Like me not going in with the dreadnaughts, I wasn’t going in with the teams or fighters either. With my realization and acceptance I was the Imperator, came acceptance I was a field marshal, not a ship captain or admiral any more. I still captained this ship, but it was now more a command and control vessel than a combat ship. Very sobering stuff, and as I’d been told, very overdue.
The Lufafluf major moved down to where BA had been sitting, and Willow moved next to him. It put everyone left on the bridge into my side to side view.
Angel looked around to see what all the movement was about, and turned back to watch the view. More than two years old now, she was still fascinated with space. She sat on the same pad in the middle of the main console, still turned off, except for hollo’s of people popping up on both sides of her, which she was now more or less ignoring when it happened.
I waited for Annabelle to signify the teams were ready to deploy on Custer, and nodded to Jane.
BigMother jumped.
Our appearance just inside battleship gun range of the station was like stirring up an ants next. Given there was no combat patrol of any kind, being able to launch a squadron of fighters within thirty seconds was pretty impressive, especially when your base was supposed to be unknown, and approaching it gave hours of warning. However, in the same time, Lacey and his four squadrons of double the size fighters were sitting in formation with BigMother, waiting while the station continued to launch, and ships began to undock.
If my aim had been to simply kill pirates, we could have dealt with the lot before they reached any sort of position to fire on us. But killing wasn’t the object of the exercise.
With a line of cruisers and destroyers forming up behind what turned out to be six squadrons of mixed fighters, I sat there and waited for them to sort themselves out. Jane sat there, seemingly frozen in place, but we all knew she was actually very busy. And I was still hoping for plan A to work.
After a long five minutes waiting for someone to fire the first shot, a channel opened. He was dressed in a pirate uniform I remembered from last time we were here, and was sporting two stars. But it wasn’t someone I recognized.
“Whoever you are, you have one chance to surrender before we take your ship away from you.”
“I think not.”
“If you were capable of thinking, you wouldn’t be here.”
“If I wasn’t thinking, you’d all be dead already.”
He looked to one side, where someone was obviously trying to show him something. Most likely, the size of my underside guns. He looked back at me, with a hint of sweat on his forehead.
“I don’t know where you got guns that big from, but my people will be very pleased you brought them to them.”
“Your people are about to enjoy a long stay on the planet below you. As will you be.”
He laughed, but the sweat was more obvious already. Jane looked around at me, and I nodded to her. She widened the channel to all ships.
“My name is Imperator Hunter. I come seeking pilots and soldiers to help fight a war with an enemy you’ve never seen. Any pilot who cares to land his bird on my flight deck will be pardoned for any crimes committed to date, and given one of the fighters you see in front of you to fly. Soldiers willing to fight for a just cause will get the same deal, only with tech you never dreamed of to fight with. Those who wish to commit suicide can do so, or if you fire on one of my ships, it will amount to the same thing. Anyone who wishes to live in peace, can shuttle down to the planet, and will not be fired upon.”
“What’s an Imperator,” came from one of the cruisers.
“A six star admiral,” said Lacey.
“How do you get six stars?” asked someone in one of the fighters.
“By being that good,” answered Lacey.
“Silence!” bellowed the general on the station. “All ships attack.”
“That’s my line,” said the voice from the cruiser, presumably an admiral with only one star. “All ships fire missiles.”
Capital ship missiles launched from the big ships, and what seemed to be IR missiles from the fighters. Missiles, because even though my guns were in range, none of theirs were. The mosquito launchers belched mozzies, and the entire salvo of enemy missiles died well short of my fighters. Sounds of consternation came through the channel from the fighters.
“Pointless,” I said. “Would you care to send out a champion to demonstrate just how outclassed your fighters are? Said champion can choose any of my fighters to challenge to single combat.”
“Red one?” asked cruiser admiral. “You want to accept the challenge?”
“Damn right I will. But they’re not going to insult me by sending out their worst. Send me you best.”
“Space commodore?” I said. “Up for this?”
“Sure. Wake me up when it’s over.”
Red one swore, pushed his speed to full, locked up Lacey, and fired another missile. Lacey pushed in about quarter speed, enough to get him out in front of our lines, and immediately started pumping out IR missiles from front and rear launchers. When he had twelve missiles heading for the pirate heavy fighter, there were only two coming back at him. His point defense turrets took both out well away from his Excalibur, and he didn’t even bother to juke.
The enemy pilot on the other hand recognized he was in serious trouble, managed to take out three of the missiles coming at him, and ejected seconds before the remaining ones destroyed his fighter. He floated there in space for a few seconds, and vanished.
Jane gave me a thumbs up, meaning one of the mages we had in the conference room had moved him to the brig. I’d brought twenty of them, not wanting to kill pilots, or ship drivers.
“Anyone else?” said Lacey, now stopped in no man’s land between the two forces. “Hey, I’ll let you have a free shot if you want.”
