Revolt of the Galaxy, page 13
The PCC and its subsidiary computers had kept the Empire moving like an enormous and delicate machine. Literally within the space of hours that machine had ground noisily to a halt, with pieces flying in all directions and clouds of steam emerging from the pumps. There could never be an accurate tally of the lives lost during that initial catastrophe; even the most conservative estimates ranged into the tens of millions. But there was little relief for those who suvived without physical harm; of the trillions of people living on the more than thirteen hundred planets of the Empire, there was scarcely one whose life was not strongly shaken by the tragedy.
The worst fears of Yvette and the Head had been realized. The PCC had wrought more destruction in less time than anyone would ever have dreamed possible. The once mighty Empire of Earth, the greatest political entity humanity had ever built, lay in ruins. All the smoothly functioning mechanisms of galactic civilization were shattered, with no way in sight to rebuild them. The Empire of Earth--at least as it had existed for two and a half centuries--was all but dead.
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There were some, though, who refused to accept the death of the Empire without a struggle.
The Circus of the Galaxy was on the planet Jarawahl when the disaster struck--and as chance would have it, that was one of the worlds whose duke was a member of the PCC's conspiracy. The Head had no way to warn the d'Alemberts about the impending revolution, so Duke Hanuman's broadcast announcement of Jarawahl's secession from the Empire caught the DesPlainians as much by surprise as the rest of the populace.
Duke Etienne, the Circus's manager and leader of the d'Alembert clan, tried to subcom the Head but was unable to get through. He and the Circus had standing orders, however, to investigate any situation that took their fancy and to take any action they deemed necessary--and this situation certainly fit within that broad commission. Duke Etienne began making plans to change the situation.
It would have been very tempting to shut the show down that evening and throw everything he had against the outlaw duke's force-but the proud d'Alembert tradition decreed that the show must go on no matter what the tragedy around it. While the crowd was dismally small that night--less than a tenth of what the most popular attraction in the Galaxy usually drew--they got their money's worth as they watched the Circus's performers go through their paces. With their minds preoccupied by other problems, the audience failed to notice that the acts may have been a little less than perfect. Duke Etienne let the backups and understudies be the stars for the night, but even second- string d'Alemberts are impressive. He saved his top performers for the toughest job: returning Jarawahl to the imperial fold.
Although Duke Etienne didn't know that the top leadership of the conspiracy had already been exposed and might have preferred to capture some of the higher-level traitors for questioning, he did know that open rebellion to the throne could not be tolerated. Such defiance had to be punished quickly and mercilessly to prevent others from copying the action. The time for finesse had passed; quick-and-dirty was the order of the day. If any of the enemy was alive for questioning at the end of the operation, so much the better--but the first objective was to take the planet back from the usurpers.
A team of twenty-five d'Alemberts stormed the ducal estates, armed with hand weapons, grenades, heavy duty blasters, and a grim determination to obliterate anything that tried to stop them. Duke Hanuman, assured by his master C that there would be no organized opposition to his authority, was not expecting any serious trouble--particularly not the first night after the takeover, when people would be too confused to take action. The personal guards he had on his estate were overwhelmed by the attacking d'Alembert force and the battle for control was over in less than an hour. Duke Hanuman--brave enough only to bet on a sure thing--collapsed under this pressure and surrendered to the d'Alemberts.
Other d'Alembert assault teams went to work simultaneously against police headquarters in five major cities around the planet. Though these buildings were more heavily armed, they too were unprepared for organized opposition so soon after the takeover. The battles here were fiercer but the outcome equally in evitable. With Duke Hanuman and the five major police headquarters back in imperial hands, the rest of the conspiracy's forces crumpled. After only one night the revolt against the Empire had ended on Jarawahl.
