by Jay Allan
“Your logic is flawless, Tesserax. Between the destruction of the human fleet and the capture of a number of their top leaders, there can be little doubt a rapid and widespread collapse in morale with follow. This senseless slaughter can cease, and the humans can take their place as our children. They will excel under our guidance, and they will learn to worship us. There will be continued resistance, of course, but our indoctrination efforts will control this, and our supervised breeding programs will weed out those prone to defiance in future generations. In twenty years, the heart of human society will accept their place in the natural order. In sixty, there will be little recollection of any other time, any other way of life save under our supervision and direction.”
Tesserax nodded. He agreed with his colleague, but unlike Phazarax, tasked with running the Church in the Colony, and as such compelled to work with the humans on an ongoing basis, Tesserax looked anxiously to the day when he could return home in triumph. He would leave the troublesome humans of the Rim and its environs behind the instant he had the opportunity. He vastly preferred the broken and obedient Thralls to the difficult and untamed Rimdwellers.
Something else was occupying his thoughts. How had the humans obtained the evasion routines? He’d already doublechecked all steps in the fighter prep sequence. The routines were downloaded through secure physical connections. There were no signals to be intercepted, even if the humans had the capability to pick up and decode secure Highborn transmissions. But they’d gotten the data somehow.
He tapped his headset again. “Commander…I want full data on Commander Stockton’s activities since launch…his maneuvers, communications, analysis of energy expenditure in his ship. Everything. And I want it now!”
“Yes, Viceroy. At once.”
Tesserax didn’t know how Stockton could have betrayed the Highborn, not with his Collar implanted. But he’d eliminated every other apparent possibility. Had Stockton found a way to escape the Collar’s control? Had the device malfunctioned in some way?
He didn’t know, but he was going to find out.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
CFS Toriador
En Route to Planet Megara
Year 328 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“The Highborn believed I might have useful information. They intended to implant one of those terrible things…Collars, they call them…in me and force me to help them.”
“And why again didn’t they just do that? If they thought you had some kind of useful information, it seems to me they would simply have implanted the device and compelled you to cooperate. That is how the Collars work, is it not?” Gary Holsten didn’t trust Ciara…he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her. Actually, he trusted her a good deal less than that. Her story made a strange sort of sense, but he didn’t believe any of it. Ciara was Gaston Villieneuve’s bitter enemy, and he knew enough about the Union dictator to be certain he would never forgive her attempt to seize power from him. And Villieneuve was allied with the Highborn…which made it difficult to imagine a scenario where Ciara would be trying to help them of her own free will. Holsten had ordered her thoroughly searched, though he’d seen enough of the Collars on enemy bodies to realize they were quite easy to spot.
“As I said, Mr. Holsten, the Highborn operating in Union space were a small expeditionary force. They had a very small supply of the devices. They implanted one in Villieneuve…so he is no longer their ally, he is their slave. They used the rest on key members of the government. They believed I was worth keeping alive for the time being, but I was clearly not their top priority. Honestly, I can’t tell you any more than that. I wasn’t exactly taken into their confidence.”
Sandrine Ciara was very convincing. Every answer made sense, and there was just enough emotion in her speech to make it all sound very genuine. But Gary Holsten had run Confederation Intelligence for twenty years, and he’d dealt endlessly with the Confederation Senate. In both those roles, he’d interacted with the galaxy’s most accomplished and skilled liars, and he fancied himself difficult to fool. Still, he had no idea what to make of Ciara.
She’d be in a cell if he had his way. A comfortable one, perhaps, but definitely some type of confinement. And she certainly wouldn’t be on the way to Megara. Her freedom, and the fact that Toriador was currently en route to the Confederation capital, were both the work of Emmit Flandry. The Speaker had shown impressive initiative in his efforts to bring fresh reserves to the front, and Holsten had been enormously grateful. But the Speaker had reverted to his pompous political side, no doubt convinced by his own ego that he could turn Ciara into some kind of useful ally. Flandry had insisted on taking the deposed Union leader to Megara immediately.
Holsten had almost refused, but he’d held back. His partnership with Flandry had produced dividends…and almost certainly had saved Grimaldi. He was reluctant to slip back into an adversarial relationship with the politician, at least so quickly. He didn’t like backing down—it had never been his best thing—but he remained silent.
Perhaps the worst result was the need to go along. There was no compelling reason for him to remain at the base. He didn’t offer any militarily significant skill, either to the repair efforts or to any renewed combat at Grimaldi, but he still felt the urge to stay there, to stand with the officers and spacers he’d assembled…and to a certain extent, led in battle.
But he couldn’t allow Sandrine Ciara to go back to Megara with Flandry without going himself. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where Ciara was working with Villieneuve, and hence the Highborn, but he didn’t trust her intentions. And he didn’t quite buy her escape story. He’d stepped aside and allowed Flandry to do as he pleased…but he was damned sure going along every step of the way.
He was going to figure out exactly what was going on. Somehow.
