The Shadow of Cincinnatus

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “Good,” Marius said. He’d been dreading the prospect of another show trial. “Have the ones who signed confessions sent into exile, as planned. The remainder can be shipped to the nearest penal world.”

  “Yes, sir,” Thorne said.

  He nodded, then left the chamber. Marius rubbed the side of his head, feeling the headache abate slightly. Decisive action always felt good, even though he knew that breaking the strike was only the start of what he needed to do. The strikes couldn’t be allowed to resume...he sighed, then glanced at the preliminary report. It would be at least two weeks before the striking complexes returned to full production, assuming nothing went badly wrong. There would be knock-on delays that would impinge upon military readiness.

  But it can’t be helped, he thought, grimly. There’s no alternative, but chaos.

  * * *

  Tiffany Drake – she had abandoned the endless series of names she’d been given as a minor scion of the Grand Families after the coup – had never wanted to be much of anything. There was no point in trying to be ambitious when she would either get whatever she wanted, just by asking for it, or be denied it simply because her father wasn’t a very prominent member of the Grand Families. Indeed, it was why she had been ordered to marry Admiral Marius Drake in the first place. She was very definitely an aristocrat, with a bloodline that could be traced all the way back to the earliest years of the Federation, yet she brought no influence or power to her husband.

  And if I had, she’d reflected often enough, I would have been married off long before the war began.

  She hadn’t expected to like Admiral Drake, let alone fall in love with him. And, if she were pressed, she would have found it hard to explain why she’d fallen in love with him. He was nothing like the sensitive young men held up as the ideal on Earth, although neither were many of the male aristocrats of her generation. But they had earned their prominence through choosing the right parents, while Admiral Drake had cut his way to the top through sheer brilliance and iron determination. It was easy to see why the Grand Senate had feared him, a thought that never failed to make Tiffany smile. If they hadn’t tried to kill him, she knew, Drake would never have rebelled.

  And besides, there was work – real meaningful work – for her to do now.

  She’d known she would either become a trophy wife or an old maid. Indeed, being an old maid seemed preferable to being married off to anyone. But now she had real work to do, real problems to tax her brain. It didn’t bother her that most of the Grand Families were gone – she’d never liked the ones she’d known personally anyway – when it allowed so many people to flourish. A meritocracy would allow people to rise to the level they deserved, not the one determined by their birth. And she knew she could do well, if given a chance...

  The door buzzed. Unafraid – she knew just how heavily the President’s House was protected – Tiffany used her implants to send a command to the door, ordering it to open. She lifted her eyebrows in surprise when she saw Professor Kratman standing there. It wasn’t that she disliked the man, merely that he’d seemed to have his finger in too many pies. And he was a member of the Brotherhood. That, more than anything else, suggested he had an agenda.

  “Professor,” she said. There was no call to be rude. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was hoping we might have a word,” Professor Kratman said. “There is a matter we should discuss.”

  Tiffany’s eyes narrowed, but she motioned for him to enter the office as she signaled the maid, who brought tea and cakes. She knew how to be a good hostess, thanks to her father, although she had rarely had a chance to practice. Her family had never hosted any of the great galas, not when they’d been so unimportant. Now...it amused her to think that many of the families who’d snubbed her would be begging for favors, if they were still alive. But most of them were dead or exiled.

  “I hope this isn’t a suggestion about providing a heir,” Tiffany said, once the maid had withdrawn. “We talked about it and decided to wait.”

  “Those people have always given me the creeps,” Professor Kratman said. His eyes had followed the maid, warily. “How do you know they’re not listening to you?”

  “You trust in the control implants,” Tiffany said. She disliked the idea of stealing someone’s ability to control themselves too, but she knew what the maid had done before her arrest. There were some people who could never be trusted to walk free. “This is the President’s House, after all.”

  She poured tea, then passed Professor Kratman a cup.

