“Learn what you want,” said the male, turning his back and walking away from the barrier. “It will not matter in the end. Nothing will matter in the end, when we have ended your species.”
* * *
The Admiral stood on the bridge of his ship and looked at the holo viewer that gave him a view into the system. The bright dot of the sun was centered in the viewer, and the night side of the habitable planet was in the foreground of the scene, dark as uninhabited or sparsely populated worlds were.
“Where did you go?” whispered the Admiral, his mind trying to wrap itself around the possibility of an enemy disappearing without a trace from a system. A physical impossibility was what it was. The only way a ship could get out of a system was through hyper, and there had been no sign of that, which was also a physical impossibility. So they were still in the system. Trying to get out to be sure, but still in normal space. And they couldn’t have come past us. Not within the time they had left the orbit of that world. Unless they could accelerate at a rate far beyond ours. Not physically impossible, but highly unlikely. The humans had shown no indication of that before this.
The Admiral looked at the white disk of the F class star. The viewer stepped down the brightness of that orb, making it possible to look directly into the blinding disk. Blinding disk, thought the Admiral, staring at the star. Blinding disk. That’s it.
“They went for the sun,” said the Admiral, looking at his Tactical and Sensor officers as they talked.
“My Lord?” said the Tactical Officer.
“They boosted for the star and around it, using its fierce light to confuse our sensors. Now they are on the other side, heading out of the system.”
The Admiral walked over to the two males, pointing a finger back at the viewer. “I want a calculation of their position if they headed directly for the star from the planet and then around it.”
“That could result in many possible positions, my Lord Admiral,” said the Tactical Officer.
“Then find all of those possibilities, winnow them down to the most likely, and present them to me within the hour.”
“Yes, my Lord,” said the officer, the only thing he could say.
“Com Officer,” yelled the Admiral, walking to that station. “Contact Commander Pod One. He is to dispatch three battleships from his force to decel, then head back to the hyper barrier. I want that force to circle around the system in hyper, and wait for the enemy to translate out of normal space. The rest of his pod is to accelerate around the star and out of the system, looking for the enemy. If they see them they are to follow a maximum acceleration chase pattern. Otherwise, they are to follow an earliest translation profile.”
“Yes, my Lord,” said the Com Officer, getting to work on his board, claws thrusting in and out of control holes.
“I will keep you from ever seeing your home stars,” said the Admiral, walking to the helm station to give that male his orders. “Clever foes such as yourselves must not be allowed to live.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
If I could have gotten rid of one human trait through the genome improvement project, it would have been the tendency of people to be self-serving to the point of harm to themselves and others. There is nothing more disgusting than that tendency that allows one to sell out one’s own people for a temporary advantage, even when it is clear that the end result is dire.
Memoirs of Emperor Augustine I.
SESTIUS SPACE, APRIL 4TH THROUGH 7TH, 1000.
“I was hoping to find you here,” said a familiar voice.
Jennifer Conway looked up from the report she was filing on her flat comp. The work had kept her busy, taking care of the hurts major and minor of the refugees. Kept her too focused on her work to allow her mind to travel the paths of despair that the death of Glen had presented as the only possibilities for the future. She looked up to see the smiling face of the young man who was now the ruler of the New Terran Empire.
Not the ruler, she thought, looking at the smiling face. He still has to be crowned. But in all but the ceremonial coronation he is the Emperor.
“If I’m intruding I can leave,” said Sean, his smile fading.
“No, your Majesty,” said Jennifer, closing her flat comp. How like a little boy he is, despite the sophistication he was raised to. “May I ask you a personal question, your Majesty?”
“Of course. But call me Sean.”
“How old are you, your Majesty?” She saw the disapproving look on his face as she said the title. “I mean Sean. How old are you?”
“I’m thirty-six, doctor,” he said with a smile. “Too young for an old lady of thirty-eight like yourself?”
“Not at all, your Majesty. I mean Sean.” He looks so much younger than that, like he is still in his early twenties, just out of adolescence. But I guess part of that is in his genes. And then what he had said hit home, and she felt her face flush with embarrassment. He can’t see anything in me other than a pretty face, can he? Not another conquest?
“I didn’t mean to cause you embarrassment,” said Sean, putting his hand on top of hers.
She felt her cheeks flush even more, and knew that her fair skin was giving her away. Showing her feelings, at a time when she wanted to conceal them from the world. But maybe not from this man.
“Soon after we jump into hyper I would like you to have dinner with me,” said Sean.
“The two of us, alone?”
“Unfortunately not,” said the Emperor with a frown. “The Admiral is going to have a formal dinner, to celebrate the deliverance of the heir to the throne. And I am inviting you to sit with me.”
“I’m not sure,” said the woman, her face distressed as she thought about the social disaster this might perpetrate.
“Just say yes,” said Sean. “Don’t force me to make a proclamation.”
Jennifer laughed despite herself at the man who couldn’t seem to take himself seriously. “Then I guess I will have to say yes.”
