The Barbarian Bride (The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Li nodded in grim agreement. The Federation had started life as nothing more than an overarching federal government, intended to coordinate humanity’s ongoing expansion into space. But it had claimed more and more power until the Core Worlds had little in the way of true independence and the Rim became helpless to keep the Grand Senate from draining it dry. And now, after Tara Prime, it would be a long time before anyone willingly surrendered political power again.

  She leaned back in her seat and watched the diners as they started to eat, chatting all the while. A number of the diplomats looked shocked by the sheer lack of formality, but willing to play along; a couple looked as though they were on the verge of being led to their own executions. Li smiled at their frustration, even though she understood their feelings. The rules they knew, the rules that had taught them how to act in every given situation, simply didn’t apply.

  No one cares which fork you use to eat the starter, she thought, remembering the etiquette lessons she’d had to endure when she’d become a Grand Senator. From what Talia Vincent has said, Blyton Towers was still teaching children how to pass for aristocrats even after the Grand Senate had fallen. All that matters is that you know what you’re doing.

  She sighed, inwardly. She’d never really believed the Emperor would commit genocide, even after he’d tried to destroy her homeworld. Tara Prime had been one of his worlds, after all; it certainly hadn’t deserved to die for Admiral Vincent’s crimes. But she knew, now, that the Emperor was no longer sane. He might start turning antimatter weapons on AlphaCent — or even Earth itself — if he could no longer rule the Federation.

  And that’s why we have to win, she told herself. We can fight over who gets to put the pieces back together afterwards.

  * * *

  It was lucky, Uzi knew, that Admiral Garibaldi had decided to continue flying his flag on Valiant, rather than transferring to one of the Outsider ships. The Federation had made great strides in computer security, ever since Admiral Justinian had rubbed the Grand Senate’s collective nose in its own weaknesses, but there were still gaps in the defenses. It wasn’t enough to allow him to trigger the self-destruct system or detonate a warhead — that only happened in bad movies — yet he could still move around the ship relatively unmolested and spy on her crew.

  They’re at the High Table, he thought, as he slipped into the internal tubes and started to crawl towards the hatch. Civilians never grasped just how many hidden passageways there were through a superdreadnaught, let alone how easy it was to crawl between the bridge and engineering without being seen. He’d planned to kill anyone he met, but it hadn’t been necessary. And I can catch them by surprise.

  He reached his destination, a hatch right above the dining compartment, and glanced down at his terminal. There was no sign of a security alert, no sense that anyone knew he was in place to strike a major blow for the Federation. It was a relief, but still... part of him found it a little annoying. He keyed a security code into the terminal, and sent the signal.

  Seconds later, the superdreadnaught rocked as a small explosive detonated just down the corridor. No one should be hurt, but it would be just big enough to put the entire ship into lockdown while the bridge crew scrambled to figure out what had happened.

  He wondered, absently, just what they’d conclude, then opened the hatch and dropped down.

  * * *

  Roman hadn’t been enjoying the dinner, although he’d kept a smile pasted on his face as he’d chatted to a number of diplomats. Some were good people, but others were more interested in their own personal power than the survival of the Federation and the defeat of the Emperor. He’d lost count of just how many of them had promised reinforcements in exchange for post-war concessions, when there was no guarantee of actually winning the war. Emperor Marius might still find a way to take the Federation down with him.

  And then the entire ship shook, a dull rumble echoing through her hull.

  He jumped to his feet as panic flickered through the compartment. It wasn’t a missile hit, he was sure. Even if a cloaked ship had managed to get close enough to launch a missile without being detected, it just felt wrong. An internal explosion... but what? A single warhead would have done a great deal of damage, perhaps smashing the antimatter containment fields as it exploded and blowing the entire ship into atoms. Or...

  “Get down,” Elf snapped. She caught his arm and yanked him forward, throwing him facedown to the deck. “Stay down!”

  And then the shooting started.

