He nodded.
“Take the fleet in,” he ordered. “We’ll send down the shuttles and survey drones. If there are any survivors, we need to know.”
He shook his head.
“How long until the ships we sent to grab old light at Powell catch up?”
“Twenty-four hours,” Ling Yu confirmed.
“Then we have twenty-four hours to search for survivors,” Harold told her. “Then I’ll make contact with the Imperium and request orders.” He checked a chart on his own seat’s screens and shook his head.
“From here, we have a few options,” he concluded. “We can check out Xīn Táiwān or…” He considered the map for a long moment.
“Or we can move to Alstroda and demand answers from the Kanzi.”
“That would be war, sir,” Ling Yu pointed out. She wasn’t arguing, just stating the facts. Alstroda was the Kanzi equivalent to Asimov, the primary anchorage for their Rimward security forces.
“If the Kanzi are behind this, we’re already at war,” he told her. “And if they think they can kill a quarter million people and we’ll let it slide, I have an epiphany waiting for them.”
The guttural growl from his flag bridge crew told him everything he needed to know. His crews and his officers would back him if he went for Alstroda. He’d start a war…but for some reason, Harold Rolfson wasn’t sure he cared.
Arend didn’t look any better from orbit. Neither of the two main settlements had approached the size of Arbor City on Powell, but that didn’t make the ugly bombardment scars that should have been the homes of eighty thousand people any less hideous.
“Same pattern,” Harold concluded aloud. “They hit the population centers with heavy saturation bombardment, then orbited sweeping for power sources and hit anything they could detect with a small-scale kinetic.”
“Shuttles, farms, hell, even road trains,” Ling Yu confirmed. “Captain MacArthur is reporting no luck in the asteroid belt.”
Harold’s destroyer squadron commander was probably going to need a stint in counseling after this mission, the Vice Admiral reflected. They all would, but Captain Leah MacArthur was the one taking sixteen ships into an asteroid belt that should have had three or four thousand people and finding nothing but silent tombs.
“And no convenient TDC agents with sensor data, either,” Harold said. “Not much point in scanning for old light.”
“I doubt we’ll find anything different than we did at Powell,” Ling Yu confirmed. “Lightning and Cyclone should be arriving in the next few hours, we’ll learn more about what happened at Powell then.”
“Will we?” he asked. “We already know a lot from Camber’s data. Captain Lowell took his ship right at the bastards when he realized he couldn’t run. We owe that man a lot.”
“We made at least a partial payment by getting Camber and the survivors to safety.”
The two Ducal officers studied the data.
“What do we do, sir?” she finally asked.
“We wait for Captain Ryan and Captain Siobhan to return,” he told her. “We go over every piece of data we have and send it all back home. After that…” Harold sighed. “After that, it’s the Empress’s call, I suppose. Much as I want to go knocking on some Kanzi doors with antimatter weapons, starting a war is above my pay grade.”
The arrival of the two cruisers and their data didn’t give Harold much relief. After going over everything with his staff, he retreated to his office to consider what he knew and decide just what to do next.
The data from the old light aligned with what they had from Camber. They had a bit more time frame, since Camber’s data had ended with the destruction of the local sensor platforms, but that was all.
The hostiles hadn’t even left in a useful direction, though their vector had been close enough to a direct route to Lelldorin that Harold was grimly certain they’d gone straight there. They could sweep for old light and try to locate where the enemy had gone from there, but the timing made it useless.
It would take at least a day or more to identify the direction the attackers had gone, and he was already running four days, at least, behind them. He needed to know where they were going or where they were coming from, and he didn’t know that.
He didn’t even know who they were. The data suggested Kanzi, but that didn’t add up either. The Imperium had a pretty good idea of what the Kanzi Theocracy was up to in terms of weapons research.
Right now, intelligence said the Theocracy was just rolling out a plasma lance and desperately trying to duplicate the Imperium’s hyperfold communicators. They were behind the ball technologically and falling further behind by the year. They might have had a black project, much like DragonWorks, for secret development…but that wouldn’t produce entire fleets clearly more advanced than the Theocracy was supposed to have.
