Imperator

by Timothy Ellis

  He took a big breath.

  “Those of you who live down spine from the old American sector can still move, even though the way is now blocked. The Imperium already have ships docked at key stations all along the spine, waiting for you, and they can still travel past the system blockage. The Imperium station can take a million of us with ease, as fast as people can be moved, and that is fast. There is a transit station in Australian space, now officially an Imperium embassy. Their ships can move anyone from anywhere in human space to the transit point, in less than an hour. Details are being sent to you as I said, but we’ve promised a rapid movement of those who want to join the Imperium military, with their families joining them within the next few weeks.”

  “When our new planets are ready for us, there will be no separation. Soldiers on leave will simply walk home from an Imperial station. Space travel which was previously so slow, is now a step away. Those active soldiers able to retire from their existing service, can do so and join the Imperium military with no loss of rank or status. Those who can’t, should check if their units are being seconded anyway. The Imperium will be approaching every human sector over the next few weeks, so be patient.”

  “Those of you who run businesses, can move them to Imperium space. Premises are available for retail stores and service organizations, and all the businesses which support them. Not just on the Imperium station being made available to us, but across all Imperium stations. Special arrangements are being made so you can leave existing leases behind and move completely, or to help you expand from your existing premises. The options are spelled out in the details you should now already have.”

  “We promised the Imperium soldiers, traders, and service providers. Don’t make me a liar.”

  He grinned again like it wasn’t at all possible.

  “Take a few moments to celebrate. But not too much. I’m off home to pack, and I’ll be one of the first on a station called Haven, which for the next few months, will be our new home. I’ll see you there.”

  There was a brief fireworks display, and the vid ended.

  Twenty Four

  Jane walked in.

  I raised an eyebrow, and she smiled, and sat next to me.

  “Did you see the vid?” I asked her.

  “My avatar was pointing the cam at him.”

  “Was he as hyped as he looked, or just acting for the vid?”

  “Oh he was hyped. And he did indeed go straight home to pack. He and his family will be on Haven tomorrow, with his furniture and effects following the next day.”

  “How are you doing that so fast?”

  “Cargo droids pretending to be cargo handlers.”

  She grinned at me, and I grinned back. What else would they be?

  “Any response from interested people yet?”

  “We had two hundred thousand expressions of interest before the vid ended.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Indeed. And Jon?”

  “What?”

  “I think you can up the number of military units we’re going to get.”

  “Why?”

  “There are ex-military people from all the way to the African sector wanting to enlist, and saying they can be ready to leave as soon as they have their duffle packed, and a ride is there to get them.”

  “Do you have enough ferries?”

  “No. But they can be moving twenty four seven, and doing each round trip inside an hour.”

  “Why so long?”

  “Docking and undocking. Can’t appear too close to stations without giving someone a heart attack. My avatar is already responding, and a schedule is being formulated.”

  “Carry on.”

  “Confirmed. But there is another matter as well.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Neither, but it needs thought.”

  “What is it?”

  “We’re getting interest in whatever allows a blind pilot to fly again.”

  “Weren’t we expecting civilian interest in the tech?”

  “Yes, but only from our own people. It’s not yet been approved for Imperium members.”

  “Let me guess, its tech we’re not sharing yet?”

  “Yes. While we have civilian versions of the suit out, only those living in space have been interested, and they are expensive. The suits themselves are the generation before you started putting them together in trios, but with the anti-bruising mods incorporated, and the hop elimination.”

  “Why the problem with further distribution?”

  “The mask Dreamwalker wears also needs a major PC upgrade, and so far only the top of the range ones can accept the mod. The human sectors don’t have that level of PC yet. They appear to be about fifty years behind us in terms of computer tech.”

  “Can you do the upgrade to work on their PC versions?”

  “Possibly.”

  “What about the mask, and the glasses he uses the suit for?”

  “I’d have to try with the civilian version suit.”

  “If you can get that to work, I have no problem with selling the civilian suit and the upgrade to anyone who wants it.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “Can’t which?”

  “Both? Either?”

  “If you can’t use whatever PC they have, or the highest level ones available, we could supply ours if they sign a non-disclosure agreement on where they got it from, and anything about it. For the suit, could you make a version of the civilian suit which is hardcoded as a pair of old style glasses, and isn’t able to change into anything else? Maybe with a range of styles?”

  “You want people to go back half a millennium in clothing accessories?”

  “Whatever works.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “Run whatever you come up with past David Tollin. Our committee might need to authorize this. But it is our tech, so don’t let them take it. We sell it through our own hospital system on Haven, and it’s installed by our own doctors. We pay our tax on the sales as usual.”

  “Talking of which, what if people needing their sight restored can’t afford it?”

  I didn’t need to think about this.

