Prologue
“That’s all you could find?”
The two officers winced in unison, as if they expected to be marched to the airlock and unceremoniously thrown into space for failing to accomplish the impossible. Once, Admiral Zaskar acknowledged ruefully, they might have been right. Failure was a sign of God’s displeasure, a proof that the failure—the failed—deserved to be punished. But if that was true, and he no longer believed it was so, what did that say about the Theocracy?
He studied the manifest on the datapad for a long moment, trying to hold back a tidal wave of depression. A few crates of starship components, some so old they probably dated all the way back to the early days of spaceflight; boxes of ration bars that were older than most of the men who were going to eat them . . . It was a far cry from the supplies they needed to keep the fleet alive. The fleet—the squadron, really—was on the verge of breaking down completely. In truth, he’d started to lose faith in his ability to keep his ships and men together long enough for the enemy to give up the pursuit.
“And the asteroid base?” He looked up at the officers. “Were there any people who might be interested in joining us?”
“No, Admiral,” the older officer said. “They refused our offers.”
And we can’t make them a little more compulsory, Zaskar told himself. We’d be betrayed within the week.
He cursed his former masters under his breath. His crew was composed of the ignorant and the fanatics, neither of whom could do maintenance work worth a damn. The only thing they could do was remove a broken component and slot in a replacement, which had worked fine until their supply lines were destroyed once and for all. Even the finest engineers in the fleet couldn’t repair everything, let alone build new components from scratch. He’d had to cannibalize and abandon a dozen ships just to keep the rest of the squadron going. And he was all too aware that their time was running out.
“Go see the cleric for ritual cleansing,” he ordered shortly. “And then return to your duties.”
The two officers bowed, then retreated. Zaskar watched them go and tapped a command into his terminal. A holographic image snapped into existence, flickering slightly. Zaskar’s eyes narrowed as he studied his fleet. The flicker was tiny, but it shouldn’t have been there at all. A grim reminder of their predicament. The onboard datanet was glitched, and no one, not even their sole computer expert, had been able to fix it. His entire ship was breaking down.
He wanted to believe that the handful of light codes in the display represented a powerful force. Four superdreadnoughts, nine cruisers, twelve destroyers, and a pair of courier boats . . . On paper, it was a powerful force. But one superdreadnought could neither fire missiles nor energize a beam, and ammunition was in short supply in any case, and five of the smaller ships were on their last legs. Each failure, small in itself, led to a cascading series of failures that simply could not be fixed. Zaskar rather suspected that the Commonwealth wouldn’t need an entire superdreadnought squadron to wipe out his fleet in a stand-up battle. A single superdreadnought would be more than enough.
Which is why we are here, he thought, switching to the near-space display. They won’t come looking for us here, not until we are betrayed.
He gritted his teeth in bitter rage. The asteroid settlement was the sort of place he would have destroyed, if he’d stumbled across it before the war. Smugglers weren’t allowed to operate within the Theocracy, which hadn’t stopped a number of high-ranking personnel from trading safety and political cover for items that they simply couldn’t obtain anywhere else. And now . . . He swore, angrily. The smugglers might be their only hope, if they could find something to trade. But the squadron had very little to offer the scum of the galaxy.
Except ships, he reminded himself. And we’re not that desperate, are we?
Zaskar tapped the console, shutting off the display. He didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but perhaps they were that desperate. His fleet was dying. And its crew was dying too. Discipline was steadily breaking down—internal security had logged everything from fights to a handful of unpopular officers being murdered in their bunks—and he didn’t dare try to crack down. His crewmen were too ignorant for now to realize just how bad things really were, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The squadron was well on its way to collapsing into irrelevance. The Commonwealth wouldn’t have to lift a finger to destroy them. They’d do that for themselves.
He took a breath, tasting something faintly unpleasant in the air. The air circulation system was starting to break down too. He’d had men cleaning the vents and checking—and rechecking—the recycling plants, but if their air suddenly turned poisonous . . . that would be the end. It wouldn’t even have to be that poisonous. An atmospheric imbalance, perhaps an excess of oxygen, would be just as bad. A spark would cause an explosion. Hell, merely breathing in excess oxygen would cause problems too.
The hatch hissed open. Zaskar looked up, already knowing who he’d see. There was only one person who would come into his ready room without ringing the buzzer and waiting for permission to enter. Lord Cleric Moses stood there, his beard as unkempt as ever. Zaskar couldn’t help thinking there were more flecks of gray in his hair than there’d been yesterday. Moses was nearly two decades older than Zaskar himself and hadn’t had the benefit of a military career.
And he isn’t even the Lord Cleric, Zaskar reminded himself, dryly. He just took the title on the assumption that he was the senior surviving cleric.
