“We can’t stop her?” Colin repeated. “Why the hell not?”
“There is a certain degree of… incoherence about our own government,” Blondel said, flatly. “She claims to speak for the entire Cottbus Sector and has papers to back it up, signed by — she claims — people in authority. That makes her, according to our rules, an MP, despite the… incident at Cottbus itself.”
“The destruction of eight cruisers and the deaths of five hundred young men and women,” Colin said, coldly. It bothered him that he was more annoyed about the loss of the ships, rather than the crewmen, none of whom had deserved to die. “I do not regard that as a minor incident.”
“Nor do I,” Blondel said. Colin recalled that Macore would not have taken any such incident calmly. Power to the people sometimes meant letting them make their own decisions. It had all seemed so easy back on the General Montgomery, when they hadn’t even overcome Harmony, let alone Yanasaxon and Morrison. “The problem is that our system is still very fragile.”
She sighed, falling back into a chair. “Parliament isn’t sure of its own role,” she warned. “The old Parliament didn’t have anything to do and did it very well. The new Parliament is caught between reformers who think that they can make reform, factions that want to place their homeworlds ahead of anyone else and MPs who are too scared to lift their hands when they want to go to the toilet, because they think the Provisional Government is going to turn into a dictatorship.”
“Over my dead body,” Colin said, sharply.
“And mine,” Blondel said, absently. “The problem is simple enough. According to our rules, which we created in hopes of forging a new government before someone managed to organise resistance to us, she qualifies as an MP. She must, therefore, be allowed to address Parliament.”
“Politics,” Colin said, rolling his eyes.
“And even if she didn’t, the fact that she has something to say to Parliament has managed to get out into the open,” Blondel continued, ignoring his aside. “My guess is that one of her people spread the word to one of the reporters, so now everyone wants to know what she has to say. We could refuse to allow her to speak, but even if we handled it carefully, we’d still look like we were covering something up behind a wall of Marines.”
“I take your point,” Colin said. “I take it that we don’t have any idea of what she actually wants to say?”
“Nothing,” Blondel said. She shook her head slowly. “It could be anything from a rant on behalf of the old order to a demand for our immediate surrender.”
Colin snorted. “With a single battlecruiser in orbit?”
“They could have their entire fleet out there, lurking just beyond detection range,” Blondel reminded him. “She’s an Ambassador, legally, and offering her any insult is effectively the same as insulting her entire government.”
“What a marvellously time-saving scheme,” Colin said, dryly. Blondel was right. Earth’s deep-space detection network was the most capable in the Empire, but the sheer volume of space between Sol and any other star had defeated it. Emergence signatures might radiate at FTL speeds, but they faded quickly, while anything else a light year from Earth would take a year to reach the outermost detectors. He’d pushed out sensor ships as far as he could, back when he’d been setting up the defences, but it would take minutes for any determined opponent to reach Earth from outside their range. “Of course, they insulted us first…”
He scowled. Blondel was right — again. If they denied Carola Wilhelm — Ambassador Carola Wilhelm — a voice, they might provoke a conflict with Admiral Wilhelm. He suspected that the conflict was effectively inevitable anyway, particularly after the destruction of the Garry Owen and most of its squadron — but if the fighting could be delayed, the delay would serve them well… or would it? Just how far advanced were Admiral Wilhelm’s own plans? What were his plans?
“I hate the not knowing,” he said, grimly. Back when he’d commanded the Shadow Fleet, he had been fairly certain that the Empire couldn’t strike back at him; they had lacked any grasp of where his bases actually were. They couldn’t have hoped to locate them, except through sheer luck… and, to be fair, they had located one of the bases. They just hadn’t been able to find a target Colin had to protect and hammer it, forcing him to deploy in its defence…
But all that had changed. Any astrographic database would include, as a matter of course, the location of Earth and almost all of the Imperial Navy bases, including the ones that Colin had taken over in the wake of the Fall of Earth. Admiral Wilhelm would have plenty of targets to hit, while Colin couldn’t grit his teeth and ignore his blows, not if he wanted to keep confidence in the new government. If Admiral Wilhelm were alone, it would be bad enough, but if others had joined him… the results would be bad.
“They have managed to turn the tables, haven’t they?” He asked. Blondel nodded, once. “Very well. When does she want to address them?”
“The next session of Parliament is scheduled for two days from today,” Blondel said, after checking her terminal. “I suggest that she speaks then, unless she feels that it can wait longer…”
“Fine,” Colin said. If Carola refused to accept that offer, it would indicate all kinds of interesting things about her real purpose on Earth. The wife of an Admiral — apparently one from a happy marriage — wouldn’t be just an Ambassador, even if that were her primary purpose. Perhaps her real purpose was intelligence gathering. “I look forward to it with baited breath.”
He waited until Blondel had departed before he accessed his terminal and brought up the Imperial Intelligence files on Admiral Wilhelm and his wife. It still astonished him just how much information Imperial Intelligence had collected, just in the performance of their duties, even vague details like favourite ice cream and coffee blend. He’d struck a deal with the former Head of Intelligence, after the Fall of Earth, accepting the files in exchange for not shooting them all out of hand, but they had barely been able to study a relative handful in the six months since their victory.
The thought made him smile. Anderson had told him, after checking out Colin’s own file, that someone had edited it to cover themselves once the news of the rebellion had reached Earth. He’d been listed in terms that had ensured that promotion was no longer a possibility, but the new file had claimed that he had subversive inclinations, if not thoughts of outright treachery. The law of CYA, which pervaded the entire Empire, hadn’t spared Imperial Intelligence. The only wonder was how the Empire had lasted so long.
A social climber, he decided, finally. The reports listed everything; every party, every connection, even every brief love affair. It would have been tempting to dismiss her, but he suspected, from Kathy’s experience, that anyone who had climbed so high would be far more intelligent than they allowed people to suspect. Carola, it seemed, had worked to boost her husband’s career… and had apparently succeeded. Admiral Wilhelm had been appointed as Sector Fleet commander some years before Colin had launched the rebellion… as a Hohenzollern client.
I wonder if Lady Hohenzollern is there, he thought, absently. It would make a fine hiding place for her and the others who fled…
He dismissed the thought and tapped his communicator. “Vincent, I want to see you in my office,” he said, without preamble. “Come as soon as possible.”