“Your Majesty,” Admiral Vincent said. “Welcome to Tara Prime.”
Marius felt his smile grow sharper. No one called him ‘Your Majesty,’ save for people who were either trying to suck up or were desperately unsure of themselves. “Sir” was quite sufficient; besides, being addressed by any honorific would sound unnatural after nearly a century in naval service. And Admiral Vincent shouldn’t have any need to suck up.
“The rebels are approaching this system,” he said, watching Admiral Vincent closely. He’d be as experienced a dissembler as Marius himself, after years spent serving the Grand Senate, but there were limits. “I brought this fleet to meet them.”
“Very good, Your Majesty,” Admiral Vincent said. Marius could practically see the gears moving in his head. “I’m sure the rebels will be defeated.”
“And so am I,” Marius said. He briefly considered ending the game, then decided to play with Admiral Vincent for a moment longer. “Perhaps you could send a message to the rebels, Admiral. You could invite them into the system, perhaps...”
If he hadn’t been watching the admiral closely, he would have missed the sudden twitch of fear, the sudden horrified realization as everything fell into place, leading to a very simple and inescapable conclusion. Marius knew. And now, Marius could see, Admiral Vincent was trying desperately to think of a way out of the mess. He had no allies on Enterprise and he knew it.
“Oh, cheer up, Theodore,” Marius said, mockingly. “I’m not a bit angry.”
He leaned forward, allowing his teeth to show as the game got darker. “You invited the rebels to enter the system, in exchange for being recognized as king of the sector,” he said, flatly. “It was a brilliant move, no doubt, to lure them into missile range.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Admiral Vincent stammered. “I... I... wanted them to be lured into a false sense of security...”
“And you have succeeded brilliantly,” Marius said, lightly. “My, you even fooled me. Of course, I suppose, allowing the rebels to actually enter the system in battle array could easily have gone wrong. The rebels might have been trapped, but they could fight their way out or carry forward against Tara Prime itself. Still, I dare say seven additional battle squadrons will tip the balance in our favor.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Admiral Vincent said. “The rebels will be trapped, unable to advance or retreat.”
Marius allowed himself a moment to savor the dawning hope in Admiral Vincent’s eyes, then crushed it as sharply as he could. “Indeed, I was fooled so badly that I actually took your children out of school and brought them with me,” he added. “I do trust you’re not going to do anything foolish?”
Admiral Vincent stared at him. “My children...?”
“Oh, come now,” Marius said. “It was really very foolish of you to leave hostages in my grasp while you plotted against me. Did you send a message requesting their return to Tara Prime? Or are you so callous that you’re prepared to write off your four youngest children?”
Marius leaned back in his chair. “This is what you are going to do,” he said. “You’re going to keep in touch with the rebels and do everything you can to lure them into the system. You can even tell them that you’ll add your superdreadnaughts to theirs and accompany them to Earth, if you wish. And once they’re in the system, you are going to slam the door shut behind them while the battle squadrons move into position to attack.”
“Your Majesty...”
Marius ignored him. “If you cooperate, Admiral, you and your family can move to Paradise and remain there for the rest of your life,” he said. It was a lie. He didn’t really care about the children — let them go to an out-world, if they wished — but Admiral Vincent would suffer for trying to betray him. “If you refuse to cooperative... well, I imagine you can guess what will happen to your children.”
Admiral Vincent blanched. He knew, as well as Marius himself, just what the Grand Senate had done to Admiral Justinian’s relatives. And the relatives of the other warlords had been treated in the same way. There were limits to what Marius was prepared to condone, at least to innocent children, but there was no way for Admiral Vincent to know that. His imagination would fill in the blanks more effectively than any number of threats.
“You’ll go back to your ship now,” Marius said. “And you will do everything in your power to lure the rebels into this system.”
He paused. “Do bear in mind,” he added, “that your children are aboard this ship. If anything happens to Enterprise...”
“Please send them back to Earth,” Admiral Vincent said. “I will cooperate...”
“I think not,” Marius said. “I want them within easy reach.”
He met Admiral Vincent’s eyes. “There will be no further betrayals, Admiral,” he said, sternly. “Fuck this up, and your children will pay the price.”
Admiral Vincent wilted. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. “I will do as you say.”
* * *
Tiffany trailed behind the two men as Marius led Admiral Vincent to the brig and allowed him, briefly, to speak to his children. Any doubts Admiral Vincent might have had about Marius’s willingness to carry out his threats were dispelled by the presence of a pair of Blackshirts eying the teenagers with open interest. Tiffany knew Marius had placed them there to convey the right impression, but it was still horrifying. If everything went as Marius had planned, the rebels would be lured right into a trap and butchered.
She watched as Admiral Vincent was escorted back to his shuttle, then returned to her quarters as Marius headed to the tactical section. Operative Oslo had scanned the compartment and assured her that there were no bugs, although he’d warned her that nothing could be taken for granted. But then, who would dare to spy on the Emperor and his wife? It was hard to imagine anyone, even General Thorne, having the nerve. She poured herself a cup of coffee — naval coffee tasted foul — and tapped her console. Minutes later, she was joined by Ginny Lewis and Oslo.
