All forty-eight were Majesty-class or Glorious-class ships, fully upgraded at the new yards in Sol. They represented half of the Majesties in the Navy and the single most powerful three-squadron formation the A!Tol had.
They spread out, guarding the emergence point as the rest of the fleet returned to normal space and took up formations into a shield over a thousand ships strong.
This was how the Imperium kept its oaths. If Hope had fallen to the Wendira or the Laians or even the Mesharom, if an occupying force had laid its boot on the necks of Annette’s people, this force would have been the answer.
“We have a channel request from Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh for you, Your Grace,” Darcy told Annette.
“I’ll take it in the flag office,” Annette replied. “Keep an eye on things for me, Cole,” she told Tornado’s Captain. “Ki!Tana, you’re with me.”
#
Annette Bond took an exhausted seat in the office. Four days had passed since the Wendira had abandoned the system, leaving her alone with her people and the Mesharom. The galaxy’s elders were waiting patiently, but she shuddered to think what might happen if they stopped being patient.
The image of Tan!Shallegh, small for his race but bearing the golden swords of his rank on his harness, appeared on the holographic display in the office. His skin was a whirling, chaotic mess of purple and black and blue—worries and questions, but a flush of red pleasure swept through as he saw the two waiting for him.
“Duchess Bond. Lady Ki!Tana,” he greeted them, bowing his entire torso in respect to Annette’s companion. This was as close as he would ever come to meeting a Ki!Tol—it was actively dangerous for all involved for a male A!Tol to be in the presence of one of the females who had passed through the birthing madness.
“I see that Hope is still here, but not without price,” he concluded. “I have already received a long pre-recorded message from Echelon Lord Kas!Val and a much shorter report from Echelon Lord Tanaka.
“You have, as usual, created a tidal swell of trouble—and an attendant solution.”
“I do what I must,” Annette told him. “We made a deal with the Mesharom. The alternative was they blew up Hope.”
“I…expected something along those lines, yes,” he admitted. “What was the deal, Your Grace?”
“In exchange for defense against the Laians and Wendira until the ship could be removed, and certain technological data, we gave them the ship. Echelon Lord Kas!Val objected.”
“I can see why she would,” Tan!Shallegh said. “But I am aware of my mother’s sister’s instructions to you. The decision to yield the ship was well within your authority—and Harriet’s report makes very clear how dark a tide Kas!Val rode.”
“It was not my intent to challenge Imperial authority.”
“And you did not,” the Fleet Lord told her. “Kas!Val denied the authority the Empress granted you. She challenged Imperial authority, not you. I spoke with A!Shall before I left Kimar. I am quite certain of our Empress’s desires in this matter, and I unhesitatingly support your deal.”
He paused.
“What technology did they offer us?”
“Folded hyperspace communications,” she told him. “What they’ve given us is an instantaneous communicator with a forty-light-year range. Combined with relays and the existing starcom network…”
“So, that is the answer to the communication mobility problem,” Tan!Shallegh concluded. “We were swimming in the wrong ocean!”
“Exactly,” Annette confirmed. “The device is not man-portable, but it is easily retrofitted into any existing ship. While the Mesharom refused to trade weapons technology, they did let us know several ways that the hyperfold can’t be used as a weapon.”
Tan!Shallegh flashed blue, an A!Tol nod.
“Currents to lead us down the right path,” he replied.
“We have detailed sensor information on the Laians use of a hyperfold-based beam weapon,” she told him. “Combined with the Mesharom’s hints, I think—”
The Fleet Lord held up a tentacle to interrupt her.
“That, Duchess Bond, is a conversation that I think you and I and…yes, both Tanaka and Villeneuve should have soon—but later. And in person.
“For now, please reach out to our new friends in the terrifying, powerful battlecruisers and tell them they can take their prize,” he concluded. “I think everyone, including them, will be happier when both they and that ship are gone.”
“Of course, Fleet Lord.”
#
Harold Rolfson stood on the observation deck of the super-battleship Empereur de France, watching a screen showing the cleared ground that had held the dig site around the strange alien ship.
Ramona Wolastoq stood next to him, her hand tucked into his as they watched the two Mesharom battlecruisers descend over the ship they’d spent so much effort finding and investigating. The massive white shapes hung motionless over the Corellian Plateau for several minutes, and then, with no apparent action on the battlecruisers’ part, the Precursor ship rose off the ground.
The wedge-shaped vessel moved into the air to hang suspended between the two white ships. For a moment after that, nothing happened, then one of the Mesharom ships moved. A gap opened in its white hull, matching the ancient scout ship in size and then swallowing the artifact.
The Mesharom hull closed behind it and it was all over. The ship that had been the cause of so much bloodshed, so much violence, was gone.
The two battlecruisers lifted smoothly out of Hope’s atmosphere, then blasted away from Hope at over half of lightspeed.
They vanished into hyperspace, and he felt Ramona sigh next to him.
“Not how I hoped for my first investigation into an ancient alien ship to end,” she admitted.
“No,” he agreed. He slipped his hand out of hers and wrapped his arm around her waist instead, guiding her close to him. “It wasn’t all bad, though.”
