Empire from the Ashes

by David Weber

  "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-Three-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."

  "Time like this?"

  "While we're making our final approach to the Imperial Guard," Colin said, raising his eyebrows, and Cohanna wrinkled her nose.

  "What's an Imperial Guard?"

  Vlad Chernikov shuddered as he and Baltan floated down the lifeless, lightless transit shaft. This, he thought, is what Dahak would have become if Anu had succeeded all those years ago.

  It was depressing in more ways than one. Actually seeing this desolation gnawed away at the confidence that anything could be done about it, and even if he succeeded in rejecting the counsel of despair, he could see it would be a horrific task. Dead power rooms, exhausted fuel mass, control rooms and circuit runs which had never been properly stasissed when the ship died. There was even meteor damage, for the collision shields had died with everything else. One of the planetoids might well be beyond repair, judging by the huge hole punched into its south pole.

  Still, he reminded himself, everyone had his or her own problems. Caitrin O'Rourke was practically in tears over the hydroponic farms, and Geran was furious to find so much perfect
ly good equipment left out of stasis. But Tamman was probably the most afflicted of all, for the magazines had been left without stasis, as well, and the containment fields on every anti-matter weapon had failed. At least the warhead fail-safes had worked as designed and rotated them into hyper as the fields went down, but huge chunks of magazine bulkheads had gone with them. Of course, if they hadn't worked...

  He shuddered again, concentrating on the grav sled he and Baltan rode. It was far slower than an operable transit shaft, but they dared not use even its full speed. They were no transit computer to whip around unexpected bends in the system!

  He craned his neck, reading the lettering above a hatch. Gamma-One-One-Nine-One-One. According to Dahak's downloaded schematics, they were getting close to Engineering.

  So they were. He tapped Baltan's shoulder and pointed, and the commander nodded inside the force bubble of his helmet. The sled angled for the side of the shaft and nudged against the hatch—which, of course, stayed firmly shut.

  Chernikov smothered a curse, then grinned as he recalled Colin's account of his "coronation." The Captain—Emperor!—had exhausted the entire crew's allocation of profanity for at least a month, by Chernikov's estimate. He chuckled at the thought and climbed off the sled, dragging a cable from its power plant behind him and muttering Slavic maledictions. No power meant no artificial gravity, which—unfortunately—did not mean no gravity. A planetoid generated an impressive grav field all its own, and turned bulkheads into decks and decks into bulkheads when the power failed.

  He found the emergency power receptacle and plugged in, and the hatch slid open. He waved, and Baltan ghosted the sled inside, angling its powerful lamps to pick out the emergency lighting system.

  Chernikov did some more cable-dragging and, after propitiating Murphy with a few curses, brought it alive. Light bathed Central Engineering, and the two engineers began to explore.

  The long-dead core tap drew them like a magnet, and Chernikov felt a tingle of awe as his eyes and implants traced circuit runs and control systems. This thing was at least five times as powerful as Dahak's, and he wouldn't have believed it could be without seeing it. But what in the galaxy could they have needed that much power for? Even allowing for the more powerful energy armament and shield, there had to be some other reason—

  His thoughts died as his implants followed a massive power shunt which shouldn't have been there. He clambered over a control panel which had become the floor, slightly vertiginous as he tried to orient himself, then gasped.

  "Baltan! Look at this!"

  "I know," his assistant said softly, approaching from the far side. "I've been following the control runs."

  "Can you believe this?"

  "Does it matter? And it would certainly explain all the power demand."

  "True." Chernikov moved a few more yards, examining his find carefully, then shook his head. "I must tell the Captain about this."

  He keyed his com implant, and Colin answered a moment later, sounding a bit harassed—not surprisingly, considering that every other search party must be finding marvels of its own to report.

  "Captain, I am in Mairsuk's Central Engineering, and you would not believe what I am looking at."

  "Try me," Colin said wearily. "I'm learning to believe nineteen impossible things before breakfast every day."

  "Very well, here is number twenty. This ship has both Enchanach and hyper capability."

  There was a pregnant pause.

  "What," Colin finally asked very carefully, "did you say?"

  "I said, sir, that we have here both an Enchanach and a hyper drive, engineered down to a size that fits both into a single hull. I am not yet positive, but I would judge that the combined mass of both units is less than that of Dahak's Enchanach Drive, alone."

  "Great day in the morning," Colin muttered. Then, "All right. Take a good look, then get back over here. We're having an all-departments meeting in four hours to discuss plans for reactivation.

  "Understood," Chernikov said, and broke the connection. He and Baltan exchanged eloquent shrugs and bent back to the study of their prize.

  "... can't be specific until we've got the computers back up and run a complete inventory," Geran said, "but about ten percent of all spares required controlled condition storage. Without that—" He shrugged.

  Most of Colin's department heads were present in the flesh, but a sizable force from the recon group was prowling around other installations, and Hector MacMahan and Ninhursag attended via holo image from the battleship Osir's command deck. Now all eyes, physical and holographic alike, swiveled to Colin.

