“Worse, there are clear signs of discontent on our warships,” the king continued, ignoring the governor’s injection. “There have been whisper campaigns and suggestions that crews should consider mutinying against me in support of the House of Lords. These actions represent a serious threat. We cannot risk a series of mutinies when we’re battling for our very survival. It could cost us the war.”
“Action must be taken,” Earl Antony snapped. He thumped the table. “We cannot let traitors bring us down!”
“Action will be taken,” the king assured him. “I am already building up special security forces. They will be responsible for securing warships, orbital fortresses, and the rest of our facilities against enemy action. They will have full authority to monitor our personnel for discontent and take corrective action, from publishing the actual truth instead of enemy propaganda to . . . removing enemy assets. They will even have authority to override a starship’s captain . . .”
“No.” Kat spoke before she could stop herself. “Not during combat. Not ever. The captain’s authority must not be brought into question.”
“The captain might be a traitor,” Earl Antony said.
Kat took a long breath, composing herself. “If you believe that,” she said with as much biting sarcasm as she could muster, “you may as well admit defeat, surrender now, and save time.”
“His Majesty wants to secure the fleet,” Earl Antony snapped. “And you . . .”
“If you convince the majority of crewmen and commanding officers that you view them as untrustworthy,” Kat said, “you’ll make them untrustworthy. If you give someone else authority over the captain, on her own ship, you’ll destroy the chain of command. And if that person knows less about naval affairs than you do, they’ll make mistakes, and mistakes during combat can be fatal. I will not have someone trying to override my orders in the middle of a battle.”
She met the king’s eyes. “That’s precisely what happened to the Theocracy. Their smarter officers were overridden, constantly, by clerics who thought they knew better. Such behavior cost them the war.”
“The Theocracy was ruled by a bunch of idiots,” Earl Antony pointed out. “We . . .”
“Should refrain from repeating their mistakes,” Kat said. She saw his face darken and knew she’d made an enemy for life. She found it hard to care. “I will not have someone trying to override my orders in a combat situation.”
“Perhaps we can compromise,” Lord Gleneden said. “The security officers—”
“Political commissioners,” Kat injected.
“. . . will have very tightly restricted powers,” Lord Gleneden continued. “They will not be authorized to override the captain during battle.”
“They will need more restrictions than that,” Kat said tersely. “Spacers grumble. Military officers and personnel have been grumbling about everything from the day mankind first learned to make war on itself. They grumble about the food, they grumble about the mud, they grumble about senior officers who clearly don’t know what they’re doing . . . Sir, half the military’s jokes revolve around the dangers of giving maps to junior officers! And if you put security officers on ships, officers who cannot tell the difference between letting off steam and actual discontent, you are going to spread discontent!”
“Then that’s all the more reason to have the officers on the ships,” Earl Antony said.
“There isn’t a single man on the fleet who didn’t volunteer to fight for the king,” Kat said. “They joined because they were loyal. If you treat them like enemies, they will become enemies.”
She looked at the king. “And then it will be just a matter of time before it all falls to pieces.”
“Their authority will be tightly restricted,” the king assured her. “Admiral Ruben has been supervising their training. He’ll ensure they don’t impede operational efficiency.”
Kat frowned. Admiral Ruben had been a thorn in her side from day one, but . . . she had to admit he was competent, if something of a fire-eater. She was mildly surprised he’d been given the task of preparing the security forces, if only because it was something of a demotion for him. He’d been in command of the planetary defenses ever since Kat had been semidemoted after the Battle of Tyre. He knew his job, she supposed. But something about the appointment felt ominous to her.
The king doesn’t have many officers he can depend upon, she reminded herself. And just about everyone has their own agenda too.
“My people are known for speaking their minds,” Governor Rogan said. “We won’t let that become a crime.”
“No,” the king agreed. “But anything that impedes the war effort will be a crime.”
He paused, resting his hands on the table. “Lord Gleneden, how do we stand . . . economically speaking?”
Lord Gleneden looked displeased. “Right now, Your Majesty, we are caught between the need to churn out more supplies for the fleet and the need to expand our industrial base.”
“So nothing has changed,” Earl Antony sniped.
The king shot him a sharp look. “Lord Gleneden. Continue.”
“Missile production is as high as it’s going to get, at least for the foreseeable future.” Lord Gleneden’s expression darkened. “We’re fortunate to have a considerable number of engineers working for us, men who can repurpose civilian gear for military uses, but it’s created a string of issues. I’d be surprised if we didn’t start running into all sorts of problems within the next few months, from one piece of equipment being incompatible with the others to simple wear and tear on components that cannot be replaced in a hurry. Really, if we’re forced to rely on our own production facilities, we’re going to grind to a halt in a year.”
“And sooner,” Kat put in, “if the enemy concentrates its attacks on our industrial nodes.”