And then there was the Mesharom distress signal that Bellerophon had received. His latest updates from Captain Vong warned of the annihilation of an entire Mesharom Frontier Fleet squadron, by ships entirely different from the ones that had shown up in Powell or Lelldorin.
It was possible that the two sets of incidents were unrelated, but that struck him as unlikely.
With a sigh, he brought up his console and settled in to face the camera as he recorded a message. Hyperfold coms were fast, but they weren’t instantaneous. His transmissions would travel at about a light-year an hour to Sol.
They’d then be relayed to A!To instantaneously by the Sol starcom, and Annette Bond could have a live discussion with A!Shall. Harold could not.
“This message is transmitted priority alpha-one,” he said calmly to the camera. “I see no choice but to declare Code Tsunami-Maximum. Two star systems have been devastated by an unknown attacker with casualties estimated at over two hundred and sixty thousand. Imperial ships assigned to defend those systems were destroyed to the last. A lack of Code Omega transmissions from the majority of those vessels suggest surprise attacks carried out with stealth fields and overwhelming firepower.
“I am attaching all sensor data we have from Powell and Lelldorin, but my own assessment is that we are faced with a hostile operation intended to draw our forces out of position in preparation for a large-scale invasion, most likely by the Kanzi Theocracy.
“I intend to proceed to the Xīn Táiwān System in the hopes of heading off an attack on the only remaining secondary colony in this area,” he noted. “I request any and all available reinforcements be deployed to meet me there, and reiterate Code Tsunami-Maximum. All stations should go to maximum alert and the Imperium should prepare for war.”
He paused thoughtfully.
“The only caution I can include is that we never did learn who the Kanzi at the Alpha Centauri Incident were,” he reminded his listeners. “There is a possibility, however slight, that the Kanzi attacking our systems are from the same rogue group.
“The sheer scale of the attack, however, leads me to conclude that only the Theocracy could possibly be responsible for these attacks.
“If I do not locate a hostile force at Xīn Táiwān, then I intend to proceed to the Alstroda System and demand answers from the Fleet Master there.”
He cut the recording and hit Transmit, swallowing hard as he did. Bond or the Empress could order him off, still, but his intention was in the message. Remembering the Alpha Centauri Incident meant he had to consider the change it wasn’t the Theocracy, but he wasn’t sure he believed that himself.
Someone had killed a quarter-million innocents.
He was going to make them pay.
Chapter Twelve
Annette Bond stood silently at the front of the conference room with her Council as Rolfson’s message stopped playing, waiting to see if anyone said anything.
Only about half of her Council, the appointed officers of her government who helped her run Earth, were physically present in the luxurious space at the top of Wuxing Tower in Hong Kong. Hologram emitters in the chairs of the missing individuals showed
their link-in, however, and she studied them each in turn.
Her two eldest biological children, the twins Leah and Carol, sat at the opposite end of the table. Despite their inherently chaotic natures, they were her Heirs and had been sitting in on Council meetings for over a year. They understood that they were there to listen and learn, not command.
They did not yet realize that their untainted perspective had a value all of its own.
Most of the other faces around the table hadn’t changed since she’d assembled the group eighteen years before. Li Chin Zhao was still overweight, his health starting to deteriorate as the health issues that kept him overweight began to take a more obvious toll. The former ruler of China and current Councilor for the Treasury still had a mind as sharp as a whip and was her strong right hand.
Opposite him was her Councilor for the Militia. The gaunt and white-haired form of Jean Villeneuve belied the physical and emotional strength of the man who’d fought two desperate battles in Earth’s defense. He’d lost the one against the A!Tol—but he’d carried the one against the Kanzi.
She’d finally convinced him to retire five years earlier. Sitting next to Villeneuve was Elon Casimir, her Ducal Consort and the man who’d made that convincing possible.
