Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  She allowed her voice to darken. “And if you can’t handle it,” she added, “how can you handle the family? And the clients?”

  Peter looked irked. “We shall see,” he said. “But the family’s position has been weakened, Katherine. You need to bear that in mind.”

  “I shall,” Kat said. She rose. “And, if you don’t mind, I need to freshen up. I’ve been offered a place of honor in the review booth.”

  “So you have,” Peter agreed. “Try not to let the media catch you falling asleep next to the king.”

  Kat flushed. “It was one time,” she protested. She’d dozed off in the stands during an award ceremony at school. In hindsight, only her father’s influence had saved her from being unceremoniously expelled. “And I was thirteen!”

  “Yes,” Peter said. He gave her a thin-lipped smirk. “And it will be much more embarrassing if you do it at twenty-nine.”

  William had been surprised when he’d passed through the security checkpoints outside the parade grounds that the staff pointed him to the regal box. His knighthood assured him a decent seat, but right beside the king? And then he saw Kat Falcone settling into her seat and knew the answer. She, or the king, had invited him into the box.

  He sat down next to her, feeling oddly exposed. The box was surrounded by a force field, with a platoon of armored marines within eyeshot, but he couldn’t help wondering if an enemy sniper might be taking aim at them. He was surprised the security staff had agreed to allow the king to appear in public, especially in a place where thousands of civilians and military officials were mingling. And yet he had to admit the king needed to be seen. The public had to know that the head of state wasn’t hiding in a bunker but sharing the danger.

  Although his appearance isn’t that dangerous, he thought. The force field around this box could stand off a nuke.

  “Kat,” he said, “did you invite me here?”

  “The king did, I believe,” Kat said. She sounded oddly distracted, as if she was worrying about some greater matter. “I don’t know why.”

  The crowd cheered loudly. William glanced up, just in time to see King Hadrian himself appear at the top of the stairs. He rose hastily and bowed as the king made his way down to the regal chair, waving to the crowd. William couldn’t shake his first impression of the king—that he was a junior officer out of his depth—but he had to admit that Hadrian had gotten better at playing to the audience. Behind him, Princess Drusilla and Princess Aeliana followed, both wearing dresses that seemed to glow under the light. The crowd cheered them loudly.

  Everyone knows that the princesses risked their lives to save the Commonwealth, William thought as the king sat on his chair. The seat wasn’t quite a throne but was large enough to make it clear who was in charge. The media has been talking about their escape for months.

  He sat and watched, torn between excitement and boredom, as the spacers, soldiers, and marines marched across the parade ground. The crowd cheered itself hoarse, hooting and hollering. William couldn’t escape the impression that most of the crowd didn’t know what they were cheering, or why. The gaps in the formation where troops should be bore mute testament to the high cost of the war. No one would ever know how many people had died because of the war, directly or indirectly, but countless families were grieving their dead relatives. Kat was mourning her lover. It seemed wrong, somehow, to cheer.

  And millions of people died on Hebrides, he thought bitterly. The end of the war hasn’t brought peace.

  His eyes swept the crowd, picking out those who didn’t seem so pleased. Were they people who’d lost someone to the war? Or people who knew the price that had been paid? Or merely people who thought the war had been wasteful? There were already commentators asking pointed questions about the government’s plans to finish the war, pointing out that there had been easier and cheaper ways to win. But all of their questions were driven by hindsight, by what had been discovered after the end of the conflict. The government of the time hadn’t known enough about its enemies.

  He frowned as he spotted Sandy McNeal, wearing black as he watched the parade. The representative for Hebrides looked grim, mourning his dead world even as he applauded the end of the war. Beside him, Rose MacDonald—his hatchet woman—looked worse. God alone knew what would happen, now that the survivors were en route to New Pennsylvania. Hebrides hadn’t been a rich world, even before the war. Funding the growth and development of a whole new planet would be an absolute nightmare. He could easily imagine hundreds of thousands of youngsters choosing to leave rather than trying to rebuild a society they’d often found restrictive.

  God help us, he thought.

  It felt like hours before the parade finally came to an end. William was tired, unwilling to stay and yet unable to leave; beside him, Kat seemed to feel the same way. The king looked enthusiastic, as if he could have remained in the box for hours to come. But then, William thought, he’d been preparing for his role almost from birth. Beside him, Princess Drusilla glowed; Aeliana looked scared. She would never have seen so many people in one place back on her homeworld, not when she’d been cooped up from birth. William couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. It would be a long time before she felt safe on Tyre.

  And the rest of her family is dead, William thought. A high price for her freedom.

  The king rose. The crowd fell silent.

  “Two years ago, the storm broke,” the king said. William had to admit the king had an excellent speaking voice. “The Theocracy of Ahura Mazda launched a sneak attack on our worlds, aiming to crush our fleets and shatter our unity before we could rally and take the fight to the enemy. Their ships attacked Cadiz and 5th Fleet, then hit and occupied five other worlds while raiding forces struck deep into our territory. It looked as though we might lose the war.

