Debt of War (The Embers of War)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “Really.” Kat met his eyes. “What did you concede?”

  “The border stars,” the king said. “They’re to be handed over in a matter of weeks.”

  Kat blinked. “And the House of Worlds just . . . went along with it?”

  “They don’t know, not yet.” The king frowned. “They might be a problem.”

  “Yes, Hadrian,” Kat said. She felt torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to cry. “That might be a problem.”

  She leaned back in her chair, thinking hard. “The Colonial Alliance isn’t going to like the idea of surrendering . . . how many? Five? Ten? Twenty? How many?”

  “Nine,” the king said. “They’re all in my possession.”

  “Their inhabitants might feel differently,” Kat said. “And the Colonial Alliance certainly will feel differently.”

  “If we don’t win the war,” Drusilla said, “does it matter?”

  “No,” Kat conceded. “But they’re not going to like the idea of just . . . selling the locals out.”

  “We’ve demanded protections for them,” the king said. “And we’ll take anyone who wants to leave.”

  “Such protections are rarely worth the paper they’re written on,” Kat said. She remembered something her father had once said and stole it. “Did you write the treaty on toilet paper? It would be good for something if you did . . .”

  The king’s eyes flashed fire. “Do you have any better ideas?”

  Kat frowned. The sudden change was worrying. The king had been drinking the last time she’d seen him . . . She wondered, suddenly, if he was still drinking. Or if he’d moved on to something stronger. Or . . . There was nothing she could do about it. She had less influence these days. The king was surrounding himself with yes-men.

  “No,” Kat said finally. “Are you sure they can supply us?”

  “The freighters are already on the way,” the king said. “They should arrive within the week.”

  “You’re cutting it fine,” Kat commented. “The House of Lords is probably already swearing revenge.”

  “They’ll have to choose a target first,” the king said. “And so will you. We have to hit them again.”

  “We’re running out of targets that can be hit,” Kat reminded him. “And the more soft targets we hit, the more we unite them against us. Hadrian . . . you’re not universally popular.”

  “Not inside the House of Lords,” the king said. “But outside . . .”

  “You didn’t have as much popular support on Tyre as you thought,” Kat said. “If they really loved you, they would have risen up in your name. Instead . . . your supporters are keeping their heads down while the population is either supporting your enemies or waiting to see who comes out ahead. And the recent attacks, particularly the one on Rosebud, haven’t helped. I daresay we made you a few million more enemies.”

  “They can join the line,” the king said. “How do you intend to win the war?”

  Kat sighed. “I’ve been looking at our options,” she said. “We can hit a number of tougher targets, but that’ll cost us. We could raid the infrastructure at Tyre . . .”

  “Out of the question,” the king said. “We’re going to need that infrastructure.”

  “And yet, as long as it stays in their hands, it’s a dagger pointed at our heart,” Kat countered bluntly. “The only other option is to find a way to destroy Home Fleet.”

  “Then do it,” the king said.

  Kat looked back at him. “Do you have a few extra superdreadnoughts in your pocket?”

  “No,” the king said. “And I don’t think we could convince our allies to join us in a strike on Tyre.”

  “No,” Kat agreed. The House of Lords might turn a blind eye to weapons shipments if they didn’t alter the balance of power significantly, but they would take action if foreign ships and troops joined the king. Marseilles would have to be crazy to take the risk. “They’re hoping to keep us off-balance as long as possible. They want time to absorb the border stars, not get yanked into our war.”

  She felt sick. Objectively, she understood the king’s logic. She understood he had no other choice. There was no other way to get missiles and supplies. The logic was simple. If they didn’t give up the border stars, they wouldn’t get any supplies; if they didn’t get any supplies, the war would be within shouting distance of being lost. And yet, subjectively, it felt like a betrayal. It felt as if they’d condemned the planetary inhabitants to slavery. There was certainly no way to ensure Marseilles kept its word. The locals might find themselves trapped behind an iron curtain.