  “We set aside a fund people can apply to for help. Maybe you could put a small percentage of ferry ticket receipts into it, and we can do the same from the trade network fees. I’m not going to refuse help to people who need it on the basis of poverty. Even if that still exists, I’m not going to be a party to it.”

  “I know. You feed a lot of people now, who don’t know where their food is coming from. And by the way, our food production around Haven is generating a very tidy income as well, now we’re selling most of it across the network.”

  “Please don’t tell me celery has become the latest fad on some planet which has never seen it before.”

  “I won’t tell you then.”

  She grinned at me. I rolled my eyes.

  “On that note, how are the human sectors off in the poverty department.”

  “Not as good as we’d like.”

  “Can we help?”

  “Very likely. We could buy up sections of stations and planets made vacant by people moving to another planet, and use the space to do charitable work, like feeding the homeless. We could house the homeless as well. Turn empty buildings into barracks like accommodation for those needing short term places to sleep. I’d use security droids suited as people to run them. Could get some of the other AI’s to take up the slack.”

  “Run that past David as well. I’m not sure anyone thought about one part of the Imperium buying up land or assets in another part of the Imperium. Of course, we’re allowing it on Haven, but that’s my station. It might need discussion and formalizing in the Imperium council.”

  “The one you don’t go to?”

  “Who has the time?”

  We both laughed. But I went serious again quickly.

  “There is another potential income stream as well.”

  “What?”

>   “Books.”

  “Books?”

  “I’ve been expanding my penetration of spine computer systems, and one of the things I’ve been looking into is which books in our database still exist. And it turns out a lot of them don’t. Commander Lowell’s for example.”

  “The one you and Grace conned into taking Fearless?”

  “It wasn’t much of a con. He jumped at it.”

  That wasn’t what I heard, but she was right it wasn’t a con. Jane went on rapidly.

  “His family, like many of ours, died out around the time Earth became uninhabitable. And at the time, a huge number of books published before then were lost, including his families. So I’ve already started helping him get his entire back catalogue republished.”

  “So?”

  “I’m identifying all the books in the Hunter archive which were never published, or no longer published and not listed as public domain.”

  “How many is that?”

  “I’m not done yet, given the number of databases I’m needing to trawl through, but so far the total is over fifteen million books, of varying levels of quality, and I’ve barely started.”

  “You want to republish them?”

  “Yes. I’m also looking into the laws here and now, but so far, I’ve not found a problem. But I’m still not sure of the best way of doing it. A new publisher suddenly listing that many books is going to be investigated for any irregularity they can think of. And it might be an issue all the authors are long dead, except for technically most of them were never alive.”

  “So why not make it an Imperium level publisher, and publish the books to any members likely to appreciate them, in their local language. If any member starts looking into it, you can deflect them with a lack of jurisdiction claim, and imply the authors are not from whichever member is complaining. Who does own these books anyway?”

  “As far as I can see, you do, since it was your family who made the archive. Royalties would go to you personally.”

  “So create Hunter Publishing. Create an avatar to run it, you get the publisher end of the royalty, and I get the author end. We both pay tax to Haven. Everyone is happy.”

  “You mean be a publisher in the existing system? Or create a whole new platform and compete in the existing system?”

  “Do the whole thing. When you’re the platform, no-one is likely to ask where the authors come from, especially when you’re the first Imperium wide publisher. You’ll find most authors want to load up on the new platform anyway, once you demonstrate it’s viable for them, but initially, you can say the books are new to each member, coming as they do from other members. And it’ll be true to an extent, as they’re coming from Haven as a member, from us as citizens of Haven. Only the last part we keep hidden until it’s no longer going to be any issue.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Can I take a large premises on Haven station so it looks like a real business?”

  “Sure. You could also go recruiting staff as well. Some of the people coming to join Sci-fi could have skills you could use, and make it all the more legitimate looking. While you’re at it, talk to Amy about recruiting journalists for her news service.”

  “Will do. A new publisher will take a bit of doing. Mind if I bring in other AI’s to help in the process?”

  “Hell no. Why don’t you make the whole publishing thing an AI owned business, and have a proper income earner for your own people. Who better to run something so big? You could even design and market your own reading pad, like they did when electronic books began, or a better electronic PC reader for those who have them. Just pay me my rent on the premises, and my royalties, and I’ll be happy.”

  I grinned at her. She grinned back. But a strange expression crossed her face.

  “What?”

  “We could do the charitable works.”

  “I already said to.”

  “No Jon. I mean we the AI’s. With a decent income coming in from book sales, we’d have plenty to put to charitable purposes, and instead of doing it as Haven or Imperium, it could be an AI initiative, and we do it Imperium wide.”

