The Shadow of Cincinnatus (35 page)

“I dread to imagine how many people have pissed on that floor,” Marius said. “These cells weren’t actually cleaned for years before you moved in.”

Raistlin looked up. “They made me clean it,” he said. He paused. “Is the condemned man allowed to make one last request?”

“Get off the floor first,” Marius growled. He watched as Raistlin obeyed, then leaned forward. “What do you want?”

“A woman,” Raistlin said. “Or a man. I’m not fussy.”

“I know,” Marius said. Raistlin had cut a swath through the younger crewmen on board Marius’s flagship, both male and female. Marius hadn’t been sure if it was sex appeal – Raistlin was handsome and charming, even in jail – or if it had been the prospect of using his connections to help someone’s career. “But I think not.”

“You could think about it,” Raistlin said. “I might become more cooperative if I got laid.”

Marius rubbed his temple. The pain had faded, for a time, but it was coming back.

“I don’t need to think about it,” he said. “You’re a prisoner. You’re a prisoner because you shot me on my own flagship.”

“And that is what this is about,” Raistlin said. “It isn’t because you want to kill me legally, admiral, and because you want a fig leaf of respectability for your decision. It’s because of your injured pride. You can’t abide the thought of being betrayed, even though you have betrayed the entire Federation.”

“It betrayed me,” Marius snapped. “Your whole damned family tried to
kill
me!”

“Injured pride,” Raistlin repeated. “They never gave a damn about you. You were just in their way, just someone who needed to be used, handled and then discarded when you were no longer necessary.”

Marius stepped forward until his face was almost touching the forcefield. “And where would the Federation be if I were dead?”

“The Grand Senate would have found a solution,” Raistlin said. “A political compromise, if necessary.”

“You would have sold out the entire Federation to keep your power?” Marius demanded. The idea of breaking the Federation, even surrendering the outer worlds, was beyond contemplation. No thought of separation could be tolerated. “You would have sold out all of
humanity
?”

“Of course,” Raistlin said. “The business of power is power. And, admiral, I think you’ve discovered that all too well.”

Marius stepped back, fighting to hold on to his temper. “I could have you shot...”

“Then
do it
,” Raistlin shouted. “End this farce!”

“You will be tried,” Marius said. “And then you will be condemned to death...”

“You’ve been trying for the past two years,” Raistlin said. “There are just no legal grounds to kill me.” His voice became a sneer. “I was only following orders from my lawful superiors.”

“Damn you,” Marius said.

He turned and walked through the door, leaving Raistlin alone. The thought gnawed at his mind as he stepped into the elevator, then returned to his office. A blinking light on the terminal told him that new papers had arrived, in his absence. He was going to be working all night, just to clear them all.

Or maybe I should just sign them all, without reading them
, he thought. But he’d rejected proposals before, knowing they would be damaging to the Federation. He needed more trustworthy officers, but there just weren’t that many people he trusted. Raistlin had done far more than just put a bullet in him, he knew. He’d destroyed Marius’s ability to
trust
.

He opened one document and looked down at it. Blake Raistlin’s death warrant. There were emergency powers he could invoke, if necessary, in signing the warrant. But that would mean giving up all hope of nailing the young man legally. And that would undermine the base of his regime. What protection was there if someone could be executed – legally – without trial?

And he was laughing at me
, Marius thought. He popped another pill, absently.
And he was right
.

Trying to be clever, in a military operation, is asking for trouble. Trying to appear clever, on the other hand, is sometimes quite promising.

-The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

Boston, 4100

“Sir,” Lieutenant Thompson said, “Commodore Lopez is in position.”

“Good,” Roman said. It had been an edgy two weeks. Commodore Lopez might not have reached Point Theta before the Outsiders attacked, which would have made life on Boston
interesting
, to say the least. Admiral Ness had repeated the point time and time again in planning sessions, leaving Roman wondering if he could legally strangle the bastard and get away with it. “Continue to monitor the Asimov Points.”

