Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  His voice trailed off. Kat nodded in grim understanding. No matter how desperately she worked and reworked the figures, at least a third of the survivors would die before they could be evacuated. And many of the evacuees had medical problems, far more than she’d ever anticipated. The Commonwealth would need years to cope with the sudden demand for supplies. She hated to think of what would happen if the process had to be repeated for another inhabited world.

  “We need to end this war quickly,” Admiral Christian added. “Our original plan may have just flown out the airlock.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kat agreed. “There’s no point in trying to liberate Delphi if they destroy the planet as soon as we drive them out.”

  She looked up at the star chart. The original plan had been for her to advance on Delphi as soon as the follow-up elements secured Hebrides. If she’d been lucky, she would have hit the system before the Theocrats realized she was coming. And then she would have moved on to her third target while 6th Fleet advanced on Cadiz, securing the shipping lanes for passage through the Gap and into Theocratic Space.

  But the slow, grinding advance they’d planned had been blown out of the water.

  If nothing else, she reflected numbly, the bastards have more time to prepare.

  Admiral Christian glanced at his watch. “We are due to join a secure conference with the War Cabinet in an hour,” he added. “Before then, we need to have a proposal to put to them.”

  Kat frowned. Hitting Delphi, or even Cadiz, struck her as dangerous now. She had no doubt that they could destroy the orbital defenses and land ground forces, but the Theocracy would just trigger their nukes and blight the entire planet. Nukes could be taken out with KEW strikes, unlike antimatter bombs, yet finding the damn things was almost impossible unless the enemy decided to make it easy. Drones might be able to locate enough of the nukes, but if they missed more than a handful . . .

  Let’s not kid ourselves, she thought. Even a single dirty bomb is a major disaster.

  “The original plan is dead,” she said, finally. “It’s simply not workable any longer.”

  “Quite,” Admiral Christian agreed.

  “So we change the plan,” Kat continued. “Instead of advancing system by system and world by world, we thrust straight at Ahura Mazda itself. We dare them to destroy their own homeworld.”

  “Ahura Mazda is the most heavily defended world in Theocratic Space,” Admiral Christian observed. “Do you plan to charge straight in, guns blazing?”

  “It would depend on what we encountered,” Kat said bluntly. “6th Fleet is the most powerful formation in known space. We can pull in squadrons from 5th and 4th Fleet to back us up too. As long as we are careful, the first Theocratic forces will know of our approach only when we open gateways in the heart of their system. And then we just thrust straight at their homeworld and start landing troops.”

  “And meet fanatical resistance,” Admiral Christian observed.

  Kat had her doubts. She’d met a number of fanatical Theocrats, but she’d had the very definite impression, mainly from reading prisoner transcripts, that a great many Theocrats tolerated rather than embraced their faith. And while she was sure the Theocrats had been told they were winning the war, the arrival of a massive enemy fleet at Ahura Mazda would have to be a terrible shock. The invasion might just encourage them to question their leaders and step aside when Commonwealth troops finally landed.

  “It would have to be handled,” she said. They couldn’t count on meeting no resistance. “But I doubt they’d be prepared to destroy their own homeworld, not if we offer them reasonable surrender terms.”

  “That won’t go down well with the public,” Admiral Christian said. “Right now, according to the latest polls, public support is three-to-one in favor of wiping Ahura Mazda clean of life, then sowing the planet with radioactive dirty bombs just to make sure no one can ever set foot on her again.”

  Kat shuddered. “Millions of innocents would be killed.”

  “Millions of innocents have already been killed,” Admiral Christian reminded her. “And the public wants blood.” He shook his head. “That decision is not ours to make,” he added. “You propose to simply bypass Cadiz completely?”

  “If the Theocrats surrender, we can recover the occupied worlds at a stroke,” Kat said, carefully. “And if they refuse to surrender, we can deal with the occupying forces later.”

  “Unless they decide to commit suicide anyway,” Admiral Christian muttered. “I don’t trust fanatics.”

