The Armageddon Inheritance

“His Majesty friggin’ well better be,” someone muttered.

“I didn’t hear that,” MacMahan said pleasantly. “But if I had, I’d certainly agree.”

Horus watched Nergal’s mangled hull drop painfully through the seething electrical storm and tried not to weep. He failed, but perhaps no one noticed in the icy sheets of rain.

Strange ships escorted her, half again her size, shepherding her home. He winced as another drive pod failed and she lurched, but Adrienne Robbins forced her back under control. The other ships’ tractors waited, ready to ease her struggle, but Horus could still hear Adrienne’s voice.

“Negative,” she’d said, tears glittering beneath the words. “She got us this far; she’ll take us home. On her own, Goddamn it! On her own!”

And now the strange ships hovered above her like guards of honor as the broken battleship limped down the last few meters of sky. Two landing legs refused to extend, and Robbins lifted her ship again, holding her rock- steady on her off-balance, rapidly failing drive, then laid her gently down upon her belly. It was perfect, Horus thought quietly. A consummate perfection he could never have matched.

There was no sound but the cannonade of Earth’s thunder, saluting the return of her final defender with heaven’s own artillery. Then the emergency vehicles moved out, flashers splintering in the pounding rain, sirens silent, while the gleaming newcomers settled in a circle about their fallen sister.

Colin rode the battleship Chesha’s transit shaft to the main ramp and stepped out into the storm. Horus was waiting.

Something inside Colin tightened as he peered at him through the unnatural sheets of sleety rain. Horus looked more rock-like than ever, but he was an ancient rock, and the last thirty months had cut deep new lines into that powerful old face. Colin saw it as the old Imperial stared back at him, his eyes bright with incredulous joy, and climbed the ramp towards him.

“Hello, Horus,” he said, and Horus reached out and gripped his upper arms, staring into his face as he might have stared at a ghost.

“You are here,” he whispered. “You made it.”

“Yes,” Colin said, the quiet word washed in thunder. And then his voice broke and he hugged the old man close. “We made it,” he said into his father-in-law’s shoulder, “and so did you. My God, so did you!”

“Of course we did,” Horus said, and Colin had never heard such exhaustion in a human voice. “You left me a planet full of Terra-born to do it with, didn’t you?”

General Chiang Chien-su was frantically busy, for the final shock of earthquakes and spouting volcanoes waked by Iapetus’s destruction had capped the mounting devastation he’d fought so long. Yet he’d seemed almost cheerful in his last report. His people were winning this time, and the mighty planetoids riding solar orbit with the planet were helping. Their auxiliaries were everywhere, helping his own over-worked craft rescue survivors from the blizzards, mud, water, and fire which had engulfed them.

Except for him, Earth’s surviving chiefs of staff sat in Horus’s office.

Vassily Chernikov looked like a two-week corpse, but his face was relaxed. The core tap was deactivated at last, and he hadn’t lost control of it. Gerald Hatcher and Tsien Tao-ling sat together on a couch, shoulders sagging, feet propped on the same coffee table. Sir Frederick Amesbury sat in an armchair, smoking a battered pipe, eyes half-shut.

Tama Hideoshi was not there. Tamman’s son had found the samurai’s death he’d sought.

Colin sat on the corner of Horus’s desk and knew he’d never seen such utter and complete fatigue. These were the men, he thought; the ones who had done the impossible. He’d already queried the computers and learned what they’d endured and achieved. Even with the evidence before him, he could scarcely credit it, and he hated what he was going to have to tell them. He could see the relaxation in their faces, the joy of a last-minute rescue, the knowledge that the Imperium had not abandoned them. Somehow he had to tell them the truth, but first…

“Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “I never imagined what I’d really asked you to do. I have no idea how you did it. I can only say—thank you. It seems so inadequate, but …” He broke off with a small, apologetic shrug, and Gerald Hatcher smiled wearily.

“It cuts both way, Governor. On behalf of your military commanders—and, I might add, the entire planet —thank you. If you hadn’t turned up when you did—” It was his turn to shrug.

“I know,” Colin said, “and I’m sorry we cut it so close. We came out of supralight just as your parasites went in.”

“You came—” Horus’s brows wrinkled in a frown. “Then how in the Maker’s name did you get here? You should’ve been at least twenty hours out!”

“Dahak was. In fact, he and ’Tanni are still about twelve hours out. Tamman and I took the others and micro-jumped on ahead,” Colin said, then grinned at Horus’s expression. “Scout’s honor. Oh, we still needed Dahak’s computers—we were plugged in by fold-space link all the way—but he couldn’t keep up. You see, those ships carry hyper drives as well as Enchanach drives.”

“They what?!” Horus blurted.

“I know, I know,” Colin said soothingly. “Look, there’s a lot to explain. The main thing about how we got here is that those ships are faster’n hell. They can hyper to within about twelve light-minutes of a G0 star, and they can pull about seventy percent light-speed once they get there.”

“Maker! When you get help, you get help, don’t you?”

“Well,” Colin said slowly, folding his hands on his knee and looking down at them, “yes, and no. You see, we couldn’t find anyone to come with us.” He looked up and saw the beginning of understanding horror in his father-in-law’s eyes. “The Imperium’s gone, Horus,” he said gently. “We had to bring these ships back ourselves … and they’re all that’s coming.”

Chapter Eighteen

Dahak’s transit shaft deposited Horus at his destination, and the silent hatch slid open. He began to step through it, then stopped abruptly and dodged as fifty kilos of black fur hurled itself head-first past him. Tinker Bell disappeared down the shaft’s gleaming bore, her happy bark trailing away into silence, and he shook his head with a grin.

He stepped into the captain’s quarters, still shaking his head. The atrium was filled with ‘sunlight,’ a welcome relief from the terrible rains and blizzards flaying the battered Earth, and Colin rose quickly to grip his hand and lead him back to the men sitting around the stone table.

Hector MacMahan looked up with a rare, wide grin and waved a welcome, and if Gerald Hatcher and Tsien Tao-ling were more restrained, their smiles looked almost normal again. Vassily wasn’t here; he and Valentina were visiting their son and making appropriately admiring sounds as Vlad explained the latest wonders of Imperial engineering to them.

“Where’s ’Tanni?” Horus demanded as he and Colin approached the others.

“She’ll be along. She’s collecting something we want to show you.”

“Maker, it’ll be good to see her again!” Horus said, and Colin grinned.

“She feels the same way … Dad.”

Horus tried to turn his flashing smile into a pained expression, but who would have believed ’Tanni would have the good sense to wed Colin? Especially given the way they’d first met?

“Hi, Granddad.” Hector didn’t stand; his left leg was regenerating from the slug which had punched through his armor in the final fighting aboard Vindicator. “Sorry about Tinker Bell. She was in a hurry.”

“A hurry? I thought she was a loose hyper missile!”

“I know,” Colin laughed. “She’s been that way ever since she discovered transit shafts, and Dahak spoils