Duchess of Terra (Duchy of Terra Book 2)

by Glynn Stewart

  “It’s good to see you back in uniform, Admiral Villeneuve”: Alfred Bouchard, a stocky German member of the Board.

  “It wasn’t what I expected or planned, but it’s a good feeling nonetheless,” Villeneuve replied. “I apologize for being late; I was giving two of the Militia’s current three Captains a tour of the ship Captain Lougheed will command.”

  “One of the A!Tol destroyers, yes?” Nilsson asked.

  “Yes,” Annette confirmed. “We have sixteen of them, an A!Tol squadron. Two will be commissioned within the next few days as Washington and Beijing. They’ll be operating with unmodified Imperial Navy systems, but that’s not our long-term plan for the ships.”

  “Which is where Nova Industries comes in,” Villeneuve took over for them. “Per your contract with the UESF, you had to keep the components on hand to rebuild a refit yard from scratch at all times. How quickly can you have a facility in orbit and fully functional?”

  “Nilsson?” Bouchard asked the CEO. “You know that level of detail better than the Board.”

  “The UESF ceased to exist a year ago,” Nilsson reminded them all. “We don’t have the prefabricated components necessary to build a refit yard on a few weeks’ notice anymore.”

  He held up his hand before anyone could say anything in response.

  “That’s mostly because we used all of the station components, as opposed to the yard components, to build the new Casimir Station,” he pointed out. “Casimir is a civilian facility, designed to operate as a transfer station as we deploy new in-system interface-drive ships, but…”

  “But?” Annette echoed, familiar with Nilsson’s occasional requirement to be poked to finish a thought.

  “Give us a base station to add the yards to, and we could probably have a yard online in a week.”

  She considered. While all of the military space infrastructure around Earth had been scuttled under the Weber Protocols, the civilian infrastructure remained—and had even expanded during the year she’d been away.

  “Admiral, would you be comfortable rededicating one of those prefabricated defense platforms the A!Tol gave us?” she asked Villeneuve. “That would also leave the refit yard with a degree of firepower to keep itself safe in the event of an attack.”

  “I see the logic,” the Admiral agreed, considering. “We only truly have Defense One anything resembling crewed; using one of the others as a base for the refit yard makes sense.”

  “Will that work for you?” she asked Nilsson, pulling out her communicator and flipping the CEO the dimensions of the station.

  He studied the data she provided for a moment, then nodded.

  “It will,” he confirmed. “It will take a week or so, and the yard won’t be capable of actually building anything.”

  “But it should be handle what, two of the three-hundred-meter destroyers at once?”

  “Yes,” Nilsson confirmed. “But…A!Tol technology is still in advance of our own. What exactly are you expecting us to do to the destroyers?”

  Annette placed three chips on the table, carefully laying them down next to each other.

  “I’d prefer for you to mount compressed-matter armor on them, but I understand that we’ve lost all copies of that research,” she said.

  “We’re looking to see if we have a backup, but it looks like the Protocols did a clean sweep of our files,” Nilsson confirmed.

  “I know,” she allowed.

  “While A!Tol technology is superior to our own, there are a few areas we’d pursued that they hadn’t. Neither the A!Tol nor the Kanzi bother with any form of active missile defense, as it takes a lot of missiles to take down their shields.

  “My opinion, borne out by experience with Tornado, is that every little bit helps,” she told them. “Nova Industries designed and built the laser missile defense suite Tornado was originally equipped with.”

  “You want us to mount the same suite on the destroyers? We can do that.”

  “We could do that,” Annette agreed. “But we have better options.” She tapped the three chips in front of her.

  “This chip”—she tapped the first, largest one, which was labeled with the sword-holding tentacle in a gold circle of the A!Tol Imperium—“is the technological database we have officially been provided. All data used from this chip is subject to licensing fees that will need to be paid to the Duchy; we’ll pass on a component of those to the Imperium.”

  All of the Nova Industries people were now looking at the three chips with undisguised avarice.

