Blackhawk: Far Stars Legends I by Allan Jay

Author:Allan, Jay [Allan, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: System 7 Publishing
Published: 2016-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Marshal Carteria’s Palace

The Turennian Archipelago

Equatorial Celtiboria

Carteria’s eyes moved over the dispatch. Normally, he’d have allow his steward read it to him. It was all part of the show, the great Marshal, surrounded by attendants and servants, at the head of the largest army on Celtiboria. But now he was in his office, seated at his antique desk. There were legends that the ancient wooden desk was the same one used by the last king of Celtiboria nearly nine hundred years before. Carteria knew all about those rumors…because he had started them. He wanted more than to be the dominant Warlord, more than to make the other generals kneel down and subordinate themselves before him. He wanted to reinstate the monarchy, establish a dynasty that would rule the planet for a thousand years. That would require power…and a certain amount of showmanship as well.

The office was empty, quiet. For all the pomp of his court, for the attendants constantly buzzing around him and the silent, respectful rows of officers typically following him around, the truth was sometimes Carteria craved nothing so much as quiet. It didn’t fit with his public image, and most of the people outside his inner circle would be shocked. But he often sat alone in his office, working late into the night. His goals were enormous…and he was always ready to put in the work required to attain them.

He smiled as he read. Ganz Jellack’s report was better even than he’d expected. Jellack had started his service for Carteria the way so many of his other ministers and officers had, conquered in war and offered the chance to serve as a well-compensated subordinate…rather than enslaved, or lined up against a wall and shot. Jellack was a financial wizard, and he had served Carteria well. His skills had been worth millions of ducats, and Carteria had rewarded him. Jellack’s wife and children lived in an oceanfront palace, denied nothing. Nothing save their freedom. For in their luxury, amid the piles of silks and the gourmet means, they were guarantors of Jellack’s loyalty. As long as the financial minister remained true, his family would want for nothing. And if he ever betrayed Carteria…then soldiers would go to that palace, and his wife and children would pay the price for the crimes of their husband and father.

But betrayal was far from Carteria’s mind as he read the dispatch. Jellack had performed well, securing contracts with almost two dozen different companies, almost one hundred thousand veteran troops, fully armed and equipped and ready to march on a few weeks’ notice. It was perfect. Eleher and Ghana would defeat Lucerne…and then Jellack’s mercenaries would march on the Badlands. They would crush the other Warlords in the theater…and then they would ensure that Ghana was eliminated, and his survivors drafted into the new Carterian army on the Northern Continent.

Carteria hadn’t gotten where he was by missing opportunities. Ghana had been given his chance, and his stupidity and incompetence had sealed his fate…and that of the Northern Continent.

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