Assassin Page 20

  The game clock is reset.

  The game begins anew.

  Is this one sudden death?

  “I must leave you now, field marshal. You have much work to do and very little time.” Onur hardly hears him as he leaves. Nor does he notice a slick smile on Takeshi’s face. His head is deep in the order scroll, his hand on a coms link. Soon, hundreds of admirals and generals will scramble to his office in Main HQ from all over the Imperium. Rikugun and Kaigun are going into full crisis mode.

  Games

  The next months bring frantic planning, bordering on panic. A thousand senior officers come and go through GGS operations rooms where the services meet to coordinate multiple invasions. Even among top men, most don’t know they’re planning a real war. They think they’re conducting a war game, by far the largest of their careers but just another war game all the same. The ruse will be leaked. That should keep the secret from enemy intelligence, explaining odd movements of ships and troops or at least delaying recognition of their true purpose. Yet, the shooting war underway with Krevo gives this ‘war game’ a harder edge.

  Onur knows the officer corps. He knows that once most learn this is no drill, they’ll be eager for war. Excited talk will be all about glory and slashing victories, and how quickly they’re sure to defeat any enemy. After 300 years of lassitude, they'll be enthusiastic to test battle theories and weapons systems. They think they want to experience war, the real thing; to go beyond simulators and games where they bombard dead moonlets and laze ships at 1/500th power. Already, Krevo is not enough. It leaves two questions in the air. First, how can Pyotr’s orders for a wider and more dangerous war be implemented as real operations, carried out in parallel to Dauran ops he knows nothing about except the names of target worlds? And for a minority of trusted coconspirators, how can invasion plans be stopped by a preemptive coup d’état that must be organized in the shadows of the ongoing Krevan War, and now planning for a looming Fourth Orion War?

  How does Onur get officers sympathetic to the Resistance, as the plotters start to call themselves, to go along with active coup planning without tipping off their colleagues or Pyotr’s spies? Ships need to be assigned to flotillas close enough to reach Kestino in a jump or two at most. Corps need to ready to fly and fight. It’s almost impossible to use troops already in or near Novaya Uda. They’re the most loyal in the Imperium, not counting Pyotr’s bright yellow palace guards. Pyotr’s aggressor pact with Jahandar and joint war plans at first move only a few men into Onur’s conspiratorial circle. He contacts men in key positions scattered over many star systems, on war fleets, in the armies, all waiting to invade from holding areas along the frontier bohr zones. But only a select few. There’s grave danger that the budding conspiracy will leak to spies or loyal supporters of the emperor, who are a majority in Rikugun and huge majority in Kaigun.

  In private, he’s frustrated over how many who say they support Resistance oppose any real or decisive action. They're not cowards. Like him, they're torn between believing that war will lead to disaster and a lifetime as loyal soldiers of the crown. They’re bred to war, trained for it, ready for it. Yet, he’s asking them to balk at war, at the threshold moment of their military careers. Major Oscar Winter, his adjutant and closest confidant, tells him: “Mutiny and coup d’état are not part of the language of Rikugun, sir. Nor of most Kaigun officers whom I know. This is going to be very hard.”

  “It is officer honor I fear, above all things that seem to move men.”

  “They’re bred to it, sir.”

  “Indeed. And we’re asking decent men to betray their oaths and a lifetime of loyalty, as embodied in the emperor and traditions of family and obedience.”

  “Do you think they’ll do it?”

  “A majority will not.”

  “Then how may we proceed?”

  “We only need a core minority of officers who can see that their honor and the interest of the Imperium demands that we select few take a different, harder road than strictly following orders.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Winter is a man of average size. That makes him seem huge as he leans in with a reeve of flash paper filled with Resistance plans for the Little General. “You must burn these papers in the next five minutes.” He slips in the warning he always gives, along with the flashes. Vibrant, alert, dark haired, keen eyed and quick witted, he’s wholly devoted to Onur above all other things.

  “There’s a third issue, sir.”

  “What is it?”