Etienne d'Alembert questioned Duke Hanuman under nitrobarb, but learned little of value. The local duke had been persuaded to join the conspiracy some five years earlier, and had always received his instructions via interstellar teletype from the mysterious leader, C. C's directives helped him tighten his hold on the planet so that when the eventual order came for the takeover, Duke Hanuman was fully prepared. All the known sources of opposition had been neutralized in one way or another, and there should have been no further problems. Duke Hanuman did not know the identity of C, nor did he know what was supposed to happen next. He was merely to consolidate his gains and await further instructions.
Duke Hanuman died as a result of the nitrobarb, and Etienne d'Alembert considered that a small loss. In the name of the Empress he swiftly executed the other ringleaders of the local gang and placed the lesser offenders under rigid guard.
One rebellious planet had been returned to the Empire, but Duke Etienne was worried. C would not have ordered only one world to revolt and held back on everything else; this rebellion would have to be galaxy wide in order to stand any chance of success. The fact that he still couldn't get through to Earth, DesPlaines, or anywhere else he tried only tended to confirm his hypothesis. The Empire must be in big trouble right now--and that, to a d'Alembert, was a clarion call.
Knowing the Service would need help, Duke Etienne left a small group of people behind to make sure Jarawahl did not fall back into the conspiracy's hands. As for the rest of the Circus, they packed up their show briskly and efficiently into their private transport ships and took off the next afternoon. Their destination was Earth, hub of the Empire. It was there they intended to learn what had gone wrong--and what they could do to help make it right again.
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Jules d'Alembert had gone to the planet Nereid to pick up his personal spaceship La Comete Cuivrè, which he and Yvette had left there when they'd gone off to Omicron with Lady A. Though he was eager to return home to his wife and son, he was still suffering from the wound he'd received on Omicron. The three-gee world of DesPlaines was no place for someone with a gimpy leg, not even a native, so he was forcing himself to relax here near the edge of the Empire until his leg was fit enough to go back to DesPlaines.
It was here that the revolt caught him, as unprepared as anyone else for the depth of the calamity. Nereid was not a world controlled by the conspiracy, and as a result it suffered the fate of most worlds--a complete break down of all computer--directed services. Jules was as baffled by the ensuing chaos as everyone else on Nereid--but being a d'Alembert, he was not inclined to sit back and watch events transpire around him. A d'Alembert was not a spectator; a d'Alembert acted.
He was sitting in his hotel room watching a trivision broadcast when the calamity stuck. The screen suddenly went dark, but Jules thought little of that--it could be an ordinary power failure. A few moments later, though, he heard crashing noises out on the street. Peering from his window he could see half a dozen accidents from his narrow view alone. Only a massive failure of the city's central traffic computer could have caused such a mess. Jules tried to call down to the main desk to find out what was wrong, but power was out in the phone lines, too. Those lines normally had their own in dependent power source. For everything to fail at once meant that something had gone drastically wrong.
Jules left his room. Guessing that power would also be out in the elevator tubes, he ran down the emergency stairway in the dark, game leg and all, for six flights until he reached the lobby level.
Everything here was pandemonium. Virtually every hotel function was breaking down, and the people in charge were scrambling frantically to deal with the problems. They had little time or energy to deal with the confusion of the hotel's patrons at the same time--and passersby coming in from the street only added to the chaos.
Jules's first thought was to check with the local SOTE office to see whether this was part of some planetwide emergency and whether he could help. The computerized city directory was down, too, but the hotel kept a written list of important addresses. By collaring a bellman and making strenuous demands of him, Jules got a set of directions so he wouldn't have to rely on the city's faulty traffic computer. From there he raced down to the hotel's garage, where he got into his groundcar and drove up to street level.
Nothing was moving in the streets of Cochinburg, Nereid's capital city. Though most cars had the option of disconnecting themselves from the traffic grid, there were so many accidents clogging the streets that the motorways were virtually impassable. The drivers trying to get around on their own only congested the avenues so much more. Many motorists, seeing the hopelessness of the situation, abandoned their cars and started walking to their destinations, which only confused things further.
