Empire Ebook Full

by B. V. Larson

  I made a growling sound of frustration. He had me, and I knew it. If it was immoral to create and transport an altered intelligent colony, wasn’t it equally immoral to destroy them to keep this world’s local population pure? Maybe these returning populations would invade the oceans and eat all the coral or something, but who was I to kill them all because they might be a problem to the more established members of their complex people? I barely understood them, and didn’t feel qualified to pass judgment on them.

  “All right Marvin,” I said. “Keep your experimental pool. But keep them far from the ocean itself. Don’t let them grow in number or escape.”

  “They will object to further imprisonment,” he said. “I’ve promised them—”

  “I don’t care what you promised them. You are a member of Star Force, and under my command. Do you wish to keep that status?”

  “Yes I do, Colonel Riggs.”

  “Then stop giving me such a hard time.”

  “My apologies, sir.”

  -14-

  After we’d sorted out the fate of the Microbes Marvin had brought with him, I had him investigate the mess on the beach that had once been the beautiful Marvelena Hellsen. Just in case, he left his brainbox on the sand and rolled his body into the surf. The body was connected to the brainbox by a long strand of gleaming liquid metal.

  After an hour or so of poking around, he managed to blow himself up. Afterward, what was left of Marvin came to make his report.

  “The subject known as Marvelena was attuned to the device,” he said. “It apparently was recording data of several types, but it detonated when I used a sample of her DNA and applied it to the internal switch.”

  Sandra narrowed her eyes. “Where did you get DNA…? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “But could it spy on us, Marvin?” I asked.

  “Yes. I believe so. The unit appears to be capable of ring-to-ring transmissions. Using this system, the subject was possibly able to report back to Earth directly.”

  I wasn’t happy to learn that Earth had this technology. Who knew who Crow was communicating with now?

  “So,” I said, pacing over the sands, “she was a spy and possibly an assassin, but they sent her here undercover as a newsperson. Are we sure she was who she said she was? If she was the real Marvelena, did she know she was an assassin?”

  “Every detail of her identification checked out,” Marvin said. “Either they cloned her, or that was the original Marvelena Hellsen. I cannot summarize her state of mind, as I never actually met her.”

  Neither Sandra nor Kwon were certain how much she knew about her role in this tragic event, either.

  I nodded. “Okay, let’s accept she really was the famous reporter. And whether or not she knew what was going to happen, she knew she was supposed to get the box close to me and then touch it. Maybe she thought it was something else, like a data capture device. I can hardly believe she would have come out here to be a suicide bomber. Not someone like her. She loved herself more than anything.”

  The rest agreed with me. We puzzled over the story for a long time, but couldn’t figure out the rest of the circumstances with incomplete information. But regardless of the details, it seemed clear that someone was out to kill me—again.

  After the attempted assassination, as bizarre as it was, I was more determined than ever to find out what was going on back on Earth. I ordered the fleet to gather at the ring that led to the Helios system.

  Naturally, my staff filled the air with objections. Miklos said that if I would only wait another week, we’d have ten more ships. Welter wanted me to wait a month. By then, we’d have the battle station up to strength and we could leave the Eden system behind, certain that our rear flank was secure. Kwon and Sandra thought we should send a scout expedition first, and when they returned, we could make our decision with a more complete picture of the strategic situation. Marvin, for his part, watched us all with curious excitement. He made no objections, because he didn’t have any. He wanted to go exploring again. Knowing that the only staffer on my side was a crazy robot didn’t make things any easier for me.

  I listened carefully to my people as they all presented good ideas. Unfortunately, every proposal would eat up a lot of time that I wasn’t willing to give away. Whatever we could build in a given amount of time, I reasoned the enemy could build more in that same span. Whether it was Crow’s Fleet building against us, or another Macro task force, I would be losing in relative strength with each day that passed. Besides, I didn’t even have enough trained crews to properly man the ships I’d already built.

  Accordingly, I overruled them all. They were sullen, but unsurprised. Only Marvin seemed happy, his snarl of tentacles whipping about excitedly and his cameras watching everyone. He’d rebuilt himself with startling speed. I guessed it wasn’t that hard to do when you were built mostly of nanites and electronics such as cameras. The only unique thing about Marvin was his brainbox. I reflected that same thing could be said about all of us.

  We launched the next morning and gathered at the ring until I had over fifty ships. It wasn’t much, but they were all veterans of a dozen battles and our designs had been tested in battle and honed. I had no idea what we would meet, but I was through with waiting around.

  Captain Miklos flew our only light cruiser Nostradamus, which was a replica I’d built of the ship Sarin had brought out to parade in front of me a few months back. We’d made a few modifications, but for the most part it followed Earth’s design. The ship looked like a flying ladle with fins—and lots of heavy laser turrets. Six of them.

  I left Commander Welter behind, placing him in charge of the battle station and the overall defense of Eden. He mumbled his thanks, and I couldn’t blame him for that. If a serious threat came and the Fleet was out on maneuvers, we both knew he couldn’t hold. But I told him to do so anyway. I told him I planned to bring back help.

