Barbarians at the Gates

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “Just worthless platitudes,” he said. “Did your father send you anything in the mail?”

  “Nothing,” Tiffany said. Her father rarely sent her anything. “He did say that he was proud of me for risking my life and that he thinks I should go back to Earth.”

  Marius shrugged. “And are you going to go back to Earth?”

  “Not if I can avoid it,” Tiffany told him. “High Society is rather boring at the best of times...and it won’t be very exciting after all this.”

  “The less exciting, the better,” Marius said seriously.

  He pulled himself to his feet, kissed her on the forehead, and stepped into the fresher. “I have a staff meeting in forty minutes, love. Are you going to attend?”

  Tiffany stepped into the fresher with him, a delightful surprise.

  “Of course,” she said, as she pressed against him. “You’d only mess it all up without me.”

  * * *

  The courier drone popped out of the Asimov Point and immediately uploaded its messages to the relay station. There was a brief moment as the relay station’s automated computers checked the message headers against its list of authorized senders, and then it started to relay the message across the system to Harmony. Once the message reached the planet, it was inserted into the military datanet and uploaded to Magnificent. It appeared inside Blake Raistlin’s inbox seven weeks after it was sent from Earth.

  The message itself was unlikely to attract attention. It was nothing more than a statement that there was going to be a wedding in the family and the recipient was invited to attend. The reader, however, knew what the message signified. It was time to move.

  He swallowed his concern and fear—he’d never wanted to be an assassin—picked up the weapon he’d been given years ago, and checked it carefully. It was still in working order.

  Part of him wanted to call off the mission, to retreat from the battlefield, but he knew his duty. He’d been promised a reward for his work, something he desperately wanted. All he had to do was carry out one specific task.

  Kill Admiral Drake.

  * * *

  Roman fought his way to awareness through a dizzying wave of pain and disorientation that threatened to drag him back into the darkness. He could hear voices as he awoke, voices that seemed oddly familiar and yet completely unrecognizable. His memory started to return as he opened his eyes, reminding him that his ship was in desperate danger when he’d blacked out...

  “Report,” he croaked. His mouth felt impossibly dry. “The ship...?”

  “Lie back,” another voice said. It was firm and very feminine. “You’re on the Magnificent...”

  His vision stabilized, revealing a young woman wearing a doctor’s uniform.

  “You took a nasty blow to the head,” she said. “Luckily, your helmet cushioned most of the blow and medical crews were able to preserve you long enough for the recovery team to get you into a stasis pod. You should be fine, but lie still.”

  “My ship,” Roman said. His voice felt clearer, even though he could hear a distant roaring in his ears. It seemed to be almost impossible to form a coherent thought. “What’s happened to my ship?”

  The doctor didn’t answer him. “I told you to lie still,” she said, firmly.

  Her voice didn’t sound as though she would brook argument. Besides, a doctor had authority to relieve a captain on medical grounds. And he wasn’t even on his ship!

  “Your ship is fine,” she finally told him.

  That was a lie; Roman knew it was a lie. His ship had to have been badly damaged, perhaps even destroyed. His survival didn’t prove anything. The crew could have pulled him off the ship if their sickbay was overwhelmed. And yet, it was growing harder to think...

  “I’m putting you back under,” the doctor said urgently.

  He opened his mouth to argue, but it was impossible to speak. The words wouldn’t come to his lips.

  She pressed something against his neck and there was a brief, almost inaudible hiss. “Relax.”

  There was a brief spark of pain, almost unnoticeable against the pain in his head, and then nothing.

  * * *

  “The Harmony Shipyard has been most helpful,” Commodore Yang concluded. “We have successfully repaired most of the damaged ships without needing to leave the system. A handful of starships will require longer periods of repair work, but I believe they can be towed to Penganga Shipyard or repaired here, as the admiral wishes.”

