He looked up as a face appeared in the display. “Admiral Garibaldi, this is Colonel Knox,” a voice said. A line of text below the screen confirmed his identity and noted, somewhat to Roman’s relief, that Knox was planetary militia rather than a Federation officer. “Please state your terms of surrender.”
“Record,” Roman ordered. “Colonel Knox, my terms are very simple. My forces will assume control of the orbital fortresses, industrial nodes and select locations on the planet to guarantee our security. Any Federation personnel on the planet are to be handed over for internment, although we will provide security forces for any internment camps. Your planetary militia is to disband and return home, at least for the moment. The future disposition of Ruthven will be considered after the war.”
“Message sent,” Lieutenant Thompson said.
Roman nodded, hoping that Colonel Knox would be reasonable. His position was hopeless and he had to know it, but not putting up a fight would look bad if the Federation resumed control of the system. Besides, the Outsiders might be just as bad as the Grand Senate and try to suck the planet dry.
Goddamned civil war, he thought. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we were fighting aliens?
He had to wait another thirteen minutes for his reply. “Admiral, we are prepared to surrender on terms,” Colonel Knox said. “However, we cannot guarantee that all Federation personnel will be rounded up.”
“Understood,” Roman said. There would probably be a multitude of stay-behind agents in place, given that the defenders had had months to prepare. “My forces will assume control of the high orbitals shortly.”
He keyed a switch. “Elf? Did you get all that?”
“Yes, sir,” Elf said. On duty, she was all business. “I’m readying the landing force now.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ironically, one of the many problems of the pre-war Federation Navy — the rise of alcohol and drug abuse — was largely eliminated by the pressures of actual war.
—The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199
Earth, 4101
“I don’t know where you got that pill, My Lady,” Operative Oslo said, after she had walked into his office and closed the door. “But I sincerely hope you’re not planning to take them yourself.”
“I’m not,” Tiffany said. Oslo and his men had protected her since she was a little girl. She had no idea what they’d do if they thought she intended to damage herself. “What can you tell me about it?”
Oslo eyed her for a long moment, perhaps wondering just what was going on. “I took the pill to a chemist I know and had it analyzed,” he said. “I’ll give you the full report, if you wish, but it’s basically a combination of a very strong military-grade painkiller and a powerful antidepressant. The chemist noted that such combinations are, in fact, illegal, if only because of the dangers of two strong drugs interacting.”
Tiffany swallowed. “And if I took the pill now,” she said, “what would happen to me?”
“You’d go numb,” Oslo said. “The painkiller side of the pill, My Lady, is normally only found in military emergency kits. You could cut off your own arm and feel nothing, even as you are bleeding to death. Combined with the antidepressant, you might start bouncing off the walls or find it hard to think clearly. The chemist was at some pains to insist that the ultimate end result is dangerously unpredictable.”
He met her eyes, evenly. “The military insists that only one or two doses of such painkillers are to be handed out, regardless of the situation,” he added. “That’s because the painkillers are addictive. Three doses within a short period of time might well cause addiction, My Lady, and getting such pills outside the military is extremely difficult. The antidepressants, too, can get someone hooked on them. I should add that the military has a policy of rejecting any candidates who have used such drugs, even for a short period of time.”
“I see,” Tiffany said. Was Marius addicted? How many of the damned pills had he taken? “If someone were to be addicted... how could they be cured?”
“It would depend, according to the chemist, on just how badly they were hooked,” Oslo told her, flatly. “Eliminating the physical dependency would not be too difficult, I was told, but curing the mental dependency would be a great deal harder. Not to put too fine a point on it, My Lady: anyone who takes these pills more than once or twice in their lifetime is going to have some real problems breaking free.”
“Shit,” Tiffany said. She shook her head. “What else do they do?”
“The chemist wasn’t clear,” Oslo said. “Anyone hooked on the drugs may lose his appetite, his enthusiasm for life... even become impotent. These are not legal pills, My Lady; they’re not produced according to a standard recipe. The exact side effects may vary depending on the precise combination of painkiller and antidepressants. If you know someone who has been taking them, the chemist concluded, they need immediate medical help.”
He held out a folder. “This is the full report,” he added. “There’s a summary at the front, stripped of all the medical gibberish. I suggest you make sure it’s carefully hidden, if you don’t want to feed it into a shredder after you read it. Someone who found it could easily draw the wrong conclusion.”
Or the right one, Tiffany thought, as she waved him goodbye and settled down to read through the folder. Who’s giving Marius the pills, and why?
Her father had taught her, years ago, that bureaucrats and military officers liked burying bad news in the files, on the largely accurate assumption that their superiors rarely bothered to read more than the executive summary before signing off on the reports. Tiffany had pointed out, at the time, that reading a full report could take hours, hours she didn’t have; now, she opened the folder and started to read from the beginning. The chemist had loaded the report with medical jargon — she had to look some of the words up on her terminal — but, if anything, Oslo had understated the situation. Excessive use of the painkiller alone would lead to heart attacks, as well as a host of other problems.
