Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (18 page)

“There’s no telling where that particular agent
is,” said Chung.  “At least we know where they come from, and the Brakakak have
given us some pointers on how to ferret them out.”

Lucille nodded at that.  She had seen some of
the new security measures employed herself.  While the aliens could mimic the
DNA of the human they were replicating perfectly, their mitochondrial DNA was
not a match for the donor, since they still had to manufacture energy for the
cells, which were still alien despite their appearance as being human.  That,
and the small imperfections in their retinal and finger prints, which were
perfect enough to fool most scans, but not the new techniques IIA and its
sister service, Imperial Investigation Bureau, were now implementing.

The security still wasn’t foolproof, but anyone
trying to penetrate the more secure parts of the station now had a gauntlet to
run.  Lucille found it a hassle herself, but one she was willing to undergo in
order to keep her station safe.

“I’ll still feel much better when we take some
of those things out,” said Lucille, looking down into the eyes of the shorter
man.  “Some confirmed kills, and a nice body count.”

*    
*     *

SUPERHEAVY BATTLESHIP
AUGUSTINE
I
.  DECEMBER 2
^ND
, 1001.

What a bloody mess
, thought Commander
Marc Dawson, as the shuttle carried him over the outer hull of
Augustine I
,
the Emperor’s former flagship.  The skin of the ship was pockmarked with holes
and gashes, some filled with the silver liquid metal that was made to flow into
wounds and then harden.  Other openings looked into the darkness beyond the
hull, where machinery like electromag projectors, missile feed tubes, laser
emitters and other, less glamorous but still important equipment had been
destroyed.

And just like the bastards to give her to me as
a first command
,
thought the Chief Engineer, who had spent the last several months on a station
side assignment, getting Congreeve system ready as the bait.  He had never
served aboard one of the twenty-seven million ton behemoths, especially as head
of engineering.  Only a handful had, including the Chief Engineer who had been
aboard during the battle.  Unfortunately, she and her first assistant had been
killed in the battle, and Admiral Miroslav had recommended him for the position
for the foolish act of performing above and beyond his duties while under her
command.  Not that he didn’t want the command, it being one of the most
powerful warships in space and all. 
Just that a mint condition one right
out of the yards would have been appreciated.

Men in spacesuits and the robots they
supervised were swarming over the hull, while more moved to and fro from the
eight million ton repair ship sitting a couple of hundred meters from the
warship.  Shuttles were going in and out of the hangars in a constant stream,
bringing new machinery and materials to repair the internal damage, as well as
supplies to replenish what had been used on deployment.

“What do you think, Commander?” asked Captain
Javier Montoya, sitting in the other seat of the small shuttle they were using
to survey the damage.

“I think she needs a shipyard,” said Dawson
with a grimace.

“Well, we need her in the next offensive,” said
the Captain, turning a frank look on his new head of engineering.  “So the
decision was made to repair her in place.  The question is, can you do it in
the specified time?  Or do I need to get another Chief of Engineering?”

Dawson felt his hackles rise at the challenge. 
“I’ll have the wee girl purring like a kitten, Skipper.  I‘ll be damned if I
don’t.”   
Though I won’t be getting much sleep over the next month or so. 
But as long as I have a ship, who needs sleep.

Chapter
Eleven

Politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

Mao Zedong

CAPITULUM, JEWEL. 
DECEMBER 3
^RD
, 1001.

Samantha once again sat in the conference room,
looking at more of the people who ran the Empire at the behest of the
citizens.  Four other people sat at the table, while four assistants occupied
the smaller desks behind them, their flat comps open on the surface to their
front.  These people were not really important, with the exception that they
were citizens of the Empire, and had the ears of the people they served.

The Regent looked over at Baron Emile von
Hausser Schmidt, the leader of the dominant coalition of the House of Lords. 
Still young and fit, he was starting to show some of the stresses of leading
the Lords in wartime. 
At least we’ve got a man we can trust, leading the
people we can trust among that nest of snakes. 
That was very important,
given the primacy of the senior House of Parliament. 
And now with Marconi
on board, and the Opposition weakened by his and his allies defections from
Zhee’s clique, we can expect some real support from the Lords.

The next person along that side of the table was
Laura Goolsby,
the Speaker of the House of Commons.  A still striking
woman with ebony skin and long red hair, with only a touch of gray, she could
be a staunch ally or a fierce opponent.  She had been both to Sean, depending
on the issue.  She was an honorable woman, one who voted her conscience, no
matter the consequences.  She seemed to be on-board with Sean’s vision of the
war.  Since all funding bills started in her house, that was important.

Across from Goolsby at that end of the table
was Mohamed Ishner, Chief of the House of Scholars.  While not as important as
the other two houses, Research and Development projects, as well as the general
institution of technology across the Empire, was the purview of his house.  The
devout Muslim was once one of the greatest theoretical physicist in the
Empire.  Samantha had studied the history of the brown skinned scholar’s
people, who had been very antiscience and extremely xenophobic on Earth.  There
was nothing like an alien invasion of the homeworld, and the loss of the
beloved shrines of a religion, to change attitudes.  All of Earth’s religions
had changed when it became apparent that whatever God they believed in didn’t
seem to care if they kept their ancestral world or not.

