My Friend the Emperor

by William Lee Gordon

  “I have included video evidence and telemetry on what Tauri ordered done on Mount Sinai. Do with it as you will - I wanted someone else to have it in case we don’t survive.

  “Godspeed Valys, and may we both survive the coming cataclysm.”

  ΔΔΔ

  We weren’t wasting any time.

  Once the Captain returned we had gone into skip almost immediately.

  We’d only waited long enough for me to send one more message…

  “Jac,” the Captain had said. “I think it’s about time you submitted another report to the Admiralty. My sister is also probably expecting a report from you, don’t you think?

  “I want you to express your concern that I’ve had the Halcion conducting planetary kinetic bombardment exercises. You don’t know what I’m planning but it can’t be good.”

  I looked at the Captain and smiled. “I won’t even have to lie about that last part,” I said ironically.

  He gave me his familiar lopsided grin.

  ΔΔΔ

  We were all meeting in the Captain’s conference room.

  “The plan is really very simple,” he said to the table.

  Monica, myself, Felix, Sergio, Maria, Durand, and of course Consuelo were all waiting anxiously to hear the rest.

  “We’re going to sneak into the Celcium system and commandeer Tauri’s shuttle,” he said with a smile.

  We waited for more.

  When he didn’t continue Monica asked, “Why would she be in her shuttle?”

  “Because she’s going to be scrambling to get to her ship. She doesn’t want to be at the palace when it gets bombarded from space, does she?” he said while inspecting his fingernails.

  Suddenly it made sense to me. That’s why he’d commed Tauri that one last time. He hadn’t had any hope that he could talk her out of it; he’d just wanted to plant the seed about what lengths he might be willing to go. Combine that with my spy report that he’d asked me to make and it all made sense.

  I could see that the lightbulb was going on for Monica as well.

  Always the practical one Sergio asked, “How are we going to commandeer her shuttle?”

  “That’s were Jac comes in,” the Captain responded.

  Me! What did I have the do with it? I guess my confusion showed on my face.

  “Were going to need to slip Jac onboard one of the inner system HCO Traffic Control stations,” he said to everyone.

  Then to me he said, “Once there, you’re going to use your special codes to allow Felix and Durand to remotely access the inner system traffic control guidance systems.”

  “If you do that you’ll have control of her shuttle,” Monica said. All movement is controlled by Traffic Control in that part of the system. You could… You’re going to ram her shuttle into one of the Defensive Drones!”

  There was silence around the table.

  With that familiar wry smile on his face the Captain spoke, “Actually, we do plan to detonate some of the High Orbit Maneuverable Defense Drones, but more as a distraction. We’ll use the sensor confusion to hide the shuttle’s course change. We’re going to redirect her here.”

  “So you don’t plan on killing her,” I said.

  “No, but she is a homicidal maniac. We’ll find a nice comfortable place where she can get the help she needs. Unless, of course, we can’t get control of her shuttle; then we’ll ram it with the drones.”

  Even though he’d warned us it might get messy it was still hard to plot murder. Or was it regicide? What did you call the murder of an Empress?

  I didn’t have time to wonder about it; my mind was still focused on the part about me entering my codes.

  “Are my codes going to be enough to let us do that?” I asked.

  “No, not by themselves,” the Captain answered. “But I also have the Royal Family Emergency Codes that I’ll give you. Between them we should be able to get through enough firewalls to allow Durand and Felix to do their magic.”

  “And how am I going to get onboard the Traffic Control station in the first place?” I wanted to know.

  “I’m afraid that’s going to take an armed assault. Sergio, I’ll need you to lead the group and get Jac to where he needs to be.”

  I think Sergio agreed but I was too busy thinking about the next part.

  “Once we’ve broken in and entered the codes everyone’s going to know we’re over there. How are we going to get back to the ship?” I sincerely hoped my voice didn’t sound as frantic as I felt.

  “Well, once the drones explode we’ll put the word out that Empress Tauri is dead then, theoretically, command of the system will fall to me. I think if I simply order everyone to stand down it should work out fine,” he said nonchalantly.

  “Theoretically? You think?” I couldn’t quite get my mind wrapped around it.

  Before I could formulate the rest of my words Monica asked the question, “Just how are we going to sneak into the Celcium system?”

  “I don’t have that totally figured out yet,” the Captain admitted nonchalantly. “But we’ll make it work.”

  Chapter forty

  LEUTENANT MONICA STILES

  Here We Go

  “Status?” The Captain demanded as he entered the bridge.

