Quinn’s eyes went wide. Charlie watched with genuine amusement. The young man was genuine, all right. He wasn’t old enough to have perfect control over his expressions, although clearly he was already sick of the system. It made him a perfect rebel. It looked as if they’d hit pay dirt.
“Really?” He asked, finally. Caution warred with optimism in his voice. “Can you prove that?”
“Of course,” Sasha said. “Can you prove what you are?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Daria walked into the room as if she owned it and sat down on a chair that had been old when the Empire had been formed from the ashes of the Federation. Tiberius watched, barely concealing the wince that formed in his heart, even though it was an ugly chair and worth very little, at least as far as he was concerned. His father had told him that someone had forged it, based on a far old design, and that the Family had kept it to illustrate a point. If he had known what that point actually was, he’d never had time to share it with his son.
He took his own seat more casually and smiled. “Jason will do as he is told,” he said, without bothering with any preamble. It wasn’t safe for her to stay too long at his estate, even though it was one of a handful of places where they could be sure of complete privacy. The official reason for the meeting, a discussion about Freebooter ships working to support Cicero mining interests, wouldn’t hold up under careful scrutiny. Somehow, it was hard to imagine that Colin wasn’t aware of some of their plans and that he was preparing a deadly counterattack. “I hit him with both the carrot and the stick.”
“Good,” Daria said, smoothly. Her gaze fell to the piece of artwork on the mantle. Dathi artwork was rare throughout the Empire, not least because it was officially banned and regarded as almost blasphemous by the commoners, who would quite happily report anyone possessing a piece without a special licence. Tiberius disliked it, even though it served a purpose; he had the nagging feeling that there was some message in the artwork that was lurking at the very edge of perception. One of his ancestors had collected several pieces, picked up from the ruined and blasted worlds that had been left orbiting uncaring stars, but he would have preferred to dispose of them. Like most of the Family’s vast collection, placed within a bombproof shelter deep below the estate, it was left alone unless it came back into fashion. “We do not want to lose either him or Lady Tyler.”
Tiberius frowned. “She did give up her title,” he pointed out. “Do we really need to keep her even if she agrees to join us?”
Daria smiled. “She’s the most competent person running the Empire’s economy in the last fifty years,” she said. “Yes, we need her, if only to provide a degree of continuity that would otherwise be lacking. She isn’t exactly Gwendolyn, of course, but she’s someone we’re going to need and someone we have a hold on.”
“She could have reclaimed her title at any time,” he said, remembering a brief discussion with Lord Tyler. Unlike Jason Cordova, Kathy had never been disowned by her Family, despite her allegiance to the rebels. “She chose not to reclaim it. Can she be trusted?”
“Very few people can be trusted,” Daria said. There was a mocking, almost amused, note in her voice, an icy reminder that she’d been betrayed and forced to flee her throne. “People are governed by self-interest. I dare say that Colin could find something to break the ties between you and I, if he knew about us and decided that it was a good idea.”
“He couldn’t,” Tiberius protested. What was it about her that made him obedient? It wasn’t just her legend, or the covert support she could call on from the most surprising places, but something else. She reminded him of Joshua, but older and sharper… and perhaps more ruthless. “What could he find to offer me?”
Daria shrugged. “It hardly matters,” she said, absently. “Have you and Alicia finally set a date for the wedding?”
The sudden change in the subject caught Tiberius by surprise. “Two weeks,” he said, finally. He hadn’t wanted a fancy wedding, knowing that almost all Family weddings ended in divorce, but Alicia’s Family had insisted. It was important, more than ever, to give the Cicero Clan a Heir, but it would also create a weakness in his defences. If one of his enemies took his child and used him or her against him… the result could be disastrous. “I trust that Daria, Leader of the Freebooters, will be attending?”
“I have my own matters to attend to,” Daria said. As Empress, she would be expected to attend such weddings, but until she took her throne back, she could avoid them at will, even though Tiberius could send her an invitation. It was going to be the most cosmopolitan wedding of the decade, with hundreds of commoners who’d found places in the new government, including the MPs, invited to attend. He even hoped that Colin and Cordova would attend. “Perhaps the wedding would make a suitable moment to assassinate Colin?”
Tiberius flinched slightly. “I thought you liked him,” he protested. “How can you cold-bloodily contemplate his death?”
“I do like — and respect — him,” Daria said, an odd note in her voice. “I also know that he will bring down the Empire if he continues to push forward his reformation program, with or without the threat from Admiral Wilhelm. That cannot be allowed. Colin may be operating from the best possible motives, but he cannot be continue with the Empire itself at stake. I thought that he could be controlled, given time, but he’s decided to be his own man. We have no choice, but to remove him.”
“I see,” Tiberius said. He thought of Alicia, an innocent insofar as any of the Families were innocent, and felt an odd pang. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought it was love… and guilt. “You can’t use my wedding as an assassination venue.”
“Why not?” Daria asked, dryly. She looked up at the chart of the High City that had been placed on one wall. “The only way to get at Colin in the High City relies on luck or extreme force… and neither are guaranteed. A single shipkiller would destroy the entire city — and most of the surrounding continent — but launching one and getting it through the defences would be tricky. It would also tip our hand, while slipping an assassin through the security network would be almost impossible. The Marines are, after all, very good at their job… and loyal to Colin. We cannot subvert one of them without revealing our presence.”
Tiberius scowled. “Marines are human, aren’t they?” He said, remembering Joshua’s straight-faced assertion that Marines ate nails for breakfast and chewed raw iron for lunch and dinner. “They can be conditioned to obey us…”
“Not without breaking the implants they have inserted into their brains, designed to prevent someone with a few bright ideas from doing just that,” Daria said, flatly. “The only way to get a conditioned Marine into the Corps would be to condition the person before they started their training and that would take time we don’t have. Most of the original High City staff were cleared out when Colin’s forces took over the city, so we don’t even have access to them.”
“A pleasure slave?” Tiberius asked. He didn’t know how Daria controlled them — it should have been impossible and, had it not been for the death of Lord Roosevelt, he would have thought that it was impossible — but she did, somehow. “Why can’t one of them be used to assassinate Colin?”
“He doesn’t use any of the ones assigned to the High City,” Daria said. There was an unmistakable note of frustration in her voice. “I don’t know if he doesn’t use them because he finds them creepy, as many people do, or because he feels that he shouldn’t be taking advantage of his position, but he never lets one close enough to him to do anything nasty to him.” She scowled. “Besides, it’s hard to slip them specific instructions.”