Heirs of Empire

“I’m trying. It’s— Sean, my scanners say that thing’s moving. It’s almost like … like some weird ECM, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Sean frowned. That single massive power source was all alone down there, and that made it the most maddening puzzle yet. Obviously the population and tech base which had produced the system installations hadn’t survived, or they would have been challenged by now. Besides, if the planet had fusion power, there should be dozens of planetary facilities down there, not just one. But without people, how had even one power plant survived the millennia? And what did Harry mean by “moving”? He plugged into her systems and watched it with her, and damned if she wasn’t right. It was like some sort of ECM, as if something were trying to prevent them from locking in its coordinates.

“Can you crack whatever it is, Harry?”

“I think so. It’s a weird effect, but it looks like … Oh, that’s sneaky!” Her tone took on a mix of admiration and excitement. “That source isn’t as big as we thought, Sean. It is big, but there’s at least a dozen—probably more like two or three dozen—false emitters down there, and they’re jumping back and forth between them. Their generators aren’t moving, they’re just reshaping the main emission source. I don’t know why, but now that I know what they’re doing it’s only a matter of ti—”

“Status change.” Sandy’s voice was flat with tension. “The satellite power readings are going up like missiles. They’re coming on-line, Sean!”

His eyes darted back to the satellites. Those had been stasis fields; now they were gone, and whole clusters of new sources were coming up while they watched. Sean chewed his lip, wondering what the hell was going on. But until he knew—

“Bring us about, Brashan. Let’s not get in too deep.”

“Coming onto reciprocal course, aye,” Brashan confirmed, and Sean watched the changing tactical symbols in the display as Israel came about.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.

* * *

“First phase activation complete. All platforms nominal.”

Vroxhan listened to the Voice’s ancient, musical words as a net of emeralds blazed against the night sky. God’s Shields glowed with the color of life, yet he’d never seen so many of them at once, not even at the once-a- decade celebration of High Fire Test. Truly this was the time of Trial, and he licked his lips as he proceeded to the second verse of the Canticle.

“Activate tracking systems,” he intoned sonorously.

* * *

“Status change!” This time Sandy almost screamed the words. “Target system activation! Those things are weapons platforms!”

“Settle down, Sandy!” Sean snapped. “Brashan, take us to point-seven! Evasion pattern Alpha Romeo!”

“Alpha Romeo, aye,” Brashan replied with reassuring Narhani calm.

“Target acquisition,” the Voice announced. Its singing power filled the Sanctum, and the golden ring about the demons’ sigil turned blood-red. Tiny symbols appeared within it—some steady and unwinking, others changing with eye-bewildering flickers. Vroxhan had never seen anything like that; none of the symbols which appeared during Plot Test and Fire Test ever changed, and mingled terror and exaltation filled him as he chanted the third verse.

“Initiate weapon release cycle.”

* * *

Israel leapt to full speed, and the power of her drive quivered in bone and sinew as Brashan threw her into the evasion pattern. A corner of Sean’s thoughts stole a moment to be thankful for all the drills they’d run and another to curse how undermanned they were, but it was only a tiny corner. The rest of his mind had suddenly gone cold, humming with a strange, deep note unlike anything he’d ever experienced in a training exercise, and his thoughts came like a dance of lightning, automatic, almost instinctive.

“Tactical, get the shields up and initiate ECM! Download decoys for launch on my signal but do not engage.”

“Shields—up!” Sandy snapped back, her earlier edge of panic displaced by trained reactions. “ECM—active. Decoys prepped and downloaded.”

“Acknowledged. Have you localized that power source, Harry?”

“Negative!”

Sean felt himself tightening inwardly as his queerly icy brain raced. Every instinct screamed to open fire to preempt whatever those weapons might do, but even if his assumption that the planetary power source was the command center was right, he couldn’t hit it if Harry couldn’t localize it. That only left the platforms themselves, and they were such small targets—and there were so many of them—that going after them would be a losing proposition. Perhaps more importantly, they hadn’t fired yet. If he initiated hostilities, they most certainly would, and although Israel was beyond energy weapon range, maximum range for the Fourth Empire’s hyper missiles against a target her size was thirty-eight light-minutes. They were ten light-minutes inside that. At maximum speed, they needed fourteen minutes to clear the planet’s missile envelope, and every second the platforms spent thinking about shooting was one priceless second in which they weren’t shooting.

* * *

“Target evading.”

Vroxhan’s heart faltered as the Voice departed from the Canticle of Deliverance. It had never said those words before, and the symbols inside the bloody circle danced madly. The demon light pulsed and capered, and his faith wavered. But he felt ripples of panic flaring through the bishops and upper-priests. He had to do something, and he forced his merely mortal voice to remain firm as he intoned the fourth verse of the Canticle.

“Initiate firing sequence!” he sang, and his soul filled with relief as the Voice returned the proper response.

“Initiating.”

* * *

“Launch activation! Multiple launch activations!”

Sean paled at Sandy’s cry. The platforms had brought their support systems on-line; now their hyper launchers were cycling. They’d need several seconds to wind up to full launch status, but there were hundreds of them!

He tasted blood. This was a survey ship’s worst nightmare: an intact, active quarantine system. An Asgerd-class planetoid would have hesitated to engage this kind of firepower, and he had exactly one parasite battleship.

“Launch decoys!”

“Launching, aye.” A brief heartbeat. “First decoy salvo away. Second salvo prepping.”

Blue dots speckled the display with false images, each a duplicate of Israel’s own emissions signature as it streaked away from her.