Between them, Zhao, Villeneuve and Elon were probably more responsible for the success of the Duchy of Terra than anyone else alive—and Annette didn’t exempt herself from that assessment.
“Admiral Rolfson’s Code Tsunami-Maximum has already been relayed to A!To,” Annette told her allies, agents…and friends. “The final decision as to what we will do is up to Her Majesty and the Houses of the Imperium.”
There were plenty of humans in said Houses at this point. One each in the Houses of Races and Duchies, and then twenty in the House of Worlds. Two of those last now represented dead worlds, and Annette had to admit she didn’t know how that was treated under Imperial law.
“For us, however, we will likely be called upon to move ships to protect our colonies alongside whatever forces the Imperium sends.”
It would probably be Tanaka, and Annette had every intention of sending Herakles and Perseus with her. Bellerophon was now tied up in her own mission, but her two sister ships would be a useful reinforcement to Tanaka’s fleet.
“What do we have to spare?”
“We can free up a capital ship squadron relatively easily,” Villeneuve said instantly. “With appropriate escorts, roughly comparable to what we had at Rimward Station. That would reduce Sol to a single squadron of capital ships, however, and we only have so many ships we could pull in from elsewhere.”
The entire Duchy of Terra Militia had four squadrons of capital ships, thirty-two Manticore-class battleships, sixteen Duchess of Terra–class super-battleships and sixteen Vindication-class super-battleships. That made them one of the most powerful Ducal Militias in the Imperium but still left only so many resources they could send out to defend the TDC colonies.
“Set it in motion,” Annette ordered. “Elon, make sure the Bellerophons are ready to go as well. We’ll send them out, too. I expect to be reinforcing Tanaka, but we also need to remember that we are the most industrialized system out here.
“If someone is trying to stab the Imperium in the back, we’re the biggest target on the board. We’ll need to coordinate with Tanaka and Fleet Lord !Olarski at the Kimar Fleet Base.”
!Olarski had four capital ship squadrons under her command, plus escorts. If she could send even half of her force forward to Sol, Annette would feel a lot more comfortable. On the other hand, the A!Tol had a hundred-light-year chunk of the Kanzi border in her area of responsibility.
She might have other priorities, and Sol was well defended on her own.
“What about the Yards?” Elon asked.
“We keep our security perimeter outside them,” Annette told him. The Raging Waters of Friendship Yards complex was the largest military shipyard and refit facility in the Rimward third of the Imperium. It was the beating heart of the Duchy of Terra’s local economy and contribution to the Imperium, both in terms of money and military strength.
“But if it comes down to it, we defend people over hardware,” she continued. “Hopefully, !Olarski can reinforce us if Sol comes under threat. Most likely, however, this is intended as a distraction while the Theocracy prepares a sucker punch closer to the Imperium’s core systems. I don’t expect to see us come under direct attack.”
“And if we do?” Carol Bond asked from the far end of the table, the fifteen-year-old blonde looking surprisingly calm at the prospect. “What happens if we strip our defenses to support the colonies—the ones the Imperium is supposed to protect—and then we are attacked?”
At least if her daughters were going to ask questions, they were good questions.
“The Imperium is also supposed to protect us,” Annette reminded everyone. “And if anyone thinks this system is defenseless because three-quarters of the Militia’s capital ships are elsewhere, well, we have some surprises for them!”
There were a dozen secured conference rooms in Wuxing Tower that had links to the starcom orbiting Earth, but Annette Bond was all too aware of how vulnerable even the Imperium’s best cybersecurity was to penetration by the Core Powers.
For ninety percent of her communications, it didn’t matter. For the remainder, however, she had a space aboard the starcom station itself. Behind air gaps and vacuum gaps and dozens of power-armored Ducal Guards and Imperial Marines, she settled herself into a plain desk and made the call only she could.
Empress A!Shall had apparently been waiting. A hologram of the A!Tol ruler appeared across from Annette. Most A!Tol wore their emotions on their skin, unable to conceal their feelings from anyone.
