“Someone on the station must have set it up,” the engineer said. “This needed a skilled technician to assemble.”
Uzi didn’t — quite — roll his eyes. “Then we’ll have to be careful who we invite to join us,” he said, dryly. “This person was very clearly a watchdog.”
* * *
“The planetary government is none too pleased with us,” Roman commented, four hours later. “But they have reluctantly agreed to grant us control of their orbital defenses and surrender the industrial nodes to us.”
“They didn’t have much choice,” Elf pointed out. “If they hadn’t surrendered the orbital defenses, Roman, what would you have done with them?”
Roman frowned. “I’m glad I didn’t have to find out,” he said. “As it was...”
He allowed his voice to trail away. Taking the planet’s industries by force would have been easy enough, but actually putting them to work would have been a great deal harder. There might not have been any strikes, yet there would definitely have been slowdowns and production headaches, if not outright sabotage. And besides, he didn’t like the idea of forcing people to support him. The Outsiders would certainly have wondered if he was copying Emperor Marius.
But Alexis is going to wonder if the Emperor will mount a counterattack within days, he thought, grimly. It was hard to blame the planetary government for being worried about being too enthusiastic about supporting Roman and the Outsiders. They won’t want to be caught supporting the wrong side during a civil war.
“You won a fairly easy victory,” Elf said. “Congratulations.”
“It’s not over yet,” Roman said, shaking his head. The defenders of Asimov Point Three had surrendered without a fight, but the defenders of the Ruthven Asimov Point were evidently made of sterner stuff. They’d not only ignored all challenges to surrender, they’d fired long-range missiles at his battlecruisers whenever they’d come within range. “We need to take Ruthven before we can risk slowing the offensive.”
He cursed Commodore Brinkman under his breath. The man might have a chip on his shoulder the size of a superdreadnaught, but he’d fought a stubborn defense and cost Roman dearly. Losing a superdreadnaught was quite bad enough; losing the assault pods, irony of ironies, was far worse. By now, he suspected, whoever was in charge of Ruthven would be towing every fortress in their system into position to stand off an assault through the Asimov Point. Breaking through would be immensely costly...
... And it would take months to rebuild his forces to the point where he could cross the interstellar gulf and enter the Tara Sector.
“True,” Elf agreed. She rose and started to pace the cabin, turning her head to keep him in view. “When do you want to move?”
Roman sighed. “Ideally, I’d like two weeks to restock,” he said. Hell, he would have liked a month, just to make sure his fleet was as strong as possible. “But I think we’re going to have to move as soon as we get the next shipload of assault pods. Merely getting into a missile duel with the fortresses on this side of the Asimov Point will be quite bad enough.”
“The fortresses can’t dodge,” Elf pointed out, wryly. She stopped pacing and turned to face him. “And you have some other advantages.”
“We’re still going to be hurt badly,” Roman predicted. Outsider technology was all very well, yet they had yet to invent something that rendered the Federation Navy completely obsolete. He’d racked his brain for something — anything — that might save the lives of his crewmen, but nothing had come to mind. “Unless...”
He reached for the datapad and picked up the latest report from the engineers who’d inspected the fortresses. The databases were gone, they’d said, but reprogramming them wouldn’t be too hard. Indeed, they’d claimed they could have the fortresses up and running again within a week. Roman rather doubted it, but...
“If the fortresses are capable of even minimal operations,” he said, “I might just have an idea.”
“That sounds bad,” Elf said. “Is anyone going to like the idea?”
“Probably not,” Roman said. He keyed through the intelligence reports, checking that he’d read an earlier outline of the system’s assets correctly. “But at least, thanks to the Marsha, we have plenty of volunteers for what is effectively a suicide mission.”
Chapter Thirteen
One of the major problems facing the Federation Navy, as a result of the patronage system, was that few junior officers were willing to confront their seniors, even when their seniors behaved abominably. For example, Admiral Stevenson, despite being a known rapist, remained in position until 4098, where he was removed from his post and shot by the direct command of Marius Drake.
—The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199
Earth, 4101
Tiffany had never really believed that a person could change rapidly, certainly not over such a short period as seven months. She’d had few true friends in her life and none of them had changed so quickly, even when they’d married or set out to take control of their family’s interests. But her husband... he was distant, almost as if he was unaware of her existence, his moods shifting so suddenly that she was sure something was terrifyingly wrong.
She sat at her dressing table, methodically brushing her long red hair. Her mother, dead long before the rest of the Grand Senate, had taught her to brush her own hair when she was stressed, insisting it would help to calm her thoughts. Tiffany had thought her mother was being absurd until she’d realized just how few of her peers brushed their own hair. Why would they bother when they had maids to do it for them? But Tiffany had never seen the point...
I wish my mother was still alive, she thought, I could ask for her advice. She’d know what was wrong, what I needed to do.
It was a bitter thought. Her mother had given her a great deal of advice for the day Tiffany finally married, although she hadn’t expected very much. Tiffany didn’t know if her mother would have laughed or cried if she’d heard that Tiffany had married the Emperor, let alone had ruled the Sol System in his name. And almost none of her mother’s advice had proved remotely useful. But then, Tiffany had been expected to be nothing more than a decorative piece of arm candy when someone finally offered to marry her.
