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CHAPTER SEVEN

“One minute,” Captain Cheryl Cherise warned from Diactoros’s command station, her voice carrying across the bridge that stretched out in front of her as well as to the observers floating in the back section behind her.

Winterfall took a deep breath, feeling his heartrate picking up for probably the fourth time in the past hour. One minute until transition from hyperspace, with all the nausea and discomfort that entailed. One minute from the New Berlin star system, home of the capital planet of Potsdam, heart of the Andermani Empire. One minute to finding out whether he could do the job the Queen and Cabinet had entrusted him with.

One minute to the beginning of the path that could lead Manticore and the Andermani to peace or animosity…or possibly even war.

He looked across the open area, his eyes skipping past his team, and focused on Travis. His brother looked calm and collected, as if they were just popping across town instead of on their way to meet with the head of a star nation that by all reports was powerful enough to rival even Haven.

But of course, Travis could afford to be calm. None of this was on him. He was just here to say hello to the Emperor, offer a detail or two of the Walther battle that Basaltberg might have forgotten or glossed over, and maybe collect a medal that he and Lisa could pass down to their children. He wasn’t the one responsible for whatever negotiations Gustav might decide to throw at him. All Travis had to do—

Winterfall felt his stomach tighten. All Travis might have to do was stand aboard his outmoded and outclassed ship someday and face off against the Andermani Navy if his brother screwed this up.

Stop it! he ordered himself sternly. He might be walking on eggshells here, but it was hardly going to end in war, no matter how badly he might screw up. It was just a matter of taking things one step at a time.

Starting with the translation back out of hyperspace. Travis had warned the downward translation was usually worse than the upward one they’d experienced on their way out of Manticoran space, but Winterfall was ready for it.

Ten seconds later Diactoros made translation.

And Winterfall discovered to his dismay that he wasn’t.

Fortunately, he had the bag ready, and got to it in time, which saved him from the absolute shame of vomiting in zero-G. But there was still plenty of embarrassment left as he heaved his guts.

Still, as he slowly recovered, he could see that several of the others weren’t in the greatest shape either. Most, he suspected, were simply better at hiding it than he was.

Travis, naturally, barely even seemed to acknowledge the event.

“Signal coming in,” the man at the com station called. His voice seemed odd, as if he was fighting his own gastric distress.

“What, already?” Cherise asked, sounding surprised.

Winterfall blinked back fresh tears, trying to settle his stomach and get his mind back in gear. Potsdam was a solid twelve light-minutes from where they’d crossed the hyper limit, which meant that even if the Emperor had signaled the second he picked up their footprint it should be at least another eleven minutes before they heard anything. So how could they be hearing anything this soon?

“Found the ship, Ma’am,” someone else called. “It’s about twenty light-seconds inward—practically on top of us. Looks like a destroyer.”

Winterfall squared his shoulders. As Foreign Secretary, he was technically the master of the entire mission. He ought to join this conversation. “What are they saying?” he asked. His voice came out only a little slurred.

“No idea,” the com operator said. “The signal’s encrypted.”

“Obviously intended for Basaltberg and Zhong Kui,” Cherise said.

“Catching up on eight months’ worth of news,” Winterfall said, nodding.

“Or eight months’ worth of military updates,” Travis said.

Winterfall frowned across the lounge. “You think there’s trouble?”

“I don’t know,” Travis said. “But that ship sure looks like it was waiting for us specifically—as far as I know there are no other systems along this vector where an Andermani ship might have come in.”

Zhong Kui’s signaling back to the destroyer, Captain,” the com operator put in.

“And it’s only been eleven T-years since their last war and annexation,” Travis added. “They might be having trouble with unrest.”

Winterfall winced. “You mean eleven years since the last war we know of,” he pointed out.

“There’s that, too,” Travis conceded. “Andermani history over the past thirty years has been a little…unstable.”

“So it has,” Winterfall murmured. It had only been thirty-four T-years ago that Gustav Anderman and the mercenaries of Liegnitz, Ltd., descended on the Old Chinese-founded world of Kuan Yin and rescued the colonists from slow starvation. The grateful populace had accepted him with open arms, and apparently had no problem with his subsequent program of turning their world into a modern version of Old Prussia. Over the next three decades New Belin had grown to become the six-system Andermani Empire as various star nations had, in their turns, attacked Anderman, been defeated, and been subsequently annexed.

