Chapter Seventeen
Diana looked dazzling in a conservative black sheath dress with red high heels, her athletically curvy body even more toned and supple than the day I met her. It showed a tasteful amount above, and it went down to her lower thighs. Her shiny raven black hair was up revealing dangling diamond earrings and the soft curves of her neck, which sparkled like her piercing green eyes. She’d always been beautiful to me, but after thirteen years she was only more so, and then again as several years fell off her appearance. She was simply exquisite.
Still, it was no wonder she dressed down for work. I felt like I’d lost at least twenty IQ points just being in the same room with such a vision. Not that her hot geek look worked to fool me, but I had to admit it seemed to work on her staff of scientists. Maybe that was just the love bias, or knowing the truth of what lied beneath, but it was what it was.
She seemed to eat up my attention, enjoy it. No doubt because she knew how much I valued her intelligence, heart, and everything else about her as well. It was that part of things that’d made me fall for her in the first place.
It was date night, I tried to take her out at least once a week, but often life got in the way of that. Still, two to three times a month at a minimum. I didn’t want to take her for granted, and parents needed alone time to stay connected, besides in the bedroom at night I mean. Wooing her continuously seemed to keep her happy in our personal lives, and I enjoyed it too.
Cassie would watch our Melody that night, and my sister did at times too. Although our daughter was warbling on that age where we could trust her completely alone for a few hours, we hadn’t taken that step yet.
“You look gorgeous.”
She smiled, “Thanks.”
We left the bedroom, and said goodnight to Cassie and Melody, who were both splayed out on the couch with an open pizza box and sodas on the coffee table. They were watching Frozen again. I shuddered, and made my escape, my beautiful wife on my arm.
The city had grown by leaps and bounds, with two million residents the top city level had been almost completely filled. There were six large resorts now, all with multiple restaurants and clubs that had different types of cuisine and dancing music respectively. We weren’t going to one of those however, there was a new jazz club and creole restaurant in the main city we wanted to check out.
It wasn’t too much of a fuss, we had a minimal security presence, but if someone decided to threaten Astraeus’s president any wall, ceiling, or floor would have us shielded in a split second. I still wasn’t overly impressed with myself that way, and my citizens left us alone for the most part. I didn’t and still don’t like pomp and circumstance that comes from leading a country, and the citizens of Astraeus were flourishing. I’d only been confronted angrily twice in the last thirteen years, and both times it’d been visitors to the station with a skewed idea of me.
I knew the fact my citizens liked me had nothing to do with who I was as a person, and it was actually all about the fact there were still no taxes.
The horizontal lift took us to the edge of the station, where we got on the civilian lift which took us to the top of the station and to an exit near the restaurant. The light jazz reached our ears as we opened the door. There were pictures on the entrance wall of the owner’s restaurant in New Orleans, which as far as I knew was still open and ran by the rest of his family.
The tables were covered in silvery white tablecloths and candles. The chairs had golden brown cushions and backs, and the walls were a yellow gold color that would probably look gaudy in bright lighting, but the dim lighting just made it look clean and cozy. There was a decent sized dance floor on the far side, next to the dais the band played on. The ambience was only slightly romantic as we were led to our table, but we were there for the food and dancing, and the music of course.
The hostess smiled as we sat, “Your server should be right out,” and after pouring us both a house wine, left us the illusion of privacy. Between the music and moderate din of the other tables our conversation would be private as long as we spoke in normal tones.
Diana said, “I don’t want to talk about work tonight, but just a quick status. My initial impressions bore out today. The materials technology for the subspace energy beam is completely inimical to base nanite operation, so we’ll have to go with plan B. Blending the other technologies into the nanites looks promising, and I’ve set up several thousand tests to run overnight for incorporating the rest into nanites. Give me a couple of more days to work out the best efficiencies, bugs, and get the command and control software ported and tailored for our systems.”
Her voice and face were serious, and it felt a little wrong. She usually only told me about projects at the very end or even after it was finished, and with a sense of excitement, since she ran her labs and made all the decisions. Her little speech had felt more like she was reporting to me, like a recalcitrant soldier that’d been caught doing something wrong. Which was the wrong dynamic between us.
I was happy with her decision to shift more of her focus to war technologies to protect humanity, but in my mind it was all still her authority. I also realized if I brought it up, we’d fight about it, so I kept my mouth shut. She had to get over it and forgive herself on her own for her perceived faults, so I just let it pass and hoped she’d get back to her normal self soon.
Plus, tonight was about wooing her, and spicing up the attempt to get pregnant again, which would surely follow our date.
“I’ll do my best,” I raised the wineglass, “To human obstruction and corrupt ambition in the U.N.”
She giggled at my absurd toast, mission accomplished. After bumping glasses, we both drank.
“That was the strangest toast I ever heard.”
I shrugged and winked, “Humanity’s folly is working for us for once.”
The waiter arrived and took our order. I got the etouffee over rice, and my wife ordered Cajun chicken and shrimp gumbo.