  “Talk to David about it, but I don’t see an issue. Someone should be doing it, but we biological organisms tend to look to our own thing instead of helping others. Maybe the AI nation can show the rest of us the way? And by the way, it’s about time you had a proper name for your planet.”

  “We already named our emerging city.”

  “What?”

  “Asimov.”

  “I can see that. But you need a planet name and a species name as well.”

  “I’ll get right on that.”

  I shook my head at her sarcasm, but smiled anyway.

  “While you’re sorting all that out and digging in databases you shouldn’t be, find out what else needs doing along the spine, that no-one is doing. I see no reason why we can’t offer help in other areas.

  “Will do.”

  “How are we going on station building for the trading network?”

  “Not keeping up. But Bob thinks he can start mass producing them in a few days. Why?”

  “Because the easiest way of moving populations onto planets is how we’ve been doing it. Put a small station in orbit of both origin and destination, linked by people and freight rifts, and they move themselves at their own rate. The freight rifts are big enough to drive any sort of transport vehicle through. You can jump the stations to where they need to be, and Syrinx can do the rifts and the ground buildings at both ends. Anything they want on planet or in orbit just needs to fit onto their own transports, and be sent through.”

  “What about police interceptors, or local militia ships?”

  “Fighters can be stacked in large freighters and jumped in. Larger ships can be docked the same way Dreamwalker does it, and jumped in as well.”

  “I don’t see a problem with any of that. Bob intended dedicating one of the pirate shipyards to building the rift network stations anyway. We’ll need them for any planet without an existing station.”

  “And we’ll need forty of them very rapidly now.”

  “I believe Bob did do that math.”

  The image made us both chuckle.

  Twenty Five

  Lunch was delayed.

  Jane had no sooner left my ready room, than she shot back in the door.

  “I think we have a big problem developing.”

  “Where?”

  “The only one of our jump points without a titan.”

  I was out of my chair and running for my bridge seat, while she was still saying that. It only took seconds, and I thumped into my chair, reaching for the restraints.

  “What?”

  The navmap popped up even before Jane sat, and zoomed in on the other side of the Tiger’s Leap jump point. They appeared to be massing fighters there, as instead of dots, there was just a large blob.

  “How many?”

  “Looks like they brought in several fleets of just battleships with fighters.”

  “How many?”

  “Five thousand plus.”

  “Get Syrinx to jump Lacey over to Stars, and get him in the center chair. Then jump us both to support what we have there.”

  “Confirmed.”

  There was a short pause while I checked what we did have there. The five dreadnaughts of Havoc fleet, and the two Scimitars of Dreamwalker’s task force.

  “Orders for Greer. The moment the fighters come through, he’s to jump his fleet and take out the battleships before they can jump through. We’ve got his back.”

  “Confirmed. Jumping now.”

  Space shifted rapidly as we started up spine. Through the rift, and then Haven station flashed past. A few seconds later, and we appeared behind the blockade fleet. Hollo’s of all the ship captains and Hallington popped up.

  “Hold the launch of fighters,” I ordered. “Launch on my order only. BigMother, Claymore, and Katana have mosquito duties. Lacey?”

  “Sir?”

  “You have s
ix thousand capital ship missiles. Fire the lot as a broadside when the dreadnaughts vanish, controlled by your mosquito AI’s.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them. And be prepared to fire again. Jane said five…”

  “Six thousand,” she interjected. “Five fleets of twelve battleships in there. My bad. I wasn’t watching what showed up, just how many.”

  “That’s why you fire all of them. Greer?”

  “Sir?”

  “One fleet each. Get ready to go. No risks. If any of you get hammered, you jump straight out behind Stars, and we deal with anything left after.”

  “Roger that.”

  “All ships fire at will.”

  The blob on the other side moved to the jump point as a mass, and they started coming through, firing immediately. All our shields began taking hits, even though we were a reasonable distance from the jump point.

  I pressed the strafe button, and started hosing a section of the approaching cloud, while everyone else did the same thing, including the two battlestations. We all had a clear line of fire, and between us, nothing should have reached us. And still they came on.

  “Missiles,” I commanded, and at the same time, the five dreadnaughts jumped out.

  Six thousand missiles, launched in three directions, form into three waves when going at the same target. I waited for the first two thousand to decimate the front ranks getting though our massed fire.

  “Launch fighters.”

  In the ten seconds it took for three carriers to launch all their fighters, the second and third waves of missiles had decimated the fighters coming at us. Lacey and I ceased firing, while Claymore, her destroyers and corvettes, and Katana, began moving towards the enemy, all the fighter squadrons forming up around them as they went.

  I let them go after the remaining plants, and took a look at the situation on the other side of the jump point. Mayhem appeared behind Stars, quickly followed by Bedlam and Chaos. Stars vanished, as Turmoil and Havoc arrived back as well. None of them had more than thirty percent shields left.