Petron

by Blaze Ward

  “What kind?” Phil asked.

  “Messenger signaling to come alongside,” Paskal replied. “One of the Governor’s couriers.”

  “Very good,” Phil said. “Let Križ know and then signal the rest of the squadron to prepare for maneuvers.”

  “We expecting the drop, sir?” Paskal asked.

  Many commanders might be offended by a subordinate asking too many questions, but more than one person had referred to Phil as Professor Kosnett. Petia had specifically sent this man here to learn flag command from him, for use later when Paskal was in this chair.

  “Too early to tell, Paskal,” Phil shrugged. “However, it is never the wrong time to make sure the rest of the team is on their toes. Surprise happens in the mind of the enemy commander.”

  It was an old quote, playing off something Sun Tzu said so long ago that almost everyone had forgotten, except for warriors that needed to understand the craft of war.

  It wasn’t an art, although there was art involved. It was a job you approached like a blacksmith with an ingot of steel, a hammer, and a dream.

  “Aye, sir,” Paskal withdrew and closed the hatch.

  Phil finished off the report he was reading and stood. He could have called her on the comm, but Bohumil Križ was all of six meters away, on the other side of a single wall.

  He stepped onto the bridge and took the temperature of the people here.

  Poised and expectant, as one might expect from the sudden news. Petia had ordered the squadron to move to Grantham, in Lincolnshire space, while Phil had journeyed on to Petron to see Jessica and Torsten Wald get married.

  He would have stayed longer to enjoy the celebrations and see old friends, but news had arrived just a day after the wedding that had the entire Aquitaine force boarding ships and running for home like the border was on fire. Metaphorically, it almost was.

  With everyone distracted by events in Corynthe, Salonnian ships had raided one of Lincolnshire’s systems, capturing a pair of valuable freighters and driving off the local patrol forces. In response, Lincolnshire had come as close to declaring war on Salonnia as you could without actually shooting. Salonnia was making ugly counter-threats. Aquitaine had already sent a squadron earlier, his, to protect the inner systems of Lincolnshire, so Petia had been expecting something when everyone was distracted.

  Phil Kosnett’s current squadron was not the sort of force that made Port-of-Call visits with hospital ships in tow and construction battalions to help out their poorer neighbors. It was all warships here.

  Bohumil looked over at him with a silent question. He smiled at her and nodded also to Paskal, bringing him into the conversation.

  “Let’s get the Command Centurions and Tactical Officers together for a working lunch tomorrow,” Phil said. “That gives me tonight to digest our orders. Tell everyone they have twenty-four hours or so to lay in supplies from one of the stations or the ground.”

  Bohumil nodded back, but remained silent. She didn’t need to say anything, as Paskal would handle signals, and she could command her ship. But Phil knew that she appreciated him making a personal effort, coming out here. That much was obvious from her smile. Again, too many Fleet Centurions, especially those who still referred to themselves as Fleet Lords, would have sent a terse message, rather than actually talking to their commanders.

  The men and women on the bridge today perked up. They could smell the edge of danger in the air. You didn’t have to be a crazed berserker to get ahead in the Navy, but it also wasn’t a job for shrinking violets, either. These people were primed and ready for battle, and knew that the First Lord would send them where things would get hot.

  Phil hadn’t remained long with the force departing Petron. Just enough time to board a courier to return to his command at the first stopover. Hopefully, the orders arriving shortly would dial everything back down, once cooler heads prevailed. Nobody wanted a new war to break out.

  However, some people never learn from the past.

  CHAPTER XXI

  IMPERIAL FOUNDING: 183/04/18. IFV VALIANT, PETRON SYSTEM

  THE CHIME for the hatch caused Denis to look up. Because Em had kicked Reif out of what would normally be his office, Denis was seated just off the flag bridge, and Reif had kicked someone else out of a personal cabin for the long flight.

  Easier to keep everything mostly intact, rather than disrupt it all again when he was trying to get this fleet into battle-ready shape.

  “Come,” Denis said, reaching out a hand and triggering the button to open the hatch.

