Heirs of Empire fe-3

by David Weber

  “Why?” Parta moaned. “Why has this come to us? What sin have we committed that God sends the very Demons upon us?”

  “Oh, be quiet, Parta!” Corada snapped, and Vroxhan swallowed a hysterical giggle at the way the old man’s vigor widened every eye. “You know your Writ better than that! The demons come when they come. Sin won’t bring them any sooner; it will only turn God’s favor from us when they come.”

  “But what if He has turned His favor from us?” Parta blathered, and Corada snorted.

  “If He has, would His Voice give us Warning?” he demanded, and Parta blinked. “You see? I know it’s never happened before, but the Writ says no man can know when the Trial may come. Put your trust in God where it belongs, man!”

  “I—” Parta cut himself off and gasped in a breath like a drowning man’s, then nodded sharply. “Yes, Corada. Yes. You’re right. It’s just—”

  “Just that it’s scared the tripes out of you,” Corada grunted, then gave a lopsided grin. “Well, don’t think it hasn’t done the same for me!”

  “Thank you, Corada,” Vroxhan said gratefully, making a mental promise never to tease the old man again. “Your faith and courage are an inspiration to us.” He swept his bishops’ eyes once more, and nodded. “Come, Brothers. Join me in a brief prayer of rededication before we answer the Voice’s call.”

  * * *

  Vroxhan had never vested in such unseemly haste, but neither had he ever faced a moment like this. For thousands upon thousands of years God had warded His faithful from the demons whose very touch was death to body and soul. Not in recorded history had He allowed the enemies of all life whose vile trickery had cast Man from the starry splendor of God’s Heaven to earth to approach so near as to rouse the Voice to Warning, but Vroxhan reminded himself of Corada’s words. God had not abandoned His people; the Voice’s Warning was proof of that.

  He jerked the golden buttons closed, suppressing a habitual stab of annoyance as the tight-fitting collar squeezed his neck. He checked the drape of the dark blue fabric in the wavery reflection of a mirror of polished silver, for it would never do to come before God improperly vested at this of all times. He passed inspection, and he stepped quickly through the door of imperishable metal onto the glassy floor of the Sanctum.

  His bishops waited, clad as he in their tight-fitting vestments, as he walked to his place at the center of the huge chamber and felt a wash of familiar awe as the night sky rose above him. The dark sphere of midnight enveloped him, blotting out the polished, trophy-hung walls with the glory of God’s own stars, but awe was replaced by dread as he looked up and saw the scarlet sigil of the demons rising slowly in the eastern sky.

  The sight chilled his blood, for it burned still and bright, the color of fresh blood and not the pulsing yellow flicker of Fire Test, Plot Test, or System Check. But he squared his shoulders, reminding himself he was God’s servant. He marched to the altar, and the inhuman beauty of the Voice’s unhurried, inflectionless speech rolled over him, calm and reassuring in its eternal, unchanging majesty.

  “Warning,” it said in the Holy Tongue, every word sweet and pure as silver, “passive system detection warning. Hostiles approach.” The Voice continued, speaking words not even the high priest knew as it invoked God’s protection, and he felt a shiver of religious ecstasy. Then it returned to words he recognized, even though he did not fully understand them. “Contact in five-eight-point-three-seven minutes,” it said, and fell silent. After a moment it began again, repeating the Warning, and Vroxhan knelt to press his bearded lips reverently to the glowing God Lights of the high altar with a silent prayer that God might overlook his manifest unworthiness for the task which had come to him. Then he rose, and sang the sacred words of benediction.

  “Arm systems,” he sang, and a brazen clangor rolled through the Sanctum, but this time no one showed fear. This they had heard before, every year of their religious lives, at the Feast of Fire Test. Yet this time was different, for this time its familiar, martial fury summoned them to battle in God’s holy cause.

  The challenge of God’s Horn faded, and the Voice spoke once more.

  “Armed,” it said sweetly. “Hostiles within engagement parameters.”

