Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3) Read online

  “We’ve also got a couple of suits of armor far enough out from the blast to survive intact, but close enough in to the blast to be completely crippled. We’re not getting anything useful from their systems, but their occupants were intact-ish.”

  “Hence the macabre and the curious, I suppose. Anything I should know?” he asked.

  “Fucked if I have a clue,” Marković said in a tired voice. “But come take a look.”

  She led him to the row of bodies covered in white sheets, picking a specific body and pulling the sheet back.

  “This was one of the soldiers,” she noted, gesturing at the blue-furred corpse. “Suit failed in the blast; he died from heat and impact.” She paused. “The scarring predates that.”

  James knelt down by the body and studied it, immediately seeing what she meant. Chunks of the Kanzi’s fur had been burnt away as they died, but his face was mostly undamaged—but at some point, someone had burned patterns into the skin there. The Kanzi’s fine facial fur had mostly grown in around the scars, but there were still lines of flesh visible through the oddly white lines of fur.

  “Do these symbols mean anything?” he asked softly.

  “Nothing the translators have loaded,” Vildar replied. “I’ve relayed to the Navy contingent, but I understand us to have full files on the Kanzi languages. Those are definitely intentional symbols, but they’re not in any language we know.”

  “I didn’t think the Kanzi went in for ritual scarification,” James noted. “Being ‘the perfect form of God’ and all.”

  “They don’t,” Marković told him. “I’ve been studying them—they did try and conquer our planet—and the main Theocracy cultures do not go in for bodily modification at all. This kind of scarring would be the equivalent of you or I intentionally chopping off an arm for style points.”

  “So, we’re looking at a Kanzi from an unusual subculture,” James noted. “They’ve got them, same as we do.”

  “That’s what I thought when I first saw it, but…” The Captain shook her head and glanced over the corpses, comparing the bodies to a map on her helmet screen. She walked down the row and uncovered another body.

  “This one was probably a civilian,” she concluded. “No uniform, no weapon. Some kind of scanner gear…but she’s the one who survived the blast and poisoned herself.”

  The Kanzi female had been about four and a half feet tall when alive but, other than that and the blue fur, probably would have been considered quite attractive as a human. The foam around her mouth from the poison hurt that image, though, as did the ritual scarification across her face, neck and breasts.

  “Civilian but still scarred-up,” James noted. “All of them?”

  “All of them intact enough for us to be sure,” Marković confirmed. “That’s not some weird subculture, unless that culture manned this entire op. There’s no question these guys are Kanzi, but…”

  “Tech the Kanzi aren’t supposed to have,” the General said slowly. “Universal body modification the Theocracy regards as abhorrent. Suicidal fanaticism the Kanzi reserve for elite units. All of that, wrapped up in a symbiology we have no records of…”

  “They’re Kanzi, but I don’t think they’re Theocracy,” his junior concluded as he trailed off. “Which is weird and makes no sense.”

  “Agreed.” James rose from the bodies and looked around the Corellian Plateau again. With a sigh, he linked into the main communications network.

  “Link me to Governor Harper,” he ordered.

  #

  Governor Kagney Harper was a cheerfully bubbly blond woman who reminded James of Duchess Bond herself, at least physically. Bubbly was not a word one tended to apply to the woman who’d once been nicknamed “Bloody Annie” for sheer stubborn pigheadedness.

  “Greetings, General Wellesley. How may the Imperium’s government in Centauri assist you?” she asked brightly. “I must extend my thanks and the thanks of the Imperium for your rapid and successful intervention in this incident, as well as for the intervention of Liberty.”

  “I don’t speak for the Militia, Governor Harper,” James reminded her. “I hope you’ve extended your thanks directly to Captain Rolfson.”

  “I have, but we all know you speak for Her Grace of Terra, General,” Harper said. “The Board of Directors made it very clear to me that you hold Duchess Bond’s full proxy with regards to the Centauri Development Corporation.”

