Dauntless (Blood on the Stars Book 6) Page 38

  Striker was silent for a moment. Then he said, “This is a mistake, Gary. One that will cost lives down the road.”

  “That may be, my friend. But it will save lives now, and as much as you want to crush the Union, you know what that would entail. How many more of your people would die, now and in the next year or two of sustained fighting?” A pause. “They have suffered enough, my friend. Perhaps they deserve the peace now…even with the risks it pushes into the future.”

  Striker didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t say anything else for a long while. The two men, friends and comrades, stood silently, each deep in his own thoughts.

  * * *

  “They can’t do this. Not after all those who died to bring us to the cusp of victory.” Tyler Barron was sitting on the small couch in his quarters, shaking his head as he spoke. Admiral Striker had told him of the peace treaty the day before, but he was still raw from it.

  “I understand, Tyler, but at least this way no one else has to die. I’m no military tactician, but you know very well the invasion of the Union would be a nightmare, even with their fleet so battered, one that would go one for what…years?” Andi Lafarge was sitting next to Barron, and her hand was moving gently across his back.

  Her touch was calming him, at least a bit, something nothing else had been able to do in the last twenty-four hours. He turned toward her and managed a tiny smile. “I still don’t know how you managed to get all the way to the Bottleneck, and slip around the Union fleet. I owe you my life, you know.”

  “Yes,” she said, returning the smile. “I know.”

  Barron looked at her intently. He’d transferred to Vanguard for the journey back to Grimaldi, but Pegasus had arrived first…and Barron remembered the message he’d left for Lafarge. He’d only intended for her to read it if he didn’t make it back. It had been an extended missive, full of far more emotion than he was comfortable divulging. He’d deleted it as soon as Vanguard docked, but he hadn’t been sure if she’d seen it or not. He still wasn’t sure. She hadn’t let on in any way he could detect, but one thing he knew about Andi Lafarge was the staggering effectiveness of her poker face.

  “Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you for coming for me.”

  She slid closer to him and smiled broadly. “Any time…you know I’ll always be there when you need me.”

  “Yes,” he said softly, reaching out and taking her hand in his. “I do know that. And, I’ll always be there when you need me.”

  The exchange wasn’t poetic, nor full of mad recitations of love and devotion…but it was one that suited them both perfectly. Their lives would pull them apart again, Barron had no doubt about that. But now he was just as sure they would always be connected, that the two of them had a bond that could be stretched, but never be shattered.

  And that made him smile again.

  Epilogue

  Villieneuve stood on the side of the street, staring at the still-smoking ruins of the Presidium complex. The great compound, once the pinnacle of Union government and power, was now almost completely gone, nothing but a few blackened girders still rising more than a couple meters above the ground. It was an astonishing sight to any who lived in the Union, who understood the iron control that body had maintained over the nation. But far more amazing, strange even to him, was that this great monument to political power had been destroyed by his own operatives…on his express order.

  Unlike the angry, uncontrolled mobs that had been behind most of the fires and vandalism in Liberte City over the past weeks, the arsonists here had been Sector Nine agents, and the destruction of such an overwhelming symbol of the old regime was a key part of Villieneuve’s plan not only to survive and retain his power, but to enhance it.

  The streets were filled with shouting crowds, as they had been day and night. He watched the throngs, workers, mostly from the factories that ringed the city, noting their mannerisms, the brutish and unsophisticated way they conducted themselves. He was doing his best to understand them, even to act like he was one of them, the new man of the people. He was dressed as a common worker, coarse denim pants and a heavy canvas shirt, both in dull shades of gray. It was a touch of well-placed symbolism, one that seemed to be working, as he walked among the crowds, shaking hands with many of those near him. He imagined it would look terribly good on the evening broadcasts, which, of course, was the whole point. No one watching later would have any idea the whole thing was entirely fake.

  The suit he’d shed hours before—and would change back into the instant he was behind closed doors—had cost more than a year’s wages for those screaming his name in the streets. The workers in his immediate vicinity, the ones he was greeting so warmly, had been hand-picked…and cleared by his security. The rawer masses that formed the real crowd were nearby, but his own location was cordoned off, and Foudre Rouge snipers covered the area from every rooftop. The feeling of liberty, of freedom after centuries of repression, was entirely manufactured, as was the image of a man of the old government who’d risen up, disowned the corrupt ways of his fellows…and taken personal risks to bring them all down and turn the government back to the people. To even Villieneuve’s astonishment, it was working.

  He’d expected to return to an execution squad sent by the Presidium, but instead, Ricard Lille had been waiting with news so unexpected, it had taken Villieneuve a considerable time to process it. Lille was an amazing assassin, but this time he’d outdone himself. The entire Presidium, save Villieneuve himself, dead. Every rival, every minister with enough power to move against him, gone.

