Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9)

by Glynn Stewart

She had to be getting close to taking a crown herself—and she was coming aboard an Imperial superbattleship to talk to him?

  “Well, I guess we should both start getting ready,” he told Morgan. “I don’t think we have much time to spare.”

  He still took a moment to ogle his lover, which got him a brilliant grin as she apparently turned to do the same. There was very little as good for a man’s ego as a lover who thought he was worth looking at.

  No matter how worried he was about what was coming next.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Despite the note on the appointment that it would include Wendira and Laian officers, Tan!Shallegh was alone in his office with no video links. The A!Tol was looking at reports—the perennial task of any senior officer—and closed them down as she entered, gesturing her to a chair.

  The drink machine in his desk was already disgorging her coffee, the office system clearly having done the digital equivalent of taking notes from the last time.

  “Your staff made this appointment on quite short notice, sir,” Morgan admitted. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s complicated,” Tan!Shallegh told her. She realized there were swirls of yellow across his skin, an unusual color for A!Tol. It was often interpreted as meaning the A!Tol was lying, but it was also associated with just feeling dirty.

  What was going on?

  “Did you know that I opposed both the development and then, later, the deployment, of the Final Dragon weapons?” the Fleet Lord asked.

  “I did not, sir,” Morgan admitted.

  “Your stepmother earned her Duchy by destroying a rogue development program around similar stolen Mesharom weapons,” Tan!Shallegh said quietly. “That’s classified, though it may have been covered under the Final Dragon information you were given.”

  Morgan blinked and took a swallow of her coffee.

  “It was not,” she admitted slowly. “I was only aware of the official story, that she broke an organization attempting to reopen the war with the Kanzi.”

  “Which is also true,” Tan!Shallegh said. “What we kept secret was that that organization had acquired and successfully reverse-engineered a Mesharom starkiller. Duchess Bond destroyed the organization and acquired their weapons.

  “She destroyed those weapons in turn before surrendering herself to the Imperium,” he summarized neatly. “I felt then that a concealable starkiller represented an unacceptable threat to the balance of power in the galaxy. That even the Mesharom had such a thing was and is still unknown to much of the galaxy.

  “My opinion of miniature starkillers had not changed when we began the Final Dragon program,” he told her. “But I am merely the First Fleet Lord, not the only Fleet Lord. And my Empress feared we would need a secret sword to protect ourselves as we drew closer to parity with the Core Powers.”

  “Hence Defiance and her sisters,” Morgan said quietly. “Sir, this is background for…?”

  “You were in the Astoroko Nebula with starkillers,” Tan!Shallegh said grimly. “Our allies don’t know that yet, but a plan is being discussed where it is relevant. You were at the Eye and the storm around it—the ‘rosette,’ I think your report called it. You looked at it with the eyes of an officer with starkillers to hand.

  “In your opinion, would the use of starkillers on one or more of the blue giants of the rosette take out the Infinite in the Eye of the Astoroko Nebula?”

  “Ah,” Morgan breathed. “Yes,” she confirmed. “That was our plan, in fact, before our Final Dragon weapons were destroyed.

  “We estimated that one star wouldn’t be a guaranteed kill on the target, but if we simultaneously detonated six—the number of starkillers we carried—it would probably be overkill.”

  She shrugged.

  “We planned for overkill.”

  “I don’t like it,” Tan!Shallegh said grimly. “I don’t like starkillers, and I am horrified by the thought of wiping out a sentient race, even the Infinite, who have been unhesitatingly aggressive so far.”

  “But?” she asked.

  “There are three analysis teams, including yours, that have assessed the risk of the Infinite,” he said quietly. “Yours has the most pessimistic conclusions, but the Wendira and Laians agree with you in principle.

  “Our next encounter with the Infinite will almost certainly see them having more fully integrated and adapted the interface drive and interface-drive missile technology to their biology,” Tan!Shallegh continued. “We faced less than one percent of their strength here in Tohrohsail, and, in clear waters, had they surprised us at anchor, we would have lost all three fleets.”

