Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

“That decision is mine to take, and I took it,” he said, his tone brooking no argument. He purposefully looked away from the commissioner. “Is there any other business?”

There was none, thankfully. Marius hated status meetings and tried to avoid them where possible, but it was hard to find a workable excuse when they were simply orbiting Harmony and attempting to secure and rebuild an entire sector. At least it would be over soon; once the remainder of Admiral Justinian’s little empire had been secured, the Grand Fleet could move on to deal with another warlord. They’d always have work to do.

“Dismissed,” he said, as he rose to his feet. “Toby, I need a word…”

Something was wrong. Time seemed to be slowing around him, as if it were pressing against his head. He saw Blake Raistlin pull a tiny weapon from his jacket and point it at him. The weapon fired…

… And then, Vaughn was covering him, protecting him with his own body.

Marius snapped out of it as Vaughn was blown back into him, knocking him to the floor. And then Raistlin fired again.

A horrific burning sensation flared down his left arm, just before Admiral Mason tackled Raistlin and knocked the weapon to the ground.

Marius tried to pull himself to his feet, but his left arm wasn’t working.

“Medic,” Admiral Mason shouted.

It was hard to hear him through the haze of pain that burned through his mind. His implants were dulling the pain, yet he could still feel it…and his left arm was completely useless.

“Get a medic here, right now!” Mason yelled urgently.

Someone helped him to his feet. Marius struggled to focus his mind, almost stumbling over something on the deck. It took him minutes to realize that he’d stumbled over his best friend’s body. Vaughn’s expression made it appear as if he’d died in horrific agony. The treacherous bastard Raistlin must have used a punch disruptor, Marius realized. It was so hard to think properly, but the effects were unmistakable…and Vaughn had taken the full brunt of the blast. Every cell in his body had been ripped open. The shock alone would have killed him, even if the pain hadn’t.

Toby , Marius thought drunkenly. I’ll drink to your memory…

An injector was pressed against his neck; cold numbness spread through his body. It brought clarity of a sort, a dull realization of what had happened. Blake Raistlin’s family hadn’t wanted him out of the firing line to keep him safe, he realized. Instead, they’d set him up as an assassin.

That meant that the Senate’s response to his demand that Colonel Scudder be punished was clear—they’d ordered his death. And Williams had been in on it. No doubt the Internal Security troops were in on it, too.

“Admiral, stay still,” one of the medics said.

Tiffany walked toward him, but was held back by one of the medics. He knew she must be in shock. Tears were running down her lovely face. She looked almost like an angel in that moment, his angel.

“Admiral…” someone said, he didn’t care who.

“Admiral Mason,” Marius said. His voice felt thick and unwieldy in his ears. “Arrest the commissioners and their troops. Arrest them all and seal them away from everyone else, quickly!”

“You can’t,” Williams said desperately. The commissioner must have thought he was immune. “You can’t…”

One of the Marines hit him with a stun-rod and he collapsed to the deck.

I need to promote that man, Marius thought, before a second injector pressed against his neck.

As he crashed into the painful darkness, he thought desperately. Most of the Internal Security troopers should be on their transports. If Admiral Mason could hold them there, they couldn’t take over his ships. There was still a chance…

For what?

No matter how far he looked, he could only see one answer.

Harmony System/In Transit, 4098

The next time Roman Garibaldi awoke, he felt much better. Elf was at his bedside, reading a datapad and trying to look nonchalant, something that set alarm bells ringing in Roman’s head. The doctor checked his vital signs, pressed a sensor to the top of his head, and then grudgingly admitted that Roman could get up.

“You’re cleared for duty, captain,” he said crossly. “I’d think that you’d be better off with some more bed rest, but it’s all hands on deck here.”

Roman blinked as the doctor stalked off. “Elf,” he said urgently, “the ship?”

“Beyond repair,” Elf said. Her gaze was sympathetic.

Roman flinched.

“The gravity flickered for a second,” she explained, “long enough to cripple most of the crew and inflict severe damage on the ship’s internal systems. Then the compensators blew. We’re damn lucky that we had already lost speed, or we would all have been killed. Hell, we’re even luckier that the containment fields held, or we’d all be playing harps by now.”

Roman swallowed hard. Midway had been his , in a way that no other ship had been. He’d been her commander, Master under God, and his crew had been his family and friends. Losing her hurt, like losing a first lover.

He was relieved to hear, as Elf continued to brief him, that most of the crew had survived, but their family was gone. The admiral would reassign them all, even Roman, to other ships, breaking them up. He felt hot tears begin to form at the corner of his eyes and blinked them away angrily. It couldn’t be helped, he told himself. Somehow, it failed to be convincing.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Elf continued. “Your old friend, Blake Raistlin, tried to assassinate the admiral.”

“He was never my friend,” he corrected automatically. Then he stared at her. “He did what?”

“He tried to assassinate the admiral,” Elf repeated. “Raistlin injured him and killed General Vaughn, but no one else was harmed. They even took Raistlin alive. The admiral—ah, Admiral Mason—ordered all the Internal Security troopers locked down, but some of them put up a fight. You’re lucky that you were completely out of it.”

She rubbed a new scar on her chin. How had she gotten that?

“And the political commissioners had to be removed as well,” she added. “One of them proved to be surprisingly good with a knife.”

“I have to get up,” Roman said. He pushed back the blanket and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. His uniform had been neatly folded and left in the small cabinet beside the medical bed. He couldn’t help noticing that someone had removed the golden badge that signified starship command, an ominous sign for the future. If Blake Raistlin had been the assassin, was Roman —and everyone else who had graduated with him—a suspect? Even though none of them had truly liked Raistlin?

His legs felt rubbery, but he held himself upright by force of will and started to dress.

“Tell me something,” Elf said as he pulled on his jacket. “What do you intend to do?”

“I’m sure the admiral will want me to do something,” Roman said. It was a weak answer because he had no idea what his duties were. Maybe there was a starship that needed a new commander. “I can’t lie about doing nothing when there’s work to be done.”

Doctor Yu was, in Marius’s opinion, one of the best doctors in the Federation Navy. He’d actually joined late in life, after discovering that private practice didn’t really suit him, and he brought over a hundred years worth of experience to the post. The doctor didn’t look encouraging, however, as he checked Marius’s arm. The disruptor had wreaked havoc on his cells, and the entire arm was dead.