Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  “Carry on, General,” Annette ordered.

  “Liberty returned fire and began a running engagement with the unknowns that eventually crossed into the Centauri system,” Wellesley noted. “There, the Navy picket under Division Lord Harrison moved to intercept, attempting to trap what appeared to be four destroyers between Liberty and his own force.”

  “Destroyers? I thought the Thunderstorms were an effective design,” Kas!Val noted.

  “Liberty destroyed one of the four ships shortly after leaving hyperspace, but they possessed both extremely powerful shields and compressed-matter armor,” the General replied. “They lacked active missile defenses, however, and the remaining three vessels proved unable to penetrate the missile defense of Lord Harrison’s fleet.

  “Unfortunately, upon reaching beam range, they demonstrated a defensive system we cannot identify that completely negated Lord Harrison’s proton-beam armament,” Wellesley continued. “They then closed to the range of an unknown weapons system with which they destroyed both of the light cruisers and several of the destroyers from Division Lord Harrison’s task force.

  “While doing so, they launched a ground assault that I deployed the Ducal Guard and local Marine garrison to neutralize. They used another unknown technology to stealth themselves once they reached atmosphere, something similar to a Mesharom stealth field but much less effective.

  “Fortunately, we were able to localize their landing and engage them. Liberty intercepted the surviving destroyers on the way out of the system and took them all out.”

  “How?” the A!Tol demanded. “If the battle lasted as long as it sounds, Liberty must have been out of missiles, and you’ve told me the proton beams were nonfunctional.”

  Wellesley sighed.

  “Captain Rolfson engaged them with his cruiser’s plasma lance,” he noted flatly. “He specifically told me that information was critical to convey to both the Militia and the Navy.”

  Annette echoed her General’s sigh.

  “It is,” she agreed. “We had hoped to get the Thunderstorms into general Imperial service before anyone became aware of the plasma lances. There is a chance that the Laians may attribute our deployment of the system to stripping the Laian ships in our possession—and the Republic has already made noises about wanting to reclaim those ships and the Exiles.”

  “They left the Republic hundreds of years ago,” Villeneuve objected. “They have no claim on Orentel and her people now.”

  “Aggravating the Laian Republic is unwise,” Kas!Val replied. “The Navy should not have approved this deployment. Would not have approved this. What kind of game are you playing, Duchess Bond?”

  “Echelon Lord, the Thunderstorm design was assembled in cooperation with the Imperial Navy, and between us and our Indiri and Pibo licensees, the Navy has ordered eighty of them. If your superiors had a concern about the plasma lance,” Annette said, “they’d have mentioned it when they were ordering five squadrons of them.”

  Kas!Val’s skin tone was mutinous, but she shut up.

  “Explain what we know of who these people were to the Echelon Lord,” Annette ordered Wellesley.

  “While the technology is far too advanced for the Theocracy, the ship design was quite distinctly Kanzi in origin, and the landing party was made up of Kanzi. They all had ritual scarring that is anathema to the Theocracy, and committed suicide rather than be captured—even what appeared to be a civilian research detail.”

  “Civilians?” the A!Tol asked.

  “I think they were looking for something. I don’t know what,” Wellesley admitted, “but the CDC is focusing their efforts on finding out. If there is something to find, something worth risking that much firepower and life for, we will find it.

  “In the meantime, we need to protect Hope.”

  “I agree,” Annette confirmed. “Admiral Villeneuve?”

  “Your Grace?”

  “Can we spare a super-battleship division?” she asked. She was unsurprised by his wince—until Manticore and Griffon came online, that was a third of his capital-ship strength. “Plus at least two cruisers and a destroyer echelon?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s almost half our hulls, but yes,” Villeneuve confirmed. He glanced at the other Militia flag officer in the room. “You’re the only one I can send with that kind of deployment, Kurzman,” he noted. “Sorry, James.”

  “I get back and he runs away,” the General agreed. “We’re used to it, Jean.”

