EMPIRE: Warlord (EMPIRE SERIES Book 5)

by Richard F. Weyand

  Winger and Murphy talked it over during the drive.

  “So he’s the foreign minister? Of the whole kingdom?”

  “Last I heard.”

  “And a baron?”

  “Yes. One of the highest-ranking nobility in the kingdom, after the king and the king’s children, the crown prince and his sister.”

  “So what the hell is he doing out here, in disguise?”

  “That’s the interesting question I hope to ask him. I quietly let him know I knew who he was.”

  “And he’s coming anyway?”

  “Sure. No better place to hide out than a farm. No one there to recognize him.”

  “Except you.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t let on to anybody else, and he knows it.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t dangerous?”

  “Pretty sure. King James isn’t going to go around executing the nobility. That’s a sword that cuts both ways. And I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea to be friendly to the rich and powerful, which Schmitt-deVries definitely is. The big question is, What’s he doing out here? Sounds to me like he doesn’t want to be in Flower when the shoe drops.”

  “What shoe?”

  “That’s what I don’t know. But I suspect James is about to do something phenomenally stupid.”

  When they pulled up in front of the farmhouse, Murphy went in to talk to her parents, and Winger walked over to talk to Schmitt-deVries as he pulled up in the pickup.

  “My friend went in to talk to her folks,” Winger said. “They own the farm.”

  “Oh, I thought she might be your wife,” Schmitt-deVries said. “What’s your connection to the family?”

  “My wife and her husband are both in the Navy. They’re both from the planet Helding, and it’s rare enough to run into somebody from back home they became friends.”

  “Have they both survived Sintar’s attacks?”

  “Yes. My wife is a cargo shuttle pilot, and the shuttles weren’t targeted. Anita’s husband Rob is the executive officer on a ship that was here during the first attack, and went out on search and rescue for the shuttle pilots, so he wasn’t here for the second attack.”

  “Lucky. Both of them.”

  “Absolutely. And they met when Rob’s ship picked up my wife and the other shuttle pilots. They thought it might be a good idea for us to get out of Flower for the summer, so Anita and I both packed up our kids and headed to her folks’ farm here.”

  Schmitt-deVries nodded. It put a lot of things in perspective to hear about Sintar’s attacks from a Navy spouse. Two-thirds of the Navy was gone now, and these people were just trying to survive James’s antics and the fallout from them.

  He caught Winger’s eye.

  “Yes, as I said, I think being out of the city for the summer is probably a really good idea.”

  They heard the screen door bang shut, and saw Anita and her parents coming down the stairs from the porch. Winger backed away from the truck window and Schmitt-deVries got out of the truck.

  “My friend here is Anita Murphy, and these are her parents, Lester and Maida Walston. This is Frank Smith, everybody. He just looked like he needed a place to stay for a while.”

  Everybody exchanged handshakes and greetings, then Schmitt-deVries addressed Lester and Maida Walston.

  “I appreciate your hospitality. I’m not much with my hands for farm work, but I’m not without funds. I can certainly help out financially with the groceries and such.”

  “Well, if we all help out however we can, we’ll get by, Frank, so I won’t turn down your offer,” Lester Walston said. “Grab your things and let me show you the spare bedroom.”

  After dinner that night, Schmitt-deVries and Winger were sitting out on the big front porch. Murphy and her parents were bustling the kitchen from dinner and minding the kids, so the two – the political junkie and the political insider – had some time together alone.

  Schmitt-deVries was completely relaxed, completely at ease, for the first time in months. The tensions of James’s building animosity to Sintar, the buildup to the war, the Alliance’s epic failure, James’s likely reaction, and his own inability to stop or deflect any of it, had had him continuously keyed up and on edge. Now, sitting here on this rural porch, looking out over the fields as the crops were reaching their full height, he had finally relaxed. He sighed in contentment.

  Winger noticed and chuckled.

  “Sure beats the city, eh, Frank?”

  “Yes. Yes, it sure does.”

  “You had an interesting job,” Winger said.

  “Interesting, but very stressful.”

  “Problems with the boss?”

  “Yes, you might say that,” Schmitt-deVries said. “Nothing worse than being asked your advice by someone who doesn’t really want to hear it.”

  “Ah, that one. Yes, I’ve had that one.”

  Schmitt-deVries had shut down his neural VR when he left the palace, and had not used or activated it since. The last thing he needed was to be traced by his VR connection. He missed not being able to check what was going on in the capital, though, and it got him thinking. But he did not dare even check if he had signal here.

  “So, Dick, does everybody out here have VR implants?”

  It was amazing to Winger how out of touch the baron was.

  “No, Frank. Almost nobody does. We have video for news, entertainment, and such – at least when it’s not raining; then we lose the signal – but VR’s awfully expensive for ordinary folks.”

  “And your wife and Anita’s husband?”

  “Nope. And it limits their career prospects in the Navy. The newer ships the Navy bought were all VR, and the Navy had a hell of a time trying to crew them all, even to minimal standards.”

  “And the kids in school?”

  “It’s all in-person learning. Live teachers, physically going to school every day. Normal stuff. No VR.”

