by Jay Allan
“Thank you, Admiral.” There was anything but gratitude in the administrator’s voice. Barron knew Cantor was terrified, and that he would likely have fled from his post on Dannith if he hadn’t been just as scared of the admiral’s wrath as he was of the heretofore unseen Hegemony. That was a reasonable point of view, since Barron was perfectly willing to shoot the son of a bitch if he shirked from his duty.
“Dauntless will be leaving in a few hours, Administrator. We must get to Megara and report on our discoveries. I’m sorry I don’t have the firepower to leave here to augment your defenses, but your planetary array is quite potent. I strongly urge you to use whatever time you have to bring your preparations to maximum readiness.” Barron felt guilty leaving Dannith’s populations in the hands of such a contemptible piece of excrement, but there was nothing he could do. Besides, they’d elected him, and as much as he sympathized, they’d made their own bed, so to speak.
“Good luck to you, Administrator. With any luck, a naval relief force will arrive here before the enemy. Or, perhaps, the enemy won’t show at all.” Barron didn’t believe that, not for a second. He didn’t know much about the Hegemony, but what he did know suggested strongly it was not a power that could tolerate the existence of other nations. Whatever happened in the next few months, he suspected the greatest war he’d ever seen was looming out there, heading toward the Confederation like an unstoppable train.
“Yes, perhaps.” The administrator’s voice was deadpan, somber. “Thank you again for all your help, Admiral.” Cantor had little success hiding the sarcasm in his tone.
Barron bit back on his anger, resisting the urge for about the twentieth time to pull out his pistol and relieve Dannith of its mistake. But he just turned, and he gestured toward one of the Marines. “Captain, a word please, before I leave.”
“Yes, sir.” The Marine snapped to attention, and he followed Barron out of the room.
“Captain…I’m sorry I have to leave you and your Marines here.” He paused. “It’s no secret that if the enemy appears, Dannith’s orbital defenses will likely fall. You will be trapped on the surface, trying to aide an overmatched and unprepared defensive effort.” Barron hesitated, wondering if he should be doing his best to demoralize the Marine. But he didn’t like lying to his people, and he didn’t have it in him to do it right now.
“There’s no reason to be sorry, Admiral. We’ll do our duty. And if any invasion force lands on Dannith, we’ll make sure they regret it.”
Barron almost felt a smile trying to surface. He’d always gotten along very well with his Marine contingents, and he never got tired of watching the rigid discipline and dedication to duty of the Confederation’s elite warriors. He was leaving thirty-two Marines behind on a planet of hundreds of millions, facing possible invasion by a massive enemy force…and the captain was telling him the insignificant detachment was going to make a difference. Barron wished he could believe the same thing…convince himself that he wasn’t leaving thirty-two of his people behind to almost certain death.
But he couldn’t.
“Captain Blanth, I want you to listen very carefully to what I am about to say. I am entering exactly what I am telling you into my log, so there is a record of it. You are not to allow Administrator Cantor to leave Dannith under any circumstances. If he attempts to escape, or if, in your sole opinion, he takes any action which jeopardizes the defense of the planet, you are authorized to use whatever force is necessary to place him under control, up to and including summary execution. Do you understand, Captain?”
The Marine had been impassive the entire time, but now just a hint of concern slipped onto his face, the prospect of shooting a planetary head of state shaking even the veteran’s innards. But in the end, he didn’t flinch, and he didn’t delay more than an instant in his response. “Yes, sir. Understood.”
“Very well, Captain. Good luck to you and your Marines.”
“Sir!”
Barron turned and walked away, trying to hide the increasingly grim expression on his face from the men and women he was leaving behind.
* * *
“Admiral on the bridge!”
Barron waved his arm as the officers and crew on Dauntless’s bridge began to rise to their feet, gesturing for them all to remain in their seats. He generally hated the pomp and ceremony that accrued to his new rank. At least it still felt new to him, even though it had been nearly two years since he’d first pinned on his admiral’s stars.
He appreciated the recognition of his service, and the confidence his superiors had expressed in him with the promotions, but deep down, Barron missed his days as a ship’s captain. The captain of his ship. Dauntless. His Dauntless. She had died a heroic death, arguably saving the fleet, and even the Confederation, from defeat, but that didn’t do anything to prevent him from missing the creaky old battlewagon with an intensity that had hardly faded. He suspected—no, he knew—that those years on her bridge, with a crew he still thought of as family, would prove to be the best of his life.
And now they were part of his past.
He was playacting now, using Atara’s incapacitation to buy a little more time at the con, justifying his monitoring the crew and doing the duties of a ship captain…but it wasn’t the same. Nothing would ever be the same.
“Commander, are all ships ready to leave orbit?”
“Yes, sir.” A brief pause. “Admiral, Commander Globus is on your line. He requests a final word and permission to depart.”
Barron turned toward his chair, and he scooped up the headset, slipping it on while still standing. “Cilian?”
