“Then I become a figurehead, and nothing more,” said Sean, slamming a hand down on the table. “And some idiot takes my place to run the war. Some idiot who will bang our heads against the military wall of the enemy.”
“People are starting to panic,” said the Prime Minister. “They do not see the small victories that bleed the enemy. They only see the big losses, and wonder when it will be their turn.”
“So we need a signature victory,” said McCullom. “Something to show the people, so they will not continue to lose heart.”
“If we could defeat a major force of theirs in a battle,” said Sean, closing his eyes and feeling the stress he was carrying.
“The problem, your Majesty,” said the CNO, “is that if we get a large enough force together, we leave the rest of the Sector uncovered. And if the enemy knows we have gathered a large enough force to win a battle, they will avoid that fight.”
“So we have to give them a reason to go where we want them to, when we want them to,” said Sean, rubbing his temples.
“But what reason could we offer them?” asked the Prime Minister, looking from face to face around the table. “We would have to place something at risk that they couldn’t refuse to go after. What would that be?”
Sean looked up and locked eyes with everyone one at a time, then spoke one word. “Me.”
Chapter One
MASSADARA SPACE. AUGUST 2nd-7th, 1001.
“I want her found,” yelled Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow, commander of all Ca’cadasan forces in human space. “How in all the hells could she hide from us on our own ship?”
“I do not think she is on the station anymore, my Lord,” said one of the security officers, cringing before the most powerful male in thousands of light years. “We have searched every possible location on the ship. She is simply not here.”
“Then find out where she went, and get her back,” growled the Great Admiral, stalking back and forth on his command deck. He had been in a good mood coming back from his conference with the Knockermen, and had wanted to quiz his human expert on the species. “And let it be known that I want her back alive. I will skin the Cacada who kills her.” It would take too damned long to train another human in our language. I need her expertise, now, more than ever.
“Do you want me to send that message out to the entire system?” asked the Com Officer.
“Of course I do, you dolt. Did your mother have any intelligent children, or were they all idiots, like you?”
The officer blanched, then turned back to his board and got to work on sending a message.
You will be severely punished, my slave, thought the Great Admiral, walking to the system holo and staring at the representation of all the bodies in orbit around their star. I won’t kill you, but you will wish you were dead.
* * *
The shuttle hit the outer atmosphere and started to shake from the turbulence. The pilot struggled to control the ship, barely able to reach the controls in a seat that was built for a much larger being. Ca’cadasans were three meters tall, and bulky to boot, while the human occupying the seat was less than one point six meters, and of petite build.
That’s never been a problem before, thought Chief Petty Officer Jana Gorbachev, her eyes locked to the viewer that showed the curve of the planet below. When she had served aboard a ship, the battle armor that naval ratings wore on duty nullified her physical weakness as compared to much larger males. It had made her just as strong as anyone else, quadruple the lifting/pulling power of the average human. Unfortunately, she was not wearing the armor now, but only the vacuum survival suit her Ca’cadasan masters had provided.
The main speaker sounded with the voice of an angry Cacada male, asking her what the hell she was doing. She was fluent in the language, but hadn’t the time to program the ship’s computer to make her voice sound like one of the big aliens. She could only sound like what she was, a small alien with imperfect pronunciation of the language, nowhere near the skills of a native speaker.
They were ordering her to return, and threatening destruction if she didn’t. The memory of a pair of Ca’cadasan technicians, or at least what was left of them after she had hit them with a particle beam, laying on the shuttle deck of the station, chased that temptation from her mind. She was sure they would kill her if she came back, while it was still only a chance, albeit a great one, that she would be blown out of space if she continued.
Jana’s hands shook as she punched the control board, her mind translating the Ca’cadasan symbols into English. I haven’t been this scared since I fought off Uncle Serge, that time he got drunk and tried to get in my pants. The image of her as a fourteen year old girl came to mind. I’m a grown woman now, four decades older, with twenty-two years’ service in the Fleet. But the things after her wanted to do more than have sex with her. They wanted to end her. She came from a long lived family, and expected to reach two hundred and fifty or more standard years. But she wouldn’t get there if her body was converted to plasma above this planet.
Her long blond hair, grown out from her normal bob while in captivity, fell over her eyes, and she furiously pushed it aside, wishing she had remembered to put a headband around it. She really didn’t have the time to deal with it now, and it was just one more stress in a supremely stressful situation.
“We are being fired at,” said the ship’s computer in Ca’cadasan.
“How close are they coming?” she asked as she set the ship into evasive maneuvers.
“From the pattern, I estimate that they are shooting to miss,” said the ship.
A voice erupted over the speaker, again demanding that she turn back or face destruction. She shook her head and continued on. I’m either going to make it down to that planet, or they can kill me, she thought, wishing again that she had some hand controls like a joystick, so she could do something other than sit and push buttons.
“They have stopped firing,” said the ship’s computer. “The station is launching pursuit craft.”