The thought brought another wave of depression. Ahura Mazda had fallen. The Tabernacle had been destroyed, and the planet had been occupied . . . if the wretched smugglers were to be believed. Zaskar wanted to believe that the smugglers had lied, but . . . he’d been there, during the final battle. He was all too aware that the Royal Tyre Navy had won. And his fleet, the one that should have fought to the bitter end, had been all that remained of the Theocratic Navy. He sometimes wondered, in the dead of night, if it would have been better to stay and die in defense of his homeworld and his religion. At least he wouldn’t have lived to see his fleet slowly starting to die.
“They found nothing, it seems,” Moses said, taking a seat. “They didn’t even find any worthy women.”
Zaskar snorted. Some of his officers had suggested, quite seriously, that they leave Theocratic Space entirely and set out to find a new home somewhere far from explored space. But his fleet’s crew consisted solely of men. Kidnapping women was about the only real solution to their problem, but where could they hope to find nearly a hundred thousand women? Raiding a midsized planet might work—and he’d seriously considered it—yet he doubted they could withdraw before the occupiers responded. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure he could punch through the planet’s defenses. His fleet was in a terrible state.
“No,” he said.
“And they heard more rumors,” Moses added. “More worlds have slipped from our control.”
“Yes,” Zaskar said. “Are you surprised?”
The cleric gave him a sharp look. Zaskar looked back, evenly. The days when a cleric could have a captain, or even an admiral, hauled off his command deck and scourged were long gone. Moses had little real power, and they both knew it. Speaking truth to power was no longer a dangerous game. And the blunt truth was that the Theocracy had alienated so many locals on every world they’d occupied that the locals had revolted almost as soon as the orbital bombardment systems were destroyed.
Moses looked down. “God will provide.”
Hah, Zaskar thought. God had turned His back. We need a miracle.
His console bleeped. “Admiral?”
Zaskar stabbed his finger at the button. “Yes?”
“Admiral, we just picked up a small scout ship dropping out of hyperspace,” Captain Geris said. “They’re broadcasting an old code, sir, and requesting permission to come aboard.”
“An old code?” Zaskar leaned forward. “How old?”
“It’s a priority-one code from four years ago,” Captain Geris informed him. “I’m surprised it’s still in our database.”
Moses met Zaskar’s eyes. “A trick?”
Zaskar shrugged. “Captain, are we picking up any other ships?”
“Negative, sir.”
“Then invite the scout to dock at our forward airlock,” Zaskar ordered. “And have its occupant brought to my ready room.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
Zaskar leaned back in his chair as the connection broke. A priority-one code from four years ago? It could be a trap, but outdated codes were generally rejected once everyone had been notified that they were outdated. The Theocracy had been so large that it had been incredibly difficult to keep everyone current. And yet, four years was too long. It made little sense. The code dated all the way back to the Battle of Cadiz.
“They wouldn’t need to play games if they’d found us,” he said, more to himself than to Moses. The scout could be crammed to the gunnels with antimatter, but the worst they could do was take out the Righteous Revenge. “They’d bring in a superdreadnought squadron and finish us off.”
“Unless they want to be sure they’ve caught all of us,” Moses said. “The Inquisition often watched heretics for weeks, just to be certain that all their friends and fellow unbelievers were identified.”
Zaskar smiled. “We’ll see.”
He couldn’t help feeling a flicker of shame as the guest—the sole person on the scout, according to the search party—was shown into his ready room. Once, it would have taken a mere five minutes to bring someone aboard; now, it had taken twenty. He dreaded to think of what would happen if they had to go into battle. A delay in raising their shields and activating their point defense would prove fatal.
Their guest didn’t seem perturbed by the delay, or by the armed Janissaries following his every move, or even by the obvious fact that Righteous Revenge was on her last legs. He merely looked around with polite interest. Zaskar studied him back, noting the hawk-nosed face, tinted skin, and neatly trimmed beard. The man had gone to some lengths to present himself as a citizen of Ahura Mazda. Even his brown tunic suggested he’d grown up on Zaskar’s homeworld.
And he has a dozen implants, Zaskar thought, studying the report from the security scan. The visitor was practically a cyborg. And that means he’s from . . . ?
“Please, be seated,” Zaskar said. He kept his voice polite. Advanced implants meant that their guest was from one of the major powers. The Commonwealth was right out, of course, but there were others. Some of them might even see advantage in backing his fleet. “I’m Admiral Zaskar, commander of this fleet.”
“A pleasure,” the man said. He inclined his head in a formal bow. “I’m Simon Askew.”
“A pleasure,” Zaskar echoed. The name meant nothing to him, but he rather suspected it wasn’t the man’s real name. “You seem to have come looking for us.”
“Correct,” Askew said. He leaned forward. “My . . . superiors would like to offer you a certain degree of support in your operations.”
“Indeed?” Zaskar wasn’t sure whether he believed it or not. Keeping his fleet going would require an immense investment. “And the price would be?”
“We want you to keep the Commonwealth busy,” Askew said. “It is in our interests to see them get bogged down.”
“Is it now?” Zaskar frowned. “And who would be interested in seeing them bogged down?”
