Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Janice lifted her eyebrows. “Desperate?”

  “You are winning the war,” Junayd said coolly. “Your forces have held the line over the last year, preventing them from advancing farther into your space. You have struck deep into their space, forcing them to devote scarce resources to countering your blows. You have blocked their plans to take control of the Jorlem Sector and recruit spacers and freighters to support their war effort. And now you are planning an offensive to liberate the occupied worlds and invade the Theocracy. They have reason to be desperate.”

  “True,” Grivets agreed. He cocked his head. “Does that bother you?”

  Junayd hid his irritation with an effort. “My family is at risk,” he said. “The longer the war continues, the greater the chance that someone will realize that I defected and take their fury and frustration out on my relatives. And they will, if they discover the truth.”

  “Lovely people, your government,” Grivets said.

  “They will see the string of defeats as a sign they are not pure enough to deserve victory,” Junayd said sharply. Grivets didn’t understand. How could he? “They will probably have started purifying themselves now, purging everyone suspected of questioning the faith from the body politic. The Inquisition will have free reign to throw anyone it doesn’t like into the fire, torturing them to death.”

  “How nice,” Grivets said.

  “They believe that sin taints the soul,” Junayd said. He’d believed it too, when he’d been younger. It had taken constant exposure to the highest levels of Theocratic government to shake his faith. “But pain cleanses the soul. A willing penitent will beg to be flogged, just to remove his sin. That is the way they think, Lieutenant. They will do everything in their power to root out the unbelievers and destroy them.”

  “Madness,” Grivets said.

  “It makes perfect sense,” Junayd assured him dryly. “If, of course, you accept the True Faith.”

  Janice cleared her throat. “If we were to retaliate against one of their worlds,” she said, “how would they react?”

  “Poorly,” Junayd said.

  He took a breath. “I don’t know what they were thinking at the time, but surrendering territory goes against everything they believe in,” he added. “They could be determined to make sure you recover nothing more than dead lands and countless bodies.”

  “Shitheads,” Grivets said.

  “They’re following the True Faith,” Junayd pointed out. “Hebrides was occupied for eighteen months, correct? During that time, the inhabitants had plenty of time to hear about the True Faith. Those who accepted it are assured of heaven; those who willfully rejected it are irredeemable unbelievers condemned to hell. Slaughtering everyone on Hebrides simply doesn’t have the same connotations to them as it does to you.”

  “So they might not try to strike at Tyre,” Janice mused. “This world was never occupied.”

  “I suspect they will manage to justify anything, given time,” Junayd said. Learning how easily scripture could be manipulated had disillusioned him more than he cared to admit. “I believe there are copies of all of the holy books on your planetary datanet, right? They could claim that you have had a chance to accept the True Faith.”

  “That makes no sense,” Grivets protested.

  “Of course it does,” Junayd said. “The Theocracy believes that the truth of the True Faith is so strong that no one except a completely irredeemable unbeliever will fail to accept it at once, the moment they hear it. A person who doesn’t accept it at once is not just wrong, he is willfully wrong. They’re wrong in the same sense that someone who insisted that you were actually a woman would be wrong. The evidence is all against you.

  “Logically, insofar as you can apply logic to religion, a person who hasn’t heard the truth cannot be blamed for not hearing it,” he added. “Killing that person would be morally wrong. But a person who heard the truth and rejected it . . . yes, that person deserves to die, and die quickly, before he infects others.”

  He gave him a tight smile. “Do not make the mistake of assuming the Theocracy’s leaders will follow their rules,” he warned. “They are perfectly capable of twisting rules to suit their purposes.”

  “Of course,” Grivets said. “That’s what religions do.”

  Junayd winced. One of the advantages of being on Tyre was that he had access to history records that hadn’t been carefully sanitized by the Inquisition. He’d known, of course, that the Theocracy’s official history was a lie, but he hadn’t known just how badly history had been warped and perverted to serve his former masters. The original Theocrats hadn’t been madmen with dreams of galactic conquest. They’d been men and women who’d merely wanted to be left alone. But the dream had been perverted into a nightmare during the years of persecution and exile. The men had been enslaved by their leaders, bound in chains of faith and fear; the women had been turned into baby-machines, their bodies modified to ensure they brought dozens of children into the world. And none of the modern-day Theocrats knew the truth.

  But they will be starting to suspect it, he thought. Just as he’d found it hard to rationalize the difference between what he’d been told and reality, and he had, the commoners on Ahura Mazda would be feeling the same way. They’d be quiet about their feelings, knowing that the Inquisition would be out for blood, but discontent would be spreading. And who knows what will happen when the commoners are pushed too far?

  He shuddered at the thought. He had no way of knowing what was happening on Ahura Mazda, but his former masters would know. Word would be spreading, passed down from soldiers and spacers to their civilian relatives. And those who couldn’t be kept ignorant of the outside universe, the engineers and shipyard workers, would know that something was badly wrong. Who knew what would happen when discontent snowballed into a critical mass?

  Janice gave him a searching look. “Is there any way we can deter them from slaughtering the population of another planet?”

