Barbarians at the Gates

Chapter Forty-Seven

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.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do,” he said after a thorough check-up. The dead arm had been wrapped in a cast, but he’d warned Marius that the cast was purely a temporary measure. “It’s going to have to come off and be replaced, either with a vat-grown arm or a prosthetic.”

Marius winced. It was possible to grow lost parts of one’s body—as long as there was a single DNA sample to use as a template—in a vat, but it wouldn’t feel quite the same as the rest of his body. He’d known men who’d had replacements and then always been uncomfortable with their new organs. And yet, he didn’t want to have an artificial arm. It wouldn’t suit him, either.

“Right,” he said. “How long until I can get a new arm?”

“It’ll take a month to grow it, admiral.” Yu frowned. “Once it’s ready, it will have to be grafted onto the stump—we’ll remove the dead arm first, of course—and then it will take you several months to get used to using it again. I could fit you with an artificial arm now, but that would still take some getting used to.”

Marius nodded slowly. “I don’t have the time right now,” he said.

The doctor nodded, sombre. News of the attempted assassination had flashed through the entire fleet.

“Start growing the new arm,” Marius ordered, “and I’ll have it fitted when I have the time.”

“As you wish, admiral,” the doctor said. “Come back later today for another check-up. I want to be sure that the cellular disruption isn’t spreading.”

Marius nodded, then stalked out of sickbay. Outside, he met the two Marines who had been assigned to him as a personal guard and Major Papillae, Vaughn’s second-in-command. She would have assumed his position at once—the Marine chain of command was designed for rapid shifts—and yet seeing her felt unpleasant, as if he were betraying his oldest friend. Vaughn would have laughed at the thought, but then…Vaughn was dead.

He still couldn’t get used to that.

“Admiral,” she said formally. Her voice was brisk and efficient. “I completed the ceremonies for General Vaughn. His body has been stored in a stasis tube until it can be returned to his homeworld, and I read his will. He wished you to have this.” She passed him a small packet.

Marius opened it, wishing he were anywhere else and that this wasn’t really happening. It was impossible to believe that a presence so vital as Toby Vaughn was dead, even though Marius had seen Vaughn die before his eyes. Die to protect him, no less. Inside, there was an old chemical-propelled projectile weapon and a handful of clips.

Marius pulled it out in surprise and saw the golden globe and anchor that decorated the weapon. Traditionally, every Marine who made it to command rank was presented with such a weapon—a reminder of the different national services that had been blended into the Federation Marines—and was expected to keep it with him at all times. Vaughn had once joked that any Marine officer who had to fire the weapon in action was in serious danger, because projectile weapons didn’t have anything like the range and firepower of modern plasma cannons. But he wouldn’t have given up the weapon willingly, not until he died.

Having it passed on to him, Marius knew, was a great honor. And he would have given it up in an instant if it brought his friend back to him.

Papillae allowed him a moment to contemplate the weapon, and then cleared her throat. “The remainder of the Internal Security shitheads”—the news of the massacre at Bester had also spread through the fleet—”are in their transports, apart from a handful who were killed resisting arrest. The transports themselves are in lockdown, and I have a company of Marines on each of them, ensuring that the bastards cannot escape. We had to separate some of the political commissioners because they were in danger from the troopers.”

“Good,” Marius said. He strapped the weapon to his belt and looked up at her. “And the interrogation?”

“Raistlin spilled his guts,” Papillae said. “That was lucky, admiral, as we discovered—just in time—that he’d been given suicide implants. He shouldn’t have had them at all until he was promoted to captain, but luckily someone thought to check before we injected him with truth drugs. He received his orders directly from the Senate itself. His father put him in place just after the Battle of Boskone, waiting until he received orders to assassinate you.”

Marius nodded numbly. If Blake Raistlin had been just a little smarter, he could have assassinated Marius—and Tiffany too, perhaps—in his quarters and made his escape; instead, he’d tried to assassinate him in public. And now, Marius knew who to blame.

