They’d tried anyway, Tornado’s exile a months-long endeavor to win an impossible war.
In the end, they’d compromised, and in so doing, discovered the people behind the juggernaut that had overcome their world. They had learned to live with the A!Tol and the other races of the Imperium and fought side-by-side with them against the Kanzi, forging the kind of bonds only built by shedding blood for each other.
And in doing so, they’d learned what their new nation feared: the Core Powers, the ancient and powerful races that ruled closer to the galactic core. And first and foremost among those Core Powers, the fickle if often friendly elders of galactic society, were the Mesharom.
Eldest and most powerful, terrifying, seemingly omniscient and omnipotent, the Mesharom were what the galaxy feared. Their quiet assistance had turned the tide when the Kanzi had attacked Sol.
As a race, they were the closest things to gods anyone had proof existed.
And they had just watched one of their warships die.
“What are the other two doing?” he finally asked as the shock began to wear off.
“Maneuvering between us and the Wendira for now,” Chan reported. “Defensive position—I’m guessing they’re trying to talk to the bugs.”
“Good luck. The only Wendira who’ve even given us their names have been in chains on Hope,” Pat said. “If we’ve got a Frontier Fleet shield, let’s use it. Move the colliers up. Rearm everybody as best as we can and get every spare Buckler drone deployed.”
“I can already tell you we don’t have enough missiles for everyone,” Chan warned him.
“Focus on the super-battleships,” Pat decided instantly. “We can send the cruisers and destroyers running for it if we need to, but the super-BBs aren’t getting out, no matter what happens.”
“I’ll pass it on.”
A thick silence descended on Emperor of China’s flag bridge. The Mesharom had destroyed a single Wendira battleship when they’d arrived, so ‘only’ fourteen massive alien ships were staring down at Hope now.
Most of the Wendira starfighters were gone. The survivors from the first strike had returned to the star hives, coordinating with the single Grand Wing they’d kept behind when they’d launched the second wave.
Pat wouldn’t be surprised to discover there were more fighters aboard the hives, but they’d gutted the capacity the Laians said the ships had.
But even without their fighters, the three star hives were hundred-million-ton warships that each carried as much weaponry as his entire fleet. Each of the nine remaining battleships, despite their smaller size, was more than an equal for each of the super-battleships among the defenders.
“What happens now?” his chief of staff asked softly.
“We find out if the Mesharom are as convincing as they are isolationist,” Pat admitted. “And then, I suspect, we find out if the Mesharom technological edge is enough to overcome a twenty-to-one tonnage disadvantage.”
“What if it’s not?”
Pat winced.
“Then I’m afraid we may well be back to ‘die standing’ as a battle plan.”
#
Harold was alone in the control center now; the entire dig site camp having emptied completely. A single shuttle waited for him, one that he would pilot himself when the time came.
Or so he’d understood, anyway.
“You do realize, Captain, that the transmitter is capable of activating the charges from orbit,” Captain Naheed Sommers told him as he stepped into the center.
“I do,” he agreed. “But it feels like someone should be here to watch the thing, regardless of what happens.”
“Perhaps,” Sommers agreed. “But I promise you, Captain, the good archaeologist will be very, very pissed off if you blow yourself up.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Harold told him. “It just feels weird to walk away after everything we’ve done to hold this place.”
“I’ll give you that,” the Guard officer confirmed. He offered the Militia officer a flask. “Whisky?”
Harold took the flask and took a long swallow.
“Ah. Good scotch.”
“Don’t let the face fool you,” Sommers told him with a grin, waving at his dark skin tone. “I grew up in Edinburgh. I know my scotch. And I know my idiot clansmen, be they Scot or Norse. You catch my drift, Captain?”
Harold chuckled.
“Yeah, I do. Habit, I guess. I lost my ship today and I wasn’t even there to command her—and I’m not used to having anything else to live for.”
“Dr. Wolastoq would strongly object to the idea that you have nothing to live for, I suspect,” Captain Sommers replied. “As, I imagine, would our good Duchess, along with your military superiors.
“Besides, you may hold the trigger, but do you want to be the one who decides to push that button?”
“No,” Harold admitted after another slug of whisky. “But this day just gets worse and worse. A Mesharom cruiser destroyed? I don’t know what the consequences of that are going to be.”
“The Wendira’s problem, not ours,” the other man said. “But I think you want to pass that trigger on to Her Grace. And then you and I, Captain Rolfson, should joined our men in New Hope City.”
Sommers turned a bright white smile on him.
“Because, to be perfectly honest, you have about two minutes before I stun you and drag you onto that shuttle myself—and I, my dear Captain, am an atrocious pilot.”
Rolfson chuckled again and passed the flask back.
“Go start the warmup,” he ordered. “I’ll call Her Grace. Let’s get this hot potato to someone else.”
He waited for Sommers to leave, studying the transmitter in front of him. Once he was alone again, he opened a channel to Tornado.
“This is Militia Captain Harold Rolfson. I need to speak to Duchess Bond, Alpha-One Priority.”
“Hold one,” the communications officer replied. “I’ll get Her Grace into a privacy shell.”