  “You’d need to threaten the leadership themselves,” Junayd said.

  He met her eyes, somehow. “I don’t think you understand just how little the average commoner on Ahura Mazda knows about the universe,” he added. “There aren’t many people who own computers, let alone have access to the datanet. The radio and television stations are run by the government. Rest assured, each and every program they produce is vetted by the Inquisition before it is broadcast.”

  “I’ve watched some of their broadcasts,” Grivets said. “It was awful.”

  “They’re not trying to entertain their population,” Junayd pointed out. “They’re trying to brainwash people.”

  Grivets was right. The vast majority of television programs on Ahura Mazda were genuinely awful, even the ones meant to be entertaining. His people were beset by tales of heroic Inquisitors who strove mightily to weed out unbelief wherever they found it, facing enemies who were ludicrously incompetent. Junayd couldn’t help wondering if the shows actually made it easier for people to consider rebelling, if they believed that the Inquisitors were incompetent too. But the heroes always won in the end.

  And besides, they wouldn’t want to show too much detail, he thought. It would be far too revealing.

  Those shows weren’t even the worst, he recalled. Hours upon hours of religious instruction, hundreds of clerics babbling on and on about the right way to behave; government warnings and notices encouraging the population to watch for heresy and unbelief, even urging children to report their parents for sedition. And far too many people took them seriously . . .

  “You think we should threaten the leaders,” Janice mused. “Why them?”

  “The leadership is unlikely to be moved by threats of mass slaughter,” Junayd pointed out. “Those who actually believe the crap they spout will claim that the dead will go straight to heaven, those who don’t will not give a damn about them. You need to make a credible threat against their lives, something that will convince them that they can and will be killed if they destr
oy another planet.”

  Grivets snorted. “Like what?”

  “Bombard Ahura Mazda,” Junayd said simply. “Or even merely destroy the Tabernacle.”

  “Both of those options would kill millions of civilians,” Janice pointed out. “Your family would be at risk.”

  “Yes, they will,” Junayd agreed. He cursed his own words. He had no idea where his family was currently hiding, but they wouldn’t survive something that burned the entire planet. “I just don’t see any other option.”

  “I’ll pass your words on to my superiors,” Janice said. She looked around the apartment. “Is there anything else we can get you, while we’re here?”

  “Just an updated intelligence brief, if you have one,” Junayd said. He liked knowing what was going on. “There’s nothing else I want right now.”

  Grivets smirked. “Not even a walk outside the complex?”

  “There’s nothing to see outside,” Junayd said untruthfully. He’d spent enough time on starships to overcome whatever hints of claustrophobia he might have suffered. “And I doubt the population wants to see me.”

  “They wouldn’t recognize you,” Janice said.

  “No, thank you,” Junayd said. The last thing he wanted was for someone to make a note of his presence. He’d warned the Commonwealth that the Theocracy still had a spy network on Tyre, although he didn’t know any details they could use to find the bastards. “I’ll stay here until the end of the war.”

  “Start looking at ways we can try to find out who is in charge on Ahura Mazda,” Janice said, rising. It was an order. “And we’ll see you soon.”

  Junayd watched them leave, then turned to click on the terminal. The news had recently broken, clearly. The local news channel was ranting and raving about the attack on Hebrides, showing endless scenes of horror as the relief crews struggled to cope with the aftermath. Every channel was showing the same thing, with presenters demanding everything from an immediate end to the war to a full-scale strike on Ahura Mazda. Junayd had no idea which way the Commonwealth would jump, but he had to admit that the war had just taken a turn for the worse. No one had destroyed an entire planet since Earth had been attacked in the closing days of the Breakaway Wars.

  And even then, it caused problems, he thought. Now . . .

  He turned off the terminal and paced over to his desk. Janice knew she had given him an impossible task. Everything he knew about the Theocracy’s government was nearly a year out of date. And the average commoner on Ahura Mazda wouldn’t be told anything about his government, not even the name of the man in charge. The commoner couldn’t know how things had changed, let alone why.

  If they’re desperate, that’s one thing, he told himself. Desperate men could be talked down, if necessary. The Commonwealth might waive the right to hold war crimes trials if the Theocracy surrendered. Dumping the former government on a penal world would be almost as good as putting them in front of a firing squad. But if the extremists have taken control, that’s quite another thing altogether.

  He shivered, despite the warm air. They won’t surrender easily . . .

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Entering hyperspace now, Captain,” Lieutenant Gross said.

  “Local hyperspace appears clear,” Cecelia added. “There’s nothing here but us chickens.”

  “Good,” William said. The odds were against the Theocracy waiting in ambush, but the possibility couldn’t be discounted. The task force, its corridors crammed with evacuees and its life support redlined, was in no state for a fight. “Keep us in formation.”

  He sat back in his command chair and forced himself to relax. Cold logic told him he could do nothing more for his homeworld, but he didn’t believe it. He’d been sorely tempted to request permission to remain behind, along with the other volunteers, yet he’d known permission would never be granted. Thunderchild and her sisters were needed to flank the task force as she returned to the fleet base. And then . . .

