The Shadow of Cincinnatus (8 page)

He kept his thoughts to himself as they entered a long corridor, lined with portraits of strange, almost inhuman people. The governor’s artist had a really strange imagination, he concluded, as he saw a topless girl with snakes for hair and a tail where her legs should be. It sent shivers down his spine, although he wasn’t sure why. Beyond her, the portrait of a naked girl with pointy ears and fairy wings was almost normal. Someone could have themselves altered to look like her, if they wanted. He just couldn’t understand why anyone would bother.

You could have anything you wanted, if you had the resources of the governor
, his thoughts mocked him.
How long would it be before you developed a taste for the strange – and the forbidden
?

“Your Excellency,” the girl said. “Commodore Garibaldi and guests.”

Roman stepped past her and into the governor’s office. Somewhat to his surprise, the office was plain and remarkably businesslike. The walls were bare, save for a large map of the planet’s surface and another showing the star system itself. But it was the governor himself who dominated the room. He was taller than Roman had expected, and quite remarkably fat, even though there were no shortage of treatments one could use to slim down. It was a message, Roman suspected, even though he wasn’t sure he could read it. Perhaps the governor was hinting at his enormous appetites.

“You’re young,” the governor said. His voice was jovial, yet there was a hard edge that reminded Roman of some of the tutors at the Academy. “How are you in command of an entire fleet of warships? What connections do you have?”

Roman felt an odd flicker of irritation at the man’s tone. If he’d been promoted so quickly in peacetime, there
would
have been resentment from his peers and he
would
have had to work hard to prove he could handle it. If, of course, he hadn’t been summarily demoted after the Promotions Board reviewed his case. Even the highest level of connections had their limits. But now, in wartime, he’d moved up quickly, like so many others. He was far from unique.

“A great many people died,” he said, recalling the hellish hours on
Enterprise
. He’d been...what?
Tenth
in the chain of command? And if there hadn’t been a minor error on the ship’s blueprints he would have died too, leaving
Enterprise
at Admiral Justinian’s mercy. “And I was lucky.”

“You must have been very lucky to be assigned a whole fleet,” Governor Barany said. He waved a hand towards one of the chairs. “Please. Be seated.”

Roman ignored the gesture. “There are a number of questions I need answered, governor,” he said. “Starting with the existence of a starship of alien design in orbit, one that was not reported to Earth.”

“It was hard to say who it should be reported to,” Governor Barany said. “The Federation was in turmoil.”

“You should have reported it to the Federation Navy,” Roman snapped. “And you have also not reported your own economic successes here. Why not?”

The governor shrugged. “Because the Grand Senate would come and strangle the life out of it,” he said. “They always react badly to success that doesn’t take place under their mandate.”

“The Grand Senate is gone,” Roman said. He met the governor’s eyes. “I have orders from Emperor Marius to relieve you of your position, pending a full investigation into your conduct. You are under arrest.”

He nodded to the Marines, who stepped forward and grabbed hold of the governor. The governor opened his mouth, then squawked loudly as cold hands started to search him thoroughly, removing a pair of data terminals and a device Roman didn’t recognize. He watched, as dispassionately as he could, as the governor was pushed down into a chair, then cuffed. The governor didn’t seem to be carrying any weapons.

“I suggest you tell your people not to offer any resistance,” Roman said. Without the governor, the planetary defenses would likely be too confused to do anything, if they wanted to fight for their former leader. And if they didn’t, nothing the governor did would make any difference. “The Marines are on their way.”

The governor stared at him. “This is...this is intolerable! I make this world a success and you come to take it from me!”

“You will be investigated,” Roman said. “Should you be found innocent, you will be released.”

Elf glanced at him. “The shuttles are inbound,” she said. “ETA; five minutes.”

