“Then you need to expand the local defenses,” William said. “The ships we purchased weren’t the only ones being sold.”
“Against pirates, you might have a point,” Kat said. “I believe the king was pushing for subsidies for self-defense forces. But against a set of superdreadnoughts . . . there’s no way we can afford to give every world the defenses they’d need to stand them off. The cost would be astronomical.”
William frowned. “How long can they even keep those superdreadnoughts operational?”
Kat sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. “Their maintenance routines are shitty. You know that. I believed the ships that escaped the final battle would rapidly degrade without access to shipyards or even spare parts. No pirate or smuggler ring could provide them with what they’d need to keep the ships running. Someone is helping them.”
“But who actually benefits?” William considered the matter, carefully. “Have there been conflicts with the other Great Powers?”
“Nothing of great concern,” Kat said. “There were a handful of minor disagreements. A few people were upset that Britannia refused to dispatch more than a couple of ships to search for Supreme, but nothing anyone would actually go to war over. And if we caught someone supplying the Theocrats, we probably would go to war. It would be an insane risk.”
William had his doubts. Hebrides had been a rough world even before the Theocrats had turned his homeworld into a radioactive hellhole. Its population knew, on a very basic level, that the world around them and the universe outside the planet’s atmosphere were red in tooth and claw. Might made right, in the crudest possible sense. His people couldn’t hide from the realities of life.
But Tyre was different. Tyre had been a comfortable place to live ever since it had been settled. The population enjoyed considerable advantages, from excellent schools to a social network that had banished starvation and want. There might be a social stigma to accepting free food and lodging from the government instead of earning enough to pay one’s own way, but people didn’t starve. And they’d come to believe that that was how the universe worked, even after the war began. They were, in some sense, tired of war.
And very few of them care about the people out here, he thought. The liberated worlds aren’t part of the Commonwealth. And they were having problems with the Commonwealth even before the war made all problems worse.
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “Do you think we missed a shipyard, somewhere?”
Kat shook her head. “Their record keeping was terrible, but I think we can be reasonably sure they didn’t hide more than a handful of storage depots in deep space. They grabbed everything they could just to throw at us during the final battle.”
“But you can’t be sure,” Tanya said, speaking for the first time. “There could be a working shipyard out there.”
“Our analysts have tried hard to account for every last ebb and flow of their economy,” Kat said. If she noticed the blatant challenge in Tanya’s voice, she didn’t show it. “Impossible to be entirely sure, as you say, but we believe that relatively little war material remains unaccounted for. Certainly not enough to build and maintain a secret fleet of starships.”
She smiled, although it didn’t touch her eyes. “They were lying to themselves. Their people were pressured into increasing their production, so they basically lied and said that yes, production was increasing. They kept wearing out their equipment because they were trying to meet impossible demands. Their economy was overheating even before we started shooting at each other. There’s a good chance it would have collapsed completely in a few years anyway.”
“And yet they went to war,” William said. “They must have been desperate.”
“It makes you wonder just how much else they didn’t know,” Kat said. “If everyone was . . . massaging the data to create favorable facts . . . did they believe that half the Royal Navy simply didn’t exist? Or did they genuinely believe they could win the war in six months?”
“Their plan wasn’t that bad,” William reminded her. “If we hadn’t been at Cadiz, Admiral Morrison’s fleet would have been caught by surprise and wiped out. That would certainly have given them an opportunity to take the war farther into the Commonwealth.”
“They still wouldn’t have been able to take Tyre,” Kat said. “And even challenging the defenses could have cost them the war.” She leaned back. “We’ll see what we can learn from the captured ship,” she said. “And, under the circumstances, I feel justified in transferring a number of replacement missiles to you.”
“That would be very welcome,” William told her.
Kat smiled. “I thought so too.”
She ran her hand through her hair. “We won the war, William,” she said. “And yet, we seem to be losing the peace.”
“They can’t run rampant forever,” William assured her. “Sooner or later, their luck will run out. And then you’ll be there to meet them.”
“I hope so,” Kat said. “But right now . . . it feels like we’re running around trying to put out fires with water pistols.”
Her wristcom bleeped. “Excuse me.”
“Admiral,” a voice said. “We made contact with Ahura Mazda. I . . . I’m afraid there have been two more attacks.”
William felt his heart clench. Two more attacks? No, there had been three attacks, if one counted the attempted raid on Asher Dales. The enemy was getting bolder.
“Understood,” Kat said. She rose. “I’m on my way.”
“I’ll see you planet-side, if you have time to visit,” William said, standing. “If not . . . I’ll understand.”
“I have to stay here anyway, at