At least, that was the story from the official Andermani history in Manticore’s files. Other reports were less charitable to the old mercenary chief. The records from Tomlinson, for instance, claimed Anderman had overreacted to a simple misunderstanding, and had followed up the unwarranted conquest with continued harassment and heavy-handed suppression of the locals. The documents filed with the Solarian League by the so-called ABC alliance of Angelique, Babel, and Cantiz accused Anderman of naked aggression against their own peaceful worlds.

No doubt Emperor Gustav himself would repeat the claim that everyone in his empire lived under a fair and just rule. But if there was lingering unrest, Travis would be far better than Winterfall at analyzing the official military information and the more subtle signs embedded in them.

“Signal from Zhong Kui,” the com operator said.

“My Lord?” Cherise invited.

Winterfall swallowed. Master of the mission. “Put it through,” he said.

“Lord Winterfall,” Basaltberg’s voice came over the speaker.

Winterfall felt a shiver run through him as he threw another look at Travis. A ship waiting at the hyper limit for them; encrypted messages going back and forth; and now the admiral’s voice as dark and subdued as Winterfall had ever heard it.

“I’m afraid it falls to me to deliver bad news,” Basaltberg continued. “Three weeks ago, His Excellency Emperor Gustav passed from this life to that which lies beyond. His Excellency Emperor Andrew now sits on the throne in his stead.

“Gott schütze den Kaiser.”

* * *

For a long moment the bridge and lounge were silent, the dead air filled with shock and disbelief. Travis found himself staring at the viewscreen, at the distant fire of New Berlin’s sun and the hovering dot marking Zhong Kui’s position. This couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Not after they’d come all this way at the Emperor’s invitation.

But it was. Basaltberg’s fears, Basaltberg’s premonitions, had come true.

And suddenly, for all intents and purposes, the Manticorans were adrift without a wedge.

What were they supposed to do now?

“The cortège has begun its voyage through the Empire,” Basaltberg continued. “Emperor Andrew accompanies his father’s remains aboard SMS Friedrich der Grosse, allowing all to say their final farewells. I have orders to intercept them mid-journey and join her escort through its return to New Berlin. I’m afraid—” He broke off, and Travis winced in sympathetic pain at the ache in the admiral’s voice. “I’m afraid that this leaves you in something of an uncertain position, Lord Winterfall. I’m certain that Emperor Andrew will be willing to meet with you when he returns, but right now all such matters are necessarily suspended.”

Winterfall took a deep breath. Hold it together, Travis mentally urged his brother. You can do this. Just hold it together and find an answer.

“I understand entirely, Admiral,” Winterfall said, with just the right mix of sympathy for Basaltberg and the somberness appropriate for an outsider who had no personal claim to mourn. “If I may suggest, we of the Star Kingdom of Manticore would like to join you in your journey, that we might be present to pay our own respects to your late Emperor. Would that be acceptable?”

There was a moment of silence. Even in his grief at the shattering news, Travis knew, Basaltberg would nevertheless be running the logic, the politics, and the diplomacy though his mind. Deciding whether or not the presence of foreigners at such an intimate time and event would be proper, or whether it would be better to let those same foreigners continue unescorted to the heart of the Empire to await Andrew’s return. Travis held his breath…

“Emperor Gustav desired to meet you and your countrymen, My Lord,” the admiral said at last. “Sadly, that opportunity has now passed. But I’m certain he would have been pleased to allow you to join with the people of the Empire in saying your farewells. I would be honored to have you accompany me as I fulfill my Emperor’s final orders.”

Travis let out a quiet breath. Good. They would be with Basaltberg at least a little longer, which would hopefully give them all time to catch their breath and come to terms with this unexpected development. Hopefully, Captain Marcello and the rest of the Damocles’s officers wouldn’t have a problem with this.

Actually, even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. Gavin Vellacott, Baron Winterfall, was the one in command here.

“But understand,” Basaltberg continued. “While Emperor Andrew may be willing to meet with you upon your arrival, there will be no discussions or other diplomatic events. This trip is solely for remembrance and mourning.”

“Absolutely, Admiral,” Winterfall agreed. “We accept this honor with gratitude and humility.”

“Thank you as well for your courtesy,” Basaltberg said. “I’m sending the necessary navigation data to you and Damocles. We’ll return to the hyper limit and proceed with all due speed. With your permission, I must now speak to the rest of my crew.”

“Understood,” Winterfall said. “We’ll speak again later.”

There was a tone as the com channel closed. “Captain Cherise?” Winterfall asked.

