ROMA

by R. A. Ender

  Not disappointed, the screen activated and the image of Shelbus, in a full dress uniform, became visible. Richard knew that a similar image was being displayed to the Admiral, wherever he was. The background seemed to suggest he was out in the open air, so he must have been at a ceremony.

  “Admiral Hilbornus! Should I take this in my gravlift?” Admiral Shelbus asked, referring to the level of secrecy that should be used.

  “Yes, Admiral, if it is available.”

  “Alright, hold on a moment.” And the screen darkened again.

  Richard looked up and out of the window into space while he waited for the Admiral to relocate and reestablish the connection. His cabin windows faced the front of the ship, so he could clearly see Bazan’s Dreadnaught sitting, weapons trained, in front of the Caesar Augustus. He could certainly understand why Old Earth Navies had retained them for so long. The Battleships were impressive.

  Seeing the screen light up in his peripheral vision, Richard moved his eyes back down and watched the final moments of Shelbus settling himself in his vehicle.

  “Admiral Hilbornus, please continue. So you know, my gravlift is secure and only my assistant is present at the moment. Go ahead.”

  “Sir, I’ve met with my contact and information has been provided that I will return. Two questions remain outstanding and answers are offered in exchange for a concession. Since the concession would reveal information, you will find enclosed a personally secured file for you to peruse.”

  Richard saw as Shelbus reached forward to authenticate himself and have his station display the file information.

  “Though you may at first think it too high a price, I must say that it is my opinion that the benefits are numerous when all is considered. The direct answers would be quite useful. The questions which will be answered are order number three, and personal request number four.”

  Shelbus was nodding as he listened and reading at the same time. While he continued to read, he asked a question. “What was the answer to order one and two?”

  “Sir, order one was refused, as was expected. I would not speculate based on tone, body language or comments that an indirect answer was given. Order two was answered as unlikely but not impossible.”

  “Hmmm...” Shelbus trailed off as he continued to read.

  There was silence for a few moments before Shelbus whispered an order to his assistant and sat back in his gravlift chair. Moving his attention back to Richard, he said, “I see what you mean about the benefits, but that is a hades of a concession. My hunch is that Dredmoore will be on our side, though, so I think you can offer a commitment. I’d give it ninety percent chance of being approved. Is that enough for...”

  Abruptly, the transmission went dead. For a moment, Richard simply waited for it to be reestablished. This far off the space lanes, it was not impossible for some stellar interference to have disrupted the transmission, Richard thought. Though Telegod was solid, the onboard communication array was less reliable.

  His patience was rewarded with the appearance of Shelbus on screen. This time, though, it was his second in command Robin, not her Admiral Father.

  “Admiral, we just lost communication with the Telegod network. Mato is looking into whether it is our array or the network itself.”

  “Alright, C0mmander, keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir... ok ... actually, we are receiving a transmission from the De Bazan, so our array must be working. I’ll put it through, and try to get more details on the Telegod outage.”

  And without waiting for an acknowledgment, Robin’s image faded and was replaced with Bazan’s.

  “Richard, I apologize for the interruption.”

  “It’s no matter, Bazan. You helped clear up a mystery. What can I do for you?”

  “First, I am sorry we have not concluded our agreement because I have just received a full recall order for my province direct from the Imperial palace. Therefore, I must return to my ship immediately. It will not do to have the Governor of a province out of communication during a statewide alert.”

  “Second, I am sorry that it appears I was in error. My clients report that your Telegod network has turned off, and coupled with my recall, that may not be a coincidence. My reading of the politics of Imperialis may have been in error.”

  Richard opened his mouth to speak, but Bazan jumped in again.

  “Please, Richard, my friend, allow me to finish. I wish to answer your questions before I go. In answer to your question about the Emperor, it is true that he has a fondness for dates. Since his rise, events, anniversaries and celebrations have exploded in importance. However, it would not be a reliable guide to his thinking. Much like foretellers on my world, they guess wildly and frequently, most of the time they are wrong. When they are correct once, it is remembered and celebrated. I think it would be much the same in trying to anticipate our Emperor.”

  “As for the ship we spoke of, I have included a file in this transmission with the information I promised you. I hope you find it useful, though, again, I must warn you it may be useless. To my knowledge, the ship was faulty and imperfect, and after the Supreme Council Oligarchs were dismissed, the program was abandoned. As far as I know, none of the ships remain. But, whatever benefit you can glean from the file, I hope it serves you well.”

  “I hope that this situation turns out to be nothing. If it is, and peace continues, I hope that my request will still be considered, even though I have given my exchange in advance. It would benefit both of our worlds immensely.”

  Richard nodded.

  “Goodbye, my friend. Until the next time, when we can meet to discuss our families again. Know that my commitment to peace does not end even when we are at war.” With that Bazan gave a Blessal farewell gesture.

  Richard waved goodbye as well, and said, “Goodbye, and stay safe, my dear friend.”

  And the screen went dark.