“My superiors wish to remain unnamed,” Askew informed him. He reached into his pocket and removed a datapad. “But they are prepared to be quite generous.”
He held the datapad out. Zaskar took it and scanned the open document rapidly. It was a list of everything the fleet needed to keep functioning, everything from starship components to missiles and ration bars. It was . . . it was unbelievable. It had to be a trap. And yet . . . and yet, he wanted to believe. If the offer was genuine, they could keep wearing away at the Commonwealth until it withdrew from Theocratic Space. They could win!
Moses reached out his hand for the datapad. Zaskar barely noticed.
“You want us to keep the Commonwealth busy,” he said. It was suddenly very hard to speak clearly. “It seems a reasonable price.”
His mind raced. No smuggler could transship so much material into a war zone, not without running unacceptable risks. And no smuggler would have access to cyborg technology. Only a great power could supply the weapons and equipment . . . and only a great power would benefit from keeping the Commonwealth tied down. The list of suspects was relatively short.
And it doesn’t matter, he told himself. They’d have to be alert for the prospect of betrayal, but that was a given anyway. The Theocracy had been the least popular galactic government for decades, even before the war. We could win!
“Very well,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter One
Ahura Mazda
The sound of a distant explosion, muffled by the forcefield surrounding Commonwealth House, woke Kat Falcone as she lay in her bed. Others followed, flickers of multicolored light dancing through the window as homemade rockets or mortar shells crashed into the forcefield and exploded harmlessly. She rolled over and sat upright, blinking as the lights automatically brightened. Her bedside terminal was flashing green. Pointless attacks had been so common over the last year that hardly anyone bothered to sound the alert any longer. The insurgents had yet to realize that no amount of makeshift rocketry would pose a threat to the Commonwealth HQ. Even without the forcefield, Commonwealth House could take the blow and shrug it off. The blasts wouldn’t even scratch the paint.
Not that we’re going to turn off the forcefield to let them try, she thought morbidly as she crossed her arms. That would be pushing fate too far.
She snorted at the thought as she forced herself to key her terminal to bring up the latest set of reports. There was no change, she noted wryly: an endless liturgy of shootings, bombings, gang rapes, robberies, and other horrors undreamed of on Tyre. But Ahura Mazda’s population had been kept under tight control for decades, centuries even. The sudden collapse of everything they’d once taken for granted had unleashed years of pent-up frustrations. She sometimes thought that the insurgency was really a civil war, with Commonwealth troops being engaged only when they got in the way. Ahura Mazda seemed to have gone completely mad.
Damn them, she thought. A final spread of makeshift rockets struck the forcefield outside, then faded away. And damn their dead leaders too.
She looked down at her hands, feeling as if she simply wanted to stay in bed. She’d had plans for the future, once. She was going to get married and see the universe, perhaps by purchasing a freighter and traveling from system to system, doing a little trading along the way. Instead, her fiancé was dead, and she was still in the navy, technically. She hadn’t stood on a command deck for nearly a year. Instead, she was chained to a desk on an occupied world, trying to govern a sector of forty inhabited star systems that had just been liberated from one of the worst tyrannies humanity had the misfortune to invent. The chaos was beyond belief. Ahura Mazda wasn’t the only world going through a nervous breakdown. She’d read reports of everything from mass slaughter to forced deportation of everyone who’d converted to the True Faith.
Years of pent-up frustrations, she reminded herself. She’d been lucky. She hadn’t grown up in a world where saying the wrong thing could get her beheaded. And they have all been released at once.
There was a sharp knock at the door. Kat glared at it, resisting the urge to order the visitor to go away. There was only one person who could come through that door. It opened a moment later, allowing Lucy Yangtze to step into the bedroom. The middle-aged woman studied Kat with a surprisingly maternal eye as she carried the breakfast tray over to the bedside table. Kat had to fight to keep from snapping at her to get out. Lucy was a steward. Looking after Kat was her job.
“Good morning, Admiral,” Lucy said. She managed to sound disapproving without making it obvious. “How are you today?”
Kat swallowed a number of remarks she knew would be petty and childish. “I didn’t sleep well,” she said as Lucy uncovered the tray. “And then they woke me up.”
“You need to go to bed earlier,” Lucy said, dryly.
“Hah,” Kat muttered. She forced herself to stand, heedless of her nakedness. “There are too many things to do here.”
“Then delegate some of them,” Lucy suggested gently. “You have an entire staff under you, do you not?”
Pat would have cracked a rude joke, Kat thought. It felt like a stab to the heart. And I would have elbowed him . . .
She pushed the thought aside with an effort. “We’ll see,” she said, vaguely. In truth, she didn’t want to delegate anything. Too much was riding on the occupation’s success for her to casually push authority down the chain. And yet, Lucy was right. Ahura Mazda wasn’t a starship. A single mind couldn’t hope to keep abreast of all the details, let alone make sure the planet ran smoothly. If that was her goal, she’d already failed. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“I’ll have lunch ready for 1300,” Lucy said. “You can make it a working lunch if you like.”
