“And request a priority message slot from the StarCom,” she added. “Send the alert to Tyre.”
She leaned back in her command chair and watched as the convoy neared the planet. The locals were smart to insist on keeping the planet’s bulk between the two warring sides, although only a few minutes were needed for one force to alter position and bring the other under fire. And the Theocracy would have no qualms about launching antimatter warheads in planetary orbit. It wasn’t as if more enemies would make any difference to the war.
“Captain,” Crenshaw said. “I really must protest . . .”
Kat looked at him. “Do you have a better idea?”
She glanced down at her terminal, hastily reviewing the regulations concerning enemy ships in neutral systems. Technically, she was supposed to demand that the battleship-battlecruiser be told to leave, but Jorlem didn’t have the firepower to enforce its will. If the planetary government requested that she leave instead . . . she’d have to do as she was told. And if the Theocracy starship really was on a diplomatic mission, ordering them out would be a bad move.
At least we know where the battleship is, she thought morbidly.
“We could engage her,” Crenshaw said. “She’s a long way from home.”
That was true, Kat had to admit. But it was also true of her ships. Crippling the enemy ship would probably strand her in the Jorlem Sector, yet if it cost Kat one or both of her cruisers . . .
“If she’s genuinely on a diplomatic mission,” she said, “we have no legal right to engage her.”
She cursed under her breath. The Theocracy wasn’t a signatory to the Diplomacy Treaty, but the Commonwealth was. Interfering with a diplomatic mission from one state to another would be a breach in the treaty . . . and while the Commonwealth and the Theocracy were already at war, it would bring protests from most of the other interstellar powers. The Commonwealth would have to punish Kat for breaking the treaty, even if her superiors understood what she’d done.
And it won’t be a slap on the wrist this time, she thought, savagely.
The rules were clear. She could engage the enemy ship in interstellar space without consequences, but she couldn’t pick a fight near Jorlem unless the enemy fired first. And if the Theocracy was playing it smart, they wouldn’t fire first. They’d want to do something to undermine the Commonwealth’s position, perhaps by manipulating matters until Kat fired first . . .
“Entering orbit,” Wheeler reported. “They’ve cleared an orbital slot for us.”
Putting the ships on opposite sides of the planet was pointless, Kat knew. Given the speed and power of modern weapons, they might as well have been two gunfighters standing right next to each other when they started shooting. But she suspected she understood the real point. The local government was terrified. Three powerful starships in orbit, each one capable of trashing their defenses in an hour of hard fighting . . . and two sides, caught in a war that would only end when one of them was crushed. And Jorlem, not the most powerful system in the sector, would be crushed between them if the two sides started shooting.
“Very good,” she said. She looked at Crenshaw. “All shore leave is cancelled until we have a better idea of what’s going on here.”
“Yes, Captain,” Crenshaw said.
“We will remain at red alert, with shields and weapons charged at all times,” Kat added. It would put immense wear and tear on both cruisers—and she knew the supply department back home would be furious—but it couldn’t be helped. They were far too close to the enemy ship. The situation could turn nasty in seconds, too quickly for her to bring up her shields from a standing start. “And keep a very close sensor watch. If that blasted ship so much as twitches, I want to know about it.”
“Yes, Captain,” Crenshaw said.
He paused. “We could plan a preemptive strike.”
Kat shook her head. She had no doubt that the enemy ship was watching her too. Her shields were already up. By the time Lightning and Uncanny unleashed hell, the enemy ship would be ready to meet them. And a fight in high orbit would devastate the surrounding infrastructure even if the planet itself remained unscathed.
“We can wait,” she said. “In the meantime, start detaching the freighters from the convoy. If any of them want to go onwards, tell them we don’t know where we’re going yet.”
She rose. “Communications, send a copy of the diplomatic package to the planetary government. Inform me if there is a response.”
“Aye, Captain,” Linda said.
Kat nodded to Crenshaw. “I’ll be in my Ready Room,” she said. “Call me if anything changes.”
She stepped through the hatch and sat down at her desk, then keyed her terminal, calling William. They needed to chat privately.
“Kat,” William said as his image appeared in front of her. “We are in an interesting pickle.”
“That’s an understatement,” Kat said. She brought up the latest set of analysis reports from the tactical department and skimmed them rapidly. The analysts thought that the battleship-battlecruiser design had a number of potential flaws, but Kat doubted that any of them would be fatal. “We can’t fight her here, and we can’t wait for her to leave.”
“Particularly not as she will be expecting us to follow her,” William agreed. “She might even have diplomatic credentials from right across the sector.”
Kat scowled. Jumping the enemy ship in hyperspace might not be a breach of the treaty, but it would certainly make the Commonwealth look very bad. Even with a clear reason to attack the ship, such action could still be turned against them. Any evidence she cared to submit to the other interstellar powers could easily be branded fake. And yet, very few of the powers would care to side with the Theocracy . . .
It’s the principle of the thing, she thought darkly. Blowing up their diplomats would set an awkward precedent.
