Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars Book 8)

by Jay Allan

  The name Gary Holsten was familiar to most of those watching, though only a tiny percentage had known that, in addition to his role as the heir to one of the Confederation’s greatest industrial fortunes, he had also headed the main intelligence agency for years. That news was as shocking as the revelation that he had used his position to siphon government funds—worse, tax revenues targeted to supply the forces fighting the war against the Union. Megara was a wealthy planet by any measure, and its people enjoyed a standard of living that most would envy. Those residing in the vicinity of the capital were also used to witnessing astonishing, and often revolting, displays of almost incalculable wealth. For some reason, they were more forgiving of such conduct by politicians than by industrialists…especially those, like Holsten, who had inherited great wealth.

  The announcement had been made by Senator Ferrell, a man whom few of the Megarans watching had ever heard of. He was the lone Senator from a distance world, one so unimportant that though it was part of the Confederation, perhaps half of Megara’s citizens had never heard of it. They knew Ferrell now, and as he railed against Holsten’s greed and corruption, they silently cheered.

  The uncovering of such vast criminality was upsetting, of course, but the discovery that an industrialist was corrupt, that he had bought himself a government post and misused it, was nothing that rose to crisis levels. That hadn’t happened until the next night…when every network and channel on Megara’s extensive information net broke away for fresh news reports.

  The corruption was even vaster than had been initially reported, the anchors told their attentive viewers, and the list of those involved had grown to include hundreds more names…including members of the navy and Marines. That was enough to unnerve most of those watching. The Confederation had fought four major wars in less than a century, and whatever political groups its people belonged to, almost all recognized that they would be Union slaves without the military forces that had preserved their freedom.

  As the networks began to release the names of the accused, the citizenry of Megara let out a collective gasp. At the top of the lengthy roster were household names, heroes the people of the Confederation almost worshipped…and the first two were Admiral Van Striker and Admiral Tyler Barron.

  The people had been quick to accept Holsten’s guilt, demanding little in the way of evidence to support the claims of the politicians, but all across Megara, howls of doubt now erupted. Billions of citizens clung to their belief in their heroes. But the evidence started to come, a trickle at first, and then a torrent. Documents, extensive financial analysis…and finally, guilty parties, farther down the chain of command, tearfully confessing on the air, sobbing and begging forgiveness…and pointing damning figures at officers like Striker and Barron, who they claimed had lured them into the scheme.

  Slowly, fitfully, more and more of those watching began to believe the stories. ITN had been at the forefront, but as the results of Senate deliberations poured out, the other networks joined in, seeking to catch their rival’s lead. Competing for viewership, every broadcast entity sought to get anyone on the air who could speak about the scandal…and throw mud at the accused.

  “Things have gone better than we could have hoped, Ricard.” Marieles had made no progress trying to break down Lille’s cold, impenetrable wall, but she was still trying. The truth was, he scared the shit out of her, and she was doing anything she could to keep the killer firmly on her side.

  “So far, Desiree…so far.” Lille was calling her by her first name as well, but he managed to do it with no sign of emotion or closeness at all. There was no question, his arrival had been a massive assistance to her. Not only was Van Striker out of the picture now, but his disappearance had pumped suspicions about him into overdrive. People had been reluctant, at first, to believe the hero of the last war was a criminal, even a traitor…but his failure to appear before the Senate as summoned, or even to answer the charges, had been damning. As far as the people of Megara—and soon the entire Confederation—knew, Striker had fled to avoid being held accountable for his actions. None of them knew the truth, of course, that their completely innocent admiral was still in Troyus City, in the sub-basement of a very nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of town.

  She ignored the touch of restraint in Lille’s tone. She was well aware of all the things that could go wrong, but after months of difficult and dangerous work, she was determined to enjoy her success.

  “Was your tool in the Senate able to put your chosen officers in place?”

  Marieles didn’t know the answer to Lille’s question, not right then. The Senate was in closed session at that moment, as it had been for almost eleven straight hours. The grounds of the Senate Building had been shut down, and the Lictor Corps had been ordered to keep any but those summoned away. She saw some humor in that…if the Senators were afraid of their own military, she wasn’t sure what the Lictors were going to do about it. The last she’d studied tactics, she’d come to the conclusion that pomposity and arrogance didn’t stand up well in the field against grim killers with guns. The thought of the Senate’s pampered lapdogs actually going up against veteran Confederation Marines was a stark one.

  Sadly, from her perspective, arranging a Marine attack on the Senate was considerably beyond her reach. Manipulating the military was the most difficult part of the whole operation. While she didn’t think she had much chance of turning them all—or even most—against Striker and Barron and the others, getting some key officers replaced in the forces deployed in the Olyus system seemed doable.

  As long as Ferrell came through. And that was never something she liked to count on. Still, the clear edginess—and that was a charitable term—on display by the Senate suggested they were worried, and that could only help. Now, if she could nudge worried up to scared…

  She was trying to think of something to say to Lille that would express a level of confidence beyond what she possessed, when one of her agents came running over. “Word just came in. The Senate has adjourned until tomorrow. They relieved over one hundred officers in the home forces…and Admiral Whitten has been placed in command of all Olyus system military assets.”

