by David Weber
“I think we have a plan of action, then,” the King said. “We’ll meet again when the final details of these rescue pods have been settled and some cost estimates worked out. I presume that will be agreeable to everyone?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Calvingdell said.
“Very much so, Your Majesty,” Breakwater confirmed.
Michael nodded and gestured to them. “Then we are dismissed,” he said. “Thank you all for coming.”
The exit formalities were shorter than the entrance ones. Edward remained standing beside his chair until all but the King had left the room. The door closed behind the last of them, and Michael turned to his son.
“I trust you found that amusing?” he suggested, rising from his chair and gesturing toward the more intimate circle of lounge chairs off to the side of the room.
“Amusing is hardly the word I would use,” Edward said, heading for the conversation circle. “Are you really going to just give Breakwater those corvettes?”
“I assume you have an objection?”
“More than just one,” Edward assured him, waiting for his father to sit down and then taking the chair across from him. “With your permission?”
Michael inclined his head. “Please.”
“Let’s start with logistics,” Edward said. “If we give MPARS even a single missile, we’ll have set the precedent for two services competing for the same small stockpile of very expensive ordnance.”
“Seems to me I remember the exact opposite argument being made when Breakwater wanted to break up the battlecruisers,” Michael pointed out mildly.
“It wasn’t me making that argument,” Edward pointed out in return. “The fact remains that we have only a limited number of missiles to go around.”
“We can always get more.”
“Not with Breakwater’s death grip on the purse strings we can’t,” Edward countered. “Remember that old Defense Ministry policy forbidding the use of missiles in non-combat situations unless it’s specifically authorized practice?”
“Which has since been rescinded,” his father pointed out.
“No thanks to Breakwater,” Edward said. “Point two: training. Breakwater’s right about his people needing a full military run-through. Cazenestro is also right about the facilities for such an influx of new people not existing. Bottom line: every slot that MPARS takes is one less slot we’ll have for a future RMN officer or spacer. We’re already behind on our personnel expansion, and that would slow it down even more. As Breakwater and Winterfall no doubt had in mind the whole time.”
“Ah—so you did note the collusion,” Michael said approvingly. “Despite the surface conflict in their two proposals.”
“Please, Dad—I wasn’t born yesterday,” Edward said with all the scorn he felt he could deliver to a sitting monarch, trying to ignore the fresh flicker of guilt over all those missed briefings. “Winterfall’s last fully independent act was back at the first Phobos discussion when he undercut Breakwater’s original demands. Breakwater saw how well that worked and adopted the gambit, and Winterfall’s been playing dagger to Breakwater’s rapier ever since.”
“Nicely put,” Michael said with a small smile. “Dagger to rapier. I may steal that one. Anything else?”
“The biggest one of all,” Edward assured him. “Command and control. You may have noticed that the Navy and MPARS don’t exactly get along, at least not at the top. If the Star Kingdom ever was attacked, trying to get coordinated action from two services who’ve been competing for everything for years would be difficult at best and impossible at worst. And impossible in a combat situation usually means catastrophic.”
“Good points, all.” Michael leaned forward slightly, his expression more intent. “My turn now. We’ll skip the dramatic buildup and go straight to the big one. Namely, Countess Calvingdell and First Lord Cazenestro want to give those corvettes away.”
Edward felt his jaw drop. “They what?”
“No, you heard correctly,” Michael said. “We discussed this in detail some time back. A conversation you’d have been included in had you been available.” His eyes held Edward’s for a moment, and the Crown Prince felt his cheekbones heat as his father’s expression mirrored his own earlier thoughts. He wondered for a moment if Michael was going to make the message more explicit, but then the King shrugged and settled back. “They’ve decided they don’t want them anymore.”
“But—” Edward broke off, sensing a babble coming and determined to cut it off before he sounded as stupid as he currently felt. Yes, he should have kept up with the reports, especially those that dealt with the Navy. But even so, what in the name of heaven were they all thinking?
“They want to just give them to Breakwater?”
“So they’ve told me,” Michael said. “And before you start wondering about their sanity, understand that no one’s making a spur-of-the-moment decision here. Breakwater may have thought he was blindsiding us with this proposal, but there’ve been hints coming out of the Exchequer’s office for a couple of weeks now. Calvingdell and Cazenestro have had plenty of time to think this through.”
“But why?” Edward persisted. “MPARS doesn’t need warships.”
“Perhaps not,” Michael said. “The more salient point is that the Navy doesn’t want to keep pumping resources into non-hyper-capable, under-armed, hundred-year-old ships. At the same time, it would be a shame to simply scrap them—they’re still useful, at least for certain duties. The obvious solution is to give them to Breakwater, where they’ll be eating at the MPARS lunch counter instead of the Navy’s. As an added bonus, the transfer will free up—what is it, forty-five?—forty-five spacers per ship for reassignment elsewhere.”
Edward suppressed a glower. Maybe on paper a corvette’s compliment was forty-five officers and spacers. In reality, each of them was having to make do with thirty. The whole Navy was undermanned, and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. Especially if Breakwater won out with his idea to poach spots in the rosters of the Navy’s training facilities.
