Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm

by Doug Dandridge

  “He had too many strings to pull,” said Ekaterina. “Being a member of the Imperial Family has its privileges, whether we admit it or not. I know that Augustine wouldn’t condone such, but the position of Imperial family is enough to cow many minor functionaries, even in the military.”

  “It didn’t seem to stop the crime syndicate he owed money to,” said Len, shaking his head. “Too bad they didn’t get to him before that bastard McGregor did. Then he would have to waste time looking for another puppet.”

  “They almost had him,” said the Director of IIA. “Given another two or three days he would have been found by the locals, after having died a horrible death. Instead McGregor gave the mob a lesson they will not soon forget.”

  “And so we are stuck with this, this thing, if the heir cannot get back to the capital in time,” groaned Len. “No character, no courage, no intelligence. This kid is useless as a leader of a destroyer watch, much less the entire Empire.”

  “We need that boy here, at the capital, Len,” said the Head of Imperial Civil Intelligence. “Not just words, or rumors that he might be alive. But here, where people can see him, talk to him, know he is real. Then we need to get him in that chair, put his ass in the seat of Empire, and get this madness under control.”

  “He’s not the man his father was,” said Len, shaking his head as he frowned.

  “He doesn’t need to be,” said the woman. “Is he an honorable young man? What does the Fleet think of his character?”

  “He has a temper,” said the Admiral, looking at the young man in question’s record. “And a tendency to court the edge of insubordination. But his honor is beyond reproach, as far as we can tell.”

  “We agree,” said Ekaterina, her own eyes taking on the faraway look of a link. “And he might not be his father, yet, though he is good enough for the here and now. The promising thing about him, according to his psych profile, which believe me goes much deeper than anything the Fleet uses for its selection processes, is he can be his father. He can be as good an Emperor as we have ever had. Or…”

  “Or what? And why don’t I believe I’m going to like this.”

  “The wrong circumstances can make the young man a tyrant.”

  “Like the mad Emperor?”

  “Not at all,” said the woman, shaking her head. “He will not resort to the kind of depravity that Cassius was known to embrace. He will still be an honorable young man with a sense of justice. Only it will be harsh justice. Not what any of us want in a ruler.”

  “But you are still willing to endorse him?”

  “It’s not my place to endorse him,” said Ekaterina. “He is, by the law of succession, the rightful heir to the throne. And he is a better choice than the one the Lords want to foist on us.”

  “And would you still endorse him if that were not true?”

  “Of course,” said the Intelligence Chief with a smile. “Compared to Count Hector, the High Prince is a saint, and just what we need. We just need to see that he is handled correctly, and allowed to grow into the position.”

  “And if he is dead?” asked Len, staring into the screen. “If Sean was killed in the attempt to get him to safety?”

  “Then we have a real problem on our hands,” said a frowning Ekaterina. “A civil war at the least. Not much of one, I am sure, since the Lords don’t have much in the way of military force.”

  “And what side will IIA be on?” asked Len, leaning forward on his desk.

  “Why, the winning side, of course,” said the woman. “I’m not fool enough to stand against the Fleet and the Army with a bunch of spooks. Just pray it doesn’t come to that.”

  I do, thought Len as the connection ended. Every night, that our rightful Emperor may be seated, and we can concentrate on where we need to focus.

  * * *

  ELYSIUM EMPIRE, CAPITAL SYSTEM.

  “Welcome, Lord Grarakakak,” said the Archduke Horatio Alexanderopolis, Imperial Ambassador to the Star Empire of Elysium, as the brightly dressed avian stepped into his office. The wonderful odor of the most powerful being in that Empire wafted through the room, and the colorfully feather sentient took the offered seat that configured itself to his non-human body.

  “Would you like a drink, my Lord?” asked the human, sliding his chair over and reaching into the cabinet on the wall.

  “No thank you, your Grace,” replied the avian in his musical voice. “I have business to discuss with you, and I am sorry if I come across as ungracious.”

  The ambassador looked into the face of the sentient. He was as familiar as any human with the Brakakak species. That said, even he had problems reading them sometimes, even an individual he was as familiar with as the highest civil official in the Elysium Empire. But he could tell that the being was troubled by the quivering of his beak, and the way his hands flitted while he spoke. But troubled about what?

  “Go on then, my Lord,” said the Ambassador, using the common rank the High Lord insisted upon, there being no real Emperor in this Empire. Empire was the human designation, as was the name, since the real name was unpronounceable to most humans, and Alexanderopolis knew they considered themselves more of a Cooperative.

  “We have been hearing troubling rumors about this young man your Lords intend to place in the Emperor’s Office,” said Grarakakak, leaning toward the Ambassador. “Very troubling rumors.”

  “Which, unless I miss my guess, means your intelligence apparatus has given you very good information about him,” said Horatio with a smile.

  “He is not really the sort of man we would want to have dealings with,” said the High Lord of Elysium, giving a very human nod. He reached into a vest pocket and pulled out a human made data chip. “I do not think you will want to either. I am sorry, my friend. But if young Count Sutter becomes the head of your Government, which is to say a puppet to the Lords, I do not think you will be retained in this posting.”

