The Oncoming Storm (43 page)

“I will be forming a war council,” the king continued. “Someone will have to serve as Minister of War Production. That will be you.”

Lucas thought, fast. His promotion would be challenged by the other dukes, he knew, although most of them were sensible enough to realize the Commonwealth needed a unified system of war production. It would test his diplomatic skills to the limit. Some of the other dukes would be unsuited to a role on his subordinate council but would demand one in exchange for keeping their protests to a reasonable limit. Others would resent him taking a position over them and work to undermine him. It wouldn’t be easy to deal with them.

But it has to be done, he thought. We need to work in unison if we are to have any hope of winning this war.

“I will be calling others over the next two days,” the king said, breaking into Lucas’s thoughts. “We will need to force forward programs to design and then construct new starships, then learn lessons from the opening moves of the war and incorporate them into our long-term development plans. Which weapons worked well in combat? Which ones need to be improved—or scrapped? We will be on a very steep learning curve.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lucas said. He couldn’t disagree with the logic. Besides, if he refused the post someone else would take it. “How much authority will I have?”

“Enough, I hope,” the king said. “I will back you to the hilt. Just remember what will happen if we lose this war.”

Lucas nodded. He would be killed, of course, along with the rest of the male aristocracy. The girls and women, including his daughters, would probably be sold into slavery—or simply raped and then killed. Kat would definitely be killed. As a trained military officer, she would be deemed too dangerous to keep alive. And the factories and industrial nodes he’d spent so long building up would be used to place the entire galaxy under the yoke of the Theocracy.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said.

There would be other problems, he knew. The war wouldn’t last forever—and when it came to an end, so would the state of emergency. Any enemies he made while gearing the Commonwealth for war would reach for their knives and try to bring him down as soon as the conflict ended. Balancing the needs of the Commonwealth with the requirements to protect his own position would be tricky. Perhaps he should just plan on stepping down as CEO as soon as the war came to an end. It might be the simplest solution.

“And we will also have to hold an inquiry into how the war actually started,” Lucas added. “We need to know who put Admiral Morrison out there, in command of 7th Fleet.”

“We will leave that issue until the end of the conflict,” the king said. “Right now, Your Grace, pointing fingers would be far too divisive.”

Lucas frowned. “Your Majesty . . .”

The king met his eyes. “We cannot risk a political catfight, not now,” he said. “The charges are too serious for that to be allowed. We will leave the issue until the end of the war.”

Which will give Morrison’s benefactors plenty of time to bury evidence, break a few links in the chain, and remain undiscovered, Lucas thought. Anyone with the political clout to steer Admiral Morrison to Cadiz without revealing their involvement would have no trouble hiding their tracks in the confusion caused by the war. But what if he’s right?

No one should have been able to hide their tracks from him. Lucas knew, without false modesty, that he sat at the center of a spiderweb of clients, subpatrons, and their clients. Almost no one should have been able to do something so thoroughly political as arrange Admiral Morrison’s assignment without leaving tracks. And yet someone had definitely succeeded well enough to keep him baffled. That alone was worrying. It suggested that Admiral Morrison’s ultimate backer was one of the dukes. No one else could have hoped to pull it off.

And a duke, if accused of something that was very close to treason, would be able to disrupt government for months before the matter was resolved.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said grudgingly.

“I do understand your feelings,” the king assured him. “But we must win first.”

A dull chime echoed through the room. “That will be the ambassador,” the king noted. “Please stand to the side.”

Lucas obeyed, motioning for Sandra to join him. There was a short delay, then the Theocracy’s ambassador was escorted into the chamber. The last time they’d met, Lucas recalled, he’d worn neat white robes and looked surprisingly dapper. This time, it was clear that he’d been thoroughly searched—and none too gently. His implants would have been deactivated before he was allowed anywhere near the Royal Palace.

And what, Lucas asked himself, if the ambassador is carrying something we are unable to detect?