  “Echelon Lord?” Annette said to Kas!Val. “I will be sending a request for additional units to the local Navy base as well as A!To. Your comments and analysis would be most welcome as an attachment.”

  A flash of bright blue crossed the Echelon Lord’s skin—a sign of acceptance, the equivalent of a human nodding.

  “I will send my assessment, yes,” she confirmed. The A!Tol considered for a moment, the orange and yellow of her skin fading in a dark green-blue that Annette recognized as determined curiosity.

  “I will hold my own vessel and escorts here,” she continued. “I have been authorized to take some time to assess the Manticore-class ships, and having an additional Navy unit two days away cannot hurt.”

  “It will not,” Annette agreed, surprised and gratified by the suggestion. “Thank you, Echelon Lord.”

  “Duchess, I will not pretend to like your people, and I feel that we have accelerated your development more than is healthy for you or us,” Kas!Val said bluntly. “But you remain members of the A!Tol Imperium and your defense is the Navy’s obligation.”

  #

  Chapter 10

  The super-battleship Duchess of Terra led the way through the hyper portal into the Kimar system, her escorting cruisers swinging wide around her as they followed through. Forty-five seconds after the seventeen-point-five-million-ton warship reentered normal space, Majesties of Yin followed her out, accompanied by her own quartet of cruisers.

  Division Lord Harriet Tanaka hummed softly to herself as the ten warships under her direct command executed the maneuver perfectly. The rest of the echelon continued to exit hyperspace in sequence behind her ships, but that was Echelon Lord Kora Siyid Luat’s problem.

  Every capital ship in the echelon had been provided by the Duchy of Terra. Seven of their crews were entirely human as well. Newly blooded tradition required that Duchess of Terra, who had been deployed to defend Sol with a scratch multiracial crew, be manned by multiple races.

  The cruisers were all Imperial Navy–funded, not Ducal Levies, with a mixed bag of races providing the crews. Since Harriet herself was the most senior human officer in the Imperial Navy, it had been inevitable that the human Ducal levy be commanded by a nonhuman.

  Luat had been well chosen, in the Japanese woman’s considered opinion. He knew when to lead, when to listen, and when to get out of the way—and that was all a junior could ask for.

  “Captain Sier reports we’ve been challenged by Kimar Control,” Commander Piditel reported. The Rekiki, small for his race but still massive by most sentients’ standards, had attached himself to Harriet’s rising star somehow. Once the communications officer of her ship, he was now her flag staff communication officer.

  “He knows the drill,” Harriet replied. The single echelon, an eight-ship half-squadron of capital ships that made up the Duchy of Terra’s military levy, was permanently assigned to the Kimar fleet base and kept intact.

  That wouldn’t last forever, Harriet knew. Each one of the Imperium’s twenty-four Duchies was supposed to provide a full squadron of capital ships and escorts. There were enough new ones still building up to their full obligation, like Terra, that the Ducal Levies made up twenty squadrons of capital ships and thirty-six of escorts—forty percent of the Navy’s capital ships and roughly a third of its escorts.

  “He does,” Piditel agreed. “Just keeping you updated.”

  Behind them, the eighth super-battleship and her escorts flashed out of hyperspace and the portals collapsed. Eche
lon Lord Luat had taken them on a two-week-long hyperspace exercise, pulling them entirely out of starcom communication to practice their logistics and short-range coordination.

  It had been, in Harriet’s opinion, an unqualified success. And not just because Second Division had taken home the overall top rank in the unofficial competition, either. The grouping had been close enough that she had no concerns going into battle with the rest of the echelon behind her.

  “Division Lord,” Piditel suddenly snapped formally, his long, crocodile-like snout turning back toward her with disturbing suddenness. “Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh is requesting your presence aboard the flagship as soon as possible.”

  “Are the other flag officers requested?” Harriet asked.

  “No, Division Lord. Just you.”

  #

  Harriet’s Tosumi bodyguard fell in around her as the shuttle docked with Glory of Hearts, Tan!Shallegh’s new flagship. Glory of Hearts was a rare vessel indeed: one of the Imperium’s handful of Glorious-class super-battleships and also one of the roughly half of the Imperium’s super-battleships to be upgraded to the new defensive specifications in the yards at Sol.

