Empire Ebook Full (18 page)

Sandra almost fell into me. She looked upset and disheveled. “They fired a second
salvo. I figured that was emergency enough.”

I opened my mouth to shout “
What?
” but suppressed the urge and pushed past her onto the bridge. There, on the big board,
were red traces. I could see the Earth ships, there were four of them now. They had
been pinpointed and identified hanging in space around the ring that led to Alpha
Centauri. They were all light cruisers with a size and configuration matching my own
flagship. They had indeed fired two salvoes of missiles, and the yellow lines that
predicted their paths neatly intercepted my fleet.

We were under fire, and this time our attackers were human.

-15-

“What are your orders, sir?” asked the nervous Ensign manning the weapons board. “Should
we return fire?”

“How long do we have before those missiles hit us?”

“At our current course and speed,” Marvin said, interrupting, “the missiles will reach
us in thirty-nine hours.”

I nodded. “Plenty of time. Everyone, stand down. Light moves much faster than a missile
barrage. We might even talk them into causing them to destruct before they reach us.
Let’s open up a channel and talk to them.”

Marvin handled the details. Everyone seemed nervous, and I found that distracting,
but I tried to stay focused on what I was going to say. I knew I had to sound confident
to the point of being amused by their surprise attack.

“Imperial ships of Earth—if that’s what you really are—this is Colonel Kyle Riggs
of Star Force. We are legitimate military forces from Earth. Why are you firing on
your own brothers, wasting valuable munitions? You must be aware thirty-two missiles
can’t make it through our defensive systems. Are we frightening you somehow? If so,
that was not our intention. We are returning to Earth, as previously ordered.”

It was a long wait until the response came back in. By the time it did, we had four
less hours of time to maneuver. I’d taken the time to shower, eat, and relax. I’d
ordered my staff to do the same, but they still looked stressed.

When the response finally came, I was chewing on a sandwich of cultured ham. It wasn’t
as bad tasting as it sounded.

“Colonel Riggs, our apologies. Star Force has been disbanded, and you have been released
from service. Possibly, these critical facts never reached your remote station. Fortunately,
the situation is easily remedied. All you have to do is shut down your engines after
braking to a stop. Disable your weapons and jettison them into space. Then await our
arrival. We will perform a close inspection of your craft. Once disarmed, you and
your companions will be allowed to proceed to Earth, minus any contraband you might
have aboard. Thank you in advance for your cooperation, citizen.”

 I finished my ham sandwich and had a beer while everyone on the bridge shouted and
threw their arms in the air. Every eye was narrowed, every set of lips drew tight
in anger. Some even snarled, showing their teeth. Crow’s name was insulted liberally,
as were all his hypothetical ancestors. The general consensus among the staff was
to fight. We would blast their cruisers from space and push ahead, claiming this entire
system if necessary.

When they’d finally settled down somewhat, Miklos turned to me and asked an intelligent
question: “What are your orders, Colonel?”

“They seem to be determined to stop us here,” I said, “to prevent us from moving another
mile closer to Earth. Any ideas as to why?”

“Perhaps Crow does not yet have a firm hold on Earth,” Miklos said. “Maybe he doesn’t
want a rival hero on the planet to challenge him for his position.”

“A strong possibility,” I said. “Whatever the case, they are certainly determined
to halt us here in the Helios system.”

No one said anything. They all eyed me tensely. I could sense they were wondering
what I was going to do now—they were angry, and wanted me to do something.

I looked at them one at a time. “Do you all really want to start a civil war, right
here, right now?” I asked them. “It’s an easy thing to pull the trigger, but it won’t
be easy to stop that kind of conflict once we’ve started. May I also remind everyone
that while we outgun them in this system, we might not the next time we meet up with
their forces? Also, we have a grim disadvantage: we’re cut off from reinforcements.
We have no more than three hundred loyal Star Force personnel. Even if we kill a thousand
of them for every one of our troops that falls, we’ll be wiped out quickly.”

They all stared at me in confusion and worry.

“What are your orders then, Colonel?” Miklos asked again.

I could tell I wasn’t throwing him off. He’d already thought of everything I’d said,
and we both knew my speech was a reality check that hadn’t been meant for him. But
I’d wanted everyone else on my command staff to understand what was at stake.

“Don’t just surrender,” Sandra said.

I glanced at her, then back to the main screens. “In impossible situations, it’s necessary
to think outside the box.”

Sandra smiled. “You’re good at that, Kyle,” she said. “You were born not even knowing
where the box is.”

I smiled back. “Marvin, open a narrow beam channel with the Worms again, will you?”

“Done.”

“What kind of symbols do they have for traitors? For Worms that turn against their
own?”

“Such events are almost unknown among their people, Colonel. They are an extremely
loyal species. However, I would suggest the symbol for of an egg-stealing mite, a
hated enemy to all Worms. No creature native to Helios is more despised.”

“Right, that’s it. Can you tell them the ships that just fired upon us are egg-stealing
little bastards?”

“I believe so, sir. Do you wish to do this with two traditional sets of three symbols,
or in a longer form of five symbols?”

“I want to do it in the manner they are most likely to understand.”

“Very well, transmitting. I will alternate the statement with an affirmation of brotherhood
from our point of view.”

“Good.”

The message went out, and the rest of them waited tensely for my next move. I stood
up and stretched. “It’s going to be a while. I suggest we all take a break for about
four hours and take a nap. I’ll be in my quarters if anything interesting happens.”

They stared in me in disbelief as I left the bridge. I could hear their murmured exclamations
until the wall reformed itself behind me and the sounds of my staff were cut out.
I sensed a single presence then, and turned to see it was Sandra. She’d quietly followed
me off the bridge.