  “But we held. Our spacers and soldiers refused to yield, fighting desperately to hold the line and find new ways to take the war to the enemy. Our people rallied to the cause, enlisting in the military or finding employment in our growing war industries. We stopped the enemy offensive and then struck deep into their space. And now, finally, we have won the war. The threat is gone.”

  The crowd cheered. The king stood there, drinking in their applause. William felt a stab of bitter resentment, despite himself. King Hadrian hadn’t commanded any ships or served in a groundpounder unit. He hadn’t done anything except chair the War Cabinet and make speeches. And yet, he was practically claiming the credit for himself.

  “But this victory came at a very high cost,” the king continued when the crowd had finally quieted down. “Hundreds of thousands of spacers, soldiers, and militiamen lost their lives in combat; millions of civilians were killed, either by enemy occupation forces or enemy strikes on our worlds. We do not even begin to know how many enemy servicemen and civilians were killed in the fighting. Their deaths, I pledge to you, will not be in vain.

  “Years ago, we planned a slow and steady expansion of the Commonwealth. New member worlds would have assistance to develop their economies, while steadily integrating into our system. Those plans were destroyed by the war. The demands of the war industries had to come first. We could not waste resources on developing colonial worlds when we had to protect ourselves from the Theocracy and then go on the offensive.

  “But now that the war is over, we have a serious problem. Countless worlds have suffered because of the war. Countless populations have experienced all manner of problems because of the war. Rebuilding the occupied worlds will be hard enough, but repairing the damage to the unoccupied worlds will be worse. The war exposed many of the cracks in our own societies. I swear that we will not let those cracks go untended.

  “I pledge to you that the Commonwealth will work to rebuild, to repair the damage caused by the war, to heal worlds the enemy occupied for decades. I will commit the full resources of the monarchy to making it work. And, to seal my pledge, I tell you now that Princess Drusilla has accepted my offer of marriage.”

  William f
elt Kat start beside him. She hadn’t known.

  He fought hard to keep his face under control. Even he had been unable to hide from the tabloid speculations about who the king would marry, but Princess Drusilla? She might have been branded a heroine—and the crowds were already cheering her name—yet he doubted it would be long before the king’s political enemies remembered just who had fathered her . . . and worry, perhaps, that she would exert undue influence over her husband.

  The crowd seemed happy, judging by the racket, but here and there he could see shocked and unhappy faces: Israel Harrison, Leader of the Opposition; Duke Newport, perhaps the most powerful aristocrat save for the king himself; Peter Falcone, Kat’s oldest brother and probably the next in line for the Dukedom. The king hadn’t consulted anyone outside his privy council, William realized slowly. He might not have consulted anyone at all.

  And who knows, he asked himself, what will happen when the opposition gets organized?

  He shook his head, slowly. The king could marry whomever he wanted, if he recalled his civics lessons correctly, but if Parliament disliked the Royal Consort, they could force him to abdicate or simply impeach him. And then? The king didn’t have any siblings. His closest relative was a cousin. But that cousin was married to a duke and technically barred from the throne. The entire affair was going to be one hell of a mess.

  It may be a good thing I’m leaving, he thought, sourly. He’d promised Kat he’d stay for Pat’s funeral, but not much longer. This conflict could turn ugly in a hurry.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Kat couldn’t help thinking, as the empty casket was placed into the ground by the marine honor guard, that Pat would not have appreciated the sheer number of reporters who’d turned up for his funeral, although he might have been amused by his former comrades flatly refusing to allow them into the cemetery. The hovering crowd of vultures was on the far side of a security fence, lying in wait for the handful of guests to leave. Someone, probably one of her uncles, had told them that Kat and Pat had been engaged before his death. The media had promptly turned the story into a love affair to rival Romeo and Juliet.

  Bastards, she thought. It isn’t as if we killed ourselves because we were too stupid to wait and see what happens.

  She pushed the thought aside as the ceremony finally came to an end. Pat’s will had specified a minimal service, with no more than a handful of his fellow marines and friends in attendance. His sole surviving relative, a sister, hadn’t been able to return to Tyre for the funeral, although Kat had promised to visit her when she had a chance. The poor woman had found herself under siege by the media before she’d learned what had happened.

  “I’m sorry, Pat,” Kat said quietly. “You deserved better.”

  She pulled the ring from her finger as the marines started burying the casket, then walked over and dropped it into the earth. No one said anything as it was buried, respecting her unspoken wishes. She hated to admit that Peter was right. Keeping the ring was bad enough, but wearing it was definitely unhealthy. She turned to walk away from the grave, then stopped as she saw an aircar landing neatly on the far side of the graveyard. A hot flash of anger burned through her, only to fade when the hatch opened and the king stepped out. He looked as tired and worn as she felt.

  “Your Majesty,” she said stiffly. Two days had passed since the king had announced his marriage, two days since the entire planet had gone crazy. Half the population seemed to support the match; the other half appeared to detest the very idea. “Have you come to pay your last respects?”

  “I believe he was a good man,” the king said. He glanced past her, his eyes crossing the grave and the stone-faced marines guarding it. “And I am genuinely sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” Kat said.

