Exodus - Empires at War 04 - The Long Fall (Exodus Series #4)

by Doug Dandridge

  4261 AD (Year 1000): Empire celebrates 1000 years of existence and growth. January 1, 1000 local Galactic calendar.

  March 15th, 4261, Ca’cadasan invasion of Empire begins in earnest with the attack on Sestius and Massadara.

  March 29-April 5th 4261 AD, Sean leads rescue mission to Sestius.

  More detailed maps available on the website.

  As the Empire is 3 dimensional, Sectors VII through IX are oriented above, and Sectors X through XII are oriented below the plane of the Galaxy.

  Prologue

  APRIL 20TH, 1000, HYPERSPACE BETWEEN MASSADARA AND CONUNDRUM SYSTEMS.

  “Time to Conundrum System, seven standard days,” called out the Navigation Officer to the Great Admiral’s inquiry.

  So, a little over eight of our standard days, thought Jana Gorbachev, sitting in her chair next to Great Admiral Miierrowanasa M’tinisasitow. Ostensibly she was serving as his human advisor, though in reality slave was much closer to the truth. At least they let me have clothes on board this ship.

  The deck of the flagship bridge thrummed with power beneath her feet, twenty-five million tons of warship, more advanced than what the New Terran Empire had in most ways. But not as much as you had on us before, thought Gorbachev, keeping her eyes to the front so they didn’t make contact with any of the three meter tall carnivores that were the Galaxy’s prime conquering species. We can beat you this time. But looking at the holo tank, which showed the massive fleet on the move, she wondered if that were true. It looked like the Ca’cadasans could bury the Empire under weight of numbers, even if they had been slightly inferior to human tech, which they most definitely were not.

  Jana felt a slight tingle run through her body, the pleasure that her masters could give to her at any moment. This was followed immediately by a sharp jab of pain.

  “I want you to remember that your behavior will determine your punishment or reward,” said the Great Admiral, his red eyes glaring down at her.

  “I will not betray my people,” she said, regretting it as soon as the words left her mouth. Another jolt of pain ran through her, enough to make her gasp, as her eyes teared and snot ran out of her nose.

  “You will do as I ask, or punishment will follow.”

  A wave of pleasure swept through her, chasing away the pain, and Jana knew she would do anything to avoid the one feeling while chasing the other. In fact, the pleasure inducer was the more dangerous of the two, making her an addict willing to do anything for her next fix. No degradation would be too much to get that feeling.

  “We are picking up some enemy ships,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Their small scout class.”

  “The captains know to ignore them,” said the Admiral, showing his teeth in a grin.

  Worse the luck, thought Jana, wiping her nose with her sleeve. If they took the time to take out those scouts, news of their coming might precede them. As it was they would outrun the news of their coming, and hit Conundrum from out of nowhere. Of course the system would be on war alert, but nothing it did would be enough to withstand this juggernaut coming its way.

  “Tell me more about your carriers,” said the Admiral, looking at Jana with the index finger of his lower right hand on the inducer button.

  Jana cringed, not knowing what to expect, and started to tell the Admiral what he wanted to hear about the small attack craft carriers used by her Empire, and not by the Ca’cadasans. I’ll answer his questions, she thought as she spoke. But no more. That being the best she could do, she accepted her part. When the pleasure came through she realized she had done enough, and felt again the shame of collaborating with the enemy.

  *

  CAPITULUM, JEWEL SYSTEM.

  “Our boy ready?” asked Prime Minister Theo Streeter, Duke of Coventry.

  “As ready as he’s likely to get,” agreed the Lords’ Sergeant of Arms, Countess Judy Decker. “We’re trying to keep him sober for the coronation, but that has been difficult.”