Why in the hell would they do that? she thought, looking at the viewer that showed two small dots curving away from the station. She zoomed in on one, and saw that it was a small ground support ship, used for orbit to surface missions. “Fire on those ships,” she ordered the computer, knowing that the chances of her vessel hitting one of the truly maneuverable craft with its one stern laser was negligible. Or at least scoring a hit that meant anything.
The intensity of the ship’s shaking increased, and the readouts were showing the surface temps going into the thousands of degrees. Not bad for a modern shuttle. Deadly if something ripped a hole in her skin.
“Set the com for the human tactical frequency,” she ordered the computer. “I don’t care which one,” she finished, before the machine could ask her a stupid question. She just had to figure that they would be monitoring all of them.
“This is CPO Jana Gorbachev, ex of the HIMS Sergiov. I have been a prisoner of the Cacas since they took the system. I have vital information for the Empire.”
She stopped talking and listened, hoping there would be a reply. After minutes of nothing she sent them the same message.
“Please. I need help,” she said after no reply to her repeat. “I have information that is important to the Empire.”
Again, there was no reply, and she started to level the shuttle out, looking for a place to set down. The ground attack craft were on her rear, and one fired a particle beam that struck the tail of her ship. The shuttle shook with the hit, and she again wondered why they didn’t just shoot her down.
Something streaked by her ship, and it rocked again a moment later. Jana looked into the rear viewer and shouted for joy as she saw the cloud of debris that had been an enemy chase ship. The other ship started to go into evasive maneuvers, no longer on the hunt, now just trying to survive. A trio of particle beams reached up and struck the remaining craft, and it flipped over in the air as its nose converted to plasma.
“Shu
ttle,” came a voice over the com. “There will be a flare to the front of your ship within the next three minutes. You are to bail out of your craft at that point, and allow it to continue on.”
Shit, thought the woman, thinking quickly. There was nothing aboard the shuttle she could use for an emergency egress. Or was there? She unbuckled her strap and got out of her seat, running to the rear and looking at the cubby that held one set of Ca’cadasan naval combat armor. It was way too big for her, but it had grabbers, and they could lower her to the ground. But it’s too damned big for me to control, she thought. Then she came up with a hopeful solution.
She hit the commit button on the cubby and it opened. Next she pushed the switch that moved the suit out of the cubby. She bent down and looked at where the leg grabbers attached and saw what she needed, then ran to the repair station and grabbed the tool that fit the need.
The thing felt huge in her hands, but she knew that complaining about it wouldn’t change anything. She inserted the tip of the tool into the top holder for the grabber, then turned on the switch. With a whirling sound the bolt came up and out. She put it in a pocket in her survival suit and got the next one out. The grabber unit fell to the floor, and she had to hope nothing in it got damaged. Not likely, she thought. It was part of combat armor, and probably very hard to damage. She repeated the procedure and pulled the second unit off.
She brought the units over to the repair cubby to look for what else she needed. She found some strapping and quickly pulled the buckles to size it, then taped the grabbers to the strap with some maintenance tape, praying that the Caca version of the ubiquitous repair strapping was as good as the human kind. She found a panel switch that looked like it would work, then ran the wires to the grabbers, wrapping them around the upper bolts and using the tool to set the bolts and hold the units in place.
She looked up, realizing that she didn’t have much time at all. Running back to the cockpit, she threw herself in the seat and set the control board so the ship would do what she wanted it to. As soon as she hit the commit button she caught sight of the flare rising up over the forest ten kilometers ahead.
The shuttle slowed down as she hit the throttle switch, and she ran back to the repair station and shrugged herself into the straps. This is really stupid, she thought. And it’s going to get me killed. Since she couldn’t think of a better idea, she had to go with this one. The timer ticking on her implant, she ran to the hatch and pushed the control.
The hatch swung open, and she grabbed a handhold as the swirling wind tried to pull her out of the shuttle. Not yet, she thought, holding on tight, letting the timer tick down. When it hit zero she released the handhold and let the air current pull her out.
The tail almost caught her as she flew past it. Then she was free in the air, and the shuttle continued on for a couple of seconds, then put on a burst of speed and started to climb. She hit the grabber control, and panicked as nothing happened. “Shit,” she yelled as she fell toward the ground a couple of hundred meters below. She said a prayer, hoping that God would at least send her to a better place. The grabbers caught, and she slowed to a reasonable speed.
The CPO fell like that for a hundred meters, until one of the units went out and she found herself looking down at the ground, and falling faster than she wanted. She pushed the switch up to max and her fall slowed, though she was still looking down. Then she was in the trees, just before the unit failed completely.
The first branch hit her in the midsection, and she tried to grab on and failed. She caught the second branch, losing her wind at the same time. Jana held on as tight as she could, despite the anxiety induced weakness that was sapping her strength. She was finally able to get a breath in her lungs, then took some breaths and started to work her way down the tree.
“Stop right there,” said a close voice. “Don’t move. We have you covered.”
Jana swallowed and said nothing, following the directions to the letter. They’re humans, at least. And they didn’t shoot me coming down.
