The Armageddon Inheritance fe-2

by David Weber

  “Yes, Senior Fleet Captain Colinmacintyre?”

  “Colin,” Dahak said again, “there are—”

  “Mother,” Colin said firmly, rushing himself before whatever Dahak was trying to tell him could undercut his determination, “implement Case Omega.”

  There was a moment of profound silence, and then Hell itself erupted. Colin cringed back into his couch, hands rising to cover his eyes as Command Alpha exploded with light. A bolt of pain shot through his left arm as a bio-probe of pure force snipped away a scrap of tissue, but it was tiny compared to the fury boiling into his brain through his neural feed. A clumsy hand thrust deep inside him, flooding through his implants to wrench a gestalt of his very being from him. For one terrible moment he was Fleet Central, writhing in torment as his merely mortal brain and the ancient, bottomless computers of Battle Fleet merged, impressing their identities imperishably upon one another.

  Colin screamed in the grip of an agony too vast to endure, and yet it was over before he could truly experience it. Its echoes shuddered away down his synapses, stuttering in the racing pound of his heart, and then they were gone.

  “Case Omega executed,” Mother said emotionlessly. “The Emperor is dead; long live the Emperor!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I attempted to warn you, Colin,” Dahak said softly.

  Colin shuddered. Emperor? That was … was … Words failed. He couldn’t think of any that even came close.

  “Colin?” Jiltanith’s voice was gentler than Dahak’s, and far more anxious.

  “Yes, ’Tanni?” he managed in a strangled croak.

  “How dost thou, my love? We did hear thee scream. Art thou—?”

  “I-I’m fine, ’Tanni,” he said, and, physically, it was true. He cleared his throat. “There were a few rough moments, but I’m okay now. Honest.”

  “May I not come to thee?” She sounded less anxious—but not a lot.

  “I’d like that,” he said, and he had never spoken more sincerely in his life. Then he shook his head. “Wait. Let me make sure it’s safe.”

  He gathered himself and raised his voice.

  “Mother?”

  “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty?” the voice replied, and he flinched.

  “Mother, I’d like one of my officers to join me. Her implant signatures won’t be in your data base either. Can you have Security pass her through?”

  “If Your Imperial Majesty so instructs,” Mother responded.

  “My Imperial Majesty certainly does,” Colin said, and smiled crookedly. Maybe he wasn’t going to crack up entirely, after all.

  “Query: please identify the officer to be admitted.”

  “Uh? Oh. Fleet Captain Jiltanith, Dahak’s executive officer. My wife.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “’Tanni?” he returned his attention to his com. “Come ahead.”

  “I come, my love,” she said, and he stretched out in his couch, knowing she would soon be there. His shudders drained outward along his limbs until the final echoes tingled in his fingers and his breathing slowed.

  “Mother.”

  “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty?”

  “What was all that? What happened when you executed Case Omega, I mean?”

  “Emergency subroutines were terminated, ending Fleet Central’s caretaker role upon Your Imperial Majesty’s assumption of the throne.”

  “I figured that part out. I want a specific explanation of what you did.”

  “Fleet Central performed its function as guardian of the succession, Your Imperial Majesty. As senior Fleet officer and civil official listed in Fleet Central’s data base, Your Imperial Majesty, as per the Great Charter, became the proper successor upon the demise of the previous dynasty. However, Your Imperial Majesty was unknown to Fleet Central prior to Your Imperial Majesty’s accession. It was therefore necessary for Fleet Central to obtain gene samples for verification of the heirs of Your Imperial Majesty’s body and to evaluate Your Imperial Majesty’s gestalt and implant it upon Fleet Central’s primary data cortex.”

  Colin frowned. There were too many things here he didn’t yet understand, but there were were a few others to get straight right now.

  “Mother, can’t we do something about the titles?”

  “Query not understood, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  “I mean— Look, just what titles have I saddled myself with?