“Furthermore, you have to admit that having a few small armed ships wandering around the asteroid belts isn’t a bad idea,” Michael continued. “An in-system raider looking for easy prey could do worse than a fat miner who’s loaded to the gills with high-grade ore and is hours away from any military assistance. There are also the extraction facilities outside the hyper limit, which usually have modules full of refined materials ripe for the picking. A harmless-looking rescue ship that suddenly shows herself capable of sending a missile down the pirates’ throats would be a highly unpleasant surprise.”
“I thought Winterfall agreed we weren’t going to arm them.”
“Not at the start,” Michael said. “But we all know that’s the direction Breakwater will eventually carry the discussion.”
“All right,” Edward said slowly. “But if everyone’s agreed, why are we fighting about it? If Calvingdell and Cazenestro want to give him the corvettes, why did we even have this meeting?”
“Because it’s never a bad idea to let Breakwater think he’s won a battle,” Michael said, a grim twinkle in his eye. “It’s an even better idea to make him think he owes the Navy a favor that can be called in somewhere down the line.”
“I’m not convinced Breakwater thinks that way.”
“Possibly not,” Michael conceded. “But I think Winterfall could be persuaded that direction. And even if Breakwater doesn’t give a damn about debts, there are times a politician—even our Sabrepike of a Lord Chancellor—has no choice but to pay up when the debt gets called publicly and under the right circumstances.” He smiled tiredly. “Besides, he likes to think of himself as a visionary whose name will resonate throughout Manticoran history. People like that sometimes have to act like statesmen, whether they want to or not.”
Edward wasn’t convinced of that, either. But it was clear that the decision had already been made, and made far above his own position. All he could do was accept it and dea
l with whatever consequences arose from it.
And he could also ask one final question. “So why exactly am I here?”
The twinkle faded from his father’s eye. “Because when it comes time to make that deal and call in that favor,” he said quietly, “you’ll probably be the one making it. Because you will be the king.”
Edward stared at his father, his earlier concerns about the older man’s health roaring back. “What are you saying?” he asked carefully.
“I’m saying it’s time for you to start looking to the future,” Michael said. “For years now you’ve been merely a naval officer.” He lifted a hand. “I know; that’s what you wanted, and there’s nothing mere about serving your kingdom. But that time is coming to an end. The Navy can no longer be allowed to completely fill your life. You’re the Crown Prince, and you need to live and act accordingly.”
“I understand that,” Edward said through stiff lips. “Can we back up a minute to the whole I’ll-be-making-the-deal bit? Is there something going on I should know about?”
“It’s all right, Edward,” Michael soothed. “Come, now—don’t look so serious.”
“Don’t give me that,” Edward countered. “Anyway, you started it. What’s going on?”
“Nothing you need concern yourself with right now,” Michael said. “If that changes you’ll be the first to know.”
“No, no, you don’t get off that easy,” Edward insisted. “I’m the Crown Prince, remember? Everything is my concern. You just said so.”
“Easy there, hexapuma,” the King chided, a hint of the earlier twinkle coming back into his eye. “Even a crown prince isn’t allowed to badger his king. I’m pretty sure that’s in the rules someplace.”
“I’m not a prince badgering his king,” Edward said quietly. “I’m a son worried about his father.”
“And I appreciate your concern,” Michael said. “But for now I need to keep this quiet. And I need you to keep what you know quiet, as well.”
“That won’t be hard,” Edward growled. “Given I don’t actually know anything.”
“See?” Michael said with a smile. “You’re already learning how this politics thing works.”
“Hooray for our side,” Edward said, trying hard to read his father’s expression. Was he ill? Tired? Depressed?
Was he somehow being pushed out of office?
The thought chilled Edward right down to the bone. Could Breakwater have amassed so much power in Parliament that he could actually force the king himself from the throne? Was that what this whole corvette transfer was about, that Cazenestro and Calvingdell were acceding to the Chancellor’s demands because they literally had no choice?
It seemed absurd on the face of it. But maybe it wasn’t. The Constitution provided for the removal of a monarch by a three-quarters vote of both houses of Parliament, but that was normally only for “high crimes or misdemeanors,” which would be a ludicrous allegation in King Michael’s case.
But he could also be removed for incapacitation. And that one was not nearly as unthinkable.
Could the King’s health be much worse than he was admitting? Could Breakwater have learned something about Michael’s medical condition which he’d so far managed to keep secret?
Even from his own son? If so, Edward wasn’t just a crown prince. He was one half of a constitutional crisis, the like of which the Star Kingdom of Manticore hadn’t seen since its formation. And he might also be a son with a father he was likely to lose far sooner than he’d dreamed.
But his father clearly didn’t want to talk about it. And Edward knew from long experience that a King Michael who didn’t want to be moved, wasn’t. At all.
“Good,” Michael said, some of the darkness fading from his tone. “And really, don’t look so worried. We have very good briefing officers, even if you haven’t had the time to spend with them.” The King’s smile might have held just a bit of a bite, Edward thought. “You’ll have time to get up to speed before it becomes necessary.”
