Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (4 page)

And then he saw the
rank insignia on his uniform, and the jeweled golden circlet on his head.  Both
only worn by the seated Emperor.  And if he was Emperor at such a young age,
then what had happened to his father and brothers?  Nothing good, or he
wouldn’t be in this position.

Sean woke from his
dream, knowing that it was one that sprang from the curse of his family.  Some
called it a gift, but he knew better.  And it was said to be strongest in one
who was destined to become Emperor.  Something he was sure would not happen to
him, as long as his father and Dimetre were alive. 
As long as dad and older
brother are alive
, he thought, wiping his hand across his sweat covered
brow.

The Prince buried his
face in his hands.  He tried to tell himself that it was only a dream, but it
had been too lucid for such.  No, it was a prophetic vision.  And he wondered
once again why his family had been cursed with such.  It wasn’t like they were
religious leaders, like the Pope, or the Patriarch of the Orthodox religions,
or the Imams of the Moslems.  They were secular heads of State, and the State
had no real official religion, though Reformed Catholicism presided over most
official functions, like coronations.  But it was not impossible for the
Emperor to use another head cleric of another faith for a coronation or a
marriage of state.

Sean dismissed those
thoughts from his head.  They were a way to avoid the main concern, that
something might happen to father, mother and the rest of the family.  It had to
be the rest of the family as well, since Dimetre and Henry were ahead of him in
the line of succession.  Hell, even his big sister Fiona was ahead of him
technically, though she had officially renounced her claim when she refused to
marry a man who would have cemented a political alliance, and instead married
the man she loved.  But she could still make a claim, if it came to it.

But what can I do about
it?
thought
the Prince, looking over at his personal computer terminal. 
If I send a
message to dad it will still take five or six days to get to him.
  It would
have been faster if Massadara was on the hyperlink network.  Someday it might
be.  But not today. 
And if I send a warning, what can I tell them.  That at
some unknown time in the future something might strike down the whole family. 
Father might use it to keep the family from gathering together in public.  But
not for everything that happens in private, like family gatherings.  Is there
even a way out?  Sending them a warning might cause the action that brought
them to danger.
  Sean shook his head as he cleared the thoughts from his
head again.  He could go crazy thinking about things like this.  He thought for
a while longer and got up from the bed.

His mind made up, Sean
got out of bed and walked over to his desk, turning on the computer with a
thought.  He had to tell them about the dream.  It was his duty as a family
member and someone within the Imperial succession.  Then it would be father’s
to do with as he wished. 
And I’m sure he’ll make the right decision
,
thought the Prince as he keyed in the message.  But he still had the nagging
feeling at the back of his mind that whatever he did here today, it was too
late.

*     *     *

Ahmadhi-ghasta (Grand
High Bishop) Mallakan of the Grand Temple of Jakarja Lashana (Church of the
Gods Vengeful) stood on the bridge of the battleship Marrala’s Hope and
surveyed the holo tank.  Thousands of vessels showed in the tank as green
arrows.  There were several hundred warships among that armada, the rest being
merchant vessels of one type or another.  The merchant vessels were armed, with
whatever could be scrounged up to outfit them.  That didn’t mean they would fare
too well against the real warships that might try to stop them from delivering
their deadly cargo.  Mallakan could only hope that those foot soldiers of the
God of Destruction could land and fulfill the wishes of their grim deity.

“We are ready to
translate, my Lord,” said the Captain of the battleship, his thin body bowing
at the waist.  His twin macro eyes were oriented toward the floor in a sign of
respect, while the quad motion eyes continued to scan the room.

“I wish I could go with
you, my son,” said the religious leader, feeling true regret that he was not
allowed to give his life for the cause.  But the Deity had communicated to him
that he was too important to the cause to throw his life away as a soldier.

“You are needed here,
your Holiness,” said the Captain, rising from his bow and looking the Grand
High Bishop in the eyes.  “We will take many of the infidels with us, do not
worry.”

“I know, my son,” said
the cleric, looking over the busy bridge of the ship. 
She’s not as advanced
as the ships she may be facing, but she can at least give a good account of
herself
.  “See that the Soldiers of God get to where they need to be.  Send
the souls of the unbelievers to the hells of our Lord.”

“I didn’t know they had
souls,” said the Captain, his face lined with confusion.

“Oh, they have souls,
and that is the truth,” said the cleric, showing his teeth in a cruel smile. 
“Small shriveled souls that wouldn’t know truth if it bit their heads off.  But
souls nonetheless, that will feel the torment of the hells of our Lord for
eternity.  Send them to that eternity, Captain,” he said, his voice rising,
clasping the officer by his shoulders.  “Send them to the cruel embrace of our
Lord.”

“I will, my Lord,” said
the Captain, lowering his eyes again.  He looked back into the eyes of the
cleric and smiled.  “It is time for us to go.  We have a long slow journey
ahead.”

Mallakan gave a head
dip of acknowledgement.  It would indeed be a slow journey for these ships. 
They would be crossing the frontier in hyper II, a mere creep of about
thirty-two times light speed, in a pseudo kind of way.  It would take two
months to get over the frontier in a manner that would hopefully keep the enemy
from detecting them.  Of course some would be caught.  You couldn’t send tens
of thousands of ships through hyper without some by chance getting within
sensor range of a listener.  But hopefully most would get through, and then
jump to hyper V, the limit for most, for a speed run to their targets.  While,
again hopefully, the ships that were detected would bring a swarm of response,
weakening the defenses of the target systems.

