Isabel blanched. “We’re talking open civil war,” she protested. “Your Grace . . .”
“That’s why we have to act fast,” Duke Rudbek said.
But we can’t act fast, Peter thought. It would take weeks to build consensus, then make the loan to Cavendish. We only get one shot at removing the king legally.
His mind raced. If the king had assassinated Peter’s father, why not assassinate the king? It might solve all their problems, except he couldn’t see a way to do it. The king was heavily protected. Peter’s guards wouldn’t be able to get through the defenses, assuming they accepted the mission in the first place. The political struggles on Tyre had never turned violent. Perhaps that was why hardly anyone had suspected that the king might have had a hand in Lucas Falcone’s death. Assassinating one’s rivals was unprecedented.
And I don’t want to believe it, he thought. If the king killed my father, what else will he do?
“Then we need to sort out the details now,” he said. “I’m expected back at the party.”
Rudbek smiled. “You poor thing.”
Harrison nodded. “We’ll start work at once,” he said. “Ideally, we’ll be ready to put forward the impeachment bill by the end of the month. And then . . . we can take the king into custody before he can do something stupid.”
“It might be too late for that,” Duke Rudbek said. “The young fool is losing his mind.”
“But not his cunning,” Peter said warningly. The king had nerve. Even his worst enemies admitted it. “Remember, we only get one shot at this. If we fail, we will be far worse off.”
“And if we succeed, our position will be a great deal stronger,” Rudbek said. “Let’s look on the bright side, shall we?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
* * *
UNCHARTED STAR SYSTEM
William jerked awake, feeling sweat running down his back. He’d been dreaming of home, a home he’d never see again . . . a world that was now covered in radioactive dust. His parents had been there, as had his brother and cousins and . . . He shook his head, wiping the sweat from his brow. A dream. No, a nightmare. He’d known, even as he’d joined them for dinner, that it hadn’t been real. Hebrides was gone. She’d never be made habitable in his lifetime. If anyone tried at all.
His console chimed. “Captain?”
“Go ahead,” William ordered. He sat upright, wondering when his bed had suddenly become so hard. He’d spent years on starships. “I’m listening.”
“The enemy ships appear to be preparing to open vortexes,” Patti said. “We’re quite close to a possible star.”
But we can’t be sure, because of hyperspace, William thought. It wasn’t easy to navigate in hyperspace, not outside the charted regions. The gravitational shadow might be caused by something else.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, reaching for his jacket. “I’m on my way,” he said as he checked the ship’s status. The seven days they’d spent in hyperspace had been largely uneventful. They’d managed to keep shadowing the enemy ships despite a series of evasive maneuvers that had made life more than a little exciting; now, if they were lucky, they were going to see the enemy base. “If they open a vortex, take us out of hyperspace immediately.”
“Aye, sir.”
William splashed water on his face, glanced at his appearance in the mirror, and headed for the hatch. He looked a mess but found it hard to care. Some of his old commanding officers would have made sharp remarks about stubble, yet William had always believed that one had a choice between looking good and being good. Besides, he was the CO. No one would say anything to him if he came onto the bridge looking like he hadn’t shaved for weeks.
He stepped through the hatch and onto the bridge, his eyes searching out the display automatically. The enemy ships were slowing, as if they intended to merely glide back into realspace. That made sense, he supposed. Their energy signature would be smaller, making it harder for them to be detected. Such a move also suggested they weren’t concerned about being ambushed. Either they’d randomized their emergence point or, more likely, they believed there were no hostile ships for light-years around.
“They’re opening a vortex,” Patti said urgently.
“Then take us into realspace,” William said. He sat down, bracing himself. This was the most dangerous part of the mission. Normally, if he’d wanted to sneak into a star system, he would have opened the vortex and emerged on the very edge of the system, well out of detection range. This time, though, they had to stay close to the enemy ships. “And stand by to run for it.”
The ship shuddered as the vortex opened, casting them into realspace. William watched the display blank out, then hastily reboot itself as data flowed into the passive sensors. The star was right where his computers had placed it, a dull red sun of no interest to anyone. He checked the location and nodded to himself. The system would have been way down the list for a formal visit, let alone a survey, even if the war hadn’t continued after the enemy homeworld had been captured.
“Engage the cloak,” William ordered. “And alert me if they start sweeping with active sensors.”
“Aye, sir.”
“The enemy ships are heading towards a collection of asteroids,” Patti reported. “Passive sensors are picking up a handful of other signatures.”
Muffled signatures, William thought. And if that isn’t proof we’ve found a base, I’ll eat my hat.
He hesitated, suddenly unsure what to do. The safest course of action was to sneak out of the system and whistle up a superdreadnought squadron. They could be at the nearest StarCom in less than a day and summon help, or head all the way to Ahura Mazda if he didn’t feel like trusting the communications network. Someone might have betrayed the convoy, after all. But he wanted, needed, to gather as much information as possible. Who knew what might be waiting for the Royal Navy when it arrived?
“Take us after them very slowly,” he ordered. “And don’t let them catch a sniff of us.”