He looked up at the display, feeling cold tension clutching at his heart. There were three Asimov Points that led directly into enemy territory, while two more could be seized in short order if the Outsiders wanted to avoid his strongest defenses. The more he thought about it, the more he envied the tacticians from the First Interstellar War, before the stardrive had been invented.
They
had always known where their enemy had to attack, even if they hadn’t known
when
. But the stardrive had changed the tactical situation completely. An attack could come from any direction.

“Check the StarComs,” he ordered. They’d taken a leaf from Admiral Justinian’s playbook and rounded up all the StarCom units they could find, then established them at the different Asimov Points. Roman would have an instant alert as soon as the attack began, allowing him to move his forces to counter the enemy offensive. “I want the system to ping each platform every ten minutes.”

He shook his head, understanding – finally – why so many pointless orders had come down the chain when the fleet had been guarding Asimov Points in the past, waiting for an attack that might – or might not – come. The commanding officers had done all they could; now, all they could do was wait and worry.
He
was just the same, he admitted now. He’d reached the point where he could do nothing, apart from trusting his subordinates and waiting.

“Belay that order,” he said, softly. “Just ping the system once every half hour.”

It was hard, very hard, to resist the urge to pace the CIC as he waited for something to happen. The Outsiders had to know, by now, that a large subsection of Fifth Fleet had departed Boston – and, if their intelligence was as good as ONI believed, they had to know the fleet’s official destination. Elf had tested the strands of intelligence and informed him, once her Marines had returned to the fleet, that the ‘secret’ was common knowledge. Roman sighed as he sat back in his chair. The Outsiders
had
to know where Commodore Lopez was heading...

And so they should be coming here
, he thought, as he stood. He couldn’t stay in the CIC indefinitely or he would drive his subordinates mad.
But do they have something else in mind
?

He shook his head as he walked through the hatch. The Outsiders might smell a rat, no matter how tempting the bait. If so, they wouldn’t attack; they’d try to go somewhere else. But where? There was nowhere else they could go without risking their hold on countless star systems, not when Federation Navy raiding squadrons were still poking through the warzone, looking for vulnerable targets. One raid could convince wavering planets that the Federation was far from dead. And then...

There’s no point in going over it time and time again
, he told himself.
You’ve done all you can.

He reached his cabin and stepped inside. It was empty, of course. Elf had been spending much of her time training with the Marines, particularly the FNGs from Mars. Their training had been curtailed, she’d complained, just to get as much manpower as possible out to the front. She had to keep working with them to ensure they were ready. And they would be needed soon.

Roman sighed again, then lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do, but rest – and make sure he was ready for the moment the shit hit the fan. Because it would, he knew. And then he would know for sure just how well his plans worked when they encountered the enemy.

* * *

Commodore (Fortress Command) Tanya Osborne didn’t like the plan. She hadn’t liked the idea of sending so many battle squadrons on a wild goose chase to Goldstone, nor had she liked the
real
plan when Admiral Garibaldi had briefed her on it, two weeks ago. To set her fortress – and the other ten heavy fortresses orbiting Asimov Point Delta – up as a target was far from
her
idea of a good plan, even though she knew they would never have a better chance of giving the enemy a bloody nose. Indeed, if she hadn’t been aware that the admiral was a close friend of the emperor, she would have made an official complaint.

She paced her command deck, throwing irritated glances at the display whenever the Asimov Point emitted the faintest flicker of a gravity pulse. Being so close to the point struck civilians as dangerous, but Tanya had been an officer long enough to know that almost anything the point might spit out – naturally – could be handled at this distance. The real danger lay in transiting the point...and no one in their right mind would try to power an entire fortress through the chink in space/time. And then there was the prospect of an enemy fleet attacking the system...

