“I didn’t expect that there would be peace,” Carola said, keeping her voice calm. In one respect, it was little different from facing the social kings and queens of the Empire, although she was partly aware that the consequences would be less devastating. Colin, at least, had a sense of honour. He wouldn’t blast someone, or crush him or her socially, just for disagreeing with him. “I shall convoy that message to Markus…”
She stood up. “Sit down,” Colin said, sharply. Carola obeyed, surprised. “Who are your allies?”
Carola lifted an eyebrow. “Allies, sir?”
“I studied the records of the battle carefully,” Colin repeated, almost as if he was forming a case in front of a judge. “Your ships weren’t just brought up to their design specs, but equipped with technologies they shouldn’t have had. Where did they come from?”
Carola shrugged, as if it wasn’t important. “Cottbus was governed by a Clan that wanted to overthrow and replace Cicero as the premier shipbuilding Clan in the Empire,” she said. “They created an entire pool of talent that they intended to use to create new starships. Duplicating the arsenal ships was simple enough; duplicating everything else you showed the Empire took longer, but it was far from impossible.”
She leaned forward. “I should point out that, under the Moscow Accords, you have to return me to Cottbus,” she added. “You can’t keep me as a prisoner.”
Colin snorted. “Did you know that the Victorious attempted to launch missiles down towards the planet?” He asked. “The point defence caught them all, but if they had missed… shipkillers against a planetary surface is two-thirds of a scorching. The Victorious is nothing more than vapour now…and, as for you.”
He stood up in one smooth motion. “I rather feel that the Victorious’s attempt to decapitate the Provisional Government and, just incidentally, kill you as well puts us beyond the provisions of the Accords. You will be held as a prisoner until the war comes to an end, one way or the other.”
Carola stared at him. “The Victorious had no orders to bombard the surface of the planet,” she protested. “It only had orders to withdraw…”
“Perhaps your husband doesn’t want to share his power, or perhaps someone on the ship decided that it was their only chance to hurt the Empire badly enough to make organising resistance tricky,” Colin said. The door opened and a pair of armoured Marines entered. Carola couldn’t tell if they were the same Marines as the ones who had escorted her to Colin’s office. “Take her to the detention centre and hold her there.”
“Yes, sir,” the lead Marine said.
Carola, with icy dignity, stalked out and allowed them to lead her back out of the building, thinking hard. What had really happened in Earth orbit… and why?
“I have had the recordings from the battle carefully analysed,” Grand Admiral Joshua Wachter said, as soon as Colin had called the meeting to order. There might be a time and a place for exchanging meaningless pleasantries, he had decided years ago, but it wasn’t when the Empire was fighting for its life. “There is little doubt, but the Cottbus forces consist of units from four different sectors and include advanced technology that we developed ourselves.”
There was a brief burst of whirring from Salgak’s implants. “It is not impossible that Carola Wilhelm’s clams may be accurate,” the Geek said, as his laser communicator linked into the holographic display and illuminated aspects of the battle. Colin had half-expected the Geek to dispute Joshua’s claim to having invented any technology — he’d been on the other side of the war at the time — but Salgak clearly had a different idea. “The technology they deployed is not actually anything new. It was deployed by us at Second Morrison, Gaul and Earth itself. They had six months to duplicate it and put it into production.”
Joshua nodded. “The only real question is how much of the new weapons they actually have,” he said. “Do we have any data on that issue?”
Kathy shot him an odd glance. “I have been attempting to modify standard Imperial production nodes to produce the new weapons,” she said, flatly. “Once we took over the massive production facilities at Jupiter, Mars and AlphaCent, we were able to streamline them into producing the newer weapons, but production levels remain low, with hundreds of tiny bottlenecks. Indeed, much of our current weapons mix still comes from the facilities established along the Rim, with obvious problems for future deployments.”
Colin scowled. The Empire had had surprisingly large problems with logistics, despite having most of the shipping in the galaxy under its direct or indirect control, and had solved the problem by outsourcing weapons production to the individual sectors. Harmony, Morrison and Yanasaxon, to name, but three, had provided far more missiles than their respective sector fleets had actually required… and the late unlamented Admiral D’Ammassa had turned a profit by selling them to various dubious enterprises. If the Shadow Fleet had used conventional missiles — and it had, until recently — they wouldn’t have any problems arming themselves, but if they used the newer missiles, their logistics took a beating.
“That’s not the problem at the moment,” he said, calmly. It was something that they would have to approach with care. “Admiral Garland has informed us of her intention to defend her base at Hawthorn and then attempt to engage Admiral Wilhelm’s logistics and hamper his advance on Earth. Our problem is simpler. Can we stop them short of Earth itself?”
Tiberius spoke up from his corner of the table. “And should Admiral Garland remain in command?” He added. “She lost two-thirds of a fleet that is effectively irreplaceable before the matter is decided, one way or the other.”
“We do have a new squadron of General-class superdreadnaughts working up now from AlphaCent,” Kathy said, something unreadable in her tone. Colin frowned. She had never gotten on with Tiberius that well, but it was almost as if she was attempting to conceal her own feelings. “Added to Home Fleet, we would still be able to give them a fight if they came to Earth, right?”
“It’s not that simple,” Wachter said, flatly. “A superdreadnaught in Home Fleet is one that is not going to be at Cottbus, Hawthorn or anywhere else. If we stand in defence of Earth, Admiral Wilhelm could tear hell out of the other systems, including all of the first-rank worlds. A long campaign works in our favour, but the war could go on indefinitely and the damage would be vast, beyond comprehension.”
“And unthinkable,” Goscinny said, slowly. “He has enough superdreadnaughts to blow through any of the first-rank worlds, despite all of their arming-up programs after the Fall of Earth. They have to be defended.”
“They can’t be defended,” Wachter said. “Like I said. A superdreadnaught squadron defending Gaul — which is on the other side of Earth, as you well know — will not be defending Earth, or indeed AlphaCent. We have to accept that Admiral Wilhelm may launch attacks on those systems.”
“You just want to give them up?” Goscinny demanded, outraged. “What choice do you expect them to make if Admiral Wilhelm’s starships enter the system and demand surrender? We can’t even mass the entire first-rank fleet again!”
“We’re getting off the issue at hand,” Tiberius said, calmly. He gazed around the room, almost as if he were counting allies and opponents. “Admiral Garland should be removed for this failure.”
“She had little choice in the matter,” Goscinny replied, angrily. “We decided how she should act, how she should fly to Cottbus and even how she should make her approach. Perhaps we should have ordered her to sneak up to the planet and bombard it from cloak, or maybe just demanding surrender? It wasn’t her fault.”