“Your government is led by a former Imperial Navy Commander,” Carola pointed out. She carefully resisted the temptation to look up and see how Colin was taking it. It would have made her point altogether too blatant. “I doubt that there is a one of you who has not, in the past, had some dealings with the Thousand Families — they were, after all, the only game in town. Markus had no choice, but to prostitute himself for the Hohenzollern Clan, until you offered him the chance to break their ties and lead an entire sector to liberation.”
“You haven’t answered the question,” another MP said. She was clearly a sharper customer than the last one. “You claim to have run a referendum on your worlds, but we have no independent verification of this fact. Why should we take your word for it?”
“Leaving aside the question of delivering an insult to us, which you have by questioning our word, we would be happy to allow you to survey our people,” Carola said. By the time the rebels got organised to do just that, it would be easy to rig things to show a false positive. Of course, the irony was that that might well be what the sector actually wanted. “I imagine that you could verify our words fairly quickly.”
“I don’t know much about verification, but I do know that you killed several hundred young men,” a third MP said. “How do you intend to recompense us for their loss, seeing as you claim it was an accident?”
“We will replace all eight of the cruisers with ships from our sector fleet and we will include a battlecruiser in payment for the men,” Carola said, pushing regret into her voice. “We cannot bring them back from the dead, but we can ensure that their deaths were not in vain.”
“And, assuming that we recognise you as independent, what about trade?”
Carola smiled as the bombardment of questions continued. They hadn’t noticed, but they were already accepting Cottbus as an independent state. Given enough time, she could ensure that there would be several dozen MPs who had a strong incentive to keep Cottbus independent, whatever the nature of its government. There would be representatives from worlds along the border, or from the Freebooters, or others… and they would all support her, willingly or no. She was enjoying herself.
Hah, she thought, carefully not looking at any of the rebel leaders. If the game wasn’t worth the candle, no one would play…
Chapter Ten
“Smoothed tongued bitch, isn’t she?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Tiberius said. “Carola Wilhelm was before my time as Heir.”
Colin shrugged. From what he’d heard of Tiberius, he’d originally been a younger son who shouldn’t have ever had a chance to become Head. Only the death of his father and elder brothers had seen him tossed into the seat, but he’d used the time as a younger son to grow more pragmatic than most of the Thousand Families. His success and power had come at a very high price indeed.
“It’s an interesting problem,” Colin said, finally. His first response, once he’d been back in his office, hadn’t been a kind one. Carola was playing games and even though he could see the game, it was still going to be difficult to outmanoeuvre her, let alone her husband. “Do you think that she’s telling the truth?”
“I find her story believable,” Tiberius said. “You revolted and others, including Kathy, joined up with your rebellion. It’s quite possible that others would have done the same, particularly after the Empire’s various enforcement arms collapsed into nothing. Imperial Intelligence was crippled a long time before you took it over and started to reform it. She could be telling the truth.”
“I doubt it,” Daria said, flatly. “There are too many unanswered questions. I’m not an expert in space warfare, but why would they have thought that a pack of eight cruisers posed a threat to Cottbus itself? They had enough firepower around that world to stand off the Shadow Fleet.”
“Not for that long,” Colin said, remembering some of the new weapons the Geeks had developed for the final battles of the war. The odds were good that Admiral Wilhelm wouldn’t have been able to develop most of them, not with the research base his patrons had left him. He might be able to develop arsenal ships and perhaps the new missiles, but he wouldn’t even be thinking in terms of starfighters. “Still, it’s a sign that something clearly isn’t right. They could have issued their declaration of independence to the cruisers instead.”
He shook his head. “Do we assume that it’s a lie and proceed to invade the sector, or do we pretend to accept it at face value?”
“We may have little choice,” René Goscinny said. “I could think of half a dozen first-rank worlds that would… view with alarm any attempt by us to force Cottbus and its assorted worlds back into the Empire. It would certainly suggest to other worlds that we would use force on them if they didn’t play our game and incite more rebellious feeling. Unrest doesn’t work in our favour, Colin, and if we act too quickly, we will only cause more of it.”
Colin scowled up at the display. It was showing the Cottbus Sector, with each of the stars blinking a dull red in the holographic image, suggesting hostility. Even if Admiral Wilhelm didn’t have any allies from the other nearby sectors, it was still going to be a bitch to invade. The defenders could call on a considerable number of starships and their worlds were very well defended. They had space they could trade for time.
And it wasn’t even like the Morrison Campaign. There, the hundreds of worlds that had been briefly raided by the Shadow Fleet had been effectively irrelevant to the campaign. Morrison, Orland, Gaza and Candleford had been important, but the other worlds, like the pleasure planet Paradise Rest, had added nothing to the struggle. He hadn’t bothered to secure them, refusing to tie down his own forces where the Empire could go after them, but now the positions were reversed. He would have to invest, conquer and garrison at least a dozen worlds and, in the meantime, Admiral Wilhelm could be raising havoc in the Empire.
“We have good reason to think he’s lying,” Colin said. He shook his head. “Can’t we convince Parliament of that?”
“It’s not that simple,” Blondel said, softly. “Colin, politics are governed by perception more than reality. The perception of us, now, is that we are talking the talk, but that we might not be walking the walk. We’re telling everyone that we believe in democracy, but that means that we have to accept all the democracy, including the votes that go against us. So far, we have a lot of goodwill and a solid reputation, but that could be destroyed very quickly if we act too fast.”
She nodded towards the display. “There are hundreds of worlds that would bolt from the Empire if they believed that we were just going to be like the old Empire,” she continued. “They may find it… expedient to believe that Cottbus has indeed held a democratic election — because Ambassador Wilhelm touched on so many of their own concerns — and support her. They won’t see it as a case of us destroying a remnant of the old order, but of us forcing our will on people who don’t want to follow us. In the long run, that could prove fatal.”
Her voice darkened. “We might win a war and lose an Empire,” she concluded. “I don’t think that that would be a good victory.”
Daria snorted. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” She asked. There was little love lost between the two women, although Colin had never been sure why. They were cut from similar cloth. “The odds are that Admiral Wilhelm has created a military state, ruled by himself, and intends to either keep what he has or claim more from the other sectors near him. If we do nothing about it, are we not as guilty as him?”