  Everett Zhelaniya, his new Flag Commander, stood there with an expectant look on his face. If Em had put the fear of God into Reif Kingston and others, Tom Provst had probably done the same with Zhelaniya. He was far less relaxed than Enej Zivkovic had ever been, even as far back as the early days.

  “General zu Arlo to see you, sir,” Everett said carefully. “And guest.”

  Denis could see Decurion Street lurking in the background with a calm face. Perhaps he had all the confidence in his position that Zhelaniya lacked right now.

  “Come in.” Denis slid his paperwork to one side and stacked it up.

  On Vanguard, everything had been electronic on a tablet. Here, dead trees printed on, written on, and then filed somewhere in the bowels of the ship. Utterly inefficient, but absolutely the Imperial way, no changing that.

  Vo came in first, dressed in his usual greens he had to wear aboard a ship, followed by Street. Everett closed the hatch and they were alone.

  “He supposed to be acting like a General?” Denis turned to Street first.

  “Not a combat op today, Admiral,” Street grinned. “At least, not on the planning sheet.”

  “I’ll see what I can do to keep it that way,” Denis grinned back. “Sit, both of you. What can I do for you?”

  As if he needed marine problems to go with prickly White Admirals and Captains occasionally caught between personalities when receiving orders.

  “Oh,” Denis continued. “Before I forget, the prisoner is out of his coma and starting to move. Physical therapy is next on the list of things.”

  “Why are we even bothering?” Vo’s face soured, just like Denis expected.

  “Because we need to remember that he’s human, Vo,” Denis replied candidly. “If he’s got nothing in front of him but a hangman’s noose, he has no reason to cooperate.”

  “And you think there’s any other option?” Vo snarled.

  This was the same man who had ordered two hundred and fifty-nine people to be executed on wooden gibbets, in the aftermath of The Bombardment. He would have no qualms.

  “You think this fool got up one morning, hated the world, and decided to take a shot at you, General?” Denis’s voice got just as hard. “That he magically knew where to find you? Picked you at random out of a mob of fifty people? Just happened to have a driver downstairs waiting? Personally, I’d counsel Her Majesty to offer him a new face and a new life, if he rolled over and started naming names. This one is the smallest fish in a deep and ugly pond. I want his bosses. And their bosses.”

  Vo was silent for several moments. Contemplative. That was good. Vo mad was an irresistible force.

  “How big do you think this is, Denis?” he finally asked.

  “IFV Dorchester’s engine problems magically cleared up when the Captain over there discovered it wasn’t going to even slow me down,” Denis said. “And the entire active-duty Aquitaine contingent was called aboard ship the night before the attack. The squadron subsequently broke orbit at nearly the same time as someone shot you. And Lincolnshire declared their border closed to Fribourg and Corynthe ships. I could go on.”

  “Somebody out there doesn’t like us,” Street commented.

  Denis nodded back.

  “Okay. All of that plays into why I’m here. Got to thinking about the strategic situation,” Vo rumbled in that bass he got going when he was angry. “Understand the need for Casey to get home as fast as she possibly can, with Jes
sica in hand. That will throw off everyone else’s planning. But they have to have been expecting her to be aboard this fleet, waddling home with everyone else.”

  “That’s why we’ve been pushing our speed as much as we can, and why IFV Dorchester magically fixed their problems, once they realized I absolutely would leave their silly asses behind and cashier their Captain and anyone else that gave me a reason,” Denis said. “Em told me that some of these men might be problematic, which was why he had them here and not home bothering Tom Provst.”

  “Is there anything out there that could significantly challenge our right of way?” Vo asked.

  “Only if Buran decides to get even,” Denis said. “Or if First Lord Naoumov drops all of First War Fleet on us, clear the hell out here, in violation of however many treaties there are. If they did that, my hope would be someone notices all the Republic squadrons missing and raids them, just to be a shit.”

  “Raids?” Street perked up.