  Amber circles sprang into the starry heavens, entrapping the crimson glare of the demons, ringing it in the adamantine rejection of God’s wrath, and Vroxhan felt himself tremble as the ultimate moment of his life rushed to meet him. He was no longer afraid—no longer even abashed, for God had raised him up. He was God’s vessel, filled with God’s power to meet this time of Trial, and his eyes gleamed with a hundred reflected stars as he turned to his fellows. He raised his arms and watched them draw strength from his own exaltation. Other arms rose, returning his blessing, committing themselves to the power and the glory of God while the demons’ red glare washed down over their faces and vestments.

  “Be not afraid, my brothers!” Vroxhan cried in a great voice. “The time of Trial is upon us, but trust in God, that your souls may be exalted by His glory and the demons may be confounded, for the power is His forever!”

  “Forever!” The answering roar battered him, and there was no fear in it, either. He turned back to the high altar, lifting his eyes defiantly to the demon light, rejecting it and the evil for which it stood, and his powerful, rolling voice rose in the sonorous music of the ancient Canticle of Deliverance.

  “Initiate engagement procedure!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Coming into range of another one,” Harriet announced from Plotting as a display sighting ring circled yet another dot. “A big one.”

  Sean felt—and shared—her stress. They were finally close enough for Israel’s scanners to detect subplanetary targets, and the tension had been palpable ever since the first deep-space installation was spotted. There’d been more in the last two hours—lots more—and his hopes had soared with the others’. The first one hadn’t been much to look at, only a remote scanner array crippled by what appeared to have been a micrometeorite strike, but the ones deeper in-system were much bigger. In fact, they looked downright promising, and he kept reminding himself not to let premature optimism carry him away.

  “I’m on it, Harry,” Sandy reported from Tactical. Her active scanners had less reach than Harriet’s passive sensors but offered far better resolution once a target had been pointed out to them. “Coming in now. Comp Cent calls it a Radona-class yard module, Tam.”

  “Radona, Radona,” Tamman muttered, running through his Engineering files. “Aha! I thought I remembered! It’s a civilian yard, but with the right support base, a Radona class could turn out another Israel in about eight months, Sean. If we get it on-line, we can build us a hypercom no sweat.”

  “That,” Sean said quietly, “is the best news I’ve had in the last twenty-one months. People, it looks like we’re going to make it after all.”

  “Yes, I—” Sandy began, then broke off with a gasp. “Sean, that thing’s live!”

  “What?” Sean stared across at her, and she nodded vigorously.

  “I’m getting standby level power readings from at least two Khilark Gamma fusion plants—maybe three.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sean muttered. He twisted back around to glare at the bland light floating in Harriet’s sighting ring. “She’d need hydrogen tankers, maintenance services, a resource base … She can’t be live!”

  “Try telling that to my scanners! I’ve definitely got live fusion plants, and if her power’s up, we won’t even have to activate her!”

  “But I still don’t see how—”

  “Sean,” Harriet cut him off, “I’m getting more installations. Look.”

  Scores of sighting rings blossomed as her instruments came in range of the new targets, and Sean blinked.

  “Sandy?”

  “I’m working them, Sean.” Sandy’s voice was absent as she communed with her systems. “Okay, these—” three of Harriet’s amber rings turned green “—look like your ‘resource base
.’ They’re processing modules, but they’re not Battle Fleet designs, either. They might be modified civil facilities.” She paused, then continued flatly. “And they’re live, too.”

  “This,” Sean said to no one in particular, “is getting ridiculous. Not that I’m ungrateful, but—” He shook himself. “What about the others?”

  “Can’t tell yet. I’m getting some very faint power leakage from them, but not enough for resolution at this range.” She closed her eyes and frowned in concentration. “If they’re live, it doesn’t look like they’ve got much on-board generation capacity. Either that, or …” Her voice trailed off.

  “Or what?”

  “Those might be stasis emissions.” She sounded unhappy at suggesting that, and Sean grunted. No stasis field could maintain itself from internal power, and there wasn’t enough available from the powered-down plants of the other facilities to sustain that many fields with broadcast power.