  Perhaps we go on the offensive, he thought. The last courier boat to arrive had included updates stating that the entire Commonwealth was outraged at the atrocity with little detail on how the government planned to respond. Or perhaps we make peace.

  The thought was horrific. Even before his homeworld had been blasted, blighted beyond repair, the Theocracy had committed an endless stream of atrocities. He had no idea how many people, military or civilian, had died in the war, but he was sure casualties were in the high millions. The populations of the other occupied worlds, the populations of the worlds the Theocracy had conquered before encountering the Commonwealth . . . they were suffering under the Theocracy’s yoke. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them in enemy hands, despite the risk of mass slaughter if the war continued . . .

  And yet the government might think differently, he reminded himself. They’re responsible for the rest of the Commonwealth.

  His console chimed. “Yes?”

  “Captain, this is Roach,” Commander Christopher Roach said. He sounded irked, although he was making a brave effort to hide it. “We have a situation on Deck Four. Our passengers are requesting your intervention.”

  “Understood,” William said. He had no need to ask who was causing the situation. Or, for that matter, who’d asked for his presence. “I’m on my way.”

  He rose. “Commander Parkinson, you have the bridge,” he said. “I’ll be on Deck Four.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cecelia said.

  William concealed his amusement at her eager expression as he turned and walked through the hatch, nodding to the marine on duty outside as he passed. Cecelia, like all ambitious officers, would do whatever it took to get more hours in the command chair, building up experience in the hope it would smooth her path to her own vessel. And she would probably find it easy to get promoted too, he thought. There were hundreds of new starships coming out of the yards, and she’d yet to blot her copybook beyond repair.

  His ship smelled . . . rank as he walked down the stairs, despite the air filters working overtime to cleanse and recycle the atmosphere. There were only two hundred spacers on Thunderchild, but they’d been joined by over a thousand evacuees from Hebrides: men, women, and children. Cramming them all into the ship had been a nightmare; even now, with some corridors specifically left clear for the crew, the overcrowding was still a major headache. He’d asked his officers to share cabins just to clear more room for the evacuees.

  And that hasn’t stopped them from complaining, he thought, wondering just what this complaint was about. The food? The drink? The toilets? They’re just not used to being on a starship.

  Commander Roach was standing outside the hold looking tired. William had given him the job of organizing the evacuees, which had become something of a poisoned chalice under the circumstances. The things spacers took for granted, the safety rules that ensured their survival in a very hostile environment, were completely alien to the refugees. He hoped they’d avoid any nasty accidents, but he had a feeling that soon something very unpleasant would happen.

  “They’re in there,” Roach said wearily. “Can’t we just stun them for the trip?”

  William shook his head firmly. Though the thought was tempting, stunning someone repeatedly risked brain damage—or worse. Besides, keeping the stunned bodies alive would be tricky without stasis pods. They wouldn’t be able to eat or drink, let alone go to the toilet. And when they woke, they’d be understandably outraged.

  “Stay here,” he said. “And wait.”

  The smell of too many people in too close proximity grew stronger as he stepped into the hold. Several families were jammed together: four older women, three men, nineteen teenage girls, and at least thirty children running around despite the best efforts of their older relatives. Morag was sitting on the bed, her arms crossed under her breasts; Father Larry was sitting next to her, looking grim. Once, William knew, it was an expression that would have chilled him to the bone, promising a harsh punishment in the very near future. Now . . . now, it was
merely annoying.

  “Father,” he said curtly.

  Father Larry looked up at him. “Remove the . . . the computer terminals at once.”

  William barely resisted the urge to clench his fists. One did not dictate to a captain on his ship. Even an admiral would hesitate before trying to direct the inner affairs of a captain’s vessel. Undermining the commanding officer was against both regulations and common sense. And for a guest, someone who was being saved from a gruesome death, to try . . .

  If he’d spoken like that to my father, he thought, he would have had his eye blackened . . . at the very least.

  William clamped down hard on his temper. “Why?”

  “Our children have been using them,” Father Larry said. “They are being exposed to bad influences.”

  William lifted an eyebrow. “And what influences are those?”

  Father Larry reddened. “It doesn’t matter,” he protested. “All that matters is that the children are looking at them.”

  “You don’t know,” William said. He wasn’t surprised. Father Larry and his ilk had never bothered to research the outside universe. They hadn’t needed to know anything about the Commonwealth to condemn it. “Access to the datanet, at least the sections open to civilians, is a basic human right, laid down in the Commonwealth Charter. I cannot ban your people from looking at it without a very good reason.”

  “It will damage their minds,” Father Larry protested. “Gayle was insisting that she could become a spacer too!”

  William had to fight to conceal his amusement. “The Commonwealth allows women to work as spacers,” he said deadpan. “I do recall women working in the field when I was a lad.”

  Morag covered her mouth hastily. Father Larry shot her a sharp look but didn’t try to press the point. Women might be subject to their husbands on Hebrides, yet most of them worked in the fields and knew how to shoot. It was a rare husband who was stupid enough to try to break his wife. One who tried might end up dead, his body dumped in a ditch. And the wife might well escape punishment altogether.