Kat had to smile, although she knew it wasn’t really funny. All her lunches were working lunches these days. She rarely got to eat in private with anyone. Even cramming a ration bar into her mouth between meetings wasn’t an option. She couldn’t help feeling, as she tucked into her scrambled eggs, that she was merely spinning her wheels in mud. She went to countless meetings, she made decisions, again and again and again, and yet . . . was she actually doing anything? She kicked herself, again, for allowing them to promote her off the command deck. The Admiralty probably would have let her take command of a heavy cruiser on deep-space patrol if she’d made enough of a fuss.
It has to be done, she thought as she keyed her console to bring up the latest news reports from home. And I’m the one the king tapped for the post.
“Naval spokespeople today confirmed that the search for MV Supreme has been finally called off,” the talking head said. He was a man so grave that Kat rather suspected he was nothing more than a computer-generated image. “The cruise liner, which went missing in hyperspace six months ago, has been declared lost with all hands. Duke Cavendish issued a statement reassuring investors that the Cavendish Corporation will meet its commitments, but independent analysts are questioning their finances . . .”
Kat sighed. Trust the media to put a lost cruise liner ahead of anything important. “Next.”
“Infighting among refugees on Tarsus has led to a declaration of martial law,” the talking head told her. “President Theca has taken personal control of the situation and informed the refugees that any further misbehavior, regardless of the cause, will result in immediate arrest and deportation. The Commonwealth Refugee Commission has blamed the disorder on poor supply lines and has called on Tarsus to make more supplies available to the refugees. However, local protests against refugees have grown . . .”
“And it could be worse, like it is here,” Kat muttered. “Next!”
“Sharon Mackintosh has become the latest starlet to join the Aaron Group Marriage,” the talking head said. “She will join fifty-seven other starlets in matrimonial bliss . . .”
“Off,” Kat snapped.
She shook her head in annoyance. The occupied zone was turning into a nightmare, no matter how many meetings she attended, and the news back home was largely trivial. The end of the war had brought confusion in its wake—she knew that better than anyone—but there were times when she thought that the king was the only one trying to hold everything together. The Commonwealth hadn’t been designed for a war, and everyone knew it. And now all the tensions that had been put on the back burner while the Commonwealth fought for its very survival were starting to tear it apart.
Standing, she walked over to the window and peered out. Tabernacle City had been a ramshackle mess even before the occupation, but now it was a nightmare. Smoke was rising from a dozen places, marking the latest bombings; below, she could see marines and soldiers heading out on patrol. The civilians seemed to trust the occupiers more than they trusted the warring factions, but they were scared to come into the open and say so. They were afraid, deep inside, that the occupation wouldn’t last. Her eyes picked out Government House, standing a short distance from Commonwealth House. Admiral Junayd and his people were trying to put together a provisional government, but it was a slow job. Their authority was weaker than most of the insurgent factions. She didn’t envy them.
Her wristcom bleeped from the table. She stalked back to the bed and picked it up. “Go ahead.”
“Admiral,” Lieutenant Kitty Patterson’s voice said. “You have a meeting in thirty minutes.”
“Understood,” Kat said. She allowed herself a moment of gratitude. Thirty minutes was more than long enough to shower and get dressed. “I’ll be there.”
She turned and walked into the shower, silently grateful that Commonwealth House had its own water supply. The local water distribution network had been on the verge of failing even before the occupation; now, with pipes smashed by the insurgents and entire pumping stations looted and destroyed, there were overpopulated districts that barely had enough water to keep the population from dying of thirst. Kat didn’t understand how anyone could live in such an environment. She thought she would sooner have risked her life in revolt than waste away and die.
But it was never that easy, she thought. This is how too many people here believe it should be.
She washed and dressed quickly, inspecting her appearance in the reflector field before she left the suite. Her white uniform was neatly pressed, her medals and her golden hair shone in the light . . . but there was a tired look in her eyes she knew she should lose. She was depressed and she knew it, and she really should talk to the shrinks, but training and experience told her that the psychologists were not to be trusted. None of them had commanded ships in battle, or made life-or-death decisions, or done anything that might qualify them to pass judgment on a spacer’s life.
She took a long breath, gathering herself as she strapped a pistol to her belt, then walked through the door and down the corridor. The two marine guards at the far end of the corridor saluted her. She returned the gesture as the hatch opened in front of her.
They built the place to resemble a starship, she thought dourly. It had been amusing, once, to contemplate the mind-set of whoever had thought it was a good idea. Were they trying to remind everyone that, one day, the Commonwealth would leave Ahura Mazda? Or did they just want to pretend, for a few hours, that they were designing starships? But they forgot to include a command deck.
She drew herself up as she stepped through the next hatch, into the meeting room. It was large and ornate, although she’d managed to clear out the worst of the luxury. She didn’t want people to get too comfortable in meeting rooms. Thankfully, most of her senior staff had genuine experience, either in combat or repairing and rejuvenating shattered planetary infrastructures. The war had created far too many opportunities to practice.