Harold waited impatiently, but it only took ten, maybe fifteen seconds to get Bond on the line.
“Rolfson. You’re alive; good,” the Duchess told him crisply. “I saw that Liberty was gone and wasn’t sure. It’s not been a good day for old friends.”
“No,” he agreed. “Ma’am, the ship is secure, but we’ve evacuated the area. We’re relying on the orbital forces to keep any further landing forces from coming in.”
“Everyone seems to have given up on subtle at this point, Captain. But… Evacuated? Why?”
“I don’t know what deal we’ve cut with the Mesharom, but we wanted to make sure no one took the ship without our permission,” Harold told her softly.
“What did you do?” Bond asked.
“We rigged six hundred-megaton antimatter demolition charges inside the hull,” he said. “One word from you and the damn thing everyone’s fighting over blows to vapor.”
Bond was silent for a long moment.
“And where are you, Captain?” she asked.
“About to jump in a shuttle to get out of the blast radius,” he told her. “I’m forwarding you the detonation codes over an encrypted side channel. It’s your call what to do with them, and I’m perfectly glad to off-load the damn things on you.”
“Get out of there, Captain,” Bond ordered. “I promised the Mesharom the ship in exchange for technology and their help holding Centauri, so I’d rather not blow it to hell…but thank you.
“The option may open some doors we thought were closed.”
#
Chapter 43
Admiral Jean Villeneuve was not a religious man. He’d been raised in a household of traditional French secularists, with any form of the divine a distant afterthought at best. That Jean wasn’t an outright atheist was mostly a matter of religion not being important enough in his life to even deny it.
At that particular moment, however, he was grateful to whatever divinity did exist. There was a huge variation in just how much the currents of hyper
space moved, and in his experience, they were always slower than hoped when needed.
This time, however, the current near to Sol and Alpha Centauri had gone from unusually uncooperative to unusually cooperative—and his fleet was arriving early.
Hopefully early enough.
“Hyper portal in ninety seconds. All hands to battle stations. All hands to battle stations.”
The announcement echoed through Empereur de France.
Jean took one last check of the formation. It was a strange one: four super-battleships, three battleships, the four Imperial cruisers and eight Terran destroyers. Only a handful more escorts than capital ships.
Echelon Lord Kas!Val was being surprisingly cooperative, a much-appreciated concession on the part of an A!Tol who had made few friends in Sol. He dared to hope that the alien was as concerned over the state of affairs as he was.
“Standing by all sensors,” Tidikat told him. With the surrender of his ships to the Republic, Jean had coopted the Laian Commodore as his new chief of staff. There was no one in the Militia with as solid an understanding of the enemies they faced.
“We’ll have a complete sweep of the system as soon as we arrive, subject to lightspeed delays. It’ll take us a few seconds to resolve the situation, but we should have you updated as quickly as possible.”
“Thank you, Tidikat,” Jean replied. Seconds ticked away.
“Emergence,” Captain Ruan announced loudly over the intercom. “Brace for evasive maneuvers.”
In theory, the warning was unnecessary. None of the super-battleship’s maneuvers should impact the ship. But it was always possible something would go wrong.
Jean ignored the warning anyway, focusing on the holographic displays as his staff analyzed the incoming light. The planets were there immediately, the display updating with current information as they received it.
Ships followed. First the ones they’d expected, the joint Imperial-Militia fleet in Hope orbit. That fleet was much smaller than it should have been, and Jean swallowed a moment of bile. There should have been eight capital ships, but only three stood guard over humanity’s colony.
Half the destroyers and cruisers were missing too. Hope’s defenders had been badly handled—but one of the icons flagged as Tornado as he watched. Bond was there.
And so were the Mesharom. Two white battlecruisers appeared on the display, floating between Hope’s defenders and…the enemy.
“Mon dieu,” he cursed softly. Over a dozen warships, the smallest of them the same mass as his Manticore-class battleships. The largest were Wendira star hives, a hundred million tons of death and war.
“Task force will move to Hope orbit,” he ordered loudly. “We will rendezvous with Tanaka and Kurzman and check in with Her Grace.”
Jean shook his head, sharing a surprisingly meaningful glance with the alien standing to his right.
“Hopefully, someone can explain just what the hell is going on,” he murmured.
#
Harriet breathed a massive sigh of relief as the unexpected hyper portal unleashed clearly Terran and Imperial ships. The Militia ships had emerged well out of range of any of the alien forces in the system and were now heading in the direction of Hope at flank speed.
“Scans make four super-battleships, three battleships, four cruisers and eight destroyers,” Han reported. “Cruisers and one battleship are flying Imperial IFF codes.”
“Echelon Lord, we are receiving a transmission for you from Echelon Lord Kas!Val,” Piditel reported. The Rekiki paused. “For your attention only.”
“Understood. Activating privacy shield,” Harriet told them.
The screen that dropped around her wasn’t perfect, but it was the best solution that didn’t require her to leave the flag deck—and with the continuing standoff between the Mesharom and the Wendira, she wasn’t going to do that.
The image of her A!Tol superior appeared on her chair screens, Kas!Val’s skin dark green with determination.