  “The president was powerless for centuries,” Professor Kratman observed, as he took the cup and an almond finger. “Do you think he wasn’t watched by the Grand Senate?”

  Tiffany shrugged, sending her red hair cascading down in waves to her shoulders. “I fancy they considered him nothing more than a harmless boob,” she said. “The president might have been elected by popular vote, but I agree, he was always powerless.”

  She took a sip of her tea, then leaned forward. “Why have you come here, Professor?”

  Professor Kratman met her eyes. “Does your husband still confide in you?”

  Tiffany blinked. “Yes,” she said, surprised. “We talk.”

  “I do wonder if your husband is having problems,” Professor Kratman said. “I knew him as a young midshipman, you see.”

  “I know,” Tiffany said, darkly. She didn’t need the reminder that Marius Drake was decades older than her. Large age gaps were far from uncommon, in an era where rejuvenation technology could keep a man or woman physically young for decades, but theirs was an extreme case. “And your point is...?”

  “Your husband is under a great deal of stress,” Professor Kratman said, softly. “I believe he truly intended to reform the Federation, then hand power back to a reformed Senate. But the war has changed things. Your husband may well break under the stress.”

  “Marius is the strongest man I know,” Tiffany said, stiffly.

  “That is not in dispute,” Professor Kratman reassured her. “But few men have faced such levels of stress in their lives. The Grand Senate, whatever its flaws, had control of a structure that ensured its orders were obeyed. Your husband has the people who are loyal to him and no others.”

  “He has me,” Tiffany said.

  “He needs you,” Professor Kratman said. He paused. “Have you noticed the new security agencies?”

  Tiffany’s eyes narrowed. She’d only met General Thorne once, but she hadn’t liked him. The man had given her the creeps, even though she wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t treated her with anything other than respect and yet he’d still bothered her.

  “The Grand Senate did the same, when it felt threatened,” Professor Kratman said. “It established new security forces, mainly to keep an eye on the older ones. Your husband, intentionally or otherwise, is doing the same. And, historically, those forces have a tendency to grow in power as time goes on.”

  “True,” Tiffany agreed. “There were some forces that grew more powerful after Admiral Justinian went to war.”

  She shuddered at the memory. The Blackshirts had started life as the Grand Senate’s security forces. By the time they’d been crushed by the Grand Fleet’s occupation of Earth, they’d mustered an impressive record of atrocities and even managed to remove a handful of military officers on spurious grounds. And the political commissioners had proved even more of a headache. Marius had told her, more than once, that their interference had cost the Federation Navy battles it should have won.

  “But Marius isn’t like that,” she protested. “He wouldn’t stamp on people for breathing.”

  “No man can hope to master all the details of running a single planet, let alone something the size of the Federation,” Professor Kratman warned. “He can’t even begin to give certain issues all the attention they deserve, or even the minimum they need to be kept stable. I know of a dozen issues that have slipped through the cracks and others that can only be fixed once peace returns to our p
art of the galaxy. The recent strike on the moon may only be the first to take place.”

  “But the strike was broken,” Tiffany objected. “And they signed confessions.”

  “There are limits to how many strikes can be crushed without shooting ourselves in the foot,” Professor Kratman warned. “Losing even a relatively small number of experienced workers might cause us long-term problems. The strikers may realize that if enough of them strike, we can’t crush them.”

  He shook his head. “But we are getting away from the point,” he warned. “There’s a very real risk of your husband losing control completely – or doing something very dangerous. The strikers were effectively forced into signing confessions, then exiled. I believe General Thorne would have gone much further, if necessary. What will happen when the next piece of faecal matter hits the fan?”

  Tiffany met his eyes. “What are you asking me to do?”

  “Be with him, support him, try to help him,” Professor Kratman said. He shook his head in irritation. “We are caught between several different fires, Lady Tiffany, and our ability to deal with just one of them is hampered by the others. The Federation needs time to breathe and the Outsiders, damn the lot of them, aren’t likely to let us rest. And, given your husband’s growing impatience and frustration, something very bad might happen.”

