Commander

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Let’s check in at twenty-eight or twenty-eight-and-a-half, Doctor, and make the call then.”

  “Sensible. I’ll see you next month, then, unless something comes up in the meantime. And I’ll tell Palace Housekeeping they need to install the NICU.”

  Construction of the NICU in the family apartment next to the Imperial Apartment on the top floor of the Imperial Residence was carried out during the work day, when Dunham and Peters were in the office. Dunham ate lunch in the dining room of the Imperial Residence every day, and was able to check out progress and talk to the workmen as the work progressed. Most of the work was removing all the furniture, shutting off the ability of the windows to open, and installing the incubator and other equipment. The bedroom of the family apartment would be the actual NICU, and the living room would be the nurse’s station.

  By the twenty-eighth week, Peters had gained a total of thirty pounds, which was the normal weight gain for a full pregnancy. They decided on twenty-nine weeks for the delivery.

  “We still haven’t decided what their names are going to be,” Peters said the night before the delivery.

  “No. We’ve gone round and round on them, but never decided. We did whittle it down to, what? Two dozen or so choices?”

  “I think I still like the first thing we thought of best.”

  “Let’s go with that, then.”

  On Saturday, twenty-nine weeks to the day from the enjoyable lovemaking session on the pool deck which had started the whole process, Peters delivered healthy fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, at 4:37 in the afternoon, after eight-and-a-half hours of labor. In addition to the doctor and nurses, both Dunham and Peters’s longtime best friend, Brenda Connolly, were in attendance.

  Sean Robert Peters Dunham and Deanna Cynthia Amanda Dunham were moved from the birthing room, which of necessity was next to the permanent emergency room on the lower floor of the Imperial Residence, to the NICU on the floor above in a single large incubator cart made for twins. Modern practice considered it better for their long-term twin relationship that Sean and Dee not be separated in the NICU.

  Mason and Margaret Peters, summoned by Dunham, cooed over their new grandchildren in the NICU. Dunham opened a VR channel so Robert and Megan Dunham could also coo over their new grandchildren from the cabin in Craigs Notch on Travers World.

  A Couple Of Heads Up

  “Robert. It’s good to see you again,” King Michael said.

  “And you as well, Michael,” Dunham said.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  They both sat, and King Michael, his elbows on the arms of the chair, clasped his hands in front of him.

  “I understand congratulations are in order.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “And everyone is doing fine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful. Please give my best wishes to Milady Empress.”

  “I will, Michael. Thank you.”

  Michael nodded.

  “Now on to business. I thought I would bring you up to date on what has been going on with our friends from the DP.”

  “Excellent.”

  “First, they’ve been going around pointing at your use of escort ships, the destruction of raiders, and especially your efforts at identification of the raiders as evidence they were right. Sintar is becoming much more aggressive.”

  “In response to being attacked.”

  “Yes, Robert. I understand, but that’s the way they’re spinning it. They also say your picket ships are robot ships.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I didn’t think it was, but they keep using the term. And you know what the reaction to robot ships is.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m likely more well-read on the history than the great majority of our peers, Michael.”

  One of the reasons the Fifty Years War had been so destructive was the use of robot warships. As kingdoms fell, some of the defeated regimes sent out a last command that amounted to “Kill everybody,” and the robot warships had tried to comply. Unencumbered by human judgment or the recognition that commands expired with the leaders that gave them, the slaughter was terrible, with nuclear weapons intended for ship-to-ship encounters in vacuum being deployed against population centers on planetary surfaces. It had taken years to track them all down, and solitary survivors occasionally surfaced as much as thirty years later.

  It was out of this environment that the Treaty of Earth had arisen.

  “I knew you would be well aware of the history, Robert, but you also know or can guess the effect this is having in the independent star nations. My fellow rulers increasingly think of Sintar in terms of a star nation gone rogue, and a threat to everyone else. And every time one of your freighters appears with a picket ship as escort, it punctuates the point.”

  Dunham sighed.

  “My only other option is to leave my people unprotected, and that I won’t do. Let me ask you this, Michael. Have any of these commerce raiders attempted to operate in Estvian space?”

  “No. We haven’t seen a single ship that was not squawking its transponder code in any Estvian system. That’s one of the things that gets reported by planetary traffic control on every planet, and we don’t have a single report of it.”

  “You know what that implies, don’t you, Michael?”

  “Of course. My warning to the DP ambassador was one-hundred-percent effective, despite his warning it might not be. So the commerce raiders were likely DP ships.”

  “Exactly. It might have made more sense for them to try it in a system or two, just so you wouldn’t be able to draw that conclusion.”

  “Other star nations are not so rigorous in their reporting, Robert. They might not have known I would have such exact data.”

  “Ah. That could be it.”

  “Besides, they don’t know we’re talking. But it does raise a question. Will you take action against the DP, Robert?”