“The other alternative is to ignore her,” William offered. “We came here to win goodwill, Kat.”
“And to destroy raiders,” Kat said.
“That ship isn’t a raider,” William pointed out.
Kat nodded in agreement. She’d had the same thought. But still . . . it was an odd ship to send on a diplomatic mission. She would have thought that the Theocracy was too desperate for hulls to send such a ship so far from the front lines. Unless they were trying to suggest that they had starships to spare . . .
She rubbed her forehead. She hated diplomacy.
“We’ll stay here until we learn what the planetary government has to say,” she said reluctantly. “And then we’ll decide what to do next.”
“They may have good reason for siding with the Theocracy,” William warned. “It isn’t as if the Commonwealth will give their dictatorship the time of day.”
“Point,” Kat agreed. “But they won’t last forever if the Theocracy wins the war.”
Unless they’re gambling on the Theocracy losing, her thoughts added. They might be planning to take all they can get, then hope we win before the bills come due.
William cleared his throat. “There’s another approach we could take,” he offered. He sounded as though he was checking his words very carefully. “Some of my . . . contacts . . . might be present on Jorlem. I was here back before Operation Knife. If we could get some information from them . . .”
Kat frowned. “Will they talk to you?”
“It’s worth a try,” William said. “If I make the approach, they’ll certainly check with their superiors before making any commitments. And even if they refuse to help directly, they can probably put us in touch with information brokers.”
“For which we will have to pay,” Kat observed darkly.
She shook her head. “If you think it’s worth it, do so,” she ordered. “I leave that in your hands.”
“Thank you, Captain,” William said.
It galled Kat to rely on smugglers and information brokers, even if one of the smugglers was William’s brother, but she suspected they would be more reliab
le than anything she heard from the planetary government. Information brokers in high society as well as low would rapidly lose clients if they provided false information, intentionally or otherwise. And there were too many ships coming and going from Jorlem for her to believe that the local government could control everything.
Her intercom bleeped. “Captain, we received a message from the planetary government,” Linda said. “They’re inviting you to a meeting on the surface.”
“It might be a trap,” William warned. “I could go in your place.”
“That would be a sign of weakness,” Kat said. She understood his concerns, but she knew she couldn’t give in to them. “I have to go.”
“Then take a dozen marines,” William urged. “If there’s anyone the Theocracy would want to capture, Kat, it’s you.”
“The planetary government won’t take the risk,” Kat said, wishing she felt confident. A dictatorship wouldn’t survive if the Commonwealth expanded into the sector. “And I’ll have Pat with me.”
“One marine?” William pressed. “This is madness.”
“Perhaps,” Kat said. Dictators were dangerously unpredictable. “But I have to go anyway.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“This place reminds me of Cadiz,” Davidson muttered as they drove from the spaceport towards Jorlem City. “And not in a good way.”
Kat bowed her head in quiet agreement. Jorlem City was a brooding oppressive mass, giant apartment blocks placed so close together that the streets were shrouded in perpetual semidarkness. Hundreds of security guards were visible everywhere, keeping an eye on a population that seemed driven by sullen anger. The scent of revolution, of a powder keg ready to explode at the slightest spark, hung in the air. She could see dozens of teenage boys loitering at street corners, their expressions bitter and resentful, but she could only see a handful of women, all older. That wasn’t a good sign.
She gritted her teeth as they passed yet another looming statue of Ruthven Alexis, the third planetary dictator. He’d taken power in a military coup, according to the files, when the previous dictator had grown a little careless. Kat had read enough about force-based societies to know, all too well, that carelessness meant death. No dictator could ever give up power, not when his enemies would move in for the kill. He’d stay in office until he died, or he was overthrown, or an outside force removed him. With proper medical care, a dictator could remain alive and healthy for decades.
A waster, Kat thought angrily.
She felt a stab of sympathy for the planet’s population, trapped in an iron cage. She was used to power, she’d been born to power, but her family believed that power should be put to good use. Alexis, on the other hand, seemed only interested in self-glorification. She’d counted dozens of statues and hundreds of posters, all showing his face. And the buildings were monstrous pieces of Gothic design, a repulsive historical nightmare. Alexis could have built his system up to rival Vangelis if he hadn’t wasted so much of his resources on his capital. Instead . . .
Davidson shot her a sharp look as the car turned the corner and drove towards the palace, a giant and utterly tasteless structure looming over the square. Hundreds of soldiers, wearing uniforms that made Kat’s dress uniform look comfortable, were stationed in front of the palace, so still and unmoving that she honestly wondered, just for a moment, if they were statues or holograms. But in a dictatorship, they’d probably been taught to stand perfectly still for hours. She couldn’t help wondering if the rifles they were carrying were actually loaded.
The car came to a halt. A uniformed flunky appeared from nowhere—his uniform made him look like an admiral—and opened the car door, inviting Kat and Davidson to climb out. Kat did so, feeling as if she had stepped into a trap as she was led up the stairs and into the palace. Her implants reported a whole series of security scans, one after the other, poking and prying at her body. She wondered, absently, if Alexis was so paranoid he’d insist on a strip search, then decided it was unlikely. It would be an insult to the whole Commonwealth.