  “Probably not,” said Horatio as he pushed the data chip into a slot on his desk. I was friends of Augustine, and his father before him. Which means I am political enemies with many of their enemies in Parliament. And who would want me representing their interests in the capital of the next strongest Empire in this region of space. The holo came up over the desk as the computer read the chip, and Horatio grunted as he scanned the report. He shook his head in disgust, then looked over at his friend.

  “Not what I would want as the ruler of my largest neighbor,” said the Ambassador, shaking his head. “Can’t blame you for your distrust of this man.”

  “We feel he will be nothing more than a puppet,” said the High Lord, waving toward the holo. “And we do not trust your Duke Streeter, the current Prime Minister.”

  “Interim Prime Minister,” Horatio reminded the alien.

  “Not if he has his way,” said Grarakakak. “And I believe he will have his way, unless he is stopped.”

  “Not much I can do about it, Lord Grarakakak. Not out here.”

  “But your Len Lenkoswki can do something about it,” said the High Lord, showing his knowledge of Imperial politics.

  “Sure. If he wants to start a civil war. And none of us wants that.”

  “That might be better than letting the Lords have their way.”

  “It’s not even all of the Lords,” said Horatio, feeling the need to defend his government, despite all the evidence against them. “Most of them have the best interests of the Empire at heart.”

  “But they are not the power in the Parliament,” said the High Lord. “For a Democratic Government there is too much real power in the hands of too many hereditary leaders. I do not think you picked the best form of government from your history.”

  “It has served us well up to this point,” said Horatio, bristling under what he again saw as an attack on his government. Not that he’s wrong, thought the Ambassador. It just goads to hear an alien be right about our shortcomings.

  “And how goes the campaign against the Lasharans?” asked the High Lo
rd, clearly changing the subject in a diplomatic manner.

  “We have mobilized that front, and our allies are ready,” said Horatio, happy to change the subject. “Beyond that, we have to wait for the invasion and see what happens.”

  “I will leave now,” said the High Lord, getting to his feet. He started to walk out, seemed to think of something, and turned toward the human. “You have a well-fortified facility here, do you not?”

  “I think your intelligence can tell you how well defended our embassy is,” replied the Ambassador. “We couldn’t withstand an attack by your military. But, let us say, any civilian group who tried to take our embassy would soon regret the decision.”

  “I may have a favor to ask of you, my friend. In the near future.”

  “Ask it and it shall be yours, High Lord,” answered Horatio, curious to know what the being might be leading to.

  “Don’t commit to anything you might regret later, my friend,” said the High Lord, his face serious. “Just know that there may come a time when I need help, and offer it if you can.”

  The avian gave a short bow, then left the office, leaving the Ambassador to his own thoughts about what might be occurring. After a few moments he got on the com and set up a meeting with his intelligence chief and the Naval Attaché’.

  * * *

  LASHARAN INVASION FLEET, SPACE BETWEEN LASHARAN HEGONOMY AND NEW TERRAN EMPIRE.

  Admiral Hakana Mallakan had known this was a suicide mission before he had agreed to undertake it. Agreed was not really the right word if truth be told. As one of the many hundreds of nephews of Ahmadhi-ghasta (Grand High Bishop) Mallakan, he had been expected to volunteer his services on this crusade. Anything else would have been considered an insult to his family and his religion. Marrala, the God of Destruction, demanded much of his adherents, up to and including their lives.

  Still, he had felt good about this mission, and had sensed a positive attitude among the males and neuters of his warriors. Despite the fact that his battleship, the Anger of Marrala, was structurally fifty years behind anything the Imperials deployed, though her weapons and instruments had been upgraded to a standard only twenty years behind the vessels she might face. Ships such as his had been known to win battles against vessels of superior tech, if they were used skillfully. And he fully expected to not have to fight any naval battles on the way to his target. To get into that kind of battle was to lose. No, his job was to get the ships carrying the troops to their targets and give them some orbital support. Nothing more or less.

  The trip across the frontier had been frightening, creeping in Hyper II for a month, trying to avoid the picket ships that were out there to catch just such an attempt as this. Many ships didn’t make it through. The sounds of vessels falling out of hyper were a daily punctuation to the danger of trying to sneak across the frontier of a foe that was on the alert at all times. It had been a relief to jump up to IV with the frontier a couple of light years behind. More ships had fallen at that point, victims to their own translation noise. But the fallen had allowed the others to make it through. There were not enough enemy pickets to stop everything, and most of the fleet made it well into human space, where they began their high speed, relatively, runs to the targets.

  And now, even though the enemy knew something was up, they would not be able to do anything about it. Technology and physics ensured there were no instantaneous communications, and it took time to move ships. The humans knew a hammer blow was falling, and could only watch helplessly as it struck.

  And now he was here, in the target system, called by the humans Malagaski, by his own people Grosocor. There were still plenty of his people on the planet, which the humans occupied while they tried to change the Lasharan peoples’ viewpoint on religion. He would put a stop to that by landing two hundred thousand freedom fighters, and weapons for millions more, onto the planet. Then let the humans bloody their noses trying to pacify a people who would not allow such.