Sitting closest to Samantha on that side of the
table was Prime Minister the Countess Haruko Kawasaki, Sean’s appointment to
lead the combined Houses of Parliament.  It was traditional for a member of the
Lords to take that position, though Sean had almost broken with tradition and appointed
someone from the Commons.  Until he had come upon the diminutive Asian woman,
who was a staunch supporter.

They’re a good group
, thought the Regent. 
Representative
of the human race.  The only thing that’s missing are some alien faces.
 
And that was something that should have been in the room, as far as she was
concerned.  The Empire had always been very liberal in its treatment of alien
species, even when they had joined the Empire through military conquest.  They
had become citizens as soon as they had, as a group, shown loyalty to the
Empire.  It might take several more generations before they were given their
own units to join the Fleet, but eventually that happened as well. 
We have
aliens among the Cabinet, appointed by the Emperor.  But the numbers are still
too small among the totality of the Empire’s population for them to have a
significant presence in any of the Houses of Parliament.

Most of the enlightened governments of the
region were decidedly not xenophobic.  Not the Human polities, not Elysium or
Crakista.  Even the Margravi and Klashak treated their minority populations
well, partially due to the insistence of the Empire that was their protector
and staunchest ally.  Only the Fenri and Lasharans were truly xenophobes. 
And
the damned Cacas
, she thought with a grimace.  The huge aliens only saw
other species as having two uses.  Slaves, and food.

And we’ll be food for them before they end us
, she thought, feeling
her rising anger at that proposition. 
That is not an end we will stand for. 
We’ll end them first.
  She was afraid that would be the only way this war
would end, with one of the Empires completely annihilated.  If it was the
Ca’cadasans, it would herald a new era of freedom for the alien races they
subjugated.  If the aliens won, the Galaxy might be facing uncounted millennia
of tyranny and subjugation.

At the end of the table was the one unknown in
the room, a man that until the last couple of weeks would have been considered
the staunchest of the Emperor’s opponents.  Now, he seemed to be a convert,
though Samantha was not sure she trusted him fully.  But the Archduke Percival
Marconi,
Leader of the Lords’ Opposition Party, had said he was no
longer on board with the program of obstructionism his party had espoused. 
He
seems so earnest, but can a leopard really change its spots?

“From the reports we have received from the
Fleet,” said the Prime Minister, her speech tearing the Regent from her dark
thoughts, “the Emperor has won a great victory at Congreeve.”

“But not as decisive as we had hoped,” said von
Hausser Schmidt.  “They still have a strong military presence at Conundrum, and
still threaten too many of the core worlds.”

“You were there, Percival,” said Kawasaki. 
“What did you see?  Was it so hopeless after all?”

“Anything but, my dear Countess,” said the
Archduke, a slight smile on his face.  “What I saw was the courage of the men
and women of our Empire on display.   Even with an ambush, it was a very near
thing.  But they fought hard, without regard for their own safety, and defeated
the foe.  I was never so proud to be a member of the Empire as I was on that
day.  And not just a noble.  As a citizen, among the many nobles and commoners
who fought that day.”

“And what of the Emperor?” asked Ishner,
raising an eyebrow.

“I didn’t see him at his station,” said the
Archduke, shaking his head.  “He had a battle room that allowed him a view of
all the action.  But I heard him.”  A wide smile stretched the Archduke’s
face.  “Over the com.  Giving decisive commands to all of his task groups. 
Ordering his own ship and her escorts to close with the enemy.  I don’t know if
I would have the courage to order a force I was on right into the teeth of an
enemy fleet.”

“Still, your Grace, you went along for the
ride,” said Goolsby.  “That showed courage.”

“Ha,” laughed the Archduke.  “I was on a
twenty-seven million ton warship with thousands of crew aboard, none of whom
were going to listen to a noble, even such as I.  Not when their Emperor had
commanded them forward.”

“And you think he is the right man to lead the
Empire in this war?” asked Ishner, a look of doubt on his face.  “Not too
young, and brash?”

“Oh, he’s young, alright,” said the Archduke,
nodding his head, then picking up the coffee cup before him.  “And brash, and
inexperienced.  But he has something that so few people seem to possess in this
and age.  Inspiration.”

“Are you saying he’s inspired, your Grace?”
asked Goolsby after taking a sip of her own coffee and smacking her lips.

“Maybe not as much that’s he’s inspired,” admitted
Marconi, nodding.  “But that he is inspiring to others.  He puts his hide on
the line, as much as he can, the same as the people under him.  His people
would follow him through the gates of hell.”  He looked over at Ishner. 
“Whatever hell you happen to believe in, Professor.”

“So you are comfortable with his leadership?”
asked Samantha, looking at the Archduke with tilted head.