  * * *

  He’d messed up, Uzi noted, as he hurled a pair of grenades towards the stunned diplomats and junior officers. The hatch hadn’t been quite where he’d expected it to be, although he had managed to land on the high table. He swung around, looking for his targets, and smirked nastily when he laid eyes on Chang Li. The treacherous senator hadn’t any real combat experience, despite commanding one side of a galaxy-spanning war; he put four shots into her, just to make sure she was dead. He jumped down as the grenades exploded, ducking low in case someone returned fire. The Outsiders, after all, refused to surrender their weapons to anyone.

  Smart move, he thought, as he killed a diplomat and a uniformed officer he didn’t recognize while hunting for his other target. They know they’re being hunted.

  He turned... and the hammer of God slammed into his body. A woman stood there, pistol in hand; it took him a second, a second too long, to recognize Brigadier Tanager. She might not have recognized him, but she’d probably realized, just from the speed he was moving, that he’d been enhanced. Uzi tried to lift his rifle, yet it was already too late. Five more bullets slammed into his body.

  He crashed to the deck. Red icons flared up in front of him, warning him that he’d been too badly hurt to continue the fight. The bitch knew precisely how to kill him.

  At least one of the targets is dead, he thought. Chang Li had held the Outsiders together, despite a war they’d been on the verge of losing before Nova Athena. General Stuart was a military man, not a diplomat; he’d be unable to hold the federation together. And...

  Darkness came.

  * * *

  “He’s dead, I think,” Elf said. “It would be better to evacuate this compartment.”

  Roman pulled himself to his feet, then swore. Chang Li’s body lay on the deck, blood pooling beneath her. It was clear, even to his inexperienced eye, that there was no hope of resurrection. One of the bullets had gone right through her head and out the rear of her skull, leaving her brains leaking out onto the deck. Beside her, the assassin was a mangled ruin of a man, cyborg implants sticking out of his chest and head.

  “Take everyone still alive out of the room,” Elf ordered. “I’ll make sure the body remains untouched — and immobile.”

  It didn’t look as though the assassin could move, Roman thought, but he knew better than to take it for granted. Being promoted to admiral had given him access to a number of secret files, including ones covering enhanced soldiers. Marines weren’t enhanced, yet if they could perform miracles... what could an enhanced soldier do? He looked at the bloody remains of a dozen officers, where the grenades had exploded, and felt sick. Starship combat was clean and tidy, unless one’s ship was hit. This... this was something worse.

  “Clear the compartment,” he ordered, as the marines and medics burst into the chamber. “If you’re injured, tell us now.”

  And hope we can survive this, he thought, privately. Without Chang Li...

  * * *

  “The assassin was one of the mercenaries assigned to the senator as a bodyguard,” General Stuart said, an hour later. “He killed his girlfriend, it seems, just before he set off on his final mission. His background was fully vetted, we thought, when we accepted him. And he served us well over the last three years. There was never any suggestion he might turn on us.”

  “He was an enhanced mercenary,” Roman said. He’d seen some enhanced cyborgs when he’d been in command of Midway, years ago. In fact, he had a nasty f
eeling he’d seen this particular cyborg some time ago. “The Federation might have paid for his implants in exchange for loyalty.”

  “Or programmed it into his skull,” General Stuart said. “He might not have had a choice.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Roman said. He looked down at the blood splattered across his uniform, then up at the General. The mercenary might have acted out of his own free will or not, but it was irrelevant. All that mattered was what he’d done. “We have to carry on.”

  “She would have wanted it that way,” General Stuart agreed. He shook his head, slowly, suddenly seeming much older. They’d been friends, Roman realized, perhaps more than friends. They’d certainly worked closely together for decades. “But... will there be anything left of us, either?”

