“That would be a suicide mission, Prime Minister,” said the tall man with a frown.
“But you have people conditioned to do such missions, don’t you?”
“Yes, Prime Minister, I do. But they are assets I don’t like to expend unless needed.”
“They’re needed right now,” said Streeter, his voice rising in frustration. “Don’t you see that? This man is a threat to all our plans.”
“Very well, Prime Minister. I will assign an agent to eliminate the Admiral. But then you will probably want the Commandant of the Marines and the Army Chief of Staff killed as well, and those will also be suicide missions.”
“Let’s just see how the death of Lenkowski changes the dynamic,” said the Prime Minister, a smile on his face. “Maybe the others will see the error of their ways when they see that they can be reached.”
“They are trained military officers with a lifetime of service behind them,” said the man, a look of doubt on his face. “I doubt they will act out of fear for their lives. Those kind of people live for duty, no matter the cost.”
“Your view of people is very different than mine,” said Streeter. “Everyone has a degree of self-interest within them. Even well trained senior military officers. They had to play the political game to get where they are, and I doubt they would put themselves at risk, now that they have achieved the nice, cushy positions that political maneuvering has gotten them. As soon as they see what we can do to the best protected of them they will get in line.”
“Very well, Prime Minister,” said the man, the look of doubt growing on his face. “We will do it your way, this time. Now do not contact me again, unless it is absolutely necessary. Remember, we don’t deal with fools here. Your enemies are also competent.” And with that the agent walked away.
Streeter stared at the man for the moments it took him to go down a walkway, then disappear into some foliage. For a moment there he could have sworn that the man was moving with a non-human gait, but dismissed the notion. He was obviously human. No other species could mimic humans so completely, except for the Malticons. And the man was definitely too tall to be one of the little people.
* * *
Sometimes I underestimate the murderous self-centeredness of humans, thought the creature known as the Tall Man. He shook his head in a practiced gesture as he walked to his aircar, aware of his own operatives forming a loose cordon around him. And that Prime Minister is a prime example of why they must not be allowed to remain the dominant power in this sector of the Galaxy. Self-interest that is harmful to the good of the collective. What a disgusting species.
The operative thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. Not all humans are like that. The Emperor wasn’t, and neither is this honorable man I must order killed so a dishonorable one can prosper and further the plans of my masters.
The Tall Man climbed into his aircar at the parking garage and set it to take him to his home. While in the air he was thinking of which operative might be best for this mission. He’s a good one, thought the agent, picturing a young man who had just been deep conditioned. Be a waste in a way, but they are here for us to use after all.
* * *
THE DONUT, IN ORBIT AROUND THE SUPERSYSTEM CENTRAL BLACK HOLE.
The staff and crew of the Donut were still in shock. Though it was to be expected after the Emperor, Empress and the two oldest sons were all killed in an assassination that also killed many of the most prominent scientists and administrators of the enormous station. Doctor Lucille Yu wondered for the hundredth time why she hadn’t been included in that number. If not for the call that took her out of the area, she would have been among the dead who had plummeted into the black star the ring form station orbited. The Imperial Investigation Bureau and the Secret Service had wondered why she had received that call. They had found no connection, because there was none. But since the young pilot of the space fighter who had blown the observation compartment out into space, after killing his three crew members, and dying under a hail of laser fire from the larger escorts, had passed every psionic probe known to science, the IIB was not taking her innocence for granted.
At least they let me get back to work, she thought, as she looked over the figures from the central computer on her link. Or should I say the Navy decided to let me get back to work, despite what the scapegoaters wanted. She looked around her office for a moment, still not really believing that she was free. I didn’t think I was ready to become the director, but I was the senior survivor. That last thought caused her to catch her breath, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. The rest of the Empire was mourning the deaths of the Imperial family. And though she too felt sorrow at their passing, she had the deaths of many closer friends and acquaintances claiming precedence in her thoughts and feelings. She hadn’t even liked all of them. Some had been arrogant assholes who lived to push their own careers and agendas. They had still been like family in so many ways.
Lucille put her face in her hands and let some of the tears come. Some were for herself. The interrogation by the Imperial Agents and the military had not been pleasant. Psionic questioning could brutalize a person, worse than physical rape, and that was what it felt like on some level.
“No,” she shouted, slamming a hand on her desk. “No. I will not act like a victim. I have important work to do.”
Linking back into the system she drove the thoughts of loss from her mind and got to work. She checked the figures for negative matter production, needed to keep the wormhole gates open. She grunted as she looked at those figures. Much higher than they had been, but still below the necessary level. They were slowly stockpiling it though, enough to open more personal gates, as well as some of the much smaller gates the military was requesting. The worlds of the Supersystem were all soon to be connected to the Donut, meaning that people would be able walk from one planet to the next in seconds, transferring gates at the Donut. Still not enough for any appreciable commerce, but a start. We would already be there if not for the request of the military for the holes they wanted. If it was peacetime we could forge the kind of travel net we wanted. Now we have to face other priorities.
