we have
been able to find out, however, is alarming. Hartkopf, who always had links with smuggler bands operating out of places like Hobson’s Choice or Rawls, has been making alliances with pirates, mercenary groups and perhaps even Outsiders. I don’t need to tell you, I suspect, that any such alliance could shift the balance of power quite remarkably.”

  Roman considered it, and then nodded. Hartkopf didn’t have the firepower or industrial base to stand up to the Federation Navy, but if he hired mercenaries and made links with Outsiders, he might be able to trade on the advantages he did have to build up a more powerful fleet. And if Admiral Justinian gained unimpeded access to Hartkopf’s space, the Federation’s outer flanks could be exposed. And if the Outsiders got involved...

  “Operation Kidd is intended to prevent that possibility from ever coming to pass,” Arunika said, her voice calm and composed. “Like all operations, it has a substantial amount of risk, all the more so because we cannot commit overwhelming forces to the objective. The plus is that if it works, we will accomplish it without a major redeployment of mobile units.”

  “ONI has established—don’t ask how—that the two warlords have been working on establishing supply chains running through Marx and The Hive.” She nodded towards the star chart. “Neither system was surveyed properly when they were discovered and—at the time—the fact they were only twenty light years apart passed unnoticed. The Hive may be taboo space, but that doesn’t bother the smugglers—it’s the perfect place to transfer goods and supplies. The ships pop out of the Asimov Point in one system, travel to the other using stardrive, and then re-enter the Asimov Point network. The border between the two warlords isn’t under control, not properly. We believe that it won’t be long before pirates start to infest the region, once they realize that there are opportunities for loot there. We’re going to get there first.