Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (8 page)

Without robotic factories
and nanoprocessing, even with the need for human oversight, such a project
would not have been possible.  With robotics they had been able to match the
industrial might of a dozen core worlds just to build this station.  And the
hoped for dividend was about to be realized.

“Are you ready for a
quick tour of the station, your Majesty?” said Baxter, the smell of alcohol on
his breath.

“Of course, Director,”
answered Augustine.  “I don’t think I have enough life span left for the
complete tour.  But the quick tour will do nicely.”

The Emperor and his
family were ushered from the room to a maglev tram that sat in a nearby room. 
The long train had several compartments with comfortable seats for dozens of
passengers in each section.  There were four seats to a row with a spacious
walkway between pairs.  The entire outer skin of the train was transparent,
though the Emperor was sure it could turn opaque at a moment’s notice if
subjected to a light amp attack.  As the family took their seats, security
personnel and station staff around them, the train began to move.  Slowly at
first, the conveyance accelerated smoothly as it built up velocity.

“We will come first
upon one of the many energy generating chambers,” said Director Baxter as the
train moved down a long corridor, loading stations blurring by as the vehicle
picked up speed.  There was no feeling of acceleration as the tram’s inertial
compensators kept everything at a steady one gravity to the floor.

Suddenly the train shot
out into an enormous chamber that seemed to go on forever.  Augustine looked to
the side and could make out the far wall, and four of the massive generator
units reaching from the center out.  Fiber cables the width of battleships
stretched from floor to ceiling, while equally thick strands ran from unit
clamp to unit clamp.  The car shot past the ten kilometer wide units.  A quick
glimpse of the intervening kilometer and the next section of generators flashed
by.

“There are six hundred
and forty generators in each thousand kilometer long strip,” said Baxter, an
ecstatic look on his face.  “Thirty two thousand units to a fifty thousand
kilometer long block.  Fifty blocks equal a million six hundred thousand
units.  Using the rotation energy of the hole to form a dynamo they can produce
two point eight eight times ten to the twenty-seven joules of energy per
second.  When working flat out, that is.”

Augustine noticed a
flare of electric blue here and there around the passing generators.  They were
whizzing by too quickly to get a good feel for the energy, but he was sure they
were quiescent at the moment.

“Just how much energy
is that?” asked Anastasia, looking at the other side of the passing chamber. 
“For us mere mortals that is.”

“Imagine burning over
ten thousand tons of antimatter every second,” said the Director, his face
beaming as he proudly displayed his station.  “More than the entire fleet uses
at full battle readiness, for over an hour.”

“That much to open a
wormhole?” asked Henry, his eyes wide.

“Much more than that,”
said the Director as they passed through another room, then another.  The tram
speeded up to where the huge generators became a blur and the rooms passed
faster.  At the next to last of the fifty rooms of this block it began to
decelerate.  It passed into another room after fifty, this one filled with a
different shaped unit as large as the generators.

“Level four quantum
crystal matrixes,” said the scientist as they flew through the room.  “Enough
on the station to hold the energy generated from hours of production.  All
released in an instant to form a wormhole.”

“Impressive, Director,”
said the Emperor.  “It’s almost too much to comprehend.  Too much to believe.”

“But it is true, your Majesty,”
said the scientist.  “It is technology such as no one alive has seen.  And it
is ours to command.”

The tram began to slow
as it reached the end of a series of battery rooms.  It lost velocity quickly
and quietly, until it slid slowly into a room with a station and came to a
smooth stop.  The passengers left their seats as the doors to the tram opened
and security fanned out, meeting with their compatriots who had already secured
the stopping point.

“We’ve traveled about
sixty thousand kilometers from the chamber where you entered the
Donut
,
your Majesty,” said the Director.  “About two tenths of a percent of the
circumference of the station.”

“And the station is in
orbit around the black hole?” asked the Empress, hanging onto her husband’s
arm.

“At about point five c
angular velocity,” agreed the Director.

“How does it handle the
stress?”

“Well, your Majesty,”
said the man, moving toward a door that had opened on the side of the stop.  “The
station is made of superstrong carbon materials, as well as the most advanced
alloys.  And we have over forty-five million grabber units on the ring that are
controlled by the central computer.  They not only keep the orbit stable so we
don’t end up wobbling into the hole.  They also push and pull at critical
moments to keep the stress on the ring from building to overwhelming levels.”

“That must take a bit
of energy,” said Augustine, as they walked into a large room that had groups of
couches scattered about.  A bar was open against one wall, tenders filling
glasses with champagne, or waiting for orders.

“Nothing compared to
what the station is producing,” said the Director.  “Even throttled back to
almost nothing, like we are now.”

“Dr. Baxter,” said
Lucille Yu, coming up to the conversing group.  “I’m afraid I have to excuse
myself for a moment.  Something has come up in negative matter production that
I have to see to.”

“Well,” said Baxter
with a frown, “come back as soon as you can.  We’ll be here for about a half
hour, then head over to the nearest antimatter production center to look at
that.”

Can’t be something the
man wanted to hear about
, thought the Emperor.
Especially in front of the VIPs. 
But things happen, especially in a brand new operation.

“If you’ll follow me,
your Majesty,” said the Director, leading them to the center of the room and
motioning to a series of couches.  As he gestured the roof of the room became
transparent.

Looking straight up and
out the Emperor could see a couple of small objects with blinking strobes in
the space outside the ring.  His vision adjusted for a moment until the
distortion straight up came into focus.