  And even if we win this war, she mused, what will it make us?

  “We’d have to find a way to lure part of Home Fleet out of place,” she said carefully. “And then we’d have to deal with the remainder of the fleet and land troops before it returned.”

  She considered a handful of options. None of them seemed particularly good. The prospects for outright disaster were terrifyingly high. And yet, if they were short on good options, they might have to risk a bad option and hope for the best. It would hardly be the first time in human history that a military force in a desperate position had been forced to attempt the near-impossible. Armchair admirals might scorn, but they were commenting from the safety of their homes. The officer on the spot had to do the best she could with the resources at her command.

  “We could use Caledonia itself as bait,” she mused. “If we strip the defenses to the bare minimum, relying on the fixed defenses to protect the system, we could aim a major fleet at Tyre. It would give us our best chance of winning the war outright, particularly if they launch their own fleet at Caledonia. You’d be switching capital worlds . . .”

  The king laughed harshly. “I’m sure it would be quite a shock for them to reach my world and then discover that I’ve taken their world.”

  “It would,” Kat agreed. She’d read a story, once, where one side had launched a naval operation to conquer the other side. The other side had sent its army to cross a seemingly impassable desert and invade the first side’s territory. In the book, they’d had to shamefacedly organize a swap. She doubted the real world would be so obliging. “And they’d set out at once to recover Tyre.”

  “Unless they came to terms,” the king said excitedly. “Which they might, if I was in control of Tyre.”

  “It would depend,” Kat warned. “If we took heavy losses in the battle, which we would even if we faced just the fixed defenses, they might be able to boot us back out of the system . . . which would leave us completely isolated from just about everywhere. We wouldn’t be able to recover Caledonia, and it might be useless even if we did. They’d take pains to destroy as much as they could of the infrastructure. They wouldn’t want to keep it.”

  “No,” the king said. “But this might be the only workable plan we have.”

  “Might,” Kat echoed.

  She looked at her hands. She was no stranger to risk, but gambling everything on one throw of the dice sounded insane. And yet, she could see some advantages. No one would expect the maneuver, for a start. Even William wouldn’t expect her to stake everything. She frowned, wondering if that was actually true. William had watched her risk her career, repeatedly, to do what she felt to be right. He might have contingency plans for an all-out attack on Tyre.

  But having contingency plans isn’t the same as being mentally ready for them, she told herself. She’d seen some of the contingency files the navy had drawn up over the years. They’d looked at wars with any or all of the nearby interstellar powers, but also at things as unlikely as alien invasions or losing the ability to jump into hyperspace. And no one in their right mind genuinely thought that any of those things would happen. William could hardly prepare himself for something he thought I’d never do.

  “I’ll have my people look at the options,” she said. A plan that depended on someone else doing precisely what she wanted them to do was doomed. She’d been told that at Piker’s Peak, then learned it repeatedly
during her career. “But we may not be able to lure them out of place.”

  “Then find ways to double your firepower,” the king said. “You did rig a number of freighters to carry missiles.”

  “That was one punch,” Kat said. “They couldn’t sustain such a rate of fire for long, Your Majesty.”

  “Hadrian, please,” the king said.

  “And they’d know to watch for it now,” Kat said. “We need to find a game changer.”

  “Just gambling might be enough,” the king said. He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. He knew there were limits to how far they could get on luck alone. “Or . . .”

  Kat shook her head. “You know we could lose everything?”

  “That’s always been true.” The king’s voice was calm, but there was a nasty edge to it she didn’t like at all. “I’ve always done the best I can for my people. I know I have to look to the long term. I’ve always borne in mind that I have to lay the groundwork for my successor, just as my father did for me. I know . . .

  “The others are small-minded, wherever they are. They look for personal advantage and ignore the bigger picture. The House of Lords dismisses the colonials because they’re not strong; the Colonial Alliance dismisses the House of Lords because the aristocracy has lost the ability to see into the future. They have no vision. They see short-term problems and come up with pettifogging objections to anything designed to build a better future. They have no . . .”

