“Be seated,” Kat ordered. “What do you have for us?”
William sat, his gaze sweeping the room. Captain Janice Wilson was seated at the table, flanked by two of her underlings; her face was pale, as if she was unsure of just how bad the situation had truly become. General Winters stood behind her at parade rest, but William had no difficulty reading the tension in his body. They were so concerned about what they’d found, he realized numbly, that they’d barely noticed his presence. He had a nasty feeling it was very bad news.
“We searched the disabled superdreadnought thoroughly,” Janice said. She sounded badly shaken. “We didn’t find much until we inspected the weapons bay, where we recovered a missile that had been removed from its launch tube. Their weapons officers believed, apparently, that there was a defect in the drive that meant it couldn’t be fired at an enemy target.”
And they never thought of turning it into a mine, William considered. Did they even know how to remove the warhead or reprogram the seeker head?
Kat nodded, impatiently. “Were they trying to set off the warhead inside the ship?”
“No, Admiral,” Janice said. She took a long breath. “We . . . we discovered that someone had removed the original seeker head and replaced it with . . . ah, with a somewhat improved version. They . . . they took a number of freely available components and rigged them together, following an emergency conversion plan. And . . . and we checked the missile itself.”
She paused. “Admiral . . . the missile’s ID . . . we checked it against our records. And it was captured when we overran the enemy naval base at Galahad.”
William blinked. “I thought the Theocracy’s record keeping was so bad they might well have two or more missiles with the same ID.”
“No, sir,” Janice said. “We logged the ID ourselves when the missiles were captured and secured, then shipped to the dump at Razwhana. Missile production was falling as we retooled for the switch to next-gen missiles, so there was a concern that we might need to modify the enemy missiles and turn them against their former masters. Ah . . . a handful of engineers had quite a few ideas for jury-rigged improvements.”
Kat’s voice was very hard. “And then what? What happened to the missile?”
Janice twisted her hands. “There was some discussion about fitting them to older ships as makeshift convoy escorts, then . . . well, once the war ended, they were eventually slated for destruction. Officially, they were launched into the nearest star. That’s what the records claim, Admiral. But instead they ended up here.”
“. . . Shit,” Kat said. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying? Any idea at all?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Janice said. She made a visible attempt to calm herself. “Someone in the Commonwealth gave them back to the Theocrats.”
“Not someone in the Commonwealth,” Kat said. “Someone embedded within the Royal Navy.”
William felt his heart start to pound. “It might not be someone very high up,” he pointed out carefully. “A supply clerk at a place like Razwhana might well be able to cook the books without cover from someone further up the chain. Did anyone bother to verify that the missiles were actually destroyed?”
“Except someone backed Admiral Morrison, and then killed him,” Kat reminded him. “This is a little more serious than selling the missiles to pirates! How would a mere supply clerk even be able to locate the Theocrats? We only stumbled across them by sheer luck!”
“True,” William conceded after a moment. He had no doubt that a clerk could have had the missiles shipped to a designated location, then screwed around with the paperwork to make it appear that the missiles had been destroyed instead. And yet, making contact with the Theocrats would have been damn near impossible. There had to be more than one person involved. “What else did they get?”
“The conversion plan came out of an emergency engineering study,” Janice said after a moment. “The components involved are all off-the-shelf, dual-use civilian stuff, but . . . putting them together would require a lot of trained engineers. I don’t think the Theocrats did it themselves.”
“They had help,” Kat said. “Who? And why?”
“I don’t know,” Janice said. “Razwhana Depot was shut down shortly after the war. The records state that the vast majority of captured supplies were either destroyed or reprocessed for scrap. We couldn’t give the captured spare parts away. The crew were reassigned and . . . well, I don’t know what happened to them. They’ll have to be tracked down.”
“There must be records,” William protested.
“I’m sure there are,” Janice agreed. “But I don’t have access to them. We’ll have to submit a formal request to Tyre, then get the CBI involved. Whoever did this is an outright traitor.”
“It will get political,” General Winters rumbled.
Kat looked around the table. “Who benefits from killing millions of people?”
“You can justify anything if you try hard enough,” Janice said cynically. “A million lives? It’s so unimaginably huge that it’s just a statistic. No one can grasp the sheer size of a million lives. They’re just . . . numbers.”
“They have lives.” William’s voice was icy. “They were born, they grew up, they had lovers and children and ups and downs . . . and then they died. They’re not just numbers.”
“Yes,” Janice said. “But how can we grasp a million individual lives?”
William felt sick. He knew, from growing up on a harsh world, that sometimes one did have to make hard decisions when a community’s survival hung in the balance. Yes, there were times when someone had to be left to die because keeping them alive would cost the community dearly. The cold equations demanded it. But cold calculation didn’t make such decisions any easier to bear. A plan that required the cool sacrifice of millions of lives was truly horrific. Whoever was behind it was a monster.
“We can’t,” Kat said quietly. “Janice . . . what other evidence have you found?”