She scowled, brushing her hair time and time again. It would be better, almost, if she were being treated as a piece of arm candy. At least then, she was sure, her husband would show a little interest in her. As it was, he’d barely touched her in the week since his arrival at Earth, their love-making so perfunctory as to be nothing more than a joke. Her mother had told her that some men could be selfish, that some men cared nothing for the pleasure of their partners, but Marius hadn’t shown any interest in his own pleasure, let alone hers. He barely even kissed her any longer.
He’d always been a workaholic, but now it was worse. He barely slept. It was all she could do to keep him in bed for a couple of hours a night; his sleep was labored and broken. And he only ate enough to keep himself going, in-between reading reports, issuing orders, and supervising the revamping of the entire fleet. Tiffany was no military expert, but she couldn’t see how shifting thousands of officers and crewmen from ship to ship helped efficiency, nor how stationing Blackshirts on every ship ensured their loyalty. Hadn’t the Grand Senate put Blackshirts and Commissioners on its own starships, after the start of the war?
He’s going mad, she thought.
It wasn’t a thought she wanted to face. She loved him, more deeply and truly than she cared to admit. He’d been the one who’d raised her up and out of her existence, who’d treated her as a human being, who’d given her the chance to actually do something useful... of course she loved him! And yet...
She looked over towards the bed, towards the terminal she’d been allowed to keep. Her authority had vanished the moment Marius had returned, of course, but she still got the intelligence reports from Earth. Marius’s methods to get the population back to work were sparking off riots, each nastier than the last, yet he didn’t seem to give
a damn. She’d tried to talk to him, but he hadn’t listened. He was so driven to extract revenge on Roman Garibaldi and everyone else who stood in his path that he didn’t care about anything else, not any longer. The man who’d taken power, who’d set out to save the Federation from itself, was gone.
The intercom chimed. “My Lady,” Operative Oslo said, “Commander Lewis is here, as you requested.”
Tiffany swallowed. She had never — never — before gone behind her husband’s back. None of her friends had been scared of their husbands, even if the marriages hadn’t worked; they’d known their families would support them if their husbands treated them too badly. And the husbands would face their own families if they pushed the marriage bonds too far. But there was no one to protect Tiffany if her husband turned on her.
And there’s no one to protect Commander Lewis, either, she thought. I shouldn’t have invited her...
Angrily, she pushed the thought aside. She had to do something. And finding out what was wrong — what was truly wrong — was the first step.
“Send her in,” she ordered. “And then hold my calls.”
She snorted at the thought. Her life had dried up when Marius had returned home, but she hadn’t welcomed the respite for long. Marius was trying to deal with everything, she saw; he simply didn’t have the time to handle everything, let alone study a situation long enough to be sure he knew what was actually happening. Chances were, he wouldn’t return to their suite until late at night, if at all. The staff had told her that they’d found him asleep at his desk, several times.
The door opened. Tiffany hesitated, unsure how to proceed, then put her hairbrush down and rose as Commander Ginny Lewis stepped into the room. She was a big girl, Tiffany noted, her red hair cropped close to her skull. The uniform she wore was surprisingly shapeless, but it clung close enough to her body to allow Tiffany to see she was almost mannish. Her file had made it clear that she was a tactical officer, not anything else. Tiffany wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or worried by the fact that Ginny wasn’t competition for her husband’s attentions.
“My Lady,” Ginny said. Her voice was quiet, but deeply worried. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes, I did,” Tiffany confirmed. As if Ginny would have been let through the security checkpoint without an invitation! “I wanted to talk to you about many things.”
She led the way into the lounge, motioned for Ginny to take one of the comfortable seats and called the maid. She’d already been briefed; she stepped into the room carrying a tray, which she put down on the table. It was customary, in High Society, to begin any serious discussion with tea and cakes, but Tiffany had no idea how Ginny would react to it. Her file clearly stated that she’d been born on Mars.
Which might be why Marius trusts her, Tiffany thought, as she poured the tea rather than wait for the maid to do it. They grew up on the same world.
“I should tell you,” she said, as she passed one of the cups to Ginny, “that this room is completely secure. You may speak freely.”
Ginny gave her a long look. It wasn’t hard to see the fear in her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“My people scanned it only an hour ago,” Tiffany assured her. “And I won’t repeat anything you say to me.”
“There are bugs that are almost completely undetectable,” Ginny said. “And equipment can be programmed to miss bugs, if the bugs are emplaced by the owners.”
“My people are loyal,” Tiffany said. She hoped that was true. If not... who knew what her husband would do? “If there is trouble because of this, Ginny, I’ll try and make sure it all falls on me.”
Ginny’s eyes widened at Tiffany’s use of her first name. “I hope you’re right,” she said, finally. She took a sip of her tea, peering down into the brown liquid. “What do you want from me?”
