It was a sour point, one that had stuck in his craw ever since he’d discovered just how much money had been expended—and just how much remained unaccounted for. The government had raised taxes, as well as asked for voluntary contributions from the big corporations, but its accounting had been poor. The desperate rush to put as many warships into space as possible had done nothing for financial discipline. Peter was uneasily aware that nearly 30 percent of the budget for the last four years had vanished into black projects, projects he wasn’t supposed to know about. It was a staggering amount of money, truly unimaginable, and it was one of the bones the House of Lords wanted to pick with the king. And yet, it wasn’t the worst of them.
Trumpets blared. The doors were thrown open, revealing a pair of uniformed flunkies and, beyond them, the House of Lords. Peter pasted a neutral expression on his face as he began to walk forward, wondering just how many people were watching him make a fool of himself through the datanet. The entire ceremony was being broadcast live. His father had made the ceremony look solemn and dignified, but Peter suspected he looked like an idiot. The fancy robes and stylized hair came from a bygone era.
And true power lies in money, warships, and troops, he thought as he walked into the chamber. I could wear rags and Eau de Skunk, and I’d still be one of the most powerful men in the known universe.
He allowed his eyes to sweep the chamber as the doors were closed behind him. Seven hundred and ninety lords and ladies, crammed into a room that had been designed for only five hundred. For years people had been talking about expanding the House of Lords or rewriting the rules about who could and who couldn’t attend via hologram or proxy, but nothing had come of it. The lords who could trace their bloodlines all the way back to the founders had been joined by newer noblemen, some who’d more than earned their right to a title and others who’d been rewarded for services rendered. A cluster of lords, sitting in the upper benches, wore robes to signify that they were colonials. And hadn’t there been a thoroughly nasty fight over their right to sit in the chamber?
Peter sighed, inwardly, as he picked out a handful of names and faces. Prime Minister Arthur Hampshire, technically a commoner; Israel Harrison, Leader of the Opposition; Duke Jackson Cavendish, trying hard to look confident even though everyone knew he no longer had a pot to piss in . . . names and faces, some of whom were friends, some allies, and some deadly enemies. Peter wondered, careful not to show even a trace of doubt on his face, if he was really up to the task. There were men and women in the chamber who’d been playing politics long before he had been born.
There’s no one else, he told himself firmly. And I dare not fail.
He sucked in his breath. He wasn’t inexperienced. His father had made him work in the family corporation for years, pushing him out of his comfort zone time and time again. And chewing him out, royally, when he’d screwed up. Peter wasn’t sure how he felt about that either. His father had been a good man, but he’d also been a hard man. The family could not afford weakness in the ranks. Peter, at least, had been given a chance to learn from his mistakes. Not everyone had been so lucky.
And others never had to take up the role, he thought, feeling a flicker of resentment, once again, towards his youngest sister. Kat had never had to study business, never had to take up a position within the family corporation. Instead, she’d gone to war and carved out a life for herself. Some people have all the luck.
Peter stopped in the exact center of the chamber and looked up. King Hadrian, first of that name, looked back at him. He was a tall man, with short dark hair and a face that was strikingly calculating. The king, Peter knew from experience, was a man who could move from affability to threat with terrifying speed. He was young too, younger than Peter himself. It was something Peter knew had worried his father. Peter, and the other corporate heirs, could learn their trade without risking everything, but the king’s heir could not become king until his father had passed away. King Hadrian had been learning his trade on the job. And it was hard to tell, Peter had to admit, just how much was cold calculation versus sheer luck. And inexperience.
A shame the rumors about the king and Kat were groundless, Peter thought as he knelt in front of his monarch. She would have made a good partner for him . . .
He dismissed the thought, ruthlessly. There was no point in crying over the impossible. An affair was one thing, but marriage? The other dukes would have blocked the match without a second thought. And besides, Kat had been in love with a commoner. Peter couldn’t help feeling another stab of envy. His marriage had been arranged, of course; his parents had organized the match, one of the prices he paid for his position. But Kat was free to fall in love as she pleased. He wasn’t sure it was really a good thing. Kat had been devastated by her lover’s death.
King Hadrian rose, one hand holding his scepter. He wore a full military dress uniform, although it was black rather than white. Peter thought, rather sourly, that the king had no right to wear so much gold braid, let alone the medals jangling at his breast. But then, the king was a hereditary member of a dozen military fraternities. He probably needed to wear the medals his ancestors had won. Some of his supporters would otherwise be alienated.
“It has been a year and a day since Duke Falcone was treacherously killed,” King Hadrian said. His words were a grim reminder that nowhere, not even Tyre itself, was safe from attack. The Theocracy’s strike teams had done a great deal of damage before they’d been wiped out, but the security measures introduced to combat them had been almost worse. “And now, with the period of mourning officially over, we gather to invest his son with the title and powers that once were his father’s.”