“I don’t have long,” Ginny said. She sounded nervous. Tiffany had sounded her out, as carefully as possible, during the long voyage, but the thought of betraying the Emperor scared her. “I’ll be expected back in the tactical compartment in less than an hour.”
Tiffany nodded. “How much time do we have?”
“The last update stated that the rebels had moved into the Yellowstone system,” Ginny said. “Assuming they don’t get slowed down by the defenses at New Redeye, they’ll be here in approximately three days. Admiral Vincent, it seems, was making a sincere offer to them.”
Oslo frowned. “How do you know?”
“The defenses at the Maben Point are considerably stronger than anywhere else in the system,” Ginny said. “They’d be much more effective in trapping the rebels than the defenses at the New Redeye Point.”
“I see,” Tiffany said. She looked at Oslo. “Can we get the children off the ship?”
“I believe so,” Oslo said. “But it will be chancy. The slightest advance warning, My Lady, and the marines would swarm us. And then there’s the risk of being blown out of space once we steal the courier boat.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Ginny said. “I can work a macro into the point defense datanet that will keep it from targeting the courier boat. But that won’t last long. Once they realize the problem, they’ll either set up the firing solution manually or order one of the other starships to take the boat out.”
Tiffany scowled. “You can’t order the datanet not to see the courier boat?”
“I’d need to reprogram far too many critical systems,” Ginny said. “And even if I did, the discrepancies would be noted. The datanet is designed to combine the viewpoints of hundreds of ships. They’d just assume the flagship couldn’t see the courier boat for some reason and target it anyway.”
“But if the datanet is linked together,” Tiffany mused, “couldn’t you block the courier boat out completely?”
“Not now, My Lady,” Ginny said. “It might have been p
ossible before the Battle of Earth, but computer security was tightened sharply after Admiral Justinian exploited our weaknesses. The firewalls would notice if I tried to reprogram another ship remotely and sound the alarm. At that point...”
“They’d start trying to find out what was going on,” Tiffany finished. She nodded, slowly. “As long as you can give us a chance to break free, Ginny, it will be enough.”
Ginny nodded, looking pale. She’d said she thought she could remain undetected — with a little effort, the blame could be placed on a glitch rather than deliberate malice — but Tiffany didn’t envy her. Somehow, whatever Marius felt for Ginny, she doubted it would save her life if he knew she’d betrayed him. Or Tiffany herself, for that matter. If Marius was prepared to threaten the lives of innocent children to make their father do as he was told, she doubted he’d hesitate to kill her.
“We’d need to trigger the security alert too,” Oslo added. “It would slow the marines down, particularly as they wouldn’t know just what we were doing.”
“I can set up an override, if necessary,” Ginny agreed. “But the real danger lies in breaking the children out of prison. What if they don’t come with you?”
“Then we stun the brats and carry them,” Oslo said. He looked at Tiffany. “You will be coming with us, won’t you?”
“Yes,” Tiffany said, flatly. Marius wouldn’t have any trouble realizing that her bodyguards had carried out the operation. He’d know she was the one who’d given them their orders. No one else could have commanded Oslo to take such a risk. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She took a long breath. “You don’t want to try to move earlier?”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Oslo said. “Courier boats are fast, My Lady, but we’d be lucky to get out of weapons range before someone puts the pieces together and opens fire.”
“And Admiral Vincent will be in no position to switch sides for real,” Ginny added. “The Emperor has a contingency plan to assume control of the system himself, if Admiral Vincent proves uncooperative. He might well succeed in beating Admiral Vincent, taking the system’s defenses and still beating the rebels. The only hope for victory lies with convincing Admiral Vincent to switch sides... and the only time he can do that effectively is when the rebels arrive.”
“Understood,” Tiffany said. “Are we ready to move on a moment’s notice?”
“Just about, My Lady,” Oslo said. “We should have some warning, shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Ginny said. “But just how much is an open question.”
“I’ll speak to the girl,” Tiffany said. “Can you safeguard the interview compartment?”
“Not for long,” Ginny said. “I suggest you speak quickly.”
* * *
The suite was a prison cell in all but name.
Talia Vincent sat on her bed, trying not to think about what had happened to her and her younger siblings — and what would happen to them, if their father refused to cooperate. The black-clad guards who kept an eye on them hadn’t bothered to lie, when she’d asked; they’d made it clear that the best Admiral Vincent’s family could expect, if all hell broke loose, was involuntary transportation to a stage-one penal world where no one knew who their father had been.
And that was the best option. Talia didn’t want to think about the worst.
She looked up as the hatch hissed open, revealing two black-clad men. The guards always came in pairs, she’d noted, as if they were scared the children would somehow overpower a single guard and break free. Not that there was anywhere they could go, Talia was sure, even if they did. She knew nothing about superdreadnaughts, beyond the simple fact they were on one. Her brothers might talk of stealing a shuttlecraft and escaping back to their father, but none of them knew how to find the shuttlebay, let alone fly a shuttle.
“Talia,” one of the men grunted. None of them had bothered to share their names. “Come here, now.”