  “Your principle title is ‘His Imperial Majesty Colinmacintyre the First, Grand Duke of Birhat, Prince of Bia, Warlord and Prince Protector of the Realm, Defender of the Five Thousand Suns, Champion of Humanity, and, by the Maker’s Grace, Emperor of Mankind.’ Secondary titles are: ‘Prince of Aalat,’ ‘Prince of Achon,’ ‘Prince of Anhur,’ ‘Prince of Apnar,’ ‘Prince of Ardat,’ ‘Prince of Aslah,’ ‘Prince of Avan,’ ‘Prince of Bachan,’ ‘Prince of Badarchin,’ ‘Prin—’ ”

  “Stop,” Colin commanded. Jesus! “Uh, just how many titles are there?”

  “Excluding those already specified,” Mother replied, “four thousand eight hundred and twenty-one.”

  “Gaaa.” Not bad for the product of a good, republican upbringing, he thought. “Let’s get one thing straight, Mother. My name is Colin MacIntyre—two words—not ‘Colinmacintyre.’ Can you remember that in future?”

  “You are listed in Fleet and Imperial records as His Imperial Majesty Colinmacintyre the First, Grand Duke of Birhat, Prince of Bia, War—”

  “I understand all that,” Colin interrupted. “The point is, I don’t want to go around with everyone ‘Imperial Majesty’-ing me, and I prefer to be called ‘Colin,’ not ‘Colinmacintyre.’ Can’t we do something to meet my wishes?”

  “As Your Imperial Majesty commands. You have not yet designated your choice of reign name. Until such time as you have done so, you will be known as Colinmacintyre the First; thereafter, only your dynasty will bear your complete pre-accession name. Is that satisfactory?”

  “It’s a start,” Colin muttered, refusing to contemplate the thought of his “dynasty.” He tugged on his nose, then stopped himself. At the rate surprises were coming at him lately, he was going to start looking like Pinocchio. “All right. My ‘reign name’ will be ‘Colin.’ Please log it.”

  “Logged,” Mother replied.

  “Now, about those titles. Surely past emperors didn’t get called ‘Your Imperial Majesty’ every time they turned around, did they?”

  “Acceptable alternatives are ‘Your Majesty,’ ‘Majesty,’ ‘Highest,’ and ‘Sire.’ Nobles of the rank of Planetary Duke are permitted ‘My Lord.’ Flag officers and Companions of The Golden Nova are permitted ‘Warlord.’ ”

  “Crap. Uh, I don’t suppose I could get you to forget titles entirely?”

  “Negative, Your Imperial Majesty. Protocol imperatives must be observed.”

  “That’s what you think,” Colin muttered. “Just wait till I get my hands on your ‘protocol’ programming!” He shook his head. “All right, if I’m stuck with it, I’m stuck, but from now on you’ll use only ‘Sire’ when addressing me.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Good! Now—” He broke off as a soft chime sounded.

  “Your pardon, Sire. Empress Jiltanith has arrived. Shall I admit her?”

  “You certainly shall!” Colin leapt down the steps from the dais and reached the innermost hatch by the time it opened. Jiltanith gasped as his embrace threatened to pop her bioenhanced ribs, and her cheek was wet where it pressed against his.

  “Am I ever glad to see you!” he whispered against the side of her neck.

  “And I thee.” She turned her head to kiss his ear. “Greatly did I fear for thee, yet such timorousness ill beseemed one who knoweth thee so well. Hast more lives than any cat, my sweet, yet ’twould please me the better if thou wouldst spend them less freely!”

  “Goddamn right,” he said fervently, drawing back to kiss her mouth. “Next time, I listen to you, by God!”

  “So thou sayst … now,” she la
ughed, tugging on his prominent ears with both hands.

  A sudden thought woke a mischievous smile as he tucked an arm around her waist to escort her back to the dais, and he raised his voice.

  “Mother, say hello to my wife.”

  “Hello, Your Imperial Majesty,” Mother said obediently, and Jiltanith stopped dead.

  “What foolishness is this?” she demanded.

  “Get used to it, honey,” Colin said, squeezing her again. “For whatever it’s worth, your shiftless husband’s brought home the bacon this time.” He grinned wryly. “In spades!”

  Several hours later, a far less chipper Colin groaned and scrubbed his face with his hands. Jiltanith and he sat side-by-side on Fleet Central’s command couch while Mother reported Battle Fleet’s status, running down every fleet and sub-unit in numerical order. So far, she’d provided reports on just under two thousand fleets, task forces, and battle squadrons.

  And, so far, nothing she’d had to report was good.

