Barbarians at the Gates

Chapter Fifty

Earth (Sol) System, 4098

“I’m going to give you Valiant,” Admiral Drake said a day after the Grand Fleet had captured Earth. Roman had been half-convinced that the admiral had forgotten him in the whirlwind of securing Earth’s vital locations and transporting the Senators and their families to temporary accommodation. “Technically, you’re too young to serve as a commodore, but I think I’m going to have to give you a temporary promotion anyway.”

Admiral Drake tapped the display, which focused in on the Rim. “There are too many worrying reports coming from this Sector,” he said. “You’ll see the intelligence reports; if they’re accurate, we might have at least two hostile races in the Beyond. Your task would be to defeat the pirates in the sector and survey the stars beyond the Rim.”

“Yes, sir,” Roman said. He didn’t want to be promoted out of a command chair, even for a short while, but he suspected he didn’t have very much choice in the matter. If nothing else, there would definitely be room for independent action. The Rim was just too large to be patrolled by a task force operating as a single unit. “I won’t let you down.”

“I’m promoting your girlfriend to Major and assigning her command of a Marine Regiment,” Admiral Drake added. “I dare say you’ll find something to talk about on the trip to the Rim.”

“Thank you, sir,” Roman said, blushing. He hadn’t wanted to admit that he was worried about losing her comforting presence on his ship—and in his bed, of course. “I think she’ll enjoy the chance to stretch herself a little farther.”

“Just remember, you’re not out there to invade a whole alien empire by yourself,” Admiral Drake cautioned. “We may have to extend the Rim out to enclose their space—and bring them under our control—but we need to put our own house in order first. The remaining warlords need to be mopped up and crushed; the Survey Service needs to be restarted…there’s too many things we need to do. And we need to secure the space lines so that regular shipping can restart. There are too many pirate ships operating out there because of the war.”

He shook his head. “Be careful out there, Roman,” he said, clapping Roman on the shoulder. “I don’t want to lose any more good people out along the Rim.”

“Thank you, sir,” Roman said. “I won’t let you down.”

“Tell me something,” Marius said, once they were in a secure compartment. “Was this what the Brotherhood had in mind all along?”

Professor Kratman shrugged.

“Not in particular,” he said. “We believed that something would have to happen in order to force the Senate to reform before the entire Federation shattered. You becoming emperor…”

Marius scowled. It hadn’t taken more than a few hours before High Society—what was left of it—had started clamoring to recognize the emperor. He’d promised himself that there would be a brief and formal coronation, but High Society seemed to think that it needed a grand event with a golden crown. It was galling, in a way; he’d taken supreme power, and he was as much a prisoner as most of the Senate.

“Still, you have to be careful,” his former commander warned. “If you move too quickly, you run the risk of causing an economic disaster. The industrialist strangleholds will have to be broken carefully, or they might destroy the economy out of spite.”

“And even threats won’t deter them,” Marius sighed. He looked up. “I’m appointing you to my cabinet, by the way.”

Professor Kratman blinked. “Why?”

“I want you where I can see you,” Marius said firmly. “I think the Brotherhood has spent too long in the shadows. It’s time to come out into the light.

“And besides,” he added, “I trust you.”

“I don’t think…”

“We’ll discuss it later,” Marius said. He tapped the pistol he wore at his belt. Vaughn’s old pistol, as ready for use as it had been the day it was produced. “I have one piece of unfinished business left to complete.”

The Marines had been fairly gentle with the Senators and their families, although the Senators had complained loudly and bitterly before being ordered to shut up. Most of their families—including some very young children and a handful of trusted retainers—had been transported to a bulk carrier for the journey to Paradise—a resort world that would suffice as a place of exile—but a number had been kept on Earth. Marius had issued specific instructions for the twelve most senior Senators—including the leaders of both factions—to remain behind, and those orders had been obeyed.

He wrinkled his nose as he stepped into the prison. It was normally used to house involuntary emigrants—men and women who had been arrested on Earth and sentenced to exile—and it was clear that the Senators hadn’t adjusted well to their captivity. Each of them had one hand firmly cuffed to the wall, restricting their mobility and ensuring that they posed no threat to the warder and his men. The room itself stank of piss and shit and human sweat, the feelings of the arrested people who would never see Earth again.

“Admiral,” a voice gasped. “You have to get us out of here!”

It was Alison, formerly the leader of the Socialist Faction. Now, her face had been washed clean by the wardens and her fine clothes had been replaced by a shapeless prison garment. A bruise on her face marked the spot where she’d run into a wall while the Marines were trying to arrest her. Marius had read the report on the incident and it was clear that one of the Marines, an exile from a world under Socialist control, had done it deliberately.