  Lille had failed on Barroux, though that hardly seemed relevant considering his extraordinary accomplishment on Montmirail, and Villieneuve had absolved his friend for his mistakes during the war. He would need his top assassin in the coming months and years. The two had made their peace, based, as most of their relations were, on an odd combination of utility and friendship.

  Despite Lille’s incredible assassination, Villieneuve’s prospects for preserving his power had still seemed to be a long shot. The Union was collapsing economically, the people were rioting in the streets on a hundred worlds, entire systems were seceding and declaring independence. But signs of hope began to materialize almost immediately.

  He’d considered it a miracle when word arrived that the Confederation Senate had accepted the peace proposal he’d ordered his operatives to push after the destruction of the pulsar. Even he had underestimated the tendency of the Confederation’s people and politicians to seek the easiest route back to normalcy.

  The peace, at least, eliminated the prospect of invasion. One less problem he had to face…and a change of circumstances that freed up what remained of the fleet for his own internal pacification operations. There was grumbling and near-mutiny in the fleet, but that was far more controllable than the unrest on the Union’s many worlds, especially with the coming of peace. With the prospect of having to fight the deadly Confederation fleet gone, it hadn’t taken more than a few promotions and some pay increases to bring things back to order.

  Nevertheless, for the first few weeks, the situation had been tenuous, to say the least.

  The idea on how to proceed had come to him in those dark hours, a thought he’d almost dismissed outright. The people couldn’t be so gullible as to accept him, the last member of the Presidium, as the leader of a new revolution. Could they?

  He’d kept the deaths of the Presidium members secret for the first few days, but then, he used the bodies of his former colleagues to launch his campaign. He’d had them dragged into the streets, and claimed credit for their deaths, for the liberation the Presidium’s fall promised to the people. He’d put bullets in their heads before he had them cast to the mobs—the image of corrupt, tyrannical leaders being shot made for better propaganda than bio-engineered viruses delivered by a Sector Nine assassin.

  Then, he’d taken to the streets, the information nets, anywhere he could reach eyes and ears…and he railed against the Union’s governm
ent, screamed that he had tried to reform it from within, spoke in soaring tones of a true workers’ paradise, the dream that had been the Union before it had been hijacked by the corrupt and power mad. And to his stunned surprise, people believed him. The blood of his former comrades painted his road forward.

  He’d continued with a purge of epic proportions, the members of the old government with the highest public profiles eliminated in huge numbers, dragged into the streets and killed by the mobs, murdered in their beds, shoved up against walls and shot. And with every execution, every member of the old regime scapegoated, Gaston Villieneuve’s popularity soared.

  The mobs cheered his speeches, shouted his name. He abandoned his old titles, telling all to call him, only Citizen Villieneuve. He rallied the workers, the crowds, while in the shadows his trained killers rooted out the last holdouts of the old power structure…and any among the mob who spoke against him.

  He had no official title, but Sector Nine was still fully-operational and firmly in his grasp…though he knew he’d have to rename the infamous service. He had no official mandate, yet he controlled what was left of the Union with a level of concentrated and absolute power that had been impossible in the days of the Presidium.

  He controlled the Foudre Rouge, too, though he knew he had to rename them as well. The clone soldiers were too tied to the old government, the fear they’d struck into the civilian populace too memorable. Perhaps he would cast them, too, as victims of the old government, freed by his rebellion.

  He had much work to do, to consolidate power, and to restore the Union to its former size and power. Fewer than half the former systems remained now, and the first order of business would be bringing the others back into the fold, by the kind of persuasion that had worked so well on Montmirail, if possible…and by more direct means, if not.

  The economy had to be completely rebuilt, and new institutions created. It was a monumental task, one that seemed almost impossible. But, he would see it done. He would create the new Union in his image…and he would rule it, absolutely and forever.

  And when he had restored the Union to its former power, when he had secured his iron grip…he would take his revenge.

  On Tyler Barron and his damnable crew.

  And on the Confederation.

  * * *

  “You look well-rested.” Van Striker smiled as Tyler Barron walked across the room. Barron saluted, and then the two shook hands warmly.

  “I am. It’s amazing what a few months without war can do.” Barron was glad the Confederation was at peace, that the killing had stopped…but he was still nagged by the feeling his countrymen would come to deeply regret their failure to finish the Union once and for all.

  Barron turned toward the third man in the room. “It’s good to see you, too, Mr. Holsten.” He extended his arm, a repeat of his greeting to Striker.

  “Gary, please.” Holsten reached out and clasped Barron’s hand. “I am glad to see you as well.” A slight pause. “And, let me take the chance to congratulate you for your success in the Bottleneck. I wish I could have been here to see the victory.”

  Barron just nodded. He knew Holsten had done his best to influence the Senate. No one knew as well as the head of Confederation Intelligence the potential problems that had been kicked down the road.

  Striker turned toward the observation portal and gestured toward the pristine new battleship docked just outside. “What do you think of her?”