  “This whole affair was in no way accidental, Iakov,” Denis continued. “Lincolnshire doesn’t have the balls to threaten Jessica, especially not with an Imperial War Fleet on their border. This had to come from Ladaux. That means that my old bosses are considering doing something stupid, like starting a war with the wrong people. But I don’t know anything right now. Until we drop out at Tadasuni or maybe Stabiel, all the news we have will be stale.”

  “Which is what got me to thinking.” Vo leaned forward in his chair and focused his eyes on Denis. “Normally, you’d be sending ships every which way to scout, right?”

  “Yes, if I could trust these Captains any farther than I could throw one of them.”

  “Street makes it clear that I have to listen to my doctors,” Vo glanced over at his sidekick with a smile. “But there’s nothing that says I can’t take a ship and range ahead for you. Like I did with Dash, back on Thuringwell.”

  “Scout Patrol, Fourth Saxon?” Denis teased.

  “The last time I was shot, Denis,” Vo laughed. “Makes it kind of fitting here, don’t you think?”

  “What would you do?” Denis asked.

  “Straight run to Stabiel,” Vo said. “Get their news and I should be able to circle back and catch you at Tadasuni. Plus, I can get them organized to resupply us when you get there, rather than just dropping out and hoping those greedy merchants don’t screw us on prices.”

  “You think Salonnian merchants will cut you a deal?” Street whistled absently. “And I thought I was crazy.”

  “You are,” Vo agreed with the smaller man. “But I’ll take all of you with me, plus as many marines as I can load. We can set up a forward operating station there and then I’ll let you negotiate.”

  “Nope, that’s Thaddeus Gunderson,” Street replied. “He’s the man you want making sure you still have pants on when you leave the table.”

  “And you’ll lie and tell them she’s still aboard, for all the spies?” Denis could see where it was going now.

  Vo’s smile said everything Denis needed to know.

  Like Em, Denis needed men he could absolutely trust when things were about to go sideways. They didn’t come more reliable than this young Turk, security marine from the lower decks. Didn’t matter that the man was somebody important now.

  Nothing about Vo had changed in a bad way.

  “Take Hans Bransch,” Denis decided. “Roland Exeter is still in command over there. You’ll remember him from Jessica’s days. She trusted him to do things. Em as well.”

  “I’ll need about two days at the next waypoint,” Vo said. “Flag signals and all that. Street or Ames will provide you the number of men I need to haul with me, and the supplies.”

  “Scout Corvette,” Denis replied. “All of Cutlass will pretty much fill her to the gills right now. Either you leave half your people here and take fifty or so marines, or don’t worry about reinforcements.”

  Vo leaned back and thought as Denis watched the man. He was still a careful thinker, the kind that many people mistook for dumb, because he didn’t immediately speak.

  “I’ll take a squad off of each of the cruisers and Valiant, then,” Vo decided. “Street, you’re staying here because I’ll want Ames in the field with me. You can have anybody but Cutlass Ten.”

  “Watch out for Mechanical Terrapins, zu Arlo,” Street laughed.

  “Anything else you need from me?” Denis asked.

  “Negative,” Vo said as he rose, Street a beat behind him.

  “Send Zhelaniya in when you go,” Denis said. “I’ll get him to preparing orders for everyone.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  IMPERIAL FOUNDING: 183/05/09. HOUSE OF DUKES, STRASBOURG, ST. LEGIER

  FORTUNATELY, nothing significant had changed about the new House of Dukes and how they handled their business, so Cameron had been able to listen quietly up in the gallery as rumor and innuendo flowed back and forth like tides on the floor below him this morning.

  He had never met Aquitaine Premier Tadej Horvat in person, so all Cameron had to go on was the man’s legend, and the shadow he now cast over Imperial politics. It was an oversized one, which was impressive, considering the other egos involved.

  But Cameron did have to give the man points for sheer brazenness. A request from the government of Aquitaine that all of the planetary systems Fribourg had taken since the Treaty of Aurvandill, signed by Karl IV a century ago, be declared part of a new neutral zone, so that trade could take place without customs duties.

