“Our first wave of assault shuttles will be touching down within ninety seconds,” the chief of staff continued. “Orbital surveillance shows no movement at the site. At all.”
“That is not good,” Pat said grimly. “What about Rolfson?”
“His aircraft went down and we detected heavy plasma fire in the area,” Chan said. “We have to assume he’s been shot down.”
“Do we have a source on the plasma fire? We have to be able to see something.”
“Nothing so far. Orbital surveillance is drawing a blank; it’s…weird.”
“It’s someone jamming our sensors,” Pat replied. “Our sensors, our coms…it’s like a stealth field in turbo-charge mode, covering an entire attack.”
“That’s…” Chan swallowed. “That’s possible, I suppose.”
“Unfortunately. Any sensor feeds from the shuttles?”
“Nothing different from what we’re seeing.”
That wasn’t good.
“Do we have a solid lock on Captain Rolfson?”
“No,” Chan admitted. “We know where he transmitted from, but he went silent a few seconds later, just as we registered plasma fire. No origin, just the bolts themselves.”
“I am very sick of being behind the tech curve,” Pat said conversationally. “All right. Get me Captain Fang. I have an idea.”
Fang appeared on the screen almost instantly, the shaven-headed and heavily muscled Chinese man looking almost as aggravated as Pat felt.
“Sir?” he asked flatly.
“I’m guessing you’re not magically seeing anything I’m not,” Pat said.
“No. What do you need?”
“We’re looking at a modified stealth field,” the Admiral told his flag captain. “What I need, Captain, is eyes. And you’re going to give them to me.”
“How? Emperor’s sensors can’t see through whatever they’re doing!”
“But Emperor has a full suite of class IV autonomous multi-environment sensor drones,” Pat reminded Fang. “You’re going to crash one into the ground next to the dig site, and then you’re going to use as many damned drones as it takes as relays to get the sensor data up to the Guard and to us.
“And yes, Captain, I’m aware of what a AMESD costs. Do it.”
Fang didn’t look like he’d even been considering objecting.
“You’ll have whatever eyes we can give you before the Guard touches down.”
“Make sure they have them too.”
#
They lost contact with the assault shuttles first. One moment, every channel was live. The next, they could still see the shuttle formation—but there were no communications getting through.
Ten seconds after that, they lost sight of the shuttles. Whatever godawful nightmare tech was shielding the attack on the surface was terrifying to Pat.
It was not, however, magic. Between them, the ships of his task force carried over three hundred AMESDs, and, following Pat’s orders, they deployed every single one of them.
They didn’t crash one drone into the planet. They crashed six, each of them relaying up to rapidly flying drones immediately above them.
Thirty-two meters. That was how far the radios on the drones, designed to communicate across entire star systems, could transmit inside the field. With each layer of relay occupying three drones, it took over a hundred drones to get the transmissions clear of the stealth field—but they did it.
“Who the hell are these people?” Pat demanded as he finally resolved the dig site—and the ongoing battle that was raging through it.
Most of Captain Sommers’s company was gone. Some remained, taking cover in the handful of prefabs around the site and using the nanocrete landing pad as a shield against the winged soldiers trying to move in on them.
Both sides were carrying plasma weapons, and the entire force trying to take the camp, at least, was in power armor. The only thing in Sommers’s favor was that the numbers were more even than Pat had feared: the Guard captain had a full company of two hundred troops, and it looked like the aliens had “only” landed about twice that.
Somehow. Through everything Pat had in orbit.
“With what we’ve got, can you localize the source of the jamming?” Pat asked.
“Yes, sir,” Fang confirmed. “Looks like multiple sources, I don’t think we’ve got them all locked in, but we have at least three.”
“Kill them from on high, Captain. You are authorized.”
The standard ship-board weapons of any galactic power could shred a planet. Deploying them against surface targets was done very, very carefully—and only on the authority of the highest-ranked officer in the system.
Fang had clearly been expecting the order, however, as less than ten seconds passed from Pat’s words to Emperor of China shifting course to allow her broadside to bear on the planet.
Three proton beams fired. They’d lose much of their energy passing through the atmosphere, with attendant negative effects, but it was still better than sending cee-fractional hammers into a planet they wanted to keep.
“And one more,” Fang noted calmly. A fourth proton beam fired, incinerating the emitter that the destruction of the first three allowed them to localize.
“We have coms,” Chan announced.
“This is Sommers,” a voice echoed over the radio. “Zulu. Zulu. Zulu. We are being fucking overwhelmed. Someone fucking answer me!”
“Captain, this is Vice Admiral Kurzman,” Pat told the man crisply, checking the timing and smiling grimly. “If you would like your answer, I suggest you look up.”
The first wave of Guard shuttles crashed down onto the dig site seconds later. Plasma bolts and autocannon shells walked their way around the perimeter of the dig site, followed by power-armored troopers.
One moment, the Guard were about to be overwhelmed, their communications blocked and the enemy all around them.
The next, they had communications back and the odds were flipped. Surrounded and facing air support, the strange aliens were suddenly the ones without a chance. Half of their force was wiped out in the first strafing runs and gunfights.
