Maurice had always found the whole system of nobles and commons archaic, especially in the so called free society of the Empire. All nobles were rich, and many commoners were richer still. Nobles had political power, and some commons had even more. And in fields where people actually worked, like the military and the academia, there were actually more successful commons who rose up through the ranks. Most of the so called nobles in those fields were actually commoners who were awarded patents of nobility for their actions.
Much like myself, thought the man who was the youngest son of a count. Of course he had already possessed some position of birth, but really could not expect more than the title Lord unless he married into it. Now he was a Grace, through some skill and a lot of luck.
No use worrying about what I can’t do anything about, he thought. The system is the system, and is not likely to change just because I think it’s stupid. With that thought he changed the holo from his never before visited home to the planet his squadron was to defend. The globe of Cimmeria appeared floating in the air above the projector. Another lovely world among many, a long settled planet with almost five billion people, on the edge of the Core sector. Half of the world was ocean, a proportion slightly lower than most inhabitable planets. There were some large inland deserts, but because the continents were on the smallish side, the majority of the world was forested.
And we’re to form part of the Core Sector outer patrol. What a useless fucking job for hyper VII ships. Just so some ships already on that patrol could be released to join the battle fleet in Sector IV. Maurice turned off the holo in disgust, then got up and looked over his bookshelf, where some of his collection of rare volumes accompanied him. Seeing a title he hadn’t read in some years, he pulled down the book and made his way back to the couch. He opened the cover, and was soon lost reading about a world that never existed, and an Earth man who was magically transported to a planet that had never enjoyed the kind of life it did in the mind of Burroughs.
*
SECTOR IV SPACE, OCTOBER 25TH, 1000.
Grand High Admiral Gabriel Len Lenkowski looked at the holo over the conference table and really didn’t like what he saw. Over half the Sector showed the red of enemy territory. Fifty systems were the solid red of occupation, while almost five hundred more blinked the crimson of isolation, worlds that had been cut off from human space, after being pounded to the stone age. There were another couple of hundred yellow systems, those threatened with capture by the enemy. Worst of all were the black areas with white dots, areas of the sector that they simply did not know anything about. Scout groups had gone into that space, and had not returned.
He looked down at his flat comp, at the list of ships he had lost in what so far had been nothing but a recon in force. There had been some instances where major battles had almost happened. Quick maneuvering had avoided those. Len was determined to keep his fleet in being, hoping to make the enemy keep his forces concentrated as well. Concentrated battle fleets meant fewer strike forces to go after almost defenseless systems. He really wasn’t sure how well that strategy was working, but was determined to keep his force in existence, if just to keep them from striking at the Core worlds without a fight.
“So, what do we hear from our ground sources?” asked the Fleet Commander, looking at the two officers in charge of intelligence on the force.
“More troops are being sucked into Sestius,” said Major General Gladys Hernandez, the Army Intelligence Liaison. “We can’t say we’re luring many of their warships to the planet, but at least two of their transports have been diverted there, meaning they are not being used against other worlds.”
“And Conundrum?”
“Even better there,” said the General. “The enemy seems to want to make that a major base, which makes sense, given that its location made it such for us. We’ve gutted at least four of their ground divisions on the planet, and the naval forces are not really all that secure planetside. The Army is hitting them wherever we can.”
Lenkowski nodded his head, then looked over at Rear Admiral Karlos Gomber, who gazed back with his sad eyes at the Fleet Commander. “Our asset in Massadara reports that the enemy keeps moving ships into the system, while even more bypass it. It looks like they are building another strike force, while continuing to reinforce their fleet at Conundrum.”
“When are they going to run out of ships?” asked one of the other officers at the table, the commander of a carrier force.
“I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg,” said Gomber, pulling up a map on the holo. All of human space, and that of the powers they were familiar with, allied and enemy, taking up about a tenth of the Persius Arm, was contrasted by the Ca’cadasan Empire, taking up a quarter of the Persius and a good portion of the Sagittarius Arm. From the scale it looked as if the Ca’cadasan Empire was at least twenty times the size of all the human powers combined, if not more.
“From what they’ve gathered from the prisoners they’re keeping at the Donut, all male Ca’cadasans are warriors,” said Gomber. “At least until they reach their last four centuries, when they become priests or administrators, with the best minds becoming their scientists.”
“So they don’t have any young innovators among them?” asked another senior officer. “Why, our physicists perform their best work before they hit fifty.”
“And that might be one reason why they haven’t progressed as quickly as we have, among others,” said Len. “And also the fact that they really haven’t run into anything that could resist them for long.”
“I think the Admiral is correct,” said Gomber, nodding his head. “They depend on other species to be their scientists and engineers. Slaves, more or less. And to hold down their slave population they need all the warriors they can get.”
“What about their females?” asked a woman, Lenkowski’s flagship captain, Connie Mathers.
