Debt of War (The Embers of War)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  She drifted in the heart of the command center, studying holographic displays as they flickered in and out of existence. She didn’t really need to monitor them that closely, but she knew better than to leave her subordinates completely unsupervised. They were planning their own exits, she thought; they’d seek to find employment somewhere else, if they had a chance, or steal what they could from the corporation and go into business for themselves. There was never any shortage of demand for HE3. Everyone used it, from perfectly legal business and military installations to the underground gray and black economy. And yet, there was never any shortage of supply either. The cloudscoops under her command had rivals. She was gloomily aware that there was no way she could raise prices, not without being heavily undercut and outsold. She honestly didn’t know how she was going to meet her quotas without cutting costs somewhere, but . . . where from? She’d already pared everything right down to the bone. Her crews were pulling double shifts and paying as little heed to safety regs as possible, and they were still running at a loss.

  I should probably try to find a new job for myself, she thought. She hated the idea of looking elsewhere—there was no way she’d get such a high position somewhere else, not for several years at least—but there might be no other choice. She had loans to pay off if she wanted to stay legit. There were ways to hide, in the gray or black economy, but she’d never be able to go home again. If they blame me for the losses and shortfalls, I won’t get a job anywhere else.

  She rubbed her forehead, secretly glad she lived and worked in a zero-gravity environment. It made it so much easier to keep inspectors from poking around, although she’d be in real trouble if HQ realized just how scanty the inspections had actually been and sent a skilled team to conduct an audit. They wouldn’t have to work hard to find an excuse to sack her, not once they saw how many regulations she’d quietly put to one side. Toni had no choice, but she knew the inspectors wouldn’t understand. They were hidebound bureaucrats, idiots who had no real experience . . . or understanding of what they could and couldn’t let slide. Toni did, damn it. She knew where she could cut corners without having it coming back to bite her on the ass. She’d made damn sure not to fiddle with the life-support systems or the sensor networks or . . .

  An alarm rang through the compartment. Toni looked up as the displays flickered, showing the live feed from the military-grade observation platforms orbiting the gas giant. Two . . . no, three squadrons of superdreadnoughts were visible, one heading straight for the complex while the other two remained in high orbit. Toni blinked in shock, half convinced the sensors were seeing things. Rosebud wasn’t an important system, not like the cluster of stars surrounding Tyre. They had nothing worth hitting, nothing that would draw an enemy fleet. Even the Theocracy hadn’t raided the star during the early days of the war.

  “Sound the alert,” she yelled as the enemy ships drew closer. The superdreadnoughts were surrounded by smaller ships, cruisers and destroyers. Their powerful sensors burned through space. They were so powerful that they were disrupting her systems. “Raise them. Find out who they are.”

  She pulled herself to her webbing and strapped in as alarms howled through the giant complex. She had no illusions about their chances if the intruders opened fire. The complex was huge but fragile. A single hit would be enough to shatter the struts holding the nodes together and send them plunging into the gas giant’s atmosphere—if it didn’t kill them first. She snapped orders, commanding her crews to take the women and children—those she’d allowed to remain aboard—to the shuttles. They’d grumbled about her cutting costs by sending the remainder home a year ago, back when the universe had made sense, but she doubted anyone would be complaining now. In hindsight, it was starting to look like one of the best decisions she’d ever made.

  “Order the beta crews to head to the shuttles too,” she said. It was unlikely they could get away, if the attackers were truly murderous, but escape was worth a try. “And prep the remaining shuttles for emergency departure.”

  She tapped her console. They’d sent an automatic distress call the moment they’d seen the incoming ships—the sensor platforms would have sent a warning of their own—but no one would likely hear the warning before it was too late. By the time the call reached someone who was capable of doing something, the attackers would have done their grisly work and vanished. She wondered, sourly, why someone had aimed three superdreadnought squadrons at her complex. Maybe it was someone who hated her, or the Cavendish Corporation, or both. So excessive. A pair of cruisers would have more than enough firepower to smash the complex to atoms and vanish before anyone could catch up with them.

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied the tactical plot. Her stint in the navy was years ago. She’d been discharged before the Commonwealth had been more than a vague idea, but she knew the basics. The enemy ships were already well within missile range. They had to know that they could smash her already, that nothing would be gained by closing to point-blank range. Her point defense was laughable. A handful of railgun pellets would be more than enough to take out the entire complex.

  A console chimed. “Manager, we’re receiving a signal.”

  “Put it through,” Toni ordered.

  She leaned forward, feeling the webbing constrict around her as a familiar face appeared on the display. Toni didn’t pay much attention to politics, but even she had heard of Kat Falcone. Indeed, she’d found it quite amusing—after the Falcone Family had spent millions of credits on promoting her—that Kat Falcone had joined the king. Perhaps the younger woman had just gotten tired of having her ass repeatedly kissed by everyone who wanted something from her. Toni could understand that. Half the new recruits she’d received in the last few years seemed to have majored in sucking up. No wonder the corporation was going to the dogs. All the competent people had been pushed out long ago.

