Barbarians at the Gates

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Marius replied. “Did he say what it was about?”

  “No, sir,” Raistlin said. “He specified that it was for your ears only.”

  “Right,” Marius said. “Tell him to come aboard. I’ll see him in thirty minutes.”

  * * *

  Roman had lost his parents before he reached his majority and, like all parentless RockRats, had been sent to live with relatives. His uncle had taken him in and tried to fill the void in Roman’s life, although the old man hadn’t been in the best of states to take care of a teenager. Despite that, the young Roman had dreaded having to face him when he knew that he was in trouble.

  He felt that way now. It was his duty to face the admiral, to tell him how they could approach Admiral Justinian, and yet...it might be the last act of Roman’s career.

  The hatch opened in front of him and he stepped into the admiral’s quarters. A glowing star chart caught his attention at once, but he looked away from it to see the admiral sitting behind his desk. He didn’t look forgiving.

  Part of Roman quailed, yet he kept walking until he was in front of the desk. He snapped a perfect salute.

  “At ease,” Admiral Drake growled. “Take a seat. What was so important that you insisted on a personal meeting?”

  Roman sat down and pressed his hands tightly together to keep them from shaking.

  “I saw your orders, sir,” he said. “You want us to take Captain Bowery back to Harmony and get her to convince Admiral Justinian to surrender...”

  “Yes,” Admiral Drake said. It was not a question.

  “It may not prove convincing,” Roman said. “He may feel that she has been subverted, or threatened, or maybe have even changed her coat. Is he going to be willing to listen to her?”

  “I have no one else to send,” Admiral Drake said dryly.

  “That isn’t true, sir,” Roman said. “There is one other person he’ll listen to.”

  Admiral Drake looked up. “And do you have a secret connection with him that passed unnoticed for five years?”

  “No, sir,” Roman said. “I have his daughter.”

  There was a long, uneasy silence.

  “I think you’d better start at the beginning,” Admiral Drake said, carefully. “And I suggest that you make it extremely good.”

  Roman outlined the full story, starting with the discovery of the wreck of the Harmonious Repose and ending with his decision to keep Henrietta confined on Midway rather than hand her over to the tender mercies of the Senate. Admiral Drake listened, his face showing no expression, as Roman explained that Admiral Justinian would be bound to listen to his daughter. The mere fact that she was still alive, without having been executed by the Senate or killed by pirates, would be very convincing. It would be a gesture of good faith.

  “You know, captain,” Admiral Drake said, when Roman had finished, “I cannot decide if I should promote you, or send you up for court martial.”

  Roman kept his mouth shut, figuring that anything he said now would only get him in further trouble.

  “You disobeyed orders that came directly from the Senate,” Admiral Drake said, as if he were building a list of charges. “You kept someone prisoner without reporting her presence to higher authority. You wasted Federation Navy resources on looking after the prisoner...should I go on?”

  “No, sir,” Roman said.

  “On the other hand, you’re quite right,” Admiral Drake continued.

  Roman breathed a sigh of relief.

  “His daughter would be a much more effective peace envoy than his flag captain,” Drake said. “So...I guess I’ll just have to thank you for your foresight and, in the interests of balance, cancel both the promotion and the court martial.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Roman said.

  “Which doesn’t mean,” Admiral Drake said in a suspiciously pleasant voice, “that you are to go and do it again. I’m going to have to shield you from the commissioners and come up with some bullshit story about how we captured her. Do not put me in a position like that again, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Roman said.

  “Return to your ship,” Admiral Drake ordered. “Prepare for the mission; brief the admiral’s daughter and make sure she knows what’s expected of her. And captain?”

  Roman looked up nervously.

  “Good work.”

  * * *

  Marius watched the hatch close behind Captain Garibaldi before he broke down in helpless laughter. The sheer audacity of capturing the enemy’s daughter and keeping her prisoner, without telling anyone...he chuckled again while shaking his head. Captain Garibaldi’s luck still held strong. Who knows? Perhaps he could end the war without any more fighting.

