Exodus, page 96
Thyra let out a breath. “Yes, it might work. I still can’t believe Finbar Jalgori-Tobu pulled off that stunt.”
“That’s humans for you,” her father said. “As tricky as they are annoying. Although I do concede what he did was impressive.”
“We’ll get rid of the Diligent,” Iuntin said. “I’ll send Lady Asahi-Iryna after it right away. She should be able to reach the Capo Frois ingress Gate in a few days. She can also deal with Olomo and Sahdiah. Those two seem to have arrived at a truce; they’ve both set off for the ingress Gate for Capo Frois as well.”
“I just want us rid of the Diligent,” Thyra said.
“It will be done, Majesty.”
“Any news on Uncle Dagon?”
“No, the Arcadia’s Moon is running dark. They’ll rendezvous with the Lestari and we can proceed with stage two.”
“Good.” Thyra checked the time. “We should get back to the command compartment. I need to be there to look surprised when the Archimedes Engine powers down.”
“I’d go for aghast rather than surprised,” her father suggested. “Then switch to very regal.”
“Yes. That sounds apposite.”
* * *
—
The princesses were summoned to attend Thyra. She smiled inwardly as the command center officers tried not to show their irritation at the chirpy girls. They didn’t have the same training as palace staff and the rest of her court.
When she was settled into her acceleration couch, she told the admiral to provide a lnc to the Twenty-Three Squadron’s commander.
“I want you to fly direct to the Capo Frois ingress Gate,” she told the sullen Radwarno-Werkas. “Follow the Diligent through and destroy it. No prisoners, no interrogations, this time humans must learn the price of this outrageous act.”
“My crews cannot be subject to further high-gee acceleration for several days, ma’am. We were operating at our limit to get this far.”
“I understand. Proceed as fast as you can. Once the Diligent is in the Capo Frois system, it will be unable to perform that super-acceleration trick again; there is no Archimedes Engine there to save it. You will be able to catch up with it easily.”
“There are other navy ships closer to the ingress Gate than us.”
“Indeed, and I’m sure the empress will be thinking of assigning them to the task. I will organize clearance with Her for your frigates. There can be no further mistakes, squadron commander. I believe I can rely on you to finish this job once and for all.”
“I understand, ma’am. It will be done.”
“Good.”
“Ma’am,” Admiral Serrilda-Kroja said, “the Archimedes Engine is powering down.”
With an expression of dramatic horror, Thyra watched the broad bulkhead projection. The starbright glow of the stations was visibly reducing as colossal volumes of atmospheric gas continued to race past them in the immense vortex currents they’d established, helping them dissipate the thermal load.
Somewhere behind her, two officers started whispering harshly. She ignored it, and the admiral shot them a disparaging glare. They immediately clasped hands and fell silent.
“Ma’am,” the admiral said nervously a minute later.
“Yes?”
“We have projected Boksrock’s trajectory. We, uh, know where it’s heading.”
Thyra half rose from the acceleration couch to stare uncompromisingly at the badly alarmed admiral. The princesses picked up the tension and joined their mother with an array of youthful pouts.
“What do you mean, where it’s heading?” Thyra demanded.
* * *
—
Carolien-Amaia couldn’t remember a worse state of affairs occurring—not in the last couple of thousand years, anyway. In fact, there probably hadn’t been anything like this since before the Accord.
She’d been cross with Helena-Thyra for arriving with her fleet so early. All the queens were going to do that, of course; trying to outclass the other was second nature to them now. But this early was just crass. And of course, it happened just when things were going badly wrong on Gondiar. Carolien-Amaia was reluctantly considering that she might just have made a mistake sending General Avone-Valerio to pull that world back on track after Makaio-Faraji’s assassination—and that she’d chosen him mainly to score points against Helena-Thyra didn’t help her mood. Even she had to concede using YouBusters on thousands of petty criminals was possibly a step too far when you were trying to restore order. Not that she could do anything about it, because that was when Josias Aponi started broadcasting sedition across the Kelowan system. At which point a human had hijacked the Archimedes Engine.
Kelowan’s distance from Dolod meant she had to rely on Helena-Thyra to manage the whole situation—and Helena-Thyra, naturally, was completely screwing it up. Much to Luus-Marcela’s vocal delight. But no one seemed to be acknowledging the enormity of what was happening.
The assessments of her chief archon, Acelynn-Jabula, were emphasizing how much more there was to the situation. It was, he insisted, simply impossible for humans to take control of an Archimedes Engine. They had to have been helped by a foreign archon. Which meant a Great Game was moving into a very active phase. The consensus was, the hijack would be used to send Dolod back into interstellar space.
Then the anchor ships englobed Boksrock.
Carolien-Amaia was apoplectic that Helena-Thyra hadn’t led her fleet in pursuit of the drop ship right at the start. It was obviously up to no good, but the stupid bitch went and deferred to the intelligence officers who, like every archon, just wanted more information. Time was when queens knew how to act properly. A notion she would be forcefully reminding them all at the fleet merger.