“The worrying news is that you weren’t the only target,” Papillae continued. “Raistlin had orders to purge your entire command staff, whereupon the political commissioners would assume command and allow Internal Security troopers to secure the remaining ships. My guess is that he intended to slaughter everyone at the briefing, and chose his weapon accordingly.”

“So we were all meant to die,” Marius said. He looked up at her. “Do you know what this means, Major?”

Papillae said nothing.

“It means that I have no choice but to follow the path Admiral Justinian blazed, and declare war against the Senate. That, major, is what it means!”

She simply looked at him gravely, but made no attempt to stop him from doing anything. After a beat, he nodded at her in silent thanks.

He keyed his wristcom.

“All staff, this is the admiral,” he said. “Report to Briefing Compartment Two in thirty minutes. We have a lot of work to do.”

Tiffany gave him a hug as soon as he entered the compartment, while the other officers rose to their feet in a gesture of respect. Part of Marius wondered if Tiffany had been given orders to assassinate him as well, before he pushed that thought aside. Tiffany was too independent-minded to follow orders from Earth. Even so, Marius hated the paranoia. He’d pulled together an excellent command team, fought beside them…and now it was impossible to know who to trust. He silently damned Blake Raistlin under his breath, remembering the excellent report he’d planned to submit, one that recommended Raistlin for promotion and command of his own ship. Who could he trust?

The irony wasn’t lost on him. Admiral Justinian had spent ten years preparing for his rebellion, and he’d still failed. Marius had had bare hours since he’d been attacked and Vaughn had been killed. His plans, such as they were, remained unformed. All he could do was to focus on one issue at a time.

“Gentlemen and ladies, please be seated,” he ordered. “For those of you who haven’t seen the recordings of Raistlin’s interrogation, the Senate ordered the assassination—the assassination of me and my entire command staff. You were all targets. You were all marked for death.”

He felt, rather than heard, a dull rumble of anger spreading through the room. Good; if they were angry, they weren’t scared or hesitant.

“This leaves us with a choice,” he continued. “Returning to the Federation is not an option, nor is staying here. We can head to the Rim and beyond, hoping that we will remain undiscovered when the Senate sets its dogs upon our trail, or we can head to Earth and…remove the Senate.”

There was a long pause. No one said anything; they appeared to be holding their breath.

“Let’s be honest, shall we? The Senate has become a threat to the entire Federation. Their corruption helped fuel this rebellion, just as it fuels countless hopeless rebellions right across the galaxy. Their mishandling of Admiral Justinian led to the disaster at First Jefferson and made it almost inevitable that others would rebel against the Federation, too. Their willingness to slaughter their enemies—and the families of their enemies—led to bloody slaughter, for no one dared surrender. And you have all seen the report from Bester. The Senate ordered the slaughter of all of the senior staff, including innocent women and children.

“And they tried to kill us all,” he added. “I won’t pretend that I don’t take that personally.”

He paused, gauging their reactions. Some looked personally affronted, others—including Captain Garibaldi—were shocked. They’d believed the Senate would keep its promises. How wrong they’d been, Marius noted. They deserved better leaders.

“I swore an oath to the Federation. I swore that I would uphold the fundamental unity of the human race, the unity that has made us masters of half the galaxy. The Senators swear a similar oath when they are sworn into power—and look what they’ve done. They have forced people into a position where they can either fight or die—why shouldn’t they fight? The unity of the human race, so expensively restored in the Inheritance Wars, is coming apart at the seams. And the Senate is the driving force behind the collapse.

“We all know how they rape the colonies for raw materials and taxes they desperately need to pay for their social programs. We all know how they back some industrialists at the expense of others, ensuring that their companies are favored while their competitors are ruthlessly crushed. I think we have all seen the effect this has on our ships, and our operational readiness. We all know how they planned to appoint Federation Governors to the worlds we captured and strip them bare of everything they have, turning the people into corporate slaves. We all know what their refusal to challenge pirates and the Outsiders has meant—along the Rim, millions die while the Senate does nothing. I submit to you that the Senate must be removed.”

