Rose frowned. “Do you think the Theocracy will destroy Hebrides?”
Kat felt a sudden flicker of sympathy for the older woman. Tyre had been attacked, but the attacks had been comparatively minor: a handful of commando attacks, viruses inserted into computer systems, and a couple of bombings. Hebrides, on the other hand, had been invaded and occupied, with the Theocracy crushing all resistance from orbit. It was quite likely the enemy would scorch captured worlds, if there was a strong chance of them being liberated, if only to force the Commonwealth to choose between letting the worlds burn and leaving them in enemy hands.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know that leaving the captured worlds in enemy hands will be just as destructive.”
Kat sighed. “It’s easy to make these choices from a distance, from a detached perspective,” she added. “But when it comes to reality . . . the choices we make have consequences.”
“They always do,” Rose agreed. She looked down at the deck for a long moment, then back at Kat. “Do you feel the Commonwealth always makes wise decisions?”
“I think it has a habit of making the best decision it can, at the time,” Kat said. “And sometimes those decisions cause problems, which have to be solved, but those solutions tend to cause other problems . . . and so on, and so on.”
Rose smiled. “Like fighting the war?”
“It takes two people to stop a war, but only one to start it,” Kat said. “The Theocracy was gobbling up worlds for decades before we even knew it had survived the Breakdown, let alone started an advance towards us. I don’t think we had much of a choice, but to prepare for war. The refugees alone should have warned us the enemy was far from friendly.”
“They did,” Rose said. She frowned tightly. “What happened at Cadiz?”
Kat hesitated, suddenly aware of dangerous waters surrounding her. The truth—that Admiral Morrison had been an idiot—wasn’t very well known, not when it might have demoralized the Commonwealth at the worst possible moment. But no one could look at the facts, even the handful of elements in the public domain, and think that someone hadn’t blundered. In the long term, the truth would come out and, when it did, it would be devastating.
“We were caught by surprise,” she said. She normally used a cruder expression, but there was something about Rose that made it hard to swear in front of her. “And they drove us away from the planet.”
Kat shrugged, then nodded to the display. “We will have to leave here too,” she added, warningly. “But we will return.”
* * * * *
“This is supposed to be home,” Jean-Luc protested. He’d been born in Filose City. His parents had met in the city, they’d married in the city, and they’d raised three children in the city. It hadn’t been a bad place to grow up either, until the Theocracy had arrived. After that . . . it might have been a nightmare, but it was still largely intact. Now, large parts of Filose were in ruins, hundreds of buildings were nothing more than piles of rubble, and there was a giant crater in the heart of the city where the Theocracy had established their government base.
And there were bodies everywhere.
He shuddered as he stared down at the corpses. Many of them were enemy soldiers or clerics—their captors had been very inventive in devising unpleasant ways for them to die—but countless others were civilians: men, women, and children who’d fallen on their enemies, no longer scared to raise a hand against them. A young man lay on the ground, his head gone; beside him, a young woman had bled to death from three bullet wounds in her chest . . . he swallowed hard, barely able to keep his gorge from rising as he saw the remains of a child lying on the ground. The corpse was so mutilated that he honestly couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. Probably a boy, he told himself, although he could have been wrong. Most families had learned, very quickly, to keep their young women indoors at all times.
Because otherwise they might be raped, he thought, feeling bitter hatred curdling in his heart. It would remind them of their place, they were told, if they were caught outside by the janissaries . . .
He peered into the distance, trying to match the ruined city with the mental image he’d clung to for a year. The Black Tower had been there, he thought—the home of the city’s military commander. Rumor had it that he’d committed the most awful crimes; he’d raped and killed hundreds of people personally, just to satisfy his hellish lusts. Jean-Luc had no idea how many of the rumors were true, if any of them were true, but no one had dared go near the Black Tower. Anyone who went inside as a prisoner was never seen again.
And they claimed to be telling us the true way to live, he thought. The religious classes had been hard, with whippings for anyone who forgot even a single word. And the mere accusation of heresy could kill. We lived in fear, and hatred, and desperation.
He looked back at Perrier. “Sir?”
“Most of the remaining civilians have headed for the hills,” Perrier said. His face was bleak; he’d been away for five years, not one. To him, the devastation had to seem far worse. “We’ll be falling back to join them there.”
“As you wish,” Jean-Luc said. There was no point in staying. He’d hoped to find traces of his relatives, even though his immediate family was dead, but it was clearly futile. The city was too badly damaged for anyone to remain, unless they were capable of finding food and drink among the wreckage. “How . . . how many people do you think died here?”
Perrier shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t care to guess,” he said. He studied the bodies for a chilling moment, then looked up. “How many people lived here before you were captured?”
Jean-Luc frowned, trying to recall if he’d ever been told. “At least a few hundred thousand,” he said, finally. Filose hadn’t had the population density of Cherbourg or New Paris, but it had been a reasonably large city. “They can’t all be dead.”