The last report from her probes had shown nothing, apart from layer upon layer of mines and a thousand automated weapons platforms, covering the point against an offensive from the Federation Navy. The Outsiders weren’t focusing their resources on a fixed defense, which would have been admirable if it hadn’t been so irritating. Everything they wasted on a fixed defense couldn’t be expended on building a giant war fleet and sending it out to wreak havoc on the Federation. But she couldn’t fault their logic. The Federation had immense supplies of fortress components stored in reserve, even if they’d used many of them to seal the points against Admiral Justinian. It was unlikely the Outsiders had anything comparable.

They wouldn’t have wanted to rely on them
, she thought.
Not in the Beyond.

She smiled at the thought. Her brother had been a survey officer, before the survey service had been effectively disbanded. But now he was back in uniform and poking through the Beyond, looking for targets the Federation Navy could reach. And there was a good chance he would find undetected and unguarded Asimov Points. There was no way the Outsiders could locate
every
point in their backyard without a thorough survey of their own...

Ping
!

“Report,” she snapped. “What do you have?”

“Commodore,” Midshipman Peter Quigley reported. “We have drones transiting the Asimov Point.”

“Order the CSP to intercept,” Tanya ordered, as red icons sparkled to life on the display. “Sound Red Alert.”

She watched, grimly, as several of the icons flashed out of existence. The Outsiders had probed the Asimov Point routinely, of course, but this time they were expending hundreds of probes. Some of them would get back, no matter how many the CSP managed to pick off before they reversed course and vanished back into the Asimov Point. And then the Outsiders would have the tactical data they needed to plan their offensive.

“Signal the Admiral,” she ordered, as her fortresses woke up. “Inform him that all hell may be about to break loose.”

“Aye, Commodore,” Commander Janelle said. There was a long pause. “All fortresses report battlestations, Commodore. They’re requesting permission to launch additional starfighters.”

“Denied,” Tanya said. The Outsiders probably hoped she’d do just that, forcing her starfighters to exhaust their life support packs before the battle began. “Order them to place the starfighters on launch warning, two minutes.”

“Aye, Commodore,” Janelle said.

The last red icon disappeared from the display. Tanya forced herself to sit calmly, knowing they were about to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, just how effective the admiral’s plan had actually been. Either the enemy would take the bait...or they would stand off, leaving the front stalemated. But even that would give the Federation an advantage. The Outsider technological superiority would not last forever.

“No contacts,” Quigley droned. “No contacts...”

“Inform me if anything changes,” Tanya ordered. Had she ever been that young? “Until then, wait.”

But we can’t wait indefinitely
, she thought.
And the bloody bastards know it.

* * *

“The drones have returned, General,” Lieutenant Juneau reported.

“Put the data on the big display,” General Charlie Stuart ordered. There was a moment’s pause as the tactical computers crunched the raw data, then uploaded it onto the display. “I think we have a target.”

He sighed, inwardly. Point Delta had much to commend it, but unfortunately the Federation officers could probably see the advantages too. It was the closest Asimov Point to Points Alpha and Beta, which led further into the Federation, while it was quite some distance from Boston itself. Any attempt to intercept his fleet as it moved through the point would require Admiral Garibaldi to leave Boston and face Charlie, well away from the planet’s defenses. He was mildly surprised that Garibaldi hadn’t moved all of his mobile units to Point Delta, although he couldn’t have
assumed
the Outsiders would attack that point.

And if he had, we would have attacked somewhere else
, Charlie thought, ruefully. The long-range sensors on the probes hadn’t located the Federation’s Fifth Fleet, but Charlie hadn’t expected anything else.
Perhaps through Point Gamma...

“General,” Lieutenant Juneau said. “The Marsha are requesting permission to advance.”

Charlie hesitated. One way or another, despite the absence of several Federation Navy battle squadrons, they were about to make a leap into the unknown. The entire war could be determined by who won or lost the Battle of Boston. He couldn’t wait to tear into the enemy, but at the same time his caution warned him to be careful. The Outsiders couldn’t afford a victory that left most of their fleet shattered and broken...