* * *
“You did an outstanding job, Larson…truly. I’d all but given up on her, and on you and Antonio. It’s a miracle she made it through the battle. She’s going to need a lot of repairs, but when she’s back in the line, I’d like you to be on the bridge…as her permanent captain.” Colin Simpson was still getting used to his position as commodore—no, he reminded himself, Gary Holsten had given him the two stars of a junior admiral before he’d left for Megara. The promotion wasn’t official, really, or at least it wouldn’t have been if Emmit Flandry, the Speaker of the Confederation Senate hadn’t confirmed it. The whole thing was still a bit unconventional, and probably not entirely legal, but Simpson didn’t imagine anyone was going to take on both the head of Confederation Intelligence and the senior member of the Senate.
Larson Jaymes was clearly shocked at what he’d just heard. The naval officer had endured a troubled history, and no small part of that had been self-inflicted. His drinking and substance abuse had never resulted in an outright catastrophe aboard any of his ships, nor the death of any comrades. That was the only reason he’d been thrown off the promotion track and shunted off to a backwater posting instead of being court martialed and thrown out of the service. Simpson understood Jaymes’s surprise. He’d been distrustful of the disgraced officer at first, and he was sure that had shown through his weak efforts to hide it. But Jaymes had brought the desperately wounded Vandengraf through the final stages of the battle, with over eighty percent of her crew still at their stations. It had been an amazing performance, and one that had turned the uncertainty and caution the ship’s spacers had for their new CO into the foundation of respect and a growing level of trust.
“Admiral…I don’t know what to say. Thank you, sir.” Jaymes stood sharply at attention, so precise in his motions, it almost made Simpson’s eyes hurt.
“At ease, Larson. I’d call you Commander Jaymes, but that’s a bit out of date, I think.” He handed Jaymes a small box. “So, maybe we’ll go with Captain Jaymes.”
“Sir…I don’t…I mean, I…”
“Relax, Larson. You earned this.” Simpson knew Jaymes had never expected to rise beyond the rank of co
mmander, nor to get the command of a line battleship, even if it was an old one. The officer was clearly rattled, uncertain what to say.
“There is such a thing as redemption, Larson…and you have earned it. I’ll be counting on you when the enemy returns.” Simpson didn’t insult the intelligence of his officers by suggesting anything but grim certainty the Highborn would be back. “Meanwhile, go and tell your crew. I suspect they’ll be happy for you. You did bring them through hell, more or less.” Simpson smiled. “And your commission documents are somewhat of a collector’s item, just as mine are. Signed by the intelligence chief and no less than the Speaker of the Senate…though Gary Holsten promised me we’d both get a set executed by Admiral Barron, too, as soon as the admiral is available.” Simpson paused. He’d been so focused on holding Grimaldi, and in trying to get the battered fortress ready for the coming rematch, he hadn’t thought much about that other fort so far away…and the rest of the fleet posted there, ready for a battle that would make the one Simpson’s people had just fought look like a schoolyard brawl.
The two men were silent for a moment, Simpson’s mind, at least, out at Striker with Admiral Barron and the main fleet. Finally, Jaymes spoke, his voice soft, thoughtful. “Do you think there is any way, Admiral…any way we can hold again when the enemy returns?”
Simpson wanted to answer Jaymes, but he didn’t want to lie. So, he just sighed softly and said, “We’ll just have to see, Larson.”
* * *
“Andrei, thank you for coming. I wanted to speak with you for a few minutes. Can I offer you anything? Something to drink?”
“No thank you, Gary. Your aide just found me. I was intrigued by what you wanted to talk about so discreetly you didn’t want to use the ship’s comm system. I suspect I have a good guess.”
“Please, sit at least.” Holsten gestured toward the room’s small sofa. “Yes, I suspect my questions will come as no surprise to you. So, I won’t waste any time. What do you think of Sandrine Ciara? Specifically, do you trust her?”
“Trust her? No, certainly not…but I never really did. Our…alliance…was one of necessity, and my willingness to support her government was based on my judgment that she would represent a significant improvement over Gaston Villieneuve. Still, her fortunes have certainly changed in recent months. I would say be cautious of any overtures she makes in terms of her desire simply to help. She is a survivor, and I am sure she has an agenda. She is almost certainly pursuing what she believes is her likeliest path back to power and control.”
Holsten nodded. Denisov’s comments were about what he’d expected. “I certainly don’t trust her either…but do you think she is sufficiently aligned with our interests at present to support some reasonable temporary facsimile? And if so, do you think it is likely she can offer any real help in the current struggle?”
Denisov was silent for a moment, clearly thinking about what Holsten had asked him. “I honestly don’t know, Gary. I mean, I can see, as you can, that she seems to have no options save working with us. But whether she is simply trying to gain any support she can, or whether she really has some useful intelligence on the enemy, I can’t say. She is not ignorant of military matters, but I don’t believe she has any particular knowledge or abilities that would be of help in that area. She may well have overheard some items of value, though I’m inclined to doubt the Highborn would have been careless enough to allow her to hear anything truly vital. In fact, I’m a little troubled by the notion of how she escaped. You know ship operations, at least to a degree. There might have been chaos on a damaged vessel during the battle, and I can believe she escaped from her quarters or cell…but getting to the bay and getting out in a shuttle in the middle of all that seems pretty extraordinary to me. Still, I have no other explanations to offer.”