“The black hole?” he
asked, pointing up.

“Yes,” said the Director,
nodding his head.  “Not much to look at is it?  But watch this.”

Suddenly lines of
electric blue came snaking from thousands of contact points on the surface of
the
Donut
spinward and antispinward from the observation room.  After
several seconds delay the points erupted from the surface thousands of
kilometers further in both directions.  As more and more of the points came
into focus the lines nearest began to join, to form larger lines of electron
fire.

“The speed of light it
the limiting factor here,” said the Director, as the beams of electrons moved
toward the event horizon over seven million kilometers away.  “You will not see
a true image of the process further away as it is occurring many seconds out of
phase with the image coming to your eye.  Even the central computer will not
see the process in real time.  Instead it uses algorithms to predict what is
happening further along the ring and keep the timing of the process within parameters.”

The long lines moved
closer to the event horizon.  Within an instant of the first one touching an
electric nimbus grew into existence around the horizon.  More of the large
lines touched, until there were over twenty of them in view.

“There are in fact
fifty of the electron beams that will wrap around the event horizon of the
rotating and charged black hole,” said the Director.  “The actual intensity of
the beams are being filtered out by the polarized observation skin.  Now comes
the real fireworks.”

The beams began to bend
as the swirling gravitation force swept them around the hole.  The nimbus
around the event horizon brightened, becoming almost painful to look at despite
the polarized observation skin.  The beams coming out of the nimbus brightened
as well, as the black hole became the largest electric dynamo in the history of
the human race.

“We’re at full output
now,” said the Director.  “The energy is being shunted in the banks of quantum
matrix batteries. Until…”

The lights on the
station dimmed imperceptibly for just a moment, then strengthened.  The nimbus
faded slightly, then faded out.  A few arcs of electricity flared between the
horizon and station, and from point to point on the inner skin of the station. 
Looking small with distance, each was the equivalent of all the major lightning
strikes on a gas giant in a year.

“The majority of the
energy was beamed off of the station,” said Director Baxter, his own attention
fixed on the diminishing light show.  “The wormhole generator took the energy
and created a wormhole that was kept open with negative matter before it could
close.”

“And how does the
generator open a wormhole?” asked the Empress, smiling, then taking a sip of
champagne.

“The energy is beamed
to a series of graviton projectors that increases the gradient of space for a
few moments, Majesty,” said the Director, his face glowing as he talked about
his element.  “It forms a temporary black hole, which rips open space and
attaches to the rip formed by another black hole formed just a hundred
kilometers away.  They link through a wormhole that we keep open with gravitons
as the holes collapse to nothing.”

“What’s going to happen
to that wormhole?” asked Dimetre, looking at a replay of the generation event
on a wall viewer.

“It’s probably going to
be used as a naval vessel heat sink,” said the Director.  “We plan to start
making some passenger transport gates next week and move them around the
capital system.”

“All of that energy to
create one worm hole?” asked Henry, expanding his flat comp and inputting some
information.

“Most of it,” said
Baxter.  “We probably moved some of it to antimatter and negative matter
production.  Those are also commodities that the Empire needs as much as can be
made.  So we make it.”

“What’s that?” said Dimetre,
pointing up and to spinward.  Something bright flared there in space.

“I’m not sure,” said
the Director, getting a distant look as he tapped into his com link.

“Your Majesty,” yelled
one of the security personnel, running up while holding his hand to his temple,
obviously linking into something.  “We need to get you out of here.  We…”

Augustine looked up to
where Dimetre and the Director were looking, seeing the small dying sun of a
MAM explosion, and felt his heart sink.

*     *     *

The Imperial Fleet
Protection Squadron had only dispatched a few ships to the locale of the
Donut
. 
A heavy cruiser, two destroyers and their compliment of eight space fighters
had seemed enough to guard the Imperial Family when they were on a completely
secured space station of enormous proportions.  A space station protected by
its own squadron and a series of orbiting forts, as well as built in defenses. 
Especially when they were over thirty light hours within the hyperlimit of the
black hole.  Nothing was going to sweep out of hyperspace and surprise the
Imperial Family on their tour.

Only four of the space
fighters were on patrol while the tour was going on.  The other four were being
held as a reserve.  Two of the fighters were in formation between the station
and the hole; the other two were in a flight above the station.  The larger
warships were stationed to the side of the ring, where they would be out of the
way of the planned display.

The fighters moved
their six hundred ton bulks to the sides of the ring when warned that the
fireworks were about to begin.  No one wanted to be caught in the energy bath
that would soon be washing over that region of space.  Set into a following
orbit around the hole that matched the rotation of the station, the crews sat
back and watched the display.

Ensign Mark O’Brien was
sitting in his chair in the copilot/weapons officer’s seat of fighter
Heraklion
III watching as the display began.  He felt calm and excited at the same time. 
Excited to be in a front row seat at a demonstration of the
Donut’s
power.  Calm that his mission was such a milk run, the Emperor as protected as
a human being could be.

The light show began;
space filled with enormously large and bright electron beams that were like the
filaments of stars.  Mark kept his eyes on the viewer, feeling awe at the
release of energies that could bend the laws of physics.  Then something
changed.  He felt a lurch in his stomach.  He felt the viewer fading as if into
a distance, and then a covering blackness as consciousness faded.

Viper felt like he had
awakened from a long sleep.  He could remember images of life that had passed
in the last months.  He could not remember any clear images that would have
been the memories of waking life.  It took a second to orient himself.  Only a
second and his mind was functioning at peak level.