And I don’t have many chairwarmers, she reminded herself as her staff stood to welcome her. It could be worse.
“Thank you for coming,” she said once she’d taken her chair. “Be seated.”
She cast her eye around the table as her staffers sat down. General Timothy Winters, Commonwealth Marines; Colonel Christopher Whitehall, Royal Engineering Corps; Major Shawna Callable, Commonwealth Refugee Commission; Captain Janice Wilson, Office of Naval Intelligence; Lieutenant Kitty Patterson, Kat’s personal aide. It was a diverse group, she told herself firmly. And the absence of wallflowers, from junior staffers to senior staffers, allowed everyone to talk freely.
“I was woken this morning by a rocket attack,” she said as a server poured tea and coffee. “I assume there was no reason to be alarmed?”
“No, Admiral,” Winters said. He was a big, beefy man with a bald head and scarred cheekbones. “It was merely another random attack. The people behind it scarpered before we could catch them.”
Because we can’t fire shells back into the city, Kat reminded herself sharply. The insurgents would claim we’d killed civilians, even if we hadn’t.
She felt a flash of hatred deeper than anything she’d ever felt for enemy spacers. She’d never seen her opponents in space, not face-to-face. It had been easy to believe that they weren’t that different from her, that they weren’t monsters. But here, on the ground, she couldn’t avoid the simple fact that the insurgents were monsters. They killed anyone who supported the provisional government, raped and mutilated women they caught out of doors, sited heavy weapons emplacements in inhabited homes, used children to carry bombs towards the enemy . . . Kat wanted them all dead. Ahura Mazda would have no hope of becoming a decent place to live as long as those monsters stalked the streets. But tracking them all down was a long and difficult task.
“At least no one was killed,” Major Shawna Callable said. “Admiral, we need more resources for the women’s shelters. We’re running short of just about everything.”
“And they also need more guards,” Winters told her. “The last attack nearly broke the perimeter before it was beaten back.”
“Draw them from the reserves,” Kat ordered. She didn’t like deploying her reserves, not when she was all too aware of how badly her forces were overstretched, but she had no choice. The women in the shelters would be assaulted and murdered if one of their compounds was overrun. “And see what we can find in the way of additional supplies.”
If we can find anything, her thoughts added. Ahura Mazda produced nothing these days, as far as she could tell. The infrastructure had been literally torn to shreds. Putting the farms back into production was turning into a long, hard slog. Shawna had been right. We’re running short on just about everything.
She looked at Winters. “Is there anything we can do to make it harder for the insurgents to get to them?”
“Only moving the refugees a long way away,” Winters said. “Personally, I’d recommend one of the islands. We could set up a proper security net there and vaporize anything heading in without the right security codes.”
“We barely have the resources to keep the cities alive,” Colonel Christopher Whitehall said, curtly. He was short, with black skin and penetrating eyes. His record stated that he’d been a marine before he’d been wounded and transferred to the Royal Engineers. “Right now, Admiral, I’m honestly expecting a disaster at any moment.”
“So train up some locals and put them to work,” Winters snapped. He thumped the table to underline the suggestion. “It’s their bloody city. And their people who will die of thirst if we lose the pumping stations completely.”
“The training programs are going slowly,” Whitehall snapped back. The frustration in his voice was all too clear. “Half the idiots on this wretched ball of mud think that trying to fix a broken piece of machinery is sinful, while the other half can’t count to twenty-one without taking off their trousers. We’ve got a few women who might be good at it, if they were given a chance, but we can’t send them out on repair jobs.”
“It’s their schooling,” Shawna told them. “They weren’t encouraged to actually learn.”
Kat nodded in grim understanding. The Theocracy’s educational system had been a joke. No, that wasn’t entirely true. It had done its job, after all. It had churned out millions of young men who knew nothing, least of all how to think. But rote recitals were useless when it came to repairing even a relatively simple machine. It was a mystery to her how the Theocratic Navy had managed to keep its fleet going long enough to actually start the war. Their shortage of trained engineers had to have been an utter nightmare.
They never picked on anyone their own size, she told herself. The Theocracy’s first targets had all been stage-one or stage-two worlds. Very few of them had any space-based defenses, let alone the ability to take the fight to the enemy. And the Theocrats certainly weren’t prepared for a long war.
Whitehall met her eyes. “We need more engineers, Admiral, and more protective troops. If we lose a couple more pumping stations . . .”
“I know,” Kat said. They’d come to the same conclusion time and time again, in pointless meeting after pointless meeting. “Right now, Tyre doesn’t seem to be interested in sending either.”
“We could try to hire civilian engineers,” Kitty suggested. She was the lowest-ranking person at the table, but that didn’t stop her from offering her opinions. “They could take up some of the slack.”