  “While they haven’t designed or built anti-missile systems in centuries, they have advanced their laser technology significantly over ours,” she told them. “I want you to take that laser technology and design a new, better anti-missile suite with the best of everything we can manage.”

  “We can do that,” Nilsson promised. “We could use—”

  “Sensor and performance data,” Annette agreed, tapping the second chip. It was marked with simply the name Tornado. “This chip contains the full scan data on every engagement Tornado has fought, and a historical archive that the Imperial Navy provided.

  “Included is every scan and analysis we did on Tornado’s deadly rainshower defender drones,” she noted. “We can’t duplicate the plasma cannons those drones use—they’re significantly more advanced than current-generation A!Tol plasma weapons—but I think we should be able to apply the laser system I want you to develop to the anti-missile drone concept.”

  Tomlin Nilsson had started his career as a spacecraft engineer; his gaze was thoughtful.

  “If the tech base we got from the A!Tol has the right kinds of drives and power sources—and we can build them!—I think we can do that.

  “But seriously, no active defenses at all?”

  “None,” she confirmed. “They want compressed-matter armor. I intend to sell them anti-missile suites and anti-missile drones. Keep in mind that you’re going to be building an export product of these.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask, Duchess Bond,” Wong interjected, “but what’s the third chip you have there?”

  The third chip was unmarked.

  “This chip doesn’t officially exist and I wasn’t sure we’d even manage to keep the data on it through our stay in Imperial space,” Annette told them. “The first chip is the official tech base we’ve been provided, with license agreements and so forth. It’s about twenty years out of date compared to current Imperial Navy issue, probably a bit behind even compared to the other Duchies.

  “This chip”—she tapped the black chip—“is a pirated database of the latest A!Tol Imperial Navy designs for everything. Ships. Weapons. Shields. Power generators. Everything.

  “It’s exactly what I left Earth looking for, and I did things I regret to get it,” she concluded quietly. “If the answer isn’t in the database we officially have, look in this. But keep it under lock and key—while I’m sure they suspect we have something like it, they will take it away if we rub it in their faces.”

  She slid the chips across the table to Nilsson.

  “We’ll have a contract drawn up,” she continued, “but you now work for the Duchy of Terra Militia in the same capacity you worked for the UESF. I need those destroyers upgraded with anti-missile suites and drones ASAP—and I need to start putting together a refit yard sized to take anything in those chips.”

  “Anything, ma’am?” Nilsson asked.

  “We will need to refit battleships at a minimum within a year,” she warned him, “and I wouldn’t want to have to turn down the possibility of super-battleships because I didn’t have yard space!”

  #

  Chapter 10

  Hunter’s Horn limped through the hyper portal into the Kimar System at eighty percent of her designed speed, the cruiser’s elegant lines still scorched and torn where the single Kanzi missile had struck home.

  One hit had left Captain Tanaka’s command barely combat-capable. It might have taken several hundred missiles to get through h
er shields and deliver that one hit, but the Terran Captain was unimpressed with the vessel’s reliance on a single defense.

  “System picket has hailed us,” Sier reported. “Concerned about our damage and our early return.”

  Harriet sighed.

  “Let them know we ran into trouble,” she said calmly. “See if you can book us in for a repair slip, and give them our estimated time to the station. I will, of course, be available for debriefing as soon as we arrive.”

  “Yes, Captain,” her XO replied.

  She leaned back in her chair, studying the screens as her ship cut toward the fleet base above Kimar’s one inhabited world. This was the farthest fleet base along the Rimward frontier of the A!Tol Imperium. There were a few colonies and outposts farther out, but it was only ten light-years from here to the Kovius Treaty Zone around Terra, which the Imperium had respected longer than Terra had known the Imperium existed.

  Thirty-two capital ships, two full squadrons of the Imperial Navy, guarded the Imperium’s flank. Twenty-six battleships and six super-battleships under the command of Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh, a relative—the exact nature of A!Tol familial relations eluded Harriet—of the Empress herself.