“Correct, Admiral.” Lord Gleneden nodded to her. “We are buying as much as we can from outside, but there are limits on how much they can and will send to us. Bluntly, we have little free cash and poor credit. The only thing keeping us from being cut out altogether is the simple fact we might win, in which case we’d have all the money we needed to pay our debts. However”—he took a breath—“there are limits we cannot surmount. The House of Lords is in a position to threaten war if anyone supplies us too openly. We cannot counter their threat until we win the war, whereupon it won’t matter any longer.”
“So we need to take the offensive,” the king said. His voice was very calm. “And quickly.”
He smiled at Kat. “Admiral?”
Kat took a breath. “The core of the problem hasn’t changed,” she said. There was no need to go over it again. She’d explained the matter time and time again to people who were slow to realize that bravery and stark determination counted for nothing in the face of overwhelming firepower. “We cannot hope to punch out Home Fleet, not as long as it remains intact. Nor can we fight a war of attrition. Therefore our tactics must be to bite off a chunk of Home Fleet and crush it. This is not going to be easy.”
“Because of the damnable traitor in command of Home Fleet,” Earl Antony snarled.
He isn’t a traitor, Kat thought, feeling a flash of savage anger. He didn’t betray us . . .
She kept that thought to herself. She was probably the only person on Caledonia who didn’t consider William a traitor. The king saw him as someone who served the House of Lords, the colonials saw him as a turncoat . . . It wasn’t fair or just, but it was very human. William was a colonial. He should be fighting for the colonials. But instead he was fighting for the House of Lords. Kat suspected she knew why, although she’d kept that thought to herself too. William had never liked, let alone trusted, the king. And yet . . .
“I have devised a plan to lure a chunk of Home Fleet out of place,” Kat said, putting her doubts aside. “Ideally, we’ll be able to intercept and destroy two enemy superdreadnought squadrons by bringing overwhelming force to bear on them. The only way to do that is to offer them a chance to bring over
whelming force to bear on us.”
She briefly outlined the plan. “They will have to take the bait,” she finished. She was sure of it. A chance to take out one of her squadrons would be almost irresistible. She’d break any officer who let the chance go, even though, in this case, the decision would be the right call. “If they do, we have a shot at their hulls and a chance to retreat if they dispatch a force we can’t handle. If they don’t, we’ll do immense damage to the corporate economy and make them look like losers. Again. They’ll find themselves compelled to either do something desperate or try to come to terms with us.”
Which isn’t likely to happen, she added silently. She’d read some of the messages being exchanged between Caledonia and Tyre. The distance between the two sides was just too great. One side would have to beat the other into submission if they weren’t willing to make concessions that would anger most of their supporters. They won’t accept a return to the status quo ante bellum, and that’s the very least we’d accept.
Lord Gleneden tapped the table lightly. “Are you sure the plan will work?”
“There are no guarantees in war,” Kat said. She resisted the urge to point out, sharply, that history was littered with brilliant plans that had failed spectacularly the moment they’d come face-to-face with reality. “They may grit their teeth and refuse to take the bait. They may send overwhelming force, ensuring we have to retreat rather than fight. They may even miss our provocation, to the point they won’t react because they don’t know they have to react. I cannot promise you victory. All I can promise you”—she met Gleneden’s eyes evenly—“is that we’ll do our best to ensure the odds are stacked in our favor.”
She kept her thoughts to herself. William was smart. He’d know she was trying to bait him . . . probably. And he’d see through any simple trick. She knew, all too well, that there was a good chance the plan wouldn’t work perfectly. There were just too many moving parts. But the very complexity of the scheme worked in her favor. William wouldn’t suspect her of violating the KISS principle too openly.
And even if he does, he’ll be pushed into action, Kat thought. Grand Admiral Rudbek wasn’t just a Rudbek client, he was a Rudbek. His family would be furious if he let Kat get away with hitting Perfuma and retreating without losses. They’d bring immense pressure to bear on him if he didn’t order William to chase Kat out again before they realized what was happening. Kat knew the Grand Admiral. He had much to recommend him, but a solid backbone wasn’t one of them. William might not be able to talk him out of dispatching the fleet.
She smiled as the discussion continued to rage. The plan promised victory no matter what the enemy did. If she shot hell out of the installations and vanished, she’d make the enemy look like fools; if she had a chance to take out a couple of superdreadnought squadrons, she’d be on the way to winning the war. And if she had to retreat without firing a shot, even for the honor of the flag, she would still have made them look incompetent. The House of Lords would demand immediate action, whatever the risk. Who knew? Maybe they’d throw their entire fleet at Caledonia. It might just give her a chance to pull off a major victory.
Assuming we win, she mused. Engagements could be dangerously unpredictable. She had no doubt the House of Lords was working frantically to put new weapons and technologies into deployment. Something that changed the tactical equation, again, would be decisive. If they crush us instead, game over.
“I trust we are all in agreement,” the king said. “Admiral Falcone, when do you intend to depart?”
“I believe we should be ready to leave in a week, barring unforeseen developments,” Kat told him. “The squadrons will have to be primed for departure, Your Majesty, and a deception plan put in place to convince them that only one squadron has left.”
“See to it,” the king said. “And make it clear to your personnel that victory is the only acceptable outcome.”