The rest of the battle was short and ugly, but at least, unlike the strange Kanzi who’d attacked before, these aliens proved willing to surrender.
“Find their ship,” Pat ordered. “Do whatever it takes—I’m assuming we’re looking at a stealth-fielded transport.”
Fang coughed.
“Already did, sir,” the Captain admitted. “It was the last stealth field source. It’s, ah, scattered across about a kilometer of permafrost.”
“Damn,” Pat said, then shook his head. “So be it, Captain. It had to be done.”
“Sir, I have Commander Teykay on a channel for you,” Chan reported.
“Put him through.”
The Rekiki’s now-familiar face appeared on the screen. Pat Kurzman had worked with Rekiki for five years now and he could easily read the fear…no, the terror on the Commander’s crocodile-like face.
“Admiral Kurzman, I know who these aliens are,” he said urgently. “They shouldn’t be here—they shouldn’t be here at all.
“Those are Wendira Warrior caste, sir.”
#
Chapter 21
Annette had long accepted that, as the direct vassal of the A!Tol Empress, the ruler of Earth, and the direct owner, in several senses, of about fifteen star systems, she didn’t ever truly get “time off”.
Birth was probably going to force her to change that, at least temporarily, but she was still some months away from that, and the twins were being surprisingly cooperative.
For now, she had a private meeting room built into her penthouse with the best security the Imperium’s technology could offer. She, Elon, Villeneuve and Ki!Tana were gathered there, staring at the image that Tan!Shallegh had sent them.
The ten-foot-tall winged creature in the hologram was surprisingly beautiful to human eyes. Her carapace glittered with silver and gold and her wings, massive
even relative to her size, were a glittering translucent white.
“Hive Commandant Ashtahkah,” Annette said simply, gesturing at the image. “A Royal-caste Wendira. Past her egg-laying years now but mother to approximately seventeen thousand Wendira of the four castes.”
“The higher ranks of their military are split between Royal-castes who are too old to breed and Warrior-castes who have earned their rank in blood,” Ki!Tana told the others in the room. “I have had only limited encounters with Wendira, but none have been positive.
“Why they are here? I do not know.”
“And the Mesharom?” Annette asked. When Ki!Tana had wandered back into her life, shortly before the Second Battle of Sol, she’d done so in a borrowed Mesharom scout ship.
Whirls of yellow-green flickered across the Ki!Tol’s skin before setting into green and purple.
“You know there are secrets I cannot betray,” she said finally. “What I will promise you is this: the Mesharom are not your enemy. They may not help us against the Laians or the Wendira, not if they lack the force, but they will not strike against Terra themselves.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring,” Elon argued. “Not with three Core Power battle groups wandering around the area. I’m starting to feel very small and very neglected, and I much preferred that feeling to go along with being very ignored!”
“You knew when you took in the Exiles that there might be consequences,” Ki!Tana said. “There is a reason no one did it before you. They knew the Republic would come.”
“The Mesharom and the Wendira are here for different reasons, though,” Villeneuve replied. “And we don’t know why.”
“I’m guessing the same damned reason why those strange Kanzi showed up on Hope,” Annette said. “There’s something there they all want. The Laians just happened to be here at the same time, which means if we manage to satisfy them, somehow, they may go away. Given the number of players that seem to be intruding onto our little corner of space, that is worth quite a bit to us now.”
“But…how much?” Elon said softly. “We won’t betray the Laians. What can we give the Republic?”
“The ships,” she told her consort. “I’ll hate to lose them, but if we give Pincer Kandak the attack cruisers, he gets to go back to the Republic with solid proof of something. And we get to remove one player from the damned board.”
“Will he accept?” Ki!Tana asked. “He seemed quite determined before.”
“It’s been thirty-six hours that Harvester has just sat there looking intimidating,” Annette reminded her staff. “I doubt he’s willing to offer a compromise himself, but he is also hesitating to start a war.
“I think it’s time he and I spoke again.”
“You’re taking a risk every time you meet with him,” Elon told her. “We cannot necessarily trust the Pincer not to do something stupid.”
“We have no choice,” Annette said. “Right now, Kandak holds the military balance of power in this system. We can’t stop him and he knows it. At the same time, if he tries to take the Exiles by force, we will fight him—and he doesn’t appear willing to accept the consequences of that!”
“Yet,” Jean Villeneuve said quietly. “But sooner or later, if we don’t find a compromise, someone back in the Republic may give the order—and he will obey.”
“Then like I said,” Annette concluded, “it’s high time he and I spoke.”
#
Jessica found herself once more pressed into service as a neutral meeting point, the Laian flag officer and the Terran Duchess meeting in her hangar bay again.
There were fewer escorts this time. Annette hadn’t brought any members of her Council, and Kandak, perhaps sensing the tone of the event from the fact that the brief communications arranging it had all come directly from Annette herself, had come without aides.