  A single such ship could have destroyed the entire UESF Harriet had once served. Her cruiser was bigger than the “battleship” she’d commanded for Earth. It was a lot to take in—and somewhat reassuring to know that all of this firepower was only a week’s flight from Earth.

  That immense shield of steel and firepower would stand between the Imperium’s enemies and her world—her son.

  “Captain, Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh wants to meet with you at your earliest convenience,” Sier reported after checking in with the base.

  Earliest convenience meant the same thing in the Imperial Navy that it had in Earth’s Space Force when a flag officer said it—“as soon as you can.”

  “Get one of the shuttles prepped,” she ordered. “I’ll report to the Fleet Lord as soon as we’re docked.”

  #

  When Tan!Shallegh’s tentacled visage had first appeared on Harriet’s viewscreen in Earth orbit, she’d found the alien monstrous, terrifying.

  Now she faced the two-meter-tall A!Tol in his office and understood much more about him. The blue-green tone of his skin showed his emotions, primarily a determined curiosity right now.

  Harriet also knew that Tan!Shallegh, as a male of his species, was small, even frail, by A!Tol standards. She’d been told he was actually small even for a male of the species. She’d reviewed the record of the being who’d conquered Earth as soon as she’d been able to, though, and she knew his physical weakness was more than compensated for by his mind.

  Tan!Shallegh didn’t owe his command to his family connections. He was generally respected as one of the top small-force tacticians in the Imperium, with a reputation forged in fire and steel against pirates toward the Core.

  He was also one of the exactly four living commanders the Imperial Navy had who’d actually commanded a capital-ship action—excluding operations like the conquest of Earth, anyway. It had been a small action, a half-echelon of Imperial Navy battleships against an equivalent number of Kanzi clan warships, but he’d won it without losses or even significant damage.

  “Captain Tanaka,” he greeted her. “Please, sit.”

  The chair he had waiting for her wasn’t one of the ones she was used to, designed for a Yin or other humanoid close to humanity in proportions. Someone had clearly designed this one based on human physiology—and it was actually comfortable.

  That was probably a good sign.

  “Report,” Tan!Shallegh ordered once she was seated.

  “Obviously, Hunter’s Horn did not complete our patrol,” Harriet began, her voice level as she looked up at her superior’s ink-black eyes. “We were in the Kovius Zone around Sol when we encountered a Kanzi scouting party, a cruiser and two destroyers.

  “We believed they were Clan vessels instead of Theocracy Navy, and challenged them. They turned out to be Theocracy Navy and informed us that the First Priest had declared the A!Tol annexation of Sol illegitimate.”

  Streaks of orange flashed across the Fleet Lord’s skin, his species’ inability to conceal their emotions obvious in the moment.

  “That is unfortunate,” he said slowly. “From the state of your ship, you engaged the Kanzi?”

  “Neither of us was prepared to withdraw,” Harriet told him. “Their force was destroyed; Hunter’s Horn took severe damage.”

  “You engaged a cruiser and two destroyers with one cruiser,” Tan!Shallegh noted. “And annihilated them?”

  “It was an older cruiser,” she replied.

  “So is Hunter’s Horn, Captain,” he pointed out. “I will, of course, review the sensor data of the engagement, but it appears you have scored an impressive victory for your first combat encounter, Captain Tanaka.

  “Well done.”

  “Thank you, Fleet Lord.”

  “The presence of Kanzi scouting units around Sol is concerning,” he admitted. “Once Horn has been repaired, I will need you to proceed to Sol and update the Duchess on your encounter.”

  “Are you certain, sir?” she asked carefully. “Shouldn’t we warn her sooner?”

  For that matter, Harriet wasn’t sure she wanted to go home. That could be…painful.

  “It will take time for us to complete our own scouting runs,” Tan!Shallegh told her. “We will provide a general warning via starcom—Sol does have a receiver, after all—and I will have you deliver a detailed briefing package to the Duchess.