“Very good,” said the Emperor, taking her hand and moving it to his lips so he could kiss the back. “I will see you at the dinner.”
As the young Emperor walked out Jennifer was fighting with several feelings at once. Guilt, sorrow, and most of all, elation.
* * *
Sean felt almost overwhelmed by the emotions he felt after meeting with the doctor. She was beautiful, and intelligent, and educated, and everything that he wanted in a woman. And she was still grieving over the death of the man she was to marry. He knew he should leave her alone, for a number of reasons. But he couldn’t.
And then there was guilt over Gorbachev, another woman he had thought he loved, even though she was beneath him both in military rank and social status. But she has to be dead, captured by those bastards of Cacas. There is nothing to hold onto there. He remembered the dream that showed her alive, then dismissed it as just another dream, even though deep down he knew better.
And then the elation won out, the old dream was forgotten, and he knew that he was falling in love. Samantha will give me hell about this. She will say I need to save myself for a political marriage. To which my answer will be fuck that. There will not be a lot of happiness in the coming years. So I better get mine while I can.
* * *
“We have translations to hyper,” called out the voice of the Sensor Chief. “Location on the other side of the system.”
“Which dimension?” asked the Admiral.
“Hyper I, ma’am.”
“So they’re sticking to their old pattern,” said Sean.
“They aren’t sure where we are,” said the Flag Captain. “They may have an inkling, but not a sure fix.”
“Captain Stafford wants to know if he should go ahead and jump to hyper, ma’am,” said the Com Officer, looking back.
“No,” shouted the Admiral, standing up and walking over to the com station. “If we jump now we’ll only be able to continue in hyper at point two light to the next barrier. When we jump I want to get us th
e hell out of here without any messing around.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How long till we reach the VI barrier?” she asked, turning toward the force Navigation Officer.
“Twelve minutes, ma’am.”
“And then another hour to the VII barrier,” said the Admiral, looking back at the person she needed to get out of here. “And they’ll be around the star by that time, and possibly waiting for us. Shit.”
“What we need is a diversion,” said Sean, standing from his chair and walking to the holo tank.
“I’m not really sure what we could use, your Majesty,” said the Admiral, looking at him with eyes that seemed devoid of hope.
“Some of your ships, Admiral,” said the young man.
“I thought you were against sacrificing my people so that you could escape,” said the Admiral, knowing that she would make that sacrifice, just surprised that he would.
“Not your people,” said the Emperor. “Just the ships.”
* * *
“We have a translation, my Lord,” said the Sensor Officer. “Into the VII dimension.”
“How many ships?” asked the Admiral, stalking over to the sensor station.
“Five, my Lord,” said the Sensor Officer, holding an upper left hand to his ear bud as he listened to the hyperspace noise. “One of their small scout capital ships, two of their cruisers, and two of their destroyers.”
“That’s not enough,” said the Admiral, looking back at the plot.
“My Lord.”
“That is not enough ships,” said the Admiral, looking at the plot that now showed the enemy vessels that had just translated into Hyper VII. “The ground force commander said there were at least a score of vessels involved in the attack of the planet. It must be a diversion.”
“What do you want to do, my Lord,” said the Tactical Officer. “The three battleships are almost in position.”
“Send a grav wave signal to that force. They are to continue the chase of the enemy ships that have translated. And send a grav wave signal to the other chasing force. They are to continue on their original path, making sure to hold out of detection range of those ships. Repeat those signals.” And hopefully they will get the signals, never a sure thing this close to a gravity well.
Grav waves traveled the speed of light in normal space, transmitted by graviton carrier particles, limited by the same barrier as any other particles. But gravity was also felt in hyperspace, and the shadows of the particles could be detected there. As the dimensions of hyper were smaller on their individual spans compared to normal space, the grav waves could be heard as if they were traveling faster than light. The only real problem with using the modulated waves for communication was the limited range, as the gravitons produced by a spaceship were not of sufficient number to carry a signal for distance, due to the inverse square law. And within a system they were interfered with by all the other gravity sources, making grav waves problematical for any kind of insystem communications.
The vessels in question did get the transmissions, intelligible enough to coax the information out of them.
* * *
“Sensor Chief reports three enemy battleships are jumping from hyper V to VII,” said the Sensor Officer.
“Heading?”
“They are accelerating on a curve that will take them after the diversionary ships.”
“It’s working,” said Sean with a smile.
“I still don’t feel good about sending ships off like that on computer control,” said Flag Captain Josia Greenefield. “It smacks of violation of the man in the loop accords.”
“Would you rather have sent people on a suicide mission, Josia?” asked Mara Montgomery.
“And those ships will be run down and destroyed within forty-two hours,” said Sean, looking at the plot that showed the five dots of the unmanned ships moving at an angle to the force, and the three dots of enemy battleships that were not moving on the same course, but were pulling that way. “Unless this enemy commander is completely incompetent, those ships will not pose the threat of runaway AI.” And why would they develop into that kind of a menace in the first place, thought Sean. It only happened once in six hundred years of using autonomous robots, and the AIs on those ships are purposively limited because of that.