  To Harriet’s knowledge, only four of the Gloriouses had been so upgraded, which made Tan!Shallegh’s possession of Glory of Hearts as his flagship a clear sign of how his superiors regarded the A!Tol Fleet Lord.

  Male A!Tols found it hard to rise in the ranks, and while the Tan! at the start of the Fleet Lords name marked his close relation to the Empress, he’d earned his superiors’ faith several times over—and also earned humanity’s trust.

  And even Harriet, who looked at the alien as something of a mentor now, found it somewhat ironic that the A!Tol humanity trusted most was also the being who’d conquered them.

  Armored A!Tol Marines greeted her as she exited her shuttle, their size—and profession—guaranteeing they were female. They fell in respectfully around her as one of Tan!Shallegh’s aides approached her.

  “I am Commander Ioan,” the small, hairless humanoid told her. Gray-skinned and black eyed with no visible ears or nose, Ioan was unquestionably a Pibo. Like the Tosumi, they were one of the Imperial Races, the three species that had been culturally assimilated by the A!Tol before they’d mastered uplifting.

  “The Fleet Lord will be available for you in a tenth-cycle,” the Commander continued. “If you can follow me, we’ve set aside a conference room for this, and our steward has a pot of green tea brewing.”

  Harriet smiled.

  “It appears I am being spoiled, Commander. What’s going on?”

  Pibo didn’t smile the same way humans did. Harriet had known enough of them now, however, to recognize the tilt of the eye-wrinkles that was an equivalent gesture.

  “Division Lord, I would lose my job if I spoiled the Fleet Lord’s surprises!” The eye-wrinkles straightened into a moment of seriousness.

  “Not all of them are pleasant,” Ioan noted after a moment. “I can tell you this much: the colony at Hope was attacked.”

  The gentle amusement at Tan!Shallegh having a tea available that was still grown only on Earth vanished in an instant.

  “I see,” Harriet replied. “Then let’s make sure we’re ready to meet with the Lord, shall we?”

  #

  Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh was one of the smallest adult A!Tol Harriet Tanaka had ever met, clad in a black leather harness that carried his decorations and rank insignia while covering very little of the ever-changing skin of his species.

  His size, she was led to understand, was mostly due to his gender. The physical differences between the two genders were quite pronounced in the A!Tol, though their culture was slowly beginning to accept that the mental differences were much less than they’d believed.

  “Division Lord Tanaka,” he greeted her, his skin flushing light blue with pleasure. The flush faded quickly into the whorls of green and purple swirling across his skin. The Imperial flag officer was stressed but determined.

  “Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh,” she replied, with a slight bow of her head. She was seated with a steaming cup of her home country’s tea in front of her, but Imperial etiquette did not call for her or Ioan to stand in the presence of the Fleet Lord.

  “Firstly, my more pleasant surprises,” Tan!Shallegh told her. A black box emerged from his harness and dropped onto the table. “Open it, Tanaka,” he ordered.

  She did.

  Her own uniform was a derivation of the UESF’s old one, itself an evolution of the old US Navy dress blues, but cut in the black and white of the Imperial Navy. She wore at her collar the insignia of an Imperial Navy Division Lord, a pair of crossed spears.

  The box in front of her contained an identical insignia…carved from pearl. She knew the stone had almost certainly come from A!To, not Earth, but the process of its formation was functionally identical.

  The cultural baggage around it was quite different though. To the A!To—and the Imperial Races—pearl was a sign of surviving pressure, of courage in the face of adversity. The sign of duty.

  Which made crossed pearl spears the insignia of an Imperial Navy Echelon Lord, equivalent to a UESF Rear Admiral.

  “Yours, Echelon Lord Tanaka,” Tan!Shallegh told her. “For service well rendered, over time instead of in one great battle like your last promotion. You have served our Empress and our Imperium well.”

