The Grand Alliance

by Jay Allan

  Andi’s eyes darted around. The sensors were fully active now—though she didn’t dare engage the active scanners. There were satellites positioned around the point, as expected, scanners and warning systems. Even if the stealth unit was keeping Hermes hidden, it was possible those units had picked up energy readings from the transit itself.

  Her mind raced, considering half a dozen options. She could stay where she was…but if the enemy was alerted enough to do a thorough and comprehensive scan of the area, she might be better off risking a bit of thrust and putting some distance behind her…

  “Vig, have the engine room prepare for five percent thrust…and not a bit more.” The more she considered, the more certain she was that she had to get Hermes away from the transit point. It was the place the enemy was most likely to look for her, and besides, she hadn’t come to Olyus to hang around the outer system. She had to get to Megara anyway, probably into orbit, if she was going to have any chance of getting the message through to Bryan Rogan.

  Getting out after that was another matter entirely. But she’d worry about that later.

  “Engine room reports ready for five percent thrust, Andi.”

  “Course 102.340.065…” It wasn’t right toward Megara. That, too, would be suspicious. If the enemy scans revealed anything at all at the transit point, the route directly toward Megara would be the first to receive intense scrutiny. “…five percent on engines…now.”

  Andi leaned back in her chair, and then she realized she was holding her breath again. She exhaled hard and turned toward the display. The two Hegemony escorts were definitely heading toward the point…and that meant the enemy had picked up something. But there wasn’t any reaction to Hermes engines and course change.

  Not yet, at least…

  * * *

  “No further reliable scanning data, Commander. We have a sequence of intermittent energy trails, but they are very faint. The AI assigns a seventy-one percent probability to natural causes, most likely small cosmic energy conglomerations or the inadvertent transit of larger than normal concentrations of granular matter.”

  Tiergan stared straight ahead, his gaze fixed on Garara’s main display. Tiergan was a first generation Kriegeri. The Hegemony had come to his world when he was a young boy. His people, their society still shattered and divided by the horror the Hegemony called the Great Death, and its aftermath of war and suffering, had been almost unable to resist. He remembered his father, fighting in the streets, as the defenders were gunned down by the relentless Kriegeri soldiers.

  “The entire squadron is to execute a vector change. We’re going to sweep the entire area around the transit point.” Tiergan didn’t know if some kind of Rim force had slipped past the scanners at the transit point, but he was damned well going to find out. Seventy percent was shit. It left far too great a chance the scanning contact had not been a natural phenomenon.

  The enemy had sent scouting forces through over the past year, of course, more than one of them using the stealth devices that had enabled the disastrous attack on the supply fleet over a year before. Tiergan’s ships had received a full scanner upgrade since that disaster, and two follow-up software updates. The changes hadn’t completely eliminated the threat of the enemy stealth units, but it had vastly increased discoverability, especially under a skilled commander attentive to small clues and transient readings.

  Tiergan may have seemed an odd specimen to show such devotion to serving the Masters. He had hated the Hegemony, at first. His father had survived the fighting against the initial invasions, and after a period of captivity following the final capitulation, he’d been released. He’d remained defiant, speaking of rebellion and driving the invaders off the planet…until Tiergan’s mother’s pleading for him to stop endangering the family had finally had an effect. But, Tiergan had seen the restraint in the Hegemony’s release of those who had fought against its forces, his father included. He’d witnessed far more brutal conduct among the armies of his world’s pre-invasion nations—mass slaughters and vast concentration camps, genocide and virtual enslavement of defeated populations—following the planet’s various wars.

  The hatred of the Hegemony faded, first in Tiergan, already softening from his observations, and further subjected as he was to considerable pro-Hegemony teachings in the hastily revised and restarted education programs. But eventually, his parents came to accept the new reality as well. They had all felt patriotic feelings for their world, or at least the nation that had governed their part of it, but there was little argument, from their perspective, that things had changed for the better.

  There had been frequent famines in the years before the Hegemony arrived, and plagues and other calamities, but Tiergan and his family—and the rest of those on the planet—had enjoyed enough to eat ever since the invasion, and widely distributed medicines had already begin to improve living standards and lifespans. Communications systems, transit, even entertainment, had all improved dramatically. The Hegemony had brought domination, certainly, and it had taken from his people whatever had once passed for freedom…but it also brought prosperity of a sort, at least to the lowered expectations of people who’d known only constant wars and raids and frequent starvation a generation earlier.

  The genetic testing had begun soon after the end of hostilities, though it had taken some years to complete the absorption of the population into the Hegemonic system. The majority of the planet’s residents were classed as Arbeiter, workers, much as they had been before…but Tiergan had scored high on physical attributes and also on mathematics. He was categorized as Red Kriegeri…and destined for service with the Hegemony’s navy.

  Whether Arbeiter or Kriegeri—or, especially, the few who attained Master status—the people of his world were almost all objectively better off under the Hegemony then they had been before.

  All save the Defekts.