He frowned as the system continued to reveal its secrets. Two superdreadnoughts . . . no, three. But the third looked to be largely powered down. Judging from its energy signature, he doubted it could fly or fight. The Theocrats might simply be cannibalizing the hulk for spare parts. Beyond them, a handful of other ships . . . including a number of freighters. He shuddered, remembering the reports of missing ships. The Theocrats might have been engaged in piracy for fun and profit between hitting planets. Who knew how many ships they’d snatched and taken to their base?
“The base itself looks old,” Patti commented. “They might not have built it.”
William agreed. He’d seen hidden colonies that had been captured by pirates before. The original settlers hadn’t been given a choice, assuming they’d survived either the colony itself or the invasion. The Theocrats had probably stumbled across the asteroids during their period of expansion, captured them, and then simply sliced their existence out of the records when the war ended. Or maybe their existence had never been recorded at all.
“Don’t take us any closer,” he ordered. “But see if you can get a headcount.”
“Yes, sir,” Patti said. “Will the Royal Navy be able to take the base out?”
“Easily,” William said. “If they can kill those superdreadnoughts, the rest of the ships won’t pose a problem.”
And then they can withdraw from the sector with a clear conscience, he added silently. I wonder what that will do for politics on Tyre?
“Asher Dales was defended by two superdreadnoughts?” Admiral Zaskar wasn’t sure he believed the report. “And they drove you away?”
“Yes, sir,” Captain Miles said. He looked as if he was expecting to be executed on the spot. “We thought it would be better to retreat.”
“You were probably right,” Admiral Zaskar said. “We need to preserve our ships.”
He kept his real thoughts to himself as he watched the recording one final time. He had a suspicion that Miles and C
aptain Hammed had been tricked, but he had no solid proof. They certainly hadn’t lingered long enough to see if those superdreadnoughts would actually open fire. The enemy could have been simply incompetent, or messed up the timing, but he doubted it. The Commonwealth had learned from its mistakes. Their ships were no longer sitting around in orbit for him to smash at will.
“Return to your ships and complete your repairs,” he ordered finally. “You’ll be going out again as soon as we obtain new missiles.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They could have pressed the offensive,” Moses said once the two captains had been escorted out of the office. The cleric had been unusually quiet during the debriefing. “If they’d hit Asher Dales . . .”
“It wouldn’t have been worth the cost,” Admiral Zaskar said. Moses might believe that Asher Dales represented a long-term threat, but Zaskar suspected it didn’t matter. They’d done all they could; now, they’d just have to wait and see if the enemy really did abandon the sector. “We couldn’t replace the cruisers.” He leaned back in his chair. “And we’re having problems replacing the missiles too.”
“Askew isn’t able to find new missiles?” Moses looked worried. “None at all?”
“Not so far,” Admiral Zaskar said. “I imagine he’s having problems.”
And he might want to keep us helpless, a voice whispered at the back of his mind. If we’ve served our purpose, he might consider us expendable.
“So . . . when can we resume the offensive?” Moses started to pace the compartment. “And when can we hit them again?”
“For the moment, we should wait and see what happens,” Admiral Zaskar said. “Right now, we are in no state to meet even one of their superdreadnoughts. We need to replace our missiles, repair our ships, and then decide what we want to do next.”
Moses stopped pacing and turned to face him. “And what if we don’t get any more missiles?”
Admiral Zaskar didn’t need to think about his answer. “Then the next enemy ship we encounter will smash us,” he said. A slight exaggeration, but a pardonable one. “We will lose everything.”
He rested his elbows on his chair. “Askew told us that the convoy’s destruction would be enough to make them abandon the sector, allowing us to retake control,” he said. He had his doubts about that too, but he couldn’t say them out loud. “If he’s wrong . . . we need to start considering other options.”
“We have a duty,” Moses insisted. For once, his words lacked conviction. “What if . . .”
Admiral Zaskar cut him off. “We have the tools we need to colonize a whole new world,” he said. “Given time, we could return to the sector and liberate Ahura Mazda from the unbelievers.”
“But . . .” Moses shook his head. “But . . . what if we leave our brothers under enemy rule? What will happen to them?”
“What will happen to them if we get smashed?” Admiral Zaskar tried to sound reassuring and failed. “If we lose our ships, the war is over. We have a duty to survive.”
“And yet, we would be abandoning our brothers,” Moses protested.
“We would have no choice,” Admiral Zaskar said. “If we lose our ships, as I told you, the war is over.”
Moses scowled. “What do you propose?”
“We transfer most of our captured goods into the freighters,” Admiral Zaskar said, as if he hadn’t spent weeks considering the possibilities. “We take everything we can, then destroy the rest. This base gets abandoned, as does Sword of Righteousness. She’s in no state for anything but the scrapyard. The prisoners who refuse to go with us get left behind on the base.”
He nodded towards the starchart. “And then we fly well away from explored space,” he added coolly. “A few hundred light-years ought to be sufficient. We find a suitable world, set up a colony, and rebuild.”
And I’m making it sound easy, he reflected. It was not going to be easy. The task of settling a habitable world would change them, for better or worse. Standards would slip, then be loosened . . . and it would be hard to tighten up again. A very long time will pass before we’re ready to return home, and by then we will no longer be the same.