The entire Imperial Palace went to Alert Status Three, trying to predict what response was going to be needed, and who was responsible. Everyone believed the Mara Yama were behind it.
Then the Diligent went relativistic.
“We need to consider your safety, Your Highness,” Acelynn-Jabula said. “This situation is now so far outside any of our scenarios we simply cannot predict the threat level.”
They were in the gallery of the situation bunker, half a kilometer below the lowest level of the Imperial Palace. Laid out on the command floor, fifty military command officers lay on their couches, connected to the planetary defense network, ready to coordinate the response Carolien was trying to formulate.
“If I’m not safe here, we’ve already lost,” she told him. “Our only priority now is uncovering who is behind this.”
“Of course. In which case capturing the Diligent intact, with everyone alive, is essential. It’s our only link to the archon who organized this.”
“You think Gondiar is somehow associated?” On one of the bunker’s screens, Dolod’s light was starting to dim. Carolien eyed it suspiciously. She hated being so totally out of control. As a queen and empress, she dictated events; she didn’t react to them like some helpless human unable to control their own destiny.
“It has to be,” Acelynn-Jabula said. “Humans in rebellion. Humans hijacking the Archimedes Engine. There’s a ready-made villain for you and the other queens to blame, right there. It’s nonsense. They’ve been played like the simpletons they are. Our number one target has got to be the imitation Gyvoy Enfoe. Makaio-Faraji’s organization provided us with that piece of information. He was always a capable archon.”
“And the only archon I ever heard of to be assassinated,” Carolien-Amaia pondered. “Certainly inside the Crown Dominion.”
“There are no coincidences, Your Highness, not anymore. Not today.”
“If Makaio-Faraji was doing such a good job, why would Helena-Thyra’s new chief archon replace him?”
“A more interesting question I feel is: Why would Helena-Thyra replace Lord Gahiji-Calder?”
Carolien gave him a shocked look. “You don’t think…?”
“Orders always come down from above,” he said flatly.
“She can’t be behind this. She is a queen of the Crown Dominion.”
“One of five. Always having to share the Imperial Throne.”
“No!” From her position Carolien-Amaia saw one of the officers sit up abruptly. He immediately faced the gallery, his dismay apparent even from where she was sitting. “What is it?” she demanded.
“We have confirmed Boksrock’s new trajectory, Your Highness,” he stammered. “It’s going to hit us.”
“What do you mean, ‘us’?”
“Kelowan. It’s going to hit Kelowan.”
—
Message origin Neusch: Kelowan? Boksrock is going to collide with Kelowan?
Message origin Clavissa: Yes.
Message origin Neusch: Sweet fucking Asteria!
Message origin Clavissa: I’m scared. I’ve never seen Helena-Thyra this angry. Um, I think we should stop communicating. Just in case.
* * *
—
High above the Imperial Palace, the multitude of kestrel sprites detected the activity they had waited for ever since they reached the capital city. Hundreds of vehicles were driving out of the massive palace structure as, halfway up the slope of the mountain covered in livestone megabuildings, one of the giant geodesic domes enclosing a temperate environment arboretum was splitting open. Twenty curving sections hinged apart as if they were petals of some gigantic mechanical flower.
The kestrel sprites all altered direction, flocking together directly above the open dome. Thousands of them so close together formed a translucent cyclone. Below them, the floor of the dome was breaking apart, its huge segments sliding ponderously back under the rim, taking trees and soil and streams with them. Their withdrawal revealed a deep cylindrical hangar. Glinting in the center of the gloom it contained was the spike nose of the empress’s emergency fast-evacuation craft.
The kestrel sprites tightened their spiral in anticipation, forming a funnel three kilometers high.
* * *
—
Carolien-Amaia hurried along the bridge that led from the hangar wall to the evacuation craft: a vehicle surprisingly similar in profile to one of the primitive rocket ships of Old Earth. Ten Knights in full four-legged combat armor trotted ahead of her; fifteen more brought up the rear behind the Imperial entourage. The five princesses hurried along, grim-faced and shocked into silence. Her father was with them, as were three of the most senior court members. All of them were silent and dazed. They were the only members of her usual entourage who qualified for a seat.
Acelynn-Jabula was at her side. “Members of court are being assigned the first tower capsules,” he said. “They’ll be at the georing in a day. Tower control are talking about increasing the capsule speeds so we can get everyone up in time. People can take two gees easily enough.”
“Everyone?” Carolien barked.
“Kelowan’s population.”
“How many?”
“Around eight hundred million,” her father told her. “If you don’t count Changelings like the Deain.”
“Priorities, daddy, priorities. Boksrock won’t hit for another three weeks. If there’s time at the end, we’ll bring them up.”
“Okay.”
“Will the georing habitats hold everybody?”
“Yes. Easily, actually. They have a lot of volume between them.”
“Uh, your dreadnaught is on its way down to a ten-thousand-kilometer orbit to rendezvous with the fast-evacuation craft,” Acelynn-Jabula told her.
