Empire from the Ashes

by David Weber

  She sighed and put the thought aside once more. So far, they had no idea how the Sword was organized. For all she knew, the meaningless attacks were the work of some splinter group or faction. For that matter, they might actually be the work of some totally different organization which was simply hiding behind the Sword while it pursued an agenda all its own! They needed a better look inside to answer those kinds of questions, and that was up to the folks on Earth, where the Sword operated. Gus had managed it once, and since his death, Lawrence Jefferson had managed to break no less than three of its cells. It was unfortunate that none of them had led to any others—indeed, it seemed likely they were among the more inept members of their murderous brotherhood or they wouldn't have been so easy to crack—but they were a start.

  And, she reminded herself, at least the slaughter of Gus's family had given them a reason to beef up Horus's security at White Tower without arousing their real enemy's suspicions.

  * * *

  "Sweet mother of God!" Gerald Hatcher blurted. "Are you serious?"

  "Of course I'm not!" Ninhursag snarled back. "I just thought pretending I was would be really hilarious!"

  She quivered with frightened anger Colin understood only too well, and he touched her shoulder, watching her relax with a hissing sigh before he turned his attention back to Hatcher's hologram. Vlad Chernikov also attended by holo image from his office aboard Orbital Yard Seventeen, but Tsien was present with Colin and Ninhursag in the flesh.

  "Sorry, 'Hursag," Hatcher muttered. "It's just that— Well, Jesus, how did you expect us to react?"

  "About the same way I did," Ninhursag admitted with a crooked grin. Then real humor flickered in her eyes. "Which, I might add, you did. You should've heard what I said when Dahak told me!"

  "But there is no question?" Tsien's deep voice was harder than usual, for it was his files which had been penetrated this time.

  "None, Star Marshal," Dahak replied. "I have checked my findings no less than five times with identical results."

  "Shit." Colin rubbed the fatigue lines which had formed in the long, dreary months since his children died. After almost a year and a half they were still playing catch-up. Ninhursag and Lawrence Jefferson had managed to pick off a few Sword of God cells, a few score terrorists had been killed in shoot-outs with security forces when they'd struck at guarded sites, and they'd identified exactly seven spies in their military.

  And each of those spies had been dead by the time they found him.

  "The bastards have us penetrated six ways to Sunday," he said through his fingers, tugging on his nose while his other hand pushed the chip of Ninhursag's report in an aimless circle.

  "Yes and no, Colin," Dahak said. "True, we are uncovering evidence of past penetration, yet we are also clearing a progressively higher number of senior personnel of suspicion. I cannot, of course, be certain that we have sealed all breaches in the Bia System, yet recall that I am now monitoring all hypercom traffic between Bia and Sol as well as all datanets in this system. And while I cannot assure you that no information is being transmitted via courier, ONI now maintains permanent surveillance of all visitors from Earth."

  "Yeah, but it looks like we just found out we didn't get the door locked till after the barn burned down!"

  "Perhaps and perhaps not." For a moment Tsien sounded so much like Dahak Colin suspected him of deliberate humor, but that wasn't Tao-ling's style.

  "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning, Colin, that this particular piece of hardware, while undoubtedly dangerous, is of limited utility to whoever has it."

  "What do—" Hatcher began, then stopped. "Yeah, you've got something, Tao-ling. What the hell can they do with it even if they've got it?"

  "I would not invest too much confidence in that belief, Admiral Hatcher," Dahak said, "but my own analysis does tentatively support it."

  "But how did they get their hands on it in the first place?" Vlad asked, for he'd arrived a few moments late for the initial briefing.

  "We're not positive," Ninhursag answered. "All Dahak's discovered for certain is that there's at least one more copy of the plans for the new gravitonic warhead than there should be. We don't know where it is, who has it, or even how long whoever stole it has had it in his possession."