“Data coming in now, My Lord,” Cherise said. “Navigation, make our new course.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“So where exactly are we going?” Travis asked, straining to look past Cherise’s shoulder and read the nav display.

“Not too far, Commander,” Cherise said. “One of the Andermani colony worlds a couple of weeks’ travel away.

“Tomlinson.”

* * *

It was time.

Bajer didn’t know the entire plan, of course. Only the Freedom Council’s inner circle knew the entire plan. But he had to know more than most, given how pivotal his role was, and so he knew the equipment was in place. The rest of the Free Tomlinson rebels were ready. And the timing was perfect.

In fact, it was better than perfect. The sudden and unexpected death of Emperor Gustav—and the fact that the mysterious benefactor who had gotten this whole thing rolling three years ago had been able to inform the Freets before the official word had been released here in Tomlinson—had come at precisely the right moment.

The only worrisome part was the fact that Bajer didn’t know if the reinforcements they’d been promised were actually in place. It would have been far too risky for them to send any transmissions announcing their arrival, so he just had to hope they’d hit their own timing.

Even if they hadn’t, though, it wouldn’t matter. Not where his mission was concerned. And if he and the others succeeded, they should be more than able to deal with the situation until the reinforcements did arrive. Once the Freets took Preussen, they’d have more than enough firepower to chase away or cripple the cruiser and destroyer that acted as the battleship’s escort, as well as anything else in the system that might try to challenge them.

The Freets had always known the real problems would begin when word of events in Tomlinson reached New Berlin, and they’d expected the response to be massive and violent. But that had been when Gustav Anderman had been in charge. Now he was dead…and if the cortège held to its itinerary, it was just possible that there would be no response from New Berlin at all.

Yet to make any of that happen, they needed time. And that meant that the chase away or cripple options on Preussen’s escort ships really boiled down to just cripple.

Cripple…or kill.

The Freedom Council on the planet below him wouldn’t like that. Neither would their anonymous backer. Their initial strategy had always been to position themselves with sufficient power to persuade the Emperor to negotiate Tomlinson’s freedom rather than spend the lives and ships it would cost to beat down the rebels and retake the system. Too much bloodshed at the very beginning, though, might well have driven out logic in favor of pride and anger, and the Freet leaders had warned Bajer to be as cautious as possible where casualties were concerned precisely to keep injuries to that pride to a minimum.

Bajer had always had his doubts about how well that strategy would work out, given Gustav’s reputation for ruthlessness. The Emperor might have been coolheaded enough to make sure logic overrode pride, but he might just as easily have decided that challenges to the imperial authority could not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Still, it had been the best hope Tomlinson had, and Bajer had been fully prepared to roll the dice.

All of that had changed now. Gustav was gone, and how Andrew would react—assuming he had the opportunity to react—was anyone’s guess. The Freedom Council still wanted minimal casualties, and Bajer would do what he could to accommodate their wishes. But the Council wasn’t here. Bajer was, and he would do whatever he had to buy back his world’s freedom. And if the cortège—

Herr Korvettenkapitän?” a voice came from behind him.

Bajer felt his breath catch in his throat. He’d worked hard to make sure this part of the ship would be unoccupied for the next few minutes, and having finished his task there was no tactical reason why he couldn’t have left.

But he’d decided at the last minute that it might be a good idea to linger a bit longer anyway, just in case the ancient Demon Murphy decided to put in an appearance. It appeared now that the additional caution had indeed been warranted.

Steeling himself, putting on his most intimidating face, he turned around.

The hauptgefreiter pulling herself along the handholds towards him had a toolkit cinched around her waist. She faltered a bit as she caught his expression, then continued forward.

“Pardon me, mein Herr,” she said. “I was ordered to report to Oberleutnant der Sterne Kiselev to assist in running a diagnostic on Missile Three.”

Bajer ground his teeth. Not only had the stupid woman misread her orders, but she’d misread them at the worst possible time.

“I believe that test is scheduled for twenty minutes from now,” he said. He was taking a big risk here, he knew—there was no reason Preussen’s ATO should have a lowly missile tech’s work schedule at his fingertips. If she started wondering about that, there could be trouble.

“But since you’re here, there’s something else that needs looking at,” he continued. “One of the Number Six sensor feed relays has been giving the bridge unreliable responses. Instead of waiting for someone to return from planet-side liberty, I thought I’d pull the panel myself and see what was going on in there. If you have time, I’d appreciate your assistance.”

