Date: 2013-10-11T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: The Saga Continues, as an Emperor is seated and the threat from the Ca'cadasan Empire grows. Sean is back, saved from the grasp of the Ancient Enemy. And the Ancient Enemy is going full bore into the heart of all the human kingdoms. The Ca'cadasan Empire has it out for the humans. Their Emperor had ordered the human species exterminated. But the humans got away, at least some of them, and established themselves ten thousand light years away in the Persius Arm. They were given a thousand years to establish themselves, but now the Ancient Enemy has found them, and they are still determined to wi
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Exodus: Empires at War:

Book 4:

The Long Fall
by

Doug Dandridge

Commodore Mei Lei paced the deck of her flag bridge, something she had seen the admirals in the holos do many times. Her force was ten light years forward of the fleet, and to the side, in a position to pick up the enemy before they came within sensor range of the main force. She had the four ships in her squadron, plus a half squadron of light cruisers and a squadron of destroyers. Enough force to find the enemy and get its information back to the fleet, without being destroyed. Or so it was hoped.

Of course her ship had something that the enemy knew nothing about, or again, so it was hoped. Every ship was equipped with the new subspace radio, which really didn’t help them in hyper, since it wasn’t much better than a transmission through normal space, and something they couldn’t pick up in hyperspace anyway. Jean de Arc, Count Serano and one of the light cruisers were also equipped with a wormhole com, which gave them real time communications with the Flag, routed through the Donut commo center.

The same two battle cruisers that carried the coms were also equipped with a new weapon. And Mei had orders not to use it unless there was no other choice to ensure her survival. The Fleet hoped to use it at a time when it would have the greatest effect against the enemy. Which didn’t mean they didn’t want to use it. It was a new toy, and the higher ranked children couldn’t wait to play.

“We’re picking up hyper emissions ahead, ma’am,” said the Task Force Sensor Officer. “Estimate it’s two of their supercruisers. They’re running their grabbers full out.”

“My assessment is that they are trying to change their trajectory and run away,” said the Force Tactical Officer. “They have to know that we out mass them by a factor of six, and that they don’t have a chance.”

“Order the light cruisers and destroyers to fall back and to the side,” ordered Mei, her eyes fixed on the holo. “Serano and Jean de Arc will forge ahead. Unless something else comes along I think it’s time to try out the new weapon.”

The Commodore linked into the Fleet net and got in touch with Admiral Lenkowski.

“As long as you think you can take them both, go ahead and do it,” said the Fleet Commander. “But only if you make sure they don’t get away. None of our other scouts are picking up anything, so you might just have picked up a hunting pair looking for merchies.”

“Then I guess this is going to be a really bad day for them, sir,” said Mei, smiling. “We’re boosting for them now.”

The Commodore watched the tactical plot, then switched her attention back to the holo. The Fleet Commander would be seeing the same thing she was. There were not enough ships equipped with the wormholes to suit the high command, but it still was a great help to command and control. And something they knew the enemy didn’t have.

“They’re not going to get away, Commodore,” said the Force Tactical Officer. The plot showed the enemy starting to curve away, but the distance was closing as the battle cruisers took a straight line approach. “They’re launching,” said the Tactical Officer, just after icons appeared on the plot, picked up through the hyperdrive emissions of the missiles.

Soon there were hundreds of missiles on the plot. Each Ca’cadasan supercruiser carried more missiles than two normal Terran hyper VII battle cruisers, their missiles being smaller but more capable than the human variety. Still, they had not fired enough missiles to saturate the defenses of the human ships, though hits were a definite possibility.

“Open fire,” ordered the Commodore, and the human ships started on the trial run of a new weapon system.

Each battle cruiser fired two missiles at a time, much less than was normal for the ships that generally carried sixteen tubes. The tubes they did carry were very special, not leading to magazines, but to wormholes. Each wormhole led to an acceleration tube that was two hundred kilometers long, and fed by a magazine containing thousands of weapons. On a signal from the launching battle cruiser the acceleration tubes started to load and fire missiles, one coming through the wormhole each second. In one minute there were two hundred and forty missiles on the way. In three minutes seven hundred and twenty. At a thousand the missiles stopped coming. They staggered their acceleration until they were all on a profile to hit the enemy within seconds of each other, an overwhelming swarm.

Now the acceleration tubes shifted to a different load, and moments later the first of the hyper capable long range interceptors were being launched. Normally ships only carried relatively few of the missiles, which were about half the size of an offensive weapon. In five minutes there were twelve hundred of the interceptors in space. The wormholes had solved one of the biggest problems with hyper VII warships, not being able to carry much in the way of missile armament.

Very few of the enemy weapons made it through the interceptors, which were also of a new design, releasing a swath of antimatter plasma that damaged the seeker heads of the Ca’cadasan missiles without necessarily destroying them. Only a score of enemy missiles made it through, and these were easily taken out by the laser missile defenses.

The Ca’cadasan ships had no such luck with the human weapons, taking only a third of them out before they acquired their targets. In the end it didn’t matter. Two hits, or two hundred, the plasma from the supercruisers quickly dropped out of hyper.

“Good job, Commodore,” said Lenkowski over the wormhole com. “Maybe a bit of overkill, but we can work on that.”

“I’ll take overkill any day, sir,” said Mei, smiling. “As long as we aren’t on the receiving end.”

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose visions of Mars as it should have been was an inspiration to a young dreamer.

Contact me at BrotherofCats@gmail.com

Follow my Blog at http://dougdandridge.com

Follow me at
@BrotherofCats

Copyright © 2013 Doug Dandridge

All rights reserved.

Please respect the hard work of this author. If you found this book for free on a pirate site, please visit Amazon and buy a copy of your own. I feel that I charge a reasonable price for this work.

For more information on the Exodus Universe, visit http://dougdandridge.net for maps, sketches and other details of this work.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank all of my fans, especially those who sent emails or commented on blogs about how much they enjoyed the first three books of this series. Your kind words gave me the impetus to continue through the not so kind words left in some reviews. And special thanks to Ruth de Jauregui, who helped with the covers on all of the Exodus series. Her changes improved all of the covers.

Books by Doug Dandridge

Doug Dandridge’s Author Page at Amazon

Science Fiction

The Exodus Series

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm.

The Deep Dark Well Series

The Deep Dark Well

To Well and Back

Deeper and Darker (coming Winter 2014)

Others

The Shadows of the Multiverse

Diamonds in the Sand

The Scorpion

Afterlife

We Are Death, Come for You

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions

Doppelganger: A Novel of Refuge

Others

The Hunger

Daemon

Aura

Sign up for my Newsletter at Mailchimp to receive news about upcoming projects, releases and promotions. Also be sure to check out my website, http://dougdandridge.net toward the end of each month for a free short story about Exodus, featuring the backgrounds of characters and the Empire.

Cast of Characters
The Capital

Emperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov: Born Year 971 (29 years old). Fifth child and the third son of the late Emperor Augustine Romanov.

Doctor Jennifer Conway: Physician and Consort of Emperor Sean.

Grand High Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski: Former Chief of Naval Operations.

Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom: Chief of Naval Operations.

Field Marshal Betty Parker: Commandant of the Imperial Marine Corps

Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri: Army Chief of Staff.

Jakobe McGregor: Director Imperial Investigation Bureau.

Countess Judy Decker. Sergeant of Arms of the Lords

Count Hector Romanov Sutter. Third Cousin to the Emperor

Captain Zhen Yin. Former naval commando and adjutant to Admiral Lenkowski.

Interim Prime Minister Theo Streeter: Duke of Coventry.

Prime Minister Countess Haruko Kawasaki.

Lord Garis: Minister of State.

Lord T’lisha: Phlistaran Minister of Security.

Lord Halbrook: Minister of the Exchequer.

Arhcduke Gregor Stoyanovich: Leader of Lords

Laura Goolsby: Speaker of Commons.

Mohamed Ishner: Chief of Scholars.

Ekaterina Sergiov: Chief of Imperial Intelligence Agency.

Samantha Ogden Lee. Sean’s cousin and Regent.

The Fleet

Commodore Duchess Mei Lei: Hyper VII battle cruiser squadron commander.

Commander Xavier Jackson: Missing in Action.

Captain the Duke Maurice von Rittersdorf: Squadron Commander hyper VII destroyer squadron.

Ensign Lasardo: Rittersdorf’s tactical officer.

Commander Bryce Suttler: Commander HIMS Seastag (Stealth Attack 421). One of new generation of wormhole sink stealth attacks. Born Year 955 (45 years old).

Lieutenant SG Walter Ngovic. Tactical
Vice Admiral Sheila Mtwambe: the head of the Silent Service, as they were called, at least for Sector IV.

Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda: Admiral in command of Hyper VII battle force.

Flag Captain, Marcus Streeter: Mgonda’s Flag Captain.

Vice Admiral Mara Montgomery. Commander, Hyper VII Scout Force, Battle Fleet.

Captain Josia Greenefield. Montgomery’s Flag Captain.

Lt. Commander Jane Wyman: commander of Q-ship Inixius.

Captain Walt Frazier: Marine Force Commander of Q-ship Inixius.

Admiral Thomas Thompson: The commander of the First Battleforce of the Home Fleet.

Admiral Chuntao Chan: Director of Fleet R & D.

Commodore Natasha Romanov: Commander of NTR Light Cruiser Orleans.

Captain Stella English: Commander light cruiser HIMS Lancanshire.

The Donut

Doctor Lucille Yu, PhD: Assistant Chief Scientist and Engineer of the Donut Project. Born Year 928 (72 years old).

Jimmy Chung: IIA Agent in Charge, Donut.

Imperial Army

Cornelius Walborski: Ex-Militia Private and holder of the Imperial Medal of Heroism, currently in training with the Imperial Army.

Brigadier General Samuel Baggett: Brigade Commander,

Sergeant Major Terry Zacharias: Senior NCO in Baggett’s Brigade.

Brigadier General Walther Jodel, The Preacher: Army Ranger Brigade Commander.

Major General Bertrum Maxwell: CO 384th Heavy Infantry Division.

Brigadier General Gloria Parker: 384th Heavy Infantry Division.

Brigadier General Tanda M’kata: 384th Heavy Infantry Division.

Brigadier General Timothy Slovonovich: 384th Heavy Infantry Division.

Colonel Patrik Johansson: Brigade Assistant Commander.

Lt. Colonel Dagni Thorwaldsdottir: Commander of Baggett’s Second Battalion.

Lt. Colonel Wanda McTavish: Commander of Baggett’s Second Battalion.

Captain Corilla Kone: Baggett’s Adjutant.

Major General Lanbardran: Phlistaran commander of the One Ninety-fifth Heavy Infantry Division.

Ca’cadasans
Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow: Ca’cadasan conquest fleet commander. Born 2843 AD (1,418 years old).

Elysium

Archduke Horatio Alexanderopolis: His Imperial Majesty’s Ambassador to the Court of the Elysium Empire. Born Year 821 (179 years old).

High Lord Grarakakak, Brakakak: High Lord of Elysium Empire.

Others
Ahmadhi-ghasta Mallakan: Grand High Bishop of Lasharan Jakarja Lashana (Church of the Gods Vengeful). Born Year 915 (85 years old).

Grand Admiral Lissana Mallakan: the Grand High Bishop’s cousin and Commander of the Lasharan Military.

Chief Petty Officer First Jana Gorbachev: Prisoner of the Ca’cadasans.

Klorasof: Survivor of the Ancients.

Timeline

2151 AD: Hiro Yamamoto discovers subspace portal generator. Opens subspace dimension to transport of human colonists.

2160 AD: Alpha Centauri B4 colony established.

2173 AD: Tau Ceti III colony established.

2208 AD: Humanity has spread to eight inhabitable systems within 20 light years of Sol.

2250 AD: 12 million humans living outside of the solar system.

2254 AD: First contact with Ca’cadasans on Epsilon Iridani V. Human colony destroyed without warning or trace. Incoming ship discovers colony destroyed and runs back to human space with news.

2256 AD: Human colony at Altair V attacked and destroyed.

2257 AD: United Solar System Fleet established to fight alien threat.

2260 AD: Battle of Tau Ceti, humans meet Ca’cadasans with a five to one advantage in mass and are handily defeated.

2261 AD: Construction started on the six Exodus ships to allow some of humanity to make it to safety outside of human space.

2264 AD: Ca’cadasans, having destroyed all of humanity’s colonies, attack the solar system in force. Five completed Exodus ships attempt to leave the system under heavy escort. Two are destroyed before they can make it into subspace. Two enter subspace with pursuit, while Exodus III makes a clean breakaway into subspace.

2264 - 3260 AD: The Long Voyage. With several fueling stops and explorations, Exodus III travels along the galactic rim and toward the core, traversing 9,760 light years from Sol.

3261 AD: Supersystem discovered, along with remains of ancient civilization that had once owned it. First human colony founded on Jewel. Year 1 of New Human Empire.

3268 AD (Year 8): Humans make contact with traveling merchant ship from Elysium Empire. Discover thriving civilizations that sprung from the ancient civilization that used to inhabit the Supersystem.

3361 AD (Year 100): Population 2,000,000+. Establishment of the Fleet.

3460 AD (Year 199): Beginning of Terraforming projects around super system.

3573 to 3579 AD (Year 312 to 318): First Gardasian War, human victory.

3589 to 3592 AD (Year 328 to 331): Second Gardasian War, human victory, Gardasian race absorbed into human empire.

3619 to 3621 AD (Year 358 to 361): First Markanan War, human victory.

3669 to 3676 AD (Year 408 to 415): Second Markanan War, human victory, Markanans absorbed into human empire.

3696 to 3698 AD (Year 435 to 437): Kiniman War, Kiniman race absorbed into the human empire.

3724 to 3733 AD (Year 463 to 472): First Crakastan War, human victory.

3744 to 3762 AD (Year 483 to 501): First Lasharan War, human victory.

3772 to 3784 AD (Year 511 to 523): Second Lasharan War, human victory.

3797 to 3801 AD (Year 536 to 540): First Margravi War, human victory.

3803 to 3808 AD (Year 542 to 547): War of Revolt, Imperial Victory, 150 million humans leave Empire to found Republic of Mankind.

3809 to 3814 AD (Year 548 to 553): Civil War, Constance the Great triumphs over Cassius the Terrible (II).

3815 AD (Year 554): New Constitution establishes Constitutional Monarchy. (Bill of Freedoms added in Year 607).

3841 to 3846 AD (Year 585 to 590). Machine Revolt. Human built autonomous robots rebel against humanity. Billions die before revolt stopped, Man in the Loop Law enacted.

3848 to 3853 AD (Year 587 to 592). Second Crakastan War, human victory.

3873 to 3876 AD (Year 612 to 615): Third Cracastan War, human victory.

3892 to 3897 AD (Year 631 to 635): Second Margravi War, human victory, ends with alliance of Margravi and Klashak with human empire.

3913 to 3936 AD (Year 652 to 673): First Galactic War (against Lashar, Crakasta and Fenri).

3984 AD (Year 723): Donut Project approved and construction planning begins.

3984 to 4000 AD (Year 723 to 739): Elysium War, marginal human victory.

4007 to 4008 AD (Year 746 to 747): War of Man, humanity (Imperium) against humanity (Republic). Political pressures bring an end to short, sharp war.

4009 to 4114 AD (Year 748 to 853): The Century of Peace. Empire involved in no extra empire or border hostilities.

4065 AD (Year 804): Dissidents from New Terra Republic found the Grand Duchy of New Moscow.

4114 to 4131 AD (Year 853 to 870): Second Galactic War, Elysium, Lashar and Fenri against Empire, New Terra and Margrave/Klashak, human victory.

4167 to 4180 AD (Year 906 to 921): Third Galactic War, humanity's victory.

4206 to 4216 AD (Year 945 to 955): Klang Consortium attacks New Moscow. Empire of Terra and Republic of New Terra come in on New Moscow’s side.

4256 AD (Year 985): Donut Generates first working wormhole gate.

4261 AD (Year 1000): Empire celebrates 1000 years of existence and growth. January 1, 1000 local Galactic calendar.

March 15th, 4261, Ca’cadasan invasion of Empire begins in earnest with the attack on Sestius and Massadara.

March 29-April 5th 4261 AD, Sean leads rescue mission to Sestius.

More detailed maps available on the website.

As the Empire is 3 dimensional, Sectors VII through IX are oriented above, and Sectors X through XII are oriented below the plane of the Galaxy.

Prologue

APRIL 20TH, 1000, HYPERSPACE BETWEEN MASSADARA AND CONUNDRUM SYSTEMS.

“Time to Conundrum System, seven standard days,” called out the Navigation Officer to the Great Admiral’s inquiry.

So, a little over eight of our standard days, thought Jana Gorbachev, sitting in her chair next to Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow. Ostensibly she was serving as his human advisor, though in reality slave was much closer to the truth. At least they let me have clothes on board this ship.

The deck of the flagship bridge thrummed with power beneath her feet, twenty-five million tons of warship, more advanced than what the New Terran Empire had in most ways. But not as much as you had on us before, thought Gorbachev, keeping her eyes to the front so they didn’t make contact with any of the three meter tall carnivores that were the Galaxy’s prime conquering species. We can beat you this time. But looking at the holo tank, which showed the massive fleet on the move, she wondered if that were true. It looked like the Ca’cadasans could bury the Empire under weight of numbers, even if they had been slightly inferior to human tech, which they most definitely were not.

Jana felt a slight tingle run through her body, the pleasure that her masters could give to her at any moment. This was followed immediately by a sharp jab of pain.

“I want you to remember that your behavior will determine your punishment or reward,” said the Great Admiral, his red eyes glaring down at her.

“I will not betray my people,” she said, regretting it as soon as the words left her mouth. Another jolt of pain ran through her, enough to make her gasp, as her eyes teared and snot ran out of her nose.

“You will do as I ask, or punishment will follow.”

A wave of pleasure swept through her, chasing away the pain, and Jana knew she would do anything to avoid the one feeling while chasing the other. In fact, the pleasure inducer was the more dangerous of the two, making her an addict willing to do anything for her next fix. No degradation would be too much to get that feeling.

“We are picking up some enemy ships,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Their small scout class.”

“The captains know to ignore them,” said the Admiral, showing his teeth in a grin.

Worse the luck, thought Jana, wiping her nose with her sleeve. If they took the time to take out those scouts, news of their coming might precede them. As it was they would outrun the news of their coming, and hit Conundrum from out of nowhere. Of course the system would be on war alert, but nothing it did would be enough to withstand this juggernaut coming its way.

“Tell me more about your carriers,” said the Admiral, looking at Jana with the index finger of his lower right hand on the inducer button.

Jana cringed, not knowing what to expect, and started to tell the Admiral what he wanted to hear about the small attack craft carriers used by her Empire, and not by the Ca’cadasans. I’ll answer his questions, she thought as she spoke. But no more. That being the best she could do, she accepted her part. When the pleasure came through she realized she had done enough, and felt again the shame of collaborating with the enemy.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL SYSTEM.

“Our boy ready?” asked Prime Minister Theo Streeter, Duke of Coventry.

“As ready as he’s likely to get,” agreed the Lords’ Sergeant of Arms, Countess Judy Decker. “We’re trying to keep him sober for the coronation, but that has been difficult.”

“We’ll just cram some sober up pills down his throat if he’s too drunk to perform the ceremony,” said Streeter, grimacing in disgust. Why didn’t we pick another cousin to sit the throne. He knew the reason. They needed someone who looked good to the public, but was compliant enough to do what Streeter wanted him to do. Count Hector Romanov Sutter, third cousin to the deceased Emperor Augustine I, was really the best man for the job. Hector had voiced his wish to actually rule, but his addictions to drugs and alcohol gave the Lords a means to manipulate him. And they could keep him drugged and hidden when they didn’t need him to play puppet. “Just make sure that McGregor keeps the newsies away from our boy until we’re ready for them.”

Decker nodded, her own expression troubled. Jakobe McGregor, Director of the Imperial Investigation Bureau, was in their pocket. But both knew the man had an agenda of his own. In a way that was good, as the top cop would work harder when he saw something in it for himself. It also made him more of a threat, one that Streeter was trying to find an elegant way of ridding himself of.

And then there’s Ekaterina Sergiov and her agency, he thought. She was friends with the fugitive ex-Chief of Naval Operations, Gabriel Len Lenkowski, as well as the head of the Imperial Intelligence Agency (IIA). Unfortunately, there was no way to remove her from her position without an Imperial Decree. When our boy is on the throne that bitch is out of there. And we’ll probably need to eliminate her as well.

Unfortunately, the man they counted on to get rid of the bodies was now on the run himself, yet another threat to Streeter. McGregor had his own people looking for the Tall Man, who Streeter suspected was not really a man at all. So many complications. It will be nice to have a man who can crush investigations at will at the top.

His only real worry was that somehow the lost son of the last Emperor might show up before the coronation. He would still be a problem if he showed up afterwards, but some judicious use of Imperial Prerogative should be able to handle that problem as well. But he has to be dead. We can’t have everything else work out and one piece of the puzzle go wrong.

“Everything will be fine, Theo,” said Decker, patting the Prime Minister on the shoulder. “One more day, and everything we worked for will be reality, and the people who were meant to rule will have the rule.”

“Yes,” said Streeter, wondering again how much he could trust this woman who knew too much about what was going on. “The people who should have the power will hold it.” Whether you are one of them remains to be seen.

Chapter One

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month. Theodore Roosevelt.

THE DONUT, CENTRAL DOCKS AND PLANET JEWEL, APRIL 27TH, 1000.

“Welcome to the Donut, your Majesty,” said the tall, blond haired woman, holding out her hand.

Sean grabbed the offered member and brought it to his lips, while thinking about what he had just experienced. I could get used to that, he thought, remembering how it felt to walk into a wormhole, walking out an instant later, even though his mind told him he had been in there for at least an hour. His implant chronometer, which kept accurate time in all gravity fields and accelerations, told him it took less than one thousandth of a second to step across almost a thousand light years.

“Thank you Dr. Yu,” he replied, calling up her profile on his plant. “A most impressive, room.”

Yu laughed, and Sean realized how foolish he must have sounded. But the room was impressive, stretching over five hundred meters in length and fifty in width. His practiced eye, backed up by his more than normally sophisticated linking module, told him there were a hundred alcoves on the far wall, each four meters wide. So he could assume there were the same number on the wall behind him. All but a few of the alcoves were empty, though three across the way shimmered with the mirrored surfaces of an active wormhole.

“I’m sure you will find the station even more impressive,” said Yu, excitement in her voice. “When completed we will have thousands of rooms like this, filled with wormholes.”

Sean took a few moments to look over the chamber that still had an unfinished look. There were scores of doors leading from it, each guarded by a pair of armored Marines. Almost a company of Marines stood within the room, forty of them from the Prince’s own security detail that had preceded him through the gate.

“We need you to move, your Majesty,” said Grand High Admiral Lenkowski, who had proceeded him from the gate. The Prince’s cousin, Samantha Ogden Lee, his new chief of staff, frowned as she made a shooing gesture at him.

“Of course,” said Sean, realizing that he was backing up the whole process. He moved away from the gate and looked back at it.

“Come on through,” said Lenkowski into the com that went from the hole into the Conundrum System.

More armored Marines came through first, moving into a semi-circle surrounding their monarch. Next came some of the civilians, Cornelius Walborski, his child strapped to his chest, retired Colonel Walther Jodel, The Preacher of special ops legend. Then someone whom Sean already thought of as very special, Dr. Jennifer Conway, the beautiful red headed physician he had added to his personal staff, with the agreement that he not pursue her romantically. Seeing her now he regretted that decision.

Next through was Colonel Samuel Baggett and his senior NCO, Sergeant Major Terry Zacharias, along with some junior officers. Baggett was destined to get a star in the very near future, by Imperial Decree, having conducted a masterful guerilla campaign on Sestius IV. Rear Admiral Mara Montgomery, who had led the mission that rescued Sean from the jaws of the Ca’cadasans, came through with her flag captain, Josia Greenefield. Commodore Mei Lei and Captain Maurice von Rittersdorf, both newly elevated Duchess and Duke due to their part in Sean’s rescue, came through next, the Duchess holding a travel cage with her big Himalayan cat inside.

“Gang’s all here,” said Samantha, a nervous smile on her face. “Now I think it’s time we got moving, before we miss the party.”

Sean nodded and turned to smile at the chief scientist in charge of the Donut project. “I wish I had time for the whole tour, Doctor. When I come back through, I’ll want to see the whole thing. Or at least as much as I can see in one day.”

“So, you haven’t dropped the idea of leading from the front?” asked Lenkowski, his smile turning over into a frown.

“I don’t see why,” said Sean. “With wormhole coms I’ll be able to keep in touch with Sam, and make sure she isn’t running the civilian government into the ground.”

“Thanks,” said Samantha, her own expression showing that she was not thrilled with the idea of being the regent while Sean gallivanted at the front.

“And I still think it is a bad idea, your Majesty,” said the former Chief of Naval Operations. “If your flagship is destroyed we are right back where we started, with no one on the throne.”

“Then crown Samantha,” said Sean with a smile.

Lenkowski was quiet on the trip by shuttle car. It wasn’t far to the control center of the huge station, only a five minute ride. And only a short walk to the room containing the gate back to the central docks.

“What do you want us to do with the wormholes we haven’t installed yet?” asked Yu as they stood outside the chamber, waiting for the Marines to clear the way. The particle beam that had been holding the hole shut was turned off and a squad of Marines put through immediately after. One came back through, and more followed, until a platoon was across.

“The way is clear, your Majesty,” said Lenkowski, nodding to Sean.

“What wormholes are you talking about, Doctor?” asked Sean, putting up a hand to quiet his senior naval officer.

“The Admiral wanted us to hold onto the wormholes we were going to install in the supersystem. So your opponents in the Lords couldn’t use them.”

“Good thinking, Admiral,” said Sean, looking at the man who was his father’s choice to lead the Fleet. He turned back to Yu, a wide smile on his face. “I don’t think my esteemed opponents will have much use for the wormhole net, but we could sure use them. Go ahead and put them in. And Doctor. We may have some decisions to make regarding the use of your resources here. Hard decisions. I’m thinking we may need some ship gates in the near future, so keep that in mind.”

With that Sean headed into the gate chamber and strode toward the wormhole. His last glance at Yu’s face let him know he had won over another staunch supporter.

*

Central Docks were really more a collection of stations and docks set in the null grav point between the twin worlds of Jewel and New Terra. When most spoke of Central Docks they meant the enormous space station that occupied the center of the group. Enormous until one compared it to the Donut. Still, the multi-billion ton station was impressive, with its thousands of cubic kilometers of quarters, offices, warehouses and hangars. In one small room of the station, about a kilometer in from the nearest hangar, was a thirty by thirty meter chamber with a shimmering mirror set in a rectangular frame. The mirror was roiling with ripples from all the traffic that had recently passed through it.

Sean stepped through that surface and into the room, which was crowded with Marines and naval personnel. There were several men and women in one corner on their knees, their police battle armor marking them as members of the IIB. An equal number of Marines held weapons on the people.

Lenkowski stepped through the wormhole and one of the agents tried to get to his feet. A Marine pushed him down, but the man continued to glare at the Grand High Admiral. “This is treason,” shouted the man, pointing a finger at Lenkowski. “You’ll be executed for trying to start a coup.”

“It can only be a coup if he is trying to overthrow the legitimate government,” said Sean, walking over to the man while the rest of his party came through the wormhole.

“And who the hell are you?” asked the Agent, turning angry eyes on Sean.

“Keep a respectful tongue in your head, if you know what’s good for you,” said a Marine, pushing the barrel of his particle beam rifle into the man’s chest.

“No need for that, Sergeant,” said Sean, looking at the angry Agent and seeing some recognition in his eyes.

“You’re him,” said the Agent, his eyes widening. “We were told you were dead.”

“The rumors of my demise were premature,” Sean said with a smile. “And as I am the legitimate government, and Lenkowski was acting under my orders, there is no treason.”

“Then we were lied to. Those fuckers.”

“Not your fault,” said Sean. “Just do as you're told for now, and all will be put to rights.”

Sean saw the Grand High Admiral motioning for him to come, and he gave the Agent a last smile while he walked from the room. The hallway outside was lined with naval personnel wheeling carts of equipment that they started to roll into the gate room as soon as Sean’s party was out.

“We’re sending our people through to the Donut,” said yet another Admiral, coming up and saluting Lenkowski, then taking a knee in front of Sean. “With your permission, your Majesty. We are going to fully militarize the station.”

Makes sense, thought the Prince. That’s the best protected place in the empire from ships coming out of hyperspace, due to the huge hyper limit of the black hole. And it will be the transport hub of the empire. “Good idea, Admiral? And please get up.”

“Admiral Nathan Yamato, your Majesty,” said the small officer, standing up and smiling. “Central Dock Station commander.”

“I think the corporations that wanted to move in can wait until we have everything else under control,” said Sean. “No matter how many years that takes.”

“I thought maybe they would sack you, Nate, after I came through here,” said Lenkowski.

“There’s been some saber rattling in that direction,” said the four star flag officer. “I reminded them that I could not be relieved by Parliament, only through my chain of command.”

“Who did they put in my position?” asked Len.

“Your position is vacant for now,” said the other Admiral. “They were reminded that the CNO could only be appointed by a seated Emperor. But I think they are going to make that happen later today. There’s a coronation scheduled in the capital city.”

“Shit,” said Lenkowski, looking at Sean. “We need to get you to the capital, now.”

“Perhaps we can broadcast that you are back, your Majesty,” said Yamato. “Let the people know that the real heir is in the system and ready to assume his station.”

“I’m not sure that will be enough, sir,” said Commander Zhen Yin, Lenkowski’s adjutant and partner in crime. “They will just say we constructed a simulation to buy time for the coup we are planning. The only way people will believe us is if we produce the heir in person, in front of a bunch of people.”

“Do you have a meeting room nearby we can use, Admiral?” asked Sean of the station commander. “I think we need to iron out some details before we move.”

“I think the best move would be to spirit you into the capital in secrecy,” said Yin. “That way we can spring you as a surprise.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” said Lenkowski.

“It does sound like a good plan,” said Sean, nodding his head. “But that is not the way we are going to do it.”

*

Sean had never been aboard a superbattleship before. The flag bridge was the most spacious command and control center he had ever seen. The Valkyrie was the most advanced ship of her kind in the Fleet, the flag of the First Battle Force of the Home Fleet. Captain Connie Mathers had greeted him with a full honor guard in one of the hangars, while the extra Marines had been coming aboard the other five. Included had been all of his party. I owe it to them, he thought of all the people who had helped him to get back home, as well as some of those he had rescued. They deserve to be there for the coronation.

“We’re ready, your Majesty,” said Grand High Admiral Lenkowski.

“Then let’s get this over with,” said Sean, gazing at the holo that showed the assembled force.

Moments later the icons in the holo began to move, on a slow heading toward the planet Jewel, the capital of the Empire. Valkyrie at twenty million tons was the largest ship in that force, the only one of her class available at the moment. Surrounding her were a dozen regular battleships, fifteen million tons of destructive power each. Twelve eight million ton battle cruisers were next out, then dozens of light and heavy cruisers and fifty-three destroyers. Each ship was carrying extra marines and assault shuttles from the Central Docks.

“Twenty-six minutes to orbit,” called out the Flag Navigation Officer.

Sean looked over at a side holo, which showed the inside of the Cathedral of St. Mark’s, the Reformed Catholic Church where every coronation for the last five hundred years had been held. Over a million people could be fit into the church when all the partitions were moved. For the ceremony they would include all of the members of all three houses of Parliament, Lords, Commons and Scholars. All the Justices of the Imperial Court would attend, and tens of thousands of nobles, as well as many of the rich and famous. And of course the randomly selected commoners who would talk about this moment all of their lives. And we’ll give them some memories they weren’t expecting, thought Sean with a worried smile, hoping the day didn’t turn into a blood bath.

Another four million would be out in the square fronting the cathedral, watching the proceedings on large trivees, waiting to greet the new Emperor when he left the church. And then the twenty some billion people on the planet, the six billion on New Terra, and the three hundred million on the terraformed moon Ariel would be watching in real time, or near enough. While the ceremony was transmitted by laser to all the other planets of the supersystem, and by hyper relay to most of the rest of the population, who would receive their view of the ceremony in from one to eight days. Those not on the hyper relay link would have to wait even longer to receive the vid by visiting freighter or warship. Not that they really care all that much on those frontier worlds, thought Sean, remembering Sestius. They just want to live their lives, and depend on the Empire to keep monsters from coming out of the sky. A task we have failed this time around.

A large trivee came to life on the front wall of the bridge, and an Asian man and a Caucasian woman looked out, wearing the uniforms of their respective services, Army and Marines. “All is ready, Len,” said the Asian with the seven stars of Army Chief of Staff on his collar. “Your Majesty,” said the man, looking past Len to Sean. “It is so good to see you returned to us, safe and sound.”

“My sentiments exactly, your Majesty,” said the woman.

“Thank you Grand Marshal, Field Marshal,” he replied, linking with the ship’s computer to identify Field Marshal Betty Parker, Commandant of the Imperial Marine Corps and Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, the Army Chief of Staff.

“We’ve encountered some resistance at the Parliamentary Defense Stations,” said Yamakuri with a frown. “The idiots don’t know when they’re outgunned. We’ve identified them on your tactical systems.”

Which means those men and women are about to be bombarded from space. Sean did not like the idea of killing his own subjects on coronation day, but sometimes violence was necessary.

“We’re receiving a signal from the Planetary Customs Control,” called out one of the com techs. “They are ordering us to stop our course and state our intentions.”

“Please,” said Lenkowski with a short barking laugh. “Tell them we are under orders from Commander Home Fleet to safeguard the planet during the coronation.”

“And how long do you think they will believe that?” asked Sean, raising an eyebrow.

“Hopefully long enough,” said Lenkowski. “Remember, your Majesty. This was not my idea.”

And yet you’re willing to take the blame for it, thought Sean. So I won’t be stained with what might happen.

“How does the suit feel?” asked Lenkowski, his critical eye looking over the specially made medium armor the Prince was wearing.

“It feels like a second skin,” said Sean, flexing his arms. The suit actually had all the capabilities of a Marine heavy armor panoply. And it only cost a dozen times more than heavy armor, thought the Prince. Unfortunately for the combat troops the numbers didn’t lie. A dozen times the cost didn’t make it a dozen times as effective, so the soldiers and Marines were not about to get suits like this.

“A customs patrol ship has fired on the Jean Grey,” called out one of the techs. “No damage to the destroyer.”

“Warn those assholes off,” yelled Len, standing up in his chair. “Tell the Grey she has permission to fire a warning shot.” The Admiral turned toward the Prince with a frown on his face. “What in the hell are these fools thinking? That destroyer outmasses that cutter by a factor of twenty.”

“Imperial Security Squadron is querying us,” called out another com tech, a worried expression on her face.

“Now that could be a problem,” said Len, raising an eyebrow. “We might need your code for this, your Majesty.” He looked back at the com tech. “Put the squadron commander on the viewer. Secure channel.”

A distinguished looking woman appeared on the viewer, the flag bridge of a battleship behind her. “Lenkoswki,” said the woman, who Sean’s link identified as Vice Admiral Sonya Martinez. “I thought there was a Parliamentary warrant out for your arrest. What is this, some kind of coup?”

“If it was you wouldn’t have enough to stop us, Sonya,” said Len, smiling.

Sean looked at the holo and saw that there were three battleships and ten escorts in the squadron, not enough to do more than slow down his force. But he didn’t want to see Fleet fight Fleet this day.

“You always were a pushy shit, Len,” said the other Admiral. “But I really can’t believe you would try and overthrow the legitimate government.”

“I have the legitimate government aboard this ship,” said Len, gesturing back at Sean. “I’m just here to install it.”

“By the Lord above,” gasped the commander of the Imperial Security Squadron, tasked with guarding the person of the Emperor when he traveled off planet. “Is that really him?”

“It is,” said Len, nodding. “High Prince Sean Ogden Lee Romanov, in the flesh.”

“How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?” asked the Vice Admiral.

“I’m sending you my code now, Admiral,” said Sean, closing his eyes and concentrating on a link to the ship’s com center. His personal ID code was a series of binary representations of his genetic structure, linked with his military identification. It was sent through a highly encrypted channel that only ships like Admiral Sonya Martinez’ flag and vessels that Sean was serving aboard could decode.

The woman’s eyes grew even wider as she looked at her screen. “Lord above, it is you.”

“So, what do you intend to do?” asked Lenkowski, his eyes narrowing as he glanced over at the Flag Tactical Officer.

“What can I do,” said the woman, bowing her head. “You have the legitimate heir aboard your ship, no matter what that bastard Streeter says.” The Admiral shifted her gaze to Sean and bowed her head yet again. “Your Majesty. You have my pledge of fealty. What are your orders?”

“Why, to follow the lawful directives of Admiral Lenkowski,” said Sean. He looked over at Lenkowski. “Admiral.”

“For the present you can move your ships out of my way,” said Lenkowski, glancing at the holo that showed the ships of Martinez’ force between his and the planet.

“Do you wish for my command to join yours?”

“Not at the moment, Admiral,” said Sean before Lenkowski could speak. “I want you and your command distanced from this if things don’t work out as we would like.”

“They’ll still question why I let you through,” said Martinez, shaking her head. “But, as you command.” The screen went blank, and the holo showed the Imperial Security Squadron starting to move out of position.

“We might have been able to use her vessels,” said Lenkwoski, looking back at the Prince.

“I would rather not involve anyone else in this,” said Sean, shaking his head. “There are going to be bad feelings, no matter what happens.” In fact, I won’t be able to retain you as CNO. And for that I am truly sorry.

Lenkowski turned back around and sat in his chair with his back stiff. And I’m sorry I stepped on your toes just then Admiral. I promise I have a reward for you that I know you will love.

*

“Sir, we have a problem.”

Prime Minister Theo Streeter looked over at the young man who was his military liaison officer, a Colonel who was in charge of the local Parliamentary Security Brigade. His own troops lined the walls of the great chamber, over a thousand armed men in medium battle armor. The rest were outside, on the square facing the cathedral. Along with several thousand soldiers and marines in ceremonial uniforms.

The cathedral itself was packed with people, so many that the environmental systems were straining to keep fresh cool air flowing. He glanced up at the dais at the front of the chamber, where the young fool they had chosen to figurehead the Empire was seated, along with the Pope of the Reformed Catholic Church and the hierarchy of most of the other denominations and faiths within the capital system.

“So, what’s the problem?” he asked the Colonel, a feeling of impending disaster coming over him.

“This,” said the Colonel, pulling out a small holo globe. The globe activated and displayed a superbattleship and attendant battleships. “They’re minutes from orbit.”

“What is the Imperial Security Squadron doing?”

“As far as we can tell, nothing. They have moved out of position, and are not answering our com calls.”

“Order the shore defenses to take out those ships,” hissed Streeter, looking at his chronometer and seeing that the actual crowning was still a half an hour away. I think we have to speed up this thing.

“Those are Fleet ships, my Lord,” said the Colonel. “Frankly, the naval batteries will refuse to fire on them.”

“And the Army?”

“Grand Marshal Yamakuri has ordered them to stand down,” said the Colonel in a hushed voice.

“What about the Imperial Protection Corps?” asked Streeter, naming the Army and Marine personnel who were assigned security duties for the Imperial Family.

“I just don’t know, my Lord,” said the Colonel. “They are sworn to protect the Emperor. But right now we don’t have an Emperor.”

“Then we will just have to make one, fast,” said Streeter, getting up from his seat and walking up the aisle to the dais.

“Is something wrong, Duke Streeter?” asked Count Hector Romanov Sutter, the Imperial cousin who had been chosen to wear the crown.

Street ignored the young man and stood over the Pope. “Your eminence. We need to hurry up the ceremony.”

“This is most irregular,” said the elderly man in the ornate robes of the supreme priest of the church. “It is not scheduled to start for another twenty minutes. Not everyone is seated.”

“There is a problem,” said Streeter, standing over the man and trying to intimidate him. “We need to get young Sutter crowned. So just skip all the pomp and ceremony, and place the crown on his head.”

“That cannot be done,” said the Patriarch, frowning. “The prayers must be said, the oaths taken. Without them the actual placing of the crown is without meaning.”

“Then start the damned prayers, now,” said Streeter, glaring at the man.

“But the start time has not arrived.”

Streeter leaned down till his mouth was close to the man’s ear. “Yes, it has,” whispered the Duke. “Now start the prayers, or I will see to it that you do not leave this church alive. Do you understand that?”

The old man nodded his wide eyed head and stood, looking around the church. He tapped his staff on the ground and motioned to the other clergy. “We are gathered here today to install a new Emperor to lead our Empire through the coming years. May the Lord God look with favor on young Count Hector Romanov Sutter, the legitimate heir to the Empire.”

Streeter nodded in satisfaction and took the Patriarch’s abandoned seat. He checked his chronometer, then the vid of the oncoming ships, and thought they just might make it.

*

“This is the High Prince Sean Ogden Lee Romanov, last living son of Augustine I and Anastasia, and legitimate heir to the throne of the New Terran Empire.”

“It’s no use, your Majesty,” said Lenkowski, looking at a side screen that showed the signal rebounding from the static that was being generated over the capital city. “They’ve even blocked the broadcast channels that were carrying the ceremony.”

And billions will still watch that traitor being installed over the net, through the fiber optics, from which we are blocked entirely. Of course, the military will still stand with me, or at least most of it. But the Empire really can’t afford even a small civil war at this time. “Time for plan B, Admiral. Let’s go in.”

“Yes, Majesty,” said the Admiral with a nod. He looked over at another screen and started issuing orders.

Outside a trio of battleships did what they were capable of but rarely attempted. They moved slowly under their grabbers into the atmosphere of the planet, directly above the capital city of Capitulum. People in the streets and parks, who had been watching the coronation ceremony on trivee and holo screens, looked up to see the tiny dots that were two and a half kilometer long warships slowly getting bigger. Around them were a score of smaller ships, then two more trios of battleships. They stopped falling ten kilometers over the city, hovering on their grabber units, while behind them fell the twenty million ton bulk of Valkyrie.

Sean watched the huge city from an assault shuttle in Valkyrie’s Hangar B. It had been years since he had been home, in this, the largest city of the Empire. Three hundred and seventy-five thousand square kilometers of urban development, home to over three billion citizens. A large river ran through the center of that urban landscape, emptying into the huge bay the city was built around.

Peal Island, thought Sean, looking down on the large land mass forty kilometers out in the bay. He had spent four years there, trying to get through the Imperial Fleet Academy on his own merit. And how much of that was a lie? He had tried to keep his heritage in the far background of all of his dealings with the Fleet. Gorbachev had told him that his wish had been impossible. As the son of the seated Emperor he could not help getting deferential treatment.

The ships in the force started to belch assault shuttles, and atmospheric attack craft rose up from Peal Island and the Imperial Army field to the north of the city. The shuttles fell toward the cathedral, while the atmospheric craft joined with them to fly cover.

“We’re ready to launch you, your Majesty,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Lenkowski over the com. “May God be with you. And try not to do anything that gets you killed.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Sean with a laugh. “I have no intention of getting killed.”

As he said that the shuttle lifted from the hangar floor and started to move out. Around the Prince sat ten of his security detail in heavy battle armor, as well as Colonel Baggett, Commodore Lei and Vice Admiral Montgomery in their medium armor. They would be his witnesses. He had wanted to bring Dr. Conway and the Walborski lad along with him as witnesses, but had been talked out of it by Lenkowski. He still wished Jennifer were beside him, but realized that he was endangering her life if he brought her along.

The holo to his front centered on one of the assault shuttles, and the twenty battle suited Marines dropping from it. The view shifted back until it showed hundreds of Imperial Marines floating toward the ground, and more ejecting from shuttles by the second. The men floated to a stop twenty meters above the crowd, their weapons ready. More men landed in the front of the square by the doors to the cathedral and started clearing the crowd away, firmly but gently. At one point someone tried to force the issue, a human in the armor of the local police. Thankfully good sense prevailed, and the cop realized that the hard faced Marines were not going to back down.

One of the shuttles shuddered as alloy splashed from its hull. Sean’s eyes could follow the particle beam back to its origin, a hidden defensive position, part of the capital city defense grid. Instantly ground attack craft were on it, rippling off missiles and firing beam weapons into the position, which went up in a ball of fire. The crowd in the plaza began to cry out, some screaming, and many fought the press to get away.

“We’re trying to keep the collateral damage to a minimum,” came the voice of the Marine commander over the com. More Marines dropped, these away from the plaza and onto the defensive positions, which, though hidden, were still known to the military. Soldiers began to appear on the streets as well, humans and some aliens in medium armor, while aircraft hovered overhead.

“We need to get going,” said Sean over his com, looking at his own timer count down.

“Ready when you are, your Majesty,” said the leader of the close security detail.

“Then let’s do it.”

Sean’s seat rotated around and the hull opened, just as it was doing for all the other armored figures. The magnetic field in the seat pushed him through the opening and he was falling toward the cleared area in front of the cathedral. He looked at the building as he fell, from the kilometer high spires to the kilometer wide central dome that stood over the main space of the building. Several kilometers away were the massive structures of megascrapers, clawing their way five kilometers or more into the sky.

A shot flashed by, then another, and Sean turned his suit quickly to see Marines assaulting the windowed wall of a nearby tall building. Beam weapons lashed out, then explosives, shattering the almost shatter proof windows. Some of his security detail moved around him, and he was immediately surrounded by massive suits worn by men and women sworn to give their lives for him.

The ground came toward him and the Prince landed lightly on his feet. As soon as he touched down he activated his holo projector and formed an image of himself overhead.

“I am the High Prince Sean Ogden Lee Romanov, son of Augustine I and Anastasia, and rightful heir to the throne. I am here to claim my throne from whatever pretender the Lords have sought to place on it.”

There was murmuring and shouting in the crowd now, some in surprise, some in rage that a possible trick was being pulled on them. More Marines landed around the Prince, until there were over a hundred of the heavily armed warriors nearby, and well over two thousand still in the air. Sean looked around and saw that Colonel Baggett and the two Admirals both had their hand weapons out. He thought for a moment to draw his as well, then decided against it. If the Marines couldn’t handle what was inside, his own particle beam wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

One of the Marines tried to open the door, but the lock resisted his efforts. At an order from Baggett they moved back, and a dozen heavy troopers fired their beam weapons into faux wood barriers. With heavy explosions four of the doors blew inward, and the sounds of shocked screams came from within.

One hundred Marines led the way into the cathedral, spreading out so they could cover the entire interior. When the word was given Sean walked in with another fifty Marines, and more were landing in the now vacated open area behind him.

“What is the meaning of this?” yelled a voice from the dais at the front of the church. An elderly man stood there holding a crown, the crown of state.

The man sitting on the throne that had been moved to the dais for this ceremony looked familiar. Sean pulled him up on his link and read the information about his third cousin, who according to the record looked like a less than stellar candidate for the position of Emperor.

“I am the High Prince Sean Ogden Lee Romanov,” said the Heir, walking forward while he retracted his helmet. “I am the legitimate heir to the throne, here to claim my birthright.”

A large black man stood up from a seat near the throne and glared at Sean. “That’s an imposter. The Prince was killed out on the frontier. This is an attempt by the military to put their own man on the throne.”

“I am the Prince, Duke Streeter,” called out Sean, striding forward, keeping his awareness on the many Parliamentary Guards on the walls. So far all looked confused, unwilling to act. That may have had something to do with the Marines, who, though outnumbered, at least equaled the Parliamentary Guard in firepower. And every second more Marines were pouring into the room. “Your behavior today borders on treason, but I am willing to be lenient if you stop this farce.” Until I find out that you had anything to do with the death of my parents, thought Sean, looking at the angry face of a man who was on the verge of achieving his aims and realizing it was all coming unraveled.

“Arrest that man,” yelled Streeter, pointing at Sean. He looked over at the Pope. “Finish the ceremony.”

“Do not,” yelled Sean, his suit amplifying his voice. “That man has no right to the throne. Pursue this and there will be war between your faction of Parliament and my military.”

“They are not your military, boy,” yelled Streeter, his facing growing ever more angry. He looked back at the Parliamentary Guard. “I said to arrest that man.”

“If anyone makes a move toward the Prince he will be gunned down where he stands,” yelled Baggett, waving his own pistol in the air. “This is the Prince. And he will be crowned this day.”

“No,” yelled Count Sutter, standing up from the throne. “I am the Emperor.” He turned and grabbed the crown from the hands of the Pope, then lowered it to his head. “There. I have been crowned.”

“You have not been crowned by the hands of the head of the Church,” said Sean, walking up the steps of the dais. He stopped in front of the cousin and stared at the man, clenching his fists. “That is my crown. Take it off, now.”

“I am the Emperor,” said Sutter, his face going red. “I command that this man be put under arrest. Do you hear me?”

“Take off the crown, before I take it from you.”

“You don’t dare. I am the Emperor, and I will see you in prison.”

“I find you guilty of treason, Count Hector Romanov Sutter. And I sentence you to death.”

The monomolecular blade sprung from its sheath on his arm and he brought his arm back to commence the execution.

“Stop,” yelled the Pope, moving in front of the Prince and the usurper. “I will not have blood shed in this church.”

Sean turned as a hand landed on his shoulder. He turned to see Colonel Samuel Baggett standing by his side, and a score of Marines around them. “Leave well enough alone, your Majesty,” said the Colonel, shaking his head. “Don’t start out your rule with blood on your hands.”

Sean looked back at his cousin, seeing the fear in the man’s eyes. Hector put his hands on the crown and took it off his head. He offered it to Sean with shaking hands. Sean took the crown with a smile on his face. He turned and offered it to the Pope, while two Marine guards led Hector away. Sean looked around the hall, seeing the Parliamentary Guard laying down their weapons as battle ready Marines moved in with guns pointed at what were essentially security cops.

He turned back to the Pope, who was holding the crown and praying. Sean knelt down and closed his eyes, saying a prayer that he be given the wisdom to rule his people in this time of trial. If I don’t make good decisions, we could end.

“I hereby name you Sean the First, Emperor of the New Terran Empire, Sovereign of Human Space.” The Pope put the crown gently on Sean’s head, then stepped back and motioned for Sean to stand.

The crowd was still confused, but it didn’t take long for the cheers and claps to start, spreading through the million witnesses to the ascension of a new monarch. Sean turned to face the crowd, raising his hands in the air, knowing that he had a speech to make, and not having one prepared. Just have to wing something, he thought, then linked his suit into the speaker system of the Church.

“We have suffered much in the last month. An invasion of human space by the old enemy, still out for our blood. The murder of a ruling monarch and his family. And ahead there are great challenges, challenges that will test our fitness to survive as a species. But from what I have seen in the past month, we are up to it. I will try my best to lead our people through this war. There will be sacrifices to be made, by all of us. I will ask no one to do what I am not willing to do myself.” He saw disapproval in Colonel Baggett’s eyes at the last, an expression mimicked by Commodore Mei and Admiral Montgomery. Well, too bad.

“Now, we have work to do.” Sean turned and looked at Streeter, who sat in his seat slumped in shock. “And Prime Minister Streeter. You are fired.”

“I can’t be fired except by order of the Emperor,” said Streeter, shaking his head, his eyes then widening in realization.

“I can’t remove you from the Lords,” said Sean, glaring at the man. “But I want your office cleared out immediately, so I can put the man or woman of my choice in the position.”

Sean turned back to the crowd, reveling in their cheers, while at the same time calling for a staff meeting at the Hexagon on his link

Chapter Two

God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless. Chester W. Nimitz.

JEWEL SYSTEM, APRIL 28TH, 1000.

Sean knew many of the people seated around the table, and knew some only from reputation, or what he could pull up from his link. He knew that Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, Chief of Staff of the Army, and Field Marshal Betty Parker, Commandant of the Imperial Marine Corps, had been two of his father’s closest advisors, and he planned to trust them just as much as his sire had. Of course Grand High Admiral Len Lenkowski was also a trusted advisor, but there was no way that Sean would allow the man to stay in the capital. The man’s life was in danger here, what with the nest of snakes still in the Lords. Even if he got rid of all the current leadership, there were still a lot of adherents hiding in the shadows.

“I know you’re not going to like this Len,” he had told the Admiral in the aircar on the way to the Hexagon. “But I am going to relieve you of your position as CNO.”

“I understand,” said Lenkowski, not looking happy in the least.

“You will keep your rank, of course,” said Sean, putting a hand on the Admiral’s forearm.

“Maybe it’s time to write my memoirs,” said Len, trying to smile and failing.

“I’m not letting you retire, Admiral,” said Len, shaking his head. “I need a supreme field commander, and you are going to be it.”

“I don’t know what to say,” said the surprised Admiral.

“It’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Of course, your Majesty. It’s what every high ranking officer wants, when we realize we’ll be commanding a desk for the rest of our careers.”

“Who do you think should replace you as CNO?”

“Grand Fleet Admiral Sondra McCullom,” said Lenkowski without hesitation.

“The commander of the Home Fleet?”

“Sure,” said Len, nodding. “She got that position because she’s good. She spent a decade as commander Sector Three. And we both know that Home Fleet is really not going to a factor in the early stages of this war. At least, we must hope not, or we’re really screwed. We’re going to have to leach units away from it for the other fleets. But the fleet structure itself will have to stay in Core Space.”

“OK. The job is hers. But I want you sitting in on the meetings with her for the first couple of weeks, and letting her take advantage of your knowledge. And you will be surrounded by Imperial Security Corps forces at all times. Is that understood?”

It took several hours for those who had been called to the meeting to gather, those who could make it at all. The representatives of the Commons and Scholars were already on the planet for the coronation, as well as the Commander Home Fleet and all of the Cabinet. Now they all gathered around the table to discuss the business of the Empire at war, the huge cityscape of Capitulum visible through the holo window set in the east and west walls of the room. A room that was actually situated deep under the five hundred story building that housed the offices of the military.

Now he looked around that table, seeing faces that radiated curiosity at the prospect of a new head of state. On one side of the table sat the cabinet that had been installed by his father, and he wondered how many were friends, and how many foes. Tough shit. We’re in a war now, and these people will work with me, or they will be relieved of their positions.

From the head of the table down were Lord Chester Halbrook, the Minister of the Exchequer; the Phlistaran Minister of Security Lord T’lisha; Lord Garis Primiveras, the Minister of State; and the Gryphon H’rressitor, Minister of Commerce and Industry. Next in line were the Scholars, Professor Cornelius Martin, Physicist and Minister of Science; Professor Amanda Loristrates, Historian and Minister of Education; and Professor Klashpek, the large Dinosauroid Minister of Communications. Next were Ms. Landrulis Lanticon, the small Matlican Minister of Labor, who looked very human except for her greyish skin; Josh Jenkins, the Underminister of Colonization, who would probably be asked to fill the post as the minister was missing; Mr. Hyrum Klein, the Minister of Agriculture; and Ms. Clara Chung, Minister of Justice.

On the other side of the table sat Lady Hannah Mkambe, the Minister of War, along with Field Marshal Betty Parker, the Commandant of the Imperial Marines; Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, Chief of Staff of the Army; and alongside Len Lenkowski was newly promoted Sondra McCullom. Up from them were the newly appointed Leader of the Lords, Archduke Gregor Stoyanovich; Laura Goolsby, the Speaker of the Commons; and the Chief of Scholars Mohamed Ishner; along with the Imperial Intelligence Agency Chief Ekaterina Sergiov. And at the far end of the table sat the newly appointed Prime Minister, Countess Haruko Kawasaki, while Samantha Ogden Lee sat next to the Emperor as his chosen regent.

Of course, some of these appointments are going to have to be approved in committee, but with a war on, that shouldn’t be more than a rubber stamp procedure. “I call this meeting to order,” said Sean, smiling at the people seated around the table. “I wanted to meet with all of you together for the first time, kind of a getting to know you meeting. Later, we will meet in committees and panels to finalize my vision of how we will fight this war.”

“Let me say, your Majesty,” said Lord Halbrook, giving a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “how overjoyed we are to see you returned to us. And may I express for all present the sorrow we endured at the death of your father, mother and brothers.”

“Thank you, Lord Halbrook,” said Sean, keeping his poker face in place. “And sometime later we will talk about their murder, and what I intend to do about it. But right now we have a war to discuss, and a strategy to plan.”

“Are you sure these creatures are really the aliens who chased you from your homeworld?” asked H’rressitor, his hard beak speaking Terranglo with a decided but understandable lisp. “Could they not be another race, resembling these Ca’cadasans?”

“In answer to that, Lord H’rressitor, I offer this,” said Sean, and a holo of historical footage appeared over the center of the table, showing the ancient enemy as they had looked two thousand years before. After running thirty seconds of vid it switched to a scene showing the same kind of alien, pacing back and forth in a cell. “As you can see, unless there was a remarkable case of convergent evolution, this is the same species. And these,” he said, as a side by side image of an ancient and modern Ca’cadasan ship sprung into existence on the holo, “are also remarkably similar.”

“May we see these Ca’cadasans for ourselves?” asked Halbrook, his skeptical expression retreating.

“They are on the Donut at the moment, being examined by our intelligence and biological specialists,” said Sean, switching off the holo. “By tomorrow there will be a direct link from this building to the station, and you are welcome to go and look at the aliens all you want. I just wouldn’t get too close.”

There was some strained laughter at the last remark, though most still looked to be in a state of semi-shock.

“But, what are we going to do about this?” asked Speaker Goolsby. “We can’t evacuate the entire species.”

“We aren’t going to run again,” said Sean, slamming a hand down on the table. “We are going to beat the crap out of these bastards. We are going to make them wish they had stayed in their own backyard, and not come out to play in ours.”

Then was a lot of whispering and murmuring at that, and Sean could tell that most of the people in the room didn’t believe it. Only the Minister of War and her service chiefs maintained a look of confidence.

“Look,” said the Emperor, keeping his cool, for the moment. “They are only slightly more advanced than we are. In basically a thousand years we have gone from the tech we had when they first met us, which was absolutely pitiful compared to theirs, to only a decade behind them. In two thousand years they have progressed maybe a century in their tech, by the way we measure things. I say we can catch them in another couple of years.”

“And they will still be much stronger than we are,” said Klein. “Much larger, and capable of rolling over us.”

“OK,’ said Sean, standing and glaring at the ministers. “Anyone who can do nothing more than complain about how we don’t have a chance can leave. I need people who are willing to work for the victory of our species. And I include the nonhuman members of our Empire. If you are willing to give it your all, and support my agenda for conducting this campaign, then you are more than welcome to stay in your positions. If not, I will replace you.”

Halbrook started to open his mouth, then thought better of it. Probably about to say who do I think I am, thought Sean. Then remembered who I am.

“We also have the Donut, and the ability to generate large numbers of wormholes. My science advisors, including Dr. Yu, tell me that the Cacas do not have this capability, and will not have it until they build a generating station around a black hole. Something that took us over a century to accomplish.”

“What do you want us to do, your Majesty?” asked Countess Kawasaki, her face set in grim determination. “Name it, and I for one will do whatever is needed to make it happen.”

I made a good choice there, thought Sean, looking at the small woman. He felt a hand on his forearm squeezing and looked over at Samantha, who nodded at him. Two good choices.

“First off, we need to organize the Empire for a long war. One such as we have never fought. That includes expanding the military and manufacturing the tools we need to equip those Soldiers, Marines and Spacers. We’re going to have to tighten belts, raise taxes, build new shipyards and energy production facilities. And I am going to make a speech tomorrow declaring Level Five Martial Law.”

“Martial Law has not been declared in a century,” exclaimed Minister of Labor Landrulis. “The people will not be happy.”

“Will they be happier having kinetic weapons dropped on them from the sky?” asked Lady Hannah, a scowl on her face. “Would they rather have a new aircar, so they can look at it while their city is incinerated around them.”

“Lady Hannah speaks truly,” said Lord T’lisha in his booming voice. “We are talking about life and death here. And freedom for those of us not in danger of extermination. You humans were once our masters, but have since become friends. I would not trade your Empire for that of these other aliens, who would make us slaves for as long as they rule.”

“But why Level Five?” asked Director Sergiov. “We are in a total war situation. Why not Level One?”

Lord T’lisha, Ekaterina’s superior, nodded his great crocodilian head, and some of the other ministers canted their heads in questioning poses.

“I am not willing to suspend all freedoms, as of yet,” said Sean, shaking his head. “I think the people need to know what is going on, and I don’t want the Empire to become a police state. I think we need some restrictions on travel and transportation, and a strengthening of the Official Secrets Act. And we need to develop a unified transportation plan to move materials safely and securely to where they are needed. Taxes will have to be raised, but we should be able to employ everyone who can work, so that should balance out.”

“And how long will we have to endure these austerity measures?” asked Halbrook, frowning.

I doubt you will be facing much in the way of austerity, thought Sean, looking at the man’s fat, florid face. “I don’t see this being a quick or easy war. I talked with some of the prisoners on the trip back from Sestius.” The trip I insisted on, that almost got everyone killed, he thought with some guilt. He cleared that thought and got back to business. “This is an implacable foe, who will not quit until they have exterminated our species, or at the very least enslaved us. They will not negotiate with us, they will not sign a treaty, unless it is to go back on their word at a later date. There can only be one victor in this war, and I intend for it to be us. Which means we might be fighting for the next century, or even longer.”

The shocked expressions were back, and with it the feeling that most of the people in the room didn’t actually believe that the threat was that great. And anyone who can’t respond to this threat in a manner that helps the species and the Empire will have to go.

“But, the cost of such a war,” said Halbrook, shaking his head. “It will beggar the Empire.”

“Just bring in the means to pay for the war, Lord Halbrook,” said Samantha. “We’ll figure out how to win it.”

“And who are you to talk to me in this manner?” asked the Exchequer, staring at Samantha with angry eyes.

“Samantha is my Regent, and speaks in my name,” said Sean, gesturing toward the woman. “That makes her higher rank than anyone in this room besides myself.”

“I did not mean offense, your Majesty. My Lady. The stress of the moment has clouded my thinking.”

Sean dismissed the apology, which he was sure was not sincere, with the wave of a hand. “Lord Garis,” he said, looking at the Minister of State. “How are our relations with our friends and allies?”

“Relations with the allies are good,” said the Minister with a smile that quickly left his face. “The friends may be another matter. Our ambassador to Elysium had reported that there may be trouble there between the Knockermen and the Brakakak. I’m not sure how much we can count of them in this situation. At least until they can solve their internal difficulties.”

And so we lose the aid of the second strongest power within the region, thought Sean, rubbing his temples. The conference went on for several hours, and at the end of it Sean felt like the burden on his shoulders was unbearable. I don’t know if I’m up to this, he thought. He thought back for a moment on CPO Gorbachev, and Sebastian Ngano, the Captain of the Sergiov. If I’m not the man the Empire needs, then I must become that man, and pretend to be him until I am.

“Thank you for your input, Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said when he had decided that the meeting had accomplished all it was going to. “Again, I will meet with you all through the coming days. Now, I would like for my military and security advisors to remain, so we can discuss matters of a need to know basis.”

The others stood to leave. For a moment it looked as if Lord Halbrook was going to protest, but a look from Sean changed his mind. Samantha stood up, and Sean put a hand on her arm. “You stay, cousin. You’re my Regent now, and anything that is discussed about the security of the Empire is in your purview as well.”

Samantha nodded and retook her seat, a troubled look on her face. She’s worried too, that she might not be up to the task I’ve given her. If that’s true, I’ll replace her later. But I have a feeling that she will grow into the position.

“You stay too, Countess Kawasaki,” he said to the Prime Minister, who looked like she wanted to escape from the pressures of her new position as well. “You need to be aware of everything that is going on, so you can push the bills we need through Parliament.”

The small woman nodded her head and sat, and Sean hoped she would be the Churchill they needed in this hour of need.

*

“I want to see every R and D project we have going,” said Sean as soon as those not cleared for Ultra Top Secret military information left the room.

“Every one, your Majesty?” asked Lady Hannah, a frown on her face.

“Just an overview of what we’re doing will do, for now. I can look over the ones that seem to hold the most promise later.”

“We can deploy the subspace com system pretty much immediately,” said Len, looking over at Lady Hannah.

“And what is this, subspace com system?”

“Well, your Majesty, it allows us to communicate through the subspace dimension,” said Lady Hannah, “letting us communicate twelve times faster than regular light speed com. There are some difficulties of course. Because of the effects of gravity, it can’t be used in close proximity to a planetary body, or within the life zones of most stars. And of course it can’t transmit through those zones.”

“So if planet gets in the way the signal is interrupted?” asked Sean. “And it really can only be used in the outer system. How much space does the equipment take up.”

“A couple of tons, maybe a bit more,” said Len.

“Then put it on every ship we can,” said Sean, wondering why it hadn’t already been done. “Crank them out as fast as we can, and put them in. Twelve times light speed still gives us an advantage.”

“It takes supermetals to construct,” said Lady Hannah. “Not all that much, but enough to cut in on some other production.”

“So we give up a missile for each space ship we install a subspace radio on,” said Sean, looking from face to face. “And we start building more supermetal production facilities. We’re going to need more of them anyway, so we might as well start getting them up and running.”

Sean looked at the flat screen in front of him, moving his finger down a list. “What about getting wormhole communications up and running on as many ships as we can?”

“Great idea, your Majesty,” said Len with a smile. “But what about when you want to send those ships through a ship gate?”

“What do you mean?”

“As far as we know, a wormhole cannot move through another wormhole,” said Lady Hannah, nodding to Len. “Dr. Yu could explain it better, but there seems to be a problem with moving one extradimensional hole inside another.”

“So, what happens if you try to do that?”

“Theoretically?” said Len, shrugging his shoulders. “Best case, both wormholes fade out. Worst case, a very bad explosion, probably in the hundred gigaton range.”

“And has this been done?” Sean asked, visualizing what would happen to a battleship if that kind of explosion occurred inside. “I mean, has anyone tried it to see what would happen? Not on a manned ship, of course. But maybe on a probe.”

“Well, no,” said Lady Hannah, shaking her head. “It didn’t make sense to waste resources to test out something that was proven by mathematics.”

“Test it,” said Sean, sending an order through the comp system to make it official. “Now, what about this research into inertialess drive?”

“It shows promise,” said Lady Hannah, who Sean had to admit really knew what was going on. “Not as an interstellar transport method. It’s never going to replace hyperspace, or at least it doesn’t look that way. Maximum velocity appears to be twice light speed, and we still have to boost up to that speed. The only real problem is that it consumes negative matter.”

“And negative matter is what we need for wormhole gates,” said Sean with a frown. “So if we want this we need to increase our negative matter production.”

“Basically, your Majesty,” said Grand Marshal Yamakuri, “we can’t have as much of everything we want or need, at least at first. I would like more assets to protect the planets and populations I am tasked with guarding. But I know I will have to take second place to the Fleet.” He looked over at Field Marshal Betty Parker and smiled. “Well, maybe third place, after the Marine Corps.”

“I am afraid that is the truth, Grand Marshal,” said Sean, tapping on his flat screen. “But I also want as much ground fighting capability as we can muster. Not just for defensive purposes. I want to place troops on the planets they hold and mess with their own infrastructure.”

“How do you plan to do that, your Majesty?” asked Parker. “Short of an invasion.”

“I have some ideas, involving wormholes,” said Sean, smiling at the Field Marshal. “Remember, people. We have one clear advantage here, wormholes. I think we can come up with some others, but right now this is the only superior tech we have working. And we must use it to its fullest. Any trick anyone can come up with, no matter how outrageous it sounds, I want on my desk. Understood?”

Everyone around the table nodded, or gave a verbal acknowledgement. All except for the new Prime Minister, who looked like she wasn’t sure what was going on. “I’m not really sure what part I play in this, your Majesty,” she said, looking from face to face.

“Your part, Prime Minister, is to get me what I want from Parliament. Everything I want, or I will be forced to declare Level One Martial Law, which is something I really don’t want to do.”

“The people won’t like that, your Majesty.”

“But they will go along with it,” said Sean with a smile. “Believe me. I don’t want to go down in history as a despot. I also don’t intend to go down in whatever history is left as the Emperor that lost the final war. So I want the money to come in, as fast as possible, so I can pay it out to the people who will be building the infrastructure we need to win. Now,” he said, looking over at Lady Hannah, “tell me about Bolthole.”

“Are you sure you want me to sit in on this?” asked Kawasaki, her eyes wide.

“I am asking much of you, Countess,” said Sean, nodding. “I want to give you the same respect.”

“Bolthole is up and running, your Majesty,” said Lenkowski. “Give it another six months and it will be at full production.”

“Then I want seventy-five percent of that production to go into increasing production,” said Sean. “Right now I don’t think that its contribution will make that big a difference. In the future I want it to be our unassailable industrial base, putting out as much as three core systems.”

The meeting went on for another couple of hours, until Sean was satisfied that things were going to happen as he wanted them to happen, at least by the people on his side. He had no control whatsoever on what the enemy was going to do. He could only hope the enemy didn’t start acting like tactical and strategic geniuses. And then it was time to get ready for the coronation party, the one he couldn’t get out of.

*

“And Marlena here will be the baby’s nurse,” said the staff member who had been showing Cornelius around the Imperial Palace.

Walborski nodded at the smiling woman, still holding tight to the infant he had brought with him from Sestius. He held Cornelius Junior away from him so he could look into his blue eyes, orbs the color of his late wife’s. The last thing I have of her. I almost can’t stand to leave the little guy behind. But what better place to be raised than the palace, on the most secure planet in the Empire.

The smiling Malticoran woman walked up to Cornelius and put out her small hands to receive the baby. Cornelius kissed the baby on the forehead, inhaled a last whiff of his scent, then handed him over. The infant was restless for a moment, trying to twist his head around on his weak neck to see his father, but the humanoid alien started crooning a soft tune and the baby relaxed.

“Your baby will be happy here,” said the staff member, who he understood to be the daughter of a line in long service to the Imperial family. “There are dogs and cats to play with, lots of other children, and every adult here will look out for him.”

Might as well be here, thought Cornelius, nodding his head and trying to keep the tears from coming. No other family that I know of, and Katlyn’s family always hated me. Hate to see how the child would feel toward me once he grew up there. Walborski took another look around the room, one of scores he had walked through on his way here. He had been in the homes of Dukes and Barons before, and they were wealthy beyond belief. Or at least he had thought so until he saw the Palace.

“When do you leave?” asked the staffer.

“There’s a shuttle leaving the space port in six hours,” said Walborski. “I’m to be on it to catch a transport to Ruby.” Sanctury D IV, the fourth world out from the K class star that’s the fourth out from the Black Hole. He had heard that it had just about the same gravity as Jewel, a bit lighter than Sestius, and colder than either one. The Imperial Army Officer Academy of Sandhurst was on the planet, as was the Camp Determination Training Facility, over eight hundred thousand square kilometers of military reservation. He hoped that one day Sandhurst might be his destination. But first he had to prove himself to the Imperial Army by passing basic.

“Too bad you can’t stay for the celebration tonight,” said the woman with her hostess smile pasted in place. “There hasn’t been a coronation ball in my memory, and may not be another for over a century, given the new Emperor’s age.”

I just want to learn how best to kill Cacas, thought Walborski. And given what’s coming at us, there’s no guarantee anyone is going to be alive in a century.

“I might as well get going,” said Cornelius, walking over to the nurse and gesturing for his baby. “You be good, little fellow. Daddy has to go and keep the bad things away.”

He kissed the baby one more time and handed him back to the nurse, then turned and walked from the room.