  Still chuckling, he turned back to his console and started to update the operations chart. The fleet needed to move within a day so they’d be in position to support Midway if Admiral Justinian turned nasty, and there was too much work to do.

  He almost missed Tiffany’s entry into the room; only the smell of her perfume alerted him to her presence. He turned to greet her, but she ran into his arms before he’d gotten out a single syllable. Then, she kissed him…his arms went reflexively around her, and for a time, nothing else mattered. Finally they broke for air.

  “Do you think Admiral Justinian will surrender?” she wondered. “I mean...he doesn’t have any chance of victory, does he?”

  “I don’t think so,” Marius said, answering the second question first. “Actually, the worst thing he could do from my perspective is to flee into interstellar space and head to the Rim. We’d never be sure we’d got him. And if he stumbled across an Outsider world and offered to share technology, he could create a whole new threat to the Federation.”

  The reports he’d seen from ONI tended to confirm his pessimistic feelings about the Outsiders. Something was clearly up beyond the Rim, something that threatened the entire Federation. And here they were, wrapped up in a squalid little civil war.

  “Marius, what are you thinking?” his wife asked.

  “If he doesn’t surrender, we can take out Harmony and then spend a year mopping up,” he said slowly. “And if he does, the war is over and all we have to do is deal with the minor warlords.”

  “Yeah,” Tiffany said. Her voice sharpened, a legacy of her time in High Society. “Tell me something.”

  “Sure,” Marius replied.

  “You’re saying that Admiral Justinian has lost the war. But does he know that?”

  “He should,” Marius said. “No professional admiral worth his salt could still believe that he had any chance at ultimate victory in his position.”

  * * *

  Admiral Justinian had spent the trip from Lombardi to Harmony considering the virtues of suicide. He’d expected to die in battle, not to have his closest ally stun him and dump him into a shuttle so he could escape, even though it had saved his life. It had taken a day to get rid of the headache that had burned through his skull, and another day to overcome the depression that followed. Afterward, he’d been able to make some plans, although the truth was that he had no idea what to do. Harmony was strongly held, but most of his fleet had been crushed. He doubted the Federation would give him time to rebuild.

  With no other choice, he plunged himself into issuing orders as soon as the Apollo returned to normal space, just outside the Harmony mass limit. As the battlecruiser plunged farther into the system, he was gratified to see his subordinates working on defense and repairing the damaged ships. Best of all, Harmony operated a large starfighter plant and could turn out new starfighters and gunboats on very short notice. Training up the pilots was harder—especially as the training course would have to be updated to account for the damned antifighter cruisers—but if he had a few weeks, he’d be able to give a good account of himself.

  He was still contemplating it when a courier boat transited the Jefferson Asimov Point and transmitted an urgent message for him personally. As soon as he saw the re
cording, he called a meeting of his subordinates.

  * * *

  “These recordings were taken by a scout ship I dispatched to Bester,” he said before displaying them on the main screen. Some of his subordinates had been quietly muttering about making contact with the Federation—with or without their command—and seeing if they could cut a deal. “The news is not good.”

  His subordinates watched the dispatch in silence. They saw how the Federation Navy had secured Bester and then departed up the Asimov Chain to Sphinx, followed by the Internal Security operations on the planet’s surface. The bloody massacre of the surrendered personnel and the brutal crushing of the early uprisings against Federation control played out in front of them, a mocking reminder that they’d be fools to trust any promise made by the Senate.

  He knew Caitlin hadn’t known about it when she’d surrendered. She might be dead now.

  “Some of you have been considering that it might be best to try to negotiate with the Federation,” he said flatly.

  No one bothered to dispute it.

  “As you can see, the Federation took the surrenders, promised good treatment...and then slaughtered the surrendered personnel in cold blood. That was no accident, my friends; that was cold-blooded murder. The Federation killed men it had promised to spare, along with their families and children!”

