“I will,” the king said. “Once I’ve docked, set course for Caledonia.”
Kat frowned. She still hadn’t decided what to do. And yet, the king had the right to issue orders . . . Caledonia wasn’t a bad choice either. A well-developed world that could support the fleet, at least for a few months. If they had to fight a war, they’d need bases as well as ships.
“Admiral,” Kitty said, “the planetary defenses are targeting us!”
They must have had someone watching us from under cloak, Kat thought. Someone close enough to see we picked up a shuttle, someone smart enough to realize that there was only one person who could be on the shuttle.
She made up her mind. “General signal to the fleet,” she ordered. “All ships are to open vortexes, then proceed directly to Caledonia.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
The orbital battlestations opened fire. But it was far too late.
“Shit,” Duke Rudbek snapped.
Peter was inclined to agree. Kat’s fleet had left but wasn’t alone. Dozens of Home Fleet ships had followed her into hyperspace, and while he would have liked to believe that they were chasing her, he knew better. The Royal Navy had always been loyal to the monarchy rather than Parliament. Indeed, it was more of a surprise that so many ships had remained at Tyre.
And the king is still alive, Peter told himself. He wasn’t on his ship.
He took a breath. “What now?”
“Now?” Harrison laughed, humorlessly. “We’re at war. A civil war. And it will tear the kingdom in half.”
“It’s already torn in half,” Duke Rudbek said. He’d never taken his eyes off the display, even after the last starship had vanished into hyperspace. “And, no matter what we do, nothing will ever be the same.”
“Our world is burning down,” Peter agreed. “But, from the ashes, we will build something new.”
EPILOGUE
IN TRANSIT
King Hadrian lay on his bunk, staring up at the unmarked ceiling, silently cursing his luck.
The plan had been perfect, more or less, and had worked better than he’d dared to dream. Simple yet audacious, the kind of plan—he admitted to himself if no one else—that very few people would consider. And yet he’d seen no choice. He wanted, needed, the kind of power his father and grandfather had been denied. It was the only way to accomplish his goals.
But sheer chance had made a mockery of his careful planning. He’d known, of course, that the Theocrats would eventually be destroyed. Askew had had very clear orders to steer them into a trap once they’d outlived their usefulness. King Hadrian had no qualms about stealing the credit for their destruction either, as he had been pushing for more active deployments to the liberated sector. But who would have imagined that the idiots would have allowed themselves to be followed home? Or that they would have left evidence for the investigators to find? Bad luck had nearly doomed everything; nothing but sheer good luck had saved him from total disaster. If Parliament had obtained solid proof of his activities, they would have impeached him at once. He’d barely been able to get his forces into place for one final, desperate gamble.
At least the evidence against me isn’t conclusive, he thought. He’d taken care to bury his tracks. Many of the men who could have given his enemies more pieces of the puzzle were now dead. Others were a long way away. There isn’t enough to make my people turn on me.
It was a bitter thought. He’d grown up in a world where he was both powerful and insignificant, important and unimportant . . . a figurehead and a figure of fun. His kingship was the core of his life, yet he’d never been allowed to prove himself. He was a bird in a golden cage, bound by laws and customs designed by people who had never allowed themselves to believe the universe could change. And yet, the universe had changed. The kingdom needed to change with it.
And I will make it change, he promised himself. He’d meant every word of the oath he’d sworn, back when he’d been crowned. He would do what was right for his people, and if that meant upsetting the entire apple cart . . . well, the apple cart had been unsteady for decades. I will do whatever I need to do to make it change.
He smiled, although he knew the task ahead of him would be hard. He’d always known this path would be difficult, perhaps even impossible. It would have been easy to resign himself to mindless hedonism, like so many younger aristocrats. But the memory of the sneers aimed at his father’s back, when he wasn’t looking, haunted him. He would be powerful, he would make them respect and fear him, and no one would ever treat him as a joke again.
Closing his eyes, he allowed the superdreadnought’s background hum to lull him to sleep. He felt oddly relaxed, even though he knew that worse was to come. But the die was cast now. There would be war. And he would win . . .
. . . and nothing, absolutely nothing, would be the same again.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers,
I find myself in the unfortunate position of having to apologize for two things. However, as I’m sure you’ll agree, I have a good excuse.
I wrote the first draft of Debt of Honor in June 2018, with the intention of writing the following two books in a fairly tight stream. At that time, however, my persistent health problems—dating from November 2017—were finally identified as lymphoma. Chemotherapy was prescribed. This may just have been in time to save my life. I collapsed when I went for the first set of treatments, allowing the doctors to realize that I also had a nasty chest infection. I ended up spending three weeks in the hospital, having antibiotics