Jules could never have driven to SOTE headquarters, but he had another alternative. As he reached the street and saw the jammed arteries, he touched a button on his dashboard and his own car took off straight into the air, soaring above the confusion. There were few aircars or copters flying, and Jules made his way to the SOTE office in only a few minutes.
Or at least, he made it to the place where the SOTE office had been. A bomb had been hidden within its structure years ago by agents of the conspiracy, and the computer had made all subsequent routine tests appear negative. Now, at a remote-controlled order, the bomb had detonated, leveling the building and killing the employees and officers working inside. So great was the blast that buildings for half a block around were also destroyed, and the number of dead and injured was beyond easy reckoning.
Jules's aircar hovered over the bombed-out scene for several minutes as Jules stared down at the wreckage, becoming more and more incensed at what he saw. This was no innocent power failure, nor even casual sabotage. The bombing of a SOTE office could mean no less than total rebellion against the Empire. The conspiracy had obviously planned its actions well--at least here on Nereid--and there was little he could do as one person to bring the situation back under control. He would have to call for help--and he would have to notify Headquarters on Earth in case they were unaware of these developments.
With that thought, he turned his aircar around and flew off at top speed for the spaceport where the Copper Comet awaited him. He landed his car at the edge of the spacefield and drove up to his ship. At the touch of a button on his dashboard a special ramp descended from the side of the vessel and his car drove straight up and snugged into its special berth. Jules leaped out of the car and climbed quickly up to the ship's control room, where a personal subcom set would quickly connect him with Headquarters on Earth.
But that plan, too, was frustrated. Jules could reach neither Headquarters itself nor the Head's private emergency number--which, in theory, was always available. Jules knew from the experience on Omicron that the conspiracy had the ability to block out subcom transmissions from an entire planet, so it was possible that nothing from Nereid was escaping to the rest of the Empire. He tried reaching the d'Alembert manor on DesPlaines, and had a similar lack of success.
He hoped his hypothesis--that subcom transmissions and receptions in the Nereid region were being blocked--was the correct one. The alternative--that something might have happened on Earth and DesPlaines as well--was too horrible to contemplate.
But if he couldn't communicate directly with Earth, the next best thing would be to go there and report in person. Everything had been peaceful when he had left a couple of weeks ago, and everyone's spirits had been high at the triumph they'd scored over the conspiracy's forces. He hated to break the balloon, but something was dreadfully wrong here, and the Head had to be informed.
The spaceport's traffic control system was every bit as snarled as the street system. The controllers were trying to manage as best they could by halting all takeoffs and landings until they could sort out their situation--but Jules couldn't wait. Ignoring the radioed warnings, he blasted off from Nereid into free space, with the intention of going straight to Earth.
His plans changed drastically as a pair of large and heavily armed cruisers dropped out of subspace near Nereid. These were remnants of the conspiracy's once-mighty fleet, still under the command of Admiral Shen. After the debacle in which they'd been routed, the survivors had regrouped their forces around the manufacturing bases still hidden in interstellar space and prepared to rebuild once more. Suddenly they received emergency orders from C that the revolution had started in full force and they were to do what they could to aid in the battle. Since Nereid had no Navy base and there would be no organized opposition from SOTE, it was assumed that two cruisers would be sufficient to cow the native populace into submission.
As the ships appeared in the skies above Nereid, they radioed down a broadband proclamation that the leaders of the world were to surrender instantly to the forces of "the Second Empire." Failure to submit would bring instant retaliation. The cruisers were prepared to drop cannisters of TCN-14 upon civilian cities if they did not instantly accept the conspiracy's terms.
Trichloronoluene was a nerve gas, the stuff of nightmares. A single whiff was lethal, and its victims died in shrieking agony. TCN-14 had been used several times in pre-Empire days when one planet warred against an other--and when it dropped out of the skies there was little defense against it. It was sometimes said by historians that TCN-14, even more than nuclear weapons, had put so much fear into people that the Empire became necessary. There had to be some central authority preventing one world from destroying the people of another.