  Marieles smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Tomas.” She turned toward Lille, a satisfied look on her face. Inside, the wave of relief she felt told her just how worried she’d been. She didn’t have any real faith in Ferrell or Whitten, but the problem with smarter dupes was…it was harder to make them into dupes.

  * * *

  “It’s been five days, Captain Stanhope, and there has been no sign of the admiral…nor of his aide or escort, nor even the transport he left in. We must increase the intensity of our searches…now.” Colonel Peterson was standing right next to the naval officer. Too close, probably, and the tone of his voice was, if not hostile, at the very least, frustrated.

  “Colonel, we’ve done everything possible to find Admiral Striker. I don’t know what else we could do, and if you have some idea, I encourage you to share it.” Stanhope had arrived the day after Striker’s disappearance, and he’d more or less taken charge of the admiral’s office while the search went on. He’d ostensibly been sent to help find the admiral, but from Peterson’s point of view, his effort had been lackluster…if not outright obstructive.

  “For one, we can increase the personnel assigned to search duties.” Peterson already had his company of Marines looking for the admiral, though that was strictly an informal operation, and one he had told Stanhope nothing about. The resources the captain had assigned to look for the missing admiral were grossly inadequate, and the grizzled old Marine had made that clear on more than one occasion over the past several days.

  “Colonel Peterson, I understand that your duties have seen you mostly on the front lines or out on the peripheral worlds. There is nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but Megara is the most cosmopolitan planet in the galaxy. We simply cannot have hundreds of troops bashing down doors looking for a man who, mostly likely, simply does
n’t…” The officer paused for a second, and then he finished, his voice lower than it had been. “…want to be found.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe these ridiculous charges? You think the admiral is in hiding, that he’s fleeing from the slander laid against him?” The accusations leveled at Striker and the others, and the debate over whether there was any truth to any of it, had been the main topic of discussion throughout naval headquarters. Few had paid any heed at all to the reports at first, but Striker’s disappearance, and the inability of anyone to find a trace of him, was beginning to wear away at peoples’ faith.

  Not Jon Peterson’s, however. The Marine had a sense of loyalty that verged on obsessive. He believed in Striker, and until anyone proved unequivocally to the contrary, he would continue to do so. It appeared Stanhope was cut from a different cloth.

  “I don’t want to believe it, Colonel. But the admiral disappeared from the center of Troyus City, with two hand-picked guards and a personal aide, the day before a massive scandal erupted that involves him deeply, and that appears to be supported by quite damning evidence. I’m not saying Admiral Striker is guilty, that he’s gone into hiding…but it is certainly beginning to look like that.”

  Peterson struggled to hold back the rage building inside him. The Marine knew smashing in the obnoxious officer’s face in wasn’t going to help anything, but that didn’t make him want it any less. “I don’t care what you choose to make out of the…evidence…but I know Van Striker well enough to be damned sure he’d never have stolen money earmarked to buy his spacers what they needed.”

  “There’s no point in arguing, Colonel. The Lictors are looking for the admiral now, as are the federal marshals. Whether he is guilty or not, he is now the subject of a massive manhunt, on top of all our own efforts to find him. Wherever he is, however he disappeared, he will almost certainly be found…and then he will have the chance to clear his name.” The officer paused, his voice somehow becoming even more grating when he resumed. “Or, he will face the consequences of what he did.”

  Peterson’s hand tightened into a fist, but he managed to keep it at his side…with no little effort. “Very well, Captain. Let me know if you find anything.” He turned and walked away, not even waiting for an acknowledgement. He hadn’t liked Stanhope from the instant the officer walked through the door, but only now had he realized the man wasn’t there to help Striker at all, but to find and arrest him.

  Peterson didn’t know where his friend had gone, but he was sure of one thing now. His Marines had to find Striker…before any of the others did.

  * * *

  “You are relieved, Admiral. I believe you already received the orders.” Torrance Whitten stood bolt upright, the perfect image of a martinet as he stood before the somewhat stunned looking Admiral Reichman. If he’d cared at all what was going through the old flag officer’s mind, he might have considered how shocking and rapid the events of the past several days had been. But Reichman was on the Admiralty Board, one of the officers who’d gradually derailed his career until, admiral or not, Whitten couldn’t get a command towing ore to the shipyards.

  And now it was payback time.

  “You’re also under arrest, Admiral…effective immediately. These gentlemen…” He gestured toward a half dozen partially armored and heavily armed naval security troopers—an absurdly overpowered contingent to escort a one-legged admiral less than a year from retirement to the Senate to hear the charges against him. Whitten had waited a long time for his revenge, and he wasn’t about to let anything interfere with it.