  Morgan was silent. She’d drawn the same conclusion but hadn’t actually put it in her report. Arriving by surprise, the Infinite would have controlled the initial engagement positions and would have forced a plasma range engagement in short order.

  It would have been a pyrrhic victory for whoever had won, but the odds would have been in the Infinite’s favor…and the Infinite could lose Swarm Bravo more readily than the galaxy could lose the combined fleets in Tohrohsail.

  “What is the plan, then, sir?” she asked.

  One of the Fleet Lord’s manipulators produced a small black box the size of Morgan’s palm, seemingly from nowhere, and placed it in front of her.

  “We have, with the assistance of our Laian allies, refitted four of our Bellerophons to a new standard—designated Bellerophon-S—including Laian-provided stealth fields,” he told her as she stared at the insignia box.

  “Thanks to the incorporation of some of our own tricks, that makes the Bellerophon-Ses the largest and most powerful stealth-capable units available,” he continued. “We do not have stealth-equipped starkillers, but it turns out that both the Wendira and Laians do.

  “The Wendira are redeploying their Battle Hives to secure their own border, falling back on a strategic coordination rather than tactical. The only coordinated mission going forward is one no one is going to be talking about.”

  Morgan was listening, but she also caved to curiosity and opened the insignia box.

  Inside, resting on a layer of black fabric, was the crossed silver-spears insignia of an Imperial Division Lord. An officer who would command, say, four hypermodern battleships.

  “Neither the Wendira nor the Laians were prepared to place their starkillers under the command of an officer from the other,” Tan!Shallegh said drily. “They were both, fascinatingly, prepared to place ships and starkillers under your command, specifically.”

  “Me, sir?” Morgan asked.

  “You saw the Queen yourself,” he told her. “They believe—and I agree—that you have a heart-level understanding of this foe that none of us can match.

  “The spears are technically temporary,” he continued. “But so long as you manage to return from this mission, I believe I can make them freeze. Do you accept this tasking, Staff Captain Casimir?”

  “You want me to command a mixed-race fleet, including two species that absolutely hate each other, and an unspecified number of starkiller weapons of mass destruction?” she clarified. “I presume I am to take said fleet into the Astoroko Nebula and trigger the simultaneous detonation of a significant portion of the rosette of stars around the Eye?”

  “Correct and correct,” Tan!Shallegh agreed. “I do not like this mission, Casimir. But I cannot argue against its necessity. The galaxy as we know it may well be at risk. The only way we can combine Laian and Wendira starkillers in one force is under your command.

  “Will you accept the mission?”

  “Yes,” Morgan said quickly, before she could change her mind. What choice did she have? Without something drastic, the Infinite could easily end up eating the galaxy.

  And this was definitely something drastic.

  Once Morgan had the new insignia pinned on the collar of her uniform, the formal meeting with their allies started. Royal Commandant Ronoxosh and Voice Tidirok appeared on separate screens, each of them looking first to Tan!Shallegh and then to Morg
an.

  And never, she noted, at each other. That might have been an effect of the conferencing software, but she suspected it was fundamentally accurate.

  “Division Lord Casimir has accepted the mission and will command the special task group for us,” Tan!Shallegh told the other two flag officers. “As previously discussed, the Imperium will deploy four modified stealth battleships under her command to provide the STG’s heavy firepower.

  “Have you come to a conclusion on what level of force each of your fleets will be able to contribute to the special task group?” he asked.

  “We have four stealthed starkillers and will additionally commit four star intruders and ten escorts,” Ronoxosh said immediately. “Thirty million tons of warships and the starkillers.”

  The ships Morgan had been told she was getting from Tan!Shallegh would total forty-six million tons, but the Imperium didn’t have starkillers that fit the mission profile. It probably evened out, she reflected.