“Admiral…I wanted to offer my compliments and my sincerest wishes for good fortune to attend you until we are destined to meet again.” A tiny smile slipped on Barron’s lips. He’d come to respect his Palatian allies, but the Alliance ethos of honor in battle occasionally led to some theatrics.
“And fortune go with you, my friend. I look to the next day we stand side by side in battle.” Palatians weren’t the only ones who could lay it on…
“Our course is laid in. With your permission, we will depart now for Palatia.”
“By all means, Cilian. You have duty to do, as do I. Give my regards and deepest respect to the Imperator.” Vian Tulus was the supreme ruler of the Alliance, but he was also Barron’s old comrade from the days of the Palatian Civil War. Barron had led Confederation forces to the aid of Tarkus Vennius in that conflict, and Tulus had taken Vennius’s place when the old Imperator was killed less than two years after the final victory.
Vennius was another lost friend, one of many still alive in Barron’s thoughts. Too many.
“I shall relay your regards to his Supremacy…along with our combined and fervent request that he act immediately toward our joint defense against the new enemy.”
Barron shook his head slowly. Globus would first have to tell the Imperator that a vast and hostile empire existed, far off in an area of space all on the Rim had long thought dead. He didn’t doubt his friend’s loyalty nor his steadfastness, but he knew perfectly well that Tulus was responsible first and foremost to his own people…and different warriors saw their duty through various lenses. He liked to think a powerful Alliance fleet would come rushing to aid the Confederation, but he was far from sure that would happen, at least immediately…and he had his own job to do as well, to clear the way before his people would open their borders and welcome the arrival of vast forces from so recent an ally.
“You are authorized to depart, Commander Globus.” He felt like he’d already as much as said that, but his experience with Palatians suggested that an order could never be too clear or firmly stated.
“Acknowledged, Admiral Barron.”
The comm line went dead, and a few seconds later, Commander Cumberland reported that Fortiter had broken orbit and was accelerating toward the Volan transit point.
Barron stood where he was for a few seconds, his eyes moving over his chair before he turned toward the back of t
he bridge. “I’ll be in my office, Commander. Please advise all ships we will be breaking orbit in precisely thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Barron walked back to the small corridor behind the bridge leading toward the room that served as his office. As always, the first door he saw was the closed one across the hall.
Atara’s office.
He felt a pang for his longtime first officer, now his flag captain. Things looked a bit more hopeful for his friend now, though her condition was obviously still very serious. But beyond the worrying…he just missed her. Her counsel, her advice. Her friendship. She’d been unconscious for months now, clamped in the medpod that was keeping her alive. He wished she was back, because he cared for her, because he wanted her to be okay.
Because he needed her…perhaps more now than he ever had.
He stood for a while longer, losing track of the time. Then he turned and walked into his own office, moving swiftly across the room and sitting down hard behind his desk. He’d been there no more than a few minutes when the AI spoke.
“Commander Cumberland is requesting entry, Admiral.”
Barron was surprised. He’d just been on the bridge with Cumberland. What would send the officer back here in person instead of using the comm?
“Allow him in.”
The door slid open, and Eliot Cumberland walked slowly inside.
“What can I do for you, Commander?”
“Sir…I’m sorry to disturb you…but I came upon something I thought you should know.” The officer looked a little tentative.
“What is it, Eliot?”
“Well, Admiral, I stumbled on it by accident. I was connecting Dauntless’s AI banks with Dannith’s…standard procedure, to update the records and news reports, that kind of thing.”
Barron was looking at Cumberland as he fell silent again. “Yes, that is standard procedure. What did you find out of the ordinary?”
“Well, Admiral, I found some unusual traffic, so…well, I’m not sure if I went beyond my authorization, but I investigated a bit further.”
“What kind of traffic?”
“There was a very strange docking record, Admiral. A ship with no registry reported, no place on any schedule…no records of any kind. I wouldn’t have found it, except a maintenance tech apparently filed a routine repair report instead of disregarding it as he was ordered.”
“That is very strange.” Barron had a few ideas what kind of ship could overrule local regulations. There weren’t many. Spy ships, Senatorial craft, very highly-placed military traffic.
“Yes, sir…but there’s more. I went a bit further…deeper than I should have, I’m afraid. The ship left shortly after it arrived, and by all accounts, it carried some kind of prisoner.”
“A prisoner?”
“Yes, sir. Apparently a very highly-ranked one.”
Barron frowned. He’d spent almost an entire—seemingly endless—day with the administrator, and he hadn’t said anything about a high profile arrest of some kind. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary, but Barron was surprised the fool hadn’t mentioned it.
“When was this, Commander?”
“Nearly two and a half months ago, sir.”
“Were you able to find out anything more specific?”
“I’m afraid not much, sir…not about this. I was able to piece together the ship’s destination. Megara.”
Barron stared back at the officer. Megara. Maybe it was a Senatorial ship.