Their escorts were only two troopers each, though one of Annette’s was Wellesley and she suspected that Pincer Kandak’s guard probably included someone of similar seniority. She’d also have been surprised if there weren’t backup still aboard the Pincer’s shuttle—certainly, there were another half-dozen Guards in power armor aboard hers—but the appearance of a modicum of trust was important.
The Laian was silent until they entered the meeting room once more, leaving even the handful of guards behind. He chittered in undisguised pleasure at the sight of the tray of snacks, however, followed by a sharp silence that in a human would have been an embarrassed flush.
“I take it,” Pincer Kandak noted slowly, as he picked up a snack, “that you are quite familiar with my people?”
“I dealt extensively with the Exiles at Builder of Sorrows,” Annette confirmed, using the Laian name for the semi-mobile pirate station rather than its human nickname, Tortuga, or its A!Tol name, A!Ko!La!Ma!—which meant, roughly, “hive of bandit bugs”.
“I also have spent time with our Laian citizens here on Terra,” she continued. She didn’t stress the word citizens, but she could tell that Kandak caught the emphasis regardless. “One of them sits on my Council and another is one of the senior officers in my Militia.”
Kandak’s mandibles clicked in a Laian nod and he took a seat, considering her with black, multifaceted eyes.
“Some truths must be spoken,” he finally said. “The Voices of the Republic had their orders from the Grand Parliament as to what was to be done about the Exiles.”
As Annette understood it, the Voices of the Republic were the twenty senior officers of the Laian navy. The Grand Parliament was their elected leadership and a quite politic choice of words on the translator software’s part.
A more literal translation, she knew, was the Big Hive.
She waited for Kandak to continue. There was presumably a point to his history lecture, and she’d let him get to it on his own time.
“Your…defiance required the Voices to ask the Parliament for direction,” Kandak admitted. “And your choice of cause, Duchess Bond, has touched certain factions’ chosen paths.”
That took a moment to process. The translator was smart, but it wasn’t perfect. If she’d interpreted what he said correctly, though, the way she’d phrased the challenge had linked into a portion of the Grand Parliament’s pet causes.
“The Grand Parliament is divided, which has left the decision to fall back to where it began: Harvester of Glory and myself.”
“And what is your decision, Two Hundred and Eighty-eighth Pincer of the Republic?” she asked carefully.
“I have not made one,” he said crisply. “In the absence of clarification, however, it seems to me that I must follow my original orders. So, I must once again, Duchess Bond, summon you to surrender the Exiles and their ships to me.”
“I can’t do that,” Annette said steadily. “The laws of the Imperium do not recognize any authority on your part over them or any crime they are guilty of. I cannot—I will not—surrender the citizens of our sovereign Imperium under threat of force.”
“Then we find ourselves still at an impasse, Duchess Bond, and I do not think I need to remind you of the balance of military power present here.”
“You do not,” she agreed. “But I do not think I need to remind you of the potential consequences if you were to take our citizens by force.”
“I do not think they will be as severe as you hope,” Kandak warned her. “You are a very small player in a very small game. There are not many who will protest for you, Duchess Bond.”
“Perhaps not. But I do not think the consequences for the Republic would ignorable either,” Annette told him. Despite herself, she cupped her stomach protectively under the table. The next few minutes could easily decide what kind of world her children grew up in.
“I have a compromise to offer,” she continued. “We are prepared to acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the Laian Republic, with regards to the warships of the Laian Ascendancy and a potential uncontrolled technological transfer.
“My staff have assembled what we believe to be s
ufficient documentation of the development process of our plasma lance to prove that we did not take any technology from the cruisers in our possession. The Exiles locked the vessel down in such a way that we could not have,” Annette explained.
From the soft chitter of his mandibles, Kandak didn’t quite believe that assessment, but he remained silent, hearing her out.
“While under no circumstances are we prepared to surrender our citizens for the crimes of their forefathers, we are prepared to turn the three former Ascendancy Navy warships in our possession over to the Republic,” Annette said finally, in a rush.
At least one of those ships had been built by Builder of Sorrows long after the civil war, but it was clear that the Laian Republic, at least, regarded anything in the possession of Builder’s Crew as Ascendancy Navy.
Kandak was silent for several seconds, considering.
“I appreciate your willingness to make concessions, Duchess Bond,” he finally told her. “I understand the difficulty in a sovereign facing this kind of demand.
“But I am afraid that your compromise may be insufficient. The Grand Parliament has always been very clear that the attaintment of the rebels’ treason passes down their lineage. After this much time, there may be mercy, but they must be returned to the Republic to face its judgment.”
“Then the Republic must be prepared to break all laws of interstellar decency and sovereignty,” Annette replied. “I will yield the ships if I must. I will submit to an intrusive assessment of our research programs if I must.
“But I will not surrender citizens who immigrated to my world in good faith. I have offered as much as the Imperium is prepared to give, Pincer of the Republic.
“The choice is now yours.”
#
Chapter 22
Most people would not have been able to tell that the Duchess of Terra was furious merely from how she walked when she left the conference room. Many might have picked it up from the fact that she and Pincer Kandak had entered together and she had left without him.
Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3) Page 18