  Marius considered it. Using Harmony’s shipyards was a two-edged sword. It was quicker than returning to a Federation Navy shipyard and it did give the yard dogs a chance to work for the Federation—and therefore contribute to rebuilding the local economy—but if someone happened to want to sabotage the ship, they’d have a clear shot. The Marines had secured the shipyard, of course, but they weren’t experts in repairing starships. They might well miss something, and if they did, the results would be disastrous.

  Still, he wanted the entire fleet repaired as quickly as possible. There were other warlords out there...and then there was the ever-present threat of the Outsiders.

  “I believe that we can take the risk of repairing the ships here,” he said. “Just ensure that the fleet train’s repair men work with them. It should make sabotage harder.” He smiled and turned to Vaughn. “Toby?”

  “There has been little change from my last report,” Vaughn said. The Marine looked tired, but confident. “My Marines have occupied the orbitals and various locations on the planet’s surface. There has been no sign of overt resistance beyond some grumbling and street protests, which we have ignored as long as they stayed peaceful. The bad news is that we still haven’t been able to locate the heavy weapons that vanished from planet-side arsenals prior to our arrival in the system, nor have we been able to locate the Planetary Guard personnel who were wiped from the records. I believe they may be preparing for an insurgency.”

  “Which is why your orders, admiral, are thoroughly unwise,” Williams said. The political commissioner raised the same issue at every status meeting. “Your refusal to allow the Internal Security troopers to land on the planet is contributing to their willingness to defy us, and is placing your men at risk.”

  Marius kept a tight grip on his temper. After hearing about Bester, he’d unilaterally banned the Internal Security troops from Harmony and ordered them to remain in their transports. Williams had protested, loudly, but the authority Marius had received from the Senate—if looked at in the right way—authorized him to take command of the Internal Security contingent if necessary. Which might have been the only thing that had prevented an immediate explosion.

  “That decision is mine to take, and I took it,” he said, his tone brooking no argument. He purposefully looked away from the commissioner. “Is there any other business?”

  There was none, thankfully. Marius hated status meetings and tried to avoid them where possible, but it was hard to find a workable excuse when they were simply orbiting Harmony and attempting to secure and rebuild an entire sector. At least it would be over soon; once the remainder of Admiral Justinian’s little empire had been secured, the Grand Fleet could move on to deal with another warlord. They’d always have work to do.

  “Dismissed,” he said, as he rose to his feet. “Toby, I need a word...”

  Something was wrong. Time seemed to be slowing around him, as if it were pressing against his head. He saw Blake Raistlin pull a tiny weapon from his jacket and point it at him. The weapon fired ...

  ... And then, Vaughn was covering him, protecting him with his own body.

  Marius snapped out of it as Vaughn was blown back into him, knocking him to the floor. And then Raistlin fired again.

  A horrific burning sensation flared down his left arm, just before Admiral Mason tackled Raistlin and knocked the weapon to the ground.

  Marius tried to pull himself to his feet, but his left arm wasn’t working.

  “Medic,” Admiral Mason shouted.

 
It was hard to hear him through the haze of pain that burned through his mind. His implants were dulling the pain, yet he could still feel it...and his left arm was completely useless.

  “Get a medic here, right now!” Mason yelled urgently.

  Someone helped him to his feet. Marius struggled to focus his mind, almost stumbling over something on the deck. It took him minutes to realize that he’d stumbled over his best friend’s body. Vaughn’s expression made it appear as if he’d died in horrific agony. The treacherous bastard Raistlin must have used a punch disruptor, Marius realized. It was so hard to think properly, but the effects were unmistakable…and Vaughn had taken the full brunt of the blast. Every cell in his body had been ripped open. The shock alone would have killed him, even if the pain hadn’t.

  Toby, Marius thought drunkenly. I’ll drink to your memory ...

  An injector was pressed against his neck; cold numbness spread through his body. It brought clarity of a sort, a dull realization of what had happened. Blake Raistlin’s family hadn’t wanted him out of the firing line to keep him safe, he realized. Instead, they’d set him up as an assassin.