“The blessings of the
God be with you,” he said to the Captain, moving his hand in the sign of the
ritual.  Mallakan then turned and limped away, his leg hurting him as usual. 
But
pain is life, and it showed that I am still here, doing the will of my God.

*     *     *

Lucille Yu tapped into
the intercom as soon as she saw what was going on.  “Stop,” she yelled over the
link to the control room, where they were just about to open another wormhole. 
“What in the hell are you doing.”

The man at the control
panel turned around with a shocked expression on his face.  “I’m opening a
wormhole,” he said.  “We had the energy built up, and I thought the production
schedule called for producing one whenever we had the energy.”

“The Emperor is coming
today, you idiot,” said Lucille, feeling bad as soon as the words left her
mouth.  She calmed herself down for a moment, then starting talking in slow measured
speech.  “The Emperor is coming today, in fact in less than three hours.  And
we had planned to open a wormhole while he was here.  We wouldn’t be able to do
that if you depleted the energy matrixes and we had to start feeding them
again.”

“The production
schedule said nothing about saving up for a demonstration,” said the man, his
face going from angry to confused.

“It sure did,” said
Lucille, checking the schedule herself, then cursing under her breath as she
saw that the space that should have contained the demonstration for the Emperor
was blank. 
What the hell
, she thought, sending an override through the
system to see who had authorized the change and coming up with a blank.  She
sent another command and put the demonstration back on the schedule.  “Well, it
does now.  So keep your fingers off that control panel until you’re told to do
so.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the
tech who had almost ruined the big day.  “I’ll make sure no one touches
anything until the time comes.”

“You do that,” said
Lucille, standing up and taking a couple of turns around her office, cutting
the link with a thought.  “You do that.”

Lucille swore again
under her breath and walked into her private bathroom.  Splashing some water on
her face, she looked in the mirror and frowned at the worry lines around her
eyes. 
Time for another facial
, she thought, thinking about the
procedure the well to do used to keep themselves looking young.  She was one of
those well to do now, so it was well within her reach.  She continued to look
at herself in the mirror, liking what she saw otherwise.

Lucille was a tall
woman, with the blond hair and blue eyes of her mother, and only slight
epicanthic folds, the gift of her father’s heritage, showing the origin of her
last name.  People were always surprised when they first met her, expecting a
small Asian woman, then finding a blond Goddess.

I better check those
wormhole production chambers
, she thought, wiping the water from her face
with an absorbent hand towel that sucked the moisture from her face.  She
walked back to her desk, pulling the view of the two production chambers that
were to be used for the demonstration from the computer and displaying them on
the holo.

Each production chamber
was a sphere about sixty kilometers in diameter.  The outer surface was a mass
of grabber units that kept it anchored in space.  The ends of each of the
twenty-eight graviton projector units showed as circles on the surface, their
microwave receiving units built into that section.  Each of the twenty
kilometer long by ten kilometer wide units pointed into the twenty kilometer
vacuum chamber in the exact center of the sphere.  When activated the units
formed a temporary singularity in the center of that chamber, ripping open the
fabric of space.  At the same instant another rift was opened in the next
closest unit, and the tunnel formed between them, a wormhole that could be used
for transit from one section of space to another.  Negative matter was then
injected into the edges of each opening to keep it open, the amount of negative
matter making the opening the desired size.  And then the two openings would be
moved to wherever the humans wanted them to be, and a new wormhole gate would
be in place.

Someday we’ll find a
better way
,
she thought, looking across the schematic, comparing it to the real thing, and
seeing that everything seemed to be in order. 
Right now this works well
enough, but it will be so much better when we can form them in place
.

Satisfied, she shut
down the holo and walked out of the office, heading toward the lift and her
quarters.  It wasn’t every day that a sovereign came aboard, and she had to
look her best.

*     *     *

The cockpit of
Heraklion
III
was not really crowded, though it could not be called spacious by any
means.  Centuries ago someone had decided that spaceships did not have to be so
cramped that crews became claustrophobic over time.  Especially when missions
across solar systems might take weeks, even for the non-hyper fighters.  So the
cockpit, which measured four meters by four meters for the crew of four, was
not really cramped.  And there was a small living section further back if one
needed privacy.

So Ensign Mark O’Brien
wondered why he felt so out of place this day on what should have been a
routine protection flight.  He had never felt this jittery since coming on the
Imperial Protection Detail.  And they were in what had to be the most protected
space they could imagine.  Only Imperial warships of the detail were in this
sector of space.  Nothing else was on the screens, and the hyper limit for the
black hole was over thirty light hours away.

“You going to be OK,
Ensign?” asked Lt. Commander Phoenix, the ship commander.  All were in their
battle armor, which would give them a few percentage points chance of surviving
if something took out the ship.  Helmets and gloves were racked behind the
acceleration couches.  No use being uncomfortable without need.

O’Brien glanced over at
Warrant Officer Three Juriviscious, sitting next to him in the pilot seat, then
back at Petty Officer Flounce at the sensor/com station.  Both seemed to be
cool and composed.

“I’ll be fine, sir,”
said O’Brien to the senior officer, offering up a smile.  “Maybe it’s being so
close to that damned hole to hell out there.”

“Nothing to worry
about, sir,” said Juriviscious with a wide smile.  “We’ll be in stable orbit
the whole way.  Same one the station is in.  As long as we don’t hit the
station and spiral into the hole we’ll be OK.”

“And if we do hit the
station?” asked the ensign, his eyes widening.

“Then we get to explore
the other side of the event horizon,” said Flounce with a laugh.  “Don’t worry
sir.  You won’t feel a thing when the spaghettification happens.”

“Enough of that,” said
the Commander.  “Let’s get ready for launch.”