The final section of the report was nothing more than a detailed plan for treating the addiction before it got out of hand. Tiffany read through it, unsure if she should laugh or cry; she rather doubted she could talk a doctor, even a military doctor, into committing the Emperor to a medical ward for a year. And yet, without it, Marius’s time was quite limited; he was running the risk of a massive heart attack or a stroke. He’d been an old man, despite rejuvenation treatments, long before the Justinian War had begun.
She closed the report and rose, looking around for a place to hide it. There was a safe in the suite, but Marius had the keycode; she didn’t dare leave it there. She briefly considered shredding it, before deciding — instead — to bury it in her underwear drawer. Marius was unlikely to go poking through, she thought, and no one else would dare. She’d made it quite clear, back when they moved into the Presidential House, that her drawers were off-limits to the household staff. She hated the thought of anyone digging through her clothes.
Her intercom beeped. “Tiffany, please come to the conference room,” Marius said. His voice was surprisingly strong. “We have much to discuss.”
Tiffany blinked, hastily hid the folder and hurried out of the room, hoping it would remain undisturbed until she’d had a chance to show it to Ginny. Perhaps she’d have an idea of what to do about it. A pair of guards nodded to her as she hurried into the conference room and sat next to Marius, who gave her a sidelong look as she sat down. She studied him closely, wondering just which of the symptoms she should be looking for. The chemist had openly stated, after all, that the side effects were definitely unpredictable.
“Gentlemen, be seated,” Marius said, once the last of the cabinet had entered the room and the doors were sealed. “Commander Lewis?”
Ginny rose to her feet, looking pale. Tiffany didn’t know much about the military, but she was fairly sure Ginny was being loaded with responsibilities that were well above her pay grade. She wasn’t sure if Marius was making
a gesture of trust or if he found it too hard to care, these days, about military protocol. He could easily have arranged for Ginny to be promoted up a rank or two.
“Emperor,” Ginny said. She sounded nervous, too. “We have received the first major set of updates from Alexis. According to the reports, the system fell to a major offensive through the Asimov Point.”
Tiffany glanced at Marius. His left hand was shaking, slightly, but otherwise he showed no reaction. He would have known, she suspected, that the defenses of Alexis wouldn’t hold, when Admiral Garibaldi came knocking. He’d had months to prepare himself for a piece of bad news.
“I see,” he said, finally. “And the attackers have already invaded Ruthven?”
“We assume so, but we don’t have any updates from Ruthven,” Ginny said. “The last report stated that the enemy was sniping at the defenders while securing the planet.”
“We shall assume the worst,” Marius said. He cocked his head. “Is there any good news?”
“Yes, sir,” Ginny said. “Major Jackson?”
Major Jackson, Commodore Arunika’s successor, leaned forward. “We picked up a number of messages from the defenders as they were overwhelmed,” he said. “One of them was an encrypted message from a deep-cover agent within the Outsiders. It contained a short update on the situation, including confirmation that Roman Garibaldi and most of his crew have indeed joined the Outsiders.”
Marius’s face darkened, ominously. “And what have they been doing?”
“Attempting to batter out a post-war plan, apparently,” Jackson said. “There were few details, sir, but whatever it was seems to have been acceptable to both the Outsiders and Garibaldi himself.”
“He agreed to split the Federation,” Marius said, flatly.
“It’s possible, sir,” Jackson agreed. “We don’t have any updates from the front lines. I hope we will receive more messages, as the rebel fleet pushes its way towards us, but there’s no way to be certain.”
“They’ll certainly try to split us,” General Thorne commented. “The Outsider propaganda was surprisingly effective, even within the Core Worlds.”
Because the Grand Senate abused everyone who didn’t have a title, Tiffany thought. What was the point of slaving when the choice was between the Grand Senate and Admiral Justinian? But now, the Outsiders were offering the prospect of freedom, of living in a universe where there were no aristocrats. Who wouldn’t want to join the Outsiders?
“We must make ready to counter the next barrage of enemy propaganda,” Marius said. “They will be sneaking messages to their supporters, even now.”
“Yes, sir,” General Thorne said. “My department is already preparing a media offensive that will overshadow their attempts to spread the word. We cannot deny that we lost Alexis, sir, but we can make it clear that we bled the enemy badly. And that it’s all part of a plan to force them to overextend themselves before we cut them off at the knees.”
Tiffany leaned forward. “Wouldn’t that be giving away the plan?”
General Thorne gave her a cold look that sent a chill running down her spine. “They will have no difficulty in deducing our plan, My Lady,” he said. “It is, after all, the same thing we did at Boskone and Boston.”
“And the time delay will make it harder for them to get word, even if they haven’t deduced our plan,” Marius added. “Where do we stand with reinforcements?”
General Yusuf Maringa, Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, looked worried. “Sir, we have sent orders to a number of fleets to detach battle squadrons to reinforce the defenses of Earth and the Tara Sector,” he said. “However, we have run into considerable problems. Several of the fleets have not yet received their orders, cannot yet have received their orders, while others are proving reluctant to let go of their ships. And even if they do, we’re looking at months before we get any significant reinforcement in place.”
Marius clenched his fist. “Are the admirals I put in place turning on me?”
