Crusade (Exile Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  “I imagine their family reunions are fun,” Holmwood said dryly. “Guessing family dynamics like two dads and a mom?”

  “It’s hard to say,” WK interjected. “Rose and her team and I are working off the general news broadcasts across the system, civilian coms, and a language database provided by the Sector Commandant. We have very limited insight into Sivar society.”

  “And insight into Sivar society is what we need,” Faulkner concluded, Amelie’s aide the fourth human in the room.

  All hands on deck at this stage meant the escort commander, the intelligence head, Amelie and her aide. Plus, of course, WK. The AI was hard to avoid at this point.

  “We know that Ackahl, at least, believes herself to be the most powerful individual in the system,” Amelie said. “That suggests that civilian authority, at least in this system, is subordinate to the military. I find the translation program’s choice of word for their leader interesting as well.”

  “It’s a fancy form of administrator, which seems to be what the Intendant’s title in Sivar boils down to,” Rose agreed. “I wonder if the Intendant is the top of the chain—or just the next step up for Ackahl. Most likely, the translation chose the word basically at random, but it does suggest a high-but-not-ultimate level of authority.”

  “We won’t know until we talk to them,” Amelie replied. “Any ideas on how long that will be?”

  “Well, I can tell you that I don’t have a clue what they’re using for FTL,” Holmwood said dryly. “One of the orbital platforms launched what we think was an interstellar com drone, though. It traveled outward at about five times the acceleration of their warships and then vanished.”

  “Any idea what it did?” Faulkner asked.

  “Insufficient tachyon signature for a tachyon punch, insufficient gravity lensing or exotic-matter signatures for a warp drive,” WK replied. “We knew that, though. This appears to be a new form of faster-than-light travel we are not familiar with.

  “The drone appeared to travel to a specific point to enter FTL. There is no way to be certain if that point was simply in the direction of its destination or was required to enter FTL.”

  “Captain, do we have the data to detect a natural wormhole?” Amelie asked as a thought struck her. “I know we have nothing on artificial wormholes, but…”

  “We don’t,” Holmwood said calmly. “That’s not so much that it was cut from our records when were exiled as it is that we never could. We could still detect a wormhole being opened—and that definitely didn’t happen—but natural wormholes were notoriously difficult to find except by having a ship fall through them.”

  “Is it possible their drone went through a natural wormhole?” Amelie asked.

  “Possible? Yes,” the Captain agreed. “But we found four in the entire Confederacy. Unless they got very lucky, it’s unlikely there are enough here to hold together an interstellar society of any kind.”

  “But you also just said we couldn’t detect them,” Amelie countered. “What if they can?”

  “That would…” Holmwood trailed off. “That would really limit how usable their fleet would be to us, wouldn’t it? They could get around their empire insanely quickly by our standards, but they wouldn’t be able to leave it.”

  “Keep an eye on traffic in the system,” Amelie told her. “I want to know where every ship or drone that leaves or arrives appears or disappears. I think our Sector Commandant might be underestimating our sensors.”

  “Almost certainly,” WK said. “I suspect if she knew how much data we were getting from the planet, she’d be very concerned.”

  “Why’s that?” Amelie asked.

  The image of the three Sivar shrank and a new holographic image appeared in the middle of the table. It resembled nothing so much as a giant stalk of broccoli with tentacles instead of florets, with several eyes concealed in the forest of tendrils.

  As the hologram expanded, it became clear that the stalk was both wearing a tunic around the main torso and working on some kind of vehicle.

  “All of the communications we have intercepted in space have been between Sivar,” WK told them. “All data suggests that the warships and the gunships are all entirely crewed by Sivar. But scanning the surface, we see these people.”

  “Who are they?” Amelie asked.

  “I have been unable to determine so far,” the AI admitted. “But the planet has a population of five point one two billion—and four point nine eight billion of those people are these aliens.

  “Not Sivar.”

  “But every warship in the system is Sivar and all of the radio coms are Sivar,” Faulkner concluded. “Fuck. You’re saying the Sivar conquered these people?”

  “I cannot speak to past events without further data,” WK replied. “But the current situation implies an intentional limitation of mobility of this race and the imposition of a Sivar administrative structure on them.

  “Which would, yes, strongly suggest that we are in a system that was conquered by force.”

  The last time Amelie had dealt with a method of faster-than-light travel no one around her was familiar with, it had been when the Matrices first arrived in Exilium. Since they’d known nothing about the Matrices or where they came from, the mysteriousness of their interstellar drive had been an extra layer of terror to their attackers.

  Now, she was in an at-least-neutral star system, eavesdropping on Captain Holmwood’s crew as they attempted to figure out just what they were looking at.

  “That’s another com drone,” a sensor tech reported. “Dialing in its course now.” Pause. “It looks like its heading for point four.”

  “That makes nine drones leaving the planet in two days,” Riker noted aloud. “All of them heading to one of those four points. If nothing else, we know they have to transition at one of those locations.

  “Are we seeing anything at those points to suggest what’s going on?”