  The governance structure of Hope was…odd. Harper reported to both the A!Tol Imperium, who ruled Hope in a strictly governmental sense, and to the Board of Directors of the CDC, who owned Hope in a strictly economic sense.

  And the CDC, in turn, was sixty percent owned by the Duchy of Terra, with the remainder owned by various private interests across the Imperium who’d underwritten humanity’s first colony.

  Hope was not part of the Duchy of Terra, but Duchess Bond’s authority over the Board of Directors stretched a long way.

  “I need your survey teams,” James told Harper. “Your planes, your ground teams, your satellites. Everything. If we need to take the Corellian Plateau apart stone by stone to find what the Kanzi were after, we will.

  “My shuttles and Guards will be on site for a while, though we are sending the Marines back to New Hope City. For the moment, I’ll remain here as well.”

  “Of course, General,” Harper replied after a moment of hesitation. “Those teams and vehicles belong to the CDC, after all. They’ll be glad to place them at your disposal.”

  She paused.

  “Just what are you expecting to find?”

  “I have no idea,” he admitted. “But someone sacrificed four destroyers and over a thousand people just to get a chance at finding it, so I’m going to bet it’s worth our time.”

  Harper coughed delicately.

  “Will you be leading the expedition yourself?” she asked. “My schedule says a courier will be arriving to pick you up tomorrow evening.”

  For a few long moments, James considered exerting his considerable independent authority to stay. Hope didn’t even have a starcom receiver, let alone a starcom transmitter. That meant that the courier coming to pick him up was the fastest way to get the news about what happened back to Sol and the Duchy’s full starcom—and hence to the rest of the Imperium.

  “I’ll talk to Rolfson,” he concluded. “I want a high-level Ducal representative involved, Governor. Whatever this is, I suspect it’s going to be of concern to the species, Governor, as well as the Imperium.”

  #

  James studied Liberty with a careful eye as his shuttle approached the big cruiser. It was easy for someone who’d served aboard Tornado during Bond’s year-long exile from Terra to see where the newer ship drew inspiration from the original experimental cruiser.

  Liberty was leaner and more rakish than the old ship, better designed for her shields and armor and energy weapons, but she retained the same double-ended-spindle design and was painted the same gray color.

  The Ducal Guard’s commander wasn’t fully up to date on the latest compressed-matter-armor designs, but the armor and the associated defensive suites were what fed and drove the Duchy of Terra’s economy now. He understood enough to realize just how unusual the visible dimples on the armor, easily fifty meters across, that marked the impacts from the battle were. Compressed-matter plating didn’t dent. Its supports broke. The plates could be detached from each other. The armor could be blasted off the ship…but it didn’t dent.

  But then, none of the tests they’d conducted had involved missiles dramatically faster and more dangerous than the A!Tol Imperium possessed.

  “We’re docking now, sir,” his pilot informed him. “Captain Rolfson has prepared a side party.”

  James was a descendant of the original Duke of Wellington, who had fought Napoleon, with a dozen and more generations of stiff-upper-lipped British nobility behind him. He understood the need and importance of pomp and circumstance in the military.

  Sometimes, however
, he was in a hurry. But the rituals and traditions of the Duchy of Terra’s still-fledgling militaries had to be nurtured and encouraged, to rebuild the spirit of Earth’s defenders that had been shattered by the Annexation.

  With a smile that concealed his impatience, James squared his shoulders to the task ahead.

  #

  After the formalities were over, the two old comrades took a seat in Rolfson’s office, the Captain producing an excellent bottle of wine and pouring glasses for them both.

  “How is Liberty?” James asked. “You took more of a beating than I thought.”

  “We’re combat-capable, though we could use a reload,” Rolfson replied. “The…dents are cosmetic, really. We’ve replaced the support matrix behind them, but I’m not sure anyone in the Imperium actually has the gear to pound out dents in compressed matter.”