  “Neither do I,” Kat said. “But the shock of seeing us turn up in their star system should concentrate their minds a little.”

  Admiral Christian nodded, then started tapping commands into a datapad. The star chart vanished, replaced by a complete fleet listing for 4th, 5th, and 6th Fleets. Kat was silently impressed as Admiral Christian started maneuvering forces around the system and deciding what could be ordered to join 6th Fleet. She’d known that hundreds of new ships were coming out of the shipyards, but seeing them displayed, right in front of her, brought it home. The Theocracy didn’t stand a chance.

  “We should be able to concentrate fourteen squadrons of superdreadnoughts, perhaps sixteen if we can convince the Admiralty that Nova Roma doesn’t need three squadrons of superdreadnoughts on guard duty,” Admiral Christian mused. “That would also give us around fifty squadrons of smaller ships and over four thousand gunboats. Ahura Mazda is heavily defended, but we should be able to break down at least one of her PDCs and land troops on the surface.”

  He stopped for a moment. “We could probably also arrange for several marine and militia divisions,” he added. “It’ll be a smaller force than I’d be comfortable with. I’ll discuss it with General Winters. He’ll probably insist on bringing more troops.”

  “I wouldn’t blame him,” Kat said. “Hebrides had a relatively friendly population, Admiral. We didn’t plan to coordinate with the resistance, but we could have done so. The population on Ahura Mazda is unlikely to side with us, at least not at first. Their . . . enforcers will probably try to shove them at the marines.”

  She winced. Pat had once told her, when they’d been comparing notes on who had the hardest job, that even a couple of thousand soldiers could vanish without a trace in a large city, unable to control territory that wasn’t directly under their guns. Ten divisions of marines and militia, assuming they could be scraped up, would be around a hundred thousand soldiers, not all of whom would be frontline riflemen. And yet, they were talking about hitting an entire planet, a planet known to be heavily populated. Fighting their way to the Tabernacle would be a nightmare.

  “General Winters can draw up the plan,” Admiral Christian said. “And if he thinks it can’t be done, it probably can’t be done.”

  Kat made a face. The original plan had been to isolate Ahura Mazda, then wear her defenses down through a series of steady attacks. Any rational enemy would have surrendered upon understanding that they survived only at their attacker’s sufferance. But now, they were talking about landing vast numbers of troops in a coup de main. The prospect for heavy casualties was terrifyingly high.

  “And what,” she asked quietly, “if it can’t be done?”

  “We’d need to find another solution,” Admiral Christian said. His face darkened. “A political one, perhaps.”

  Kat rose and started to pace the giant compartment. The Breakaway Wars had been a series of relatively minor engagements; the handful of tiny conflicts since then resolved with a couple of battles and peace treaties. But the Commonwealth-Theocratic War was different. It had started with a surprise attack, then a series of engagements marked by staggering brutality and a whole string of horrific slaughters, culminating in the death of an entire world. There was no way they could return to the status quo ante bellum, no way they could just let the Theocracy get away with starting the war. If nothing else, they’d be refighting the war again in a couple of decades against an enemy that would have learned from its past m
istakes.

  “I don’t see a way to stop short of utter victory,” she said. “Do you?”

  “No,” Admiral Christian agreed. “But our political masters may feel they do.”

  Kat wasn’t so sure. The aristocracy took the long view. Her great-grandfather, the CEO of the Falcone Corporation during the move to Tyre, had ensured that his children and their heirs married for talent, rather than money, looks, or love. And the tradition had continued, the highest elements of the aristocracy constantly engaging in genteel competition for power, place, and profits. The process ensured that the winners, those who dictated the future of the entire planet, understood how the universe truly worked. They were certainly unlikely to fold at the first hurdle.

  But that’s not true of the king, she thought. It felt like disloyalty to even consider it—she liked King Hadrian—but she knew it was true. He didn’t compete for his position.