  “The First Defense Fleet also has four stealth starkillers,” Tidirok said after a moment. “We will also provide two squadrons of our stealthed attack cruisers.”

  The Laian seemed extremely pleased with himself for a moment.

  “That is twenty cruisers and eighty million tons of warships,” he noted.

  Morgan managed not to chuckle aloud as Tidirok “outbid” his Wendira counterpart.

  “And all the officers involved are aware that they will be under the command of an Imperial officer?” Tan!Shallegh asked. “The last thing the special task group will be able to afford is confusion over the flow of command. The Astoroko Nebula is unquestionably enemy territory.”

  “I have personally selected the Swords in command of the squadrons committed,” Tidirok promised. “They have worked well with human Imperial officers in the past, and I have no doubts about their ability to continue doing so.”

  Ronoxosh’s wings flickered slightly in aggravation—probably a recognition that he didn’t have the ability to pick officers who’d served with Imperial officers at all, let alone ones who’d served with Morgan’s species.

  “The Sub-Commandants in question have been selected with extreme diligence,” he finally said. “They will obey Division Lord Casimir’s orders as if they came from the Queens themselves.”

  Morgan was already mentally assessing her force. It was escort-heavy—inevitable in a stealth force. Her four Bellerophons would be the key weapon, HSM-equipped snipers she could hopefully use to eliminate potential sentinels before there was any risk of the STG being seen.

  The Wendira star intruders weren’t much larger than the Laian cruisers, but with four of them, she’d have a thousand fighters. Replacing fighters would be a problem, though, so she could only count on one full-power strike from the stealth carriers.

  The twenty Laian attack cruisers would be more-reliable backup hitters, with the ten Wendira escorts serving as much to disguise the starkillers if they lost stealth as anything else. The standard form of the strategic weapons was much the same size as a Wendira escort or an Imperial destroyer.

  “The mission is very simple,” Tan!Shallegh reminded them all. “Which means that execution will be complicated. The special task group will endeavor to penetrate the Astoroko Nebula without being detected and reach the stars around the Eye of the Nebula.

  “If possible, Casimir’s force will preposition all eight starkillers for detonation via hyperfold transmission,” he continued. “The simultaneous nova of eight stars should render a hyperspace escape by the Infinite impossible, trapping the Queen and the majority of her forces inside the Eye, to be destroyed by the nova blast waves.

  “It is a brute-force and arguably immoral solution,” Tan!Shallegh concluded. “But it should bring a swift end to this situation.”

  Morgan couldn’t disagree with any part of Tan!Shallegh’s assessment.

  “I will want to meet with my new officers as soon as possible,” she told all three fleet commanders. “Within the cycle, preferably, though I will need time to transfer aboard my flagship.”

  “It will be made to happen,” Ronoxosh assured her.

  “Your Swords of the Republic will be briefed of their mission within the next quarter-cycle and deploy to support your flagship shortly thereafter,” Tidirok said.

  “Good luck, Division Lord.”

  The two fleet commanders faded away and Morgan’s attention returned to Tan!Shallegh.

  “So, which ship will be my flagship?” she asked.

  “I suggest Odysseus, but the choice is yours,” Tan!Shallegh told her. “You will command Odysseus, Agamemnon, Sirites and Tan!Loka. Odysseus has a multiracial crew where Agamemnon is human-crewed.”

  Sirites and Tan!Loka were, Morgan guessed, Anbrai- and A!Tol-crewed respectively, given that they were named for mythical heroes of those races.

  “Odysseus makes sense to me,” she replied. “Captain Cathrine Koumans, correct?”

  Morgan was at least passingly familiar with the name of every human Captain in the fleet, though she hadn’t met Koumans.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “All four Captains are aware of their assignment to the special task group but not of its mission. Briefing your officers and crew will fall on you.

  “I took the liberty of having !Pana assemble a small staff to support you, as you won’t have the time yourself,” he continued. “I trust her judgment and believe you will be pleased.”