  She watched the king salute the grave, unsure how she should feel. The king had never been a close friend of Pat’s, and he certainly hadn’t been invited to the ceremony, but he’d taken the time to come anyway. And he hadn’t turned it into a media circus. Kat was silently grateful for that, if nothing else. The media probably didn’t know who’d been in the aircar until it had landed past the security fence.

  “There are some matters I wish to discuss with you,” the king said, when he had finished. He indicated the aircar. “Please will you join me?”

  Kat hesitated, then nodded. Pat’s friends were planning to hold a wake, but she didn’t feel like drinking herself into a stupor. She waved to William, silently reminding him that he’d promised to join her for dinner before leaving Tyre, then followed the king into the aircar and sat down. She’d expected luxury, but the aircar was little more comfortable than a flying taxicab. And yet the king seemed quite happy with it.

  “Your Majesty,” she said. There were questions she wanted to ask him, but she didn’t know how. “What can I do for you?”

  “Your promotion to admiral is going through now,” the king told her as the aircar rose into the air. A pair of gunships appeared from nowhere and fell into escort position. “You’ll probably be placed in command of 6th Fleet. The Admiralty is looking at permanently establishing a full-scale fleet deployment within the Ahura Mazda Sector. If so, you’ll be going back there as commanding officer.”

  “Again,” Kat said. She never wanted to see Ahura Mazda again—technically, she’d never set foot on the blighted world—but it beat a desk job. “Is this confirmed?”

  “Not as yet,” the king said. “But there are few other candidates.”

  He paused. “It’s been three months since the end of the war,” he added. “Ahura Mazda is in pretty bad shape, and it isn’t the only world staring starvation in the face. There are dozens of Theocratic garrisons that need to be shipped home, hundreds of little problems that need to be tackled before they turn into big problems. I’m trying to get some Relief and Recovery services out there, but it’s not proving easy. Too many people think we should put our own planets first.”

  “We should,” Kat said.

  “But then the Theocracy will take root once again,” the king reminded her. “We still haven’t accounted for all of their remaining warships.”

  Kat made a face. ONI’s best guess, which she took with the routine grain of salt, was that most of the surviving enemy ships would become nonfunctional very quickly. For once, she didn’t disagree. But they hadn’t been accounted for, and until they were, they were a prospective threat. Unless they had headed out beyond explored space, in which case, they wouldn’t be a threat for generations, if at all.

  “It is important,” the king said. “And the longer we wait, the harder it will be to lay the groundwork for the former Theocratic worlds to join the Commonwealth.”

  “It will take years for them to be ready,” Kat said, quietly.

  “Then we’d better get started,” the king said. “My father oversaw the creation of the Commonwealth. I wish to oversee its expansion.”

  He paused. “And there is a second point,” he added. “Now the war is over, I am reformatting my privy council. A couple of my father’s former advisors have requested permission to leave their duties, and I have granted it.”

  Kat glanced at him. “Was that before or after you announced your forthcoming marriage?”

  “Before,” the king told her. “They wanted to leave earlier, but I asked them to stay until the end of the war. I want you to take one of those vacant seats.”

  Kat stared at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes,” the king said. “And I need your answer soon.”

  Kat took a moment to consider the implications, but she knew she was already out of her depth. The king’s privy council consisted of his most trusted advisors, men and women who were friends as well as allies, people who could be relied upon to tell him the truth. To be asked to take a seat on the privy council was a great honor. And yet, it had deeper implications. Her father hadn’t been on the privy council. She’d always had the impression he’d refused a seat.

  And if I take the seat, she thoug
ht, what does it mean for my family?

  “I would have to check with my brother,” she said, finally. “But I have no personal objection.”

  The king looked oddly disappointed. “Your father would have snapped out an answer at once,” he said.

  “My father was the Duke,” Kat pointed out. “I am not.”

  “True,” the king agreed. He pulled a small terminal out of his pocket and glanced at it. “I believe you will be given your next assignment by the end of the week. I need your answer by then. There’s no formal investiture ceremony, thankfully, but you will have to be briefed on a number of issues before you leave. My staff will see to it.”

  “I understand,” Kat said.

  The king reached out and touched her hand, gently. “For what it’s worth, I need your advice and support,” he said. “There are too many old fogies on my privy council, men I inherited from my father. They lack vision.”

  “William was old enough to be my father,” Kat pointed out.

  “But he wasn’t on the privy council,” the king countered. He smiled, rather thinly. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Just one,” Kat said. “At the parade . . . why did you announce everything?”

  For a long moment, she thought the king wasn’t going to answer. And then he leaned forward, as if he were about to impart a secret.

  “The Commonwealth has been sorely tested by the war,” the king told her. “And now that the war is over, all the naysayers are trying to pull back, to abandon commitments that need to be honored. But this isn’t the time to stop. For the sake of the entire Commonwealth, for the sake of the future, we cannot slow down now. We must not surrender the opportunity to expand the Commonwealth and bring prosperity to the galaxy. And I will not let that be buried beneath partisan politics.”

  He paused. “Does that answer your question?”

  “I think so,” Kat said. Should she talk his request over with Peter? Or William? Or should she keep it to herself? She had the feeling she’d been told something in confidence, even if the king hadn’t specifically told her to keep it private. “And I’ll let you know in a day or two.”