  "I believe we may venture a conjecture on the last point," Tsien disagreed. "Dahak has examined the counter in the original datachip from Weapons Development's master file, Vlad." Vlad's holo image nodded understanding. Each Fleet security chip was equipped with a built-in counter to record the numbers of copies which had been made of it, and while the counter could be wiped, it could not be altered. "According to our records, there should be ten copies of the plans—including the original chip—and all ten of those have now been accounted for. However, a total of ten copies were made of the original chip, and we do not know where that eleventh copy is.

  "On the other hand, that original has been locked in the security vault at BuShips since the day all authorized copies were made, and none of the external or internal security systems show any sign of tampering. I therefore believe the additional copy was made at the same time as the authorized ones."

  "Oh, shit," Hatcher moaned. "That was—what, six years ago?"

  "Six and a half," Ninhursag confirmed. "And while I wouldn't care to bet my life on it, I'd say Tao-ling is probably right. Particularly since a certain Senior Fleet Captain Janushka made the authorized copies. Two years ago, Commodore Janushka, who was then assigned to the Sol System as part of the Stepmother team, died of a 'cerebral hemorrhage.' "

  She grimaced, and the others snorted. A properly pulsed power surge in a neural feed implant produced something only the closest examination could distinguish from a normal cerebral hemorrhage. But pulsed surges like that couldn't happen by accident, and an ME with no reason to suspect foul play might very well opt for the natural explanation.

  "I see." Vlad pursed his lips for a moment, then gave a Slavic shrug. "On that basis, I am inclined to share your conclusion as to the timing, Tao-ling. Yet this weapon is an extremely sophisticated piece of hardware. Building it would require either military components or a civilian workshop run by someone thoroughly familiar with Imperial technology."

  "I'm sure it would," Colin said, "but whoever we're up against had the reach and sophistication to sabotage Imperial Terra—unless anyone cares to postulate two separate enemies with this level of penetration?" Clearly no one wished to so postulate, and he smiled grimly. "I think we have to assume Mister X wouldn't have stolen it if he didn't believe he could produce it."

  "True." Hatcher was coming back on balance, and his voice was calmer and more thoughtful. "But Tao-ling's still right about its utility. They can blow up a planet with it, but if that's all they had in mind, six years plus is plenty of time to build the thing—assuming they could build it at all—and it's also plenty long enough to have used it."

  "Precisely," Tsien agreed. "They undoubtedly had some plan for its use, either actual or threatened, else they had not stolen the plans, but what that use may be eludes me. The conspirators must be human—there were far too few Narhani contacts with humans for any of them to have penetrated our security so deeply so long ago—so the destruction of Earth would be an act of total madness. If, on the other hand, their target is here on Birhat, any of our much smaller gravitonic warheads or even a simple thermonuclear device would satisfy their needs. Nor is a weapon of this power required to destroy any conceivable deep space installation."

  "What about Narhan?" Ninhursag asked quietly, and Tsien frowned.

  "That, Ninhursag, is a very ugly thought," he conceded after a moment. "Again, I can see no sane reason to destroy the planet—that sounds much more like something the Sword of God would wish to attempt—yet Narhan would seem a more likely target than either Earth or Birhat."

  "God, all we need is for Mister X to be tied in with a bunch of crazies like the Sword of God!" Colin groaned.

  "On the surface, that appears unlik
ely," Dahak said. "The pattern of 'Mister X's' operations indicates a long-term plan which, while criminal, is rational. The Sword of God, on the other hand, is fundamentally irrational. Moreover, as Admiral Hatcher has pointed out, they have had ample time to destroy Narhan if they possessed the weapon. It is possible 'Mister X' might attempt to capitalize upon the activities of the Sword of God or even to influence those activities, but his ultimate goals are quite different from their xenophobic nihilism."

  "Then what do you think he's going to do with it?"

  "I have no theory at this time, unless, perhaps, he intends to use it as a threat to extort concessions. If that is the case, however, we are once more faced by the fact that he has had ample time to build the device and thus, one would anticipate, to make whatever demands he might present."