The rest of red squadron seemed think it applied to all of them, and they all locked him up, fired a missile each, and their guns. Of the eleven missiles, only three hit Lacey’s ship, still sitting in the same place, and of the eleven sets of pulses, half of them missed, and the rest knocked his shields down by only twenty percent.
Without a command, the rest of my fighters advanced to form up with Lacey.
“This foolishness has gone on long enough,” I said. “Stand down, or be destroyed.”
“No-one tells me to stand down,” yelled the general. “You want this station, come and take it. You can’t do that with one ship and some fighters, no matter how well armed they are. I recognize that hull. You may have gussied it up, but it’s still a Midway class, and obsolete. Do your worst.”
“Wait,” said the cruiser admiral, but he was too late.
I’d nodded to Jane, and the titan guns fired.
The three forward facing battleship turrets also fired.
At the same time, the station and three of the cruisers received glancing blows to their shields, resulting in all of them suddenly having no shields. Jane had deliberately missed hitting the ships themselves, and the pulses heading away from them showed the pulses still had a lot of energy left in them.
“All ships stand down,” said the cruiser admiral.
“Traitors!” yelled the general.
He went silent as a gun lined up with the side of his head, and another man appeared on the screen. He was wearing a single star.
“We surrender,” said single star.
Nine
Jane shook her head when I glanced at her.
The channel was still open, but the pirate ships were returning to the station. Jane still hadn't been able to hack their computer systems. Which meant we had to do a boarding action the hard way. I wasn’t going to accept a verbal surrender as meaning when troops entered the stations and ships, they wouldn’t fight anyway.
“Jack?”
“Boss?”
“Come on down.”
Both generals were still on the screen, and as Orion’s Stars appeared over the top of BigMother, dwarfing
her, an urgent shout had both of them looking poleaxed all of a sudden. The gun stopped pointing at the two star’s head, but neither of them noticed. I turned to Annabelle.
“Standard boarding please, general.”
She started giving orders, while I faced the screen again. Custer launched, along with Slim, Homer, and Bonko’s Club. All but Custer headed for empty docks on the station, with an almost equal spread around the station. Custer headed for the Shipyard’s administration section.
Behind the two generals on the screen, a rift opened, and an SAS team stepped out. The generals turned, to find twenty combat suits pointing heavy guns around the room. Hands started going up, and the gun which had been pointed at a head, dropped to the deck.
I hadn't asked Syrinx to come along, but apparently she had anyway. The team leader’s cam opened up in a screen off to the sides of the HUD, and more began to pop up as well, as Syrinx rifted in more teams. By the time my ships had docked, the order to not fight had been given.
My troops streamed out through the cargo bays, with platoons heading for key locations, and others making straight for all the docked ships.
Within an hour, the station and shipyard were completely under our control, and people were being ferried down to the planet, but nowhere near where the town was. I remembered our fight down there last time, and I wasn’t sending ships anywhere near there. We didn’t need to take the planet, just make sure no-one could get off it.
In the end, Jane had gone over to the station using a combat droid, and physically brute forced a connection to the station computer. Once she had control, gaining control of the ships and the shipyard proved much easier.
It turned out the Midway class carrier was practically derelict. It was certainly upgradable, but was going to require a lot more work than our original ones had needed. There was nothing bigger than a cruiser in the ship park, but there were a lot of them. And even more destroyers and frigates, not so many corvettes, and most of all, freighters.
None of them were operational. But a hull was a hull. And we knew what to do with destroyer hulls now, thanks to Dreamwalker. Cruiser hulls would never be a dreadnaught, but we had the ability now to give a cruiser the punch of a battleship. And I had ideas for frigates as well.
I saw Jane frowning.
“Problem?”
“Nothing much I can use here in a hurry, unless you let me have the combat ships. Or first dibs on the shipyard.”
I thought about it for a few moments.
“What about the station instead?”
“What about it?”
“Use that for mining and fabricator base.”
“I don’t see…” I could see the light bulb going off. “Oh. You mean fit the station with a jump drive?”
“Yes. Can the drive we have handle a station?”
“It jumps the titans’ just fine, so I don’t see why not. You’re sure you don’t want the station somewhere else?”
“Doubtless we could use it in plenty of places, but it would solve your issues.”
“It would. I take it you want the shipyard moved to Haven?”
“Yes. Bob will need to be set loose on it to get it up to our standards.”
“I’ll have a Lightning bring two jump drives then.”
“How many spares do we have?”
“How many do you want?”
We grinned at each other. Tanith had passed on how to make the drives to a group of mages now dedicated to making them. And repair droids now had the specs for installing them.
“We have at least one more destination to check out where we might pick up another station. So bring enough for a few more.”
“Crystals as well?”
“Will you need them?”
Her eyes blinked.
“Actually no. With no people on board, and no real power use by anything except the fabricators, it should generate more than enough for jumps. I’ll discuss with Bob if we should put at least one crystal on a station out in enemy territory. But for now, the drives should be all we need to get both stations to Haven quickly. We’ll need station tugs though to go through the rift.”
