The Shadow of Cincinnatus (25 page)

Roebuck looked down at his hands. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But...but the Federation is a monster.”

“I don’t think that is in dispute,” Uzi said. The Grand Senate had committed more than its fair share of atrocities. “But tell me...can you form a government that large without committing monstrous acts of your own?”

“I thought you were on our side,” Roebuck said.

“I’m a mercenary,” Uzi countered. “I’m on the side of whoever pays me.”

It was true enough, he thought, even as Roebuck twisted his lips in disgust. To an idealist, the mercenary must seem the lowest form of being. But to a practical man, idealism itself was a weakness. No amount of idealism could bring warmth and security to a family. Only money – cold hard cash – or power could ensure either.

“Bah,” Roebuck said, finally.

He rose, dropped a credit on the table, then stalked off. Uzi watched him go, wondering what – if anything – would result from his gentle prodding. It was just possible that Roebuck would grow dissatisfied with the Outsiders, perhaps even be ready to be turned into a double-agent. Or he might rationalize his way through the contradiction and convince himself that he was still on the side of bright, unvarnished good. Uzi had met far too many people who talked themselves into believing that anything they did was justified, because it was in the name of the greater good.

The waitress – a young girl wearing a long dress buttoned up to her neck – strode over and picked up Roebuck’s abandoned glass. Uzi finished his glass with one long swallow, then passed it to the girl, making sure to keep his eyes on the swell of her covered breasts. The girl looked nervous as she scurried off, taking the credit with her. Uzi allowed himself a cold smile, taking a moment of amusement in the whole situation. She’d probably been harassed by just about everyone who came in for a drink, even though her clothing suggested she was off the market. Shaking his head, he stood and walked out of the door.

He heard the sound of someone gagging in an alleyway and peered inside, allowing his gaze to adapt to the gloom. A girl was on her knees in front of a man, who was zipping up his fly with practiced ease. The girl herself was spitting out the remains of his semen...She, Uzi decided, was definitely a newcomer to the whole game. Even the most man-hating whore would know to pretend it tasted sweet.

Too young
, Uzi thought, feeling an odd flicker of sympathy. He was good at judging ages and the girl, he thought, was only seventeen at most. Perhaps younger. It wasn’t uncommon for girls to take tailored hormones in hopes of boosting their bodies, even when they were too young to handle it. The growth of the girl’s chest, out of proportion with the rest of her body, suggested she’d definitely had something done to it.

The client glanced at him, nodded in an almost friendly manner and strode off down the alleyway. Uzi watched him go, then looked at the girl. The despair in her blue eyes would have been comical, under other circumstances. It was very definitely her first time on the streets. She’d probably thought she’d known what it was like until she actually did it. And then she’d had a very nasty surprise.

And
, he told himself,
isn’t that just like the Outsiders
?

He could have her, he knew. She was a whore. He could pay for her. But, after everything he’d said, it wouldn’t have felt right. The thought bothered him – a conscience, after all this time? But he pushed it aside.

Reaching into his pocket, he produced a coin and tossed it to her, then turned and walked away.

From:
The Chaos Years
(5023)

The defeat of the Federation at Athena, the attacks against Earth and the flight to Boston effectively cost the Federation control of the Rim. Independence-seeking rebels on countless worlds threw the Federation’s control of everything from vital industrial nodes to Asimov Point junctions into doubt. The Federation, already weakened by the Justinian War, staggered under the blows. It seemed as though the collapse of central authority would not be too far away.

It still possessed overwhelming power. But all of its power meant nothing when the system itself was failing. The Grand Senate had weakened the bonds of loyalty that had allowed the Federation to survive the Inheritance Wars. Now, countless star systems thought more of independence, even of joining the Outsider Federation, rather than remaining loyal to the Federation. What had the Federation done for them? The benefits its rule brought were more than matched, even exceeded, by the downsides of being forced to submit themselves to the Grand Senate. What sort of security could anyone hope for when the Grand Senate could take whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted?