  Richard sat for only a moment before collecting his handcomm and leaving his cabin at a generous stroll. He signaled for the Command deck to connect to his handcomm, and Robin’s voice came on almost immediately.

  “Robin, Bazan will be leaving. Let him go.”

  “No problem.”

  “What is our alert level?”

  Robin paused for a moment, evidently checking her station. “We are at alert two. Want it moved up?”

  “Yes. Based on the fact that Telegod went down right when Bazan got a recall order, I assume we are at war with the Imperial Alliance. I don’t know if anyone else will make that same assumption, so I want us ready for battle and ready to relocate immediately.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll get us ready.”

  “Ok, good. I’ll be coming up to the Command deck soon. Can you pull the emergency orders and get us ready to execute them upon our review when I come on deck. Anything else just hit my handcomm.”

  “Done and done.” And the handcomm went dead.

  Richard put it back in his pocket as he rounded the corridor at a ladder tube. Sliding down two levels, he headed right and entered the medical bay.

  Doctor Etu, the short Gemberlican wife of his chief engineer Mato, was standing right in her office to the left of the medical bay door. Walking into the office, Etu smiled broadly and gave the Gemberlican open armed bow welcome.

  “Richard,” pausing while she bowed, “What can I do for you?”

  Richard moved close to Etu, blocking anyone outside the office from seeing or hearing his conversation.

  “Etu, as far as I can tell, we are at war with the Imperial Alliance of Empires. The ship has moved up to alert one, which we will send out soon. But, since we may be heading into conflicts, I just wanted to tell you first and personally to get ready to take care of my students. Though they all knew this was possible, I’m sure none of them expected their officer training cruise would end up being involved in a full-scale war with our ancient enemy. Just make sure you are ready to take care of the kids, ok?” Richard said and asked at the same time. His concern, very
father like came through clearly.

  Etu, not a mother but having come from a large family as was typical of Gemberlicans, echoed the same caring. “Of course Richard, we’ll be ready to take care of all of them.”

  Smiling broadly, Richard gave Etu a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.” And with that, he turned and quickly strode back into the halls.

  Moving this time toward a lift entrance, Richard pulled the handcomm out again and lifted it to his mouth.

  “Mato, when you can talk to me on a private comm, let me know.” Using the same hand that held the comm unit, Richard swiped his pass to give a priority call for the lift.

  The lift arrived in moments, and several crew members were present.

  “Sorry, ladies and gentlemen. I need this lift alone, please.” Richard asked as nicely as possible, though he knew all the officer trainees would interpret it as a direct order. Despite his senior rank, Richard never forgot to treat everyone as an equal and with respect. Fighting along them in the trenches and treating them with respect was the best means of creating a rock solid crew, in his experience.

  All the crew members quickly exited, and just as the doors closed, Mato’s voice came out of the handcomm stating simply, “Secure.”

  “Mato looks like we are at war with the Imps,” Richard said quickly. “I need this ship ready for battle. So far, how would you judge crew readiness in your department?”

  Mato was silent for a moment. “So far, I think we will do well. We’ll have the usual problems when we have our first battle and the lights go out, but I think they’ll be fine. The senior trainees have been here two years and we’ve trained them well. Even the newbies have five academy years under their helmets.”

  Richard was about to jump in when Mato unexpectedly continued. “Look, regardless of the kids, the ship is one hundred percent. This is by far the most advanced ship in the fleet, and she has the best command staff in the Confederacy. We can take them all!” Mato ended with a little more cheer than perhaps was necessary for a private conversation with a longtime colleague, but his enthusiasm for his ship always got him excited.

  “Alright, that’s good to hear. I’ll keep you up to date.” And with that, Richard killed the comm line and walked out into the small entry to the ladder tube that dropped down into the Command deck. Sliding down with ease, Richard landed and opened the door, quickly emerging onto the deck.

  No one turned to salute or acknowledge his entrance, that type of formality was reserved for only the first ceremonial taking of command in the planetary docks. Richard walked forward, patted Sara on the shoulder as he passed, and sat at in his command chair, just vacated by Robin.

  Without pausing, he spoke. “Can I get a status report from everyone, usual order.”

  The usual went in order of battle importance. Sara would lead off with weapons and shielding. Jen would follow up with fighters and maneuverability. If Mato were present, he would cover overall engineering status. But since he was busy elsewhere, Robin would cover that role, and continue with crew readiness and finally orders.

  Sara, as expected, spoke first. “Admiral, we have all the weapon systems online and at one hundred percent. Only the Bolos cannon near medical is offline. The scintillate guns are also at hundred percent. The energy shields are online and fully charged. The aerodam shields are ready but currently inactive.”

  Richard turned his attention forward to where Jen manned the navigation station at the front of the command deck.

  “Admiral, the hangar bay reports that all remote command stations are manned and all the fighters are being prepped for launch. Currently the two always ready fighter wings are ready, and the other eight wings should be ready within the hour. Only two Squalus’ are offline permanently, but we still have four subs available.”

  Pausing for a moment, Jen traced her hand over her station, pulling information up. “Our maneuvering systems are at one hundred percent.”