There was no disagreement. Part of him found that terrifying.

“Admiral Justinian wanted supreme power for himself. I don’t. I want to remove the Senate and put something better in its place, something more representative of humanity as a whole, something that will be harder to corrupt and turn into a reactionary force for rebellion. If this be treason, let us make the most of it!”

He took a long breath. “And yes, they will call it treason, particularly if we fail.”

There were some chuckles.

“I believe that my duty must be to remove the Senate,” he said finally. “If any of you do not wish to join me, I will understand. You can wait on Harmony for news of the result. I won’t be a vindictive bastard about it, but I do need to know your answers now.”

“Respectfully suggest, sir,” Admiral Mason said, “that you stop insulting us and start preparing for the march on Earth.”

Marius allowed himself to relax as chuckles ran around the room. His command staff were all pragmatists and, more importantly, they all knew that they were already on a death list. They could run to the Rim, but even that wouldn’t guarantee their safety. If the Senate won, they’d never be able to return home.

“I will make the same offer to the crewmen,” he said firmly. “You can do the same to your subordinates. There is to be no recrimination if someone chooses to sit this out, understand? Have them transfer themselves to the shuttlebays and send them down to the planet.”

“Aye, sir,” Admiral Mason said.

“I want the Grand Fleet ready to depart in twelve hours,” Marius ordered. “Make sure the fleet train is loaded with supplies from Harmony”—one other advantage of a civil war was that both sides used the same weapons—”and is ready to support us as we advance. If we are lucky, we won’t have to fight our way into Boskone and the other worlds we set up as nodal defense points…”

“One point,” Papillae said. “We have been unable to confirm that there isn’t a message already winging its way back to Earth with a warning. The Senate may not know that we’re coming, or they might suspect the worst.”

“You can’t pick out an encrypted message?” Admiral Mason snorted.

“The message might be something innocuous,” Papillae said. “Something that would pass unremarked. The message that activated Raistlin didn’t say anything directly.”

“We’ll assume that we’re heading into hostile space,” Marius said with a nod. “We leave in twelve hours. Until then…dismissed!”

Roman had asked to see the admiral as soon as possible. He was surprised when he was called in only an hour after he sent the message, and even more surprised to see the two Marines guarding the admiral’s hatch. It was a break with tradition and, worse, it suggested that the Admiral no longer trusted his crew. The Marines searched him thoroughly but gently, and then allowed him to enter. The admiral himself was seated on the sofa, his left arm wrapped in a cast.

“Admiral,” he began. Words abruptly failed him. “I’m glad to see that you’re all right…”

“Save it,” Admiral Drake said. He looked up. Roman was surprised to see a new intensity burning in the admiral’s eyes. “I assume you want a new ship?”

“Yes, sir,” Roman said. He’d checked on Midway and had to admit that the report had been accurate. It would be cheaper to build a new assault cruiser than to repair a badly damaged one. She’d be sent to the breakers and her hull metal would be used to produce new ships. “Why did he open fire?”

“The Senate decided, in their infinite wisdom, to massacre all the prisoners we took on Bester,” Admiral Drake explained. His bitter voice shocked Roman to the core. “Admiral Justinian decided to go out in a blaze of glory.”

He frowned. “I don’t have a ship that needs a commander at the moment,” he added.

Roman couldn’t keep the disappointment off his face.

“I do need an aide, however. If you take the post now, I’ll give you a ship as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Roman said. He was surprised that the admiral wanted him—he’d graduated with Raistlin years ago, not that they’d ever been friends—but he knew better than to refuse. “When do I take up my duties?”

“Now,” Admiral Drake said. “We’re leaving in twelve hours and I want every ship that can fly and energize a beam going with us.”

Twelve hours later, Marius stood on the command deck and watched as the Grand Fleet slid into motion, heading towards the Jefferson Asimov Point. He would have found it hard to describe his feelings at the moment, knowing that he was rebelling against the Senate, crossing his own personal Rubicon.

One way or another, the die had been cast.