Whitehall snorted. “I doubt it,” he said. “There’s work in the Commonwealth for engineers, Lieutenant, and safer too. They won’t be in any danger on Tarsus or . . . well, anywhere. I don’t think we could get them out here.”
Kitty reddened. “I . . . sorry, Admiral.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kat said, briskly. She looked around the table. “Are there any other solutions?”
“Not in the short run,” Whitehall said. “We have water and power, Admiral. It’s getting both to their destination that is the real problem. We’ve tried setting up purification centers near the sewers and . . .”
The building shook, gently. Kat tensed, one hand dropping to the pistol at her belt. That hadn’t been a homemade rocket. A nuke? The Theocracy had supposedly thrown its entire nuclear arsenal at the navy, but she’d never been entirely sure they’d used all their nukes. Hell, the Theocrats themselves hadn’t been sure. Their record keeping had been appalling. A nuke wouldn’t break the forcefield but would do immense damage to the city.
Winters checked his wristcom, then swore. “Admiral,” he said, “there’s been an explosion.”
“Where?” Kat stood. The blast had been very close. If the insurgents had managed to open a pathway into Commonwealth House, the defenders might be in some trouble. “And what happened?”
“Government House.” Winters sounded stunned. “The building is in ruins. Admiral, Admiral Junayd is dead.”
“. . . Shit,” Kat said.
Chapter Two
Tyre
Peter Falcone—Duke Peter Falcone, he reminded himself savagely—stared at the heavy wooden doors and tried not to let his impatience show on his face. He was no callow youth, although he’d grown up in the shadows of Duke Lucas Falcone; he was one of the single most wealthy and powerful people on Tyre. It hadn’t been easy to convince enough of the family to back him, even though he was Lucas’s oldest child, but he’d made it. The Falcone family was in his hands now. He had no intention of failing in his duty to his people.
Assuming I ever get through my investiture, he thought as he looked at the doors. They were firmly closed, awaiting the king’s pleasure. Who thought it was a good idea to come up with such . . . such pageantry?
He snorted at the thought. The planet’s founders, including his great-grandfather, had created a corporate state. There had been fourteen corporations, at the time, and they’d divided the world up between them. It had been simple enough, he’d thought, but, to give the whole enterprise a veneer of legitimacy, they’d turned the planet into a monarchy, with the most powerful CEO declared king. And it had grown from there into a tangled system that worked . . . mostly. But the founders had never imagined the Breakdown, or the Commonwealth, or, worst of all, the recently concluded war.
And they didn’t imagine one of the corporations collapsing either, Peter told himself. The Ducal Fourteen had always seemed too big to fail. But the Cavendish Corporation was on the verge of total collapse, and Peter had a nasty feeling that others might follow. His own corporation was barely treading water. We never imagined having to splash out so much money on everything from weapons development to force projection.
It was a sour point, one that had stuck in his craw ever since he’d discovered just how much money had been expended—and just how much remained unaccounted for. The government had raised taxes, as well as asked for voluntary contributions from the big corporations, but its accounting had been poor. The desperate rush to put as many warships into space as possible had done nothing for financial discipline. Peter was uneasily aware that nearly 30 percent of the budget for the last four years had vanished into black projects, projects he wasn’t supposed to know about. It was a staggering amount of money, truly unimaginable, and it was one of the bones the House of Lords wanted to pick with the king. And yet, it wasn’t the worst of them.
Trumpets blared. The doors were thrown open, revealing a pair of uniformed flunkies and, beyond them, the House of Lords. Peter pasted a neutral expression on his face as he began to walk forward, wondering just how many people were watching him make a fool of himself through the datanet. The entire ceremony was being broadcast live. His father had made the ceremony look solemn and dignified, but Peter suspected he looked like an idiot. The fancy robes and stylized hair came from a bygone era.
And true power lies in money, warships, and troops, he thought as he walked into the chamber. I could wear rags and Eau de Skunk, and I’d still be one of the most powerful men in the known universe.
He allowed his eyes to sweep the chamber as the doors were closed behind him. Seven hundred and ninety lords and ladies, crammed into a room that had been designed for only five hundred. For years people had been talking about expanding the House of Lords or rewriting the rules about who could and who couldn’t attend via hologram or proxy, but nothing had come of it. The lords who could trace their bloodlines all the way back to the founders had been joined by newer noblemen, some who’d more than earned their right to a title and others who’d been rewarded for services rendered. A cluster of lords, sitting in the upper benches, wore robes to signify that they were colonials. And hadn’t there been a thoroughly nasty fight over their right to sit in the chamber?
Peter sighed, inwardly, as he picked out a handful of names and faces. Prime Minister Arthur Hampshire, technically a commoner; Israel Harrison, Leader of the Opposition; Duke Jackson Cavendish, trying hard to look confident even though everyone knew he no longer had a pot to piss in . . . names and faces, some of whom were friends, some allies, and some deadly enemies. Peter wondered, careful not to show even a trace of doubt on his face, if he was really up to the task. There were men and women in the chamber who’d been playing politics long before he had been born.