“Escort?” she snapped.
“Twenty frigates, two battlecruisers.”
“I have to ask this…”
“Yes?”
“Can we blow it up?”
“Boksrock? No, Your Highness, I’m afraid not. Not even the combined Imperial Fleet has the firepower to overcome the gravitational binding energy of a planet that size.”
“How about diverting it? Knocking it off course?” The moment of silence was enough to tell her the answer.
“The navy thinks not. By the time enough ships have rendezvoused, it would be too late. You also have to take gravitational attraction into account. If they pass close to each other, Kelowan and Boksrock will simply pull each other toward collision.”
“Like magnets.”
“Yes.”
“I will find them, Acelynn-Jabula. No matter how long it takes me, I will find the dominion that did this. And they will be exterminated down to the last living cell.”
“I will be at your side when it happens, Your Highness.”
Carolien-Amaia almost said: No you won’t. Not knowing anything about a Great Game strategy that culminated in smashing Boksrock into Kelowan was the greatest intelligence failure in the history of the Centauri Cluster. As soon as they docked with the dreadnaught, Acelynn was going to be witnessing Kelowan’s death from orbit, in person, and without a spacesuit. She felt utterly betrayed by him.
Captain Fanzlane-Mak was waiting for them just inside the airlock. He saluted. “Your Highness, this is a great honor.”
“Save it. Are we flight ready?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Good, get me out of here.”
“Uh, the palace hasn’t finished evacuating—”
“Get. Me. Out. Of. Here. Right now!”
“Yes, Your Highness.” He turned and ran for the flight deck.
Carolien-Amaia took a moment to make sure all the princesses were lying properly in their acceleration couches. The airlock hatches shut. She lay back on her own couch and pressed her hands down on the contact bulbs. A surge of impressions filled her mind. Snapshots of the palace, which was nearly deserted. Some multi-passenger vehicles were driving fast on the roads that ran out from the base of the palace, but they were still close. Should follow orders quicker, she thought. A moment of sentiment as she flicked through cameras in the stables. The Awakened animals knew something was wrong; they were restless. Several of the larger ones had broken out of their stalls to amble around the gardens, searching for someone to explain what was happening.
Farther out, train carriages within the extensive tunnels under the city were being diverted to residential blocks. Buildings were full of frantic activity as parents rounded up their children. Like ants when a boot kicks the nest open.
“Ready for launch, Highness.”
Carolien-Amaia withdrew her perception from the doomed city. “Go.”
* * *
—
The kestrel sprites saw the antimatter rockets light up. It was impossible not to. The radiation surge, the incandescent light, the hurricane blast of superheated air; any halfway decent sensor on the other side of the star system could detect the emergency fast-evacuation craft.
Vast clouds of cloying brown dust surged upward out of the hangar. The seven-thousand-ton craft rose out of the center of the maelstrom, its deadly exhaust turning all solid matter it touched into hypercharged sub-atomic fog. The blast shattered half of the palace buildings and spires, scattering debris over ten kilometers. Fires erupted within the ruins.
Fifty kilometers above, the cyclone of kestrel sprites began to fluctuate, sliding en masse as the craft’s precise upward trajectory was calculated. The cyclone started to break apart as individual kestrel sprites surged forward in a lopsided murmuration two kilometers across.
The fast-evacuation craft was accelerating at three gees as it reached the top of the stratosphere. It sliced through the murmuration. The kestrel sprites that weren’t in or close to its passage were instantly incinerated by the heat of the plasma flames as it soared past them. Supersonic shock waves sent hundreds tumbling away as they approached. Only those that were directly above the nose managed to hit and stick.
Out of the thousands that’d been seeded into Kelowan’s upper atmosphere, eighty-seven were left adhering to the fuselage. They began to flow along the ultrabonded carbotanium, searching out the airlock and engineering hatches. Atom-thick edges slithered through the seals. Once they were inside the craft, they sought out the power and data cables, penetrating their casings.
* * *
—
Carolien-Amaia began to relax as they cleared the mesosphere. The craft was still accelerating at three gees, but now it was curving over to the east as it powered its way into an elliptical orbit that would bring them up to a rendezvous with the huge dreadnaught and its escort.
“How long will it take to separate the habitats from the georing?” she asked.
“I’m not getting an answer on that,” her father said. “The engineers say they don’t know.”
“I bet the navy could cut them off fast.”
“I’m sure they could.”
“What sort of clearance will they have…” She trailed off as the cabin lights flickered. Her hand came down fast on the contact bulb. The connection was erratic. Diagnostic schematics of the fast-evacuation craft fluttered and broke apart, fragments tumbling about inside her skull. “Captain!” she shouted.
The lights went out, and the antimatter rockets failed, dropping them into free fall.
“Mother Empress?” one of the princesses squealed.
“Oh, shit.” Acelynn-Jabula groaned in defeat. “We fell for it.”
“Fell for wh—”
* * *
—
