Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Read online

  The room was still littered with decorations, the remains of the party that Mother had organised for Elm and his friends from school. Other than Brehim, he did not really know any local children. Those few who were fortunate enough to live in the prestigious area were, for reasons quite beyond him, not welcomed by Mother as companions for her boy.

  Mother was sitting in a chair across the room, her head hanging towards her chest. He could not tell if she was awake or asleep.

  She brought her arm up from the side of the chair, and Elm saw she was holding a tumbler. Ice clinked as she brought it to her mouth. As she raised her head to drink, she saw him standing in the doorway.

  “What are you doing out of bed, dear?” She said.

  “Is Father home yet, Mother?”

  “No dear, he’s not.”

  Elm pouted. “You said he’d be home to see me.”

  She took another swallow before replying. “Well he isn’t. He’ll be back, just go to bed. When you wake up I’m sure he’ll be home.”

  “You said! You said he’d be back!”

  “It’s not up to me.” She gestured towards him with the tumbler. “Learn to be patient, Elm. Worlds know I have to be.”

  “I waited all day.”

  She smiled, sniggered, and despite his youth Elm realised that it was not a kindly expression of humour. He did not know why.

  “All day? Well aren’t you just the definition of endurance.”

  “Why hasn’t he come home yet?”

  “I don’t know. He’s serving on a battleship, dear. There could be any number of reasons.”

  “You shouldn’t have promised.”

  Her eyes flashed darkly and he realised that for some reason she was now angry with him. “I didn’t plan this, Elm. Just go to bed.”

  “I want to stay up and wait.”

  “No! GO TO BED!”

  He reeled with shock. Mother had never shouted at him like that before. He turned and walked wordlessly back to the stairs.

  Back in his bedroom, he sat up in bed and drew the covers up around his body. He would wait here, he decided. Mother could not force him to sleep.

  In the pit in the middle of his belly, the loneliness and disappointment jostled for position. They burst outward and expanded into him, no longer under his tight control. He did not try to squeeze them down this time; it was their legitimate moment, after all.

  Hours passed before he awoke again.

  The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow from the gardens. Something had woken him up, but he did not know what. After a moment he realised there were voices coming from downstairs. Two voices.

  He leaped out of bed and went to the door, but as he opened it he realised that the tone of the conversation drifting up from the ground floor was not a happy one. He opened the door wide and waited, listening.

  “It’s hardly my fault,” a male voice said.

  Father!

  “You could have let me know.” Mother.

  “It wasn’t possible. We made port after a jump from the line. It was already the middle of the night here.”

  “I still think you could have found a way,” she said. “If not for me then for your son.”

  “You’re lucky I’m back at all. The war isn’t exactly going well.”

  “Lucky? I’m lucky? I should feel lucky to have a husband who wants to see his son?”

  “You know what I mean, Chia. Don’t put words in my mouth. I meant it’s lucky I was able to get shore leave at all, lucky the Curtailer rotated back to the worlds when it did.”

  “Oh yes, I feel sooo lucky. Lucky, lucky me.”

  “You’re drunk. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

  “That’s right, run away. Why don’t you run back to your ship? You’re obviously happier shooting at Viskr than you are looking after your family.”

  There was a pause. “That’s not true and you know it.”

  “Funny, because that’s how it looks.”

  “But that’s not how it is. I’m going to bed Chia. I will spend the morning with Elm, and we’ll have this conversation when you are sober and reasonable.”

  “I am fucking sober.”

  “You aren’t, and I don’t intend to stand here arguing about it.”

  Elm heard a door close downstairs, then another opened towards the rear of the hall. Father must be going to the guest quarters.

  “Useless shit.”

  He decided not to brave a trip across the grand hallway to see Father, given that Mother was obviously in a bad mood. It was enough for now to know that he had come home at long last.

  Elm returned to bed and tried to sleep. The loneliness and disappointment now wrestled for dominance with a third force; a feeling of confused separation. He did not feel he had the strength to intervene, to try and crush them down into the tiny dark spot where they could be imprisoned and rendered impotent.

  It was a long time before sleep finally took him.

  — 10 —

  Eyes and Ears

  March Bel-Askis waited patiently while the other invigilators filed in to the conference hall, their hushed conversations echoing softly around the circular chamber. Considering the urgency of the meeting, they certainly did not appear to be in any great hurry to get under way. Well, he had had to wait almost a standard day for them to convene in one way or another; he could wait a few minutes more.

  They had come from far and wide — in person or by remote — each of them representing the topmost cells of the organisation. From across the great expanse of the Empire’s territories Eyes and Ears had chosen to converge here, at Ramm Stallahad. His home.

  He felt a swell of pride. In all his long years working to protect the Empire, it was only on occasions such as these that Bel-Askis felt he received any real recognition. To host the meeting was to lead the discussion; to lead the discussion was to influence the future. Even those old fools who made up the Home Council rarely encountered opportunities such as this.