  “We’ll just cram some sober up pills down his throat if he’s too drunk to perform the ceremony,” said Streeter, grimacing in disgust. Why didn’t we pick another cousin to sit the throne. He knew the reason. They needed someone who looked good to the public, but was compliant enough to do what Streeter wanted him to do. Count Hector Romanov Sutter, third cousin to the deceased Emperor Augustine I, was really the best man for the job. Hector had voiced his wish to actually rule, but his addictions to drugs and alcohol gave the Lords a means to manipulate him. And they could keep him drugged and hidden when they didn’t need him to play puppet. “Just make sure that McGregor keeps the newsies away from our boy until we’re ready for them.”

  Decker nodded, her own expression troubled. Jakobe McGregor, Director of the Imperial Investigation Bureau, was in their pocket. But both knew the man had an agenda of his own. In a way that was good, as the top cop would work harder when he saw something in it for himself. It also made him more of a threat, one that Streeter was trying to find an elegant way of ridding himself of.

  And then there’s Ekaterina Sergiov and her agency, he thought. She was friends with the fugitive ex-Chief of Naval Operations, Gabriel Len Lenkowski, as well as the head of the Imperial Intelligence Agency (IIA). Unfortunately, there was no way to remove her from her position without an Imperial Decree. When our boy is on the throne that bitch is out of there. And we’ll probably need to eliminate her as well.

  Unfortunately, the man they counted on to get rid of the bodies was now on the run himself, yet another threat to Streeter. McGregor had his own people looking for the Tall Man, who Streeter suspected was not really a man at all. So many complications. It will be nice to have a man who can crush investigations at will at the top.

  His only real worry was that somehow the lost son of the last Emperor might show up before the coronation. He would still be a problem if he showed up afterwards, but some judicious use of Imperial Prerogative should be able to handle that problem as well. But he has to be dead. We can’t have everything else work out and one piece of the puzzle go wrong.

  “Everything will be fine, Theo,” said Decker, patting the Prime Minister on the shoulder. “One more day, and everything we worked for will be reality, and the people who were meant to rule will have the rule.”

  “Yes,” said Streeter, wondering again how much he could trust this woman who knew too much about what was going on. “The people who should have the power will hold it.” Whether you are one of them remains to be seen.

  Chapter One

  If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month. Theodore Roosevelt.

  THE DONUT, CENTRAL DOCKS AND PLANET JEWEL, APRIL 27TH, 1000.

  “Welcome to the Donut, your Majesty,” said the tall, blond haired woman, holding out her hand.

  Sean grabbed the offered member and brought it to his lips, while thinking about what he had just experienced. I could get used to that, he thought, remembering how it felt to walk into a wormhole, walking out an instant later, even though his mind told him he had been in there for at least an hour. His implant chronometer, which kept accurate time in all gravity fields and accelerations, told him it took less than one thousandth of a second to step across almost a thousand light years.

  “Thank you Dr. Yu,” he replied, calling up her profile on his plant. “A most impressive, room.”

  Yu laughed, and Sean realized how foolish he must have sounded. But the room was impressive, stretching over five hundred meters in length and fifty in width. His practiced eye, backed up by his more than normally sophisticated linking module, told him there were a hundred alcoves on the far wall, each four meters wide. So he could assume there were the same number on the wall behind him. All but a few of the alcoves were empty, though three across the way shimmered with the mirrored surfaces of an active wormhole.

  “I’m sure you will find the station even more impressive,” said Yu, excitement in her voice. “When completed we will have thousan
ds of rooms like this, filled with wormholes.”

  Sean took a few moments to look over the chamber that still had an unfinished look. There were scores of doors leading from it, each guarded by a pair of armored Marines. Almost a company of Marines stood within the room, forty of them from the Prince’s own security detail that had preceded him through the gate.

  “We need you to move, your Majesty,” said Grand High Admiral Lenkowski, who had proceeded him from the gate. The Prince’s cousin, Samantha Ogden Lee, his new chief of staff, frowned as she made a shooing gesture at him.

  “Of course,” said Sean, realizing that he was backing up the whole process. He moved away from the gate and looked back at it.

  “Come on through,” said Lenkowski into the com that went from the hole into the Conundrum System.