“Ma’am,” came a voice over the link. “We’re about ready to open a big one. Just thought you might want to watch.”
“Thanks, Taylor,” she replied to the engineer that was heading the formation team. “I would love to see it.”
Lucille went into station link, her mind melding with a node of the computer that ran the operation. Suddenly her visual centers had access to millions of cameras, and she was being given the best take on every part of the event. Figures flew through another part of her brain, while her auditory center listened in on the conversations of the techs running the operation.
In some ways it was like watching a tridee vid. She was looking down on the black hole, the terrible monster that sucked matter out of existence and out of the universe. The thin ribbon of the Donut was illuminated by the light of nearby stars, and its own external lighting. Sudden bright lines of light sprung into existence, linking the station with the hole. Hundreds of thousands of electrodes, each larger than a battleship, churned out the current, sending it into the event horizon of the spinning, charged black hole. The spinning mass grabbed those electron beams and spun them around, turning the entire system into the largest imaginable electric dynamo, generating power from the gravitational force surpassing that of the entire Empire.
“All storage cells at full capacity,” came a tech’s voice, like that of a narrator. Lucille looked at the graphical display that showed all two hundred thousand of the ten million ton capacitors at maximum capacity. The system would soon drain them while the massive generator kept feeding energy into them for the next stage.
“Transferring power to grav units,” said the tech, and Lucille switched views yet again.
The two globular arrays were actually in a separate orbit from the station, just a hundred thousand extra kilometers out from the black hole. To
o dangerous to be within the station, where the forces they worked might destroy the structure, they were kept where they could only wreck themselves if something went wrong. Lucille looked over the spheres, visible in a split view, since they were ten thousand kilometers from each other. Each globe was sixty kilometers in diameter, each set with thirty-eight huge graviton generators arrayed around the sphere, pointing inward. Some had speculated that a larger array of such generators could move whole planets, making them more comfortable as terraforming targets. Some had speculated that the ancients had done just that thing to set up the Supersystem orbiting the black hole, since it was very unlikely to be a natural formation.
Now those thirty-eight graviton projectors powered up and sent beams of gravity into the center of the globe. They each concentrated on a point about ten meters from the exact center of the sphere. Combined they actually pulled on space in a circle, outward from the center. There was nothing to see for several seconds. Lucille looked at the graphical data that showed the forces at work. To a physicist like herself that was exciting enough, as mankind produced forces that rivaled that of the black hole, if of much smaller magnitude, generated indirectly by the hole.
With a sudden flash of light space tore, a circular rip that expanded. The radiation released would have killed the crew of a shielded battleship, one reason the structure was not located on the station, or even near it. Within a microsecond of the first hole forming a second one opened in the center of the other sphere. The holes linked automatically, the rifts reaching for the nearest like rift, forming a no distance bridge through the space of ten thousand kilometers, a working wormhole.
A hose now moved along an expandable arm through space within both spheres. They bent inward and precisely positioned themselves. As soon as they were in place they started to spew thick plasma into the mouth of each hole. The plasma reacted in a curious manner, pushing away from itself and forming a circle against the edges of the hole. The charged negative matter then held the hole open, which was forced to maintain its shape by the graviton generators, which were now powering down, as they did not need all their generating capacity for this stage.
The holes sat suspended in space, magnetic forces keeping the negative matter in a stable configuration. These holes were about ten meters in diameter, small cargo transporters that would link worlds light years apart, once they were delivered to their future homes. Not the ship gate they were hoping for, but that would come. Now telelinked robots moved into place and with deft motions assembled the structure that would keep the negative matter in place while protecting materials passing through the hole from touching the deadly stuff, which canceled out itself and any matter it touched.
Lucille got the priority call before the process was finished. She checked the code and cursed under her breath. The Navy was calling her. She shuddered as she thought about how the Navy had treated her until a week ago. The mind rape they had subjected her to, in the name of Imperial Security. She wanted to send a refuse contact command, but knew she couldn’t do that. Not if she wanted to retain her job and her freedom. She checked the signal origination and saw that it was from Naval Headquarters in Capitulum, on Jewel. Coming through the wormhole connection to the central docks and then to the planet, so almost instantaneous. And possibly coming from any number of offices. Stealing up her courage, she acknowledged the connection.
“Hello, Doctor Yu,” said Rear Admiral Thomas Jackson in the link. He was in Lucille’s mind’s eye, sitting behind his orderly desk. Of course he could have been anywhere, including sitting on a toilet, and the system would send the video he wanted it to send. Lucille breathed a sigh of relief as she recognized the man, the Naval Liaison with the Donut. Not the man to be interrogating her about what she had or hadn’t done today.
“Did I catch you at a bad time, Doctor?” said the man as Lucille stayed silent. “This is very important. I swear to you.”