“The only thing I am uncomfortable with is the
way he risks his life at the front,” said the Archduke with a grimace.  “But,
all other things being equal, and Augustine no longer living, I think he is the
absolute best we can come up with.  I am in his corner, and will do what you
need of me to give him our support.”

“And his announced wedding to a commoner?”
asked Goolsby with a similar head tilt.  “And, even though she has been
elevated to the rank of Duchess, she is still a commoner.”

“And what else are the rest of us nobles,
Speaker Goolsby,” interrupted Emile after a short laugh.  “It’s not like we
have some kind of magical blood, despite what some of my colleagues believe. 
We have the same blood, and, in most cases, the same DNA.  We just happen to be
the descendants of those who took power when the Exodus III found our new
home.  And those elevated later on for services to the Empire.  Which, truth be
told, were sometimes the equivalent of the kiss ass trophy.”

Marconi laughed.  “My young Leader is correct,
of course,” said the Archduke.  “I think my own ancestor was elevated for
rallying the support of some townspeople to keep some others from lynching some
reprobate prince or other.”  The Archduke took another sip of the very good
coffee, then place his empty glass where one of the serving staff would realize
it needed refilling.  “I say let him marry the young woman, if that’s his
desire.  It’s obvious he’s in love with her.  Hell, my own Lady Wife was a
commoner I met at University, and fell madly in love with.  And it’s worked out
well enough these last sixty years.”

Samantha felt herself smile at that last
statement.  With very long life spans, most human relationships didn’t last a
lifetime.  The current average for a marriage was forty-one years, so the
Archduke was nineteen years ahead of the curve. 
I find myself liking this
man more and more
, thought the Regent, who was only some few years older
than the Emperor.

“And the so called Imperial genome that
Countess Zhee and her ilk are sure to rage about?” asked the Prime Minister,
pouring some cream into her refreshed cup of coffee.

“And what is that?” said Marconi with another
smile.  “Some links in a couple of dozen chromosomes where both of the gene
pairs must match up, recessives you know.  Needed to be paired in both parents
to insure that the offspring retains the Imperial advantages.  So they just go
into the fertilized egg and make sure that those pairs are there, and they have
a child that is otherwise the combination of the traits of its mother and
father.”

“You know that the Countess will still scream
bloody murder,” said the Baron.  “She will use this as a rallying cry to cause
as much mayhem as possible.”

“And maybe she can just, disappear,” said
Marconi, shrugging his shoulders.

“That will not happen, Percival,” said
Samantha, staring at the man.  “We will not resort to getting rid of
inconvenient citizens just because they are inconvenient.  It simply will not
be tolerated.”

“Not that I would ever do such a thing,
Regent,” said Marconi with a slight smile on his face.  “But I understand it
has been done in the past.”

“Not by this regime.  Sean would have me jailed
if he ever thought I had resorted to such.  Now, let’s move on to other
business.” 
And thanks for letting me know I will have to look at you very
carefully after all, your Grace.

“We dodged a bullet with the
Donut
,”
said the Prime Minister, bringing up the next topic that was on everyone’s
mind.  “If the Cacas had taken that out, we might be talking about how we were
going to evacuate as much of our population as we could before we got rolled
over.”

“But the military and the IIA agents did save
it,” said the Baron, looking around the table as everyone nodded their heads. 
“And it’s up to us to see that the security of that station remains a
priority.  As much as it pains me to say it, that structure is more important
than any single star system in the Empire.  Maybe any five of them.  And
definitely more important than any of us.  We need to make sure that what
happened the other day never happens again.  Even if it means beefing up our
own security forces on the other end of every wormhole that connects to the
station.”

“The Brakakak and the Crakista may not go along
with us stationing more troops in their territory,” cautioned Samantha.

“We don’t have a portal connecting us with the
Brakakak,” said Ishner, shaking his head.  “So that won’t be a problem until we
get them a new gate.”

“We’re actually shipping two to them,” said
Samantha, pulling up a holo on the flat comp sitting on the table to her
front.  “We’ll be putting a ship gate into orbit around their homeworld, and
another passenger gate on one of their stations.”

“Why not just put it on their planet?” asked
Goolsby, looking at the holo of the ship gate arrangement they were
constructing about a light hour from the
Donut
, it having been agreed
that such a distance from the station was a good point of placement for those
gates.

Samantha looked at the plan that had been put
into place by the Empire’s military planners.  Twenty-four gates to a flower,
each about two light seconds from the center, about equidistant from each other
in a circle.  Between each gate was a fort, most in the process of being built,
each capable of firing pentawatts of laser power, particle beams, and hundreds
of missiles a volley at anything that came through the gates that was not
wanted, like an enemy force.  A light minute away was another flower, not quite
filled with gates.  Beyond that were the marker buoys of yet another, and
another, until all six of the structures planned for that area formed another
circle.  The arrangement would allow ships to move quickly from gate to gate,
while allowing enough separation that no known weapon could take out more than
one.  The forts provided security, along with a fleet force that was both
guarding the gates, and providing a reaction force for the systems on the other
side of the portals.  Next would come warehouses for goods, and habitats for
people waiting for their transfers to another ship.