  He looked around the compartment, his eyes moving from face to face.

  “That is the fate that is in store for us when they arrive,” he pointed out. “If we surrender, they will kill us and our families once we are helpless. That’s why I will not surrender to the Federation Navy, not now, not ever. And if any of you want to surrender, you can move to Jefferson and wait for them to capture you.”

  No one said anything at all.

  Admiral Justinian took a deep breath.

  “We may not be able to stop them from killing us,” he concluded, “but by God, we can make them hurt!”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  An ambush at point-blank range is nearly impossible to survive.

  -Observations on Military Tactics, 3500 A.D.

  Harmony System, 4097

  “Crossing the mass limit now, sir,” the helmsman said.

  “Transmit our IFF codes and the admiral’s message,” Roman ordered. “Notify me the moment he replies.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the communications officer said.

  Roman felt exposed as Midway flew deeper into the Harmony System, even though he knew the remainder of the Grand Fleet would be coming in behind him. Still, if Admiral Justinian decided to fight to the last, Midway would be almost completely on her own.

  Four hours ticked by as they advanced into the system.

  Roman ordered the launch of stealth recon drones, which would allow them to develop an outline of the system. What they picked up wasn’t encouraging. As the Sector Capital, Harmony had been heavily industrialized before the war, but Admiral Justinian’s men had clearly been busy. Harmony’s current level of industry now ranked with Kennedy or Roosevelt; given a few more years it might match Earth. Worse yet, the planet itself was heavily defended. That wasn’t a surprise, but Roman had still been hoping for a bit less in the way of fortifications.

  Roman knew it would be difficult for the Grand Fleet to take the system by force.

  “Captain, I am picking up a message,” the communications officer said, finally. “They’re welcoming us to the system and requesting that we rendezvous with their fleet so the admiral’s representatives can be transferred to meet with the admiral.”

  Roman nodded slowly. There was no hope of a two-way conversation at this distance and no real hope of convincing Admiral Justinian to board his ship instead. He consoled himself by thinking, At least Admiral Drake’s wife isn’t in danger this time.

  Besides, even if it was a trap, it would only close around Midway. The remainder of the Grand Fleet was too far out of range.

  “Transmit back an acknowledgement,” he said. The feeling of being exposed was growing stronger. The IFF signal they were pulsing out would allow them to be tracked by passive sensors alone, which meant that anyone lying in wait would be able to target his ship without any betraying emissions. “Inform them that we will rendezvous with their fleet in—” he checked his console “—two hours and thirty minutes.”

  He felt no calmer when Midway finally slowed near Justinian’s fleet. It wasn’t a particularly large fleet, but it still possessed more than enough firepower to reduce Midway to atoms. Nine superdreadnaughts—two of them clearly damaged—five battlecruisers and twenty-seven smaller ships, surrounded by a cloud of starfighters. It wasn’t an insignificant force, not on the pre-war scale, but the Grand Fleet would destroy it in short order if it had the chance. Roman was mildly surprised that the admiral hadn’t insisted on meeting on or near Harmony itself—as they had anticipated—and had been preparing to argue that point when it had been rendered moot. He tried to tell himself that was a good thing.

  “Hold us here,” he ordered. They were well within shuttle range, but at the absolute edge of missile range. It wasn’t a particularly trusting position, but then he wasn’t a particularly trusting man. He keyed his console. “Shuttlebay One, are you ready to fly?”

  “Aye, sir,” the shuttlebay operator reported. “Captain—ah, Commodore—Bowery has been checked out on the shuttle, and is ready to launch.”

  “Good,” Roman said. “Clear her for departure.”