Roman nodded, feeling his entire body tense. If the locals planned any resistance, the shit would hit the fan just about...now. But nothing happened. He let out a breath as the Marine companies landed, then swarmed out to take control of the palace. None of the governor’s servants raised a hand to defend him. Relieved, Roman ordered the next wave of Marines to land and start taking over the planetary defenses, then followed Elf and her platoon as they marched the governor back to his shuttle. To all intents and purposes, they’d taken over the entire planet in a bloodless strike.

But now we have to sort out just what the governor was doing
, he mused.
And see just how much of it was treasonous
.

* * *

Camille had been lucky. The moment she’d seen the shuttles, she’d known the game was up. She’d ducked into the tunnels as the Marines landed, then put as much distance as she could between herself and the palace before popping up in the governor’s safe house. It wouldn’t remain secret forever, not when the tunnels were discovered, but it hardly mattered. By the time they found the house, she would be long gone.

She changed her clothes, switching from the dress the governor had designed himself to a simple pair of trousers and a shirt, then hurried out onto the streets of Athena. None of the population seemed to have realized that there had been a shift in the balance of power, although they would – and soon. Far too many of them had worried over what would happen when the Grand Senate turned its attention back to Athena and discovered that the planet’s GPP was now staggeringly high. It wouldn’t be long before the governor was replaced by a horde of aristocratic locusts from Earth, each intent on draining as much as they could from the local economy. And then...

There would be revolution, she knew. And the locals would have help.

The apartment block was completely unremarkable in every way, identical to the dozens of others scattered around the city. She let herself in through the front door, made her way up to her apartment and closed the door firmly behind her. The tradecraft she’d pushed aside for years to avoid looking suspicious came to the fore and she checked around, making sure that the room was completely untouched. As soon as she was certain, she dug into a pile of datachips and removed one marked SELF-AWARENESS LESSONS, YEAR ONE. It was such a boring subject, she’d been told, that no one would look at it willingly. She took the chip, inserted it into her terminal, then entered the password. Moments later, she was looking at an advanced and thoroughly illegal compression and encryption program.

She sucked in a breath, feeling her heart starting to race as she keyed in her message. Mere possession of an illicit encryption program would guarantee a lifetime in jail, if she wasn’t exiled to a colony world. The Grand Senate insisted that all such programs have back doors engineered into them, just to make sure that Federation Intelligence could decrypt the program, if necessary. And they’d discouraged anyone from trying to produce more advanced programs. But
her
program not only had no back door, it was actually more advanced and capable than any military-grade system available to the Federation. The mere presence of such a program would alarm the Federation, if they found out about it.

Carefully, she finished typing her message and hit the encrypt key. Twenty seconds later, the message was firmly zipped up and almost completely undetectable, unless one knew to look for it and had the right equipment. She smiled as she deactivated the chip and returned it to the hiding place, buried under dozens of equally boring chips, then activated the camera on the terminal. A red light flashed on, indicating she was being recorded.

“Oh, Jim, you hunk of burning love,” she said, as she removed her shirt and exposed her breasts. The lines were tacky, but no one would pay any attention to them while she was topless and playing with herself. “If you were here just now, do you know what I would do to you?”

She smiled as she finished the recording, then added the compressed file to the video stream. No one would think anything of a girlfriend sending her boyfriend erotic messages; the security officers might enjoy themselves watching her performance, but they would be too distracted to look for anything else. Or so she hoped. Sex had been used to hide misdeeds – other misdeeds – for countless years. And besides, the governor had played a large role in dulling the security forces on Athena. He’d certainly had more than enough reason to make sure they were harmless, as well as incompetent.

Clicking a switch, she sent the message to the upload node, then headed for the shower. It wouldn’t be long before someone worked out that she was supposed to be working at the palace, then called to ask her some pointed questions. She didn’t want to be discovered naked, not after the rumors about the Grand Senate’s latest set of enforcers. The last thing anyone wanted was to draw their attention to Athena.

But she had a feeling, she knew as she stepped into the shower, that it was already too late.