“Can you really sleep right now?” she asked.

“I can try.”

We headed to our quarters, where I found out I couldn’t sleep. Not because I was nervous
or worried, but because Sandra couldn’t. She grew restless and bored, and was tied
up in talkative knots about how the situation would play itself out. I normally always
welcomed her company, but this time I really wanted to get a little rest.

“You’ve just started another war—you know that, don’t you Kyle? Do you even bother
to keep count of them all?”

“Maybe,” I said, yawning.

“Maybe? This isn’t a ‘maybe’. They aren’t totally stupid. They’ll know you told the
Worms to attack them. They’ll run and report back that they were attacked by you and
the Worms. This could be an interplanetary disaster, and you are trying to fall asleep!”

She had me there. I was lying back on our bunk, with my eyes closed. My eyes burned
slightly, and my throat was raw from talking too much. I’d turned out the lights a
few times already, but she’d turned them back on again. I reached out with my left
hand, groping for a pillow. I put the pillow over my face to block out the light.

“Ah, that’s better.”

A weight landed on me. I lurched and sucked in a breath in surprise. Sandra had jumped
on me. I patted her absently. “Things are liable to get exciting,” I said. “Lie down
here next to me.”

Finally, she did as I asked, but she kept messing with me. I finally called her bluff
and grabbed her. She melted, and we made love. Afterward, she drifted off to sleep,
and I found myself awake and thinking again. I got up, took a shower, and then finally
managed to get an hour or so of sleep before an alarm went off, summoning us both
back to the bridge.

We pulled on our clothes and hurried back up to join the others. I was glad for nanocloth
and smart armor at that point. It was too bad our hair was so messed-up. I vaguely
thought I should come up with something to solve the perennial problem of bed-head.
Maybe a nanocloth scarf could do the trick.

I soon forgot all about nanocloth scarfs, sex, and even my messed up hair. I stepped
onto the bridge, and found the place to be in a turmoil.

“It’s the Worm ships, sir. They got in closer than expected.”

I frowned, staring at the holotank. The situation was immediately clear. The Worms
had somehow gotten within range of the Imperial ships and now were laying into them
with heavy particle beam weapons.

“How did this play out?” I asked.

Miklos noticed me and turned his tired eyes in my direction. “The Worms tricked them,
Colonel. I thought our Earth ships would run, they’re quite close to the ring. But
the Worms approached them obliquely. They set a course for the ring, and flew only
half their forces in that direction.”

“Half? How many heavy fighters do they have?”

“Two hundred are in orbit over Helios now. About a hundred of them flew toward the
ring, as if they were going to pass by the light cruisers. We caught several transmissions
form the Earth ships, trying to contact them, but there was no response. I think the
Earth ships believed they would pass by through the ring, and didn’t want to fire
and start an incident. But when they were close, the Worm ships suddenly veered toward
the Earth vessels. Now the light cruisers are running, but it is too late. They can’t
work up enough velocity to reach the ring and exit the system before they are under
fire.”

I watched as the Earth vessels suddenly lit up. Beams stabbed out from the six turrets
on each of their ships. The Worms were almost in range to use their particle beam
weapons, but they would have to suffer some casualties first. The cruisers packed
a lot of firepower with their heavy lasers. Three Worms ships were destroyed in the
next minute.

“Can’t we call the Worms off?” Sandra asked, standing next to me.

“Having regrets?” I asked her. Then I turned to the rest of them. “How about everyone
else? You wanted me to do something. Now, you get to watch good people die. The Worms
are our allies. The Imperials fired on us, but they are still human.”

“Just call them off, Kyle,” Sandra said. “You’ve made your point.”

I shook my head bitterly. “We can’t do that. Don’t forget the distance, they’re over
a light-hour away. By the time the Worms got my message, it would be too late. In
fact, this battle has already happened. All we can do is sit and watch to see what
happened.”

It wasn’t an enjoyable spectacle. We really didn’t want any of the ships on either
side to be destroyed. The true enemy, we all knew, was the machines. Every time a
biotic killed another, it was fratricide.

The Earth ships were running, and they had plenty of thrust. Unfortunately, due to
the commander’s firm belief that the Worms would stay neutral, he’d let them get too
close. Now they couldn’t out run the smaller ships. They did manage to destroy twenty
of the Worm ships before they were overwhelmed and lashed with violet sprays of energy.
Their ships broke apart under the beating and were destroyed one at a time by the
twisting, spiraling attackers who swarmed around them. Still, I was impressed at how
much punishment one of our cruisers could withstand.

Only two of them made it to the ring. One appeared to be on its last legs at that
point. When they had all vanished, everyone aboard was glum. The Worms did not chase
them, however, but fanned out instead, shooting past the ring and decelerating to
return to their homeworld.

As the battle ended, the missiles the imperial ships had fired on us winked out. A
message came in, one that must have been sent by the Imperial commander as he exited
the Helios system under heavy fire.

“Colonel Riggs,” the commander said. “We’ve sustained heavy losses and must withdraw.
We’re assuming the Worms became hostile when we fired upon your ships. We’ve tried
to reason with them, but failed. They will not break off the attack, and are destroying
our forces as you no doubt have witnessed using long-range sensors. I urge you to
turn back in case the Worms have decided to become hostile to all human vessels. I’ve
ordered that the missiles we fired upon your ships be destroyed in case the Worms
attack your fleet next. Good luck. Captain Bolton, out.”

I sat back in my chair after that, pondering the situation. After a few minutes, the
excitement on the bridge died down to a murmur of various conversations. I stood up
and headed for my conference chamber. Miklos and Sandra followed me, and I didn’t
try to stop them.

“Is that how you wanted it to play out?” Sandra asked me. She was angry and emotional.