“I wasn’t going to shoot her,” the General objected.
“Beating her to a pulp would potentially help even less,” Annette said dryly. “Time to weapons range?”
Wellesley shook his head.
“If I’m understanding everything right, the Mesharom are in range of the Wendira, but not of the Imperials, and neither the Wendira nor the Imperials are in range of anybody.
“We, of course, are hanging out back here, several million kilometers from anything.”
“Hanging out back here with an FTL communicator,” she concluded. “Amandine.” She tapped a control. “Do we have a way to use the hyperfold communicator to reach the Wendira?”
The Captain coughed.
“We were only given the ‘frequencies,’ so to speak, for our Mesharom companions,” he admitted.
“That wasn’t the question,” she said mildly.
Amandine chuckled.
“It may just happen that Ki!Tana and I were going over the same transmissions you were, and they, quite subtly, included the identifier for the relay drone the Mesharom used to send their message to Tanaka,” he told her. “She believes she can order it to send a wideband transmission that the Imperial fleet will receive in real time.”
“And the Wendira?”
“We’ve been studying the transmitter,” Amandine said. “It has an equivalent of a radio’s omnidirectional transmission. It’s very short-range, relatively speaking, but everyone with a hyperfold transceiver within, oh, ten light-minutes will get the message.”
“That would be both the Mesharom and the Wendira. Captain, how long until the fleets open fire?”
“That depends on how close everyone plans on getting,” he admitted. “I’d guess about two minutes before the Wendira open fire, the Imperials about thirty seconds after that. Darkness alone knows what the Mesharom are planning.”
“They’ve pushed a whole bunch of buttons that don’t involve weapons, Captain, and they’re waiting to see what explodes in response,” Annette told him. “I’ll be on the bridge in sixty. Get that relay and omnidirectional transmission set up.”
“What are we telling them?”
“You’ll see.”
#
It took Annette less than the sixty seconds she’d promised Amandine to make it to the bridge, but she could already see things beginning to go downhill.
Tornado was far enough from the action to not have a clear idea of what was going on, but the pulses of active radar, lidar, and even more esoteric particles were clear as day on her scanners. No one was shooting yet, but all three fleets now had each other locked in as they closed toward the range to fire.
“Are we ready?” she asked Amandine as she stepped up beside the command chair.
“Coms are go,” he confirmed. “You’re on when you say go. What’s the plan, Your Grace?”
Annette lifted up a small box with a single button on it, covered by a plastic shield. It was a standard Imperial remote detonator, linked in this case to the cruiser’s main communications array.
“We have a chat with everyone,” she said calmly. “Put me on.”
She stepped in front of the Captain’s chair and faced where she knew the main camera was, letting some of both her fear and her anger leak through onto her face as she looked directly at the people she needed to intimidate.
“Fleet Commandant Vaiyah. Interpreter-Captain Adamase. Echelon Lord Kas!Val. You all know who I am,” she told them.
“You have all decided, for your own reasons, that the ship on this planet is worth fighting for. Killing for. Dying for.
“I remind you all—but especially Kas!Val—that this is my world. My Centauri Development Corporation owns that rock behind me. We own that ship—and my Empress charged me to speak for her with regards to it.
“And now, despite everything, you are about to kill each other over it. You will blast each other apart, and whoever is left will take the damn ship and, depending on who it is, blow the colony or even the planet to pieces to cover your tracks.
“I can not permit this to happen.”
She smiled.
“I made a deal that the ship would go to the Mesharom. But instead of trusting me, you have decided to take the word of an out-of-her-depth Naval officer over mine and decided that Hope must die.
“And Fleet Commandant Vaiyah—you are simply determined to break every law and principle of interstellar relations to get your claws on that ship.”
She held the detonator up into camera view.
“I will not permit my people to suffer for your bullshit. The Corellian Plateau has been evacuated and six one-hundred-megaton antimatter charges placed inside the hull of the ship of Those Who Came Before.
“When I push this button, the whole reason for this conflict will be vaporized,” she told them flatly. “So, this is my ultimatum, sentients:
“The instant any of you—and I do not exempt the Imperial forces from this!—opens fire, I will press the button.
“I’m not one hundred percent certain what that old singularity core will do when the ship is blown to pieces,” Annette admitted, “but I will take that risk before I will let you harm my people.
“Stand down. All of you. Or I will blow the only reason we all have to fight to itty-bitty pieces.”
#
Tornado’s bridge was silent as they waited to see just what the three battle fleets in the system did.
“Huh,” the communications officer, a young dark-haired Englishwoman named Sarah Darcy, exclaimed. “The live feed from the Mesharom just reactivated. We’re getting their scan data of the Wendira and Imperial fleets.”
Annette considered that for a moment.
“They’re more than thirty light-seconds away,” she pointed out.
“I know, Your Grace. Tactical, can you confirm?” Darcy asked.
“I’m double-checking, but it looks like Sarah’s right,” Commander Song said a moment later. The Chinese tactical officer looked just as stunned. “Imperial Fleet is eighty light-seconds from the Mesharom, the Wendira are one hundred and three, so we’re not getting live data.”
“Any communications from anyone?”