  “Those missiles…” James shook his head. “I don’t suppose they gave you any valuable insight, easily missed by an old ground-pounder, as to where these strange Kanzi came from?”

  “Other than being quite certain the Theocracy doesn’t have anything like them?” Rolfson sighed. “Nothing. What intel the Navy passes on to us suggests that point eight five cee seems to be about the absolute limit of what the interface drive can reach. All of the Core Powers use a point eight five missile, even if it’s a secondary weapon for most of them now.”

  “I shudder to think what their primary weapons look like,” the General said dryly.

  “The only one of them we’re sure of is that the Mesharom use a hyper-capable FTL missile that can enter and exit hyperspace significantly closer to gravity sources than any hyperdrive we have,” Rolfson told him. “The Core Powers are easily two or three hundred years ahead of both the Imperium and the Kanzi. More, probably. It’s hard to judge.”

  “And these Kanzi-manned ships were carrying Core-tier tech.”

  “Not quite,” the Militia Captain disagreed. “Core-tier missiles, but…our scans suggest a more patchwork collection of tech. Compressed-matter armor and super-advanced interface engines, but their shields are only next-generation, not next-next-next generation, if that makes sense?”

  “Sort of,” James conceded.

  “And we’re frankly not sure how they were powering everything, because what scans we got of their power systems suggests that their fusion-core tech is actually behind the current Theocracy military. On the other hand, we have no idea why the last of them imploded, and I’m guessing those are related.”

  “Was there any useful debris?”

  “No.” Rolfson shook his head. “Space combat doesn’t tend to leave much unless you’re trying to take prisoners. Nobody was trying yesterday, especially not after Division Lord Harrison died.”

  “That’s going to have consequences I can’t predict,” James admitted. “He and Tanaka were the only Lord-ranked human officers in the Imperial Navy. Death in the line of duty, defending an Imperial colony, should look good, but…”

  “But Hope is a human colony, so who knows how Imperial politics will take it,” Rolfson agreed. Humanity had been part of the Imperium for four years, but they still wore their membership uncomfortably at best.

  “Exactly. Commander McPhail’s courier will be here to pick me up in about two hours,” the General told the younger man. “I considered staying, but I think I need to get back to the Duchy and let Annette know everything that’s happened. I suspect the aftermath of this is going to give us all a massive headache.”

  “Agreed.” Liberty’s Captain sighed. “Make sure both the Duchess and Admiral Villeneuve know we had to use the plasma lance,” he noted. “We’ve been keeping the fact that we’ve built any of them under wraps, but I needed to be certain we took them down.”

  James nodded. Technically, the Duchy hadn’t incorporated any Laian technology into their new ships—but the members of the Laian Exiles who’d run one of the most notorious pirate ports in that region of space who’d immigrated to Sol had been involved in the design of the new ships.

  They hadn’t brought a single schematic or technology sample with them, but it turned out that some of the Laian engineers had forgotten more about starship technology than many A!Tol engineers would ever learn. Just having them on hand making suggestions and pointing out where the human research teams were going wrong had been a huge advantage for the Thunderstorm development teams.

  “The Imperium knows we have the tech,” James reminded him. “As I understand, we’re negotiating licensing the Thunderstorm design to several other yards and the Navy has contracted with us to build one of the several squadrons they’ve ordered.”

  “It’s not the Imperium we’re worried about,” the Captain replied. “It’s the Laians. We’re not sure how the old Laian Republic is going to react to their long-lost exiles upgrading the tech of an outer-galaxy power.”

  “Fair,” James nodded. “The Duchess, the Admiral and I will deal with it, I suppose. I need you here, of course.”

  “Playing watchdog until the Navy can reinforce the picket?”

  “Pretty much. I also, however, want you to personally take control of the survey expedition looking for what the Kanzi were after,” James ordered. “We need to know what they were willing to sacrifice so much for even a chance of finding.”

  “I’m hesitant to leave my ship, sir,” Rolfson objected.