The planet Nereid had no organized forces to defend itself against the haughty rebels. Communications around the planet were spotty, but the duke hastily conferred with as many of his advisors and lesser nobles as he could reach. They had little alternative; they would have to surrender now and hope the Empire would manage to strike back against the rebels, establishing the old order once more.
Neither side, however, reckoned on the presence of Jules d'Alembert in La Comete Cuivrè. Though the ship was a small, two-person vessel, it was more heavily armed than most ships many times its size. Jules heard the broadcast and set his jaw tightly. Nereid was not going to fall to this so- called Second Empire if he had anything to say about the matter.
The Comet was in an ideal position between the planet and the approaching warships, and it zoomed out to intercept them before they could come close enough to Nereid to carry out their threat. At first they scarcely noticed the little craft, and one of the cruisers fired a mild volley at it that the Comet's shields easily deflected. By the time they realized they were in for a serious fight, the battle had already been joined.
Jules was operating under a handicap. Normally either Yvette or Yvonne would be in the seat beside him, serving as his gunner while he piloted the ship. Firing weapons in an open space battle was an art all its own, and required full concentration. Meanwhile, the pilot had to constantly dodge the opponent's fire and keep the ship on some reasonable trajectory to aid his gunners. To attempt both jobs at once was either foolhardy or mad, probably both. Yet that was precisely what Jules did as the Comet closed in on its prey.
In a battle against a ship their own size, the cruisers would have won easily--but against the Comet they found themselves oddly mismatched. Jules was like a gnat with a deadly stinger fighting two elephants. The enemy vessels were much larger and had marginally better firepower, but they were slow lumbering ships. The Comet flew in close between them, so they could hardly risk firing for fear of hitting one another, while Jules fired at them whenever a clear shot presented itself-- and the opponents were so large they were hard to miss.
The cruisers had strong shields, but Jules's repeated hits took their toll on the enemy defenses. Jules's pesky actions took the. ships' commanders' minds off Nereid as they tried to rid themselves of the annoyance. But Jules d'Alembert was not easily caught.
At last Jules's persistence paid off as one cruiser's shields flared out. The failure was only for a few seconds, until the auxiliary field generator could switch on, but that delay was all Jules needed. The touch of a button sent a deadly space torpedo ramming the cruiser directly amidship. There was a brilliant flash of light and a gaping hole in the cruiser's hull. The ship lay dead in space. The survivors among its crew were too busy trying to save themselves to worry any further about Nereid.
That left but a single cruiser--child's play for a skilled pilot like Jules d'Alembert. He flew around his opponent until the enemy gunners were dizzy trying to track him--and suddenly he found himself in the perfect position behind the cruiser, staring straight up its jets--the one place the defensive shields couldn't protect. Jules launched a set of torpedos, and they struck the enemy's engines with a spectacular blast. The cruiser flared into incandescence and became a glowing cloud of twisted metal fragments.
With Nereid once again safe from bombardment, Jules returned to his original plan. Plotting a course for Earth, he dropped the Comet into subspace and flew full speed toward mankind's home planet. Though he was worrying about what might be happening to his wife, son, and the rest of his family, chaos was loose in the Galaxy--and as a d'Alembert, he knew that meant his duty was calling him.
Chapter 11
Slow Recovery
Still reeling from disaster, the planet Earth spent the next few days painfully gathering its resources. The top priority was to restore power everywhere it had gone out. In most cases the power plants themselves had not been damaged, but power company engineers found that their computers would not distribute the energy where it was supposed to go. Amid much swearing and hard work, the balky computers were taken out of the loop and the systems were routed through much more primitive manual and semi-automatic switches. In those places where power surges had burned out equipment, replacements were jerry-rigged to handle the load. In less than thirty-six hours, power had been restored to all the major metropolitan areas and nearly all their surrounding rural communities.