  “This is Katherine Falcone, speaking for King Hadrian and the Colonial Alliance,” Kat Falcone said. Her voice was very cool. “I intend to destroy your complex. You have ten minutes from this signal to evacuate. Anyone remaining on the complex after that time will be killed when I open fire. There will be no further warnings.”

  Toni tried to think of a response, but she couldn’t come up with anything before the image vanished. Kat Falcone wasn’t interested in a debate, just . . . destroying the complex. A glance at her display showed her that the warning had been broadcast to the other cloudscoops too. They were all launching shuttles, trying frantically to get the hell out before destruction rained down. Some stations were beaming signals in all directions, begging for mercy or begging for help. There was no response. The attackers simply wanted to destroy.

  “Evacuate the remaining crews,” Toni ordered. “Now.”

  She unhooked herself from the webbing and hurried the remainder of the crew to the hatch. There should only be a handful of people on the complex now . . . She keyed her wristcom, checking on the alpha crewers as she ran through the emergency procedures and prepped the datacore for self-destruct. The enemy wouldn’t waste time vaporizing the complex when they could simply tear it to pieces instead. They probably didn’t care about what was on the datacore, but she knew her job. There was information on the core that couldn’t be allowed to fall into enemy hands.

  Like our corporate rivals. I suppose we don’t want them laughing themselves to death.

  She made her way to the shuttle, silently relieved she’d worked her crews so hard. The beta, delta, and gamma crews were already off the complex. She jumped into the shuttle, slammed the hatch behind her, and let out a breath as they drifted away from the complex. Her heart twisted as the timer reached zero. Kat Falcone didn’t hesitate. A spray of railgun pellets tore the cloudscoop apart.

  Toni gasped, despite herself. The structure had been her life, her home, although thankfully she’d made sure never to take anything onto the complex she couldn’t replace. She hadn’t lost anything of sentimental value . . . She shook her head as the shuttle glided awa
y from the expanding cloud of debris. She’d lost a life and a career and . . .

  She cursed the king and all his followers as savagely as she knew how. Their war was leaving a trail of destroyed lives right across the Commonwealth.

  “Set course for Tomas Asteroid,” she ordered as the enemy superdreadnoughts started to move to their next target. “And hope like hell those bastards don’t feel like killing a few million people today.”

  “All targets destroyed,” Kitty said.

  Kat said nothing for a long moment. She wasn’t blind to the political implications of targeting the cloudscoops. HE3 was cheap, but the price would go up as it sank in that any further supplies to Rosebud would have to be shipped over interstellar distances . . . at least until the cloudscoops were replaced. The corporations that owned them, from the highest to the lowest, would be demanding military action, threatening all sorts of things if they didn’t get justice. The House of Lords would have to act fast if they didn’t want to face a political challenge.

  Which means they’ll have to come after us, she mused as the fleet started to reverse course. And they have a handful of ships within a few days from our position.

  “Admiral?” Kitty sounded concerned. “The targets . . .”

  “I heard,” Kat said. She would have been more alarmed if the gunners had missed. Their targets were huge. Had been huge. A gunner who missed such a target would be summarily relieved of duty and told to practice in the simulators until his eyes were dripping bloody tears. “Order the fleet to proceed to the next target.”

  Kitty carried out her orders. It felt wrong to be stalking through the system, steadily picking off cloudscoops, mining settlements, and interplanetary transports and doing immense damage to the local economy. Rosebud wasn’t that important, but . . . Kat was deliberately offering the enemy another shot at her ships. William would scent a trap, yet . . . he’d practically be forced to spring it. He’d already reoccupied Perfuma.

  Her lips twitched. They’d intercepted news broadcasts as they’d entered Rosebud. The media was making all sorts of exaggerated claims, including a story insisting that her entire fleet had been wiped out. She wondered who was spreading that story and why. The media was known for lying—or, more accurately, for bending the truth creatively—but surely they had to know William hadn’t killed her. They wouldn’t have let that story pass, if they thought it was true. They’d be running sentimental stories about the tragedy of William being forced to kill his best friend, the woman who’d supported the king . . . She rolled her eyes.

  Kat kept a wary eye on the timer, wondering just how long she’d have before William’s fleet arrived. She’d made no attempt to hide the fleet as she burst into the system and hadn’t even tried to take out the StarCom, but William would suspect trouble. After what she’d done to him last time, he could hardly help second-guessing everything he saw. And yet, she was certain he knew she was short of ammo. He might take the risk of forcing an engagement.

  “Admiral,” Kitty said. “The target is requesting more time to evacuate.”

  Kat nodded curtly. The fleet was approaching another mining asteroid. The files stated that the only inhabitants were miners, but, unless she was much mistaken, the census didn’t include hundreds of transients, everything from shopkeepers and traders to prostitutes and drug dealers. They’d all have to be evacuated before she blew up the asteroid. She made a mental note to have the complex swept before it was too late, then turned to her aide. Nothing would be gained from mass slaughter.