  “It is as we were told,” said the Mahada Klakhana, the religious leader of this force, looking at the viewer that revealed the entire system. “There is nothing here to stop us.”

  “We are picking up the emissions of three destroyer sized craft and a half dozen frigates, Lord Admiral,” said the neuter who was manning the sensor station.

  The Admiral nodded as he looked at the neuter, a bred warrior of their people. A fighter, but not a thinker.

  “Order the force to head for the planet at best speed,” he told his com tech, a male. “The warships will lead the way and sweep those pests out of our path.”

  The com officer raised an upper arm in acknowledgement, while his other digits worked on sending the message. In moments the warships were moving ahead of the freighters at their maximum acceleration of one hundred ninety gravities, leaving the commercial ships to plod along at thirty gees. The battleship, her two consort cruisers and ten destroyers moved forward, questing with their active sensors now, sending probes that would take six hours to cover the system and return.

  “I’m picking up ship emissions from behind,” reported the Sensor Tech. “Dozens of them.”

  The Admiral switched the viewer to a rear view just in time to see twenty freighters explode under the attention of beam weapons. Each of the merchant ships had thousands of warriors on board, and almost seventy thousand Lasharans died in that first barrage. The tactical plot came up on another viewer, showing the dots of the enemy ships, just beyond the hyper barrier, right in line with the attacking force’s vector toward the planet.

  More freighters went up under the attention of beams that were too powerful for their weak electromagnetic fields. The enemy ships were now moving forward, with considerably more accel than the Lasharan ships could make.

  “We are betrayed,” shouted the priest, waving all four fists in the air. “Maralla will damn them.”

  That may be, thought the Admiral as the plot blossomed with thousands of missiles heading for the Lasharan warships. But we won’t be around to see that revenge.

  * * *

  It was much the same through the over one hundred systems the Lasharans had targeted, which included all of the systems they had ceded to the Empire through right of conquest. In most warships met the intruders as they came out of hyper, blasting them from space. In others, swarms of fighters overwhelmed the pitiful defenses of the merchant ships, while the few warships looked helplessly on until it was their turn. In some systems the Lasharan ships actually made it to the planets, where they were taken under fire by shore batteries, then landed in the face of fortified Imperial Troops. In the end it was all for naught, and hundreds of thousands of Lasharans joined the lists of their Church’s martyrs.

  While this was happening in human space, the humans’ allies of Margrave and Grashar rolled across their frontiers with the fanatical aliens and laid waste to every military base and facility for fifty light years. And after the Lasharans had been taken care of in human space the human defense force consolidated, becoming a strike fleet that moved into Lasharan space and did much the same as their allies for a fifty light year buffer. In the end the Lasharans were much weaker than before, and the humans and allies much better positioned for the next round.

  * * *

  MASSADARA SPACE.

  “Sir,” came the voice of the Tactical Officer over the intercom. “We might have a problem.”

  “Define problem,” said the Captain, looking up from the work he was performing on his ready room desk.

  “About a hundred ships coming in from direction of the outer frontier,” chimed in the Sensor Officer. “They’re stair stepping their way into the system, and we’re right in the way.”

  “I’ll be right up,” said Suttler, closing the holo down that had the report he was dictating for higher command. Ships had continued to come into the system, until there was a total of ninety of the big twenty-five million ton battleships, along with over two hundred of the four million ton cruisers and over three hundred of the five hu
ndred thousand ton scout ships. Scouts and cruisers had also been leaving the system throughout the last couple of days, mostly on vectors that would take them into the sector. But another hundred vessels coming into the system was big news.

  Suttler came through the door into the bridge and could feel the tension. Not that the tension ever decreased much for long, not out here on the edge of a hostile system with no support. If they were ever found out they were dead. The enemy would commit ships to an exhaustive search that even their stealth technology would not defeat for long.

  “They’re coming in directly on bearing of twenty-five degrees,” called out the Sensor Officer as she saw the Captain walk onto the bridge. “Forty-two capital ships, fifty-eight cruisers and fifty-seven scouts.”

  Suttler whistled at the count. Over a hundred and fifty enemy vessels. “And we’re in the way?” he asked, looking at the Tactical Officer. That man nodded his head and the tactical plot appeared on the screen, with a line from the enemy positions running through the star system to the inhabitable planet. And the line was right over their position, which was only light minutes outside of the hyper limit.

  “How in the hell did that happen?” asked the Captain, not really expecting an answer. They were actually ten degrees to spinward from the most direct path from the frontier, and ten degrees up toward the disk, just so they wouldn’t have to worry about what seemed about to happen now.

  “They’re coming in at just under point three c,” said the Sensor Officer.

  Better than we can do, thought the Captain. Major advantage to them.

  “And they tend to translate closer to the barrier than we do,” continued the sensor officer.

  And that’s our hope this time, thought the Captain, looking at that plot as seeing the dots moving slowly toward them. “Be nice to figure out how they can translate at such a higher velocity than any of our ships. I want all of them tracked with every sensor on this vessel.”