The Outsider Propaganda, thus, fell on fertile soil. Combined with the victories won by the fledgling Outsider Navy, it came close – very close – to convincing the wavering worlds that its success was inevitable. Everyone knew, eventually, that another stunning victory might convince rebel groups to strike while they had a chance, perhaps even throw the Federation off their worlds. And if that happened, it would prove fatal to the Federation’s cause.

As Commodore – later Admiral – Garibaldi struggled to hold the line and keep possession of vital junctions which would be desperately needed once the Federation Navy mounted a counterattack, Emperor Marius fought to gird the wavering Federation for war. But it was not easy. The Federation was in disarray...

...And, as Emperor Marius strove to keep the Federation intact, his actions made matters worse.

Much worse.

One of the strangest contradictions of the Asimov Point network is that it can allow certain star systems to become chokepoints, while denying the enemy the ability to simply travel interstellar space to their destination. But if there happens to be a separate chain running near the vital chain, a raider can slip in through the cracks.

-The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

Taurus, 4100

“Transit complete, sir.”

Captain Scott Palter nodded, tersely.
Spartan
was his first command, after serving as Commodore – now Admiral – Garibaldi’s tactical officer. It wasn’t lost on him that his promotion had come about as a direct result of the desperate need for experienced officers – or that he could lose his first command as quickly as he’d gained it, if he screwed up. The Federation Navy couldn’t afford mistakes any longer.

“Cloak us,” he ordered. There had been no point in trying to move through the Asimov Point cloaked. The device would have fluctuated when they made transit, allowing them to be spotted by any watching eyes. “Run a full sensor sweep, then move us to the RV point.”

“Aye, sir,” the sensor officer said.

Scott nodded, watching the display through cold blue eyes. Taurus was a disputed system, disputed in the sense that neither side felt able to divert the ships and fortifications needed to actually
hold
the system against determined attack. It possessed three Asimov Points, none of which had been particularly heavily defended before the war, and a planet whose inhabitants took as little interest in the outside universe as possible. Surprisingly, the Federation had honored their wish to be left alone. Scott had read through the files, but there had been nothing to suggest
why
the Federation had acted so badly out of character by leaving the population to themselves. Perhaps someone had shovelled out huge bribes, once upon a time.

Or there’s something else here that bears investigation, later
, he told himself, as his ship headed towards its destination.
Something one of the Grand Senators sought to conceal from the others
.

He shrugged, then studied the tactical display. There was almost no activity in the system at all, at least as far as his passive sensors could tell. No one seemed to be mining the asteroids, let alone setting up other colonies or industrial nodes. It was odd, given the potential value of the system, but it would have to be explained later. Perhaps someone had been saving it for development when the sector received more investment, only to see the investment faded away when the Federation started to contract. Or...

“We’re in position, Captain,” the helmsman reported.

“Hold us here,” Scott ordered. “Deploy passive sensor platforms, then link us to them.”

He smiled to himself, grimly. There had been two battles fought in the system; once when the Outsiders had punched through to take control of the Asimov Points, then another when a squadron of Federation Navy battlecruisers had responded to the attack and chased the makeshift defenders back out of the system. Since then, it had been largely abandoned, but ONI swore blind that the Outsiders were using it to run supplies down to the forces besieging Boston. Admiral Garibaldi had ordered Scott to do what he could to interdict the supply lines.

We should mine the Asimov Points
, he thought, although he knew it would be largely pointless, only dangerous to independent freighters.
Give them something to worry about as they make their way to Boston
.

But the Admiral wouldn’t allow it. The minefields could and would be swept, unless they were covered by fortresses and mobile units, and there were nowhere near enough of either to allow Taurus to receive its own battlefleet. It would only delay the Outsiders, not deter them altogether. The only real way to stop them, or at least force the bastards to divert more strength to their convoy escorts, was to ambush them as they made their way towards the front...

