Falcone Strike Read Online Free PDF

crisis under control. I refuse to sacrifice an officer to a moron’s delusions of grandeur.”
    “Yes, Your Maj esty,” the grand admiral said.
    King Hadrian smiled, then winked at Kat. She couldn’t help smiling back. King Hadrian was only two years older than her; indeed, he was one of the youngest monarchs ever to take the throne, wielding very real power. God knew her mother had sometimes whispered that Kat would make an ideal princess, then a queen, even though it was unlikely in the extreme. The king had obligations, after all; he would have to marry a commoner to keep the bloodlines strong and prevent inbreeding. There had been no real chance for a relationship even if they’d spent plenty of time together.
    “Sonja,” the king said. “Why don’t you brief us on the current situation? ”
    Kat looked up as another wallflower stepped into the light. She was a tall woman, wearing a naval uniform without any rank insignia, suggesting she was almost certainly an intelligence officer. There was something about the way she moved that suggested she’d been seriously injured sometime in the past, as if her body had been completely regenerated and she had yet to recover all of her facilities. Or she might have actually been on active service, once upon a time, and had her body altered to meet certain specifications . . . Kat pushed the question aside, absently. There was no way she’d ever know.
    “Your Majesty, Honored Sirs,” Sonja said. Her voice was calm, perfectly controlled. “The war situation is bad, but not disastrous.”
    She tapped a switch and a holographic star chart appeared in front of them, hovering over the table. Kat felt her insides clench as she saw a handful of stars shaded red, including both Cadiz and Hebrides, homeworld of her former XO. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Commander William McElney had been reassigned shortly after Lightning had limped back to Tyre and she hadn’t heard anything from him since, not even a brief electronic postcard relayed through the StarCom network. It suggested he was doing something secret . . .
    . . . and, given what she knew of his family connections, she had a feeling she knew precisely what he was doing.
    “The current situation,” Sonja said. “There are five star systems currently under enemy occupation; six, I should add, if one counts Cadiz. In addition, two more star systems are under siege and enemy-raiding formations have struck deep into our territory. Our current analysis suggests that the enemy is intent on reducing the defenses of Castor and Pollock before proceeding any further, although it is possible they will eventually decide that neither world is worth the effort of conquering while the main body of our fleet remains intact.”
    Kat frowned. Neither Castor nor Pollock was an industrial behemoth, although she had to admit that Pollock had a sizable space-based industry to protect. The Theocracy might want to bring its religion to as many worlds as possible, but there was little point in wasting time and effort seizing two immaterial worlds while the Commonwealth was scrambling to tighten the defenses and launch a counterattack. She had a feeling the Theocracy was hastily preparing a second series of offenses to be launched as soon as it could.
    “There is some disagreement among the analysts about the true state of the enemy’s fleet train,” Sonja continued. “One school of thought believes that the enemy wouldn’t have launched a major offensive before assembling its supporting elements, while the other points to the data and claims that the enemy has been having major supply problems from Day One. What is clear is that the Theocracy has been moving supplies forward in heavily guarded convoys, as if it fears even minimal losses. My personal opinion is that the second school of thought is correct.”
    And we know they were caught on the hop , Kat added mentally. They probably wanted to wait to launch the offensive; we