  “I see, I think,” Tiffany said. “And what does the Brotherhood have to say about all of this?”

  “The Brotherhood is torn,” Professor Kratman said. “Human unity is our goal. On the other hand, there’s a point beyond which fighting is essentially pointless. We could win the battles, but lose the war.”

  Tiffany nodded. “Like the Grand Senate,” she said. “Someone else might see a chance to take power for themselves.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Professor Kratman agreed. “Whatever we may think of the coup, and of your husband’s role as emperor, it cannot be denied that he has proven that yes, it is possible to take power by force. I suspect several other admirals have not failed to take note.”

  “Then have them removed,” Tiffany snapped. There was no logic in leaving the potential rogues in place, was there? Who knew what they might be cooking up, away from the emperor’s oversight. “Get rid of the bastards!”

  “They might refuse to be recalled,” Professor Kratman said. “And they wouldn’t listen to me, in any case. And I don’t know if your husband would agree with me. He has great faith in the Federation Navy.”

  “Admiral Justinian rebelled,” Tiffany said. “And he wasn’t the only one.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Professor Kratman said. He finished his tea, then rose. “Take care of your husband, please. We’re going to need him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  One of the simplest problems with trying to lure the enemy out of place is that the enemy may miss the lure entirely – or mistake it for something else.

  -The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

  Galen, 4100

  “I trust,” Chang Li said, “that your new flagship meets with your approval?”

  “It is an improvement,” General Stuart agreed, dryly. His previous flagship had been badly damaged in a brief skirmish with a Federation Navy squadron, an encounter that might have been personally disastrous if reinforcements hadn’t arrived in the nick of time. He was still unsure if it had been a deliberate ambush or a stroke of bad luck. There was no way to be sure. “But the new crew requires more training.”

  He sighed, then sat back in his chair. The display showed a hundred stars in green, all occupied by the Outsiders, surrounding Boston, which glowed a grim defiant red. It was absurd, in the days of the stardrive, to think that a single system remained so vital, yet there was no way to avoid it. As long as the Federation Navy held Boston, the ultimate end of the war remained in doubt.

  “We’re expanding facilities as fast as we can,” Chang Li assured him. “But the Marsha are insisting on adding more manpower of their own.”

  Charlie gritted his teeth. “I suppose you can’t tell them to stuff it?”

  “Not without causing a diplomatic incident,” Chang Li said. “And we don’t need the distraction right now.”

  “We don’t need to lose so many starships either,” Charlie countered. The only realistic use for the Marsha, he was coming to believe, was kamikaze missions. They seemed to enjoy the prospect of hurling their lives away for a tiny goal, even though any objective observer of the situation would raise eyebrows, at the very least. “The bastards cost us too much.”

  “We need them,” Chang Li said.

  “They’re also a propaganda nightmare,” Charlie added. They’d had to deploy Marsha troops to a number of worlds and the results had been hellishly predictable. Right now, the Marsha were fighting an insurgency on several worlds and losing. “The Federation takes advantage of their presence to claim we intend the destruction of humanity.”

  “I know,” Chang Li said. “But what can we do?”

  Charlie understood her frustration. Once it had recovered from its surprise, the Federation Navy had reminded the Outsiders why it was considered a deadly enemy. The Federation hadn’t contested every world, but it had made sure to destroy anything the Outsiders could use before withdrawing, right down to tiny asteroid mining complexes. And, in many places, it had withdrawn factories and small industrial nodes too. The irony was chilling; the deeper the Outsiders advanced into the Federation, the longer it took for them to draw supplies from their bases. Several star systems had changed hands more than once because the force that took it, the first time, hadn’t been able to hold it against a quick counterattack.

  “We have an opportunity,” he said. “We may be able to knock the Federation back on its heels.”

  Chang Li leaned forward. “Show me.”

