Imperator

by Timothy Ellis

  I nodded. It was on my list of things to do.

  “I trust you’ll point all this out at the relevant meeting?”

  “Me?”

  “I’ll be too busy to attend.”

  “Of course you will. And yes, I will. I was just checking we were on the same page.”

  “Have fun with that.”

  “I always do.”

  She took her grinning face out of my office, and I followed her out to find Aline waiting for me. The team turned up very soon after, and even the Firefly episode where the ship breaks down in deep space didn’t put a damper on the evening.

  With almost guaranteed combat the next day, Aline was more tiger in the sack than normal for her. I mean, she always had been, but tonight the sex was truly incredible. She went straight to sleep after the third time, leaving me lying there thinking about the Darkness.

  And suddenly, I was in a different place.

  Forty Five

  The room looked like something out of an early television show.

  I mean, predating square screen, let alone flat screen. I’d seen very few of these, but Who had begun back in that era, so I’d seen what had been salvaged of the original episodes. They were painful to watch, in black and white, but worth it. Just once.

  Nothing about the room looked anything except basic. In my time, it would have been knocked down and replaced centuries ago. I couldn’t even describe what the wall and floors were made out of. The long table was just wood. The chairs were sturdy, but looked uncomfortable. There were twelve of them along one side, and two on the other, although the two were not actually at the table.

  I found myself standing behind one of the chairs, fortunately in uniform, and not in the boxers and t-shirt I’d changed into after Aline had finished with me. There was no-one else present. The only appropriate thing to do, since there didn’t appear to be any exits, was to sit and wait for whoever had brought me here. The moment I sat, a man appeared standing behind the chair next to me. I sighed.

  “Hi Thirteen. Where the hell have you been?”

  He laughed, walking around the chair so I could see him easier, but not yet sitting.

  “Here and there. Things to see, people to do. You know how it is.”

  “Do you know where Thorn is?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Arthur?”

  He looked uncomfortable for a moment.

  “Yes, I do. But you won’t be seeing him for a while. I took them a long way away. Mission and all that.”

  “I take you still stop in to see Max?”

  Max was Angel’s brother. A year older due to a time anomaly thing, and technically Thirteen’s cat, although he lived in my Haven suite most of the time these days. He didn’t seem to care that Angel vanished for long periods, and the cat butler droids kept him from getting lonely by arranging play dates with other cats on the station.

  “As often as I can. Although that’s relative when you can time travel.”

  I knew that. I’d used it to lock the Darkness away.

  “So where are we?” I finally gave in, and asked.

  “Earth, 1969. Somewhere in American suburbia.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is where I was drafted to be minder for your family.”

  “That tells me nothing.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to. I’m not here of my own accord either. I just recognize the room from the last time I was brought here.”

  “Why are you still standing?”

  “To spite the bastards.”

  “Spite who?”

  “You’ll see. They won’t arrive until I sit, the same as I didn’t arrive until you sat. Fucking theatrics!”

  He did seem to be very annoyed.

  “Who?”

  I had an idea, but wanted him to confirm it.

  “My fellow nebulae of course. Why else would there be twelve seats?”

  Why else indeed. I’d met them before. Well, I’d met One before, and seen the rest.

  “So sit, and let’s get this over with. I’ve a battle planned for tomorrow. I need my sleep.”

  He looked about to make some comment on that, but decided not to. Either he knew why I was so late going to sleep, or he knew all about the battle tomorrow. Maybe both. Like Jane, he was perfectly capable of watching if he had a mind to, and we wouldn’t know it.

  “Oh, fine.”

  He sat.

  Instantly, the other twelve chairs were occupied as well. They were all human looking, but I knew this was just for show, and probably for my benefit. Like Jane, they could choose any shape they wanted for an avatar. My eyes went down the line to the far left. One looked directly at me, not looking happy.

  “You had to do it,” said Twelve, up the other end.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Turn a solution into a recurring nightmare,” said Five.

  “Why couldn’t you have just left things alone?” asked Nine.

  I face palmed. I could hear Thirteen chuckling next to me.

  “What’s so funny?” asked a voice I didn’t identify, because my eyes were closed and my hand over them.

  “You lot,” said Thirteen. “You honestly thought the whole Darkness thing was over?”

  “And you didn’t?” asked Twelve, sounding narked.

  I took my hand away, and glanced at Thirteen. He looked amused now. Annoyed and amused was an interesting look.

  “I saw the possibility of the solution not being permanent at the time,” he went on, “but the chances of the quarantine being broken were so remote then, as to not be worth bringing up.”

  “But now the possibility is much greater,” said Twelve.

  “True. But humans were let out into the galaxy. What did you think was going to happen?”

  I knew he’d once not liked us at all, but his long nanny period had softened the view.

  But he was right.

  We shouldn’t have been let out.

  I honestly didn’t know which was the worse species. Humans or Trixone. But maybe that was why we were now locked in a death struggle.

  “That wasn’t our doing,” Twelve snarled.

  It suddenly occurred to me these two didn’t like each other.