  “What will happen if we succeed? I’m asked this every time I approach a new recruit to our, umm, association. Especially by Kaigun officers. They hold back from us, more than Rikugun.”

  “What do they ask, exactly?”

  “They say: ‘You soldiers are ready to clean the palace out, and we agree it needs cleaning. But what then? Are we but housemaids, sweeping palace rooms of traitors and fools? Who will take up residence in the royal chambers after that? Do you have a candidate or a policy?’”

  “We’re not dealing with idiots, then. That’s good.”

  “I’m asked it always, sir.”

  “Call a meeting of the principals. We must supply an answer.”

  “Do you have one, field marshal?”

  “Yes. Tell anyone from the inner circle who’s in Novaya Uda or in orbit to come. Ask them to meet in my study tonight. They should tell subordinates it’s a core secret planning meeting for the war game.”

  ***

  “Gentlemen, we have been arguing for an hour and so far we’ve only agreed on basics. Major Winter, summarize.”

  “You have agreed, first, that any war with the Calmar Union must be stopped before it starts. And second, that Pyotr must be set aside if he insists on launching this new and wider war.”

  “Yes, that sounds right. But what do we mean, Onur, by ‘set Pyotr aside’?”

  “And can we stop the war if he’s removed? Will our officers agree to that?”

  “I have to say it, Onur. Too many of our younger colleagues want to fight the Calmaris, even the whole of the ‘Auld Alliance. They won’t want to stop.”

  “I agree, Admiral Pasha. They’ll not stand idly aside while we act to prevent war.”

  “Then what do you propose?”

  Onur tells them his thinking, and finally they agree. They devise an action plan for a coup d’état, a naval and ground combined op to remove Pyotr and forestall a wider war they think the Imperium shouldn’t fight and can’t win. “The moment Pyotr gives the order to cross our borders into claimed Calmari space is when we move against him. Instead of fleets and armies heading out, the forces under our command will head here to Kestino. We’ll strike on the ground with support above. We’ll seize the capital and all apparatus of the state.”

  “We must decapitate the regime with a single blow,” Major Winter cautions succinctly. “Quickly, ruthlessly, efficiently.”

  “In the meantime, we continue drafting Pyotr’s war plans. We’ll finish our just war with Krevo and plan his foolish war with Calmari, as if we really intend to fight it. But on the day the order comes to cross that border, we jump Resistance forces back to Kestino instead.”

  “You’re saying that Pyotr actually giving the order to start the invasions is the one thing that will trigger our acting? Why wait until so late?”

  “It’s the knife edge we must walk. Act too soon and we’ll lose our souls as loyal officers of the Imperium and worse, we’ll lose the officer corps. Act too late, and we’ll lose everything.”

  “That’s too philosophical for me,” says a straightforward Rikugun general. “I have no interest is questions of soul or conscience. I’m a simple military man. Give me a simple military reason, Onur.”

  “Fair enough. We need to hide the coup movements inside the cover story of the war game. If we try to move before that, we’ll be intercepted by much larger Loyalist forces and wiped out.”

  “What of the fleets we don’t control? What will our coup matte
r if war starts anyway, if fleets and armies beyond our reach cross into Calmari space at the same hour that we come here? I say again, we shouldn’t wait for Pyotr to give the order! Strike first!”

  Onur is emphatic. “We must wait. There is no other way.”

  “We’ve timed it out,” Winter clarifies. “The response times from the nearest bohr zones force us to hide our assets inside the larger invasion mobilization.”

  A skittish admiral joins the dissenters. “Even if you time it correctly and we get enough forces here to take down Pyotr, there won’t be time at the frontiers to stop the fleets. If any contact is made by warships crossing over, if they clash with a NCU patrol inside Calmari space, war will break out no matter if you win or lose here.”

  “Not if we act in the gap between when Pyotr gives the order and the fleets begin to actually move. I’ve built a delay into the plans. Pyotr thinks the fleets need ten hours from the time he gives me the invasion order to when they jump. He agreed to build this delay into a critical diplomatic ruse he’ll foist on the Calmari ambassador and Prime Minister Robert Hoare.”