  Schmitt-deVries knew the number of people with VR implants in the Kingdom of Garland was perhaps three or four percent of the population. Even here, on the capital planet, only three hundred miles from the palace, it was almost unknown. It struck him now how much of an indictment that was of the system of which he was a part. How badly the kingdom had failed its people.

  He also knew the number of people in the Sintaran Empire who had VR implants, even on backwater planets, approached a hundred percent of the population. Over three hundred trillion people, all with VR implants. His mind boggled at that, but he recognized what an accomplishment it was, and how much it said about the priorities of the Sintaran Empire compared to those of the Kingdom of Garland.

  He reflected on that here, sitting on the porch of the kindly strangers who had taken him in, and he was ashamed to have been a part of it.

  Preparation For Estvia

  Fleet Admiral Natalia Shvets, her staff, and all her vice admirals and rear admirals and their staffs were present for the briefing, held in a VR lecture hall. The briefing was given by Fleet Admiral Stepan Cernik, the head of the tactical department of Imperial Navy Headquarters Sintar.

  “We have credible intelligence, ladies and gentlemen, that the Kingdom of Garland, and perhaps other nations in alliance with them, are planning an attack on Estvia, the capital planet of the Estvia Sector. We expect the key element of this attack to be an attack on the planet itself, targeting its capital city of Kehala with nuclear missiles.

  “Clearly, we cannot allow a single such missile to get through to the planet, which is why we have planned for a multi-tier defense. These plans were drawn up to defend against a planetary bombardment of any Sintaran planet, and have been updated to reflect our current technology, our recent experiences, and the current situation.

  “We believe the key goal of this attack is vengeance against the sector governor, Michael Roberts, the former king, for what is seen as his collaboration with Sintar against the Alliance. While vengeance may not seem to be a rational justification for a military operation, we believe that view
is consistent with the personalities involved.

  “One of our goals then is to subvert their goal, whatever other outcome ensues. Our plan therefore involves removing the sector governor to safety. We had planned on moving him off the planet, but we believe now the safest location for him is another location on the planet other than the capital. He insists on being available to organize relief efforts, so taking him out of the system entirely is not workable, as he would be in hyperspace during the critical period.

  “While your organization has four hundred thousand picket ships, many of those are being used to picket or guard other planets in the Estvia Sector. In order to assist with the defense of the planet, Fleet Admiral Dexter McGee has been ordered to detach half of his four hundred thousand picket ships to buttress your defenses.

  “Are there any questions about the background before we get into the specifics of the operation?”

  “I have just one, Admiral Cernik,” Admiral Shvets said. “How credible is this intelligence? It seems rather incredible to organize fleet operation around personal feelings like a desire for vengeance.”

  “I agree with you entirely, Admiral Shvets. Nevertheless, the individuals involved are not above such considerations. Given the source of the intelligence, which I have not been told, my superiors consider this intelligence to be at ninety percent credibility. That includes Imperial Admiral Leicester, never a credulous customer of intelligence, and he is personally aware of the sources and methods in this instance.”

  “Thank you, Admiral.”

  “Anyone else? All right then. Let’s get started.”

  Rear Admiral Dorothy Conroy stood at ease in the VR space in which the real-time hyperspace map was maintained. She stood on what felt like a floor, but was transparent beneath her. She might as well be floating in empty space, but the gravity and the feeling of the floor beneath her feet prevented vertigo.

  She could walk right into the map to inspect detail, but today she was watching the map in overview.

  “Highlight unusual ship movements.”

  A large number of line segments in the map changed to yellow. These were primarily the redeployment of the remaining forces in the Alliance navies, once again moving to reinforce their capital planets.

  “Of those, highlight ship movements apparently destined international, rather than in-country.”

  Two sets of traces jumped out in orange, one group in Garland, the other in Berinia.

  “Forecast destinations of second highlight.”

  The Garland and Berinia forces were headed for the same spot, a system in Annalia.

  “Designate that destination System Alpha.”

  A small alpha character appeared near the system.

  “Forecast Annalia ship movements and highlight those with a destination of System Alpha.”

  There they were. Another group of ships heading for the rendezvous. They were too far away to catch them at their meeting place, which was all the way across Annalia, hard up against the DP. The Estvian ships had clearly been under way a while, as Estvia was around the corner from Annalia, just barely on the farside of Sintar, while Berinia and Annalia were very much Earthside from Sintar.

  Now, though, they were drawing close to their meet-up. There was no chance of getting across Annalia in time to waylay them there.

  “Generate a listing of the highlighted ships.”

  An information panel appeared, and set forth a list of the number and types of ships congregating in System Alpha.

  “Project least-time course from System Alpha to planet Estvia. Show arrival timestamp.”

  Conroy made note of that, the soonest the combined force could arrive in Estvia.

  “Set alarms. First alarm for arrival of all highlighted ships in System Alpha. Second alarm for departure of combined force from System Alpha.”

  Admiral Shvets was meeting with her staff and vice admirals and their chiefs of staff.

  “We’ve received information on the projected arrival time of the attack force in Estvia. Apparently we can see anybody move any ship anywhere in space.”