  He settled back in his command chair as the shuttle departed, heading towards one of the undamaged superdreadnaughts. One of his crew had suggested rigging an antimatter bomb in the shuttle and detonating it if negotiations broke down, but Admiral Drake had vetoed the suggestion, as that would be seen as an attack on Admiral Justinian under a flag of truce. Roman had accepted the rebuke with ill grace.

  “Captain, she has reached the admiral’s ship,” the sensor officer reported.

  Roman nodded.

  “And now, we wait,” he said. He looked over at the tactical officer. “Keep us at condition-one. If they start moving to attack, I want to be out of here before they get into point-blank range.”

  * * *

  The squad of guards who met them at the shuttlebay were brisk, formal and very efficient. Caitlin and Henrietta were both strip-searched and scanned using the most advanced sensor technology, while the shuttle itself was practically dismantled by shuttle techs. Once their identities had been confirmed and the shuttle itself had been pronounced clean, they were escorted to the superdreadnaught’s flag bridge. The cry of astonishment from the admiral when he saw his daughter made everything worthwhile.

  “I thought you were dead,” the admiral said, hugging his daughter tightly. “I thought...”

  Caitlin wasn’t too surprised. He’d had years to regret sending his daughter to marry a stranger, in hopes of binding two warlords together. At least she was alive.

  He gave Caitlin a hug as well, and then settled back in his command chair, all business.

  “All right,” he said. “Admiral Drake’s message said that you were peace envoys. What do you have to say for yourself?

  Caitlin had known Admiral Justinian for nearly twenty years. There was something in his voice that was odd. Soft...and dangerous.

  “Admiral Drake is willing to offer you and your senior personnel, myself included, internal exile if you surrender without further bloodshed,” Caitlin told him. “Junior personnel will not be persecuted by the Federation.”

  His face was completely expressionless. That was not a good sign.

  “The same offer, in other words, that they made to Bester,” Admiral Justinian said. His voice was very cold. “The same offer they wantonly betrayed.”

  He keyed his console and the report from Bester played. Colonel Scudder must have wanted to send a very clear message to the population, so he’d broadcast the executions live on every news and communications channel. An entire star system had seen the Federation not only go back on its sworn word, but sl
aughter small children who hadn’t committed treason.

  Caitlin felt sick. Had Admiral Drake known about it? she asked herself. Had the Senate ordered it, against Drake’s wishes? There was no way for her to know.

  “Surrender is not an option,” Admiral Justinian said.

  Caitlin found it impossible to disagree, even though she’d given her parole. If Admiral Drake had lied to her...where did that leave her? She wrestled with her conscience for a long moment, trying to convince herself that she could rightfully break her sworn word. An oath breaker was owed no consideration by others, she told herself.

  “Captain Garibaldi took me in,” Henrietta said. “He protected me at risk of his own life—and career ...”

  Justinian rounded on his daughter.

  “I’m sure he’s a perfectly good man,” he snapped. “But the Senate ordered the deaths of everyone who surrendered on Bester! Why the hell should we surrender when all we face is certain death?”

  He turned and met Caitlin’s eyes. “We will lose the coming battle,” he said, “but at least we will make them hurt.”

  There was no time to say a word before the admiral keyed his console.

  “All units, this is the admiral,” he said. “Open fire!”

  * * *

  There was very little warning. “Captain, they just locked active sensors onto our hull,” the sensor officer reported. “They’re...”

  “Incoming fire,” the tactical officer snapped. “Multiple missile launches; I say again, multiple missile launches!”

  “Helm, get us out of here,” Roman snapped, as Midway spun in space. There was little point in returning fire against the behemoths targeting the tiny cruiser, but they could still launch ECM drones that would confuse the incoming missiles. Or perhaps it wouldn’t. They were still broadcasting their IFF right across the system. “Launch countermeasures and cut the IFF!”

  The math didn’t add up, he realized. They’d been at extreme range when the enemy opened fire, but they weren’t able to get away from it before the missiles struck home. Admiral Justinian had fired enough missiles to destroy the ship several times over.