“No,” she said, smiling up at him. Something buzzed and she pulled out her communicator, reading a message from the staff at New Hope City.
“Damn. I can’t say I’m surprised, but damn them,” she murmured.
“What happened?”
“Our databases and records of the whole dig have been wiped,” Ramona explained. “Someone—only one guess who!—accessed our computer systems and deleted all of our files.” She sighed. “Hashed, wiped, overwritten with garbage data, the works.
“Backups, too.”
“What about the hull samples?” he asked. “And the second copy I asked you to hide?”
“Let me check.”
She tapped a code onto the device then held it up to her ear.
“Yes, Karl. What happened to the hull samples?” She paused. “Well, go check!”
A minute or so passed and then she nodded.
“Damn them,” she repeated, but there was no energy to her tone. “Thank you, Karl.”
She closed the communicator and leaned into Harold, looking out over the world below.
“The containers were climate-controlled,” she half-whispered. “They accessed the controls and raised the temperature to the point where the container self-destructed. The containers, the samples, and everything within about two meters is ashes and debris.”
“Damn. They are thorough,” Harold agreed. He pulled out his own communicator and tapped in a code.
“Commander Arwen,” he greeted the woman who ran security for Emperor of China. “Can you check your black-box security for me? Is everything still intact?”
“It’s a bloody sealed Faraday cage, Captain. What do you expect?” Arwen replied.
“When dealing with these players, Commander, I expect the impossible. Check the damn box.”
She stepped away for several seconds, then returned.
“Chief Williamson is standing guard over it,” she told him. “There have been no security breaches, physical or digital. I had him open the damn thing to be sure.”
“And everythin
g is intact?”
“Disks and your weird sample, yes. It’s all there.”
“Thank you, Commander. You’ve done the Imperium a bigger favor than you realize. Guard that box with your lives.”
“Aye, sir.”
Harold closed the communicator and turned a brilliant smile on his new lover.
“How do you feel about top-secret projects, my dear Ramona?” he asked. “While I don’t think we’ll be able to admit we saved anything…”
“You took another copy of everything,” she accused.
“And a third sample of the hull. And locked them in a black box aboard Emperor before the Mesharom even arrived,” he confirmed. “It’s going to get locked at the bottom of a black hole somewhere, but we’ve got it all.
“So, if you’re okay with not publishing anything…”
He didn’t get any further before she shut him up with a deep kiss.
#
Chapter 47
Harriet Tanaka had expected to be escorted to Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh’s office aboard the super-battleship Glory of Hearts. She was surprised to instead be led through a series of security doors, deep into the heart of the capital ship.
She recognized a Glorious-class super-battleship’s secure conference room from the outside, but Glory of Hearts’ security went far beyond what Duchess of Terra had aboard. She had to surrender her communicator, and even her normal translator earbud was replaced with a specialty version with no wireless capability.
Unless she missed her guess, she’d now been led into the third of three nested Faraday cages. No electronic signal was going to make its way into or out of this room. The tiny conference room at the center of that multi-layered security was big enough for maybe ten humans or six A!Tol.
It currently held only Tan!Shallegh. He waved a tentacle, gesturing Harriet to a seat.
“I have reviewed everyone’s reports of the Battle of Alpha Centauri,” he told her. “Including Echelon Lord Kas!Val’s.”
“I see, sir,” she said as levelly as she could.
“I should note that Kas!Val was quite complimentary to you,” Tan!Shallegh continued. “Such things are, of course, relative to the rest of her ravings.”
“What will happen to her?” Harriet asked.
“She will retire,” he said firmly. “Her actions were not outside of her technical authority but were significantly outside of her given area of responsibility.
“Her Grace, Duchess Bond, has declined to enforce the penalties for Kas!Val’s threats to her, but we cannot let her errors and…unwise statements stand. She had been given the option of resignation, a politically safe choice for us all.”
“And she took it?”
“I made quite clear that the alternative was to drag out every action she had made, every threat she had uttered, and drown her family name in the mud of the deepest trenches,” Tan!Shallegh said softly. “Her Grace may forgive Kas!Val’s indiscretions. I do not.
“She had no right to take away command from you and no grounds to deny Duchess Bond’s authority from the Empress. Allowing her to retire is more mercy than I would give her by choice,” he concluded.
Harriet let that lie in the silence. It seemed harsh to her, but she wasn’t one of the senior officers responsible for keeping the Imperial Navy functioning.
“As for you,” he finally continued, “you did well. I know it isn’t easy to think that after your losses, but you faced utterly overwhelming force, Echelon Lord. If you hadn’t just been promoted, I’d be making you a Squadron Lord right now.
“As it is, you should expect new insignia before the long-cycle is up,” he noted. “You have done very well. Which means, of course, I have a new task for you.”
“That is the nature of things,” she agreed. “What do you need of me?”
“We are waiting on two more,” Tan!Shallegh told her. “This conversation shall be…fascinating.”
#
Annette and Villeneuve made it through the layers of security aboard Glory of Hearts slowly, growing more and more hesitant as the briskly polite and respectful officers—all power-armored A!Tol aboard this ship—took away all of their electronics and gave them new translators.