  She shook her head. The king was powerful, that was beyond dispute, but he wasn’t all-powerful. And he was smart enough to surround himself with capable advisors.

  “I think they’ll understand that we have to end the war,” she said finally. Her father would, at least. The others would be just as stubborn and bloody minded. “And that we have to make sure the Theocracy cannot return to threaten us once again.”

  “Destroying their ships and shipyards would accomplish that,” Admiral Christian pointed out dryly. “And surely their religion would have to engage in some . . . self-examination if they failed so badly.”

  Kat rather doubted it. She’d studied the early years of the Theocracy. Accomplishing as much as they had was nothing short of miraculous. But somewhere along the line they’d forgotten the underlying ethos of their faith and committed themselves to converting the rest of the galaxy by force. Once, they’d questioned everything, testing and retesting their doctrines until they’d developed a new way to live; now, questioning was utterly forbidden, even when fanatics should be able to understand that they were losing the war. They’d become a monster, a monster that had to be stopped.

  And if the price for stopping the monster is my death, she thought, it is a price I will gladly pay.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “All rise,” the prime minister said. “All rise for His Majesty, King Hadrian.”

  Duke Lucas Falcone, Minister for War Production, rose to his feet as King Hadrian walked through the door and took his seat at the head of the table. The king was young, only two years older than Lucas’s youngest daughter, but Lucas had to admit that he’d proven himself a reasonably effective war leader. And yet, the king’s youth worried him. Kids, in his experience, were prone to making mistakes through simple ignorance of the world around them.

  “Be seated,” King Hadrian said.

  He was a tall man, his short dark hair crowning a face that had been deliberately designed for strength of character rather than raw beauty. The geneticists had outdone themselves, Lucas admitted; King Hadrian looked trustworthy, as if he could make tough decisions. And yet he’d been thrust forward too quickly. His father hadn’t been willing or able to make his heirs compete for power. King Hadrian simply lacked the experience Lucas had brought to the Dukedom when he’d succeeded his uncle.

  But he doesn’t have the urge to fight for every last fragment of power either, Lucas reminded himself. That’s a point in his favor.

  He kept his expression blank as holographic images of his daughter and Admiral Christian appeared and took their places at the far side of the table. Lucas wasn’t sure why King Hadrian was showering so much favor on his youngest daughter, but he didn’t think he liked it. Kat would benefit in the short run, he was sure, but there would be a political price at some point. He would have wondered if the king was courting his daughter if he hadn’t known King Hadrian seemed interested in Princess Drusilla.

  And that brings problems of its own, he thought. Princess Drusilla had escaped the Theocracy a month before the war had officially begun. He could see political advantages to the match, but he was sure it wouldn’t win public approval. Marrying her would certainly put the cat amid the mice.

  “There’s no time for formalities,” King Hadrian said briskly. “We all know why we’re here.”

  A holographic image of Hebrides appeared, floating over the table. The planet looked surprisingly normal from high orbit, but icons and text boxes hovering beside the image showed destroyed settlements and radioactive clouds slowly drifting through the world’s atmosphere. Lucas’s staff had run the figures and calculated that cleaning up Hebrides would cost trillions of crowns. It would be a great deal cheaper, they’d concluded, to terraform three or four Mars-type worlds for the evacuees.

  “Public opinion is demanding retaliation,” the king added. “Do we retaliate?”

  “That would be pointless slaughter,” Lucas said before anyone else could say a word. He knew himself to be ruthless; he knew he had few limits when called upon to preserve his family’s power and position, but pointless slaughter was beyond the pale. “The Theocrats would not be particularly concerned if we kill a few billion people.”

  “And yet the public is torn between a demand for retaliation and a demand for immediate peace,” Israel Harrison said. The Leader of the Opposition looked grim. Problems for the government were normally opportunities for the Loyal Opposition, but this one was a poisoned chalice. “There is a strong concern that the Theocracy could hit one of our worlds.”

