Rumors of Glory (The System States Rebellion Book 1) by Dietmar Wehr Read Free Book Online

instructions?” he asked in a low voice.
     
    “No. Tell Her Nibs that her landing craft is ready to
depart when we’re within 10 minutes of crossing that million klick threshold.
Once she’s inside that craft, we’ll depressurize the hangar bay and leave her
there,” said Stacker in an equally low voice.
     
    Janicot entered the Operations room and sighed. It was
exactly for situations like this that a new, more secure Command Center was
being built deep underground, but it wasn’t ready yet. For now, he had to use
the old Federation-built Operations room that was on the ground floor of the
former FED Navy building. That building had no armor protection of any kind.
One standard space-to-surface missile with a high explosive warhead would
effectively destroy the whole structure. Janicot felt horribly exposed, but
this was all they had at the moment.
     
    He saw Captain Obrist start walking towards him, and
while he waited, Janicot took a quick glance at the main display. Those three
ships were still moving closer to the planet.
     
    “Did they acknowledge our minimum altitude directive?”
asked Janicot.
     
    “No, sir. No further communications at all. They seem to
be maintaining their approach for a low orbit, sir.”
     
    “Hmm. Is the Presi—is the Chancellor on his way here?”
     
    “Yes, sir. He should be arriving momentarily, I believe.”
     
    Chancellor Belloc arrived two minutes later. He nodded to
Janicot. “What’s the situation now, Admiral?”
     
    “I don’t like this, Chancellor. They sent three cruisers
in order to discuss our status? Why would they need to send three when one was
sufficient to carry their negotiator here? Add to that the fact that they
haven’t acknowledged our order to maintain a minimum distance from the planet.
If they were intending to comply, they’d be approaching with a shallower flight
profile. It looks to me like they want to get as close as possible, and you
don’t need to do that if you’re only going to talk. You would need to do that
if you intended to conduct an orbital bombardment. I should also tell you that
they’ve started radar scanning, and they’ve detected our missile boats.”
     
    Belloc frowned. “So you think their talk about
negotiating our status is a ruse?”
     
    Janicot nodded. “Yes, sir, and this Operations room is
awfully vulnerable to high explosive missiles. They may try to decapitate our
leadership. The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced that you should
relocate to somewhere else, sir.”
     
    Belloc pondered that for a bit and said, “Maybe I should
head back to my office.”
     
    “They may fire at that too, Chancellor. My suggestion
would be to get out of the city altogether. I can have secure audio
communications set up so that you’d still be in contact with Operations.”
     
    “Well that’s fine for me, but if they’re going to fire at
this room, then everyone in it, including you, Admiral, are in danger too.”
     
    “Yes, sir, and that’s why I’ve ordered them to stay at
least a million klicks away. If they fire from that distance, we’ll have plenty
of time to evacuate. Since it doesn’t look like they intend to obey that
directive, I’d like your permission to tell them that if they drop below one
million klicks, we’ll fire on them, sir.”
     
    Belloc looked skeptical. “I’m reluctant to have the SSU
fire the first shot, Admiral.”
     
    Janicot resisted the impulse to remind the Chancellor
that the SSU had already done that by destroying the FED Navy courier ship.
“Threatening to fire is not the same as actually doing it, sir. I doubt very
much that they would risk that if they really intended to negotiate.”
     
    “Very well, Admiral. Send the warning.”
                                                                                       
    Corvosier stepped up to Stacker and said in a low