A!Shall did not. Annette had seen her Empress lose emotional control twice in twenty years, but normally, the A!Tol female was a steady gray color.
Today it was clear she was close to the edge of that control, flickering patterns of green and black flashing through the gray as A!Shall faced the Terran Duchess.
The A!Tol was a rough bullet shape with four large locomotive tentacles and sixteen manipulator tentacles that allowed her to use technology. A!Shall was small for a female of her race, roughly one hundred and eighty centimeters tall at her full height.
She was also young for her rank. An A!Tol female could expect to live five or six hundred long-cycles—roughly two hundred and fifty to three hundred years—but A!Shall was only a hundred and twenty.
Roughly sixty years old. Younger than Annette herself, in fact.
“My dear Dan!Annette,” A!Shall greeted her, using the prefix that designated Annette’s rank. “It seems you are once again at the heart of our affairs.”
“I liked the thirty long-cycles where everyone forgot we existed,” Annette replied. “It was much quieter.”
“For us all, Dan!Annette. Your assessment of this news?”
“War,” Annette stated. “It has to be the Kanzi. There’s no one else in play.”
“I have spoken to the Priest Speaker,” A!Shall told her. “Directly. He swears ‘upon the Face of God’ that they have not ordered such an attack.”
“The High Priestess has lied to the Kanzi she sends to us before.”
“She has,” the Empress agreed. “I hesitate to believe him. I also hesitate to launch a war that will kill billions without certainty.”
Annette winced.
“And those who have already died?” she asked.
“Will be avenged,” A!Shall snapped, the harsh cracking of her beak cutting through her translated voice like a knife. “This will not stand, Dan!Annette. You have my word.”
“So, what do we do?” Annette asked levelly.
“We prepare to defend our borders. Tan!Shallegh has taken command of a Grand Fleet and is moving to the Sontar System.”
The Sontar System had been the scene of a dozen or more battles between the Kanzi and A!Tol—and Tan!Shallegh was the Empress’s nephew as humans counted fam
ily, the original conqueror of Earth and one of the Imperium’s premier fleet commanders.
If he was taking a Grand Fleet—more than ten squadrons of capital ships, at least three hundred and sixty battleships—to Sontar, then the Imperium was preparing an invasion of Kanzi space.
“I will not—I can not—commit the Imperium to an offensive war against the Kanzi,” A!Shall told Annette. “But I will not allow anyone to bombard our worlds and slaughter our citizens. We have taught the Kanzi Clans that we will not tolerate slave raids across our borders. Now we must teach the galaxy that we will meet atrocity with flame and the sword.”
Annette bowed her head in mute apology for misestimating A!Shall.
“Encrypted orders are being relayed to Fleet Lord Tanaka,” the Empress continued. “She will deploy her entire fleet forward to rendezvous with Rolfson. Any reinforcements you can spare will be appreciated, and I will make certain that additional forces are moved forward to protect DragonWorks and Sol.
“I will not open a war without reason, Dan!Annette Bond. I also will not permit massacre to go unpunished. We will have justice for our dead and I will have my answers—even if I must send Fleets to Arjzi itself.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Welcome aboard Vindication, Your Grace.”
Annette Bond tolerated the formal ceremony from Admiral Pat Kurzman for all of fifteen seconds. Then she pulled the senior officer of the Duchy of Terra Militia’s space forces into a tight embrace.
Pat Kurzman had been her executive officer when she’d taken the cruiser Tornado into exile as a privateer for Earth. He’d backed her then—and backed her again when she’d finally knelt to Earth’s conquerors.
Vindication was named for how the various people who’d “collaborated” felt about the relationship with the Imperium now. The super-battleship was the largest warship the Imperium had ever built, an eighteen-million-ton behemoth almost three kilometers long and wide. Clad in Terran-built compressed-matter armor and shielded by Terran-designed antimissile systems, her class represented the current top of the line in the Imperial Navy.
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