  The bacteriological and nuclear combat of the Great Death had not spared his world, and many of its people carried DNA scarred and damaged by the nightmare. They had fared poorly prior to the invasion, subject to poverty and various forms of discrimination…but under the Hegemony, they were no longer even considered people. They were damaged in the eyes of the Masters, their reproduction a danger to the human race as a whole, save in highly controlled circumstances to produce expendable workers. The Masters ruled the Hegemony utterly, but the Arbeiter and Kriegeri had rights of a sort, or at least protections. The Defekts had none.

  They were used for dangerous labors, mining radioactive materials and the like, and they were expended without hesitation. Tiergan had never been comfortable with that aspect of Hegemonic rule, but the years had passed, and his career in the navy had taken him far from home, and he’d largely left such concerns behind. He’d found excellence in himself, in his success in the navy…and he’d become loyal to the Masters, a rigid, unquestioning faith in the Hegemony’s mission to reunite, and protect, humanity. In the end, he’d seen tens, even hundred of billions of people better off than they’d been on their own fractured, violent worlds before absorption.

  “We’re approaching the transit point, Commander.”

  Tiergan refocused his attention on the display. “Send all readings to my workstation.” He looked down at his smaller screen, his eyes moving from one energy trail to the next. Some of them were clearly natural, but there were others, too…and he just wasn’t sure…

  * * *

  “Nudge the thrust level up, Vig. Go to twenty percent. Let’s keep this angle for another hour, and then we’ll swing around and adjust to bring us more on a line toward Megara.” Andi had been watching the display for hours, her eyes moving from one enemy contact to the next. None of them seemed to be coming toward Hermes, not yet, at least…but she was sure now the enemy had picked up some kind of contact near the transit point.

  That means they’re searching for us…

  Andi wasn’t one to underestimate her opponents, and after the devastating attack on their supply fleet j
ust over a year earlier, she didn’t think they were going to casually ignore any signs of an incursion into the system.

  “We’re at twenty percent, Andi. Still on our previous course.”

  She was doing all she could think to do, trying to keep as low a profile as possible. But she had to get to Megara, and she had a time limit as well. Her mission was to get word to Bryan Rogan in time for his Marines—assuming the general and any of his people were still alive—to disrupt the enemy as much as possible before the invasion force arrived. She’d been skeptical at first, not just about prospects for Rogan’s survival, but also just what his almost certainly battered and degraded forces could do to help the invasion. Then, Barron had confided in her, told her his reasoning for getting word to Rogan.

  The Hegemony forces were powerful, their capabilities immense. But just over a year wasn’t a long time to rebuild the destroyed orbital platforms and networks that protected a world like Megara. Barron was betting that the Hegemony command structure was based largely on the planet, that most of the enemy’s effort had gone into rebuilding weaponry and fortresses, and not orbital command facilities. If so, damaging ground communications facilities at just the right moment, might badly disrupt the defensive command and control. It would require pinpoint timing, not the least of which meant Barron getting the fleet in position at just the right moment. She didn’t doubt he would be in place, but that would mean nothing unless she had managed to reach Megara. And Rogan’s people somehow managed to take out the facilities exactly on time.

  “Bring us up to thirty percent, Vig…and let’s shave a bit off that angle, come in a bit more on a direct line.” She felt her insides tense. The more energy she poured into the engines, the closer to a straight line to Megara she came…the more she increased the risk.

  But her people had a job to do, and a schedule to keep. And that came first.

  If we can pull this off, it might save thousands of spacers.

  It might save Tyler…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hall of the People

  Liberte City

  Planet Montmirail, Ghassara IV

  Union Year 224 (320 AC)

  Sandrine Ciara sat in her office, still stunned at the news. She’d been working around the clock, trying to manipulate Villieneuve, at least as much as she dared, and cautiously searching for potential allies…in case she had to make a move. She didn’t want to opposed Villieneuve. She’d been loyal to him for a long time, and, even more, if she was being blunt and honest with herself, because the First Citizen’s enemies had long had a way of ending up dead. Gaston Villieneuve had left a trail of corpses behind in his thirty-five year rise to power, and she didn’t intend to see her name added to that list.

  She wondered what Ricard Lille would have done if he’d survived. She had learned her trade under Lille, and later emulated his operational style. She’d become a cold-blooded killer, cast from the mold Lille had created, and she’d always asked herself what her mentor would have done when she faced a difficult problem.

  She suspected the current situation would have been an especially troubling one for Lille. The assassin had been Gaston Villieneuve’s only real friend—and Villieneuve had been his. But Lille had never allowed emotions to interfere with his judgment, nor things like loyalty to stop him from doing what had to be done. Would he have betrayed Villieneuve, moved against him?

  Almost certainly, she believed, the answer was no…or at least it would have been until recently. But Ciara had replayed her recent meetings with Villieneuve over and over in her head, and she’d come to one hard and fast conclusion, one that seemed more certain with each replay. One she doubted even Lille could have ignored.

  Gaston Villieneuve was insane.