  “Orbital defenses have been tightened,” the First Space Lord said. “Right now, I don’t believe a marble could pass through the sensor grid without being detected, tracked, and logged.”

  “A portion of antimatter the size of a marble could do real damage,” Harrison pointed out, grimly. “And the public knows it.”

  “We appear to be caught in a bind,” the king commented. “Striking one of their worlds will not deter them; not striking one of their worlds will also not deter them. We need the war to end.”

  He paused, then looked at Lucas. “You have seen the message from the Theocracy?”

  Lucas nodded, grimly. It was an open secret that some communications links had been maintained, via StarCom, between the Commonwealth and the Theocracy. They hadn’t been used, save for arranging the return of both sets of ambassadors. Now the Theocracy had reopened the links to send a message.

  “They want to end the war now,” the king said. A star chart appeared above the table, replacing the previous image. “They’re offering to withdraw to the Gap, essentially a return to the prewar status quo. Cadiz will be left independent, without influence from either side.”

  He paused. “I think I speak for much of the population,” he added, “when I say I find this unacceptable.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Lucas said. “We’ll be fighting the war again in twenty years, as soon as they have rebuilt their fleets and learned from their past mistakes. We have to put an end to the war on our terms.”

  Harrison cleared his throat. “Are they indicating that they are willing to negotiate?”

  “The message suggests not,” the king said. “They want a return to the prewar situation.”

  “So they’re not offering to surrender?” Harrison mused.

  “No,” Lucas said.

  “But this leads to a very different question,” Harrison said. “Can we win the war?”

  King Hadrian looked at the First Space Lord, who nodded.

  “I think we can safely say that we are outproducing them in almost every category,” the First Space Lord said. “Our figures for what came out of their shipyards over the last eighteen months are little more than educated guesses, but it is fairly clear that their production is definitely not keeping up with ours. Their repair and maintenance system is clearly breaking down, as the recent engagement shows. I think there’s a strong case to be made that they will soon lose the ability to carry on the war.

  “In addition, our technology is superior to theirs right across the board . . . and the gap is only widen
ing. Our stockpiles of the latest missiles are limited, as yet, but within six months we will have enough to take the offensive deep into enemy territory. Their ability to resist us will collapse and that will be the end.”

  “If we have time,” the prime minister said quietly. “It won’t be long before the peace offer, as flawed as it is, leaks.”

  Lucas made a face. The prime minister was right. No amount of government control would be enough to keep word from getting out once it leaked. And it would leak. Too many people knew about the offer for it to remain secret indefinitely. He was surprised that rumors hadn’t already begun to creep onto the datanet.

  “And the other occupied worlds must also be deemed at risk,” the prime minister added. “Can we prevent the Theocracy from depopulating them too?”

  “No, Prime Minister,” the First Space Lord admitted. “We’ve been running simulations, but even under the most favorable conditions, we couldn’t hope to guarantee the capture or destruction of every last nuke. A handful surviving long enough to detonate would be quite enough to do serious damage. Merely coping with Hebrides has pushed our support network to the limit.”

  “We anticipated having to rebuild the occupied worlds,” Lucas said. They’d had plans to do just that ever since it had become clear that the Commonwealth was going to win. “But we never anticipated such destruction. Our stockpiled supplies are totally inadequate for the task at hand.”

  He paused. “Bear in mind that we expected to be rebuilding four worlds, including Cadiz,” he added. “And we stockpiled with that in mind.”

  King Hadrian looked displeased. “Is that it? Stalemate? We dare not continue the war because they are holding entire planets hostage?”

  He looked at Kat. “What do you think?”

  Lucas pursed his lips in disapproval. There were three naval officers in the room and Kat was easily the most junior. Asking her opinion over her superiors’ was a gross breach of etiquette, something that would be bound to cause her problems in the future. But then, he knew the king had chafed under the tutelage of his father’s former advisors. Kat was only a couple of years younger than him, after all.