“All we have seen so far are males,” said Gomber. “And from what the prisoners have said their females are almost non-sentient. In fact, they may not actually be intelligent creatures at all. The males we have interrogated consider them nothing more than brood mares, there to birth children and raise them to early childhood. At that point the males are separated from the females and raised to be warriors, while the females are raised by the mothers to become the next generation of brood mares. And the females don’t live to anything near the lifespan of the males. At two hundred they’re worn out, and soon die from birthing dozens of litters of children.”
“That’s all very interesting,” said Admiral Chung Lee, commander of the First Battle Group of the fleet. “But all I want to know is how to kill them.”
“I think the only way we’re going to kill them is the old fashioned way,” said Lenkowski. “We’re going to have to physically destroy them. Am I right on that, Admiral Gomber?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the Intelligence Chief. “There’s no easy way around it. They aren’t going to succumb to a biological agent. Their nanotech is too advanced, at least as advanced as ours. And we’re not going to be able to influence their minds.”
There was laughter at that last. Everyone knew that telepathy was unlikely. It had never been proven. And interspecies mind to mind contact was even more unlikely. There had been experiments in quantum entanglement, both with mechanical and biological systems. The results had not been promising. Theoretically it was possible, but for some reason they hadn’t been able to convert theory into practice. And it still wouldn’t give us the answer on how to contact alien minds.
“I can’t stress enough that, despite the rumors that abound, there are no miracle solutions on the horizon. There are some weapons systems that will give us advantages over the enemy. Whether they’re enough to give us a win over an opponent of this size and mass remains to be seen. But miracles? I don’t think so.” Lenkowski looked over his staff and the admirals who commanded his battle units. He could see some hopelessness there, but also a determination, the emotion he
was hoping to see. “So our only viable strategy is to chip away at them, while maintaining our own ability to fight. A strategy of attrition, but attrition on our terms.”
Lenkowski dismissed his staff, then sat there looking at the holo that showed the heart of his fleet. They were currently in orbit around a red dwarf, right at the hyper limit. The thought behind that was that there were millions of red dwarfs in this space, none of them of particular interest to anyone. There were some that had resources in orbit around them that might be exploited by temporary mining colonies. Even a few that had habitable planets. And there were some groups who gravitated to these stars just to get away from Imperial government. Tens of thousands of small explorers visited these systems about once a decade, mapping them, charting any changes. Sometimes these lost colonies, as they were called, were found in the process. The thing was these star systems didn’t shout out, look at me. Lenkowski had bases around a dozen of these stars, with hundreds of logistics ships at each, and a small guard force of warships.
But here was his main force, at the moment. And I need to do something with it, he thought. It was important to keep the pressure on the enemy, while at the same time keeping his fleet in existence. An almost impossible situation.
“What would you do, Zhen?” asked Lenkowski, looking over at the one person on his staff that was his constant companion.
“That’s a good question, Admiral,” replied Captain Zhen Yin, former naval commando and current adjutant. And the woman who had saved the Admiral’s life on more than one occasion. “You know, of course, that my answer will come from my perspective.”
“You mean as a glorified ground pounder?”
“Yes, sir,” said the woman with a smile. “But I think I would take advantage of my one great advantage.”
“Wormholes?” asked Lenkowski.
“Yes, sir. Think, where we are causing the Cacas the most problems? On the worlds where we have the wormholes.”
“So you think I should be seeding wormholes through their occupied systems?”
“It would be a good use of their capabilities,” said Zhen, nodding. “And the Cacas would never know we were seeding their systems.”
“Brilliant,” said Len, smiling, then standing and walking to his adjutant, slapping her on the back. “You’ll be an admiral before this is over. If you survive.”
“Yes, sir. But my survival is not in my hands. The Universe is in control.”
Len didn’t like that idea. He subscribed to the notion that the Universe was one cold bitch, with no interest in the survival of the biological infestations on the rocky motes orbiting her stars.
*
CAPITULUM, JEWEL, CENTRAL DOCKS AND PARLIAMENT, OCTOBER 26TH THROUGH 28TH 1000.
“The assholes,” yelled Jennifer, glaring at the trivee screen that showed her and the Emperor in an embrace. The headline below the vid said another conquest for Sean? “Can’t you do something?” she asked, looking over at Sean, who was sitting there looking at the vid with a neutral expression on his face.
“I really don’t see what,” said Sean, putting his arm around her. “There is such a thing as freedom of the press. And even I can’t stop them from putting gossip on the net.”
“But, you’ve been stopping them from showing state secrets,” said Jennifer, confused by the whole political process that allowed her lover so much power, and at the same time restricted that power.
“This would not be considered a state secret,” said Sean, as the usual talking heads came on the trivee to discuss what they thought the Emperor should be doing.
“You really can’t expect the man to be focused on the war twenty-six hours a day,” said a woman identified as a professor at the Imperial University Psychology Department. “That is asking for burnout. I do my work during the day, and then go home to my family. So why not he?”