There’s no one else, he told himself firmly. And I dare not fail.
He sucked in his breath. He wasn’t inexperienced. His father had made him work in the family corporation for years, pushing him out of his comfort zone time and time again. And chewing him out, royally, when he’d screwed up. Peter wasn’t sure how he felt about that either. His father had been a good man, but he’d also been a hard man. The family could not afford weakness in the ranks. Peter, at least, had been given a chance to learn from his mistakes. Not everyone had been so lucky.
And others never had to take up the role, he thought, feeling a flicker of resentment, once again, towards his youngest sister. Kat had never had to study business, never had to take up a position within the family corporation. Instead, she’d gone to war and carved out a life for herself. Some people have all the luck.
Peter stopped in the exact center of the chamber and looked up. King Hadrian, first of that name, looked back at him. He was a tall man, with short dark hair and a face that was strikingly calculating. The king, Peter knew from experience, was a man who could move from affability to threat with terrifying speed. He was young too, younger than Peter himself. It was something Peter knew had worried his father. Peter, and the other corporate heirs, could learn their trade without risking everything, but the king’s heir could not become king until his father had passed away. King Hadrian had been learning his trade on the job. And it was hard to tell, Peter had to admit, just how much was cold calculation versus sheer luck. And inexperience.
A shame the rumors about the king and Kat were groundless, Peter thought as he knelt in front of his monarch. She would have made a good partner for him . . .
He dismissed the thought, ruthlessly. There was no point in crying over the impossible. An affair was one thing, but marriage? The other dukes would have blocked the match without a second thought. And besides, Kat had been in love with a commoner. Peter couldn’t help feeling another stab of envy. His marriage had been arranged, of course; his parents had organized the match, one of the prices he paid for his position. But Kat was free to fall in love as she pleased. He wasn’t sure it was really a good thing. Kat had been devastated by her lover’s death.
King Hadrian rose, one hand holding his scepter. He wore a full military dress uniform, although it was black rather than white. Peter thought, rather sourly, that the king had no right to wear so much gold braid, let alone the medals jangling at his breast. But then, the king was a hereditary member of a dozen military fraternities. He probably needed to wear the medals his ancestors had won. Some of his supporters would otherwise be alienated.
“It has been a year and a day since Duke Falcone was treacherously killed,” King Hadrian said. His words were a grim reminder that nowhere, not even Tyre itself, was safe from attack. The Theocracy’s strike teams had done a great deal of damage before they’d been wiped out, but the security measures introduced to combat them had been almost worse. “And now, with the period of mourning officially over, we gather to invest his son with the title and powers that once were his father’s.”
There was a brief, chilling pause. Peter felt his heart beginning to race, even though he was sure there was nothing to worry about. He was the Duke, confirmed by the family council; no one, not even the king, could take it from him. And yet, if the House of Lords refused to seat him, it could cause all manner of trouble back home. The family council might vote to impeach him on the grounds he couldn’t work with the rest of the nobility and elect someone else in his place. Peter doubted he’d be permitted to return to the corporation after that! More likely he’d be sent into comfortable exile somewhere.
“But we must decide if he is worthy to join our ranks,” the king said calmly. “Honorable members, cast your votes.”
Peter tensed, telling himself again that he was perfectly safe. No one would risk alienating him over something so petty, not now. But the vote was anonymous . . . His family’s enemies would vote against him, of course, but what about the others? There were people who might take the opportunity to put him on notice that he couldn’t inherit the extensive patronage network his father had built up over the years. And others who would want to renegotiate the terms, now that his father was dead.
He wanted to look around to see the voting totals, but he knew it would be taken as a sign of weakness. He didn’t dare look unsure, not now. Weakness invited attack. Instead, all he could do was wait. He silently counted to a hundred under his breath, wishing he didn’t feel so exposed. The eyes of the world were upon him.
“The voting has finished,” King Hadrian said. “In favor, seven hundred and twelve; against, forty-two.”
And a number of abstentions, Peter thought. Did they refuse to cast a vote because they don’t want to take sides, even on something as pointless as this, or because they recognize the whole ceremony for the farce it is?
“I welcome you to the House of Lords, Duke Falcone,” King Hadrian said. He reached out and tapped Peter on the shoulder with his scepter. “You may rise.”
Peter rose, feeling suddenly stiff. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Take your place among us,” King Hadrian said. “I’m sure you will find it a very edifying discussion.”
A low rustle ran through the chamber as Peter sat down on the bench. It was comfortable, but not too comfortable. Behind him, he heard a handful of lords and ladies leaving now that the important business was done. They were too highly ranked not to attend the investment, but neither wealthy nor powerful enough to make themselves heard during a debate. And besides, Peter reflected, they probably knew that half the business conducted in the chamber was meaningless. The real deals would be negotiated in private chambers. By the time they were presented to the Houses of Parliament, various initiatives would already have been revised thoroughly enough to make them broadly acceptable to everyone. The public debates would be largely meaningless.
