Cursed Command (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  And that gives him a reason to favor the Theocracy, she thought. It might prove just as fatal, in the long run, but they wouldn’t be undermining him in the short term.

  “There is room to maneuver,” Kat said. She wondered just how carefully Alexis had read the diplomatic package. Kat did have some authority to negotiate, but not enough to leave the dictator in place. “And you might remain in control as your planet began to reform.”

  “Doubtful,” the younger Theocrat said. He sneered rudely. “How like a girl to think that such an absurd claim would be believable.”

  Kat studied him, thoughtfully. Her first impression had been that he’d been given the job because of connections, rather than any actual skill, but she was starting to wonder if that was actually true. His interjections had been quite successful in undermining her positions. Hell, Alexis might even find them amusing. Watching the Commonwealth representative being put in her place would please him even if he took Kat’s words to heart.

  “You could also leave your planet and live on Tyre,” Kat added. “It has happened before.”

  Alexis didn’t look pleased. It had happened before—the Commonwealth had offered asylum to various unsavory individuals to get them out of the way—but such an act would mean giving up his power. Undoubtedly, he would never be allowed to leave his gilded cage on Tyre. Perhaps he would take the offer if a mob was storming his palace, but by then it would be far too late.

  Kat forced herself to lean back as the discussion raged on. Alexis was trying to play the Theocracy off against the Commonwealth, striving to see who would give him the better bargain, but he had to know that both powers would eventually prove fatal to his dreams of independence. Kat listened as the Theocracy made a number of promises she doubted they could keep, then offered a handful of smaller concessions of her own. But, in the end, she suspected that neither side had actually won.

  “It has been an interesting discussion,” Alexis said, resting one hand on the table. He nodded politely to the Theocrats. “But now I must ask Lady Katherine to speak to me in private.”

  Davidson looked alarmed, but Kat nodded. The thought of being alone with Alexis wasn’t remotely pleasant, but he would be out of his mind to try to molest or capture her. Two heavy cruisers could make short work of his planet’s defenses, even with the battleship-battlecruiser orbiting Jorlem. And no one in the Commonwealth would think twice about it.

  “You’ll need to be careful,” the younger Theocrat spat. “This one”—he jabbed a finger at Kat as he rose to his feet—“has a habit of fucking her way into high places.”

  Kat kept her expression blank. She’d been right. The younger Theocrat wasn’t an idiot, even though he looked like one. He’d picked his words carefully to undermine her positions. And he might well have sowed doubt in Alexis’s mind, although she knew that Alexis would most likely never side completely with the Commonwealth. She waited, watching calmly, until the Theocrats and Davidson were escorted out of the room, then turned to look at the planetary dictator. She felt as if she’d been left alone with a poisonous snake.

  “They have made many claims and promises,” Alexis mused, almost as if he were speaking to himself. “But can they be trusted?”

  “No, Mr. President,” Kat said. “Jorlem will merely be the next world to be hollowed out from within if they gain a toehold.”

  Alexis looked at her coldly. “But can you be trusted?”

  Kat studied him, thoughtfully. He’d probably like flattery, yet unless she missed her guess, he had his ego stroked every day. No one but a narcissist of towering proportions would have built so many wasteful statues to himself. Perhaps he’d respond better to bluntness.

  “It is true that worlds are not allowed to enter the Free Trade Zone, let alone the Commonwealth, until they meet certain criteria,” Kat said. There was no point in trying to hide it. “But it is also true that the Commonwealth does not attempt to subvert or invade worlds that might make good members.”

  “Except Cadiz,” Alexis said.

  “Cadiz was a special case,” Kat said. It wasn’t entirely true, but it had to be said. “There were strong factions on the surface in favor of annexation.”

  “And the planet sat along the shortest route from the Commonwealth to the Theocracy,” Alexis pointed out.

  No fool, Kat reminded herself. “That may be true,” she said. It was true, but she suspected there was nothing to be gained by admitting it. “Is that true of Jorlem?”