“She doesn’t have one of the Collars the Highborn use to control people…and I can’t imagine she would willingly cooperate with them, at least not now that she’s made good her escape. Still, I have a bad feeling about this.” Holsten paused, his mind full of thoughts, some of them quite dark. He’d considered the possibility of having one of his agents simply assassinate Ciara. That would be a dangerous plan, and if his involvement was revealed, the fallout would be horrendous. But that wasn’t why he rejected it. It was a discussion he’d had with Tyler Barron some time before that stayed his hand. The two had discussed just how dark a path one could take in pursuit of victory without becoming worse that whatever enemy one was fighting.
Holsten was no saint, certainly…but he wasn’t ready to order an illegal assassination without any hard evidence the target was a threat, not yet at least. But he was going to keep a close eye on Ciara…and he was going to find out the whole truth about her ‘escape,’ and just what agenda she was pursuing.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
150,000 Kilometers from Fortress Striker
Vasa Denaris System
Year 328 AC (After the Cataclysm)
Stockton sat quietly in his cockpit, watching as the Highborn wings broke off from the battle. All save the ones near his position.
He’d enjoyed watching his comrades tear apart the Highborn formations, and they’d inflicted losses on the enemy that exceeded his greatest hopes. He’d done irreparable harm to his people over the past five years, but he’d repaid them for some of that. He had done all he could…and now he was ready to die.
Part of him was, at least. The will to survive had always been Stockton’s most indomitable feature, a force that had pulled him through more than one ‘hopeless’ situation. But the lack of hope now went far beyond enemy ships and the unlikelihood of fighting his way out. There was no way he could return to his people, not after all that had happened…and he couldn’t risk allowing himself to fall back into Highborn hands. They might simply execute him, but more likely they would simply repair his Collar and take full control over him again. That he could never allow. He’d done enough damage to his comrades. Never again would he become the enemy’s slave.
He saw the masses of fighters heading back to the Highborn carriers, and the five hundred or so ships around him very clearly not following the rest of the formation. Stockton had known he couldn’t fool Tesserax for long, that the Highborn would realize what had happened. But as he saw the ships around him shifting into position, moving to englobe him and cut off any escape, he felt something unexpected.
Fear. And even more powerful, that old will, the refusal to accept death, even though it was the thing he had most craved for five years.
He’d intended to simply stay where he was, to wait for the Highborn ships to come after him…and that was still his plan. But his hand made its way to the throttle anyway, and he found himself wrestling with himself.
There was no chance to escape. He was too far back, surrounded by too many Highborn fighters. But he could die fighting. It seemed a compromise of sorts between the sides of him wrestling with each other, the grim part of him that knew there could be no return, and the part that wanted to survive at all costs. They were opposites, diametrically opposed. But there was one area of common ground.
Killing Highborn.
You’re only killing Thralls, other humans enslaved as you were…
It was an unpleasant thought, but one he shoved aside. The Thralls weren’t like him. They’d been raised to serve the Highborn, and they’d been loyal to their would-be gods even before they’d received their Collars. He wondered how many would rebel if they were suddenly freed from the control of the devices, how many would join with their fellow humans from the Rim, and how many would mindlessly obey the only masters they had ever known.
He didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter who was in those ships. They were fighting for the Highborn, and that was something Jake Stockton would never do again.
Something he could never accept.
He tightened his hand on the controls and fired up the engines. It was time to die…almost. But first he had some enemies to kill…
* * *
“All batteries, open fire!”
The range was still long, even for the great guns on Colossus, but Sonya knew how important it was to get in the first shot. The battle looked very much like one between two equals, but she knew that wasn’t the case. Colossus had been hastily repaired after the last battle, but it took the sunniest optimism—and a little self-delusion—to call her command fully-operational. Her counterpart, on the other hand, seemed not only to be in perfect condition, it looked very much like it was brand new. No three-hundred-year old systems patched together, no half-assed combinations of imperial and Rim tech, no partially repaired battle damage.
She watched as her scanners began to display the results of the first barrage. It was a gamble, she knew, to fire from such long range, a show of blind faith in her gunners. She sat tensely, waiting to see if it paid off.
The Highborn ship was immense. She knew Colossus was no less so, but it was a very different thing staring out at something so enormous coming at you.
At least it doesn’t seem to have that Sigma-9 radiation system.
It appeared Colossus’s twin had been built to straight imperial standards, which apparently lacked the scanner-disrupting power of the Highborn vessels. Eaton had always assumed that had been an imperial system, but she realized she’d never had any real reason to believe that. The Highborn tech was close to the old imperial standards, but of course there was no fixed ‘imperial’ tech. The empire’s high point had been some time before the Cataclysm, so in some ways the Highborn were close to the old imperial standards, and in others they were ahead…or at least on par with the earlier, higher levels.
They didn’t have time to integrate the Sigma-9 shielding…
That had to be it. Of course…it’s amazing enough that they were able to build this thing in just five years.