“All fleets have stopped at their current positions,” Song said. “No one is retreating, but no one is firing or advancing, either.”
“That’s progress, at least,” Amandine noted. “So…”
“Incoming hyperfold transmission from the Wendira fleet!” Darcy interrupted.
“Show me,” Annette ordered. “Can we link a live channel?”
“Yes, Your Grace!”
Fleet Commandant Vaiyah once again filled her screen. This time, Vaiyah’s wings were furled, their black and gold blending smoothly into their dark gray carapace and uniform as the Warrior-caste Wendira studied Annette through the screen.
“Your Grace, Annette Bond, Duchess of Terra, Vassal of Empress A!Shall,” Vaiyah greeted her smoothly, reeling off Annette’s titles with a grace and calm that surprised her.
“It seems we have underestimated the hive wax of the Young Swimmers’ latest acquisition. Are you truly prepared to risk the destruction of your colony rather than yield the ship to us?”
The tone was curious, quizzical, and Annette took a moment to check that the translation was occurring on her side. It was an easy-enough trick to force tone in a translation you were providing, but no. Vaiyah was sending them her unaltered voice, and Tornado’s computers were translating her tone and words.
“Try me,” Annette said dryly. “Of course, even if I don’t push the button, you’ll have to go through the Imperials and the Mesharom.”
“I can do that,” Vaiyah stated flatly. “But I cannot, as you clearly understand, prevent you from destroying the ship with bombs. I warn you, child of Terra, that the destruction of the singularity core’s containment may well destroy the planet.”
“I’ll take that risk over watching you ‘higher powers’ fight over my people,” she replied.
V
aiyah’s wings rustled, a strange chirping sound like grasshoppers on a spring evening.
“I have tested the wax of your hive, child of Terra,” they said calmly. “I have fought your warriors and I look into the eyes of their leader, and I do not question your resolve.”
The Wendira bowed slowly.
“I will not challenge the Eldest Wyrm for a prize I cannot attain,” Vaiyah told Annette. “You are victorious, Vassal of the A!Tol. The Grand Swarm will withdraw. Today.
“Do not doubt there may well be consequences in the future,” the alien warned, “but I have…faith in the strength of your hive, Duchess.”
The transmission cut off.
Annette stared at the space where the winged alien had stood for several moments.
“Please tell me they’re moving,” she finally said.
“Hold on one, Your Grace,” Song replied. “Checking the feeds from the Mesharom…yes, the Wendira are withdrawing at point three cee and recovering their starfighters. They are leaving.”
Annette exhaled deeply.
“One down,” she announced. “Get me a channel to Kas!Val. I suspect that conversation is going to be much less easy.”
#
There was a reason, apparently, that the A!Tol Echelon Lord hadn’t already reached out to yell at Annette. A Dawning of Swords’ communication team connected Annette instantly with the Imperial flag officer…but Kas!Val wasn’t being particularly coherent.
She was bright orange with rage, a hue that Annette had never seen on an A!Tol before, and the spew of clicks and hisses she made at the screen for the few seconds was completely untranslatable. Either Kas!Val was speaking a dialect that hadn’t been programmed into the translator—which was at least theoretically possible—or she wasn’t actually speaking at all.
“You will be flayed alive for treason,” she finally got out coherently in the middle of a stream of beak snaps. “We will rip your children from your body and feed them to worms. You will suffer for this betrayal!”
Annette’s hands instinctively covered her stomach protectively, and the last of her willingness to play nice with the A!Tol officer vaporized in a single moment of incandescent rage.
“I am a Duchess of the Imperium!” she snapped, the force of her words finally bringing Kas!Val to silence. “To threaten me is treason. We can add that to list of reasons you are an incompetent fool.
“You have defied my instructions, broken the deal I brokered for peace, and betrayed your oaths to our Empress,” Annette laid out flatly. “You have a choice, now, Echelon Lord Kas!Val.
“You can accept, as everyone else has done, that Empress A!Shall charged me to negotiate for the fate of the ship of Those Who Came Before and to do whatever I thought was necessary to protect the citizens of both Terra and Imperium.
“Or you can accept, if nothing else, that I am prepared to blow the artifact to hell rather than let you ruin the deal I made,” Annette told her.
“In either case, your threats have crossed a tide that the Imperium cannot permit to be swum,” she continued. “You can either surrender your command back to Echelon Lord Tanaka and place yourself under arrest in your quarters, or I will have my Guard board your ship and do so by force.”
“I will do no such thing!” Kas!Val snapped. “You are the traitor here, you filthy primitive imitating your betters. You have no concept of the pride of Imperium, to surrender so easily. I will see you arrested, tortured, you will suf—”
“Enough.”
One of the advantages of the massive, barrel-like chests of an Anbrai male was just how much air they could suck in for a bellow. Even across the radio channel, Annette barely managed not to recoil as the senior of Kas!Val’s two bodyguards, an Anbrai Imperial Marine that towered over his charge, cut her off.
The immense four-legged bodyguard wore commando power armor, augmenting his already-immense strength as he reached in and grabbed Kas!Val’s bullet-shaped torso in two massive hands.