  “Intelligence has been our one real advantage since the fighting began,” Charlie explained, as he altered the starchart. “If our intelligence sources are to be believed, the Federation Navy has finally twigged to Goldstone’s role in our supply lines – or, I should say, its former role.”

  “I see,” Chang Li said. “And they intend to try to cut it?”

  “I believe so,” Charlie said. “If they got a fleet there prior to one of our convoys passing through the Asimov Points, they would be in a perfect position for a major ambush. It might prove decisive...if we were still using that route. As it is, this gives us a chance to attack Boston while some of her defenders are elsewhere.”

  “It would still leave a fleet in our rear,” Chang Li pointed out.

  “It would,” Charlie agreed. “But that fleet wouldn’t be able to strike anywhere dangerous, even assuming it knew where to go. They’d eventually run out of supplies, if they didn’t try to head back into the Federation.”

  He scowled. As much as he hated to admit it, he would have sold his soul for a straight answer to a simple question. Just how many of the ‘secret’ bases beyond the Rim were known to the Federation Navy? It had been two years since the war had begun and everything he’d heard about Admiral Garibaldi indicated he wasn’t a man to sit on his hands. By now, the Federation would certainly have dispatched a small armada of scoutships far beyond the Rim. Who knew what they had found?

  Statistically, it was unlikely they’d find much, he knew. The main bases and shipyards were all carefully concealed, even established – in one case – in the trackless depths of interstellar space. But they might attack a smaller settlement and capture someone who could lead them to a bigger settlement, then so on until they located one of the major bases. Or they might simply concentrate on G2 stars until they located one of the alien homeworlds, then bring their full might to bear against its defenses. And both of the main homeworlds had flimsy defenses, compared to Earth. Or Boston, for that matter.

  Chang Li smiled. “And what do you have in mind?”

  “Attack Boston with everything we can muster,” Charlie said. “We’ve been trying to cut the system off or isolate it, but it hasn’t been suc
cessful. The Federation has managed to keep control of its supply lines. This way, we would be hammering the system directly.”

  “It would still be heavily defended,” Chang Li pointed out.

  “We wouldn’t be trying to secure the high orbitals,” Charlie said. It was a regrettable decision, particularly as he knew there were insurgents on Boston intent on liberating their world as soon as the Outsider Navy arrived, but unavoidable. “We’d merely concentrate on the Asimov Points themselves. Boston herself can be left to wither on the vine.”

  “That won’t go well with the Assembly,” Chang Li admitted. “They will be pissed.”

  Charlie felt a flicker of sympathy. Chang Li had been moving from liberated world to liberated world, trying to cajole the governments – provisional, in many cases – to send representatives to the Outsider Assembly. It hadn’t been a great success; the newcomers were either fearful of Federation retaliation – after all, the Federation knew where their worlds were – or more fire-eating than any of the older representatives. The thought of leaving Boston in Federation hands, even if the system itself was held by the Outsiders, would horrify them. And the Council might not disagree.

  “Boston is heavily defended,” he said, instead. “However, her defenses cannot impinge on anything outside her orbitals. We gain nothing from attacking the system – besides, the enemy commander might surrender without further ado.”

  “You don’t know that will happen,” Chang Li said. “We may treat prisoners well, but still...”

  “And they may not believe it,” Charlie said. “They don’t know just how well we treat prisoners.”

  The thought was infuriating. He had offered to exchange prisoners, during a brief lull in the endless taking, losing and retaking of star systems, but the Federation Navy had flatly refused. There was no way to know if the Federation Navy was simply reluctant to admit how few prisoners it had managed to take – or if something sinister had happened to those prisoners. The Grand Senate would not have hesitated to tear information out of their brains by force, if necessary, but he thought Admiral – Emperor – Drake would treat prisoners better. But then, the emperor did seem to have decided that the war against the Outsiders was effectively a holy war. He had no interest in peace on any but the Federation’s terms.