“So I figure two days of coasting and it will be safe to jump to VII,” said the Admiral. “We’ll be over nine light hours out of the system.”
“And if we timed it right, those diversionary ships will be dropping out of VII while being destroyed, and that should give us some more cover,” said Sean, smiling as he looked at the gathered officers.
“The ships are getting a little crowded,” said Captain Stafford over the com. “Not enough to strain our life support, but we’re putting people in storage rooms to get them out of the way.”
“Better than letting them be tracked down by those savages and killed as livestock,” said Greenefield, shuddering.
“Agreed,” said Montgomery, nodding. “Now all we have to do is wait and see. And sometimes that’s the hardest job of all.”
* * *
“The following force is transmitting to us, my Lord Admiral.”
“Put it on the screen,” said the Admiral, taking a glass of wine from a slave, then gesturing the small insectoid out of the room.
The face of the pod leader appeared on the screen, a toothy grin on his face. “We are tracking them at the very edge of our instruments,” said the Low Admiral in charge of the reduced pod. “They are coasting at point two light. It is my opinion that they are moving to what they hope is the limit of our instruments before jumping into their highest level of hyper.”
“Which will be VII,’ said the Admiral to himself. That was what the diversion ships jumped to, and I would expect the entire force to have the same capabilities. Which made destroying these ships even more important, as the enemy was said to not have many of the hyper VII vessels.
“We will continue shadowing them until you match velocities with us, my Lord,” continued the officer. The screen went blank.
“Do you want to reply, my Lord?” asked the Com Officer.
“Of course not, you fool,” said the Admiral, pointing a pair of fingers at the officer. “Do you want them to pick up the bleed from the laser.” Not really much chance of that at the range they are ahead. But no use taking any chances. If they are operating from a nearby base I want to know where that is, so I can erase it.
The Admiral took a sip of his drink and moved back to his chair, falling back into it and studying the plot that showed all three of his forces and the two enemy groups. And a smile crossed his face, thinking of the victory that would be his, and the vengeance he would take for the Sestius system.
* * *
“We are picking up the sounds of catastrophic translations,” said the Sensor Officer, looking back at the Admiral. “Detecting what seems to be a light cruiser and a destroyer falling out of hyper.”
“All ships translate into VII, now,” called out the Admiral. “Get them moving.”
“Another destroyer falling out,” called out the Sensor Officer, who was getting her information from the rear guard battle cruiser of the force.
“Translating now,” called out the Com Officer.
The sense of nausea took hold, and the Admiral felt like she was going to vomit. She did not have the severe form of the reaction, and the feeling passed moments after the deep red of hyperspace took over the view screen.
“Light cruiser falling out,” called out the Sensor Officer.
“All ships have translated,” said the Com Officer, her own face slightly pale from translation nausea.
“Battle cruiser falling out.”
“And so died five ships of the Empire, that we might survive,” said Sean, a smile on his face.
The Admiral looked at the young man with growing resentment. He didn’t seem affected by the nausea at all. Those damned genes of his, she thought, wondering why every
one in the Empire didn’t have them.
“It seems to have worked,” said the Flag Captain, coughing slightly from his own nausea.
“All ships accelerating at the maximum safe limit,” called out the Com Officer.
“And a clear path all the way home,” said Sean.
Prophecy? thought the Admiral, looking at the smiling young man. Or just wishful thinking?
* * *
CONUNDRUM SYSTEM, APRIL 7TH, 1000.
“No, my Lord Admiral,” said Commodore Blake Griffith, the bridge of the Smaug behind him on the holo. “We only heard the translation resonances from the battle cruiser falling out of hyper, along with the two enemy ships. We lost the signal from the destroyer in all the noise, but nothing that indicated that they were destroyed.”
And I bet the heir was on that destroyer, making an escape while the battle cruiser closed with the enemy cover their getaway. “And what was the location of this battle?” asked Mgonda of the Commodore.
“Sending our data over now,” said the lower ranking flag officer, while the tactical plot in the Grand Fleet Admiral’s office changed, the flashing icon of the battle site drawing his attention.
And still no sign of that destroyer, thought Mgonda, shaking his head. Where the hell are they?
“Prepare your squadron for deployment, Commodore. I’ll be leading a battle force out of this system, soon. And I want you to be in my order of battle.”
“Won’t take long,” said the Commodore. “All we need is a top off of antimatter.”
“That we still have plenty of,” said the Admiral, looking at his system resources on his link. There were a dozen tankers in the system, all full. And the limited production facilities of the system were still putting out a small but significant amount of the vital material. And what are our guests doing about antimatter? They must use it, in prodigious amounts, to feed those big bastard ships of theirs. And their production bases must he a long long way from here. What would they do if we interrupted that supply? “I’ll contact you again if I have any further questions, and Fleet will be getting in touch with you about your task force assignments.”
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm Page 53