Ground Control, page 17
“I’m getting mass launch from all seven Overlords,” one of her sensor Centurions called. “They arrived hot and ready. There will be seven thousand aeromechia available shortly, but they will not be able to catch us on our current sailing vector.”
Heather nodded.
Bellamy had figured it out, but hadn’t been able to get here fast enough to stop her. To keep her from bashing the hell out of his third warehousing post. From stealing Charlie.
Presumably, he had come from 3-C, so there would be at least two Overlords dispatched to 3-A already. Maybe waiting for her to jump there, expecting that he had all of his striking power here.
Except that she only counted seven. That left eight, with only five forward bases previously guarded. Easy enough to pull one or two and drop them in her path.
Good thing she wasn’t going there. He was here. Now. And that meant he wasn’t at Kyulle.
“Warlord, I’m getting a hail from the Overlord Bertev,” Saltanat said with utter disbelief in her voice. “Video signal, at that.”
“What’s the lag?” Heather asked automatically.
“Seven seconds,” Saltanat said.
Too far away to trade anything except insults and threats at this point.
And getting longer with every minute, because she was headed away from him and running like hell.
Heather Lau didn’t have to win the war today. Couldn’t actually, a lesson Keller had impressed on all of them in her time.
She could lose it right here, though.
“Donatien, you take the flag,” Heather decided. “Saltanat, I’ll take it in my office.”
She rose to squawks of surprise from both and ignored them.
Making eye contact with Ivonne, she got a mug of coffee placed into her hands as she reached the hatch and went through.
What did Amable Bellamy have to say?
Chapter 55
Mission Brief: Forward Logistics Base Three-B
Unification Chevalier Amable Bellamy knew immediately that he had arrived too late. Perhaps only two hours, but that was as good as two days, watching the Monarchist squadron suddenly come about and begin accelerating madly away from him, even as Bertev and the others launched everything they had.
The moorage had been scoured. Savaged, just as the other two. Possibly destroyed.
Two hours, and he might have been here in time to fight her. One hour and he could have caught them scattered and vulnerable.
He was too late.
And had lost another of the great freighters that Lau had stolen from him before. That was her mission. The woman didn’t dare fight him because he had enough force to annihilate her.
But he could not feed it.
Already, he had lost the spear tip of his invasion. And had heard nothing back from Ruben Coste, leaving Amable to fear the worst had happened there, as well.
How had it all come apart so easily? So suddenly?
Fortier was the only explanation that made sense, but it still required Lau, and his files on the woman spoke of her as a pugnacious commander capable of great ruthlessness.
As he had come to know personally.
“Optics, open a hail to Shanhai Pass,” he ordered, ignoring the squawks of surprise around him.
They had already lost this battle, and he didn’t see Lau as stupid enough to complete her raid by attacking Three-A. He would still place four Overlords there as soon as she left, just in case, but that was because that was the last base he had safe for his larder.
Starvation was a reality soon, so he would have to withdraw from the rows forward from this location.
Possibly call off the invasion for at least a year, as they rebuilt.
And had he possibly lost FOUR Overlords in the last month?
Such a thing had never happened. Not in the history of the Unification.
His name would be tarred forever with incompetence when this news reached the Unification Commission.
But he wanted to know his foe.
It would give him something he could transmit to the Chevalier who replaced him when he was cashiered in disgrace, as Fortier had been.
Idly as he waited, Amable wondered, deep in the secret depths of his soul, whether the Aquitaine invaders were simply that much better than the Unification, that they could do this to him, as they had done to his predecessor.
But he would never say such things aloud.
“I have an officer on Shanhai Pass, Chevalier,” Optics called. “Time lag seven seconds. Warlord Lau will come online shortly.”
He considered retiring to an office for a private conversation, but such was not the way of the Unification. He had no secrets, and even the appearance of impropriety now would weigh on his fate later.
Let him be damned publicly.
The image on his screen activated.
Heather Lau. Fully gray now, without any black hair left save eyebrows. Lined face, but those were the lines of a hard life and a strict diet, as she looked thinner than the last image he had of the woman.
“This is Chevalier Amable Bellamy,” he said simply. “You have been looking for me.”
A lie, but one filled with the correct bravado for his crews. He could crush her, if he could catch her.
If.
“This is Warlord Heather Lau,” she replied, as if there was any doubt. “I have come to instruct you to return to Zerzan and never bother the Electorate again. You have broken your treaty agreements with Yaumgan, and the Balhee Cluster has declared war on you. Soon, Aquitaine and Fribourg will do the same. You will face the combined might of justice if you do not turn away from this course of action now.”
Impressive. The woman possessed a charisma based on intensity, though she was also extremely attractive physically. She would make a good public speaker.
She made an excellent Chevalier.
“Yaumgan will fall,” Amable replied. “I am the instrument of vengeance from the Zerzan Unification, hunting down the last of the Monarchists that escaped us four centuries ago. You may accept Unification, or have it forced upon you.”