  He stopped himself with an effort. “And now we have something of ours,” he said quietly. “They don’t want to lose it. They’re plotting against me. I know it.”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

  “Everyone who thinks he has something to lose,” the king said. Beside him, Drusilla took his arm. “And that’s just about everyone. Who can I depend on now?”

  Me, Kat thought. She didn’t say it. She wasn’t wholly convinced the sentiment was true. But who else can he depend upon?

  Sir Reginald and his ilk had nowhere else to go. They’d support the king because . . . because they had no choice. But the others . . . Kat wondered, suddenly, just how many of the king’s supporters were looking for a way out. She could, if she wanted. She could go back home . . .

  Sure, her thoughts answered. Go back home and get sent into exile for treason.

  She almost smiled. Peter would have some real problems deciding what to do with her. Put her on trial for treason? Lock her up on the estate, like a character from a movie set in a half-forgotten era of dresses and perfume and two worlds, one aboveground and one belowstairs? Or simply send her into exile, with strict orders never to come back? Or quietly arrange an accident? Or . . .

  But returning home would mean betraying the king, she thought. And breaking my word.

  “I’ll speak to my officers,” she said, “and see if we can find a way to put an end to the war.”

  “Good,” the king said. “My child will be born into a happier world.”

  Kat blinked. “You’re pregnant?”

  “I’m pregnant.” Drusilla grinned. Her face lit up. “But he did help, a little.”

  “Just a little.” For a moment, the king looked years younger. He reached out and touched his wife’s belly. A remarkably gentle touch. “Our little one will be the next ruler.”

  He glanced back at Kat. “There aren’t many people who know, yet,” he said. “I’d be grateful if you kept it to yourself.”

  “As you wish,” Kat said. She wondered, suddenly, what would have happened if she and Pat had actually managed to get married. Would they have had children? Her heart fell. She could use his DNA to bear his children, if she wished. It was against the bioethics code to do so without his consent, but she had the power to override the regulation. Yet . . . it wouldn’t be the same. “My congratulations.”

  “We’ll try to win the war before he’s born,” the king said. He looked proud, yet his tone was calculating. “I dread to imagine what the House of Lords would say.”

  “Quite,” Kat agreed. The House of Lords had never liked Drusilla. No, that wasn’t entirely true. They’d liked her as long as she was a retired heroine, not when she’d married into the king’s family. The thought of her children being the heirs to the throne . . . “We’ll try to make sure of it.”

  But she knew, as she took her leave, that was a promise she might not be able to keep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CALEDONIA

  “The new missiles are good,” Kitty said as she stepped into Kat’s office. “Not quite up to modern standards, but good enough.”

  “Good,” Kat said absently. She didn’t look up from the datapad. “Have the warheads been checked for unpleasant surprises?”

  “The techs checked their programming,” Kitty assured her. “They found nothing.”

  Kat frowned, unconvinced. The warheads were fiendishly complex. It would be easy to hide a couple of lines of code within the programming, ones designed to shut down or detonate the warhead upon command. She had no reason to assume the Marseillans were setting them up for a fall, but she rather suspected they’d fear the king turning on them. Rumors of his deal with Marseilles had already started to leak out. They had to realize the king might seek to renounce the arrangement, even to deny it had ever been made, when he returned to his homeworld. The missiles might wind up being aimed at their manufacturers.

  “I hope they’re right,” she said. A nuke going off inside the superdreadnought would be bad enough. An antimatter warhead detonating inside the armor would vaporize the entire ship. “How do they compare to our warheads?”

  “They seem to have the same basic characteristics as the Mark-VIII missiles, according to the techs,” Kitty said. “Their warheads are more powerful, but their targeting systems are weaker. The Marseillans may not have solved some of the guidance problems . . .”