He pushed the thought aside as the man staggered forward, escorted by two burly marines. One of them was female, Lucas noted, perhaps explaining the ambassador’s clear irritation. Being manhandled was bad enough, but being manhandled by a woman would be nightmarish for a Theocrat. Lucas felt a moment of pity for the ambassador’s wife, a girl who stayed in the embassy and never went out onto the streets. No doubt the diplomat would take his rage out on her.

“Ambassador Paul,” the king said, with studied nonchalance, “let me guess. You’ve come to apologize.”

Paul gave the king a furious look. “This treatment is abominable,” he thundered. “A gross breach of diplomatic courtesy!”

“And so is launching a war,” the king said. “Speak your piece and leave.”

The ambassador drew himself to his feet. “Peace is the will of God,” he said, “and the Theocracy has worked for peace since the One True Faith was brought into being by the Final Prophet. But peace has been threatened, again and again, by the actions of your illegitimate union of worlds. You have invaded our space, incited our populations to rebellion, and sought to control the spread of the One True Faith. These actions can no longer go unpunished.”

He took a breath. “I am ordered to offer you one last chance to submit yourselves before the Believers of the One True Faith,” he continued. “You must welcome us to your worlds, surrender your ships and industries to our custody, and prepare your people to embrace the One True Faith. Should you refuse, we will wage war until you are bowed in submission, ready to embrace God and take him into your hearts. There will be no further negotiation. It is submission or death.”

Lucas wondered, absently, if Paul genuinely believed his own words. It would certainly be far more convincing if he did, he knew, but it was hard to imagine anyone who had spent time on Tyre believing the crap he was spewing out. The Commonwealth hadn’t supplied anyone with weapons, let alone incited them to rebel. And they hadn’t even tried to ban missionaries from spreading through Commonwealth space.

He winced inwardly. That would have to change. And who knew what else would be lost along with religious freedom? What would happen if all of the Commonwealth’s guaranteed rights were stripped away in the name of security? How much of what his ancestors had helped build would be lost forever?

The king was leaning forward angrily. But he managed to control himself before he spoke.

“You are correct on one point,” he said. His voice was icy cold. “There will be no negotiation.”

He took a breath. “You have mounted an unprovoked war against my people, commencing with a series of cowardly terrorist attacks that have left upwards of nine thousand civilians dead. Your . . . pathetic attempt to give us a declaration of war, too late for us to put our forces on alert, is only the icing on the cake. There will be no further negotiation—and there will be no negotiated peace. The Commonwealth will fight until the Theocracy has been crushed, Ambassador, and it will be crushed.

“Your people want freedom. We will give it to them. Your conquests want independence. We will give it to them. Your sons want the right to learn more than how to recite your prayers by rote. We will give it to them. Your wives and daughters want the right to make their own choices. We will give it to them. And the entire galaxy wants to sleep peacefully, without fearing conquest by you. We will give it to them.”

He met Ambassador Paul’s eyes. “I promise you nothing, but war to the knife,” he growled sharply. “And the next time we meet, it will be when I take your surrender in the ruins of your homeworld.”

Lucas, standing to one side, sucked in a breath. It was dangerous to drive a foe into a corner, he knew, particularly when it might be more profitable to allow them a way out, but he also knew the king spoke for his people. No one would be interested in a negotiated peace with the Theocracy, not now. They’d want to crush the Theocratic navy, liberate its conquests, and sow the grounds of its homeworld with salt.

But the king was still speaking. “Because we are a civilized people, we will allow you and your embassy to leave peacefully,” he concluded. “It will no longer be necessary.”

He looked at the marines. “Get him out of my sight.”

Lucas watched as the marines escorted the ambassador out, then turned to the king.

“Parliament will be behind you,” he said. He knew it to be true, despite his doubts. The attacks on Tyre had seen to that. “But should we not offer them their lives?”

The king waved a hand towards the window, where plumes of smoke could still be seen.

