wounded, when the Guard fell on them from behind. Some fought to the very last, and others even slew themselves, but in the end, nearly forty were taken prisoner despite their beliefs. Those that could walk were quickly rounded up and herded to a livestock pen near the harbor where they could be confined under guard. Forty survivors out of nearly a thousand that began the fight. Of the four hundred who’d made the charge with Chack, a hundred were dead and another hundred were badly wounded.
“They fight just like Japs,” Matt muttered. He was limping slightly from a superficial bayonet wound he’d taken in the calf, inflicted by a man he’d thought was dead.
“Are your ‘Japs’ truly so fanatical?” Jenks asked. Through it all, he’d somehow managed to avoid any injuries beyond a few small cuts and splinter wounds.
“They don’t surrender very often,” Matt confirmed. “At least where we came from.” The memory of a Japanese sailor standing on an overturned boat, surrounded by voracious fish, preferring a terrible death to captivity, suddenly sprang to mind.
“Well, we’ve finished them here. All that remains is the result of the sea battle off the harbor mouth.” He grimaced, knowing Matt was keenly concerned about his ship. “Now that surprise is lost, the enemy can’t hope to enter the harbor, but they will still fight to damage as many of our ships as they can. They retain an advantage in numbers, if not quality, and that is their only chance to seize any semblance of victory. There will be war between the Empire and the Dominion; there already is. Thanks in large part to you and your people, it will now be a protracted war instead of a one-day affair. Come, let us hurry to Government House. The Governor-Emperor has had himself moved to the observatory so he can view the battle.”
“You think he’ll make it?” Matt asked quietly.
“God willing. He will almost certainly lose one leg. The other is in doubt. He’d already be dead if Andrew hadn’t thrown himself across him.”
“Let Selass have a look at him,” Matt suggested.
Jenks nodded. “I will recommend it.”
“How’s Andrew?”
“Failing quickly, I fear. I’ve sent for Sean to be taken to his brother’s side… if he himself survived.”
Matt limped quietly alongside Jenks, who deliberately kept his pace slower than he obviously would have preferred.
“At least your wife’s safe,” Matt ventured. He looked at Jenks’s face and saw the tears well up in his eyes.
“Aye. There’s that.”
There was chaos at Government House. A large number of Marines-that Matt thought might have been better employed elsewhere, earlier-stood guard, facing outward from the residence with bayonets fixed, but Jenks led Matt through them without being stopped. Messengers came and went, and officers, some bloodied by riots or even assassination attempts, milled about on the columned porches. Tired horses, tied to the columns themselves, leaned against one another with foamy sweat running from beneath their saddle blankets. Some of the officers wore naval uniforms, and Matt wondered how many were in the same “boat” he was. When the bulk of the Imperial Fleet at Scapa Flow steamed out to meet their attackers, most of the ships were commanded by junior officers. Even if he could sympathize a little, he felt a growing annoyance to see so much brass not doing anything.
Jenks paused in his flight up the stairs to the porch only long enough to greet an older man in a cocked hat and a soiled but richly decorated coat. “Lord High Admiral McClain,” he said, saluting. “I must see the Governor- Emperor.”
The man nodded. “He’s expecting you,” he said gravely, gesturing toward the observatory with his nose. “Aloft.” He looked at Matt. “Both of you.” He paused, but clearly wasn’t finished. “My compliments, Captain Reddy,” he continued. “We’ve not met officially, but His Majesty speaks highly of you. I was impressed by your swordsmanship-as well as your cunning. Particularly the latter. I find myself lending more credence to some of the wild tales I’ve heard-which forces me to reevaluate a few opinions I’d formed concerning your entire account of the situation in the west.” He waved a blood-spattered kerchief he’d been holding against a cut on his cheek. “Dreadful times lie ahead, I fear. The commodore has long been a proponent of aggressive exploration, at least in the seas of this hemisphere.” He sighed. “I have opposed that in the interests of security through isolation… but we aren’t really isolated here at all, are we? Not anymore. We… thought the Dominion was our only real threat, and that they might serve as a buffer for what might lie beyond, but even if they’re now our most pressing threat, they’re not alone, are they?”
“No, sir,” Matt said quietly. “And they aren’t even the closest. Reed proved that.”
“But apparently he is their creature. One must now contemplate how much of this Company subversion over the last decade might be laid at his feet, and how much sway over other Company officials he might still exert.”
“Reed was their ‘creature,’ ” Matt said stonily. “He was ready to hand your Empire to the Dominion on a silver plate… but I wouldn’t worry about him anymore, if I were you. I would strongly recommend you round up as many of his cronies as you can, though. Even if most didn’t know what he was really up to, a lot had to know it was treason of some sort or other.”
“Indeed. And we shall ‘round them up,’ as you put it. You and Jenks are to be commended for your perspicacity in uncovering this evil plot.” The admiral’s expression turned sour. “I only wish I’d been made privy to the particulars in advance.”
“There were no particulars, sir,” said Jenks. “Only suspicions, and we had little enough to base them on.” Jenks’s voice became harder, more formal. “Not nearly enough to convince even you, beforehand, sir.”
Admiral McClain nodded. “I suppose I deserve that,” he said sadly. “I hope you’ll accept my assurance that you speak to the converted now, Commodore.”
“I sincerely hope so, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course.”
“Who was that?” Matt asked as they entered Government House and made their way through the bustle to the stairs.
“Lord High Admiral James Silas McClain the Third,” Jenks replied neutrally. “He’s the titular governor of New Scotland and commands Home Fleet-a large percentage of which is now fighting the greatest sea battle of the age without him.”
“Huh.”
They ascended the staircase that ran back and forth through the Imperial living quarters, until they reached a relatively small, oval room atop the residence. It was hot in the confined space, and crowded with officers delivering reports and departing with instructions. Several grim-faced surgeons toiled over the Governor-Emperor’s legs, casting furtive glances at the newcomers and one another.
“Prop me up, damn ye all,” the Governor-Emperor roared. “I can’t bloody see! If I must lie here among you pack of carrion-eaters, at least let me view the battle!”
The man’s pale, almost painfully thin wife gently propped him up with a pillow so he could reach the eyepiece of his telescope again. Matt had seen the woman a few times before, but never like this. He remembered that Princess Rebecca often said that Sandra reminded her of her mother, but Matt hadn’t caught any real resemblance beyond hair color. Now he saw it: the way she glared at others in the room, the determined way she swept at errant strands of hair that strayed from her more abundant coif. Before, she’d seemed a broken woman, clinging desperately to the faint hope he’d brought her. Now, even as that hope had faded, she’d risen to protect the last thing in the world she appeared to care about: her injured husband. For an instant, a red-hot knife twisted in Matt’s guts as he finally allowed himself to contemplate the probability that Sandra was indeed lost to him. His crew had been practically coddling him in that respect for some time now, he knew, but he’d continued to insist to himself that hope remained. He couldn’t do that anymore, he realized. He had to let it go. At least for now, he had to put his own grief aside, as this woman had done, and focus on those things he could still save.
Somewhere out there, beyond the general fleet action that the Governor-Emperor watched even now, his ship might be fighting for her life. There was nothing he could do about that either, and his sense of helplessness was profound. There was something he could do, though, and if it might do little to help those he cared about here, it might make all the difference for those “back home.”
“Ah, listen up,” he said loudly. The tumult in the room and on the stairs behind him froze into a kind of