  “The needed delay is already built in, timed into the larger movement orders?”

  “He will not release the fleets to cross over before he completes secret talks with their PM. So yes, our necessary delay is baked into the diplomatic talks and final mobilization and attack plans.”

  “Yes, that’s good, Onur. That could work.”

  “Moreover, as Chief of GGS I’ll receive the ‘Go’ order from Pyotr directly. It’s firm protocol, and I’ll insist on it being followed. Once I receive his approval, I’ll delay transmission, adding two hours delay to let Resistance ships and troops to get to Kestino before the war fleets jump.”

  “Why won’t his people see these shifts, see our ships coming here?”

  Winter explains: “They will be hidden inside a swarm of movement from the jump zones, from the ‘sausages’ or holding areas near the invasion routes. They’ll look like normal fleet confusion and complex war game movement, at least to anyone who’s not already suspicious and looking for something else.”

  Ali Pasha lends support: “I confirm that. Naval counterintelligence requires squadrons to steam under sealed orders, so fleet commanders won’t think twice to see small groups of ships moving at different vectors, heading to unknown coordinates. They’ll assume it’s part of the war game op, then the actual invasion.”

  “Given com delays, visuals of our squadrons arriving at Kestino system LPs will be the first and only warning Pyotr gets. And by then it will be too late.”

  “You have to send the ‘Go!’ order before that, before we get here? You can’t just hold it back? Disobey him, and never send it?”

  “No. That would provoke a faster response from his troops in and around the capital. The coup order must be given, but concealed inside the larger stream of war communications. We’ll send it the same time the invasion order goes out, but with an extra two hours I’ll buy us with an improvised delay.”

  “Pyotr and his commanders must believe the clock is ticking down to war, or they’ll grow suspicious and jump you here after the two hour mark?

  “Yes.”

  “And they’ll have superior local forces if that happens?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But if you send the invasion order, we’ll still have enough time to get here and reinforce your headquarters and support troops in the city?”

  “Yes. With the ‘Go!’ confirmed, we’ll have a twelve hour window to act.”

  “How so, twelve?”

  “We’ll have the ten hours built in by Pyotr’s diplomatic ruse and the two hours I’ll add on this end. We’ll be in control on Kestino several hours before any war fleet crosses into Calmari space. I’ll issue an immediate recall.”

  “That could work.”

  “Yes, Onur. You’ve done well.”

  “Agreed. Well done. It’s a good plan.”

  “At least it’s a fighting chance, Onur.”

  “Twelve hours, gentlemen. It’s all the time you’ll have to stop calamity. Do not defer. Do not hesitate. Delay will lead to fatal results. When you act, do so swiftly and with decisive ruthlessness. I’ll coordinate with Admiral Pasha. As soon as our forces secure Kestino, we’ll bohr com a joint ‘Stop’ order to the invasion fleets that carries the imprimatur of GGS and Kaigun, countermanding the ‘Go’ command and recalling all warfleets.”

  “What’s our main cover story? Some admirals I know won’t buy the recall so easily. They’ll demand a confirmation story that’s believable.”

  “They don’t know the war game is the real thing, a full scale mobilization for a real invasion. They won’t be told that until they’re in the jump off zones.”

  “So how do we take back that information? They’ll be itching to go when they’re told it’s a real war. How can you persuade them to stop?”

  “We’ll send an emergency follow up from GGS, telling fleet commanders that an erroneous ‘Go’ order was inserted into the master war game simulation.”

  “That should cause confusion at least, and delay,” adds Winter. “How much, we don’t know, so make every minute count. Burn all out to get here, or we’ll fail singly and all together.”

  “Admiral Ali Pasha, as head of Kaigun, do you concur with this plan?”

  “Yes, field marshal. It can be done. And it will be done, inshallah.”

  ***

  The most nervous of the plotters tries a last time to stop it all, right on the verge of action. “I don’t believe it can be done. Not now, with war fever building across the entire military.”