  “Thank you, Fleet Lord,” she said slowly, replacing the pin at her collar with the new one. Imperial Navy uniforms didn’t use braids or chevrons to mark rank, as there were too many variations in the cut and style—Tan!Shallegh’s simple black harness was the A!Tol uniform, for example—which meant that changing the pin made all the difference to her rank.

  “Ioan told me that Hope had been attacked?” she asked.

  “Yes,” the Fleet Lord confirmed. “Part of why your promotion is today without ceremony rather in a five-cycle once I had the chance to pull together all the appropriate glittering waters.”

  “My life is service,” Harriet replied instantly. That was the choice she had made to save her son’s life when it had turned out that the Imperials could cure his rare disease—and while that medicine would be available to everyone eventually, it would be available to the families of Navy volunteers immediately.

  “Hope was attacked by an unknown force,” her superior explained. “Apparently Kanzi. If we believe the High Priestess’s and the Priest Speaker’s protestations—and to my surprise, I am inclined to—apparently non-Theocracy Kanzi.

  “Even the existence of Kanzi outside the Theocracy is of extreme strategic importance,” he noted. “Given the level of technology shown in the attack—near Core Power levels!—the importance only grows.

  “Bond’s Militia concluded that the attack was looking for something. They’re hunting for it, but they need backup if these strangers come back with another wave.”

  “I see, sir.”

  “You’re keeping Duchess of Terra and her division mate,” Tan!Shallegh told her. “Normal currents suggest you’ll want to keep your flag aboard her.”

  “Duchess and her crew and I have been through a lot together,” Harriet confirmed with a thoughtful hum. “I think I will.”

  “Good. I am also detaching a half-echelon out of Squadron Lord Uan’s Thirtieth Battle Squadron,” he continued. “Fast battleships; they may not be big, but I suspect maneuverability may be more important.

  “I’m also splitting the Kimar Station’s currents to provide you with two squadrons of cruisers to reinforce the escorts from your ships and the two divisions of fast battleships I’m giving you.

  “That will give you forty-four cruisers and six capital ships, Echelon Lord, a force that requires a commander of your rank,” he noted. “You’ll have a few cycles to work them up here as a unit, but you need to be in Alpha Centauri in, shall we say, twelve cycles.”

  It was a seven-and-a-half-cycle—slightly more than a week—flight from Kimar to Alpha Centauri with the latest charts. Plus or minus a half-c
ycle either way, with the currents.

  Five cycles wasn’t much time to work up fifty starships, but twelve days was as long as they could justify leaving Alpha Centauri uncovered.

  Harriet nodded grimly.

  “I understand, sir,” she told Tan!Shallegh. “Do you have the contact information for my subordinate flag officers and Captains? We will need to get started immediately.”

  #

  Chapter 11

  Harold had to admit that CDC’s people were impressive. In barely a week, they’d gone from bare rock to a bustling settlement resembling a small town, with prefabricated structures laid out in neat avenues.

  The tents were gone now, replaced with more solid shelters with better heaters. The Corellian Plateau was bitterly cold, even for Hope, a world that received less heat than Earth did on average.

  A nanocrete runway had joined the landing pad and more hangars had sprung up around the two structures. Harold’s heavy-lift shuttles had helped out in a dozen ways, but the most noticeable was the installation of the massive set of fuel tanks that had been at New Hope City. None of CDC’s shuttlecraft were rated to carry that much weight, but his shuttles had shifted them easily.

  Now the runway was a buzzing hive of activity as manned aircraft and automated drones arrived and left at every hour of the day. Director Trudeau’s people weren’t used to the level of detail that an archaeological survey required, but they were no strangers to massive amounts of work or ungodly hours.

  Dr. Wolastoq’s personal team of xenoarchaeologists were operating out of a prefabricated structure that had probably been intended to be a school. While Wolastoq had been asked to assist in the Hope colonization effort, no one had expected there to actually be anything for her to find. Her team was entirely human, which meant that they were all students except for her. Any other experts that could be brought in would be alien, and CDC hadn’t thought they would be needed.