The fortress shuddered for the first time as missiles burst through the point defence to impact against their shields. He looked up at the display, watching grimly as indicators jumped towards the red as the shield generators struggled to compensate for the sudden influx of new and deadly energy, and winced. If the superdreadnaught commander continued the bombardment, they were likely to take out at least three fortresses before they were destroyed, unless they were foolish enough to close to energy weapons range. Somehow, he doubted that they would be that stupid…
“They’re pulling back,” Quinn said, softly. Charlie felt his eyes go wide. They were going to live! One by one, the superdreadnaughts fell back, rising up towards the gravity shadow and escape, protected by their handful of remaining escorts. Most of the superdreadnaughts had taken some kind of damage, and seven of them had been destroyed. The firing slacked off as they moved out of range, leaving the fortresses in possession of the high orbitals… and hence the planet. “Why…”
The superdreadnaughts passed above the gravity shadow and flickered out. “They’re heading towards Drood,” Sasha said, after a moment. Her hand worked the console for a long moment. “It’s listed as a minor supply dump, nothing too serious, so I dare say we can let them go.”
“As if we could stop them,” Charlie said. He paused. “I wonder why they decided to leave,” he said. “They could have inflicted more damage…”
The display sparkled with red icons. “Incoming ships,” Quinn said, grimly. Charlie cursed. Were they going to lose after all they’d accomplished? “They’re breaking out of flicker-space now on a raiding profile.”
Charlie stared, refusing to believe his eyes.
“That’s the Admiral,” Sasha said, in delight. Charlie found himself chuckling helplessly with naked relief. “Hail her, now, before she starts shooting. Tell her that we’re in control and we’d really like some Marines to help make our conquests permanent.”
Quinn stared at her. “Every textbook in the Empire swears blind that it is impossible to coordinate operations between two fleets in different locations,” he said. The suspicion in his voice was palatable… and written all over his face. “How did you manage to get the Admiral’s fleet here right on time?”
Sasha winked at him. “What can I say?” She said. “We’re pretty damned good.”
Charlie rolled his eyes behind Quinn’s back. It had been a coincidence, although perhaps not an unexpected one… but there was no reason why Quinn had to know that. Imperial Intelligence needed to recover some of its reputation…
And besides, the truth would only upset him.
Chapter Forty-Two
The atmosphere in the room was sober.
Colin glanced around the table, seeing who was present… and who was missing. Kathy Tyler, the heroine of the hour and the only person to emerge with much credit, was present. So was Jason Cordova, her lover, even though the news feeds flooding across the solar system were very ambiguous about his role in events. Blondel Dupre, Prime Minister, and René Goscinny, Foreign Minister and First-Rank Representative, were also present, as was Admiral Arun Prabhu. The missing seemed to haunt the table; Tiberius Cicero, Daria and Grand Admiral Joshua Wachter. Their presence seemed to pervade the room, even though one of them was dead and the other two were missing.
The security forces had started a search at once, but hours later, Colin had had to conclude that Daria had either managed to make it off-planet or had gone to ground somewhere where she couldn’t be easily found. Every man’s hand was against her now, her role in the bloody slaughter of thousands of people, many of them aristocrats, common knowledge. Nothing spread through the Empire like bad news and that was the worst news of all. Gwendolyn’s warning that Grand Admiral Joshua Wachter was still alive had worried Colin. There was only one possible reason to fake his death, only one role that he could fill, and that was commander of a fleet. Out there, somewhere, Daria still had a fleet. It was the only conclusion that made sense.
And Admiral Wilhelm was out there too. Colin couldn’t believe that they were allies, the former Empress and the Admiral who had made his own grasp for power. They were rivals as well — he wondered, absently, if there was a way to set them at each other’s throats — but both of them wanted Earth. Admiral Wilhelm’s path led directly towards Earth and Colin was sure that invasion was imminent. They would be challenging the Shadow Fleet, but he might well have the firepower to prevail… and Daria knew almost everything about the defences of Earth. She had once been an Admiral herself. She wouldn’t commit her forces to the attack until she was certain she could win, not with everything at stake.
The betrayal hurt. Colin had cared for Daria, even if they had been too different to act on their mutual attraction… but had it really been mutual attraction? In hindsight, had Daria tried to attract him to bind him to her cause, or had she been under stress as well and searching for a partner? She’d done something that only Joshua had done before and forced Colin to doubt himself and his actions. How much had she done to impede the development of the Provisional Government? How much had she done to cause the bushfires and minor conflicts that threatened to spring up all over the Empire? At the last, was everything they had achieved to be torn down, just because one woman wanted to return to the Imperial Throne?
Never, he thought coldly, and turned to face the table.
“We may be attacked at any moment,” he said, without preamble. They weren’t the type of people to be impressed by meaningless pleasantries, even if he had felt like wasting time. “By my most pessimistic estimates, Admiral Wilhelm should be here by now, so he may arrive at any time. We will also have to face the fleet that the Empress” — he refused to use her name, even through it hadn’t been her original name — “has assembled, a fleet of unknown strength.”
“Four superdreadnaught squadrons,” Cordova said. Colin blinked, quirking an eyebrow, at his confidence. “The ships that fled Home Fleet during the final battle for Earth — what we thought was the final battle for Earth — and vanished. They didn’t show up in Admiral Wilhelm’s line of battle at Cottbus, so they didn’t go to join him, and Daria used to command Home Fleet. She had plenty of time to place her own people in positions of power.”
Colin shivered. Again, for the second time since Joshua had beaten him at Morrison, he had the distant feeling that he was outmatched. It had taken him years of planning and careful action to build up the core conspiracy that had seized the Macore Observation Squadron and then Commodore Stacy Roosevelt’s superdreadnaughts, but he hadn’t been forced to leave some people hanging out on a limb for over fifty years. Planning on that timescale should have been impossible, but Daria had managed it, somehow… and, in doing so, had brought the Empire to its knees. Their sole prisoner from her inner circle — insofar as she’d had an inner circle — had worked for her for over fifty years too, although Gwendolyn hadn’t known that Daria intended a mass slaughter.
His blood ran cold as he contemplated the possibilities. If Daria had remained unnoticed, she would have been running the Empire by now… and the irony was that she might have done him a favour. Parliament had stopped wasting time in the aftermath of the massacre; they might even manage to create the first Empire-wide governing system to replace the Thousand Families. The prospect of hanging had concentrated more than a few minds wonderfully well. They couldn’t expect much mercy from the Empress when she regained her throne. The horror stories the Thousand Families had spread about her, turning her into a bogyman, were only encouraging that trend. They didn’t want to face her with a fleet backing her and Earth naked and defenceless.