Constance the Great Spaceport was the largest facility he had ever seen. Not surprising, as it was the largest landing field in the Empire, serving as it did the largest city on the most populous planet of that Empire. Eight thousand square kilometers of landing pads, runways, terminals, hangars and warehouses. While he waited in the military lounge with fifty-three other recruits he counted the ships coming down from space, at least what he could see from the room’s observation window. One landed every minute, many of them several thousand ton cargo jobs. A steady line of aircars arrived and departed from the several terminals. He guessed the population equivalent of Sestius came and went from this place every hour. He had been to the second largest spaceport on New Detroit of course, but thought they could drop that one into this and never notice it was there.

Cornelius looked up as one of the other recruits approached, two more at his back. The one in the front was trying to look brave, the two behind him were not even making the attempt.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” asked Cornelius, staring into the eyes of the spokesman.

“We heard that you saw the Cacas,” said the first man. “At least that’s what the Corporal said. I told these guys I didn’t believe you had.”

“Oh, I saw them alright. Three meters tall and twice as ugly. They were on Sestius.”

“Then how in the hell did you get back to civilization?” asked the spokesman with a sneer.

“The new Emperor came and picked me up, with some twenty thousand of my closest friends.”

“Bullshit,” said Spokesman, pointing a finger. “And I bet you know the Emperor personally.”

“Why, of course I do,” said Walborski with a smile. “Doesn’t everyone.”

“A real bullshitter, aren’t you? And how close did you get to these so called Cacas.”

Walborski was really starting to take a dislike to Spokesman, and stood up to glare at the man. He was about ten centimeters taller, but the other guy was at least ten kilos heavier. Not the worst odds that the ex-farmer had ever faced.

“About as close as I am standing to you,” said Walborksi, pushing a finger into the other man’s chest. “Just before I plunged a knife into his heart.”

The other two men looked wide eyed at the once farmer, but Spokesman was having none of it. He knocked Walborski’s hand away and thrust his face forward. “Bullshit again. I bet you hid behind the skirts of some woman and hoped they passed you by.”

Spokesman truly looked shocked when Walborski’s hand reached out and slapped him in the throat. A quick kick and the man was laying on the floor, groaning.

“What the hell’s going on here?” yelled the Corporal who had been assigned to see them up to the transport. Not a hair was out of place on her head, and the service ribbons were aligned perfectly on her chest. Walborski already had her pegged as a garrison soldier, one who had never seen combat.

“We was just talking to him and he went crazy,” said Spokesman in a groaning voice from the floor. “He’s crazy.”

“My wife was killed by the Cacas,” said Walborski, glaring coldly at the man on the floor.

“I am so sorry,” said the Corporal, grimacing. “But that’s no excuse to attack another recruit. You could be brought up on charges.” She closed her eyes for a moment and Walborski knew she was accessing his files. Those eyes flew open and she stared at him. “My God. I knew you had been in the militia, but I had no idea.”

“So he got shot at,” said Spokesman, climbing back to his feet. “Big deal.”

“You shut your fucking mouth, recruit,” yelled the Corporal, turning on the man. “If you become one tenth of the soldier Private Walborski is already, we will have gotten a good return on our investment.”

Cornelius knew he would have his militia rank while going through basic, maybe even a little more, but he would still be considered a recruit for training purposes.

“What did he do?” asked one of the other recruits.

“He just killed twenty Cacas by himself,” said another voice, and everyone jumped to attention as a man in full dress uniform, Ranger tab on his left sleeve, walked into the waiting room. “How many hand to hand, Cornerlius? Six?”

“I believe I only killed four in hand to hand, sir,” said Walborski with a straight face.

“At ease, people,” said the Colonel, returning the salute of the Corporal. “Son,” he said, looking at Cornelius, “come over here and let me talk with you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Cornelius, walking behind the Colonel.

“Son,” said Preacher in a low voice when they had reached the corner of the room. “You’ve got to learn to control your temper. The Army demands more than skill and killer instinct. They demand discipline.”

“I just want to learn how to kill Cacas,” said Cornelius, his face screwing up in anger.

“You already know how to kill Cacas, Cornelius. You’ve probably already killed more than all but a few will kill in this entire war, no matter how long it lasts. What we need you to do is know the best way to get other men into position to kill Cacas. I think you have the makings of an officer, but you will only get there if you jump through the hoops we set for you. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said Cornelius.

“Don’t worry, son. If you don’t make officer, I would still take you as an NCO in my command any day. You have it in you to be a leader by example. Just remember that the men around you are not your enemies. Even when you are in training, and things are being yelled at you with the intent of making you lose your temper, remember, they are just doing their jobs. Their job is to get to you, to put pressure on you.”

“I’ll do anything I have to do to get to kill Cacas,” said Cornelius, a cold smile on his face.

“Sometimes you even scare me, Cornelius,” said the man. “My God, but you do.”

“We’ve received our boarding call, Colonel,” called the Corporal.

“You’re coming with us, sir?”

“I have been ordered to familiarization training, son,” said Preacher with a smile. “Even an old dog like myself has to learn new tricks when the master demands it.”

*

IMPERIAL PALACE, CAPITULUM, APRIL 29TH, 1000.

Doctor Jennifer Conway woke with a splitting headache and a queasy feeling in her stomach that told of imbibing way too much alcohol the night before. Not every day you can go to a coronation ball, she thought, reaching for some sober up pills that would take care of what her internal nanites hadn’t. She popped two pills in her mouth and waited for them to take effect. Even if the ball was actually planned for another Emperor.

She sat up in bed as the headache left, remembering what she could about the night before. She had an almost perfect episodic memory, even when she was intoxicated, and could tell that she hadn’t done anything too embarrassing last night. She had danced with the Emperor, who had been a complete gentleman with her, not trying to take advantage of her lack of inhibitions. And I have never seen anyone drink so much and stay so sober, she thought, thinking of how he interacted with all the people who wanted to congratulate him. Was that genetic? And the succession of Lady This and Lord That, names which did escape her memory.

At one point in the evening she had watched a replay of Sean’s power play at the cathedral, before he was crowned. She was relieved that he had not killed his third cousin, even as she was gratified that he had shown himself capable of such an action. We’re going to need a killer as an Emperor if we’re going to survive this war. And she lay there for a few moments more before she got up, thinking about what she felt for the young man who was now officially the most powerful human in space.

I don’t love him, she thought, an image of his handsome face in her mind. It’s too soon after Glen’s death to love anyone. But could I love him in the future? And why would he even want to love someone so far beneath his station?

Finally Jennifer forced herself from the bed and into the shower. She found clean clothes laid out on her already made bed when she got out of the bathroom. I could get used to this, she thought, as she put on the casual but expensive clothing.

“The Emperor is having breakfast in the Green Room, and requests your presence, Dr. Conway,” said the ancient servant that she understood was one of the senior members of the staff.

“Thank you, Landry, is it not?” And I guess I should be honored that you are seeing after my needs yourself.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the Major Domo. “If you would follow me.”

Jennifer tried to keep from gawking as she was led down a long hallway and through a sitting room. Expensive original paintings hung on every wall. The walls were of polished wood, or hung with original papers. The show of wealth was beyond anything she could have imagined, and she wondered if all forty square kilometers of palace were this ostentatious.

The Green Room lived up to its name. The wallpaper was green, as were the paintings on the walls and the fixtures. Even the table was of a green tinted wood, highly polished. She had been told the night before that this room was normally used for family dining, and not for dinners of state. It was still the largest dining room she had ever set foot in.

Sean sat at the head of the table, with Samantha to his right. Both had plates full of eggs and sausage to their front, and steaming cups of coffee. Platters of food sat on the table, and there was a place set to the Emperor’s left.

“Please, have a seat Doctor,” said Sean, motioning to one of the liveried staff. “Coffee for the Doctor, Catherine, if you please.”

Jennifer sat down to the table and helped herself to the eggs and sausage, then grabbed a hot roll and slathered it with fresh butter. Catherine brought a steaming cup of coffee and Jennifer added sugar and cream from the silver containers set on the table for that purpose. She took a sip of the best coffee she had ever tasted and sighed.

“It’s grown on New Tahiti,” said Sean with a smile, putting down his own cup. “From Jamaican Blue Mountain stock. And the sausage is a specialty of Benedict, the breakfast chef.”

Jennifer cut a piece of sausage and brought it to her mouth on a fork that was probably seven hundred years old. She closed her eyes and mmmed as she tasted the perfect blend of quality meat and spices. “I could get used to this.”

“Then marry me, and you can have it for life,” said Sean with a smile, just before Samantha swatted him on the arm.

“Remember your promise,” said Jennifer, giving the Emperor a stern look. “Strictly professional.”

“Strictly professional,” agreed Sean, the smile never leaving his eyes. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked over at Samantha. “We have a meeting to go to.”

“Two minutes,” said Samantha, nodding her head.

“Are you going to make it?” asked Jennifer.

“Sure,” said Sean. “It’s a short elevator ride down to the bunker.”

“The bunker?”

“The underground shelter and quarters,” said Sean. “It’s about two kilometers down, under armor and bedrock, with connections to most of the important structures, like the Hexagon, the Lords, you name it.”

“So, why don’t you use that all the time?” asked Jennifer, thinking of how much safer it would be to stay out of the public eye.

“The citizens expect to see the people who govern them,” said Sean, nodding to Samantha, who got up from her chair. “My cousin May will show you around today, unless you would rather stay in the palace and relax.”

Not on your life, buddy boy, thought the Doctor. “I want to see all of this fairy tale castle, if it’s alright with you.”

“Look all you want,” said Sean, putting down his cup and standing. “We’ll have dinner tonight at the Prime Minister’s home. If that would please you.”

“Yes, it would.”

Sean smiled at her once again, then followed Samantha out of the room. May came in moments later, a small Asian woman who must have come from the Lee side of the family. She was very down to earth, and Jennifer warmed to her immediately. She showed Jennifer one of the gardens, fifty acres of flowering plants from a hundred worlds, flanked on two sides by enormous greenhouses. A couple of gardeners and four robots were working in the garden, making sure that the planters and plots were filled with currently blooming flowers.

“There are forty more gardens on the grounds,” said May as they walked along the brick path. “There are desert gardens, night gardens, even one made up entirely of carnivorous plants. That one is of course locked, and you can only visit it while escorted by one of the curators.”

“How many total buildings, besides the Palace?” asked Jennifer, stopping to take in the scent of some otherworldly flowers that smelled like heaven.

“Five hundred,” said the woman with a shrug. “More.” She closed her eyes for a moment and linked. “Seven hundred and fifty-four, not including the many small storage sheds. We have housing for some of the staff who don’t live in the palace, barracks or the Security detail, stables.”

“Stables?” said Jennifer with a smile. “With horses?”

“Among other riding beasts,” said May, smiling. “Do you ride?”

“Not for a long time, but I would love to sit a horse again.”

“And so you shall,” said May. Moments later an aircar landed nearby, and they got in for a short ride, no more than ten kilometers, to a series of stables, overlooking a field and forested trails that must have taken up a hundred square kilometers. The aircar landed and May escorted Jennifer to the nearest stable, where a pair of Arabian mares were being saddled for them.

Jennifer galloped her horse out in the open, enjoying the feel of the air in her hair, and the excitement of the muscular beast between her legs. She looked up for a moment, to see a couple of aircars cruising slowly overhead, circling the field. Ahead was the forest, and she sighted a Marine in battle armor floating over the trees.

“How much security is there on the grounds?” she asked May. The woman appeared to be uncomfortable with the question, but after a moment’s hesitation answered.

“Two battalions of Marines and a Brigade of soldiers guard the grounds. That’s besides the more than a thousand Imperial Secret Service Agents that patrol the palace proper, or actually guard the person of the Emperor and family. An entire Imperial Marine Division, from which the two battalions are rotated, and two Imperial Army Divisions, one armored, are barracked at the edge of the premises. You’ve seen the aircars, which are manned by the Secret Service?”

“And I saw a Marine in heavy battle armor floating over the edge of this forest,” said Jennifer, looking at the woods around them as the horses trotted down the path.

“How did you know he was a Marine?” asked May, giving Jennifer a curious look.

“My fiancé’, Glen, was an Imperial Marine. So I know what the armor looks like.”

“You said was. Did he leave the Corps?”

“No,” said Jennifer, looking down at the ground. “He was killed on Sestius IV. By those damned aliens.”

“I am so sorry,” said May, reining her horse to a halt beside Jennifer’s and reaching over to put her hand on the Doctor’s forearm. “I am so very sorry.”

“We would all probably be dead, me and the other citizens of the planet, if Sean hadn’t have come and gotten us.”

“You will have time to heal here,” said May, giving Jennifer a sympathetic smile.

The sun was bright in the sky when they left the woods and rode out into another open field. There were actual cattle in this field, and other horses, roaming loose. Above were the two aircars that had been following them. When Jennifer gestured toward them May looked up.

“That’s only the low cover. Up where you can’t see them is the high cover, Naval and Army atmospheric attack craft. Stingships.”

“How do you get used to all of this security?” asked Jennifer, looking over the high field, seeing the distant megascrapers twenty kilometers distant through the misty air of the city. It’s such a contrast. Horses and cattle, open fields and forests, within sight of the largest city of the Empire.

“You just get used to it,” said the other woman, shrugging her shoulders. “Like anything else, I guess.”

Not sure if I will, thought Jennifer as they rode back toward the stables. Of course, it’s probably better to be overprotected than to be the prey of deadly aliens bent on our destruction.

*

BATTLE CRUISER JEAN DE ARC, MAY 1, 1000.

“And this is your bridge, ma’am,” said the young Lt. Commander who had been assigned as her liaison with the builders.

Commodore Duchess Mei Lei looked around the large flag bridge and whistled. Of course there had been a flag bridge aboard her old Jean de Arc. All capital ships had them, just in case they were chosen for the task of flagship. And even though she had been an acting commodore the last time out, she had also been the ship’s captain, and it had just made sense to run everything from the main bridge.

This ship was also called the Jean de Arc, a replacement for the old one, that had been a new ship when she met her end. A replacement for everything, but my exec, and all the others who didn’t come back from that mission. This vessel was even more advanced than the last, capable of a better turn of acceleration by almost ten gravities. And there were more advanced ships on the drawing boards, and sure to be even more advancements once they reverse engineered the tech they had recovered from the Ca’cadasans.

“When will she be ready for trials?” she asked the Commander.

“Another month,” said the man. “Maybe another week for the others in the squadron. Here,” said the Commander, activating the central holo tank. “You can see them here.”

The holo came to life, showing the nearby Central Docks, then zoomed in on the four ships of the squadron hanging in space, including Jean de Arc. There were still crews doing some finishing work on the outer hulls, men and robots spraying on the nanoskin that was both defensive reflective system and active/passive sensors. Shuttles were entering all of the ships, carrying equipment that would be installed in the coming weeks.

“Normally we would be doing most of this work with the vessels still in space dock,” said the Commander, looking back at the small Commodore. “But with the increase of production those docks are being used to do the initial construction on newer vessels.”

“I totally understand,” said Mei, checking the time on her chronometer. The flag staff were to meet in one of the completed conference rooms, and she was anxious to get to know the people that would allow her collection of ships to act as a unit. Also coming would be the captains and execs of all the ships, and her own flag captain, Kelvin Gomez. “We’re going to need all the ships we can get, so any short term inconvenience is something we’re just going to have to deal with. Now, if you would be so kind as to show me to the conference rooms, since the computers aren’t fully up and running.”

“Yes, ma’am. This way.”

Mei took one last look at the holo, then the room that would be her home for hopefully many years, and then followed the Commander out of the bridge.

*

UNKNOWN LOCATION, MAY 5TH,1000.

The wormhole seemed to open out of empty space, though Commander Xavier Jackson knew that was an illusion. The wormhole had always been there, just too small to see until his hosts had expanded it for use. He was still amazed that there was no frame around the hole to keep it open. Somehow the creatures had discovered a way to keep the holes, which naturally wanted to pinch closed, open, without the use of negative matter or physical apparatus.

One of the hosts came through the hole into his chambers. The creatures seemed to have a different concept of privacy than humans, and though they didn’t restrict his movements except around their power generating facilities, they still didn’t seem to understand the need to announce their presence before entering his.

“You do well today, Xavier Jackson?” said the radial symmetrical being in perfect Terranglo.

Jackson recognized the creature by its marking, the red and gold stripping individual for each of the beings. He had been surprised at first that they spoke his language so well, and then that they spoke to their servants in a variety of tongues. I guess something with a brain three times larger than our own would be much brighter than we are, he thought, nodding and smiling at the creature. “I am well today, Klorasof,” he said. He still had trouble reading the body language of the beings. That they had body language he had no doubt. When they spoke their six arms gestured. The eyes also moved, those that happened to be looking his way. There were no other facial expressions from the sophonts who lacked faces.

“That is good,” said the creature, moving smoothly across the floor on the cilia beneath his body. “I would like to show you some more of our installation today.”

“Why?” asked Jackson, still not sure what the beings wanted with him. “And why did you bother to rescue me, when you could just have easily let me drift in space until my life support ran out?”

“Because we were curious,” said the creature who was a member of the species known to humans as the Ancients. “And we thought it uncivilized to let you simply drift in space and die alone.”

And that’s the rub, thought the Executive Officer of the Jean de Arc, a ship which no longer existed, though he had been assured that most of the crew had gotten off of it. These guys fear being alone. And dying alone is the worst thing they can imagine.

Xavier followed the Ancient through the wormhole, and found himself in a large chamber that contained a dozen ten meter wide spheres set into the floor.

“These spheres contain baby universes,” said the alien, pointing a tentacle at one of the metallic objects. “We extract energy from the zero point energy of each universe, until it collapses completely. Our ships use the same power source.”

Jackson nodded his head, remembering his trip in one of those ships, a vessel that opened wormholes at will and moved instantaneously from place to place. That ship was smaller than an Imperial Frigate, but he was sure it could destroy a battleship in an open fight. He had only seen that one ship, and wasn’t sure how many the aliens had. His gut feeling was not many. He looked closely at one of the spheres and saw that it was dark, as compared to the one next to it that was lit up. He took a count and found that only five of the twelve spheres seemed to have power.

“These power our station, and allow us to open the wormholes that our ships use, though each of the ships has its own.”

Jackson whistled at that information. The Donut only makes a couple of dozen in a day, with the power of the swirling black hole. “They generate that much power? But, how do you get the energy in the first place?”

“We created these universes using the power of our station around the black hole. The same black hole you now use. It took a year of continuous energy generation from the hole to make each universe.”

“That’s, unbelievable,” said Jackson, not able to wrap his mind around that much energy. “And these are all you have?”

“And all we will ever have,” said Klorasof, three of his eyes focusing on the human. “Except for the few we have on our ships, of much lesser capability. And we do not have a station to make more.”

“And we have the station now,” said Jackson, wondering if the Ancients might be looking for a way to use that station. But how? They can’t take it away from us, can they? Not with the size of our fleet.
Even superior tech can’t battle those numbers, can it? “Perhaps we can help you there, if you aid us against our enemies.”

“We have sworn to no longer interfere in the affairs of other sentient beings,” said the Ancient.

“Because of the time manipulation disasters?” asked Jackson, who had already heard some of the story, but not all.

“Yes. Our rulers thought we could do much good by going back in time and saving those species we had not been able to rescue before they destroyed themselves. It created paradoxes. And the Universe will not stand for such. And so, with the exception of some few small outposts, our race ended.”

“Look. You helped so many other species in the past. Now mine is in danger of being exterminated. And these new guys are not going to play gently with the other species in this region. So why not help us?”

“That is out of the question,” said Klorasof, gesturing with a tentacle and reinflating the wormhole that had brought them here.

After the alien left him in his chamber Jackson sat and thought for some moments. There has to be a reason why I’m here. Two catastrophic translations in a little over a month, then an improbable rescue. This must mean something. The Commander ran a hand through his hair and thought back on the teachings of his father, a Baptist minister. Through the years he had grown apart from his father and his teachings. But God had to have a part in this, so I am here for a reason. And the only reason he could think of was to be the ambassador his government needed to these potential allies they didn’t know existed.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, MAY 6TH, 1000.

Captain the Duke Maurice von Rittersdorf raised his glass into the air. “To comrades, missing, but not forgotten.”

The other officers at the table raised their glasses as well and echoed the words. Maurice had been glad to find so many old classmates from the Island in the city. Several had been promoted and were awaiting new construction, same as he, while others were waiting for assignments. Considering that his class had boasted twenty thousand graduates, he shouldn’t he been surprised to find ten or so of them on leave in the capital. There were even a couple that he had called close friends while at the academy, which was more of a coincidence.

“We always knew you would rise fast,” had said Commander Svetlana Kommorov, still as beautiful as ever, and one that Maurice was sure would have made captain before he did.

She was currently waiting for her first command, a Hyper VII light Cruiser. With that would come eventual promotion to full Captain he was sure. I just had some exceptional luck, thought von Rittersdorf, though he knew it was a little more than that. While he hadn’t been the greatest in the classroom, he thought he was as good as anyone in a tactical situation. That had been proven by getting his hyper VII destroyer, Dot McArthur, home against all the odds.

“So,” said Svetlana, lowering her glass to the table so the serving robot could refill it. “Tell us about the Ca’cadasans. What were they like?”

“Horrible,” said von Rittersdorf, watching the bot fill his glass with the beer he was buying his classmates. They had wanted to treat him, in congratulations for his promotions, both military and social. He had insisted that he was the one with disposable income, both the allowance he got from his father, the Count von Rittersdorf, and the now considerable ducal fortune which made him much wealthier than his sire.

“Yes,” said another classmate he was not that familiar with. “But how so?”

“You’ve all seen the vids from the past,” said Maurice, looking around the table from face to face. “Well, they’re still three meters tall and just as ugly.”

“Uglier than Coristas?” asked one of the other officers, pointing at the one nonhuman at the table, a huge Phlistaran who had opted for the Marines out of the academy. The good natured being smiled an alarming number of teeth.

“That wasn’t very nice,” said another officer. “Just because he’s a Marine.”

Everyone laughed at that, including the butt of the joke, who realized that his classmates did like him. After all, who wouldn’t like a half ton of Marine fighting on their side.

“I am very happy to have Lt. Colonel Coristas on my side,” said Maurice with a smile. “I think even a Caca would have to think twice about taking him in hand to hand.”

“And that would be the last thought in his horned head,” rumbled the big Centauroid. More laughing broke out.

“It’s not that they're so physically intimidating,” said Maurice, holding up a hand to silence the table. “In fact, I never got that close to one. Mostly extreme missile range. And let me tell you, it was nothing like facing a missile attack from pirates. Those Caca missiles had three thousand gravities accel on ours.”

“But you made it back,” said Svetlana.

“And many others didn’t,” said Maurice with a grimace. “Including some of my crew.”

Suddenly von Rittersdorf’s com link started to chime a priority signal. He could see from the change of expression on the faces of the others that they were receiving the message too. He linked in and was shocked to see what was waiting.

“Conundrum? Under attack?” shouted out one of the classmates in disbelief.

It had to happen eventually, thought von Rittersdorf. We’re at war, and the only way they’re going to win is to take out our military. So why not the sector base?

The Captain linked into the naval com net and sent his code, then waited to see what orders would come through. The bar, mostly frequented by the military, was now an ant’s nest of activity. Men and women swallowed sober up pills and got in touch with headquarters. Maurice, with a high tolerance for alcohol, didn’t feel the need for pharmaceutical intervention, not until he found out what exactly was going on.

“Stand tight, Captain,” came the voice through the link. “We will send you orders when we have an assignment.”

“I thought I would go back to Conundrum. My ship is still there, after all, and I assume the wormhole is still open.”

“Dot McArthur is not fit for duty,” came back the voice of the officer, which the link identified as a Lt. Commander Perez with personnel. “And the majority of your crew are on leave, most out of the Conundrum system. So just sit tight, and we’ll get with you when you’re needed.”

The link went dead, and von Rittersdorf looked up to see that his table was now deserted, all his classmates run off to their duty stations. Glad that he had not taken any sober up pills, Maurice took swig from his beer, then motioned for the serving bot to bring him another. Might as well get drunk, thought the Captain, feeling like the most useless officer in the Fleet.

Chapter Three

In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins. Ulysses S. Grant.

CONUNDRUM SPACE, MAY 6TH, 1000.

“Get that damned wormhole down to the planet, Commander,” shouted Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda, Commander of the Fourth Naval Sector.

“But Admiral, we won’t be able to use it while it's being transported to the surface,” said the hysterical sounding young woman.

“And what do you think is going to come through?” asked the aggravated senior officer. “A battleship squadron? Twenty of them? I really don’t think a single file of Marines and Spacers are going to help here.”

Mgonda stared at the system holo while he spoke. They still couldn’t tell how many ships were coming their way in hyper, only that there were more of them than he had, and all would be more advanced vessels. As he watched a hundred icons switched identifiers from hyper VII to VI. The enemy was following their tactical doctrine, coming down through the levels of hyper in stair step fashion. Which meant they would come into normal space right at the hyper I barrier.

If I had known I could have had my fleet waiting out there for them, and caught them from behind as they came out of hyper. That had worked for him once, against a lesser enemy force than this one. Problem was, he had to know they were coming, and this force had outrun news of its arrival. He had received warning from High Command that a large force had left the Massadara system, sent by the stealth attack ship that was spying on the enemy without their knowledge. His fleet had been on alert, but no one knew for sure where they were going, or what angle of attack they would take.

And they came in straight ahead, he thought. A straight line from Massadara, no deception, just a straight line run. He had ships out there at the barrier, just not enough. Three squadrons of battleships, three of battle cruisers, and their escorting vessels. And it looked like well over a thousand ships were going to hit that barrier, soon.

“I still think we should keep the wormhole open, sir,” said the Commander.

“Commander, this station, everything in orbit, is going to be plasma in about twenty-four hours. That gate will do us no good as plasma. On the planet it can still be used to contact Fleet and the Emperor. Now, get that damned gate moved down to the planet, and make sure it gets there yourself.”

“Yes, sir,” said the woman, and Mgonda could hear the relief in her voice.

She knows she is going to live, at least for now. Or until the enemy either bombards the planet to lifelessness, or lands troops to take it from us. The Grand Fleet Admiral stood up from his chair and walked away from the holo, his eyes fixed on a trivee screen that showed the planet below, the third in this system.

They were over the night side of the world, and the continents below were covered in lights. Nowhere near as populated as a core world, Conundrum III was still designated as a Developing world, but over eight hundred million people called it home. Many had moved there from other worlds for the opportunity that a developing world gave, as well as the security of a Sector Headquarters base. Now that decision was going to kill them. Not that they would have lived much longer on any of the other sector planets, he thought. He had a thousand ships in this system, an eighth of the total strength of the sector. A lot of systems would become uncovered so another battle fleet could be formed, and those that still had ships would be too weak anyway.

He was still staring at the planet when the signal came through that the first enemy ships were jumping to V. He linked into the command net and gave his code. “The fleet is to start boosting toward the oncoming enemy. As soon as the enemy appears they are to engage with missiles, and all forts are to launch their missiles on a profile to get them to the enemy at the same time as the fleet’s.”

“What about the ships at the barrier?” asked the Rear Admiral in the operations center.

“They already know what’s coming, and will be forced to fire as soon as the enemy comes out of hyper. I hope they can do some damage, but that’s all I can hope.”

Mgonda left the link for a moment, looking at the holo tank, trying to come up with some miracle that would save his command. He was still trying to come up with something when the first enemy ships left hyper.

*

Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow looked on as the holo started to populate. He knew there would be a major enemy fleet presence in this system, but until they entered they would not really know how big.

“We have the first estimates,” said the Fleet Tactical Officer from his station. “Two of their larger battleships, one hundred and four of the normal, sixty of their scout capital ships, and nine hundred some smaller warships. Plus maybe two hundred commercial vessels, and eight large stations in orbit, at least five of them fortresses.”

The Great Admiral looked in a viewer at the debris that was left of the enemy force that had waited for them at the barrier. That had also been a worry, that the enemy might strike at them as they came out of hyper, but only a small force was near enough to hit them.

“Of course, this information is two hours old,” said the subordinate.

“And you expect it to change in the time it takes their light to reach us,” said the Great Admiral with a laugh. “I doubt they are going to teleport more ships into the system, or out.”

The bridge erupted with laughter. Everyone knew that practical teleportation was impossible. That had been proven by experiments that had failed to move even the smallest working object ten meters.

“We have missiles incoming from the ships and the forts,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer.

“Return fire,” ordered the Admiral, seeing the icons bloom in the holo, the graviton emissions of the grabbers traversing space at hyper VIII rates. Of course that didn’t give an accurate plot of the missiles, only their general location, which was enough from two light hours.

“That close to the planet?” asked the Fleet Tactical Officer. “We might hit it.”

“If we hit it we hit it,” growled the Admiral. “We’re not trying to hit it intentionally, after all.”

The Tactical Officer gave a head gesture of acknowledgement and went to work sending out the commands. A minute later the icons of Cacada missiles filled the holo, heading for their targets at eight thousand gravities.

*

Mgonda wanted to cry as he watched his battle fleet come apart under the assault of the enemy force. Not one ship survived, not the smallest attack craft. And missiles were minutes away from the orbitals.

“Get off, sir,” said the forts’ commander, Vice Admiral Yul Molatov. “We will fight the forts, and there is no need for you to die with us.”

There were over four thousand missiles heading toward the orbitals at point nine five c. Even if the defenses worked perfectly, there were still bound to be hits on every one of the structures. And a solid hit at that velocity meant death to the fort.

“Listen, Grand Fleet Admiral. You are in command of the sector. You will not be much of a commander if you are reduced to plasma. So get the fuck off my station and down to the planet.”

Mgonda shook his head, still numb from the shock of seeing his battle fleet destroyed. A couple of Marines led the way to the closest hangar, then helped him aboard. As soon as the hatch closed the pilot boosted the ship off the station and took her into a least time reentry to the planet.

“Brace yourselves,” said the pilot over the intercom.

Mgonda looked into his seat’s trivee to see the station he was just on. Ultra bright pinpoints of light erupted in space, with more moving inward. One of the forts was outlined by a massive explosion, then shattered as a missile penetrated its defenses and transferred all its kinetic energy into the enormous structure. The blast of the missile’s warhead was almost an afterthought that spread the plasma a bit more.

Another fort went up, then the central station. The docks were easy targets, and they and all the damaged ships they contained were soon plasma propelled particles. Most of the remaining missiles veered off before they hit the planet. Twenty or more hit the outer atmosphere a glancing blow and burned up as they deflected outward. Twelve made it around the planet and joined the chase of the merchant ships and liners that were making a run from the system. Mgonda was sure none of them would make it, not with the enemy ships now opening fire on them.

Two missiles slammed into the planet, one in a desert region that was unpopulated. The fireball rose above the atmosphere as the wall of flame spread to incinerate a third of that continent. The other hit in the center of the largest ocean, raising a circular wave ten kilometers high that swept outward at two thousand kilometers an hour.

Conundrum is really screwed, thought the Admiral, as the shuttle battled superhurricane force winds in fighting its way to the highlands of the main continent. Shaking his head, he cleared the shock, and started thinking about what they could do next.

*

CONUNDRUM ORBIT, MAY 8TH, 1000.

The Great Admiral looked down on the clouded globe that his assault fleet was orbiting. Only two missile hits, he thought, seeing the one glowing spot in the center of the tens of thousands of square kilometers of fused sand. The other strike was obscured under a thick covering of steam generated clouds, the ocean being vaporized at it fell into the hole in the crust. The damned priests are still going to raise hell. They always do.

He flinched as he watched one of his cruisers shake in orbit, lit up by several ground based particle beams. Return fire by other ships took out that battery, or so it was presumed, until another beam rose from the same area to strike one of the other ships. They have their shore batteries well hidden, and well-fortified. He didn’t have to worry about the flagship being hit. It was out in a far orbit, one hundred thousand kilometers, and looked no different than the other forty battleships that orbited with it

On the holo were two thirds of his force, accelerating back out to the hyper barrier, from whence they would travel to a dozen more systems, to take them away from the enemy. He was determined to take a big bite out of this sector of the Human Empire. And this planet, chosen by the humans to be the major base in this sector, would soon be his.

After an hour of back and forth bombardment the assault shuttles started their way to the surface. This was always a most dangerous time, especially with this enemy. Now was when the hidden assets would appear to attack the shuttles, and sure enough, that was what happened. The atmosphere was suddenly filled with hundreds of fast moving attack craft, knocking shuttles out of the air or engaging in high speed fights with the Ca’cadasan fighters.

“Anything else we should expect?” he asked his human slave, who was looking at the holo of the planet with tears in her eyes.

“When they run out of fighters they will contest your landing with infantry,” said Jana Gorbachev, wiping her eyes. “They will fight you as long as they can from positions of strength, then resort to guerilla warfare against you.”

“Any chance they could be talked into surrender?”

“And what will you do with them when they surrender?” asked the woman.

“They will be processed,” said the Great Admiral, wondering how she could not know this, having seen it herself. “Those who are useful to us will be kept alive, as long as they remain so. The others will be processed, killed, and fed to my men.”

“And knowing that, you really expect them to surrender?” asked the woman.

The Great Admiral pushed the button on the pain inducer and watched with satisfaction as the human bent over in agony. “Will you never learn.” This is a most resistant species, not giving up easily. Such stupidity.

He walked away, cursing this species that was causing him such a headache. Not realizing that the system he thought he held was still under the observation of an enemy capable of reporting back to their headquarters.

*

HEXAGON, CAPITULUM, MAY 10TH, 1000.

“So, it looks like we’ve lost Conundrum,” said the Imperial Army Lt. General who was giving the briefing.

“Do we still have men on the surface?” asked Sean, looking down at his flat comp, then up into the man’s eyes.

“There are over ten thousand naval and army personnel still resisting,” said the General with a nod. “But they can’t hold out for long. I recommend that we use the wormhole to pull them off the planet, those we can get to, and then close down the portal.”

“No,” yelled Sean, slamming his hand on the table. “We are joined in battle there, and I intend for us to keep the fight going. As long as we are holding out there, we keep them from taking that system as a base.”

“And what do you suggest, your Majesty? We’ve held for a week already, against orbital bombardment and overwhelming odds on the ground.”

“What I suggest is that we send more troops through the wormhole. As many as we can, light and medium infantry. Then we keep the fighting going on the surface. Make it another Vietnam, Afghanistan or Brazil. Or even better, Stalingrad. Something they’ve never heard of, until now.”

“They hold the orbitals, your Majesty,” said the Vice Admiral who was sitting in as the naval representative. “Any force we send to that planet will be destroyed by their fleet.”

“Is that true, General?” asked Sean, narrowing his eyes.

“We could send jammers along with them. As well as a lot of hyper-v missiles to take out their shuttles. We’ll still be at a disadvantage in some respects, while gaining the advantages of a guerilla force.”

“Then send everything we can through that wormhole. As much as we can. Who’s in charge there?”

“Grand Fleet Admiral Mgonda is the ranking officer,” said the Vice Admiral.

“I want Admiral Mgonda and his staff brought back from Conundrum. Did the Field Marshal survive?”

“No, your Majesty,” said the Lt. General, bowing his head. “Field Marshal Maxwell was killed in the initial bombardment.”

“Then send an Army officer there to command the resistance. I need Admiral Mgonda to assume a naval command.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” said both the flag officers in unison, saluting and leaving the room. He turned to Grand High Admirals Lenkowski and Sondra McCullom. “How are we coming on the special projects?”

“Operation deception is almost ready to go,” said McCullom with a smile. “We have two hundred tramps outfitted, crewed, and ready for deployment to Sector Four.”

“Then let’s get them on their way,” said the Monarch with a smile. “I can’t wait to see them wondering at why some of their ships are coming up missing.” He turned to Len next. “And how about your battle fleet? Ready?”

“We can ship out tomorrow, though some of the newer ships really haven’t worked up to full capacity.”

“They can do that on the way,” said Sean with a nod. “Now remember, I don’t want you to engage in any battle that you aren’t sure you can win. It’s most important to keep that fleet in being.”

“Kind of hard to do with mostly hyper VI ships,” said Len around the pipe in his mouth.

“But if anyone can, you are the man, Admiral,” said Sean. “That’s why you are in command of that fleet. But remember, you must not allow the enemy to get their hands on any of the new equipment.”

“Sure you don’t want to take command, your Majesty?” asked McCullom, while Len almost choked on his pipe.

“Eventually I plan to do just that,” Sean said with a wink. “But not yet. I still need to get this mess under control here. Until this Empire is properly organized for a long term war, I can’t leave. But I still intend to lead from the front, once I’m able.”

“Research and development have come up with some new wrinkles that might cause our opponents more headaches,” said McCullom. “Some real science fiction stuff that even I have a hard time believing. Normally we would want to spend a few years making sure everything works without a hitch. But this is wartime.”

“I’ll want to see those new wrinkles myself,” said Sean, standing up from his seat. “Unfortunately, I have a meeting with the heads of Parliament to see if we can squeeze some more Imperials out of the wealthy. Not their favorite thing, but necessary at this time.”

“Better you than me on that, your Majesty,” said Len with a laugh. “I’d rather face the Cacas any day.”

*

CONUNDRUM, MAY 26TH, 1000.

“We estimate that so far we have fought and destroyed over two hundred thousand of their surface warriors,” said the General in command of the ground forces.

“At the loss of over a hundred thousand of your own,” growled the Great Admiral, glaring at the holo.

“It seems for every one we kill or capture, two more spring into existence,” said the General, an expression of disbelief on his face. “If I didn’t know better, I would swear they were bringing more soldiers onto the planet.”

“But we know that is impossible,” said the Great Admiral, looking over at the holo of the system. “We have this system locked up. It would take a fleet of those damned stealth ships of theirs to deliver even a fraction of the troops you have imagined.”

“So where in the hells are they coming from?” demanded the General.

“They were holding them in reserve,” said the Great Admiral with a scowl. “They must be nearing the end of their reserves. You just need to push a little harder.”

“Then I need more men,” said the General. “Or you need to blast the surface of this planet into slag.”

“I want this planet as a base,” growled the Admiral, giving a head shake of negation. “And I need the other soldiers to take the remaining systems we have invaded.”

“If you want this planet, then give me more soldiers. Or I can’t promise anything.”

“Very well. But you have one week to take this place, or you will answer for it with your head.”

“Then take it,” said the other male with a feral grin. “If I lose many more males I will be ready to take my own life.”

*

CONUNDRUM SURFACE, MAY 28TH, 1000.

“Glad to see you, Preacher,” said the general commanding, Colonel General Earnst Schmidt, sticking out his hand.

Brigadier General Walther Jodel took the hand in a firm grip and shook it with pleasure. He had served with then Colonel Schmidt on the Fenris frontier when his Ranger platoon had supported the other officer’s regiment during a planetary invasion. He knew Schmidt was a smart officer, and that the General knew Jodel was his superior in this kind of warfare.

Behind the two men the soldiers of Preacher’s first battalion were filing out of the wormhole, each carrying a full combat load and their personal gear. Three more battalions were to follow, until a full brigade of specially trained and equipped guerilla fighters were on the planet, ready to contest it with the Cacas.

“Show me what you got, General,” said Preacher, waving for his exec to follow. Schmidt nodded and led the way to a cavern that had been converted into a command post. Soldiers, Marines and Spacers looked up as they entered, and many side conversations started, with Jodel hearing the word Preacher said many times. Others were coming in and out of the chamber in a variety of combat armor; Army, Marine, shipboard, even the crappy militia variety.

“We’re using everyone we have,” said Schmidt, following Preacher’s gaze. “No matter what they were before, now they’re riflemen.”

Preacher nodded, thinking what a crappy deal the militia and spacers were getting. Their equipment wasn’t made for ground combat. In fact, the shipboard battle armor would stand out like a blaring siren in a battlefield environment. Of course, his men had no powered armor, but they made that work to their advantage.

A holo of the planet occupied the center of the room, and Preacher whistled as he saw the many devastated areas on the globe. A third of one of the continents was completely void of vegetation, while the coastal areas of several more were scoured up to the first layer of inland mountains.

“A couple of their missiles got through to the surface,” explained Schmidt, pointing at the globe. “This continent was not heavily populated in the first place, and the enemy has more of less taken it away from us. We think he is building landing strips and supply depots there, where we can’t get at them.”

Preacher looked over the globe with a tense smile. “The atmosphere looks kind of cloudy.”

“The second missile strike into the ocean is still putting out steam,” said Schmidt, pointing to the swirling clouds there. “It will be some months before the seawater hardens the magma flows.” The General looked over at Preacher with a quizzical expression. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking boats,” said Preacher. “Something to get two battalions of my boys over there, and me with them. Then we can say fuck all to the enemy and his safe zone.”

“What about the other two battalions?” asked Schmidt.

“I think I can trust you to come with a use for them, General,” said the Preacher with a smile. “Now, let’s see what we can do about getting some transportation.”

Chapter Four

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. George Washington.

CAPITULUM, JUNE 15, 1000.

“Well,” said Sean, sitting back in the luxurious seat of the air car, which was really more of a limousine. “That could have gone better.”

Jennifer gave him a sympathetic look, while Samantha gave a half glare.

“What did you expect?” asked Samantha, shaking her head. “The people of the Empire have been raised to fear AIs. You didn’t think a little thing like a war of extermination would change how Parliament felt?”

“I thought maybe they would see reason,” said Sean, staring at the floor of the car. “We need more robots, including autonomous combat robots. After all, missiles are just robots, and we throw them around by the hundreds of thousands.”

“Missiles have limited life spans based on their on-board energy supply,” said Samantha in the reasonable voice that Sean was coming to hate. “Once they run out of power they really can’t do anything except blow up, or coast.”

“The same is true of battle bots,” said Sean, seeing the disbelief in the faces of both women. “Well, they have limited power supplies too.”

“And access to resupply,” said Samantha, still shaking her head. “Don’t forget that. If a multiton battle bot wants to get a resupply of energy, on a planet brimming with it, who is going to stop it?”

“I didn’t think I would get my butt so soundly whipped on my first proposal as Emperor,” said Sean, rubbing his temples. “I mean, the Scholars were the closest vote, and even there I lost.”

“Then go for something you know you’re going to win the next time,” said Jennifer, putting an arm on his shoulders and rubbing. She jerked her hand off as the fabric went rigid enough to stop a medium velocity projectile.

Sean groaned, hating the security measures he was forced to endure, not even allowing a woman he wanted to get close to the opportunity to rub his shoulders.

“You’ve got a lot of supporters in the Lords and Commons, and the Scholars are almost wholeheartedly yours,” said Samantha. “Just don’t try to push something down their throats they are not willing to concede.”

“I could declare level one Martial Law,” said the Emperor with a frown. “Then I could simply bypass Parliament.”

“And start a revolution in the middle of a war,” said Samantha, looking over at Jennifer. “Speak some sense to this man, Doctor.”

“Don’t push it, your Majesty,” said Jennifer, turning her beautiful blue eyes on the Monarch. “People are still afraid of the machines. Hell, I’m still afraid of the machines, even though that happened three hundred years ago. Everyone is afraid that autonomous machines will spell the end of humankind. It almost happened, three centuries ago.”

“And the Fleet stopped them.”

“At the cost of a half dozen worlds and over a billion lives,” said Samantha, reaching over and grabbing Sean’s chin so she could turn his face toward her. “Go for what you can get. If it gets bad enough, maybe they will change their minds.”

Sean could tell by his cousin’s expression that she didn’t really believe that. Now I understand the rages father would have after dealing with Parliament. A necessary evil, he called them, with the emphasis on the evil.

“Just stick with getting all the wormhole development you can get,” said Samantha, letting go of his chin. “People like the idea of wormholes. Just don’t even think about time travel. That’s almost as taboo as autonomous war machines.”

“Wormholes,” said Sean, remembering something that had totally slipped his mind. “We left a wormhole in Sestius System. And I’ve got an idea for it that might cause our enemies some more problems.”

*

ELYSIUM, JUNE 17TH, 1000.

Ambassador Horatio Alexanderopolis was so happy to see the light of day, the star in the sky almost seeming like home to one who had spent such a long time on the Elysium capital world. Not that the shelter had been bad. It was roomy, and had sufficient supplies to last for years. Still, it had been nerve wracking to be stuck underground with the rumbles of kinetic strikes transmitted through the walls.

The streets, what was left of them, were crowded with Brakakak soldiers in their distinctive body armor. Atmospheric attack craft floated overhead, and the deep rumbles of explosions still sounded in the distance.

Lord Grarakakak stood and stared at the carnage, his wives and children clinging close in fear. “My beautiful city,” moaned the avian leader of the Empire. “What were the fools thinking?”

That they could take the power from the most powerful species in your Empire, thought the Ambassador, remembering the sight of the heavily armored Knockermen as they tried to get this leader, before his own battle suited Marines had pushed them back. And they were fools, since most of the Fleet is manned by your own species. The Knockerman had the advantage in ground combat forces, both numerically and in capabilities. The Brakakak had speed and control of the air and space. That gave them enough of an advantage to take back the planet, or at least the most important parts.

“I need to get in touch with my government,” said Horatio, breaking the High Lord out of his silent ruminations.

“I will call for a shuttle to bring you up to the flagship,” said the High Lord, looking at the ruined Terran Embassy building, which was no longer capable of linking to the satellites that connected to the hyperwave relay to his own capital.

In minutes the Ambassador was riding a Brakakak shuttle up to orbit, looking down on the ruined metropolis that had once been the premier city of the second most powerful polity of the region. Now it was a reclamation project waiting to happen. It didn’t take long to reach the Elysium flagship, a battleship of comparable size with those of Horatio’s Empire. Scores of other vessels were in orbit with it, and shuttles were leaving specialized troop transport vessels, bringing more troops to the surface.

The interior of the ship had an alien feel, in a graceful and beautiful manner that seemed to fit the Brakakak milieu. Even the com center seemed to be designed with an aesthetic that was so different from the stark functionality of Imperial warships. A tech showed him how to operate the system, then left him alone as a privacy field sprung into existence around the station he was using. With some species he wouldn’t trust that field, sure that he was still being monitored. To the Brakakak invasion of privacy was a terrible sin, and they would not think of doing it. Unless it was a member of their intelligence gathering service in search of information. Then all was fair. But he thought the High Lord would order his privacy respected in this instance.

The Ambassador sent a report to his government, jacking into the system and giving them a rundown on the situation with their greatest ally. In three days they would know what he knew, that the situation in Elysium, while still not stable, was improving. After that he sent his personal code into the system and started to read the messages he had not been able to read for the last month.

We have a new Emperor, he thought as the messages opened according to their priorities. He smiled as he saw who it was, relieved that it wasn’t one of the puppets that the Lords had been trying to foist on the Empire. I know the boy is young, and probably raw. But he’s Augustine’s son, and Justinian’s grandson. That gives me hope.

Then next message was not so hopeful. So they have returned, and we are in the war we hoped would never come.

*

OUTSIDE HOME SYSTEM SPACE, JUNE 30TH, 1000.

“We’re ready to jump, Admiral,” said the Fleet Navigation Officer.

Grand High Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski looked up from the flat comp he was using to sign orders to see the fleet on the holo, the largest single battle force to sail from the Supersystem since the Third Galactic War of two centuries before. It had been called a Galactic War because six major powers were involved, even though it had only involved this one small region of the Persius Arm.

“Jump when ready,” he said, linking into the ship’s sensory system so he could watch the fleet perform the maneuver, which would tell him much about how synchronized they were.

First to jump were the hyper VII scouting forces, forty battle cruisers, eighty light cruisers, and one hundred sixty destroyers, mostly new ships that were state of the art, if not fully worked up. Behind them jumped the screening and cruiser forces, eighteen hundred and twenty-three ships, including two hundred hyper VI battle cruisers. Then the battle line, nine superbattleships and three hundred and sixty standard battleships. Then the carrier force, thirty fleet and twenty light attack ship transports, and the two hundred ships that were their escorts. After that the transport fleet, carrying resupplies of missiles, antimatter, and six Marine divisions. His ship was last, in that position so he could observe a jump that could have been better, but also could have been much worse.

His force would double in strength by the time he reached the edge of the Core Space, and grow some more as ships from other sectors met him en route. And still he wondered if that would be enough.

The orders sound easy enough, he thought, watching as the staff on the oversized flag bridge worked their stations. Engage the enemy without losing the fleet. Considering how many ships the Sector IV fleet had lost in one engagement, that order was anything but easy.

He had chosen Valkyrie as his flag mostly because he was familiar with its captain and crew. He knew many of the higher ranking members of his fleet, the Fleet Admiral, Admirals and Vice Admirals who led his battle groups, task groups, and task forces. Most of the rest were complete strangers to the former CNO. He could call up the dossier of everyone in the fleet, from the lowliest Spacer and Marine, to the captains of any of his ships. He could peruse their records, their fitness evals, every bit of information recorded on them. And he still didn’t really know the men and women he would send into battle, many with horrible prospects of survival.

But I would rather be out here, on the spear point, than sitting a desk. Thank you for that, your Majesty. Even if I don’t make it back, thank you for that.

*

SESTIUS SPACE, JULY 1ST THROUGH 5TH, 1000.

Sestius System was all but conquered, the Ca’cadasans only having minor trouble with the Freeholder guerillas still holding out on the surface of planet IV. They had learned some hard lessons, one of which was to stay in their fortified bases, and only strike when they knew where the humans were. The humans, with their knowledge of the planet and its wildlife, were not easy to find, especially since they tended to use little in the way of traceable electronics, and only powered up their weapons when they were ready to strike.

Unknown to the enemy they had been under surveillance since the human naval force had left the system. A wormhole had been left in the system on the order of then Crown Prince Sean Ogden Lee Romanov. Since then the entire system had been watched, and information transmitted back to naval headquarters in real time. Now that was about to change.

First the wormhole ejected thousands of small probes that would continue to watch the system. Then it reconfigured, shrinking in size, then reorienting through the use of jets fired through the hole. For several weeks the hole boosted toward the fourth planet, all but undetectable by the sensor systems of the aliens, who had no reason to believe it was there. When it came time to enter the atmosphere it lowered itself slowly on grabber units built into the small ring that held the hole open. Once on the ground it started to eject the materials needed to expand the hole, building the frame and forcing negative matter into the structure, isolated by a magnetic field from the normal material of the frame, until the portal was large enough to pass a person.

And pass people it did. First several engineers who made sure the structure was stable, then some commandos to scout the area and find a good location for hiding the hole. Then more commandos, walking out of the wormhole and into a deep cavern, carrying all of their gear. More equipment soon followed.

“Someone here to see you, Grandfather,” said a young man, barely an adult, to Montano Montero, patriarch of his clan.

Some other clan asking for help, thought the old man, looking up at his grandson. We’ve already lost half of our men fighting these damned demon aliens. How much more can we take? “Send the Freeholders in then.”

“They’re not Freeholders, Grandfather,” said the boy, smiling. “In fact, they’re not from these parts at all.”

“Send them in,” ordered the Patriarch, wondering what the hell was going on.

The man who walked into the cavern office was not at all what Montero was expecting. He was a muscular man in a skinsuit containing many pockets, with web gear and pouches attached. All of the equipment was difficult to look at, unclear to the eye.

“Captain Boris Azerov, Force Marine Corps, reporting as liaison to your clan, sir,” said the man, one hand on the sling of his weapon, the other held out.

Montero, himself a retired Marine, took the hand in a firm grip, a smile on his face. “Did the Empire chase the Cacas out of the system again?”

“No sir. They still control space.”

“No need to call me sir, Captain. I retired as a Sergeant Major. But how in the hell did you get here if they still control space.”

“The Emperor left a wormhole behind when he exited the system, sir,” said the Captain. “We’re bringing in men to make the Cacas’ stay here a living hell. But we sure could use some of your people to show us the lay of the land.”

“How many men are we talking about there, son?”

Two battalions each of Force Recon and Naval Commandos to start with. Then more as needed.”

“And who thought of this crazy plan?” asked the Patriarch, not sure what else to say.

“Why, the Emperor,” said the Captain. “He wants to keep the pressure on the Cacas in any way we can. Make this planet a killing ground for their infantry. So, can I tell Captain Kelso, that’s naval captain by the way, can I tell him you’re in?”

“Hell yes, Captain,” said Montero, clapping the man on the back. “It will be good to work with some first class Marines again. And maybe I can even put up with those Spacer pukes.”

*

CONUNDRUM, JULY 15TH, 1000.

Preacher really didn’t enjoy sea going boats, but was more than willing to use the frail craft to get him into proximity of his enemy. It had taken a week to get to the launching point, where over two hundred of the sailing craft were waiting them, about half indigenous to the planet, the other half prefab catamarans that had been assembled by regular soldiers. Then two weeks of sailing across the narrowest part of the ocean to the southern part of the continent in question.

That continent had been heavily forested before the aliens had come, except for the large desert to the north. Now much of that vegetation was dying as the temperatures dropped and the plants did not receive the sunlight they needed. Still, enough foliage remained to make the forest good cover for men trained to use it.

“Goddamn aliens,” cursed Preacher again as he looked at the dying forest around him. “If they had just stayed home, this wouldn’t have happened, and I coulda stayed in retirement.”

“You know you missed it, General,” said the Captain in charge of the company he was operating with. “Though I do wish you had stayed at your command post.”

“And why would I want to do that, Captain Cortez? I didn’t come back in and go through that wormhole just so I could sit behind a field desk and listen to reports.”

“I don’t want to lose you is all, sir,” said the Captain, who shut his mouth and raised his hand as a whisper came back down the line.

The Captain gave the hand signals to set everything I motion, and the hundred and twenty man company moved like it had a single mind. First and second platoons fanned out and made their way through the woods in squad formations, while third platoon and the company headquarters section moved ahead. No one made the slightest noise. All had been biologically enhanced to the point where any sound was like a roar to sensitive ears, and they moved their bodies accordingly. Even Preacher couldn’t tell where the other two platoons were once they got out of sight.

“We have an outpost up ahead, sir,” said the Captain, motioning to the ground and squatting, waiting for Preacher to do the same. “Estimated ninety-five Cacas.”

And since we’ve yet to strike them, they should be fat and sassy, thought Preacher, nodding his head. He had nine hundred Rangers with him on this continent, two full battalions, which tended to be smaller than line units. All six of his companies were deployed tonight, four in large formation, two as their six constituent platoons. Before the morning they would have hit twenty targets, and the Cacas would realize they were no longer safe on this continent.

More signals came back, the old fashioned way. The Rangers had a complete language of hand signals, and eschewed the use of any kind of electronics, especially when an enemy had control of air and space. This was their element, and they were very good at what they did.

“There are five aerial vehicles in the compound,” said the Captain, watching the hand signals of the next man up.

“Let’s see what we can see,” suggested Preacher, who was along as an observer, not to preempt the tactical control of the company commander. The Captain nodded and the two men made their way to the front in a crouch, going to a crawl when they got within a hundred meters of the compound. There was still the possibility of other sensors that might be able to track them. High command thought that unlikely, given how quiet this sector was. Still, everyone was moving slowly and surely, making sure of their surroundings before shifting an inch.

Ahead was the compound, really a collection of prefab buildings surrounded by an earthen berm. On one side of the berm was the flattened space where the aircars were. Two were transport craft, while three appeared to be a sort of ground attack vehicle.

The Rangers waited for another minute, making sure that the men all had their targets. There were five visible sentries, as well as another ten Cacas who seemed to be lounging around. They would be easy, even the aliens on sentry who were wearing battle armor.

When the time ticked down the men fired. The snipers had specially crafted rifles, made to fit the man who used them. Each was chemically propelled, and sent a fifty caliber shaped charge round at five thousand meters per second into the target. Normal humans couldn’t handle the recoil of the weapon, but the enhanced Rangers were not normal. Each of the targeted enemy was hit by two rounds, striking perfectly in head and center of the torso. Fifteen Ca’cadasans fell to the ground, dead on arrival. Five chemically propelled rockets took out the air cars, blasting large holes into their bodies that incapacitated them completely. Small mortars dropped their shells on the buildings. As soon as the multiple simultaneous blasts erupted the seventy men of the assault teams were leaping over the berm, their eyes scanning the burning compound for any movement.

There was some firing in the compound in a very one sided fight. When the Rangers left the area, running full out into the forest, there was nothing left alive it the compound, and no functioning equipment.

The company ran for over an hour, then went to ground and started their approach to another target. This one didn’t go quite so smoothly. Two Rangers were lost, for a gain of another sixty enemy. And then it was time to find their way to cover for the day. Preacher was determined to hit the enemy hard, while they could. Because the time would come soon when they were the hunted, and the real fun would begin.

Chapter Five

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction. Douglas MacArthur.

SECTOR IV SPACE, AUGUST 2ND, 1000.

Ships were getting few and far between in Sector IV. There were too many Ca’cadasan scout ships on the prowl, as well as a number of their super cruisers. Merchant ships didn’t stand a chance, especially those that travelled alone, the tramps. So when the crew of the Ca’cadasan scout picked up the emissions of a hyper V ship in their area they were ecstatic. All glory would go to the ship and crew, especially if they could take the ship intact. With that in mind, they jumped down to hyper V and accelerated toward the freighter, which seemed in a panic at the approach of the enemy ship. They had almost reached it when the freighter got down to point one c, her pitiful velocity limit for hyper translation. The freighter jumped to normal space, then made the cardinal error of trying to accelerate away from her jump point at her maximum of one hundred gravities. Within hours the Ca’cadasan scout was in normal space to pursue, with her four hundred gravity advantage sure to catch the merchie in little time.

Lt. Commander Jane Wyman sat in the command chair of that seven hundred thousand ton freighter, a position normally reserved for a Master Merchant Captain. It was her first command, her last position being that of executive officer of a destroyer. Many of her fellow officers had turned down this type of command, which was open only to volunteers. But being a student of history, she could not resist the command of a Q-ship. Especially one with the destructive power of this one, the Tramp Freighter Inixius.

“They’ll catch us in one hour, forty-nine minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer, trying to maintain his cool exterior.

“Everyone stay chilly,” said the Captain, feeling the butterflies in her own stomach. This was not their first kill. That had happened two days before. It was still nerve wracking to be sitting in a freighter being approached by a wolf. “Helm, see if you can simulate some engine problems. Nothing too obvious.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied that officer, going to work on his board.

“Weapons’ status?” she asked, looking over at the tac station. Not what most people would consider a weapon, she thought. But it sure did the job with that last bastard. The image of that kill replayed in her mind for an instant, the Ca’cadasan scout going up in a ball of plasma, her engines blowing in a massive explosion.

“All weapons ready,” said the Tactical Officer, looking back over his shoulder.

I’m only interested in one weapon, thought Wyman, nodding toward the officer. The rest won’t do anything but delay our deaths by a few seconds. If that. The ship had been augmented, not quite up to the standards of a military vessel. Her lasers were three times the power of those normally carried by this class of vessel, and she carried short range projectile cannon, capable of sending a twenty megaton shell into a close in enemy. Grabber units would accelerate the shell into the target. The only problem was this enemy tended to stop a hundred thousand kilometers from their target, and any shells fired at them would most probably be intercepted while the foe was destroying the Q-ship. That had been the best the Empire could come up with, until someone suggested Quantum Teleportation.

“We’re receiving a com,”said the officer in charge of those systems.

“Put it on the screen.”

The face that appeared on the main viewer was like that out of a nightmare, especially to humans. A devil’s face, with snout, carnivore’s teeth, and long horns protruding from the top of the head. Wyman could feel the fear on the bridge at the sight of that face, but could see the determination as well in the set of their expressions.

“You will stop accelerating and prepare to be boarded,” came the translation over the bridge speakers while the guttural speech came over in the background. “Failure to comply will result in the destruction of your vessel.”

“Will you guarantee the safety of my crew?” asked Wyman, already knowing the answer. And also knowing that it would be a lie.

“Your crew will not be harmed as long as you surrender without delay,” said the being on the viewer, speaking around his sharp teeth. “Any resistance will result in the immediate deaths of all aboard.”

While if we surrender we will be added to your larder for later butchering, thought the Captain. “Very well. Since I have no choice, we will surrender.” She looked at the Helmsman, who was playing his part perfectly, looking scared out of his wits, if it was an act. “Stop all acceleration. Power down the grabbers.”

“Wise choice,” said the alien on the other end of the vid. “Prepare to be boarded.” The screen went blank, then came back with a view of space.

“You ready, Walt?” she asked over the com.

“Fully armored and ready to kick it,” said the voice of the Marine Force Commander, Captain Walt Frazier.

“Only a damned Jarhead wouldn’t know enough to be scared,” said Wyman with a chuckle.

“Just try and get me some Cacas to capture,” said the Marine. “Even better, the whole ship.”

“I guess that’s up to the Universe,” said Wyman, whose only God was the reality of the Cosmos.

“They will have matched velocities in four point three minutes,” said the Navigator. “At a little over a hundred thousand kilometers.”

“Playing it safe, as always,” said Wyman, staring at the holo that showed the vessels in relation to each other. “They don’t want us to self destruct with them within range.”

“Still quite a distance for safety,” said the Tactical Officer. “We don’t have enough mass to be a threat at twenty thousand kilometers. Here we go, assault shuttles leaving the ship.”

“Watch it on those lasers, Tac,” she cautioned that officer, watching as the shuttles came on. They came to a stop just a couple of kilometers from the hull of the freighter.

“Open your starboard airlock and allow my men on board,” came the voice of the enemy commander over the com. “No tricks now.”

Not even this one? thought the Captain as she sent the order to open the lock, which was being covered by Frazier’s men. “Ready on the teleporters,” she whispered into another com circuit, watching as the energy graphs peaked at the Tac Station. She raised her hand in the air. “Now,” she said, that one word setting everything in motion.

Deep within the bulk of the Inixius the five quantum teleporters powered up, drawing their energy from the freighter’s crystal matrix batteries and sending their cargo toward the enemy scout. Each teleporter had ten kilograms of antimatter in a magnetic containment field. In an instant all of the antimatter was gone, and the magnetic containment field didn’t go with it.

Warships were built to handle hits by powerful warheads, in the multigigaton range. Their electromagnetic fields were the first barrier, followed by multiple meter thick hulls of superhard alloys and carbon fibers. Add to that were the inertial compensators that would take up a lot of the force that was transferred into the hull. That was if the warhead was able to make it past the defensive countermissiles and lasers that would try their best to blast it from space. Most times that best was enough, unless the defensive systems were completely overloaded by incoming weapons.

Quantum teleportation was not good for anything except sending materials from point A to B. What arrived did not in any way resemble what was sent. Living objects and machinery sent through the teleporter were reassembled missing from forty to sixty percent of their mass, which tended to appear in random locations from kilometers away to the other side of the Universe. This didn’t really matter when the cargo was anti-hydrogen, which acted the same no matter how much came out on the other side of the process.

On five different spots on the ship about three kilograms of antimatter appeared, bypassing all the material and energy defenses. Individual grams appeared in dozens of other locations, smaller amounts in ten of thousands of places. Altogether, twenty-six kilograms of antimatter appeared within the enemy ship. In all locations it immediately touched matter, and the party was on.

A little over one gigaton of explosive force was suddenly contained within the hull of the enemy ship, killing everything aboard. Parts of the hull expanded, and pieces blew out like an overinflated baloon. The hull may still have survived, if not for the tons of antimatter already aboard the ship, in engine storage and warheads, breaching containment. The enemy scout ship blew apart with the force of over two hundred gigatons of energy, and when the plasma cloud cleared there was nothing left of the enemy scout ship.

The lasers of the Inixius now took the two shuttles under fire, striking them in the engines and their weapons pods. The enemy Marines already aboard the freighter were overwhelmed, many killed, some captured.

“We’ve got the shuttles aboard, ma’am,” said the Tactical Officer minutes later. “And they both have some grabber units intact.”

“Too bad we couldn’t get the hyperdrive from that scout,” said Wyman, really just happy to have survived. “Get us out of here, Helm,” she ordered. There was still danger ahead. Now they had to creep out of this space without being discovered, so they could bring their find back to base.

*

MASSADARA SPACE, AUGUST 3RD, 1000.

“More coming in, sir,” came the call over the com link.

Commander Bryce Suttler, the captain of the Stealth Attack Ship Seastag sat up in his bed and looked at the time. I’m about fucking tired of being woken up every time something comes into the system. But he was the guy in charge, and SOP called for his being informed whenever something important happened. And according to definition, new enemy ships coming to the system was important.

“I’ll be right up,” he said into the link, then shrugged himself into a uniform and left his cabin. He didn’t bother with his boots. In fact, most of the crew didn’t bother with proper uniform, and he really didn’t feel like enforcing the regs. They had been on this patrol for over five months, and it didn’t look like they were going to be heading home anytime soon. And we don’t even have any missiles to carry out an attack. Not that headquarters was likely to allow such even if they had the weapons. The intelligence he was sending back was too important.

“What do you have?” he asked, walking onto the bridge. The watch didn’t bother getting to their feet, another reg that Suttler didn’t feel like enforcing. They were all tired. Being in constant danger, far behind enemy lines, was not conducive to relaxation.

“Another enemy task force,” said Tactical Officer Lieutenant SG Walter Ngovic, the officer of the watch. “Fifty-four ships, including ten of their battleships, and something new.”

“Let me see,” said Suttler, getting into his seat as Ngovic vacated it. The holo tank shifted from a view of the system to a point about an AU past the hyper barrier. Seastag was twenty-five AUs further out, almost four billion kilometers, hidden in a big iceball that was not the largest around. The enemy had been searching for them on and off, mostly off during the last two months as no trace was found of them.

The holo showed the giant space station that was the enemy base. Suttler cursed under his breath to see it. He had hit it hard, back when his ship still had missiles. Just not hard enough, as evidenced by it still existing. There were a score of ships around the station, sixteen warships and four tankers, prime targets filled with antimatter, that they couldn’t hit. Suttler cursed again as he remembered that they would not see the ships for another three and a half hours. They knew they were already there, because they had tracked them through hyperspace up to when they jumped into normal space.

“Send the information to HQ,” said the Commander, rubbing his eyes. He looked down at the readings of the enemy ships jumping into normal space, and saw that there was something different, about twelve of them. “I’ll be back when we can get a look at them.”

Suttler went down to the galley and ordered a breakfast, something they could always do on an Imperial Navy ship, no matter the time. After finishing his tank grown bacon and eggs, followed by reconstituted coffee, he thought about going back to bed, then decided that it was not worth it. Instead he headed to the gym, and put in a strenuous two hour workout, then another hour on the weapons’ range. Then it was back to the bridge, where he could sit at his station waiting for the image of the recently arrived ships to manifest.

He counted down the time on his implant, waiting. And there they were, popping out of hyper through the self generated holes. The holes closed with a flash. And the ship’s computer did a complete count on them, ten battleships, ten cruisers, and twenty scout ships, the usual pattern. And fourteen ships that had a different look to them.

The new vessels were of intermediate size between the twenty-five million ton battleships and the four million ton cruisers. The computer estimated them to be about twelve million tons. And a close up of one showed a layout unlike the other Cacadasan ships. More like a liner configuration, with numerous openings that looked like hangars.

“What do you think, Ngovic?” asked Suttler, pointing at the holo.

“It looks like a liner. Or a troop transport,” said the Tactical Officer.

“That’s what I thought,” said Suttler. “So they’ve decided the Marines they carry aboard their warships aren’t enough.” He turned to the Com Officer, who had come on deck when the Captain had. “Send this to headquarters. It’s definitely something they’re going to want to know.”

*

CONUNDRUM ORBIT, AUGUST 18TH, 1000.

Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow stood on the bridge of his ship and looked down on the planet that had served as Sector IV Headquarters for the human Empire. They had taken this system over four months prior, and still the resistance continued on the surface. The same was true of several other planets the Ca’cadasans had taken. Where in the hell are they getting the men on those planets. Training the civilians? Then how do they equip them? And those new soldiers, the ones that are undetectable, and strike from nowhere?

Those were the ones that seemed to scare even his best ground force commanders. They had actually snuck in and attacked the command post on the Southwest Continent, the one that was supposed to be free of enemy soldiers. His own ground force had some minor successes, taking out a platoon here and there, and once a company. But he was still losing men to them at a ten to one ratio. The ratio against their other soldiers was better. He was killing two of them for every one he lost. A big part of that was having control of air and space, and he was still losing aircraft at an alarming rate. They just seem to be better at us in ground combat. And from what we have learned they have had more practice going against opponents with a similar tech level, unlike us.

He looked over at the slave liaison, wondering if she knew the answer. No, she’s a spacer. What could she know about ground combat. Especially since we aren’t fighting their naval infantry. No, these are special ground forces. At least we’re still doing very well in space, and if we defeat their naval forces, we win.

So well in fact that he was thinking of launching an attack on the core systems of this Empire. What had held him back was the sure knowledge that those systems would be very well defended. But at current exchange rates, twelve to one in tonnage, he didn’t think the enemy would have a fleet in a couple of years. Perhaps I should wait and see how my other groups fare with the central systems of the two smaller human powers.

“My Lord Admiral,” said the voice of his Intelligence Officer, walking onto the bridge with a flat comp in his hand. “I have noticed an alarming trend in the last few weeks.”

“Another one,” hissed the Admiral, glaring at the Low Admiral who was responsible for crunching all the data on the current war.

“We have been losing a lot of scouts and cruisers that were out on single patrol,” said the officer, ignoring the anger of his superior. “Over fifty scouts, and thirteen cruisers. Just, disappeared.”

“Then they must be running into something they can’t handle,” said the Great Admiral, saying what seemed obvious to him.

“But, not one has returned. Every one of them has just disappeared. We would have expected at least something to come back with word of enemy military units in this space. Survivors of a battle. It defies logic.”

“Perhaps they have space monsters we have not heard of,” said another Cacada officer, to the laughter of his fellows. The Great Admiral put an end to that foolishness with a hard glare their way.

“All patrols are now to consist of at least two vessels,” decreed the Great Admiral, sending his electronic signature to the order. “Any enemy military vessels are to be approached with caution, with particular attention paid to possible traps. Now, what else do you have for me?”

“A courier has just come in from the New Moscow space,” said the Intelligence Officer with a grin. “We have almost completely overrun that kingdom.”

“Almost?”

“There are still some worlds holding out, contesting us in ground combat, but all of their industry is either ours or destroyed. And,” the officer considered with a troubled expression on his face, “some of their naval units have disappeared.”

“What do you mean, disappeared?”

“Several task forces were able to elude our forces and find hiding places. The local intelligence staff thinks they are no longer in New Moscow space, but have fled, possibly to New Terran Empire space.”

“But they really don’t know,” growled the Great Admiral, pacing back to the holo tank, which reconfigured itself to show the greater part of the Persius arm, or at least what the Ca’cadasan Empire knew of it.

“No, sir,” agreed the other Admiral. “They don’t really know. But it is hoped….”

“We are not going to win this campaign with hope,” said the Great Admiral, looking down on the smaller male. “We will win with knowledge of the enemy and what he is doing.”

“Yes, my Lord,” agreed the other male. He looked down for a moment, then seemed to steel himself. “The news from the New Terran Republic is not so good, my Lord. While our forces are winning every battle, they are suffering unsustainable losses.”

“I want them to keep the pressure on,” said the Great Admiral, looking at the smaller polity that bordered the New Terran Empire. “I do not want the two larger human governments aiding each other.” I almost wish I had followed the counsel of my officers and hit the Republic with everything we had, then taken on the Empire. Well, he thought, waving the other Admiral away so he could think, too late for that now. We have the war we have, and there’s nothing to do but fight it.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, AUGUST 25TH, 1000.

The Imperial Zoological Gardens covered over twenty-six hundred square kilometers on the east central portion of the city. Over two point five million species from more than two thousand planets called it home. Two megatowers, nine hundred and fifty floors each, contained many of the smaller habitats. Thousands of larger habitats, duplicating the gravity and atmosphere of the animals’ homes when necessary, were scattered about the gardens. Over a billion people visited the gardens each year, most to see the popular large animal exhibits, while many naturalists frequented the smaller habitats.