  We formed up into a column at the ring, behind Nostradamus. The rest of the ships were the new gunboats I’d designed. I’d been able to mass-produce these ugly little ships. I was still proud of them. They weren’t sleek, especially fast, or powerful. What they were was numerous. We built them using the massive captured Macro factories to make the hulls in one single birth-like effort, along with the power generators. The interior components were manufactured by the nanotech factories. Combining the Macro bulk-production with the refined technology of the Nano factories was the key. We were able to churn out gunships at an alarming rate. Already, I had more of them than I had qualified Star Force pilots. Even with a crash training program, I could only deploy a proper crew on fifty of them.

  Surviving from my original forces, I now had only six destroyers and ten saucer-shaped frigates. The rest had been lost in the struggles against the Macros to retake the Eden system, and they were too difficult to replace. I decided to leave the destroyers and frigates behind to cover Eden, under the command of Welter, who sat in his ruined battle station.

  When I finally flew my task force through the ring, I had fifty gunships with one light cruiser at the point. It would have to do.

  We arrived in the Helios system a moment later, nervous, but not paranoid. I’d been scouting ahead, naturally. The Worms knew we were coming, as I’d made a point of sending pictographic messages to them. These included images of the raging Worm Warrior, followed by their images for comradeship and shared glory. These concepts never seemed to fail to stir the hearts of the Worms. They were suckers for bravado.

  In response to our arrival in force, the Worms launched their own fleet. They had a small, but impressive force. Their ships were radically different from our own, but still surprisingly effective in combat. They were close fighters that released powerful short-ranged beams of particles. I’d personally witnessed them tearing up Macro cruisers in the past.

  “Count those ships, Miklos,” I said, standing in full battle armor on his bridge.

  “Ah…sixty-two Worm ships, sir,” Captain Miklos s
aid. He wore a full beard and an Eastern European accent. If anything, isolation out here on the frontier had sharpened these two characteristics. His accent had thickened somehow, and so had his hoary beard. “More are rising up out of the atmosphere every minute, Colonel. They appear friendly or at least neutral. But, they’re scrambling to meet us if we represent a threat.”

  I nodded. “Friendly but paranoid. I think of all the aliens, I understand the Worms the best.”

  He cast me a worried glance. It was perhaps his tenth such glance of the day. I thought I might have to give him a private talk later on. I wanted him to look sharp and confident in front of his bridge crew.

  On the bridge, everyone but me wore nanocloth Fleet uniforms. These were tougher than cotton or wool, of course, but were as effective as paper when compared to my own armored suit. Perhaps that was what was bothering him. Sure, I could unlimber my heavy beamer and kill everyone aboard without breaking a sweat. But that was the job of the Marine. The Fleet types were supposed to fly the ships, while my kind was supposed to do the close-in killing. If that bothered him, well, he was in the wrong service.

  What surprised us more than the gathering horde of Worm ships, which numbered over a hundred strong by the next day, was the message we received in the morning. It wasn’t from the Worms, or from Eden. It was from the ring near Helios, the one that led to the Alpha Centauri system, the next jump point homeward, toward Earth. A single cruiser hung there, looking very similar to our own flagship. It transmitted a repeating message toward us.

  “We’re assuming you’re under the command of Colonel Kyle Riggs. The Imperial Forces of Earth order you to halt your advance and turn back. This system is a protectorate of Earth. Alpha Centauri is a protectorate of Earth. I repeat…”

  The message did indeed repeat, at least six times. Everyone aboard Nostradamus eyed one another in shock. The Imperial Forces of Earth?

  “Since when has Earth become an empire?” I demanded of Miklos, as if he knew what I was talking about.

  He narrowed his eyes and stared out the viewport into the blackness of space. “I was afraid of something like this. Really, I suppose it was only a matter of time.”

  I stared at him. “Do you have some kind of inside information? Have details been kept from me?”

  He shook his bearded head. It occurred to me his beard was far beyond regulation length, but I decided now wasn’t the time to worry about regulations.

  Miklos eyed at me seriously. “I read the reports of your encounter with Marvelena Hellsen. She mentioned an institution called ‘The Ministry of Trust’ did she not?”

  “Yeah? So? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  “Not on a global scale. But history is full of state-run media outlets. It is an indicator that things have not gone well back home in a political sense. Think about it, Colonel. Earth with its political system of regional nations is outdated in our current interstellar environment. We are facing enemies every day that threaten the entire planet—therefore, the government must be worldwide. Star Force was only an initial development on an inevitable path. It represented a pooled military, the first step. Except for the relatively insignificant provincial armies—”

  I stopped him right there, taking two clanking steps toward his command chair. “What kind of crap are you spouting, Captain?” I demanded. “We’re a force supported by the entire planet, that’s true. But we’re a melded force, built for the defense and betterment of all Earth. We’re not rulers, we serve Earth!”