“It’s OK,” said Lucille, trying to appear strong. “I was just watching the opening of a cargo gate. We’re planning to build quite a few of those before we tackle a ship gate.”
“Afraid you’re going to have to cut back on the medium large gates, Doctor,” said the Admiral, a smile coming across the link. “We need lots of communication links. Thousands would be nice, but at least hundreds. One for every major command in the Empire.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, her eyes going wide. “One of the other races?”
“Oh, it’s another race OK, but not one we’ve dealt with in a while. This is still considered confidential, but it’s being disseminated to enough people that we can’t keep a secret tag on it.”
“The old enemy,” said Lucille, feeling her stomach sink as she said the words. It was something most people, herself included, had wanted to pretend didn’t exist. If they were here? There had been much speculation on the news lately, and everyone knew there had been fighting in Sector Four against an advanced opponent. But nothing official on their identity. Until now.
“As far as we can tell, yes,” said the Admiral, a troubled expression on his face. “If so, we’re either facing a very long war, or a short and violent one. Neither one good for us. And right now our biggest priority is fast com, which the wormholes can give us.”
“And after that?”
“Everything,” said the Admiral with a barking laugh. “As many as you can give us, as fast as possible.”
“I think we can give you a small wormhole every hour,” said Lucille, looking at the figures on her own system. “If we work the system twenty four hours a day. “Which could cause long term problems.”
“What about your backup spheres?”
“That could lead to more problems in the future,” said Lucille. “But of course you need them now. So maybe thirty-six to forty wormholes a day. The smallest ones, of course. Many less of the gate variety. That’s the best I can promise.”
“It will have to do,” said the Admiral, nodding. “We have ordered construction of more of the wormhole generation spheres. A dozen more for starters, and the first pair should reach you in about two weeks.” The smile left the Admiral’s face and he leaned forward with a troubled expression. “And what chance do you think the enemy might have this kind of technology?”
“I wouldn’t think they would,” she replied. “This was a massive project, and something no other race we know contemplated. So if I had to bet, I would bet against it. Maybe in a hundred years, once they know we have it, if they want to make that kind of investment.”
“I was hoping you would say that, Doctor,” said the Admiral, a hint of relief coming over the link. “I will tell you this in strict confidence, since you are running a vital manufacturing concern. We know that this enemy is just a bit more technologically advanced than we are. Not as much as we had thought, but it’s still there. Our experts feel that within a decade we will surpass them in technology. Does that make sense to you?”
Lucille thought for a moment. The monolithic enemy, conquering everything in their path, nothing presenting much of a challenge for thousands of years. Falling into stagnation, not really needing to advance all that much. A conservative society that abhorred change. Versus a people who had known a thousand years of war against vigorous and expansive races on all sides. Who had to adapt and evolve to win, because winning meant survival.
“It makes perfect sense, Admiral,” she said after running through her thoughts. “Of course, if we get into a war with them that sort of thinking may change. Unless they just use weight of numbers and roll over us.”
“That brings me to your project, Doctor,” said the Admiral. “As you said, it’s doubtful they have a handy dandy wormhole maker stashed away. Since we are so outnumbered, then we need to make sure that we can amass our forces where they can achieve local superiority. Instantaneous communications will surely help.”
“I can see that, Admiral,” said Lucille, who thought of herself as having a good working knowledge of strategy and tactics, going
back to her own days as a tactical officer on a heavy cruiser, before she retired that career and sought another.
“But we have some other plans as well,” said the Admiral, his voice lowering. “Something we would like to discuss with you in private.”
Meaning a secured room somewhere at Naval HQ, thought Lucille, shuddering as she thought about her last interaction in sealed rooms with naval personnel.
“I’m sorry about what you have been put through, Doctor,” said the Admiral, doubtless reading her emotions through the transmission, his sympathy coming through the link. “I wish we could undo it. And I won’t force you to come to a meeting at Naval Headquarters. But your input would be appreciated. I think your insights might be vital to the completion of this project. Admiral Lenkowski will be there, so the meeting will be held on his flagship.”
And if I’m not safe on a twenty million ton warship, thought Lucille, I guess I’m not safe anywhere.
“Does the project have a name?”
“You will be briefed into it during the meeting.”
“Which is when?”
“Tomorrow at 10 AM, Capitulum time. It shouldn’t be hard for you to make it.”
No, thought Lucille, nodding her head. Only a step through a wormhole, the same one the Imperial family used to get here. No, the hard part will be dragging my dead ass through the gate and into the memories of the last week.
“OK,” she finally said, feeling even more dread settling over her. “I’ll be there.”
“Very good, Doctor,” said the Admiral with a transmitted smile. “Looking forward to seeing you.”
The Admiral severed the connection with a transmission of who she would meet at Central Docks, so she could be taken to the superbattleship where the meeting would be held. Leaving Lucille to sit alone with her thoughts.
* * *
SUPERBATTLESHIP VALKYRIE, IN ORBIT AROUND JEWEL.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm Page 16