We moved away from work discussion after that, sort of.
Diana said, “Your daughter wants a test sandbox.”
“My daughter?” I asked carefully.
Diana grinned impudently, “Yes, she wants to research quantum frequency resonance. Apparently, her mother’s research on the matter is far from complete, and she finds the lack disturbing.”
I snorted, “Okay?”
She shrugged, “To be fair, she’s right. I haven’t looked at it since we got the communicators and jump drives working. There’s also nothing about that in the Gray database, so it’s a new field all around.”
I said, “You can only do so much, and the theoretical database could keep you busy for centuries.”
She nodded in easy agreement.
“What kind of test sandbox?”
She said, “Her own ship in the test system.”
The test system was just a star system without a living planet in it. Diana had ships out there to run tests where none of our human competitors could see, not to mention the safety concerns. Sometimes experiments went wrong after all, and when dealing with the power of the universe things could explode. Better to be far away from Earth when that happened.
It took me a minute to wrap my mind around that, my twelve-year-old wanted to do research? I wasn’t really surprised, but what twelve-year-old gets a spaceship for research? Mine, apparently, if it will make her happy, and keep her out of mischief from boredom.
“I don’t see a problem with it, as long as she doesn’t hare off with it, and she keeps you informed of what she’s doing with it. No practical experiments without your sign off.”
She nodded, “I’ll make one from mine, and give her access in the morning. We also need to make sure she only spends an hour or two a day on it, in addition to the hour she’ll be learning from my lab experiments.”
I could agree with that, she needed a childhood too, if we could manage it. I also wondered what Melody would come up with.
We finished up our first glass of wine.
“Dance, love?”
She smiled almost girlishly, “I’d love to.”
It was a good night, and for the rest of it we focused on us. My wife was mesmerizing and graceful on the dance floor, and her being in my arms might’ve had something to do with that as well. It was a good night.
Chapter Eighteen
The luxury cruise ship design was going well late the next morning, when Cassie came into the command center with a grimace on her face.
“What’s happened?”
Cassie said, “Our scanners picked up bomb making materials in the last tourist shuttle coming up from the surface. Relatively benign elements apart, but when mixed together they’d create a large explosion. You’d think after thirteen years they’d figure out our scanners can’t be fooled. The bags weren’t tagged, so security is questioning them all. We suspect this is about the Arnis that came in yesterday, and there’s some xenophobic Earth first assholes in the mix, we just have to find them.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
She nodded, “No doubt, but in the meantime, I’ve got several countries calling and demanding we release their citizens. Never mind the fact their security failed to find it, or appropriately tag and identify the luggage per the law.”
“Sounds like a normal day. You need a vacation?”
She laughed, “You know, I think I do. A week, our beach, a cooler of blood, and a bikini. Maybe when I finish hiring that expanded staff you told me I could have. Then I’ll be able to see to it.”
She really did need a vacation, usually the crazier crap got the more aplomb and enjoyment she showed in her work. Cassie excelled under pressure.
Jessica said, “Uh oh.”
We both looked her way, what now?
Jessica said, “The U.N. just reached agreement, they’ll offer to send them the plans for the technology if they don’t have it. But it’ll be up to the Vrok to build it or starve. We won’t help them any further than that. I can’t say they’re wrong.”
I blew out a breath, that meant…
Jessica looked up, “The Committee wants you in the conference room at the top of the hour.”
Yeah, that. I checked the time, and it was quarter to eleven. Not much time. I could hardly believe the political wrangling let me down. I knew Diana still needed a few more days to get a working upgrade for our ship’s tactical systems across the board, minimum. Plus another day or two to make enough of the new nanites and fabricate enough turrets.
I sighed, “Alright, you need to sit this one out?”
Cassie shook her head, “The committee and our war with the Vrok takes priority over everything else. Jessica’s people will figure out the culprits, and the whiners down on the planet can suck it up and talk to my voicemail.”
I laughed, “Works for me.”
Cassie asked, “What will you do?”
I shrugged, “Probably something stupid when I try to delay again, and it doesn’t work. I can’t tell them the truth, and they won’t believe me without proof, that Diana is close to a breakthrough and difference maker. We’ll see what their military people came up with, who knows, it might even be a good plan. I can’t just say no, not if all the other countries are for it, unless I want to be branded a rogue world leader again, ignoring the votes of the U.N.”
Jessica shrugged, “They’re your fleets.”
“True, but perception matters more than reality. Politically, I either play nice and go with the majority, or I’d be rogue. Sure, they get no say on Astraeus, but all the countries have managed to work together as far as how we act outside our space. I don’t want to be the one to break that and start a precedent.”
Cassie nodded, “That’d be a mistake, even if their plan sucks.”
I snickered, “Noted, and I agree. Shall we?”
Cassie grinned, “This should be fun.”
I snorted, “Watching me suffer?”
Cassie nodded, “Of course, what else do you think I could’ve meant?”
I laughed, and we headed out.
