Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

“I was sad to hear of his death, Your Majesty.”

Lydia nodded. “We were stricken to witness it. I believe, Cadreman, that you have a proposal we need to hear?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. If you would come to the strategy tent”—he gestured—“we’ll lay out what we have planned.”

Lydia nodded, eyes flitting to where Brennan was hanging off the side of his Naga. She wished he would come along, but this wasn’t the time. She may never have wanted the position, but she knew enough about it to know that she couldn’t be seen needing her brother to help her make decisions.

“Very well,” she said. “Cadrewoman Delsol will join us.”

The baron and the field marshal started slightly, eyes shifting rapidly to the woman who had silently stood behind the young empress. Only Everett was unsurprised, and he even seemed to hold a slight gleam of approval as he nodded.

“Of course, Your Highness,” William said. “Your personal guard is welcome.”

Corian strode calmly into the central planning room for the legion military, growing frustrated as his eyes flicked over the displays, the information he was seeking evading his gaze. He found the duty officer quickly and glared at her. “Report.”

The junior officer gulped, barely refraining from flinching. “All quiet, sire.”

That didn’t make him happy in the slightest.

“How is that possible ?” he growled, gaze moving back to the displays. “A rebellion does not just curl up and die . The very idea is absurd!”

“There’s been no contact with any loyalist force—” She gulped as he scowled openly at her. “Pardon, sire, there’s been no contact with any rebel forces in several days.”

“What about the bounty we placed on the Andros and her captain?”

“Some reports, but nothing that panned out.”

He resisted the urge to swear, knowing that there were always false reports. People tried to claim rewards that size just out of their nature. However, someone should have seen something they could use by now.

She must be keeping the ship in the upper atmo, away from prying eyes. I would, if I were hiding the heirs.

So he had a missing ship carrying the Imperial heirs, commanded by a woman he personally wanted hung up by her entrails in repayment for what she’d done to him …

His missing eye still pained him in the evenings, and Corian would swear upon all he found priceless that the new prosthetic they’d fitted to his leg itched despite the assurances of all medical personnel.

And on top of all that, he now had an entire rebel force that just decided to vanish ?

He would have said that they were up to something, but that was so blatantly obvious as to make whoever said it aloud look like a fool. Of course they’re up to something.

The question he had to have answered, however, was exactly what were they up to.

“Put all our pickets on alert,” he ordered. “I want any legions available to be brought in closer to the capital, and have Captain Jessup alerted. I want her to have the Caleb Bar ready to fight on a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, sire. I’ll see to it immediately.”

He stared at her for a long moment until she began to fidget.

“Lieutenant.”

“Sire?”

“Immediately means right now !”

She almost fell back over her heels scrambling to get away from him, then turned and ran from the room. Corian didn’t bother watching her go. He was too busy trying to calm himself. He had commanded entire campaigns without screaming at his subordinates, yet here in the palace he couldn’t seem to go a day without doing so.

I’m beginning to think that Edvard was a bloody saint. How did he keep from executing these idiots wholesale?

“Captain Jessup, ma’am.”

Bethany Jessup rose lazily from her seat on the interior command deck. A large and surprisingly well-appointed chair bolted to the deck allowed the captain of the Caleb Bar to command from a position of both comfort and authority.

“Yes, you may give your report,” she said with cool disdain, eyeing up the young officer who looked out of breath.

“The emperor wishes the Caleb Bar to be brought to full alert.”

Jessup dropped her façade of disdain, head snapping to the right. “Signal general quarters. I want every crewman to their positions in five minutes, or I will know the reason why they aren’t.”

A soft alarm filtered in a moment later as the rest of the ship became a beehive of activity, but on the command deck a sense of slow decorum remained.

Jessup focused her attention on the reporting officer. “What’s the situation?”

“There isn’t one, ma’am,” the girl said, flushed. “Not that I could see. The emperor demanded a report, but seemed … disturbed that all was quiet.”

“Quiet?” Jessup scowled.

Of all things that the empire should be right now, quiet wasn’t one of them. Oh, certainly if there were any outright fighting, she’d be surprised. Other than a few imbeciles in the Senate, no one wanted to risk breaking the empire along old alliances, but there still should have been distinctive rumblings and maybe even the occasional flare of violence.

“All reports were quiet?” she asked, to clarify.

“Yes, ma’am. No hints of trouble for three days at least. Longer in most areas.”

Jessup swore softly.

Someone has an operation in the works, and it’s a big one.

“Have the entire squadron rolled up,” Jessup ordered her watch crew calmly. “I want a third of our escorts in the air at all times until further notice, and ensure that the remaining forces assigned to the capital aren’t being lazy.”

With her orders given, she turned back to the young officer and nodded curtly. “You are dismissed.”

“Ma’am!”

Jessup had already turned casually away before the young officer could complete her salute, striding back to the bolstered command chair and dropping casually into it.

Now, the only question that remains is … are they coming here, or do they intend to strike elsewhere?

On the face of it, a strike at the capital was the cleanest move the loyalist … no, the rebel faction had available. If they could unseat Corian in one move, most of the current support in the Senate would evaporate like mist in the passing shadow of the Great Islands.

Any other move would require a lengthy campaign, taking out the allies in the Senate one by one along with their territories.

So it seemed clear, to her at least, that they had to come right into the lair of the dragon.

Of course, they might see things differently. It depended on who was in charge, and whether they were willing to fracture the empire in the process.

We may not even be dealing with organized “loyalists” any longer, she supposed. Some members of the Senate might see the current situation as a chance to declare independence.

That was probably Corian’s worst fear.

That his actions would trigger a flurry of attempts at secession among the more opportunistic and less intelligent members of the Senate was the worst-case scenario. They would fail, inevitably, but the chaos they’d cause in the meantime would perhaps be fatal to Corian’s rule.

Jessup didn’t know which enemy they were dealing with, but she knew her task.

The Caleb Bar had to be readied, because whatever was to come, the new Imperial flagship would be at the forefront of the battle.

“That’s the plan,” William said, looking past the central display to each of the observers. “We have to finish this in a single strike. Anything else is unacceptable. As it is, we’re already riding too close to the wind on this. Several factions are beginning to think they can declare their own independence. If we lose the empire, we’ll be looking at decades of war, if not longer.”