“Your words are treason,” the bodyguard ground out. “The Duchess offered you mercy but you are blind. You are under arrest.”
A Dawning of Swords’ flag deck was now silent as the two Imperial Marines, towering over the two-meter-tall A!Tol, snapped chains onto her manipulator tentacles and bound her.
The image flickered and the channel shifted to Dawning’s bridge. A second A!Tol, her skin purple and black with stress and fear, faced the camera levelly with her black eyes.
“I am Captain Ivash!,” she told Annette. “We have transferred command authority back to Duchess of Terra.” Her tentacles fluttered uncertainly. “The Echelon Lord has the authority to do many things, but she is not permitted to threaten a Duchess.
“On behalf of the Imperial Navy, I offer our apologies. But…” Ivash!’s tentacles fluttered. “We would prefer if the ship were not to leave the system until Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh arrives.”
“Now, that, Captain Ivash!, is reasonable,” Annette agreed. “I will speak with the Mesharom, but I think I can convince them to agree to that.”
If nothing else, she still had the button.
#
The two Mesharom warships remained in position, floating inside their own range of the Imperial and Terran fleet but well outside the defenders’ range of the battlecruisers. It was probably only Annette’s imagination that their attention was focused on the withdrawing Wendira and the presence of the Imperial fleet was an afterthought.
The aliens were still forwarding Tornado live sensor data on every ship in the system, demonstrating the existence of stealth drones nobody was picking up as they kept real-time data on the rapidly retreating Wendira fleet.
“Star hives are opening a hyper portal,” Song announced. “And…they’re gone. There’s just us and the Mesharom left.”
“All right,” Annette said with a sigh. “Get me a hyperfold link to the Mesharom. Interpreter-Captain Adamase, preferably.”
She wasn’t entirely certain that Adamase commanded the Mesharom force, though it seemed likely. What she was certain of was that the final-bearer was the senior Interpreter in the force and the most able to speak for their government.
They had to be an unusually strong-willed Mesharom, at that. Few Interpreters ever held command of a starship, as talking to aliens was a major emotional and physical drain for even the Mesharom insane enough—by their standards—to do it.
It took several moments, but she recognized Adamase when the Mesharom came onto the screen. It was hard to read body language across species, but Adamase looked shattered. Their eyes were half-closed and their limbs limp.
But nonetheless, Adamase was upright and facing her.
“Duchess Bond. We have allowed you time to resolve the situation to your satisfaction, and we are prepared to place our trust in your word. Will you be honoring the deal we made?”
“I doubt I need to explain, Interpreter-Captain, that I am furious with you right now,” she said. “You threatened my people and a world under my protection, and immediately attempted to carry out that threat when you thought our deal was even challenged.
“Why should I trust that you will honor the deal now?”
“We had no reason to believe that Kas!Val did not have the authority to override you,” Adamase replied. “We have learned not to rely on the statements of the younger races.”
“And Ki!Tana’s statements?” Annette asked softly. “Have you learned to ignore her promises?”
“Ki!Tana is a special case,” the Mesharom agreed. “That is why we…tested the situation.”
“Manipulated me, you mean,” she snapped. “Forced us into a position where we had to challenge the Imperium, risked my planet’s—my species’—safety.”
“You know why.”
“I do. And I think your entire race is mad,” Annette said softly. “And I will not permit you to drag my species down with you.”
Adamase bent forward, reducing their height almost in half as the alien seemed to slump.
“Will you then dishonor our deal?”
“You’d be almost as happy if I blew the damn ship up,” she replied. “Wouldn’t you?”
“The risk to the planet is not…insignificant if that happens,” the Mesharom told her. “We gave you what we promised in payment. It would be better for everyone if we simply took the ship and left.”
“Once Tan!Shallegh has arrived and confirmed my authority for those who are…uncertain,” Annette said slowly. “Then. Then you will be permitted to take the ship.
“Can you wait that long?”
“Assuming average currents between Kimar and here, Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh is four point three cycles away, as the A!Tol measure such things,” Adamase told her. The alien paused, considering.
“This condition is acceptable, but be warned that the presence of Tan!Shallegh’s fleet means any argument on his part would require…extreme measures on ours to make certain the ship of Those Who Came Before is destroyed.”
“You have my word, Interpreter-Captain, that the ship will either leave with you or be destroyed,” Annette said firmly. “Is that sufficient for you?”
Adamase considered for several more seconds.
“Yes,” they said. “Yes, Duchess Bond, you have proven your word worthy of weight.”
#
Chapter 46
Portal after portal tore open the skies above Hope and starship after starship emerged. First a handful. Then a dozen. Then hundreds.
Ten full squadrons of capital ships, a hundred and sixty behemoths of the void, led the way. Twenty squadrons of cruisers screened them, and another twenty squadrons of destroyers danced through the bigger ships and escorted the two hundred colliers and freighters the Imperium’s newly designated Eleventh Fleet needed to keep those ships operational.
The very tip of the spear, the force that emerged half-expecting to have to fight for its life to cover the rest of the fleet from the Wendira or the Laians, was a solid echelon of forty-eight super-battleships that emerged in a single portal.
Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3) Page 35