  “Hold report, Mother,” he said, breaking into the computer’s flow.

  “Holding, Sire,” Mother agreed, and Colin laughed hollowly. “Emperor”—that was a laugh. And “Warlord” was even funnier. He was a commander without a fleet! Or, more precisely, with a fleet that was useless to him.

  The Empire had been too busy dying for an orderly shutdown. Herdan XXIV had lived long enough to activate Fleet Central’s emergency subroutines, placing Mother on powered-down standby to guard Birhat until relief might someday arrive, but most of Battle Fleet hadn’t been even that lucky. A few score supralight vessels had simply disappeared from Fleet Central’s records, which probably indicated that their crews had elected to flee in an effort to outrun the bio-weapon, but most of Battle Fleet’s units had been contaminated in their efforts to save civilians in the weapon’s path. The result had been both predictable and grisly, and, unlike Dahak, their computers hadn’t been smart enough to do anything about it when they found themselves without crews. Except for a handful whose core taps had been active when their last crewmen died, they’d simply returned to the nearest Fleet base and remained on station until their fusion plants exhausted their on-board mass, then drifted without life or power.

  Unfortunately, none seemed to have returned to Bia itself—which made sense, given that Birhat, the first victim of the bio-weapon, had been quarantined at the very start of the Empire’s death agony. Less than a dozen active units had responded to Mother’s all-ships hypercom rally signal, and the nearest was upwards of eight hundred light-years away; Earth would be dead long before Colin could return if he waited for them them to reach Birhat.

  There was a bitter irony in the fact that Birhat’s defenses remained almost fully operational. Bia’s mammoth shield, backed by Perimeter Security’s prodigious firepower, could have held anything anyone could throw at them. But everyone who needed defending was on Earth.

  “Mother,” he said finally, “let’s try something different. Instead of reporting in sequence, list all mobile forces in order of proximity to Birhat.”

  “Acknowledged. Listing Bia System deployments. Birhat Near-Orbit Watch Squadron: twelve heavy cruisers. Bia Deep-System Patrol Squadron: ten heavy cruisers, forty-one destroyers, nine frigates, sixty-two corvettes. Imperial Guard Flotilla: fifty-two Asgerd-class planetoids, sixteen—”

  “What? Stop!” Colin shouted.

  “Acknowledged,” Mother said calmly.

  “What the fuck is the Imperial Guard Flotilla?!”

  “Imperial Guard Flotilla,” Mother replied. “The Warlord’s personal command. Strength: fifty-two Asgerd-class planetoids and attached parasites, sixteen Trosan-class planetoids and attached parasites, and ten Vespa-class assault planetoids and attached planetary assault craft. Current location: parking orbit thirty-eight light-minutes from Bia. Status: inactive.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Colin stared at Jiltanith. Her face was as shocked as his own, and they turned as one to glare accusingly at the console.

  “Why,” Colin asked in a dangerously calm voice, “didn’t you mention them earlier?”

  “Sire, you had not asked about them,” Mother said.

  “I certainly did! I asked for a complete listing of Battle Fleet units!” Mother was silent, and he growled a curse at all computers which could not recognize the need to respond without specific cues. “Didn’t I?” he snarled.

  “You did, Sire.”

  “Then why didn’t you report them?”

  “I did, Sire.”

  “But you didn’t report this Imperial Guard Flotilla—” Flotilla! Jesus, it was a fleet! “—did you? Why not?”

  “Sire, the Imperial Guard is not part of Battle Fleet. The Imperial Guard is raised and manned solely from the Emperor’s personal demesne.”

  Colin blinked. Personal demesne? An Emperor whose personal fiefdoms could raise that kind of firepower? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. He sagged back, trembling, and a warm arm crept about him and tightened.

  “All right.” He shook his head and inhaled deeply, drawing strength from Jiltanith’s presence. “Why is the Guard Flotilla inactive?”

  “Power exhaustion and uncontrolled shutdown, Sire.”

  “Assess probability of successful reactivation.”

  “One hundred percent,” Mother said emotionlessly, and a jolt of excitement crashed through him. But slowly, he told himself. Slowly.

  “Assume resources of one hundred seven thousand Battle Fleet personnel, one Utu-class planetoid, and current active and inactive automated support available in the Bia System,” he said carefully, “and compute probable time required to reactivate the Imperial Guard Flotilla to full combat readiness.”

