“Captain,” Governor Rogan said. “Welcome.”
“Thank you.” Sarah nodded tersely. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“It took longer than I expected to arrange this meeting,” Governor Rogan said. “I assume you know everyone here?”
“Yes, sir,” Sarah said. She’d only met a few of the guests, but she knew the others by reputation. Governor Rogan was taking a serious risk by gathering them together in one place. The meeting wasn’t technically illegal but would raise eyebrows. It might have been better to meet outside the spaceport, but that wasn’t an option. The spaceport was the only place they could all meet without definitely arousing suspicion. “I know who they are.”
“Good.” Governor Rogan indicated the drinks cabinet. “Fix yourself something, if you like. We’ll be getting started in a moment.”
Sarah poured herself a glass of water. She didn’t dare risk getting tipsy, let alone drunk. She gazed around the room, quietly matching names to faces. Planetary representatives, militiamen, even a couple of other military officers. All colonials, of course, just like the last meeting. And all fairly senior within their branches. Sarah thought she was probably the lowest person among them.
Governor Rogan tapped his glass. “As far as anyone is concerned, this meeting is to celebrate the king’s recent victory at Perfuma,” he said, “and to discuss how we might make best use of it. Those of you who are junior have been invited to allow you to meet potential patrons, for your future careers. It may not be the most convincing story, but it’s one they’ll accept.”
Probably, Sarah thought. Whoever had first argued if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear had either been a naive idiot or openly malicious. The mere act of watching someone without their consent was enough to sway the observer against the observed, be it through simply violating their rights to seeing something out of context and jumping to the wrong conclusion. If they suspect we’re up to something, they’ll keep us under a cloud of suspicion whatever we do.
“On paper, the king’s victory was decisive,” Governor Rogan said. “That’s certainly the story he’s been putting forward. But practically . . . it was rather less so. We gave them a bloody nose, yes. We didn’t kick them in the groin, stamp on their stomach, and finally crush their throat under our boot.”
He looked at Sarah. “You were there. Would you agree with that assessment?”
Sarah kept her face under tight control. “Crude,” she said. “But accurate.”
Governor Rogan nodded. “We embarrassed them,” he said. “We humiliated them. But we didn’t defeat them. They still have their shipyards, their industrial nodes, their trained personnel . . . everything they need to fight and win a war against us. And His Majesty”—his voice was suddenly very hard—“hasn’t been keen to do anything that might deprive them of those advantages.”
“To be fair,” Representative Quinn pointed out, “taking out their infrastructure would require mass slaughter.”
“Yes,” Governor Rogan agreed. “But he hasn’t even considered attacks that wouldn’t result in mass slaughter.”
Sarah frowned. “Many of the targets you suggest are heavily defended,” she pointed out. “We could damage them, or destroy them, but only if we were prepared to pay the price. It could cost us the war.”
“And not destroying them could also cost us the war,” Governor Rogan said. “But that isn’t the worst of it. The king’s behavior has grown increasingly autocratic.”
His eyes were suddenly cold. “On one hand, he’s ordered the appointment of . . . political commissioners . . . to the fleet. Officially, those commissioners have no authority to override the starships’ captains. In practice, there has been a string of reports of commissioners doing just that. They have impeded operations, poked their noses where they were not welcome, and generally made themselves incredibly unpopular. I don’t believe they’re going to do wonders for military efficiency.”
Very true, Sarah thought. They’re going to do more for the enemy than they can ever do for us.
“And, on the other, I have been informed that the king is either on the verge of concluding an agreement with Marseilles or has already done so. Lord Snow, who was a reliable moderate, has been frozen out of the final discussions. The king himself, and a handful of his cronies, have handled the negotiations. If the reports are accurate, and I have no reason to believe they’re not, the terms of the agreement are very simple. The king is going to surrender a number of star systems to Marseilles.”
Sarah felt the shock ripple around the room. It was one thing to discuss ceding territory to outside powers, but it was another to actually do it. The colonials knew they were considered little more than pieces on a game board by the Tyrians, but . . . the king was supposed to be on their side. He shouldn’t be selling out a number of worlds, even if doing so brought him victory. The border stars hadn’t had a chance to vote. She wondered, numbly, if they even knew they were being sold. Some of them might be happy with the transaction, others . . . rather less so, being bought and sold like trinkets in a marketplace.
“So far, it’s being kept a secret,” Governor Rogan warned. “Hardly anyone outside the king’s innermost circle knows about the agreement, let alone the terms. They know it will cause . . . problems. I think they’re working on ways to present it to the public . . .”
Representative Qing made a face. “Do they think they can convince us to go along with it? With selling out the border stars?”
“I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Governor Rogan said. “My source doesn’t have access to their innermost discussions. I do know . . .”
Sarah coughed. “How do you know the story’s true?”
“My source has never been wrong before,” Governor Rogan said. “And there are . . . hints . . . that the king is expecting supplies from Marseilles. They won’t be sending missiles and starship components and whatever out of the goodness of their hearts. There’ll be a quid pro quo somewhere, public or not. And there isn’t much else the bastards would want.”