  “It doesn’t matter who’s doing it was.”

  Thirteen definitely didn’t like Twelve. I could hear it in his voice.

  “Kali,” said One, and all heads turned towards her. “Kali let the humans out. I advised against it at the time, but it has so far worked out the way she wanted things to.”

  Figures. Kali always seemed to be behind everything. Not that I could complain or anything. It had its perks.

  “Kali should fix this,” said Three.

  “Kali does what she wants,” said One.

  “Indeed I do,” said a voice I recognized, and a second later, two small thrones appeared at either end of the table, and another second after, Kali and Ganesha appeared in them.

  “Theatrics!” muttered Thirteen, and I couldn’t stop myself smiling.

  Eleven of the most powerful beings in the galaxy looked awed. One looked resigned. Thirteen just shook his head. Kali looked impassive, while Ganesha looked bored.

  For some reason the image of Ganesha’s trunk twitching like a cat’s tail crossed my mind. He looked at me as if knowing exactly what I’d thought. I kept my face straight.

  “Is there any point to this meeting?” I demanded, more to distract Ganesha than anything else.

  “We want this solved!” demanded Twelve.

  “And it shall be,” I responded. “I only just found out about the problem. Give me some time for fuck’s sake!”

  I was getting tired of this, and I needed my sleep.

  “There is no time,” said Five. “Not only has the method of letting the Darkness out again been devised, but the knowledge of it is out there as well. Remote chance has now turned into certainty. While our human here may think it is a matter of time, and in his terms time may not be a considerati
on, for us the threat is immediate.”

  “As it was before,” said the same voice as before, which I now saw was Eight.

  One was looking at Kali. Something passed between them. Both looked at me.

  “Hell no,” exclaimed Twelve. “You’re not leaving it to this human are you?”

  “Who else?” purred Kali. “Although he will most likely require some help from several of you.”

  She managed to be looking at both Thirteen and One at the same time, which was an interesting feat.

  “So there is a solution?” asked Four.

  “Several,” said Kali.

  “We will give this Imperator some time then,” said Five. “But not too much. The risk is too grave to allow much time to pass without a final solution.”

  Those two words echoed through my mind, and I had to think to identify why. Oh, of course, damned Nazis. And while I acknowledged the threat, a final solution along those lines wasn’t on my play list. Or wouldn’t be when I thought of one.

  At which point it occurred to me they had no clue what to do either, which is why they feared as much as they did. It just went to show, no matter how much power you had, there was always a situation you couldn’t handle. Same as no matter how big a gun you had, there was always someone with a bigger one. And the will to use it.

  I looked at Kali. She looked at me. In fact, they were all looking at me now.

  “The power of three,” she said. “Twice.”

  And I was back in bed as if I’d never left.

  Forty Six

  “Phase one. Go.”

  Ships began to vanish, in the order of how long it would take to get where they were going. The Havoc task force of six all vanished together, as did the Bedlam task force, also now six. Left behind were the three Explorer ships, four of the five older dreadnaughts now grouped together as a task force, the Claymore task force which now included three upgraded cruisers, and BigMother.

  Jane had convinced me to pack on six squadrons of Excalibur fours for drones, in case we needed them. I’d thought about it, and in spite of the accommodation upgrades, decided I liked the ship being almost empty. Besides, it saved me needing to offload people later.

  The navmaps for six systems popped up, and white dots began appearing in them. Red dots winked out rapidly. The four full titans had a jump point each. The two carriers had a dreadnaught task force with them. The titans appeared, fired everything, and jumped to a new position, where they fired again. The dreadnaughts each appeared at the end of a line of plant ships, and strafed them, jumping again at the end of the line.

  In less than a minute, the only thing left was debris.

  All of my ships jumped out, with the exception of Hammer. Bentley took the ship in as close to the jump point as she could without triggering a jump, and let her shields turn the debris in the down jump lane to dust. Her smaller guns reduced the size of the remainder to something not likely to be a problem, and then she too jumped out.

  “Tell the Keerah admiral they have a go.”

  “Confirmed.”

  Within seconds, the first tiger battleships appeared where Hammer had just been, their shields shrugging off the remaining debris, as they powered away. The smaller ships in their fleet followed after, and the whole lot formed up once they were all through, and headed for the nearest of their lost planets.

  “Phase two. Go.”

  The rest of my ships vanished, as we all started jumping towards preset targets. We knew exactly where plant fleets were, and target size dictated what was going to hit them.

  Jane brought BigMother out at one end of the formation of a single fleet, and I immediately strafed, and began firing. Aline and her team all had control of some of the weapons I couldn’t fire myself. The plants were obviously expecting us, and the shields took some solid hits before the job was done.

  We jumped out again, heading to the next isolated single fleet, and in leap frogs, the fleet moved out along a number of paths along which the Trixone had been reinforcing their assault fleets on our frontiers.

  It took several hours, but by the time we’d cleared away the area around the Imperium’s core space, it would take a week or more for the Trixone to replace what they’d lost on our doorstep.