  Roman considered his answer for a long moment. “I think the Emperor still has to be stopped,” he said. Had Emperor Marius issued the orders to kill Chang Li personally? It was possible, but unlikely. Surely, if there had been direct communication between the mercenary and the Emperor, the orders would have been to assassinate Roman on his own bridge. “And afterwards... well, we’ll worry about that afterwards.”

  “Everything’s falling apart,” General Stuart said. “I don’t know what will happen when word gets home.”

  “We’ll have won or lost by then,” Roman said. There was no way to keep word of Chang Li’s death from spreading, but most of the Federation’s citizens wouldn’t know how vital she’d been to the Outsiders. “And the Emperor will never have the chance to dance on her grave.”

  He turned to look at the display. “We’ll clear up the mess and continue our course towards Howarth — and the Gateway. And then we can put an end to this whole damned war!”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chang Li’s death, while unfortunate, came too late to make any real difference. The news of Tara Prime’s destruction had already spread too far to be stopped.

  —The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

  Earth, 4102

  “Emperor,” General Thorne said, as he entered Marius’s office. “Are you not returning to the Presidential House?”

  “I prefer to remain on Enterprise,” Marius said, stiffly. He’d done what he could to keep himself busy, but the nightmares refused to fade, despite the alcohol and the drugs. “It makes it easier to coordinate the fleet.”

  “Understood,” General Thorne said. “Rumors have been spreading through Earth, but most of them have been gravely exaggerated. I do not think they are being believed.”

  “Good,” Marius said. “It will not be long before Admiral Garibaldi challenges the Gateway.”

  General Thorne rocked back in surprise. “The defenders of AlphaCent won’t stop him?”

  “I believe he will punch his way into AlphaCent and make a beeline for the Gateway,” Marius said. It was a bitter thought, but one that had to be faced. “I intend to greet him with a full-scale defense. He will not pass.”

  “Yes, sir,” General Thorne said.

  “There is another matter,” Marius added, after a moment. A pang of bitter grief and guilt ran through him. Was there no one who could be trusted completely? “My wife committed treachery.”

  “Yes, sir,” General Thorne said, neutrally.

  “I want you to find out if she acted alone,” Marius added. “And if she was assisted by others, I want their names.”

  “Yes, sir,” General Thorne said. “Do I have your permission for extreme measures?”

  Marius hesitated. He wanted Tiffany to suffer for betraying him... and yet, he didn’t want to go too far. She needed to look reasonably intact for her trial. This time, there would be no games; this time, her guilt would be conclusively proven for all to see.

  “No,” he said. “She needs to remain healthy for her trial.”

  “Sir,” General Throne said. “Does she need a trial?”

  Marius felt a hot flash of anger. “The universe has to see her guilt,” he snapped. “They have to understand just what she did, General, and they have to understand why she was wrong!”

  “Yes, sir,” General Thorne said, bowing low. “I will see to it personally.”

  Marius watched him go, feeling an odd flicker of affection. Thorne, at least, hadn’t betrayed him — and he’d kept Earth under control while Marius had been at Tara Prime. Maybe some of the rumors would be believed — Marius knew just how fast rumors could spread from one end of the Federation to the other — but everyone knew he was still in control. Given time, he could turn the Gateway into an impregnable fortress and crush Admiral Garibaldi when he tried to force his way into the system. And then he could link up with the remaining admirals and drive the Outsiders back into the Beyond.

  He sighed, then keyed the intercom, calling for Ginny. They had much work to do.

  * * *

  Tiffany hadn’t been too sure what to expect, after Marius half-strangled her before walking out and leaving her with the doctors, but she hadn’t expected boredom. They’d kept her tied to the bed and fed her through tubes, ignoring her when she tried to strike up a conversation or request something — anything — to do. She’d begged for a computer terminal or an entertainment console, like the ones used to keep the proles occupied, but all she’d been allowed to do was lie there. They hadn’t even drugged her back to sleep!

  And how long have I been lying here, she asked herself, for the umpteenth time. It felt as if she’d been lying on the bed, practically immobilized, for years, but there was no way to know. The lighting never changed. If they’ve been drugging me, I could have been lying here for months.