  Military forces, beyond planetary defenses and joint piracy patrols, to be withdrawn behind the new demarcation line. Aquitaine to eliminate all taxation on trade originating on those worlds, for a period of twenty years. It all made for a lovely concept.

  If Cameron wasn’t privy to information about the sorts of trouble that Horvat was trying to drum up on other fronts, he might have even considered getting Her Majesty behind just such a thing. Karl VIII had hoped that trade between the two nations could change the ancient, military rivalry into an economic one, which would do more for the Empire than the Republic, at the cost of the power of the Dukes.

  Which made it all the more interesting that Magan Gerig, the Duke of Bergelmir, was the one pushing so hard for the Dukes to take it up in public session. Cameron had decided he would be hard pressed to name someone less likely to want to do away with the old order than Gerig. And Gerig wouldn’t personally benefit from such trade in any meaningful way.

  The bribes from Horvat must have been truly astounding.

  Or maybe the Premier just saw a way to build a defensive moat that would keep Aquitaine busy if Kasimira, Karl VIII, was suddenly busy fighting with her own nobles over the future of her throne and her dominion. These Dukes, for instance. That sounded more likely.

  “The Chair recognizes Bergelmir,” a voice brought Cameron back from his day-dreaming to the affairs below.

  He had been up in the balcony all morning, listening to these men drone on about various insignificancies to the point he had begun to wonder if they had forgotten that he was here, or that today’s schedule was supposed to be the first public discussion of the new treaty agreement submitted by Aquitaine.

  Magan Gerig rose and moved to a spot just below where the Chairman of the chamber sat. He was a tall, lean man in his seventh decade, with a full mane of hair that was supposedly still real, however white it had become. He moved like a vid star. Cameron had known enough of those in his time to see where Gerig had learned his gestures and body language.

  Power and confidence wafted off the man like a pleasant fog.

  Because this was the House of Dukes, no civilians or commoners were allowed any sort of authority in here. Historically, the King of St. Legier was the Chairman of the body, but because that worthy was also the Fribourg Emperor, he had always nominated a neutral ally, usually a well-respected Duke from one of the smaller planets, who could be relied upon to be the adult in the room.

  Occasionally, it still came to that with this mob.

  Ge
rig paused and studied the room theatrically before he spoke.

  Cameron had seen pictures of Aquitaine’s Senate chamber. That one was a massive, inverted ziggurat, with twenty-some levels counting backwards from the platform at the bottom, and some of the best acoustics ever put to architecture. Their Premier could, without raising his voice, be heard by almost everyone in the chamber.

  But the Senate was an adversarial body. A meter-high, wooden bench ran down the long axis of the ellipse at the bottommost level, with the Premier on one side, and the Leader of the Loyal Opposition seated directly opposite. That bench was two meters across in all places, historically wide enough that legislators on either side could not reach the other with a sword held in one hand, without first casting all dignity to the winds and climbing up onto the desk itself, where presumably cooler heads would prevail and tackle the fool.

  Gerig had a long rectangle of open floor space before him. Traditionally, this chamber was undivided, as all the men here were loyal subjects of the Emperor. Groups would naturally accrete, on any given topic, but the personalities here were too grand and fractious for anything like permanent factions to stabilize or elections to upset any apple carts.

  Thus, the Duke of Bergelmir was suddenly the most prominent representative of a normally-tiny cluster traditionally calling for less war and more trade, and somewhat surprised that anybody important was listening.

  “My friends, we are come here today to discuss a new phase of relations with the neighbor that has long been our fiercest rival,” Gerig began in a rich tone that carried well in here.

  Cameron watched the other Dukes to see the impact of the words. Men were leaning forward to pay attention, possibly surprised at where the man arrived politically.

  Bergelmir was more or less in the physical center of Fribourg, as navigation went as well as social processes. Not as rich as places like St. Legier or Blue Essex, it nevertheless was a major player. Gerig himself had served a brief stint in the Fribourg Fleet as a young man, before returning home to learn governance of the duchy from his father and grandfather.