  “Everything is proceeding on schedule,” Monica said as she got up out of the command chair. We’ve altered our energy signature to emulate a slightly damaged ship. We’ve also programmed the C.E.S. Sabre’s codes into our EFF.”

  The Captain took his chair.

  “Without a detailed probing or visual inspection no one should realize that we’re the Halcion,” she finished.

  As she stood beside the Captain she couldn’t help but thinking about all the risks they were taking.

  Late yesterday he had revealed to them the final details.

  It was a simple plan but like all plans there were a hundred things that could go wrong.

  They had once again been sitting around the Captain’s conference table as he explained…

  “We’ll enter the Celcium system disguised as the C.E.S. Sabre,” he’d said.

  “We’ve already gotten a system update from the last RTIC station so we have a fairly good idea of what’s going on in-system. We used the Sabre’s identification with the RTIC so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone when we show up in the Home System.

  “We’re going to park the IDF troop transport at the outer edge of the Home Fleet’s scanning range. Their job is to lie doggo until we give the signal, then they’ll start broadcasting the EFF codes of the C.E.S. Halcyon.”

  It might’ve been Monica’s imagination but it sure seemed that the Captain was looking right at Jac when he’d said that last bit.

  “As soon as they do that every ship within 100,000 miles is going to start heading their way,” Jac said. “That transport doesn’t have any defensive shielding.”

  “Hopefully they can dodge and avoid contact,” the Captain responded. “At any rate, that’s why I’ve asked for volunteers. And besides, they don’t have to maintain the illusion for long. Just long enough to scare Tauri into leaving the planet for her ship.”

  “Do we know she’s not already on her ship?” Monica had asked.

  “Not according to the last update we downloaded,” he said. “She almost has to run her operations from the palace.”

  Monica noticed that Jac was looking troubled. “Why would anyone volunteer to be a sitting duck?” he asked.

  Surprisingly it had been Consuelo that spoke up, “Is it so hard to believe that someone could believe in a higher cause? Besides, it probably didn’t hurt that the Captain told those two crewmen that they could keep the transport if we all survived.”

  There were several chuckles around the table.

  Now that the Halcion was preparing to come out of skip Monica refocused her thoughts on the mission at hand. The next few hours would determine the future of… everything.

  ΔΔΔ

  They’d entered the system and cl
andestinely launched the troop transport. As far as the universe knew they were the C.E.S. Sabre and were slowly coasting in to a docking orbit at one of the planet’s moons.

  When the Captain had visited the Saber he had not only returned with the ship’s EFF codes but he’d also traded out one of their shuttles.

  Felix had positioned them in the system such that when the HCO Traffic Control Station took autopilot control of the Sabre’s shuttle it would plot a specific course to the closest elevator terminus. This would cause it to pass as close as possible to the station.

  So now as the Sabre’s shuttle was being automatically routed to a docking station at one of the planets 47 space elevators, the Halcion’s remaining shuttle was flying in an unbelievably tight formation with it. Not transmitting any codes of its own, it wouldn’t veer off until its closest approach to the Traffic Control Station.

  Jac, Sergio, and five crewman were aboard that shuttle.

  As she finished yet another tour of the bridge’s stations she returned to the Captain’s side. He leaned over and whispered to her.

  His words momentarily confused her.

  He’d said, “Don’t worry, Sergio is a good man and he’ll take care of him.”

  Of course Sergio is a good man... Why would he say that?

  ΔΔΔ

  Finally everything was in place.

  “How long will it take the shuttle to get to the Traffic Control Station once it’s veered off and left its cover?” the Captain asked again.

  Durand responded, “Slightly less than seven minutes, Captain.”

  The only sign of his nervousness was the slight drumming of his fingers on the armrest.

  “Annnd they’ve separated,” said Durand. “They’re on their way to the station.”

  “Maria, signal the transport. Start transmitting the EFF codes now!”

  “Wow, that didn’t take long!” Monica responded a few seconds later.

  Their sensors showed that all hell was breaking loose in the inner system. Suddenly everyone on the bridge was incredibly busy monitoring and tracking all the movement.

  “Has the Empress’ shuttle left the palace?” The Captain demanded.

  “Not yet,” came the response.

  “Shrak…” Monica heard the Captain say to himself.

  Then suddenly Durand loudly said, “Two… No, three IDF ships are maneuvering towards the transport.”

  “How long will it take them to reach her?” the Captain asked.

  “They’ll be in close weapons range in a little over eight minutes,” Durand responded. “But the transport is already starting to maneuver. That may buy us a little more time.”

  “What about the Empress’ shuttle?” the Captain asked again.

  “Still no sign,” Durand answered.