  She met his eyes evenly. “There’s nothing here to attract us,” she added bluntly. “You have cloudscoops and a growing asteroid industry, but so do several other worlds within the sector. As long as you do nothing to draw our attention, like signing a treaty with the Theocracy, we will leave you alone.”

  “But your traders will force their way into our markets,” Alexis said.

  “Not unless you have something to attract us,” Kat said. “The truth is that you have nothing unique.”

  “An interesting thought,” Alexis said. “Then, why did you come here?”

  “I have orders to provide security for the sector,” Kat said. “We’ll decide on our next destination, then see how many freighters wish to accompany us. If you want to send a warship or two of your own along to provide additional security, we will be happy . . .”

  “Out of the question,” Alexis said flatly. “But I will tolerate you inviting freighters to join you, if you wish.”

  He paused. “And while we are prepared to allow your people to take leave on our planet, they may not leave the spaceport zone.”

  Kat nodded, unsurprised. Jorlem wasn’t that closed a society, but she doubted the government would want its people meeting outsiders in uncontrolled circumstances. ONI had insisted that the dictatorship censored everything, even the datanet. Who knew what would happen if the population realized that the outside universe didn’t have evil designs on their world?

  “It would depend on certain matters,” she said. Her crew would want to take shore leave, even if it was in just another grubby little spaceport, but she wasn’t keen on allowing anyone off the ship while an enemy warship was in orbit. Theocratic forces might do something drastic if they believed they were on the verge of losing all of their influence. “But we will certainly let you know.”

  “I would advise your people to pay attention to the import restrictions,” Alexis added. His face twisted, as if a nasty thought had just occurred to him. “A night in the cells will not be a pleasant experience.”

  “It rarely is,” Kat said.

  Alexis smiled. “There is one other matter,” he warned. “I’m sure you were surprised when you discovered Glory of God in orbit.”

  “Yes,” Kat said. There was no point in trying to hide that too. “We were surprised.”

  “Jorlem is officially neutral in your war,” Alexis said. “Anyone can enter orbit and trade with anyone, as long as they behave themselves. Ambassador Lord Cleric Abdullah respects your right to enter orbit. Please respect his right to do the same.”

  Ambassador Lord Cleric Abdullah, Kat thought. The name meant nothing to her, but she could send a note back to Tyre to see if Admiral Junayd knew him. Is he the older one or the younger one?

  She pushed the question aside for later contemplation. “We will certainly try not to start anything,” she said warningly. “But if they start something, we will certainly do our best to finish it.”

  “That is understandable,” Alexis said. He knew, he had to know, that he couldn’t force Glory of God to leave. Or Lightning and Uncanny, for that matter. “I thank you for coming, Captain Falcone. My people will give you a tour of the city before you return to your ship.”

  “That would be very nice,” Kat lied. She would sooner return to orbit, but a tour, even a sanitized one, would tell her more about the city than any number of files. If the area felt close to exploding, the Commonwealth might have a chance to make inroads with the new government. “I’m sure I will enjoy it.”

&n
bsp; “I’m sure you will too,” Alexis said. He gave her a genial smile that still managed to look sinister. “And I will speak to you soon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “That bitch,” Inquisitor Bin Zaid spat as soon as they were back on the shuttle. “Did you see her . . . ?”

  “I saw,” Ambassador Lord Cleric Abdullah said calmly. He picked up a datapad and started to read through the reports from orbit. “It isn’t a serious problem.”

  “She’s undermined us with the president,” Bin Zaid said. “He won’t believe us now!”

  Ambassador Lord Cleric Abdullah turned to look at him. “President Alexis is not a fool,” he said flatly. “Sinner he may be, but he is no fool. He knows that we are deadly to him. But he also knows that the Commonwealth is deadly to him. The trick lies in convincing him that we may be less deadly in the short run.”

  “Assuming the infidel gives much of a damn about anything beyond himself,” Bin Zaid snarled.

  Abdullah didn’t look concerned. “Such a mind will always associate the good of his planet with the good of himself,” he said. “Whatever he does will be done with an eye towards keeping and securing his position.”