Kat gritted her teeth. “I told you,” she said. She hated repeating herself, but there was no choice. “There are no guarantees in war.”
She lifted her eyes to the holographic display, silently weighing the odds. If the House of Lords did nothing over the next three weeks, the plan should succeed. But if the House of Lords did something . . . whatever their plan was, it could accidentally prevent them from responding to Kat’s provocation. That would be ironic. William and his superiors would have saved themselves from an embarrassing if not disastrous defeat without ever knowing what they’d done.
“Do what you can,” the king said. He smiled at her, a reminder of happier days. “I have faith in you.”
“As do we all,” Governor Rogan said. “It’s high time we reminded them that we’re resolved to fight till the bitter end.”
“Good,” the king said. “Now, about the planned deals with outside powers . . .”
CHAPTER NINE
CALEDONIA
“Captain, the last set of supplies has been delayed,” Commander Clinton Remus reported, shortly. “They couldn’t give us an updated delivery date before departure. I . . .”
Captain Sarah Henderson resisted the urge to say something cutting. Her last two XOs had been reassigned on short notice, one to take command of his own ship and the other to fill a hole on someone else’s command roster. Commander Remus was really too young, even by aristocratic standards, to be XO of a heavy cruiser. His record was good, but he’d have been lucky to make lieutenant in the days before the war. Now . . . On paper, he looked good. But inexperience was already taking its toll.
“Inform them we require the supplies within three days,” she said instead. “And remind them that we’re attached to Falcone Squadron.”
“But they’re saying . . .” Remus stopped himself. “Aye, Captain.”
“The chances are good that they’re trying to resist stripping themselves bare,” Sarah said, taking pity on him. It seemed to be a law of nature that supply departments turned into bureaucratic hellholes, even in the middle of a war. She could understand why a supply officer might hate the thought of not having something in stock, but it was bloody stupid to refuse to empty his shelves when there was a fucking war on. “And if they continue to argue, remind them that we have priority.”
Remus saluted, another sign of just how green he was, and turned away. Sarah watched him step through the hatch, the airlock hissing closed behind him before she let out a sigh. He really was too young. Her crew had been a mixed bag even before the last string of battles. Now half her crew was young enough that her officers were joking about kindergarten and the other half was composed of merchant spacers who ranged from being very competent to having disciplinary problems. She was lucky to have kept a handful of her original officers, she’d been told. There were just too many ships that needed experienced personnel for her to keep them all.
She glared at the latest series of reports, wishing, again, that they had time to catch their breath. The engineers said that they’d been putting immense wear and tear on their ship, wearing out everything from air filters to internal compensators. They could smooth things over for a while—the ship had been overengineered to the point where she could take one hell of a beating and keep going—but there were limits. Some failures would be harmless, if irritating. Others would be lethal. And they didn’t have time to fix them all before they had to depart.
At least we can swap out some components in transit, she told herself. But there are sections we cannot repair or replace without a proper shipyard.
She studied the report on the fusion cores for a long moment, cursing under her breath. Two of her four fusion cores were showing signs of strain. They were designed for long-term service, but . . . She shook her head. Her crew wasn’t experienced enough to take chances with the fusion cores. Ideally, she’d have them removed and replaced, but that would take the ship out of service for months. A rush job could end up costing them the entire ship. And yet, she knew the maintenance wasn’t going to happen. The facilities for such a job were in short supply.
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Her intercom bleeped. “Captain, Mr. Soto would like to see you.”
Sarah rubbed her eyes, tiredly. Soto was a pain in the ass, to put it mildly. He was very much the last person she wanted to see, not when there were a hundred and one other problems that demanded her immediate attention. God knew she couldn’t rely on the XO to keep the ship running smoothly. Remus’s ignorance scared her. Hell, her own ignorance scared her. She knew every last inch of the ship, but there were aspects of her systems that Sarah didn’t pretend to understand. They were just too complicated for anyone who didn’t specialize in the right departments.
“Tell him . . .” Sarah caught herself before she could say something more suited to the lower deck than a commanding officer’s ready room. “Tell him he can attend upon me in my office. And have coffee sent in.”
“Aye, Captain.”
She leaned back in her chair, resisting the urge to pick up a datapad and pretend to be busy. She’d known and loathed officers who’d played petty little power games, but now . . . now, she thought she understood. Pretending that she was doing something more important than heeding a subordinate was more than just a sign of insecurity.
The hatch hissed open. Mr. Soto—technically, he was a commander—stepped into the office. He was a tall man with blond hair and stern features a little too perfect to be real. Sarah had tried to access the man’s file when he and his team had been assigned to her ship, but it had been too highly classified for her clearance. She doubted that was a good sign. A man who could be a model, combined with an attitude that suggested he’d never served on a warship . . . boded ill. She’d filed a request for the information, but so far nothing had been provided. The request, like everything else that wasn’t urgent, had probably been put on the back burner.
“Captain,” Soto said. He had a warm, trustworthy voice that grated on her ears. It was just a little too warm. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Debt of War (The Embers of War) Page 9