  “Give them time, then have the marines check the complex before we destroy it,” she ordered stiffly. “And then move us to the next target.”

  She keyed her console, bringing up the system display. Hundreds of mining camps and asteroid settlements were going dark, trying to hide in the inky shadows of interplanetary space. A waste of time and they had to know it, but they were still trying. They hadn’t given up. Others were running in all directions, starships opening vortexes and jumping into hyperspace. They didn’t seem to believe her promises that no one would be harmed. She supposed, deep inside, that they had a point. She didn’t intend to kill anyone, if it could be avoided, but she was tearing their lives apart. A great many people were going to be reduced to poverty because she’d destroyed their livelihoods.

  No point in feeling guilty now, she told herself. You knew what you were doing when you chose to support Hadrian.

  She stared down at her hands, trusting her subordinates to handle the grisly task. Yes, she’d known what she was doing. Yes, she’d known what she was fighting for. Yes, she believed the king was in the right. But . . . she looked at the display, watching as lights blinked out . . . each light representing a colony, someone’s home, that had been destroyed. The king’s forces were getting bogged down, resorting to desperate measures to win a victory that was starting to look unattainable. And they were destroying lives for nothing. Kat had no illusions about her work, or about the people she’d killed and would kill in the future, but she wanted it to be for something. She wanted to fight for a worthy cause. And it was growing harder and harder to convince herself that was what she was doing.

  And the other side isn’t much better. They made things worse for everyone too.

  She stood. “Issue a system-wide evacuation order, with a deadline of three days from now,” she said. They’d already taken out most of the priority targets. “Habitats will be left alone, but industrial nodes and mining camps will be targeted and destroyed. Three days. That’s more than long enough.”

  And long enough for William to arrive, for things to become simple again. And then we can go home.

  The thought depressed her. Where was home? Her ties to Tyre had frayed long ago, well before they’d snapped altogether. Caledonia was the king’s base but wasn’t her home. She didn’t even think she had an apartment on the planet’s surface. The king had given her rooms in the palace, but they weren’t hers. Her only true home was her ship and even she wasn’t hers. The ship belonged to her captain in actuality. She remembered her first real command with a wistfulness that surprised her, even though that ship had been lost in action long ago. The first thing that was truly hers.

  Her terminal pinged. “Admiral,” Jenkins said. “His Majesty ordered you to destroy . . .”

  “I will not kill hundreds of thousands of people to make a point,” Kat said. She wished, just for a moment, that Jenkins was right in front of her so she could slam her fist into his nose. “We’re not here for mindless vandalism. We’re here to bait a trap. Again.”

  She closed the channel, wondering what Jenkins would say. He didn’t have the authority to relieve her of command, although . . . she had a private suspicion that his team of agents were rather better prepared for mayhem than their files—their suspiciously bland files—suggested. But he could whine to the king. That would be embarrassing. Kat would almost be relieved if he told her to quit his service. She grunted softly. That wasn’t likely to happen. He didn’t have enough decent commanding officers as it was.

  And there aren’t many who enjoy support from both his court and the colonials, she mused as the fleet waited for the deadline. He simply doesn’t have someone who can replace me without kicking off a whole string of problems.

  The thought wasn’t reassuring. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. If we don’t win the war, it’ll all be over anyway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ROSEBUD

  “Emergence in twenty minutes, Admiral.”

  William was morbidly sure he was either wasting his time while putting immense wear and tear on his fleet or flying straight into a trap. The alert had come in before he could leave Perfuma, before he could take his fleet back to Tyre and prepare to take the offensive. His orders, which had arrived within minutes of the alert, were clear. He had no maneuvering room at all. He had to take his fleet to Rosebud and stop Kat before she devastated the entire system.

  He paced the CIC, hands clasped behind his back. Not the
picture of calm he was supposed to present in a compartment crammed with staff officers and tactical aides who might panic if they saw their CO pacing the deck, but he couldn’t stay still. He’d spent the past three days mulling over the reports, wondering just what Kat was doing. Rosebud was hardly a priority target. She hadn’t even bothered to engage the planetary defense force. It looked like she was wasting her time, meandering around the system taking potshots at cloudscoops and asteroid mines. William rather suspected he was about to run into another trap. Kat had to have something up her sleeve.

  And she’s constantly shifting position. The reports from the recon ships had made it very clear that Kat’s forces were gliding around the system, not holding position and waiting for him. We can’t drop out of hyperspace right on top of her.

  He mulled the situation over, wondering just what she had in mind. An ambush? She couldn’t have borrowed more than three superdreadnought squadrons from Caledonia, could she? That would be one hell of a risk, even if it did promise an awesome payoff. William was all too aware of how close he’d come to disaster at Perfuma. Kat would have done a great deal more damage if she’d closed the range, rather than offering him a chance to escape. The analysts swore blind she’d been running out of missiles . . . William had been in the navy long enough to know depletion was possible, but Kat had been in the navy long enough to know not to let it happen.