  “Then when, General McAuley? What is it that you think we should do?”

  “We should wait until after the war starts, until the mortal danger of war with the Calmari is clear to all in fact, and not just in the abstract.”

  “Are you suggesting that we sabotage the war effort after it begins? Betray our own men?”

  “No. I’m saying that we don’t need to. The war’s slowing against Krevo and more costly than we ever thought it could be. Those bastards were unready and underarmed and yet they’re still fighting.”

  “We have taken Aral, general. It’s down to their Exodus fleets and rearguard holding actions. Nothing more.”

  “Really, field marshal? I heard a KRN flotilla called Wildfire hit us hard at one of our border worlds. They’re calling it a ‘butcher-and-bolt’ raid.”

  “You heard right. We were unready. We won’t be next time.”

  “My point is this. Will Pyotr turn back from war with the Calmar Union? He must know how hard Calmaris will fight if this is what a small, backward power can do to our forces. We should try again to persuade him of that truth.”

  “He will not listen to reason. He’s either genuinely in thrall with the Purity idea or somehow in its debt. Either way, he’s under Sakura-kai and SAC control. He’s no longer his own man. He hasn’t been for years. And you misread our peoples. If we let this war start, they will embrace it, not shun it.”

  Major Winter interjects forcefully with men many ranks above his own. “What the you outline is precisely why war with the ancient enemy must not happen.”

  “I heartily agree,” says Ali Pasha.

  “So do I,” adds another top admiral.

  “So do we all,” says a marine general. “Why are we discussing this again?”

  “Because we must be sure, of our plan and of each other. General McAuley needs assurances that what we do is morally right, not just politically opportune. Especially if there’s bloodshed.”

  “General McAuley, do you concur with our cause?”

  “Yes, man. Damn it, yes! Or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Then can you bring yourself to defer to our plan?”

  “Damn his eyes! Pyotr has boxed us well!”

  “He has indeed. But I need an answer.”

  “If you wait until there’s no hope for peace left, if you wait until he in fact gives the war order
, then yes, I’ll stand and fight at your side, Onur.”

  “Very good, general. Major Winter, is there anything more?”

  “Beware of spies. Consider that your own officers might be secretly working for Pyotr’s dogsbody, his golden boy SAC colonel who’s always by his side.”

  “And in his bed each night, or so I hear,” General McAuley snorts contempt.

  “First, he’s now a general, by order of Pyotr. Second, ignore all that! Don’t underestimate that man. I met him, here in GGS. I warn you all right now that he, and not Pyotr, may be the real viper to watch. He’s extremely dangerous.”

  Onur is so blunt and emphatic they’re deeply shocked. Especially as he has been flogging bigotry about Pyotr’s bisexual tastes and habits for years. If he fears Takeshi, then they know the man is worth fearing.

  “We’ll take care of him on the first day,” Onur assures them. “I’ll arrest him myself, and have him … err… eliminated.”

  “You, Onur? You’ll do that?”

  “Takeshi Watanabe will not live to see past dawn of the first morning of our new regime.”

  “And what regime will that be? Are we agreed on that yet?”

  “Not yet. We’ll come back to that question very soon, Admiral Pasha.”

  “I’m all in on the coup d’état to stop a bigger war. That’s the priority. But I’ll not leave this room before I hear your answer on what comes after.”

  “Alright. But for now, let’s agree on the other thing we must do.”

  “What?”

  “We’re going to have to kill some of our own people.”

  “There’ll be bloodshed on the ships?”

  “Yes, and Rikugun and civilian casualties. Prepare yourselves for that.”

  “How much bloodshed?”

  “We’ll strive to keep deaths to a minimum, but there’ll likely come a time when you must order your troops or ships to fire on our own forces.”

  “It’s understood, Onur.” Ali Pasha looks around the group. “It’s regrettable, but we all know what we must do.”

  “Ready yourselves. Steel yourselves. Lives will be taken and lost. Brother will kill brother.”