  “Or they haven’t given us top-of-the-line missiles,” Kat finished. She would have been astonished if the Marseillans did. Mark-VIII missiles weren’t bad, but they were seriously outclassed by Mark-IX and Mark-X. The House of Lords would have a sizable advantage if Tyre went to war with Marseilles, if Mark-VIII missiles were all Marseilles had. “They’ll try to maintain deniability as long as possible.”

  Kitty didn’t look convinced. Privately, Kat was inclined to agree. The missiles weren’t refurbished UN or Theocracy crap. They had to come from a frontline power, and there weren’t many who had both the motives and the means to interfere. Rumors or no rumors, there was no way Marseillan involvement would remain unnoticed. The real question was how the House of Lords would react.

  They’ll know soon enough, if they don’t know already, Kat mused.

  She had a feeling the Marseillans were counting on the king to win, which was the only way they’d get to keep their gains. And . . . the king was presumably counting on them upping the ante, if things continued to get worse for his cause. They were committed now. Either they backed the winner or, after the House of Lords won, the Marseillans faced their wrath. Kat could see some of the fire-eaters on Tyre calling for war, promising that it would reunite the battered Commonwealth. Peter wouldn’t go along with the demands, she was sure, but he might be outvoted. And who knew what would happen then?

  It probably won’t be my problem, she thought as she took the datapad. I’ll be dead by then.

  “Keep working on the tactical plans,” she ordered. “And let me know if anyone in the department makes a breakthrough.”

  Kitty nodded, then turned and left the compartment. Kat looked at the datapad, paging through the report without actually reading it. She didn’t need to read the report to know the plan to attack Tyre wasn’t going to get off the ground, let alone into orbit, unless something changed. The more she looked at the details, the more her staff officers worked through the permutations, the more she started to realize that too much could go wrong. No, would go wrong. The best she could do was factor the variables into the plan, leaving herself plenty of room to bac
k off if the enemy refused to cooperate.

  And if they realize what I’m doing, they may cooperate long enough for me to give them the rope to hang me. She put the datapad to one side, promising herself that she’d review it later. Kitty had done her best, but Kat needed to assess the new missiles before she took them into combat. They’ll want to catch me with my pants down too.

  She chuckled at the silly thought, then forced herself to stand and pace the deck. Her brain wasn’t working quite right, as if she’d pushed herself too hard. She rather thought she had. There was no way to change the facts, not without surrendering to wishful thinking and self-delusion. Her father had told her repeatedly that she had to accept reality, for reality would quite happily slap her in the face if she tried to deny it.

  “And not always metaphorically,” he’d said. She’d been young enough to think he was joking at the time. She’d learned hard lessons since. “It’s cheaper to listen to reality when it demands your attention.”

  The intercom bleeped. “Admiral,” Kitty said. Her tone carried a hint of irritation. “Commodore McElney requests the pleasure of your company.”

  Kat blinked. William? Reality asserted itself a second later. No, not William. Scott. The smuggler chief had insisted on dealing with her the last time they’d met. Kat understood, better than she cared to admit. Scott wouldn’t want to get too close to the king, not when Hadrian might lose. His enemies would swoop on him like flies on shit if he was suddenly charged with treason. Or giving aid and comfort to the enemy. But then Scott McElney had always tried to play both ends against the middle.

  “Odd choice of words,” she observed dryly. “Is that what he told you?”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Kitty said. “Those were his exact words.”

  Kat allowed herself a moment of irritation. “Then have him shown to my office,” she said. The rumors would be all around the ship by the end of the shift, damn it. “I’ll deal with him personally.”

  She sat back at her desk and checked the updates from System Command. Commodore McElney had been in and out of the system a dozen times over the past three months, bringing war material and supplies from all over the Commonwealth and beyond. He didn’t seem to have found anything particularly vital, but Kat wasn’t too surprised. The prewar stockpiles had been drawn down sharply, when they weren’t heavily guarded by one side or the other. Scott McElney would have been lucky to find any mil-grade components, let alone weapons, this side of the Gap.