Then they passed through a Faraday cage. And another. Until they finally entered the secured conference room at nearly the exact center of the immense warship, to find Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh and Echelon Lord Tanaka waiting for them.
“Annette, Jean,” Tan!Shallegh greeted them cheerfully. “Please, have a seat. There are refreshments in the side cupboard. We’ll be serving ourselves, I’m afraid. For most official purposes, much of this meeting will never have happened.”
Annette was taken aback but opened up the side board and poured fresh tea for all three humans.
“What’s going on, Tan!Shallegh?” she asked.
“Secrets,” he replied, still cheerful. “Problems. Solutions. Sit down and drink your tea, Your Grace. I have questions for you, first of all.”
Annette obeyed, waiting to see what the being who’d once conquered Earth had in mind.
“The Duchy of Terra has proven a valuable member of the Imperium,” he told them. “For all the trouble you’ve caused us, you’ve been more than worth it.” Manipulator tentacles flickered at the warship around them.
“Glory of Hearts is vastly more survivable, having passed through your hands, for example. The influence of your world will likely turn the tide of the next war with the Kanzi—if the upgrades aren’t simply intimidating enough to prevent any such war.”
“But for all of that, you remain a quiet backwater. One that has drawn far too much attention…but I don’t think that will repeat now.”
“I hope not,” Annette told him. “I’ll be happy for Terra to be a quiet backwater out of everyone’s sight.”
“So will the Imperium. Tell me, Admiral Villeneuve, did you successfully keep copies of the research data from the scout ship?”
Annette glanced at her Admiral, who looked uncomfortable.
“Jean. I don’t think this is the kind of meeting where we want to be keeping secrets,” she told him gently. “I think this is an all-cards-on-the-table kind of game.”
Villeneuve chuckled.
“Oui,” he agreed slowly. “Yes, Fleet Lord, we did. Captain Rolfson arranged for a copy to be sealed inside Emperor of China’s black-box security, inside a Faraday cage and under armed guard.
“He also saved a sample of the nanomatrix hull material.”
“Excellent!” Tan!Shallegh’s skin flushed red. “That’s even better than I’d hoped. And this…folded-hyperspace system the Mesharom gave you, Annette. It’s a communication device, correct?”
“Yes. They also gave us some hints as to how to make it a weapon,” she confirmed. “Mostly by pointing out likely false starts that wouldn’t work.”
“That sounds like them,” Tan!Shallegh agreed. “I think we will want to roll out the communications side of it rapidly, across the Imperium. That’s what the Mesharom will expect. The weapons side of it…”
“Should probably be researched at one of the Imperium’s most carefully guarded research facilities,” Annette said carefully.
“Indeed,” the A!Tol said. “Tell me, Your Grace, how much sensor information did your people retrieve from this battle?”
“We have Alpha Centauri wired six ways to Sunday,” she admitted. “We’re busy surveying the system for extraction purposes, but those probes were piggybacked with military sensors being run from the AB2 outpost.”
“So, you have detailed scan data on both the Laians’ hyperfold projectors and the Mesharom hyper missiles?”
“And the Mesharom hyperfold projectors and tachyon scanners,” she confirmed instantly. “Plus detailed scans of the star intruders’ stealth fields and the starfighter interface drives.”
“I presume you planned to hand a copy of all of that information over to BugWorks Two?” Tan!Shallegh asked.
Even intending to put all of her ca
rds on the table, she found that the confirmation that the Imperium knew about the Duchy’s absolute top-secret research facility was a shock.
“We did,” she confirmed levelly.
“Is BugWorks still hidden in hyperspace?” the Fleet Lord asked.
“Not anymore,” she told him unhesitatingly. “High atmosphere of Jupiter this time, protected by an extremely powerful energy shield that holds the pressure at bay. She’s structured to be able to flip into hyperspace to protect herself, but it’s a one-shot deal. She’d have to be towed away from Jupiter’s gravity and taken through a portal generated by a starship to return to normal space.”
“Clever,” Tan!Shallegh agreed. “We knew it existed, but not where it was. You managed to hide it from us, Duchess Bond, and we knew you were building it.
“We see great value in that facility. We want to augment it,” he told her.
“What are you thinking?” she asked carefully.
“We have samples of Core Power technology acquired over the years that we cannot publicly research. Even many of our secret facilities we are quite certain are compromised to one degree or another.
“But we can move researchers and samples and data to Sol relatively quietly. Deliver them to your secret base and build a research program the galaxy knows nothing about. One that will create an entire new generation of Imperial starship.
“One that can go blade-to-blade with the Core Powers.”
“We would have to surrender control of BugWorks, I presume,” Annette said quietly.
“It will be a joint project, I think,” he replied. “The initial samples worked up as Militia units. No one pays that much attention to Militia, not without a reason—and even the Laians really no longer have a reason to be watching you.
“No, Your Grace, I think the Duchy of Terra and the Imperium will work together on this project.”
“We’ll need to change the name,” Villeneuve mused aloud. “BugWorks Two won’t work for such a completely different scale of project.”
Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3) Page 36