“Very little, so far,” Janice said. “But there’s a piece of circumstantial evidence that may, in its own way, be more alarming. The enemy CIC was destroyed, utterly. My experts say the blast was roughly comparable to an implant’s self-destruct.”
William frowned. “What . . . ?”
“A handful of Special Forces troopers are heavily enhanced to allow them to perform otherwise impossible missions,” General Winters said. “Their implants are designed to self-destruct if the trooper is captured. The blast is powerful enough to literally vaporize the trooper’s entire body, to the point where even DNA samples cannot be recovered. Anyone standing within ten meters would almost certainly be killed by the blast.”
“I didn’t know that,” William said.
“It is not commonly advertised,” Janice said. “But the experts believe that such a device, or something comparable, detonated inside that superdreadnought.”
“So the Theocrats had help,” Kat said. “Someone from the Commonwealth.” She took a long breath. “Continue to gather information,” she ordered. “Interrogate the prisoners, find out if any of them know anything useful; search the asteroids and the remaining ships from top to bottom, looking for clues. And do not, and I mean do not, share this any further. I’m going to have to take it to the king personally.”
William frowned. “Just the king?”
“And the Grand Admiral,” Kat said. “And”—she ran her hand through her hair—“I don’t know, William. My father believed that someone very high up betrayed us, back when the war began. Right now, I don’t know who we can trust. Any investigation into this affair is going to have to be conducted very quietly.”
And quiet is one word that cannot be applied to the king, William thought grimly. What happens if he starts shouting the news from the rooftops?
“I believe this is something I have a duty to report to my superiors,” Janice said carefully. “Admiral, I . . .”
“You will not discuss it with anyone until I’ve spoken directly to the
king,” Kat said. “That is an order, Captain, which you may have in writing if you wish.”
She might need it in writing, William thought, concealing his wince. Janice will wind up in real trouble if her superiors accuse her of withholding vital information.
“Yes, Admiral,” Janice said.
Kat stood. “I’ll make contact now,” she said. “Until we have clear orders, continue the investigation. If there are any more clues here, waiting to be found, I want them found.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Winters said. He cleared his throat. “Ah . . . what about Commodore McElney?”
William met his eyes, evenly. “I do know how to keep secrets, General.”
“He does,” Kat said. She smiled, just for a second. It made her look young again. “But William, you’ll have to stay here for the moment. We could probably send Dandelion home now, if you wish.”
“I probably should,” William said. Neither Tanya nor her father were going to be happy, particularly if William couldn’t return to Asher Dales. “And if the king wants me to stay here, that is what I will do.”
Kat felt her insides churning uncomfortably as she made the walk from the conference room to her cabin, the sensation reminding her of the times when she’d been summoned to her father’s study as a young girl to explain the sort of misbehavior that couldn’t be handled by her nannies or the governess. She’d never been quite sure what to expect when she knocked on Duke Falcone’s door: a kind and caring father who’d understood his youngest daughter more than she’d realized at the time, or a stern patriarch who was irritated at having to take time away from important matters to deal with a little brat. Now . . . now she wasn’t sure what to expect either. Who knew how the king would react?
He won’t be pleased to hear this, she thought. She doubted the political problems on Tyre had gotten any better in the time she’d spent in transit. But he has to hear it anyway.
She walked into her cabin, keyed her terminal for a direct link to the StarCom, and through the StarCom to Tyre, and sat down. Her father had believed that someone had been Admiral Morrison’s patron, and that someone had taken steps to make sure they were never identified, but he’d never quite figured out why. Had they been trying to cover up their mistake in pushing Admiral Morrison into a post that had proved disastrous? Or had they genuinely intended to sell out the Commonwealth to the Theocracy? Kat had seen enough of the Theocracy to know that they wouldn’t hesitate to liquidate the former ruling class if they’d won the war, but someone back on Tyre might not have believed it. Or . . . She shook her head. Who had backed Morrison and why was a question that someone else would have to answer.
Someone would need to have a motive to start a war, she thought. But that would be utterly insane.
The king’s face appeared on the display. “Good morning, Kat,” he said. He sounded vaguely irritated. “I trust you have a good reason for summoning the Grand Admiral and myself from an important conference?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Kat said. She glanced at the stream of details under the display. It was morning on Tyre, wasn’t it? She’d been on Ahura Mazda time for months. “The good news is that we found and destroyed the Theocratic fleet.”
The king’s eyes darkened. “And the bad news?”
“We’ve discovered evidence that they were backed by someone in the Commonwealth,” Kat said. “And that person would have to be very high up.”
Her mind raced. How many people had that sort of power? Any of the dukes could have done it, with a little care; they could have funded the entire enemy fleet out of pocket change and used their facilities to produce spare parts.
But they’d get nothing out of it, she thought as she outlined the remainder of the story. Were they being blackmailed? Had Admiral Morrison genuinely been a Theocratic spy? Or . . . She gritted her teeth. Nothing about the affair made sense, which meant she was missing something. I might not be able to see how any traitor might benefit, but the king or the Grand Admiral might have some ideas.