  “She’s a beauty, sir. Repulse-class, no? But there’s something else there too.”

  “You have a good eye for ships, Ty. She is something new, a late-war mod to the Repulse-class. She’s got everything Vanguard’s got plus…a few extras. Five million, eight hundred thousand tons, the biggest ship the Confederation’s ever launched. That anyone has ever launched, except for the old empire, of course.”

  “She’s impressive, sir.” A pause. “I’m surprised she got past the force cutbacks.” His comment was less than literal. He realized a brand-new ship would likely be spared any fleet downsizing. The mothballing efforts would start at the bottom, with the oldest vessels.

  “She’s yours.” Striker looked over at Barron.

  “Mine?”

  “Your flagship.”

  “Flagship? For what?”

  “I have an assignment for you.” Striker paused. “It will be dangerous…and it might be long. Very long.”

  Barron was confused. “What kind of assignment? There’s no trouble at the border…”

  “No, nothing like that.” He hesitated again. “You know how close we came to disaster at the hands of ancient technology. You saved us from the first by destroying the planet-killer…and the second by taking out the pulsar. But both situations were close calls…and either one could have ended in disaster.”

  “No argument from me, sir. The stealth generator was ancient tech, too, don’t forget.”

  “Which only makes this mission all the more vital.”

  “What do you want me to do, sir?”

  Barron had posed the question to Striker, but it was Holsten who responded. “We want you to lead an armada…deep into the Badlands. Beyond the distance any known expedition has reached previously.”

  “The Badlands?”

  “It’s no secret the Union has always had the jump on us. Sector Nine has worked our own ports ceaselessly, buying contraband and clues to artifact locations right under our noses. I’ve tried to combat it, but my hands have always been tied by the international treaty provisions…restrictions the Union has widely ignored.”

  “I’m well aware of that.” His tone had come out harsher than he’d intended. As with most military officers, he resented political games that usually ended up costing the lives of his comrades. Then: “I’m sorry…I know you’ve always done all you could.”

  “But we’ve always been behind. We’ve always been reacting. Until now. That’s why Van and I want you to take this mission.”

  “What, exactly, is the mission?”

  “We want you to lead your fleet deep into the heart of the old empire…and we want you to explore, to find any old tech artifacts that are still out there. Your people would be going where no one has been for centuries.”

  “I understand the idea, sir, but is it really that urgent? The Union looks like it might collapse entirely. I’m not naïve about the likelihood of what type of government might…”

  “Gaston Villieneuve has murdered the entire Presidium, and he has seized absolute control. He is the unchallenged ruler of at least half of what had been the Union…and we don’t expect it will take him long to consolidate control over the rest.” A pause. “And, no one understands the potential value of old tech like Villieneuve.”

  Barron stared back, stunned. Villieneuve was evil, but he was no fool. A Union under his control would become dangerous again…quickly. And Barron knew the Sector Nine chief would be looking for more old tech as soon as he possibly could be. If he was in power now, it was possible he already had efforts underway.

  “I’ll do it, sir.” He knew there was no choice. “What kind of force will I be commanding?”

  “A powerful one, Ty. A second purpose of the mission is to divert as much fleet power as possible away from the budget cutters. It’s hard to get the Senate to worry about a war that might not happen for ten or twenty years, or at all, but the pulsar shook the hell out of them. They’re afraid of old tech, and they’ll likely approve anything we suggest for an expedition to go hunting for it.”

  Barron nodded. “My personnel?”

  “Yours to choose. I assume you’ll want all your old people from Dauntless. Possibly Sara Eaton as your deputy fleet commander.”

  “Yes, definitely.” A pause. “How many ships are we talking about?”

  “At least eight battleships. Twelve if I can swing it. Plus escorts and support vessels. This will be the biggest exploration mission we’ve ever launched.” Striker looked at Holsten, and then back toward Barron. “We’re calling
it the White Fleet. Gary came up with the idea.”

  “It’s PR, really. A way to help sell it to the Senate.”

  “The White Fleet?” Barron’s tone had a touch of doubt, but in truth, he thought it was a good name. Hopeful, at least, which befit an expedition with a mission to explore rather than fight.

  He turned and looked out at the ship docked alongside the station. “And that’s the flagship. What’s she called?”

  Striker and Holsten exchanged glances. “She’s not christened yet, Ty,” Holsten finally said. “I think the initial plan had been to call her Indomitable…but we’re going to scrap that idea.”

  Barron looked back, a questioning expression on his face.

  “We thought you might do the christening, Tyler.” Holsten reached out and put his hand on Barron’s shoulder. “And, as far as we’re concerned, there’s only name that could ever work.”

  Barron turned, even as Holsten finished what he was saying. He was staring at the newest, largest, highest-tech ship in the navy, but his eyes were seeing another vessel, old and battered.

  Holsten’s words continued: “We thought we’d call her Dauntless.”

  The Crimson Worlds Series

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