Maringa paled. “I... I don’t know, sir,” he said. “They do have good reason to be reluctant to let go of their ships.”
Because those ships are their only guarantee of remaining alive, Tiffany thought. Once, mutiny and rebellion would have been effectively unthinkable. Certainly, the Inheritance Wars had taught the Federation Navy a number of sharp lessons about making sure the crews were indoctrinated in Federation precepts. But Admiral Justinian let the genie out of the bottle and those admirals have to be wondering what will happen to them, if Marius’s protégé could turn on him.
She scowled, inwardly. Naval officer or not, she understood the time delay caused by the limitations on communications. An admiral on the other side of the Federation might not have received the message yet... and, even if he had, he might have problems of his own to worry about. And, by the time he dispatched the ships, orders for his arrest might already be racing out from Earth. They would probably send him into rebellion.
“So we are dependent on the forces we already have in place — and Home Fleet,” Marius said, coldly. “And we have very little in the pipeline to replace them?”
Larimore Hammond, Minister of Economics and Production, looked down at the table. “We have thirty-seven superdreadnaughts and nineteen fleet carriers under construction,” he said, keeping his voice tightly under control. “However, the problem of finding good workers and sourcing all the material we need is slowing production down, alarmingly. We are actually looking at ways to concentrate our efforts on a handful of ships, but that will only delay the others further. Worse, enemy propaganda is spreading amongst the crews...”
“Then crack down on it,” Marius snapped.
“The workforce understands the problems it’s facing,” Hammond said. “I’ve been hearing complaints for months, sir. Workers are putting in seventeen-hour shifts daily, making them tired and prone to mistakes... some of those mistakes have been quite serious. Over the last two weeks, twelve trained workers have been killed in accidents...”
“I don’t want a list of problems,” Marius said. “I want solutions!”
“There are none,” Hammond said, so quietly it was hard to hear his words. “I need more trained manpower, sir, but I can’t spare the workers to teach the recruits how to work in a shipyard. And I need to give my crews more rest time, sir, yet that too will slow down production. And morale is in the shitter, sir, because everyone knows they’re being worked to death. How many strikes do you want to have to break?
“That isn’t the only set of problems,” he added. “There are over ten thousand components to a superdreadnaught, everything from heavy armor to life support units and... well, everything. We have been having major delays in sourcing those parts, sir; we need additional production plants, but again we don’t have the time to set them up.”
Marius leaned forward. “Why the delay?”
“Some of the plants have been having their own problems,” Hammond said. “The same problems we’ve been having in the shipyards. Others... well, one plant had a foreman who supported the Outsiders. By the time we realized the problem, every last item produced by that plant was tainted by chaos software.”
“Then we need to tighten security,” General Thorne said.
“Security is too tight for any real good,” Hammond said. His voice grew louder. “Do you realize just how many man-hours we’re losing just through security measures alone?”
“It has to be done,” General Thorne snapped.
“Your trained apes don’t have the slightest idea how to comport themselves in an industrial plant,” Hammond snapped back. “Seventy-four security officers have died in the last three months, mostly through stupidity. This isn’t some nice safe city-block on Earth, General; stupid people die in space! And that doesn’t include the idiots who thought it would be a good idea to rape a couple of workers! We found them drifting out in space with their underpants nailed to their heads!”
“You let the murderers get away with it,” Thorne said
with uncommon intensity. “They should be found...”
“They’re more valuable than your thugs,” Hammond said. “You have an infinite supply of idiots on Earth!”
Tiffany glanced at Marius, wondering if he would stop the argument. But Marius was just sitting there, looking between the two ministers with a slightly bemused expression on his face. Had he zoned out? Or was he allowing them to argue to keep them from taking sides against him? Or...
“Enough,” Marius said. “Have you found a trace of McGillivray?”
“No, sir,” General Thorne said. “There’s still no proof he survived the destruction of his home, let alone managed to find safety. He could well be dead.”
“A man like McGillivray will always have an escape plan,” Marius said. He scowled across the table. “And he will not be content with finding a safe place to die.”
Tiffany couldn’t really disagree. Last survivor of the Imperialists or not, McGillivray had cast a long shadow over the Grand Senate. She was sure, from what her father had said, that he’d played a role in arranging her marriage, just as the Brotherhood had played a role in turning Marius Drake into the Grand Senate’s last best hope for survival. Old he might be — he’d been in his seventies during the Blue Star War, nearly a century ago — but there was nothing wrong with his mind. And yet, if he were nearing two hundred years old, could he really survive on Earth?
It depends, she thought. Just how much of the Brotherhood survived the purge?
“I have located a number of other potential Brothers,” Thorne said. “Unfortunately, as we discussed before, actually proving it without a brain scan is impossible.”
“Have them checked,” Marius ordered. “If they happen to be innocent... well, we can release them without delay.”
“Sir,” Tully said. “Snatching innocent civilians on Earth will not go down well.”
Thorne snorted. “We’ve crushed riots before,” he said. “Give the scum a taste of the lash, Comptroller. I guarantee they’ll be better-behaved the rest of their lives.”
The Barbarian Bride (The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire Book 3) Page 18