“Maybe.” Perrier continued to gaze at the wreckage and the bodies. “People taken off the streets and shot for looking suspicious, people pressganged into worker teams, people moved into controlled environments to make it harder for the resistance to influence them . . . people killed in the final moments when the rocks rained from overhead and the population went mad. And everyone who survived might be heading for the hills.”
“Where there won’t be enough food,” Jean-Luc said. He stared into the distance. A plume of smoke was rising from a former enemy base. The nasty part of his mind hoped the enemy soldiers had lasted long enough to be brutally murdered by their former victims. “They won’t last the winter.”
“The ration packs are being dropped to us,” Perrier reminded him. “And we will have a chance to set up new base camps before the enemy return. They’ll probably focus their attention on the larger cities. There are more human resources there.”
Jean-Luc nodded. “Now what?”
Perrier rubbed his hands together. “Now we go to ground,” he said. “Let them return, let them get complacent, and then we will come out of the hills.”
* * * * *
“They want what?”
“A number of the collaborators started signaling for help,” Davidson said, “offering everything they knew in exchange for a ticket off the planet. What do we do with them?”
William sighed. “Captain Falcone is getting some long overdue sleep,” he said. He resisted the temptation to add alone to the statement.
They had to know he’d noticed they’d shared a cabin from time to time, even though it was technically against regulations. It didn’t seem to be interfering with their duties, so he wasn’t inclined to make a fuss about it. “Do they know anything useful?”
“They certainly know a great deal about how the Theocracy treats the conquered populations,” Davidson said. “However, they’re reluctant to say anything else without guarantees. They want us to lift them out before their fellows capture them or the Theocracy returns.”
“Because both of them will kill the assholes, either for collaborating or failure,” Willi
am said curtly. Were there any collaborators on Hebrides? Patriotism told him no, but cold logic suggested otherwise. There had been collaborators on Cadiz, despite the occupation force’s general incompetence; there was always someone who wanted power, or revenge, or safety . . . or merely enough cash to be able to relax for the rest of his life. “Are they worth taking?”
“I don’t think so,” Davidson said. “But if we allow a massacre, it could have political implications.”
“They’ll be less willing to surrender to us later,” William muttered. “And people will say we allowed, even encouraged, the slaughter.” He shook his head. “Tell them that if they surrender to us, we’ll take them—but only if they cooperate completely without any attempt to lie to us,” he said firmly. “If they are caught out, the deal is off and they will be treated as collaborators.”
Davidson frowned. “You do realize that some of these individuals are guilty of the most awful crimes?”
William glowered at him. “Do you have a better suggestion? We either take them now, which will at least allow us to drain them of useful intelligence, or leave them to be slaughtered. I don’t see any alternative.”
“Me neither,” Davidson admitted. “But it will seriously piss off the resistance.”
“We can drop them on a penal world,” William suggested. “It wouldn’t be much of a problem for us, even if it’s one of our hellholes rather than an enemy penal camp we liberate. If they’re guilty of more than just trying to keep their families alive . . . well, we can punish them ourselves.”
He looked at the display for a long moment. “And I think the captain will say the same,” he added. “There’s a time for emotional reactions and a time for pragmatism.”
“I hope you’re right,” Davidson said. “But this looks very much like a no-win situation to me.”
William shrugged. “It always was,” he said. “Because when the enemy arrives, we’re going to have to put our tail between our legs and run.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Admiral?”
Admiral Junayd jerked awake, muttering curses under his breath. “What?”
“This is Ali, in Tracking,” a voice said. He sounded alarmed. “A courier boat just jumped in from Verdean. The system is under attack!”
“Sound a general alert,” Admiral Junayd ordered. He swung his legs out of bed, then stood. “Get me a tactical download as soon as possible.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Ali said. There was a pause while Admiral Junayd grabbed his trousers and jacket, pulling them on over his underclothes. “Tactical download available now.”
“Route it to my terminal,” Admiral Junayd ordered. “And then copy it to my staff.”
He frowned as the terminal lit up. A fleet—no, a small squadron— of starships had entered the Verdean System and engaged the orbital defenses, blowing them into flaming debris before they could either repel the attackers or turn their firepower on the planet below. By the time the watchdog jumped out, heading for Aswan, the defenses were in tatters and the planet was sure to fall, either to the newcomers or the local resistance. The final emergency report suggested that several other locations within the system were also under attack.
This squadron may have captured or destroyed the convoy, he thought as he watched the download for the second time. The watchdog’s sensors weren’t up to scratch—no one had considered the Verdean System important enough to receive a modern ship—but they had picked up enough detail for him to make educated guesses about the attackers. And then they headed directly to Verdean . . .
He paused. No, the timing doesn’t work out, he told himself. They went somewhere else first, somewhere . . . but where? Unless they were just scouting for potential targets.