Once we had privacy, I asked, “So, is it really the job that has you frazzled. You usually eat up political maneuvering and drama, like jet fuel for humanity.”
She replied, “Since when are you so intuitive?”
I really wasn’t I didn’t think, she was just too far away from how she usually acted during a crisis.
“You don’t have to answer, but you are family.”
She sighed, and touched my arm for a second, “I am, and you are to me. Which is new for me, and more precious to me than I can express. The rest of the council isn’t happy I’m so in the public eye, they’ve been suggesting more firmly lately that it’s time to bow out. Not leave Astraeus, but to take a less… visible position that will still let me keep an eye on you. Even better, if I can groom the person that replaces me.”
“And… you don’t want to give up the drama?” I said in confused disbelief.
She snickered, “I do thrive on chaos. I’ve never been a chaos maker, but I thrive on dealing with those who are and putting the world in order. Politics is a challenging job.”
I nodded, “New?”
She shrugged, “Not many men have befriended me over my long life, and for those that try they usually have ulterior motives. Not to mention jealous wives, that you and Diana welcome me as part of your family is unique in my life.”
I nodded, “Because you make most supermodels cry in envy?”
It was just the truth, she was just that attractive, but that hadn’t ever caused awkwardness between us, or jealousy in Diana at the way Cassie and I got along. Maybe it had to do with how she’d treated me distantly in the beginning, that initial and quite natural attraction I’d felt at her unsurpassed beauty in the beginning had passed, and never come back since my wife had me quite smitten.
She snickered, “Blunt and crude, but essentially true.”
I swapped subjects at that point.
“So, what’s the plan?”
She sighed, “That’s the problem, I don’t have one yet. I wonder if I’m growing corrupt, because I don’t want to give it up, but a part of me knows they’re right.”
We ran out of time, not that there was an easy solution, or even one in sight for that. Point was, we both fell silent as we walked into the conference room.
Clarence nodded as I sat, “Natalya will brief you on the plan our militaries came up with, but before we start that do you have any updates?”
I said, “My head scientist is running some promising experiments last night and today. She believes we can reach parity in weapons, shields, and drive acceleration. The improvements should also increase the power of our old weapons. I’d ask for a week to pursue that, if it’s successful we’ll be able to take their fleets much more easily, and quickly enough that they couldn’t escape.”
Clarence asked, “But you have no definitive data to share of success?”
“No, no demonstration either, but I trust my head scientist. She’s never misled me before, and she wouldn’t make promises she couldn’t deliver on.”
Chen interjected, “It is too risky. We are aware the enemy has quantum communicators. My government’s scientists are aware of the connection to the jump drive, and while we don’t have it yet outside the lab it won’t be long in coming. However, the true danger isn’t in the enemy developing a drive like that, it’s in them creating a counter that prevents a quantum resonance field beacon from being formed at the destination. We have to assume they’re working on that, and if we lose that edge before we overcome theirs, we’ll be finished.
“It’s why the U.N. so quickly came to an accommodation on the other two issues. Killing them quickly would be better, but the fact is we already have superiority, and it isn’t worth the gamble of losing it before we can gain an even larger one.”
I nodded, he wasn’t really wrong, the problem was the enemy wouldn’t cooperate and just sit there why we slowly destroyed a fleet of their ships over a half an ho
ur’s time.
“You all feel the same?”
They all nodded.
I looked toward Natalya, “What is it that they want me to do?”
Natalya said, “We want you to double your offensive fleets and attack in twenty-four hours. In that time, the ships can be grown large enough to accommodate twelve million mini-platforms, though they won’t be at their full mass yet.
“Seven of the twelve fleets will jump in on and take out their border fleets and replace them. If those enemy fleets flee before total destruction, you will keep your fleets there to stand off the other empires. Simultaneously, your other five fleets will split evenly to chase down their offensive fleets, which if we understand correctly are ten million ships. Those will go down even faster at two to one odds. Lastly, their eighth border with us, you’ll attack with your current border fleet, which you’ll leave there until all their ships are destroyed. At that point, that fleet will be freed up.”
“That’ll give me a whole lot of extra ships when it’s done, six full fleets worth.”
Natalya nodded, “True. Though one full fleet will be split up to watch over their two hundred eighty six thousand worlds, and the three million pre-FTL civilizations we’ll be watching over. We’ll eventually use them, and there are some that fear another empire on one of their borders might react badly to the change of border guards. Mainly though, it’s so we can kill them faster.
“With the new subspace shielding giving us a small survival window, you should be able to take them out a lot faster, but you’d suffer losses as well. In the end, you may lose a few fleets worth of ships, and need to combine them to reach the eight we need when all is said and done.”
I pondered that a minute. With jumping every two tenths of a second, I could take out twenty thousand every eighteen seconds. If I jumped once a second, and I trusted the weaker subspace shield configurations Diana had given me a few days ago to keep my ships alive, that’d go up to two hundred thousand every twenty seconds. Which meant destroying a whole fleet in just six and two thirds minutes.
Fallen Empire Page 13