The trick to a believable lie, Bajer had long since learned, lay in not giving the target enough time to start thinking it through. In this case, the built-in Andermani reluctance to hear an order without instantly obeying it should also work in his favor.

And so it did. “Of course, Herr Korvettenkapitän,” she said, changing direction towards the external sensors manual relay compartment and swimming inside. She planted her magnetic soles on the deck and unsnapped the cover of her toolkit.

Bajer lingered in the passageway just long enough to see Kiselev slip out of the compartment where she’d tied the stand-alone unit into the ship’s internal sensors’ central net. She gave him a quick thumbs up, then disappeared toward the forward impeller room. He waited until she was out of sight, then headed into the compartment behind the hauptgefreiter.

“If you’ll go ahead and open it up, I’ve got the test program on my minicomp,” he told her as he planted his own magnetic soles firmly on the deck and pointed. “That one,” he added, pointing to one of the consoles with his left hand.

Once again obeying orders without question or hesitation, the spacer turned obediently towards the indicated panel. “Of course, Herr Korvettenka—”

Her voice broke off in mid syllable as Bajer touched the muzzle of his silenced pistol to the back of her skull and squeezed the trigger.

Her forehead disintegrated, spraying blood, brain matter, and bone across the console, the impact of the slug jerking her forward. Not enough to break her mag soles lock on the deck, though, and so she continued to float there, bent grotesquely forward, feet anchored, globules of her blood drifting in the micro-gravity.

One instant a live, breathing human being. The next, fifty kilos of dead meat.

Bajer swallowed hard. He stared at her another moment, then dropped his eyes to the hand clenched around his gun. To his surprise, the hand was rock steady, without any sign of the emotion rippling through his nervous system. He’d never actually killed anyone before, hadn’t realized it would be so…easy.

He certainly hadn’t been ready for how it would feel, as if he’d just crossed some invisible border into another world. A shadowy world where everything looked the same, but was dismal and dark.

It took another moment for him to realize that it wasn’t the world that had just changed. It was him.

He swallowed again, the taste of bile faint in the back of his throat as he looked one last time upon his handiwork. Then he drew a deep breath and shoved the pistol back inside his tunic. He unlocked his mag soles, pushed himself out of the compartment, and closed the hatch behind him. He tapped a short command code into the keypad beside the hatch to keep it closed, squared his shoulders, and sent himself swimming up the passage towards the next stop on his schedule.

He probably hadn’t really needed to kill her, he thought as he worked himself along the handholds. She hadn’t seemed all that imaginative.

But they couldn’t afford to take that chance. The countdown still had twenty minutes to go, and if she’d paused to ask why the assistant tactical officer was wandering around the Damage Control Department’s forward sensor compartment—or worse, if she’d mentioned it to someone else—it might have been disastrous.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she was the only person who was going to die today.

* * *

“I just want to know what we did to get on the Kapitänin’s bad side,” Hauptgefreiter Yau-bin Uhlriz grumbled.

“I suspect your underlying premise is flawed,” Stabsgefreiter Mei-chau Thörnrich said calmly. “Specifically, your assumption that Kapitänin der Sterne Hansen even knows we exist.”

“Of course she knows,” Uhlriz said, matching the neutrality in the petty officer’s voice. He and Thörnrich had known each other a long time, but protocol frowned on anything other than proper formality while on duty. “I’m just saying a little time planet-side or even on the station would have been nice. If she was going to hand out extra liberty, why couldn’t she hand some our way?”

“Probably because Oberleutnant der Sterne Eichmann told her he couldn’t possibly hold the department together without you,” Thörnrich replied in a voice that managed to be proper and deflating at the same time.

“That can’t be right,” Uhlriz insisted. “The Oberleutnant would never lie to the Kapitänin like that.”

Thörnrich looked sideways at him, and Uhlriz caught just the hint of a non-regulation smile. “Of course not,” she said. “I stand corrected.”

Uhlriz sent the almost-smile right back at her. They really had known each other too long.

But his point and annoyance remained. Kapitänin der Sterne Hansen had decided to grant extra liberty, and almost a quarter of Preussen’s company was off the ship at the moment. He didn’t know what had spurred the CO’s generosity, but could only hope it didn’t wear off before it was his turn to take a run dirtside and smell un-recycled air.

In the meantime, he and Thörnrich were stuck here on duty sensor watch. With the battleship orbiting placidly around the planet, that task was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Adding to the sense of having been left high and dry was the fact that there were only half a dozen people on the bridge. Fregattenkapitän Greuner, the head of their department and current officer of the watch, was strapped into the command chair at the center of the bridge. Occasionally he looked up, checking the displays and monitors, but for the most part his attention was focused on the document reader in his hand.