  “Humph. Goose us back up to point-five cee and take us in, Brashan.”

  “Coming up to point-five cee, aye,” Brashan replied from Maneuvering, and Sean frowned even more thoughtfully. Something about those installations bothered him. They floated in distant orbit around the third planet, not in a ring but in a wide-spaced sphere. There were too many of them—and they were much too small—to be more yard modules, but each was almost a third of Israel’s size, so what the devil were they?

  “Sean!” Harriet’s exclamation was sharp. “I’ve got a new power source—a monster—and it’s on the planet!”

  His head whipped back up as still another sighting ring appeared in the display and the new emission source crept into sight over the planetary horizon. Harry was right; it was huge. But it was also … strange, and he frowned as its light code flickered uncertainly.

  “Can you localize it?”

  “I’m trying. It’s— Sean, my scanners say that thing’s moving. It’s almost like … like some weird ECM, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Sean frowned. That single massive power source was all alone down there, and that made it the most maddening puzzle yet. Obviously the population and tech base which had produced the system installations hadn’t survived, or they would have been challenged by now. Besides, if the planet had fusion power, there should be dozens of planetary facilities down there, not just one. But without people, how had even one power plant survived the millennia? And what did Harry mean by “moving”? He plugged into her systems and watched it with her, and damned if she wasn’t right. It was like some sort of ECM, as if something were trying to prevent them from locking in its coordinates.

  “Can you crack whatever it is, Harry?”

  “I think so. It’s a weird effect, but it looks like … Oh, that’s sneaky!” Her tone took on a mix of admiration and excitement. “That source isn’t as big as we thought, Sean. It is big, but there’s at least a dozen—probably more like two or three dozen—false emitters down there, and they’re jumping back and forth between them. Their generators aren’t moving, they’re just reshaping the main emission source. I don’t know why, but now that I know what they’re doing it’s only a matter of ti—”

  “Status change.” Sandy’s voice was flat with tension. “The satellite power readings are going up like missiles. They’re coming on-line, Sean!”

  His eyes darted back to the satellites. Those had been stasis fields; now they were gone, and whole clusters of new sources were coming up while they watched. Sean chewed his lip, wondering what the hell was going on. But until he knew—

  “Bring us about, Brashan. Let’s not get in too deep.”

  “Coming onto reciprocal course, aye,” Brashan confirmed, and Sean watched the changing tactical symbols in the display as Israel came about.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.

  * * *

  “First phase activation complete. All platforms nominal.”

  Vroxhan listened to the Voice’s ancient, musical words as a net of emeralds blazed against the night sky. God’s Shields glowed with the color of life, yet he’d never seen so many of them at once, not even at the once-a-decade celebration of High Fire Test. Truly this was the time of Trial, and he licked his lips as he proceeded to the second verse of the Canticle.

  “Activate tracking systems,” he intoned sonorously.

  * * *

  “Status change!” This time Sandy almost screamed the words. “Target system activation! Those things are weapons platforms!”

  “Settle down, Sandy!” Sean snapped. “Brashan, take us to point-seven! Evasion pattern Alpha Romeo!”

  “Alpha Romeo, aye,” Brashan replied with reassuring Narhani calm.

  “Target acquisition,” the Voice announced. Its singing power filled the Sanctum, and the golden ring about the demons’ sigil turned blood-red. Tiny symbols appeared within it—some steady and unwinking, others changing with eye-bewildering flickers. Vroxhan had never seen anything like that; none of the symbols which appeared during Plot Test and Fire Test ever changed, and mingled terror and exaltation filled him as he chanted the third verse.

  “Initiate weapon release cycle.”

  * * *

  Israel leapt to full speed, and the power of her drive quivered in bone and sinew as Brashan threw her into the evasion pattern. A corner of Sean’s thoughts stole a moment to be thankful for all the drills they’d run and another to curse how undermanned they were, but it was only a tiny corner. The rest of his mind had suddenly gone cold, humming with a strange, deep note unlike anything he’d ever experienced in a training exercise, and his thoughts came like a dance of lightning, automatic, almost instinctive.