There was a crack of an explosion from above, and Jana was sure that was the end of her escape shuttle. A hand touched her on the shoulder, then swept down her survival suit, checking her for weapons. The hand left her body for a moment, then came back, holding a knife which sliced easily through the straps holding the grabber units to her body. They dropped to the forest floor, and another hand grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.
“Get out of the survival suit,” said the young man who was standing in front of her. He was wearing another kind of survival suit, the type issued to special ops in the Army and Marines. Two other men stood to either side of him, about ten meters away, holding their bull pup rifles aimed at her head.
“I just escaped,” she said, wondering if there was some confusion here.
“Or you were sent to infiltrate us,” said the closest of the men. “Now strip down, to your skin. I want to be sure you have nothing on you that might compromise our base.”
Jana nodded, starting to strip out of the suit, dropping it to the ground. Then she shrugged out of her underclothes, standing naked in front of the men. She could see the appreciation in their eyes, and felt a flush of embarrassment come over her. Not that she was ashamed of her body, but standing like this in front of men she didn’t know was almost too much.
“I’m going to scan you,” said the leader, pulling out a small unit and running it over her body, paying particular attention to all of her orifices. Another of the men pulled his pack off his back and reached in, pulling out a coverall which he tossed to the leader. “Put this on, over all of you, including your head. Do not try to remove it until we tell you to. If you do, we will shoot you.”
Jana nodded and pulled the outfit on, which she knew would isolate her from any possibility of transmitting to anyone, if she happened to have any such devices in her. After she was completely covered the leader checked her out, then led the way as his two men fell in behind her.
The base was in a cavern, and was swarming with people in military garb. She was led to a shielded room and made to disrobe again, then scanned by more sensitive instruments.
“You look OK,” said an officer after the exam.
Jana pulled on a naval coverall that was provided for her and finally felt a sense of relief. I’m safe, she thought. Four hours later, after a long underground walk, she was being questioned by some officers who decided that she needed to be sent up the line.
It was four days to the cavern that contained the wormhole. By this time she was trusted, and treated well by all those who escorted her. And then she was in the wormhole chamber, taking a step forward a half meter, and across over a thousand light years of space.
Chapter Two
SUPERSYSTEM SPACE. AUGUST 5TH, 1001.
“Arise, Duchess of Coventry,” said the voice of the Emperor as the Sword of State was pulled up and away from her shoulders.
Doctor Jennifer Conway, brand new Duchess of Coventry, looked up at the smiling man holding the sword.
“Are you sure this is legal?” asked Jennifer, getting to her feet and giving the young man her hand. “What if Streeter has some relatives out there you don’t know about?”
“Ekaterina?” said Sean, looking over at his Chief Spy, the head of the Imperial Intelligence Agency, Ekaterina Sergiov.
“Not a chance, Duchess,” said the smiling Spymaster. “He never married, and has no illegitimate children. There may be some distant cousins, who really have no claim to the Duchy. So no. You are it, like it or not.”
Jennifer frowned as she thought about that. She really hadn’t liked the idea, even when the reason behind it was explained to her. She looked at the young Emperor and decided she could live with the temporary elevation. Temporary, because according to Sean there was an even higher rank in her future.
“Now that that’s over,” said the Monarch, handing the Sword of State to one of his knights, among several here as witnesses, “we can get on to the next piece of
business.”
This time Sean knelt, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling a small box from it. He opened the box, revealing a ring set with perfect diamonds and emeralds. “Duchess Coventry,” he said, taking her right hand in his left. “Will you marry me?”
“I’m not sure,” she said with a mischievous smile. “This Duchess thing may suit me better.” She laughed a bit at the expression on Sean’s face. “Of course I’ll marry you, you dolt.”
“She is already learning how to act like a wife,” said the Prime Minister, Countess Haruko Kawasaki, and the entire room erupted in laughter.
Sean slid the ring on her finger, then stood up and led the way to the doors to the chamber, and the waiting press. This was the part Jennifer was not looking forward to. At least they had not been permitted into the chamber during the ceremony. Only high government officials and personal friends of the Emperor had been allowed to attend. She took a last look at the people in the room, a smile coming to her lips as she saw Cornelius’ wife, Devera, and his adopted daughter, Rebecca. Cornelius, newly knighted, was too busy with Officer Candidate School for something this minor to interrupt.
And then they were through the doors, among the scores of floating cameras that followed their every move. Newsies were in their faces, asking questions, some more personal than Jennifer wanted to answer. Five minutes, she thought. That’s what Sean had promised would be the limit. The killer question came before the end of minute three.
“Do you really think, with your common genetics, that you can give the Emperor an appropriate heir?” asked the woman with the disapproving expression. The tag on her blouse said she was a reporter for a local Capitulum news syndicate, which sent their reports to hundreds of out of system outlets.
Jennifer felt the tears coming, and Sean stepped in front of her and glared at the reporter. “The interviews are over,” he said with a forceful manner. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. My press secretary will answer any further questions.”
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 06 - The Day of Battle Page 3