Persepolis Rising (Expanse 7)

His uniform was trim and spotless. The design looked Martian, except for the blue-gray color scheme where Holden was used to red and black. Kohl floated before him, confusion in her eyes.

“This is an act of war,” she said, her voice trembling. Holden felt an urge to step in, refocus the man onto him just to make her safer. It was a stupid impulse. “The union. The Earth-Mars Coalition. The Association of Worlds. They won’t stand for this.”

“I know,” the young man said. “This is going to be all right. But I have to accept your surrender now, please.”

She braced to attention, and it was over.

It had taken less than four hours from the first transit. Marines in Laconian power armor patrolled the corridors and command points of the station. Naval personnel in sharply designed uniforms hurried about hooking equipment into various communication and environmental systems with a well-practiced efficiency. The people of Medina mostly watched in a sort of dazed shock.

It had all happened so quickly. It was impossible to process.

He and Naomi were swept up along with the hundreds of representatives from the colonized worlds, several dozen reps from the Transport Union, the senior staff of Medina Station. He didn’t have any actual authority. He wasn’t even technically the captain of a ship or a member of the Transport Union anymore, but no one argued. They all gathered in the coalition-council room, an amphitheater with two thousand seats and a stage with a podium on it that consciously aped the layout of the General Assembly of the UN back on Earth.

Admiral Trejo was a stocky older man, with the relaxed air of a person who’d spent so long holding a military posture that he looks comfortable in it. He took his place at the podium flanked by a pair of Marines. Captain Singh and Colonel Tanaka stood respectfully behind him and off to one side.

“Greetings,” the admiral said, smiling out at them. “I am High Admiral Anton Trejo of the Laconian Empire, and personal representative of High Consul Winston Duarte, our leader. And now your leader as well.”

He paused as though waiting for applause. After a moment, he continued.

“As you know, we have accepted control of Medina Station. And yes, we intend to take control of all the thirteen hundred worlds it leads to. This isn’t an act of aggression, but necessity. We bear no ill will or animosity toward any of you. As you’ve seen, this will be as bloodless a transition as you allow it to be. I’m bringing you here to implore you to please, please, contact your home worlds. We will make communications available for anyone who will tell them to peacefully relinquish control to us. If they do this, there will be no need for violence of any kind.”

“I admit I kind of like these guys,” Holden whispered to Naomi. “I mean as conquistadors go.”

“There’ll be a ‘but,’” she said. “There’s always a ‘but.’”

“Cooperation is the coin of the empire,” Trejo continued. “The beginnings were already in motion here. Your Association of Worlds. The Transport Union. All of these things will continue. High Consul Duarte wants input and representation from all the systems humanity has colonized and will colonize. The Transport Union is a vital apparatus in supporting those efforts. Both organizations can and must continue their important work.

“The only thing that has changed is that High Consul Duarte will be expediting the process. The Laconian fleet will be the defenders of a new galactic civilization of which you will all be welcome citizens. The only price is cooperation with the new order, and a tax to be paid to the empire that will not be onerous, and will be entirely invested back into the creation of new infrastructure and aid to fledgling or struggling planetary economies. The golden age of man will begin under the high consul’s leadership.”

Trejo paused again, his smile slipping. He looked pained and saddened by what he was about to say.

“Here it comes,” Naomi whispered.

“But to those who intend to defy this new government and try to deny humanity its bright future, I say this: You will be eradicated without hesitation or mercy. The military might of Laconia has only one function, and that is the defense and protection of the empire and its citizens. Loyal citizens of the empire will know only peace and prosperity, and the absolute certainty of their own safety under our watchful eye. Disloyalty has one outcome: death.”

“Ah,” Naomi said, though it was more a long exhalation than a word. “The nicest totalitarian government ever, I’m sure.”

“By the time we figure out all the ways it isn’t,” Holden said, “it will be too late to do anything about it.”

“Will be?” Naomi asked. “Or is?”

Chapter Thirteen: Drummer

McCahill, head of the security council, spread his hands before him like he was trying to talk a gunman into putting down his weapon. “We were all taken by surprise. And I think we can all agree this was a failure of intelligence.”

“Well, if we all agree, then I guess it’s not a problem,” Drummer said. McCahill flinched a little. “What the hell happened out there?”

The meeting room was small—McCahill, Santos-Baca, and the present liaison of the Earth-Mars Coalition, Benedito Lafflin. And Vaughn haunting the back of the room like a funeral director at a wake. There were others in her feed. Messages from every division of the union and dozens of organizations outside it too. A kicked anthill the size of the solar system, and all of them wanting answers and leadership from her. It would take days to view all of them, weeks to reply, and she didn’t have the time or the energy. She needed answers.

Answers and a way to turn time backward long enough to undo what had already happened.

Lafflin was a thick-faced man with a tight haircut that made him look like a particularly self-satisfied toad. He cleared his throat. “Data on Laconia has always been thin,” he said. He had a reedy voice and the manner of a doctor explaining why he’d left a sponge in someone’s belly by mistake. “The defecting forces from Mars have been playing their keep-away message since before the Transport Union was chartered. They’ve flooded the gate f

rom the realspace side with chatter along the whole electromagnetic spectrum—radio, visible light, X-ray, everything. We’ve had no passive intelligence to speak of. The few times that probes were sent through, they were disabled or destroyed.

“The official doctrine put in during the first years of the union was blockade. The navies of Earth and Mars were both badly damaged in the fight against the Free Navy, the focus of governance was disaster recovery on Earth and minimizing the collapse of infrastructure. Laconia never presented an active threat, and …”

“You’re telling me the missing navy was just never a priority?” Drummer said, but she already knew the answer: Yes, that’s what he was saying.