Tiffany hesitated. She knew how to dance around a subject with a girl from High Society, but she had no idea how Ginny would react. Marius had certainly never shown the patience for an involved conversational dance. And besides, it might spook the girl more than she was already. She had a nasty feeling that Ginny was already considering just how far it was to the door.
“The truth,” she said. “What happened to my husband on Thunderbird?”
Ginny shuddered, suddenly. In relief? Or fear? Tiffany couldn’t tell.
“He made me swear not to tell,” Ginny said. Her file had stated that she was a tactical officer of rare promise, but she sounded like a scared little girl. “I gave him my word...”
“I’m his wife,” Tiffany said, gently. She needed Ginny to trust her, but how could she do that? They came from very different worlds. “Please. I want to help him.”
She studied Ginny for a long moment, trying to parse out the multitude of expressions flickering across her face. It spoke well of Ginny that she wanted to keep her word, but at the same time... there was a strong suggestion that she wanted to help, too. Tiffany forced herself to wait, praying silently that Ginny would talk herself into making the right choice. There was nothing else she could do.
“I’m not quite sure,” Ginny said, finally. She glanced at the walls nervously, then back at Tiffany. “We were two days out of Boston, My Lady, when he had an attack of some kind.”
Tiffany blinked. “An attack? What did the doctor say?”
“He didn’t go to the doctor,” Ginny said. “I tried to talk him into going, but he flatly refused and swore me to secrecy. He... he practically fell asleep on the command deck!”
“Oh,” Tiffany said. “Is that bad?”
Ginny gave her an odd look. “A captain would be quite within his rights to execute any of his crew who fell asleep while on duty,” she said. “It would, at the very least, be cause for instant demotion. The Emperor...”
She shook her head. “I helped him to his cabin and did what I could to make sure he ate, drank and slept normally,” she added. “He left control of the assaults in the hands of his captains, officially as a test of their skill. And... he was drinking heavily and... I think he was taking something else, too.”
Tiffany leaned forward. “Taking what?”
“I don’t know,” Ginny said. “He never let me see the packet, My Lady. It could have been anything from painkillers to illegal drugs.”
And a man in his position could have anything, just by ordering it sent to him, Tiffany thought. There had been quite a few young men, born to High Society, who’d been quietly encouraged to indulge themselves to death. Being addicted to hard drugs, or neural stimulation, or... or anything... would render a man unsuitable to assume a high position, after his parents died. And who knows what Marius is taking?
“I see,” she said. “How many did he take a day?”
“I don’t know,” Ginny said. “I only saw him take them a handful of times.”
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t times you didn’t see, Tiffany thought. It was clear, now, that her husband hadn’t lured — or forced — Ginny into his bed. What did it say about the whole situation that that would almost have been preferable? If he was taking those pills once a day...
“All right,” she said. “What — precisely — happened at Nova Athena?”
“We recombined the fleets, then advanced into the system,” Ginny said. “The Outsiders put up a brief fight, but we kicked their asses until another fleet arrived. Your husband ordered the bombardment of the planet; Admiral Garibaldi refused to carry out the order. And then we opened fire on his ships.”
Tiffany swore, aloud.
“He wasn’t the same on the long route home,” Ginny added quietly. “There were days when he was intensely focused on his task and days when he just sat in his cabin, staring into space. I think one of his guards must have found a still, because the Emperor was drinking heavily...”
“And now he’s mad,” Tiffany said, flatly.
“He’s not stable,” Ginny agreed. She glanced up at the ceiling, nervously. “And now I don’t know what he’ll do next.”
&n
bsp; “We have to calm him down, somehow,” Tiffany said. “If we can get him off the drugs...”
“My Lady, you don’t know what he’s taking,” Ginny said. “If he’s already addicted to the pills, whatever they are, stopping them may merely make the situation worse. He may even have taken something that he cannot be weaned off from, no matter what we do. That’s how drug suppliers used to work on Mars.”
Tiffany nodded. It was rare for someone from High Society to encounter a drug he couldn’t shake, but it had happened in the past. The victims tended to be treated as pariahs: given access to the drug they needed, yet otherwise shut out of High Society. She had no idea how such matters were handled outside High Society, but she doubted it would be very pretty. A commoner had few rights where such dangerous drugs were involved.
“So we find out what he’s taking, first,” she said. “Where does he keep the pills?”
“In his uniform jacket,” Ginny said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without it.”
“Oh, goody,” Tiffany said, deadpan.
Ginny blinked, then flushed bright scarlet.
“I’ll have to get my hands on one of the pills,” Tiffany said. She scowled down at the cup in her hand. “How do you identify a pill?”
“If it’s from a legal supplier, there will be a mark on the pill you can check against the datanet,” Ginny said. “But if it’s from an illicit supplier, it will probably require a laboratory to identify it. Your guards should probably be able to find somewhere discreet that will handle the task.”
“You’ve been thinking about this,” Tiffany said, wryly.
“Drugs are a persistent problem on the lower decks,” Ginny said. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to have something strange identified, My Lady. If we were back on the ship, it would be easy.”
Tiffany nodded. “Why did he bring you down to the surface?”
The Barbarian Bride (The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire Book 3) Page 13