The man sat down and faced Jeremy. “Does it matter?”
“It could,” Jeremy said.
“I wish to apologise for your treatment,” the man said. “There was some… dispute over how best to handle rebel POWs.”
Jeremy snorted. “Do you think that apologising will be sufficient?”
“Perhaps not,” the man said. “My name is Tiberius. Does that mean anything to you?”
Jeremy took a longer look at his features. He’d never been one of the officers who studied the aristocracy with a pathetic intensity, but he knew the major players. “Tiberius Cicero?”
“Yes,” Tiberius said. “I need to speak with you.”
“You seem to have me at a disadvantage,” Jeremy said. He rattled his chains meaningfully. “And you seem to have a captive audience, if a powerless one. What do you want to say?”
“Your commander has taken Morrison,” Tiberius informed him. “And he is on his way to Earth.”
Jeremy considered it. Assuming he was speaking to the real Cicero, he was on Earth. And if news of Morrison’s fall had only just arrived, it was clear that the rebel feel might be hard on its heels. If Colin had taken Morrison, there would be nothing between him and Earth. No wonder the guards were treating him oddly. The prospect of brutal retaliation had to be alarmingly clear.
“I will believe you, for the moment,” he said. “What does that have to do with me?”
Tiberius looked surprised. “Why do you doubt me?”
Jeremy laughed at him. “You don’t think Imperial Intelligence is full of little tricks?”
“I am me,” Tiberius said. “Your commander has offered us our lives, if we surrender.”
“Then take it,” Jeremy advised. “You won’t get a better offer.”
Tiberius met his eyes. “How do we know you — he — will keep his word?”
“The same guarantee you offered to my crew and myself,” Jeremy said. “I was promised good treatment, as I recall.”
“Point,” Tiberius said. “But we cannot just surrender.”
“Then gamble on victory,” Jeremy said. He sighed, loudly enough to be irritating. “Why did you even come here if you are reluctant to trust our word?”
“I wanted to know if your commander could be trusted,” Tiberius said.
Jeremy snorted. “Colin is a decent person,” he said. “Perhaps too decent, at times. You and your families would not be treated badly, if you accepted his terms. But I don’t think that you could keep your power and place, not now. You’ve done too much damage to humanity.”
He looked up. “Do you understand,” he added, “just how many people joined us when they realised there might be a chance at victory? Even if the odds were stacked against us, we had superdreadnaughts and determination and new ideas… and people, willing to fight beside us to bring down an edifice that blighted thousands of worlds and billions of lives. Your legacy is one of hatred, sown by your greed and determination to take whatever you wanted from the people who worked hard to earn it. And now they’re coming for you.”
Tiberius’s face tightened. “You may be right,” he conceded. “But we will have to see what happens before we surrender.”
“Be careful you don’t surrender too late,” Jeremy mocked, as Tiberius rose to his feet. “You might have nothing left to use as a bargaining chip.”
Tiberius looked down at him, but said nothing. Instead, he just walked through the hatch and vanished.
After a long moment, the guards returned and escorted Jeremy back to his cell.
He contemplated what he’d been told as soon as he was alone. It was possible it was a trick of some kind, but it seemed pointless. Why would the enemy wish to claim to be weak — or losing the war? They’d want to convince him they were winning, surely? And if it was the truth…
The thought cheered him and worried him in equal measure. Prisoners had been killed before on Camelot, just to prevent the rebels from liberating them. What would happen to him and the others? Where were the others? He could have kicked himself for not asking Tiberius that question. The young man might have known the answer.
He tossed possibilities over and over in his head long into the night.
“There was a message inserted into the communications network,” Gaunt said. “The rebels have taken Morrison and they’re on their way here.”
Adeeba smiled, watching as Frandsen trained a group of young men in using modified powered combat armour. Somehow, the underground had obtained it from a military base, only to discover that they didn’t have anyone who knew how to use it. They were lucky, Frandsen had pointed out, that they hadn’t stolen Marine-issue gear. That was keyed to a specific user and jammed up if anyone else tried to use it.
“Good to hear,” she said. “How did the message reach the communications network?”
“I’m not sure,” Gaunt admitted. She looked rather irritated with her next sentence. “They wouldn’t have told me in any case.”
She smiled, darkly. “The time may have come to start moving forward with our plans,” she added. “Do you have any idea how long it will take them to reach Earth?”
“They could be here by now,” Adeeba said. She shook her head. “There are just too many factors that might affect matters. They might well be able to get a message to us before they actually arrive…”
“Maybe,” Gaunt said. She looked down at her hands, then up at the young men. Most of them, Adeeba knew, had volunteered despite knowing the risks. They had nothing to look forward to on Earth. “Can we count on you to join us?”
“Of course,” Adeeba said. The alternative, she knew, was staying in the apartment or an underground base, hoping and praying that the offensive succeeded. She couldn’t endure much more of that. “What do you want us to do?”
“We’ve been trying to work out how best to act, when your fleet arrives,” Gaunt said. “The problem, of course, is timing. If we move too fast, we will be destroyed by the security forces before your fleet can intervene; if we move too slowly, we might not be allowed to join any post-war government. So… when the time comes, we will have to act fast. What would your people like us to do?”
“Shut down the defences,” Adeeba said, immediately. She doubted it was possible to take them all down, but the more the defences were weakened, the easier it would be for Colin to take the planet. It would also make it easier for the underground to secure targets on the ground. “And perhaps threaten the High City.”
“We shall see,” Gaunt said. She made the words sound vaguely threatening. “We shall see.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Colin had — foolishly — expected Sol to look different. Humanity’s first star should have been special, somehow. But from five light years distance, Sol was no different from any of the hundreds of other stars visible through the observation blister. It was chilling to realise that the stars would still be burning brightly, millions of years after Colin himself was long forgotten. He contemplated the thought for a long moment, then turned and smiled as Jason Cordova and Daria were shown into the compartment. Behind them, Mariko brought up the rear.
“Well done,” Colin said. He’d had his doubts about Cordova, but he had to admit that the man had done very well. Very well indeed. “Without Wolf 359, the Empire will start to totter towards collapse.”
“Well done to you too,” Cordova boomed. “Without Morrison, the Empire will find it hard to mount a counterattack before time runs out.”
Colin nodded. The data the rebel spies had collected had identified two remaining fleets within the Core Worlds, one protecting Earth and the other protecting Terra Nova. Colin wasn’t sure which one to go after first; Earth offered the prospect of a quick victory, but Terra Nova was vitally important. He wouldn’t put it past the Thousand Families to prevent the massive shipyard from falling into rebel hands by destroying it.