“Or that the king could give up,” Qing pointed out.
“Yes,” Governor Rogan said. “He’s running out of cards to play.”
There was an awkward silence. Representative Quinn broke it. “Assuming the report is true, and I’m not willing to take that for granted, what do we do?”
Governor Rogan let out a breath. “A handful of us have been conducting negotiations with Tyre, searching for a way out,” he said. “You all know that’s true. Agreements we made with the king are of strictly limited value, particularly now. We don’t want to hitch ourselves to a cause that’s about to go off the rails or crash headlong into a brick wall.”
Sarah blinked in surprise, then wondered why she was so shocked. Governor Rogan hadn’t called them here for drinks and chitchat. She knew he was an effective politician, one who’d played a major role in shaping the Colonial Alliance before it had joined forces with the king. He had friends and contacts on Tyre, friends and contacts who’d remained on the planet and stayed close to the House of Lords. There was plenty of room for covert discussions. In hindsight, she would have been more surprised if there weren’t under-the-table discussions. Both sides had a certain interest in not fighting the war to the bitter end.
“The House of Lords has made us an offer,” Governor Rogan continued. “It isn’t perfect, it isn’t what we want, but it’s better than nothing. If we leave the king, either by declaring neutrality or switching sides, they’ll accept us.”
“That’s very vague,” Quinn said. “What are the specifics?”
Sarah nodded. “What are they offering us?”
“If we switch sides, they’ll basically forget the interest on any money we owe them,” Governor Rogan said. “We’ll return to the status quo ante bellum, with a handful of minor changes. The Commonwealth will resume its originally planned course towards greater economic development, technological enhancement, and, eventually, political unity. You
can review the documents if you like, or check out their broadcasts, but that’s pretty much the best we’re likely to get.”
“So we put our head back in the noose,” Qing said, “and in return they’ll graciously forgive us for taking our head out of the noose in the first place.”
“They’ve agreed to a handful of safeguards,” Governor Rogan said. He showed a flicker of irritation. “The blunt truth is that we might well lose this war. If the House of Lords punches out the navy and physically occupies our worlds, we will have nothing to bargain with and no way to keep them from extracting our resources to repay our debts. If the king’s descent towards autocracy turns to outright tyranny, we’ll find ourselves his slaves. I think we have to acknowledge, right now, that we have to take preemptive steps to secure our position, to secure something we can bargain with.”
He looked around the room. “I’ve had my people running simulations,” he added. “They’ve been trying to predict the course of the war. So far, reality has inconveniently failed to live up to our predictions”—there was a handful of chuckles—“but the overall course of the conflict is clear. The king may manage to recover Tyre, giving him the chance to win the war outright. However, the longer it takes to do so, the greater the chance of him losing instead. Indeed, if our predictions are even roughly accurate, we’ll lose the war within a year if we don’t win within the next few months.”
“You can’t be serious,” Representative Hammond said. “The Tyrians don’t have the stomach for a long war—”
“Their industrial base is considerably larger than ours,” Governor Rogan said, cutting him off. “Given a year, they will have somewhere between a hundred and two hundred superdreadnoughts under their command, as well as literally thousands of supporting elements and millions of missiles and everything else they need to keep their fleet operational. They’ll have enough trained manpower to run it too. They’ll roll over our defenses here”—he waved a hand upwards—“and land troops. And that will be the end.”
“Shit,” someone said quietly.
“I can show you the projections, if you like,” Governor Rogan said. “They’re not comfortable reading.”
Sarah could believe it. She knew the House of Lords had an advantage, but . . . that great an advantage? Her stomach churned as she ran through everything she knew about Tyre and the loyalist worlds. They could build and man a massive fleet. They’d done it before, during the last war. And this time, they wouldn’t be constrained by the Gap. The colonials would have to take out at least three or four times their own tonnage in each engagement to have a hope of holding their own. Her heart sank as she realized the truth. Governor Rogan was right. Their window of opportunity was rapidly closing. If they couldn’t win the war within the next few months, they were doomed.
“So you want us to switch sides, as a body,” Qing said. “I’m sure the king will accept our defection.”
“No, he won’t.” Governor Rogan’s voice was completely devoid of humor. “We’re going to have to arrest him and take control of the fleet.”
“Which will be difficult,” Sarah said. She remembered Soto and frowned. “The king already has people on our ships.”
“I notice there’s no one from Caledonia here,” Quinn put in. “Do you foresee them siding with the king?”
“I think they have little choice,” Governor Rogan said. “If we don’t take out the king quickly, he could trigger another civil war.”
“Yes,” Sarah said. “Do you know how hard it will be to secure even a fraction of the fleet?”
“They’re not all loyal to the king,” Quinn insisted.
“Many of them are loyal to Kat Falcone,” Sarah pointed out. The king’s admiral was a bona fide war hero. The officers who disliked or distrusted the king would still respect her. “And if we failed to take the fleet in the first few moments, she’d start organizing a counterattack.”