“Echelon Lord Tanaka, the situation in this system is a mess,” she said without preamble. “Brief me immediately. I will assume command once we reach orbit.”
That was the entire message. Harriet sighed. She didn’t even need to check—she knew Kas!Val had several long-cycles’ seniority over her, though it was not generally considered acceptable to relieve the commander on the scene like this.
She couldn’t refuse, however, and thankfully, Villeneuve still possessed the more powerful force. Unless the A!Tol was truly out of line, she would continue to defer to the Terran Admiral.
Hierarchy limited her options to one: obey.
“Echelon Lord,” she greeted Kas!Val. “The situation in this system is complicated. We have been attacked by forces of both the Laian Republic and the Wendira Grand Swarm. Elements of the Mesharom Frontier Fleet are now assisting us after negotiations with Duchess Bond with regards to the ancient ship the colonists found.
“You will need to validate the exact details of the deal with Duchess Bond. She was charged by the Empress with handling the necessary affairs, but my understanding is that we are surrendering the ship to the Mesharom in exchange for their help defending this system and certain technological concessions.
“I strongly recommend that we remain in a purely defensive formation for the moment but assist the Mesharom if the Wendira do attack again.”
Harriet paused the recording, considering if there was anything else she could add. “Please don’t do anything arrogant and stupid” wasn’t a politically wise addition, she supposed, so she swallowed her fear and sent the message.
Only time would tell now.
#
“The math still isn’t in our favor,” Amandine pointed out.
“I know,” Annette agreed. Villeneuve’s force tripled the Imperial fleet presence, but she was under no illusion that the Imperial forces here were the deciding factor. The newly augmented combined Imperial Navy and Duchy of Terra Militia force could probably handle, oh, half of the battleships.
One of the three star hives might be doable. Maybe. Certainly not all three of them with battleship support.
Her best guess was that the two Mesharom battlecruisers were roughly equivalent in firepower now to the combined Imperial force. That added up to a roughly three-to-two advantage in firepower for the Wendira.
They were being hesitant to press that advantage, but she didn’t expect that to last forever. The only reason they were hesitant at all, she suspected, was because they were used to only losing starfighters in most battles.
Wendira Drones, after all, were expendable in a way that their Warriors and Royals weren’t.
“Your Grace, we have a private communication channel from Echelon Lord Kas!Val for you,” Amandine told her.
“Put it through to the flag office. I’ll take it there,” she said. “If anything starts happening, let me know immediately.”
It took her a few moments to reach the office, and Kas!Val’s image was waiting for her. The Imperial ship was now close enough for only a few seconds’ delay.
“Duchess Bond,” Kas!Val greeted her. “I have been briefed by Tanaka, and I have to ask: what in darkest waters did you think you were doing?”
“Echelon Lord,” Annette said flatly. “I believe I was doing my job, as charged by our Empress.”
“Tanaka informs me that you have agreed to simply let the Mesharom take the ship?” the A!Tol asked.
“One way or another, the Mesharom were going to take it,” she said slowly. She couldn’t tell Kas!Val what Ki!Tana had told her. That was a secret that was supposed to have died with Empress A!Ana, after all.
“We can’t stop Frontier Fleet from seizing it or destroying it at their will,” Annette continued. “The only way to protect the colony was to surrender the ship—and the Mesharom agreed to provide protection and technological assistance in exchange for it.”
“That ship is vastly more advanced than even the Mesharom,” Kas!Val replied. “No technological assis
tance they could give us would be worth giving up that ship.”
“Not losing two hundred thousand people was worth giving up that ship alone,” the Duchess snapped. “Our oaths, Echelon Lord, are to guard the Imperium’s people.”
“Sometimes, sacrifices must be made. That ship is worth everything.”
“The deal is already made, Kas!Val. Our Empress gave me the charge to negotiate here.”
“She charged you to defend the ship,” Kas!Val replied. “It is a strategic military asset of the Imperium. You have no authority to simply give it away, Duchess Bond. You are a civilian and the deal you made was outside your authority.”
“That was not what Empress A!Shall told me,” Annette said, a chill running down her spine. Just what did Kas!Val plan on doing?
“I will be taking command of all naval forces in this system,” the Echelon Lord told her. “We will attempt to extend the tides until Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh arrives, but let me be clear as summer waters, Duchess Bond: we will not surrender that ship.
“Not to the Wendira.
“Not to the Laian Republic.
“Not to the Mesharom—and not to a backwater Duchess with delusions of grand authority!”
#
The channel cut before Annette could even respond, and all she could do was sit at the empty desk, staring at the spot where the hologram of the tentacled idiot had been a moment before.
Kas!Val was about to betray the Imperium’s word because she was convinced she knew better than anyone else.
The Mesharom wouldn’t care about her reasons. They wouldn’t care about the internal politics, the tenuous position of the newborn Duchy of Terra inside the A!Tol Imperium.
They would only know that the A!Tol Imperium had broken its deal with them. The tenuous favor extended to the Imperium because of the blood Ki!Tana’s past self had shed on their behalf would shatter in a moment.
Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3) Page 33