Dr. Jennifer Conway was delighted to find that the exhibit she was looking for was not far from the landing station near the west entrance of the gardens. The large dome loomed ahead, just one of many that dotted the gardens. Jennifer read the sign over the entrance and went in, feeling the slight difference in gravity as soon as she stepped through the door. Inside was much hotter than outside, and the light was the harsh white she remembered from Sestius IV. And there, standing in the two square kilometer enclosure, were four of the giant Jassanic Beasts, the largest mammalians in the known Galaxy. Around them were several dozen smaller grazing animals, and the Zoo link told her there were enclosures for the giant catlike predators that hunted these animals.

The largest Jassanic, what must have been an eighty ton matriach, stretched her long neck into the trees planted on the far side of the habitat, pulling off leaves and grinding them in her great mouth. The other Jassanics ate from other trees, while the lesser animals cropped the grass like moss that covered the ground.

Jennifer found a bench on the circular viewing tract and took a seat, letting her mind roam back to her time on the planet she thought would become her long term home, now occupied by the Ca’cadasans. And in the way of the human mind, her thoughts turned back to her late fiance’, Captain Glen McKinnon of the Imperial Marines, killed by those same murderous aliens. Soon people were wondering why the beautiful young woman was sitting on the bench crying. Some came over to see what was the matter, and were waved off by the two Secret Service agents that were her guard detail. They knew what was going on, and had been told by professionals to let her cry it out.

Jennifer sat there for an hour, allowing the grief to work its way out of her system. I have good memories, she thought. Glen was a good man, a loyal man, who died saving others. I will never forget him. She wiped her eyes and took another look at the majestic animals. Now its time to move on. She smiled at that thought. That doesn’t mean you get your way, your Majesty. At least, not yet.

Jennifer spent another four hours at the gardens, first looking over the Sestius carnivores, who were in a much smaller enclosure than the herbivores. Then she wandered at random, looking at the wonders of the natural worlds of the Empire, making a promise to visit as many of those worlds as she could.

*

HEXAGON, JEWEL, AUGUST 30TH, 1000.

Sean watched the holo that showed a small ship starting to disappear into a wormhole. A second holo showed the exit hole, sitting in space with nothing around it. The small ship started to disappear in the normal manner, sliding into the wormhole. At least until it hit the midpoint, when literally all hell broke loose. The ship exploded, and at the same time the wormhole exploded, on both ends at the same instant. Sean looked at the figures below each of the blasts. They were both in the eight hundred gigaton range, enough to destroy anything that happened to be close to the holes.

“I have already seen this,” said the Emperor to the scientist that was in charge of the program.

“I know you have, your Majesty,” said the young woman who was an expert on wormhole physics, Doctor Atiyah Boutros. “But you have not seen this.”

Another holo came on, looking much the same as the other. The small ship, under robotic control, approached the wormhole, while another projection showed the portal it was to exit. The ship plunged into the hole, then reappeared coming out of the other end of the hole. Sean sat up in his seat, his interest arroused. “Did that ship have an on-board wormhole?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” said the scientist. “In Allah’s name, it did. Shrunken to its smallest size, really no larger than a protein molecule, with a couple of atoms of negative matter holding it open. And the entire hole enveloped in negative matter.”

“So you’ve found the solution. Good job.”

“Well, maybe not completely,” said the woman, her smile turning to a frown. The holo showed what must have been the same ship, again heading toward the wormhole. This time it was a repeat of the first presentation, as massive explosions erupted from both ends of the dying wormhole. “We did everything exactly the same, and this was the result. And the same on the next eight trials, until.”

The holo showed another ship transiting the wormhole without mishap. As soon as the ship was through a hatch opened in the side of the vessel, and a wormhole gate expanded. A missile came flying through.

“So we repeated it, and then had another five trials of disaster before the next success.”

“But it’s not random?” asked Sean, wanting the answer that he wanted.

“We don’t think so,” said Dr. Boutros. “We think we are getting close to the solution. Maybe another two months. Maybe two years.”

“Well, keep on working at it, Doctor,” said the Emperor, looking back at the now frozen holo that showed the explosion midway through. “You’ve done marvelous work so far. I have every faith that you will accomplish the goal.”

“I can think of one use already,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom, her bright eyes staring at the holo.

“And what is that, Admiral?” asked Sean.

“It makes a hell of a bomb. Maybe even a planet buster.”

Not that we want to bust planets, thought the Emperor with a frown on his face. Planets were precious commodities. But the species is even more precious, at least to me. Maybe we would blow one up if it took enough of the bastards out. But definitely not yet. Not until it becomes hopeless.

Later that day Sean was in yet another meeting, this one discussing production. And again the news was mixed.

“We have increased antimatter production by fifty percent,” said Admiral Hiedoki, the officer in charge of Fleet logistics. “We’ve been able to do that by converting civilian intra-system production into antimatter conversion sets. Unfortunately, we have run into a bottleneck. There is still a need for insystem production for the building of new space docks.”

“I understand that,” said Sean, frowning. “But we need that antimatter. And negative matter. How are we doing on that?”

“We have increased negative matter production by twenty-five percent,” said the Logistics Chief. “I know that’s not where you want it to be, your Majesty. But that’s the best we can do for now. It just takes a lot more energy to make negative matter than it does for antimatter.”

“Any chance that we might be able to make the process more efficient?”

“That’s up to the scientists,” said the Admiral. “We can reroute materials and build the means of production. But something that involves scientific innovation is beyond me and my people.”

“We need that negative matter,” said Sean, slapping the table. “Isn’t there a natural source we can use?”

“Not in our space,” said Admiral Galligher of Exploration Command. Even though his command was now being shorted of new people and materials, it had been decided at the highest levels that the specialized ships of the command, battle cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers, were more valuable doing what they were trained to do, discovering things that might be of use to the Empire, than in scouting enemy dispositions.

Sean sat there looking into space while the conversation went on around him. It all hinges on negative matter. A ship gate needs ten thousand times more to keep it open than a passenger gate, which needs several hundred times more than a com hole. We can open forty wormholes a day now, it taking the same energy to open a basic hole which is then expanded up to size with, again, negative matter. So that’s the bottleneck. And then we’ll need negative matter to let wormhole equipped ships traverse wormholes, if they actually solve that problem. And then there’s the inertialess fighters, which need negative matter for their bubbles, at least a couple of hundred kilograms each. We could lose this war without that resource.

Sean became aware again of the conversation, which had taken on the aspect of an argument as fingers started to be pointed and blame assigned.

“I will talk to Dr. Yu about this, see what she can do to form a team. But I will tell you this, gentlemen. We need negative matter, in much greater quantities than we are making now.” He looked over at the Army Chief of Staff, Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri. “Is your service getting what it needs, Mishori?”

“We could use some more supermetals for grabber units,” said the diminutive Supreme Commander of the Imperial Army. “I am forming new heavy and medium infantry units, but don’t have the suits to fully equip them.”

“We’ll see what we can do, right, Admiral Hiedoki?”

“We’ll have three more supermetal production facilities open in the next two months,” said the Logistics Chief. “Then another three before the year is out.”

Sean raised an eyebrow at that. He knew what was involved in building a supermetal facility, which really took up most of a medium sized planet or moon in the cold zone of a star system.

“Of course we’ve lost the facility at the Garth System,” continued the Admiral with a frown. “So we will actually have less of those strategic materials for the next couple of months.”

“So we will have two more net production facilities, and the metals they bring, within the next two months” said Sean, looking over at the Grand Marshal. “But I suspect most of those materials will be going to ship building. We’ll see if we can get you some for your battle suits, and for the Marines,” he finished, nodding at Field Marshal Parker, the Marine Commandant. “What about the special ops soldiers?” At least they don’t need scarce resources. Just nanotech, and that we have an abundance of.

“They’re volunteering by the hundreds of thousands,” said Yamakuri. “Both veterans and new recruits. They want to fight the Cacas, and this really is the only way most of them are going to do it until we start a counter push.”

And giving up years of life to become enhanced, thought the Emperor. That is truly a sacrifice, but necessary. Until we counter the Cacas. And without more negative matter that is not going to happen. It all comes back to that.

“We’ll meet back here in a week,” said Sean, standing up. All of the assembled officers came quickly to their feet and saluted. “Try to have some good news, if possible.”

Sean walked out of the room, Samantha at his heels, his guard detail falling in around him.

“I think you have surprised everyone,” said Samantha after they were closeted in the back seat of the airvan.

“How so?”

“Most of the people I have talked to thought you were going to be lost in the position of Emperor, that you would be completely out of your league, due to age and lack of experience. I think many are pleasantly surprised that you have taken charge so decisively.”

“And the others?”

“They are shocked. And knowing the people I speak of, that in itself is a pleasant surprise.”

Chapter Six

Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole. Bernard Law Montgomery.

SECTOR IV SPACE, SEPTEMBER 8TH, 1000.

Commodore Mei Lei paced the deck of her flag bridge, something she had seen the admirals in the holos do many times. Her force was ten light years forward of the fleet, and to the side, in a position to pick up the enemy before they came within sensor range of the main force. She had the four ships in her squadron, plus a half squadron of light cruisers and a squadron of destroyers. Enough force to find the enemy and get its information back to the fleet, without being destroyed. Or so it was hoped.

Of course her ship had something that the enemy knew nothing about, or again, so it was hoped. Every ship was equipped with the new subspace radio, which really didn’t help them in hyper, since it wasn’t much better than a transmission through normal space, and something they couldn’t pick up in hyperspace anyway. Jean de Arc, Count Serano and one of the light cruisers were also equipped with a wormhole com, which gave them real time communications with the Flag, routed through the Donut commo center.

The same two battle cruisers that carried the coms were also equipped with a new weapon. And Mei had orders not to use it unless there was no other choice to ensure her survival. The Fleet hoped to use it at a time when it would have the greatest effect against the enemy. Which didn’t mean they didn’t want to use it. It was a new toy, and the higher ranked children couldn’t wait to play.

“We’re picking up hyper emissions ahead, ma’am,” said the Task Force Sensor Officer. “Estimate it’s two of their supercruisers. They’re running their grabbers full out.”

“My assessment is that they are trying to change their trajectory and run away,” said the Force Tactical Officer. “They have to know that we out mass them by a factor of six, and that they don’t have a chance.”

“Order the light cruisers and destroyers to fall back and to the side,” ordered Mei, her eyes fixed on the holo. “Serano and Jean de Arc will forge ahead. Unless something else comes along I think it’s time to try out the new weapon.”

The Commodore linked into the Fleet net and got in touch with Admiral Lenkowski.

“As long as you think you can take them both, go ahead and do it,” said the Fleet Commander. “But only if you make sure they don’t get away. None of our other scouts are picking up anything, so you might just have picked up a hunting pair looking for merchies.”

“Then I guess this is going to be a really bad day for them, sir,” said Mei, smiling. “We’re boosting for them now.”

The Commodore watched the tactical plot, then switched her attention back to the holo. The Fleet Commander would be seeing the same thing she was. There were not enough ships equipped with the wormholes to suit the high command, but it still was a great help to command and control. And something they knew the enemy didn’t have.

“They’re not going to get away, Commodore,” said the Force Tactical Officer. The plot showed the enemy starting to curve away, but the distance was closing as the battle cruisers took a straight line approach. “They’re launching,” said the Tactical Officer, just after icons appeared on the plot, picked up through the hyperdrive emissions of the missiles.

Soon there were hundreds of missiles on the plot. Each Ca’cadasan supercruiser carried more missiles than two normal Terran hyper VII battle cruisers, their missiles being smaller but more capable than the human variety. Still, they had not fired enough missiles to saturate the defenses of the human ships, though hits were a definite possibility.

“Open fire,” ordered the Commodore, and the human ships started on the trial run of a new weapon system.

Each battle cruiser fired two missiles at a time, much less than was normal for the ships that generally carried sixteen tubes. The tubes they did carry were very special, not leading to magazines, but to wormholes. Each wormhole led to an acceleration tube that was two hundred kilometers long, and fed by a magazine containing thousands of weapons. On a signal from the launching battle cruiser the acceleration tubes started to load and fire missiles, one coming through the wormhole each second. In one minute there were two hundred and forty missiles on the way. In three minutes seven hundred and twenty. At a thousand the missiles stopped coming. They staggered their acceleration until they were all on a profile to hit the enemy within seconds of each other, an overwhelming swarm.

Now the acceleration tubes shifted to a different load, and moments later the first of the hyper capable long range interceptors were being launched. Normally ships only carried relatively few of the missiles, which were about half the size of an offensive weapon. In five minutes there were twelve hundred of the interceptors in space. The wormholes had solved one of the biggest problems with hyper VII warships, not being able to carry much in the way of missile armament.

Very few of the enemy weapons made it through the interceptors, which were also of a new design, releasing a swath of antimatter plasma that damaged the seeker heads of the Ca’cadasan missiles without necessarily destroying them. Only a score of enemy missiles made it through, and these were easily taken out by the laser missile defenses.

The Ca’cadasan ships had no such luck with the human weapons, taking only a third of them out before they acquired their targets. In the end it didn’t matter. Two hits, or two hundred, the plasma from the supercruisers quickly dropped out of hyper.

“Good job, Commodore,” said Lenkowski over the wormhole com. “Maybe a bit of overkill, but we can work on that.”

“I’ll take overkill any day, sir,” said Mei, smiling. “As long as we aren’t on the receiving end.”

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1000.

“And according to Imperial Sources, the Emperor has been keeping his hands in all the war preparations to date,” said the stunning woman on the trivee, the Galactic News Network logo underneath her head.

“It seems like he’s Augustine’s son in all respects,”said the co-anchor, a smiling middle aged man who was identified as the network’s expert on Capital Affairs.

“Damn him,” yelled Theo Streeter, the Duke of Coventry, throwing a heavy glass at the screen. Both screen and glass were of modern materials, and the result was the shatter proof glass bouncing from the unbreakable screen while liquid went flying everywhere.

“We failed, Theo,” said Countess Judy Decker, the former Lords’ Sergeant at Arms, to her former Prime Minister. “Might I suggest we both go to our home worlds and just sit this out. I, for one, am tired of having newsies accost me while their cameras float overhead.”

“So,” said Streeter, turning on the woman. “You give up so easily?”

“What else is there left to do?” asked the woman with a shrug of her shoulders. “Sean is back, he’s in charge, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

And you can’t wait to tell your story to the public, thought the creature that sat behind the fleshy mask it wore. Streeter had been just as hopeless, and so the agent had terminated him. He was now constituent atoms in a biomass tank, soon to be reconstituted into a lump of pseudo-beef, food for the masses who couldn’t afford better.

Things had seemed to be going so good for their cause. Their Knockerman bosses had been on the verge of taking over the government of Elysium. The puppet was about to be installed, and this agent was prepared to take his place when the signal was given. And the contact agent was safe and secure, and ready to advance his part of the plan. Now that agent was dead, and the effeminate Brakakak were still in control of the Elysium Empire. And this agent was now cut off in hostile territory. The Yugalyth did not expect to survive, but it could still carry out its part of the mission, making sure this Empire lacked a competent head of state.

The Yugalyth stared at the holo that sat over the room’s table once again. The image of Sean Ogden Lee Romanov sat in that holo, alongside the portrait of his cousin, Samantha Ogden Lee. He needed to get rid of both of them to ensure that the New Terran Empire was without a head, and the squabbles of a succession hurt their war effort.

“I’m more worried about the Ca’cadasans myself,” said the Countess, watching as the cast switched to the constant drone of bad news about the war. The Yugalyth looked up for a moment. He was not worried about the war. There was nothing of interest to his employers there, therefore nothing of interest to himself.

The Countess turned from the news when the Yugalyth who had assumed Streeter’s identity cleared his throat. Her eyes went wide just before the needler phutted in his hand, sending the tiny dart into her throat. She had time to raise her hands halfway to her throat and get out one strangled gasp, then fell limply from her chair.

The Yugalyth knelt by her body and checked to make sure that she was dead. Normal poison wouldn’t have done the job. Every citizen of the Empire had the nanites to combat the usual poisons. This was a toxin based on nanotech itself, able to fight less advanced nanites while shutting down the biological systems of the victim.

The Streeter doppelganger walked from the body out to the deck in the rear of the mansion, looking from the high hill down on the city. It was still impressed by the view of the largest city in the known Persius arm. They are so industrious, it thought, looking at the far off megascrapers in the city center, and the arcologies to the north, each a city within itself. And that’s the trouble. They are on the course of complete domination of this region, and that must not be allowed.

The creature made its way back into the living room, then knelt again at the side of the Countess and removed a sample from her arm. It then carried the body into the basement and placed it in one of the two long boxes that had been placed there for one of several purposes. He released the special nanites, the highly illegal nanobots, that would disassemble the body down to the molecular level, leaving not even proteins or DNA to identify it.

The Yugalyth placed itself in the other box, which closed overhead as soon as the creature was situated within. Three days later the Yugalyth arose from the box, no longer in the form of Theo Streeter. Now it was a perfect replica of Countess Judy Decker, ready to begin the next part of its plan.

*

IMPERIAL PALACE, CAPITULUM AND SOUTHERN OCEAN, JEWEL, SEPTEMBER 30TH THROUGH OCTOBER 2ND 1000.

“I wish we could eat somewhere else,” said Jennifer Conway, realizing at the last moment that she sounded like a whiner. Well, too damned bad. I’m tired of being cooped up in this palace. She snorted at that thought. The palace had more interior space than all the buildings on Sestius combined. It was just the feeling of not being free to go where she pleased, when she pleased, without a damned security detail.

“Is something wrong with the food?” asked the Emperor, toying with his own lobster.

And that’s another thing, she thought, shaking her head. He’s been so preoccupied of late. She snorted at that thought as well. First you don’t want him coming on to you. Now you’re bothered that he isn’t paying attention. Make up your damned mind. It’s not like he doesn’t have other things on his.

“Samantha,” said the Monarch, looking over at his cousin. “Cancel all my appointments tomorrow. And I mean all of them,” he said when she was about to protest. “I have been dealing with business every day for the last four months, and I think we all need a break. At least for a day.”

“Very well,” said Samantha, her expression saying it was anything but. “And what will you be doing tomorrow.”

Sean looked at Jennifer with a smile on his face. “Do you fancy some sailing tomorrow? Or would the mountains be more to your liking?”

The next morning found them on a high speed airbus, flying ahead of their sound on a course to the south. Jennifer sat looking out the side window at the water passing by far below, until an island appeared, then more, and the airbus started to drop from the sky toward a landing pad near the water. There were several aircars already down, and the small figures of men walking around the pad. Always security, thought Jennifer, a mix of anger and resignation in her mind. Even on holiday there must always be people around, and she knew it was just something she would have to get used to.

“She’s beautiful,” said Jennifer when she saw the Rainbow, the Imperial water yacht. And she was, a four master of fifty meters length and seven hundred and fifty tons. Small in comparison to the ships of space, but standing there looking at her next to the dock she looked huge. There were crew moving along the deck, running toward the gangplank. All were smartly uniformed, though the lower half of that outfit was bathing trunks, and the upper tight T-shirts. Boat shoes completed the uniform.

“We ready to sail, Captain?” said Sean, striding onto the plank.

“Whenever you say, your Majesty,” said the olive skinned man in a real sailor’s uniform. “How long do you anticipate this voyage to last?”

“At least overnight,” said the Monarch, turning to help Jennifer over the plank, though she felt secure enough holding onto the rail.

“I will tell the chef,” said the Captain, nodding.

“Once we are underway I will take the helm,” said Sean, looking back at the man after he made sure Jennifer’s feet were on the deck.

“Very well, your Majesty,” said the Captain. “You haven’t forgotten your sailing lessons, I assume.”

“I’m sure they’ll come back,” said Sean with a laugh, clapping the Captain on the back. “Captain LeClerc, this is my personal physician, Doctor Jennifer Conway. And of course you know my cousin, Samantha.”

The ship left the dock smoothly under impellors, and as soon as she had enough clearance the sails came down. The wind caught in them with a booming sound and the ship leapt ahead. Jennifer stood on the deck watching the men in the rigging setting the sail for the most efficient gathering of the wind. The ship was tacking into the prevailing winds, and though she knew the vessel was at most doing ten to twelve knots, it felt like it was going much faster.

She looked back to see Sean at the wheel, turning the ship into the wind. The Emperor had his shirt off and was enjoying the sun. Jennifer had seen him disrobed before, even more so, as part of a preliminary examination. What she hadn’t seen then were the play of his muscles under his bronze skin. I have to remember that he is the closest thing to a superman the race has developed, with his perfect genetics. She ran a finger over her own fair skin, and knew if not for her nanites she would end the day with a burn and more freckles. She saw Samantha standing by the rail, another perfect body in her shorts and halter. She is beautiful, and though she’s cousin, there are plenty of noble women just like her. So why in the hell would he want me?

Next she knew Samantha was at her side and leading her by the hand toward the bow. “You have got to see this,” said the Regent, today no more than a young woman enjoying the outdoors.

The oncoming breeze flowed over the bow at an angle. Sean had explained that the ship couldn’t go directly into the wind, but only at an angle. And that the clipper ship could take a very steep angle, if not as much as a lanteen rigged ship like a normal sailboat. And then she had no time for thinking about how sails worked as she looked across the water.

“They’re dolphins, aren’t they?” she said when she could get her breath back. Dozens of the graceful creatures played tag with the bow of the ship, or jumped from the water. She could feel the pure joy of the creatures at play.

“Yep. One of the other sentient species from Earth. We improved them so they would be even more intelligent, just like we did with the chimps. Though with the dolphins it was not as big a leap to make them as smart as unimproved people.”

“But, I thought Jewel had its own native animal and plant life,” said Jennifer, letting a little bit of the scientist rise to the surface.

“It does,”agreed Samantha, leaning on the rail and waving a hand at a dolphin that was tail walking backwards, before turning with a dive back into the water. “But it really wasn’t hard to adapt them to the seas of Jewel. We’ve also got them on Aerial and New Terra.” The woman pointed up for a moment, where a three quarters disk of New Terra, a completely terraformed Earth like world, and the smaller Aerial, also terraformed, though with an orange tint, hung on the horizon.

“But…”

“Why? Because the first Emperor loved dolphins, even though he grew up on the Exodus III. And he wanted them to be the partners of humankind.”

“So these guys just hang out here and play? And catch native fish?”

“They do more than that,” said Samantha with a laugh. “These guys are part of today’s security detail. In case something happens and we find ourselves in the water. There are some really big carnivores out there as well.”

An aircar flew over, one of the human security detail. They think of everything, don’t they. There are some people who actually sit around and think of everything they can do to protect the Emperor.

Later Jennifer was sitting on the rear deck sipping a drink, the Emperor sitting across from her with a tropical style beverage in his own hand. Conway tasted the coconut and fruit juices while trying to keep her eyes off the Emperor, and failing. He’s beautiful, she kept thinking, still wondering what he could see in her. He’s got to have a genetically compatible match. I guess they could change the genetics in some of my eggs to make the baby another little high breed noble. But then it wouldn’t be mine. Not really.

“We’re here,” said Sean, standing up as the crew worked at taking down the sails and the vessel coasted to a stop. He offered his hand to Jennifer, and she felt an electric thrill go through her at the touch. She looked down, feeling a flush come over her face, and when she looked back up Sean was smiling at her.

“What’s here?” she asked, looking at a nearby island that looked like several others she had seen that day.

“The best reef diving on the planet,” said Samantha, bringing a couple of bags up on deck and opening one. She held up a mask attached to a small tank by a tube and turned it around so Jennifer could see it. “This will give you two hours of breathing time underwater, depending on the depth.”

After a few minutes of instruction on how to use the mask and fins, she was garbed and in the warm tropical waters. She followed Sean and Samantha down to the reef about thirty meters below the surface. Some security dove with them, men in specialized underwater combat suits who stayed almost out of sight, while agents of the dolphin species swam in closer.

Sean pointed out the life of the reef, from many different forms of native crustacean, to multicolored animals that were very close in form to Terran fish. She knew the theories of convergent evolution that had been proven on so many worlds. Even so, these were remarkably like the ichthenes she knew.

“Red shark,” yelled a warning in her mask com. Jennifer looked to the right, where the cursor was directing her attention, to see a large form, at least over twenty meters in length, gliding through the water. It did look remarkably like a Terran shark, though much darker than any she had ever heard of. There was a flash of motion as dolphins headed toward the native animal. She held her breath, worried that the dolphins were taking on something that was just too big for them.

The harsh sound of sonics hit her ears and the shark turned away, going into a frenzy as it swam quickly in the other direction, the dolphins on its tail. “Are the dolphins armed?” she asked over the com.

“We gave them implants that include amplification of their own sonic emissions,” said Sean, paying more attention to grabbing a lobster like crustacean and putting it in his net bag.

Jennifer took one more look at the disappearing shark and shook her head. A lobster surrogate came into her field of view and she grabbed it, then pushed the struggling beast into her own bag.

Those lobster surrogates tasted great that night, served with potatoes, salad and chilled beer. Then there was music on deck, and people passing good marijuana around. Jennifer hadn’t indulged in years, and soon the beer and marijuana was going to her head. She noticed that Sean’s attention was turned her way, completely, and she blushed as she looked into the handsome face of the man.

When Jennifer woke in his bed the next morning, just before the ship came back into dock, she knew things had changed between them, and there was no going back. The Genie was out of the bottle, and the relationship was no longer strictly professional.

Chapter Seven

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. Mark Twain.

CONUNDRUM SURFACE, OCTOBER 5TH 1000.

Preacher hadn’t gone along on the last mission. His subordinates had convinced him that he didn’t need to put his life on the line to prove himself. He had already proven himself many years in the past, and again more recently. His position was Brigade Commander, and as such he was supposed to lead from the rear.

He still insisted on looking at the memory feeds that the assault team members brought back recorded on their implants. He was looking over the feed from the assistant squad leader of the second squad of a platoon that had just gotten back from a strike mission. This was the third take he had processed, of the ten he planned to review.

Looking through the eyes of the man he watched the injection of a thick syringe into the arm. The syringe was filled with nanomachines, bubbles of carbon fiber that contained compressed oxygen, as well as the materials that would absorb CO2 when the levels rose too high in the bloodstream. The next view was of the man’s boots reconfiguring into flippers, then a picture of water, the soldier moving through the liquid, then going under.

There was a moment of panic several minutes into the swim, the Ranger’s body wanting to breath before his training told him he didn’t have to. From then on it was a clean swim underwater, the nanobubbles releasing oxygen as they absorbed carbon dioxide. A swim that went on for almost a half an hour, and Preacher fast forwarded through the record.

The head thrust up above the water, looking at a white beach. Five aircars were sitting on the sand and buildings rose behind them. There were towers set on the fence line looking into the forest.

The only electronic equipment on the Rangers were their advanced implants, which were shielded from any emissions at this point. The Rangers were not in electronic communications with each other, their skin suits locked in all of their body heat, there was nothing to give them away. Swimming through the water had rid them of all heat through pores that opened when they were submerged, and closed when they were out. They would overheat within minutes after leaving the water, but hopefully they would not need much more time.

The man was aware of the other troopers in his squad coming out of the water at the same time he did. Everyone had an assigned arc of fire, and the Ranger quickly catalogued the targets within his. His eyes magnified the view, bringing every detail to his awareness, while his ears made sure there was nothing hidden out of sight. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and tracked onto the first target, a Cacada who was sitting by one of the aircars, working at an open panel.

The Ranger looked up for one instant, seeing the cloudy sky that would still not be clear for several years. Nothing from orbit would be able to track on them, not until heat flares erupted over the small base. He looked down and squeezed his trigger, sending a trio of explosive rounds into the Cacada. The creature had time for one look up before the rounds exploded on his body and sent him to the ground dead. The Ranger tracked onto the aircar, pumping a dozen rounds in through the side of the ship. He pulled the trigger on his lower weapon’s mount, sending a thirty millimeter grenade into the vehicle.

All around the compound Cacada were falling, caught by total surprise by the seaborne invasion. A half dozen other positions were being hit at the same time, taking advantage of a trick that might not work the next time. One or two got shots off, to no effect.

The Rangers moved into the compound and grabbed every bit of electronic equipment or memory chips they could grab, thrusting them into shielded containers. In moments they were back in the water, their heat signatures completely masked, heading back to their rendezvous point.

“Good job,” said Preacher to himself as he stopped the memory and prepared the next one. He had almost hit the play button when the ground shook underneath, then shook again with an even harder surface shock. Rock dust fell from the ceiling and showered Preacher and his equipment. Preacher didn’t need to contact the com net to know what was going on. The Ca’cadasans had located his headquarters, and this time his side was the one being attacked.

*

HOME SYSTEM SPACE, OCTOBER 10TH, 1000.

Captain The Duke Maurice von Rittersdorf stood on his bridge, the control deck of James Komorov, and looked at the holo that showed his command. He wasn’t sure if his actual field command would consist of twelve brand new hyper VII destroyers. It was more of an administrative unit than anything, unless his entire squadron was assigned to a large intact task force. Normally the ships were split up and assigned to scouting forces, one light cruiser and two destroyers. He would be in command of whatever team he was assigned to, along with the junior cruiser captain in that squadron.

“We ready to jump?” he asked his Navigator, walking over to that station. Destroyers didn’t have flag bridges, or a flag officer and a ship’s commander. Maurice preferred it that way. He wanted to stay a ship’s captain, even as he became a squadron commander, and that was only possible on the cans.

“You give the word, sir,” said the Navigator, looking up at her CO.

Maurice looked at the holo again, showing all twelve of his ships, all coasting at point two c past the hyper limit of the Home System. There were rumors that ships capable of jumping at point two five c were coming down the pike. Maurice would rather have the ships under him right now than the ships that might be available later.

“All other ships reporting readiness, sir,” called out the com tech. That was the major difference between a flag destroyer and a regular old can. Whether as squadron or division lead there were extra com stations on the bridge, four versus the normal one.

And I’ve got a wormhole com, he thought with a smile. It took a little bit of the adventure out of things, since he was no longer separated from command by weeks of travel time. But he could get his information back to command in seconds, including the info that he was in trouble and in need of help. Only problem was that help might still take days to weeks to arrive. And his was the only ship in the squadron with a wormhole. There just weren’t enough of them yet, and it was considered a priority to have them aboard capital squadron flags and larger commands.

“Jump,” he commanded, and the Helmsman shouted out the acknowledgment and activated the hyperdrive projector.

Space rippled ahead of the ship, gravitons telling the fabric that there was a strong point source of gravity. Eighty thousand kilometers in front, allowing the ship time to coast into the hole just after it had expanded. To allow the ship to jump at a higher velocity the hole would have to be opened further ahead, which meant a larger hyperdrive projector, which would take up more of the ship’s volume. The hole showed the bright red background of hyper that was familiar to any experienced spacer.

Komorov slid flawlessly into the hole in space, taking mere pentaseconds to pass her nine hundred and thirty meter length through the rip. With a flash the hole closed behind, and the destroyer found herself in the realm of hyper, a dimension that didn’t like her or her regular matter. Now the hyperdrive projectors were engaged to keep a gravity field around the ship that protected her from the space that wanted to throw her out, and not in one piece.

“Course, sir?” asked the Helmsman, looking back over his shoulder.

Have to adhere to tradition, thought Maurice with a smile. Everyone knew where they were headed. But he still had to say it before the Helmsman could actually put the course into the computer. “Cimmeria. Least time profile.” He looked over at the com officer manning the primary console. “Signal our course to the rest of the squadron.”

Von Rittersdorf leaned back in his chair, enjoying the position of head honcho, not answerable to anyone in the squadron, at least until he got his command to the Core World Base. Too bad we aren’t going into Sector IV, thought the Captain, wanting to get at the Cacas, even though he knew that he wouldn’t stand much of a chance against anything over a trio of Ca’cadasan scouts, even with his whole squadron behind him.

The ship cruised on at point two c, then jumped up to hyper II, then to III, until she reached VII, and started accelerating at five hundred gravities, up through point three, then point four, continuing her acceleration profile until she reach her practical limit of point nine. At that velocity only one second passed for more than two in the slow moving Universe, while the ships carried more than double their mass.

“I’ll be in my cabin,” he told the watch officer, getting up from his seat and walking to the hatch. He didn’t bother telling the Lt. Commander in charge of navigation to call him if she needed him. She would know, and he had to show faith in his crew.

Von Rittersdorf’s cabin was no larger than the one he had as a mere ship’s commander. Maybe a little bit better appointed, especially since he had real money to spend now. A picture of the manor house he was having constructed on the frontier world of Linstrom III hung on the wall. He was the duke of an entire continent there, with almost a hundred thousand people looking to him for justice and stability. And they’ve never seen me, thought the Duke with a smile, sitting on his couch and calling up a holo of the beautiful world. He wondered if they ever would, or if the Duchy would simply go to another noble when he was killed in combat, as he had no heirs to the position. I’m sure the commoners would get along very well without me.

Maurice had always found the whole system of nobles and commons archaic, especially in the so called free society of the Empire. All nobles were rich, and many commoners were richer still. Nobles had political power, and some commons had even more. And in fields where people actually worked, like the military and the academia, there were actually more successful commons who rose up through the ranks. Most of the so called nobles in those fields were actually commoners who were awarded patents of nobility for their actions.

Much like myself, thought the man who was the youngest son of a count. Of course he had already possessed some position of birth, but really could not expect more than the title Lord unless he married into it. Now he was a Grace, through some skill and a lot of luck.

No use worrying about what I can’t do anything about, he thought. The system is the system, and is not likely to change just because I think it’s stupid. With that thought he changed the holo from his never before visited home to the planet his squadron was to defend. The globe of Cimmeria appeared floating in the air above the projector. Another lovely world among many, a long settled planet with almost five billion people, on the edge of the Core sector. Half of the world was ocean, a proportion slightly lower than most inhabitable planets. There were some large inland deserts, but because the continents were on the smallish side, the majority of the world was forested.

And we’re to form part of the Core Sector outer patrol. What a useless fucking job for hyper VII ships. Just so some ships already on that patrol could be released to join the battle fleet in Sector IV. Maurice turned off the holo in disgust, then got up and looked over his bookshelf, where some of his collection of rare volumes accompanied him. Seeing a title he hadn’t read in some years, he pulled down the book and made his way back to the couch. He opened the cover, and was soon lost reading about a world that never existed, and an Earth man who was magically transported to a planet that had never enjoyed the kind of life it did in the mind of Burroughs.

*

SECTOR IV SPACE, OCTOBER 25TH, 1000.

Grand High Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski looked at the holo over the conference table and really didn’t like what he saw. Over half the Sector showed the red of enemy territory. Fifty systems were the solid red of occupation, while almost five hundred more blinked the crimson of isolation, worlds that had been cut off from human space, after being pounded to the stone age. There were another couple of hundred yellow systems, those threatened with capture by the enemy. Worst of all were the black areas with white dots, areas of the sector that they simply did not know anything about. Scout groups had gone into that space, and had not returned.

He looked down at his flat comp, at the list of ships he had lost in what so far had been nothing but a recon in force. There had been some instances where major battles had almost happened. Quick maneuvering had avoided those. Len was determined to keep his fleet in being, hoping to make the enemy keep his forces concentrated as well. Concentrated battle fleets meant fewer strike forces to go after almost defenseless systems. He really wasn’t sure how well that strategy was working, but was determined to keep his force in existence, if just to keep them from striking at the Core worlds without a fight.

“So, what do we hear from our ground sources?” asked the Fleet Commander, looking at the two officers in charge of intelligence on the force.

“More troops are being sucked into Sestius,” said Major General Gladys Hernandez, the Army Intelligence Liaison. “We can’t say we’re luring many of their warships to the planet, but at least two of their transports have been diverted there, meaning they are not being used against other worlds.”

“And Conundrum?”

“Even better there,” said the General. “The enemy seems to want to make that a major base, which makes sense, given that its location made it such for us. We’ve gutted at least four of their ground divisions on the planet, and the naval forces are not really all that secure planetside. The Army is hitting them wherever we can.”

Lenkowski nodded his head, then looked over at Rear Admiral Karlos Gomber, who gazed back with his sad eyes at the Fleet Commander. “Our asset in Massadara reports that the enemy keeps moving ships into the system, while even more bypass it. It looks like they are building another strike force, while continuing to reinforce their fleet at Conundrum.”

“When are they going to run out of ships?” asked one of the other officers at the table, the commander of a carrier force.

“I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg,” said Gomber, pulling up a map on the holo. All of human space, and that of the powers they were familiar with, allied and enemy, taking up about a tenth of the Persius Arm, was contrasted by the Ca’cadasan Empire, taking up a quarter of the Persius and a good portion of the Sagittarius Arm. From the scale it looked as if the Ca’cadasan Empire was at least twenty times the size of all the human powers combined, if not more.

“From what they’ve gathered from the prisoners they’re keeping at the Donut, all male Ca’cadasans are warriors,” said Gomber. “At least until they reach their last four centuries, when they become priests or administrators, with the best minds becoming their scientists.”

“So they don’t have any young innovators among them?” asked another senior officer. “Why, our physicists perform their best work before they hit fifty.”

“And that might be one reason why they haven’t progressed as quickly as we have, among others,” said Len. “And also the fact that they really haven’t run into anything that could resist them for long.”

“I think the Admiral is correct,” said Gomber, nodding his head. “They depend on other species to be their scientists and engineers. Slaves, more or less. And to hold down their slave population they need all the warriors they can get.”

“What about their females?” asked a woman, Lenkowski’s flagship captain, Connie Mathers.

“All we have seen so far are males,” said Gomber. “And from what the prisoners have said their females are almost non-sentient. In fact, they may not actually be intelligent creatures at all. The males we have interrogated consider them nothing more than brood mares, there to birth children and raise them to early childhood. At that point the males are separated from the females and raised to be warriors, while the females are raised by the mothers to become the next generation of brood mares. And the females don’t live to anything near the lifespan of the males. At two hundred they’re worn out, and soon die from birthing dozens of litters of children.”

“That’s all very interesting,” said Admiral Chung Lee, commander of the First Battle Group of the fleet. “But all I want to know is how to kill them.”

“I think the only way we’re going to kill them is the old fashioned way,” said Lenkowski. “We’re going to have to physically destroy them. Am I right on that, Admiral Gomber?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the Intelligence Chief. “There’s no easy way around it. They aren’t going to succumb to a biological agent. Their nanotech is too advanced, at least as advanced as ours. And we’re not going to be able to influence their minds.”

There was laughter at that last. Everyone knew that telepathy was unlikely. It had never been proven. And interspecies mind to mind contact was even more unlikely. There had been experiments in quantum entanglement, both with mechanical and biological systems. The results had not been promising. Theoretically it was possible, but for some reason they hadn’t been able to convert theory into practice. And it still wouldn’t give us the answer on how to contact alien minds.

“I can’t stress enough that, despite the rumors that abound, there are no miracle solutions on the horizon. There are some weapons systems that will give us advantages over the enemy. Whether they’re enough to give us a win over an opponent of this size and mass remains to be seen. But miracles? I don’t think so.” Lenkowski looked over his staff and the admirals who commanded his battle units. He could see some hopelessness there, but also a determination, the emotion he was hoping to see. “So our only viable strategy is to chip away at them, while maintaining our own ability to fight. A strategy of attrition, but attrition on our terms.”

Lenkowski dismissed his staff, then sat there looking at the holo that showed the heart of his fleet. They were currently in orbit around a red dwarf, right at the hyper limit. The thought behind that was that there were millions of red dwarfs in this space, none of them of particular interest to anyone. There were some that had resources in orbit around them that might be exploited by temporary mining colonies. Even a few that had habitable planets. And there were some groups who gravitated to these stars just to get away from Imperial government. Tens of thousands of small explorers visited these systems about once a decade, mapping them, charting any changes. Sometimes these lost colonies, as they were called, were found in the process. The thing was these star systems didn’t shout out, look at me. Lenkowski had bases around a dozen of these stars, with hundreds of logistics ships at each, and a small guard force of warships.

But here was his main force, at the moment. And I need to do something with it, he thought. It was important to keep the pressure on the enemy, while at the same time keeping his fleet in existence. An almost impossible situation.

“What would you do, Zhen?” asked Lenkowski, looking over at the one person on his staff that was his constant companion.

“That’s a good question, Admiral,” replied Captain Zhen Yin, former naval commando and current adjutant. And the woman who had saved the Admiral’s life on more than one occasion. “You know, of course, that my answer will come from my perspective.”

“You mean as a glorified ground pounder?”

“Yes, sir,” said the woman with a smile. “But I think I would take advantage of my one great advantage.”

“Wormholes?” asked Lenkowski.

“Yes, sir. Think, where we are causing the Cacas the most problems? On the worlds where we have the wormholes.”

“So you think I should be seeding wormholes through their occupied systems?”

“It would be a good use of their capabilities,” said Zhen, nodding. “And the Cacas would never know we were seeding their systems.”

“Brilliant,” said Len, smiling, then standing and walking to his adjutant, slapping her on the back. “You’ll be an admiral before this is over. If you survive.”

“Yes, sir. But my survival is not in my hands. The Universe is in control.”

Len didn’t like that idea. He subscribed to the notion that the Universe was one cold bitch, with no interest in the survival of the biological infestations on the rocky motes orbiting her stars.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, CENTRAL DOCKS AND PARLIAMENT, OCTOBER 26TH THROUGH 28TH 1000.

“The assholes,” yelled Jennifer, glaring at the trivee screen that showed her and the Emperor in an embrace. The headline below the vid said another conquest for Sean? “Can’t you do something?” she asked, looking over at Sean, who was sitting there looking at the vid with a neutral expression on his face.

“I really don’t see what,” said Sean, putting his arm around her. “There is such a thing as freedom of the press. And even I can’t stop them from putting gossip on the net.”

“But, you’ve been stopping them from showing state secrets,” said Jennifer, confused by the whole political process that allowed her lover so much power, and at the same time restricted that power.

“This would not be considered a state secret,” said Sean, as the usual talking heads came on the trivee to discuss what they thought the Emperor should be doing.

“You really can’t expect the man to be focused on the war twenty-six hours a day,” said a woman identified as a professor at the Imperial University Psychology Department. “That is asking for burnout. I do my work during the day, and then go home to my family. So why not he?”

“And I consider it an insult to our men and women in uniform, who are fighting and dying on the front without the opportunity to socialize,” said a man identified as a member of the Lords.

“And what do you say, Admiral?” asked the woman leading the panel. “Is the Emperor shirking his duties?”

“Not at all,” said an elderly man identified as Retired Vice Admiral Chester Gonzalez. “Even our men and women aboard ship can socialize, as long as it does not interfere with their duties, and as long as they don’t compromise the chain of command.”

“And you don’t think his dalliance with a, commoner, is a compromise of the chain of command?” said the Lord. “It behooves the Emperor to think of the succession, and this public display of ardor is not helping his image.”

“Oh, come now, my Lord,” said the Psychology Professor. “Many Emperors in the past were well known for their romantic affairs with commoners. Whoring is common among the nobility, as much as it is with the common people. As long as he is prepared for a proper wedding to ensure the succession, who cares who he is having sex with.”

“They’re calling me a whore,” yelled Jennifer, jumping up from the couch and pointing at the vid. “They’re calling me your whore.”

“I’m not sure they’re doing that at all,” said Sean, turning off the set. He stood up and tried to wrap Jennifer in his arms. She pushed him away and ran out of the room.

“Good job, your Majesty,” whispered Sean, looking at the trivee set. For a moment he thought of calling in the Imperial Intelligence Service to perform some highly illegal arrests. Maybe they would think before they spoke after a couple of years in Purgatory. He dismissed that thought as soon as he had it. He needed the human race behind him. He needed them to work willingly for their own survival, while thinking that the leadership cared about them. He didn’t need them thinking him a tyrant who would act like a spoiled child when he didn’t get his own way.

A little later he found Samantha, sitting in another room, watching the very show he had turned off. “So, what are you going to do?” she asked as soon as she saw him.

“It might be time to install you as regent,” said Sean, glaring at the trivee and the people who had hurt the love of his life. “And time for me to go to the front.”

“Are you really sure you want to do that?” she asked, a question she had been presenting since they had arrived back on Jewel. “You have shown yourself to be a forceful leader. I’m not sure I can do as good a job as you. And I’m not sure you can do as good a job of leading the Fleet as the people who came up through the military to gain their present positions.”

Sean plopped onto the couch beside his cousin, shaking his head. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s just a fantasy of mine, to become the warrior Emperor, like Constance the Great during the civil war. But she was already a combat admiral when she took on Cassius the Terrible. And she had the confidence of her own fleet, and was able to capture the hearts and minds of the people. What the hell do I have? Youthful exuberance?

“I still want to do a tour of the front,” he said, turning toward her. “No reason not to, with the wormholes. I can get out there, see what Lenkoswki is up to, and then pop back to the Donut.”

“Remember, you have a tour of Mgonda’s force scheduled for tomorrow,” said Samantha.

“Then I’ll wait until after I tour the Admiral’s force. It’s scheduled to deploy within the end of the week, isn’t it?”

“Correct,” said Samantha. “And it’s not like you to forget something like that. You are getting preoccupied with this affair with your doctor.”

“It’s not an affair,” yelled Sean, feeling his anger rising. “I am in love with the woman, and I will make her my wife.”

“In total disregard of your duties as Emperor,” said Samantha, her own voice rising. “Your marriage will secure the alliance of one of the powerful families of the Empire, and the genetic inheritance of your line. You can’t afford to follow your heart.”

“We will discuss this later,” hissed Sean, standing up and stomping away.

Jennifer was in the Emperor’s bedroom, a chamber she had been sharing with him for the last month, ever since the night on the boat. Sean undressed and slid into bed next to her, putting a hand on her back with a soft touch. She grunted and curled up in a fetal position, ignoring Sean. Great. Now she’s mad at me too. Sean turned over and closed his eyes, saying the words that activated his reticular activating system and put him to sleep.

During that sleep he had a recurring dream, something dark lurking in the shadows, a threat to himself and all he loved. He kept trying to get in the way of the dark thing, but he was always too late. And then the dream was over, only to begin again.

He woke the next morning with Jennifer all over him, rubbing her naked body over his, kissing him deeply. He wondered sometimes at the way people could change their moods after a good night’s sleep, but he wasn’t about to argue. The argument came later, when he tried to get her to accompany him on the tour of Mgonda’s command.

“I’m not going out where they can get me on camera,” she yelled. “So they can call me a whore again.” Then she pulled the covers back over her head and refused to leave the bed.

She’s safe here, at least. No media assholes are going to get in here. I’ll just have to make it up to her when I get back.

Sean took the wormhole at the Hexagon to the Central Docks, part of the still small but expanding network linking strategic parts of the Supersystem. Later he would address a joint session of Parliament, and the members would all arrive by wormhole from their houses’ home planets. Sean thought the wormholes were going to make life a whole lot easier for most people, though they were sure to bring their own complications.

On the Central Docks he looked out the viewer at the ship he had come to tour, the Claudius Imperator, named after the Roman who succeeded the mad Caligula, not the one Imperial Emperor who was called the mad in his lifetime, before his genius was recognized. The battleship looked like any other hyper VI heavy unit, except for the larger than normal hyperdrive projectors and grabbers that denoted a hyper VII vessel. Fourteen other battleships of the same design were floating in near space. Sean knew that the outward appearance was definitely only the surface of the changes that had been made to these vessels.

Sean focused his enhanced eyes and looked beyond the battleships, to a new class of twenty-three million ton superbattleship being built along the same lines. Then it was time to go to the shuttle bay for the short flight across to the Claudius Imperator. Sean kept gazing at all the ships in space, his ships, splitting his attention with the new docks that were going up further out in space.

A band greeted him as he came aboard shuttle bay two, the port forward hangar. A line of Marines in dress reds performed a flawless rifle salute, while the naval officers beyond them rendered the formal hand version.

“Welcome aboard, your Majesty,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda, stepping from the head of the line and offering his hand. “May I introduce the Captain of Claudius, Gertrude von Stuppleheim.” The distinguished looking woman also offered her hand. “And my Flag Captain, Marcus Streeter.”

“Not related to the former Prime Minister, are you?” asked Sean, trying to keep the frown from his face.

“Very distant relation,” said the officer with a smile. “My line was considered the black sheep of the family.”

“Then you’re my kind of people,” said Sean, shaking the Captain’s hand.

“Are you ready for the grand tour, your Majesty,” said Mgonda, gesturing toward the hatch.

“Looking forward to it,” said Sean. “Lead on.”

The corridors of the ship had that new smell to them, something that would never be captured again. Captain von Stuppleheim was proud of her ship, as Sean could gather by the way she pointed out everything of interest. And she was very proud to be commanding the first of a new class, something the Fleet was hoping would equalize the odds a bit.

“And the grabber units are of course courtesy of our opponents, reverse engineered from their units,” said Mgonda. “They really weren’t that much more advanced than we were in that area, and it only took some minor modifications to bring us up to their specs.”

“Then that is something I want modified on all of our ships,” said Sean, waving for his adjutant to make a note of it. “I know we can’t do them all at once, but maybe on a rotation as they come into base.”

“And here we have the wormhole room,” said the Captain, coming to a heavy door that was flanked by a pair of Marine guards who came to attention as the party approached.

The door opened, and Sean found himself looking into a large room with a four meter square mirror at one end. It took a second to realize that it was a cargo class wormhole. And that the far wall had double doors that must have opened into a cargo compartment.

“We send com through this hole,” said Mgonda, pointing at a communications laser, transmitter and receiver, that pointed at the hole. “We can also bring in personnel and cargo, as needed.”

“Then I may be visiting you while you are on deployment,” Sean said with a laugh.

“And leave that big beautiful superbattleship being built for you,” said Mgonda, shaking his head. “And don’t look so surprised. We can keep secrets, but gossip spreads.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to be using it for myself,” said Sean, looking down at the floor. “I might just leave it to you experts and play the political game.”

“Good choice, your Majesty,” said Mgonda, patting Sean on the back. “That’s a game we in the Fleet can’t play.”

“How are the other wormholes working out?” asked Sean, changing the subject.

“I guess we’ll find out when we actually test them,” said the Admiral. “From the reports we’re receiving from Sector Four, the phase one implementation is going better than we expected. Now we just have to prove phase two.”

The tour continued for a couple of hours, not really enough time to see the whole ship, but sufficient to take in the most salient features. Not only were the ships of this class faster than any battle line warship ever built, but at sixteen million tons, they were also as heavily armed as any fifteen million ton battleship. More so, if the specs were to be believed, despite that extra million tons going into power plant, hyperdrive and grabbers.

“I’m most impressed, Admiral,” said Sean as they walked back to the hangar. “And you’ll be ready to deploy in three weeks.”

“We’re hoping, sir,” said the Grand Fleet Admiral. “And Mara’s command should be ready about the same time.”

Sean nodded, remembering the Rear Admiral who had saved his ass from the ill-fated mission to Sestius, a strike he had ordered that had resulted in the death of thousands of Fleet personnel, and almost his own. She’s been promoted to Vice Admiral, he thought, looking at her disposition in his link. In charge of Mgonda’s scout force, four squadrons of battle cruisers, plus light cruisers and destroyers.

“Then maybe we can use you for a strike on Conumdrum,” said Sean, putting his arm over the Admiral’s broad shoulders.

“I wish I had never left,” said Mgonda. “That was my post, and I abandoned it.”

“On my orders, Admiral. It would have been a waste to let you go down with the ship. We needed you to run a battle force, and so here you are. Now I have to get going. I need to address Parliament tonight.”

“Better you than me on that one, your Majesty,” said the six star flag officer. “I would rather face the Cacas any time.”

Sean insisted that Jennifer accompany him to Parliament, with the threat of having her arrested if need be. She hadn’t been happy, but finally she had consented. Sean felt his heart beating faster as he looked at her, the emeralds around her neck setting off her red hair and lightly freckled skin. Her trim, athletic figure filled out the gown the Imperial clothiers had made for her. He didn’t see how any noble lady he had ever seen could come near to her grace and beauty, and she was a hell of a lot smarter than just about any woman of privilege he had known.

Sean had the continuing premonition that something was going to go wrong, all the way to the House of Lords. He didn’t know what. He was surrounded by Secret Service and Marines, all trusted, all known. And my mother and father were surrounded by trusted security, and one of their own detail killed them.

He kept glancing at the close security detail in his car, then at the others as they came down on the Lords’ landing pad. He had gotten to know most of these men and women over the months he had been back, and he hated to think that one might be a traitor. Probably just my imagination, he thought. And a bad dream. But his own mind told him it was much more than that.

Part of his detail rode the elevator down first, to make sure it was secure. When they reached the bottom and made contact with the section of the detail that had already canvassed the building, they sent their acknowledgement that all was well. When the elevator doors opened Sean followed his detail into the large car, Jennifer on his arm. Samantha would already be in the Lords’ chamber, where the joint session was being held.

Sean looked from face to face as they rode down the lift. All of the Secret Service agents looked into space, ignoring the glances from their monarch. Except for one woman who kept making surreptitious looks at Sean.

Sean ran her profile through his implant, tapping into the Secret Service, IIA and IIB computers. She was on vacation for a week. Supposedly hiking in the back country. Kind of hard to verify that. Or is it?

The Emperor again searched through the database, and found that Agent Sondrata’s locator signal had been at the house of former Prime Minister Theo Streeter, a man who had not been seen by anyone for weeks. And neither had Judy Decker, until just the other day. Streeter was no longer a member of the Lords, but Decker was, and was expected to be in the assemblage tonight.

Kind of slim evidence, thought Sean, and really not enough to convict someone on. But he was dealing with his life here, and the life of Jennifer, and the continuance of the government during wartime. Slim evidence might have to be enough.

Sean linked through his implant and sent a message to the lieutenant in charge of his Marine contingent for the night. The young man seemed shocked by the information the Emperor sent him, though unbelieving might be more accurate. But he agreed to the order, which was his job.

Parliament stood and clapped as he walked into the hall. Jennifer, looking decidedly nervous, went to her chair behind the dais, taking a seat next to Samantha, with the Cabinet and Joint Chiefs sitting to either side. The Lords were seated in the lower hall, their home turf, with the Commons arrayed to the galleries to both sides and the Scholars to the back gallery. Twenty thousand or so visitors and guests filled out the crowd, the press, representatives from other powers, and the randomly selected representation from the citizenry.

Sean cleared his throat and started looking at his notes, hoping that this speech would get him what he felt the Empire needed. “Lords and Ladies, Representatives of the People, Scholars. I have come to you today to talk about the war, what we are doing, and what needs to be done.”

Sean could see interest on some faces, smiles on others, even some open hostility. Not unexpected, and he still needed to work with those Lords who were hostile to his taking charge of the government. He saw a particularly hostile expression on the face of Lady Decker, once Sergeant of Arms of the assembly, now merely just another member of the Lords.

“Ladies and gentlemen, to put it succinctly, we are losing. We have lost half of Sector IV. We have lost nearly every major battle we have engaged in with few exceptions.” He didn’t mention the Q-ship campaign, which was still classified Top Secret. That was one of the problems with disseminating information about the war. Disasters were public record, while most successes were kept under close wraps, so that the enemy wouldn’t get wind of them. The lawmakers on the select committees would of course know about them, and tell their cliques to vote on them along their own lines. Sometimes that was good, sometimes not so much.

“I do not plan to keep losing. I think back to the lessons of History. Of England, in their fights against Napoleon and Hitler. Of the hardships the Russians faced against the Nazi Juggernaut. Of the trials of the United States and Israel in the mid twenty-first century. Of our own battle against the Elysium Empire and others, when we were trying to establish ourselves in this space. History teaches us that we must go through a period of darkness before reaching the light.”

Sean paused for a moment to scan the crowd. Again he spotted Decker, glaring at him, then her eyes moving to the other people on the stand, stopping for a moment on one person in particular. Sean glanced to the side and saw that she was looking at Agent Sondrata. The agent nodded, and Decker let a small smile play across her face.

[Get ready] sent Sean over his link to the Marine Lieutenant. [It’s about to go down.]

“We will overcome this challenge, as we have the others before this. We will do as our predecessors have done. We will endure our defeats so that we might lay the groundwork for final victory. Maybe not victory in our lifetimes, but victory for our children and grandchildren.”

“Look out,” yelled someone behind the Emperor.

He immediately looked at the suspected assassin, seeing a gun in the agent’s hand. It was a particle beam, and she was swinging it to an aiming point at Sean’s head. Sean started to move himself, raising his arm, bringing the stunner attached to his right wrist with the speed of the enhanced. But the agent was also moving with speed, if not in quite the same range as the Monarch’s, and he was sure that he would not get his stunner up in time.

Just before the particle beam reached lineup with its target the agent’s eyes took on an unfocused look, and Sean could hear the low level hum of sonics. The agent’s legs shook, and her finger pulled the trigger. The dark red of a particle beam reached out with an angry bee sound, missing Sean’s head by inches and continuing on into the upper gallery, striking one of the Representatives of Commons, then moving onto another one, killing both. With that the agent fell to the stage and lay with spasming muscles.

The hall erupted in screams and shouts, and Sean turned quickly to look out over the Lords. Decker was on her feet, trying to fight her way through her row to get to the aisle. She looked at Sean with a snarl on her face. Sean raised his arm and aimed his stunner. Decker smiled, and before he could engage her with the stunner she exploded in a bright flash. The shock wave pushed the Emperor away from the dais, then something hit him in the head. He was wondering what it was when everything started to fade out around him. He heard Jennifer’s voice, first panicked, then calm as the physician in her took over. He smiled, knowing he was in good hands, wondering about what had happened to the rest of the Ministers of the Lords, when darkness enfolded him in an embrace.

Chapter Eight

We have them right where we want them. Quote from Admiral Gwendolyn Montgomery, Battle of the Frog Nebula, after the Lasharans had destroyed her right wing.

THE DONUT, OCTOBER 30TH, 1000.

Lucille didn’t recognize the main control room of the Donut. With the influx of military personnel the chamber was no longer her own. She still had people stationed here, all of whom had been called up into active duty with the Fleet. The rest of the stations had been taken by regular military personnel, and two walls had been removed for the ongoing expansion of the facility.

I’m surprised they haven’t called me up, thought the Director of the Donut Project. It was clear that the giant station was now a military facility. Ten gate rooms had been opened, though not all the gates in them were active. She had visited one of those rooms, which until a couple of months ago had been empty. Now they were swarming with Spacers, Soldiers and Marines, heading in and out of wormholes, and to both exits of the large chamber. Help desks were set up in the central length of the room, and the offices overlooking the room were all occupied by the military.

Not really what we planned, thought the scientist as she watched a holo image of a convoy of superfreighters approaching the station. There were some civilian companies that had started to occupy parts of the station. Mostly defense contractors and ship building interests. But it was clear that now the station was considered primarily a military asset, and was being defended as such.

“We’re ready, Doctor,” said one of her formerly civilian techs, manning a console that monitored open wormhole gates. A holo above his station showed a large wormhole gate floating a hundred thousand kilometers from the station. It looked like a mirror in a frame, with the characteristic triangles of grabber units on the corners and the midpoint of each side. Another holo showed a duplicate of the gate in orbit around the black hole. In the background were the images of the huge station known as the Central Docks, and a large number of warships.

“Then send the signal,” she said, anxious to get the process going.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the tech, pushing the down on his console. An alert light went on overhead, along with flashing signals along the walls. Strobes on the gate itself flashed, strengthening from the normal look out lights that were always on.

“Duke Margath is signaling they are ready,” called out one of the military techs.

The holo view of the far gate switched to a hyper VI battleship sitting motionless in space. In moments it started to accelerate slowly forward, a small burst that got the ship moving at a mere quarter of a kilometer per second. The view showed the ship from the stern, and the approaching mirror surface of the wormhole gate. There was a flash of light as the bow of the ship touched the mirror, which rippled like water. At the same moment the surface of the gate orbiting the black hole flashed, then rippled, then the bow of the ship started to emerge. At its current velocity the twenty-five hundred meter length of the ship took ten seconds to traverse the wormhole.

“We’re getting telemetry from the ship,” called out another tech. “All appears to be normal. All crew made it through.”

Cheering erupted through the room. Doctor Yu let herself smile. It would take several hours for all the data to be crunched, and the ship had only come through with a skeleton crew. But based on their experience with the personal and cargo gates, the three hundred people who had come through, all volunteers who could expect a promotion for their service, would be fine.

Two hours later it was confirmed that all was well with the Duke Margath, her crew, and all the sensitive electronic and biological systems they had transported aboard her. Now we just need to come up with a more efficient manner of creating negative matter, she thought, the true bottleneck to ship gate production. Especially since the military had cut down on their shipments from other production facilities. When Yu had asked why she was being shorted they used the common answer of need to know. Which meant they had another project going that was considered important. But as important as ship gates?

Later that day no one on the station was talking about ship gates, or anything else of military significance. All thoughts were on the attempted assassination attempt on the Emperor which had resulted in the permanent deaths of sixty-four members of the Lords and one from the Commons. Over three hundred others had their life functions terminated, but had been repaired and resurrected. There was a lot of speculation about the assassins, one of whom had been captured, the other having killed herself by detonating a bomb within her body. Countess Judy Decker had been identified as the second obliterated assassin, though no one could come up with a reason for a suicide bombing by a Member of the Lords.

“What do you think, Jimmy?” asked Doctor Yu of the IIA agent that was her security shadow, and her lover. Jimmy Chung had gotten her the clearance to find out just what the hell his agency thought about these new infiltrators.

“I think we may be hearing from our friends yet again,” said the short Asian man. “And I thank the Universe that they did not succeed with the Emperor.”

“Thank God for that,” agreed Yu, a Reformed Catholic herself, while she knew Jimmy was a Buddhist. “This Emperor has been a whirlwind since he got back. I didn’t think he would accomplish half as much as he has.”

“This may have made that just a little more difficult,” said Chung, putting out a hand to keep her from stepping into a corridor while a company of Marines jogged by. After the one hundred and eighty men and women had passed on their daily run Jimmy waved her back into the corridor.

“Why would this assassination attempt make his job harder?” asked Lucille, looking into the agent’s handsome face. “I would think that he would garner the sympathy vote with the people.”

“The people don’t vote in the Lords,” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “And now the Lords have been hurt, if not gutted. There may be whispers about this being the Emperor’s fault, if not something he planned to garner that sympathy.”

“People couldn’t believe that,” said Yu, her hands going to her face.

“Doctor Yu. You are a certified genius, one of the most brilliant people in your field. That means you are very unqualified to judge the stupidity of the common man and woman in the street.”

Later Yu was seeing just what Jimmy was talking about, while sitting in her quarters and watching an almost real time cast from Jewel. A guest from the Lords was making the very point that there was suspicion that someone in the Emporal Branch, being careful not to mention the Emperor himself, might have orchestrated the attempt. A member from the Commons was on as well, as she vehemently denied that any such shenanigans would be perpetrated by any Emperor. She eventually turned the cast off in disgust, feeling sorry that the fine young man she had met. To be made a victim, and then blamed by some for the tragedy.

“I’ve got some good news, ma’am,” came the voice of Doctor Suzie Burnes, the new expert on negative matter. “I think we may have found a partial solution to our problem.”

“How much of a solution?” asked Yu, excited, and trying to keep a tight rein on that feeling lest she be disappointed, again.

“I think I can increase production by twenty percent,” said the woman on the other end of the com. “At least that is what I am seeing in my lab.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Lucille, sitting up in her chair, looking at the process coming over her flat comp. Yes, she thought, looking at the mechanics of the process. We can do it with very little in the way of upgrades. And twenty percent more negative matter across the board. That will be good news for the Emperor and the Fleet.

An hour later the good news was tempered with bad, as the tale of another piece of sabotage flew across the station. And a tenth of the negative matter production on the station was taken offline.

*

SECTOR IV SPACE, NOVEMBER 8TH, 1000.

“The one’s hanging back,” called out the Tactical Officer, looking back at his captain with the question of what to do in his eyes.

I can see that, thought Lt. Commander Jane Wyman, watching the two vessels on the holo. The supercruiser was hanging back, just within the edge of the quantum teleporter’s range. While the scout ship was coming in close.

“If we hit the supercruiser, we’re going to have to put all of our power into the transmission,” said the Tactical Officer, telling the Captain what she already knew.

“I don’t see any other choice,” said the Captain of the Q-ship Inixius. “Everything you’ve got into the engineering spaces of the far ship. Then we’ll switch over to the scout with the other loads.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the man in charge of the ship’s main weapon, what would not even be considered a weapon on most vessels of war.

“We’re receiving a message from the scout ship, ma’am,” said the Com Officer. “The normal blather about us not being harmed if we surrender.”

“Send them the normal blather back, and stop acceleration.” We might have an opportunity here, if we play it right. She knew that the destruction of the supercruiser in itself would be a fair exchange for her converted tramp freighter. Not that she wanted that kind of exchange. She wanted to get herself and her crew back to home space. But she was out here to take risks.

“Quantum teleporter is charged and ready, ma’am,” said the Tactical Officer.

“You may transmit when ready,” said the Captain, her hands grasping the arms of her command chair tightly.

The lights dimmed on the bridge, and just over three seconds later there was a bright flash on the warship sitting five hundred thousand kilometers away. That flash was followed by an explosion reaching from the bowels of the ship, ejecting matter into space. A second later the entire ship went up in a massive explosion as the antimatter aboard lost containment. The ball of plasma spread out for tens of thousands of kilometers in seconds, until there was nothing left of the enemy supercruiser.

“Teleporter charging,” shouted the nervous Tactical Officer. “The scout seems to be confused.”

The Inixius shook from a laser hit, then again from a particle beam strike. “Their confusion didn’t seem to last all that long,” said the Navigator.

“Start the transmission,” she ordered the Tactical Officer, knowing that her own ship only had seconds to live. The electromagnetic field was strengthening, though that was taking power from the teleporter. And there was no way she was going to survive a battle with even a scout that she outmassed by a factor of ten.

“Transmission started,” yelled the Tactical Officer, and the lights dimmed again. “We only got a partial transmission,” said the officer, looking back with panicked eyes as the ship shook again from multiple hits.

The enemy ship showed on the viewer with flashes along her hull, then a great explosion that took half of her bow. The ship started to tumble, but the stern grabbers started to slow her right away.

“This is engineering,” called out a voice over the com. “We’ve taken critical damage, ma’am. One of the antimatter cylinders is moments away from a breach.”

“Can you eject it?”

“No, ma’am,” yelled the engineer. “The hatch was welded shut from their lasers.”

“Captain Frazier,” she called over the com to the Marine Force Commander. “Your men are to assault that enemy ship, immediately. The naval crew will be on your tail, so strike fast and get us a foothold.”

“Yes, ma’am,” called back the eager Marine. “We go in fifteen seconds.”

I hope that’s enough time. “Sound ship wide evacuation. All personnel are to make sure they are armed and abandon ship. Repeat, ship wide evacuation. Prepare to board that enemy vessel.”

As she finished that call icons blossomed on the holo, two hundred battle suited Marines in space and accelerating toward the enemy vessel. As she watched a few of the icons flashed red and dropped off the holo. Soon more icons appeared as the naval personnel began to bail out.

Jane made her way off the bridge, grabbing a rifle from the armorer as she passed his station. “What the hell am I doing?” she said as she ran down the corridor to the outer airlock. This is like something out of the days of sail. But I really don’t have any other choice, do I? They’re about to blow this ship apart, and we only have one hope of survival.

She checked her armor tell tales before stepping into the lock with eleven other spacers. The inner hatched closed and the outer opened without waiting for the air to be bled out. They all blew out into space, and Jane oriented herself to the enemy ship and engaged her grabbers.

Another laser slashed from the enemy ship, then a pair of particle beams, then a pair of missiles. She wondered if she had anyone left on board, knowing there was nothing she could do about it if there were. She looked back while continuing to boost toward the enemy, seeing the particle beams eating holes in the hull of her command. Then the missiles hit, and the ship shuddered as large pieces blew out into space. At that moment the antimatter containment failed, and Inixius converted to plasma. A dozen crew icons blinked and fell from her HUD, too close to the ship to escape.

Her HUD showed her the way to a hangar whose hatch was opened. There were already a dozen spacers with weapons holding the hangar, and more were landing and streaming in every moment.

“How are we doing, Frazier?” she called into her com.

“We really caught them off guard, ma’am,” replied the Marine. “Only a handful of them were in any kind of battle armor. We’re sweeping them before us.”

“Keep it up,” said Jane as she watched her spacers join in the fight. She ran through the hatch in the ship, taken aback by the size of the opening and the corridor beyond. She gripped her rifle and ran on. They had to take this ship or they were all dead, and now was not the time for the commander to hang back.

Jane found herself in one firefight, the spacers with her taking the engineering section. The Ca’cadasans fought hard, but were at a disadvantage with their size. Jane was able to hide her armored body in areas that the huge aliens couldn’t use. She used that cover well while gunning down a Caca engineer. There were only seventy-two living Cacas in the ship when they boarded, some of the rest killed by the blast that blew off the nose, many more when the inertial compensators failed in parts of the vessel while it was being accelerated by the blast. All the healthy Ca’cadasans fought to the death, but a half dozen injured specimens were captured and stabilized.

In the end they took the ship, the first operating vessel ever captured by the New Terran Empire Fleet. She still had one hundred and sixty-three Marines, and all but twelve of her three hundred and seven spacers. It took several days to make sure everything worked, and learn how to run it. Then it was a slow speed run back to base with the prize in hand.

*

CONUNDRUM SURFACE, NOVEMBER 10TH, 1000.

Preacher had been the hunted many times in his long career in the Imperial Army. He preferred being the hunter, but had learned than while conducting special ops he didn’t always get the choice. Now he and his whole command were the hunted, and he was trying to figure out how to turn that around.

If that’s even possible, he thought, hunkering down in a small hollow in the forest. He was learning the tricks of this forest. Conundrum was considered a class five risk planet, slightly less dangerous than old Earth. Which didn’t mean it was without risks. Just not as many dangers as Sestius, a class two risk planet.

If only I had a working com system, was his next thought. He dismissed that thought as soon as it came. One of the reasons his battalions were so effective was because they had no electronic signature, and were therefore very hard to track. But without face to face contact there was no command and control. And no reinforcements, or way out, he thought, second guessing the wisdom in bringing them to this continent in the first place.

Something moved, a crackling of a branch, a rustling of leaves. A flurry of bird analogues took off from some trees about fifty meters away, the sign of another predator moving. And from the sounds they were making in the foliage these were not natural predators.

Maybe I can sting them before I move off, thought the Preacher, who had no illusions about getting his unit back together in the near future, or even getting himself out of the mess he was in. He also had no illusions as to his own worth, and knew he was one of the best men he had. And had the best chance of hurting this Caca patrol and getting away with it.

He slid into position with the stealthy moves of a great cat. The pores on his uniform were closed, trapping his body heat and not giving a thermal signature, not even through the lenses of his head covering. It made it hotter than a bitch on the body, and would eventually cause a buildup that could make him pass out. He didn’t intend for his maneuver to take that long.

Sliding into a covered position that overlooked a game trail he made ready. Soon the first of the Cacas appeared, the huge shape in battle armor trying to move quietly and failing. They may have been the top predators of their ecosystem at one time, but they sure aren’t stealthy now, if they ever were.

Preacher waited for a moment to see if others would come, and was rewarded by the appearance of a second one following ten meters behind the first. Preacher sighted in on his scope, aiming for the unprotected face of the creature, wondering why they were patrolling without that armor in place. Because they’re bored and frustrated, and have not seen contact with the enemy in quite a while, if ever. He placed the crosshairs on the ugly face that was a symbol of the threat to his people, wondering for just a moment if the soldier had a family, someone he thought about, who would miss him when he were dead. Well, too damned bad, thought Preacher, visualizing the dead and soon to be dead among his own species, taken out by this threat.