  There were chuckles at that. No one knew how they were getting such detailed intelligence, but you couldn’t argue with the accuracy of the intelligence on the Alliance mustering points or capital planets on the last two sets of attacks.

  “So we’re looking at it still being a couple weeks or more off. We also have information on what we have coming our way. That’s a little more sobering. Over three thousand warships in all classes. Not large compared to some of the forces we’ve dealt with lately, but every one of them is a launcher, and their target is the planet. We can’t let a single missile through. Not one.”

  Expressions were serious now, and there were nods of agreement. Everybody knew what a ten-megaton ship-to-ship warhead would do to the city of Kehala and its twenty million inhabitants, Sintaran citizens all.

  “What’s the status on the reinforcements from Admiral McGee?”

  “They’ve actually been coming in right along, Ma’am. He sent us his closest ones immediately to minimize travel times, and is backfilling them from deeper within Pannia.”

  “Excellent.”

  Fleet Admiral Dexter McGee was one of the good ones. She had been impressed with his briefing books and plans for the Draco province of Carolina Sector when she had taken it over from him, what? Five or six years ago now. Some commanders would grudgingly part with detached forces, but he was breaking all records getting reinforcements to her. She would be sure to mention that in her report.

  Whatever happened.

  Annalia Fleet Admiral Jacob Steiner watched his tactical plot with impatience. He was well aware of what had happened to the mustering Alliance invasion forces when they had stayed in one place too long, and he didn’t intend to make the same mistake.

  Annalia was about nine percent of the Alliance in planets, and fourteen percent in population. It had lost almost three hundred thousand ships – and half a billion spacers – in just the first attack, when Sintar caught the Alliance forces mustering. The losses had been nearly as heavy in the second round. Barely a third of Annalia’s naval strength, measured in keels, remained. In actual performance, given the lesser abilities of the home-built ships that remained, it was more like a quarter.

  Steiner had lost friends in those attacks. Hundreds of them. He would miss them dearly, and remember them fondly, for the rest of his life. Still, that was how wars went. You either won or lost, and it didn’t do a lot of good to complain about it. The Alliance had made some big mistakes, and Sintar had not been shy about capitalizing on them.

  This, though, was different.

  King Michael of Estvia had betrayed a confidence, run to Sintar to tell them of the war vote. That was the only explanation that made sense for the carnage that had followed. The millions of ships destroyed, the billions of lives lost, were on him, and he would not get away with it.

  That Steiner and his force would also be incinerating twenty million men, women, and children did not shake his conscience enough to deter him from his simple task – to make King Michael of Estvia pay for his treason and perfidy against his fellow rulers.

  In the context of the ten billion Alliance lives lost in the wake of his betrayal, it was small potatoes.

  Steiner’s force was stocked up now, and getting organized for the hyperspace trip to Estvia. He knew they would take heavy losses, but it would only take one missile – one direct hit – to send the message that such behavior was beyond the pale.

  And every ship of his force had orders to do just that. Only one need survive to take the shot.

  Rear Admiral Dorothy Conroy was asleep when the alarm woke her. It was a VR alarm, from Project Far Sight. She lay in bed as she logged into the virtual reality channel that was the project’s only true location.

  Her avatar, in uniform, stood in mid-air before the massive display. She walked into it, through the Sintaran Empire to Annalia, and across Annalia almost all the way to the Democrac
y of Planets. There a hyperspace trace was just beginning. It was a large wake, some three thousand vessels. She checked it against her prior ship list, and all the ships save the freighters were on the move toward Estvia. The freighters made much smaller tracks in other directions.

  She couldn’t project the actual course yet. Would it be least-time? Or would they jog a bit right there to take advantage of that bulge in the border and delay the moment when they crossed into Sintar space? She would know in a day or so. But the least-time course was fourteen days. That she could pass on as the earliest time for the Alliance force to show up at Estvia.

  They couldn’t show up any sooner than that. Hyperspace was fast, but it was only as fast as it was.

  “We have a time now, Jack,” Fleet Admiral Natalia Shvets said. “They’re on the way.”

  “Do we know when they’re going to cross the border, Ma’am?” asked Admiral John Yackley, her chief of staff.

  “Not yet. And no exact course yet, either. They have a couple of choices, depending on what they prioritize, getting here fastest or delaying their border crossing.”

  “We should plan on a least-time course, I think, Ma’am. That means we don’t get caught with our pants down. So it sounds like maybe seven, eight days before we launch?”

  “I think that’s right. Send everybody seven days’ warning.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “So let me get this straight, Chief. We’re not going to attack them on the way?” Petty Officer Third Class Anton Staski asked.

  “We’re going to attack them on the way, Staski, but in hyperspace, so we won’t actually be crewing the ship,” Chief Petty Officer Jason Carrey said. “The ship will be doing the attacking.”

  “Without us?”

  “Without us.”

  “How the hell is that supposed to work, Chief?”

  “Think about it, Staski. The picket ships are basically a uranium bullet with a big honking drive on the back, a hyperspace sensor suite, and a computer, right?”