  I paused for a drink of a water. The combat for me hadn't been too intense, but BigMother wasn’t designed for this kind of fight. I’d had the missile launchers upgraded to the new variants, but decided not to upgrade the front end like the Claymore or Chaos ships now had. So while I still had the titan and battleship turrets underneath, I was relying on missiles more heavily than other ships were.

  “Phase three. Go.”

  The same fighting continued, but this time we were clearing a path towards the three planets we were about to assault. This took another hour, before the systems the planets were in were cleared of all Trixone ships.

  “Phase four. Go.”

  Orion’s Belt jumped into one of the three systems, followed a few seconds later by Orion’s Stars into the second one, and BigMother into the third. A minute later, I was joined by a mixture of assault ships, including the three captured Trixone ships, and all of our assault cruisers and frigates, and the prototype vehicle freighters. They were quickly joined by Eagle Wing, and its escorting cruisers.

  Fighters launched from the two titan carriers, and four squadrons of Excaliburs headed down to each planet to check for heavy fortifications.

  In the meantime, the rest of the fleet continued to attack any plant fleets in the general area, moving steadily away from all three planets, and along the logistics lines towards Trixone space, and towards the incursion fleets going the other way which had bypassed the planets.

  On all three planets, the fighters started taking heavy pulse fire, and the capital ships above began to hit the source sites with missiles. It showed the Trixone did have some planetary defenses on planets they’d taken and had time to fortify them. A few fighters had to return to their carriers, and one of Lacey’s landed on BigMother, as the closest deck available. The rest made it down to ground level and used their own missiles to good advantage.

  Once the main defensive guns were neutralized, the dropships launched. Mainly the corvette sized Cobras, but also a lot of team sized Pythons. All of them had a drop point to hit, and every one had a mission.

  I watched vid of perfect landings, soft landings where the ship stopped too high and had to drop a bit further, and hard landings where the pilot got it wrong, and damaged the underside of the ships. The troops streaming out of the latter looked a bit knocked about, but they were still able to run.

  Unit cohesion seemed to have been maintained. More or less. The cruisers, frigates and heavy vehicle carriers all touched down gently and began disgorging what they carried. The fighters were using their turrets in advance of the troops, and wherever we landed, the Trixone were falling back under our guns.

  On all three planets, we hit all the major Trixone habitation areas, and ignored the ruined cities. The Trixone hadn't been expecting us, but all the same, there was much more of their heavy armour on their troops, and a lot of their heavy pulse weapons about. It probably meant they’d learned they needed it, from past defeats.

  My part in this was done. While I sat in my chair being fed images and information by Jane, my mind wasn’t really on the landings. This was Vonda’s show now. Hers, her generals, and her colonels.

  How well we did here today would determine action plans for relieving sieges, and taking back real estate. We had to prove we could, before we started making commitments to do it.

  But that also wasn’t any real concern of mine for now. It would work or it wouldn’t. Either way, adjustments would be made. It wasn’t my concern. I was the one who said jump now. It was up to my senior officers to decide which way and how. And probably for the politicians to get involved in where and who was helped, when.

  Not my concern, especially now.

  We had a war in front of us we might never win. I had
no doubt we’d survive. I had no real doubt the Keerah would as well. They might surrender half their space over the next decades, but at some point I expected them to have defenses in place like ours, which the Trixone couldn’t get through. The Ralnor were doing better, and it might be less than a year, even without us, before they stopped the Trixone cold.

  Also not my concern.

  Not right now.

  I had a bigger problem.

  Sometime later I noticed Jane had stopped putting up the vids, Aline and the team had left, and there was a bottle of water in my chair holder. I drank it, and sank back into options, possibilities, and consequences.

  By the end of the day, during which I’d apparently eaten something, but didn’t remember, the invasion below was well on the way to meeting its objectives. By then I didn’t really care.

  I stood, stretched, and ignored the pain of sitting too long. Jane looked my way. I sat again.

  “Channel to Chaos and Mayhem please.”

  A few moments later, Grace and George were looking at me from hollos on the console.

  “I need two volunteers for a dangerous mission.”

  Neither of them hesitated.

  “Always,” said George.

  “Who else but us?” asked Grace.

  “We go in the shit end, boss,” added George. “We always do. Where is it this time?”

  “I can’t tell you yet. Is it just you and your AI’s on board?”

  “Yes,” they said together.

  “Tell the AI’s to do a backup. We’re going where they won’t be in contact with their primaries.”

  I turned to Jane.

  “You too. In your case, you need to have a new primary ready, just in case.”

  “Confirmed.”

  I was pretty sure she knew what we were about to do, or at least, where.

  Confirmations came from the three other AI’s. Chaos with Grace, Sim and Gor with George. I looked at the two hollos.

  “I need you to collect Amanda and Aleesha, from wherever they are at the moment. Bring them to Haven, and we’ll meet there.”

  Each ship and one twin was over and on the same planet. I wasn’t entirely sure the twins were on the ground, but it was a good bet. Even being colonels, they still went in the shit end, even if it was with a battalion headquarters team, and not a combat team.