Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

The folder her father had given her had landed on the floor somewhere. She reached around for it and picked it off the floor, placing it on the bed before opening it. Admiral Marius Drake, her unwanted husband, stared back at her, the unmoving photograph a mocking reminder of her fate. He wasn’t the most handsome man, but she had to admit that that spoke well of him. A man in his position could have had himself reshaped into a living god, so perfect as to be inhuman. Instead, he was pug-ugly.

She skimmed through the file and knew that some of her friends in High Society would never talk to her again. Marius Drake had been born on Mars to middle-class parents, not to High Society; indeed, she understood now why it had taken so long to find him a bride. His kids wouldn’t be part of High Society—at least not completely—and few people nearer his age would be willing to tolerate that for their children. Tiffany was already on the lower rung of High Society, so marrying a man from outside High Society wouldn’t reflect too badly on her family. And besides, having influence over the admiral, as her father had said, would be worth any amount of social shunning.

“Damn you,” she muttered, and turned to her terminal. It took only thirty minutes to realize that her father had locked her out of every secure system and cancelled all of her authorization codes. The only thing she could access was Drake’s service record. She wouldn’t be able to escape, either on her yacht or by booking a ticket off-planet on a commercial starship. The walls of her father’s mansion—one of the largest on Earth—were closing in around her. She was trapped. “Damn you to hell.”

Picking up the file, she keyed her terminal and started to record a message. If she had to be miserable, she saw no reason why the misery couldn’t be shared.

The Gateway defenses, Marius was relieved to see, had been strongly augmented in the wake of Admiral Justinian’s first attack on Earth. Newly built fortresses surrounded the Asimov Point, bristling with weapons, while four entire squadrons of superdreadnaughts backed them up. Nor had the Admiralty neglected the defenses of Mars, Jupiter or Earth itself. Home Fleet had been strongly reinforced and new squadrons were working up on the other side of the Dead End. There might have been hundreds of problems with a sudden massive increase in production, but the Federation was responding to the challenge.

“Admiral, we are approaching Earth,” Captain Sinclair informed him. Marius had been tempted to ride back to Earth in Magnificent , but the superdreadnaught had been needed back at Boskone. Instead, he’d borrowed the battlecruiser Swift , which had been due for a refit at the Jupiter Yards. “Would you like to take command of the approach?”

“No, thank you,” Marius said. Strictly speaking, he shouldn’t have been on the bridge at all, but he missed the days when he commanded his own starship, Master under God . Commanding a fleet deployment—even the largest deployment made since the Blue Star War—wasn’t quite the same. “The ship is yours.”

He settled back as the battlecruiser reduced speed, heading into the Earth-Luna Sphere. Prior to the war, Home Fleet hadn’t stationed a sizable force near Earth. Now, a dozen superdreadnaught squadrons orbited Luna, with hundreds of smaller ships zipping around, scanning space for cloaked starships or other unpleasant surprises.

Their mere presence was a sore spot, for if those ships had been released to join his fleet, he could have punched through the Asimov Point and broken into Admiral Justinian’s inner worlds. The Senate, however, felt differently, and in the wake of the Battle of Terra Nova, it was hard to blame them. Victory over one warlord might mean defeat by another. Indeed, the Senate was fortifying other Asimov Points and organizing nodal forces at nexus stars. By the time the war was over, it should be possible to start a large-scale operation against the Outsiders.

If, of course, the Outsiders let them have the time.

He’d read, carefully, the report from Admiral Mason and the shorter report from Captain Garibaldi. Someone was recruiting with an intensity that surprised him, which suggested that they had something in mind. Who? The warlords wouldn’t have needed to hire so many mercenaries, but the Outsiders would definitely have wanted to learn from people who had been at the sharp end of the military operations over the last century.

There was little doubt in Marius’s mind that the war against Admiral Justinian was only the precursor to a long and bloody war against the Outsiders. They’d never have a better chance to topple the Federation.

“Admiral,” the communications officer said, “we have picked up a recorded message for your eyes only.”

Marius nodded slowly. The communications officer was so young ! The war had brought a great many accelerated promotions to deserving young officers, while killing a great many more.

“I’ll take it in my cabin,” he said. “Pipe it down to my private terminal.”

Once he was in his cabin, it was a simple matter to decode the message. A hologram formed in front of him, showing a red-haired young lady. Marius frowned, uncertain of who she was or why she would be sending a message to him. It was hard to read the emotions of the tiny figure, but she didn’t look happy.

“Admiral Drake,” the woman said. Her voice was curt, very formal. “Please accept my salutations. I am Lady Tiffany Eleanor Diana Katherine d’Artagnan, your bride—to-be. My father has ordered me to marry you for the sake of the family and the Conservative Faction. I trust that I meet with your approval”—her voice darkened—”as it seems that neither of us have much of a choice in the matter.”

Marius started. He’d known that the Senate intended to find him a bride, but he hadn’t realized that it would be someone unwilling.

“I have argued against it, but my family have refused to even consider my pleas,” Tiffany continued. “I think that even if you find the prospect of marrying me terrifying, you won’t have any choice either. I think we should try and make the best of it. I don’t bite—much. I’ll see you on the planet’s surface in a few hours, where we may have some time alone together. Or maybe not. It seems that my father thinks I might run away.”

She looked up and smiled. “I wonder where he might have picked up that idea?”

Marius had to laugh.

“I’ll see you soon,” the message concluded. Her voice broke down into bitter laughter. “And if you don’t like me, tough!”

Luna Academy, Sol System, 4095

“But I don’t want to marry her!”

Professor Kratman snorted. They sat alone in a secure room, studying the blank grey walls that blocked any eavesdropping devices from sending a signal outside the tiny compartment. Its very blandness seemed to mock the turmoil of Marius’ mind. For the first time since he’d been a young Ensign, he didn’t know what to do.

“And what,” Professor Kratman asked dryly, “do you think that that has to do with anything?”