  “And that woman,” Bin Zaid yelled. “Do you know who she is?”

  “An odd choice,” Abdullah said. “I would have expected her to be sent back to the war front.”

  Bin Zaid ground his teeth in helpless fury. There was something profoundly unnatural about a woman who carried herself like a man, who wore a uniform like a man, who commanded men in combat. What weaklings her crewmen must be! How could they possibly take orders from a woman? And yet, her reputation had spread through the Theocracy, despite the best efforts of the Inquisition. Bin Zaid knew better than to believe that a woman could actually best a man in combat—his wives never beat him at chess—but it seemed to have an effect on the lower classes.

  They want to believe it, he thought. If we can be beaten by a woman, it makes us look weak.

  “They probably thought she would be exposed as a fraud,” he said finally. “She’s not a . . .”

  “She’s not stupid either,” Abdullah said sharply.

  “She’s a man who became a woman,” Bin Zaid snarled. Sex change operations were forbidden in the Theocracy, but he knew they were theoretically possible. “A perverted . . .”

  “No, she isn’t,” Abdullah corrected.

  The elder of the two sighed loudly. “Picking her for this mission may not have been a bad choice,” he added thoughtfully. “She has a strong reputation, excellent connections with Tyre’s ruling class and her mere existence gets under our skin. They may be hoping that we will do something . . . intemperate.”

  “She’s under sentence of death,” Bin Zaid reminded him.

  “And we will do nothing,” Abdullah told him firmly. “We are diplomats. Act diplomatic.”

  He turned to peer out of the porthole as the shuttle started to pass through the upper atmosphere. Bin Zaid glared at his back, silently cursing the older man. Abdullah might be a Lord Cleric and thus deserving of unquestioning obedience, but he’d spent too long among the infidels. No one who had spent any time among the infidels could be trusted fully, not when the infidels were too good at seducing Believers from the path of righteousness. Bin Zaid had heard too many whispered stories of rebel cells in the Theocracy itself to believe that anyone, even himself, was truly safe from being seduced. Being here, among a group of infidels barely worth his attention, was galling. He should be back with his comrades, rooting out heresy before it brought the Theocracy crashing down.

  No, he told himself firmly, before it taints too many of the Believers.

  The thought made him shiver. He’d heard dark rumors about the situation along the front, even though the official news bulletins made it clear that the Theocracy was winning the war easily. Of course the Theocracy was winning the war. The Commonwealth was soft, weakened by its hedonism, and had no hope of standing up to the True Believers, to the men who were prepared to die in defense of their religion. And God had truly blinded their enemies. No matter how desperately the infidels struggled, the noose was slowly tightening around their necks . . .

  . . . and yet, there were too many rumors.

  He’d reported the defeatists, of course. He was an Inquisitor. Rooting out everything from idle grumbling to outright heresy was his job. However, no one had been able to track down the source of the rumors, let alone counter them. They just seemed to spring up from nowhere, whispered from person to person . . . and no matter what the government said, they never quite seemed to fade. There were times, when he was lying in the darkness, that Bin Zaid wondered if the rumors were actually true. It had led to too many sleepless nights.

  Of course they’re not true, he told himself savagely. The enemy within cannot beat us by force, so they strive to subvert us instead.

  He tensed as the shuttle docked with Glory of God, remembering yet another rumor about airlocks that had failed at the worst possible moment. A low hiss ran through the cabin as the hatches mated and opened; he felt a flicker of panic he struggled to dismiss, muttering prayers under his breath. Space travel was supposed to be safe! Still, the rumors just kept spreading. The sooner Tyre was scorched from orbit, the better. Mass slaughter was sinful—countless potential Believers would be killed along with the irredeemable infidels—but he found it hard to care. He just wanted the war to end.

  “We will monitor her operations,” Abdullah said. He rose and led the way into the battleship, a handful of crewmen falling to the deck in prostration as the Lord Cleric passed. “And if there is an opportunity to do her harm, we will take it.”