He thought for a moment. He didn’t have time to wait. He had to get back to Megara to begin the work of preparing to fight the Hegemony. Still, it nagged at him that the administrator hadn’t said anything. He wasn’t sure the politician was deliberately hiding something from him…but the more he thought about it, the more suspicious he became.
“Commander…place the fleet departure order on hold. And get Administrator Cantor on my line.”
“Yes, sir.” Cumberland stood, unmoving, still looking nervous.
“Is there something else, Commander?”
“Yes, sir…after I found these entries, I did a more extensive review.” He paused. “I found another departure I thought would be of interest to you. A free trader…a ship named Pegasus.”
The name hit Barron like a sledgehammer. Pegasus? No, it couldn’t be. Andi was retired, living on some strip of coastal paradise on Tellurus. What the hell would she be doing on Dannith?
“Pegasus? Did you check the registry?”
“Yes, sir. It is her ship. And still registered to her.” Cumberland had generally engaged in the same practiced ignorance of Barron’s relationship with Andi Lafarge as all of Dauntless’s crew, but he and Andi had long been the worst-kept secret in the fleet.
But what was she doing on Dannith?
He couldn’t figure it out. For a moment, he wondered if she’d leased out her ship, if someone else had flown the vessel to the frontier. But he knew she would never have done that with Pegasus. She didn’t need the money, and her ship was the closest thing she had to a child.
“Go get Cantor on my line, Eliot. Now.” His voice was cold. “If he isn’t available, get Captain Blanth, and tell him he is to find the administrator and get him on the comm…if he has to drag him by his feet. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Cumberland turned, but then he stopped as Barron snapped out another command.
“When that’s done, Commander, I want you to get back to Dannith’s record banks, and dig out everything you can find about either departure…or anything else that seems abnormal. You have my authorization to tear through their records without limitation. Do you follow me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find me all you can, Commander. Now, go get me the administrator.”
Barron stared straight ahead as Cumberland turned and left the office. His eyes were blazing with intensity.
What happened here?
And how the hell was Andi involved in it?
Chapter Twelve
Confederation Admiralty Main Lobby
Troyus City, Planet Megara, Olyus III
Year 316 AC
“I want you to go back up and stay with Colonel Peterson and Major Bellingham. Give them any assistance they request. Either of them asking for it is the same thing as me asking for it. Understood?” Van Striker walked through the lobby of the Admiralty, snapping off commands to a cluster of aides.
“Yes, sir. I’ll see to it immediately.” One of the assistants saluted and turned around abruptly, rushing back toward the lifts that led to Striker’s office.
The admiral glanced around, vaguely wondering how long it had been since the last time he’d been in the lobby. He didn’t usually come in and out through the main entrance. The Admiralty building was located in the center of Troyus City, not far from the Senate building and the other major government centers. The main entrance fronted Grand Boulevard itself, but for security reasons, Striker usually came in and out through the underground levels. He’d received notice earlier that the lower levels were closed temporarily for some emergency maintenance. He’d just been about to find out whose screw up was responsible for the change when Peterson showed up with the news about Holsten.
Striker had forgotten all about the maintenance matter. Whoever had dropped the ball down there had been lucky enough to do it when something more important was going on…always one of the best ways to avoid trouble for a mistake.
“Stan, you come with me. The rest of you…you’ve got enough to keep you busy until I get back…so get to it.” He turned slightly and gestured to the single aide he’d told to stay with him. “The transport should be ready…” He glanced out through the massive glass walls in the front of the building, his eyes darting around until he caught sight of a Marine, one of his guards, standing in front of a black luxury transport. “There,” he said, extending his arm toward the leftmost door along the building’s front.
He turned and walked toward the vehicle, the building’s massive door
sliding aside as he walked through. Stan followed close behind. The Marine by the car snapped to attention, then opened the side entry for the admiral.
There were two Marines from his guard waiting inside—one beside the driver, and the other sitting across from him in the back. Striker nodded at the Marines as he climbed inside and slid across the soft seat covering. He’d spent so much of his life in combat, and on distant postings, the luxury that clung to the navy’s commander on Megara tended to embarrass him a bit. He usually just tried to ignore it, and not to admit to himself just how much he enjoyed it.
As soon as the door slid shut behind his aide, Striker began rattling off more orders to him. “Stan, I want you to…” But he didn’t finish.
A shot rang out, muffled by some sort of silencing device, but still audible in the confines of the vehicle. Then another. The Marine in the front seat slumped forward, and then the one sitting across from him in the back dropped to his side, onto the seat, staring up with a stunned look frozen in his still open eyes. Striker could see blood pouring from the man’s clearly fatal head wound.
He reached down for the sidearm he knew wasn’t there. Striker was a combat officer, used to being armed at all times, but when he’d come to Megara and assumed the navy’s senior post, he’d found that it wasn’t customary for the top brass to go around the capital armed. After some token resistance, he’d reluctantly gone along with the tradition. After all, he didn’t really need a weapon on the capital…did he?