There was a brief, chilling pause. Peter felt his heart beginning to race, even though he was sure there was nothing to worry about. He was the Duke, confirmed by the family council; no one, not even the king, could take it from him. And yet, if the House of Lords refused to seat him, it could cause all manner of trouble back home. The family council might vote to impeach him on the grounds he couldn’t work with the rest of the nobility and elect someone else in his place. Peter doubted he’d be permitted to return to the corporation after that! More likely he’d be sent into comfortable exile somewhere.
“But we must decide if he is worthy to join our ranks,” the king said calmly. “Honorable members, cast your votes.”
Peter tensed, telling himself again that he was perfectly safe. No one would risk alienating him over something so petty, not now. But the vote was anonymous . . . His family’s enemies would vote against him, of course, but what about the others? There were people who might take the opportunity to put him on notice that he couldn’t inherit the extensive patronage network his father had built up over the years. And others who would want to renegotiate the terms, now that his father was dead.
He wanted to look around to see the voting totals, but he knew it would be taken as a sign of weakness. He didn’t dare look unsure, not now. Weakness invited attack. Instead, all he could do was wait. He silently counted to a hundred under his breath, wishing he didn’t feel so exposed. The eyes of the world were upon him.
“The voting has finished,” King Hadrian said. “In favor, seven hundred and twelve; against, forty-two.”
And a number of abstentions, Peter thought. Did they refuse to cast a vote because they don’t want to take sides, even on something as pointless as this, or because they recognize the whole ceremony for the farce it is?
“I welcome you to the House of Lords, Duke Falcone,” King Hadrian said. He reached out and tapped Peter on the shoulder with his scepter. “You may rise.”
Peter rose, feeling suddenly stiff. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Take your place among us,” King Hadrian said. “I’m sure you will find it a very edifying discussion.”
A low rustle ran through the chamber as Peter sat down on the bench. It was comfortable, but not too comfortable. Behind him, he heard a handful of lords and ladies leaving now that the importa
nt business was done. They were too highly ranked not to attend the investment, but neither wealthy nor powerful enough to make themselves heard during a debate. And besides, Peter reflected, they probably knew that half the business conducted in the chamber was meaningless. The real deals would be negotiated in private chambers. By the time they were presented to the Houses of Parliament, various initiatives would already have been revised thoroughly enough to make them broadly acceptable to everyone. The public debates would be largely meaningless.
The speaker came forward, bowed to the king, and took the stand. He was an elderly man, old enough to remember the king’s grandfather. Peter felt a little sorry for him, even though he was sure that anyone who’d held such a position for so long had to know where the bodies were buried. The speaker had to wait at the back of the chamber while the king had played his role. But then, that too was part of the ceremony.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the speaker said. He cleared his throat. “The issue before us . . .”
Peter glanced down at his datapad as the voice droned on. He’d received more than fifty private messages in the last five minutes, each one requesting a private meeting. Some were just feelers from friends and enemies alike, but others were quite serious. He hadn’t expected a PM from Israel Harrison. Technically, Peter was on the Privy Council; practically, he’d been . . . discouraged . . . from claiming his father’s seat. There’d been too much else to do over the last year for him to let that bother him.
“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker,” Israel Harrison said. His voice cut through the hubbub, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “Is the government seriously proposing to expand the foreign aid budget?”
He went on before the prime minister could respond. “The emergency taxation and spending program was meant to be terminated with the end of the war. We were assured, when we gave our consent, that that would be the case. And yet, here we are, still paying the tax . . . and hampering our economy in the process. We need to cut back on government spending and resume economic growth.”
The prime minister stood. “The fact remains that a vast number of worlds, inside and outside the Commonwealth, have been devastated by the war. Millions upon millions of people have been displaced, cities have been destroyed, food supplies have been sharply reduced or cut off entirely . . . uncountable numbers of people have had their lives destroyed. Our reconstruction program may be the only thing standing between those people and utter destitution.”
“I fully understand why my honorable friend feels that way,” Harrison countered. “But I fail to understand why we should risk economic collapse, and our own utter destitution, to save those worlds. Many of them were formerly enemy states. Others have been, if I may make so bold, ungrateful.”
Peter gritted his teeth as the debate raged backwards and forwards, with government supporters exchanging harsh words with the opposition. It wasn’t about the displaced people, he knew, and it wasn’t about foreign aid in and of itself. It was the age-old question of just who got to control the budget. The government wanted to keep the emergency taxation program because it gave them more money to spend, while the opposition wanted to get rid of the program because it gave the government a great deal of clout to buy votes. And the hell of it, he knew all too well, was that the opposition, if elected into power, would want to keep the program too.
“The military budget is already too high,” Harrison said. “Do we face any real threat from an outside power?”
Grand Admiral Tobias Vaughn rose. Peter thought he looked tired. Vaughn had been the navy’s senior uniformed officer, which made him de facto senior officer for all branches of the military, for the last five years, a term that covered the entirety of the war. Rumor had it that Vaughn wanted to retire, but so far the king had convinced him to stay. Now that the war was over, Peter couldn’t help wondering just how long that would last.