“Sounds like rape, Chevalier,” she snarled. “But then, what else is the Unification but rape? The taking from someone who cannot stop you? Yaumgan can stop you. Will stop you. Will force you back. Will force you to change. Soon, you will be getting other news, Amable Bellamy. Messages from Zerzan worlds that have been attacked by my fleet, while I had you tied up here. Perhaps your worlds need to be unUnified. Perhaps they can petition to join the Electorate of Yaumgan once Zerzan’s yoke is removed from their necks. Remember my words when they come for you.”
The line cut before he could retort, but that might even be for the better, as her words had cut him to the quick.
Attacking Zerzan worlds directly? But to do that, she would have had to detach some force and send them forward.
Amable blinked as Lau’s squadron began disappearing on the far side of orbit from him.
There was something missing.
“Optics, provide a breakdown of that squadron,” he ordered, ignoring the sudden stench of nervous fear he could smell about him.
He still commanded here, at least until he was recalled and cashiered.
However long he had left.
What had Lau done?
Amable studied the readout calmly, then he saw it.
Previously, she had had two kinds of small warships with her. Light and Heavy, for lack of a better classification.
Today, she had only the Light. Where had those heavier vessels gone?
No doubt to bombard a Zerzan world, as they had done to Logistics Base Six after this force had caught him at Seven.
A mobile force hitting deep into his rear, just as he had sent Ruben Coste to do to her.
And he had heard nothing from Ruben since. Were they lost?
Amable could already feel his career slipping away from him, but he would act professional to the end.
“Contact Setia,” he ordered. “That squadron is to collect their wings and immediately depart to Logistics Base Three-A to reinforce. I do not expect an attack, but that is the last one remaining and must be protected. We will finish off what can be done here before following.”
He nodded and turned away from the bridge.
There was nothing left to say at this point. To anyone.
He would prepare his reports and his force.
And await the other shoe that he knew in his soul was coming for him.
Chapter 56
Unification Hall, Kohri
President of the Unification Commission Angelique St. Pierre studied the rest of the Commissioners around her.
Jittery and angry, and not in a good way.
But they had read the same reports she had.
The first time, at Inban, she had managed to hold them, mostly because they had all been dropped into an impossible shock.
To have a Unification world attacked? That the Monarchists had done something nobody could yet explain had made it worse, setting off four explosions that had scattered some sort of metallic cubes everywhere.
Now they had done it a second time. Worse, at Churquen, they hadn’t even bothered to attack anyone. Merely launched those same four missiles. The same four detonations.
The same panic, now spreading like wildfire along that entire frontier.
The only good thing she could say at this point was that they hadn’t hit Asouri. Had moved farther away from that restive world with their second attack.
It was still not good.
“This session will come to order,” Angelique announced, gaveling once to quiet the side conversations. “You have read the reports. It is obvious that Yaumgan has bypassed Bellamy’s fleet and chosen to strike directly at us.”
“Do we know the status of the invasion?” Commissioner Teresa Avignon asked.
Not Angelique’s primary enemy on the Commission, if only because the woman had zero charisma to lead the others.
She did have a first-rate mind, however. An expert at bureaucracy far in advance of most of the others present.
“The last report we have is six months out of date,” Angelique replied. “The line of normal communication is that long.”
“Normal?” Commissioner Valentin Cousineau asked, his eyes suggesting a vast number of layers beneath his obvious words.
Angelique studied the man for a moment, trying to decide if it was simple curiosity on his part, or the opening to some deadlier gambit.
“It is possible to send a high-speed courier directly,” she answered. “We have generally not done so, because none of us are military experts and I do not wish to try micromanaging the invasion from this distance.”
“Agreed,” Valentin acquiesced. “I wonder if perhaps his invasion has already failed and we have not heard. Or if, given that this is twice now, he is not the commander we needed.”
Angelique studied the boy. Man, really, but not even forty years old, so a decade and some her junior. Young. Aggressive. Handsome. She wondered if he would be any good in bed.
The pretty ones often tended to be too self-centered that way.
Around the table, Lucas Favreau stirred uneasily. Perhaps scenting a challenger?
Lucas had warmed her bed enough times to not be a stranger, but Angelique only relied on him in commission. He was not a partner in any important way.
Perhaps a royal consort later, were she to finally take the step beyond the Unification and finally transform things into the Alliance she had been planning for nearly two decades now.
“If we recall Bellamy, what does that do to the invasion?” Lucas asked.
Angelique considered the battle lines she had just seen drawn. Both men were allies of convenience. Nothing more. Had she tired of Lucas? Hard to tell.
“It sets us back a year at a minimum,” Teresa said immediately. “Possibly sixteen months.”
Trust Teresa to have those numbers in her head, but Angelique’s gut feeling was something similar.
Did it allow the Monarchists to escape forever?