  “Admiral Whitten, surely you know all of this is just a pack of lies. I have never…”

  “I suggest you save it, Admiral, for the Senate. You’ll need a good explanation if you wish to avoid spending your last years mining radioactives on some desolate asteroid.” There was a caustic edge to Whitten’s tone. He’d carried a grudge for a long time, and Reichman was the first to feel the sting of his retaliation…though he would certainly not be the last.

  “Commander Quinn, Commander Callahan…” Whitten turned, looking at the pair of officers standing behind him in the orbital station’s docking bay. “…we have significant work to do, so the sooner we begin, the better.” He turned back toward the six guards, gesturing abruptly for them to take the admiral away. He didn’t say another word to Reichman, and he barely watched as the broken officer was shackled and led to a waiting transport.

  “Yes, Admiral.” The two officers answered almost as one. Then, they each turned toward a column of security troops waiting behind them, snapping out a series of commands and leading the soldiers toward two waiting shuttles. They had over one hundred arrests to make on the ships of the home system forces…and when they were done, every vessel and orbital fortress around Megara would be under the control of Whitten’s loyalists.

  Those who had sabotaged his career, who had done him so much harm…they would now endure their own trials.

  Chapter Sixteen

  CFS Dauntless

  Entering Olyus System

  En Route to Megara, Olyus III

  Year 316 AC

  “We haven’t received clearance from ground control yet, Admiral.” Barron listened as Cumberland’s voice crackled through the shuttle’s comm speaker. “If you just wait a…”

  “I don’t know what’s going on down there, Commander, but I’ve got to find out. I’ll have a much better chance to get somewhere with that down on the surface in someone’s face rather than jousting over the comm with some mid-level officer.” He paused, just for a second. “Launch.”

  There was a brief hesitation, just long enough that Barron knew Cumberland wanted to argue with him but held his tongue. “Yes, Admiral.”

  Barron turned toward the shuttle’s pilot and nodded, just as the launch authorization light lit up a bright green. He should probably have been sitting in the back of the ship, in the far plusher main cabin of the admiral’s cutter. But he’d decided to go down alone, or as close to alone as he could get, and he’d always considered the luxury of the cutter a bit over the top. Truth be told, he was far more comfortable up in the cockpit, sitting next to the pilot.

  He knew the officer at the controls, at least he was pretty sure he could remember the man’s name. Barron had known every crew member of the old Dauntless, but now that his responsibilities had moved up the chain of command, he found it impossible to keep track of everyone under him. Jake Stockton usually flew him around, or one of the other aces of the squadrons, but Barron had left them all behind to fight the Hegemony. He fought back the thought poking around the edge of his mind…you left them there to die.

  The pilot glanced over at Barron for about the tenth time. The young officer was clearly nervous to be flying an officer of such exalted rank, much less the famous Tyler Barron. Barron could see his edginess, and he smiled and nodded, doing his best to ease the pressure.

  “It’s just a quick trip down to the surface, Lieutenant. The easiest run you’ve taken in some time, I imagine.” Though Barron wondered how many difficult flights the pilot had made. Any at all? He’d left most of the experienced shuttle pilots with Eaton’s fleet as well, and if this was the best Cumberland had found to take him down to the surface, there wasn’t much in the way of experienced flight personnel left on Dauntless.

  “Yes, sir.” The pilot tried to return Barron’s smile, and then he turned toward the forward screen, and he flipped a series of switches, activating the engines. “Shuttle Alpha-One…launching.”

  Barron could feel the force as the ship blasted down the bay, and then out into the blackness of Megara’s orbital space. Normal protocol would be to dock with one of the stations before landing, but Barron didn’t have any time to waste. He’d come back home to report a crisis, and when he’d gotten to Dannith, he’d found something that looked an awful lot like another one. The trip to the capital had been an interminable one, even at Dauntless’s maximum acceleration, and he’d left behind three of the five ships
he'd brought back from the White Fleet. Two because they couldn’t match the thrust of the flagship, and one because it was even faster than Dauntless…and he’d sent it on a very important mission, one in its own way as vital as his to Megara.

  He didn’t know what kind of trouble Holsten had found his way into, but he couldn’t imagine it was anything too serious. Or, at least, not something he and Striker couldn’t deal with together, combining their clout…and the still quite considerable power of the Barron name.

  He did believe that, mostly…but there was a feeling in his stomach that told him he had doubts.

  I will get to the bottom of everything…as soon as I get down to the surface…

  * * *

  “Launch.” Whitten stood in the middle of the control center of Megara’s largest orbital fortress, known as Prime Base. It was a monument to Confederation industrial might, a twenty-kilometer long bastion filled with fighter bays and bristling with weapons.

  “Sir…that’s Admiral Barron’s shuttle. Are you…”

  “I issued a command, Lieutenant, not a request for opinions. Launch at once.”

  The officer looked uncertain. The ceaseless barrage of news stories about corruption and treason had continued, and the spacers on the station were in various stages of confusion, denial, and anger. Some had begun to resent Barron, to believe the stories that had begun to spread about him, and even his grandfather. But most, like the flight control officer, didn’t seem to know what to think. Tyler Barron was a hero…and worship of heroes died slowly.