The rifle bucked hard into his shoulder he fired, giving out a muffled sound through the noise suppressor. The fifteen millimeter round struck right where the crosshairs had been centered, and the space between the Cacas eyes splattered with blood and gore. The creature fell to the ground in the limp posture of death.

Preacher didn’t see the fall. He knew as soon as he had squeezed his trigger that the creature was dead, the hard ceramic bullet piercing its skull. He moved the rifle just a bit and lined up the next Caca, standing still in shock. Another squeeze and that one was dead, while two more appeared on the path behind him. One pulled down his visor, protecting his face, while the other ran forward and knelt beside the second kill, his face still unprotected.

The Brigadier was tempted to take out one more, but he hadn’t gotten to his age by making stupid mistakes. Doctrine called for making one shot and moving, shoot and scoot. He had taken two because the second target took no extra appreciable time to engage. Now it was time to move.

Preacher jumped up, keeping the brush between himself and the Cacas, who were now running in from all sides. He ran as fast as his feet would carry him, making no more noise than a passing wind. He could hear the roaring speech of the Cacas behind him, at first getting closer, then fading as he continued to run flat out. That should slow that bunch down a bit, he thought, angling down a hill to a stream. He put his rifle down and dove into the stream, opening the pores of his skin suit and pulling his head cover off, letting the liquid drink his heat, then gulping as much water as he could hold to replenish the sweat he had lost.

Moments later he was again on the move, once again the hunter, determined to sting this enemy as many times as possible.

*

SECTOR IV SPACE, NOVEMBER 20TH, 1000.

Mei Lei looked at the holo with a frown on her face. She had six ships in her current force, the two experimental battle cruisers, a light cruiser and three destroyers. Behind her was a force of over thirty ships, all in hyper VII, all moving at a higher velocity than her vessels. Her ships could do a bit better than the old Jean de Arc, up to point nine one five c. The enemy could still do point nine five, and would eventually catch them. The fact was, they wouldn’t have to catch them, as they could launch missiles well before reaching her force, and those weapons could handle more velocity induced radiation than a manned vessel.

“What do you want us to do, Admiral?” she asked Grand High Admiral Lenkowski, looking at his face in the holo screen of the wormhole com. “I really didn’t expect this many of them to come after me. We could just continue on and lead them away from the task force.”

“We have to deal with what we have,” said Lenkowski. “I will not order you to sacrifice your ships. If we have a fight on our hands we’ll just have to fight.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Mei, looking back at the holo showing the enemy, then the tactical plot. “We’ll start taking fire about ten minutes before they come within range of the task force.”

“Unleash hell on them, Commodore,” said Lenkowski. “Give them everything you’ve got.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the Commodore, looking over at her Force Tactical Officer. “Open fire, all hyper capable missiles.”

The Tactical Officer acknowledged and started working his board, sending the commands to the Jean de Arc and the other ships in the force. The light cruiser and destroyers launched their limited complement of missiles, which started their deceleration toward the enemy at five thousand gravities. In about two minutes one hundred missiles were in space. The Tactical officer waited for five minutes, allowing the missiles from the smaller ships to kill some velocity and fall back toward the enemy.

Then the battle cruisers started to fire, or it should be said that they signaled the firing platforms at the end of their wormholes to do so. The wormholes aboard ship had rotated to mate up with the stern tubes, and now they literally unleashed hell. Each tube fired a missile a second, each ship one hundred and twenty missiles a minute. They moved through the thousand kilometer long acceleration tubes and exited the wormholes at over fifty thousand kilometers per second. As they left the ships their own grabbers cut in with five thousand gravities acceleration. In six minutes the two ships had fired fourteen hundred and forty missiles, all staggering their acceleration until they joined as one mass. With that the missile tubes went silent, for the moment, all the missiles at the acceleration tubes expended. It would take ten minutes to move new magazines into place. The wormholes at the other end rotated away from the acceleration tubes and mated with another construct.

“The enemy is firing,” called out the Tactical Officer, and red icons appeared on the tactical holo as eight Ca’cadasan battleships, twelve supercruisers and ten scouts opened fire. They could put a lot of missiles in space, really an overwhelming amount.

But how many are targeted at us, and how many at our missiles? thought the Commodore. That really hadn’t been a common tactic at the beginning of the war, but since the humans had used it early on the enemy was now doing so as well. Mei stared at the holo through the relative silence of the bridge as the two waves converged. Several hundred of her missiles dropped from the plot, their hyperdrives going offline with annihilation. The rest continued on toward the enemy, while the foe’s weapons kept coming toward the fleet.

They think they have enough to overwhelm us, she thought, her own tension feeding from that of the flag bridge crew. The hope was that they didn’t. Unless they fired everything they had. Which seems unlikely given what we know about their ships.

“Impact in ten minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer. “Closing velocity point four c.”

“That takes a lot of their advantage away,” said her Flag Captain, looking over at her from his station.

“Yes,” agreed Mei. “It does. And if they don’t get us with this one the next will be more massive.”

“Impact in eight minutes.”

“Signal the release of counters. We better get them out while we can.”

The Tactical Officer acknowledged and sent the signal. Seconds later the first of the countermissiles came through the wormholes. At four minutes out they started to engage the enemy missiles, while more came out from the wormholes behind them.

“We’re making the jump in three minutes,” came the voice of Admiral Sims over the wormhole com.

“Very good, Admiral. We’ve got them lined up for you.”

The enemy missiles were beginning to disappear from the plot, but so were her offensive weapons. It looked like she might get a couple of hundred into close in weapons range, probably not enough to take out more than a couple of their ships. She monitored her own com, making sure that the other force knew exactly where everything was. And then the enemy moved into the trap.

“Jumping now,” came the voice of Sims, and the hyperdrive sensors picked up twenty ships making the transition from normal space to hyper VII. The holes opened, and twenty hyper VII battle cruisers slid into space at point two c, on the same heading as the enemy force. As soon as they entered VII they acquired the Ca’cadasan ships, and opened fire with all beam weapons.

Mei’s two hundred and fifteen surviving missiles were coming in to the front, while the new battle cruisers opened fire with their missile armaments. Six of the battle cruisers were of the same class as Jean de Arc, and started releasing their own arsenal of elsewhere fired missiles at the enemy.

Mei stared at her own holo, which showed her light cruiser seriously damaged, and one of the battle cruisers and a destroyer simply gone.

“We have missiles in the pipeline,” called out the Tactical Officer. “Opening fire.”

Jean de Arc started to cycle her own missiles down the enemy’s throat, six hundred in five minutes. When her second strike hit the battle was over. She stared at the holo that was devoid of enemy ships. Devoid as well of fourteen of Sims’ battle cruisers, including the Admiral’s own.

“We took them out, Admiral,” reported Mei over the wormhole com. “But at a heavy cost.”

“Good work, Commodore,” said Lenkowski. “I’m putting you in charge of the entire force.” The holo went blank for a few moments, then Lenkowski’s face appeared again with a worried expression. “Rendezvous with the fleet at the Carmile system. We’ve got troubles here. I’ll try to bring as much of the fleet as I can to that rally point. Lenkowski out.”

The com faded, but the data was still coming across the open link. The tactical holo switched views to the feed from the main battle fleet. Over a thousand icons appeared within the system, and what looked like a thousand red icons were approaching in hyper VII. While Mei watched vectors and accel figures began to appear under the icons, the fleet starting to accelerate away, making for the other side of the system and open space. Mei prayed to the Universe that they would make it.

Chapter Nine

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. Walter Raleigh.

FAYAL SYSTEM, SECTOR IV, NOVEMBER 21ST, 1000.

Lieutenant SG Rogelio Fujardo still wasn’t sure why he had volunteered for this suicide mission. Of course, they had told him there was a better than even chance he and his crew would make it, and it was an important mission. The cargo in the courier’s hold was of strategic importance.

The courier had been modified for the one way mission it was on. Its designation had been CH7-19D25, but Fujardo had wanted to call it the Forlorn Hope. Upon learning that the name had already been taken by another foolhardy officer for his courier, he added the designation II to the appellation.

“They still chasing us?” he asked his sensor tech, cursing himself for a fool as soon as he said it. He could see for himself that the two enemy scouts were still on his tail. Normally in a long range chase they would have caught him. One of the modifications to his ship had been strengthening of the forward electromag shields, at the expense of those to the stern, giving his ship the ability to reach point nine six c in hyper. Added to that was the requirement for the crew to wear battle armor at all times, and the supplement of their antirad nanos. He had been told he had a seventy percent chance of making it to his target. The result had been their blowing past everything the enemy had on picket.

The holo showed the enemy scouts still well behind him, and he was opening that distance with every hour. The critical time would come within the hour, when he started to decel toward the hyper limit of the target system, Fayal. The enemy ships would then have a choice to make. They could continue to accel, and chance running into the hyper barrier. Or they could curve around the other star and take a shot at the courier with their missiles. Or they might just let him continue into the system, and let the forces there deal with him. He was thinking the second possibility the most likely, and that was not good news.

Of course, they have no idea about the wormholes we’re carrying, he thought, and that was his ace in the hole. One of the two wormholes was connected to a missile port to the stern, a feature normally not installed on couriers, which didn’t have room for more than four missiles, normally mounted on the hull. Those mounts were gone, replaced by extra grabber units.

The clock ticked, and the hyper VII barrier approached. The courier went into its decel profile, pulling six hundred and thirty gravities.

“The enemy is launching,” called out the Sensor Tech who doubled as the tactical officer. The holo bloomed with icons, twenty missiles heading their way.

And normally that would be an overwhelming number against a ship like mine, thought the officer with a grim smile, hoping that was not true this day.

“They’ll reach us six minutes before we get to the hyper barrier,” called out the Navigator, also a rating.

And by the time they see the result, or hopefully, lack of, it will be too late to launch another. Unless they want to jump one down, which means they can’t be moving faster than point three c, their limit.

Again the clock was moving down, and the enemy missiles drawing closer, their closing speed decreasing as the courier slowed. At five minutes distance the Lieutenant signaled the release of the counter missiles.

The hyper capable counters started to eject from the single stern tube of the courier, coming from an acceleration tube around another star and out into hyper VII, their drives active. In a minute there were sixty missiles in space, three for every enemy incoming. At three minutes to impact on the courier they closed with the enemy birds. A series of bright flashes showed where the counters were engaging the foe, and only two missiles came through to track onto the courier.

At one minute out the courier engaged one of the missiles with its laser, while four more counters popped out to engage the other. Both flared antimatter fire well away from the courier.

A hole in space opened, and the courier slid through at point two two c, another of her modifications. Fujardo waited on the edge of his seat for the enemy to launch again, but it didn’t come. They’ve decided to let the system handle us, thought the ship commander, happy for the moment at their decision.

The Forlorn Hope II stair stepped down the levels of hyper and appeared in normal space just a few light minutes from the hyper I barrier. The ship immediately began scanning the system on all sensors, and what it saw was frightening. There were scores of ships in the system, and a large station in orbit around the habitable planet. And a four million ton supercruiser less than thirty light minutes to port. As soon as it saw the courier it started to accelerate toward it, detectable by the graviton emissions of its grabbers.

“Let’s get this thing going,” said Fujardo, getting up from his command chair. The Sensor Tech sent the signal through to command, and twenty small missiles popped out of the wormhole and started to accelerate toward the supercruiser, hopefully catching its attention. After it released the last missile part of the hull reconfigured itself into a probe, releasing from the ship and carrying that wormhole into space, where its small size and stealth capabilities made it invisible to detection.

The crew headed for the second wormhole, this one in a compartment near the outer hull of the ship. The Lieutenant watched as his crew disappeared through the rabbit hole one by one. He jacked into the ship and made sure that all was set to proceed as planned, then walked through the wormhole himself, appearing in a chamber of the Donut.

“Welcome aboard, Lt. Commander Fujardo,” said the Vice Admiral in charge of the project. Fujardo shook the man’s hand as he realized what had been said. Everyone aboard his command was to receive a promotion and a bonus for this mission. We made it, he thought, looking at his smiling crew within the room. Next he looked up at the viewer that was showing the take from the wormhole probe that would stay in space to monitor the system for Naval Intelligence.

In Fayal space the hull of the ship opened, and a small circle, the reduced frame and miniaturized wormhole, floated into space. As soon as it aligned itself a powerful laser came from the hole, turning it into a miniature rocket. The laser would only be detected if something happened to fly through it. Otherwise, the Ca’cadsans would never know it was there.

Fujardo was there to watch the landing a week later, when the wormhole came through the atmosphere of the habitable planet and made landfall, then expanded itself to a personnel gate. He was there when the Naval Engineers came out of the hole, set it up in a secure location, and then expanded it to a cargo gate. And two weeks later he watched as ten missiles streaked into the sky and hit the enemy space station, blasting it out of orbit.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, NOVEMBER 22ND, 1000.

Sean watched the vid of the assassination attempt once again. It had been weeks since the event, and the news was still buzzing with it. Fourteen new members of Commons and ninety-one Lords had been seated since then, replacements for the permanently killed and those who did not want to serve after the trauma of the event. At least they didn’t get to the cabinet, or the military advisors, he thought. Or the Prime Minister.

In fact, the Prime Minister, Countess Haruko Kawasaki, had become his Churchill after the attempt. She had thrown herself fully into her job, determined to give Sean and the military what he needed to prosecute his war. Not that the war was going any better, and help was not at hand. Both the Klashak Concordium and the Margrave Hegemony, strong allies of the Empire, were still involved in countering the Lasharan Autocracy. There were promises that ships would be available, soon, but the Emperor was not willing to count those birds before they were running in his yard. And the Fenri Empire was also demonstrating on his borders, stretching his military beyond their limits.

And still no word from Elysium, he thought. He had expected thirty thousand advanced warships from that ally. He hadn’t expected a civil war to erupt just when he needed that force the most.

On the vid the Secret Service Agent pointed the particle beam at him, then started to crumple as the Marine sonics began to hit. The beam went wide, and Sean still flinched as he saw how close that miss was. Five inches closer and his brain would have been vaporized as his skull exploded. The agent hit the ground, and the view panned to Countess Decker as she tried to fight her way out of the crowd. She shook as Sean hit her with the sonic he had strapped to his arm, then exploded before she lost consciousness.

She detonated herself when she realized she wasn’t going to make it to the stage, he thought. When she realized they weren’t going to take out myself, my cabinet, and the heads of the military. So she did the next best thing, and took out as many members of the Lords as she could.

He had looked over the reports from the Imperial Intelligence. The agent they had captured had carried a molecular explosive, as powerful as the one Decker had deployed. And she wasn’t human, which led to speculation that Decker wasn’t either. And then had come the talk of the legendary shape shifters of the ancient Elysium Empire, who might still exist in the modern Empire that only retained the name.

He switched the vid to a view of the interrogation chamber where the prisoner was being questioned. It looked like Agent Chakra Sondrata, at least on the surface. But that appearance was only skin deep. Below the couple of centimeters of human cells that were an exact match for the Agent’s, there were alien cells like nothing ever seen, until the killing of the agent who had attempted the destruction of the Donut. And she, it? Is not talking. Nothing we can do to it will elicit any kind of response. Not pain, not drugs, not psychoprobes. Nothing. The perfect spy, able to duplicate anyone, and totally loyal, unable to be questioned with any kind of a hope for getting information.

After the incident all members of the Secret Service, the Marine guards, and any functionaries who might have access to the Emperor had been checked by biopsy. That had raised hell as well, as members of Parliament had protested the violation of their persons. Sean had been tested as well, and had made the results of those tests public.

How many others of these things are there out there? thought Sean, watching the creature stare straight ahead and ignore its questioners. Sean had volunteered to interrogate the creature himself, thinking that he, being its target, might elicit some kind of reaction that would prove useful. The heads of all security and intelligence services had threatened resignation over that plan. No one wanted to risk the Monarch within reach of a creature with still unknown capabilities. And the answer to how many others were out there might not ever be known. But even the possibility of their existence was causing problems for security and intelligence.

Sean jumped a bit as a soft form landed in his lap, then smiled as he looked down at the orange tabby that was sitting on him and purring. He laughed as he stroked its soft fur. “You want some attention, Jonah,” he said to the cat, one of many who roamed the interior of the palace, and his personal favorite. Something else they had brought with them from Earth, they had improved the felines like most other domesticated and some wild beasts. The animals were twice as smart as their ancestors, and had four times the life spans. Jonah had been his cat when he was a child, a kitten given to the young prince. And he would still be alive a decade from now.

“You have a call from the CNO, your Majesty,” came a voice over the com.

“Put her on,” said Sean, grabbing the cat before he could jump from the Imperial lap. “No you don’t,” he said, holding the cat with one hand while stroking it with the other.

“Excuse me, your Majesty,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom, her face looking out of the holo.

“Sorry, Admiral,” said Sean with a laugh. “The true ruler of the Palace is demanding my attention.”

“So I see,” said the smiling Admiral. Her face immediately turned serious. “I’m afraid I have bad news from Sector IV.”

Sean nodded. That was the hotspot, and there had not been much good news from there since the young Commander, now Captain, had brought back the captured Ca’cadasan scout. “So, what’s the news?”

“Admiral Lenkowski has lost half his fleet,” blurted out the CNO, a hint of tears in her eyes.

“How the hell did that happen?”

“The enemy pulled a fast one on us, your Majesty,” said the CNO after a calming breath. “They used their speed to get a force around our flanks, and while we were ambushing small groups of their ships, they snuck in an ambush on us.”

“What about Admiral Lenkowski?” asked Sean, fearing the worst.

“He made it out,” said the CNO, a tight smile on her face. “He fought his fleet brilliantly once it became apparent the Cacas had an overwhelming force. Even more brilliant due to the fact that most of his force was VI.”

“So what do you have heading his way?” asked the Emperor, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to replace half of the Battle Fleet overnight.

“Admiral Mgonda is will be there in another day,” said the CNO, her expression now calm. “All his ships are VIIs. And the ships we’re transferring from Sectors I through XII will be trickling in. What we really need are more ships from Home Fleet, but Parliament will raise hell if we do that.”

“Take what you need to stabilize the sector. I’ll deal with Parliament. Now, do you have any good news?”

“That I do, your Majesty. Operation Trojan Horse has succeeded better than expected. Ninety-one percent of the couriers have made it through and seeded their wormholes. We’ve not only started to gather much more intelligence on the enemy, but have initiated guerilla campaigns on over a hundred planets, and have actually hurt some of their space based assets. But I’m also worried a bit about this success.”

“How so?”

“They’ve got to figure out that we’ve got some tech that they don’t, unless they’re complete idiots. And what happens if they duplicate our wormhole tech.”

“The Director of the Donut doesn’t think that will happen,” said Sean, stroking the cat and hoping that was true. “Something to do with the power generating capabilities to make one, and the length of time it takes to build a station.”

“Then we better start worrying about them finding our station and doing something to it.”

Sean continued to stroke the cat while he thought about that last. They would have to fight their way through the Core Systems, then take out the most heavily defended station in known space, within the sixty light hour hyperlimit of the black hole. And that would be impossible, wouldn’t it? He thought long and hard on that, remembering that what was thought impossible by one side in war was often found possible by the other when they put their minds to it. And it wasn’t a possibility his side needed to ignore.

*

CONUNDRUM, NOVEMBER 30TH, 1000.

“How are they getting all these soldiers into systems we already hold?” yelled out Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow, sending a scathing gaze around the table. “No ships made it to those planets. At least, that is what the system commanders swear. And I don’t think all of them are lying.”

“Perhaps they had more people on those planets than we thought,” said the High General commanding all Ca’cadasan ground forces on the campaign. “And they hid the soldiers away until now.”

“On all of those planets?” asked another incredulous officer. “I could see that happening on a few of the more populous ones. But not all of them.”

The Great Admiral gave a head gesture of negation, then looked over at his Intelligence Chief. “What do you think is happening?”

“I am not sure, my Lord,” said the Low Admiral, confusion in his eyes. “But we have been looking at some data, and to date, every one of these systems save one has been recently visited by a small fast ship of the enemy.”

“What did these ships do?” asked another officer, this one in charge of the local battle force.

“They jumped into the system and then accelerated toward the planet. Some of them unleashed more missiles than we thought such ships capable of carrying, but it was assumed the enemy just added missile pods to the ships, though they did have a very unusual acceleration profile.”

“And then what happened?” asked the battle force commander. “They escaped?”

“No,” answered the Intelligence Chief. “They were destroyed further into the system, every one of them.”

“None were captured?”

“We did disable a few, or it was assumed we had. But they self-destructed before they could be boarded. Or, in several occasions, as they were being boarded, with the loss of the entire boarding party.”

“Could they have dropped something into the systems that we didn’t see?” asked the Great Admiral, pulling up information about the incidents on his flat pad, then sending one to the table holo. A small ship, something the humans used for carrying messages between their larger units, appeared out of a hole into hyper, then accelerated to continue into the system. A burst of static obscured the picture, a very long lasting burst, as if someone was trying to hide something. Then the static was gone and the ship was moving in all its clarity. “Could they have dropped a probe just then, something they could use to scan our system?”

“I’m not really sure what good it would to them, my Lord,” replied the Intelligence Chief, looking down at his own flat screen. “It would not be able to communicate its information back to base unless another ship entered the system and uploaded the info. Or it wended its way far out of system and sent a burst transmission, which could at most reach a couple of light years out and contain limited information. Either way, a probe is just not practical.”

“But it could be a weapon of some type, stealthed down and waiting for something of ours to come along?” said the local force commander.

Stealthed, thought the Great Admiral. Like the attack ship that hit my station?

“I am sure we will find out what happened eventually, when it bites us in the ass,” said the local force commander with a gesture of resignation.

“I have some even more disturbing information, my Lord Admiral,” said the Intelligence Chief, calling up another holo, this one of a recorded battle in hyperspace that had been pieced together from multiple angles and perspectives.

“Now, we won this battle,” said the Intelligence Chief, showing his teeth in a predator’s smile. “But the enemy pulled some tactical surprises on us. In fact, they pulled some surprises that could be attributed to chance if so many of them hadn’t happened in this one battle. This, for instance.”

The holo showed how one enemy force was being enveloped by a superior Ca’cadasan task force. And three enemy task forces began to move as soon as that envelopment was started.

“How is that possible?” growled the Great Admiral, looking at the scale of the holo. “They are out of the range of laser or hyperdrive pulse. And even if they developed a laser that was capable of transmitting through hyper, it would take hours to reach from one force to another.”

“And here’s an insystem fight,” said the Intelligence Chief, changing the holo. “Now we see the enemy forces again making a move in response to one of ours, which had been observed by one of their closer forces. There is no way possible they could have seen our move from across light hours of space in that time frame. We detected no hyperwave bursts, so they weren’t projecting that code over the space. And most interesting, this time there was some time delay between our initial move and their response. Still not enough of a delay to account for the light speed barrier though.”

For the next hour the Intelligence Chief showed more holos, supporting his assertion that the enemy was up to something.

“Wormholes,” said the Great Admiral, sure that was the answer. “They’re using wormholes.”

“But, how, my Lord Admiral?” asked the local force commander, giving a hand gesture of confusion and disagreement. “Are they so common around here that there are that many for their use.”

“That would make some sense, my Lord,” said the Intelligence Chief. “If they could find a way to move them and use them for their own purposes. But as the Admiral said,” the IC looked at the local force commander, “could there be so many of them?”

“Could they make them?” asked the Great Admiral.

“I don’t see how,” answered the Intelligence Chief. “We’re talking about energies orders of magnitude greater than any we have ever harnessed. How could these primitives have done something we couldn’t?”

“Not so primitive,” said the Great Admiral. “Not what we expected at all.” He looked over at another of his officers. “I want a message sent to the commander of the New Moscow conquest. He is not to kill all the humans. We may need to use all their intellect in our fight against them. Find their scientists and military thinkers, and gain their cooperation.”

“They may not want to cooperate,” said that officer, noting the order on his flat comp.

“Then find a way. They may want to see their own children survive. That is a common motivation of intelligent life. Meanwhile, I am going to talk with my pet human, and see what she had been keeping from us.”

Chapter Ten

Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's always darkest before it's totally black.'. John McCain.

NEW TERRAN REPUBLIC SPACE, DECEMBER 1ST, 1000.

Xenia was unusual as far as habitable systems went. In the first place, the system star was M class. While not impossible for the production of habitable planets, it was unlikely. Most planets close enough in the be Goldilocks Zone soon became tidally locked to the star, meaning one side received all the sunlight, the other none. There were some habitable planets orbiting close gas giants, their orbit simulating the day night cycle of a normal rotating world. But Xenia was not one of those planets.

Still, the planet Xenia was not tidally locked, not yet at least. It had a very long day period, seventy-five standard hours, and was lengthening slowly but surely. Scientists believed that the planet had not formed with the star, but had been a wanderer that had just appeared one day, to be captured by the star in an extreme elliptical orbit that had smoothed out over time, as the planet thawed out under the heat of the starlight and tidal forces. Strangely, the planet had salt water seas and a heavy nitrogen atmosphere, along with some oxygen and a lot of carbon dioxide, leading to speculation that it might have been a living planet at one time. Being heavy element poor lent support to the theory that it was a first generation planet, from the early universe, that had been ripped away from its star by some outside force, probably another stellar mass. And now it was a living planet again, transplanted with genenged life.

President Julia Graham thought of none of that as she looked out over the ocean, reflecting the crimson light from the enormous red sun rising slowly to the east. On the veranda the black leafed plants turned their light gathering surfaces to catch the light they had not seen for over thirty-seven hours.

So unlike the capital, she thought, recalling the bright light of the K class star that New Washington orbited around. She had been on vacation to Xenia, her home world, when the aliens had struck her Republic. Since the several weeks after that attack no word had come from the capital. There were rumors that it was still holding out. But only rumors.

“We’re ready, Madame President,” said the voice of her military advisor, Admiral Jackson Mirable.

Thank god for officers like him, thought the President of the New Terran Republic, the second largest human polity in the Persius Arm. If only I had listened to their entreaties to modernize the fleet to hyper VII capability. Of course there had seemed to be no need to do that, beyond a small cadre of scout and exploration vessels. They had been at peace with their larger neighbor, the New Terran Empire, and the other nearby powers had not yet advanced to the level of VII. The only real threat was the Klang, and the Neutral Zone was holding them in check. That, and the more advanced fleets of all three of the human powers.

Graham sat down at the table of her conference room, nodding to her cabinet members, most newly appointed, and military chiefs. A holo was projected above the table, showing a number of humans and some aliens in another room. Graham found her attention drawn to the huge crococentaur in chamber thousands of light years away, Phlistarans, a species not known in her Republic.

“His Majesty is running a little late,” said a small Asian woman, the new Prime Minister of the Empire.

Graham almost wanted to get angry that the other leader was not adhering to her schedule. She held that feeling in check. She needed the other power much more than they needed her. They were the ones who had invented the wormhole tech that had made this meeting possible. They were the ones who had sent her a wormhole gate, just arrived less than twenty hours before. Now they could communicate in real time, and actually send people across the more than two thousand light years separating the permanent capital of the Empire from the temporary capital of the Republic.

“His Majesty, Sean the First, leader of the Empire,” called out a voice as everyone in the other room jumped to their feet. No one in her chamber moved. They had formed the Republic so that they didn’t have to respond to someone’s position of birth, and still had a lot of pride in not having to bow to kings or emperors.

A face took up the holo, and Graham was surprised at how young the man was, despite reading his complete dossier several hours ago. The young man was smiling, but she could read the stress and strain in his eyes.

“Madame President,” said the young man.

“Your Majesty,” she replied, giving a very slight head bow.

“We have been friends for many years now,” said the young man, his voice strong across the link. “Allies. And now we need to be closer than ever, if we are to weather this storm.”

He speaks well, she thought, nodding her head. “I look forward to a close military relationship, your Majesty.”

“Call me Sean,” said the young man with a smile.

“Then call me Julia, Sean,” said the President. “Since we are not going to stand on formality here. We are willing to share all of our intelligence with you, and my Secretary of State has told me you are willing to do the same.”

“Better than that,” said Sean, glancing over at one of his ministers who had a permanent scowl on his face. “I would like for us to have a technology exchange. You give us anything you have that you think we might lack, and we give you anything we have that you don’t possess.”

“That, is very generous, Sean,” said the President, looking over at her Secretary of Technological Development, who had a wide smile on her face. “I am sure we will benefit from the exchange much more than you.”

“We have no time for one-upmanship, Julia,” said the Monarch. “We need to pull together on this one like nothing before. The only way we are going to survive is if we have a unified command structure, and that means our ships must be able to mesh their communications.”

“Does that include wormhole tech, your Majesty?” asked one of her cabinet.

“As much as we can spare,” said the Emperor. “There is a limit on how many we can make per time period, and we have many tasks requiring wormholes. But I can see us parting with enough to allow you instantaneous communications between your major commands, and ours. And it would help if you could get some negative matter production facilities up and running.”

“What about New Moscow?” asked the President, referencing the minor power among the human polities.

“We’re not sure they even exist,” said the Emperor, shaking his head. “We have had contact with some of their ships that have escaped from the Kingdom. Including a small group of warships and evacuation liners that got out early. From what they tell us it was a story of overrun and quick conquest. Something I don’t want to see happen to your Republic.”

“We agree on that, by God,” said the President, thinking of the billions of humans who had been in their smaller ally. And I have two hundred billion humans and aliens to think of myself.

“We have dispatched a scout force to have a look at the Kingdom,” continued Sean. “We have com with them, so we know they’re still moving, but it’s unknown how close they will get before they are stopped.”

“What do you want us to do?” she asked, getting to the point of the meeting. “I mean, in the short term.”

“I would like to send you some of our engineers though the wormhole,” said Sean, glancing over at another minister. “And have you send us some of yours. I realize that you are not that far behind us in most respects, but we have some things in the pipeline that might surprise you. And I hope we are pleasantly surprised as well.”

Oh yes, thought the President, remembering some of the toys the admirals had been showing her the past week. Maybe not as impressive as wormholes, but still something that might improve the military tech of both powers.

“And I would like to set up a summit, whenever you feel ready, but sometime soon. We would host it here, for, ah, security reasons.”

Safety reasons, you mean. Your capital is not in danger, yet. “I would be willing for that face to face meet, in your capital. And what other allies do you have? Has Elysium come in on your side?”

“Unfortunately, they have problems of their own right now. I think they will come in, eventually, but only after they have cleaned up their own mess. And our lessor allies are dealing with those damned Lasharans.”

“Then we’re it, for now,” said the President, bowing her head and saying a quick prayer.

“For now, yes. And perhaps all we need for right now. We don’t have to beat them right away. We only have to hold on by our fingertips until we can build up our forces. Then smash them.”

The talk went on for another hour, and when it was over the President felt better than she had for the last couple of months. Her cabinet didn’t agree wholeheartedly. Some were captured by the charisma of foreign ruler. Others thought him far too young for the shoes he was trying to fill. President Julia Graham thought the Empire had found the head of state it needed at the time they had to have him. Watching the huge ball of the sun rising imperceptibly in the eastern sky she felt like they just might win this thing.

*

ELYSIUM, DECEMBER 3RD, 1000.

Ambassador Horatio Alexanderopolis still cringed a bit when he saw a Knockerman out and about in the rebuilding capital city of the Elysium Empire. Of course, they were the beings tasked with clearing away the rubble, and there were plenty of Brakakak guards around, their smaller forms encased in battle armor and their weapons ready.

We called it Elysium because of the beauty of their many cultures, especially the Brakakak. That, and we hadn’t a clue on how to make those chirping whistling sounds that were the real name. The Ambassador spoke fluent Brakakak, or at least as much as was possible for any human. Those who dealt with him on a regular basis had no trouble understanding him, and he had perfect understanding of the speech of the avian species that was the predominant race of the Empire.

“It still saddens my heart to see the destruction,” said High Lord Grarakakak in his fluent English. The avians had the ability to mimic a variety of sounds, though few bothered to learn Terranglo.

“You will rebuild it better than new,” said the human, who considered the High Lord his good friend. He looked out over the city for a moment, then back at the leader of the Elysium Empire. “Has the Council decided on whether to let us install a wormhole here?” he asked, remembering that the ship carrying it would be here in two days.

“Yes,” said the High Lord, still staring at the city. “We will rebuild. But will we rebuild to only see it knocked down again by an alien invader.” The High Lord opened and closed his beak in a manner of his people when negating something. “There is still some dissent among the new Council. Some think it is too dangerous to allow such a device on our planet. But I think this is stupid thinking by beings who do not understand what is going on in the Universe. So here is what we will do.” The High Lord pointed to the sky, then looked back at the human. “We will allow you to place your device in our primary orbital station, where my military can watch it. You will, of course, be allowed to move your own people back and forth, as long as you don’t try to move a whole division of your Marines. And your communications through the wormhole are secure and will be your own business.”

“Sounds fair enough,” said Horatio, nodding.

“And in return you will allow us to send our own people through, so that we may meet directly with your Emperor and military. And to send communications to our embassy.”

“And I think we can do that as well. We want a working relationship with your government, to weather this coming storm.”

“Our fleet is still occupied with putting down this rebellion,” said the High Lord, turning his sad eyes on the human. “The Knockermen are not all involved, but it is still widespread enough that we need a fleet presence in every system. As soon as everything is stabilized we will see what we can do. As I said before, your people have been good neighbors for the last two centuries. These Ca’cadasans do not sound like they would be. Now I must excuse myself. May I drop by your temporary embassy this evening?”

“Of course,” said the Ambassador, thinking of the temporary shelter they had erected above the shaft to the underground shelter with dismay. Not much of a spot to host the leader of a sovereign power. But, then again, he spent weeks in the underground bunker. “I’ll have bourbon ready for you.”

“And I’ll bring some honey cakes with me,” said the High Lord. “Covered with Elysium sugar.” And with that the High Lord was heading for his aircar, his security detail forming round him.

“As long as he’s in charge I trust their word,” said the Ambassador to his aide. “Let’s hope he stays in power through all of this.”

*

SECTOR IV SPACE, DECEMBER 5TH, 1000.

Captain Maurice von Rittersdorf gazed at a sight that few had seen, at least not by the light given off by the objects themselves. James Komorov sat in normal space at the hyper limit of the double star system Hellsfaire, so named since it was the home of two blue supergiant stars. Neither would live over ten million years. But the close orbiting stars would merge in less than five thousand years, forming an even larger star that would explode in fury much sooner than either would by itself. The star system was of no interest to anyone outside the scientific community, and of course to Survey Command, responsible for keeping a watch on the unpopulated sun groups of the Empire.

There were many dangerous objects in the Empire, black holes, neutron stars, and, of course, stars which could explode in the fury of a supernova and form with its remnants one of the first two objects. These could cause problems for the inhabited systems, and so a close watch was kept on all of them, just in case they did something unexpected. Add to these the millions of otherwise uninteresting red dwarves that might become the homes of pirates or other illegal colonies, and Survey Command was kept busy.

But that one ship never left here, thought the Captain, looking at the holo that was a composite of all the sensor takes from his three ships. He looked down at his side screen, which displayed the image of what looked like a standard courier ship, though only capable of hyper VI. KXE-19782, whose next stop was the K class system three light years away, which had a mining colony.

A screen over by the helm station showed how the hyperlimit was also changing as the two stars rotated around each other. They had entered normal space near the outer reach of that limit. Now the limit was further away.

“Do you see anything?” he asked his Sensor Officer, who was receiving the feed from the other vessels.

“No, sir,” answered the officer, shrugging her shoulders. “Too much interference.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Maurice, staring at the holo and trying to will it to reveal the secrets of this star system. But the stars were putting out too much radiation, adding to the gravitonic effect of two massive objects rotating around each other. A true nightmare of detection. Even jumps to hyper near these stars might be damped out by the gravitational swirl.

“Well, nothing to it but to go in,” he said to the com officer. “Order Argos and Sung Lee to proceed. I want them to stick close and keep a close watch.”

The com officer went to work, and the Captain was still somewhat perturbed that he couldn’t lead the way. But his ship had the wormhole com, which was why it remained his flag even when a light cruiser was attached to his command. That and his wearing two hats, force commander and captain of the flagship.

Something I hadn’t thought about when I accepted promotion, he thought, watching as the other two ships accelerated into the system. He knew it might take a while to either find something or clear the system. The hyper limit stretched out to eight light hours from the massive stars, and they wouldn’t see anything behind the stars until the ships got a look. He was almost tempted to move his ship in hyper around the stars, but he would be cut off from com with the other ships if he did that. And he was tempted to split up his other ships, but had a gut feeling that there was something wrong here, and they might need their mutual support.

The next four hours were pure boredom. The other ships were fifteen light minutes in, over a minute’s one way transmission time by subspace com. Still nothing but the view of superhot stars trading prominences as they performed their less than eternal dance around each other.

The destroyer was in constant contact with higher command through the wormhole com, instantaneous without delay as much as to not be important. No matter what happened here, higher command would know.

At eight hours the ships were almost a light hour in, and the Captain decided he needed to take a break, having seen the change of the bridge shift two times since they entered the system. “Let me know if anything happens,” he said uselessly as he left the bridge, heading for the mess hall. He could have ordered food brought to the bridge, but didn’t see the need to not seek some comfort and relaxation. After a meal he headed for his day cabin, twenty meters down the corridor from the bridge.

The Captain lay on his bunk, looking at the pictures of his father and brothers that seemed alive in their holographic projections. They were his only family, along with his brothers’ wives and children. Now that he was a Duke he thought it might be time to find a mate and produce an heir. Not the best timing, he thought with a laugh. I’ll be lucky to get a wedding leave with all the shit going down. Much less find the time to seek a wife. Unless I ask father to sort out some good prospects for me. Surely the daughter of a count or baron would be happy to become a duchess. As long as I find her suitable.

Maurice was not a romantic. He had seen other nobles married to women they barely knew, and later come to love them. He had also seen the opposite happen, and a married couple come to hate each other. And he had seen couples who married for love come to both ends. I’ll make it work, he thought, closing his eyes and willing his reticular activating system to put him into a deep sleep.

“We may have something, sir,” called out the voice of his exec, who had taken the con while he rested.

Maurice was instantly awake and aware, checking the time on his internal clock. He had been asleep a little under three hours, which meant the pair of scouts were twelve hours into the system, two light hours distance.

After quickly dressing he headed for the bridge, sending the signal that put him in command as soon as he walked through the hatch, and relegating his Exec in the CIC to the alternate con. “What do we have?” he asked the Duty Sensor Tech as he hit his chair.

“Argos is reporting some faint graviton traces. Her captain thinks it’s the trace of ships moving further into the system.”

“Have they sent any idea of what it might be?” Maurice looked up at the timer above the com station that showed the one way transmission time, ten point three minutes. I’ll be really glad when we have wormhole coms in all our ships. Not that it's likely to happen anytime soon.

“Sending query now,” said the Tech, and the Captain shook his head, knowing he would be waiting over twenty minutes for a reply.

“Send them a grav pulse,” he ordered, knowing that though the old binary code wouldn’t hold much information, it would only take seconds to cover the distance.

“They say it’s something big, sir,” said the Tech. He leaned in and listened carefully on his phones. “And there are more of them coming up on her sensors.”

Crap, thought the Captain, wondering if his need to know might have given the enemy a fix on his ships, maybe something they didn’t have before the cruiser started to send out her own strong graviton waves.

He fretted for another hour as the ships continued to move inward. He was tempted to order them back, and to keep his own ship watchful at the hyper limit, where he could bug out quickly. But he didn’t know what was hiding against the brilliance of the two giant stars. It could be an enemy scout, or even a logistics ship. Or it could be a task force or larger, waiting here to strike at some more tempting target.

“We’re getting graviton transmission from Argos,” called out the Com Tech. “They’re reporting hundreds of point sources with strong emissions. They think they’re missiles.”

“Shit. Tell them to get the hell out of there.” Even as he said that he knew it was too late.

Ten minutes later the subspace transmission came through, showing the face of the Captain of the light cruiser on her bridge. “We’re tracking over a five hundred graviton transmissions,” said the woman. “Most of them are missiles, but there are scores that look to be very large ships. I’m thinking they’re battleships. They’re five light hours further in, about five light hours from the stars.”

“That would put them in the graviton swirl from the stars,” said the Exec over the internal com. “And with all the electromagnetic radiation coming off the stars they would have been invisible on any kind of sensors.”

Until they decided to move, and their own emissions gave them away.

“Orders, sir,” said the Tactical Officer, turning in his seat.

“We sit and watch, Mr. Lasardo,” he replied, his hands clutching at his chair arms. “There’s really not much else we can do.” The hyper VII destroyer carried fewer missiles than a VI, part of the price of being able to accelerate faster and move to another level of hyper. He didn’t think the fifty missiles he could put into space would do much. We need more missiles, which mean smaller missiles with similar capabilities. Might as well wish that the enemy would just go away.

It took seven hours for the missiles to reach the two scouting ships, at which time they were closing at point eight c. The ships had been able to kill their forward velocity and reverse vector in a curve that had them moving out of the system at point one c. Not enough to get away.

The graviton emissions of the two ships disappeared while Komorov was still receiving the subspace radio transmissions that showed the closing missiles and the frightened expressions of the bridge crews. They’re gone, thought the Captain, watching the vids of already dead people still coming in.

“They did their job, sir,” said the Exec over the internal com.

“And if I hadn’t sent them in they would still be alive,” said von Rittersdorf, looking down. “Over a thousand men and women.”

“And if you hadn’t sent them in we wouldn’t know the Cacas were there. We would have gone back to base to report that there was nothing here, and they would have come out to cause mischief before we could do anything.”

Maurice sat there, knowing the other man was right, and still not feeling any better. Minutes later the subspace com showed the bridge of the Argos as the enemy missiles came in on final approach. “They’re breaking through,” said the calm voice of the Captain of the light cruiser. The calm of someone retreating to duty in order to escape the emotions of the situation. And then the screen went blank.

The Komorov sat at the hyper barrier for some more hours, until they picked up missiles heading her way. “Three hours till contact,” called out Lasardo.

Komorov continued to wait, gathering what information she could, until she had some semi firm plots on the enemy force. She counted sixty-two ships, twenty of them the huge battleships. There may have been more, and she tried to refine her information while sending everything back to higher command through the wormhole. If Komorov was destroyed here base would still know what had happened. As much as the Captain might have welcomed that end at this time, he had no intention of getting his own crew killed.

At ten light minutes to engagement by the missiles Komorov opened the hole into hyper I and left normal space. The missiles were closing at point nine two c, and would not be able to make a jump for many hours, even if they had enough energy left to decel down to jump speed.

Komorov moved away in hyper, moving up to III and then positioning herself twenty light days out of the system, where her jump back to normal space was undetectable from the double star system. There she monitored the enemy ships making their jumps, sending the info back to higher command so they could prepare a warm welcome.

*

CAPITAL, FENRI EMPIRE, DECEMBER 7TH AND 8TH, 1000.

I could learn to like these people, thought the Ca’cadasan Ambassador as he was led from the landing pad to a waiting aircar. Not that the Fenri were all that impressive as a species. They were meter and a half tall mammalians, covered in one of three colors of fur, or mixtures of the three. A human would have called them Teddy Bears, a term the Ambassador wouldn’t have recognized. Their feet were wide and flat, their four fingered hands stubby. The things that spoiled that image were the two tentacles rising from under their arms, and the alarming array of needle sharp teeth in their mouths.

No, what impressed the Ambassador was the lifestyle of these people. There were many of them in evidence on the landing field that had handled the Ca’cadasan shuttle. There were even more aliens of a dozen species, from reptilians to insectoids, though none were really like the Ca’cadasan equivalents of those creatures, or even the Earth type. It was readily apparent that they were all slaves, totally subservient to their masters, wearing collars or harnesses according to their body structure. So all the species here are already conditioned to serve. Only the Fenri will need to be conditioned, after we have gotten our use out of them.

The aircar was a little cramped for his three meter tall body, so he rode in the cargo compartment in the rear that allowed him to lay his length down. I need to get some of our own transport down here soonest, he thought. This is not very dignified. Presuming, of course, that they accept our request for an Embassy.

The Ambassador was charting new territory here. The Race normally did not treat with alien species. They came, they conquered, they took. But this part of the Persius Arm was a situation that might need a new approach. There were more large powers clustered here than the Race had ever encountered. Not just all at once, but ever. United, they might cause great problems for the conquest fleet. Divided, they, or at least some of them, might become great assets. Like those Klang primitives who died for the greater glory of our Empire. The bovines were still allies, for now, and being trained in Ca’cadasan land systems, so they could become ground fodder for the Empire.

“I hope the ride was not too uncomfortable, alien,” said one of the Fenri, a blond and brown striped male, his voice translated over the Ambassador’s implant. Not able to pick up the nuances of Fenri communication, the Ambassador still picked out the sneer in the communication. He was tempted to reach out and rip the creature’s head off. He kept control of himself, knowing that such an action would not be conducive to his mission.

He looked up at the nearby palace, and the battle armored Fenri who stood on the landing pad. Taking a moment to look around, he saw a great city stretched out around him. A multitude of aircars flew in lines across the sky. And they have the industrial capacity to be of great service to us.

And then he was being motioned toward the open doors of the palace, the guards falling in around him. The Ambassador bared his teeth in a feral smile, satisfied at the reaction of the soldiers in moving back.

The inside of the palace was magnificent, a tapestry of polished rocks and woods set with precious metals and gems. There were hundreds of guards in evidence, armed with what looked like electron guns. Deadly enough, capable of putting a killing charge of electrons into his body without endangering others around him. It made sense around one’s ruler, and he wondered what other weapons they might use for real warfare, something electron guns were not suited to.

“So, this is our new neighbor,” boomed a voice from the front of the chamber. He looked forward and bowed, opening all four hands in the universal sign that he came in peace. The Monarch was short and stout, more so in both dimensions than the others he had seen. Just behind the ruler sat a group of females that he assumed to be the Emperor’s wives. That they were here at all was an indication that they possessed intelligence.

“The Emperor of the Ca’cadasan Empire greets his brother in the Empire of the Fenri,” said the Ambassador, in a practiced speech. “My ship has brought gifts for the ruler of the mighty realm of the fierce Fenri people, that they may know his friendship is sincerely offered.”

“Your Majesty,” said a male in ornate robes that his implant identified as the Prime Councilor of the Empire. “These are the people that the humans have feared coming. And they might have good reason for that fear.”

“That is what I have been hoping,” said the grinning Emperor. “Anything the humans fear I welcome. Too long has our Empire played second golderon to the humans. I welcome anything that upsets the status quo.”

“I just counsel caution,” said the Councilor. “We may not appreciate the danger of this bedfellow until it is too late.”

“We will talk with this representative,” said the Emperor, looking down from his high seat at the visitor. “It cannot hurt to talk.”

“Have you considered our request for an Embassy, your Majesty?” asked the Ambassador.

“You may have your compound, alien. Your ship may send down your personnel and equipment, as long as we are allowed to inspect your devices.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” said the Ambassador, nodding his head. “And if I might make a request. There is a human Embassy here?”

“For now,” said the Emperor. “From two of their powers. But we will make sure that your presence is not known to the humans. And if they do happen to discover your presence, we will make sure that the word never reaches their Empire, until we have decided to act.”

The Ca’cadasan Ambassador bowed again, hiding his smile. So far everything was going according to plan. And if he had his way, there would soon be another axis of attack into the human Empire.

*

“This must get through,” said the Lothran agent to the Brakakak ship’s captain. The Lothran towered above the avian, his reptilian form common among the landing fields of the capital. He was a slave, of a very progressive master who actually hated the institution. And both master and slave worked for the New Terran Empire Imperial Intelligence Agency.

“It will,” said the small, plumaged being who was captain of an Elysium Hyper VI cargo vessel, and who also worked for his government’s intelligence service. He accepted the data chip from the slave, hidden in the manifest of a cargo of Fenri liquors that were being loaded aboard the heavy lift shuttle.

The slave nodded and moved off, and the captain thought about how he could get the information to human intelligence, as it would add a month to time the data would get delivered to the New Terran Empire if he made directly for home.

Later that day the freighter unobtrusively left orbit and headed out. The captain watched the new ship in orbit as he left. It didn’t look like the ships he had heard of from the humans, but he didn’t expect them to come here in one of their twenty-five million ton battleships. Those would come later, when the Fenri inevitably signed an alliance with the Ca’cadasans.

Chapter Eleven

I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself. Robert E. Lee.

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, DECEMBER 25TH THROUGH 27TH, 1000.

Doctor Jennifer Conway still considered herself a doctor first, even though all of the news outlets were calling her the Imperial Consort. At least that’s better than Sean’s Whore, she thought, holding onto his arm as he led her to the Imperial Box at the Opera House. Security had gotten even heavier than before the assassination attempt. Now every agent and Marine guard was scanned on a daily basis, and anyone missing from duty for more than a day, for any reason, was biopsied.

Tonight there were no armored Marines in evidence, but the Secret Service Agents were as thick as fleas on a stray cat. They all looked like normal young men and women, except that their suits gave them much better protection from lasers and pellets than the normal formal wear worn by the other patrons. They were both in a cluster around the couple and scattered through the crowd.

The Imperial Box was just as she had expected, pure opulent luxury. Their seats were back from the opening looking over the stage, and there was a slight shimmer to the air right at that point.

“What is that?” she asked Sean, pointing at the shimmer.

“That, my dear, is a combination holo field and electromag barrier,” said Sean. “It projects the image of the occupants of these seats, making it look like we’re closer to the opening than we actually are. I used to love getting close to the field and projecting my image out into the air. Needless to say, mother and father weren’t amused.”

Jennifer laughed, imagining the irrepressible little boy causing havoc with the security system.

“They’re starting,” said the Emperor, grasping her arm. “Now quiet that laughter,” he said with a smile. “I just can’t take you anywhere.”

The singers came onto the stage, while the light show and holographs placed the setting around them. Sean had wanted to pass on the invitation to this performance, even when told it was written in honor of his father, Augustine I. Jennifer and Samantha had talked him into it. It would honor the men and women who were putting on the performance, and it would show the capital that the assassination attempt had not frightened the Emperor to the point where he was afraid to show his face in public.

Jennifer sat enraptured by the production. The singers were fantastic, the best in the business, as would be expected in the heart of the Empire. The light show and holos played the audience’s emotions like a virtuoso. The Doctor knew the theory behind using light to elicit a response from the limbic system. That didn’t prevent her from falling completely under the spell of such techniques.

The opera went on for hours, and there was very little in the way of shifting in seats or nervous motions, even in the children. When the curtain, itself a holograph, closed, Jennifer felt as if she was being ejected from a fantasy world she wished she could continue to inhabit. She looked over at Sean, and was not surprised to see tears on his face. This was, after all, the story of his father, and if it elicited a strong emotional response in others, it was not surprising the response would be even greater in someone who knew Augustine so intimately.

Later that night, while lying next to the sleeping Monarch, she saw tears rolling down his sleeping face. His eyes were in the midst of rapid movement, and she knew he was in the middle of a dream. She thought it must have been a dream about his parents, until his eyes opened wide and a scream left his lips. Followed by a single word. Cimmeria.

*

Director Ekaterina Sergiov watched a holo of the interogation proceedings through the real time of a wormhole link. They are such a boon, she thought of the new technology. It definitely made her job easier, as information didn’t have to crawl its way to her. And it’s a damned bane as well. The information transfer could go both ways, and Imperial Intelligence no longer had the luxury of time on its side. If a breach was found it needed to be sealed, immediately, no matter the cost.

But now it was allowing her to watch a real time interview that could possibly be the most important of her tenure as head of the intelligence gathering apparatus of the Empire.

“And here we see the nanobot network that is in place in the alien’s mind,” explained the scientist in charge of the prep. A scanning holo showed the interior of the large alien head. There was a lot of bone in that skull, the brain was no larger than that of a human, and much better protected. The brain was much differently structured than a human brain, with a series of frontal lobes, the composite of which was smaller than the human equivalent. The ancient complex, what in humans was called the reptilian brain, was much larger. Another holo showed the neuronal structure of the Ca’cadasan brain, less dense than that of a human. That in itself didn’t prove that the creature was less intelligent than Homo Sapiens. The neurons, after all, were not human, and could be more efficient.

“It took us two weeks of concentrated assault by our nanobots to overwhelm the creature’s own nanotech defenses, which were quite sophisticated. It took another week to infiltrate the creature’s gray matter to the point where the nanites formed a complete imaging system of the brain. It then took another two weeks of light and sound stimulation, both external and direct, to make a guess on the creature’s reaction patterns.”

The creature’s, thought Ekaterina, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Such a clinical term for a living being. This kind of invasive procedure had always bothered her. It was a violation of the very being of the sophont, which was more than just a creature. But it beats torture, or drugs, in getting the answers we need. And we definitely need these answers.

Now the holo showed the Ca’cadasan sitting in a room, while the second holo looked into its mind. Holographic images played on the wall to its front, and the electrochemical potentials of the brain were shown in glowing light on the second holo.

“It took another week to get a sense of what these reactions meant. And finally, we were able to get to the actual questioning.”

And the poor sucker didn’t even know it was being questioned, thought Sergiov, watching as holographic images were flashed in front of the battleship captain who had been captured in the Sestius system. The images appeared to be in no order, though in fact they were specifically programed to get the information required. Butterflies and birds, natural views and urban structures, the globes of planets and the map of the galaxy. And between them all the random holographic flashes that were programing the mind to be receptive.

“My God,” said Ekaterina as the filled in map of the galaxy appeared. She recognized her own empire, and the nations around it. And a massive Empire taking up the rest of the spinward Persius Arm and a great portion of the Sagittarius Arm. At least twenty times the size of her Empire. Dots began to fill in on the map, population centers, industrial complexes, naval bases, the capital of the Empire. Numbers began to appear below some of the dots, the numbers of warships that were stationed at those points, or at least as they had been the last time this naval officer had seen information about those deployments.

“What’s this here?” she asked, pointing at a bow in the border on the opposite side of the Empire, with a number of naval bases. And a number of red dots that seemed to indicate battles.

“It looks like they are involved in a war on the other side of their Empire,” said the scientist on the Donut. “From the emotional response of the subject, it seems not everything is going their way in that war.”

“Interesting,” said Ekaterina, continuing to watch the interrogation that the Ca’cadasan would leave with no idea of how much information he had given. “I need to get this data to the Emperor.” And maybe he can let me know how Len is doing, out there on the spear point. She understood about the need to know, and that she was not in a position where she needed access to the day to day battle reports of the Fleet. But she had once been married to the man, and still cared for him. And sometimes she needed to be just a normal person, and know that the other people in her life were OK.

*

“So we have no wormhole connection to Cimmeria?” asked Sean of his CNO over the com. “Fucking wonderful. And whose idea was that?”

“This is what it comes down to, your Majesty,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom. “We simply don’t have enough wormholes for every need. There is one on the way to that system, and should be there within the next couple of days.”

“Crap,” said Sean, pulling up the map of the Empire in his mind. Cimmeria system was the home of two habitable worlds, Cimmeria itself, and Aquilonia, named after references in some obscure Earth fiction from pre-space times. It was located over in the direction of Sector IV, not as far out as some of the Core Worlds, only a hundred and sixty light years from the capital. Seven billion inhabitants between the two worlds. With antimatter production and shipyards that made it an important system to the war effort.

“There’s really no reason to believe that they will strike that far in,” said the CNO. “Not with so many other Core systems closer to the sector. And if they do move, we should have plenty of advanced warning from the wormhole equipped scouts.”

“I still believe they are going to strike at Cimmeria,” said Sean. “And they will challenge us to stop them, and to keep them from leaving. That’s what they want. A decisive battle to gut our forces.”

The Emperor looked at the holo that showed the area around the Central Docks Station. Almost all of the older construction was out of assembly docks and being made ready. The assembly docks had doubled since the start of the war, and new ones were going up in the ring outside of them. And none of those capital ships will be ready for another nine or ten months. The cruisers a little sooner, the scouts sooner still. But will there be an Empire for them to guard?

“How are you so sure, your Majesty?”

“You know about the gift of my family. Admiral?”

“Everyone has heard of it,” said McCullom, nodding on the com holo. “I’m not sure how much faith I have in it.”

“Believe me, it’s real. And it’s stronger in me than it has manifested in many generations. This is the second dream I have had about Cimmeria, and both times it was identical. So humor me, and prepare for an attack on that system.”

“And if it doesn’t fall, we are out of place and hurt somewhere else, your Majesty.”

“The rules of the game in naval warfare,” said Sean, shrugging his shoulders. “We don’t have enough to cover everything, and sometimes must take risks. Who was it who said he who guards everything guards nothing?”

“It was Fredrick the Great of Prussia, your Majesty. And the exact quote is, in trying to defend everything, he defended nothing.”

“So we have to choose what we protect, and what my gift is telling me is that Cimmeria has a more than even chance of being the next target. Which is greater odds than any other target.”

“We may not be able to stop them, your Majesty,” said the CNO, looking down as if ashamed of her admission.

Something the officers of the Fleet are not too happy to admit, thought the Emperor, looking at the line of hyper VI battleships that were going through the final preparation for shake down. And then the hundred battleships and the many more smaller ships would join the Fleet, attempting to fill the hole made by thousands of ships that had been destroyed in the meantime.

“Then sting them,” said Sean when the officer looked back up to make eye contact. “Do as much damage to them as you can, while preserving the Fleet. Who’s the closest commanding officer to Cimmeria?”

“Mgonda, sir.”

“Then tell Mgonda I want him to hurt them without losing his force.” And everything he has is hyper VII, which gives him some ability to maneuver. “Now, how long till we get a wormhole to the Bolthole system? I want us to have real time com with them as soon as possible.”

“That system is a month away from our spinward border at hyper VI, and the ships carrying the wormholes are not even at the border yet. Say five weeks.”

Five weeks. Until then we have no idea how they are doing, only how they were over a month ago. And that’s unacceptable.

“Did I tell you what a fine job you’re doing, Sondra,” said Sean, looking at the stressed face of the woman. “I know it might not seem like it at times, but that has more to do with my worrying than how you are performing the duty.”

“Thank you, your Majesty,” said the Admiral, smiling. “I know all of us are under a lot of stress. I almost wish I had command of Home Fleet back, and that you were sending that fleet into battle.”

The com went off, and Sean thought about the other two big problems on his plate as they headed past the docks and out to the vessels he had come to see. One problem was what he had just talked with the Admiral about. He had been pulling units out of the Core Worlds for almost four months. And if a Core world, or several, were hit hard, the Parliament would be raising holy hell. He would be faced with either chaffing under their restrictions as they passed resolutions, or face the possibility of raising Martial Law to Level 2, effectively cutting them out of the war making process. Which didn’t mean they couldn’t make things more difficult for him anyway.

The other was the information he had received from IIA Director Sergiov this morning. It wasn’t unexpected, but it was unwelcome nonetheless. To learn that their worst fears about the size of the enemy empire were correct was daunting. And he didn’t know how much hope to put in the proposition that their enemy was involved in another fight on their far frontier. Was it another roll over, the Ca’cadasan Empire conquering a large but lesser opponent. Or was it a serious fight that was drawing off resources that would otherwise be used against his empire.

And then the ships he had come to see were ahead, seven of them, six years in the building under the orders of his father. Each ship was in the thirty million ton range, and was armed as heavily as a battleship. They were not warships though. They were explorers. The large arrays of hyper VII projectors were mounted top and bottom. They seemed to be deficient in grabber units as compared to other hyper VII ships. That was part of their design, ships made for the long haul, accelerating at a hundred gravities until they got up to point nine c, and cruised for tens of thousands of light years to their destinations.

And my Admirals wanted them converted to warships, he thought as his shuttle swept around the nearest of the explorers. Three of them were slightly different from the other four, the Magellanic Cloud explorers, scheduled to make the two and a half year flight out to the dwarf galaxies. Each carried six destroyer sized hyper VI exploration ships, allowing them to explore the entire super cluster. The ships each had a wormhole installed for com and refueling.

That had been the main problem with both the missions. It had come down to either making each of the ships into an antimatter tanker, and all the risks that entailed, or experimenting with zero point power. Zero point was a nonstarter, as no respectable scientist wanted to fool with something that might destroy the Universe by collapsing space. Zero point modules using their own baby universes had been proposed, but were prohibitively expensive as far as energy was concerned, needing ten times the amount to create them as they would generate, compared to a one point one to one ratio for antimatter. The wormhole had solved the problem, as new cylinders of AM could be sent through the hole throughout the voyage.

The other four were scheduled to explore the galactic core. That was a trip in the year to year and a half range, depending on what got in the way, well within reason and planned. That is, until the information had come from the interrogation that their enemy might be fighting another opponent, which made it important to get in touch with that foe. So now only two of the ships would go to the Galactic core, while the other two would go on a three year or more voyage to the other side of the Ca’cadasan Empire. A wide roundabout path that avoided the space of the enemy.

The shuttle docked with one of those ships, the lead of the pair. The three thousand man crew, mostly volunteers from Exploration Command, was represented on the deck by the senior officers and Marines, standing at attention.

“Commodore,” said the Emperor, returning the salute of the woman who wore the ship and globe emblem of Exploration Command.

“Your Majesty,” replied the woman, taking his hand.

“I know this is sudden, but we really need this contact, no matter the risk.”

Commodore Natansha Sung nodded her head. Sean knew she had been briefed. While a trip to the core could be dangerous, hell, probably was extremely dangerous, at least they would not be trying to avoid the forces of a known unfriendly power, with a meeting with another star empire they had no inkling of. It could greet them as friends. Or it could be completely xenophobic, and see them as more intruders to be destroyed. They would not know until they reached the space of that unnamed power.

“How many people have you lost since the news came down?” he asked next. This was a volunteer crew, and they had volunteered for a specific mission. None would be forced to go on the revised mission, and would be replaced by volunteers from the other ships if need be.

“None, your Majesty,” said the Commodore, gesturing toward the exit from the hanger.

The interior of the ship was enormous, and included hydroponic gardens and protein vats for feeding the crew, and almost any form of indoor recreation imaginable. And the wormhole would allow them unprecedented com with home, communications with friends and family a daily possibility.

The bridge was just as impressive as everything else, large and spacious, with state of the art sensor feeds and holo projectors. And if these ships hadn’t already been near completion when the Cacas struck, they never would have been built. But they had been built, and he didn’t see any reason not to use them. If worse came to worse, they might be able to send citizens through the wormholes to the other side of the Galaxy, or to the cloud. Maybe not that many, in comparison to the total population of the empire. Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, maybe even a few million. But enough to keep the species going.

Sean left the ship feeling a little better about the chances of his Empire. All of the ships would leave on their journeys within the next week. Some to find possible havens for the species, others to hopefully make new friends and allies.

*

SECTOR IV SPACE, DECEMBER 27TH, 1000.

“We’re picking up a large force moving in VII,” called out the Sensor Officer.

“How large?” asked Mei, looking up from the flat comp she was using to sign her name to some paperwork.

“Really big, ma’am,” said the officer, looking away from her board with wide eyes. “At least a thousand. At least four hundred of their big ships.”

“Get that information to HQ,” said the Commodore, looking over at her Com Officer. “Heading?” she asked, looking back over at the Sensory Officer, and hoping that the track was not heading directly at them.

The holo came to life, showing the tracks of the enemy force with vector arrows and velocities. It was the largest force she had ever seen from this foe, with more arrows moving onto the holo every moment.

“They are heading parallel to our course,” called out the Sensor Officer, at the same time that Mei figured that for herself from the vector arrows.

“Orders from Battle Fleet, ma’am,” said the Com Officer. “We are to follow this force, keeping them within contact and transmitting their deployment.”

“Anything else?”

The holo flared to life in front of the Commodore, showing the image of Grand High Admiral Lenkowski. “Sting them, Commodore. However you can, harass them, both going in and coming out. And keep an eye out for any other forces they may try to bring in. I think they are going to try and force an engagement by going after something valuable, and make us react. I’m not sure how much good your force will be following them, but maybe you’ll be in a position to strike, even if only at crippled ships.”

Mei looked at the main holo, at the force she was to follow, and what she had to do it with. Along with her battle cruiser were four others, as well as seven light cruisers and nine destroyers. They couldn’t outrun that force if it were headed after them, and they definitely couldn’t outfight it.

“Will we receive any reinforcements, sir?” was her next question.

“I am ordering two scout groups under the command of Captain von Rittersdorf to join with you as soon as possible.”

“Maurice,” said the Commodore with a smile.

“You know him?”

“He took the Emperor off my ship and to safety when we got him out of Massadara,” said Mei. “And how many ships does he have?”

“Only five, I’m afraid,” said the Admiral, looking off the holo at something else that was demanding his attention. He looked back at her for a moment. “Keep the information coming. You have another of the experimental BCs with you I understand.”

“Yes, sir. Wish I had more.”

“We all do. Try to use them to hit them hard. Lenkowski out.”

The holo went dead, and the Commodore found herself again staring at the 3D tactical plot that showed her relation to the enemy force, which had continued to grow until there were at least two thousand ships in it.

They tracked the ships for the next five hours, building up their own velocity, but never able to get near the point nine five c of the enemy ships. At that point a dozen enemy ships started to vector out toward them, probably with the intent of driving her off. They counted four supercruisers and eight of the scouts, enough to beat them in a missile engagement if they were all normal Imperial hyper VII ships. As soon as they got within engagement range Mei unleashed her two experimental ships and flooded space with thousands of missiles. A supercruiser and six scouts made it through that wave, but not through the next, and none of her other ships had to waste one of their limited weapons.

Six hours later another sortie came out of the pack, a little larger than the last. And the result was the same, a trio of ships limping back to the force, while Mei looked at the holo that showed her command reduced by a light cruiser and two destroyers.

“They have to know something is going on,” said the Commodore’s flag lieutenant. “We’ve already fired enough missiles for a major task force, and they have to know we’re lightly armed scouts.”

“They had to find out sooner or later,” said the Commodore, watching as the first ships of the enemy force disappeared from her plot, and the last line of vessels appeared. Thirty-five hundred of the bastards, enough to gut our fleet in a full engagement. If only we had more ships like this. But even so, could we supply them with the weight of missiles we would need?

Several hours later her earlier losses were made good as von Rittersdorf’s command came up, or really allowed her scouting force to catch up. It gave her five more light units, one of them equipped with wormhole com.

“Good to see you again, Maurice,” she said the Captain over the holo. “We always seem to come in on the edge of a disaster.”

“Must be karma, ma’am,” replied the young officer. “Though I really can’t imagine what I did in a past life to warrant this kind of treatment. What are your orders?”

“Just keep it in tight, Captain. We don’t have the force to attack. We’re the sharks. Anything that straggles or comes out of the group injured is ours.”

“That doesn’t seem like enough,” said von Rittersdorf, frowning. “It looks to me like they’re going to hit a Core world. And there are other groups on the move.”

“Admiral Lenkowski believes they are trying to force an engagement with the main fleet,” said Mei, looking at the wider area plot that showed two smaller formations on parallel courses to the one they were following. Both were much smaller, but still big enough to cause major problems if they got to where they were heading.

“So, what’s the old man going to do?” asked Maurice.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t apprise me of his intentions,” said Mei with a smile. “I’m not even sure he knows what he is going to do yet. I do know he is under orders to keep his fleet in existence. And a major engagement with this enemy is surely at odds with those orders.”

“So we just act as his eyes and ears, watch, but don’t touch?”

“That about sums it up,” said Mei, looking at the regional plot. “I think I have another job for you, now that I’ve looked over the situation.”

“Whatever you want, ma’am.”

“Move your force ten light years to my rear. I want you to be on the lookout for anything that might try to sneak up on us and box us in.”

“Anything else, ma’am?”

“Yeah. If you happen to see a courier going either way between their forces, take it out.”

The holo went blank and Mei found herself staring at the plot again, wondering if Cimmeria was due to have hell visited upon it, or if some other unlucky system would be the recipient.

Chapter Twelve

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. Isaac Asimov.

SECTOR IV SPACE EN ROUTE TO CIMMERIA, DECEMBER 27TH THROUGH 29TH, 1000.

Jana Gorbachev felt complete and utter helplessness as she looked at the holo that showed the enemy fleet in motion. In motion into the heart of her Empire, to strike at the production centers. It’s happening too fast, she thought. It had been hoped that they could keep any enemy in the outer sectors for years, if such ever struck. Now, less than a year after first contact, the enemy was taking the fight to the population centers. From what she understood of the Ca’cadasans this was new behavior for them. They had gathered their empire through a slow but sure process, overrunning one species, or at most several, then consolidating, then moving on years, even decades, later.

But they’ve never run into an animal like us, she thought with some pride through the trepidation. While not as large as the Ca’cadasan Empire, they were a mighty force, only slightly behind the aliens in technology. But still not completely there. She had thought about the problem, having little to do with her time besides think. She had always been a student of history, especially military history. This was not really a situation like the Americans against the Spanish in Manila Harbor. In that engagement it was an ironclad fleet against wooden ships, a one way slaughter. This was closer to a battle between the German High Seas Fleet of WWI versus the American Pacific Fleet of WWII. Four smaller, lighter battleships could still destroy the bigger, more advanced version, but they would lose three, possibly all four, in the action.

And we’ve got the wormholes, she thought with a smile. That has to be worth something, if someone smart is in charge. Like Sean? Which seemed very likely from what she had heard. New prisoners had talked of the coronation of a new Monarch, the son of the old, and Sean was the only one she knew that fit that description. He was headstrong and impulsive, but no one would call him stupid.

She looked over at the Great Admiral, who was personally commanding this sortie. She remembered how mad he had been when he discovered she was holding out on him about the Donut. She still shook from the memory of the pain she had endured before she finally gave up and told him what he wanted to know. Or at least most of it. She had exaggerated the mass of the black hole, moving the hyper limit from sixty light hours to seventy. Even a long range missile attack from the edge of the limit would take over eighty hours to reach the station. And she had told him that the station could call defenses through from other systems with the wormhole gates. She didn’t know if that were technically true, but it seemed reasonable. So he decided it was not yet time to strike at our wormhole generating facility.

Another Cacada looked at her, anger in his eyes. The Intelligence Chief, who did not believe the humans could build such a thing as a wormhole generator. Not if his kind couldn’t. The Great Admiral had been smarter. She cursed him under her breath, trying to figure to a way to kill him. He was the smartest of the Ca’cadasans she had met, and she was sure it would really hurt their war effort if he weren’t around, but removing him was something she couldn’t think of how to accomplish. He had pointed out that they could do such a thing, if they had taken the time to do it. Fortunately for the New Terran Empire there was no quick fix to come up with a wormhole generator. Nothing but decades, possibly a century of work would get one for their Empire.

Unless they can capture ours, she thought, remembering how that had been discussed, then rejected. But if they did, the humans would not have a chance in this war. The best thing that can happen would be for this ship to be destroyed in the coming battle, and the Admiral with it. Not that I want to die, but it would end this nightmare existence at the very least.

Another human walked onto the deck and bowed low to the Intelligence Chief. She glared at the human who willingly served the enemy, raised to that servitude and not knowing any better. But still a traitor to the race by her reckoning. And someone else whose neck the former chief petty officer would like to wrap her hands around. She had killed her consort, the one forced on her by her captors, with her bare hands, and found that the humans raised by the Cacas were not genetically enhanced, not as strong or quick as the stock of the Empire.

“Thirty-nine hours to target,” called out the Navigation Officer.

“Any sign of their fleet?” asked the Great Admiral, looking at the holo that showed only the Ca’cadasan Fleet, and the scout force that was shadowing them.

Jana looked at the holo, hoping that no one observed her interest and came to question her. There were the icons of a cluster of hyper VII ships from her own Empire, shadowing the Ca’cadasans.

“Just the skulkers who follow us,” said the Tactical Officer. “Should I dispatch more ships to chase them off?”

“To what purpose,” said the Admiral in a growl. “Everything we have sent after them has been taken out by those damned impossible scout capital ships and their swarms of missiles.”