Talia sighed, rose to her feet and stalked over to the guards with all the dignity she could muster, despite the prison outfit she’d been given to wear. The guards looked her up and down, cuffed her hands behind her back and half-dragged her through the door. Talia rather doubted they thought she was a serious threat; instead, she suspected they cuffed her just to make it clear they were in charge. She held herself together, somehow, as they marched her through a pair of doors and into a small briefing room. The Emperor’s wife was waiting for them.
“Leave us,” she ordered, once the guards had plunked Talia down in a metal chair and snapped a cuff around her ankle. Talia found it hard not to smile bitterly. Escape, already impossible, was now even more impossible. “I’ll call you when I need you.”
Talia frowned as the guards retreated, closing the hatch behind them. The Emperor’s wife — Tiffany — had spoken to her a few times, but their conversations had been largely pointless. There was nothing she could do, it seemed, to make their stay more comfortable. Talia wasn’t even sure why the older woman bothered, unless it was through guilt or simple boredom. The hostages — the guards hadn’t bothered to hide what their status now was — were powerless.
“Listen closely, as I can’t stay long,” Tiffany said, intensely. “Soon, perhaps within two days, there will be a chance to break you and your siblings free and get you off the ship. When that happens... we need you to be ready to leave.”
Talia stared at her. “Really?”
Her mind raced. Was it a trap? But really, why bother? It wasn’t as if there was anything to be gained by manipulating her siblings into incriminating themselves. Their only value lay in who had fathered them, not in themselves...
“Yes, really,” Tiffany said. “There may be no time to warn you, either. Make sure your siblings are ready to go, but don’t say anything out loud. You’re being watched.”
Talia flinched. “Even in the bath?”
“Yes,” Tiffany said. “We can only talk here because my men have buggered the observation routines.”
She rose. “Be ready, but be careful,” she added. “One false move, and we’re all dead.”
Talia swallowed. How the hell was she meant to warn her siblings, without having one of them say something that would ruin the whole plan? But she didn’t have a choice...
“I understand,” she said. If nothing else, at least they had a chance. “Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The core problem with trying to be clever, as naval cadets have been taught since time out of mind, is that an unimaginative enemy tends to be better prepared than one gambling everything on a cunning plan. One doesn’t have to look any further than Admiral Baldric’s defeat at the Battle of New Wellington to grasp the principle that trying to be clever can sometimes be really stupid.
—The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199
New Redeye/Tara Prime, 4102
“You’ve been rather quiet, recently.”
Uzi groaned, inwardly. If there was one thing he’d noted about women, particularly after he’d been sleeping with them for a few weeks, it was that they wanted to talk about everything. Their problems, his problems, someone else’s problems... it never seemed to occur to them that there were times when all a man wanted was sex and sleep, perhaps not in that order. Honestly, how could someone who’d reached the rank of lieutenant in the Outsider Navy — where there was almost no nepotism to speak of — be so stupid?
“It’s just the new responsibilities,” he lied, as he rolled over. Cleo Pearlman should have been more understanding, now she’d been assigned to Valiant as one of the embedded tactical analysts. “I feel a little out of place.”
“You’re doing fine,” Cleo assured him. “The Senator hasn’t kicked you back to the infantry, has she?”
Uzi shook his head, crossly. In some ways, being sent back to the infantry would be a blessing. He’d done what he could to change his appearance, without making it obvious, but there was still a very good chance of being recognized by Admiral Garibaldi or his marine lo
ver. The bitch had sparred with him, once or twice, back when they’d been on Midway; she might recall his face. Indeed, if he hadn’t been so keen to stay on the flagship, where there was a chance to do some real damage, he would have pulled strings and convinced General Stuart that a mercenary made a very poor bodyguard.
It’s not like the Mercenary’s Code is still in operation, he thought, mischievously. And if it was, who’s going to enforce it?
“Besides, you’re on a starship,” Cleo added. “What sort of threats does she face?”
“Incoming missiles,” Uzi said. He could have told tales about disloyal starship crews that would have turned Cleo’s hair white, but there was no point in giving her ideas. “And enemy starfighters.”
“Neither of which you can do anything about,” Cleo pointed out, seriously. “Why not just relax and enjoy yourself?”
“Because I feel I need to be doing something,” Uzi said, after a moment. It wasn’t entirely true, but it was part of his established personality. He’d worked hard to make it clear that he would keep working hard, that he needed to keep doing something all the time. “Just lying around doing nothing drives me insane.”
“You’re not doing nothing,” Cleo pointed out. She traced a line down from between her breasts to her legs. “You just made me very happy.”
“Glad to hear it,” Uzi said, stiffly.
“Tell me,” Cleo said. She rolled over and climbed on top of him, her bare breasts dangling over his face. “What do you want to do after the war?”
Uzi groaned inwardly, again. He felt nothing for her. How could he? His life amongst the Outsiders was a sham, a tissue of lies built to cover his presence as he waited for the chance to strike. He could kill her, as easily as one might step on an ant, without feeling the slightest shred of remorse. The idea that they might have a future together, after the shooting was done, was absurd. Even if the Federation died, he knew he’d never be able to settle down and relax.
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