  The First Citizen had always seemed that way, at least to the standards of people weighed down my conventional morality. He was a monster, of course, as all people who attained such levels of power were, in one way or another. But the Villieneuve who had built Sector Nine into the most capable security and intelligence force on the Rim had been coldly focused, rational. While he’d never hesitated to do what was necessary, he’d been far less sadistic than others who’d held his position before him. He’d always been just as content to attain his goals without bloodshed whenever that was possible. Murder, terror, torture…they were always in his toolbox, but he’d never seemed to derive any pleasure or satisfaction from their employ.

  But the combination of the Hegemony invasion of the Rim, Denisov’s mutiny, and Lille’s death had broken him. He’d become intensely cruel, almost unhinged, and his paranoia had run amok. The sadism he’d long lacked had taken hold with a vengeance, and he’d sent subordinates to the cellars of Sector Nine headquarters for the slightest perceived offenses or failures. Sometimes, it took no more than the misfortune to cross his path when he was in a particularly bad mood.

  There was no way to know what he would do next, but the likelihood that he would be able to steer the Union through the grave threats swirling all around it was nil. He had to be removed…and the sooner the better.

  But how?

  She’d spent the last year and a half dancing around Villieneuve, managing to stay on his good side, increasing his trust in her. She’d been motivated by her own ambitions, by her perception of the likeliest route to advancement. But now, she was thinking of the Union itself. As single-minded as she’d been about her own career and power, she was, at heart a patriot. She served the Union, and no less so for her expectation to accrue power and rewards in return for her loyalty. And she detested the Confederation. Her earliest memories of the longtime enemy were of hatred and fear.

  But if the Rim didn’t unite to face the enemy, there wouldn’t be a Union or a Confederation. Gaston Villieneuve’s inaction was killing the Union, almost certainly.

  She’d tried a hundred times to devise a plan, a way to communicate with the Confederation, or with Denisov, but crazy or not, Villieneuve was no fool, and he was watching everything.

  The door to her office opened up, and two armed guards walked in, her assistant shuffling up behind them.

  “I’m sorry, Minister, but they wouldn’t wait.”

  “That’s fine, Stoke…you may return to your work.”

  The aide turned and left, still looking very uncomfortable…but Ciara wasn’t unduly concerned. Villieneuve had taken to sending armed guards to fetch those he wanted to see, something she figured was part of his twisted mind’s plan to keep everybody around him on edge. It had worked on her, once or twice, but once she’d figured it out, she had adjusted. It seemed easier to use the comm, but she didn’t think complaining about it would be useful…or wise.

  “The First Citizen wishes to see me?”

  “Yes, Minister. There is a ship approaching Montmirail, and he would consult with you at once.”

  Her first thought was the Hegemony. She’d lived in a state of near panic for months after Denisov’s defection, sure the fleet that had attacked him would invade, would assault Montmirail. But the Hegemony forces simply withdrew…probably, she’d realized later, to reinforce the invasion of the Confederation.

  Which, she acknowledged with some shame, was currently the premier power on the Rim.

  She stood up, feeling a little weakness in her legs. If the Hegemony was back…

  “What ship?” It was all she could think to ask.

  “It is a Confederation ship, Minister, broadcasting ambassadorial credentials.”

  She felt a wave of relief almost immediately…followed by a another of tense anticipation.

  A Confederation ambassador…there must be some way to use this…

  Assuming Villieneuve doesn’t have the ambassador shot on sight…

  * * *

  Alexander Kerevsky bowed his head, pulling on all his diplomatic experience to show the utmost respect to a man he utterly despised. Kerevsky wasn’t the typical diplomat, imprisoned within rigid protocols and devoted to a masquerade of pointless fakery. He’d
spent as much time in his role with Confederation Intelligence as he had in the Diplomatic Corps, and he knew ambassadors were mostly full of shit…and heads of state almost always were. He hadn’t come to Montmirail to spend months or years debating the finery of treaties and agreements that would almost certainly be breached once they were no longer convenient, by the Union at least, if not also by the Confederation.

  No, he’d come to scare the shit out of Gaston Villieneuve, and he didn’t need anything to do that but legitimate details on the battles and scanning reports on the Hegemony warships.

  He was also there to discern the actual state of the Union and its government, and to try to communicate the desperation of the Rim’s situation. In other words, to convince Gaston Villieneuve that, if the Hegemony wasn’t stopped in the Confederation, they would eventually come to Montmirail…and his bloody reign would end in the lancing beams of Hegemony warships and the stomping boots of Kriegeri soldiers.

  Villieneuve was a tyrant, a cold-blooded killer, a man who would—and had—done almost anything to get what he wanted. But he wasn’t a fool. At least, he never had been.

  Kerevsky’s first order of business would be to find out if that was still the case.

  “Ambassador Kerevsky…welcome to Montmirail. It has been far too long since we have had an envoy from our friends in the Confederation.” Villieneuve turned to the side and gestured toward a woman standing next to him. “Allow me to introduce Minister Sandrine Ciara, one of my key advisors.”

  “Minister.” Kerevsky bowed his head again, and as he straightened, his eyes caught Ciara’s. There was something there. She was trying to communicate to him, somehow. He was sure of it.

  Was there dissension between Villieneuve and his minister? Some kind of disagreement?