  Amelie wasn’t actually part of the conversation going on. Riker knew she was listening in—her access codes could have got her into the tactical department’s coms without the officer knowing, but that would have been rude—but she didn’t have the ability to talk to the team.

  “I was with the old man in Conestoga when we found a natural wormhole,” one of the older Chiefs noted. “Those are hard to find, but if you know what you’re looking for you can at least tell if one is where you think it is.”

  “So, am I looking at natural wormholes, Chief?” Riker asked, in the somewhat-exasperated tones of an officer that suspected they knew the answer but their subordinate hadn’t actually said enough to provide it.

  “No, sir,” the Chief replied. “I can’t say with hundred percent certainty from this distance, but I’m not seeing any of the distortion patterns in the local light and gravity that I would expect if there were a wormhole. We’d be getting at least a glimpse of another star system.

  “Plus, if there were four natural wormholes in this system, that would be as many natural wormholes as we found in the hundred and sixty systems the Confederacy surveyed,” the older non-com continued. “I don’t have access to the papers anymore, but I’m pretty sure the theory was that you couldn’t have two natural wormholes in the same system or the waveforms would collapse.”

  “All right. So, what am I looking at?” Riker said. “We know their drones go to these particular points and vanish. We haven’t seen anything appear at those points, have we?”

  “Negative.”

  “What’s on the projected lines of the drones’ vectors when they hit the points?”

  “Each has a star system within ten light-years,” one of the junior sensor techs reported. “None of those systems pinged our scans as having a significant technological presence.”

  Amelie knew their current system did. She’d also drawn the lines herself and the tech was overstating things slightly. All four systems showed some sign of technology if you were looking for it.

  What they didn’t have was habitable p
lanets or enough radio emissions to suggest major artificial habitation. If the Sivar had wormholes or wormhole-esque connections through those systems, they were clearly little more than stopovers.

  She was about to turn down the link and focus on other work when one of the sensor techs suddenly made a startled exclamation.

  “Sir! We have an emergence at point one! A com drone just appeared out of nowhere—and there was a tachyon pulse right before it emerged.”

  “That’s useful,” Riker agreed. “What kind of pulse?”

  “Take a look, sir,” the tech responded. “The pulse is recurring…and this one is larger!”

  Amelie was already scrambling to bring up the sensor records. She could follow the logic: if one small pulse had preceded the emergence of a drone less than five meters long, a larger pulse was announcing the emergence of something bigger.

  Like an actual ship.

  “The pulse started sixty seconds ahead of the drones’ emergence,” the Chief reported. “Grew over three seconds, peaked at three point four, then faded over the same time period. Pulse ended fifty-three point two seconds before emergence.”

  “New pulse has peaked,” another tech reported. “That makes…fourteen point six seconds. It’s now fading at the same rate.”

  “Intensity was higher at the peak by several orders of magnitude. Without multiple samples, we can’t estimate what that means,” Riker noted. “Keep sensors trained on that point. Thirty seconds or fifty-three after the pulse ends, that’s useful information.”

  Amelie was focused on the same scanners the tactical team was. Everything they were seeing was several minutes out of date—point one was four and a half light-minutes away from them—which added to the delay, as the tachyon pulse was instantaneous.

  Whatever was coming through had come through a minute or so after the tachyon pulse, but it was almost five minutes before they were likely to see anything.

  “We’re now seeing lightspeed data from one minute since the pulse began,” a tech announced. “We should be seeing an emergence sometime in the nex—”

  “There!” Riker snapped. “Multiple contacts, highlight and classify!”

  Amelie waited for the experts to break down what she was looking at, but she could at least count. There were eight new contacts on the screen, all of them vastly larger than the drone. It looked like an entire battle group.

  “Minister,” Riker’s voice was suddenly directed at her on a private channel. “You were watching?”

  “I am watching, Commander,” Amelie replied. “Is Captain Holmwood in the loop?”

  “Yes, Minister,” the tactical officer confirmed.

  “Good. What am I looking at?” Amelie asked.

  “Another battleship task group,” Riker said. “One battleship, three cruisers, four destroyers.”

  It seemed her military escort had decided on classifications for the Sivar warships. That made sense, as did the fact that no one had remembered to tell Amelie. Holmwood and her people didn’t truly report to Amelie, after all. They were in charge of protecting Amelie.

  “Any reaction from the locals yet?” she said.

  “Not yet. We’re keeping our eyes peeled.” He paused and coughed delicately. “We’re going to alert status, Minister. I need to cut you out of the working com loop.”

  “Understood, Commander,” Amelie told him. “I’ll have WK keep me informed. Carry on.”

  She leaned back in her chair as the internal department loop she’d been eavesdropping on vanished. She wasn’t entirely surprised that it was immediately replaced by a mirror of the main tactical display on the bridge, resized to fit above her desk.

  “You could at least pretend that you aren’t listening to every word I say, WK,” she said aloud.