“But surely they are out by now. Those ships could not have carried more than they have already expended.”

“Not if they were firing them through a wormhole,” said the Great Admiral, looking at Gorbachev.

That’s it, asshole, thought Gorbachev. Imagine wormhole bogeymen in every shadow. Imagine great wizards pulling demons from holes in space to bedevil you. Anything to make this enemy unsure of himself.

“I can’t wait to get back to the Massadara system,” said one of the bridge officers to another in a soft voice, too low for the Great Admiral to hear. But not for her sharp hearing, and more food or thought.

They bring their females to our space. They are coming to stay. Gorbachev sat and thought of all that had passed on the bridge this day. I’ve got to get back to the Fleet, she thought. Somehow. Anyhow. But how? And that was the one answer that still eluded her.

*

The battleship slid from out of hyper, sending a signal through subspace as soon as she entered, along with graviton pulses from her hyperdrive projectors. The pulses would reach the ships and forts in orbit in seconds, the subspace transmissions in a little under a half an hour. The pulses would tell the ships that hell was heading their way, while the more information rich com to follow would tell them what form it would take.

A dozen more ships jumped into normal space, and three of them started to accelerate into the system. More ships came into normal space, until there were a hundred of them, all decelerating so they could come to a stop and move back out of the system.

“Make sure that wormhole gets brought down to the planet, as soon as possible,” said the Admiral in charge of the force. “Then beat it out of there.”

“You sure you don’t want us to stick around, sir?” asked the Captain of that ship. “They’re going to need all the firepower they can get.”

“And we’re going to need all the ships we can keep,” said Grand Fleet Admiral Duke Taelis Mgonda, shaking his head and feeling a little bit guilty about the orders he was following. But the orders had come from the Emperor himself, through Grand High Admiral Lenkowski. It was thought that the enemy was trying to bring them to engagement, to gut the fleet, and that could not be allowed to happen. Not that they wouldn’t hurt this enemy some, and hopefully more than some.

Mgonda looked on his holo at the system in question, Cimmeria. The outer planet was a natural, sitting near the edge of the F4 star’s life zone, cold, with glaciers covering half the land masses. Cimmeria was the home to shaggy mammal like animals, and the large tropical regions were more of a temperate zone. Four billion people lived on that planet. Live, loved, and worked. There were shipyards in orbit, mostly concerned with the making of freighters and liners. But freighters and liners would also be needed in this war.

A military space dock and five forts, two enormous class ones and three class twos, sat above the planet. Mgonda always thought the forts a waste, resources that could have been put into building and crewing more warships. But they made the members of Parliament feel better, because they thought they made the people feel better. And so there they were, sitting targets for long range missile engagements.

Around the other side of the star was Aquilonia, sitting in the middle of the life zone and a perfect home for man. It was a terraformed world, using the life of Epsilon Iridani, one of the old Earth colonies of pre-Exodus days, the genetic code of its life transported to a new world and planted, so that mankind could enjoy the variety of its living forms. Three billion called it home, and it was more of an agricultural world than its system mate. It still had a quartet of forts in orbit, as well as factory complexes that made some the parts used by the Cimmeria’s docks to assemble ships.

Inward from the planets, close to the white star, were the antimatter production sats, a hundred of them, with thousands square kilometers each of energy gathering surface. The system was not a major producer of antimatter, but did contribute its share to the cause. Several AM tankers were filling at the moment, preparing to take finished product to the scores of newly made vessels in the orbit of Cimmeria.

Out from the habitable zone was the mineral rich asteroid belt, the treasure of the system, and home to millions of people who were descendants of the old Belters of Sol System. And out from there a half dozen moon colonies around gas giants, mining the deuterium, tritium and helium 3 from the atmospheres of those massive planets.

Over hundred ships were in space, moving inward and outward, feeding the commerce of system. And among them were the four ten million ton system monitors, twelve heavy cruisers and twenty-two destroyers, all more maneuverable in normal space than their hyper capable counterparts, and all trapped in the system. They were another invention of Parliament, who had wanted a force that couldn’t run, also for the peace of mind of the citizenry.

There were also about thirty hyper capable warships in the system defense force, including two older battleships. Mgonda was transmitting orders to them to leave the system. They might be vital units in the coming year. And I wonder how those men and women will feel leaving family and friends behind while they run. That was the sore spot to this whole thing. He wouldn’t be surprised if some of those ships refused to obey orders. And then what was he supposed to do? He wouldn’t fire on them, and if this was the system the Cacas were heading to the mutinous ships would not be around for a court martial.

And just why in the hell are they heading here? he thought, looking at a holo map of this region of space. This isn’t the most important industrial system in this part of space. It has over seven billion people, the great majority of them human. Is that it? More people to kill.

“Thalmina should be at orbital insertion in twenty-six hours, fourteen minutes,” said the Flag Navigation Officer.

“And the leading elements of the enemy force will be jumping into the system in approximately thirty-four hours,” said the Flag Tactical Officer.

“Order the monitors and other system defense ships out to the hyper barrier,” said Mgonda to his Com Officer. “At least they can do some good out here.”

“Com coming in on subspace from Cimmeria’s Archduke,” said the Com Officer.

“Put it on my personal link,” said the Admiral, not looking forward to this transmission. And then I’ll have to deal with the Archduke of Aquilonia, with the same news. We aren’t here to save you because that is impossible.

*

“Scout pods will be making the last jump in ten minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer.

The Great Admiral sat staring at the plot. He was doing everything by the Ca’cadasan tactical book, sending in a wave of scouts to look over the system first. They would report back by graviton wave, using the code to send whatever they could. Not that it would prevent the rest of the fleet from going through their last jump. They were already committed. It was either jump from hyper I, or run into the barrier with all the disastrous consequences that entailed. But at least the scouts would trigger whatever was waiting , if anything.

“Enemy scout capital ships and escorts are still hanging off to the side in III,” said the Sensor Officer.

“Where they can tell the system everything they know about us through those damned wormholes,” said the Great Admiral, turning a baleful eye toward his human slave, as if it was her fault.

“We’ll see how they handle a Ca’cadasan battle fleet,” said the Intelligence Chief with a feral grin on his face. “We will crush them, and then the path to their home system will be open.”

The slave was staring at the Intelligence Chief, then back at the holo. She is afraid. Very good. And after she sees her fleet destroyed she will lose hope. And in losing hope, she will be more malleable to questioning.

Time went by as it always had, one tick of the clock at a time. It only seemed longer to the beings living it, waiting to see if their plans were going to work. But finally the time passed.

The hyperwave transmissions of hundreds of vessels came over the sensors, the signature the scouts jumping into normal space. What soon followed were the hyperwave signals from the scouts, sending unwelcome but not unexpected information back.

“Scout pods are under attack,” said the Com Officer, looking back at his leader.

“And if the enemy are following their normal pattern, those ships will be outside the barrier, shooting in at our ships as they come out of hyper,” said the Great Admiral, looking at the com officer. “Order task groups seven through twelve to emergency decel. I want them to jump a half light hour outside the barrier. They are to engage the enemy ships and not allow any to escape.”

“Yes, my Lord,” said the Com Officer.

“Two minutes to jump,” called out the Navigation Officer, and the Great Admiral sat in anticipation of the victory to come.

*

“The enemy fleet is entering the Cimmeria system, your Majesty,” said the Com Officer in the war room underneath the palace.

Sean paced back and forth over the walkway, looking down into the room that had been modified recently for just this purpose. Before the advent of wormhole tech there would have been no need for this kind of facility. The results of a battle would have been slowly percolated back by courier ship, or at best, by hyperlink, taking days to weeks before the information made it to high command. Now, they could actually monitor the battle in real time, and offer advice.

And that’s something we need to be careful about, thought Sean, looking at the holo plot of the Cimmeria system that was being fed by scores of wormhole com systems. He had already discussed the situation with his senior military officers, his teachers, who had suggested that micromanagement was not the way to go. But strategic decisions would be made in rooms like these, and strategy would drive the tactics of the local commanders.

“So far so good,” said Grand High Admiral Sondra McCollum on the holo showing the meeting room at the Hexagon.

“Yeah, so far so good,” agreed Sean as he wondered if it was good enough. Should I have ordered an all-out defense of that system, despite the risks. The military brain trust had agreed with the decision, but they would not be the ones to bear the blame for the deaths of billions of humans, even if it was the right thing to do. I will not allow them to take the blame. The responsibility is mine.

They needed the Fleet to remain in being. If it were destroyed the enemy would be able to split into smaller units and conquer the Core Worlds quickly. He understood that. It still didn’t make it any easier to issue the orders that needed to be given.

“Missile strikes on the Ca’cadasan scouts,” called out the War Room Tactical Officer. “Multiple strikes.”

The holo showed the vector arrows of the Ca’cadasan ships that had entered normal space, along with those that had yet to enter. The icons of the human force, all of Admiral Mgonda’s hyper VII ships, including several with the wormhole missile capability, sat a light hour out from the system, still in space. And between them were tens of thousands of icons, the missiles they had been firing for the last four hours, based on the information they had received through wormhole com from the scout force. The first of those missiles were vectoring perfectly onto the two hundred or so Ca’cadasan scout ships, pulling point nine five c. The Ca’cadasan ships could see them coming, could even start to cycle their defensive missiles and engage with their lasers. In fact, they were able to hit over half the missiles coming in before they had acquired their targets. And many more before they were on final approach. So the Ca’cadasan force only lost fifty-one of their scouts to catastrophic hits or multiple near misses.

The missiles were still coming in as the main body of the force arrived. The enemy lost some ships during this time as well, not as many as before, but the ships lost this time were battleships and supercruisers. Another thirty ships were blotted from existence.

“We have ships jumping in further out,” called out the Tactical Officer.

“You were right, Admiral,” said Sean, smiling at the holo of McCollum.

“My intelligence officers were right, your Majesty,” said the CNO. “They thought the Cacas might react to that stunt Mgonda pulled on them before.”

The enemy ships were still moving into the system at point three c, and now had the choice of either jumping back into hyper, just so they could come back into normal space before the barrier. Or they could try to decel and come back out. Either way, they weren’t going to catch the ships that were releasing their last missiles, then jumping into hyper III to get away from the enemy.

Next time they’ll have a following force that will catch those ships, thought Sean. And we’ll just have to come up with something new.

His own force had done what they could. They had stung to run away and hit another day, and hit they would, wherever they found the enemy to be weak.

Chapter Thirteen

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on. Franklin Roosevelt.

CIMMERIA SPACE, AND CAPITULUM, DECEMBER 30TH, 1000 THROUGH JANUARY 6TH 1001.

So, this is what one of their population centers looks like, thought the Great Admiral, looking at the 3D viewer that brought it to life. There was one living planet in view, a lovely world which expanded in the viewer, blue and white and green, like most living worlds. And totally infested with these humans. He wished he could simply send a swarm of missiles at relativistic speeds into that target and annihilate them all. But the priests, who came along on every mission, would not allow such, so he would have to close the distance and bombard the population centers from space, and possibly land troops to take care of the rest of them.

He knew there was another planet in the system, and not seeing it realized it must be on the other side of the white star. It would take a little longer to kill the humans on that world, but it would still be done. The rest of the system was abuzz like a nest of biting insects kicked by a hard boot. There were ships everywhere, or at least the images of ships as they were hours before. Freighters, tankers, ore carriers, trying to seek some kind of safety that didn’t exist. The interstellar capable were running for the hyper barrier. They were already being tracked by missiles that would blow them out of space before they reached that barrier. Those that made it into hyper would be caught and destroyed by the forces that were surrounding the system in hyperspace. There would be no escape from this doomed system.

“We have located over five hundred insystem bases or settlements,” called out the Tactical Officer. “We are targeting them now.”

The orders went out, and scout ships and supercruisers started to adjust their vectors to intercept those targets. First they would assess them for their intelligence or industrial value. They would ransack those that had any value, and destroy those that didn’t.

“These have been tagged as warships,” said the Tactical Officer, and objects were surrounded by red boxes.

The view expanded on one, a large warship, more than twice the tonnage of a supercruiser. But different from the scout capitals they had seen before. It took the Admiral a moment to discern the major difference. “They’re not hyper capable,” he exclaimed, noting the absence of the human type hyperdrive projectors on the ship. “Why, in the name of all the Gods, would anyone build a warship without hyper capabilities. What a waste of resources.”

“We have targeted extra missiles on those ships,” said the Tactical Officer.

“I want orbital insertion to that planet as soon as convenient,” said the Great Admiral, looking at his Navigation Officer.

“We can be there in twenty-five hours,” said the Navigation Officer.

“Time is really of no importance,” said the Great Admiral, disappointed that there were no more of the enemy forces in the system. Perhaps they will come if we stay and destroy everything in the system. Weaklings like the humans cannot just stand by and watch as we slaughter billions of their fellows, can they? Deep down he knew that his own people would not be able to stand by and watch their females and children killed. But it was something he couldn’t admit, as it would make the humans more understandable, and himself more sympathetic to them.

“We have antimatter production facilities closer to the star,” said the Tactical Officer, and the viewer shifted to show hundreds of karats, then closer to show a large solar array, covering thousands of square kilometers, all feeding the power into two cubic kilometer manufacturing facility. Storage tanks were arrayed along one side of the center, antimatter in containment fields capable of destroying the entire complex.

“Order scouts to take as many of those facilities as possible,” he said to the Com Officer. “Instruct them to extreme caution. The stations are to be boarded by ground assault troops and secured before the scouts attempt to offload that antimatter.”

“Do you really think they will allow us to take that antimatter?” asked the Intelligence Chief.

“Some of the humans on those stations may want to live,” said the Great Admiral. “And we can always use antimatter.” That’s my main weakness, thought the Great Admiral, looking on those stations with avarice. We are getting tankers from home, and of course the new facilities around Massadara are starting to add to the mix. But we can always use more, rather than run out and be immobilized.

The Great Admiral realized that he needed to knock this opponent down as quickly as possible, lest they find themselves on the defensive. If I can even take twenty of those stations, I can top off my assault force and attack more of their Core planets. And force them to battle.

The viewer changed its aspect again, showing a near view, and the bright dot of a spaceship blowing apart in space. One of the enemy insystem warships, overwhelmed by missiles. That was followed by more explosions, until the outnumbered and outclassed insystem force was gone. He looked over at the tactical plot, which now blossomed with thousands of vector arrows as the graviton transmissions of the battle station launched missiles reached the flagship. Nothing to worry about, he thought. He had thousands of ships, a doubted very much that anything would get through.

*

For three days Sean watched the total destruction of Cimmeria system. He stayed at his post day and night, watching through the wormhole com as ships were chased down or blasted from space by missiles. As moon or asteroid bases were blasted from existence by relativistic missiles coming in at high fractions of c. While orbital stations were rendered helpless by beam weaponry, then boarded so they could be looted. And he watched as ships from orbit dropped kinetic weapons onto the cities and industrial centers of two worlds.

That last was the worst, watching from surface cameras as the heavy masses flared quickly through the atmosphere, striking the ground with a flash and a rumbling roar. Then would come the mushroom cloud, rising with a fireball into the upper atmosphere. Meanwhile, more rounds would come down, striking nearby and raising more fireballs. Sean could only imagine what were in those clouds. Pieces of buildings, trees, pets, people. The vaporized bodies of children.

Most of the population had retreated to underground shelters, the same central capsules carried by warships to protect their crews from anything that got past the external armor, with inertial compensators to protect the inhabitants from shock. Most would sustain a hit without harm coming to the people taking refuge in them. Maybe even several. But the Ca’cadasan would hit each shelter with a dozen rounds, as soon as they located one. And the shelters were dropping off the fiber optic net with alarming rapidity.

As he watched a dozen penetrators came down on the capital city of the world. The city itself was ruins, the skeletons of skyscrapers and even a few megascrapers pointing their internal bones to the sky. The buildings of that city were made of modern construction materials for the most part, impervious to seismic stresses or weather. And torn apart by the kinetic rounds like a child’s toy city. The rounds were now coming down to take out the shelters under the city.

“You need to rest,” said Jennifer, seeing him in her capacity as personal physician. Sean could see the concern in her eyes. He had been without sleep for the past four days, and had only gotten infrequent bites to eat.

But they are dying on my orders¸ he thought, turning away to look at the holos. It behooves me to experience their destruction, now that such is possible. And that was the rub. Past Emperors never would have been able to experience this. Had never had the chance to torture themselves. He was the fortunate first Emperor who would be able to experience the destruction of his own worlds, the deaths of his own subjects, in great lots.

“Well,” said Jennifer, pulling a syringe from her medical bag. “If you won’t listen to reason.”

“You will not put me to sleep,” he growled, spearing her with his eyes.

“It’s just a combination of cleaner nanites and nutrients,” said Jennifer, pulling his arm down, then pressing the airgun to his arm. “Since you won’t listen to sense, I’ll just have to save you from yourself.”

She ejected the contents through his skin and into his arm, and Sean could already feel the effects as soon as it hit his heart. She leaned close and put her lips to his ear.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” she whispered. “You didn’t ask for these assholes to come along and throw their destructive weight around.”

“I could have sent the Fleet in to protect the system.”

“And then there really would be hell to pay,” said Jennifer, pulling his arm and turning him toward her. “Either you defeated them but had your fleet gutted, in which case the next wave of their ships would have had free reign in Sector Four and the Core Worlds. Or you lost the battle and had the first result, and the destruction of the Cimmeria system.”

“I know that,” he said, looking down at the floor. “But there is no one else to blame.”

“Then don’t blame anyone. Or simply blame the Cacas.”

“Parliament will blame me. As will the people.”

“Some might,” said Jennifer, nodding. “And you may need to live with that blame for a while. But in the end you will be vindicated. I know you will. I have faith.”

“And I don’t,” said Sean, shaking his head.

“Then let me have faith for both of us,” said his lady love.

“They’re hitting the antimatter stations,” called out one of the Tactical Officers in the room.

Sean turned to see a holo showing the stations near the star, and vector arrows of many scouts heading for them. The holo zoomed into a live picture, or at least as live as it could be over multiple light hours. “Where is this feed coming from?” he asked.

“A couple of wormholes were dropped out into space before the Fleet left the system, your Majesty,” said the duty officer, a young Rear Admiral. “Marvelous technology.”

“Except that it deprives one of sleep,” said Jennifer with a frown.

Bright pinpoints started to show on the holo, the stations self-destructing before they could be captured. Some waited until the Ca’cadasan assault shuttles had mated with them, taking a few of the enemy with them. And some, a very few, allowed themselves to be taken, the crews hoping that they would be allowed to live. Fat chance, thought the Emperor. He knew for a fact the Cacas wanted to exterminate humanity. They might allow a captive to live for a short period, but the final result would always be death.

“We’re getting this feed, your Majesty,” called out another officer, and a holo came up that showed the take from a battle cruiser. The holo split, showing the flag bridge of the ship and a tactical view of the situation. An enemy battleship and two supercruisers were moving on a parallel course, and the battle cruisers of the scout force started spitting an incredible number of missiles into hyperspace.

“I recognize that Commodore,” said Sean, pointing at the holo take of the bridge as the face of an Asian woman appeared. “Mei Lei. I made her a Duchess.”

“She’s going to slaughter those enemy ships,” said the duty officer with a smile.

It took over an hour, but sure enough, when the missiles cleared the Ca’cadasan ships were gone, with no casualties to the Imperial Force. “They must have already been low on missiles from a previous engagement,” said the Admiral. “We’re hoping to pick off more of them over the next couple of days.”

“And the battle cruisers have the same number of missiles they had before the engagement,” said Sean, nodding. “None. And the base they’re getting them from still has plenty more.”

“What are the smaller ships doing there?” asked Jennifer, pointing at the tactical holo, which showed three battle cruisers, including the two that had fired, as well as some light cruisers and destroyers.”

“Their job is to protect the launching ships,” said the Admiral. “The wormhole battle cruisers also have access to almost unlimited counter missiles, but it helps if the other ships are part of the defensive structure.”

“So, some good news after all,” said Jennifer with a smile.

“Not enough,” said Sean, looking back at the holo of the Cimmeria system. He could feel his anger growing. He wanted to strike back at the enemy.

“We need to raid one of the systems they hold,” he said, looking at the Admiral. “Something that would really hurt them.”

“I don’t see how, your Majesty,” said the Admiral. “The space they hold is swarming with their ships. Anything we try to sneak through will probably be intercepted. And if not going in, then surely coming out.”

“I want to speak with McCollum,” said Sean, and the duty officer nodded. In a moment a holo sprung up before him, and the CNO was looking him in the eyes.

“I want to raid one of their base systems,” said Sean through gritted teeth. “I want them to realize that they just can’t strike at us with impunity.”

“I told his Majesty that we would risk the entire force by sending them in,” said the duty officer.

“There might be a way, your Majesty,” said the CNO. “I’ve been talking with some of our R&D people and they say there might be a way to insert a force into enemy space, raise hell, and get them back, without actually having to go through their space.”

“A wormhole gate?” asked Sean.

“What else, your Majesty,” said the smiling CNO.

“But, how?”

“The same way we’re expanding microgates into personal transport and cargo gates,” said McCullom. “Same principle. We just need the expanding frame and the negative matter. And a system that already contains a wormhole.”

“I have just the one,” said Sean. “Let me get back with you. But if we have the means, it will mean borrowing a large unit of Home Fleet.”

“Parliament won’t like that.”

“Then we’ll do it anyway, and ask forgiveness after it works. It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

The next holo to come up was a com link to Doctor Yu. “Yes, your Majesty, we have enough negative matter on hand for another ship gate. In fact, we were going to try to open one to one of the Core Worlds near the Sector Four border.”

“Then we need to borrow that gate, Director. If everything goes well we’ll be able to return your negative matter, and you can still open that gate.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” said Yu, bowing her head.

In another moment Sean was on the link to back to the CNO, all fatigue forgotten for the moment.

*

“We found this one in a bunker, with lots of guards,” said the officer of ground troops, looking at the Grand Admiral while he pointed a lower right hand at the kneeling human. “The guards fought well. So did this one, in defense of his family. We thought he might be important, so we stunned him into submission. It turns out that he is the civil ruler of this planet.”

“And who are you?” asked the Admiral, while a device translated his words. The man looked more angry than frightened.

“I am Archduke Ferdinand Vladislov Ignatious,” said the man, his angry eyes looking up into those of the Admiral. “And you are the commander of this fleet of criminals?”

“I am the Admiral in command. But why do you call us criminals?”

“Because you slaughter a helpless population,” said the man.

The Admiral laughed at that, wondering what foolishness the man was speaking. His side had the power to do what it wanted in this system. “If you didn’t want this to happen, your fleet could have tried to stop it. Instead, they left you to your own devices.”

The Admiral looked over at his ground force commander. On the holo behind the human shuttles were leaving one of the troop transports and ferrying soldiers to the surface. “Are we still experiencing much resistance on the surface, General?”

“More than expected,” said the officer, glaring down at the human. “We should have broken their resistance days ago, but more of their warriors keep coming at us, seemingly out of nowhere.”

“The wormhole,” said the Admiral in a hiss. “They have a wormhole on the planet, and can bring as many of their people through as they want.” The Admiral looked down at the Archduke and engaged the translation device. “Where is the wormhole?”

“I have no idea,” said the Archduke, shaking his head. “The military didn’t let me in on where they were putting it.”

The Great Admiral raised a hand and a door opened, then three armed Cacada warriors led a woman and two small human children into the room. “Perhaps they will jog your memory,” he said to the man. “Now, where is the wormhole?”

“I don’t know,” screamed the man. “Dear God, don’t hurt my family.”

The Great Admiral nodded, and one of the warriors pick up the largest of the children, he thought it was a male. “Now tell me, where is the wormhole?”

“I don’t know,” said the frantic man, trying to struggle to his feet and being pushed back down. “I don’t know. Don’t hurt my son, please.” The adult female tried to fight her way to the child, and was held in check by another of the warriors.

The Admiral nodded again, and the soldier holding the child by his hair pulled a monomolecular blade from a sheath at his side. He took careful aim, then swung the blade. Blood splattered. The warrior held up the boy’s head while the body fell limply to the floor.

“You have one more child,” said the Great Admiral, showing the man his predator’s teeth. “And I will ask you again. Where is the wormhole?”

The man cried and shook his head. The Admiral nodded again and the second child, a little girl, was brought forward. “Your species does not live for long. Not like mine. You have so few years, and yet you are so willing to part with them. So, what is your answer now?”

“For God’s sake, tell him, Ferdinand,” screeched the woman, tears rolling down her face.

“I will not,” said the Archduke. “Don’t you see? We’re already dead. And I will not be a traitor to my own people.”

The Admiral pointed and the second child died. The man cursed and tried to get to his feet, only to be clubbed down by the warrior guarding him. “So, you will not tell me where the wormhole is. Maybe you truly don’t know where it is. But you are the civil authority on this planet. Will you order your people to surrender, so no more of them will have to die?”

“You’ll kill them anyway,” said the Archduke, shaking his head. “I will not give that order.”

The Admiral gestured to the last warrior, and the male pulled the woman up by her hair. She was mumbling some words, probably a prayer to whatever effeminate Gods they worshipped.

“Last chance to save your mate,” said the Admiral, staring at the man.

“You know I can’t do that. Katherine,” he said to the woman. “I love you.”

“I know,” she said through her sobs. “I’ll see you in heaven.”

The warrior took her head off cleanly, and the body fell to the floor to lie beside those of the children. The Admiral looked at the bodies for a moment, knowing that the meat would not go to waste.

“Take him away,” he said, looking at the human male who had shown more courage than he thought any of them possessed. A Cacada would not betray his people just to save himself, or even his family. He hadn’t known a human would as well.

The warrior pulled the human to his feet. As soon as he had his feet under him the man pivoted, much faster than a Cacada could, and pulled the warrior’s monomolecular blade from its sheath. The blade sliced in, and the warrior fell with a great gash to his body spewing blood. With a scream the man turned and started to run at the Great Admiral, the blade held close to his body in a professional manner. Before he man took three steps he was punched backward by a flurry of projectiles fired by the other warriors. The man fell on his back and stared up, taking ragged breaths as blood oozed from his mouth.

“You go to hell,” the Archduke told the Great Admiral as he looked down at the man. Then, with a ragged breath and a shudder he died.

“Find that wormhole,” yelled the Admiral to his ground force commander.

“And how do you suggest we do that, my Lord?” said the other male. “It’s not like they can be detected on a sensor sweep.”

“I don’t know how, just find it. I want to establish a forward base here, and that wormhole gets in my way. So find it.”

*

Jennifer got tired of just hanging around the palace complex, the official physician of a strong young man in perfect health. There was very little for her to do. The Secret Service and military had their own doctors. So when she had asked permission to work in one of the local hospitals she had not been surprised that Sean had forbid it, saying that she was too valuable to risk. When she had threatened to resign she had been told that she was now considered an important resource for the war effort, not to be risked, and would not be allowed to leave. So she had used the final tactic used by women throughout history. She had withdrawn her affections from the Emperor, and had gotten everything she wanted, within limits.

Now she was allowed to work a shift at Imperial Hospital, the largest of the two hundred medical centers in the city of over three billion sentients. She still resented being tailed by a pair of Secret Service Agents, but at least they were both trained nurses as well. Even more, she resented the squad of Marines stationed at the hospital as a reaction force. But Sean had been adamant about the precautions, telling her he would go without her favors before he allowed her to risk herself out in public without security. She had seen that she was getting as much as she was going to get, and gave in on that point.

“Your baby is doing fine,” she had told the woman lying in a bed on the maternity ward. Another breech birth, she thought. There seemed to be more and more of them all the time. Even with all the enhancements to the human genome, babies still didn’t know any better than to turn in the womb and get all wrapped up in the umbilical cord. “I gave him his booster nanites this morning, and the little guy is looking good.”

“Thank you, Doctor Conway,” said the young woman, a chemical engineer who would return to work soon after she left the hospital, her specialty vital to the war effort. “Maybe the next one will be better behaved.”

And there will be no next one unless you emigrate to a frontier or developing world, thought Conway as she scanned the flat comp that displayed the patients’, mother and child’s, chart. The fact was that Jewel had more people than any other planet in the Empire. Over twenty billion, supported by the high tech food growth industry and the importation of billions of tons of nutrients. As the capital world it had been partially exempted from the laws that prohibited populated planets from going over a certain population threshold. Still, births were restricted, and most couples would see one child at most, if they were lucky.

“I’ll be back to check in tomorrow,” she told the mother. “I’ll probably discharge you both then. Ah, here he is now.”

A nurse brought the baby in and laid it at the chest of the mother, who smiled down at him. She looked up and nodded her thanks, and Jennifer left the room feeling good.

That afternoon she did her rounds on the floor that served the opposite purpose of the maternity ward. It was called the geriatric ward, but what it really functioned as was as a place to die. Most people didn’t need medical care. The internal nanites in their systems made them immune to any possible contagion from any source. They also aided in the healing process, though not quick enough to prevent a bleed out from a major artery. Bone still needed setting, scar tissue needed to be removed for limb regrowth. There were autodocs in use in all the outposts that didn’t have the luxury of a physician. But people preferred human, or at least sentient, doctors. Living physicians could care, and interact on a personal level, while everyone knew that machines programmed to act that way were doing just that, acting.

Jennifer looked at the chart of the patient, a woman of almost three hundred, about the upper limit of human life span. She had a long and productive life as a historian, contributing much to the knowledge of the Empire. And she was dying. And we can’t do a damned thing to save her, thought the doctor, looking into the clouded eyes of the ancient woman. There was still some awareness there. Not as much as was once present, when this woman possessed an IQ of one forty. Now it was more like the awareness of a young child.

Why the hell can’t we expand our lifespan? We can do everything else. She looked at the latest scans of the woman’s body. She was imaged from the bed every five minutes, and the nanites in her system sent a steady stream of telemetry to the medical scanners. She could look into the individual cells, where the chemical processes of the mitochondria were starting a quick decline into complete stoppage. No ATP production meant the muscles would stop working. Nanites could inject artificial ATP into the body, but eventually the receptors would also stop working. She checked another scan and saw that the chromosomes were also unraveling. One of the reasons that people lived as long as they did was because that problem had been solved, to a point.

It just makes no fucking sense, she thought. The body is just a mechanical system. We should be able to fix anything. The damned Cacas live for thousands of years. But they really didn’t know anything about the genetic structure of the Ca’cadasans. She didn’t know if they even used DNA. They had captives now, and that knowledge would soon be forthcoming. And she, for one, could not wait to look at that information.

We could always clone her and do a mind upload, she thought, then shook her head at that thought. And then we would have a young intelligent psychopath. The same reason that artificial births aren’t allowed. Again, it made no sense, and Doctor Jennifer Conway, not the most religious of people, thought there must be something there that science could not explain. Something that worked past the atomic and subatomic level. Or outside of it.

Jennifer left her shift that day, satisfied at the young lives she had helped to bring into the Universe, saddened by those she was not able to help beyond easing them out of their physical existence. She thought about it for part of the aircar ride back to the palace, then let herself enjoy the view of the largest city of the Empire, stretching out on all sides. Another thing she missed was piloting her own car, but that was not done much in a city this size, where the risk of collisions dropping fast moving vehicles into buildings was real. And there were hundreds of distracting vid boards and holos on the tall buildings or floating in the air, more distractions.

Most of those people down there are on the dole, she thought, knowing that the owners and riders of aircars were probably either wealthy, or wage earners. That is changing, fast. As the war continued the human species would not be able to afford to have idle hands. Moments later they were over the huge Imperial Compound, stingships first checking them out, then escorting them to the landing pad.

Jennifer decided to catch the news first before showering. That was where the Emperor found her when he returned from a meeting at the Hexagon. She was sitting on the couch crying, thinking about the images she had seen from Cimmeria, and the blame the newsies had been placing on her love.

Chapter Fourteen

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on. Ulysses S, Grant.

MASSADARA SPACE, JANUARY 10TH THROUGH 12TH, 1001.

“This is the craziest shit I’ve ever heard,” said Lieutenant SG Walter Ngovic, the Tactical Officer.

“Vice Admiral Mtwambe gave me the order herself,” said Captain Bryce Suttler, the commander the Sea Stag. Though she really didn’t seem so sure about it herself, he thought, knowing that the orders came from even higher up the chain of command. Perhaps to the very top.

“Just what the hell are they sending through?” asked the Tactical Officer, monitoring the wormhole gate they had offloaded from the ship. Right now it was placed directly behind a Plutino, where it couldn’t be observed by the station or the ships around it. The station was a half a light hour away. The stealth attack ship had crept to this point over a two day period, and was now assembling what looked to them like a ship gate.

“They just said something big,” said the Captain, watching as more supports came through the wormhole, then the robots grabbed them and added them to what was already there. “And I kind of like the idea of us going back home.”

Following the supports were cylinders of negative matter. These were mated to the supports and emptied into the magnetic field contained within. More supports were added, and the wormhole expanded. It was still far short of the square, six kilometers on a side, that was the template on the computer screen.

“How are the Cacas?” he asked Ngovic, who was monitoring the remote feeds.

“Sitting fat and sassy,” said the junior officer with a smile. “Uh oh,” he said, the smile leaving his face.

“What do you have?” asked Suttler, moving over to the tactical station and looking at the holo above the board.

“Eight enemy ships, heading this way,” said the Tactical Officer. “At current profile they will be past us in three hours. That’s if they don’t decel.”

“Don’t see why they should,” said Suttler. “They can shoot by and engage us when they see us. Wonder what tipped the off?”

“I’m not sure it matters, sir. The gate should be completed in two hours. And when something big comes through, I’m not sure those enemy ships will be a threat.”

“Let’s hope,” said Suttler, watching the gate expand yet again. “We’ll know when we move the gate into position.” That would be the time of greatest danger. The plan called for the gate to be maneuvered so it was pointed at the enemy station, then moved again to point insystem. Sea Stag would be part of that maneuvering element. Which meant if the plan went wrong they would be destroyed along with the gate.

“Nothing radiating in hyper,” called out the Sensor Officer, good news, at least for now. Later they might want more ships coming into the system and falling into the trap.

*

“I wish you would reconsider, your Majesty,” said Admiral Thomas Thompson, the commander of the First Battleforce of the Home Fleet. “We could still put you and your lady on a shuttle and shoot you out before we hit he wormhole. As long as you get to the hangar in the next ten minutes.”

“I have made up my mind, Admiral,” said Sean to the four star officer. “I could not be there at Cimmeria. I intend to be in the system for this strike. Of course, the attack is yours to command. I am just an observer.”

The Admiral gave him a sideways glance, and Sean was not sure the man believed him. But he had made the promise to himself that he would not interfere, that he would just watch.

“I wish I could convince you to stay behind, though,” he said to Jennifer, dressed in the same type of battle armor he himself was wearing.

“You’re going into a combat situation,” she said, giving him a serious look. “What kind of personal physician would I be if I didn’t accompany you.”

Sean shook his head. Secretly he was happy she was coming along. He wanted to be vindicated. If this plan worked there would be other strikes on Ca’cadasan bases, enough to let them know they did not own this space. And having her witness this triumph would be sweet. If we win. If we don’t, then maybe Samantha can do a better job. He had insisted that his regent stay behind. After all, they were dealing with wormholes here, still an unknown in many ways. None of his ships carried wormholes, so that concern was not there. But again, they had never tried anything like this before, and something bad could always happen.

“We go in ten minutes,” said the Admiral when the clock got down to that point. “We will hit the wormhole at point three c.”

The same speed as the trials, the Emperor thought, looking at the holo that showed the warships speeding toward the wormhole, spaced apart as the plan called for.

“The first two squadrons will be hitting the hole in five minutes,” the Admiral told the Monarch minutes later. “Any word from the system?” he asked the Com officer. The observing ship in the system would be sending signals through the hole by standard laser, where another vessel, sitting in front of the hole until the last moment, was retransmitting on subspace. So the flagship was getting the information about ten seconds after the fact.

“They report most of the enemy ships are heading toward them at point four c,” said the Com Officer. “Gate is in position.”

“So, they’ll be close to us when we come out, and won’t be able to jump to hyper when they see what they’re facing. Perfect.”

“They’ve got to be freaking, looking at the gate and wondering what the hell it is,” said Jennifer.

“Sea Stag reports the enemy is firing at the gate, and at them. Time to impact, fourteen minutes.”

“First two squadrons will be through in two,” said the Admiral. “With the next two through right after them.”

Sean nodded his head and said nothing, determined to play the observer in this scene.

*

“Missile impact in twelve minutes,” called out Ngovic, sweating over his board.

And he should be sweating, thought Suttler, staring at the plot, then the visual of the missiles as they had appeared seven minutes before. Unless something comes through from our side, and soon, we’re plasma.

And then they were there, three fifteen million ton battleships, moving away from the gate at point three c. Moments after they appeared they fired, cycling countermissiles at the incoming and offensive missiles at the enemy ships. There were eight of the enemy battleships, ten supercruisers and nine of the scouts, and the battle looked to be very one sided. Then three more battleships came through, then seconds later three more, then another three.

The battleships started to apply some side vector and spread out, and more kept coming, until the count was up to twenty-four. And then the first of the twenty million ton superbattleships came through, followed by another, then another, then a squadron of four battle cruisers. Another squadron of battle cruisers came through, followed by another squadron of battleships.

“Subspace com is coming through, sir,” said the Com Officer. The holo lit up, and the figure of a battle armored admiral, four stars on each shoulder, appeared. “Good work, Captain. In three minutes I want you to reorient the gate so that it points into the system. As close to aiming for the third planet as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” said Suttler, sitting straighter in his chair.

“We’re sending another fully armed stealth attack through. They will be mounting this wormhole after we are through and staying, while you go back with us. Good job, Captain.”

The holo faded for a moment, and then switched views, and a young man in golden battle armor, the eight star circle of the Emperor on each shoulder, took the Admiral’s place.

“And I want to thank you as well, Captain. For saving my life when I was in the system before. Come see me when we are back in the Home System.”

The holo went blank, leaving a view of the tactical plot showing more ships appearing, until there were over a hundred in the system.

“Turn the gate,” ordered the Captain, and his ship started to apply power while the gate’s grabbers also pulled the massive structure around. A minute after the gate was in place more ships started to come on, their vector into the system. They started to release missiles as soon as they acquired targets. Soon the plot was filled with thousands of missiles heading toward the enemy force, and toward the enemy ships and installations insystem.

“Something big indeed,” said Suttler, now watching from the safest point in the system.

*

“What is that thing?” asked the Admiral who was station commander and the ranking Ca’cadasan in the Massadara system.

They were just seeing it come into view around the plutino. Which meant the ships he had sent that way after they picked up the faint graviton emissions of the suspected stealth vessel had seen the thing twenty some minutes before.

“Whatever it is, the ships will destroy it,” he said, just before the Tactical Officer called out that missiles were moving toward it.

“We’re picking up graviton emissions from near that object,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Consistent with large vessels at high acceleration. We’re picking up missile emissions as well.”

“By the Gods, the Great Admiral was right,” said the Admiral in charge. “That’s a wormhole gate. But how in the hells did they get it here?”

“Our own missile emissions are dropping off,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Now tracking forty enemy vessels. Three more appearing.”

“They’re taking them out with counters,” yelled out the Tactical Officer.

“Can we jump to hyper,” yelled the Admiral, looking over his command crew.

“Not a chance, my Lord,” said the Helm Officer. “We were not prepared for a jump to hyper. It will take three hours to build up the power for a jump.”

And we aren’t a warship. The only reason we have hypercapability is so we can move our base from place to place. “Prepare all defensive systems. As soon as you have a lock on those ships let loose with all offensive weapons. And that still won’t be enough. The two hundred million ton station carried a formidable defensive armament, but most of its missile magazines had been stripped bare to supply the fleet, which was running through weapons at a prodigious rate. Now they had only a couple of hundred offensive weapons. Colliers were on the way, which did them absolutely no good.

“When is that convoy due?” he asked, a sinking feeling in his chest.

“Today, my Lord,” said the Logistics Officer.

“Then it is lost as well,” said the Admiral.

“Shall we evacuate the noncombatants?” asked another officer.

The Admiral thought about it for a moment. There were now over two thousand females aboard, recently arrived from home. Many were already pregnant. And more would be coming with the convoy. “No. There is nowhere for them to go. They will shoot any shuttles we send inward out of space.” He looked over at the Com Officer. “Send a continuous graviton pulse with a warning. Let the convoy know what is waiting.”

“They won’t pick it up until they have begun stair stepping in. Probably too late to get away.”

“It is all we can do,” said the Admiral. “So we will do it.”

“Our ships are dropping off the plot,” said the Tactical Officer. “We’re losing our graviton reads.”

Which means they’re being destroyed by a larger enemy force, thought the Admiral. What else could it mean?

Moments later they had a visual on the wormhole gate, and a moment after that the scene was of enemy capital ships coming through, followed by more.

*

Sean was showing a feral smile as he watched the enemy ships coming apart under the missile fire of Home Fleet. The last time he had been in this system they had been outnumbered and outclassed. They were still outclassed, but the superiority of numbers was well in their favor.

He cringed inwardly as he watched several friendly battleships taking damage. One was hammered hard but was still operational, and would be able to make it back home through the wormhole. It didn’t take long for the overwhelming missile fire to take out the enemy force, leaving drifting fragments and clouds of plasma in its place. Any missiles that hadn’t engaged now shifted their vectors and headed for the station, while the battleships let loose a barrage at the primary target of the raid.

There were now over two hundred capital ships in the system, the only kind of vessel he had brought on this raid. They were hoping for a short but intense slugging match in which the survivability of lighter vessels would be in question. So the normal escorts had been left behind.

The second part of the force was firing into the system, releasing every missile they carried at something. The Emperor was determined to leave nothing of enemy manufacture in the space of this system. There were scores of enemy vessels, most of them freighters or troop transports of some kind, and orbital installations were being constructed around the planet. They would all be turned into wreckage.

The main force, over a hundred battleships and battle cruisers, clustered around the three superbattleships, were now decelerating so they could hover around the area of the station, hoping to ambush some more enemy shipping before bugging out.

Behind them the wormhole gate was again reorienting. When it had finished moving some big logistics ships came through, missile colliers with a resupply for the capital ships.

“One minute to missile impact on station,” called out the Flag Tactical Officer.

“I could almost feel sorry for them,” said Jennifer, hanging onto Sean’s arm.

“After all they have done to us,” said the Emperor, giving her a cold stare.

“I said almost. I wish we didn’t have to destroy. That’s not what I was trained to do. But we must destroy their incursion completely if we wish to survive.”

“I am depending on you to save my humanity,” said Sean, putting his arm around her and pulling her tight, armored suit to armored suit. “Right now I must be Shiva, but someday I will have to become Brahma again.”

The missile plots started to drop off the screen, and indication that they were hitting something, though they couldn’t tell without visual confirmation whether it was countermissiles or the station.

“They’re still sending out a warning signal,” said the Flag Com Officer.

More missiles fell off the plot, by the hundreds, then the emergency beacon weakened for a moment, then faded away completely. Then the missiles stopped dropping off the plot, and as they continued on into space they knew the station was gone.

Four minutes later they saw the pinpoint bright explosions of missiles being blown out of space by counters, then several hitting the station with enormous blasts as they transferred their kinetic energy into the massive structure. Then with a flash it was converted to plasma.

Three hours later the ships were coming back to the location of the station that they had overshot. It took several more hours to resupply the ships with missiles, then the colliers headed for the second group that was decelerating on a heading insystem, preparing to come back out.

*

Suttler watched his replacement come through the wormhole, the Grampus, another stealth attack of the same class as Sea Stag. He commed her captain, and was surprised when his old classmate at the Academy, Glenda McGowen, appeared in the holo.

“We’re transmitting all the data from our patrol to your ship,” said Bryce, looking at the woman they had all been sure would be a commodore by now. Still, her record as a Stealth Attack commander had been impressive, his being the only one more so because of recent events.

“Hopefully we’ll get some kills,” said the woman, a wide smile on her face. “We’ve been modified so we can load missiles through the wormhole after we’ve expended ours.”

“Just lay low for a while,” said Suttler, waving a finger in the air. “This is going to be a hornet’s nest when the Cacas get back here.”

“We’ll be careful,” said the other Captain, but from the look in her eyes he wasn’t sure she was being truthful. He saw an officer who was on a quest for glory, one that was likely to end badly for her and her crew. “Now get back to the Home System,” she said. “Get some R and R before they send you back out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Suttler, rendering a mock salute. He turned to his Helmsman. “You heard the Captain. Let’s get back home.”

There was a strange feel going through the wormhole, as if an eternity had passed and they had been spread across the Universe. When they appeared on the other end their internal clocks showed that no time had passed at all, the transfer had been truly instantaneous to the point where organic life couldn’t tell the difference.

To their port side, at ten million kilometers, was the long ribbon of the Donut, thin in the distance. Beyond it was the distorted light of stars as shone around the heavy gravity lens of the black hole. Traffic control queried them, then sent them orders, and they headed for another wormhole several million kilometers outward. Another transition, just as disorienting as the first, and Suttler knew exactly where they were. Central Docks. In the Home System. And we need to throw a party for a safe return, and a clean sweep.

*

“We’re picking up ships moving in hyper,” called out the Flag Sensor Officer.

“How many?” asked the Admiral. He didn’t need to ask whose ships. Not in this system.

“It sounds like five of their capital ships, a dozen escorts, and fifty-three others,” said the Sensor Officer.

“I would like some prisoners from this batch,” ordered Sean. “From those logistics ships.”

“I thought the same,” said the Admiral. “How long till they translate from hyper?”

“Thirty-eight minutes,” said the officer.

“And they don’t have a clue that we’re here,” said the Admiral, smiling. “Prepare for engagement.”

The Fleet was ready, all ships within light minutes of the probable emergence point of the enemy ships, based on where they would have thought the station was. One of the superbattleships was generating a hyperwave signal as a beacon, mimicking that which the station would have made.

“I wish you would return to the Home System, your Majesty,” said the Admiral. “There is no reason for you to continue here, not when you have business at home.”

“After this battle I will go back. Don’t take too many chances yourself. The large enemy force will be here in four days.”

Com was still coming through the wormhole, then relayed by subspace radio. Some of the force that had hit Cimmeria was on its way back to Conundrum, and a force from that would probably head back here. And they just didn’t know what might be coming from up the Persius Arm. Not until the wormholes had been delivered to the Republic, and they had established a stationary picket to let the Empire know what was coming.

“Enemy ships will reach translation point in one minute.”

“Get ready,” said the Admiral. “I want all of those warships taken out as soon as they come out of hyper.”

The warships were acquired as soon as they came out of hyper, fat and sassy, with no reason to suspect a trap. Their screens were down to the level needed for travel at point oh one c, the speed they were translating down from so they would stop at the station. Their missile batteries were not ready, and neither were their lasers or particle beams. They came to a knife fight with their blades sheathed, and over a hundred capital ships unleashed every light amp and particle weapon they could bring to bear moments after the ships translated.

This was a battle where they could see the damage moments after it was done. Terawatts of laser power ate into hulls as kilograms of antimatter exploded on metal armor. The five capital ships, tough as they were, withered and died under the fire in less than a minute. Then scout escorts died, and then any ship that looked like a tanker or a troop transport, which left twenty-two ships that had the appearance of freighters or liners.

The Marines attacked these ships, leaving their assault shuttles in close proximity and flying to them in their combat suits after the warships breached their hulls with laser fire. Six of the ships self-destructed with the Marines onboard. Four more were taken with no survivors. While on the others.

“We have prisoners, Admiral,” called out the Marine force commander. “Spacers, technicians, and females.”

“Females,” said Sean with glee. “Something we haven’t seen.”

“And a lot of tech we can send back to R and D,” said the Admiral with a smile. “Now will you go back to the Home System, your Majesty?”

“I will,” said Sean, looking at the tactical plot of the system. The orbital docks, the factories, the asteroid mines, even the newly raised antimatter production facilities on the moons of the gas giants, all had been shattered. This was no longer a productive enemy base system. “Good work, Admiral. I want you to bring your fleet back with me. I will not take any further risks here. And I want you to ready yourself for another mission. We will do this in another system. Because this is not enough pay back for what these bastards have done to us.”

Chapter Fifteen

All subjects have the right to life and liberty. Imperial, System and Planetary Governments shall not infringe upon these rights, except under due process of law. Systems and Planets may codify criminal guidelines and punishments under Imperial oversight, and guided by Imperial laws and limits. Article One, Imperial Bill of Freedoms and Responsibilities.

CAPITULUM JEWEL, JANUARY 20TH, 1001.

“Well, that went well,” said the Emperor, sitting at the conference table in a large room aboard the Central Docks. He was looking over the brief of the mission and liked what he saw. They had destroyed a total of seventeen of the enemy’s battleships, which were really more of superbattleships, as well as fifty-four smaller warships, and almost a hundred logistics ships, tankers and freighters, and troop transports. They had also taken out all of the enemy’s antimatter production facilities, based on the moons of gas giants where they could use hydrogen in fusion plants to power the process. Add to that docks and mines, and they had really hurt the enemy.

And we didn’t lose a ship, he thought, shaking his head. Several were damaged, a couple severely. But all had made it home through the gate.

The second raid had almost gone as well, though the surprise had not been as complete and they had lost some ships.

“They’re sure to keep more ships back in their base systems,” said Grand High Admiral McCollum. “It will be much harder to pull the same trick.”

“If they have to keep vessels back from the front, then we have achieved our purpose,” said Admiral Thomas Thompson, the man who had led both missions. “Every ship back is one they can’t throw at our systems.”

They’re all our systems, thought Sean, feeling the anger rise in him. “The wormholes are too powerful a weapon,” he said after he had calmed himself a bit. “We must find ways to keep using them. To keeping the enemy off balance.”

“We are working on it, your Majesty,” said McCollum. “I have R and D looking into new uses. And our tactical experts into variations of what we can already do. I’m sure we can come up with something that will take them by surprise.”

“What about the null inertia ships?” asked Sean, pulling up a schematic of the next weapon system he was hoping to deploy.

“We’ve had some setbacks there, your Majesty,” said Vice Admiral Chuntao Chan, a woman who had never commanded a ship, yet was one of the most valuable officers of the Fleet. As head of Research and Development she had a hand in almost every tech advance over the last twenty years. “There have been some instabilities when shifting from inertialess back to normal flight profile.”

“How bad?”

“We’ve lost over forty test platforms in the last month,” said the scientist with a grimace. “That’s over forty test pilots.”

Sean felt his own heart sink at those numbers. It would have been so much easier to use robotic craft. But this technology had implications for making ships almost invulnerable during part of their flight profile. And no one was about to trust that kind of tech to an AI.

“The first of the hyper VII carriers will be ready in two months,” said McCollum.

“And while that is useful,” said Sean, looking over at his CNO, “without the null inertia tech they are not the initiative shifting weapons we need them to be.” He looked back over to Chan. “I am sorry, Admiral. But we need those ships. I know it is a heavy sacrifice, but we need them. If you are having trouble getting volunteers…”

“No, your Majesty,” said the woman. “We are having no trouble getting volunteers. Young men and women line up by the hundreds to get on those ships. They too realize how important they are, and the rewards we offer are very tempting.”

“What is the problem, Chuntao?” asked McCollum. “Everyone I’ve talked to says the ships break light barrier just fine, and come back down as well.”

“It’s the inertia feedback,” said the scientist, holding out her hands. “It comes in too fast when the negative matter screen is dropped. And then the ship converts to particles. And anything that is within a hundred thousand kilometers of the ship is hit by the blast wave from a teraton explosion.”

“Sound like a hell of a weapon,” said Thompson, looking at a holo that showed one of those explosions.

“With absolutely no accuracy,” said Chan, shaking her head. “When the ship is in null inertia they are effectively unable to interact with the Universe around them. They must rely on dead reckoning, which can’t take into account the movement of their target. They can’t see anything until they drop their negative matter field, and then it’s too late.”

“So we have to relegate that weapon to the future,” said Sean. “Hopefully there will be one. Now what about those ten thousand gravity missiles we’ve been promised. Why aren’t they in the pipeline. I mean, the stealth attacks are already using them.”

“The problem, your Majesty,” said Admiral Hiedoki, the officer in charge of Fleet Logistics, “is that those missiles have such high tolerances and need such pure alloys of supermetals, that we can only manufacture them in small lots. Just enough for our stealth attack. There is really no hope of producing enough for our battle line.”

“We might be able to help you there, Admiral,” said Chan, looking down at her flat screen. “We’re studying how the Ca’cadasans put their grabbers together, and coming up with some ideas on how to make ours better. I think we can give you some eight thousand gravity weapons in a month or so.”

“It’s great that we’re getting all this help from their captured equipment,” said Thompson. “So, what are they getting from ours?”

“Definitely not the wormhole tech,” said Chan with a smile. “Even capturing one does them no good, since we can turn it off on the other end.”

And as long as we hold the Donut we have that advantage, thought Sean.

“We’ve had another problem with some of the missiles already in the pipeline,” said Hiedoki. “Seems that some of the grabber units were shorted their allotment of superplatinum.”

“And who is responsible for that?”

“We’re still investigating, your Majesty,” replied the Logistics Chief. “It seems the company that manufactured them was partially owned by Duke Streeter and some other Lords. And some of our ships have had malfunctions with their grabber units as well.”

“Let me guess,” said Sean, putting his head in his hands. “From the same company. I guess it’s a good thing for the Duke that he disappeared.” He looked over at Hiedoki and pointed his finger. “I will appoint a special judiciary to this. Make sure they get all the evidence. This is treason in time of war, and I will see those responsible for this pay the ultimate price.”

From the nodding heads Sean could tell that he had the military on his side in this, since he was obviously on their side. These were his people. Not the Lords or the other members of government. It was these people he needed to protect, so that they could protect the rest of the human species.

The trip back to the Palace was not what it used to be. No more views of the twin worlds in their phases as seen from the shuttle. Instead it was a quick step and suddenly he was fifteen thousand kilometers away, stepping out into a room of the Hexagon. He really didn’t feel like taking the aircar, so he rode the underground shuttle car that was made to take the Chiefs of Staff to secret meetings at the palace, or the Emperor to them. It only took minutes in the specially designed car that accelerated and decelerated at a hundred gravities.

The news that night showed scenes from the raids on Massadara and Florenza systems, along with the tally of enemy ships destroyed. Jennifer smiled as she sat next to him, especially when they showed the approval rating for the Emperor. It still wasn’t great, but was getting close to even.

At least they can’t vote me out of office, he thought, then remembered what had happened with Constance the Great and the Emperor she had deposed.

*

SECTOR VII FRONTIER, JANUARY 25TH, 1001.

“We’re picking something up in hyper VI,” said the Sensory Officer of the light cruiser HIMS Lancanshire.

Captain Stella English looked up from her command chair from where she had been reading the latest dispatches from Sector VII HQ. This was a quiet sector, facing as it did the upper Galactic Rim. Stars were farther apart up here, on average forty light years, which meant that though the sector covered as much space as the others, there were only a third of the stars in that volume. But there were still populated worlds here, and they needed protection, even if the sector fronted no other major powers.

And we’re the only ship on patrol for fifty light years in any direction. “How many are you picking up?”

“A couple of hundred,” said the Sensory Officer. “I can’t tell yet at this range, there’s too much cross interference.”

So is it a good thing or bad that we’re here? We were in the right place to pick them up. Now, do we get rolled over before we can get the information back to base.

She looked over at the tactical plot. Her ship was moving along the border in hyper VI, on a north by Galactic west heading at point five c. The unknowns were coming in on a heading that would take them past the light cruiser. And there was no way Lancanshire was going to be able to get away.

“Battle stations, all crew to battle stations,” she called out of the intercom, and the alert Klaxon sounded a moment later. Maybe we can hurt them, a little. Though the odds of that were low as well. Then it struck her. “Sensors. Did you say hyper VI?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m getting a clearing read now. Estimated two hundred and thirty-seven vessels, all in hyper VI. Resonances match military and civilian vessels from Kingdom of New Moscow.”

“Everyone stay sharp,” ordered the Captain after a moment of relief. “This could be a trick. But no one fire until I give the command. Understood, Tactical.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said that officer, a look of relief on his face as well.

“And if this is a trap, it’s a well laid one,” she mumbled to herself.

“They’ve picked us up, ma’am. Their hyperresonances are changing, and I think they’re decelerating.”

“Helm. Do as best you can to match velocities with them. I still intend to check them out before they’re allowed through.”

“And what are you going to do if they’re crewed by Cacas, ma’am,” came the voice of the XO in CIC over the personal com.

“I’m not really sure, Exec. But I’ve got to do something.”

The waiting seemed to go on forever. That’s the problem with space. As fast as we go, it’s so damned big that we spend most of our time waiting. But time continued to move in its one direction.

“We have visual, ma’am,” called out the Sensory Officer. The main viewer brought in the sight of the leading ships of the fleet heading their way, against the bright red backdrop of hyperspace. They looked much like Imperial battle cruisers, with a few aesthetic differences. And behind them were the still indistinct shapes of other ships.

“We’re receiving a com,” said the Com Officer, looking back. “Open cast in standard Terranglo.”

“Put it on,” said the Captain, knowing this would be a story she would want to hear.

“This is Admiral Gregor Chomsky of the Czar’s Navy,” said the bear like man who appeared on the holo. “We are refugees from the Kingdom of New Moscow, seeking asylum in your Empire.”

“Why did you come in through this route, sir?” asked the Captain, looking at a plot of their vector to this current space.

“We were in danger of being pursued, Captain,” said the Admiral, his haggard eyes looking into hers. “There was no way we could outrun them, so we went up above the Galactic Disk and then down. It added a lot of time to our travels, but as you can see, we made it.”

“We have a count, ma’am,” said the Sensory Officer on a private circuit. “Fifty-two capital ships, thirty-one cruisers, twenty-eight escorts, and one hundred and twenty-six commercial or logistics ships, thirty-four quite large.”

“You are welcome to our space, Admiral,” said the Captain. “I hope you won’t take this wrong.”

“But you want to inspect our ships before cutting us loose to head for a base,” said the Admiral. “I don’t blame you. Am I to assume that you are also at war with these invaders from our worst nightmares.”

“You assume correctly,” said the Captain. “And yes, I would like to inspect your ships, as soon as we can match velocities with you.” Can’t take any chances that those ships are manned by Cacas, with a couple of human front people to fool us.

“Understandable. My navigator estimates you can match velocities with us in six hours, if we adjust ours as well. You have hyper capable shuttles?”

“Three of them, sir. Looking forward to meeting you in person.”

Six hours later the shuttles were leaving the light cruiser, heading for three randomly picked vessels in the refugee fleet. And one shuttle was heading for the Lancanshire, bearing the Admiral to her ship. Captain English met the man in her conference room after the shuttle had docked, been searched, and he had been scanned. As she was showing him to his seat, images were coming in on her implants from the search teams. Images that showed crowded refuges along the corridors of the battleship, heavy cruiser and liner that had been selected. Predominantly women and children, all looking frightened and relieved at the same time.

“Definitely looks like you’re legit, sir. How many of your people did you get out?”

“Five hundred and eighty thousand civilians,” said the Admiral with a sigh. “And about two hundred and fifty thousand military personnel. As far as I know we’re the only survivors of the Kingdom of New Moscow.”

“But, there were billions of people in that kingdom,” said the incredulous Exec, who was also attending the meeting.

“Almost fifty billion humans,” said the Admiral. “And several billion subject aliens. But we didn’t see any of the nonhumans being put to death by the conquerors.

“You saw that yourself, sir?” asked the Exec.

“No, I did not. But my daughter did. And many of the other people we were able to rescue. My wife was one of those they executed, like a farm animal they were preparing for dinner. I wanted to stay and kill the bastards. But my Czar commanded that I get all I could to safety.”

The man covered his face with his hands and started to cry. Stella felt embarrassed for the man, who had seen so much of his life destroyed. “They have hit us hard too,” she finally said as the sobs started to slow. “Your people will be welcome, as will your ships. We can use all the warships we can get. And your civilians will be welcome to asylum.”

“And how are your people doing against the Ca’cadasans?”

“We’re getting our asses whipped so far,” said English, looking over at her Exec, who nodded. “But we’re hurting them, too. Probably more than they expected. I’m sure high command will want to pick your brains about anything that might help us hurt them more.”

When the shuttles came back they parted ways with the Admiral, who shuttled back to his own ship with one of her junior officers, who would lead them through Imperial space. She watched the Refugee fleet move on and disappear from her scanner. Lancanshire changed vectors and went back to her lonely patrol.

*

CIMMERIA SPACE, JANUARY 30TH, 1001.

The Great Admiral stood on the observation deck and stared out at the planet below. There were great clouds of smoke and dust in the atmosphere, and temperatures would be dropping over the planet for years. They had destroyed all the large settlements on the world, then worked their way down to the towns and villages, without dropping anything that would penetrate the crust and cause catastrophic damage. Then the soldiers had gone down, and been met on the ground by a ferocious enemy that did not seem to know how to give up. And whose numbers never ran out.

And then they hit us in our rear, he thought, feeling the rush of anger come over him again. Something we didn’t think possible. The news had just reached him of the attack of Massadara, on the heels of the attack on Florenza, which though hit days later than the other system, was closer. So they had received that news first. Massadara had been the worse news of the two. And those two were not all that had been hit.

All of our ships, the station. He smacked a hard fist into the wall in rage. The females.

“It was their damned wormholes,” said the Intelligence Chief. “They found a way to get one into both those systems and bring ships across. Then they ambushed the convoy at Massadara, who had no way of knowing they were even in the system.”

“And how did they get those wormholes into our space?” roared the Great Admiral, turning and pointing a pair of right index fingers at the male who was supposed to advise him on such things. “If they can open them wherever they want, we have lost this war.”

“Survivors at Florenza said they saw the wormhole open, and it didn’t look like it just appeared out of nowhere. They could see the framework being constructed in the distance, and the framework seemed to be integral to the expansion of the gate.”

“Well, that at least is good news,” said another male in the science division. “They must have one in the system to expand it.”

“And why wasn’t it hit before it could expand?” asked the Great Admiral, glaring at the science tech.

“It was too far off from the observing vessels,” said the Intelligence Chief. “The nearest ships fired at it, but before their missiles could get there, hundreds of enemy ships had come through the gate.”

“So the only defense is to scatter ships all over the systems we want to hold, then hope they try to open one within range, so we might, just might, be able to hit it and destroy it. That is unacceptable. Find me some way to locate those things,” he finished, pointing his fingers at the science tech, who was in charge of his technological division. Once a warrior, thought the Admiral. Now too old for such, so relegated to his current task. Did we make a mistake there as well. Maybe we need to have our more agile minds working on these problems.

“I do not see how that is possible,” said the tech, who as an older member of the race did not fear the authority of the Great Admiral, having lived his vital years. “We might be able to detect them at close range, if we can determine what kind of gravity emissions they are giving off.”

“And what about on the surface of a planet?”

“I don’t see any possibility of being able to do that,” said the tech. “The graviton emissions of a planet are too strong.”

“Perhaps we can capture one,” said another officer, this one a Chief Tactician. “Capture one of their ships with one on it.”

“And what good will that do?” asked the Intelligence Officer. “They can simply turn it off at the other end. And then we have nothing but the frame that held it open.”

“Perhaps we can go after their black hole station and just take away their ability to make these things,” said the Great Admiral, wondering as he said it if that was even possible at this juncture of the conquest.

“They are inside a seventy light hour gravity well, Great Admiral,” said the Chief Tactician. “And we don’t know how many links they have to other systems. They could possibly bring their entire fleet in to trap us in that gravity well.”

“That might be what we need to do to bring their fleet to a decisive battle,” said the Great Admiral, scratching a horn. “But not yet,” he hastily added, seeing the panic in the eyes of his subordinates. “Not until our strength has grown. But I do want your people to figure out a way to take out the wormhole generating station, if we can find a way onto it.”

“And meanwhile?” asked the Tactical Chief.

“Meanwhile, we continue to bleed them, until we get the force differential we need to strike at the heart of their Empire. I have the feeling that if we take out that station, this war will be all but over.”

*

THE DONUT, FEBRUARY 3RD, 1001.

Lucille Yu was always surprised to see how fast things were going up around the Donut. And inside it as well. As she watched the screen a fully loaded twenty-five million ton superfreighter was coming through the ship gate from the Home System. Two more were hanging in space being unloading of the industrial fruits of the Core Worlds. Now that they didn’t have to travel in normal space across the sixty light hour gravity well of the black hole, the buildup was increasing at a terrific pace.

She looked at the production figures for negative matter, more than doubled in the last two weeks. That was due to the new matter warp chambers placed aboard the station, taking advantage of the almost unlimited power being generated by the swirling mass of the charged black hole. That was another thing about being at war. Bureaucracy was toned down. If something was discovered the Emperor knew about it within a day, and several days later, at most, industry was constructed to build it.

The superfreighter moved away from the gate, changing its vector to boost outward to its assigned resting place. Another superfreighter came through, followed by a half dozen smaller but still large freighters in the ten million ton range.

Out from the station, starting at the twenty million kilometer range, they were building complexes in free space. There were now over two hundred of the great missile acceleration tubes, all over a thousand kilometers in length, attached to large magazines containing over three thousand missiles each. Each of the weapons was linked to a warship, and some ships were linked to two of the launchers. Inside the station were mounted other weapons, great particle accelerators that could build up a charge of protons to just under the speed of light.

A tanker went back through the gate after the strobes on it turned green, indicating that the other side of the gate was now free of transiting vessels. There was no danger actually inside the wormhole, but it would be a disaster if something came through to occupy the same space as an object coming through from the other side. Most of the shipments were inward to the station, but surplus antimatter was being sent out to the Fleet station at the Central Docks.

But much was also flowing off the station to warhead filling complexes out there in the new orbiting ring of complexes. Some of these were moved to the cargo gate complexes that led to fleet bases, where they could be loaded onto warships or missile colliers. Others to colliers that were sent through to the Central Dock. And still others to be mated with the missiles that were being stored and dispensed from the missile acceleration tubes.

Lucille got up from her desk and headed to the local cafeteria, Jimmy Wu falling in at her side as she walked from her office. All of the corridors were crowded with people, and new quarters were being installed by construction crews around the clock. There were over fifty million people on the station, with a hundred thousand more coming aboard each day. Food was being brought through the gates in great quantities, but hydroponics and protein tanks were also being installed.

“What do you think would happen if they took this station out?” she asked Jimmy as they walked to the executive dining hall, reserved for senior staff and admirals. And, of course, the chief of her security detail.

“We’d probably lose this war,” said Jimmy. “It’s pure luck this thing was online just when we needed it.” Jimmy nodded to one of his agents, on the security detail of another high ranking staffer. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Doc. This thing is better protected than Jewel.”

Maybe not that well, she thought, recalling that Central Docks added a lot of firepower to the Home System. But they can’t get at us without traveling at least a hundred hours through normal space, seeing as how they have to come out of hyper at point three and accelerate. Even missiles would take eighty hours, over three days, if they could launch them at a high initial velocity.

She nodded toward the Admiral in command of the station, a four star who always seemed to have a worried expression on his face. So why don’t I gain confidence from Admiral Bryant’s face. Is there something I’m overlooking? Something that they can’t see as well? If that’s true, then we won’t know we’re in trouble until we’re right in the middle of it.

*

ELYSIUM, FEBRUARY 15TH, 1001.

“I have good news, Ambassador,” said High Lord Grarakakak, walking into the meeting room in the restored government palace. The avian had a smile on his pliant beak, one which might not be recognized as such by most humans. But Horatio Alexanderopolis had been living and working around the Brakakak for over fifty years, and knew them as well as any human.

“You are ready to come to our aid?” said the Ambassador, rising from his seat.

“Not just yet, my friend. But maybe soon. The Fleet has located the Knockerman naval force in a system six hundred light years from here. I expect us to engage them in combat within the next week.”

Horatio tried not to let the disappointment show, but the avian leader had also gotten good at reading human faces. “I am sorry, my friend,” said the High Lord. “But we must secure our own Empire before we can send aid to others. I will tell you, though, that my Fleet Commander loves that wormhole you gave him to play with. He regrets that he only has the one, though.”

And that was sheer genius, thought the Ambassador. Giving them a little taste of what we can provide, though probably not as much as they hope for. And now they’ll want more.

“We could really use your help,” said Horatio, leaning forward in his seat. “You know, if these guys run us over, you’re probably next.”

“I believe you,” said the High Lord, giving a human head nod. “Unfortunately, there are still those in my government who do not, including many members of our High Command. They believe that these aliens only want to destroy you. Or, if they want to conquer the region, it is better to let them exhaust themselves taking your Empire out. And then we can strike and eject them from this region.”

“That’s pure insanity,” said the Ambassador, coming to his feet. He paced the length of the room and then back. “I thought you were our friends.”

“I am your friend,” said the High Lord, looking up at the human. “That does not mean that all of my people are. Not even all of my own species.”

“So you can’t guarantee that you will ever come in on our side,” said Horatio, plopping back in his chair with a feeling of defeat.

“I can guarantee that as long as I am in power,” said the High Lord, signaling for a servant to bring them some refreshment, “we will be your friends. Give me two months and I will have a task force to place under your command. After that, we will just have to wait and see.”

And that is not what I wanted to hear, thought the Ambassador as he accepted a drink from the radially symmetrical servant. And definitely not what they will want to hear at home.

“And how big a task force are we talking about?” asked Horatio, unable to contain his impatience.

“At this time I have no idea,” said Grarakakak, his face showing that he was growing tired of the questioning of his intentions. “We will give you what I can convince my government to give you.”

Horatio looked down, and felt the sense of failure. And after I protected you ass, he thought, looking back at the High Lord. And your family. He felt like shouting that to the leader, but knew it would do him no good, and might harm his cause beyond repair.

“I am sorry, Horatio. But I am not a dictator. I am only the first among equal Councilors that are the administrative rulers of the Empire. And we must act within the laws passed by our legislature. We have no Emperor like your nation, and no provisions to place one being in charge, even in wartime.”

Which is one reason we have always whipped your asses, thought the Ambassador, nodding his head to show that he understood what the other being was saying. “Then I will take my leave.”

“Perhaps we can meet again in a couple of days,” said the High Lord, signaling for one of his servants to come and show the Ambassador out. “Perhaps I will have better news at that time.”

The Ambassador looked out over the broken city on the way back to the temporary Embassy. He was still amazed at how modern buildings, which could stand up to any weather and most seismic events, could be so easily trashed by modern weapons. But then, that’s the point of modern weapons. To be able to destroy what we build. No matter how strong.

As soon as he landed on the Embassy he was heading inside at a run, straight for the com room. He didn’t think the Ministry of State was going to like we he told them, nor would they enjoy telling the Ministry of War. And with wormhole communications he wouldn’t even have the luxury of a four day turnaround to receive his reply.

Chapter Sixteen

In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance. Joseph Stalin.

CONUNDRUM SURFACE, FEBRUARY 27TH, 1001.

Preacher looked through his powerful low tech glasses at the installation below. There were thousands of Ca’cadasans down there, in an underground bunker complex that was pretty much impervious to anything they had. He had three hundred Rangers low to the ground, not giving off anything in the electromagnetic spectrum. Their heat absorbing Gilley suits with cold packs were spoofing any aerial or space based heat sensors, at least for the next couple of hours.

He had fretted some over the possibility of the enemy using chemosensors, but so far there had been no indication that the Cacas used that tech. And I have to wonder at that shortcoming. Of course the Rangers did not give off pheromones. Those glands had been deactivated during the augmentation process, and any chemosensors set to pick up normal humans would not scan them.

“It would be so easy if we had something in space,” said Preacher to the company commander who was lying beside him. The man nodded but said nothing. Everyone knew that bunkers were not proof against space launched kinetic weapons. No matter how deeply buried or heavily armored, a sufficiently heavy weapon dropped at a high enough velocity could kill it. Unfortunately, there were no human platforms in this space.