“No one will want mercy, Your Grace,” he said. His voice was very dark as he surveyed the scene before him. He turned to face Lucas. “Nine thousand civilians—perhaps more—are dead, killed by the vilest treachery. There can be no mercy to a government that considers such sneak attacks a legitimate way of opening the war. And I will offer none.”

He looked down at the hard marble floor, then up at Lucas. “Prepare yourself for your new responsibilities,” he ordered. “Our forces will need everything from starships to armored combat suits and rations. You will be charged with meeting their demands. And you will be advising me on the course of the war.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lucas said. There was no choice. It was him or someone else, someone who might be less invested in victory. “It will be my honor.”

The king nodded. “I think we shall offer the ambassador’s family the chance to remain,” he added. He smiled brilliantly. “And his servants too. Wouldn’t that make their lives more interesting?”

Lucas frowned. “Why, Your Majesty?”

“The Princess Drusilla is also on her way here,” the king said. “We could find a use for her, I’m sure. And we could find a use for our ambassador’s family too.”

“No sign of pursuit, Captain,” Roach reported. “Hyperspace is clear.”

Kat let out a sigh of relief. An engagement in hyperspace might have allowed them a chance to reverse the outcome of the battle, but it might also have proven disastrous. Two or three antimatter warheads would have started an energy storm that would have seriously threatened both sides. Trying to raise a storm near the enemy fleet would have seemed a workable idea if she hadn’t been certain she would risk her own ships too.

And will it seem a viable weapon of war in the future? she asked herself. Or will both sides refrain from using it for fear of the consequences?

“Stand down from battle stations,” she ordered. The red lights dimmed. “Damage report?”

“No major damage,” Lynn reported. The engineer sounded relieved. “We lost a pair of shield generators, which will need to be replaced, but the remainder are intact.”

“Thank God,” Kat said. She turned to the XO. “And the fleet?”

“Battered,” the XO reported. “Nine superdreadnoughts are gone. Four more are almost certainly not going to be combat capable without yard time. The remainder of the superdreadnoughts have damage ranging from minor to several weeks of repair work.”

Kat sighed. “Can we do any repair work in transit?”

“We’ll have to shuttle engineering crews round the fleet,” the XO said. “But we’re still doing head counts. We don’t even have an accurate idea how many people we have on the ships, Captain. And we certainly don’t have an inventory of spare parts.”

If Admiral Morrison isn’t dead, Kat thought, I’m going to kill him personally.

She looked at the display for a long moment. Two squadrons of superdreadnoughts—and thirty-seven other starships—were nothing to sniff at. By any reasonable standard, she was the youngest fleet commander in history, although she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to keep the fleet. She didn’t have a dedicated command ship, for one thing. But it would have been a high point of her career, if the ships hadn’t been so badly damaged. It would be a long time before 7th Fleet was combat capable again.

We might just break up the formation and assign the usable ships to other fleets, she thought morbidly. I don’t think anyone will care.

“Complete the head count, then work through the engineering reports,” she ordered. She wasn’t trained for fleet command. What if she missed something? “Shuttle engineering crews round the fleet, concentrating on the ships that can be returned to operational status sooner rather than later. If a ship needs yard time, leave a skeleton crew and get the rest somewhere where they can be more useful.”

“Aye, Captain,” the XO said. “Doing it under transit will prove a challenge.”

Kat nodded. “But do we have a choice?”

She thought fast. Her father’s brief update had stated that Admiral Christian and 6th Fleet had been ordered to Gamma Base, a star forty light years from Cadiz. But she hadn’t heard anything since then and there was no way to tell if the fleet had already reached its destination or if it was still in transit. It might not matter, she told herself. Her first duty was to report to the Admiralty and Gamma Base had a working StarCom.

Or it should have had a working StarCom, part of her mind noted. What if the Theocracy got there too?

She dismissed the thought, then looked at the display. “The 67th Destroyer Squadron is largely intact,” she said. “Reassign two more destroyers to fill the holes in the squadron’s roster, then order her CO to return to Cadiz. They are to monitor the star system at a safe distance and, if possible, attempt to open communications with forces on the ground.”