“At least all we have to deal with is boredom,” Uhlriz said. “There are worse problems we could be facing.”

“Such as being down on the planet facing off against some Freet lunatics,” Thörnrich agreed. “Do you suppose they’ll ever accept that life under Imperial rule is far better than what they had under that fool McIntyre?”

“I doubt it,” Uhlriz said. “As mirages go, the false memory of the good old days is one of the most resilient.”

“So it is,” Thörnrich agreed. “More’s the pity.”

* * *

“Thank you, Zhi-wa,” Kapitänin der Sterne Hansen said, smiling and inclining her head in a respectful bow as her steward set the bottle of brandy between the pair of snifters on the dining cabin table. “That was delicious, as always.”

Oberbootsmann Zhi-wa Pang smiled and bowed in return. She was in her early fifties, old enough to remember the desperate conditions on Kuan Yin before Gustav Anderman came to its rescue. For many of her generation, those memories made up the glue of the Empire’s unshakable loyalty to their Emperor.

But Pang was used to the intertwining of loyalty and personal history. She’d been Hansen’s mother’s steward before Vizeadmiral Amanda Hansen’s death, twelve T-years ago, and she’d known her current captain since Hansen was thirteen.

Long-term relationships like that weren’t uncommon in the Imperial Andermani Navy. Sometimes Pang wondered if other cultures throughout the galaxy had similar roots, and if not how they managed to survive without them.

“If you need anything else, Kapitänin, please let me know,” she said.

“We will,” Hansen assured her, and the oberbootsmann bowed her way out of the dining cabin.

“She does take good care of you,” Jachmann observed from the other side of the table.

“Yes, she does,” Hansen agreed. “But then, she’s had a lot of practice.”

“I know.” Jachmann picked up the brandy bottle and poured slowly and carefully into both snifters. “I still miss your mother, you know. Your father, too, though I didn’t know him as well. We lost him too early.”

“We lost them both too early,” Hansen said quietly.

“Agreed,” Jachmann said soberly. “And now we’ve lost the Emperor.” He handed her one of the snifters, took the other for himself, and shook his head as he gazed down into it. “It’s hard to imagine the galaxy without him in it.”

“Though it’s not as if we haven’t seen this coming, mein Herr,” Hansen pointed out. “I imagine there’s always going to be a sense of suddenness when it finally happens, but it’s been obvious for quite some time that even Emperor Gustav couldn’t live forever.”

“True.” Jachmann waved the snifter under his nostrils, inhaling appreciatively, then took a small sip and settled back in his chair. “It’s going to hit our people hard, you know. And God only knows how the Tomlinsons are going to react.” He shook his head again, his expression somber. “There’s always a tendency to test new rulers, even at the best of times, and I doubt our rowdy fellow subjects on Tomlinson will be any fonder of Andrew than they were of his father.”

“Probably not,” Hansen agreed, her eyes opaque as she gazed down into her own brandy. Then she blinked and looked back up at the flotillenadmiral. “But you’re right about our people. That’s one reason I recommended delaying the official announcement. I want to give as many of them some solid leave time before they find out about it. There’s certainly plenty of time to get ready before the cortège actually gets here.”

“I’m amazed the news hasn’t leaked already,” Jachmann said. “There’s not that much traffic into Tomlinson from New Berlin, but I’d have thought some enterprising reporter would have gotten the story out by now.”

Onkel Gustav was always pretty particular about how sensitive news got released,” Hansen pointed out. “I don’t expect that to change in the near future, at least until Andrew’s had a chance to put his own imprint on things.”

“I expect a lot of things are going to change,” Jachmann said pensively. “It’s a pity, in some ways, that Andrew’s been so much in his father’s shadow. Nobody’s sure what to expect from him. The one opinion everyone seems to share is that no one could possibly truly fill Gustav’s shoes.”

“No, he was…unique, in so many ways.” Hansen shook her head. “Mother used to have a saying. She said that when the true forest giants fall, the sunlight pouring in through the hole they leave in the canopy illuminates all sorts of secret strengths and weaknesses.”

“A wise woman, your mother.” Jachmann raised his snifter in silent salute to the long-dead vizeadmiral. “I wish I could hear her take on—”

The sudden, raucous scream of a shrill alarm cut him off.


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