  “No, Michael. I can’t. I have evidence, but no proof. Even the wreckage of commerce raiders we were able to examine was inconclusive. I think they cleaned those vessels of direct evidence before they sent them out here. Besides, I would rather not unite the DP and the independent star nations against Sintar.”

  “You would win anyway, for the reasons we’ve discussed.”

  “Yes. I think I agree with you. But it would be more difficult, which means it would be much messier.”

  “You would have to take more aggressive action.”

  “And more people would die.”

  “They wouldn’t be your people.”

  “No, Michael, but you have to think about what comes after. Once Sintar defeats the independent star nations, and then defeats the DP, what do we do to put something back together? Having everyone harbor long-lived grievance against Sintar for the manner in which the war was waged is not the way to get to a long-term stable situation.”

  King Michael looked at Dunham and marveled. Where most nation’s rulers would be worried about winning a war against the entire rest of humanity, the Emperor was looking past the war to what came after. How could he wage the war to give the best end state for peace?

  “That’s a remarkable point of view, Robert.”

  “Is it? My goal is to protect the people of Sintar, to allow them to live out their lives in peace and prosperity. That is my only goal. Raising enmity against Sintar in the waging of a war – a war I don’t want – is destructive of that long-term goal.”

  King Michael nodded. That over-riding single purpose again. It was always foremost in the Emperor’s mind, because it was his only goal.

  “I would most prefer avoiding war entirely, Michael. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “No. I’m not sure the DP’s goal was to start a war or to simply handicap Sintar’s commercial trade. If the latter, then I think they’ve badly miscalculated. I think it’s inevitable.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s self-reinforcing now. Every time one of your ships ap
pears with an escort. Every time one of your projector ships picks up an escort, with complete impunity because there’s nothing they can do to interfere with it. Every time one of your freighters makes port on a commercial space station. Every one of these normal occurrences feeds the anger.”

  “Despite the DP starting it?”

  “Despite the DP starting it.”

  Dunham nodded.

  “I guess I knew that, but I didn’t want it to be true. What if I stopped escorting my freighters?”

  “Then the DP would resume commerce raiding, you would have to resume escorting, and it would be even worse for stopping and then restarting. That’s just the way people are built.”

  Dunham stared down at his hands for several long minutes.

  “All right, Michael. Thank you for the news. Anything else today?”

  “Just one thing, Robert. When it starts, don’t wait to get in contact with me. Just do what you need to do. Estvian space is completely open to you.”

  They both got up and shook hands.

  “All right, Michael. Thanks again.”

  “Dunlop here.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Dunlop. Jared Denny here.”

  “Ah, Mr. Denny. What can I do for you?”

  “First thing, I wondered what progress had been made with the modifications we submitted for the propulsion units.”

  “We’ve had the original contractor build up a thousand units with the modifications, and distributed them to a couple of hundred shipyards. We’ve asked the shipyards to put them into service immediately, so we could capture reliability data on them before we put them into service on warships. So they’re in service right now, Mr. Denny.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Dunlop. On to my real business this morning. I need to give you some information on what Project X is, so you can decide what happens with it from here.”

  “All right, Mr. Denny. Go ahead.”

  “We believe we have developed an electronic countermeasures system that mounts on a missile in place of the warhead. Its role is to spoof the point-defense sensors for the rest of the missiles in the salvo. It won’t confuse the point-defense computers for long, Mr. Dunlop, but we think we can close the engagement envelope down to about half of what it is now.”

  “Cutting the engagement envelope in half would be a huge advantage, Mr. Denny. Would this work against every point-defense system out there?”

  “We optimized it against the systems on DP warships. We believe it will work, but perhaps a little less effectively, against other systems as well.”

  “What about our own systems? If this unit is captured, would it work against our point-defense systems as well?”

  “Currently, we believe it would, Mr. Dunlop, to some extent. But we also have some programming changes for our own point-defense computers that we think would make it even less effective against our own ships.”

  “That’s good. One has to be aware that one’s own techniques often come back at you in any prolonged conflict.”

  “Exactly. We considered that. The question now is, What is the next step for this system?”

  “Well, I suppose the first thing to do is run it through the internal Navy tactical weapons evaluation team, and see what they think about it. Are prototype systems operational, Mr. Denny?”

  “We have a prototype system, but it has only been tested in the lab. One of the things that would need to be done is to do live testing in space. This is something for which we would need Navy resources.”

  “I’m sure we can handle that. Do you have a documentation package you can send me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Dunlop. I’ve pushed it to you.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Denny. I’ll be in touch.”

  Dunlop looked through the documentation package, including the summary of the lab results and the discussion of the likely results in actual field conditions, including the percentage survivability of missiles against various point-defense coordination strategies. If anything, Denny had understated their results.