“And she’d know what to watch for,” Hammond said. “She had a mutiny on her ship, didn’t she?”
“It wasn’t her ship,” Sarah corrected. “But yeah, she would pick up the warning signs.”
“And she’s loyal to Hadrian,” Governor Rogan said. “She would probably refuse to join us.”
“Probably,” Sarah agreed. She didn’t know Kat Falcone that well. “It would be better to move when she’s somewhere else.”
“Quite,” Governor Rogan agreed. “We can deal with her after we’re in control.”
“We’d be taking one hell of a risk,” Hammond said. He looked terrified, as if he was on the verge of fainting. “Is there no way to talk the king out of fighting to the bitter end?”
“He has everything to gain and everything to lose,” Governor Rogan said. “The best he can hope for, if he loses the war, is to be sent into comfortable exile somewhere. I don’t think the House of Lords will be so generous, not after everything he did. And everything he’s supposed to have done. They’d probably shoot him on the spot and worry about impeaching him later.”
“Or simply not bother at all,” Qing said. “Their evidence is a little scanty. They wouldn’t want their descendants worrying if they did the right thing.”
And there’s not much point in impeaching a dead body, Sarah reflected as the discussion turned to the practicalities. And if we don’t pull this off in the first few moments, we’ll be screwed no matter the outcome.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CALEDONIA
“It was a great victory, Admiral,” Sir Reginald Grantham said as he led Kat through a maze of corridors. “The media broadcasts have been hammering home our message from the moment we got word.”
Kat resisted the urge to tell the king’s fixer precisely what she thought of him and the media broadcasts. The king’s spin doctors were insisting that she’d wiped out a giant enemy fleet, something that simply wasn’t true. The recon reports stated she’d killed three superdreadnoughts during the cruise. Perhaps more, if the damaged ships were deemed beyond repair. But that wasn’t enough to tip the balance in the king’s favor, and she knew it. Anyone who knew anything about naval combat would know it too. She hoped—she prayed—that the king would know it.
Caledonia was changing—and not for the better. More troops were on the streets, more heavy weapons emplaced around the palace and the remainder of the government complex. The planet felt as if it was on the verge of chaos. She’d seen a couple of celebrations that had been going on during the drive through the city, but something seemed forced about them. The partygoers had been partying to keep their minds off . . . what? She suspected she understood the truth. They knew as well as she did that their victory was a sham.
“Kat,” the king said. Hadrian was sitting on a sofa, Drusilla sitting next to him. There was something oddly touching about their pose, even though it was strikingly demure. “Thank you for coming.”
“Your Majesty,” Kat said formally.
She took the seat he offered her, studying them both as Sir Reginald retreated. The king looked happy but tired. Beside him, Drusilla’s face was an unreadable mask. Kat had never really warmed up to the princess, even though Drusilla had done the Commonwealth a huge favor. There was something about her that put Kat’s teeth on edge, something she really didn’t like. Drusilla had grown up in a very different environment, with very different rules.
And you’re being stupid, Kat told herself sharply. What sort of person would you be if you grew up in a hellhole like that?
“You can call me by my name, you know.” The king sounded expansive. “We’re friends.”
“Hadrian,” Kat said. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t see any grounds for celebration.”
The king raised his eyebrows. “You won two battles in quick succession.”
“I cheated, both times,” Kat said. “I shot myself dry, to the point the entire fleet could have been destroyed if the engagements had been prolonged. Things could have gone badly wrong.”
She met his eyes. “And I destroyed the l
ives of thousands of people, the ones I didn’t kill,” she added. “Please excuse me for feeling a little guilty about it.”
“They could have come here,” Drusilla said. “By staying there, they aligned themselves with the wrong side.”
Kat shot her a sharp look. “They chose to stay out of the fighting,” she said. “And we brought the war to them anyway.”
“We’ll help them to rebuild, after the war,” the king said. “And you can call me by my name.”
Kat met his eyes. “Hadrian.”
It felt . . . wrong, as if something had been lost over the last few weeks. This was almost a kind of forced intimacy, an attempt at pretending nothing had changed even when they both knew there was no point in pretense. The war was bogged down, waiting for one side to do something that would take it to victory or send it crashing down in defeat. She knew the stalemate wouldn’t last forever. She hoped the king knew it too.
She felt something twist deep in her heart. The cause—the king’s cause—was changing, warping and twisting into something else. And . . . She winced, remembering the rumors spreading through the fleet. Jenkins and his ilk had done a lot of damage just by suggesting the king didn’t trust his people any longer. The days when he could walk the streets without an escort were long gone. Indeed, they had never really existed. Kat mourned, deep inside, for everything she’d lost. Oh, if her father had lived. He would have found a way to bridge the gap between the sides . . .
“Kat,” the king said gravely. “There have been developments.”
Kat looked up. “Indeed?”
“I signed a treaty with Marseilles.” The king’s lips curved. “They’ll be supplying us with missiles and . . . everything else.”
Debt of War (The Embers of War) Page 21