  “This is a critical priority, Captain,” James said flatly. The Ducal Guard and the Militia might not share a chain of command, but neither of them had any illusions about the Guard General’s ability to give a Militia Captain orders. “We must know what they were after.

  “It might be important enough that we simply don’t admit to the Theocracy that we saw these people, Captain. I want a senior Ducal representative on the ground when we find it, and right now, that means you.

  “Understood, Captain?”

  Rolfson nodded.

  “I understand, sir,” he conceded. “It’ll be a delicate balancing act, but we can make it work. What I do need, though, is ammunition resupply. We shot off almost our entire missile magazines taking down those destroyers.”

  “I’ll see to it,” James promised. “We’ll probably end up sending a full battle group. If there is something on Hope worth all of this effort, then I’m quite certain both the Duchy and the Imperium want to see it defended—and the Militia’s capital ships are closer than the nearest Imperial battle squadrons.”

  #

  Chapter 6

  Harold watched as the courier Hermes Four disappeared back through her hyper portal, heading towards Sol with the news of the strange events in Alpha Centauri, then turned his attention to the planet beneath him and the remains of its Imperial defenders.

  Liberty outmassed the remaining four destroyers of the Imperial picket, but there were always niceties and traditions to observed, regardless of the actual balance of force.

  Commander Teykay of Plainsfang was now the senior officer of the picket, the Rekiki officer resembling nothing so much as a massive, dark green crocodile centaur to human eyes. His body language was unreadable to Harold, but the translator handily picked up his concerned, overwhelmed tones.

  “Per Imperial rules, Captain Rolfson, I remain in command here as the senior Imperial officer,” Teykay told him. “I would appreciate your advice and suggestions, however, as I was fourth in this picket’s sequence of command.”

  Plainsfang was a Terran-upgraded Capital-class destroyer and should have been able to eat her Kanzi equivalents for breakfast. Instead, a mere three Kanzi destroyers had functionally destroyed the picket.

  His “request” basically amounted to surrendering command to Rolfson and they both knew it, but it would also cover the big alien’s posterior when the Imperial Navy started poking around just what the hell had happened there.

  “I understand completely, Captain Teykay,” Harold confirmed. The A!Tol words for the rank of “Captain” and the title of “Captain” as the commander of a ship were actually different, but
the English problem remained. Fortunately, the translation program they were using was very, very good at context.

  It wasn’t a universal translator. The portable devices only contained thirty or forty languages, and even the program running on Liberty’s computers was limited to languages it knew and had problems with rarer cultural metaphor inside those languages, but it made the A!Tol’s multi-species interstellar empire possible.

  “I suggest I pull Liberty into the high guard position,” he continued. That would put the heavy cruiser at roughly a light-second out from the planet in a long, slow orbit that would allow her to intercept any approach to the planet. “I think your ships would be better off directly positioned above New Hope City, to protect the colony in the case of another attack.”

  That kind of layered defense was more effective at defending against planetary bombardment than an invasion, but Harold had the grim suspicion that any second wave would focus on removing the “human problem” before continuing their search.

  Sneaking past them hadn’t worked, after all.

  “I agree with your logic,” Teykay said gratefully. “We will deploy as you recommend. We should remain in close contact, Captain. We don’t know if there’s a second herd to this stampede.”

  Harold smiled at the translation. Some metaphors didn’t cross species. Some metaphors, while unfamiliar, were still quite clear.

  “My orders are to deploy with most of my small craft to the surface,” he warned the Imperial officer. “The Duchy of Terra wants to keep a close eye on the survey of the Corellian Plateau.”

  “Of course,” the Rekiki acknowledged. “Our paths align, Captain. I would happily contribute our own shuttlecraft and sensor drones to the search. Without more knowledge, we risk missing a strategic threat.”

  “I appreciate the assistance, Captain,” Harold said. “The risk clearly already exists. We need to know what it is!”