Marius deliberately allowed his eyes to wander away.

“And why,” he said in a tone of feigned unconcern, “should I do anything to help you?”

“But…but…you gave your word of honor,” Alison protested.

The other Senators murmured in agreement. “You promised us…”

“I did, didn’t I?” Marius allowed himself a tight smirk.

He allowed the moment to drag itself out.

“Let me tell you a little story, to help us all pass the time,” he said. “Once upon a time, there was a great chaos in a planetary sector and no one knew which way to jump. And in this sector, there were men and women who had lives and families and friends of their own—just people, ordinary people. And some of these people jumped to the right side, and others jumped to the wrong side. And, as so often happens in human history, the right side won and the wrong side lost. After all, we know the right side won because the winners write the history books and they were the winners. Of course they were the right side.”

They were all listening to him, perhaps wondering if he’d gone mad.

“And the people who had sided with the wrong side panicked,” he continued, wondering if any of them had drawn the correct conclusion. It wouldn’t be long before they all understood. “They thought that they were all doomed, because the winners had threatened to kill all the losers. And some of them fled and others tried to do their duty as best as they could, hoping that they could scare the winners or at least hurt them enough to make them back down. But they couldn’t, you see; they couldn’t stop the inevitable wave of fate rolling over them. They were trapped, helpless—and doomed.

“And then the winners came to them and offered them a chance to live. The losers were relieved and delighted. They might have lost, but it wouldn’t cost them their lives; their families and friends would be safe. They accepted the offer gratefully and everyone was happy—well, everyone apart from some of the winners. Once the losers were helpless, they went back on the offer. I’m sure you can imagine the results.”

His voice darkened. “The losers were all slaughtered,” he said. “And the winners went on to win.”

Alison’s voice, when it finally came, was weak and feeble. “But you promised!”

“Just imagine it,” Marius said. “Being told that the sentence of death—for you and your family and your friends—had been passed, and there was nothing you could do to avert it. Just imagine the hopelessness and despair. And then the joy and relief when you discover that you’re going to live after all. Your friends and family will be safe!”

He smiled darkly, daring them to speak.

“And then you get orders to board an old freighter,” he added. “And perhaps you wonder…but you convince yourself that all is fine; you know you’re going to have to leave your home, so maybe you’re leaving quicker than you expected. And then you realize that you’re sealed in and there’s no way out, yet perhaps that too makes sense…

“And then you realize that the air is being let out of the hold,” he said. His hand grasped Vaughn’s pistol as he drew it from his holster. “And you realize that you’ve been betrayed, and you’re going to die, and there is nothing you can do about it. You watch as your children struggle to breathe, their faces turning purple with the lack of oxygen, the life draining out of their eyes as they run out of air. And then you choke to death yourself, knowing that you were betrayed…”

He lifted the pistol and pointed it at Alison’s head. “Imagine how that feels…”

The former Senator stared wildly at him.

“But you gave your word,” she gasped. “You swore…”

“I did,” Marius agreed.

He pulled the trigger. The pistol jerked in his hand—he was more used to plasma pistols than projectile weapons—and splattered her brains over the bulkhead. He turned as the Senators started to scream for help and mercy, knowing that neither would ever come. The pistol barked again, then again and again, until all of the Senators were dead.

Automatically, he returned the pistol to its holster, refusing to look away from what he had wrought. He’d executed twelve people in cold blood. In the end, the men and women who had ruled half the galaxy had died by his hand, yet he didn’t feel anything but cold satisfaction.

The innocent dead had been avenged.

Shaking his head, he walked out the compartment and sealed the hatch behind him.

“Clear up the mess and dump the bodies in the incinerator,” he ordered the warden, who had enough sense not to ask the questions that were clearly running through his mind. Cuffs or no cuffs, enough unwilling colonists had managed to kill their fellows while in the holding pens to make disposing of their bodies a regular occurrence. “Once that’s done, forget everything that happened today.”

Not waiting for an acknowledgement, he strode away, back to the shuttle that had brought him to the prison. His mind was elsewhere, considering the future. For humanity to survive the coming storm from beyond the Rim, hard decisions would have to be made about the future. He had never wanted power, certainly not on this scale, but he wouldn’t shrink from using it. Humanity would be safe, whatever the cost.

Once he was back in the shuttle and heading back to orbit, he keyed his communicator. “Tiffany, contact my Cabinet and inform them that we will be meeting in one hour,” he told her. “We have a lot of work to do.”