It would have really upset his visitors, particularly the half-drunk youngster who was playing with one of his maids, to know that they weren’t brain-burned at all. It was astonishing what someone would say in front of someone they knew couldn’t understand them. The level of intelligence Rupert gathered was remarkable.
The maid put a plate of cheese and biscuits in front of him and he ate it slowly, considering his next move. So far, everything was going entirely to plan. All of the variables had been successfully predicted and countered. So far, he reminded himself; ultimate success was not guaranteed. Nothing was ever guaranteed in life.
Still, the Brotherhood would be pleased.
From: The Chaos Years (5023)
As we have seen in preceding chapters, unnoticed by most of its citizens, the Federation’s moral authority was declining rapidly in the period following the Blue Star War. The social glue that held the Federation together was crumbling, creating an unrecognized state where corruption and ambition went hand-in-hand to shake the Federation to its foundations. Admiral Justinian was merely the first admiral to turn into an independent warlord; the Federation’s failure to crush him quickly meant that others would be tempted to try their luck. The Senate—nervous about its grip on power—only made matters worse. Admirals and governors who might have sat on the fence saw the Senate’s desperate attempts to shore up its power as a threat, one that might consume even the loyal.
So it was that the three years following the Battle of Boskone—and the stalemate between the loyalists and Admiral Justinian that resulted—saw the Federation stumble from crisis to crisis. No less than seven Sector Governors and nine admirals declared independence, or attempted to turn their sectors into autonomous regions within the Federation. Two went rogue and turned their fleets into pirate forces, or headed out beyond the Rim to set up pocket kingdoms of their own. The chaos kept spreading. No one was safe.
It was Admiral Lafarge who has been commonly credited with posing the worst threat to the Core Worlds. Lafarge, commander of a sector far too close to the Core Worlds for comfort, risked a drive on Earth, convinced that the Senate intended to recall and murder him. (No amount of historical research has provided convincing evidence that this belief was actually well-founded.) His incursion, destroyed by Home Fleet in the brief and bitter Battle of Terra Nova, only provided the impetus to the Senate to proceed with its plans for internal security—even at the cost of alienating other potential allies.
An outsider, looking at the Federation from a mythical objective vantage point, would have wondered if the edifice was going to collapse within years, perhaps months. Rogue and rebel admirals, Outsider raids and even rebellions on hundreds of human and alien worlds threatened its integrity. Had the Federation’s many enemies succeeded in working together, its defeat and dismemberment would have been a certainty.
And so it was that Admiral Drake, now promoted to Fleet Admiral, set plans in motion to keep its enemies off-balance and suspicious of one another. It was the only hope of savaging something of the Federation from disaster.
Chapter Twenty-One
Assault cruisers were designed to serve in a variety of roles, from intelligence gathering to commerce raiding and other roles. Although the class was originally designed in the years following the Blue Star War, the first examples only entered regular service during the Chaos War, after the Battle of Terra Nova.
FNS Magnificent, Boskone System, 4095
It was an older and more confident Roman Garibaldi that strode into Fleet Admiral Marius Drake’s office on the superdreadnaught. He wore a captain’s uniform as if he’d been born to wear it.
Marius accepted the younger man’s salute and returned it before waving Garibaldi to a seat. The newly-minted captain took it without the hesitation he’d shown on their first meeting, three years ago. Marius smiled as he returned to his own seat. It wasn’t the first time he had mentored a promising junior officer, but Garibaldi was something special. Very few people had the combination of skill and luck that Garibaldi displayed in abundance. The Promotion Board clearly agreed. At twenty-five, Garibaldi was the youngest captain in the Federation Navy—and in history.
The thought made Marius smile momentarily as he nodded to his steward, who had prepared cups of coffee for the admiral and his guest. Too many promising young officers had died since Admiral Justinian had started his rebellion, killed in battle or captured by one of a dozen factions that were tearing the Federation apart. Admiral Justinian’s second attempt to punch through the Asimov Point and capture the system had been bad enough, but the revolution on Maskirovka had been bloody and futile…and the other rogues had been worse. Marius knew that he’d been lucky to get even the reinforcements he’d been given, not with too many other flashpoints requiring a permanent Federation Navy presence. The Senate’s growing panic had ensured that large forces were kept on permanent standby around nodal points, limiting the ships that could be deployed on offensive operations. It was total bloody chaos.
“My congratulations on your promotion,” Marius said as they sipped their coffee. “I read the citation. Your little stunt at Terra Nova could have gone spectacularly wrong.”
“Yes, sir,” Garibaldi said. “I believed that the risk was justified.”
Marius had to smile. The younger man was more focused than he’d been as a junior officer. War did that to young officers, those who survived the first few years of their careers.
“So did the Promotion Board and your own captain,” Marius agreed. “I read both his report and the more private message he forwarded to me. You nearly gave him a heart attack.”
He smiled at Garibaldi’s expression. “You deserve command of Midway, certainly,” he added, changing the subject. “Command of the first of a new generation of starships! Not too shabby, not at your age.”
Garibaldi hesitated, and then must have realized that he was being teased.
“Yes, sir,” he said, an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. “I’m very proud of her.”
“I read the readiness reports.” Marius tapped the datapad on the table. “You’re doing very well, certainly better than some believed. I think you have a bright future ahead.”
He shrugged, dryly. “And since you’ve come all the way from Earth, do you have any personal messages for me?”
“There’s a locked information store that I brought over to you from the Senate,” Garibaldi informed him. “And Professor Kratman gave me a datachip that I was to place into your hands alone.” He reached into a sealed pocket, produced the unmarked chip, and passed it over to Marius, who took it gingerly. A secure datachip would be rigged to disintegrate if someone tried to break into the encoded data store. “He sends you his regards.”
“I served with him,” Marius said absently. He placed the datachip in a secure drawer on his desk and closed it with an audible thump. “It’s good to see you again.”