She kept her face impassive as they strode down a marble corridor large enough to hold a full-sized tank. The designers seemed to have scaled everything up, as if citizens on Jorlem were two or three times the size of citizens elsewhere. They’d covered the floors in stone and the walls in a greenish marble, leaving them completely bare. The audience chamber was so massive she almost laughed out loud when they were shown through the giant doors. The space was easily larger than the throne room on Tyre, yet it was completely empty, save for a single table in the exact center of the room. Her footsteps echoed on the stone floor as she approached the triangular table. Three people were seated, waiting for her.
“His Grace Alexis, President of Jorlem,” the flunky announced. “I present Captain Katherine Falcone and Major Patrick Davidson.”
Kat was almost disappointed when President Alexis—she reminded herself, sharply, to call him Mr. President—rose to his feet. He looked nothing like his statues, although the malice in his eyes was enough to worry her. He could have rejuvenated himself into a god, but instead he was grossly overweight and going bald. And his grip, when she shook his hand, felt clammy.
“Welcome,” Alexis said. He looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her breasts for just a moment longer than necessary. Kat suspected it was a deliberate attempt to make her uncomfortable, and it would have worked if she hadn’t served as a midshipwoman. “My new friends”—he waved a hand towards the table—“were just telling me all about you.”
Kat looked past him and frowned. The two Theocrats—they couldn’t be anyone else—were eying her with undisguised hostility. She stared back at them calmly, her face emotionless. They were both bearded, wearing long red robes, but one of them was clearly much younger than the other, perhaps the same age as Kat herself. The older one looked disdainful as well as hostile, while the other showed naked hatred and rage. Did he have something personal against her? She might well have killed one of his relatives during the war.
“This . . . this woman . . . is a murderess,” the younger one snarled. “You shouldn’t trust anything she says.”
“These . . . people . . . are monsters,” Kat countered. “They’ll use you, and then they’ll dispose of you.”
The older Theocrat cleared his throat. “I believe we were discussing options for providing security to your sector, Most Honored President,” he said. He had an oozing voice that made Kat distrust him immediately. In some ways, she would have preferred his partner. “Our offer is quite sincere.”
“And what offer is that?” Kat said.
“We would hate to discuss such matters with you,” the Theocrat said. “Most Honored President . . .”
“She can hear your offer,” Alexis said casually. “The Commonwealth may want to better it.”
The Theocrat’s expression didn’t change. Kat couldn’t help feeling that he was pleased at this development, although his younger companion looked furious.
“We are prepared to offer convoy escorts and various military supplies to Jorlem, in exchange for basing rights and allowing missionaries to move freely among your population,” the Theocrat said. “Our ships will be more than capable of protecting your shipping from the raiders.”
Kat kept her expression blank with an effort. What sort of idiot would accept such an offer?
Her mind raced. She rather doubted the Theocracy could spare enough ships to make a dent in the pirate populations . . . but if they were controlling the pirates, all they’d have to do was call the bastards off. And basing rights at Jorlem would cause a whole series of problems for the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth would either have to attack Jorlem, opening a new front in the war, or let them get away with terrorizing an entire sector. Such an endeavor wouldn’t last, but they could do a great deal of damage before they were stopped.
She looked at the older Theocrat. “How many ships can you spare?”
The Theocrat ignored her. “We would not be making an
y political demands,” he added, addressing Alexis. “You would be free to run your planet however you wish.”
“Until the war is over,” Kat said, “and too many of your people have embraced the faith.”
“Enough,” the younger Theocrat exploded. “I must insist that this . . . this girl . . . be removed from the room.”
His elder shot him an angry look. “I apologize for my companion, Most Honored President,” he said. “He is as yet unused to the requirements of diplomacy.”
“And unaware of how to behave,” Davidson rumbled.
Kat kept her expression blank, even though she knew the enemy had scored an own goal. Alexis most likely didn’t give a damn about her being a woman, but trying to order the dictator around in his own palace would worry him. He’d have to wonder, deep inside, if it was a harbinger of what was to come, if the Theocracy won the war.
“The Theocracy has taken heavy losses in the war,” she added, pouring fuel on the fire. “I doubt they could supply enough ships to make a difference.”
“Your ignorance of our fleet numbers is our strength,” the older Theocrat said. “We can and we will meet our commitments.”
“One would hope so,” Alexis murmured.
“And we would not be making political demands,” the older Theocrat repeated. He nodded towards Davidson. “The Commonwealth would be making political demands.”
Kat felt her expression tighten. The Commonwealth believed in equal opportunities, if not equal outcomes. A governing system that made it hard for newcomers to enter, thus ensuring that those who did enter were the best of the best, was one thing, but a system that was nothing more than a dictatorship held together by naked force was beyond the pale. Jorlem would never be allowed to join the Commonwealth until it carried out some much-needed political reforms, reforms that would cost Alexis his position and quite probably his life.
Cursed Command (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 3) Page 18