* * *

Mike Higgins had wanted to be an engineer from a very early age. He had been mocked by his extended family, which had served in the Federation Navy since there had
been
a Federation Navy, but he’d always been more fascinated with machines than people. Machines were predicable and understandable, even the ones built by aliens. Indeed, he’d always considered it a shame that there were so few examples of genuine alien technology in the Federation. It was often more interesting than purely human tech.

The alien ship was remarkable, he decided, as his team followed him through the airlock and into the craft. And yet, judging from some of the opened panels, she had been abandoned in a hurry. He peered into one of the panels, then frowned, recognizing some of the circuits. Reaching for his handheld sensor, he swept the panel and felt his frown grow deeper as he examined the results. It was impossible to be sure, but it looked like aliens had captured some Federation technology, then reverse-engineered the systems and put it into production. There were enough oddities about the alien craft to confirm that human minds hadn’t built it.

“Curious,” he mused. It was a shame he couldn’t spend hours exploring the craft, but he wouldn’t have the time. The entire craft would have to be disassembled, piece by piece, and for that it would need to be moved to a shipyard. He seriously considered putting in a request for a transfer, even though he knew it might reflect badly on his career. But alien technology was more interesting than even the latest FTL drives from Earth. “Very curious.”

He paused, then looked around the cabin. It was clear to his gaze that the aliens were humanoid – and, perhaps, not that different from humans. The consoles were in the right positions for humans, rather than one of the child-sized races humanity had effectively enslaved, while the lighting was quite close to human-norm. Indeed, the whole ship smacked of human-alien
collaboration
. What the hell was it doing here?

“I’m going to try to get a live feed from the ship’s data recorders,” he said, keying his radio. The Federation insisted on working recorders into every hull, but the aliens might have different ideas. “I want to see where this ship has been.”

It only took a few minutes to connect the ship to one of his datacores, not entirely to his surprise. Whoever had designed the ship had wanted it to interact with human technology. It suggested that they weren’t dealing with a self-spacefaring race, but one that had managed to get a leg-up from human renegades. Might the Outsiders have given the aliens human technology? And what else might they have built?

The datacore bleeped an alert, then deactivated itself. Mike scowled, and then checked the readings. It was clear, now, that the ship’s databases had been completely wiped. Even the most thorough sweep of the datacores would reveal nothing. The ship had been abandoned because it was useless, without its computers. But why hadn’t they sought to replace the datacores or simply scuttle her? It was a question he knew he wouldn’t be able to answer.

But he knew his duty. “Captain, this ship is a combination of human and alien tech,” he reported. “I think that spells trouble.”

Stuart, Charlie. Descendent of the famous Gregory Stuart, who fled Athens after the end of the Inheritance Wars. Played a crucial role in building up the Outsider Navy for fleet operations in the wake of the Justinian War...

-The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

Base One, 4098

“The report is confirmed?”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Juneau said. Her pale face looked worried. “The Federation Navy moved to Athena in force – and arrested the governor.”

General Charlie Stuart looked down at the report, thoughtfully. Governor Barany had been a useful idiot, rather than a conspirator, if only because no one with any sense would trust him any further than strictly necessary. His obsession with making money and his willingness to take bribes from all and sundry had made him useful, his complete lack of concern over what happened to products from his system after they left his jurisdiction had made him an idiot.

But, for all of his flaws, he had been predictable.

“Our people have been alerted, I assume?” Stuart asked. “They know to take cover?”

“The cells didn’t have any contact with the governor,” Juneau said. “He didn’t know they existed. And the handful of sources within the governor’s office have already burned their bridges. They should be safe.”

“Let us hope so,” Charlie said.

He shook his head. The timing was suspicious as hell. Did the Federation have an agent or two within the Outsider Federation? Someone who had alerted the new emperor to the threat growing beyond his borders? Or was it a genuine coincidence? Everyone knew that Admiral Drake had wanted to reinforce the borders and hunt down the Outsiders long before the Justinian War had diverted the Federation’s attention. It wasn’t beyond belief that the bastard had decided to settle scores with Governor Barany and reinforce the borders, now that the warlords had been defeated. He certainly would
want
to do it.