  “Richard,” Robin started more informally than the rest of the crew who were always more formal when under battle pressure. Robin, though she slipped into the formal occasionally, usually tried to keep her speech free of wasted formality. “Engineering reports that they are ready. All other important systems report ready. Medical just reported that they are fully staffed and all beds have been activated.”

  “Our communications system is still unable to connect to Telegod, but otherwise seems to be ok.”

  “Crew readiness reports are filtering in, but without a formal announcement that we are at alert level one, the only reports I have are from the senior crew who have been made aware of our battle situation. Did you want to make a formal announcement?”

  Richard looked up at Robin for a moment to read her opinion of her suggestion. He could tell right away that she was shielding herself and following the policy, but didn’t feel it was necessary. Richard shared that opinion.

  “No, we aren’t in danger so far in deep space. The closest world is F’lwok, which is a week’s travel from here. Let’s get all the third year crew to meet in the hangar bay in six hours and we will announce it to them. They can filter the information back to their subordinate crew. Good training opportunity.”

  “Ok, I’ll get to scheduling that. Next, here are the emergency orders. We got a special set of orders because Telegod is down. It is recalling all ships of the Old Colony Region fleet, which includes us, to New Rome.”

  Richard was already looking at Robin, but he was so surprised by the order that he moved his head forward to look at her again.

  “New Rome? Really? What is the sense of that?”

  Robin shook her head. “I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing. The only thought I’ve come up with is that without interstellar communications, they wanted fleets massed at the most important worlds. Assuming, of course, the recall orders for the other fleets also recall everyone to one world. Since we are technically attached to the Old Colony Region fleet, our order is the same.”

  “Well, without question we are not recalling to New Rome. It would take us months to travel there by hyperspace. The closest world to us is F’lwok. That is our logical withdrawal position. I assume the northern fleet will also recall to F’lwok, I can’t think of a more important world in that fleets territory.”

  Tilting his head to the side, Richard paused to consider F’lwok though. “Hmmm, it would probably be target number one for the IAE though, especially with the current Emperor on the throne having won some of his glory crushing F’lwoka uprisings.”

  Turning toward the navigation station, Richard asked, “Jen, assuming IAE positioned a fleet just beyond Apollo detection at the closest transit point to F’lwok, how long would it take for them to arrive?”

  Without even touching her station, Jen turned in her chair and answered. “At least three weeks. At best, two if they ran only the fastest ships. We can easily beat them back.”

  “Good. But as much as Mato may think highly of this ship, it can’t defeat an entire IAE fleet alone. It will take months for the whole Northern fleet to assemble. That’s what really doesn’t make sense about these orders. Sure, a portion of the fleet would arrive ahead of any invasion fleet, but at least a good number will arrive after the first major battle. At which point, they will either join a wounded fleet or more likely be picked off one at a time by even a small garrison enemy fleet. I just can’t understand the logic.”

  Sara spoke up from behind Richard at the tactical station, drawing everyone’s eyes up to her. “My guess is they didn’t figure a communication outage would happen at the same time as an invasion. Would you think of that if you were a planner?”

  “I would have at least considered the possibility!” Robin said defiantly.

  “Sure,” Sara continued. “You would consider it but it isn’t the most likely scenario. Without interstellar comm, the order is either to regroup or remain in present location until comm returns. Either option poses serious problems in strategic planning against an invasion. At leas
t recalling ships gives a chance of having larger fleets able to deal with any invader. Plus, once the ships get in near space of a major world a backup communication system should exist to permit coordination.”

  Robin was nodding. “Yeah, that makes a little more sense. Plus, if everyone massed at one deep space location, it would still be difficult to decide where to go without any actionable intelligence. At least knowing the worlds ahead of time, the ships could be provided with additional system information and even beefed up defenses in nearspace. I guess if you play the odds, it could be more successful.”

  “Well,” Richard spoke up to recapture the conversation. “Regardless, we will not return to New Rome, at least not yet. We will mass with the Northern Fleet at F’lwok, and coordinate with that irritable Fleet Admiral Janus. It will be a challenge to move him off policy in a potential war situation. It took enough effort to have him allow Bazan to travel through Apollo. Now that war with IAE is in the offing, I doubt he will be as helpful to us.”

  Looking around, Richard gave his last request for input. “Does anyone have anything else to add?”

  A sea of shaking heads gave him the answer he needed to proceed.

  “Ok, Jen, plot us a course back to F’lwok at top speed. Make sure we arrive before any damn Imperial Dreadnaught starts laser slicing the planet surface.”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  For a moment, the Caesar Augustus hung in space. Then suddenly several gravpads illuminated on the hull, spinning the ship into a different heading. As the ship spun, the eight massive mass driver jets burned white hot and began to propel the ship forward. As it flew its run to jump, the ship managed to achieve an incredible point nine light speed. For an instant, it held that incredible speed. Then, with a burst of light, it opened a hole into hyperspace and disappeared. Leaving only the blackness of space and a billion dots of light behind.