The Shadow of Cincinnatus (12 page)

“An officer in the Federation Navy must be capable, above all, of judging the orders he receives and determining their legality. Following an illegal order makes the officer following the order an accomplice, at the very least. It certainly does not constitute an excuse! Blake Raistlin, in choosing to follow the order, stepped well over the line. I have no hesitation in asking the court for the heaviest possible penalty for his crimes.”

Yale sat down. Marius watched her for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to Blake Raistlin. The younger man was sitting there, his dark face impassive, as Darlington rose to speak. There seemed to be nothing readable in his expression, Marius noted, not even a single trace of emotion. But Raistlin was a skilled dissembler. He’d grown up in a world where deceit was as natural as breathing.

Tiffany was right
, Marius thought.
I should just have had him shot
.

“I would not claim to be familiar with the military way of doing things,” Darlington said, into the silence. “Ideally, a JAG officer would serve as Commander Raistlin’s advocate and defender. But I do know, civilian that I am, that the military prides itself on following a chain of command. The Admiral issues an order to the Captain, the Captain issues an order to the Lieutenant and
everyone
issues orders to the Midshipman. Would that seem an acceptable description of the chain of command?”

Marius felt a flicker of disquiet. Several of the judges had smiled, very briefly.

“The Federation is not – was not – a military dictatorship,” Darlington continued. “The Federation Navy took its orders from the Grand Senate, which set the outlines for military deployments, operations and funding. It was the Grand Senate that approved the rules and regulations set out for governing the Navy, even if the rules were implemented by military officers. The orders that make up the Big Red Book, as I believe it is commonly called, come ultimately from the Grand Senate.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping the judges. “I do not attempt to deny that my client drew a pistol in a...
ah,
CIC...and opened fire. That, as Captain Yale says, is beyond dispute. The case file I was given included live footage, independently verified, from the CIC’s monitoring suite. There is no point in trying to deny the facts of the case.

“But what can be questioned are the motivations and legalities of the act itself.”

Marius felt his eyes narrowing. They
knew
the motivations. The Grand Senate had been scared of him, scared he would take Admiral Justinian’s place, even though all he’d wanted to do was save the Federation. He hadn’t
wanted
to overthrow the Grand Senate, he hadn’t
wanted
to make himself emperor, but they’d given him no choice. It had been fight or die, with the certain knowledge that his subordinates would be purged alongside him. What choice had he had?

Darlington continued, unaware of Marius’s thoughts. “Commander Raistlin received orders from the Grand Senate, from the legal source of
all
orders,” he said. “Those orders were to assassinate Admiral Drake. This is not in dispute either. Again, evidence has been presented to prove that these orders were issued, beyond all shadow of a doubt. But we must ask ourselves a very simple question. Were these orders actually
illegal
?”

Marius stared at him, astonished. Beside him, Tiffany put a hand on his arm.

“The Grand Senate is the source of all orders,” Darlington said, hammering the point home. “Could the Grand Senate issue an
illegal
order? Can one of their orders be illegal by definition?”

I should have had him shot
, Marius thought, coldly. He tried to ignore the thought that it was hardly too late. It would be easy to issue the orders and easier still to make sure they were carried out. He’d been careful to staff the President’s House with officers and men loyal to him, or to Tobias Vaughn’s memory.
It might have saved us some trouble
.

“Picture it, sirs,” Darlington continued. “You are a young officer. The Grand Senate is the source of all authority. Would you be in a hurry to disobey – or question – an order from the Grand Senate?”

He paused, dramatically. “Captain Yale is quite right to note that being given an illegal order does not serve as an excuse,” he said. “But were the orders actually
illegal
?
That
is the question we must answer.”

Marius had to bite his lip to keep from saying something, anything. He’d never considered the possibility that someone might question the illegality of the orders, yet in hindsight it was an obvious path to take. If the orders were declared
legal
, then Raistlin would have to be freed; after all, he’d only been following orders. Even the death of Marius’s best friend could be explained as an accident, rather than deliberate malice. Cold hatred burned through his mind as he forced himself to sit back and
listen
, rather than trying to sway the judges himself.

Helen Yale rose to speak. “The Grand Senate was the source of all authority,” she said. “I do not believe that was in dispute. However, the fact remains that the Grand Senate had legal avenues to explore, including – at worst – declaring Admiral Drake to be an outlaw. No such judgement was made, sirs.”

There wouldn’t have been, Marius knew. The Brotherhood, for its own inscrutable reasons, had chosen to promote Marius as a hero. There might well have been riots on Earth if the Grand Senate had moved against him openly, which didn’t bode well for Raistlin’s future, whatever happened. They might just have disowned him once Marius was safely dead, assuming he survived the assassination attempt. Marius’s crew would probably have killed him out of hand.

“Nor did Commander Raistlin have any reason to
believe
that Admiral Drake had been outlawed,” Yale said. “The procedures for declaring someone an outlaw are very clear – and they were not carried out. Indeed, there wasn’t even a note to that effect in the message Commander Raistlin received. There was
no
reason for anyone to believe that Admiral Drake was anything other than a naval officer in good standing.”

That
sounded a convincing argument, Marius thought. But how would Darlington respond to it?

“Except that he received orders, from a
legitimate
authority, to execute Admiral Drake,” Darlington said. “That would seem sufficient grounds to assume that Admiral Drake had been declared an outlaw.”

“Except that such orders have to be openly propagated to be legal,” Yale snapped. “The procedure for declaring someone an outlaw, as I said, is well understood. There are no grounds for anyone to assume that Admiral Drake
was
an outlaw, then or ever.”

Captain Warren tapped the table and they both fell silent. “I believe it would be best to hold a recess,” he said. “Both sides will need time to reformulate their defenses, assuming they both wish to continue?”