“And our brothers will be left behind,” Moses said.
“Yes, but they will remain faithful,” Admiral Zaskar lied. Some would, he was sure, but others would abandon the Theocracy without a second thought. “And we will return to save them.”
“As you say,” Moses said. He hesitated, as if he didn’t believe his own words. “God is with us.”
“I’ll start the preparations at once,” Admiral Zaskar said. “We’d need to transfer everything to the freighters anyway, if we were going back home, so we might as well do it now.”
“Very good,” Moses said. “But we will wait to see what happens before we abandon our homeworld for decades.”
Centuries, more like, Admiral Zaskar thought. Human expansion had slowed in the past hundred years or so, after the UN had fallen and Earth had become a dead world, but he had no doubt the Commonwealth would begin expanding again soon. They may stumble across us before we’re ready to encounter them.
He considered, briefly, heading farther away. It seemed a good idea, but he had no idea just how far his ships could go. Their drives had been pushed to the breaking point. A few hundred light-years might be the upper limit, particularly in uncharted space. He really didn’t want to run afoul of a hyperspace storm or something worse.
“We can wait,” he said with the private thought that he could probably rush everyone into leaving once the ships were ready. “But when the time comes, Your Holiness, we will have to leave. And we won’t be able to look back.”
“I understand,” Moses said placidly. “God is with us. He will not let us down.”
“I think we’ve seen everything we can, at least at a distance,” Patti said. She looked up from her console. “There’s no way we can tighten our readings up.”
“Not unless we go closer,” William added. They’d pushed their luck as much as they dared. The enemy wasn’t running active sensor sweeps, but he was fairly sure they’d seeded local space with passive sensor platforms. The slightest hint of his ship’s presence might set off alarms right across the system. “I think it’s time to call for help.”
He studied the enemy superdreadnoughts for a long moment. The enemy crewmen were actually trying to repair the ships, even though they didn’t have a shipyard or even a mobile repair vessel. He would have been impressed, he admitted freely, if he hadn’t been so sure the ships and crewers needed to be destroyed. The Theocrats would return to Asher Dales one final time if Kat Falcone and the Royal Navy didn’t get them first.
And there’s no way to tell if they’ve replenished their missiles or not, he thought. The Theocrats could have been stocking the base for years, although he had to admit the possibility was unlikely. At first, their leadership had never considered that they might lose the war. They might already have rearmed their ships.
“We could put a couple of stealth probes next to their hulls,” Patti suggested. “They’d never see them.”
“Too great a risk,” William said. He had every confidence in stealth technology, but he was also aware of its limitations. They didn’t dare alert the enemy to their presence. “I . . .”
An alarm sounded. “Report!”
Patti checked her console. “A single ship, dropping out of hyperspace,” she said. “Warbook calls it a Class-VI courier.”
“She’s well away from us,” William mused.
Tanya coughed. “Do we know where she came from?”
“Class-VI couriers are used just about everywhere,” William said, understanding the real question. “The Theocrats used them. They’re about as anonymous as you can get. There’s no way to know where she came from or who’s inside without capturing her.”
He looked at Patti. “Take us out of here, as sneakily as possible,” he ordered. “We won’t risk opening a vortex until we’re on the other side of the star. And then we’ll he
ad straight for the nearest StarCom.”
“Aye, sir.”
William leaned back in his chair. In truth, he didn’t know if the StarCom network could be trusted. In hindsight, he and Kat should have set up a code to deceive any unwanted listeners, but it was the only way to summon the fleet quickly. Flying straight to Ahura Mazda would add too much time to the journey. Who knew what mischief the enemy fleet would get up to if left alone for a couple of weeks?
Even if we don’t catch them, we’ll smash their base, he thought. That might just buy us some time.
“Admiral,” Askew said, once he was seated in the office. “I was able to obtain a number of missiles for you.”
Admiral Zaskar glanced at the datapad. “This isn’t enough.”
“Merely getting these was not easy,” Askew said shortly. The agent sat down without being invited. “I got a line on a collection of older missiles, but they wouldn’t meet your standards. The ones en route are the last ones compatible with your systems.”
“It depends on what we’re fighting,” Admiral Zaskar muttered. Older missiles would be useless against the Royal Navy, but they’d be quite effective against pirates, insurrectionists, and tin-pot navies. “When will they arrive?”
“In two weeks,” Askew said. “Things are a little tighter now. The Commonwealth is throwing its weight around.”
And you’re making excuses, Admiral Zaskar thought. Are you telling the truth, or are you setting us up for a fall?
He looked at the chart. “There’s no way I can risk an engagement as long as I don’t have new missiles,” he said, partly to see how Askew would react. “We can keep raiding their shipping, such as it is . . .”
“Insurance rates for this sector have gone through the roof,” Askew said blandly. “It will be a long time before any of the midsized shipping firms clear their people for working here.”
“And the bigger firms have other problems,” Admiral Zaskar said. “What do you want us to do?”
Debt of Honor (The Embers of War) Page 33