  “Impossible to reactivate to full combat readiness,” Mother replied. “Specified personnel inadequate for crews.”

  “Then compute time to reactivate to limited combat readiness.”

  “Computing, Sire,” Mother responded, and fell silent for a disturbingly long period. Almost a full minute passed before she spoke again. “Computation complete. Probable time required: four-point-three-nine months. Margin of error twenty-point-seven percent owing to large numbers of imponderables.”

  Colin closed his eyes and felt Jiltanith tremble against him. Four months—five-and-a-half outside. It would be close, but they could do it. By all that was holy, they could do it!

  “There,” Tamman said quietly as a green circle bloomed on Dahak’s visual display, ringing a tiny, gleaming dot. The dot grew as Dahak approached, and additional dots appeared, spreading out in a loose necklace of worldlets.

  “I see them,” Colin replied, still luxuriating in his return to Command One and a world he understood. “Big bastards, aren’t they, Dahak?”

  “I compute that the largest out-mass Dahak by over twenty-five percent. I am not prepared to speculate upon the legitimacy of their parentage.”

  Colin chuckled. Dahak had been much more willing to engage in informality since his return from Fleet Central, as if he recognized Colin’s shock at suddenly finding himself an emperor. Or perhaps the computer was simply glad to have him back. Dahak was a worrier where friends were concerned.

  He watched the planetoids grow. If Vlad was right about the Empire’s technology, those ships would be monsters in action—and monsters were exactly what they needed.

  “Captain, look here.” Ellen Gregory, Sarah Meir’s Assistant Astrogator, placed a sighting circle of her own on the display, picking out a single starship. “What do you make of that, sir?”

  Colin looked, then looked again. The stupendous sphere floating in space was only roughly similar to the only Imperial planetoid he’d ever seen, but one thing was utterly familiar. A vast, three-headed dragon spread its wings across the gleaming hull.

  “Well looky there,” he murmured. “Dahak, what d’you make of that?”

  According to the data Fleet Central downloaded to my data base,” Dahak replied, “that is His Imperial Majesty’s Planetoid Dahak, Hull Number Seven-Th
ree-Six-Four-Four-Eight-Niner-Two-Five.”

  “Another Dahak?”

  “It is a proud name in Battle Fleet.” Dahak sounded a bit miffed. “Rather like the many ships named Enterprise in your own United States Navy. According to the data, this is the twenty-third ship to bear the name.”

  “It is, huh? Well, which one are you?”

  “This unit is the eleventh of the name.”

  “I see. Well, in order to avoid confusion, we’ll just refer to this young whippersnapper as Dahak Two, if that’s all right with you, Dahak.”

  “Noted,” Dahak said calmly, and continued to close on the silently waiting, millennia-dead hulls they intended to resurrect.

  “By the Maker, I’ve got it!”

  Colin jumped half out of his couch as Cohanna’s holo image materialized on Command One. The biosciences officer looked terrible, her hair awry and her uniform wrinkled, but her eyes were bright with triumph.

  “Try penicillin,” he advised sourly, and she looked blank, then grinned.

  “Sorry, sir. I meant I’ve figured out what happened on Birhat—why it’s got that incredible bio-system. I found it in Mother’s data base.”

  “Oh?” Colin sat straighter, his eyes more intent. “Give!”

  “It’s simple, really. The zoos—the Imperial Family’s zoos.”

  “Zoos?” It was Colin’s turn to look blank.

  “Yes. You see, the Imperial Family had an immense zoological garden. Over thirty different planets’ flora and fauna in sealed, self-sufficient planetary habitats. Apparently, they lasted out the plague. I’d guess the automated systems responsible for restraining plant growth failed first in one of them, and the thing cracked. Once it did, its inhabitants could get out, and the same vegetation attacked the exterior of other surviving habitats. Over the years, still more oxy-nitrogen habitats were opened up and started spreading to reclaim the planet. That’s why we’ve got such a screwy damned ecology. We’re looking at the survivors of a dozen different planetary bio-spheres after forty-five thousand years of natural selection!”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Colin mused. “Good work, Cohanna. I’m impressed you could keep concentrating on that kind of problem at a time like this.”