  “You used my designation, Minister,” the AI replied. “That activates a subroutine that has me listening to you and reviewing the last sixty seconds of audio around you for context. It seems most efficient.”

  “You’re probably right,” Amelie agreed. Having intelligent computers that were able to talk to her and determined to be helpful was still weird.

  “Your analysis, WK?” she asked.

  “Communications response from the central authority,” the AI said instantly. “It was probably held somewhere along the way while the battle group was attached to it.”

  “That does give us a timeline, doesn’t it?” she murmured. “Forty-eight hours is a maximum communications loop between here and their capital. One that allows them to deploy warships.”

  “I calculate a fifty-three percent likelihood that the battle group was closer to us than their capital,” WK told her. “Without more information, though, that is only slightly more than speculation.”

  Either way, she suspected she was going to be hearing from the Sector Commandant shortly.

  “WK, prep the flag deck for another conversation with Ackahl,” she told the AI. “I should go look officious and intimidating for our friends now that they have reinforcements.”

  8

  Amelie managed to make it through about thirty minutes of correspondence from Exilium—over two years into President Nyong’o’s term, most people had realized that the answer they were going to get from the President Emeritus was “no comment,” but she still liked to keep up to date—before Commander Heathers contacted her from the bridge.

  “Minister, the Sivar are requesting a communication channel,” she said. “The Sector Commandant’s flagship again. It appears to be her.”

  “I was expecting them,” Amelie replied. “WK, are we set up for proper impressions?”

  “We are,” the AI confirmed. “Are you ready, Minister Lestroud?”

  Amelie dismissed her tablet’s holographic screen and pocketed the device. Facing the camera, she assumed her mask and nodded calmly.

  “Connect the Sector Commandant,” she instructed.

  The same two-dimensional image of Ackahl and her throne appeared in front of her. There was no more visible tension in the Siva this time, but Amelie suspected the alien was far from relaxed.

  “Sector Commandant Ackahl,” she greeted the Siva. “I see that you have received reinforcements. Is this positive or should I be concerned?”

  “I have surrendered my command of this system to Sector Commandant Reedoh,” Ackahl replied calmly. “I am now properly addressed simply as Lord Commandant.

  “My Intendant has considered your offer and request and agreed to allow you to attend on him in the First and Final Citadel.”

  Amelie had a lot of practice at concealing her emotions, but that name sent a pang of worry down her spine. Pretentious, intimidating and somewhat over the top, that the Sivar’s center of government was called the “First and Final Citadel” told her quite a bit about them.

  “That is my purpose in entering your space,” she agreed calmly. “We will need the location of your home system to make that journey, Lord Commandant Ackahl.”

  Several seconds of pause passed, well beyond what was needed for lightspeed and translation.

  “We would prefer if your ships follow us through the star-lanes without us providing you that information,” Ackahl finally noted. “We are uninclined to provide strangers maps of the travel routes of our empire.”

  “Lord Commandant, I don’t even know what a star-lane is,” Amelie admitted. Admitting that was a risk but a necessary one. There was no way she could get to the Sivar home system if she was trying to follow the Sivar ships through whatever not-quite-wormhole they used.

  “My ships clearly use a very different form of interstellar travel than yours,” she continued. “Provide us with the star system in question and we will meet you there.

  “I don’t believe we will be able to travel together.”

  It was hard to be sure, but Ackahl appeared taken aback by that. She blinked, her eyelids among the only unarmored part of her face, and then leaned forward.

  “You are not bound to the star-lanes?” she asked. “That would e
xplain my seeing-eye-warriors’ confusion at your arrival. They continue to search the point where you appeared for evidence of a star-lane that we missed.”

  “My vessels use a point-to-point faster-than-light drive that works on principles far beyond a mere diplomat,” Amelie said cheerfully. Lied cheerfully, really. She couldn’t build a gravity-warp engine by any means, but they were so important to the survival and power of Exilium that she’d made damn sure she understood them.

  “We all have our specialities,” Ackahl conceded with another blink.

  Somehow, Amelie suspected that the Siva did not find her supposed lack of knowledge appropriate.

  “We do,” Amelie agreed. “We will need, at a minimum, a distance and an angle, Lord Commandant, if we are to visit your Intendant.”

  Which was, of course, merely a different type of coordinates. There was no way the Siva was getting out of this meeting without giving her the location of their capital.

  “I will have the information relayed to you,” Ackahl promised. “I must request, however, that you take a minimum of thirty-six hours to arrive. Otherwise, I cannot promise that the defenses of the system will be aware of your approach, and unfortunate actions would be taken.”

  Amelie concealed a wince.

  “I imagine that will not be a problem, Lord Commandant,” she said carefully. “I look forward to meeting with your Intendant. It promises to be most illuminating.”

  At some point before they signed a treaty, she was going to have to ask the Sivar leader just what was going on with the apparently conquered world here. In the pursuit of survival against a xenocidal AI, she could overlook a lot.

  She was, however, pretty sure they had the situation well enough in hand that turning a blind eye to slavery and conquest was not required.