  "Maybe Vlad has a point, then," Colin mused. "Maybe they have hit a snag that's kept them from building it at all."

  "I would not depend upon that assumption," Dahak cautioned. "I believe humans refer to the logic upon which it rests as 'whistling in the dark.' "

  "Yeah," Colin said morosely. "I know."

  Chapter Fourteen

  The fist in his eye woke Sean MacIntyre.

  He twitched aside, one hand jerking up to the abused portion of his anatomy, even before he came fully awake. Damn, that hurt! If he hadn't been bio-enhanced himself, the punch would have cost him the eye.

  He wiggled further over on his side of the bed and rose on one elbow, still nursing his wound, as Sandy lashed through another contortion. That one, he judged, could have done serious damage if he hadn't gotten out of the way. She muttered something even enhanced hearing couldn't quite decipher, and he sat further up, wondering if he should wake her.

  They'd all had problems dealing with the reality of Imperial Terra's loss. Just being alive when all those others were dead was bad enough, but their conviction that Terra had been destroyed in an attempt to kill them made it worse, as if it were somehow their fault. Logic said otherwise, but logic was a frail shield against psyches determined to punish them for surviving.

  Sandy twisted in her nightmare, fighting the sheet as if it had become an enveloping monster, and it ripped with a sound of tearing canvas. Her breasts winked at him, and he chastised himself as he felt a stir of arousal.

  This was hardly the time for that! He wished—again—that even one of them had been interested in a psych career. Unfortunately, they hadn't, and now that they needed a professional, they were on their own. The first weeks had been especially rough, until Harriet insisted they all had to face it. She didn't know any more about running a therapy session than Sean did, but her instincts seemed good, and they'd drawn tremendous strength from one another once they'd admitted their shared survival filled them with shame.

  Sandy twisted yet again, her sounds louder and more distressed. She was the most cheerful of them all when she was awake; in sleep, the rationality which fended off guilt deserted her and, perversely, made her the most vulnerable member of their tiny crew. Her nightmares had become blessedly less frequent, yet their severity remained, and he made up his mind.

  He leaned over her, stroking her face and whispering her name. For a moment she tried to jerk away, but then his quiet voice penetrated her dreams, and her brown eyes fluttered open, drugged with sleep and shadowed with horror.

  "Hi," he murmured, and she caught his hand, holding it and nestling her cheek into his palm. Fear flowed out of her face, and she smiled.

  "Was I at it again?"

  "Oh, maybe a little," he lied, and her smile turned puckish.

  "Only 'a little,' huh? Then why's your eye swollen?" The tattered sheet fell about her waist as she sat up and reached out gently, and he winced. "Oh, my! You're going to have a black eye, Sean."

  "Don't worry about it. Besides—" he treated her to his best leer "—the others'll just think you were maddened with passion."

  His heart warmed at the gurgle of laughter which answered his sally, and she shook her head at him, still exploring his injury with tender fingers.

  "You're an idiot, Sean MacIntyre, but I love you anyway."

  "Uf course you do, Fräulein! You cannot help yourzelf!"

  "Oh, you creep!" Her caressing hand darted to his nose and twisted, and he yelped in anguish and grabbed her wrists, pinning her down—not without difficulty. He was sixty centimeters taller, but she wiggled like a lithe, naked eel until a final shrewd twist toppled him from the bed. He sat up on the synthetic decksole, then stood, rubbing his posterior with an aggrieved air while she laughed at him, the last of her nightmare banished.

  "Jeez, you play rough! I'm gonna take my marbles and go home."

  "Now there's an empty threat! You can't even find your marbles."

  "Hmph!" He took a step towards the bed, and her fingers curved into talons. Her eyes glinted, and he stopped dead. "Uh, truce?" he suggested.

  "No way. I demand complete and unconditional surrender."

  "But it's my bed, too," he said plaintively.

  "Possession is nine points of the law. Give?"

  "What'll you do with me if I do?"

  "Something horrible and disgustingly debauched."