He thought back to several weeks before, when a human force had come through a wormhole gate and had destroyed the Caca naval force insystem. For a week there had been no enemy presence in space, and the human force had been able to launch a counter-offensive on the surface of the planet. The enemy had been hit hard, but not eradicated, and still held the far Southern continent where Preacher and his Rangers were operating. They had multiple landing fields, fortified barracks complexes, and this bunker, which was headquarters for the enemy ground forces on this world.

And now the enemy was back, and had again circled the planet with satellites and stations, and some orbiting warships. The humans had installed hundreds of jamming stations in their absence, and it would be some weeks before the enemy destroyed enough of them to break through the interference.

And the Fleet delivered two more wormholes, thought Preacher as he continued to scan the guard posts. And we’re carrying one with us. That had made the whole plan workable. There was no way they could get a bomb into that complex by conventional means. At least not something that could destroy it. A fusion weapon would be too damned big, even the smallest ones. An antimatter bomb would have to have an active magnetic field to contain the antimatter, and there was too much risk of detection. Besides, planting and detonating devices like those left little margin for error if the assault troops were to get away from the blast. Preacher had already lost two thirds of the two Ranger battalions he had brought to this continent. He wasn’t about to lead the last third on the definition of a suicide mission.

Preacher looked at the clock counting down on his implant. The plants were as deep in the skull as could be, and shielded to the max. When a special ops trooper was on a mission the plants disabled their com features, so there was no danger of picking up a transmission. Which meant the troopers had to go by hand and voice signals, and synchronized timed plans. And now the clock was ticking down.

At zero the thirty-five Rangers assigned to sniper duty took their first shots, firing their chemically propelled high power rifles at the faces of their targets, the sentries in towers or at gates that were too hard to approach. At the same moment another fifty Rangers moved from concealment with monomolecular blades in their hands. All made kills, though one was shot through his abdomen by a mag rifle before he threw his blade in the Caca’s throat. That was the only casualty of the initial strike, and Preacher knew they had to move fast to avoid more. The enemy would know something was going on, and soon, when their men stopped checking in.

So did everyone else in the reduced battalion, and all of the Rangers moved, running toward the compound, engaging every target that presented itself. One man dropped back to carry the wounded trooper in. The Rangers lacked some of the targeting toys that regular infantry deployed with their weapons. All were instead crack shots, with thousands of hours in simulators and hundreds on ranges to perfect their craft. They stormed into the compound, firing up everything that presented itself. Preacher carried a dedicated grenade launcher, a thirty millimeter weapon with a fifty round drum attached. He took out a weapon’s emplacement, then a couple of Cacas firing from cover. The Brigadier looked over for a moment, making sure the man carrying the wormhole and his two escorts were secure. If he was taken out then one of the escorts would have to grab the bag. If the bag was taken out the mission was a scratch, and they would have to bug out as best they could.

The firefight was short and sharp. The Rangers lost thirty-two men, in exchange for almost three hundred of the unprepared enemy. But now that enemy was alerted, more warriors were pouring into the fight, and there was great risk of being swept away. The gate to the inner compound blew in front of Preacher, and he hurried his group through, while most of the rest of the Rangers simply jumped over the fence with their enhanced muscles.

The enemy fire was intensifying by the moment. Lasers and particle beams were joining the mix, and Preacher knew there was no way his light troops could stand up to that firepower. His Rangers were falling back around him while his demolitions expert set his explosives at the side entrance to the bunker. The enemy was firing from cover, and his men were trying to take advantage of what little they had. It wasn’t enough, and Preacher watched as man after man was burned or blasted out of existence. We’re getting murdered, he thought, holding back his tears of rage and frustration.

“Fire in the hole,” yelled the Ranger who had set the plastic explosive around the door. He ran himself and put his back to the wall, while the rest of the Rangers hunkered down as best they could to keep fire on the enemy. The demolitions man hit his trigger, pulling it three times. The explosive went off with a blast of fire and very little smoke. It was the most advanced chemical explosive made in the Empire, one gram equaling twenty kilograms of the TNT that was still held up as the standard measure of blasting power. The door crumpled and flew inward. Seconds later the first Rangers ran through, gunning down the disoriented Cacas in the entrance halls.

“There’s the elevators,” yelled one of the men, and the demolitions man ran over and started to set his explosives on the door. There was no hope that a car would be there for their use. But they really didn’t need one. All they needed was the shaft. He blew that door in, dropping it into the shaft for the long fall down.

All the surviving Rangers crowded through the hallway. One placed an explosive charge on the ceiling just inside the outer door, pulled a pin, and ran after the others. Just as the first Cacas reached the doorway the charge went off, lifting their dead bodies up and out while dropping the ceiling into the hallway.

“That won’t hold them for long,” said Preacher, turning to locate his gate carrier and make sure he was deploying the wormhole. I shouldn’t have worried, he thought. The Master Sergeant had the meter by half meter device out of his pack and was setting it up. After unfolding it twice, he placed it on the floor, where it continued to unfold itself until it formed a frame two meters tall by a meter wide. In the center was a ten centimeter mirror. And immediately after the device expanded a cylinder came popping through the wormhole.

“Get that stuff injected,” ordered Preacher, listening to the noise coming from the barrier they had dropped as the Cacas started to burn their way through. “Be careful. That shit will cancel your asses.”

The men nodded, and caught cylinder after cylinder, until four had come through. The Master Sergeant hooked the tanks up to a nozzle on the frame and started to inject the negative matter into the system. As each was emptied the opening grew, and the frame adjusted to pull it toward the edge of the construct. In moments a fully opened wormhole stood in front of Preacher. Moments later a meter diameter sphere came out of the hole, floating on a framework set with grabber units.

“OK, everyone not necessary for setting the bomb, through the hole.”

The men started to move toward the hole and through, evacuating quickly but without panic. The Master Sergeant started to prep the bomb, a simple device holding two kilograms of antimatter in a strong containment field. He set the timer and the proximity fuse on the device that would simply turn off the containment field, then nodded at Preacher.

“Everybody through,” he yelled, looking at the barrier that was crumbling before the particle beams of the enemy. The last three men moved through the hole, and he and the Master Sergeant moved the bomb to the shaft. Preacher looked down, and saw a glow at the bottom where the enemy was melting through the lift doors they had dropped.

“Let’s do it,” he said to the NCO, then pushed the bomb into the shaft. The NCO armed the bomb and Preacher pushed the grabber commit that sent it on its way down. A blast sounded behind them, and the barrier in the hall exploded inward.

Preacher ran for the wormhole, then turned as he heard a grunt from behind. The Master Sergeant was lying on the floor with a deep burn through one leg. “Leave me, General,” said the man in a strained voice.

“No fucking way,” said Preacher, grabbing the man and lifting him into a fireman’s carry. A particle beam came swishing by, and the General cringed as he ran, jumping into the hole with the other man on his shoulders.

He landed on the other side and fell to the floor, just as the wormhole behind him flashed and white hot flame started to come out. Then the gate was inactive, cutting them off from the massive explosion that must have totally destroyed the enemy ground force headquarters on the planet.

“Welcome home, Preacher,” said a familiar voice, and the General found himself looking up at the short form of Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, the Army Chief of Staff. “And congratulations on all you did.”

“I lost a lot of men doing it, sir,” said Brigadier General Walther Jodel, laying the Master Sergeant gently on the floor and moving away so the docs could get to him.

“And I’ve sent a lot more to their deaths,” said Mishori, putting his arm around the Ranger.

“When do we go back?”

“Not for a while yet,” said the Army Chief of Staff. “I’m sending two more battalions through to fill out your brigade, but you and these men are getting a leave. After that we will figure out something else for you to do.”

Preacher nodded, and looked back for a moment at the dead frame of the wormhole. Marveling at the fact that they had used a device that took the energy equivalent of thousands of tons of antimatter to create, just so they could deliver a two kilogram warhead. But the effect on the enemy should be worth it.

*

“By the Gods,” yelled the Great Admiral, looking at the explosion rising from the far southern Continent. They had gotten word that the planetary headquarters was under attack, but nothing from the sensor feeds had shown a bomb of that caliber being snuck into the facility.

“We have lost communications with the General,” yelled out a Com Tech.

“One has to wonder why,” said the Great Admiral, glaring at the tech.

“It had to be a suicide mission,” said the Brigade Commander who was the Admiral’s liaison officer. “There’s no way they could have gotten a bomb in there and then escaped.”

“What care I if some of their foot soldiers sacrificed themselves. I wish they all would.” The Admiral walked the deck for a moment thinking, wondering if any of these worlds were worth the lives he was paying to try and hold them. But I can’t destroy the surface of the planet. The priests would raise hell. Word would get back to the Emperor. And I would be removed from my position. But if I lose any more troops for no gain I can also kiss my command goodbye.

“Pull all our troops off the planet,” ordered the Admiral, turning to the Brigade Commander. “Now, as soon as you can load them up.”

“But, what are we to do with the planet?” asked the ground force officer.

“We will seed the planet with drones and microdrones, and hit anything we see from orbit.”

“They’ll still be able to move people about the planet,” said the ground force officer. “They’ve gotten quite good at it.”

“Then we will hit what we can, until the time is right to put troops back on the surface. Meanwhile, we will hit more systems, destroy their infrastructure, and move on, until we are in a position to take out that wormhole generating station of theirs. Until that moment, we will secure the orbitals with heavy warships.”

The Great Admiral looked over to where his human slave was seated, glaring at her. He was sure that she had told him what she knew. No being could withstand the combination of pain and pleasure she had been subjected to. And there was definitely no way she could have transmitted information to her side. So I will keep her around for now, he thought, giving her another stare. And then he was looking back at the planet, which he had hoped would be theirs by now.

*

CORE WORLD SPACE, MARCH 5TH, 1001.

The surface of the planet came toward him fast. Too fast. The Brigadier cut in the grabber units on his suit and decelerated, a little bit past the capacity of his inertial compensators to handle. He was pulling six gravities above capacity as he came down, the by the book standard for assault jumps.

There were already men on the ground, forming up into their units and starting to move off, their one ton combat suits carrying them a meter above the surface. The Brigadier looked on his HUD to see that some unit mixing had occurred. That was to be expected during a mass drop. It was more important to get the troops into battle than order the ranks.

He looked up to see the last companies coming down, along with the heavy tanks that were assigned to his brigade. They still impressed him whenever he saw them, a thousand tons of metals and materials, floating down on their own grabbers and the two hundred tons of carrier. The lower skin of the carriers still glowed red from their entry into an atmosphere, and the heat that had made it through their ejected ablation shields. He counted them off on his HUD, breathing a sigh of relief as the total reached forty-seven vehicles. The battalion was only missing one vehicle, not bad for a drop onto a hostile surface.

Brigadier General Samuel Baggett allowed himself to smile for a moment. His brigade was doing well. He was tempted for a moment to check in on the other three brigades of the 384th Heavy Infantry Division, then decided that it wasn’t his business. He needed to concentrate on his own command. If they needed help they would call. He had his own battle to fight.

“Looking good so far, sir,” said Sergeant Major Terry Zacharius over the personal com.

“You enjoying yourself, you old warhorse?” asked the General, pleased that his old top NCO had accepted transfer with him to heavy infantry. Terry had risen through the ranks in light infantry, then did a stint with the General in the mediums. But Terry knew a good thing when he saw it, and more protection and firepower was always a good thing.

“So far, sir,” said the irascible NCO. “But it looks as if the shit is about to hit it.”

Baggett grunted as he expanded his HUD and saw the red dots of the enemy force heading his way. He knew each of those suits was bigger than his own, carrying a larger being. Some of his dots started to drop off the screen, then some of the enemy’s. The tanks opened up and sent large high speed projectiles at the enemy units, followed by particle beams and lasers. More of the enemy dropped off the plot.

One of the tanks closest to the General went up, turret rising on a ball of fire into the air from the hyper-v hit. Stingships flew over, enemy craft, and started to strafe his forces. Beams and missiles rose into the air from suits and vehicles configured for such work, and half the stingships were blotted from the sky.

Now the battle was joined in earnest, beams and projectiles lighting the sky ahead. And the fourth brigade was falling from the air, starting to form up, while his own men pressed forward. Here a battalion commander was taken out, there a company commander. Several lieutenants fell off the net, and in every occurrence the next man down took over without a hitch.

The beings they were fighting were bigger and had larger weapons. But they also made larger targets, a disadvantage that was beginning to tell.

“I think we’ve got them, Terry,” said Baggett, then cursed as he noticed that the NCOs icon was no longer there. More red icons appeared on the HUD, and the General knew they were in trouble.

But Major General Maxwell was doing his job, and Second and Third Brigades began to pinch in on the enemy, while Fourth Brigade moved up through First to deliver a killing blow. Baggett looked at his own casualty figures with alarm. He had lost half of his heavy infantry troopers, over fifteen hundred men, and thirty one of his heavy tanks. The other brigades had not suffered near the losses, as his had hit the enemy head on, always a recipe for lots of casualties. Now the enemy was falling back, struggling to keep their formations intact, and not succeeding.

“Let’s take this one back to the club, gentlemen and ladies,” said Major General Betrum Maxwell over the com.

Most of the smoke and dust disappeared from the atmosphere as the suit displays cleared up. The tank Baggett had seen destroyed returned to normal, the holo projectors that had simulated the damage turning off. He checked his HUD as the people who had been killed came back up. Some had minor damage to their suits. A few had injuries, but none were seriously hurt. People were often seriously injured on maneuvers like this, sometimes even killed. He felt fortunate to only have those minor injuries, and the armorers would soon have the suits back up to full capacity.

Baggett flew low over the ground to the meeting, Zacharius at his side. The Division Commander was already there, as was the Phlistaran commander of the OPFOR. As they waited the other three brigade and eighteen battalion commanders made their way to the meet. All remained in their suits. It was important to get used to staying in them for long periods of time. In a real deployment they might be in the suits for weeks, resupplied with food, water and energy cells.

“I am very satisfied, ladies and gentlemen,” said the Division Commander. “Not everything went perfectly, of course, and there is room for improvement. There is always room for improvement, but it doesn’t always come.”

Yeah, thought Baggett, that only comes after the dead wood has been killed off. In his experience not everyone who graded out positively in training became a great combat soldier. Only the Darwinian selection process of real combat would tell him who were the best soldiers, and who were the dead meat. And, as always, there was always an amount of luck to who lived or who died. He had seen some of the best soldiers imaginable die due to plain bad luck, while lesser troopers lived, all because the missile trajectory as a little off for one, on for the other.

“Anything to add, General Lanbardran?” asked Maxwell of the Phlistaran commander of the One Ninety-fifth Heavy Infantry Division, one of the other units in the Corps.

“Only that there was some bunching up on landing,” said the booming voice of the huge being. “Other than that, the organization was fantastic, even in the face of casualties. I thought we had you for a moment, until your counter attack got us.”

“It was still four brigades against one, sir,” said Baggett.

“And that is what we would normally expect to face on a drop,” said Maxwell, his armored head swiveling to look at the brigade commander. “We would try to overwhelm the enemy with numbers to get a foothold, and would not want to drop on a position where the numbers were even, or worse.” The General waited for a moment, then looked back at Baggett. “What has been your experience, General Baggett?”

Samuel was aware of every head turned his way. He took Maxwell’s question at face value. All of the assembled officers knew he had more recent combat experience than all of them put together, except for Sergeant Major Zacharius. And again, with the exception of the Sergeant Major, the only combat experience against the ancient enemy.

“My experience is that nothing goes as expected, and we must always be ready for everything.”

Later, aboard the heavy assault ship that served as the brigade headquarters while waiting for a mission, he met with his own staff. He was not so ready with the praise as his commanding officer.

“I expect the men to not bunch up so on the drop,” he said, scanning the faces of his battalion and company commanders, and their XOs and senior NCOs. “I know the troops feel insecure dropping out of the sky like they do, and want to seek he security of their fellows. That just makes them bigger damn targets, and the larger the target the more enticing it is to be hit.”

“When are we going to deploy for a mission, sir?” asked Lt. Colonel Wanda McTavish, the commander of his Second Battalion. “The lads and ladies are hearing things through the grapevine, but it’s all just useless speculation so far.”

“Nothing official has come down the pike,” said Baggett, looking at the attractive officer. “You all will be the first to know when it does, so be ready. We have a simulator exercise tomorrow at oh seven hundred. Have your people plugged in and ready to work. At least we can’t break any of the suits in the simulators.”

The next morning the entire brigade was plugged in, and the computers were providing a situation to challenge them, working at the rate of one minute to the hour. The organic brains linked into the cyber systems, playing through the simulation, then going at it again, correcting mistakes, making new ones. After four hours the brigade unlinked, and the tired troopers, having undergone scores of variations of the tactical situation, went to their lunches. Most of the soldiers had experienced deaths as real to their minds as the actual thing, a good way of pushing the importance of the exercise home.

That night the Gallipoli, the troop ship they called home, powered toward the hyper barrier and deployment, along with the rest of the division. Baggett didn’t know their final destination at that point, and wasn’t even sure if high command knew. But one thing was a known. They were headed for Sector Four, and he was heading back into the shit.

*

FREE SPACE OUTSIDE OF SECTOR IV AND NEW TERRAN REPUBLIC TERRITORY. MARCH 12TH, 1001.

New Terran Republic Ship Hephaestus was the last to work its way into line. The hyper VI destroyer was ready for a long deployment. How long no one knew, but being equipped with a wormhole it was sure to be an extended stay. Four other ships were already in place, one centering the formation, three others to three sides of that vessel, six light years up, down and toward the Republic. They would catch the hyperdrive emissions of any ship passing within six light years of their positions in hyper VII, over two light years in VI. When the net was complete any ship passing through within twenty-four light years of the central vessel, a light cruiser, would be detected. Fifty light years closer to the New Terran Empire were nine of their ships in a similar formation to cast an even wider net. It was hoped that they would pick up all enemy traffic coming or going, and so warn their governments about incoming Ca’cadasan ships.

Commodore Natasha Romanov sat in her command chair aboard the hyper VI light cruiser Orleans, watching on the plot as Hephaestus crept forward in hyper II, never above point three c, so that she might be able to decel and jump to normal space before an enemy ship detected her. The fifth and final destroyer was deployed eight light years ahead, where she could warn the other ships about an enemy approach while they were in the middle of deployment.

Normally this was not a proper command for a flag officer, even a one star. But the mission was important enough to warrant her deployment with it. Now she watched with nervous excitement as the last ship moved toward her deployment point. Then the net would be complete and any enemy traffic coming through this corridor would be noted, and the High Commands of both nations would be alerted. And if something less than a warship came through, like a courier? Then we might have a surprise for them, she thought, anticipating the moment.

“You’re doing fine, Hephaestus,” said the Tactical Officer over the com, monitoring the plot. “You’re still in the clear.”

“Pinafore is signaling that they are picking up hyper VII emissions,” called out the sensory officer. The tactical plot showed the destroyer eight light years ahead. It was sending its information through its wormhole connection to the New Terran Republic Fleet Headquarters. From there it was being fed to all the ships in the net. And the light cruiser’s transmission was going through its wormhole back to HQ, then on to Hephaestus.

Romanov looked at the plot that showed the icon of the oncoming enemy, resolving itself into a pair of battleships and some freighters. Two red rings moved with them, the inner their detection range of a ship in hyper II, the outer, over twice the diameter, their detection range of a vessel jumping from II down to normal space.

“Emergency decel, now,” ordered the Commodore to the destroyer. “You need to get into normal space as soon as possible.”

She received acknowledgement from the destroyer, and watched its vector numbers change, going downward. The outer red ring was drawing closer by the moment. The enemy ships were in VII, and pulling point nine five c. The destroyer’s downward jump emissions would be in detection range in minutes. And if they decided to slow down and attack the destroyer, or launch missiles in hyper to decel down and go after her, there was nothing she could do to come to its aid. That might risk the whole net, which was more important that any single destroyer.

“They need to jump,” yelled out the Tactical Officer.

“Just a few moments more,” came the voice of the destroyer captain over the com.

The red line was almost to them, and the ship was still too far from point two c. Then the vector numbers jumped, and the destroyer put on another thirty gravities deceleration above her inertial compensator max. She put on yet another couple of gees, then jumped back into normal space, just ahead of the detection line.

The Commodore sat with her breath held for some minutes more as the enemy ships passed through their space. The detection line was after all an estimate. They really didn’t know the detection range of a Ca’cadasan warship. It took the enemy ships a little over six hours to pass beyond the detection range of the net, and they veered not a kilometer from their course. The information was passed to HQ, and from there to Imperial Command, where it was transmitted to their own net, letting them know what was coming.

“Good job, Captain,” she told the commander of the destroyer, who had gotten his people into the tanks at the last moment for that final burst of decel. By the next day the destroyer was in place, and they prepared for the long and boring job of monitoring enemy traffic.

On some days a large convoy would come through, on others a formation of warships, on still more days a few ships. Traffic also flowed the other way, always convoys with some protecting escorts. But overall the flow was toward the human kingdoms, empires and republics.

And then had come the day when the Imperial net informed them that a single courier was heading their way. When they were sure there was no traffic coming the other way they made ready. The courier was larger than one of the vessels the humans used for that duty, over thirty thousand tons. About the third the size of a frigate. That made it easier to track.

The Commodore kept close watch on the track as it came into range. Four of the five ships in the net could track it, and the light cruiser was able to triangulate and get a sure fix on the enemy. They knew exactly where it was from moment to moment. So she knew exactly when to fire.

“Fire missiles,” ordered the Commodore when the courier entered the engagement envelope. Three missiles left the tubes of the light cruiser and translated up to VII. They popped into hyperspace less than ten hyper VII light seconds in front of the enemy ship. The closing speed from head on was almost point nine nine light. There was no way for the courier to avoid them as she sped forward. He had defenses, and picked off one missile. Two got through, but it only took one to blot her out of space. And whatever message she carried back to the Ca’cadasan Empire was blotted out with her.

Chapter Seventeen

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. Mark Twain.

THE DONUT, MARCH 30TH, 1001.

Lucille wanted to be in on the opening of this gate, and insisted on being there when the process was initiated. She had seen hundreds of wormholes opened since coming to the station, but this was going to be the second permanent ship gate, capable of letting a superfreighter transfer hundreds of light years in an instant, or three battleships at a time. Beowulf was the chosen system, a core world around a G class star three hundred and twenty light years from the black hole. It was right on the edge of Sector Four space and the home to three billion people. It had heavy industry and antimatter production, and it was thought to be a prime target, something the enemy was sure to strike at in the very near future.

“We’re sending the negative matter through now,” said the woman at the primary control station. A line of cylinders started through, each containing a thousand kilograms of negative matter. At the same time the gate on this side started to expand as more negative matter was fed into it. The electromagnetic fields holding the negative matter in position started to expand as well, while the magnetic frame holding that field in place moved outwards, pulled by the hydraulic arms of the outer frame.

The signal coming through from the other side showed the same thing happening there, just slightly behind the process going on at the gate in orbit around the black hole. Remotely controlled robots were hooking up the negative matter cylinders and pumping it into the electromagnetic field.

“We’re ready on this side,” said the controller. “Should be about two minutes on the other.”

The viewer was showing a shot of the gate, the mirrored surface now only a hundred meters from the edge of the frame. Behind it was the dark side a planet, cities lighting the dark. And beyond that the disk of the yellow sun the planet orbited around. Lucille watched closely as the wormhole continued to expand, until it locked into place.

“We have a go,” said the controller, looking over at the traffic control station.

The man at that station starting talking over his com. Moments later the first of the ships started moving toward the gate, a battleship. It hit the mirrored surface with a flash. The viewer showed the nose of the ship arriving out of a mirror image flash, followed by the rest of the ship within a matter of seconds. Ten seconds later another battleship started through, followed by a third. After that it was a procession of freighters, moving hundreds of millions of tons of machinery, armor and construction material into the system. They were followed by liners full of construction crews and robots. They would be put to work around the clock for the next week fortifying the system.

In five days another gate would be opened, into another Core System near the sector border, if that system hadn’t already been raided by that time. Lucille thought about it for a moment. They had tripled negative matter production in the last year. Something to be proud of, but still not enough to open all the ship gates they wanted. Not that there weren’t plenty of other uses for the holes the opened. The things never sat in storage for very long.

And we still don’t know how to move a hole through a hole with any guarantee of success. A hole that exploded inside another hole was a scientific curiosity. A hole that exploded inside a battleship, and destroyed a vital passage as well as the ship, was a disaster. Even though they had some successes in trials, she was not willing to risk such a disaster.

She returned to her office and looked over the reports about the project. They had run three trials during the last week, at the cost of two wormhole gates when one of the trials went up in a terraton blast. A sixty six percent success rate was still not good enough, when the third ship of any wormhole equipped squadron could destroy all the ships involved.

She received the signal of an incoming com link, and shunted it to her desktop holo when she saw who it was, activating the record function at the same time.

“Good day to you, Admiral McCollum,” said Yu as the image of the CNO appeared over the desk. “What can I do for you this fine day?”

“Just tell me one thing, Dr. Yu. Are you ready to sign off on the process of transiting wormhole equipped ships through other holes?”

“No, ma’am,” she said forcefully, shaking her head. “We are not ready to move wormhole equipped ships through other wormholes. To do so would be courting disaster.”

“We are already courting disaster,” said the CNO with a frown. “I just received news that we lost two more developing worlds in Sector Four. We need to pull out all the stops if we’re not going to be beaten so far down that we can’t pick ourselves up. Now we need every advantage we can get, but I have been told by highest authority that I can’t send wormhole equipped ships through a wormhole without your signing off on it, since some people seem to think that you are the foremost expert on wormholes.”

“I’m not really sure how they got that idea,” said Lucille, her eyes narrowing at the woman she now saw as her adversary. I wish Len were still CNO. At least I could have a rational conversation with that man.

“Well, however they got the idea, you are it. And I need for you to make it work, within the next week.” The holo went dead, without giving her a chance to reply. She thought for a moment, not sure what to do, then came to a decision. If he’ll take my call.

She sent the request through the com link, and was surprised when her target came on seconds later.

“What can I do for you, Dr. Yu?” said the young man, looking out of the holo.

*

SECTOR IV SPACE, APRIL 5TH, 1001.

“We have translations into hyper I,” called out the Flag Sensory Officer.

Commodore Mei Lei nodded as she watched the developing plot. Three enemy supercruisers and what looked like a troop transport were leaving the system. The take from within the system showed the main enemy force, twenty battleships and over thirty smaller ships, still bombarding the lovely blue and white globe almost three light hours into the system. She felt her eyes tear as she watched the take from the nearby wormhole that had been planted in the system.

There are five hundred million people on that world. Children, mothers, fathers. People who just wanted to live their lives without being on the bull’s-eye. And now they are dying by the millions.

The planet Kraken in the system of the same name was not really of strategic importance. It was four fifths ocean, with a little higher than normal gravity on its larger than normal globe. The main industries of the developing world were aquaculture and tourism, with seven hundred million square kilometers of ocean surface. It had never developed past the blue green algae stage, a form that was compatible with Earth life. And had been an easy task to make the planet over as a larger than life Earth ocean world.

And now kinetic weapons were striking those oceans and the coastlines of the small continents and large islands, inundating towns, cracking undersea domes and sinking floating cities. Humans weren’t the only ones dying down there. The planet had a sizeable alien and dolphin population as well.

“I wish I could kill every one of you bastards,” said the Commodore under her breath. “Every last one of you.”

“They’re following the profile we expected,” said the Flag Tactical Officer.

Mei studied plot and saw that it was as the man had said. She wished she had a strong enough force to take on the main strength of the enemy. But she had what she had, which was three hyper VII battle cruisers hanging in normal space just beyond the hyper VII barrier.

“They’re jumping into hyper II,” called out the Sensory Officer.

“I wonder why they brought that transport with them and didn’t use it,” said the Tactical Officer.

“That’s a good question, Mr. Gomez,” said Mei, looking back at the holo of the planetary bombardment. “I guess they got tired of losing men on the surfaces of worlds. This is the third one we’ve seen this week as a hit and run. Just go in, smash everything and leave.”

“I guess they feel they can just crush us at their leisure, and then come in and pick up the pieces anytime they want,” said Gomez.

“And they might be correct,” said Mei, glaring at the holo as a kinetic weapon came down in the ocean and blasted a circular seismic wave out that would inundate every coastline that sea touched, in some cases for the dozenth time. It was painful to watch each weapon drop onto that globe, knowing that it was killing many people, and wiping out whole ecosystems on islands that were being washed over by waves. The Commodore felt she owed it to those people, and all the other life on that planet, to bear witness to that destruction.

“According to intel,” said the Flag Lieutenant over the com, “they only give this kind of treatment to worlds with dominant Earth life on them. Worlds that haven’t developed their own native life forms. Like they really have it in for anything with a genetic connection to Earth.”

“They’ve hit other planets with non-Earth life before,” she said, looking through the ship’s computer records.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the young man who was her aide. “But they only hit the cities and larger towns, then send men down to destroy the rest of the human population. It seems that they try to spare the resident aliens and any ecosystems they can.”

Even more reason to wish I had enough to go in there and stop them, thought Mei, feeling her anger at the enemy rise. A beautiful world, being killed by monsters. My mother told me once there were no real monsters in the Universe, only beings different from ourselves. And goddammit, she was so wrong.

“Enemy ships are moving up to III,” called out the Sensor Officer.

Mei was almost tempted to fire on them now, to let the enemy insystem know they had lost the ships they had foolishly let go off on their own into the space they thought they owned. But they needed to be in hyper VII when they engaged, so that any maneuvers that took them past their max translation speed would not strand them in a dimension they couldn’t use to get away from any enemies that might happen along. Once in VII they would stay in that dimension until they were well clear of the system.

What seemed like hours, but was only a little over one, stretched by. And then came the moment all were waiting for. “Enemy ships translating up to hyper VII.” The Sensor Officer really didn’t have to announce it, though by training it was an automatic response. The speakers on the bridge were transmitting the great burst of static that indicated translation.

“All ships, translate now,” she ordered over the wormhole com. The acknowledgements from all three bridges came back almost immediately, the one from her ship only moments before the others. The hole opened ahead and the Jean de Arc slid through into the dimension of hyper VII. Mei felt the momentary disorientation and nausea, and then there were in the red tinged space that was not theirs.

The enemy ships were coming right at them. There was no escape for them. The battle cruisers opened fire with lasers, then particle beams as the enemy ships closed within two light seconds. Each ship had been assigned a target prior to jumping, and all hit those targets with every beam weapon they had. That included, for all three ships, massive particle beams that were fed by accelerators back on the Donut, a hundred times more powerful than those mounted by any ship.

The Ca’cadasan supercruisers came apart at the seams, two before they could get off a shot. One did fire, and Jean de Arc took a hit to her screens and a minor wound through her armor. Klaxons sounded, and the Commodore flinched as she saw casualty figures come up on her link. Only a few, but any losses hurt her deeply.

“Take out that transport,” she ordered as the largest ship came forward. It was firing back, and was heavily armed, though not in the same class as a line ship like the supercruisers. A few well-placed shots and she was crippled. A couple more and she was tumbling out of hyper in a catastrophic translation. Mei winced as she saw the ship flash and fade. She had been through that before, on the old Jean de Arc. The odds of survival were not good.

“I wonder if there were ground troops on that thing,” said Gomez.

“One could wish,” said Mei, glaring at the plot, then looking back at the take from the system wormhole. Ships there were starting to move away from the planet, aware from the bursts of the catastrophic translations that something bad had happened at the edge of the system. “Everyone execute escape plan.” And if we’re lucky, some of these assholes might get wind of us, and follow us into another trap.

*

SESTIUS SURFACE, APRIL 15TH, 1001.

“But, they’re leaving,” said Montano Montero, looking up at the Fleet Captain in charge of the Naval Commandos on Sestius IV. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“So it would seem to your people,” said Captain Clifford Takamba, standing in front of the Steadholder in his skin suit. “But if they’re not on the surface of the planet, we can’t get at them.”

“I can see that being a problem for the Navy and Marines,” said the older man who was once Force Marine Recon in a past life, before he decided to settle down and start a family kingdom of his own. “And you signed up for it, just as I did when I was in the service. But I’ve gotten a little tired of burying my children and grandchildren.”

“Well, hide while you can,” said the Captain, the scowl deepening on his face. “They’ll still be up there, scanning the surface and hitting everything they can.”

“Good luck with that,” said the Steadholder, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’ve lost anyone from bombardment. We know this world, and they aren’t going to get a glimpse of us through that jungle. I can damn well guarantee that. As long as we aren’t mixing it up with them in the jungle, I’m happy.”

“Well, my people are fucking useless on the surface without someone to fight,” said the Captain. “I’m guessing they will be pulling us out and sending us somewhere where we can kill Cacas and break their shit.”

“And if they come back down?”

“You have the wormhole link back to Fleet. Just give them a call. I won’t guarantee that they will come running, but there’s a good chance.

“I thought you were out here to protect us,” said Montero, getting angry.

“We are out here, First Sergeant, as you well know, to protect the Empire, and its citizens in general. The same thing you were doing when you were a Marine. We can’t afford to stand and die while trying to save everyone. We have to pick and choose our fights. And sitting on the ground while we get hit from above is not a fight we would choose.”

Montero sat there for a moment, knowing he was not going to get what he wanted, a continuous Fleet presence on this world. “We’ll do what we can while you are gone,” he told the Captain. “And I’ll continue to feed you what intelligence I can gather, for what it’s worth.”

“And we appreciate that, sir,” said the Captain. “I will make sure we leave everything we can, even if we have to lose it. Just stay low, and you should make it.”

And what other fairy tales are you going to tell me, thought the Patriarch of the Montero clan.

“Grandfather,” said Franco Montero, one of the old man’s favorites. “Come quick.”

“What do you have, Grandson,” said the Patriarch, looking over at the Captain.

“We have captured one of the demons,” said the excited young man. “We have him in the camp by the river.”

“You have him where?” asked Montero, a feeling of dread coming over him.

“At the river camp. Don’t worry, Grandfather. We have taken all the beast’s equipment from him, and made sure everything was deactivated.”

“Did you scan his body?” asked the Captain, a worried expression on his face.

“His body?” asked the young man with a confused expression.

The ground rumbled underneath, and rock dust fell from the ceiling. “Down, you idiot,” yelled Montero, grabbing his grandson’s shoulder and pulling him to the floor, then dragging him under the table. The Captain was already there, making for a crowded refuge. The ground rumbled again, and Montero prayed for his family, and then said a quick prayer that the enemy did not strike this cavern complex, where their planetary wormhole was based.

It took some minutes for the rumbling to stop. After it had died down Montero was on his feet and heading down the long tunnel to the surface. When he got there he saw a pair of Naval Commandos, standing and staring down the mountain to the valley below. That valley was a hell of burning vegetation and smoke. A quartet of mushroom clouds rose into the air, marking where the kinetic weapons had come down. And they had taken the camp that contained a son, two grandchildren and a dozen friends.

“Madre de Dios,” said Montero, crossing himself. “It was a trap.”

“We’ve been seeing some of that recently,” said the Captain, coming out of the cave to stand beside him. “They are sacrificing their deadwood as they leave, hoping to target some of our camps.

“And there is nothing we can do about it,” said the old man, tears streaming down his face. “Nothing at all.”

“Just stay alive,” said the Captain, putting his arm around the old man’s shoulders. “Just stay alive, and wait for the day when you can hit them again. It’s coming. It may take a while, but I’m sure that it’s coming.”

*

CENTRAL DOCKS AND JEWEL, APRIL 30TH, 1001.

“Most impressive,” said Sean, walking onto the flag bridge of the Augustine I. My flag bridge, he thought, looking over the scores stations around the central holo tank, at thirty by twenty meters twice the size of any currently deployed. Most of those stations were com boards. The dreadnaught had been built to be a command and control ship, though she was also the most effective fighting platform built to date. At twenty-five million tons she was of a size with the big Ca’cadasan ships. With her wormhole missile magazines she was more capable than several of those vessels.

“We’ll be working her up the next month, your Majesty, then deploying with the Fleet,” said Captain Javier Montoya, the commander of the vessel. Sean had toured the command bridge just minutes before, then took the lift through the distance separating the two control centers. CIC was located over a kilometer to the stern from the ship bridge, so that command and control could not be taken out until the ship was critically damaged.

I hope the Fleet still has a presence in Sector Four by that time, thought the Monarch, thinking back to his briefing that morning. Just like that Ca’cadasan Brigade Commander told me. They hate us. And any planet with predominantly Earth life is fair game to be wiped out.

“I have much to do here in the Capital, Captain,” said Sean, walking over to what would be his chair and plopping down in it. A big improvement over command of the laser B ring of Sergiov, he thought, running a hand over the armrest. He looked back at the expectant officer. “I will come aboard as soon as you have deployed. If that is alright.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” said the Captain, trying to keep the worried expression off his face and failing. “We have the wormhole gate, of course. So you can come and go as you please.”

And it would please all my officers if I just stayed at the capital and let them run things, he thought, giving the Captain his best political smile. But I still intend to be where the action is. I intend to be remembered as the Warrior Emperor who threw out the ancient enemy.

Sean sat there for a second, thinking about the new command structure he intended to implement. Lenkowski and Mgonda would both have their own fleets, while the new carrier force would be organized into a strike fleet. And he would control it all from the bridge of this ship. If we ever get those damned attack ships to work. That was a basic problem with R and D, especially during wartime, when things were accelerated. Sometimes the things you wanted just didn’t materialize when you wanted them. And sometimes unexpected things were discovered, at times things that were of more importance than what you were initially looking for.

I have to remember my history, thought Sean, thinking of the almost impossible situation his Empire faced. Like the Russians in the Second World War, I must trade territory for time, as long as I don’t trade so much territory that we can’t recover. And like the Russians, I must use the forces I have, and not what I wish I had.

“I will leave you to it, Captain. I know I have taken enough of your time.”

“It was a pleasure, your Majesty,” said the officer, bowing.

“I’ll let you get away with the little political lies, Captain,” said Sean with a laugh, walking toward the hatch, which opened at his approach with a swish. “But remember to be truthful in the things that matter. It does me no good to hear the things people think I want to hear. I need to base my decisions of facts.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” said the Captain, his face reddening. “I will be sure not to mince my words. Now, your Majesty, would you please let me get back to preparing this ship for deployment?”

“That’s more like it,” said Sean with a smile. “I would tell you to call me Sean, but I know that would be a losing battle.” And bad for discipline, according to my Admirals, who I also can’t get to call me Sean.

The Emperor took a last walk to his quarters, about a hundred meters down the corridor from the flag bridge. It was a comfortable quarters, with all the accouterments expected of a Fleet Admiral’s domain. Originally it had been planned to make his quarters much larger, but Sean had nixed that idea. For affairs of state, which the ship might be called on to perform, there were many VIP quarters, as well as a huge dining room.

Sean looked in on his bedroom, then the bath, both of which had added feminine touches for Jennifer. And of course there was a servant’s quarters attached, just the one, same as an Admiral would have. What he hadn’t been able to stop was the addition of quarters for his Secret Service Detail, along with a tactical control center for them. He had thought that his Marine detail would be enough, but the Secret Service Detail Chief had disagreed.

He heard a sound, and that was soon followed by a small furry head looking around the side of the couch. Sean smiled at the kitten, then sat on the couch and stayed still for a moment, waiting for the feline to approach him. The kitten gathered its courage and came bouncing out.

“You look like Satin,” said Sean in a coaxing voice, putting his hand down so the kitten could approach and sniff. The kitten took a quick sniff, then bumped his head against the hand. Sean scooped him up before he could move and deposited the small body in his lap. Definitely a Himalayan, he thought, stroking the soft fur and looking at the markings.

“There you are,” said a soft voice, and Sean found himself looking up into the face of a middle aged man in the uniform of Palace Staff. “Oh, I’m sorry your Majesty. I didn’t realize that you were here. Excuse me.”

“That’s quite alright. Your name is John, is it not?”

“John Jacobs, your Majesty. And it pleases you, I will be your valet while you are aboard.”

“It pleases me very much. And this is your beast?”

“No, your Majesty. It is yours. A gift sent by a Duchess Lei, I do believe.”

“Has he been named yet?”

“No, your Majesty. I thought I should leave that to you. He’s been fully linked and conditioned for shipboard deployment.”

Sean looked down at the big blue eyes looking up at him, feeling the purr under his hand. Animals had to be conditioned and given an implant to make it safe for them to be on a ship. Some areas were off limits, and their implants would not allow them to visit those places. And they were conditioned to go to sleep in an instant, so they could safely be put into protective storage during battle or high gee maneuvers above the capacity of the compensators.

“I’ll call him Killer,” said Sean, giving the cat a last stroke, then putting him back on the floor. “And he’ll be OK here when I’m not around?”

“Of course, your Majesty. He will be spoiled rotten when you return.”

Sean walked out of his quarters with a big smile on his face. That was very kind of the Duchess to send me a kitten of Satin’s breed. I wonder if he comes from the same lineage?

The last stop was the central hanger, as the wormhole gate had yet to be installed. It was double the size of the hangar on a superbattleship, and housed twice the number of shuttles. There were four more hangars aboard, each just a little smaller than this one, and two dedicated hangars for attack ships. It was hoped that some of the new inertialess attack craft could be based there. If we ever get them working.

Sean took the controls of the shuttle himself. He was rated for it, and thought it a good idea to keep his skills up to date. And he wanted to take a look at the newest ships before he had to return to the deal making with lawmakers that was so much of his job description. He flew past a row of battleships, the standard variety, hyper VI. He had almost ordered that all new ships be constructed to hyper VII standard, until it had been explained to him that there were not enough super metals in the pipeline to make all the new shipping capable of those speeds. So they would still be building a lot of VI ships for the next couple of years.

I have the fleet I have, not the one I want, he thought as he passed by some battle cruisers, these all to VII standard. He thought about that for a moment, wondering what he could do with his slower fleet against the enemy, and came up with the same answer as always. Wormholes.

*

OPEN SPACE IN THE SUPERSYSTEM, MAY 5TH, 1001.

The tracking stations had done what was once thought to be impossible, following the motion of an object that was technically traveling faster than light. It did that because the multiple stations could catch a glimpse of the light reflecting off the mirrored surface of the negative matter that made up the bubble around the inertialess craft. There were a hundred stations on the circuit, all transmitting through grav wave to the station that controlled it all, where computers would calculate the speed of the craft.

They saw it go over the speed of light, then back down, until it was at the exact same velocity it had been when it had raised the negative matter bubble. The bubble shimmered for a moment, then faded as it was sucked back into the containment fields that stored it between uses.

And from out of that bubble came the test ship, transmitting all of its sensor information to the nearby station on subspace com. Vice Admiral Chuntao Chan breathed a sigh of relief when that ship appeared, and with it the face of the test pilot over the com.

“I think we’ve solved the problem,” said Doctor Corilla Taylor, smiling at the pilot. “How are you feeling, dear?”

“I feel fine, Doctor Taylor. I’m just glad it’s over.”

“So,” said the scientist, turning to look at the Admiral who was easily her equal in intelligence, if not in expertise in this one field. “That’s eight trials in a row. I think we’ve solved it. Who would have thought that inertia would be the problem with our inertialess drive.”

“That’s because we don’t have a truly inertialess drive,” said the Admiral, thinking of all the lives they had lost before some junior tech on the project had made the suggestion that changed everything. It had turned out that the negative matter more or less isolated the ship from the effects of the positive Universe. There was no inertia on the object encased in the bubble. But if they came back into normal space, meaning they had dropped the inertial bubble, they instantaneously gained what inertia they had bypassed. Which was more than most, read as any, material object could handle. It also worked the other way, strangely enough. If a ship came out of inertialess drive at a lower velocity than it had entered then it gave up inertia, which seemed to make no sense. Until one saw the ship come apart as it sped up to regain that inertia.

“How many more trials do you want before you sign off on it?” asked the Admiral, thinking of those big carriers that were just waiting on this development.

“I would like at least fifty,” said Taylor, concentrating as if she were doing the math in her head. “Preferably a hundred. And I can’t say anything other than the ships have to come back into normal space at exactly the same velocity as they entered the bubble. We have some people working on some ideas to make it otherwise, but it’s not a sure thing. Even if we can work it, it probably won’t be that much of an increase or decrease.”

“Is there a mass limit on the process?” asked the Admiral, her own mind pondering possibilities. “I mean, how much mass can the bubble enclose?”

“No limit that we can tell,” said the scientist. “I guess you could put a planet in one if you had enough negative matter. Not that I think we will ever be able to make that much negative matter, or find a way to contain it in a magnetic field. Why?”

“Just a thought,” said the Admiral, not really wanting to share that thought with the scientist, who didn’t have a need to know at this time. “Just a thought. Get on those test runs. I want the results by the end of the week. Then hopefully we can start deploying this tech.”

“Won’t the limitations have some adverse effects on the way you use them?”

“We’ll just have to do what we can within those constraints,” said the Admiral with a frown. “Just like every other tech we’ve ever developed. We can’t always pick the way the Universe works. We can only play the hand it deals us.”

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL
, MAY 6th, 1001.

“The Archduke is here to see you, Madame Prime Minister,” came the voice over the intercom.

Prime Minister Countess Haruko Kawasaki looked up from the message she was composing to the other leaders of Parliament, asking for a face to face meeting at the capital. She was sure that Speaker of Commons Laura Goolsby and Chief of Scholars Mohamed Ishner would be happy to take the short trip through the wormhole for a private discussion. They had been easy to work with since she had assumed the office. The Leader of Lords, Archduke Gregor Stoyanovich, had been anything but cooperative.

Probably because he thinks he should be holding my position, she thought, holding her answer for a moment so the Archduke would not think her too anxious so see him, when actually the opposite was true. Well, tough shit if he wants the job. The Emperor gave it to me. And when I don’t want it anymore I’m sure he’ll find someone other than that dick to give it to.

“Send him in, Marjorie,” she finally said when she thought she could delay no more. “And send in some tea.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the secretary who was her right hand.

Haruko got up from her desk and walked around to the sitting area of the large office. She chose her seat with care, aware of the power games the man liked to play. She sat in the seat and opened her flat comp, then waited for the door to the office to open.

“My dear Countess,” said the familiar if disliked voice as that door slid open. “How very nice to see you. You look lovely, as always.”

And you’re a liar, as always, thought the PM. She knew she was not the most attractive of women. Her worth lay in her brains, and she had prepared herself for any challenge through education. Or at least I thought I had.

“Gregor,” said the PM with a smile she didn’t feel. “Please, have a seat.”

The smile left the Archduke’s face, though he was politic enough to keep a frown from taking its place. The Countess smiled up at him. He was her social superior, the civilian figurehead of an entire planet, while she was just the leader of a region of a continent. But dammit, I’m the Prime Minister, and his superior in the government. And this is my lair.

The Archduke realized he wasn’t going to get the subservience he desired and took the offered chair. Before he was even settled the servant was bringing the tea into the office, and asking the Archduke how he wanted his beverage. As soon as he left the Archduke turned his burning eyes on her.

“We are not happy, Haruko, about the behavior of this young Emperor.”

“And what, pray tell, do you expect me to do about it?” asked the Countess. “He is, after all, our Monarch. We swore oaths of fealty to him. Not he to us.”

“And he is too young for the position.”

“He did not choose to be Emperor at his tender age. He did not ask for his father and older brothers to be killed by a traitor. And how old is old enough? He was a serving naval officer with an adequate record. He was only a decade younger than that reprobate Streeter tried to foist on us, and said cousin had a horrible military record.”

“Agreed,” said Stoyanovich, nodding his head. “That was a bad choice, but this one is not much better. Yes, he was a serving Fleet officer, in charge of the laser ring of a battleship. Does that give him the experience he needs to rule an Empire? It would be one thing if he just assumed the throne and left the ruling of the Empire to Parliament, and the running of the war to his military leaders. Instead, he tries to run everything himself, and now is talking about leading from the front, like he is some kind of Medieval monarch who must fight in front of his men to prove his courage.”

“I don’t like that part any more than you do, Gregor,” said the PM, grimacing. “But it is his prerogative to do so. And the military people I have talked to have faith in him, based on his decisions thus far.”

“And my military experts feel that he is rash and impulsive,” shouted the Archduke. “Our oaths of fealty should not be construed as a suicide pact. We have a responsibility to the Empire to make sure it survives.”

“And your solution?”

“We should hold a vote of all the houses of Parliament, a vote to determine our confidence in the Emperor.”

“That hasn’t been done in four hundred years,” said the Countess, horrified by the suggestion.

“And the Empire has not faced such a dire situation since then. Nay, this is more dire. We’re talking about the survival of the Empire.”

“What would you replace him with?”

“He has an older sister.”

“Who turned down the throne and the succession years ago,” said Kawasaki.

“And who could perhaps be talked into taking it in this hour of need,” said the Archduke, looking into her eyes.

“The other houses will not go along, even if you could get a vote through the Lords.”

“Then we may need to take more immediate action.”

“You’re talking treason, Gregor, and I will have nothing to do with treason.”

“Then I am sorry that I wasted your time,” said the Archduke, coming to his feet. “Thank you for the tea.” He gestured to his untouched cup, then turned and walked from the room.

“Marjorie,” said the PM into the intercom. “Please get me the head of the IIA.”

Moments later the holo sprang to life over the conversation area table, with the face of Ekaterina Sergiov, head of the Imperial Intelligence Agency, enclosed. “You wanted to speak with me, Madam Prime Minister?”

“I think we have a serious problem, Director Sergiov. One that I think will require your attention.”

*

“What was her answer?” asked the man over the secure com.

“No,” said Gregor Stoyanovich, not really trusting any com system, even one guaranteed to be secure.

“I warned you not to approach her,” said the man. “Now we have another problem.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing, Archduke. Nothing at all. This is my area of expertise. So go back to your office and leave it to me.”

Chapter Eighteen

All subjects are responsible for the safety and welfare of the Empire, under applicable laws. Article Seven, Imperial Bill of Freedoms and Responsibilities.

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, MAY 7TH, 1001.

“As far as we can tell, the Fenri are going to sign an alliance with the Ca’cadasans,” said Ekaterina Sergiov, pointing to the holo of a large Cacada male walking into the palace of the Fenri Emperor. The small, meter and a half tall mammalian creatures looked puny in comparison to the three meter high Ca’cadasans.

“They have to know that the Ca’cadasans will eat their Empire as well when they are done with us,” said Sean, staring at the creature who had to be the alien ambassador on the holo. I didn’t think those assholes even had ambassadors. Must be something they’ve instituted just for their war with us.

“We have never lost a war with the Fenri,” said Admiral McCollum, looking over at the Monarch. “They utterly hate us for all the systems they have lost.”

“The aliens we liberated sure don’t hate us,” said Lord Garis, the Minister of State. “They think we’re angels from whatever God they worship, sent from heaven to liberate them from the little demons.”

And I really judged you wrong, my Lord, thought Sean, looking at the older man. Originally he had thought the Minister of State would be an impediment to his rule, a member of the old guard who didn’t think Sean was ready to rule. Instead, he had found the man to be a staunch supporter.

“So they really really hate us,” said Sean, looking around the table at the people he had invited to his war council. “What else is new. And they’re going to act like complete dumb asses, totally blind to the danger they are going to put themselves in by bedding the Cacas. You think the Cacas are going to try to ally themselves to the Lasharans next?”

“I wouldn’t put it past either of them,” said Garis, who had once served as an Ambassador to the Lasharan Autocracy, until it had been decided that those people were just too bat shit crazy to even bother treating with. “The Lasharans can’t think past their next meal, or religious ceremony.”

And now we pay the price for our past successes against other alien powers. But what were we supposed to do, lose. Then we would be worse off than we are now. Would any of these other powers refuse to turn us over to our ancient enemies when they came a calling. I really doubt it. “So, what are we going to do about it. Just let the Fenri come into our space when they feel like it.”

“That’s not what I would do, your Majesty,” said Sergiov. “I would pull a preemptive strike on the little furry bastards before they had a chance to attack us. Hit them with everything we have in that sector. Hit all of their military bases near the border, then move in, don’t give them a chance to organize.”

“I agree with her, your Majesty,” said the CNO, nodding at the IIA Director. “We stand to lose more by waiting for them to strike. I don’t really want another war at our borders, but I’m afraid we’re going to have one either way.”

“Lord Garis. Director Sergiov. How confident are the two of you in your information?”

“It comes directly from our Embassy on Fenri, your Majesty,” answered Minister first. “In fact, besides some record keeping messages through normal channels, it is the last information of import we have received. I fear for the staff of that Embassy.”

“And we received the message from an Elysium freighter that has known ties to their intelligence apparatus,” said Sergiov. “The Captain is known to me, personally, and I trust that the information is real.”

Sean looked down at his flat comp for a moment, looking over the ships dispositions for the Empire. “OK,” he finally said, looking up at the CNO. “Plan a preemptive strike and I will sign off on it. Where do you propose to get the ships?”

“I think we can pull ships in from Sectors I and II, your Majesty,” said the CNO, looking at her own flat comp. “I think the situation with Elysium has stabilized enough where we can risk moving everything but standard anti-pirate patrols out of there.”

“And the rest of Sector I?”

“That fronts mostly open space,” said the CNO, throwing up a holo of the Empire over the table. “I really don’t think something is going to come out of empty space and hit us.”

“Sector IV fronts mostly empty space as well,” said Sergiov. “And look at what came out of there. Just saying.”

“We have to take some risks,” said the CNO, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the intelligence chief. “We don’t have enough to do everything we want.”

“Very well, Admiral,” said Sean. “Make your deployments, and when you’re ready hit the Fenri with everything you can bring to bear. Move ships from the other quiet sectors as well. I know the people in those sectors won’t like it. Tough. We’ve got a war to fight. And I think it might be a good idea to pull out all the stops, hit them with every tech advantage we have. I want them to be in a total panic after we strike.”

“What about Klashak and Margravi?” asked the Minister of State. “Their Ambassadors seem to feel that they should be fighting by our sides.

“I think they do us service right now by watching the Lasharans,” said Sean. “Not meaning to insult them, but most of their ships are a generation behind ours, about what should be expected from our hand me downs. They are on par with the Lasharans, and after the beating we gave those people the Klashak and Margravi should have no trouble handling them. Now, how is the net working?” He looked at the time on his implant and felt just a little bit nervous. Where in the hell is the PM. She should have been here at the beginning of the meeting.

“The net is working as expected, your Majesty,” said the CNO, pulling up a holo of the open space between the New Terran Republic and the Fenri Empire, with icons marking where the ships were stationed that were monitoring the most likely approach from the Ca’cadasan Empire. “So far we have picked up everything coming down the corridor. And anything looking like a lone courier had been taken out. I have to caution your Majesty, that if we keep hitting their couriers they are going to figure out that something is going on.”

“You talked about taking risks, Admiral,” said Sean, staring at the holo and wondering if he might be able to use those deployments to get even more out of them. “I think it’s worth the risk to interfere with their communications.”

“Yours to command, your Majesty,” said the CNO. “And the High Command of the NTR seems to agree with you. But, then again, they are in more danger of just being overrun right now, and are willing to take more risks.”

“So I guess that leaves us with the Crakista,” said the CNO. “We still don’t have any idea where they are going to come in on this.”

“And that is another thing that is keeping me up at night,” said Sean, ordering the holo to reorient to that part of space with his plant. “What the hell will those Lizards do? They don’t really have any reason to like us.”

“Or really to hate us, your Majesty,” said Garis with a smile. “They may be lizard form, but they do not act from emotion. They feel we have fought them honorably in the past, and hold no animosity toward us.”

“So you think they will side with us?”

“I have no way of knowing, your Majesty,” said the Minister, bowing his head. “They are truly alien intelligences. They could come in on either side, or just sit this one out.”

“What do you want us to do on that frontier, your Majesty?” asked the CNO.

“Weaken it by twenty percent,” said Sean after a moment’s reflection. “Send those ships to reinforce the NTR. I’m willing to take a risk with Crakista, but not too big of one. I…”

“Your Majesty,” said one of his security detail, running into the chamber.

“What is it,” said Sean, a feeling of dread shooting through him.

“It’s the Prime Minister. Her aircar has been shot down, and no one has heard from her for several minutes.”

That dread grew to near panic in the Monarch. There were not many reasons someone on a Core World could not call for help, and death was the most likely.

*

Countess Haruko Kawasaki was really too busy to leave her office for too long a period of time. That said, part of her job was to get a firsthand look at the preparations of the Empire for the current war. She didn’t have to leave the system, at least not yet, until the wormholes opened up fast travel. She had been invited to the Donut, and was really looking forward to a tour of that marvel. But for now, the Home System was as far as she had gone.

“What did you think about the division, ma’am?” asked Constance Furst, her aide, who had accompanied her on the tour of the base.

“I was most impressed,” said the Prime Minister, thinking back on the images of the entire armored division standing out in the hot sun for her to look at. Hundreds of tanks, most over a thousand tons. Thousands of men and women in heavy combat suits. Flights of aircraft, gunships and troop carriers. It makes me feel better to have that unit on my planet, she thought. Unfortunately, this will be their last day on my planet.

Tomorrow the entire division would board shuttles that would take them up to transports in preparation for their voyage to the front. A small cadre would be left behind, while some newly trained troops would fill their slots. And over the next couple of weeks a new armored division would be formed up at that base near the city of Frisco, on a peninsula off the northwest area of the continent. And they just won’t be as good as the unit they are replacing, not for quite some time. She shook her head, wondering what she was complaining about. There were people out on the frontier that needed these men and women more.

She looked out the window of the troop carrier she was riding in. The native temperate forests of Jewel passed by below. Every once in a while a habitation swept by, a small resort town, a lake fishing village. There were few roads to be seen, and those only the ones close to those habitations. Travel between cities and towns was by air, so there was no need to break wilderness areas up by running hardtops through them. There were, of course, ultra-high speed rail lines, all of them underground. And that kept the natural areas of the planet as clean and pristine as possible.

“I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes,” said the Aide, looking out another window. “They don’t have a chance on the ground when battleships come calling.

“Just don’t say that in public,” advised the PM with a frown. “I don’t want it on the news that any of my staff are harboring defeatist sentiments.” She left the rest of the message unspoken, that any such staff might find themselves without a job and shuttled as close to the battlefields as possible.

And actually, those men and women have a very good chance of surviving any kind of bombardment from space in their heavy armor, she thought, recalling the briefing by the division commander. Much more than light infantry or civilians, even down in shelters. The real trouble comes when the Cacas start landing on the planet. But then, that’s why they’re there in the first place.

She looked out the window again, catching sight of the mountain range that ran down the center of the continent. The sun was low on the horizon, painting the peaks red and orange. Not long now, she thought. Ahead would be the coastal flatlands that led down to the city of Capitulum, and her home.

“Hold tight,” yelled the voice of their pilot while the aircraft dove and banked at the same time. The move was even beyond the capabilities of the inertial compensators, and the PM winced as her head hit the wall of the cabin, which was not padded like a normal civilian aircar.

The stingship flying alongside exploded, showering the woods below with pieces of flaming craft. Two more explosions boomed in the air, something coming in too fast to see being hit by something that also was moving too quickly to notice. Pieces of metal hit the side of the craft, and holes appeared in the hull.

Haruko screamed in terror as Constance’s head split open and her brains splattered the inside of the cabin. Something slammed into her, sparking off two of the nodes of the lift harness she wore while aboard the military transport. Something hit her in the head, and her vision blurred with red as pain shot through her skull. And then she was out in the air, her harness, damaged but still in operation, lowering her toward the ground. Even in her confused state she could tell that it was not working the way it was supposed to, and she was dropping faster than she should be.

Above her the aircraft she had been riding in blew apart as it was hit again. She cried out again and wanted to cover her eyes. She resisted that impulse, knowing that it would do her no good. And then she was falling through the trees, hitting branch after branch, one time smacking her head against a trunk and losing consciousness.

It was dark when she regained consciousness on the floor of a dark woods. It took her a moment to remember what had happened, and her head still hurt. She was sure that the nanites in her body would have repaired any serious damage, so the headache had to be residual.

Constance. The others, she thought. Who the hell hit us? She racked her brain for a moment, and could only come up with one answer. The Archduke. He didn’t like my answer, and so then I knew too much. The bastard.

She could hear aircraft flying overhead, but whose? I need help, she thought. These woods are wilderness, not the safest place on the planet, and I don’t have a weapon. She reached out with her mind and tried to connect to the net. And found to her shock that she couldn’t reach it.

That’s impossible, she thought. All inhabited planets had a net permeating the entire globe. Satellites in orbit and ground stations picked up and relayed signals from all implants, connecting every citizen to databases and com systems. And to emergency services. But now she was cut off from that net. It must have been damaged, she thought. Even then, her internal nanites should have fixed it, given time. Which meant not enough time had passed.

Something moved in the brush, and she looked that way with growing panic, concentrating on the dark. Her eye enhancements were online, and a moment later she wondered if that was a good thing, as she saw the large form of a bearcat come crouching toward her. Three hundred kilos of predator, and much more than she could handle without some kind of weapon. And all I’ve got are my hands. And no amount of martial arts is going to help me against this thing.

She did the only thing she thought might help her. She ran. Dodging around trees, through brush, trying to use her small size to her advantage. The beast came crashing behind her, eschewing any attempts at stealth with the prey in sight. Haruko ran like she hadn’t recently in her life, not since she had served in the Marines. It had been decades since she had to run like that, and even though she thought herself in good shape, running like this was not something she was used to. Soon she was huffing and puffing, bouncing off trees, leaving some skin behind at points. And all the while the bearcat was gaining.

The PM staggered into a clearing, immediately realizing that this was not a good thing. In the open the animal would be on her in no time. But there was only one thing she could do, run. So she pushed herself to her top speed, pumping her arms, hearing the beast crashing out into the clearing. She wanted to look back, wanting to know where it was, and knowing that was death. Anything that slowed her would kill her. That concern became moot as something heavy smacked into her back, and the pain of claws tearing her flesh took away all thought of getting away.

Haruko hit the ground and rolled over, looking into the snarling face of the creature. It reared up on its hind legs, towering over her, and she knew when it came down she would be dead. What she was sure would be her last thought was what will his Majesty do without me?

Then the creature was falling toward her, and she did the only thing she could think of. She rolled out of the way, expecting a claw to rake her in at any moment. She looked on in surprise as the predator hit the ground and lay unmoving. Then she noticed the shapes hanging it the air. Their lights came on and blinded her, and she wondered if she had been saved from the predator to only die at the hands of the Archduke’s agents.

“Prime Minister,” said one of the shapes as it landed beside her. “Thank the Gods, you’re OK.”

“How did you find me?” she asked, looking into the face of a man wearing a helmet with the Secret Service logo on it. “My implant is out.”

“We were patrolling the area and looking for survivors, and just happened to see you run out into the clearing, with that monster on your tail.”

“Is it dead?” she asked, looking over at the still form of the beast.

“Just tranqued,” said the agent as more people landed around them. “His Majesty will be so relieved we found you. Now, we need to get you to a hospital and have you checked out.”

“I need to talk with his Majesty,” said the PM. “I need to tell him some things about this incident.”

“You need treatment, ma’am,” said the man gently.

“Connect me with the Emperor. Then you can take me where you want.” And that bastard of a Lord will pay for this. His mistake, not making sure.

*

“Well thank God she survived,” said Director Ekaterina Sergiov on the secure holo.

“But her staffer and the military personnel with her didn’t,” said Sean through clenched teeth. “I want this son of a bitch. And anyone else associated with him in this plot.”

“At least we know of the plot,” said the master of the Empire’s spy network. “Now we can make sure that you are safe.”

Sean laughed. They already have me surrounded by so much security I can hardly breathe. Is the next step to actually smother me?

“I know you don’t like having your freedom restricted such, your Majesty,” said the woman. “But it is a necessary evil in this day and age.”

“It didn’t used to be. At least not to this extent.”

“That all changed when your father and brothers died,” said Sergiov, frowning. “It has always been necessary to guard the Imperial Family from the few crazies that might mean them harm. Now we have active plots.” The woman looked away for a moment, obviously thinking about what she was going to say. “You realize,” she said, returning her gaze to his face, “that this is really outside of our jurisdiction. IIB should be in charge of any investigation of criminal affairs within the Empire. This is really McGregor’s fiefdom.”

“And I don’t trust McGregor. He seemed to be in just a bit too tight with Streeter, and the bastard before him. I trust you, so I want your agency looking into this.”

“Can I get that in writing,” said the woman.

“Of course. I’ll send my authorization over right away.”

“Then I’ll put some of my best agents on it.”

“I want your very best, Director,” said Sean, looking her straight in the eye.

“My best are on the frontier,” said Sergiov with a smile. “Or in the space of foreign powers. Unless you want me to recall them?”

“Then the best you have available will do,” said Sean, sending his code across to allow her to investigate in home space with his permission. “Just get me the proof I need to prosecute this man.”

Sean killed the holo and got up from his chair, moving into his bedroom. Jennifer sat at her dressing table, combing out her long red hair. Sean looked at her, the feelings stirring within him at the sight of her fair skin showing through the opening of her night gown. She saw him in the mirror and turned in her chair, a troubled look on her face. Then she was out of the chair in his arms.

“I am so glad that you are OK,” she said, looking up into his face with her deep blue eyes. “And that the Countess is OK too.”

“She survived the attempt, and will recover,” said Sean, putting his hands on her arms and running them down the softness of her skin. “She is not OK. Hopefully she will recover enough to do the job I chose her for.”

“You are really angry,” said his lover, staring at his face.

“I am angry enough to kill the son of bitches with my bare hands,” Sean growled. “I can only hope Ekaterina brings me the evidence I need.”

“Couldn’t you just, throw him in jail? Then get rid of him, quietly?”

“And when did you turn so blood thirsty, woman?” asked Sean, frowning.

“Since these people put your life at risk,” said Jennifer, a tear in her eye. “Since they started hurting your friends.”

Sean released her arms and turned away. “Unfortunately, or so it sometimes seems, I must obey the laws of my own Empire. The Archduke is innocent until proven guilty, and I cannot jail him without enough evidence to start criminal proceedings.”

“But, this is a time of war,” said Jennifer. “And his was an act of treason.”

“And if he is found guilty of the crime he will be executed, like traitors can be. Until then I will tread carefully, lest I be considered a tyrant by the other Lords.

“Now,” he said, starting to take off his clothes and dropping them on the floor, where someone with less responsibility could pick them up on the morrow, “I’m for bed. I am really exhausted, and need some sleep before I have another day slap me in the face. Will you join me?”

“Your command, you tyrant,” said Jennifer with a smile.

Sean was tired. He was also young, and sleep was not all that was on his mind. Nor on that of his lady.

*

MASSADARA SPACE, MAY 10TH, 1001.

While it really wasn’t home, the Massadara system was the next best thing to it for the Great Admiral. That was before the humans popped in and destroyed the station that was the Ca’cadasans’ nearest thing to a home base. He had sent for another one, from the nearest base of his people in his own Empire. That was over two months away at best speed, so it would take almost five months round trip for the station to get here. Until then they would have to depend on the smaller stations they built in planetary orbits.

The worst part was the loss of antimatter that had been aboard the tankers that had been in a convoy coming into the system at the time of the human raid. That, and the destruction of spare parts and AM generating facilities.

That is our main weakness, thought the Great Admiral, looking over the holo map that showed the closest region of his Empire in relation to the human polities. Most of our ships arrive here with a half load of antimatter. And then they burn the rest in operations over their first month here. Without antimatter my fleet will sit in normal space, accomplishing nothing. Even worse, they may soon become targets.

“We’re picking up the next convoy, my Lord Admiral,” came a call down from the bridge.

The Great Admiral looked up from the map holo and over at another representation that showed local space. The icons of over a hundred ships showed on the holo, those representations of the type of ships they were. About half of them were warships. The rest were freighters and tankers. He cursed as he noticed that there weren’t enough of those last. I sent couriers back asking for more of those, he thought with a scowl. So why in the hells didn’t they send what I asked for. He knew he wasn’t in charge of that sector of the Empire, or even the naval contingent. He was a forward conquest commander. As such he was supreme in the territory that was being conquered, but not in the consolidated space of his Empire. Still, I’m the commander on the spot of a very important conquest. The most important conquest in recent memory, since the Emperor wants it to be so.

He continued to watch the holo, knowing that he wouldn’t know the reason for the slight until the ships entered normal space. He was already angry. He was angry at the humans for destroying his station and the females that had been brought in for the enjoyment of his males. Angry at the way the humans kept pulling surprises on him. Just angry for being where he was and not getting his way.

And my pet human is losing her utility, he thought, looking over at the woman who was occupying a chair in the room. “You may leave,” he said to the human, who had been looking at him with less than total fear on her face. She got up quickly and walked away. Should I start to restrict her movements, he thought, watching the small figure go out the door and into the corridor. He gave his head a shake of negation at the thought. There is nothing she can do, so why worry.

The signal came through that the first of the ships was jumping into normal space. Moments later the command ship of the convoy came through, and seconds later the Great Admiral was on a holo to the group commander.

“You are a welcome sight, Admiral,” said the Great Admiral to the lower ranking officer. “Though I am dismayed by your lack of tankers. Did the sector commander not get my request for antimatter?”

“There was no request for additional antimatter, Great Admiral,” said the convoy commander. “In fact, there were actually many remarks about the lack of communication coming from your conquest fleet.”

“Did nothing make it to you?” said the Great Admiral, his anger rising again. “I have sent a half dozen couriers back to sector base. As well as return convoys.”

“Return convoys we have had,” said the other officer. “But no couriers. Something must have happened to them.”

“Impossible,” growled the Great Admiral. “There is nothing between here and sector base but empty space, with maybe a couple of low tech civilizations we have bypassed. There is nothing out there that can catch a courier.”

“Nevertheless, none have arrived at the sector base. So either they got lost on the way, or something happened to them.”

The Great Admiral slammed his lower right hand onto the table. “The damned humans. Again they task me. But, how?”

The Admiral walked away from the holo, then back, pacing to control his anger. “I need antimatter,” he roared at the other officer. “I want you to unload all your freighters and troop transports of antimatter as soon as they get close to the station. I will use their fuel for my own warships.”

“Sector base will be expecting these ships back, as well as their escort,” said the lesser Admiral.

“I want three of your scouts to head back to sector base immediately,” ordered the Great Admiral. “Maybe they can get through and let them know what I need. On second thought, send one of your battleships with them. I must get this message through to home.”

“I have a message from the sector commander too,” said the other officer. “And a message from higher up the command chain. There has been much talk about your lack of progress out on this front.”

“Lack of progress,” roared the Great Admiral, controlling an impulse to order his battleships to open fire on the insubordinate bastard. “Do they not realize how much territory I have conquered in the last year and a half? And how large the human Empire is?”

“Word is not good from our opposite front,” said the other Admiral. “We have had to stop expansion in all other sectors save this one.”

“We will talk later,” said the Great Admiral. “Now, just do as I ordered. I will assign your warships to one of my conquest groups.” He cut the holo, then called up the messages sent from home. There was one that was marked priority, and the Great Admiral went after that one first.

When the image came up on the holo he fell to a knee. The face of the Emperor stared at him from out of the holo. Behind him was the throne room, a sight familiar to all subjects of the Empire. The center of power, of the mightiest military in the known Galaxy. Of course it was just a recorded message, but the conditioning was such that he acted as if the Monarch was in the room.

“Great Admiral. I am sending you my regards and felicitations. You have found the ancient foe, and to you will come the glory of exterminating him. You will receive whatever you need to finish the humans. Just remember, for the first time in the history of the Empire we are engaged in a major conflict on two fronts. Our other enemy is powerful, and I need you to defeat the humans post haste, so we may concentrate on the other threat.”

