Bitch, he thought.
“Hey, are you finished with her?”
Tiberius looked up to see Gwendolyn. For a woman who was over seventy years old, old enough to remember Daria as the Empress Janice, Gwendolyn seemed to take a private amusement in posing as a sixteen-year-old, an act that fooled almost everyone. Tiberius had known better than to trust her completely — it was no secret that she thought she would make a much better Cicero than him — but it had still been a shock to discover that she had maintained links to the Empress for years.
“I suppose,” he said, reflecting on the double or triple meaning. Gwendolyn was yet another reminder of the dangers of opposing Daria. She could remove him and ensure that Gwendolyn became the Clan Head. “What do you want?”
“Charming as ever,” Gwendolyn said, taking Daria’s vacated seat and sitting in the perfect position to show off her legs. If Tiberius hadn’t known that they had come straight from the most fashionable cosmetic shop in the High City, he might have been impressed. As it was, the display was a little childish. “I was wondering if you knew what had happened to Carola?”
It took Tiberius a moment to place the name. “As far as I know, she’s in a detention centre,” he said, finally. Colin had sent her there after the news of Cottbus had finally arrived. It wasn’t something Tiberius could fault, even if the crisis provided some grounds for their own operations. “Why do you care?”
“Oh, I don’t,” Gwendolyn said. She crossed her long legs and smiled at him. “I merely wanted to talk with her again before she left the planet. She is truly a fascinating woman.”
“Well, go show Colin your body and ask him,” Tiberius snapped, angrily. She didn’t even flinch at his anger. “Go away. I’m busy.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I wonder if this is how Percival felt, Colin thought, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the starchart. Sitting here, doing nothing and waiting for the hammer to fall.
The thought made him smile bitterly. He’d issued orders, the best orders he could under the circumstances, and now he had to sit back and wait while others carried them out — or died trying. It wasn’t something that sat well with him. He’d always led the Shadow Fleet into battle, into the firestorms of Harmony, First and Second Morrison and Earth itself, and now that he was too important to be risked, he had to remain on Earth while his friends and subordinates fought the battles without him.
He studied the starchart and tossed possibilities around in his mind. By now, he was sure, Admiral Wilhelm would have attacked Hawthorn and probably taken the planet, unless he’d committed a tiny force to it and Admiral Garland had slapped him back out of his complacency. Colin suspected that the planet had fallen, but he wouldn’t know until the message finally arrived through what remained of the ICN, or a destroyer playing messenger boy. Katy intended, or so she claimed, to raid Admiral Wilhelm’s forward bases, but what if she’d been mouse-trapped and destroyed at Hawthorn? There was no way to know until the messages arrived to update him, by which point they would be dramatically out of date themselves.
You can’t run a war at long distance, he reminded himself, and scowled. The Empire had tried that when he’d launched the rebellion and it had failed. If they hadn’t overridden Joshua from time to time, the rebellion might have failed instead, but they’d chosen to assume that they knew better than the person on the spot. Colin wouldn’t make that mistake himself, but now all he could do was wait, rather than issuing useless orders. It was on the tip of his fingers to start contacting the various departments and hurrying them along, rather than trusting them to know their jobs and leaving them to get on with them, even though he knew it would be futile. By his most pessimistic estimate, Admiral Wilhelm could be halfway to Earth, but the first Colin would know of it would be when the first starships started flickering in to commence the attack.
He ran his hand through his hair, feeling tired and old. He was barely forty years old, but he had changed the Empire… and had found himself left with the task of reforming it, rather than leaving it in the hands of Parliament. The MPs just kept arguing and arguing, rather than coming to any decisions and sticking with them, while the first-rank and second-rank worlds increasingly went their own way. He could dispatch a fleet of ships to bring some of them back into the fold, but that would mean destroying everything he had worked to create. There were times when he seriously considered just taking a starship and vanishing for the Rim, but only the thought of the hundreds of thousands who had followed him kept him in his place. He couldn’t leave them exposed to the reactionaries, not after everything they’d done for him…
Perhaps I should tour the orbital defences, he thought, and considered it for a long moment, before finally dismissing the thought. The defences of Earth, with a little help from the Geeks, were stronger than they had ever been, perhaps even strong enough to challenge Admiral Wilhelm without mobile support. Earth’s solar system, however, was a complex place to defend, if not to attack. Colin had taken Earth himself — it felt like years ago, years since he had trapped himself in a thankless task — and if sheer destruction was the aim, Admiral Wilhelm could do much worse. If Colin had a year, time to bring new starships online and refit old ones, the war could be ended fairly quickly, but he doubted that he would be allowed such time. After all, Admiral Wilhelm, unlike Percival, could read a production chart.
It was almost a relief when his secretary buzzed him. “Mr President” — Colin’s official title was President and Leader of the Provisional Government, something that felt odd in the Empire — “Lady Tyler and Captain Cordova are here to see you.”
“Thank you,” Colin said, hearing Kathy telling his secretary that she was no longer a Lady. “Please send them both in at once.”
He stood up as they entered, watching them carefully. They both looked dead tired, almost as if they were asleep on their feet, but Kathy looked determined while Cordova looked oddly subdued. Colin hadn’t arranged for himself to have a large office, but he’d installed a pair of sofas for close friends and waved them both over to one of them, offering them both a drink. Cordova accepted, quicker than normal, while Kathy declined. They exchanged small talk for a few minutes, leaving Colin puzzled and worried. It had to be bad news, but for once neither of them seemed willing to speak first.
“I’d love to chat about old times for hours,” he said finally, “but I don’t have the time these days.” It was easy to envy Cordova, at least, whose main role was overseeing the Volunteer Fleet — what was left of it — and the system’s defences. “Can I ask you why you decided to come visit me at such short notice?”
“We didn’t want to raise any flags,” Kathy explained, seemingly taking the lead. That was more than just unusual, it was peculiar. Normally, Cordova was completely irrepressible, happily wasting time chatting about girls he’d known once, or bragging about the qualities of his crew. To be fair to him, the Random Numbers did have a remarkable crew, even though some of them had been glad to be back in the Imperial Navy again. “It was important that this meeting passed unnoticed.”