  “May I make a request?” Morgan asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I want Bethany Rogers,” Morgan told her boss. If she was going to take command of a new fleet with a new staff, she needed at least one person she knew she could rely on.

  “Staff Captain Rogers is already designated as your chief of staff,” Tan!Shallegh told her, with the red flush of an A!Tol chuckle. “She should be aboard Odysseus by the time you arrive.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Morgan said. “In that case, I think I should be about it, shouldn’t I?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It turned out that Princess Oxtashah did have access to an office on the Imperial superbattleship. Rin had never met her in it before this appointment, but the space had clearly been set up for the Wendira to use on an ongoing basis.

  The temperature, humidity…even the air mix was noticeably different from the rest of the ship when he walked in. The lights had been adjusted, and multiple pieces of Wendira-style furniture—modified to allow for wings and the sheer scale of a Wendira Royal—had been installed.

  The Princess was alone when he entered, and waved him to a single human-styled seat. There was a bottle of water next to it that he guessed was probably lukewarm already, but he took the seat and studied Oxtashah.

  She was fiddling with a device and laid it down as he looked at her. Rin wasn’t an expert by any means, but he was reasonably sure it was a privacy generator that meant Va!Tola’s crew couldn’t see what was going on.

  “Dr. Dunst, I appreciate you meeting with me,” she told him. “I understand that I have no real call on your time or expertise except through the alliance with your government—an alliance that is…”

  “Struggling?” he suggested drily.

  “No,” she said. “Difficult, yes. But I do not believe the alliance itself is in danger, which is actually both promising and reassuring. The Infinite have done us a favor, even as they threaten destruction.”

  “A common enemy often brings together old foes,” Rin agreed. “How may I assist you, Princess Oxtashah?”

  “I have questions, Dr. Dunst, questions I know you know the answer to,” she said calmly. “I do not know if you feel you can answer them, but I know you know the answers.”

  That was never reassuring. Rin tested the water carefully in lieu of answering. It wasn’t as bad as he’d been afraid of—whoever had brought it in had probably been aware of both the temperature of the room and the timeline before it was going to be drunk. There was ice in the bottle still.

  “Ask,” he sugges
ted. “I know many things I am not permitted to share even with my fellow Imperials, let alone the representatives of an ally who was recently an enemy.”

  She chittered her wings in amusement.

  “The Taljzi Campaigns, Dr. Dunst,” she said calmly. “A Mesharom battle fleet, dozens of war spheres, joined the Imperium to campaign against an enemy in possession of the technology of Those Who Came Before.

  “And yet none of the reports that had spread from your Imperium, none of the stories of the battles and victories, even seared of facts as they are, even mention the war spheres,” she noted. “A mighty fleet, one that outmassed and outgunned any Core Power, just…disappeared.

  “What happened, Dr. Dunst?”

  Rin swallowed an ice cube and coughed against the chill running down his throat. He did know the answer to what she was asking—it had been an Alavan artifact the Taljzi had turned against the Mesharom—but she was correct in her first guess.

  He couldn’t answer that question.

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” he said quietly. “Even if I knew…”

  “You know,” Oxtashah said calmly. “But you are bound by oath. I understand that. But there are rumors that have reached me about what happened. That an artifact of Those Who Came Before served as a deadly trap that destroyed the Mesharom, smashing their greatest fleet like it was a toy.”

  “I can’t speak to those rumors,” Rin said. “I’m not sure I can help you.”

  “Please, Dr. Dunst, I have more than merely a desire to push the boundaries of your oaths,” Oxtashah told him. “In fact, I must ask if I may have your oath—and if you will honor a promise of secrecy to me as thoroughly as your promise to your Empress.”

  Rin hesitated. That was a dangerous promise to make.

  “So long as it does not threaten the Imperium, I will keep secret what you ask me to keep secret,” he finally said.

  “More than sufficient, I think,” Oxtashah said. For a moment, the office was silent, and Rin wondered what the hell was going on.