He looked at Yale, then Darlington. They both nodded.

“Then the court is dismissed,” Warren said. “The prisoner will be escorted back to his cell.”

Marius managed to keep his mouth closed until they returned to his office, where he sat down in his chair and swore like a Marine on his fifth deployment to a warzone.

“That
bastard
,” he said. “I should have had him shot!”

“Too late now,” Tiffany said. She shrugged, then pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. “It would look very bad if you just had him shot, particularly now. You couldn’t claim it was done in the heat of emotion any longer.”

Marius rubbed his forehead. There were times when he felt he was doomed to always be headachy, now that he was trying to rebuild the Federation. No wonder the Grand Senate had been a load of assholes, if they’d been headachy from birth till death. Or perhaps the staggering luxury was a way of distracting themselves from the realization that they, for all their power, had less control than they cared to admit. Marius knew, all too well, just how long it took to get orders from one side of the Federation to the other. The warlords had enjoyed a kind of limited autonomy long before they’d started to rebel.

“I screwed up, didn’t I?”

“Maybe,” Tiffany said. She’d always been more aware of the legalities of any situation, having been trained by her father. “But if you want to make a point, if you want to prove that trials are actually fair, you have to let the process play out until the end.”

“Yeah,” Marius said. But the hell of it was that the judges would have their doubts. If the Grand Senate could legally do anything, could they actually issue an illegal order? And if the order wasn’t illegal, what grounds did they have for holding Raistlin? “He still killed Tobias, after all.”

He sat back in his chair, then glanced at the terminal. A new set of reports from the industries, warning him of production bottlenecks and work slow-downs in the wake of the collapse of the Grand Senate. The new/old managers had barely been found and sent back to work. God alone knew what would happen when they started trying to compete against newcomers to the field.

It will work out for the best
, he told himself, firmly. He had to believe it.
And the Federation will be freer than ever
.

He sighed. “What’s next on the agenda?”

“A deputation from Castile Sector,” Tiffany said. If she was annoyed at being treated like a secretary, she didn’t show it. “They want to discuss their future, now that Admiral Roper is dead.”

“They supported him,” Marius said. Admiral Roper – another rogue warlord – hadn’t lasted long, but he’d distracted the Grand Senate from concentrating everything against Admiral Justinian. “What should we do with them?”

“You’ll have to decide,” Tiffany said. “And I suggest you decide quickly.”

One of the unfortunate truths of military operations is that true surprise is very rare. When one side gets surprised, it tends to be because they missed something that hinted at the coming disaster and the other side got lucky.

-The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

Base One, 4098

“That’s the last of our squadrons, sir,” Lieutenant Juneau reported. “And just in time.”

General Charlie Stuart nodded, slowly. God alone knew what the Marsha had been thinking when they’d lost a starship and failed to report it to the rest of the Outsiders. No, he knew what they’d been thinking. Losing a starship was akin to losing honor and they couldn’t afford to do that, not when it would be quite costly. But it had also sacrificed the advantage of surprise.

It had taken years to build up the Outsider Navy, but he was uneasily aware that the Federation still had a considerable advantage. On one hand, the chance to bring overwhelming power to bear against the Federation’s Fifth Fleet was a godsend; on the other, it had the prospect of doing serious harm to his fleet while the remainder of the Federation Navy rapidly mobilized. And with a
competent
emperor on Earth, there would be none of the diversions caused by the Grand Senate. The full weight of the Federation would be brought to bear on the Outsiders.

But if we don’t move, we will be discovered
, he thought. The lost starship alone ensured it. It wouldn’t be long before Fifth Fleet started hunting in earnest for the mystery aliens, once they’d reinforced Athena. The war would become chancier at the worst possible moment.
And if we are discovered, we will be lost
.

Charlie knew, without false modesty, that the Federation would consider them dangerous criminals at best, renegades, terrorists and traitors at worst. There would be no mercy, if they were discovered. He would be killed, along with everyone else who had been involved in building up the Outsider Federation. And both the Marsha and the Insects would be exterminated. Collectively, they were a dangerous foe. The Federation would consider them too dangerous to live.

But the timing was badly wrong, he knew. The fleet had intended to have a great deal of support on the ground. And a number of planets had revolutionary cells that were ready to liberate themselves from the Federation. But there was no time to alert the rebels. Instead, they would have to make do with what the advance agents could muster when the shit hit the fan.

No plan ever survives contact with the enemy
, he reminded himself.

“Record,” he ordered. “It is my belief that the current situation on Athena can only develop to our disadvantage. Governor Barany was a useful fool. This newcomer can hardly be more advantageous to us. It is my intention, therefore, to issue the start order in two days from now. We will enter the Athena System seven hours later and engage the enemy.”

He took a breath. “Training schedules will slip,” he added, “but I feel we are ready to move on our targets. We will have the firepower advantage, as well as some new surprises. We will give them hell.”

Tapping a switch, he saved the message and then sent it to the courier boat. It would be on its way to Sanctuary within the hour, but by the time it arrived at its destination the war would already be underway. They’d assumed as much, when they’d hashed out the final steps of the plan, yet it still bothered him. He would have preferred to have the council with him when he gave the order.

Independent command
, he thought, sardonically.
Every commander in the Federation Navy would give his balls for the degree of independent authority you’ve been granted. And that will help ensure our victory
.

He shook his head. Fifty years of careful preparation and planning, twenty years of building up a fleet that could challenge the Federation Navy...and it was all about to be tested for the first time. There had been no way to carry out proper tests, not really, and simulations could only go so far. Now...the shit was definitely about to hit the fan and he had no way to be sure that everything would go according to plan. And if it didn’t...?