“There are two aspects to your question,” Vaughn said. He sounded tired too. “First, we do not face a peer threat at the moment. However, our neighbors have been building up their own military forces over the last few years. We have reason to believe that they have been pouring resources into duplicating our advanced weapons and technology—unsurprisingly so, as they may regard us as a potential threat. It is possible that we may face an alliance of two or more Great Powers in the near future.
“Second, we have a responsibility to provide security for our territory, both within the Commonwealth and the occupied zone. There is, quite simply, no one else who will provide any form of interstellar security. We must deploy starships to protect planets and shipping lanes, and we must deploy troops to protect refugee populations and provide support to various provisional governments. The Jorlem Sector became increasingly lawless as a result of the war, honorable members. Do we really want the Theocratic Sector to go the same way?”
Harrison stood. “Is it going to be a threat to us?”
Vaughn looked back at him, evenly. “We have confiscated the remaining enemy industrial production nodes,” he said. “In the short term, chaos in the Theocratic Sector will be very bad for the locals and largely irrelevant to us. However, in the long term, there will be pirates, raiders, and revanchists taking root within the sector. I submit to you, sir, that those forces will eventually become a threat.”
“But the Theocracy is dead.” Harrison tapped his foot on the ground. “How long do you want to continue to fight the war?”
“Until we win,” Vaughn said. “Right now, sir, the sector is unstable, and we’re the only thing keeping it under control.”
“We have a debt of honor,” King Hadrian said.
“A debt of honor we cannot afford to meet,” Harrison said curtly. He didn’t quite glare at the king. “And a debt of honor that was entered into without Parliament’s consent.”
Peter groaned, inwardly, as the debate grew louder. Harrison was right, of course. The king had promised much and, so far, delivered little. But the king had made promises he’d had no right to make, certainly not without Parliament’s approval. No wonder his government wanted to keep emergency taxation powers. It was the only way to keep his promises to the Commonwealth.
And yet, we simply cannot afford to rebuild all the Theocracy’s infrastructure, he thought. The expenditure would be unimaginably huge. Even trying would be disastrous.
He groaned again. It was going to be a very long day.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
TYRE
“Observers on Ahura Mazda confirm that Admiral Junayd, the head of the provisional government, was killed in an explosion,” the talking head said. “Admiral Junayd was the Theocracy’s best naval officer prior to his defection, after which . . .”
Commodore Sir William McElney snorted rudely in the direction of the display screen, then returned his attention to his beer. The bar was a spacers’ bar, with hundreds of men and women coming in, ordering drinks, and chatting to their mates in hopes of finding work on a starship before they ran out of money and had to go down to the planetary surface. It wasn’t easy. William had discovered, upon his return to Tyre, that vast numbers of spacers had been released from the navy, and now that the drawdown was in full effect, there were ten spacers for every posting, perhaps more. The freighter captains could pick and choose as they wished.
He took a sip of his beer, wondering just how long it would be before a fight broke out. Raw desperation hung in the air like a physical force. Spacers hated going down to the ground, even for short periods, yet most of them knew it was just a matter of time before they were marched to the shuttles and unceremoniously sent down. Orbit Station Beta was immense, easily large enough to swallow a number of superdreadnoughts in its hull, but it didn’t have room for thousands of spacers. A fight might kill the hopes of anyone involved when they were caught by the guards. These days, the shore patrol was extremely intolerant of anyone who caused trouble.
His lips twitched, sourly. It had been his fault, as much as anything. He coul
d have stayed in the navy if he’d wished. But the refugees from Hebrides had needed his help . . . he’d thought. They were a hardy people but weren’t used to the Commonwealth . . . or what life was like outside their dead homeworld. The refugee community hadn’t precisely collapsed, not completely, but the youngsters had started to embrace the ways of their new homeworld and the older folk had been unable to stop them. William wasn’t sure he blamed the youth either. He’d kept some of his homeworld’s practices, after he’d joined the navy, but not all. A whole new world was opening up in front of the youngsters, a world where they could do more with their lives. And no one could stand in their way.
He glanced at his wristcom as the talking head started to babble about sports results. She was late. He wasn’t even sure why she’d chosen a bar to meet . . . unless it was an elaborate joke of some kind. Perhaps it had been a joke. Like it or not, he was no common spacer. How many captains would want to hire a man who technically outranked them, someone who might not be aware that the captain was the ultimate authority on his ship? That was a matter of law—a captain could give orders to an admiral—but rank sometimes did odd things to brains. An admiral might forget that his rank didn’t put him above the law.
A rustle ran through the room as someone stepped through the door. William looked up and lifted his eyebrows. The woman was no spacer. That much was clear, just by looking at her. She wore a white suit that hinted at curves without revealing them, her blonde hair in a long plait that reached down to her hips, and a faint professional smile. William nodded to himself, then raised a hand in greeting. She nodded back as she walked over to the table and sat down.
“Commodore William McElney?” Her lightly accented voice suggested she already knew the answer. “A pleasure to meet you in person.”
Debt of Honor (The Embers of War) Page 3