“Captain,” the sensor officer said. “I’m picking up ships transiting Point Beta!”

“Show me,” Scott snapped, rising to his feet and striding over to the officer’s console. It felt strange to sit on a bridge and know it was his, but there was no time to enjoy it. “What do we have?”

A line of red icons emerged from the Asimov Point and settled down into a standard formation. “Twelve freighters,” the sensor officer said, “and a single battlecruiser.”

Scott felt his eyes narrow. Standard Federation Navy doctrine – and there was no sign the Outsiders disagreed – called for lighter units to escort convoys, although there hadn’t been a major war on when that doctrine had been devised. Smaller units were more flexible than battlecruisers, he knew, and less likely to be needed elsewhere. Were the Outsiders merely trying to kill two birds with one stone by using the battlecruiser as an escort while it made its way to the front, he asked himself, or were they up to something else? Could it be a trap of some kind?

Or
, he asked himself,
are they shipping something so important they detailed a whole battlecruiser as escort
?

“The freighters,” he said. “Is there anything odd about them?”

“They appear to be standard
Polaris
-class bulk freighters,” the sensor officer said. “I can’t get a read on their drive fields to ID them properly, sir.”

And that might well be meaningless
, Scott thought.
If they liberated the ships from us, they might well have fiddled with the drive fields to make identifying them from a distance impossible
.

He peered down at the screen, thinking hard. The
Polaris
-class freighters were common; maybe not the most common freighters in the galaxy, but there were certainly hundreds of thousands of them plying the spaceways. But they had their flaws, he recalled from his Academy days; they were rarely used by anyone outside the larger shipping firms. They needed a proper orbital station, complete with heavy-lift shuttles, to unload, making them utterly cost-ineffective for anyone else. The independent shippers, and those who tended to stage-one colony worlds, considered them little better than junk.

But they could be turned into Q-ships, or troop transports, with a little effort...and
that
might explain the enemy battlecruiser.

“Move us into firing position,” he ordered, as he watched the enemy ships. The Outsiders weren’t wasting time, he noted with abstract admiration; as soon as they assembled, they started to head towards Point Charlie. Federation Navy officers could hardly have done as well. “And prepare to flush everything towards the freighters.”

The tactical officer glanced up. “Sir?”

“There’s no point in a missile duel with that big bastard,” Scott said. “All we can do is get our blows in and then vanish into the darkness.”

The thought didn’t please him. Assault cruisers had been designed for sneak attacks, not going head-to-head with battlecruisers. There were times when he suspected the
real
reason he’d been given
Spartan
was because she was expendable. The Federation Navy had built her and her sisters when they’d been trying to fill holes in their line of battle, after all. They might have their advantages, but they didn’t have the throw weight to compete with anything larger than a medium cruiser. Their only hope was to land the first punch and then vanish.

Unless the battlecruiser’s crew isn’t alert
, he told himself, but one look at the display suggested otherwise. The cruiser was sweeping space carefully, not ambling along as if it didn’t have a care in the world. They were as alert as any crew could reasonably hope to be, if they weren’t at red alert. Scott would have been impressed if they hadn’t been the enemy.

He cursed the Grand Senate under his breath. If the numbers had been even, if the Outsiders had faced the Federation on even terms, he had a feeling the Federation would have lost by now. The Outsiders were far more motivated; they had grudges to pay off and family to protect, unlike the Federation Navy’s officers. Even now, with one of their own ruling the Federation and the old patronage networks shattered, the Federation Navy was demoralized and unsure of itself. But the successful defense of Boston – so far – might convince the older officers that they had a chance to win...

Assuming we get more supplies shipped forward
, he thought. Before he’d been promoted, he’d seen enough to know the Federation Navy was being pushed to the limits, simply reinforcing the forces at Boston. The Outsiders had done too much damage too quickly and the Federation had reeled under the blows.
And then perhaps we can take the offensive
.