Before she’d had him killed to clear her way to power, Unification President Valery Rayne had been of the opinion that they had needed two more years to make the final assault effective. That was, in fact, part of the reason he’d had to go.
That, and he was in her way when she decided that the Unification would be better served with her running it.
And the Alliance, when she needed to do away with most of the fools around the table.
Which ones would she keep? Teresa was brilliant and not a political threat. The others?
“It is too long,” Valentin shook his head. “We must know now if we have lost the opportunity to do this easily and must gather up an impossibly large fleet to force the issue.”
“We did that already,” Lucas practically sneered at the man. “Fifteen Overlords was the greatest assembly we’ve ever known. You suggest it is insufficient?”
“Inban and Churquen attacked,” Valentin snapped back. “Does that sound like the work of a foe reeling in defeat and running from us? What more must we do to stop them?”
His anger might even be real, but Angelique didn’t care that much. It was an opening.
“Valery warned us that it would be difficult,” she inserted, turning the tale inside out to make the old fool look prescient.
He hadn’t been, had he?
Angelique remembered his warnings that the Unification would need two more years to succeed. She had sent killers after him so that she could launch her invasion then, instead of waiting the two years that might have meant this exact meeting was the one where they took the critical vote.
And now the backbiting had begun. She could see that around her, her grip on their minds and careers starting to slip as they sniffed for her weakness.
Her mistakes.
How soon until they turned on her?
“I recall Valery suggesting then that we would need longer to prepare,” Teresa pointed out in a voice devoid of emotion. “Perhaps he was right?”
Her lack of charisma made the words worse, because Angelique had a hard time telling if the woman was maneuvering to oust her. The others were far more transparent, but feared her as yet.
“We cannot know,” Angelique retorted.
He was dead, after all. And no longer in her way.
Which of these others were lurking in her path to do the same in turn?
“We can presume that more needs to be done,” she continued. “Perhaps we have finally met a foe worthy of the Unification itself. After all, previously we have taken individual worlds or small national clusters far too weak to be a threat.”
“What do you propose, Madame President?” Valentin asked first.
“If we have indeed suffered a setback, we will need to identify if Amable Bellamy has lost the confidence of this body,” Lucas pointed out. “And which forces we can relocate to assist in better defending that frontier against incursions.”
Angelique heard the gasps around the big table as the implications sunk in. Relocating forces was a polite euphemism for stripping fleets and aeromechia from other borders. Perhaps delaying certain Unifications for as long as a generation, instead of slowly rolling on and conquering everyone in their path.
Which worlds might manage to build better defenses, given a whole generation to prepare? How bad would it be for her successors, once she retired?
Or would she retire?
Was this the moment to proclaim the Zerzan Alliance? The Monarchists had done something similar, announcing that the Domain of Yaumgan would henceforth be known as the Electorate.
Should she move forward with a proper empire at this time?
“More importantly,” Lucas continued in the shocked silence. “If Bellamy is done, who do we replace him with? Is there another commander we trust? And should the Commission itself be represented? Murielle Abaroa went with Donatien Fortier the first time and was seduced into apostasy. Dare we trust a mere Chevalier with such an important task?”
Angelique wanted to stick a knife in his throat. Right then and there. To kill him for his audacity, but the words were spoken.
The die was cast.
She could not be in two places at once. And a quick count of opinions around the table told her that a motion to send at least one Unification Commissioner with Bellamy’s replacement would pass.
Bellamy was already done? It seemed a given, counting noses.
She dared not send herself, certain that the mice would get into no end of trouble with the cat away. At the same time, anyone she sent would automatically become her primary rival on the Commission itself, possibly covered with glory when they returned successful.
And she dared not hobble such a force, now that she knew how badly she may have underestimated the Monarchists. Even sending two Commissioners would do that, unless one of them was Teresa.
Oh, that was a thought.
Angelique turned to the woman. Mousy. Quiet. Bureaucratic. Brilliant.
Beige.
Teresa would bring her accounting sensibilities to things, thus sidetracking any younger and less-seasoned Commissioner.
Now, did she send Lucas or Valentin? Who would be easier to control later, after they had successfully destroyed the Monarchists, once and for all?
“I agree with Lucas,” she said, watching everyone else on pins and needles watching her. “It is not enough to merely send more transports forward and better reinforce our frontier worlds. It will be necessary for the Commission itself to be directly represented when we replace Bellamy.”
Angelique paused, letting them hang.
Which man would bid higher? Which could she control later?
Or perhaps, which would be the last to be removed as an obstacle from her ascending to supreme power?
“This is not something that should be decided in the heat of the moment,” she offered ambiguously. “Let us digest the reports and engage the bureaucracy that exists to serve us, that we can make better conscious decisions. I believe that what we finally decide will shape the course of the Unification for the next century, so it should be handled delicately. I will now entertain a motion to recess.”