  “We’re cutting it awfully close,” Monica heard herself saying.

  After a few very tense minutes Durand shouted out, “Shuttle launch! It looks like the Empress’ shuttle has made an emergency launch. She’s now heading towards her ship.”

  Almost immediately he added, “They docked! Captain, our people are boarding the Traffic Control Station now.”

  “It’s all up to Jac now,” the Captain said.

  Monica was surprised how calmly he’d said it.

  “How will we know he’s put in the codes?” Monica asked.

  “He’ll open a comm channel to us first,” he responded. “Then once we have a solid connection he’ll enter the codes.… Assuming, of course, that’s what he decides to do.”

  Monica spun her head around and stared at the Captain.

  Chapter forty-one

  ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY

  Traffic Control

  It was the longest seven minutes of my life.

  We’d been trying to hide in the Sabre’s shuttle’s electronic signature for over an hour and I thought that had been tense, but now we had broken cover and were sprinting for the station. We had no defenses; we had no shields. Nobody would fire on us once we were docked for fear of hitting the station, at least I didn’t think they would. But right now we were sitting ducks and there was not a fraking thing I could do about it.

  As was its wont, my subconscious chose this inopportune moment to spew up the results of its silent contemplations. In other words, that sensing of patterns thing was happening again.

  Something wasn’t right. I don’t mean here on the shuttle, I mean in general. I trust the Captain, don’t I? But I was suddenly sure he wasn’t leveling with me. In retrospect some of his actions and comments didn’t add up. I was suddenly sure of… Nothing. The only thing I could be sure about was that some of my assumptions were wrong. What should I do? What could I do?

  There was no time left to dwell on it.

  “Get ready to dock,” Sergio said. “We’re coming in hot.”

  The HCO Traffic Control Station wasn’t large; so it didn’t have a shuttle Bay. We were literally coming in fast for a docking maneuver that was supposed to be handled slowly and deliberately.

  It was going to make a lot of noise.

  And the station was large enough to be manned. It normally carried a complement of 32. How many of them would be waiting for us on the other side of the airlock was unknown, but they were all going to know we were here.

  Our plan was simple. Open the airlock, throw out a few flash bangs, and then race down the corridor shooting anything that tries to stand in our way. Take an immediate right then the first left and the next right and that should place us in front of the control room.

  Sergio had made it clear that I was the prize. I was the only one that had the codes and knew how to use them. Sergio was physically the largest of our team and I was to stay right behind him. The others would go first and sweep the corridors with us right on their heels.

  Shock and awe. What could go wrong?

  ΔΔΔ

  We were almost shaken off our feet.

  There was a loud clang and Sergio was yelling, “We’ve docked! Go, go, go!”

  Suddenly the hatch ahead of us was thrown inward and we were all moving forward. The sound of the flash bangs was still echoing as I crossed the threshold into the station itself.

  We were racing down the right-hand corridor when the first of our team went down. Martin just crumpled and we realized there was a defender kneeled down in the corridor ahead.

  I think probably every last rifle except for mine returned fire. There wasn’t much left of him as we all hopped over his smoldering body and turned into the next corridor.

  The way was surprisingly open until we made our last turn. We could see the closed hatch to the control room but there were two defenders barring our way. Using the wall of the T intersection to protect themselves they pinned us down. We lost two more crewmen in that initial moment but I didn’t have time to think about it was because we had troops coming up from behind us. I spun and dropped hard to the deck, butt first. Setting with my knees up in front of me I aimed the way Monica had taught me and calmly picked off two, then three of our attackers.

  We’d all been issued earplugs to protect ourselves from the flash bangs. But one of mine must’ve fallen out because from behind the direction I was now facing came a tremendously loud bang.

  I felt someone, Sergio, grab me by the shoulder and start dragging me down the hallway. I turned and was scrambling to my feet when I saw the only other surviving member of our team ahead of us mowing down any of the survivors. We caught up to her just outside the hatch into the control center.

  There was a lot of smoke and everything was strangely muted.

  “Stay on my butt,” Sergio yelled at me.

  His voice sounded a hundred miles away but I nodded my head in comprehension.

  They pushed open the hatch, threw in a couple of flash bangs, and started shooting.

  ΔΔΔ

  I yanked the dead body out of the seat.

  My team of seven was now down to just myself and two others. The smell of smoke and burnt electronics wa
s heavy in the control room. A small fire had started where one of the flash bangs had gone off.

  I quickly set down at a different console and tried to figure it out.

  How could I have gotten myself into this? How could I have let this happen? Was I really going to betray everything I’d always believed in?