  On due consideration, Dunlop decided to send the package to the Projects coordinator that had launched Project X in the first place. That Projects coordinator took one look at the package executive summary, and sent it directly to the Co-Consul’s office.

  “Thank you for meeting with me this morning, Admiral Leicester.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  Dunham turned to the two Guardsmen in the back corners of his office.

  “Leave us.”

  The Guardsmen nodded and left. Dunham then addressed the ceiling.

  “Guard.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the voice came back.

  “Suspend audio monitoring for one-half hour.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Admiral Leicester raised his eyebrows at that. This was a new one on him. Dunham didn’t notice, as his eyes were on the wall switch by the door, looking for the flashing tell-tale. When a soft tone sounded and the tell-tale came on, Dunham turned back to Leicester.

  “It is just you and I at this meeting, Admiral Leicester, because there are some very sensitive things I need to tell you.”

  “I understand, Sire.”

  “The first is I have good reason to believe from independent intelligence we will be attacked in the medium term by some confederation of independent star nations. It may be the majority of star nations excluding the DP itself.”

  “Medium term, Sire?”

  “I make it two to five years, Admiral Leicester.”

  Leicester relaxed.

  “We will have at least half the Navy converted to the new crewless ships by that time, Sire. Perhaps all of it, depending on where in the range it falls.”

  “And you should draw up plans accordingly, Admiral Leicester. But we need to be planning on fighting a multi-front war against just about everybody.”

  “But not the DP, Sire?”

  “I don’t believe so, Admiral Leicester. Not initially, at least. I believe once we begin winning decisively, the DP will enter into the war. We will then take them down as well.”

  “That’s a tall order, Sire.”

  “Understood, Admiral Leicester. But we will win. It is probably five or more years before we will face the DP, and we will continue to build up our Navy throughout that period. We will have no shortage of equipment, and we will not be losing crews. The attrition of trained manpower common in war will not be an issue for us.

  “Further, we will use all our tools to wage this war. Nothing will be off the table. If these star nations are willing to join up to attack us in such strength, without cause or provocation on our part, we will not have our hands tied behind our backs. We will take the war to them – in particular, to their rulers – without hesitation or mercy.”

  “I see, Sire.”

  “That warning is one reason for today’s meeting, Admiral Leicester. The other is we have had a special team working on new systems. They are the one that came up with the designs for the new picket ships, the new warships, and the HARPER units, including the self-propelled versions. They have come up with yet another new system.

  “They have invented an electronic countermeasures system that uses the volume of one warhead in a missile salvo. It spoofs the point-defense sensor systems, cutting the engagement time in half.”

  “That’s an incredibly valuable outcome, Sire. Cutting the engagement time in half will make missiles much more effective.”

  “That’s what their projections say, Admiral Leicester. I will push you the package on this new system, and then I want you to work with appropriate personnel to test it under field conditions and see if it lives up to its promise. But keep it very close. Perhaps Admiral Kuznetsov’s group, or someone like that.”

  “Understood, Sire.”

  “I’ve pushed you the package, Admiral Leicester. Report back on whatever you find.”

  “Of course, Sire.”

  Three soft tones sounded.

  “Audio monitoring resumed, Your Maje
sty.”

  Settling Down

  Saturday afternoon was Peters’s first time back in the pool after giving birth to the twins six weeks prior. It just took that long to be healed enough for the pool not to be an infection risk.

  It felt good to be able to swim laps, and start getting back into shape. She couldn’t do her normal routine – it would take a while to work back up to that – but she did get in some good solid laps, and was feeling the muscle fatigue when she got out and joined Dunham on the big double chaise.

  Being on a three-hour nursing schedule for the tiny babies, though, meant she grabbed sleep when she could, and she fell instantly asleep cuddled with Dunham in the warm sunlight under one of the big beach towels.

  Of course, parents and grandparents didn’t wait for the children to leave the NICU to play with them and cuddle them, to the extent they could through the access ports of the incubator. Peters felt like a cow when she expressed milk with a top-of-the-line breast pump while the twins were on feeding tubes. It was a relief after four weeks in the NICU when the children could nurse properly, but it did mean going to the NICU every three hours at night and during the day to feed them.

  In the end, Sean and Dee didn’t so much leave the NICU as it left them. Housekeeping moved the equipment out of the bedroom of the family apartment and replaced it with infant bedroom furniture, including an armchair for nursing. The NICU staff left and the childcare staff moved in. The crib was a crib for two, which a computer watchdog monitored during sleep so the twins didn’t get tangled up in each other such that one was not able to breathe. The living room of the family apartment remained a nurse’s station, but also became the twins’ playroom.

  By the time the twins came out of the NICU, at thirty-seven weeks, Peters and Housekeeping had brought on a staff of eight to provide twenty-four-hour coverage. Housekeeping had institutional experience with supporting a working Empress with newborn children, and, while Peters was Empress Consort and not Empress regnant, she had important duties in the government.