“And I consider it an insult to our men and women in uniform, who are fighting and dying on the front without the opportunity to socialize,” said a man identified as a member of the Lords.
“And what do you say, Admiral?” asked the woman leading the panel. “Is the Emperor shirking his duties?”
“Not at all,” said an elderly man identified as Retired Vice Admiral Chester Gonzalez. “Even our men and women aboard ship can socialize, as long as it does not interfere with their duties, and as long as they don’t compromise the chain of command.”
“And you don’t think his dalliance with a, commoner, is a compromise of the chain of command?” said the Lord. “It behooves the Emperor to think of the succession, and this public display of ardor is not helping his image.”
“Oh, come now, my Lord,” said the Psychology Professor. “Many Emperors in the past were well known for their romantic affairs with commoners. Whoring is common among the nobility, as much as it is with the common people. As long as he is prepared for a proper wedding to ensure the succession, who cares who he is having sex with.”
“They’re calling me a whore,” yelled Jennifer, jumping up from the couch and pointing at the vid. “They’re calling me your whore.”
“I’m not sure they’re doing that at all,” said Sean, turning off the set. He stood up and tried to wrap Jennifer in his arms. She pushed him away and ran out of the room.
“Good job, your Majesty,” whispered Sean, looking at the trivee set. For a moment he thought of calling in the Imperial Intelligence Service to perform some highly illegal arrests. Maybe they would think before they spoke after a couple of years in Purgatory. He dismissed that thought as soon as he had it. He needed the human race behind him. He needed them to work willingly for their own survival, while thinking that the leadership cared about them. He didn’t need them thinking him a tyrant who would act like a spoiled child when he didn’t get his own way.
A little later he found Samantha, sitting in another room, watching the very show he had turned off. “So, what are you going to do?” she asked as soon as she saw him.
“It might be time to install you as regent,” said Sean, glaring at the trivee and the people who had hurt the love of his life. “And time for me to go to the front.”
“Are you really sure you want to do that?” she asked, a question she had been presenting since they had arrived back on Jewel. “You have shown yourself to be a forceful leader. I’m not sure I can do as good a job as you. And I’m not sure you can do as good a job of leading the Fleet as the people who came up through the military to gain their present positions.”
Sean plopped onto the couch beside his cousin, shaking his head. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s just a fantasy of mine, to become the warrior Emperor, like Constance the Great during the civil war. But she was already a combat admiral when she took on Cassius the Terrible. And she had the confidence of her own fleet, and was able to capture the hearts and minds of the people. What the hell do I have? Youthful exuberance?
“I still want to do a tour of the front,” he said, turning toward her. “No reason not to, with the wormholes. I can get out there, see what Lenkoswki is up to, and then pop back to the Donut.”
“Remember, you have a tour of Mgonda’s force scheduled for tomorrow,” said Samantha.
“Then I’ll wait until after I tour the Admiral’s force. It’s scheduled to deploy within the end of the week, isn’t it?”
“Correct,” said Samantha. “And it’s not like you to forget something like that. You are getting preoccupied with this affair with your doctor.”
“It’s not an affair,” yelled Sean, feeling his anger rising. “I am in love with the woman, and I will make her my wife.”
“In total disregard of your duties as Emperor,” said Samantha, her own voice rising. “Your marriage will secure the alliance of one of the powerful families of the Empire, and the genetic inheritance of your line. You can’t afford to follow your heart.”
“We will discuss this later,” hissed Sean, standing up and stomping away.
Jennifer was in the Emperor’s bedroom, a chambe
r she had been sharing with him for the last month, ever since the night on the boat. Sean undressed and slid into bed next to her, putting a hand on her back with a soft touch. She grunted and curled up in a fetal position, ignoring Sean. Great. Now she’s mad at me too. Sean turned over and closed his eyes, saying the words that activated his reticular activating system and put him to sleep.
During that sleep he had a recurring dream, something dark lurking in the shadows, a threat to himself and all he loved. He kept trying to get in the way of the dark thing, but he was always too late. And then the dream was over, only to begin again.
He woke the next morning with Jennifer all over him, rubbing her naked body over his, kissing him deeply. He wondered sometimes at the way people could change their moods after a good night’s sleep, but he wasn’t about to argue. The argument came later, when he tried to get her to accompany him on the tour of Mgonda’s command.
“I’m not going out where they can get me on camera,” she yelled. “So they can call me a whore again.” Then she pulled the covers back over her head and refused to leave the bed.
She’s safe here, at least. No media assholes are going to get in here. I’ll just have to make it up to her when I get back.
Sean took the wormhole at the Hexagon to the Central Docks, part of the still small but expanding network linking strategic parts of the Supersystem. Later he would address a joint session of Parliament, and the members would all arrive by wormhole from their houses’ home planets. Sean thought the wormholes were going to make life a whole lot easier for most people, though they were sure to bring their own complications.
Exodus - Empires at War 04 - The Long Fall (Exodus Series #4) Page 13