  That meant that the Senate’s response to his demand that Colonel Scudder be punished was clear—they’d ordered his death. And Williams had been in on it. No doubt the Internal Security troops were in on it, too.

  “Admiral, stay still,” one of the medics said.

  Tiffany walked toward him, but was held back by one of the medics. He knew she must be in shock. Tears were running down her lovely face. She looked almost like an angel in that moment, his angel.

  “Admiral...” someone said, he didn’t care who.

  “Admiral Mason,” Marius said. His voice felt thick and unwieldy in his ears. “Arrest the commissioners and their troops. Arrest them all and seal them away from everyone else, quickly!”

  “You can’t,” Williams said desperately. The commissioner must have thought he was immune. “You can’t...”

  One of the Marines hit him with a stun-rod and he collapsed to the deck.

  I need to promote that man, Marius thought, before a second injector pressed against his neck.

  As he crashed into the painful darkness, he thought desperately. Most of the Internal Security troopers should be on their transports. If Admiral Mason could hold them there, they couldn’t take over his ships. There was still a chance...

  For what?

  No matter how far he looked, he could only see one answer.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  A council of war can only be convened at the instruction of a fleet commander. Asking for consensus can only mean one thing: a drastic change in orders.

  -Observations on the Navy, 3987

  Harmony System/In Transit, 4098

  The next time Roman Garibaldi awoke, he felt much better. Elf was at his bedside, reading a datapad and trying to look nonchalant, something that set alarm bells ringing in Roman’s head. The doctor checked his vital signs, pressed a sensor to the top of his head, and then grudgingly admitted that Roman could get up.

  “You’re cleared for duty, captain,” he said crossly. “I’d think that you’d be better off with some more bed rest, but it’s all hands on deck here.”

  Roman blinked as the doctor stalked off. “Elf,” he said urgently, “the ship?”

  “Beyond repair,” Elf said. Her gaze was sympathetic.

  Roman flinched.

  “The gravity flickered for a second,” she explained, “long enough to cripple most of the crew and inflict severe damage on the ship’s internal systems. Then the compensators blew. We’re damn lucky that we had already lost speed, or we would all have been killed. Hell, we’re even luckier that the containment fields held, or we’d all be playing harps by now.”

  Roman swallowed hard. Midway had been his, in a way that no other ship had been. He’d been her commander, Master under God, and his crew had been his family and friends. Losing her hurt, like losing a first lover.

  He was relieved to hear, as Elf continued to brief him, that most of the crew had survived, but their family was gone. The admiral would reassign them all, even Roman, to other ships, breaking them up. He felt hot tears begin to form at the corner of his eyes and blinked them away angrily. It couldn’t be helped, he told himself. Somehow, it failed to be convincing.

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Elf continued. “Your old friend, Blake Raistlin, tried to assassinate the admiral.”

  “He was never my friend,” he corrected automatically. Then he stared at her. “He did what?”

  “He tried to assassinate the admiral,” Elf repeated. “Raistlin injured him and killed General Vaughn, but no one else was harmed. They even took Raistlin alive. The admiral—ah, Admiral Mason—ordered all the Internal Security troopers locked down, but some of them put up a fight. You’re lucky that you were completely out of it.”

  She rubbed a new scar on her chin. How had she gotten that?

  “And the political commissioners had to be removed as well,” she added. “One of them proved to be surprisingly good with a knife.”

  “I have to get up,” Roman said. He pushed back the blanket and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. His uniform had been neatly folded and left in the small cabinet beside the medical bed. He couldn’t help noticing that someone had removed the golden badge that signified starship command, an ominous sign for the future. If Blake Raistlin had been the assassin, was Roman—and everyone else who had graduated with him—a suspect? Even though none of them had truly liked Raistlin?

  His legs felt rubbery, but he held himself upright by force of will and started to dress.