“Launch what you need from Stars. And tell me if I need to make the rift bigger.”
“Make the rift bigger.”
I laughed.
“How big?”
She blinked again.
“Twice the size should do.”
I concentrated for a moment, and the rift size doubled, as well as this end moving to a safe distance from Stars.
“Done. You won’t need the drives now to get them to Haven.”
Only Annabelle and Aline were on the bridge now. The rest had taken a shuttle over to the station, to observe the troops. Willow wanted to see for herself how her people might fight within a station environment. Or not. I think Hobbes and Roo were bored, or they wanted to scare the shit out of pirates who’d never seen an alien before.
Annabelle didn’t even notice Jane and my byplay, but Aline was sitting there grinning. Lacey interrupted me to ask if I wanted a CAP, and if so, how big. I left it to him, and he landed three of his four squadrons.
It turned out there hadn't been all that many people on the station. The ships had more between them. Custer and Slim ferried them all down to the planet, with the exception of volunteers who wanted to sign up to fight, and whom Jane had found records showing them to be not too rough around the edges. Anyone with major piracy shit, murder, or crimes indicating they were uncontrollable on their records, was refused, but the rest were transferred to Stars, and isolated in an unused barracks section, where Stars herself would monitor them. The Red One pilot ended up beached. Literally. He had a two hour walk to reach the rest of his people, let alone get to the town.
Several hundred fighters in various levels of condition were flown by Jane across to Stars as well. We didn’t need them, but I wasn’t leaving them here, and some of our Imperium members could use them for police forces, after they’d had an overhaul. All our original fighters already were being used this way.
While all this was going on, Jane had methodically hacked all the ships in the ship park which could fly on their own, and taken them through to Haven. The rest were dragged through by either a station tug, or a salvage droid. This included the one carrier, which had limped through on its own power. While it didn’t have any priority at this point, it was still allocated to Jane and her comnavsat network expansion work. Several of the older cruisers were tagged as fabricators as well.
When the shipyard was empty of people, and scanned to make sure of it, station tugs pulled it through the rift. It had a range of ships being worked on in its bays, but nothing particularly useful. Bob would be pulling them all out as they were, and upgrading the shipyard itself was his priority now.
The station followed when it too was empty of people. There were already fabricators and repair droids waiting to be moved to it, and many of the useful freighters were going to get a quick drone upgrade as soon as they were docked to it. The warships were parked ready for upgrading when the shipyard was ready to work.
By the time the station was gone, we’d verified there were no other ships on the ground, no others in the system itself, and I’d changed the jump points so nothing could get in or out. The price of piracy was being marooned for eternity. I made a note to check on them in a few years’ time. If they managed to set up a proper society, I might even let them join the Imperium at some point.
With most of the day gone by now, and nothing left to send through, I closed the rift to Haven, and opened another one to Gold Coast down the other end of the spine. With the CAP back on board, BigMother and Stars went through, and closed it behind us.
Syrinx opened a walking rift down to one of the bigger tropical islands, and I did the same to the island which had once been mine. I guess it still was in a way. Or maybe I should just claim the whole planet as mine now?
We did barbeque on the beach, and slept on the sand under the stars.
&nb
sp; Ten
All of human space was back on the navmap.
While we’d slept, Jane had completed placing the comnavsats down the whole length of the spine, and into every system we knew about, except Sirius. I didn’t see any point in going in there. Once was enough.
I’d woken during the night, and connected a rift between the trunk of a large girthed tree behind the beach, and a door sized area on one wall of my living area on Haven. I could now step through anytime I wanted. I tested it, and found it worked exactly as I wanted it to. It was only as I was walking back, I realized I couldn’t leave it like that, or else the cats would be going back and forth when they wanted to. And while in theory it was fine, I was protective enough of them to not want them on the island when I wasn’t. So I moved the suite end to an unused room, where the door was normally shut.
Over breakfast, I checked out how human space looked now, and was quite shocked to see some real differences. I’d been told less planets had been colonized, but I was surprised by how many had never been discovered. Humans had spread up and down the spine as in the other time line, but not spread out as much. There were few occupied planets more than two jumps off the spine.
As well as having the navmap back in more or less real time, Jane had managed to get into a few databases. She’d continued to find firewalls keeping her out, which was very surprising to both of us. Before the time line change, she’d had no trouble hacking any computer. Now she was having a lot of trouble.
Fortunately, she’d been able to gain access to networks through civilian freighters who hadn't taken security very seriously. She copied herself onto those ships, and then used butler droids and in several cases cleaning droids, to sneak onto stations, and brute force her way into station computers.
Down the spine, the sectors were more or less in the same place, but with barely half the number of planets in each. The Lisbon system hadn't been discovered at all, except by pirates, who had a small station there. Likewise the Jordan and Albania systems, and of all places, Dallas. The backway into what had been the Australian sector hadn't been discovered at all, so no Midgard, and thus no Midgard War. The Scotland system was also held by pirates.
Imperator Page 4