  “If nothing else, Captain, you two should meet,” he insisted. “In your own ways, you are now the two most important humans in the Imperium.”

  Harriet shifted uncomfortably.

  “I just want to do my job, sir.”

  “So does Dan!Annette Bond,” Tan!Shallegh told her. “I think you two will understand each other better than most.

  “Prepare a detailed report on your encounter with your ship’s sensor records,” he ordered. “We’ll need to see if anyone else encountered the Kanzi. We may have a larger problem than I feared.”

  #

  Chapter 11

  Jean Villeneuve stepped out of the car into the California sunshine with a yawn and a stretch. His internal clock was about half-aligned to the GMT the space stations maintained and half-aligned to Hong Kong time.

  By either clock, the middle of a California afternoon meant he should be asleep, but since he’d been in San Francisco for the meeting with Nova Industries’ Board of Directors, he’d also scheduled himself to stop by the new recruiting office for the Duchy of Terra Militia.

  The organization had truly existed for only two and a half weeks, but their need for personnel meant that the very first thing they’d set up had been a massive network of recruiting stations across the world.

  So far, their main target had been ex-UESF officers and enlisted, with a degree of success that had surprised Jean—and left him feeling guilty.

  The people in the national armies, navies and air forces that the A!Tol had dissolved had received generous pensions from the A!Tol, but the Weber Protocols had seen the UESF’s records wiped. The Imperium had no idea who had been in the United Earth Space Force, so there had been no pensions, no safety net, for the men and women who’d served under Jean Villeneuve.

  Except for the desperate, few of his people had been able to bring themselves to join the Imperial Navy. The Duchy’s Militia, though…it would be defending Earth, and with Jean in command, many seemed to see it as a continuation of the UESF.

  “Admiral!” a cheerful voice greeted him, and he turned to spot a shaven-headed man approaching him from where he’d been smoking by the door. “Good to see you!”

  “And you, Chief,” Jean greeted ex-Chief Petty Officer Raoul Corsica. The man had gone even more to seed in the last year, but Corsica’s gut had never stopped him from taking care of his crews and keeping his ships in line—it had just made it easie
r to play Santa for his crew’s kids.

  “Ain’t a Chief anymore,” Corsica replied. “Well, not for a bit longer, anyway.” He shook his head. “Never planned on putting on a uniform again, but, well, I knew Bond and I knew you.

  “If she’s in charge and it’s good enough for you, I’m in. Just one last cigarette before I give it up.”

  “I thought you gave it up years ago?” Jean asked, glancing around the brilliant sunlit street.

  “I did,” the ex-noncom replied. “Then, six months after Earth fell, the docs told me I had advanced, aggressive, lung cancer that they couldn’t treat. Gave me a year to live.”

  “We should be able to fix that now,” the Admiral said sharply. “No reason for you to roll over and die—and no need for you to join the Militia to get treatment.”

  Corsica shrugged and his eyes glanced away.

  “George died in Alpha Squadron, Admiral,” he said simply. George Corsica had been his husband.

  “So, when they told me they could ease the pain, let me live it out comfortable-like, I figured I’d let it go and took up smoking ago,” he admitted. “The slots for the A-tuck-Tol treatments weren’t many; figured they could go for a man or a gal who needed them more.”

  Unlike most of the people Jean spent his time around now, Corsica clearly hadn’t practiced the pronunciation of the name of Earth’s new overlords.

  “And now?” he asked his old comrade.

  “I understand it’s a different list for the Militia medical care, so I’m not bumping someone who needs it more—and a bunch of the kids I taught to be spacers were signing up. Felt like I should finish the job. It’s what George would have wanted.”

  “Then come on, Raoul,” Jean said with a smile. “Let’s get you inside and signed up. My reference should help.”

  #

  Jean’s two bodyguards fell in behind the Admiral and the noncom as they entered the recruiting station, a main-floor office in an old three-story building on the outskirts of San Francisco’s harbor district.