“I see,” the king said slowly. His face was very composed. “Do you have any solid proof?”
“We have proof that missiles we captured were returned to the Theocracy and used against us,” Kat said, firmly. The records would have to be checked carefully, but she knew in her heart that Janice was right. “And that means that we were betrayed.”
“Again,” the king said. “There are certainly quite a few people who would go to extreme lengths to force us to withdraw from the sector.”
Kat didn’t doubt it. A year of battling to retain enough ships to provide the liberated worlds with at least some degree of protection had soured her on Parliament. She couldn’t understand why her brother, as stiff-necked as he’d been when she was a child, didn’t see that the sector needed protection. Hopefully, now that the Theocratic Navy had been destroyed for good, things would start to calm down. There would be no need to deploy superdreadnoughts. Perhaps they could work out a compromise that kept smaller vessels rotating through the sector.
Peter wouldn’t sentence millions of people to death, she thought. She was fairly sure of that, no matter how irritating her brother could be. But there are dukes and duchesses who would do whatever it took to improve their bottom line.
“Thank you for bringing this to me,” the king said. “How long do you think you’ll need to complete your investigation of the asteroid base?”
“The preliminary investigation should be completed in a day or two,” Kat said after a moment’s thought. She’d seen asteroids searched before, and this one didn’t look particularly unusual. “A more thorough search will take months.”
The king nodded. “Very good,” he said. “Once that preliminary investigation is over, you are to bring your fleet back to Tyre. Do not return to Ahura Mazda. Just head straight for the Gap and return home. Maintain strict communications silence. I also . . .”
Kat blinked. “Your Majesty?”
“It’s impossible to tell who to trust these days,” the king said. “I have a feeling that whoever is behind this, whoever it is, will do something stupidly violent. There are already mutterings in the hallways of power about something truly important being planned. I’d like to have people I can trust on hand in case the shit hits the fan.”
Kat swallowed, hard. It wasn’t obvious, certainly not to an outside observer, but a high-ranking nobleman had considerable resources. A ducal family owned everything from actual warships to clients in high places. Someone who decided to cause trouble could cause a hell of a lot of trouble, particularly if their actions came out of nowhere. And whoever was behind the scheme to keep the sector unstable, whatever they thought they stood to gain, had nothing to lose.
Particularly if they think they can seize enough of the levers of power to overawe any potential opposition, she thought. Someone who captured Tyre’s high orbitals and the orbiting battlestations would be in a position to dictate terms to the planet. And it might just be doable.
“I can’t believe we’re discussing . . . this,” she said. Her father would never have let it happen. “Your Majesty . . .”
“Things have changed while you’ve been away,” the king said. “Politics have gotten nastier, Kat. There’s a subtle war underway for control of the planetary defenses . . . as well as everything else. Clients are being swapped out at a moment’s notice. We might need a fighting force we can trust.”
“I understand, Your Majesty,” she said. Her throat was suddenly treacherously dry. “I won’t let you down.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
* * *
TYRE
“That’s another black-ops facility, Your Grace,” Alexander Masterly said. “We were only able to obtain the project’s codename: Hyperion.”
Peter frowned. He’d ordered Masterly and Masterly and a few other agents to work on tracing the missing funds. It hadn’t been an easy task. Some of the money seemed to have been diverted to pork projects—spaceports on isolated worlds, long-term industrial develo
pment programs—while the rest had either been blurred into the general military fund or earmarked for classified programs. It was hard to tell what had really been going on during the war.
Father must have known where the money was going, Peter told himself. But why didn’t he keep better records?
“I see,” he said. The king had to have kept proper records. If nothing else, he’d need to know where the money was going. Peter’s father had often remarked that lying was bad enough, but not keeping track of your own lies was worse. “Make a note of it for later attention.”
“Yes, sir,” Alexander said.
Peter keyed his datapad, studying the latest developments. The bill to impeach the king hadn’t been made public, yet, but everyone who was anyone knew that something was in the works. There were few true secrets in High Society. It was hard—almost impossible—to say which way everyone would jump. The Opposition wasn’t sure of enough votes, yet, to press for impeachment, while the king presumably didn’t have enough votes to make a show of strength. Peter found that reassuring and worrying at the same time. On one hand, if the king could defeat the bill before it was even read, he’d have done it by now; on the other, if the king felt insecure, he might do something drastic.
And the situation on the streets is getting worse, Peter thought. Who knows where it will all end?
He shook his head. The combination of the convoy’s destruction and wave after wave of unemployment had proved disastrous. Violent crime, including attacks on immigrants and tourists, was on the rise, while his security staff were logging thousands of threats against him each day. Most of them would be nothing more than loudmouths relieving their feelings by sending threatening messages, but they all had to be investigated. Peter had doubled the security around the mansion and everywhere else of importance, as had everyone else, including the king. But there were limits to how much they could do.
Debt of Honor (The Embers of War) Page 36