  "All right." He spoke quietly, leaning his forearms on the crystalline tabletop to return their gazes. "Bottom line. Mother's time estimate is based on sixteen-hour shifts for every man and woman after we put at least one automated repair yard back on line. According to the reports from Hector's people, we can probably do that, but I expect to find ourselves pushing closer to twenty-hour shifts by the time we're done. We could increase the odds and decrease the workload by concentrating on a dozen or so units. I'm sure that's going to occur to a lot of people in the next few weeks. However—" his eyes circled their faces "—we aren't going to do it that way. We need as many of these ships as we can get, and, ladies and gentlemen, I mean to have every single one of them."

  There was a sound like a soft gasp, and he smiled grimly.

  "God only knows how hard they're working back on Earth, but we're about to make up for our nice vacation on the trip out. Every one of them, people. No exceptions. We will leave this system no later than five months from today, and the entire Imperial Guard Flotilla will go with us when we do."

  "But, sir," Chernikov said, "we may ask for too much and lose it all. I do not fear hard work, but we have only a finite supply of personnel. A very finite supply."

  "I understand, Vlad, but the decision is not negotiable. We've got highly motivated, highly capable people aboard this ship. I feel certain they'll understand and give of their very best. If not, however, tell them this.

  "I'll be working my ass off right beside them, but that doesn't mean I won't be keeping tabs on what they're doing. And, people, if I catch anyone shirking, I'm going to be the worst nightmare he ever had."

  His smile was grim, but even its micrometric amusement looked out of place on his rock-hard face.

  "Tell them they can depend on that," he finished very, very softly.

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Assistant Servant of Thunders Brashieel of the Nest of Aku'Ultan folded all four legs under him on his duty pad as he bent his long-snouted head, considering his panel, and slid both hands into the control gloves. Eight fingers and four thumbs twitched, activating each test circuit in turn, and he noted the results cheerfully. He had not had a major malfunction in three twelves of twelve watches.

  Equipment tests completed, he checked Vindicator's position. It was purely automatic, for there could be no change. Once a vessel entered hyper space it remained there, impotent but inviolate, until it reached the pre-selected coordinates and emerged into normal space once more.

  Brashieel did not understand those mysteries particularly well, for he was no lord—not even of thunders, much less of star-faring—but because Small Lord of Order Hantorg was a good lord, he had made certain Vindicator's nestlings all knew whither they were bound. Another yellow sun, this one with nine planets. Once it had boasted ten, but that had been before the visit of Great Lord Vaskeel's fleet untold high twelves of years before. Now it was time to return, and Vindicator and his brothers would sweep through it like the Breath of Tarhish, trampling the nest-killers under hooves of flame.

  It was well. The Protectors of the Nest would feed their foes to Tarhish's Fire, and the Nest would be safe forever.

  "Outer perimeter tracking confirms hyper wakes approaching from galactic east," Sir Frederick Amesbury said.

  Gerald Hatcher nodded without even looking up. His neural feed hummed with readin
ess reports, and his eyes were unfocused.

  "Got an emergence locus and ETA, Frederick?"

  "It's bloody rough, but Plotting's calling it fifty light-minutes and forty-five degrees above the ecliptic. Judging from the wake strength, the buggers should be arriving in about twelve hours. Tracking promises to firm that up in the next two hours."

  "Fine." Hatcher acknowledged the last report and blinked back into focus, wishing yet again that Dahak had returned. If Colin MacIntyre had been gone this long, it meant he hadn't found aid at Sheskar and must have decided he had no choice but to hope Earth could hold without him while he sought it elsewhere. And that he might not be back for another full year.

  He activated his com panel, and Horus's taut face appeared instantly.

  "Governor," the general reported, knowing full well that Horus already knew what he was about to say and that he was speaking for the record, "I have to report that I have placed our forces on Red Two. Hyper wakes presumed to be hostile have been detected. ETA is approximately—" he checked the time through his neural feed "—seventeen-thirty hours, Zulu. System defense forces are now on full alert. Civil defense procedures have been initiated. All PDC and ODC commanders are in the net. Interceptor squadrons are at two-hour readiness. Planetary shield generators and planetary core tap are at stand-by readiness. Battle Squadrons One and Four are within thirty minutes of projected n-space emergence; Squadrons Two and Six should rendezvous with them by oh-seven-hundred Zulu. Squadrons Three, Five, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten, with escorts, are being held in-system as per Plan Able-One.

  "Have you any instructions at this time, Governor?"

  "Negative, General Hatcher. Please keep me informed."

  "I will, sir."

  "Good luck, Gerald," Horus said softly, his tone much less formal.

  "Thanks, Horus. We'll try to make a little luck of our own."

  The screen blanked, and Gerald Hatcher turned back to his console.

  Assistant Servant Brashieel checked his chronometer. Barely four day twelfths until emergence, and tension was high in Vindicator, for this was the Demon Sector. It was not often the Protectors of the Nest encountered a foe with an advance technical base—that was why they came, to crush the nest-killers before they armed themselves—but five of the last twelve Great Visits to this sector had been savaged. They had triumphed, but at great cost, and the last two had been the most terrible of all. Perhaps, Brashieel thought, that was the reason Great Lord Tharno's Great Visit had been delayed: to amass the strength the Nest required for certain success.