  More armored Marines came through first, moving into a semi-circle surrounding their monarch. Next came some of the civilians, Cornelius Walborski, his child strapped to his chest, retired Colonel Walther Jodel, The Preacher of special ops legend. Then someone whom Sean already thought of as very special, Dr. Jennifer Conway, the beautiful red headed physician he had added to his personal staff, with the agreement that he not pursue her romantically. Seeing her now he regretted that decision.

  Next through was Colonel Samuel Baggett and his senior NCO, Sergeant Major Terry Zacharias, along with some junior officers. Baggett was destined to get a star in the very near future, by Imperial Decree, having conducted a masterful guerilla campaign on Sestius IV. Rear Admiral Mara Montgomery, who had led the mission that rescued Sean from the jaws of the Ca’cadasans, came through with her flag captain, Josia Greenefield. Commodore Mei Lei and Captain Maurice von Rittersdorf, both newly elevated Duchess and Duke due to their part in Sean’s rescue, came through next, the Duchess holding a travel cage with her big Himalayan cat inside.

  “Gang’s all here,” said Samantha, a nervous smile on her face. “Now I think it’s time we got moving, before we miss the party.”

  Sean nodded and turned to smile at the chief scientist in charge of the Donut project. “I wish I had time for the whole tour, Doctor. When I come back through, I’ll want to see the whole thing. Or at least as much as I can see in one day.”

  “So, you haven’t dropped the idea of leading from the front?” asked Lenkowski, his smile turning over into a frown.

  “I don’t see why,” said Sean. “With wormhole coms I’ll be able to keep in touch with Sam, and make sure she isn’t running the civilian government into the ground.”

  “Thanks,” said Samantha, her own expression showing that she was not thrilled with the idea of being the regent while Sean gallivanted at the front.

  “And I still think it is a bad idea, your Majesty,” said the former Chief of Naval Operations. “If your flagship is destroyed we are right back where we started, with no one on the throne.”

  “Then crown Samantha,” said Sean with a smile.

  Lenkowski was quiet on the trip by shuttle car. It wasn’t far to the control center of the huge station, only a five minute ride. And only a short walk to the room containing the gate back to the central docks.

  “What do you want us to do with the wormholes we haven’t installed yet?” asked Yu as they stood outside the chamber, waiting for the Marines to clear the way. The particle beam that had been holding the hole shut was turned off and a squad of Marines put through immediately after. One came back through, and more followed, until a platoon was across.

  “The way is clear, your Majesty,” said Lenkowski, nodding to Sean.

  “What wormholes are you talking about, Doctor?” asked Sean, putting up a hand to quiet his senior naval officer.

  “The Admiral wanted us to hold onto the wormholes we were going to install in the supersystem. So your opponents in the Lords couldn’t use them.”

  “Good thinking, Admiral,” said Sean, looking at the man who was his father’s choice to lead the Fleet. He turned back to Yu, a wide smile on his face. “I don’t think my esteemed opponents will have much use for the wormhole net, but we could sure use them. Go ahead and put them in. And Doctor. We may have some decisions to make regarding the use of your resources here. Hard decisions. I’m thinking we may need some ship gates in the near future, so keep that in mind.”

  With that Sean headed into the gate chamber and strode toward the wormhole. His last glance at Yu’s face let him know he had won over another staunch supporter.

  *

  Central Docks were really more a collection of stations and docks set in the null grav point between the twin worlds of Jewel and New Terra. When most spoke of Central Docks they meant the enormous space station that occupied the center of the group. Enormous until one compared it to the Donut. Still, the multi-billion ton station was impressive, with its thousands of cubic kilometers of quarters, offices, warehouses and hangars. In one small room of the station, about a kilometer in from the nearest hangar, was a thirty by thirty meter chamber with a shimmering mirror set in a rectangular frame. The mirror was roiling with ripples from all the traffic that had recently passed through it.