And this message was recorded over a year ago, thought the Great Admiral. And the other side of the Empire is over two years by fastest travel time. There is no telling what is going on there at this time. The Great Admiral snorted and looked at the floor. Bah, I don’t have time to worry about that. I have my own war to fight.

“You will be greatly rewarded if you finish the human foe. And you will be punished in a manner too terrible to contemplate if you fail. So do not fail.”

The holo went blank, the visage of the Emperor gone. Immediately the next holo came up, of the Great Admiral who commanded the sector base. That male started to talk in a manner that was less than civil, and the Great Admiral cut the holo with a word.

He walked back over to the map holo, setting it for a close view of the region the convoys and couriers had to pass through. They have something hidden there. Something that is snatching up our individual ships. But what? What are you doing now, my too clever opponents. He spent some hours studying the holo, and was no closer to an answer. The ships he was sending back to sector base jumped back into hyper, having reversed their course and gone back out beyond the hyper barrier.

“Get me High Captain Looristarronzas on the com,” he finally ordered his Com Officer. “I have a mission for him.”

*

Jana Gorbachev walked quickly out of the chamber when the Great Admiral ordered her to. She tried to act frightened, and wasn’t sure how well she pulled off the act. The big males were still intimidating as hell, but familiarity did breed contempt. Sometimes I wonder how they ever became an Imperial species, she thought, walking down the corridor to her quarters, keeping her eyes averted to show subservience. They sure aren’t the brightest tools in the shed.

She walked into the small room she had been assigned by creatures that really wanted her separated from them, out of sight, and not due to any consideration of her feelings of privacy. It was no better or worse than the chamber she had shared with the traitor human they had tried to pair her with. At least she no longer had to go to sleep in a chamber where she had committed that murder.

And they finally got that damned station on the second try, she thought, pumping a fist in the air. The first strike on the station had given her the chance to kill the Great Admiral’s pet human. She had broken his neck while they were floundering around in a room that had changed orientation with the torpedo hit. Then she had become the Admiral’s pet human, though not as loyal to the cause as the last one.

So how in the hell do I get myself out of here? she thought as she threw herself on the sleeping platform. Other humans had come aboard, more of the variety who had been raised to serve the Ca’cadasans in their pursuit of her species. She wasn’t sure how much longer they were going to keep her around. From the way the Great Admiral had been shooting harsh looks her way, she didn’t think it would be too much longer.

She lay there for a moment, thinking about her options and responsibilities. She could think about many responsibilities. She had information her Empire needed. She had an obligation to get that information to someone who could use it. And she had a responsibility to get her own ass to safety. A responsibility to her parents, her siblings, and to the Fleet, which was always in need of experienced personnel.

Options she had few. She could stay where she was and meet none of her responsibilities. Or she could try to get off this ship. That second option looked like sure death. Something she was not afraid of, but she still preferred that the odds were not slim to none.

She got up from the platform and walked from her room, again playing the part of the docile little slave. The crew was used to seeing her about on some errand or other. As long as she looked like she knew where she was going, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be challenged. There was a computer terminal in the supply room where she ordered her meals, when she wasn’t working with the Admiral or his officers. She had limited privileges there. Unknown to the Great Admiral or any of his crew, she had used the passwords she had stolen from them to give herself greater privileges. Enough to override certain systems, and allow her into others.

Jana scanned the information coming up on the screen. It was in Ca’cadasan, a language she was now fluent with in both its spoken and written forms. She checked on outgoing shuttle flights to other ships, and then the next transfer mission into the inner system. Six days, she thought, looking over all the details. She thought it over, wondering if that would be enough time to get everything in place. If I wait too long I may be on the menu, she thought. She linked with the computer and sent the commands into the ship’s net. In six days’ time there was a shuttle scheduled to go from the flagship to a freighter, and thence into the system, bringing vital personnel and equipment to the orbital station that was being constructed there to take the place of the ones the human raid had taken out. From there she might be able to find something to drop her into the atmosphere, and onto the surface that the humans were still holding. And from there she would just have to hope there was some way to get what was in her head to high command.

Chapter Nineteen

You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win. Ho Chi Mihn

OUTSIDE OF SECTOR V, MAY 25TH, 1001.

The War Leader really did not trust the Ca’cadasans. At least not as much as his predecessor, who had died in the attack launched on the Neutral Zone systems when the horned carnivores had not come to their support as promised. The Klang were herbivores, large violent ones to be sure, but still not meat eaters. While the larger aliens were nothing but meat eaters, with maybe a little bit of vegetation added to their diets to aid digestion.

I should have told them to go back to whatever hell they came from, thought the War Leader, who was one of the few survivors of the raid gone bad. But they are in our home system in force, and there is no way we will eject them without a fight. It was a fight he didn’t think his people would win, with mostly hyper VI raiding ships in the three to six hundred thousand ton range against hyper VII battleships massing twenty-five million tons. It would be a short ugly fight, and he was sure his race would lose all of their space warfare capabilities in that battle.

And we aren’t that much better off taking on the humans, thought the leader, looking around his bridge, which was manned by younger members of the race, most of whom had never been a raiding before. They didn’t know what it was like to take on other ships in space. They had heard the stories of the exploits of their ancestors, taking merchant ships and liners while avoiding combat with real warships. They reveled in the tales of daring. And he was sure most of them would be dropping feces on the deck the first time they saw human battleships coming their way.

“We are right on course,” said the Navigator. The War Leader looked at the holo and had to agree. In another day they would be at the edge of human space. In an area that the humans were unlikely to patrol in strength. At least according to the lying carnivores. Supposedly they would find a number of lightly defended frontier worlds to plunder. And supposedly the actions of the Klang would cause the humans to redeploy units back into this sector, and make the job of the Ca’cadasans easier in the sectors where they were attacking. He was not sure he followed their reasoning.

His was a six hundred thousand ton raid leader, capable of handling one or more human destroyers. He had thirty-four more ships like her in his force, and three hundred and fifty-three smaller ships, mostly the three hundred thousand ton raiders. It was a very large percentage of the entire remaining Klang fleet, and would devastate the Empire if they were lost for no gain. And of course there were the two Ca’cadasan battleships along to handle any large human ships that might come along, with luck.

He looked with a little trepidation at their proximity to Crakista States, less than two light months to their starboard. He knew the scaly ones were nothing to mess with. Their ships were in the same general class as the humans, and they were without emotion. The lizards conducted themselves purely by logic, as long as that logic benefited their species. They were terrible opponents in all respects.

“The horned one wishes to speak with you, my Lord,” said the Com Officer. The War Leader nodded his head and the com holo came to life, showing the big male of their supposed allies grinning a predatory smile. The alien ship was only a hundred thousand kilometers off the port, well within visual com range in hyper.

“All is going according to plan,” said the Ca’cadasan he had been instructed to address as High Captain. “When we reach human space your ships are to head for these targets.” Another holo sprung into being, this one showing a map of the human sector ahead, and the courses the raiders were to follow.

“I don’t like splitting my force so, High Captain,” said the War Leader, looking at thirty arrows going into human space.

“You will do as you are told, herbivore,” said the High Captain, his grin growing wider and more threatening. “I am in command here, and will not stand for insubordination. Understood?”

The holo went blank before the War Leader could answer, and he raged for a moment at his arrogant allies.

Six hours later his worst fear was realized, as a force on a heading from out of Crakista space appeared on their sensors. At first there were only a few, mostly cruiser sized vessels. Over a period of some minutes more appeared, the escort class, then a large number of battleships, all in the fifteen million ton range. The com holo came back on and the High Captain again appeared.

“We will deal with these creatures,” said the Cacada. “This is unclaimed territory, and they have no right to contest our passage.”

“They may not agree with you,” said the War Leader, staring at the Cacada male.

In four hours the Crakista ships were within com range, and the signal they sent was wideband, able to reach dozens of the ships in the Klang force. The reptilian face that stared out of the holo sent shivers up the War Leader’s back. There was no anger there, no hate, and no fear. Nothing but intelligent eyes looking out of a non-expressive face.

“By order of the Grand Council of the Crakista States you are ordered to turn back,” said the Crakistan on the holo, who must have been the commander of the force. He wore battle armor without marking, nothing to show his rank.

“We are not in your space,” said the High Captain in return. His ship was on the other side of the War Leader’s, and they were getting his bleed. “At least not as marked on any of our charts. However, if we have intruded, we will be happy to plan our return trip much farther out.”

“This is not our space,” said the reptilian. “We make no claim to it. However, we cannot allow you to continue on this mission.”

“Are you allied with the humans?” asked the Ca’cadasan.

“We have no alliance with the humans,” answered the reptilian. “Nor are we their enemies.”

“Then what business is it of yours? We mean you no harm, and have no hostile intentions toward your Empire. So why would you interfere.”

“You have no hostile intentions toward us at this time,” said the reptilian admiral, his eyes staring out of the holo. “But by your actions you prove yourselves to be a violent, conquering species. And you ally yourselves with another such. It is only logical to assume that we will be on your list of peoples to conquer. If not next, then soon after. Therefore, we will not allow you to strike at the humans on this axis.”

One of the Klang ships opened fire. No one among the force knew which one, because a moment later space was filled with missiles targeting ships on both sides. When the battle ended there were three surviving Klang ships, which soon became the prizes of the Crakistans. And a powerful ally had been added to the New Terran Empire’s order of battle.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, MAY 27TH, 1001.

“But, they can’t do this,” said the Archduke Gregor Stoyanovich, the Leader of the Lords.

“I’m afraid they have,” said the man who ran his Lordship’s financial portfolio. “Agents from Commerce came on the premises and closed the factories down.”

“But, there’s a war going on. They need those grabber units.”

“The agents had warrants for the arrest of all upper level managers,” said the financial manager. “They were charged with treason, and aiding the enemy in time of war.”

“Damn that Streeter,” growled the Archduke, glaring at the other man over the wormhole connection to his homeworld of New Russia. He knew this was going to happen, so he sold off all his holdings, his majority holdings, in the corporation. And now he’s nowhere to be found. Coincidence? I think not.

“The agents said the factories will be opened again tomorrow, under the management of the Crown.”

“But, I own those factories. Was there any talk of reimbursing or otherwise compensating the owner?”

“No, sir. They seemed to imply that part of the price of owning a factory turning out substandard parts to the fleet was loss of capital.”

“Shit,” screamed the Archduke, the titular ruler of the planet. “I have almost half my fortune tied up in that industry.” I’m the civil ruler of the planet, but not even the most powerful man on it. Two of my subjects, commoners, have three times the money I have.

“Get my attorneys involved,” he said to the man. “Immediately. Or you can look for another client to take my place.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that as well, your Grace,” said the man. “I cannot afford to be caught up in this. The Crown has offered me a deal that involves turning over all records that I possess, even if I really don’t think they will glean much from them.”

“You can’t do that,” yelled the Archduke, throwing his glass across the room to bounce off the wall. “Those records are my personal property.”

“Not with an Imperial Warrant ordering me to produce them. Look, your Grace. I had no knowledge of the criminal intent of the former owners, and I am not willing to be punished for their stupidity. I don’t believe you had any knowledge either. So your best course of action would be to cooperate with the authorities and let them work things out. I’ll contact your attorneys if that is your wish, but playing the aggrieved owner is not going to help you.”

And the Imperial Commerce Commission is probably listening in on this secure communication right now,” thought the Archduke. They’re probably listening in to all my communications now. What judge would not give them a warrant to do that, with a budding scandal over my head?

“That is all I can do for you, my Lord.” The holo went blank, and the Archduke found himself with a building rage and nothing to vent it on.

That was the moment a Malticoran servant came into the room. The small humanoid, from the species most like humans, at least superficially, of any that had yet been found, looked at the Archduke. “Will there be anything else tonight, my Lord?”

The Archduke then had something to vent on, and the servant left the room beaten and bloodied, and no longer in his service.

Hours later another servant woke him from a deep sleep to let him know that Capital City Police were at his door, to see him about a matter of some importance. He met them at the door to his mansion, having no intention of letting them in.

“A Malticoran who was in your service has sworn out a complaint against, you, my Lord,” said the older of the two detectives. “She said that you physically assaulted her.”

“Do you know who I am?” said the Archduke, giving the man his best down the nose look.

“You are the Archduke Gregor Stoyanovich,” said the detective. “At least that’s the name that was entered on the complaint.”

“And you know my position.” When he got no answer but a look he felt his anger rising, getting the better of him. “I am the Leader of the Lords, you dolts. And I will not stand for being harassed in my own home this late at night. Now, see my secretary in the morning, and he will give you an appointment. Now, good night.” The Archduke slammed the door in their faces. I don’t have to play games with those commoners. And that little bitch. Commoner whore. Who does she think she is? A call in the morning and she will disappear, and they will have no complainant.

Sleep did not come easy, and then he was informed that more men wanted to see him, these from the Imperial Commerce Commission. And they were armed with a warrant that gave them the right to question him. He was not able to cow these men, and had to agree to accompany them to their office.

I’ll bet the damned Countess is behind this, he thought, still raging over the botched assassination attempt of the woman. Well, they will get nothing out of me. I’ve got the best shielded implants money can buy. And they have nothing on me with those factories. They were Streeter’s, and any wrongdoing occurred before I acquired them. But it still worried him that Streeter had known about the maleficence, and that he had known as well, and had still bought them from the former PM.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, MAY 28TH, 1001.

“There is no word from our Embassy in Fenri,” said the Minister of State, Lord Garis, a worried expression on his face. “And no word from our last courier to the mission.”

“So you think they have been taken captive,” said Sean, his own face flushing with rage.

“That, or dead,” said the Minister, shaking his head.

“Fucking barbarians,” growled the Emperor, slamming a hand on the table. “We had agreements with them over the sanctity of diplomatic personnel.”

“The Fenri see us as nothing more than smart primates who, by good fortune, have defeated them in several wars. We are not people to them.”

“Is their Embassy still open here in Capitulum?”

“There are still Fenri within the compound, if that is what you mean, your Majesty,” said Ekaterina Sergiov. “We believe their Ambassador is among them. At least, no one has seen him leave the Embassy. And my people have been watching.”

“So I take that as a yes,” said Sean. “I want him and his staff taken into custody.”

“And what if our Embassy is still standing in the Fenri capital?” said Garis. “That might send the wrong message to the other powers.”

“You know better, Lord Garis,” said the Director of IIA. “They could not take the chance that our people might get some information back to us that might compromise their own plan to hurt us.”

“I have to agree with the Director,” said Lord Halbrook, the Minister of the Exchequer. “Those people are dead or imprisoned, depending on how much they resisted the Fenri who came to get them. I have dealt with those nasty little creatures before. They would cheat you in a business deal and cut your throat in a fight. And as Lord Garis said, they see us as animals.”

“What about the Elysium Embassy?” asked Sean. He took a sip of his coffee as he looked at Garis.

“Our Ambassador in Elysium says that their government has received no communiques from their Embassy in the last month. And a ship that was due from Fenri space has never arrived.”

And of course this is the latest information from the Elysium Capital, thought the Emperor.

“They’re getting ready to strike,” said CNO McCollum. “Making sure no information gets out of their Empire before they’re ready to go.”

“And how soon till we can hit them with the preemptive strike?”

“It’s already a go, your Majesty,” said the Officer. “It should be going over their border in the next thirty hours. Unless they beat us to the punch.”

“Pray God that doesn’t happen,” said Lady Hannah. “And if it does, we can only hope our own gathered forces catch them off guard.”

“We’ve also received information from Elysium that the Lasharans are getting ready to hit us again,” said Lord Garis.

“With what?” exclaimed Lady Hannah. “We vaporized just about everything they had that was capable of getting above hyper IV.”

“They’re persistent,” rumbled Lord T’lisha, the Minister of Security who was Segiov’s immediate boss. “I can’t say anything positive about them other than that.”

“I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, that when this war with the Ca’cadasans is over, we will have to do something permanent about the Lasharans,” said Sean, tapping finger a on the table. “I am damned tired with the way they destabilize this region of space. Of course, it might be some years before we can pursue that course, if we’re still around.”

“I hope your Majesty is not talking about Genocide?” said Lord Garis, a frown on his face. “The other powers would not put up with that.” The man looked around the table and a faint smile appeared on his face. “Except the Fenri. They would have no trouble at all with that, as long as they were doing the killing.”

“And what would your Majesty like to do about them in the meantime?” asked Lady Hannah. “We already have our two allies in the region taking out anything that moves near to the border.”

“I want a surgical strike against their homeworld,” said Sean, leaning over the table. “That is their religious center, and if I have read their holy works right, they believe their God will not allow outsiders on that world.”

“You’ve read their holy works?” asked Lord Garis in surprise. “I thought it was strictly forbidden for an alien to read those.”

“Father believed his children should understand the neighbors of the Empire,” said Sean with a smile. “And not subscribe to their superstitions. And I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I have never read a more hate filled Holy text in my life.”

“So, what do you have in mind, your Majesty?” asked the CNO after a nod from her immediate boss, Lady Hannah.

“As I said, a surgical strike. Something quick into their space and to the homeworld. I want every bit of space industry destroyed. Then I want boots on the ground on that planet. I want Imperial soldiers to walk into every major shrine, to desecrate it with their presence. And I want them to realize we can do it again, any time we want.”

“Time frame?” asked Lady Hannah.

“Within the next month,” said Sean. “Do you have something that can hit them hard?”

“They’re going to contest any attempt at a landing on their homeworld,” said Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, the Army Chief of Staff. “I would recommend at least an armored corps. Lighter troops will just take too many casualties. But I only have one division of heavy troops, armor, facing their border.” The small man who ran the Imperial Army looked down at his flat comp for a moment. “I have two more divisions still in Core space that can be shifted out there, and be ready to be part of the strike in three weeks.”

“Then do it,” said Sean. “Lady Hannah, you and Admiral McCollum coordinate it so it goes through. I want a large enough battle force to take out their naval forces and escort the troops to the planet. Boots on for forty eight hours, then leave.”

“It may backfire, your Majesty,” said Garis.

“You have a better idea, Minister?”

“Actually no, your Majesty,” said the much older man. “I think it is something that needs to be done. I just wanted to point out that it may cause the fanatics to react even more, fanatically.”

“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” said Sean. “Any other business?”

“The Crakistan Ambassador wishes to meet with your Majesty at your earliest convenience,” said Garis. “He says it is of the utmost importance.”

“Then set up a meeting for this afternoon.” And I wonder what bombshell the Lizard is waiting to drop. Will I be involved in yet another war? “So, if there is nothing else, you may leave,” he said, looking around the table. “Minister T’lisha. Director Sergiov. Please stay.”

There were some tense looks as everyone left the room but the named individuals, and Sean knew they had to be wondering what was going on. Need to know, he thought, waiting for the door to close.

“So, what is going on with Stoyanovich?” he asked, looking from the huge Phlistaran to the human and back.

“We have him in custody, your Majesty,” said the huge Minister with a crocodilian grin that would be frightening to anyone who didn’t know him. “Commerce picked him up for questioning about the industrial concern he bought from Streeter. You remember, your Majesty. The one that was building substandard grabbers.”

“Anything we can get him on there?”

“Probably not, your Majesty. He was not in control of the company when the wrongdoing occurred. Most probably Streeter got rid of the company when he saw trouble coming. But it did give us an opening for a judge friendly to the Crown to issue surveillance warrants. While he is out of his manor we removed his staff and searched the house, ostensibly to search for evidence of his complicity in the matter. But really to put surveillance in place.”

“And what about Director McGregor?” asked the Emperor. “How did you keep him out of the loop?”

“By using Commerce agents, and members of the local police that we have come to trust,” said T’lisha.

“And my own people have thrown him some red herrings to distract him,” said Ekaterina. “But why not just can him. It is your right, your Majesty. Or, if you prefer to distance yourself from that process, suggest to Minister T’lisha here that he do it.”

“I would be more than happy to, as you humans say, can him,” said the grinning Phlistaran.

“No,” said Sean, shaking his head. “I want him watched, and closely. If he is involved in a conspiracy, then I want to know who else in his organization is involved. If he’s kicked out, they’re more likely to go to ground, and we’ll never root them out.”

“The city police also have a complaint sworn out against the Archduke by a Malticoran servant he beat the other night,” said Sergiov. “Unfortunately, he is not subject to their prosecution at this time, not in his position as Leader of the Lords.”

“Scumbag,” growled Sean. “The man is not deserving of his position or his title.”

“And if I guess right, that servant’s life is now at risk,” said T’lisha. “I cannot see a man of the Archduke’s character leaving a possible witness to his impropriety at large.”

“Then I want her to have more than police protection,” said Sean, pointing his finger at the IAA Chief. “I want some of your people keeping her protected, in your best safe house.”

“I’m ahead of you there, your Majesty,” said the smiling woman. “She’s already under wraps.”

“Very good. I already feel much better. Now, if only the Crakistan Ambassador will be as giving.”

Two hours later, after eating a quick lunch in his office, the Emperor prepared to receive the Ambassador of an Empire the humans still had trouble understanding, even after six hundred years of contact. He said a calming mantra when told that the Ambassador was there. He had never met one of that species before, and knew that this might be his most important meeting of the month.

He was surprised by the size of the creature that entered his office. He was expecting something big and clumsy, even though he had studied vids of the creatures that denied that expectation. The Ambassador was small and sleek, with graceful movements set off by its colorful robe. He couldn’t tell if it was male or female, the Crakistans being egg layers, and males and females looking externally alike. The being had a reddish brown skin, though the vids had shown the creatures in a variety of colors.

“I bring you greetings from the Supreme Council of the Crakista States,” said the being in very good Terranglo. “The members of the council wish for cordial relations between our peoples.”

The being spoke without emotion, and Sean could well believe what he had heard about the lizard forms being totally ruled by logic. “We are always happy to receive fellow intelligent beings in peaceful commerce with our Empire,” he said, raising an eyebrow, then realizing that the gesture was probably lost on the alien. “And what can we do for our brother beings? I am given to understand that we already engage in trade.”

“And we are given to understand that all of the human governments are involved in a war against a mighty foe. One they have dealt with in the past.”

So here we come to the meat of the matter. No use lying. I’m sure they already know the truth. “We are engaged in a war with these beings you speak of. We are sorely pressed at this moment. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Yes,” said the Ambassador. “You speak well, and truly. You are one we can work with. And because of that, I wish to offer you our aid.”

“What kind of aid are you talking about?” asked Sean, feeling his heart beat faster.

“A military alliance,” said the Ambassador, its scaly face giving away no emotion. “Full cooperation against your enemy.”

“Excuse me for asking, because this is really something we want and need, but why do you offer to jump into this war on our side?”

“I offer this as partial explanation,” said the being, holding out an open hand which held a crystal. The crystal activated, and a holo appeared above the being’s hand. The holo showed a number of ships in space, hyperspace by the reddish glow behind them. They were Klang vessels, and a few other ships that were becoming distressingly familiar in the Empire.”

“Ca’cadasans.” The holo advanced, showing the ship engaged in battle with a force of Crakista vessels. The Crakista ships were of similar classes to those of the humans, and only a decade behind them in technology. They blew the opposing force out of space, save for a couple of Klang vessels. The holo advanced to a view of several Ca’cadasans in a cell.

“We interrogated the creatures, and did not like what they had to tell us,” said the Ambassador. “They are a conquering species, and will not be satisfied until all species in this region are their slaves. That is not acceptable to us. No intelligent species should be the slave of another. Your species integrates others species into your Empire. Even your ruling bodies have alien members. We have other species in our space as well, and they are treated as valued citizens. We see no such behavior from these creatures, these Ca’cadasans.”

“They entered your space?” asked Sean, incredulous that the Klang would allow their masters to do so.

“They did not. But they were headed into your space, and we thought we could force a battle with them, which would allow us to gather prisoners to be interrogated. It was a situation where we could strike with no fear of repercussions. After all, if they did not return to their space it would be assumed they ran into more of your forces than they could handle.”

“Very logical,” said Sean, gazing into the flat affected face of the being.

“The ancients raised us up to be where we are today,” continued the Ambassador. “They wanted us to be as we are, not as a servant species. If we allow these newcomers to conquer you, how long can we survive against them? It is only logical to ally ourselves with you while that alliance will make a difference. Our ruling council suggests that you allow some of our military leadership to come here and work out a plan to integrate our forces. And those of the ones you call Elysiums, as soon as they settle their internal problems.”

“I agree to your offer,” Sean said with a smile. “I would be a fool not to. Is there anything we can give to you?”

“Wormholes,” said the creature without hesitation. “Oh, not that many of them. One to our capital, so we can have communications between our governments. And enough to equip our task group flags with, for the same reasons.”

This could be a trick, thought Sean, trying to read the unexpressive face of the being and failing. But it is a risk I cannot afford not to take. “Agreed. We will work out the details of a formal treaty of alliance with you through our Ministry of State. Then I will sign those papers and have them sent to your government, along with a wormhole from your capital to your Embassy here.”

“Very good,” said the Ambassador, coming to its feet and offering a cool scaled hand. “There were some in the Council who argued against an alliance. They said that your victory would lead to your conquest of the Galaxy. The counter argument was that was better than the alternative.”

“And how close was the final vote?”

“It was unanimous,” said the Ambassador. “It always is, once the logical course is discovered.”

Chapter Twenty

We did not come to this place, across a thousand year journey, only to be subjugated by others, aliens who see us as nothing but future subjects of their own Empires. Humans will be ruled by none but themselves. This the alien powers will learn. King James Sampson Lee, James I, First King of the New Terran League.

CORE SPACE, MAY 30TH, 1001.

“We have a mission,” said the Commander of the 384th Heavy Infantry Division to his Brigade Commanders.

The two men and a woman looked at each other, then at the smiling Major General Betrum Maxwell. Everyone wanted to just go ahead an ask him, but they all knew the man liked to play this game. Finally Brigadier General Gloria Parker could hold her tongue no longer. “Any chance we might find out before we die of old age, sir?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure the Cacas will kill us well before that milestone, Gloria,” said Brigadier General Tanda M’kata from around his smoking pipe.

“You will be very familiar with our future opponents, Samuel,” said the Major General, picking up his cup of coffee.

“Not the Lasharans,” exclaimed Baggett with a grimace. “I thought we were going to fight something other than half naked fanatics. So we’re going to be doomed to walking occupation duty on some planet we’ve taken from them?”

“Oh, it’s a little more than that,” said the Division CO, his smile growing wider. “We’re going to take those bastards out of this war. Or at least show them the shape of things to come if they persist in pissing us off.”

“We’re going to strike at their homeworld,” said an excited Brigadier General Timothy Slovonovich. “Jolly good.”

“Just us, sir?” asked Baggett, thinking of what a blood bath might follow a single division, no matter its fire power, landing on the homeworld of a race.

“General Lanbardran and 195th Heavy Infantry Division will be coming with us,” said Maxwell. “And the 49th Armored Division as well. They’re already on the Lasharan frontier, waiting for our arrival.”

“Those Phlistarans ought to scare the hell out of the buggers,” said Slovonovich. “They sure as hell intimidate me.”

“Hell, Timmy,” said Parker with a laugh. “Your own shadow scares the hell out of you.”

Baggett joined in the laugh. It was well known that the oldest of the brigadiers did not like combat insertions. Once he was on the ground he was among the bravest of soldiers. But coming down from orbit he needed to be in an induced trance state.

“So, we’re going to take and hold their homeworld?” asked M’kata, blowing out smoke with each word. “Won’t that cause them to throw everything they have at us. I don’t think we can win a war of attrition.”

“Orders are boots on the planet for forty-eight hours,” said the CO. “No longer. We kill people and break things, and desecrate every damned religious structure on the planet. Seems their damned fool holy text says that aliens will never set foot in the holy places of their homeworld. And we’re going to prove to them, to the Galaxy, that those words are pure bullshit.

“Now, this is to go no further until we’re at the frontier. Fleet doesn’t want anything to get out that might warn them. Not that we don’t trust our own people, but things have been known to happen.”

Baggett was happy to hear that. Intelligence was vital, and keeping the enemy from gaining intelligence was just as important.

“Now, we will all repair to our transports and prepare to depart. Fleet tells me we will enter hyper in twelve hours. I will be aboard the flagship with General Lanbardan and the task force commander. I expect that we will go straight to our target, the 49th and the bombardment group meeting us en route. I expect for your brigades to be ready for a fight. I have faith in you.”

Baggett thought about the mission on the shuttle back to his transport, the seven million ton Gallipoli, which carried not only his three heavy infantry and one armored battalion, but also a trio of ground support squadrons. Twelve hours and three minutes later came the familiar nausea of a vessel entering hyper, and he knew he would not feel the downward translation until they reached the hyper barrier at the Lasharan home system.

*

FENRI SPACE AND JEWEL, JUNE 1ST THROUGH 5TH, 1001.

The plan called for simultaneous strikes on six Fenri military systems, all within fifty light years of the frontier. All holding large units of the Fenri fleet, preparing for their surprise strike on the New Terran Empire. There was a surprise, alright, but not what the Fenri were expecting.

The ships that went in were all hyper VII. There really weren’t enough of them to take on the Fenri forces they would face. At least not to conventional thinking. Conventional thinking didn’t take into account wormhole technology.

The ships penetrated the frontier behind an attack by hyper VI ships that took out all the frontier patrols. Those task groups then followed the hyper VII groups halfway to their targets. Enemy ships picked up the VIIs, but had no means of telling their high command, or even the system commanders, that trouble was coming.

“The first group will be hitting any moment, your Majesty,” said CNO McCollum as Sean took a seat in the war room under the Hexagon. The room was full of people, tactical experts, intelligence specialists, and the aides that kept everything running smoothly. And, of course, the Marines who provided security for this top secret facility, and those who were playing baby sitter for the Emperor.

“And the group commanders have a free hand?” asked Sean, looking from holo to holo until he had covered all six of them. Right now they were just showing a tactical representation of the groups in hyper, superimposed with the star map of the border region.

“As per your instruction, your Majesty,” said the CNO, who looked like she had mixed feelings about that.

I can understand that, thought the Monarch. For centuries the Fleet tradition was that the senior officer on the spot was God. Technology made it so nothing else made sense. Now they could watch the battle develop in almost real time, at least as far as the flagships were concerned. And senior commanders who were no longer on the line could become tempted to relive their glory days by mismanagement. Sean had killed that nonsense before it could get started. Commanders could watch, even as he was about to, but they could only advise.

“Two minutes until the final jump,” called out one of the officers manning a tactical board, and one of the holos started to blink.

Almost simultaneous were the catch words, thought Sean, seeing the thirty ships of that group moving toward the barrier. Five of the hyper VII light cruisers were closest to the barrier. They would jump first, then get a good scan of the system to transmit by wormhole com back to the battleships and battle cruisers. Those ships would be ready to fire as soon as they translated, something else that might catch the enemy by surprise.

“Cruisers translating.” And the holo switched to a view of the system, and the hundreds of Fenri ships sitting about a light hour in from the hyper barrier. Those ships would know the cruisers were there because of the graviton emissions of those vessels moving up through hyper and then jumping to normal space. They wouldn’t see them for an hour, not on any kind of electromagnetic sensors. And a minute later they would pick up the capital ships translating in.

At the same time the cruisers came through another battle cruiser jumped into normal space several light weeks out. Her wormhole was linked to an open portal in the black hole system. Four thousand missiles hit that hole going at point five c over a period of three hours. They came through powered down, and within an hour they would all be cold in space, coasting toward the system. In a month they would be there, fully stealthed and undetectable. On the way through the system they would look for targets. It was hoped they would be a major headache for the Fenri.

Five of the new hyper VII battleships and twelve battle cruisers came into normal space, along with eight destroyers. All were equipped with a multipurpose wormhole, com and cargo. While not in the same class as the three wormhole ships being deployed against the Ca’cadasans, they were still something that the Fenri had never seen. When they entered normal space the targets had already been fed into their firing computers, and they immediately started flushing missiles.

The battleships already had large magazines, maybe not in the class of the VIs, but still enough to launch six hundred missiles. They started cycling these from their tubes at the maximum rate. So did the wormhole on each, putting out a missile a second, a continuous fire for ten minutes, until each ship had put out another six hundred missiles. The battle cruisers cycled their internal magazines and flushed the same amount with their wormholes. In ten minutes firing time the ships had sent fifteen thousand missiles insystem toward the largest concentration of enemy vessels, some five hundred warships.

The enemy returned fire at the human force, which was now decelerating at its maximum rate, killing its velocity so it could move out back beyond the barrier and jump into hyperspace. They would not make it before the enemy missiles arrived, fire from over seven hundred opponent warships. But now all the ships were firing counter missiles from their wormholes, one per second for all thirty ships, a total of eighteen hundred a minute.

Another holo started blinking, and the scene was repeated, though against a slightly smaller enemy force. This happened on every holo, until all six systems were engaged.

The first holo showed enemy missiles being hit by counters, bright flares in space, and the enemy defenses taking out some of the incoming human weapons. Then there were hits, and Sean sat in his seat wincing as some of the weapons got through to his force. A light cruiser went up in a flare, then another, then a destroyer, while a battleship took a hit that hurt her but didn’t kill. Several enemy ships were hit, then more.

The holo switched to a tactical view that showed the humans ships starting to curve back toward the hyper barrier. One of the destroyers blinked, and Sean knew that was the ship with the extra wormhole, the one that was being dropped in space to remain behind. The other ships dropped hundreds of the new mines as they reached the point of lowest velocity before moving back out. The mines, basically cylinders of crystal matrix batteries clustered around the warhead, were fully stealthed. The enemy would only know they were there when they fired, and then they would be shocked.

The force took damage, losing a battleship, three battle cruisers, three light cruisers and a destroyer. As they translated back into hyper the view from the free wormhole showed almost two hundred enemy ships destroyed or crippled. It was a good exchange, though the Emperor had trouble thinking of it that way.

The wormhole that had been left behind now tracked the enemy as they moved through the area where the mines had been scattered. Ships began to flare, as the mines, really small quantum teleportation devices, cycled through the process of sending several kilograms of antimatter into the closest Fenri ships. As soon as they sent their warhead out another charge destroyed the mine, leaving nothing behind to be reverse engineered. As always, only about half of the antimatter actual made it to the targets. It was enough to destroy almost seventy ships, and cripple as many more.

The pattern repeated with all of the strike forces in all the systems, all taking casualties while giving many more. All hurting the enemy strike forces, though not beyond repair.

Now the third part of the strategy took over, as the ships only moved up to hyper VI as they ran. Some even feigned damage and accelerated at a lower rate. The enraged Fenri worked their way out of their systems and jumped into hyper, determined to track down their attackers and destroy them. It was a stern chase, and the human ships closed on the border with the Fenri on their tails. Leading the Fenri right into the ambushes set by the battle groups waiting in normal space.

By the end of the day the Fenri surprise attack had been destroyed. They still had a fleet, though much reduced, and the sure knowledge that their enemy was ready for them, whenever they came.

*

Sean was the first Emperor in history to watch a real time battle, really six of them, over two thousand light years away, and then attend the Opera in the capital. He hadn’t talked about the new war with Jennifer. He thought she had been through enough as it was. The Emperor could tell when he did talk around her that she was tired of death. He was sure she would give it her all when she had to, but why bother her with details that would just distress her.

The hall was packed with people, as many as had filled the Imperial Hall the night they had attended the last opera. Many of the same people were there, nobility and the wealthy who had come to see and be seen. Sean and Jennifer again occupied the Emperor’s box, with the best view of the stage. The holographic curtain was drawn, hiding the performers who were about to play to the crowd.

“Anything eventful happen today?” asked the Imperial Consort, smiling at Sean. The smile left her face and she looked into his eyes, searching. “You seem troubled tonight. You seem troubled so often these days.”

“What’s to be troubled about,” Sean said with a slight smile. “My realm is in danger, the entire human race is threatened. And I may not have the power to stop the threat.”

“You can just do the best you can do,” said Jennifer, holding his arm in her hands. “That’s all we can expect from anyone.”

“And they can put that on the plaque they will leave on a hidden moon somewhere,” said Sean, shaking his head. “He tried his best, and we all still died. Not really my idea of a great epitaph.”

The curtain shimmered, a sign that the show was about to start. The Emperor turned his attention to the stage. Even though his heart and mind were really not into a performance tonight, it was expected of him to be calm and worry free. The people would see him and know that things were going to work out. If they weren’t here, they would see him on the evening news. Almost like walking the poop of a Man-o-War, except that no one is shooting at me. Just as that thought went through his mind he realized how wrong he was. He had been shot at while addressing Parliament. If it could happen there, it could happen anywhere, even here.

The music started and the curtain faded away, revealing the singers on the stage. The Phlistaran lead, dressed like a dragon, started the song going, his deep voice resonating through the acoustically perfect hall. The cast was made up entirely of non-humans, all playing the parts of human fantasy. It was a play written by a Malticoran playwright centuries ago, exploring her interest in human mythos. The voices were captivating, the best singers that could be found to perform The Dragon King.

Sean sat and watched the opera, his consort hanging onto his arm. He was familiar with the story, about an evil dragon who wanted to destroy the elf race he felt was encroaching on his realm. The majority of his people didn’t agree, but he was king, and therefore must be obeyed. Until one of his subjects decided to end the madness and assassinated the king.

If only I could do the same with the ancient enemy, thought the Monarch, as the last scene of the last act worked its way out on stage. But they will not treat with us. That Ca’cadasan Brigade Commander made that clear enough to me. Either we beat them to the point where they cannot attack us anymore, or they beat us, and we are no more.

He glanced over at Jennifer. Her eyes were full of tears, the emotional response to the touching story as presented by master performers. Sean had wished that he could let himself go like that. He had always enjoyed this opera. Just another thing the war had ruined for me. Like that has any meaning.

The ride back to the palace was pleasant. Jennifer was in a playful mood, and it always amazed Sean how sad stories could stir sexual feelings in people. They kissed and cuddled until the car touched down on the landing pad. Leaving the car and walking into the palace, Sean was again reminded how he was not a regular person with a life of his own. Marines and Secret Service Agents abounded, covering every possible approach. The panels that closed behind him looked like French doors, but were actually transparent alloy coated with a layer of diamond and set in a frame of ship steel. Nothing short of a military heavy weapon was going to get through those doors.

Sean was enraptured by the body of his love lying in his arms, and at least for a time was able to forget anything other than his being a human male, with a very desirable female in his clasp. One he had fallen for the first time he saw her. Was I really in love then, he thought as he thrust into her, listening to her gasps of pleasure. He kissed her soft lips and felt the real love that had grown in him since that moment. And she loves me, he thought as she pushed her soft tongue into his mouth. She didn’t want to love me, and I really can’t blame her. How does even an Emperor live up to a Marine combat officer?

Jennifer reached her climax first, the normal occurrence in lovemaking where nanites could control the response cycle according to the wishes of the human host. Sean made sure she hit the peak again before he let himself go, wondering all the time if she would want to have his baby, and would be willing to disable the prophylactic function of her internal nanites. And Samantha and the rest of the family would raise hell, he thought as he rolled off of her, then turned back to take her in his arms. I would either have a bastard, which could later muddy the succession. Or I could marry her, and that would cause all kinds of problems. He looked at the smiling face of the half sleeping woman, the light dusting of freckles on her nose like the kiss of angels on her skin. He kissed that nose himself, then her forehead, and thought that he really didn’t care what the nobles thought about his love life, or life in general.

The next morning he awoke at his regular time, his internal clock activating his system and bringing him to total awareness. Jennifer continued to lay next to him softly breathing, and he disentangled himself from her tender limbs without waking her. He got out of bed and showered, then put on the clothes that had been laid out for him by the staff. I wonder if they watch us making love, he thought as he pulled on his soft boots. Supposedly that was not allowed, and his link with the system didn’t reveal any illegal monitoring. But that wouldn’t stop them if they really felt the need to keep an eye on him.

Breakfast was also laid out for him, as always, eggs, bacon, muffins and good coffee, the things he wanted in the morning. He linked into the palace computer system while he ate, his secure access allowing him to look over all the reports compiled during the night by the various security and military services. There would be a live briefing later, but he always liked to be up on things before he saw the briefers. There were really too many for him to pay attention to them all. He skimmed the titles, then brought up some abstracts put together by the experts who had read the entire report, if not written it themselves. A few he read in their entirety. Only a few.

One caught his eye, and he dove into the diplomatic report from the Ministry of State. So the wormhole had arrived at the Crakista capital, and now we can talk to them in real time. And their government wants to talk directly to me, as well as their ambassador.

Sean thought about his new allies for a moment. There had never been an alliance between the two peoples, though they had engaged in trade for centuries. And there had been wars, some of them hard fought, though no one could say the Reptilians had ever been savage or heartless opponents. They had fought with logic, and did not consider violence for its own sake acceptable. In fact, thinking back on the history of the two races, humanity had not always been the kindest of opponents, even though the Crakista Ambassador thought humans were among the more honorable races in the sector.

And still those idiots in the Lords weren’t sure how much they trusted the Reptilians, he thought with disgust. Until I explained to them that unless we got reinforcements from some allies I would have to strip their own systems of Fleet units. Then they had reacted fast enough. He was still going to take those units from them, in time, and it had gotten him what he wanted.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Jennifer asked, coming sleepy eyed into the room. A servant came in as soon as she sat with a covered platter of food, having seen her coming into the hall and anticipating her needs.

“You looked so lovely sleeping, I couldn’t bring myself to wake you,” Sean said with a smile, his heart beating faster as he looked into her beautiful face.

“Wake me up next time, and I’ll make it worth your while,” she said with a broad smile. “I’ll make sure that you get up as well.”

Sean laughed, reaching over and grabbing her hand. “You tempt me to go back to bed,” he said, shaking his head as her face glowed. “Unfortunately, the fate of a trillion beings rests on my attending my morning brief, so sex will have to wait.”

Jennifer took up a fork full of eggs and took a bite. “I’ll take you up on that tonight,” she said.

“Any plans today?”

“I think I might go riding with your cousin May,” said the woman, shaking out her long red hair.

“I wish I could join you,” said Sean with a frown. “Unfortunately.”

“I know. Unless you hear it with your own ears, the efforts of your subordinates don’t count. I understand.”

“I promise you we will do something this weekend. That’s what, another two days? Then we’ll do a getaway. Maybe the boat again, maybe the mountains.”

“OK,” said Jennifer, getting up from her seat, walking to Sean and putting her arms around him.

They kissed for a moment, and Sean really didn’t want to break the connection, but duty called. “I have to go.”

“I know. Just remember, you can only give the orders. You can’t also fight the battles.”

Sean smiled, turned and walked away. She is right, you know. But the responsibility is still mine.

The private train ride over to the Hexagon was as uneventful as ever. Security was in place of course, but the train line was two kilometers beneath the ground, and the tunnel itself was sealed in ten meters of ship armor. Anyone that wanted to get him there would have to drop a big kinetic weapon on him, something unlikely to occur on Jewel, where the Fleet controlled the orbitals.

The staff jumped to their feet as he walked into the conference room, and he ordered them back to their seats with a motion of his hand. “So, besides a conversation with our new allies, what’s on the slate today?”

“Task Group Fifty-one should be reaching the Lasharan home system within the next three hours,” said the CNO, Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom. “From there it’s a two day fastest transit to orbit, and Mishori’s boys will be going down to the surface.”

“And we don’t have real time on that op?” Sean asked, already knowing the answer, but regretting it nonetheless.

“It was decided that a wormhole was not really needed for that op,” said Lady Hannah. “Not with the need so great in other areas. We really didn’t think the Lasharans were going to give us enough of a fight in space to make it worthwhile.”

“And what about the ground campaign?”

“Not really much we can do there, your Majesty,” said Grand Marshal Mishori Yamakuri, Imperial Army Chief of Staff. “I agreed with the consensus. We need wormholes on the planets we’re contesting with the Cacas. Not on a backwater like the Lasharan homeworld, no matter how important the op.”

“We’re getting the signal from the Crakista home world through the wormhole, your Majesty,” said Lord Garis, the Minister of State. “Are you ready to talk with them?”

“Let’s get this show started,” said Sean, feeling the butterflies flapping in his stomach. I will be the first Emperor to ever speak with their Ruling Council. Hope I don’t say anything to completely screw it up.

Then there was no time for more thought about what might go wrong. The holo faded in over the table, and Sean found himself looking face to face with the Spokesbeing of the Crakista Ruling Council. He had no way of telling if it were male or female, and had heard that, except for breeding purposes, such distinctions were moot among the egalitarian species.

“Greetings from the Council,” said the being in flat, unaccented Terranglo. “We find it gratifying that our brother species has seen the wisdom of joining forces with us.”

The being spoke without any facial expression, and the Emperor wasn’t sure if that was because its face was incapable of such, or whether it was the general emotional control the Crakista were noted for. He knew they had emotions. They had acted emotionally, to their own detriment, in past wars. They were also known to have their emotions generally under control as they acted according to the dictates of logic.

“And we are also, gratified, that we could come to an accommodation with the Crakista,” said Sean, keeping his own face flat, not sure how a smile would be interpreted. “I will leave it to our military commanders to work out the details of our integration of forces. It is enough for me to know that you are on our side against this threat.”

“There are, of course, some stipulations to our involvement within a combined military structure,” said the being.

Sean felt his heart drop for a moment, wondering what those constraints might be.

“We would want our task forces to remain intact, and preferably would like that to be true of task groups. Conversely, we would not wish control over human forces integrated lower than the task group level. It would not be logical to try and control forces that do not fit into the tactical doctrines of another polity.”

“I think we can agree to that,” said Sean, the nervousness subsiding a bit. “So, when can we expect your forces within our space?”

“Our first expeditionary fleet should be within your space in the next six of your standard days,” said the Spokesbeing. “We will assess your needs and ours after it is deployed, and decide what other forces we may be able to send you.”

The talk went on for another twenty minutes, mostly ironing out details. Sean felt ecstatic for the first time in weeks. We aren’t in this alone, he thought as the holo went blank. Now if we could only get the damned Brakakak to move their asses.

*

MASSADARA SPACE, JUNE 20TH, 1001.

Jana Gorbachev cursed all the Gods she could name as she walked back to her chamber. Two tries at getting off the ship, and both times she was interrupted by the damned Great Admiral calling for her before she could get to the cargo hold she had chosen. In a way she had gotten lucky. If he had called for her after she had gotten into the container it could have been a disaster. They would have tracked her down, and she didn’t have a good explanation as to why she would have been hiding in a box.

And then had come the questioning. “Who are these Crakista? What can you tell me about their capabilities?” The Great Admiral of course wouldn’t tell her what was going on, but from the questions she was guessing that the Ca’cadsans had run into the reptilians, and had not enjoyed the meeting. Then she had listened to some officers talking and realized that the Cacas didn’t know if they had run into the Lizards or not.

It would serve them right, she thought, throwing herself on the bed. They had sent a raiding force of Klang, with a few of their own battleships to ride herd, around to a far frontier of the Empire. A route that would have taken them very close to Crakitan space. And then no word. Could they have blundered over into Crakistan space, she thought. The Lizards were very logical in their dealings with other species, but also didn’t take any shit off of anyone.

But does it do us any good if the Crakista had destroyed the raiding fleet and no one knows that they did it. They could deny any involvement, and while it would be nice if they destroyed some of our enemies, it would be better if they were forced into an alliance with the Empire.

She had barely gotten comfortable when she was called back to the presence of the Great Admiral, who was ensconced with his brain trust, if they could be called that. Jana thought of them as the Gorillas, and they seemed about as intelligent as those big primates. The Great Admiral was an order of magnitude more intelligent than they were, and relying on their counsel was actually having a negative effect on his decisions. Which, as far as she was concerned, was a good thing.

“Have your people ever had an alliance with these Reptilians?” asked the Great Admiral once she was in the room.

“Never an alliance,” said Jana, shaking her head. “We have had trade with them for centuries, and a few short wars. But we have never allied ourselves to the Crakista.”

“And what of their Empire? How large is it? How many other species have they enslaved?”

“Their Empire is just a bit smaller than the New Terran Empire,” she answered, feeling that this information really couldn’t hurt her people. Maybe even help, if it made the Cacas more cautious. “As far as I know they have enslaved no one. They have absorbed other species into their Empire, and have integrated them much as we do with alien species.”

The Ca’cadasans in the room stared at her. She had the feeling that they truly couldn’t understand the philosophy of treating other species as equals.

“And how do they fight?” asked the Great Admiral, looming over her, using his bulk to intimidate.

“With a lot of forethought,” said Jana, trying to remember the lessons she had learned in school about the last of the human versus Crakista wars. “They are a logical species, who don’t allow their emotions to rule them. We had a lot of trouble with them. They don’t react, they act.”

“Then we will send another Embassy to these Reptilians,” said the Great Admiral, looking over at another of the males. “If we can bring them in on our side, like these Fenri, we can squeeze the humans from both sides while we thrust ahead.”

Jana sat there staring at the Great Admiral in disbelief. The humans had enough trouble taking on this opponent. If the Cacas got most of humanity’s neighbors on board the war would be over. But everyone can’t be stupid enough to sign on to the Ca’cadasan conquest of this arm. Can they?

“You may leave, human,” said the Great Admiral, motioning toward the door. “But be ready to answer questions when we have them.”

Gorbachev nodded and left the room, walking quickly toward her quarters, wondering how she was going to get out of this nightmare, short of dying. I have to wait until the Great Admiral is off the ship, she thought. She did not know when that would again happen, but she determined that was the time to try her escape, no matter the risk.

Chapter Twenty-one

The only way to fight a war is to strike for the heart, quickly and ruthlessly. Any other manner of warfare is immoral. Emperor Cassius Ogden, Cassius the Wise.

LASHARAN HOME SYSTEM, JULY 3RD THROUGH 5TH, 1001.

Samuel Baggett grimaced as the ship exited hyper I. At least it’s getting better, he thought. He had been through over fifty translations in the last couple of months, six in the last day. The disorientation passed quickly, and the Brigade Commander tapped into the command net as soon as he was sure he wasn’t going to vomit on the deck.

Ahead lay the twin stars in the center of the system, a yellow primary and a white dwarf secondary, while a small caret marked the location of the target planet, the home of the Lasharan race and its murderous church. Vector arrows came up as they were processed by the ship’s tactical computer. There were many red arrows on that plot, showing acceleration figures below them, read by their graviton emissions that were traveling through hyper VIII. Almost four hundred green arrows were moving into the system ahead of the transports and their escorts, the battle force of the fleet. As he watched hundreds more arrows appeared in space, the missiles they were launching at the enemy force. Hundreds became thousands, and the capital ships would continue firing for many minutes, until there were tens of thousands in space.

While not a naval officer, Samuel had a more than layman’s knowledge of space tactics. It behooved a ground pounder to have some knowledge of the forces that might someday kill or save him. And to his eye, the enemy didn’t stand a chance. The foe had at most forty capital ships, maybe another sixty escorts, and several hundred of what could only be called converted tramp freighters.

Against them were arrayed over a hundred much more advanced battleships and battle cruisers, as well as a hundred cruisers and almost two hundred destroyers. The twelve assault ships and six transports were escorted by another six capital ships and thirty escorts, and included four fleet carriers. While he was watching those carriers started to flush their attack fighters, six hundred to a thousand ton ships capable of up to one thousand gravities acceleration. The carriers held over a thousand of those attack fighters between them. Not all would be launched in the initial wave. Half would form the reserve. But it was already obvious that the Lasharan Navy was in for a very bad day.

A number of the enemy icons started to change vector, while others moved in the opposite direction of the human force from a standing start orbiting the habitable planet. Most of these were freighters, though there were also some fast couriers, or at least what passed for them in the Lasharan fleet. It was a hopeless flight, ships with at most three hundred gees accel trying to outrun missiles capable of five thousand. That flight became even more hopeless as human ships started to translate into normal space around the sphere of the system, putting them in position to cut off anything that had the luck to get away from the missiles.

A com signal came over the link, letting Baggett know that the commander of the corps was wanting to talk to her subordinate commanders. It took a second to link, and the Brigadier noted that the command ship was four light seconds away. Which, using the new subspace com systems, put them as near real time as possible.

“Everyone on the line?” asked Lt. General Sam (Samantha) Tomaz. The acknowledgements came back quickly. Everyone had learned early on that this general was not one to play with. “We’re two days from the planet, and will be coming in four hours behind the bombardment force. If everything works as planned, all orbital defenses and most of the planetary batteries should be taken out.”

And it will be a fine day in hell when that happens, thought Baggett, who, though the youngest general officer in the corps, had the most recent combat experience. We can expect some screw ups, even though the Fleet will try its best to get us to orbit safely. Then it’s up to us.

“You all are familiar with your landing sites, at least the theoretical ones. Drill your troops on the simulators unmercifully. I’m sure they’ll groan, but better to complain now than to be converted to plasma later. Any questions?”

“I have one, ma’am,” said Baggett, knowing that some of his fellow officers would be the ones groaning now. “What do we do about all the civilians that are sure to get in our way?”

“If they get in the way try to chase them off. But don’t put your command at risk to try to save civilians.”

“And if those civilians attack us?” asked a Brigadier in one of the other divisions.

“Then kill the hell out of them. And I mean kill them. No mercy. If a civilian bears weapons against us then he is a combatant.”

“There will be plenty of so called civilians attacking us,” said Baggett. “Especially on their religious home world.”

“Was that your experience on Janaikasa, Baggett?” asked Major General Maxwell, the commander of the 384th Heavy Infantry Division.

“Yes, sir,” said Baggett, the images flashing before his eyes of having to fight the fanatical Lasharans on that occupied world. His heavy troopers would be much better protected against the lightly armed urban guerillas than were his light infantry on that world. But. “They will keep coming until they either push us off their planet, or they have no one left to throw at us.”

“I don’t like the idea of genocide,” said one of the Phlistaran brigadiers. “I like even less letting these people continue to hit our civilian populations whenever they feel like it.”

“We will try to restrain our troops,” said General Tomaz. “We’re not going to try and hold the entire surface, and what we do for not more than two days. So I doubt we’re going to have more than a small percentage of the population under our sights.”

But they’ll try to get as many there as they can, thought Baggett, again feeling his stomach flip flop as he thought about fighting the fanatics in the city. He could hear the rumble of buildings falling, and smell the coppery odor of Lasharan blood. He knew this mission was necessary, which didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Read your detailed orders,” said the Corps Commander. “I will send any changes across from this level as soon as they are vetted. And we will hold another meeting at six hours out. I trust you ladies and gentlemen to be ready for anything, and fight the battle to the best of your abilities. Tomaz out.”

The link went blank, and Maxwell came on another band for a division meeting, bringing in the battalion and assistant brigade commanders. They spent another couple of hours talking over details and concerns. Enough time for the first missiles to reach their targets, ships furthest out in the system. The first icons were dropping off the plot as they stopped producing gravitons. Baggett would wait until he saw the first visuals to be sure that those ships were actually being destroyed. Not that he didn’t trust the Fleet. It was just that he was more comfortable being able to assess combat that wasn’t occurring over twenty or more light minutes away.

*

“They must not be allowed to approach the homeworld,” yelled the Ahmadhi-ghasta Mallakan. “The Gods demand that no alien infidels shall be permitted on the surface of their holy world.”

“Then the Gods need to give me more ships,” said Grand Admiral Lissana Mallakan, the Grand High Bishop’s cousin, and commander of the Lasharan military, his twin macro eyes focused on the supreme leader of the church while his quad motion eyes glanced around the control room where he made his headquarters.

The Ahmadhi-ghasta could see that room through the holo link, swarming with males and neuters in a near panic as they faced an invasion they had never thought possible. “That is blasphemy,” yelled the cleric. “That you would doubt the Gods.”

“I do not doubt the Gods,” said the officer. “What I doubt is their commitment to our cause. I have a fleet heading down my throat at this moment,” he motioned with a seven digit hand toward a tactical plot. The light glinted from his red leathery skin as he pointed with a long, quad jointed finger back at the screen. “There is no way in which we can stop them from reaching the planet.”

“Then the orbital fortresses…”

“Will be destroyed as soon as the humans decide to fire upon them,” said the Admiral with a sneer. “And I have approved your proposal that we send suicide attacks at them. Not that it will do any good. Those ships will die like night flyers in the flame.”

“What about reinforcements from other systems?”

“We have to get ships out of this system to get a message to anyone,” said the Admiral, and the holo was replaced with a tactical plot of the globe of the hyperspace barrier around the star. Blinking icons were arrayed equidistant around that globe, except for the spot where the assault force was coming in. “There is no way we will get ships past that cordon, and anything incoming will be scooped up.”

“So you’re giving up?” asked the incredulous leader.

“Not at all,” said the Admiral, blinking his annoyance with the question. “We will fight to the last male, female and neuter. And still they will come, and land the troops from those assault ships they brought.”

The Grand High Bishop cut the connection, then ordered a planet wide broadcast to go out. It is against the will of the Gods for aliens to stand upon our holy soil. We must stop them, if it takes the lives of every Lasharan on this world. And then our people will avenge us. Of that I am sure.

*

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, JULY 5TH, 1001.

Jennifer had a smile on her face as she walked into the hospital. The weekend had been as wonderful as promised. At least as wonderful as can be when followed around by scores of security personnel. Not that she was an expert at it, but the skiing on the Imperial Trail had been as good as any she had ever seen. No waiting at any of the venues. And there had been nights around a blazing fire in the lodge, with all security banished to the outside. She could still taste the steaks and lobster, the last imported alive from a terraformed world. She could still taste Sean’s lips on hers, and the smell the musk on his skin. She could feel the blush of her own skin as she remembered their lovemaking.

The bulk of her own security detail peeled off and headed for the room that had been assigned them, while the two agents who were to accompany her, dressed in hospital staff garb, followed her to the lift and her first set of rounds. Agents Stacy Donovan and Michio Nagato had been her close escorts on many a day, and they knew the drill. They moved with her through the rooms, giving the appearance that they were medical personnel, watching the instruments above the bed.

“Where’s Ms. Kowalski?” asked Jennifer as she walked into one room. She called up the chart in her link and saw that the elderly woman should still be in this room. Not the young woman who was lying unconscious on the bed, covered in hard casts. She shouldn’t be on this floor, thought the doctor, glancing up at the monitor that indicated this was a healthy woman of about fifty. She was about to say something to Agent Donovan when the woman opened her eyes and lifted her right arm from the bed.

A small spot on the plastic of the cast erupted out and the same moment a matching dot appeared on agent Donovan’s forehead. The agent folded up without a sound and headed to the floor. Agent Nagato started to move, his hand reaching for his gun in a blur. As fast as he was it was still too late, and the left arm cast put a round into his face. Maybe not an instant kill, but enough to put him down and out.

Jennifer started to open her mouth in a scream, and at the same time alarms started going off through the floor. She never got the air back out of her lungs. The cast tracked on her and fired again. She felt something hit her neck and wondered in false calm if she was going to die. Her vision blurred just a bit and she felt a calm and relaxed feeling stealing over her. Jennifer didn’t have to be a physician to know she had been drugged. She wasn’t sure in her advancing stupor if that was a good or bad thing. Death might be better.

The woman jumped out of bed and grabbed her by the arm, hurrying her toward the door. The hall was a war zone, smoke and vapor in the air, the smell of wood and flesh choking her. Angry bee buzzes sounded up the hall, and she looked on in induced detachment at the partially vaporized bodies on the floor. A red beam went out, then another, while pellets cracked at supersonic speed past Jennifer and her captor.

“Stop shooting,” called out a loud voice. “You’ll hit the Consort.”

In an instant return fire stopped, though the particle beams continued to wreak havoc on the far end of the hall, sending flares of plasma into the air as they converted solid objects to gas. The woman with the casts hustled her toward a lift, while two men in light combat armor fell in behind her and kept up their fire. A man and a woman waited in the lift, and as soon as everyone was aboard they hit an override box they had attached to the controls and started the car on its way down.

They would get these bastards if not for me, thought Jennifer through her befuddled mind. But Imperial Security and Police would be afraid of hurting her.

The car lurched to a stop, something from the expressions of the kidnappers had not been unexpected. They opened up the floor of the car with a laser, while one of the women strapped Jennifer into a lift harness. As soon as the floor was opened they were dropping down the shaft, past the ground floor and into the basements and subbasements. They forced the lift doors open and poured into a room that was already occupied by a half dozen of what had to be their compatriots. They wrapped her in a suit that covered her head, what she recognized as a covering that would prevent her implants from interacting with the capital computer systems. Making her impossible to track.

Jennifer was not sure how they were leaving the building, only that there was a hole in a wall, and then a downward slanting tunnel, then a car of some kind that swept them away. She had no idea how long they traveled, only that to her time sense it seemed a very long time. There was no way to know where the room was located that they brought her to. She was strapped to a chair, a needle was pushed into her arm and moments later her mind was clear.

“We’ve got the whore,” said a voice that had to be talking into a com system.

The woman who had played patient knelt in front of her. “Now we see how important you are to the Emperor,” said the woman with a smile. “For your sake I hope you are very important, or you won’t be leaving here alive.”

And then the woman was gone, and Jennifer was left alone in a featureless room. Please, get me out of this. As she had that thought she wasn’t sure it was aimed at God, or at her lover. She had a feeling that Sean would go through hell to get her back. She was sure that these people who had snatched her from the hospital were counting on that. And she was not sure if that would be good for the other trillion beings in the Empire.

*

“Dammit, I want her found,” yelled Sean at the holos over his desk that showed the heads of his various security agencies. “How in the hell did they pull something like that off, anyway?”

“I take full blame, your Majesty,” rumbled the deep voice of Lord T’lisha, a hangdog look on his crocodilian face.

“I don’t care about assigning blame,” growled the Emperor, nodding toward the big Phlistaran. “Not at this time. I just want her found, and found alive.” He looked down at the floor for a moment, then back up to the trio of faces that were looking back with shamed expressions. “How many people did we lose?”

“I lost three Marines,” said Lady Hannah, Minister of War and retired Marine. “We really didn’t expect particle beams to be used against us.”

“And you, Lord T’lisha?”

“Nine Secret Service agents, and one IIB man,” said the Phlistaran, almost choking on the words.

Sean nodded, not really knowing what to say. The big Crococentauroids looked like the most fearsome creatures in the Galaxy, but they had big hearts, especially where friends and subordinates were concerned.

“I have my best people working on it, your Majesty,” said Ekaterina Sergiov. “We will find them.”

“But will you find them before they harm her?” asked Sean through gritted teeth.

“I hope so, your Majesty,” said T’lisha, bowing his great head. “But we can guarantee nothing.”

No, thought Sean, shaking his head. Not even the safety of my love.

“They will contact us, your Majesty,” continued the Minster of Security. “There is no other reason to kidnap the Doctor other than to get leverage on yourself. But I am afraid what they ask may be more than you are willing to grant.”

And how much is that? thought Sean. My life. I would give them nothing that would hurt the Empire, but does that include myself? “Just find her,” he said, turning back toward the holos. “We’ll figure out what we can and can’t do after we accomplish that.”

Sean dismissed the chiefs and turned toward the door leading out onto the deck. The Marine guards rendered rifle salutes and started to follow him until he waved them back. He walked out onto the deck, willing the lights to dim until he stood in shadows. He looked up at the sky, at the glorious display of the heavens. There were several glowing nebula up there, if the scientists were to be believed from supernovas that shouldn’t have occurred. Some of the nearer stars blinked, until he realized those were the strobes of security patrols, which had been tripled since the news of Jennifer’s abduction.

Sean let himself get lost in the real stars, nearby clusters and gas clouds glowing. He thought of all he had lost in the last year. His father, his mother, his brothers, and their families. He started to sob, feeling the tears rolling down his face and the breath catching in his chest. There were night vision devices watching him, and at the moment he really didn’t care what they saw.

Why aren’t you still here, father? he thought through his sobs. Why didn’t this crisis come during your rule? You were so much more prepared, as was Dimitre. Why did you have to leave this mess in my lap?

Sean stood for an hour, staring at the heavens, wondering if his mother and father looked down on him. After a while the tears stopped coming, and he squared his shoulders and went back into the residence, back to the work of the Empire. And in his mind he saw the representative faces of those who had kidnapped his love, those from the security cameras that had zeroed in on them in the hospital hall. And he swore by the spirits of his father and mother, and all the Emperors before, that those who perpetrated this outrage would die. No matter what else happens, he thought as he sat at his desk. They will die.

*

UNKNOWN LOCATION, JULY 5TH, 1001.

“We are a dying people,” said Klorasof, waving a pair of tentacles in the air. “But we have no desire to complete our demise at this time.”

“But the species you have raised up in this region are in danger,” said Xavier Jackson, wondering if he was really getting anywhere with these creatures. I’ve got to stay on them, no matter what. “Would you abandon all of the species in the region to these monsters.”

“They are not monsters,” said the Ancient, his eyes focusing on the human. “They are mistaken in their philosophy. That does not make them monstrous. And besides, we are very weak.”

“Then give us your tech so we can fight them.”

“Your species is not mature enough for our technology. Not yet. Maybe in ten thousand years.”

“In a hundred years we will be gone,” exclaimed Jackson, gesturing with his open hands. “And all your precious children will be slaves of the Ca’cadasans.”

“And eventually they too will fade away,” said Klorasof, giving a couple of tentacle whips that Jackson had come to recognize as impatience. “Or they will make an error that wipes them from the Universe.”

Jackson turned away, to look at the space shown around the room sized holo they occupied. He was in one of their ships, cruising through space near the center of the Empire. And there was no way they could be detected by any known technology of his primitive people, unless the Ancients wanted them to be.

“Could you return me to my people?” asked Jackson, turning back to the alien. “If my people are going to go down fighting, I wish to go down with them.”

“I am sorry, Xavier Jackson. You know of our existence, and cannot be allowed contact with other humans. Even if you were mind wiped of all knowledge of us, your reappearance would beg too many questions.”

That’s OK, thought Jackson, looking at the view of the Galaxy around him. That gives me more opportunities to change your mind.

Chapter Twenty-two

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy.

LASHARAN HOMEWORLD, JULY 6TH THROUGH 7TH, 1001.

Baggett thought the world they were approaching looked beautiful, like all living worlds. A little more brown in the mix, wide expanses of scrub deserts across the continents. Still, the blue of oceans and white of clouds softened the globe.

“It’s time, sir,” called out his adjutant, Captain Corilla Kone.

Baggett sent back the acknowledgement and walked from his cabin, heading for the lift. Colonel Patrik Johansson came out of his cabin at the same time and threw an abbreviated salute at his CO. Johansson was the assistant brigade commander, and would be going down in the first wave. The Colonel was wearing his combat undersuit, same as the Brigadier, a skin tight garment of heavy material that was a combination of body sensor, protective cushion and repairable nanoskin.

“What did you think of the prep?” asked Baggett of his XO, walking into the waiting lift.

“It looked sufficient,” said the Colonel, who would be leading the first two battalions of the brigade to the surface. “And I have to assume it was anything but.”

Baggett nodded his head as the lift panel showed the progress of their descent to the prep bay where the first battalion was getting ready. He thought about the show Fleet had put on for them as their contingent was still hours from insertion. Hundred million ton battlestations turning into plasma, the shower of their larger bits burning in the atmosphere. Some hits on the Fleet heavy units, a couple of escorts destroyed. But the firepower differential was so overwhelmingly in their advantage, with tech thirty or more years advanced over that of the Lasharans.

And those stations, those ships, just blowing up for no reason, he thought with a smile. The Lasharans couldn’t have known what was happening to them, as masses of antimatter appeared aboard their vessels and things simply blew up. Now the bombardment force was in orbit, tossing kinetics at any likely target on the surface, while acting as targets themselves, trying to entice the enemy to fire on them so those batteries wouldn’t be around to take on the landing. They were catching a little more hell from the shore batteries, mostly because they were masked before they opened fire, so essentially got in a free shot. That was normally their only shot. And how many of them are saving themselves for us? he thought. They have to know we’re planning a landing.

The door to the lift opened and the two senior ranking men bounded onto the deck, while the officers and NCOs in the huge chamber yelled out commands for their men and women to come to attention. They lined the center of the football field sized deck, in platoons arrayed in four squares into companies, a small command section standing to the front. There were four companies in the line, with a platoon sized battalion command section in front of them. And directly in the center the oversized company formation that was part of the Brigade command, control and support section.

All were wearing the two and a half meter tall armored suits that were their weapons. The suits cost over ten million Imperials each, while the training and linkages for the human inside added another million to the cost. Baggett did a quick computation and came up with over eleven billion Imperials standing in this one room. Probably closer to thirteen, with accessories and advanced training, he thought.

He started his review at the Brigade command section, feeling dwarfed by the suits, which were all set to a silver reflective appearance for the inspection, though they could imitate just about anything in the spectrum. A couple of the squads of suits were even larger, specialized antiaircraft and anti-armor versions. Next was the battalion command platoon, and then onto the companies.

Each company had three rifle platoons and a support unit, all with more or less the same compliment of soldiers. The rifle platoons had mostly standard suits, with one command and control and one heavy weapons unit for each squad. The support platoon had about half heavy weapons suits.

“You ready to go, Dagni?” he asked the battalion CO, Lt. Colonel Thorwaldsdottir.

“Ready to kick some tall skinny red ass,” said the smiling woman, her face plate retracted so she could talk face to face with her CO.

“Well, kill skinnies and break things,” said Baggett with a smile. “And try to bring as many back as you can, yourself included.”

“Will do, sir,” said the blonde haired woman who had been in the army longer than her commander. She gave a crisp salute, her armor encased arm moving smoothly into position. “I always aim to bring my own ass home, since it means so much to me.”

Baggett returned the salute and headed for the next compartment, while Colonel Johansson headed for the armory to get into his armor. Behind him the heavy infantry troopers snapped to attention, then started to file out of the room to their launch facilities.

A long corridor led to one of the armored battalion’s ready rooms. It was filled with a company of heavy tanks and their escorting light armored platoon. The one thousand ton heavies dominated their one hundred ton scouts, and with twenty two of the monsters in the room, there was barely room for the crewmen to form for inspection. Baggett walked in front of each tank, looking closely at the light armor they wore over their skinsuits. Anything that got through their tank’s armor would probably kill them regardless of the suits, but if they had to bail, it could mean the difference between living and dying. Each of the six crew members of the first tank looked ready, as did those of the second, and so on down the line. Next were the seven light tanks, each with four crew standing to their fronts.

“Deployment in ten minutes,” shouted out a voice over the intercom.

Baggett returned the salute of the armored battalion commander, who would be going in on the second wave along with the Brigadier and his team, then shook the man’s hand. The crews started to climb in their vehicles as the Brigadier walked toward the exit, stopping to take a last look at the outer wall of the chamber, which would open to let the vehicles out into space. As soon as the crews were aboard their vehicles the floor sections retracted and another two hundred tons of attachment moved up and mated with the armored behemoths, making them essentially assault shuttles for the first part of the mission.

The Brigadier headed for his own team ready room, where the other fifty members of his command group were already suited up. His own command and control unit waited for him with open arms, literally, as well as open legs and torso. As soon as his body was seated into the front half of the suit the rear half closed up, and within moments where there had been seams there was now unitary armor.

There was a moment of discomfort as the sanitary connections were made, then a few stings as the medical connections pushed through the skin. Baggett could feel the motion sensors press into his skinsuit, and the pop of the hardwired connector sliding into his occipital port. The link through his implants came on at the same time, giving him multiple connections to the suit. Now he could move the suit, or the suit move him, depending on the need or circumstances.

He turned in the suit as the HUD came up. The crystalline matrix batteries were at full, all weapons fully loaded. The batteries would continue to absorb power from the ship’s system until he left, ensuring that he went into battle with a full energy load. He brought up another screen, projected directly onto the visual centers of his brain, and watched the take from the ship.