  He realised with a start that most of the delegates arriving in person had now taken their seats. Those who were more distant flickered into existence as holograms, shimmering and silvery, the data compressed at source and routed to Ramm Stallahad through the local Herses gate.

  He rose awkwardly to his feet. “The time has come to acknowledge that, in all likelihood, the Imperial Combine is under attack.”

  As he had expected, an urgent murmur ricocheted around the table.

  “In the past month, the Navy has lost no fewer than six patrol vessels. The latest report states that five of our gates are failing to respond, two of them only refusing to do so in the past week. Four of our more isolated outposts and research stations have gone dark. All of these incidents have taken place along the fringes of the Deep Shadows, between the Orion and Perseus arms of the galaxy.”

  Silane Creid, the invigilator for the Shalleon system, raised his palms as if to hold back the tide of revelations. “Are we certain these are not simply accidents or technical issues?”

  “That’s a good question. Yesterday I received confirmation from Fort Kosling that our facility on Herros has been breached. All personnel are currently missing, as is the task force charged with defending them.”

  Another urgent murmur.

  “And the weapons?” That question from Sashan Geneve, the delegate from Sol. Bel-Askis had all the time in the world for the young woman. As politically naïve as she could be, she was strategically gifted and beyond enthusiastic.

  “I regret to report that all the weapons were taken, as were all research materials pertaining to them. In light of this, we can only assume that these other blackouts are also the result of hostile actions.”

  This time the response was clamorous. The delegates seemed to forget themselves, expressing their shock loudly and abandoning the comportment that Bel-Askis felt befitted the occasion. He found himself waiting for their attention again.

  After a few moments, his patience began to wear th
in. He was getting far too old to waste time so easily. “Please, compose yourselves. We have decisions to make.”

  Creid began to speak, and the remainder of the background chatter faded to silence as the delegates realised they might miss crucial discussion.

  “I believe my question still applies,” he said. “I admit we can infer a hostile agent from the attack on Herros, but confirming one incident is not the same as confirming the others.”

  “Agreed,” chorused several of the invigilators.

  Creid looked around as if he had not expected any support, then went on. “We are in the business of demonstrating our conclusions with evidence. What evidence has been collected?”

  Bel-Askis sighed. “The Navy has found no trace of its missing ships, and the hundreds of automated probes sent to investigate have all failed to return any telemetry whatsoever. These facts indicate an active opposing agent. At this time, Admiral Pensh is leading an expedition to investigate one of our silent stations in person.”

  Creid laced his fingers and rested his hands on the table. “I see. I have to wonder why the Navy has only sent probes to check the unresponsive gates.”

  “A hangover from the Perseus conflict.” Geneve said.

  Bel-Askis was impressed. She must have studied the multi-volume analysis of the last war carefully. “Almost certainly.”

  “I don’t follow,” Creid said.

  All eyes turned to Geneve. “In the early days of the war, our biggest military mistake was to send entire battle groups to investigate severed comms and distress calls. Enmeshment accounted for almost half of all fleet losses in the first year of the war alone.”

  Bel-Askis grimaced. Of course he knew the facts, having read virtually every report compiled on the matter — he had even written a good number of those reports. But there was something so much more visceral about hearing the words spoken out loud.

  Creid remained stony-faced. “I’m sorry, but my speciality is knowing who is where, and when. You’ll have to explain what you mean.”

  Geneve continued, looking more than happy to share her appreciation of tactics. “When a destination gate can’t be reached, usually it means the system nexus is also inaccessible. Ships have to jump in blind, through an unbound wormhole. They have very little control over exactly where they will emerge, and no idea of what’s waiting. Even something as innocuous as a small rock can trigger a catastrophe if a ship emerges into the space it’s already occupying. The Viskr exploited that; they laid traps.”

  “I see. So are we to understand that the admiralty is unwilling to throw ships at these star systems, on the off chance that they could be blundering into ambushes?”

  “Exactly. Drawing the enemy is a classic Viskr tactic.”

  “You really ought to know these things, Invigilator Creid.”

  Bel-Askis smiled faintly to himself at this comment from Quisten Leksis, the invigilator representing the Cerina system’s twin planets. It was no great secret that she thoroughly enjoyed a professional rivalry with the Maidre Shalleon delegate. Appearing by hologram from thousands of light years away, she seemed more willing to poke fun at him than she would have been in person.

  “I’m sure I’m not the only person at the table who appreciates clarification.”

  As amusing as it was, Bel-Askis felt the need to nip this distraction in the bud. “The point does stand. The admiralty is concerned that this series of incidents could be a ruse to fragment the armada, to make us move essential defence fleets outside the Six-K radius.”

  “If it is a ruse, who is responsible?” Geneve asked.

  “From what you have just shared, I would have thought the Viskr are the prime suspects,” Creid said.

  “Invigilator Leksis?” Bel-Askis looked across the table at her holographic avatar.