He stood up. “And now, I believe that matters of state have taken enough of your planned family time. Get yourself home, and be sure to hug Cynthia and Sophie for me. How’s Richard doing at the Academy?”
“Very well,” Edward assured him as he also stood up. “But he’s still not too old to hug.”
“I should hope not,” Michael said with a smile. “Give him a hug from me, as well. Oh, and if you get a chance, you might try to touch base with your sister before she leaves.”
Half-sister, Edward’s brain made the automatic edit. Elizabeth was eleven years his junior, the offspring of his father and his father’s second wife, and Edward had been wrangling with the little upstart ever since she was old enough to understand what wrangling was. He’d occasionally thought that one of the minor perks of being in the Navy was the fact that it put him out of reach of her honed and entirely too opinionated tongue.
Still, in the five years since she’d married Carmichael de Quieroz, Baron New Madrid, and set up housekeeping with the widower and his three children, Edward had heard that some of her rougher edges had smoothed a bit. It would probably be worth the time and effort to check that out for himself. “Where is she off to this time?”
“Sphinx,” Michael told him. “They’re joining a peak bear hunting party.”
“I hope they’re not bringing the children.”
“Your sister may be headstrong, but she’s not stupid,” Michael said with a fond smile. “Mary and I will be watching them.”
“So trading off a potential mauling versus guaranteed and unabashed spoiling?”
“Something like that,” Michael said. “Enjoy your time with your family.”
“I will,” Edward promised.
And he did.
But before that, before even leaving the room, he made sure to first hug his father.
CHAPTER THREE
Growing up, Jeremiah Llyn had hated being short.
Not that he was that short. Not really. No more than nine or ten centimeters shorter than the planetary average. But ten centimeters had been more than enough to set off the jokesters in primary school, the brawlers in middle grade, and the more elaborate hazing during his teen years. Young adulthood had been marginally better, with at least a veneer of politeness and civilization covering up the derision. But even there, he could see the mental evaluation going on behind employers’ eyes as he was passed over for promotions and the truly lucrative jobs.
Now, with the perspective and maturity that fifty T-years of life afforded a man, he found his lack of towering stature not only comfortable but valuable. People, even supposedly intelligent people, tended to underestimate shorter men.
In Llyn’s current position, it was often very useful to be underestimated.
Llyn wasn’t sure why Haven’s maximum-security Deuxième Prison relied on human cleaning staff instead of remotes. Possibly it was because they still needed people for maintenance and had simply combined the departments; possibly it was because remotes were more easily reprogrammed or electronically hijacked than people. Either way, it had made the job of infiltrating the prison much easier than he’d expected.
He’d started by crafting himself a cleaning outfit, with the proper coveralls and a faked ID. Once inside, he’d found an opportunity to trade up to a guard’s uniform, the guard in question no longer requiring it. Another tweaking of ID, the activation of the worm his cohort on Haven had slipped into the prison’s computer two days earlier, a hijacked uni-link call and soothing noises made to a concerned woman on the nighttime security monitor staff, and within an hour of entering the grounds he was standing in the cell of the prisoner he’d traveled all the way from the Solarian League to see.
The man’s name was Mota, and he was a pirate.
Rather, had been a pirate. His gang had been all but wiped out five T-years earlier at a botched raid on Havenite warships in the Secour system. Mota had been one of the gang’s chief system hackers, tasked with chopping through th
e ship’s layers of security, which was why he’d managed to stay alive while the Havenite Marines were slaughtering his fellow pirates. He’d been briefly questioned at Secour, then brought back to Haven for a more thorough interrogation.
According to the documents Llyn had dug up, Mota’s interrogators had learned a lot about the gang itself, some of their previous crimes, and how the Secour scheme had been developed and laid out. They had, unfortunately, learned exactly zero about who had hired Guzarwan and his men to steal the ships in the first place.
Haven wanted to know that. Wanted it very badly.
Because while most mercenary groups were more or less aboveboard, there were some who weren’t. The former were unapologetic guns for hire, available to prosecute brush wars between small star nations or to provide defense for systems or private companies who couldn’t afford to build and maintain navies of their own. In some places those groups were officially licensed, and for the most part were careful to maintain a good, even honorable reputation.
The latter type weren’t straightforward, weren’t licensed, and the only reputation they had or wanted was the kind that was whispered in back rooms between people as unsavory as themselves.
They were also those who had learned to keep a very low profile over the past half T-century or so, as the galaxy at large got around to dealing with them. In more than one case, some of the more honorable mercenaries had been hired to eliminate the significantly less honorable ones, the result of which had been that the first group rose to the slightly more respectable status of paramilitary force, while the second group went completely underground. That kind of low profile made them difficult to find, even for someone with Llyn’s extensive list of dubious contacts.
In many cases, such mercenaries were barely more than extremely well-equipped pirate gangs. The Havenites, having had their share of run-ins with local pirates, and having seen what armed mercenaries like Gustav Anderman’s group could do to an underdeveloped system, were naturally anxious to learn who might have such ambitions in their part of the galaxy.