Particle beams and lasers were continuing to come up from the planet, striking glowing spots on the electromag screens of the bombardment force. One blast got through, and a light cruiser started gushing atmosphere into space. The hull sealed in an instant, and the light cruiser cycled shots from its laser rings and particle beam projectors back at the enemy.

Kinetic rounds plunged into the atmosphere, moving so fast they were only a flash as they hit the gas envelope, followed by another flare as they hit the ground. Mushroom clouds thrust into the stratosphere. It looked like a vid more than reality. The only thing missing are the rumbling sounds, thought the Brigadier.

The first assault ship inserted, stopping a thousand kilometers above the surface and moving over the planet, its grabbers keeping it right above the same point. First to leave the craft were the stingships, craft configured for atmospheric flight and ground attack. In less than a minute there were over a hundred of the attack craft knifing into the atmosphere, glowing dots of heat. Here and there one exploded, hit by ground fire, and the remaining craft started evasive maneuvers. Another assault ship slid into place and a hundred more stingships were on their way.

Baggett switched his view from visual to electromag emission, and the HUD exploded with a thousand different kinds of static. Ground generated static, fleet static, static from the emp blasts of exploding warheads or the hits of kinetic rounds. It was having the desired effect of blurring the targeting solutions of the enemy weapons. It was having the same effect on the human systems, but in Baggett’s mind it was worth the tradeoff. Anything that allowed the Army to get its boots on the ground with minimal casualties was fantastic in his way of thinking.

The first assault ship started spitting out insertion capsules. A little over half of them contained a heavy infantry trooper, nestled in a bubble of heat shields and electromag field projectors. They were almost half the mass of the suited trooper, and projected holographic images while absorbing or distorting incoming sensor signals. There were many decoys as well, mimicking a manned capsule in every respect, with the exception of a slightly lesser sensor absorbing/reflecting field. They were picked up just a bit easier than the manned capsules. Not by much, and not enough to make an enemy think they were anything but genuine insertion capsules. Dozens flared and burned before they reached the atmosphere, doing their duty. Scores more went up in the upper atmosphere, as well as a half dozen of the manned capsules and their cargoes. Panicked shouts came over the com, soldiers who knew they were dead moments before it actually happened.

Baggett cringed as he listened to those few calls. No one wanted to die in combat. And no one especially wanted to die while helplessly wrapped up in a carrying capsule, before they even had a chance to fight back. He could imagine how those troopers felt, locked down and praying that they would somehow be overlooked, and probably feeling some bit of guilt that their prayers might lead to the death of a comrade instead of them.

The tanks started to leave the ship a moment after the insertion capsules. Twelve hundred tons of carrier and vehicle, they were also shielded and stealthed. They also had the defensive and offensive weapons of the tank exposed and operating. The laser crosses on the side of the tank could pick off incoming weapons, while the main gun could take shore batteries under fire. And for each tank there was also a decoy coming down with similar automated defensive lasers.

At fifty kilometers above the surface the insertion capsules ejected their cargos. Over ninety percent of the troopers made it to this point, a very good number for a first wave. The capsules exploded a moment after the troopers fell out of them, filling the atmosphere with reflecting particles and debris that further eroded the ability of the enemy to track the incoming soldiers. Thousands of pieces of debris flared under fire in the next few minutes, along with a score of unlucky troopers. The rest continued to fall, gaining velocity as they accelerated under the pull of the planet’s gravity. The tanks continued to drop with the carriers, depending upon their toughness to weather the incoming fire. Of the twenty-two heavies, eighteen made it, along with four of the light scout tanks.

At five kilometers above the surface the suits started to decelerate under their grabbers. Now the troopers could fight back, and they did, firing their suit weapons at targets as they presented themselves. Here and there the signals of infantry reaching the ground blinked onto the map, followed by more, then a tank.

Baggett received the signal that his own first battalion was ready, and he switched his take as that unit went through the same procedure as the one he had been watching. He slaved his feed in with that of his Assistant Brigade Commander as that worthy was fired out by the Gallipoli. He could feel the acceleration of the firing tube as some of it bled past the carrier’s inertial compensators. The adrenaline pushed a rush of thoughts through the Colonel’s mind. Baggett could see what the man saw, transmitted to the suit by the optical sensors of the insertion capsule.

Space around the troopers was filled with fast moving objects and beams of energy. The atmosphere below was clouded by storms and masses of dust raised by kinetic strikes. Lightning flared below, then the flashes of weapons impacts. Baggett swore under his breath, looking through the Colonel’s systems at what appeared to be hell down below. And his men were dropping into that.

He was also keeping tabs on the biomonitors of all the soldiers of his first wave, and cursed as he saw some of the life signs suddenly cease. After a few minutes it was apparent that his first wave was going to suffer heavier casualties than the other one he had monitored. It was the luck of the draw, or maybe the enemy was getting a better handle on what was coming down on them. Either way, there was nothing he could do about it but look on in horror as men and women he was responsible for were blotted from existence.

He started breathing a little easier when the first battalion and its armor support was on the ground, including his ABC.

“We’re establishig a perimeter,” called up Lt. Colonel Thorwaldsdottir. “Action heavy so far.”

Baggett had to agree as he looked at the plot of the unit. The companies were forming, but some clusters of troopers were cut off and having to form their own perimeter until the rest of the battalion could get to them. Icons were dropping off the plot, troopers killed in close combat or by indirect fire weapons. The suits were tough, so the second method was unlikely to kill a soldier unless they were the victim of a direct hit. But from what he could see on the take from several troopers the ground was swarming with enemy soldiers, many of them in some form of combat armor.

“The second wave is heading down,” he told his first battalion commander on the com. As he was speaking the first insertion capsules were being fired from Gallipoli. They were scheduled to come down about thirty kilometers from the first battalion, establishing another perimeter and clearing the ground around them. Minutes later the capsules were plunging into the atmosphere, trailing fire as they built up friction. They lost about the same numbers as the first battalion, but were soon established on the ground.

“We’re ready to go, sir,” said Captain Kone, his adjutant, stomping up in her heavy suit.

“Let’s not keep the brigade waiting,” he said, letting her lead the way out of the ready room and into the hangar.

Their shuttle was just ahead, one among many in the hangar. Fifty meters in length, heavily armored and bristling with defensive weapons, the shuttle looked like the way to go in an invasion. There were limitations of course. Suited troops were boarding the other shuttles, brigade headquarters. Third battalion would be boarding their shuttles in another hangar, and as the Brigadier marched toward his ship he got the signal that the first of their vehicles were launching.

A naval rating pointed the Brigade Commander to his station, something not really needed. But the Fleet likes to pretend we can’t find our asses without their help. He stepped into the station, which locked around his suit as soon as his feet hit the floor of the cubby. He could hear other soldiers walking into their cubbies, and felt the vibrating clangs of clamps locking into place.

“Launch in one minute,” called out the pilot.

Baggett linked into the shuttle’s sensor suite and watched as they lifted from the deck and moved toward the now opening hangar doors. Several shuttles queued up ahead and left the hangar first. They thrust ahead at maximum accel, moving quickly for the atmosphere. Weapons were rising up from the surface to try and take them out, and the bombardment force let loose with a massive fire plan to blow those warheads out of existence.

The shuttle Baggett was on came out of the hangar and boosted ahead. At first the flight was smooth, in vacuum with inertial compensators working efficiently. Minutes later they were hitting atmosphere, and the ship started to buck with turbulence. Added to that the maneuvers the pilot was taking to avoid debris and warheads, and those warheads going off in nuclear blasts nearby.

I am so glad we are in heavy suits, thought the Brigadier, looking down on the planet through the shuttle sensors as they made for the surface on a least time approach. He doubted anyone in a light suit would survive in the inferno the landing sites had become, and wasn’t too sure about mediums either. He focused in on the edge of the battlefield, shaking his head as he watched the Lasharans in what had to be light suits, and many with no armor at all, hurrying to their deaths. He thought the radiation alone had to be killing most of them. But the fanatical warriors didn’t seem to care. They just wanted to kill his men and women, no matter how many they lost.

A flash appeared on the ground, and behind it a mushroom cloud rose into the sky. It was right on one of the positions a company from the first battalion was holding, and several icons blinked, then fell off the net. If they had been wearing any of the lighter armor suits it would have been a whole lot more. As it was most of those men would have received a heavy dose of radiation. Hopefully something the nanotech could take care of.

The shuttle reached the deck, then flew low toward the landing site where third battalion was going to insert. The shuttle juked all over the landscape, avoiding fire that was trying to hit it. It was doing alright, and was a minute away from the site when something hit a wing, and the shuttle flipped over in the air for just a moment. The pilot fought the shuttle and righted it, just in time to catch a missile in the nose. The explosion ran back through the body of the craft, propagated in the air of the vehicle, threatening the lives of all aboard.

The outer skin hatch blew off, and Baggett was flung out into the air by the ejection system that would have sent him out over the landing site. The other infantry were fired out at the same time, and all floated quickly toward the ground, the suits taking over for operators that were still confused. The shuttle flipped over again in the midst of its explosion, then slammed into the ground to finish the process of blowing apart.

Baggett landed and immediately took stock of where they were. Ten of his team came down to soft landings. One other was hit by another antiaircraft missile in the air and pieces of suit rained to the ground. The Brigadier grimaced, recognizing the suit as belonging to a young soldier who was one of his security detail, on his first combat assault. And a young man who would never make a second drop.

“Set up a perimeter and prepare to repel attackers,” he ordered his team over the short range com.

“Shouldn’t we fly over to the next unit?” asked one of the com techs on the team.

“You get your ass in that air right now and you’re just a big dumb target,” said Sergeant Major Terry Zacharius. “You listen to the General and keep your head down and feet on the ground.”

A moment after the words left the NCOs mouth they were under attack, waves of Lasharans coming at them and trying to overwhelm them. The only problem being that mass human wave attacks into heavy firepower normally resulted in severe losses, mostly to the attackers. Eleven suits covered the area with a firestorm of lasers, particle beams and hypervelocity pellets, leaving thousands of underequipped Lasharans in smoking piles on the ground. Radar picked up indirect fire coming in, and the team moved away from the area before it impacted. Baggett took the rear and waved his particle beam back and forth, partially vaporizing scores of skinny red skinned natives. He popped grenades over the sweep of the beam, while a com tech laid down fire with his mag rifle, sending ten five millimeter rounds out each tick of the clock at a thousand kilometers a second. The grabbers of the man’s suit took up the recoil, holding it in place, and the rounds splattered their targets, punching through creature after creature in what looked like a simultaneous line of explosions.

Another trooper fired with a heavy laser, while more grenades came looping over, each blasting a ten meter spot clear of bodies. The Lasharans kept coming, as another trooper joined in with a mag rifle, until the volume of fire was more than they could stand. The last hundred beings went screaming off the field, though very few made it. The humans had their orders, and they didn’t include letting opponents who might come back at them to make it to cover. Baggett took a quick sip of water from his helmet nozzle, not really necessary, as the suit was keeping him hydrated. Still, the mouth dried out under stress, and it was comforting to be able to suck down some liquid.

The team moved out, cutting their way through Lasharan resistance that varied between good to very poor. At one point they were actually overrun by a swarm of lightly armed natives, and they found themselves in a hand to hand fight. Baggett waded through the Lasharans, cutting down males and neuters with the monomolecular blades that extended from his gauntlets. Rounds bounced from his armor like raindrops on a metal roof, and he cringed at the sound, always wondering when something heavy or fast enough would come in to punch through. One Lasharan struck him in the arm with a sword that must have sported a monomolecular blade itself. The blade penetrated a centimeter into the tough armor. Baggett smashed his other fist into the face of the Lasharan, and the alien’s visage exploded into a mass of purplish blood and white bone fragments as his body flew away through the air. A swing of both arms cleared the fanatics away for a moment, then a blast of his particle beam rifle opened a path the team could run through. And run they did, pushing the suits up to a hundred kilometers an hour. Unfortunately, the clear run only lasted a couple of kilometers, then they were bogged down yet again, only able to survive because of the orbital support they could call in.

They were low on ammunition, mostly reduced to using lasers, which had a difficult time reaching through the obscuring smoke, when the men from the nearest company fought their way to them. By that time eleven had been reduced to six, and Captain Corilla Kone was not among them. Baggett had last seen her burst open suit, smoking from the torched meat inside it, five kilometers back.

*

ELYSIUM, JULY 7TH, 1001.

“The damned Knockermen led us into a trap,” said High Lord Grarakakak to the human Ambassador to the Elysium Empire, Horatio Alexandropolis. “We didn’t realize that they had as many ships as they had.”

“Does your intelligence service have any idea from where they got these ships?” asked Horatio, hoping that the answer wasn’t from his people.

“They appear to be of Fenri construction,” said the High Lord with his species' equivalent of a scowl. “Oh, there were enough differences to give that Empire some deniability. But the design is essentially theirs.”

“You know we’re at war with them?” asked Alexandropolis with a raised eyebrow.

“So our intelligence service has told us,” said the avian. “Or at least as much of a service as we still have in their space. From what we can gather, they had planned this little adventure by the Knockermen well before they plotted their attack on your Empire. Good show on the preemptive strike by the way. Our governing body might have raised hell about that before we found out about their supplying the Knockermen. Now they will want to give you an honorarium for hitting those little bastards.”

The servant came into the office with refreshments, including some pastries made with the distinctive Brakakak sugar. Horatio accepted a plate with some of the delicacies, then nodded for a refill of his bourbon. They waited for the servant, also a Brakakak, to leave before resuming their talk.

“How badly hurt were you?” asked Horatio after swallowing his bite of pastry.

“Badly enough. We destroyed their force entirely, but lost about half of the fleet we had in pursuit of them. Not that much of our total fleet, maybe a tenth. But now we can’t afford to release any for other actions at this time.”

Meaning to help us, thought the Ambassador around a swallow of good whiskey imported from his Empire.

“I had a brother with that fleet,” said the High Lord, placing his empty glass on the end table by his chair. “He commanded the battle line.”

“Is he OK?” asked Horatio with a sinking feeling.

“He died in the first minutes of the ambush, his flagship blasted from space.”

“I am so very sorry, High Lord,” said Horatio, closing his eyes for a moment. He had met the High Lord’s brother several years before, and knew how important family was to the avians. He doubted that the Knockermen would have much of a proponent in the High Lord after this. They were going to face a harsh retribution at the end of their revolt.

“I have come to a decision, my friend,” said the High Lord, his luminous green eyes looking into those of the human. “While I cannot release any ships at this time, I am willing to send a party of officers, for, let us say, a liaison mission. So that we may more easily integrate our militaries when the time comes.”

“Why, that is great news, my Lord,” said the Ambassador. “I am sure our military leadership will be happy to allow your people access to our command structure. Who are you thinking of sending?”

“I would like to send High Admiral Gronakaba,” said the High Lord with a very human smile.

“The commander of your fleet,” said Horatio, almost dropping his glass and spilling whisky on his jacket. “That, uh, is quite an honor, my Lord.”

“He’s not doing us any good here in our space,” said the High Lord with a sigh. “I am afraid that crushing the remainder of the Knockermen revolt will be more a series of small unit actions. I see no better use for our best naval commander than getting him acclimated to an alliance command structure.”

“And we will be getting a battle fleet from the Elysium Empire?” asked Horatio, hating to have to keep harping on that question.

“Most assuredly,” said the High Lord, picking up a pastry. “The Fenri are implicated in a rebellion our realm, and are now in an alliance with your enemy. Even the obstructionists will not be able to stop me now.”

The High Lord took a sip of whisky, then looked into the human’s eyes. “From what we can determine this might become a long war, your Empire against these Ca’cadasans. We are increasing our military production, and I have ordered the doubling of our shipyards. If we are to come in on your side we must win. From what our intelligence service has learned, a loss would mean the end of our way of life. So we are determined that we, and you, must not lose.”

And that is good news for us, my friend, thought Horatio, leaning back in his chair and taking another sip of whiskey. Coming on top of such horrible news about the death of a sibling. I’m sorry it had to hurt your people, and you, but if it helps mine, I’m happy that it happened.

Chapter Twenty-three

A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron. Joseph Stalin.

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, JULY 8TH, 1001.

“And unless the Emperor comes to meet with us, alone, the woman will die,” said the masked man on the holo. “And I can assure you that her death will not be quick, or painless.”

The holo zoomed in on Jennifer, sitting in a chair with police style restraints on her wrists. She looked frightened, but also angry, as her eyes glared at one of her captors off the view.

“And if you do not come, we will know you for the coward that you are. And so will the people of the Empire.” The holo faded, leaving the viewers with their thoughts.

“You of course will not meet with them,” said Senior Agent Catherine Mays, head of the Imperial Security Detail. Behind her Colonel Ian McCaffrey, the CO of the current Marine regiment deployed for the Emperor’s protection, nodded his head.

“I will not let her die,” said Sean, turning on the two people responsible for his protection. “We will get her out of there, no matter the cost.”

“Your Majesty,” said Colonel McCaffrey after clearing his throat. “It would be a disaster for the Empire to lose you at this time.”

“So next week would be better?” asked Sean, glaring at the officer. “We will get her out of there, no matter the cost. But I have no intention of being killed by them.” He looked to the holo over the table, which now showed the face of Ekaterina Sergiov. “Just what are we dealing with here, Kat?”

“A very professional organization,” said the head of IIA. “Professional enough to fly under our sensors.”

“How in the hell did they get people into the hospital?” asked McCaffrey.

“Getting into a hospital is not really a difficult insertion,” said Sergiov, looking off holo for a moment. “In fact, there is almost no way to prevent people from coming and going from a public health establishment. That was one reason it was recommended that Doctor Conway not practice in that kind of facility. If she wanted to play doctor, there are plenty of secure intelligence or military facilities for her to do so.”

“She thought that request would be denied,” said Sean, looking down. “I tried to tell her different, but she insisted on working with what she called regular people.

“Being a doctor is part of her identity, Kat,” said Sean, scrunching his face in emotional pain as he thought about his love in the hands of people who saw her as nothing more than a pawn. “But your point is well taken,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at the IIA chief in the holo. “When we get her out we will worry about where to let her practice.”

“I really don’t see how we are going to be able to get her out,” said Agent Mays. “Any move we make on them, even if we knew where they were, would lead to her death. And we can’t let you go into a viper’s nest.”

“How much do they know about our tech?” asked Sean, looking from face to face. “I mean our state of the art military tech?”

“I think they know we have wormholes,” said Sergiov, her eyes narrowing. “And I really don’t think they would see those as a threat.”

“Then we have to make it a threat,” said Sean, slapping the top of the table. “And maybe throw some other tech at them that they are not expecting.”

Sean outlined his thinking, and the frowns grew as he talked.

“Very well thought out, your Majesty,” said Director Sergiov. “But what if they just blow your head off with a particle beam as soon as they have you in their hands.”

“I think they will try to get what they can from me,” said Sean, shaking his head. “They can get more use out of me alive. And if they decide to just kill me, well, that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

“And we are not willing to take that chance, your Majesty,” said Agent Mays.

“And who is the Emperor here?” said Sean, coming to his feet and giving the woman a harsh stare. “I am in charge. Not you. Not the Chiefs of Staff. Not Lord T‘lisha or Director Sergiov. I am in charge. What I say goes. And I say we are going to take a risk, with my life on the line, to get Jennifer Conway back. So no more arguing about what you are willing to do or not do. We are going to do this, so put your heads together and come up with a way to make it work. Is that clear?”

Heads nodded, and no one seemed willing to say anything.

“Get in touch with them by whatever means they left. I will talk with them, and agree to their terms. While the rest of you plan and scheme. Which is what I pay you for anyway.”

The people cleared the room and the holo faded, leaving Sean alone with his own thoughts. He could feel the tears starting to come and forced them back. Not another one, he thought, images of his parents and brothers coming to mind, then the image of his love. Not another damned one. He slammed his hand into the table again and stormed from the room. There were preparations to make, and he didn’t want to keep his future kidnappers waiting.

*

LASHARAN HOMEWORLD, JULY 8TH, 1001.

The twin suns rose over a scene out of the most horrific visions of hell. Bodies as far as the eye could see. Whole bodies, eviscerated bodies, pieces of bodies. Smoke rising into the air, making the two orange globes larger than normal.

Samuel Baggett looked over that field, his optics focusing in on whatever he wanted to expand and examine. After several minutes of searching he was not sure he wanted to see any more. Behind him was his brigade, or at least the two thirds of it that remained. They had excavated a bunker during the night, moving the badly wounded and recoverable dead into its cover. Shuttles had attempted to evacuate as many as possible. Most had made it. Some had been shot down. A few of those on the way in, filled with supplies. Others on the way out, filled with wounded who would never make it to treatment aboard the assault ships and their state of the art hospitals.

Also behind him were scores of replenishment cylinders that had been dropped through the night, giving his troopers the replacement batteries and ammo they needed to fight. The suits could run for a week in a low or no combat environment. Unfortunately, that was not what they were engaged in. There was talk of dropping Marine heavy infantry in to replace their casualties later in the day. Right now he felt good about his position. They were occupying four hill tops arrayed in a long oval, twenty kilometers long by twelve wide. For heavy infantry it was a perfect arrangement, giving them a good perimeter with enough separation to keep them from taking heavy casualties from small yield nukes. The tanks were dug in between the hills, with a couple on the top of each one, and his indirect support weapons were emplaced inside the oval.

Yeah, it was a great position, but where they needed to be was still twenty kilometers ahead, on the edge of the large city. The Cathedral of the Death Gods of the Lasharans. It was said to be the primary holy place on the holy planet of those dark Gods, and the aliens seemed willing to give those deities all of their lives in sacrifice to keep that holy place free of the feet of infidels. And we’re going to give your Gods a good old human fuck you, thought Baggett, calling up a map and planning his route of march toward that holy place.

*

“We must stop them,” yelled the Ahmadhi-ghasta to his local ground force commander. “No matter what it takes, they must not set foot in the holy of holies.”

“I have almost nothing left,” said the cowed General in return, his motion eyes closed in the stress of the moment. “All we have are armed civilians, and they cannot stand against their heavy infantry.”

“Throw them at the enemy anyway. It does not matter if we use up every male and neuter on the planet. The woman and children too. If they get through to the temple the Gods will turn their faces away from us.”

“They may have already,” said the General, his motion eyes opening wide. “How else could they get their force onto the planet?”

“The Gods help us when we struggle,” said Mallakan, glaring at the neuter. “We must show our faith, and then they will show us their power. Now, stop those humans from getting to our temple.” Like the half dozen temples they have already marched into, thought the supreme cleric of the Church of the Gods Vengeful. And what in all the hells happened to that damned cousin of mine, the Grand Admiral? Is he still fighting, or did he give up and run?
If he ran I will have him skinned alive in front of the faithful. Mallakan looked at the plot that showed their best understanding of the situation on the planet. If we have any faithful left to sacrifice him in front of. Where are the Gods when we need them?

Mallakan slapped himself in the head, angry at his lack of faith. We will stop them. And then we will crusade into their realm, and utterly destroy their culture. Maybe not me, but surely a future generation.

“The attack is going in, Ahmadhi-ghasta” called a com tech.

Mallakan sent an acknowledgement, then linked into the sensor platforms that were at that front. Moments later he wished that he hadn’t.

*

“We got movement,” called one of the forward scouts.

Baggett tapped into the tactical net and saw what that scout was seeing through his optics. It was more than just movement. It was a swarm. A mass migration of what had to be tens of millions of Lasharans heading right for his brigade. Many of them were coming out of the city, though there were some coming from open lands who had either walked there from other communities, or had been transported there by mass transit. It really didn’t matter how they got there. They were there, and he was sure they weren’t a welcoming committee from the city.

The orbital take was even more frightening. Infrared of what looked like a tide rolling in. Radar images smudged by bursts of static, but still showing a mass of movement. Baggett looked at the take for another moment, then started to issue his battle orders. He switched back to an image from the scout, actually one from the recent past, as that soldier was moving back to the relative safety of the brigade perimeter. His breath caught in his chest as he saw the smaller figures in front of the mass. He zoomed in and was horrified to see the distinctive forms of small children leading the way, along with the females who were their caretakers.

The bastards, he thought. The Lasharans were trying to use human psychology against them. And he had no choice but to ignore that attempt. His responsibility was to his own people, his Army, and his Empire. He would surely feel the guilt of killing children, even if they weren’t of his own species. And he would do it to the best of his ability to carry out his mission.

The indirect fire weapons started to shoot, sending shells out that looped into the air, then plunged to the ground in a two kilometer wide zone in front of his positions. A minefield, laid out along the enemy avenue of advance. Radar showed enemy shells coming in, most blasted from the sky by the anti-air assets of the brigade, or from the ships in orbit. A few went off with nuclear fury, doing more damage to their own force than Baggett’s. A couple got through, and one megaton warheads sent mushroom clouds into the sky, rising within his perimeter. A dozen of his troopers’ icons blinked, indicating injured soldiers, while several flashed and faded out, the sign of a kill. But his men were heavy infantry, dug into the ground and encased in tough suits, and a small nuke would have to hit within a hundred meters to have an effect on such men.

The mass of Lasharans reached the minefield. As the enemy came within the optimal profile of the weapons they fired, tossing lasers disks or explosive shells into the air. The laser disks rose to a meter and let off with a blast of coherent light that cut through everything for ten meters in every direction. The explosive shells went off and sent balls of smaller charges into the mass below. Wherever one struck it penetrated and exploded. Tens of thousands of Lasharans went down, and the rest of the mass ran over them.

The tanks and mortars fired next. Flat trajectory rounds, accelerated to five hundred thousand meters a second out of the railguns of the armored vehicles, then tore through the mass, ripping apart every being for thirty meters in each direction to the side of the shell. The projectiles ripped through for kilometers before flying off into the air as they continued straight and the planet curved. Mortar rounds came down as they had for over two thousand years, detonating above the mass and sending razor sharp fragments on a descending trajectory that killed more thousands.

As the mass alien wave attack came closer the tanks and infantry opened up with their anti-personnel weapons. Particle beams ripped out and vaporized bodies that got in their way by the thousands. Same with heavy lasers, while the mass of mag weapons shots out millions of hypervelocity pellets. The front of the Lasharan mass for a hundred meters wilted under the fire, bodies blasting apart, while those behind them continued to push forward. Fire was coming in, mostly from weapons that were not a long range threat to the heavy suits. There were exceptions to that, and some hypervelocity pellets and beams weapons were striking the ground around the front lines.

Icons started to blink, showing troopers taking damage, a few even dropping off the net. And still the Lasharans kept coming, the rumbling of their screaming voices coming through the roar of weapons’ fire and explosions. And the Brigadier could see on the tactical net that they were going through ammo at an alarming rate.

Baggett connected with the naval support net and started talking. “This is bagger one three, fire mission. Danger close. Enemy infantry in the open. I am highlighting their positions on the tactical plot. Will adjust.”

The tactical support center aboard a heavy cruiser acknowledged the call, and a moment later what looked like a beam of light came streaking down from the heavens. A flash appeared on the ground about five kilometers away, and a mushroom cloud started its stately rise into the sky.

“On target,” called out Baggett. “Now box them.”

Two more kinetic rounds came down, then another pair, striking at the edges of the mass of Lasharans. “Fire for effect,” yelled Baggett. A moment later rounds started coming down en mass, the flashes coming so fast it looked like lightning bolts striking during a heavy storm. The ground shook and rumbled underneath and the view in front was totally obscured by dust, only the flashes still showing through.

Baggett took a look at the orbital take, and recoiled at the sight of what could only be called hell, one he wouldn’t even want his worst enemy to go to. There were still living Lasharans on that view, but not in the kill zone. Those still alive were either standing in place, totally shocked, or streaming away in a panic.

“Get ready to move out,” yelled Baggett over the brigade command circuit. He wanted to get through the kill zone and to the temple before the Lasharans regained their wits. Not that he didn’t think they couldn’t fight their way through them. He just didn’t want to lose any more of his men, and he especially was tired of slaughtering the fanatical civilians.

Tanks rolled out of their positions, infantry formed up around them, and the brigade started forward. It took several hours to reach the temple, crunching over bodies and pieces, most burned almost beyond recognition. Baggett was happy to be breathing the recycled air of the suit, avoiding the stench that had to be horrible beyond belief. And in a day or two it will be so much worse.

Then the temple was ahead, surrounded by real soldiers in combat armor. It was still a short vicious fight, their equipment no match for that of his people. As soon as the enemy soldiers were put down he ordered a platoon onto the temple building, wanting to finish the mission and get off the charnel house of a planet.

The first man was just about to walk onto the steps of the temple when the weapon went off. It was not a small weapon s far as ground support warheads went, more like one in the forty megaton range. It took out the temple and much of the city for kilometers in each direction. It killed the platoon that had been detailed to occupy the temple grounds, and injured over a hundred other troopers. And Baggett stood there with tears rolling down the face he couldn’t touch, his HUD showing the damage his brigade had taken. Those fucking fanatics, he thought, staring at the cloud that was rising over the city. Just so we couldn’t step into their damned temple, they destroyed the entire city.

Soon the casualty figures for the entire operation started coming into his data link. Baggett swore as he saw the number of humans who had died, fifty percent more than they had estimated. The Phlistaran casualties were even worse. The centaroids could carry very heavy armor and a lot of firepower. But they were not built to hug the ground like the humans, and so made much better targets.

Baggett’s thoughts went back to the temple blowing up in his face, something he was still having trouble coming to terms with. He still didn’t believe what had happened an hour later when the shuttles started taking his men back up to the ships. He was just starting to accept it many hours later when they broke orbit, and he stood looking at the ruined planet they were leaving behind.

*

The Ahmadhi-ghasta Mallakan knelt before the altar of his Gods in his private shelter and thanked them for the humans not being able to desecrate the holiest place on the planet. The cost had been great, but worth it.

There was shouting outside the chapel, the door burst in, and the figure of Grand Admiral Lissana Mallakan walked into the room.

“Where were you?” demanded the High Bishop, coming to his feet.

“I was out leading fighting beings,” said the Admiral, looking at his cousin with cold eyes. “And where were you, while so many of our people were dying?”

“I was here, praying to the Gods that the holy places would not be touched by the aliens.”

“First it was that they would not enter our home system,” growled the Admiral, ticking off on a finger. “Then it was that they would not set foot on the planet. Then that they would not set foot on the holy places. And what if they had. Would the next deadline be that they would never piss on the temple floor?”

“Watch your blasphemous mouth,” roared the High Bishop. “I could have you impaled, or skinned alive.”

“We lost over four billion of our population today,” said the Grand Admiral, acting as if he hadn’t heard the High Bishop. “Over eighty percent of every being that lived on this planet before the humans came.”

“It was a great sacrifice,” said Mallakan, giving a head gesture of agreement. “A necessary sacrifice.”

“My female and neuter died in the blast that destroyed the capital city,” growled the Grand Admiral, walking up to the High Bishop. “Our children died in that blast, all to prevent the humans from putting boots on the ground at the temple.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” said the High Bishop, bowing his head. “For all of our losses. But they were necessary.”

“Then I guess one more sacrifice is necessary,” said the Grand Admiral, unsnapping his holster and pulling his laser pistol from it.

“What are you doing?” asked the High Bishop, staring at the weapon.

“Only what is necessary,” said the Admiral, aiming the pistol at the High Bishop’s head. “You will be a hero to the people, dying as you did, trying to stop the enemy from desecrating the holy places.”

“Are you mad?” said the High Bishop. It was the last thing to ever come from his mouth, as the laser beam burned through his skull and vaporized his brain in an instant.

Chapter Twenty-four

The office of Emperor seems to be one of privilege, but it is anything but. The office of Emperor is a position of duty. And Emperor has no rights, no privilege other than service to his people. Empress Victoria Romanov, Victoria the Tragic.

CAPITULUM, JEWEL, JULY 9TH, 1001.

Sean was really worried that the unavoidable delay might have doomed Jennifer. That scared the hell out of him, but it couldn’t be helped. No good would have come from going in unprepared, so that he and Jennifer would both die. It had taken the time it had taken to get the assets needed in place. The military had howled just a bit when he had asked them for what he needed. A couple of words as their Commander in Chief had silenced the objections.

The Emperor waited at the appointed place. His security had wanted to conceal themselves in the area, but he forbade that. They had howled about that, but again, a word as Emperor and they had let him do what he wanted. Which is the way it should be, he thought, standing there waiting, hoping that the Secret Service wasn’t right about his just setting himself up as a target.

The subway tunnel had been evacuated, no one within ten horizontal kilometers of this point. He had insisted on that, and was hoping that his security chiefs would follow his orders to the letter. If they didn’t there was not much he could do about it now. Later would be another story, if there was a later.

There was a slight grinding sound from part of the wall behind the Emperor. He turned quickly, seeing a panel open that had not been there a moment before. It slid back and to the side, then in, a two meter square section of ferocrete wall. After it retreated for a meter it slid aside, revealing a dark opening. A light flashed out of the opening, the agreed upon signal, and Sean walked forward, knowing that he was being observed on the subway system cameras, and that his prospective kidnappers were not.

As soon as he cleared the door it started to close behind him. When it sealed into place the lights came on, and Sean found himself face to face with a trio of humans, two men and a woman, all masked and pointing weapons at him.

“I didn’t think you would have the balls to actually come,” said the woman, waving one of the others forward.

“I really didn’t think you would be stupid enough to come,” said one of the men, running a sensor wand over the Emperor. “He’s clean, except for the normal implants. Wait a second,” continued the man, running the wand over Sean’s left forearm again. “There’s something here.” He ran the wand over Sean’s forearm yet again, looking at a holo screen that popped up over the device.

Sean tried to keep his face blank, hoping that the kidnappers didn’t catch on. If they figured he was carrying something that might give him an advantage he was screwed. He might be able to take them out, if he acted fast enough. But taking them out here would not save Jennifer. And making a move early might just get him killed for no purpose.

“It’s just a piece of inert metal as far as I can tell,” said the man with the wand. “What’s it there for,” he asked the Emperor, gesturing toward his forearm.

“I had a bad break as a child,” said Sean, allowing just enough nervousness to show on his face to make his presentation look legit. “They replaced the bone with carbon nanotubes wrapped around hard alloy.”

“Makes sense to me,” said the man, looking over at the woman who seemed to be the leader. The man stuck Sean with a needle and looked at the holo screen. “It’s definitely him, not a body double.” Next the man checked his clothing, pushing and prodding, grunting when he was satisfied that it wasn’t impact armor.

“OK. Get the suit on him.”

The second man tossed a coverall to Sean. “Put that on, your Majesty.”

“You’re in a shielded area,” said the woman, nodding toward the suit. “But we’re going to be traveling through places that don’t have such shielding, so I insist that you put on that suit so you won’t be connected to the net.”

“Go ahead, pretty boy,” said the man who had run the wand over him, now pointing his gun at Sean. “Put the damned suit on, and we can take you to the whore.”

Sean felt his face flush, and he almost activated the system that would allow him to destroy the man. He held back, knowing that such a move would doom Jennifer. He put the suit on, making sure to seal it at the wrists and ankles after pulling on the gloves and boots. He pulled the hood over his head and the transparent mask across his face, while one of the men connected a small breathing system to the suit.

“Now, your Majesty, you are ready to travel,” said the woman. “We know you are enhanced, like all your line. So are some of my people, and I would recommend not doing anything stupid. Not if you want to see the bitch. Now, follow me, and remember that the men with me have weapons on you at all times.”

Sean nodded and followed the woman from the room into a downward sloping tunnel. He looked at everything as he walked, sure that the kidnappers would think he was totally cut off from his security forces. And knowing that he was anything but.

*

Jennifer sat in the chair staring straight ahead. There were three people in the room with her, all wearing holo masks to obscure their faces. Normally that would be a good thing. The kidnappers wouldn’t want to give their identities away to someone they might let go. In this case she didn’t think it meant that at all. They just wanted to give her the false hope that might keep her calm. Nothing else.

He can’t come, she thought, the ambivalent feelings warring within her. She didn’t want to die, but she also didn’t want Sean to put himself in the hands of these people. Not just because it would mean his death, after they got what they wanted out of him. She loved him as a man, not as an Emperor. That said, it was really more important to the Empire that he survive, no matter the cost to her.

“We have him,” said one of the men, the one she thought of as the nice one, as compared to the other two who looked like they would love to rape and kill her. At least that’s what their body language said.

Why the hell did you have to put yourself in their hands, she thought, denying the sense of relief she felt for a moment. You couldn’t be so stupid as to let these people get a hold of you.

Unless he had something up his sleeve that the kidnappers wouldn’t think about. She couldn’t imagine what that was, but she was not an expert on the military, or the intelligence game. She could only hope that the brain trust had figured out a way. But she still couldn’t see why they would let him put his head in a trap. Because he’s the damned Emperor, she thought, and he’ll do what he wants.

“He’ll be here in five minutes,” said the nice guy, walking away toward the door.

“And then we’ll cut your throat in front of him,” said another of her captors in her ear. “And let him watch you die before we kill him, and leave your Empire in disarray.”

Then please don’t come, Sean, she thought, cringing from the closeness of the cruel man. But it was already too late, and he was in their hands.

*

“We have them at three thousand meters depth, moving northeast,” came the voice of the Marine Master Sergeant who was monitoring the Emperor.

Senior Agent in Charge Catherine Mays was looking through the Emperor’s own eyes as he moved through the tunnels with the enemy agents, for such they had determined them to be. But whose? That was the question. Ekaterina Sergiov was also on the link, along with Lord T’Lisha and several other chiefs. She would worry about the question of who they were later. Right now the only thing any of the security people were concerned about was the safe return of the Emperor. And why does he have to be so bullheaded. Of course they had to obey him. He was the Monarch they swore their oaths to. But if he died they would still become the scapegoats. Not that she really cared about that part. If Sean was killed they all deserved to be canned.

The Emperor kept looking around, doing his part, and the kidnappers had to think he was just extremely curious. They thought he was off the net, and so he was. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t linked in to the security apparatus.

“What a wonderful intelligence tool this would make,” said Sergiov over the com, obviously talking to Lord T’Lisha.

Just too damned expensive, thought the Secret Service Agent. Putting a wormhole in a com link had not proven as challenging as many had thought. It was just too expensive a proposition, and they couldn’t afford to place untraceable links into the heads of many operatives, if any. This was thought to be important enough to do so, and the enemy they were working against had no idea that they were being tracked, despite all their precautions.

“Turning to the north,” came the call of the Master Sergeant. “Moving on a downward slant.”

And on the tactical plot in the command center the dot that showed the Emperor moved along a map, some of which was being generated as he moved through the area and matched with what they already had of the city’s underground. The vid take from the Emperor’s link was being fed into computers and compared to pictures from that underground, giving the security people a very good idea of what the area looked like. And moving through the tunnels above were hundreds of Secret Service Agents in light combat armor, the strike force, getting as close as they could to the Emperor’s destination before it was time to move.

“Just follow the plan,” said the Senior Agent under her breath. So far everything was going according to plan. So she wondered when things were going to head for the shitter, just like they always did.

*

“No one is following,” said one of the men to the woman in charge. “The takes from all the sensors are clear.”

Sean looked at the man, who was still hidden behind a mask. He memorized the body language, the gestures, the voice, anything he might be able to use in the future to identify the man. But you are not going to get away from me, you shit. You are all dead. If we can capture some of you and get some information out of you, great. Then you die.

“Calm down, your Majesty,” came a voice through his link into his auditory centers. “The time will come, but not yet.”

He sent back a reply by thought. He really didn’t like the idea of a handler, but the people he paid to handle security insisted. He followed the order and lowered his blood pressure with a thought, then said a calming mantra. One of the men looked over at him and huffed a laugh. He thinks I’m scared. Good. The more helpless they think me the better. He looked down at the floor, away from making eye contact with any of his captors. He didn’t want them to see the anger in his eyes.

“In you go, your Majesty,” said the woman in charge as they came to a small underground car. There were more men waiting inside, and Sean was sure that they would feel confident of being able to handle him with six armed agents.

He climbed into the car, the door slid closed, and the car accelerated on a maglev track. The trip only took two minutes, but probably covered twenty kilometers. A check on his link verified that fact, as well as that his security had him pinpointed and the strike force was keeping up with him by flying above ground.

The car stopped at a small station, and the woman gestured for the Emperor to step out. “Get out of the suit,” she ordered, and Sean looked up to see that the ceiling of the station was set with superconducting wires, shielding any contact from the net that they didn’t control. He took a look around the room as he pulled his gloves and boots off, then the hood and the rest of the suit, giving his monitors a good look.

“I want to see Jennifer,” he said to the woman in charge as soon as he dropped the suit to the ground.

“You’ll see her when we decide to let you see her,” said the woman. “First you will answer some of our questions.”

“That I will not do,” said Sean, crossing his arms over his chest. “Until I see the woman you will get nothing from me.”

“I’ll bet we can make you talk,” said one of the men, making a move toward Sean.

“He will tell us nothing,” said the woman, shaking her head. “He is of the Imperial line. They are conditioned to resist any kind of duress. He will only talk to us if we give him something he wants. So yes,” she said, looking at the Emperor. “You may see the woman. And then you will talk with us, or she will suffer for your silence. In front of you.”

Are you one of them? thought Sean, looking at the woman for a moment. He was sure there were more of the shape shifters in his realm. From what he understood they could reproduce by fission, so one penetrating the Empire could have led to hundreds of them by now.

They led him through a number of chambers, then down a long corridor to another room. There were a half dozen people here, all armed with military class weapons. All glaring at Sean as he walked into the chamber.

“He wants to see the bitch,” said one of the men who was escorting him. With a nod one of the guards went to the door and pushed a panel. The door opened, and the woman in charge gestured for Sean to go into the room.

Sean’s heart leapt in his chest as he saw Jennifer strapped to the chair in the center of the room. That heart fell in the next instant as his fear overran his elation.

“Why did you have to come?” said Jennifer, tears in her eyes.

“I had to save you,” said Sean, starting toward her. Two men grabbed his arms to prevent him from going forward.

“You’re not going to save anyone,” said one of the men into his ear. “You’re going to watch her die, and then wish you had.”

Sean felt the rage come on, and he wanted more than anything to tear these two men apart.

“Calm down, your Majesty,” came a steady voice over the link. “We’re moving into position. Just give us five minutes.”

I don’t know if we have five minutes, thought Sean back into the link, frantically trying to come up with a way to buy time.

“You have me,” said Sean, turning toward the woman in charge. “Let her go. She can do nothing to you.”

“I’m afraid that’s not in the plan, your Majesty,” said the woman in an icy cold tone. “Neither of you will leave this hideout alive. How much pain you both endure while you are still alive is totally up to you.”

“Please. I beg you. I will tell you everything you want to know. Just let her go.”

“I think I might just kill the bitch right now,” said one of the men. He pulled out a laser pistol and aimed it at her head.

Sean tensed as he sent the command through his link. “Not yet, your Majesty. We’re not in position.”

I don’t care, sent Sean, staring at the man with the pistol to his lover’s head. Do it, now. He pushed a decorative button on his cuff, activating the field of the high tech impact armor, then sent the commands through his link.

A pain shot through his left arm, the wormhole in the metal block expanding, ripping through muscle and tendons. That was nothing compared to the agony that came next, as a large object was shoved through the now expanded hole, completing the rip of the forearm muscles.

A moment later a thick gas filled the room, transported in by a quantum teleportation device. Of course not all of the gas made it into the room. Some went into the adjoining chambers, with the same effect as this chamber, knocking some of the kidnappers off their feet to land unconscious on the ground.

Sean wrenched free of his captors, raised his left arm at the same time as the gas appeared, and triggered the laser that was in his arm. The agony before was as nothing, and Sean clamped down his jaws while the X-ray laser beam cut through his own flesh, vaporizing half of his left hand. He swept the beam through the gun arm of the man holding the weapon to Jennifer’s head, cutting it cleanly from the body to drop to the floor. The man stared at it for a moment before his eyes rolled up and he followed his limb to the floor.

Some of the gas was teleported inside the bodies, and Sean felt light headed for a moment until the nanites that had been programmed to attack the gas molecules went to work. Nanobubbles released oxygen into his system, obviating the need to breath. He still had to keep his mouth shut and remember to not breath in, despite the urge to scream his lungs out.

Something hit him hard in the shoulder, the impact armor stiffening up and stopping the round from penetrating all the way through. He spun and fell to see the woman in charge still on her feet and tracking him with a pistol. He swept his arm across her body and triggered the X-ray laser, cutting through her like a sword blade. Her upper body slid off the angle of the cut, and Sean stared at the internal structure that was revealed. As he had thought, that structure was not human, and she was a shifter.

The door opened, and a pair of men tried to run in at the same time, weapons questing. Sean cut them in half with the laser, then shot a blast through the door. The floor was shaking underneath, and the rumbles of explosions sounded in the distance. Sean shot down another man, then fought to stay conscious, knowing that if he blacked out there would be no one to defend Jennifer or himself.

The light faded in front of him, and a distant scream sounded in his ears. Then he knew nothing, his last thought wondering if he would wake up again.

*

JULY 11TH AND 12TH, 1001.

Sean opened his eyes lying in bed, the face of the woman he had risked everything for looking down at him.

“He’s awake,” yelled Jennifer over her shoulder, then smiled at him. “You were an idiot.”

“So they got there in time,” said Sean, watching as Ekaterina Sergiov and Senior Secret Service Agent Mays came into the room, just ahead of the doctor. Lord T’Lisha came stomping in next, along with CNO McCollum. He looked back at the woman. “If it worked, it was genius.”

“And you will never do such a thing again, your Majesty,” said Ekaterina Sergiov, a frown on her face. “Do you hear me?”

Sean nodded as he studied the woman’s face. The same name as my last ship, he thought, telling himself to look up her lineage and see how she was related to that long dead Duke. “Where am I?”

“You are at the Naval Hospital in the Hexagon, your Majesty” said the Doctor, the rank of a Captain on her lab coat. “You are recovering nicely, but I would like to keep you here for observation tonight.”

Sean looked at his left forearm. It was in a cast, and he could tell by the shape that his hand was gone. So, I won’t be playing basketball for a month or so, he thought, not really looking forward to a regrowth procedure, but glad nonetheless that it could be done.

“What about the kidnappers? Did we capture any?”

“They fought hard,” said Agent Mays. “But we captured the ones the gas rendered unconscious. Seven of them. They are being transferred to Purgatory for questioning.”

“There was a shape shifter among them,” said Sean, looking over at Sergiov.

“We actually found three of the bastards, your Majesty,” said Sergiov, her frown turning upside down. “One of them was still alive, and we’re making sure it remains that way.”

“I want to talk with it as soon as I’m able.”

“Is that a good idea, your Majesty?” asked Mays. “We really don’t know all of its capabilities.”

“I don’t have to be in the same room with it,” said Sean, reaching over and taking Jennifer’s hand in his right. “I would rather walk naked across a room full of Tau Ceti vipers.”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning, your Majesty.”

After everyone else had left the room he sat with Jennifer, her holding tightly onto his hand. They watched the news holo, and Sean flinched as the scene in the chamber played back before his eyes. He sucked in his breath as his image on the holo fired the X-ray laser through his own flesh.

“How in the hell did GNN get this footage,” said Sean, disturbed that it had gotten out on the news net so quickly. Someone had received a lot money for that, and a few someones might be facing jail time.

“That was the bravest thing I have ever seen,” said Jennifer, tears coming from her eyes again as she watched the holo. “And if I ever see you do anything like that again I will kill you, your Majesty.”

The talking heads seemed to agree with his consort. The talk was all about how irrational and headstrong this Emperor was. “And to risk his life, and the continuation of the government, for a commoner,” said a member of the Lords who was a guest on the news show. “This shows to myself and many of the Lords that this man lacks the maturity to lead the Empire in time of war. Maybe in peace time, where he would have some room to grow. But in a war? He needs to turn the running of the Empire over to those with more experience and sit as a figurehead until he learns how to rule. And that means not going off on adventures that put him at extreme risk.”

Jennifer was crying again, and Sean knew the comment about being a commoner had to hurt. He thought he might have a solution to that problem, but didn’t think the time was quite right.

The Lord went off, and some more newsies came on and talked about his adventure to Sestius, another risk they didn’t think he should have taken.

“Off,” ordered Sean, and the holo died.

“Will this hurt you?” asked Jennifer, squeezing his hand.

“Theoretically, no,” said Sean, shaking his head. “They can’t remove me from the throne, short of proving insanity. But it can erode the confidence of the common people.”

“Well, this common person thinks you are wonderful,” said Jennifer, leaning over and kissing the Monarch.

Sean returned the kiss, then yawned, then went under.

“Did you see the news?” asked Samantha Ogden Lee, the Regent, as she walked into the room the next morning.

“Last I saw they were raking me over the coals,” said Sean, looking up from his breakfast. Jennifer had left after he had fallen asleep. She was also still considered a patient after her ordeal, and was undergoing tests to make sure that nothing had happened to her that she wasn’t aware of. At least they’re sure she’s not a shifter.

“Then you haven’t seen the polls this morning?” asked Samantha, smiling. When Sean shook his head she continued on. “The common folk think you’re a hero. Someone they would trust to fight for them, and someone they would follow into hell. You have a ninety-six percent approval rating among the commons, and eighty-seven percent among the nobles.”

“That’s, that’s amazing.”

“Highest approval rating ever. And the approval rating for your romantic involvement with the Doctor is almost as high. The public loves a romance, and one that would make you risk your life for the woman captured their interest.”

“And the attack by the Lords?”

“That really hurt them. The public seems to think it was unfair of the Lords to attack you at a time that you had been injured in rescuing your lady. Their approval rating is abysmal.”

Samantha smiled as Jennifer entered the room. “And good morning to you, my Lady.”

Jennifer looked at the Regent with a confused expression. Samantha turned toward Sean and the smile grew. “I think this is an opportune time to carry out your plan. You will never be in this good a position again.”

Epilogue

MASSADARA SPACE, JULY 30TH, 1001.

It’s now or never, thought Jana Gorbachev, walking down the corridor like she belonged there. The Great Admiral had gone aboard the new station, leaving her on the flagship, where she was really nothing but another fixture to be ignored. And hopefully it will stay that way, she thought, walking in the open, trying to not appear like she was up to something. A couple of Cacada stared at her, but it was the normal predator stare at what they considered a prey animal, and not showing any untoward suspicion.

The anxiety grew as she approached an area that was considered off limits to her. She moved into the shadows of a room before that area, taking a moment to make sure no one was watching her. There were some security cameras covering the room. She had set them to not look at this very area, but there was really no way to tell where the small dark domes were looking, and she stood for a moment to see if an alarm was raised. When that alarm didn’t come she opened the grill to the ventilation duct and crawled in, pulling the covering back behind her.

The duct was large enough for a Cacada technician to crawl through, so they could make repairs if bots couldn’t do it. It was an easy crouching walked for her to the next junction, past the open seal, then to the ladder leading down. She climbed down the several levels, tense, waiting for the alarm she was sure was going to sound any moment. She let out a deep breath when she reached the level she wanted, then crawled into another duct. Jana had a strange thought, wondering if the Ca’cadasans had entertainment vids, something she had not seen since coming into captivity. If so, she wondered if they had any vids about people using ventilation ducts to get away, something that was a regular trope in human stories.

Still no alarms went off, and she found the grill she had been looking for. It was another tense wait to make sure no one was in the room she wanted. Not that there was any reason for Cacada to be in that room before they moved the materials that were being temporally stored there.

Jana moved the grill and crawled out into the room, keeping to the shadows of the large metal containers that took up the chamber. She reached back into the duct and pulled out the package she had left there on an earlier trip. It contained what she thought she needed, and she prayed it had all she needed.

The box she had targeted was near the wall, and she looked at the manifest to make sure that it contained what she thought, and was shipping when she had planned. She breathed another sigh when it matched with what she had entered into the computer. She opened the box and looked in, finding what she expected, a number of armored suits for the Ca’cadasan ground forces. She opened one of the suits, then climbed in and closed it behind her, initiating to breathing system. From there it was a bit of a struggle to actually use the arms of the suit to close the box. Then she lay back and waited. The next part of her plan depended on the inherent laziness of the large aliens.

She didn’t have too long to wait. She could hear the males moving around outside the box, and then it opened. “I wonder why this box was left open?” said one of the males.

“Somebody checking the manifest and too lazy to close it,” said another male. “What does it matter.”

They closed the box, and soon Jana could feel it moving. That went on for some minutes, then stopped, and she heard more males speaking and knew she was on a shuttle. A short time later the shuttle moved. The inertial compensators were not well tuned in the cargo compartment, and the changing accelerations almost made her sick to her stomach. That could not dampen her elation. I made it, she thought. There was still a ways to go, but she had made it off the flagship, and that was a very big step.

*

“These are the aliens, my Lord Great Admiral,” said the Low Admiral in charge of the station, leading Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow into the chamber.

The reptilian odor was the first thing he noticed, coming to his nostrils before he caught sight of the creatures. There were reptiles or similar creatures among the slaves of the Empire, and they were not among his favorites. Then he saw the creatures, a quintet of sturdy looking scaled creatures who looked back at him with turreted eyes. They had formidable looking claws on each hand and foot, and moved in a slow and deliberate manner. He wondered if their thoughts were as slow as their physical motions, then decided they couldn’t be that dense if they were traveling in space.

“They call themselves Knockermen, if I am getting it correct” said the other Admiral. “They are in revolt against their own government, some form of not empire. That government is friends with the humans. They speak the language of the humans, or at least a couple of them do.”

“Very good,” said the Great Admiral, who could speak that language himself. “And what can we do for you beings? An enemy of the humans is sure to be a friend of ours.”

The Knockermen spoke among themselves in a low rumbling tone, before one of them turned his full attention to the Great Admiral. “The humans are the problem,” said that spokesman. “They play with powers that they don’t understand, and threaten the entire galaxy with destruction with that be damned wormhole generating station of theirs.”

“What about their station?” asked the Great Admiral, his ears perking up. “And how does it threaten the galaxy?”

“The ancients built a station around the same black hole, and many stars that were incapable of exploding did so, including the one our original home world orbited.”

Sounds like superstitious nonsense to me, thought the Great Admiral. How can a star too small to go supernova explode? Still, we might be able to use their superstition to our advantage. “That is horrible. We, too, wish to keep these evil creatures from destroying the Galaxy. But as long as they have that station we are at a disadvantage. There is not much we can do about it at the moment.”

“We could show you a way to get on that station,” said the spokesbeing, his eyes moving quickly in his turrets. “Would that help you to destroy it?”

“It would indeed,” said the Great Admiral, feeling his excitement rise. “Come. Let us get you beings some refreshment, and then we can talk about how to prevent this great evil from being done to the Galaxy, and the civilized beings in it.”

The Great Admiral smiled as he led the Knockermen into another room, where they would have a choice of food and drink, thinking all the while how he would deprive the humans of their wormholes.

The End

Appendix A: Glossery

Aether Paddles: Grabbers. Units that utilize the space warping powers of energized superplatinum to grip the actual fabric of space and pull their attached object along. Used in everything from battle armor to large ships.

Augmentation: Also known as Enhancement. Retroactive genetic and biological engineering of humans. Through the use of nanotech enhancements are made to the human genome, resulting in faster and stronger people with the sensory systems of the best found in nature. Upgraded glandular systems. Ninety-five percent of augmented also have reduced lifespans, though some exceptional genomes do not experience this, and pass their traits down to their descendants.

Bolthole: Imperial industrial system in the process of being established a thousand light years outside the boundaries of the Empire. Planned as a unassailable arsenal and last refuge of the Empire.

Capitulum: Capital City of the Empire, home of the House of Lords and the Imperial Palace. 3 billion citizens living in 375,000 kilometers of city.

Catastrophic Translation: The movement of an object from any of the hyper dimensions to normal space through hitting a hyper barrier or losing its protective hyperdrive field. The result is a translation in which matter is disrupted, resulting in the probably destruction of the ship and all aboard.

Class III Systems: Mostly agricultural worlds, 763 worlds in 748 systems, with a combined population of 88 billion.

Class V Systems: Economically important and military systems, 307 planets with 5.5 billion citizens.

Cloning: Reproduction of organic material by the artificial stimulation and growth of cells. Cloning of food and body replacement parts is widespread, but the reproduction of a complete sophont is illegal in any of the human polities, due to the fact that clones are somehow different. Human clones completely lack a conscience, no matter their upbringing or training. It is unknown why.

Com Net: Network established on all Imperial planets allowing all citizens access to communications and data services anywhere on the planet.

Core Worlds: Class I. The oldest and most developed of the planets of the Empire, with populations in the billions. Population is restricted, as are births, and by law fifty percent of the land area of the world must remain pristine wilderness. 98 inhabitable planets in 91 systems, within two hundred and fifty light years of the Central System. 380 billion citizens.

Cyborgs: Living beings with integrated mechanical and electronic systems, such as fiber optic nerves and communication implants. Technically, all humans in high tech society are cyborgs, incorporating as they do data and com implants, and nanite augmented immune systems. True cyborgs have much more intrusive implant architecture, including biomechanical nervous and muscular systems. All enhanced soldiers, such as Rangers, Naval Commandos and Marine Recon have passive implants such as bone reinforcement.

Developing Worlds: Class II systems. 294 inhabited planets in 277 systems, with a population of 185 billion (21 billion alien) citizens.

Dole, The: Living wage payments to the great majority of citizens of the Core Worlds. Supervised robotic factories produce the products needed to sustain society to the point where employment is not possible for most Core World citizens. The Dole allows them to survive with some luxuries such as in house entertainment, but not much else. Citizens who wish to improve their lot compete for the jobs that are available.

Donut, The: Massive century long engineering project, an enormous space station in orbit around the Supersystem central black hole, using the swirling gravitational energy of a sixty solar mass charged hole to generate wormholes.

Exploration Command: Subdivision of the Fleet tasked with exploring new worlds, making scientific discoveries, and expanding the Empire into unexplored space.

Fleet, The. Term of respect an endearment for the naval forces of the New Terran Empire, a force which has never lost a war, and is responsible for guarding the people of the Empire.

Frontier Worlds: Class IV. 8,462 planets in 8,147 systems, with a combined population of 6.9 billion citizens.

Gravitons: Messenger particles of gravity, detectable in all levels of space, including subspace and hyperspace. The manipulation of gravitons is responsible for artificial gravity and the use of hyperspace and subspace.

IIA: Imperial Intelligence Service. Imperial Security Service responsible for intelligence gathering beyond the boundaries of the Empire. By Imperial decree they are allowed some investigative powers within the Empire, mostly those involving threats to the government.

IIB: Imperial Investigation Bureau. Imperial Security Service responsible for counterintelligence and criminal investigation within the boundaries of the Empire.

Imperial Alien Systems: 7 aboriginal systems with 3.2 billion beings. Ten alien protectorates of 89 systems, 262 billion aliens.

Implants: Electronic devices attached by nanotech to the brains of Imperial citizens, allowing them to contact com and data services, as well as emergency services. Range from basic to Governmental that allow access to classified databases and vital command and control services. By Imperial Privacy Laws the tracking feature of implants can be disabled by citizens concerned about being monitored. Convicted criminals have this feature removed.

House of Commons: Second House of Parliament, made up of elected members of the common people, based on the population of the planets of the Empire. 2,647 total members. All appropriations and infrastructure bills originate in this house.

House of Lords: First House of Parliament, made up of hereditarily appointed nobles, as well as high ranking members of the major churches of the Empire. 961 members. All military bills, intelligence bills, and treaties originate from this house. Prime Minister comes from the Lords.

House of Scholars: Third House of Parliament, made up by appointed and elected members of scientists and academics. Most members are from first tier Universities, with a small number appointed by the Lords and the Emperor. 400 members. All science, technology, medical and educational bills originate in this house.

Hyper Barrier: Effect of gravity wells on objects traveling through hyper. Vessels striking the barrier are translated out of hyperspace catastrophically. The radius of the barrier depends on the mass of the object generating it, black hole, star, planet or smaller object. For a black hole the barrier can be thirty light hours or more from the center mass. For a planetoid it might be light seconds. The higher the dimension of hyper the further out its barrier. Star systems typically have a hyper I barrier of from three to five light hours, depending on the mass.

Hyperdetection: Ability of spaceships, particularly warships, to detect other ships moving in hyper. The larger the ship and the higher the level of hyper, the longer the range another vessel can be detected at. Extreme range of a battleship sized vessel moving in VII is up to seven light years. Translations also send out a hyper signal well beyond that of traveling ships,

Hyperdrive: Graviton projection device capable of opening holes in the dimensions leading from normal to hyperspace. Also projects a graviton field around the ship while it is in hyperspace, protecting the crew and vessel from the effects of that space. Each succeeding dimension takes 4.2 times the power to open and remain in than the one below it.

Hyperspace: Upper dimensions of the Universe, corresponding to the same space time coordinates of the visible Universe, through a nesting of graduated smaller dimensions. Allows ships to travel at below the light speed limit and still traverse normal space at faster than light speeds. Hyperspace is a realm of energies and particles unknown in normal space, and is in fact inimical to normal matter. Hyperspace does not exist within the moderate gravity wells of heavy objects.

Hyper I: 9.11 to 1 ratio, .9 c pseudo speed 8.2 light.

Hyper II: 40.9 to 1 ratio, .9 c pseudo speed 36.8 light.

Hyper III: 163.44 to 1 ratio, .9 c pseudo speed 147 light.

Hyper IV: 654.2 to 1 ratio, .9 c pseudo speed 588.78 light.

Hyper V: 2,616.9 to 1 ratio, .9 c pseudo speed 2355.2 light.

Hyper VI: 10,467.6 to 1 ratio, .9 c pseudo speed 9,420.8 light.

Hyper VII: 41, 870.4 to 1 ratio, .9 c pseudo speed 37,683.36 light. .95 c pseudo speed 39,776.9 light.

Hyper VIII: 167,481.6 to 1 ratio. Only electromagnetic signals can be transmitted through VIII, and only for a very limited range.

Inertial Compensators: Devices, normally paired with grabber units, utilizing superiron to convert inertia to heat, then using the properties of superlead to project the heat into space. Inertial compensators allow ships to pull high gee loads, while giving off enormous amounts of heat, making them as visible as small stars to the enemy.

Jewel: Capital planet of the Empire, based in the Home system and in a mutual orbit with the terraformed planet New Terra and the moon Ariel. Home to twenty billion citizens.

Mag Weapons: Weapons from civilian hand to vehicle mounted cannons which fire a solid or explosive projectiles through a magnetic tube that accelerates them to the desired velocity. For hand weapons this is in the one thousand to five thousand meter per second range. Tank cannon can fire rounds at up to a thousand kilometers a second.

Nanotech: Ubiquitous technology used in almost every industrial and operational aspect of the Empire. Nanites process raw materials, construct alloys and fibers at the atomic level, and weld and join larger constructs. All citizens have a multitude of nanites in their bodies, making them immune to almost any conceivable biological contagion, as well as healing minor injuries and allowing the digestion and utilization of native foods that would otherwise not provide any nutrition.

Negative Matter: The exact opposite of matter, and not found in our Galaxy. Made by an industrial process that is very energy intensive. Negative matter repels itself and matter, and is capable of generating antigravity. Negative matter cancels an equal amount of regular matter in a very unspectacular disappearance. Negative matter is necessary for the maintenance of wormhole gates.

Particle Beams: Streams of high energy protons or antiprotons. Infantry and hand weapons project up to a gram of matter at low relativistic speeds. Heavy infantry and ship borne weapons project matter at much higher speeds. Protons strike targets with high kinetic energy that translates into force and heat. Antiprotons explode on contact with matter.

Secret Service: Imperial Security Service responsible for the protection of the Imperial Family and members of Parliament.

Special Ops: Army Rangers, Naval Commandos and Marines Recon operatives, biologically augmented and trained to fight without the use of armor or electronic equipment. Augmentation includes the removal of all human scent emitting glands. This allows them to escape the detection of most high tech sensors, and strike from the shadows.

Sonics: Stun weapons that act on the nervous system of the target, disrupting its actions and in most cases dropping it into unconsciousness. Civilian self-defense weapons come equipped with a transmitter to alert local police to the use of the weapon, though this has often been bypassed by criminals.

Subspace: A single dimension separate from hyperspace, with correspondence to normal space coordinates, and with a 12.47:1 normal space to subspace ratio. At .90 c within subspace pseudo speed is 11.22 light speed. Subspace is not inimical to matter, and though energy is needed to enter and exit, none is needed to remain.

Subspace Com: Unit capable of sending vid through subspace at 12.47 light speed. Only useful in normal space, though not within the close gravity wells of stars and planets.

Supermetals: Artificially produced high numbered elements that take advantage of an island of stability in the periodic table. Produced in enormous industrial plants that utilize the entire surface of frozen moons and small planets, using the temperature differential to cool the high temp nuclear furnaces. Superiron, superlead and superplatinum are the three metals produced, with super platinum both the most useful and most difficult to make.

Supersystem: Central Systems in orbit around the black hole. Home system and seven others. Sixteen habitable planets, four habitable moons, as well as assorted asteroid belts and habitats. 102 billion citizens, 6.6 billion of them aliens, with 26 percent of all Imperial space industry.

Translation: The act of moving in and out of the dimensions of hyper. Accompanied by a burst of gravitons that can be detected for from many light hours to several years.

Books by Doug Dandridge

Science Fiction

The Deep Dark Well Trilogy

The Deep Dark Well: An Adventure 40,000 years in the making. Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama. She’s used to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole, halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future. Pandora must discover the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars. Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down the roads of Barbarism.

To Well and Back: Pandora Latham is back, working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization. But first she has to deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own. Pandora is angry at the hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.

The Exodus Series

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1: The introduction to the Exodus Universe. Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years to a new home. Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to be going well for the New Terran Empire. Until the enemy appears once again at the gates. And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2: The saga continues. The Ca’cadasans attack at the moment when the government of the Empire is at its most chaotic. There are other enemies as well, waiting for their chance to fall on the overwhelmed humans. And a young man with no ambition for power finds himself in the position he most dreads.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: Sean is rescued, but he is not about to go back to the safety of the capital without striking back at the Ca’cadasans who have invaded his Empire. But will his decision put the lives of thousands at risk, as well as risking the safety of his own Empire, by depriving it of its leader.

Other Scifi

Diamonds in the Sand: When a perfectly healthy scientist falls dead of an apparent heart attack, it is up to Sarasota Police Detective Lieutenant Gary Lariviere to find out what really happened. The scientist was working on Nanotechnology, a secret desired by everyone from the Government to the Mob. There are too many suspects, including the woman that Gary comes to love. The Army had made Gary better than human, but had they prepared him for the terrors that had been unleashed by the new technology?

The Scorpion: The Scorpion had been the world’s deadliest living terrorist. Kestral McMann had been in on the kill. Now The Scorpion is back as a mind upload, using clones to penetrate the tight security of an isolationist United States. McMann is the only man who can stop him. But can McMann survive the threat of his own side, and the insane President who leads the Nation, in time to stop The Scorpion from plunging the Great Satan back into the Stone Age.

The Shadows of the Multiverse: Something has been periodically wiping intelligence from our Universe through the ages. It’s back, and it’s up to three unlikely heroes, the Captain of a Battle Cruiser, a Physicist turned Archeologist, and a Child, to save the intelligence of the Universe from Monsters from another Dimension. Can they learn to use the powers of their unusual Quantum Minds to defeat creatures that have been playing the game for billions of years?

Afterlife: What if you didn’t believe in the afterlife of the World’s Religions? And what if science offered you the alternative, survival within the Virtual World of a computer, where your mental abilities are magnified and you can do anything you want? And what if the World decided that your way was wrong, and declared war on you, meaning to destroy your reality? What would you do? Afterlife, a tale of survival at all costs.

We Are Death, Come For You: When aliens strike the Tau Ceti colony, humankind knows that something bad is on the way. They prepare as best they can, but will it be enough against superior technology? The aliens are death worshippers, and only the extinction of the human race will satisfy their evil intent. There are wonders of tech on the horizon, but can they be deployed in time? Or will humankind have to depend on the smallest of their techs to save them?

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1: A nuclear war in Central Europe opens the gates between dimensions, sending millions of Earth Humans into a land of myth, archetypes and fantasy. The Evil Emperor of the Ellala Elves sees the humans as energy to fuel his transformation to immortality. But the humans have brought their own weapons with them, as well as a race of Demigods who will battle the fantastic armies of Refuge. The war is on, and only one side will ultimately survive.

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2: The Ellala have a plan to destroy the human military and capture the civilians. And the humans find that their weapons will soon cease to function. So it’s use it or lose it for the Earth Humans, and they use it with a vengeance. Tanks against Mages, Attack Helicopters against Dragons, and Nuclear Weapons against Death Gods. And the other peoples of the planet come forth as allies to the humans that they see as the fulfillment an Ancient Prophecy. But will it be enough?

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions: The human invaders are now without their technologies, at least those using explosives and internal combustion engines. But they still have knowledge of many other techs, especially the arts of warfare as practiced by the greatest infantry of the ancient world. Will it be enough to stand up to the half lich Emperor and his magical forces.

Refuge: Doppelganger: Set thousands of years after the arrival, Kurt von Mannerheim, the Immortal Emperor of the Imperium of Free Nations, must give up everything to save his Empress, the Elfin Princess Gwenara Elysius von Mannerheim. The world is at a crisis point as the Evil Tarakesh Empire, under its Immortal Emperor Heinrich Stuppleheim, prepares to overrun the world with its Nazi Ideology. And Kurt must face a creature of legend that may prove too much for even his physical and mental abilities.

Other Fantasy

The Hunger: Abused wife, drug addict, prostitute; Lucinda Taylor had been victimized by men all her adult life. Left for dead by her pimp, Lucinda was turned by a passing vampire. When he is destroyed she becomes a free agent, slaking her hunger for blood on the bottom dwellers of society, the type of men who once victimized her. The crime boss of Tampa is her next target, and the City by the Bay is about to become a bloodbath. But can Lucinda avoid those who are hunting for her; the Priest, the FBI man, and a pair of Vampires who would like nothing better than to send one Avenging Vampire forever into the dark?

Daemon: A Steampunk Fantasy. The world is dying, the victim of the magic used by society for the last three hundred years. Daemon Corporation thinks they have the answer, stealing the life from other worlds, bringing from other dimensions the intelligences that inhabit them for sacrifice on Earth. But something has come with them, a force that is killing the employees of Daemon Corp. It is up to Forensic Mage Detective Jude Parkinson to find a way to stop the unstoppable, while keeping the head of Daemon Corp from silencing him to keep the dark secrets of the company out of the public eye.

Aura: Triplets are born on a world where the magical Aura decides the fate of its owner. Ariel is a girl with more than double the normal Aura, destined to become a mighty Priest or Mage. Aiden has a less than normal Aura, and is destined to be a soldier or laborer. While Arlen has no Aura at all, and is seen as an abomination in the eyes of the Church of Baalra the Dragon God, which has no power over those with Negative Auras. Fate will rip the siblings apart, then bring them back together as they battle to defeat the Dragon God and leave the Evil Empire, before Ariel is taken as the Avatar of Baalra, his mortal vessel on Earth.

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Table of Contents

Commodore Mei Lei paced the deck of her flag bridge, something she had seen the admirals in the holos...

Dedication

Books by Doug Dandridge

Cast of CharactersThe CapitalEmperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov

Timeline

More detailed maps available on the website.

As the Empire is 3 dimensional, Sectors VII through IX are oriented above, and Sectors X through XII ...

As the Empire is 3 dimensional, Sectors VII through IX are oriented above, and Sectors X through XII ...

PrologueAPRIL 20TH, 1000, HYPERSPACE BETWEEN MASSADARA AND CONUNDRUM SYSTEMS.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

EpilogueMASSADARA SPACE, JULY 30TH, 1001.

Appendix A: Glossery

Books by Doug DandridgeScience FictionThe Deep Dark Well TrilogyThe Deep Dark Well