  Miklos gave me a wan smile. “I’m glad you feel that way, sir,” he said. “I imagine that is why you’ve come so far, and been able to sway the old governments to support you. They’ve always been nervous about you—you know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said, frowning. “No one likes to give up the defense of their own nation to an outside coalition, an alliance. There is an unpleasant level of trust and loss of sovereignty involved. But the world has had many such organizations: Nato, the U. N.—”

  “Do not forget the Warsaw Pact and the Axis Powers,” Miklos said. “Yes, there have been plenty of alliances. But the military organization has been provided by the participating nations in the past, not from an independent group like Star Force.”

  I stopped talking and frowned at the stars outside. We had excellent viewports on Nostradamus. They were really screens, images generated by cameras outside the ship, but they were so precise and high res you couldn’t tell the difference between them and a sheet of glass.

  “You sound as if you approve of all this, Miklos,” I said.

  “I do not, sir. But I’ve been expecting it. Star Force took a certain shape to fill a need. It became a force so powerful and mobile it could destroy any nation on Earth. If the leader of that force decided to turn it upon the nations of Earth…well, the old militaries would fall.”

  I flipped up my visor and studied his eyes. His expression was one of resolution and sadness. I was finally getting what he was saying.

  “You think there’s been a coup back home? A civil war?”

  He shrugged. “A coup, yes. A civil war? Maybe. If they did fight, the struggle is over with by now. The old armies were probably taken out quickly. But I would guess the more likely circumstance involved a signed deal of some kind, a treaty or pact that has been formed.”

  “One that gathers Earth under a single banner?”

  He nodded.

  As an American, I wanted to reject his theories out of hand. I’d led a long life full of freedoms. I didn’t like to think my hometown was now under the thumb of a dictatorship. But I had to admit Earth had suffered so much lately, political upheaval was easy to imagine. Hundreds of millions had died. Nuclear fires had scorched vast regions. Aliens seemed to abound in the skies, and none of them were overly friendly, with the possible exception of the Centaurs.

  “I guess it shouldn’t be such a shock,” I said aloud. “People have always turned to a strong central government when faced with a serious outside threat. They’ve always preferred a dictator of their own choosing to a foreign ruler, or to death.”

  “Yes, freedom always perishes in name of security.”

  “Sir?” an ensign asked nervously from the central communications console. “I think the Earth ship is expecting an answer.”

  I shrugged in my suit, causing my armored shoulders to clatter. “So what? Let them wait.”

  “Shall we maintain the same course and speed, sir?”

  “Yes! Change nothing,” I said. I turned back to Miklos.

  Everyone on the bridge looked at their instruments and strained to listen to us.

  “Should we retire to the conference room, sir?” he asked me.

  I nodded. We walked into the conference room. I let the door go solid in the face of Kwon, who had appeared on the bridge from the decks below. I could see by his face encircled in a sea of armor he was excited. When Kwon smelled a battle, he always lit up. Behind him, Marvin had put in an appearance with Sandra in his wake. He was stretching his cameras to look at us, while Sandra craned her neck. I closed them all out and sat down with Miklos. When faced with a philosophical concern, I found his counsel was the best. That’s why he was my exec.

  “I used to have someone like you,” I told him seriously, pulling off my helmet and scratching my head. “A second in command I could trust. But he was more performance-oriented, rather than a man I could exchange complex ideas with.”

  “Lieutenant Colonel Barrera?”

  “Right. But I respect your opinion more when it comes to matters of politics, history and judgment.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I shook my head. “It is not a compliment, simply a fact. You may find it comes to be a burden on your soul in time.”

  It was his turn to frown at me. Miklos rarely smiled. He hadn’t looked overly happy before, and now he looked positively glum.

  “I think I understand, sir.”

  “We’re going to have to make some hard
decisions, you and I.”

  He stared at me, waiting.

  “The first one is how to answer this challenge from some captain calling himself ‘Imperial’.”

  “It’s not a title with a positive history. There are still some who hold the title of Emperor to this day, but they are figureheads only. The last of Earth’s Emperors with any real power died out about a century ago.”

  “What advice can you give me? How should I proceed in this situation?”

  “When dealing with an empire, the personality of the Emperor is highly influential. The individual in charge becomes in effect the entire state. The nation reacts the way the despot would act under similar circumstances.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “And I think it is safe to assume we know who we’re talking about: Emperor Crow.”

  Miklos nodded. “Yes.”

  “That’s what he wanted from the beginning, you know. He told me that long ago. He was angry when I lost his ships, as it derailed his plans for becoming Emperor. He actually said that to me.”

  Miklos didn’t respond. I paced and shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around the situation. I suddenly looked at Miklos. He was staring at me—no, he was glaring at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You knew he was going to pull this, sir? And you didn’t stop him?”

  I sputtered. “Stop him? You mean kill him? It wasn’t that simple. He’s been a friend of sorts. We’ve fought together so many times. There have been moments for which all of humanity owes its survival to Crow—moments when he saved the day. Remember those ships he built in secret under the swamps of Andros Island? We threw them into the battle and drove the Macros back. And the original organization of Star Force—that wasn’t my idea, you know. All of Earth owes that man a huge debt…even if he is an asshole.”

  “Do we owe him our allegiance? Our freedoms? Our unquestioning obedience? I’m sure other emperors were great men in the past. They rose up to take the reins of power, and they didn’t do it by accident.”