  “We could take her little ships,” Bin Zaid said. The crewmen, rising to their feet, refused to meet his eyes. Normally, he would have enjoyed their fear—it kept them honest—but right now he was too angry to care. “Glory of God can smash them both with ease.”

  “It would be unwise to count on that,” Abdullah said. “Besides, that’s Captain Samuel’s decision.”

  Bin Zaid glared at his back. “You have the authority to overrule him.”

  “Yes, but I will not use it unless strictly necessary,” Abdullah said. “We have time to consider how we will turn this situation to our advantage. And we will.”

  He turned to give Bin Zaid a reassuring smile, then led the way into the intership car. Bin Zaid ground his teeth in silent frustration. Every instinct he had told him that they needed to strike and strike now, before the infidels had time to summon reinforcements from their homeworld. But Abdullah was the one in command, for the moment. And he wasn’t doing his damn job.

  Patience, he told himself firmly. Abdullah will not stay in command forever.

  “So that’s the situation,” Kat said after she’d shared the recordings she’d taken during the meeting. “President Alexis appears to be trying to play us off against the Theocracy.”

  “And the Theocracy has an immensely powerful battleship in orbit,” Crenshaw mused. “The President may have been threatened into compliance.”

  “That ship isn’t as powerful as it looks,” William’s holographic image said. “My analysts think that she’s got a whole series of crippling design flaws.”

  “Which won’t make much of a difference if we face her at close range,” Crenshaw countered, grimly. “Our simulations suggest that taking her will be costly. We could lose both ships.”

  “That’s always a risk,” Kat pointed out. “And we’ve beaten long odds before.”

  Roach cleared his throat. “We could simply try to outbid the Theocracy,” he pointed out carefully. He was the youngest officer in the conference. “I don’t think they could offer much, if anything, in the way of payment for services rendered.”

  “The problem is that the planetary government doesn’t trust us,” Davidson reminded him dryly. “And, of course, there’s an extremely large warship orbiting their world.”

  They must feel the same way about us, Kat thought.

  She
cleared her throat. “The Admiralty has been alerted to her presence,” she said, nodding towards the tactical display. The red icon representing Glory of God glowed balefully on the other side of the planet. “They may have new orders for us soon enough.”

  “They may expect us to breach Jorlem’s neutrality and attack that damned ship,” Crenshaw commented.

  “That would be bad,” William pointed out. “There are interstellar treaties . . .”

  “We can demand that Jorlem orders them to leave,” Crenshaw said.

  “Which they can’t enforce,” Davidson reminded him. “That . . . that ship can smash their entire defense force in an hour.”

  “Less than an hour,” Roach injected.

  “And then it can turn their planet into a wasteland,” Davidson continued. “I don’t think they’ll want to push the matter.”

  “Probably not,” Kat agreed.

  She tapped the table, meaningfully. “We’ll remain here for the next two days, in any case,” she added. “We’ll remain at full tactical alert, shields and weapons at standby. If they so much as blink, I want to be ready to fight before they get into attack position. After that . . . we may have to split up and escort the next set of freighters to their destinations.”

  “Captain,” Crenshaw said, “splitting up now strikes me as risky.”

  “It is,” Kat agreed. She hated to admit it, but she was tempted to keep the two cruisers together. Neither Lightning nor Uncanny could reasonably hope to take Glory of God in a fair fight, not alone. “But we have too much to do in too little time.”

  “And that ship isn’t causing any actual trouble,” William said.

  “She doesn’t have to,” Davidson said. “As long as we know she’s there, she’s a looming threat over the entire sector. We have to keep one eye on her at all times.”

  “Which we will,” Kat said.

  She glanced from face to face. “We’ll allow a handful of our crew to take shore leave,” she said after a moment. She wasn’t keen on the idea, not with an enemy ship lurking high overhead, but after much consideration she’d decided that the granting of leave would show the locals that she wasn’t intimidated. “But make sure they are warned to take every precaution, and that they are not to leave the spaceport zone.”