  “Tell me something,” Elf said as he pulled on his jacket. “What do you intend to do?”

  “I’m sure the admiral will want me to do something,” Roman said. It was a weak answer because he had no idea what his duties were. Maybe there was a starship that needed a new commander. “I can’t lie about doing nothing when there’s work to be done.”

  * * *

  Doctor Yu was, in Marius’s opinion, one of the best doctors in the Federation Navy. He’d actually joined late in life, after discovering that private practice didn’t really suit him, and he brought over a hundred years worth of experience to the post. The doctor didn’t look encouraging, however, as he checked Marius’s arm. The disruptor had wreaked havoc on his cells, and the entire arm was dead.

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do,” he said after a thorough check-up. The dead arm had been wrapped in a cast, but he’d warned Marius that the cast was purely a temporary measure. “It’s going to have to come off and be replaced, either with a vat-grown arm or a prosthetic.”

  Marius winced. It was possible to grow lost parts of one’s body—as long as there was a single DNA sample to use as a template—in a vat, but it wouldn’t feel quite the same as the rest of his body. He’d known men who’d had replacements and then always been uncomfortable with their new organs. And yet, he didn’t want to have an artificial arm. It wouldn’t suit him, either.

  “Right,” he said. “How long until I can get a new arm?”

  “It’ll take a month to grow it, admiral.” Yu frowned. “Once it’s ready, it will have to be grafted onto the stump—we’ll remove the dead arm first, of course—and then it will take you several months to get used to using it again. I could fit you with an artificial arm now, but that would still take some getting used to.”

  Marius nodded slowly. “I don’t have the time right now,” he said.

  The doctor nodded, sombre. News of the attempted assassination had flashed through the entire fleet.

  “Start growing the new arm,” Marius ordered, “and I’ll have it fitted when I have the time.”

  “As you wish, admiral,” the doctor said. “Come back later today for another check-up. I want to be sure that the cellular disruption isn’t spreading.”

  Marius nodded, then stalked out of sickbay. Outside, he met the two Marines who had been assigned to him
as a personal guard and Major Papillae, Vaughn’s second-in-command. She would have assumed his position at once—the Marine chain of command was designed for rapid shifts—and yet seeing her felt unpleasant, as if he were betraying his oldest friend. Vaughn would have laughed at the thought, but then...Vaughn was dead.

  He still couldn’t get used to that.

  “Admiral,” she said formally. Her voice was brisk and efficient. “I completed the ceremonies for General Vaughn. His body has been stored in a stasis tube until it can be returned to his homeworld, and I read his will. He wished you to have this.” She passed him a small packet.

  Marius opened it, wishing he were anywhere else and that this wasn’t really happening. It was impossible to believe that a presence so vital as Toby Vaughn was dead, even though Marius had seen Vaughn die before his eyes. Die to protect him, no less. Inside, there was an old chemical-propelled projectile weapon and a handful of clips.

  Marius pulled it out in surprise and saw the golden globe and anchor that decorated the weapon. Traditionally, every Marine who made it to command rank was presented with such a weapon—a reminder of the different national services that had been blended into the Federation Marines—and was expected to keep it with him at all times. Vaughn had once joked that any Marine officer who had to fire the weapon in action was in serious danger, because projectile weapons didn’t have anything like the range and firepower of modern plasma cannons. But he wouldn’t have given up the weapon willingly, not until he died.

  Having it passed on to him, Marius knew, was a great honor. And he would have given it up in an instant if it brought his friend back to him.

  Papillae allowed him a moment to contemplate the weapon, and then cleared her throat. “The remainder of the Internal Security shitheads”—the news of the massacre at Bester had also spread through the fleet—”are in their transports, apart from a handful who were killed resisting arrest. The transports themselves are in lockdown, and I have a company of Marines on each of them, ensuring that the bastards cannot escape. We had to separate some of the political commissioners because they were in danger from the troopers.”