“Inform my staff,” he ordered. “The 23rd Superdreadnought Squadron is to ready itself for immediate departure. I shall be shuttling over in”—he glanced at the chronometer—“twenty minutes. Commodore Malian will remain in command of the base.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Ali said.
“And order Commodore Malian, Captain Haran, and Cleric Peter to meet me in my office in five minutes,” he added. His steward appeared from a side door, carrying a large mug of coffee and a tray of biscuits. “They are not to be late.”
The coffee was scorching hot, but he drank it anyway, nibbling on a couple of biscuits as he walked through the corridors to his office. He’d had time, thankfully, to replace the comfortable furniture with something more befitting a Theocracy commander, although traces of the office’s former owner could still be seen if one looked carefully. Thankfully, Peter—his cleric—was so depressed over his assignment that he spent most of his time in his quarters rather than making a nuisance of himself. Admiral Junayd had a sneaking suspicion he was actually bending the rules in other ways, but so far he had no proof. If he had something he could hold over the cleric’s head . . .
He smiled at the thought as he stepped into the office and took his seat behind the desk. A large star chart was already showing the distance between Aswan and Verdean, reminding him that it would take at least two days to get the superdreadnoughts to Verdean, even if they pushed their drives to the limit. Admiral Junayd wouldn’t have cared to risk it, not given the near-complete lack of maintenance, but there was no choice. He couldn’t leave an enemy force in possession of an occupied system for long.
“Admiral,” Malian said. “Is it wise for you to take command of the squadron yourself?”
“I have more recent combat experience,” Admiral Junayd said shortly. It was true—and besides, the thought of staying on the station was driving him mad. “It isn’t up for debate.”
He nodded to the commodore as Captain Haran, his chief of staff, and the cleric hurried into the room. The captain looked alarmingly efficient, as always, but the cleric looked as if he had been woken from a very sound sleep. There would be a chance for him to catch up on his sleep once they were on the superdreadnought, he was sure; besides, it would keep the cleric from poking around on the naval base while he was gone.
“I will take command and lead the superdreadnoughts to Verdean,” he said in tones that brooked no dissent. “Commodore Malian, you will assume command of the base in my absence; whatever happens, do not send away the second squadron of superdreadnoughts. The attack may be a diversion to convince us to weaken our defenses here.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Malian said.
“Transmit a signal to home, informing them of the attack and that a squadron of enemy ships is loose in our rear,” Admiral Junayd added. “Request both reinforcements and personnel to turn this base into something more useful. Warn them that Verdean’s industrial base will be destroyed, if it hasn’t been already. We may expect fuel shortfalls in this sector at the very least.”
He looked at the cleric. “You and the captain will accompany me,” he added. “I expect you to spend your time ministering to the ship’s crew and praying to God that we manage to trap the enemy before they can retreat.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Peter said. He seemed to lack the fanatical mien of most clerics, somewhat to Admiral Junayd’s relief. A fanatic would be a major headache, questioning everything at precisely the wrong time. “I will accompany you.”
“Good,” Admiral Junayd said. He rose to his feet. “Commodore, the station is yours. Try not to let it be attacked before I return.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Malian said.
Admiral Junayd smiled, then headed for the shuttlebay, his two officers following in his wake. The rest of his staff would already be on their way; once they arrived, they would start running through tactical simulations. Admiral Junayd had a feeling they were wasting their time—nothing short of a squadron of superdreadnoughts would try to stand up to his squadron of superdreadnoughts—but it didn’t matter. He would show his zeal in responding to any threat to his command— and also give his crews some much-needed training before they had to cope with a real threat. Commodore Malian and his officers had let standards slip way too far.
Two days to get there, he thought. Two days for the enemy to wreak havoc, then retreat before we can arrive. They won’t stick around and wait for us.
* * * * *
“They’ll be here at any moment,” the XO said. Kat nodded. The timer had reached zero thirty minutes ago, warning her that she could expect an enemy fleet to arrive soon. It was possible, she had to admit, that something had happened to the enemy messenger, but she dared not count on it. There were too many things that could go wrong if she started assuming the best, rather than preparing for the worst.
She glanced at him. “Have the shuttles returned from the surface?”
“Yes, Captain,” the XO said. “We have the prisoners, and the volunteers, and the workers on the ships.”
“Then order the rest of the squadron to slip into hyperspace and head to the RV point,” Kat ordered. “Inform Captain Millikan that he is to send the freighters back through the Reach, then give us five days. If we fail to return, he is to declare himself commodore, open the sealed orders in his safe, and then proceed as he sees fit.”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said.
Kat swallowed, feeling a lump settling in her stomach. Standing here, just waiting for the enemy to attack . . . she hadn’t felt so vulnerable since the hasty return to Cadiz, after her cross-border mission. She’d known that the enemy superdreadnoughts were on the way; now, she knew the Theocracy would be straining every sinew to get a fleet out to Verdean before she could escape. And, unless she wanted to jump out now and abandon the system, she could do nothing but wait.
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