Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

Since they’d told him nothing, he’d had all the prisoners moved to a deserted island on Harmony on his own personal recognizance, and Vaughn had assigned loyal Marines to guard them—ostensibly from escape, but in actuality, to keep the Internal Security troops from murdering them outright. The Internal Security troops had quite predictably protested, as they were supposed to guard the captured prisoners, but Marius had ignored them.

There wouldn’t be another massacre on his watch.

Besides, while he waited, he’d had better things to do.

“I suppose there hasn’t been any response from the Senate yet?” Tiffany asked.

Marius, lying back on the bed, thought that she’d never looked more beautiful as she walked around. Her long red hair fell down around her breasts, leaving her nipples winking at him as she moved. He wasn’t entirely sure if he loved her—after all, she was a great many years younger than him and certain to outlive him regardless of how long the marriage lasted—but being with her made a quite a few things worthwhile. Besides, she was a lot smarter than he’d expected.

“Just worthless platitudes,” he said. “Did your father send you anything in the mail?”

“Nothing,” Tiffany said. Her father rarely sent her anything. “He did say that he was proud of me for risking my life and that he thinks I should go back to Earth.”

Marius shrugged. “And are you going to go back to Earth?”

“Not if I can avoid it,” Tiffany told him. “High Society is rather boring at the best of times…and it won’t be very exciting after all this.”

“The less exciting, the better,” Marius said seriously.

He pulled himself to his feet, kissed her on the forehead, and stepped into the fresher. “I have a staff meeting in forty minutes, love. Are you going to attend?”

Tiffany stepped into the fresher with him, a delightful surprise.

“Of course,” she said, as she pressed against him. “You’d only mess it all up without me.”

The courier drone popped out of the Asimov Point and immediately uploaded its messages to the relay station. There was a brief moment as the relay station’s automated computers checked the message headers against its list of authorized senders, and then it started to relay the message across the system to Harmony. Once the message reached the planet, it was inserted into the military datanet and uploaded to Magnificent . It appeared inside Blake Raistlin’s inbox seven weeks after it was sent from Earth.

The message itself was unlikely to attract attention. It was nothing more than a statement that there was going to be a wedding in the family and the recipient was invited to attend. The reader, however, knew what the message signified. It was time to move.

He swallowed his concern and fear—he’d never wanted to be an assassin—picked up the weapon he’d been given years ago, and checked it carefully. It was still in working order.

Part of him wanted to call off the mission, to retreat from the battlefield, but he knew his duty. He’d been promised a reward for his work, something he desperately wanted. All he had to do was carry out one specific task.

Kill Admiral Drake.

Roman fought his way to awareness through a dizzying wave of pain and disorientation that threatened to drag him back into the darkness. He could hear voices as he awoke, voices that seemed oddly familiar and yet completely unrecognizable. His memory started to return as he opened his eyes, reminding him that his ship was in desperate danger when he’d blacked out…

“Report,” he croaked. His mouth felt impossibly dry. “The ship…?”

“Lie back,” another voice said. It was firm and very feminine. “You’re on the Magnificent …”

His vision stabilized, revealing a young woman wearing a doctor’s uniform.

“You took a nasty blow to the head,” she said. “Luckily, your helmet cushioned most of the blow and medical crews were able to preserve you long enough for the recovery team to get you into a stasis pod. You should be fine, but lie still.”

“My ship,” Roman said. His voice felt clearer, even though he could hear a distant roaring in his ears. It seemed to be almost impossible to form a coherent thought. “What’s happened to my ship?”

The doctor didn’t answer him. “I told you to lie still,” she said, firmly.

Her voice didn’t sound as though she would brook argument. Besides, a doctor had authority to relieve a captain on medical grounds. And he wasn’t even on his ship!

“Your ship is fine,” she finally told him.

That was a lie; Roman knew it was a lie. His ship had to have been badly damaged, perhaps even destroyed. His survival didn’t prove anything. The crew could have pulled him off the ship if their sickbay was overwhelmed. And yet, it was growing harder to think…

“I’m putting you back under,” the doctor said urgently.

He opened his mouth to argue, but it was impossible to speak. The words wouldn’t come to his lips.

She pressed something against his neck and there was a brief, almost inaudible hiss. “Relax.”

There was a brief spark of pain, almost unnoticeable against the pain in his head, and then nothing.

“The Harmony Shipyard has been most helpful,” Commodore Yang concluded. “We have successfully repaired most of the damaged ships without needing to leave the system. A handful of starships will require longer periods of repair work, but I believe they can be towed to Penganga Shipyard or repaired here, as the admiral wishes.”

Marius considered it. Using Harmony’s shipyards was a two-edged sword. It was quicker than returning to a Federation Navy shipyard and it did give the yard dogs a chance to work for the Federation—and therefore contribute to rebuilding the local economy—but if someone happened to want to sabotage the ship, they’d have a clear shot. The Marines had secured the shipyard, of course, but they weren’t experts in repairing starships. They might well miss something, and if they did, the results would be disastrous.

Still, he wanted the entire fleet repaired as quickly as possible. There were other warlords out there…and then there was the ever-present threat of the Outsiders.

“I believe that we can take the risk of repairing the ships here,” he said. “Just ensure that the fleet train’s repair men work with them. It should make sabotage harder.” He smiled and turned to Vaughn. “Toby?”

“There has been little change from my last report,” Vaughn said. The Marine looked tired, but confident. “My Marines have occupied the orbitals and various locations on the planet’s surface. There has been no sign of overt resistance beyond some grumbling and street protests, which we have ignored as long as they stayed peaceful. The bad news is that we still haven’t been able to locate the heavy weapons that vanished from planet-side arsenals prior to our arrival in the system, nor have we been able to locate the Planetary Guard personnel who were wiped from the records. I believe they may be preparing for an insurgency.”

“Which is why your orders, admiral, are thoroughly unwise,” Williams said. The political commissioner raised the same issue at every status meeting. “Your refusal to allow the Internal Security troopers to land on the planet is contributing to their willingness to defy us, and is placing your men at risk.”

Marius kept a tight grip on his temper. After hearing about Bester, he’d unilaterally banned the Internal Security troops from Harmony and ordered them to remain in their transports. Williams had protested, loudly, but the authority Marius had received from the Senate—if looked at in the right way—authorized him to take command of the Internal Security contingent if necessary. Which might have been the only thing that had prevented an immediate explosion.