  "Well, in that case—!" He hopped onto the bed and raised his hands.

  * * *

  Brashan looked up from the executive officer's station and waved without disconnecting his feed from the console as the others stepped through the command deck hatch. With Engineering slaved to the bridge, one person could stand watch under normal conditions, though it would have taken at least four of them to fight the ship effectively.

  Sean dropped into the captain's couch. Harriet and Tamman took the astrogator's and engineer's stations, and Sandy flopped down at Tactical. She looked into the display at the star burning ever larger before them, and the others' eyes followed hers.

  Their weary voyage was drawing to an end. Or, at least, to a possible end. They didn't talk a great deal about what they'd do if it turned out that blazing star had no reclaimable hardware, but so far they'd detected no habitable world which might have provided it.

  Sean glanced at the others from the corner of an eye. In many ways, they'd made out far better than he'd hoped. It helped that they were all friends, but being trapped so long in so small a universe with anyone made for problems. There'd been the occasional disagreement—even the odd furious argument—but Harriet's basic good sense, with a powerful assist from Brashan, had held them together. Solitude didn't really bother Narhani much, and Brashan had spent enough time with humans—especially these humans—to understand their more mercurial moods. He'd poured several barrels of oil on various troubled waters in the past twenty months, and, Sean thought, it helped that he still regarded sex primarily as a subject for intellectual curiosity.

  His attention moved to Tamman and Harriet. Despite Israel's size, she was intended for deployment from her mother ship or a planet, not interstellar voyaging, but at least she was designed for a nominal crew of thirty. That gave them enough room to find privacy, and the humans had fallen into couples without much fuss or bother. For him and Sandy, he knew, the pairing would be permanent even if—when!—they got home, but he didn't think it was for Harry and Tamman. Neither of them seemed particularly inclined to settle down, though they obviously enjoyed one another's company... greatly.

  He grinned and inserted his own feed into the captain's console for a systems update. As usual, Israel was functioning perfectly. She really was an incredible piece of engineering, and he'd had an unusual amount of time to learn to appreciate her design and capabilities. They'd spent endless hours running tactical exercises, as much for a way to keep occupied as anything else, and he'd discovered a few things he'd never imagined she could do.

  Still, it was Sandy who'd unearthed the real treasure in Israel's computers. Her original captain had been a movie freak—not for HD or even pre-Imperial tri-vid, but for old-fashioned, flat-image movies, the kind they'd put on film. There were hundreds of them in the
ship's memory, and Sandy had tinkered up an imaging program to convert them to holo via the command bridge display. They'd worked their way through the entire library, and some of them had been surprisingly good. Sean's personal favorite was The Quest for the Holy Grail by someone called Monty Python, but the ones they'd gotten the most laughs out of were the old science fiction flicks. Brashan was especially fascinated by something called Forbidden Planet, but they'd all become addicted. By now, their normal conversation was heavily laced with bits of dialogue none of their Academy friends would even begin to have understood.

  He withdrew from the console, maintaining only a tenuous link as he tucked his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles.

  "Behold the noble captain, bending his full attention upon his duties!" Sandy remarked. He stuck out his tongue, then looked at Harriet.

  "Looks like our original position estimates were on the money, Harry. I make it about another two and a half days."

  "Just about," she agreed, an edge of anticipation sharpening her voice. "Anything more on system bodies, Brash?"

  "Indeed," the Narhani said calmly. "The range is still well beyond active scanner range, but passive instrumentation continues to pick up additional details. In particular—" he gave his friends a curled-lip Narhani grin "—I have detected a third planet on this side of the star."

  Something in his tone brought Sean up on an elbow. The others were staring at him just as hard, and Brashan nodded.

  "It would appear," he said, "to have a mean orbital radius of approximately seventeen light-minutes—well within the liquid water zone."

  "Hey, that's great!" Sean exclaimed. "That ups the odds a bunch. If there used to be people here, we may find something we can use after all!"