The speaker came forward, bowed to the king, and took the stand. He was an elderly man, old enough to remember the king’s grandfather. Peter felt a little sorry for him, even though he was sure that anyone who’d held such a position for so long had to know where the bodies were buried. The speaker had to wait at the back of the chamber while the king had played his role. But then, that too was part of the ceremony.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the speaker said. He cleared his throat. “The issue before us . . .”
Peter glanced down at his datapad as the voice droned on. He’d received more than fifty private messages in the last five minutes, each one requesting a private meeting. Some were just feelers from friends and enemies alike, but others were quite serious. He hadn’t expected a PM from Israel Harrison. Technically, Peter was on the Privy Council; practically, he’d been . . . discouraged . . . from claiming his father’s seat. There’d been too much else to do over the last year for him to let that bother him.
“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker,” Israel Harrison said. His voice cut through the hubbub, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “Is the government seriously proposing to expand the foreign aid budget?”
He went on before the prime minister could respond. “The emergency taxation and spending program was meant to be terminated with the end of the war. We were assured, when we gave our consent, that that would be the case. And yet, here we are, still paying the tax . . . and hampering our economy in the process. We need to cut back on government spending and resume economic growth.”
The prime minister stood. “The fact remains that a vast number of worlds, inside and outside the Commonwealth, have been devastated by the war. Millions upon millions of people have been displaced, cities have been destroyed, food supplies have been sharply reduced or cut off entirely . . . uncountable numbers of people have had their lives destroyed. Our reconstruction program may be the only thing standing between those people and utter destitution.”
“I fully understand why my honorable friend feels that way,” Harrison countered. “But I fail to understand why we should risk economic collapse, and our own utter destitution, to save those worlds. Many of them were formerly enemy states. Others have been, if I may make so bold, ungrateful.”
Peter gritted his teeth as the debate raged backwards and forwards, with government supporters exchanging harsh words with the opposition. It wasn’t about the displaced people, he knew, and it wasn’t about foreign aid in and of itself. It was the age-old question of just who got to control the budget. The government wanted to keep the emergency taxation program because it gave them more money to spend, while the opposition wanted to get rid of the program because it gave the government a great deal of clout to buy votes. And the hell of it, he knew all too well, was that the opposition, if elected into power, would want to keep the program too.
“The military budget is already too high,” Harrison said. “Do we face any real threat from an outside power?”
Grand Admiral Tobias Vaughn rose. Peter thought he looked tired. Vaughn had been the navy’s senior uniformed officer, which made him de facto senior officer for all branches of the military, for the last five years, a term that covered the entirety of the war. Rumor had it that Vaughn wanted to retire, but so far the king had convinced him to stay. Now that the war was over, Peter couldn’t help wondering just how long that would last.
“There are two aspects to your question,” Vaughn said. He sounded tired too. “First, we do not face a peer threat at the moment. However, our neighbors have been building up their own military forces over the last few years. We have reason to believe that they have been pouring resources into duplicating our advanced weapons and technology—unsurprisingly so, as they may regard us as a potential threat. It is possible that we may face an alliance of two or more Great Powers in the near future.
“Second, we have a responsibility to provide security for our territory, both within the Commonwealth and the occupied zone. There is, quite simply, no one else who will provide any form of interstellar security. We must deploy starships to protect planets and shipping lanes, and we must deploy troops to protect refugee populations and provide support to various provisional governments. The Jorlem Sector became increasingly lawless as a result of the war, honorable members. Do we really want the Theocratic Sector to go the same way?”
Harrison stood. “Is it going to be a threat to us?”
Vaughn looked back at him, evenly. “We have confiscated the remaining enemy industrial production nodes,” he said. “In the short term, chaos in the Theocratic Sector will be very bad for the locals and largely irrelevant to us. However, in the long term, there will be pirates, raiders, and revanchists taking root within the sector. I submit to you, sir, that those forces will eventually become a threat.”
“But the Theocracy is dead.” Harrison tapped his foot on the ground. “How long do you want to continue to fight the war?”
“Until we win,” Vaughn said. “Right now, sir, the sector is unstable, and we’re the only thing keeping it under control.”
“We have a debt of honor,” King Hadrian said.
“A debt of honor we cannot afford to meet,” Harrison said curtly. He didn’t quite glare at the king. “And a debt of honor that was entered into without Parliament’s consent.”
Peter groaned, inwardly, as the debate grew louder. Harrison was right, of course. The king had promised much and, so far, delivered little. But the king had made promises he’d had no right to make, certainly not without Parliament’s approval. No wonder his government wanted to keep emergency taxation powers. It was the only way to keep his promises to the Commonwealth.
And yet, we simply cannot afford to rebuild all the Theocracy’s infrastructure, he thought. The expenditure would be unimaginably huge. Even trying would be disastrous.
He groaned again. It was going to be a very long day.