  “Tactical, get the shields up and initiate ECM! Download decoys for launch on my signal but do not engage.”

  “Shields—up!” Sandy snapped back, her earlier edge of panic displaced by trained reactions. “ECM—active. Decoys prepped and downloaded.”

  “Acknowledged. Have you localized that power source, Harry?”

  “Negative!”

  Sean felt himself tightening inwardly as his queerly icy brain raced. Every instinct screamed to open fire to preempt whatever those weapons might do, but even if his assumption that the planetary power source was the command center was right, he couldn’t hit it if Harry couldn’t localize it. That only left the platforms themselves, and they were such small targets—and there were so many of them—that going after them would be a losing proposition. Perhaps more importantly, they hadn’t fired yet. If he initiated hostilities, they most certainly would, and although Israel was beyond energy weapon range, maximum range for the Fourth Empire’s hyper missiles against a target her size was thirty-eight light-minutes. They were ten light-minutes inside that. At maximum speed, they needed fourteen minutes to clear the planet’s missile envelope, and every second the platforms spent thinking about shooting was one priceless second in which they weren’t shooting.

  * * *

  “Target evading.”

  Vroxhan’s heart faltered as the Voice departed from the Canticle of Deliverance. It had never said those words before, and the symbols inside the bloody circle danced madly. The demon light pulsed and capered, and his faith wavered. But he felt ripples of panic flaring through the bishops and upper-priests. He had to do something, and he forced his merely mortal voice to remain firm as he intoned the fourth verse of the Canticle.

  “Initiate firing sequence!” he sang, and his soul filled with relief as the Voice returned the proper response.

  “Initiating.”

  * * *

  “Launch activation! Multiple launch activations!”

  Sean paled at Sandy’s cry. The platforms had brought their support systems on-line; now their hyper launchers were cycling. They’d need several seconds to wind up to full launch status, but there were hundreds of them!

  He tasted blood. This was a survey ship’s worst nightmare: an intact, active quarantine system. An Asgerd-class planetoid would have hesitated to engage this
kind of firepower, and he had exactly one parasite battleship.

  “Launch decoys!”

  “Launching, aye.” A brief heartbeat. “First decoy salvo away. Second salvo prepping.”

  Blue dots speckled the display with false images, each a duplicate of Israel’s own emissions signature as it streaked away from her.

  “Activate missile battery. Designate launch platforms as primary targets but do not engage.”

  “Missile battery active,” Sandy said flatly.

  * * *

  “Hostile decoys deployed,” the Voice announced sweetly.

  Vroxhan clutched at the altar, and a terrified human voice cried out behind him, for the high priest’s portion of the Canticle was done! There was no more Canticle! But the Voice was continuing.

  “Request Tracking refinement and update,” it said, and the High Priest sank to his knees while the demon light spawned again and again. Dozens of demons blazed in the stars, and he didn’t know what the Voice wanted of him!

  “Initiate firing sequence!” he repeated desperately, and his trained voice was broken-edged and brittle.

  “Probability of kill will be degraded without Tracking refinement and update,” the Voice replied emotionlessly.

  “Initiate firing sequence!” Vroxhan screamed. The Voice said nothing for a tiny, terrible eternity, and then—

  “Initiating.”

  * * *

  “Hostile launch! I say again, hostile launch!”

  A deathly silence followed Sandy’s flat announcement. The Fourth Empire’s hyper missiles traveled at four thousand times the speed of light. It would take them almost seven seconds to cross the light-minutes to the battleship, but there was no such thing as an active defense against a hyper missile, for no one had yet figured out a way to shoot at something in hyper. They could only take it … and be glad the range was so long. At seventy percent of light-speed, Israel would have moved almost one-and-a-half million kilometers between the time those missiles launched and the time they arrived. But that was why defensive bases had prediction and tracking computers.