  Sean stepped through that surface and into the room, which was crowded with Marines and naval personnel. There were several men and women in one corner on their knees, their police battle armor marking them as members of the IIB. An equal number of Marines held weapons on the people.

  Lenkowski stepped through the wormhole and one of the agents tried to get to his feet. A Marine pushed him down, but the man continued to glare at the Grand High Admiral. “This is treason,” shouted the man, pointing a finger at Lenkowski. “You’ll be executed for trying to start a coup.”

  “It can only be a coup if he is trying to overthrow the legitimate government,” said Sean, walking over to the man while the rest of his party came through the wormhole.

  “And who the hell are you?” asked the Agent, turning angry eyes on Sean.

  “Keep a respectful tongue in your head, if you know what’s good for you,” said a Marine, pushing the barrel of his particle beam rifle into the man’s chest.

  “No need for that, Sergeant,” said Sean, looking at the angry Agent and seeing some recognition in his eyes.

  “You’re him,” said the Agent, his eyes widening. “We were told you were dead.”

  “The rumors of my demise were premature,” Sean said with a smile. “And as I am the legitimate government, and Lenkowski was acting under my orders, there is no treason.”

  “Then we were lied to. Those fuckers.”

  “Not your fault,” said Sean. “Just do as you're told for now, and all will be put to rights.”

  Sean saw the Grand High Admiral motioning for him to come, and he gave the Agent a last smile while he walked from the room. The hallway outside was lined with naval personnel wheeling carts of equipment that they started to roll into the gate room as soon as Sean’s party was out.

  “We’re sending our people through to the Donut,” said yet another Admiral, coming up and saluting Lenkowski, then taking a knee in front of Sean. “With your permission, your Majesty. We are going to fully militarize the station.”

  Makes sense, thought the Prince. That’s the best protected place in the empire from ships coming out of hyperspace, due to the huge hyper limit of the black hole. And it will be the transport hub of the empire. “Good idea, Admiral? And please get up.”

  “Admiral Nathan Yamato, your Majesty,” said the small officer, standing up and smiling. “Central Dock Station commander.”

  “I think the corporations that wanted to move in can wait until we have everything else under control,” said Sean. “No matter how many years that takes.”

  “I thought maybe they would sack you, Nate, after I came through here,” said Lenkowski.

  “There’s been some saber rattling in that direction,” said the four star flag officer. “I reminded them that I could not be relieved by Parliament, only through my chain of command.”

  “Who did they put in my position?”
asked Len.

  “Your position is vacant for now,” said the other Admiral. “They were reminded that the CNO could only be appointed by a seated Emperor. But I think they are going to make that happen later today. There’s a coronation scheduled in the capital city.”

  “Shit,” said Lenkowski, looking at Sean. “We need to get you to the capital, now.”

  “Perhaps we can broadcast that you are back, your Majesty,” said Yamato. “Let the people know that the real heir is in the system and ready to assume his station.”

  “I’m not sure that will be enough, sir,” said Commander Zhen Yin, Lenkowski’s adjutant and partner in crime. “They will just say we constructed a simulation to buy time for the coup we are planning. The only way people will believe us is if we produce the heir in person, in front of a bunch of people.”

  “Do you have a meeting room nearby we can use, Admiral?” asked Sean of the station commander. “I think we need to iron out some details before we move.”

  “I think the best move would be to spirit you into the capital in secrecy,” said Yin. “That way we can spring you as a surprise.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” said Lenkowski.

  “It does sound like a good plan,” said Sean, nodding his head. “But that is not the way we are going to do it.”

  *

  Sean had never been aboard a superbattleship before. The flag bridge was the most spacious command and control center he had ever seen. The Valkyrie was the most advanced ship of her kind in the Fleet, the flag of the First Battle Force of the Home Fleet. Captain Connie Mathers had greeted him with a full honor guard in one of the hangars, while the extra Marines had been coming aboard the other five. Included had been all of his party. I owe it to them, he thought of all the people who had helped him to get back home, as well as some of those he had rescued. They deserve to be there for the coronation.