  She heard the hatch open and twisted her head, as far as she could, to see who had entered the small compartment. Her blood ran cold, a second later, as she recognized General Thorne, a man who’d been left behind on Earth. If he was here, they had to be back in the Sol System... she’d been on the bed for two weeks, then. Oddly, the thought gave her a feeling of bitter satisfaction. At least she now knew something they’d wanted to keep from her.

  “Lady Tiffany,” General Thorne said. “I must say you’re looking well.”

  “Fuck off,” Tiffany said. Her etiquette tutors would have been horrified, but she rather doubted her marital prospects mattered any longer. Besides, she’d been naked for too long to care about him seeing her nude body. “You twisted bastard...”

  “There, there,” General Thorne mocked. He patted her forehead, as one might pet a dog. “Is that any way to speak to the man who’s going to save your life?”

  “You’re not here to save my life,” Tiffany said, grimly. Ginny was the only person she knew she could trust on the ship... and she hadn’t seen Ginny since they’d freed the hostages. Had she been caught? Marius would have killed her, mercilessly, if she had. “What do you want?”

  “Now, that is a far better question,” General Thorne said. He made a show of looking up and down her body, his eyes crawling over her skin. “What do you think I want?”

  “I think you’re so pathetic that you have to wait for a woman to be tied down so you can have your way with her.” Tiffany sneered. She knew she couldn’t stop him, if he wanted to climb on top and force his way into her, but she could at least lash out at his ego. And maybe she could pinch him too. Or urinate on him. He’d have to remove the tubes if he wanted to rape her anyway. “And forcing yourself on me won’t change the fact you have a very small penis!”

  “Such crude manners from one of High Society,” General Thorne observed. “No wonder you were never married off until they decided they needed to keep the Emperor under control.”

  He smiled and went on before Tiffany could think of a rejoinder. “I’ve never had any trouble getting the girls and boys into bed, Lady Tiffany. They are lured to me by power, willing to do anything, no matter how degrading, in exchange for a scrap of influence. It’s always interesting to watch just how many people are willing to compromise their principles, when there is power and prestige at stake.”

  “No doubt,
” Tiffany said. She’d expected torture, but hearing General Thorne prattle on was worse. “I’m sure you know all about it.”

  “Let me tell you a joke,” General Thorne said. “There’s this beautiful virgin, a nineteen-year-old society beauty who’s the living image of female rectitude. Everyone wants her, but she’s too demure to let them have her. And then a very rich man comes along and offers her a million credits in exchange for sleeping with him. She thinks about it; she doesn’t want to open her legs for some old bastard with a penis transplant, but a million credits is a million credits. So she says yes.”

  “And then the old bastard offers her a single credit,” Tiffany finished, sharply. “And when she protests, demanding to know what he thinks she is, he tells her that they’ve already established that she’s a whore and they’re just haggling over the price. I know the joke, General. It was hammered into my head as a child. My father taught it to me.”

  “Then he did you a great service,” General Thorne said. “Not all of us are so lucky with our parents.”

  “And you’re the old bastard who delights in making people compromise themselves,” Tiffany said. Understanding clicked. “You’re the person who gave Marius those pills, aren’t you?”

  “I may have had something to do with it,” General Thorne said. “Although, to be fair, the stresses of running the Federation were getting to your husband long before I clawed my way into his confidence.”

  “And you enjoyed watching him compromise his principles,” Tiffany snapped.

  “I don’t think he really compromised anything,” General Thorne said, after a moment of apparent thought. “It’s evident that he always had the mindset to be a dictator, to do whatever he felt necessary to uphold the Federation... which also happened to uphold his power base. But, at the same time, he lacks the pragmatism of Admiral Vincent. The idealism of an idealistic man can lead him to commit far more atrocities than a selfish bastard more interested in his own power than anything else.”