  “Our listening posts have in fact reported unusual activity along the border. Viskr forces are being redeployed almost continuously, although I should say we can’t make head nor tail of the patterns. Their fleets are all over the place—”

  Gordl Branathes, his hologram being routed from Fort Kosling, interrupted her. “If I may?”

  “Yes, Monitor,” said Bel-Askis. “Do go ahead.”

  “I’ve just had a preliminary report cross my desk, literally this very moment. Admiral Pensh’s expedition has uncovered direct evidence of a Viskr attack on CC-60125-E.”

  Creid leaned back in his chair and threw his arms out. “There we go then.”

  “It would seem our research station on that planet was attacked within the past month or so. Three dead Viskr were found at the site, but all of our staff are missing. The only exception is a woman called Amarist Naeb, who was found at Gemen Station on Herros. She appears to have suffered a trauma, which has robbed her of her memory.”

  “Direct evidence indeed,” Creid said.

  The room fell silent, and Bel-Askis knew why. Most of the people called to this conference had been in the intelligence corps for years, and if they had been paying attention they would almost certainly have worked out what was going to come next.

  “You probably all realise that I could have sent you these reports electronically, without inviting discussion. You are present in this meeting because we must provide the admiralty with an interpretation, and to provide such an interpretation requires a vote.”

  Again, the murmur. Only this time it was very quiet and very short-lived.

  “The incidents we have discussed are likely intended to draw our fleets apart and reduce defences in the core systems. With the exception of Herros, which is of course under investigation due to the loss of specific high value assets, there is a good argument for simply ignoring them and instead preparing a large scale defence of the border systems.”

  Geneve gasped. “But we have people out there relying on us to help them!”

  “Fleet Command won’t help them by sending our ships to their destruction,” said Creid.

  Bel-Askis looked at Geneve with an expression that mixed guilt and grief. “I’m sorry, Invigilator Geneve, I really am. But you have clearly studied the last Viskr war, so you will know we simply cannot save everyone in these situations. We must act decisively to protect the colonies we can protect.”

  “They are probably already dead, in any case,” said Creid. “It’s not like it would take very long to wipe them out.”

  “The border worlds are not densely populated.” Bel-Askis nodded gravely. “I believe the average population is somewhere in the order of a hundred thousand. Even the systems with their own gates generally have fewer than a million inhabitants.”

  “I can hardly believe I’m hearing this,” said Geneve.

  “But it needs to be heard,” said Creid. “Pretending that a small number of colonials on the frontier might have survived what is almost certainly an invasion? We’d be kidding ourselves. And I might point out that any attempt at rescue will be for the admiralty to decide on, not this council.”

  Leksis hurriedly brought the conversation back on track. “Where is this going, Invigilator Bel-Askis? I believe you were about to say.”

  “As I said right at the start, all of the incidents we are aware of occurred along the fringes of the rim-ward Deep Shadows. The nearest military force in that direction capable of engaging us in warfare is the Viskr armada. And now Admiral Pensh has found physical evidence that they have certainly attacked us once, and probably attacked us twice.”

  “I take it there has been no diplomatic contact?” The question came from one of the invigilators who had as yet remained silent.

  “No, as usual they ignore our messages.”

  “So then… war has not been declared?”

  “Why should it be?” Geneve asked. “No agreement was signed after Chion; they just stopped mounting their attacks. Technically and legally, we’re still at war.”

  “Ah.”

  Bel-Askis went on. “The question before you all is simple: are you satisfied that the Viskr Junta is most likely the party resp
onsible for the loss of our ships, the communications blackouts, our unresponsive gates, and the attack on Herros?”

  Silence.

  It was a long, long moment before Invigilator Creid spoke. “Shalleon votes yes.”

  “The Kosling system votes yes,” said Branathes.

  “High and Low Cerin vote yes,” Leksis said, without much hesitation.

  Creid’s vote has given the others moral permission to agree, Bel-Askis thought. Even Leksis has not taken this opportunity to contradict him.

  “Earth—” Geneve said. She stumbled on the name of her own home, cleared her throat, and started again. “The Solar system votes yes.”

  The vote passed around the table quickly after that. Broher, Meccrace, Amuthion, Kementhast; all ‘yes’. Firachi and Shuul-Ind, Kol Pent and Bennethium. System after system, all fell in line.

  Bel-Askis suddenly felt older than he had for a long time. Even as he spoke, he could imagine future history writing itself with wrathful spite. In a thousand years, scholars might look back at this meeting and label the gathered invigilators with a term both evocative and unkind.

  “The vote is unanimous. We interpret the reports as being indicative of an invasion, or planned invasion, by the Viskr Junta. The admiralty will be so advised.”

  And once they are advised, he thought, they will surely act.

  — 11 —

  Tabula Rasa

  Occre Brant hurried through the starkly lit white and grey corridors of Fort Kosling, anxious to return to medical as quickly as he could. He could not say why exactly, but the conversation he had just shared with Gordl Branathes had really made his skin crawl.

  Earlier in the day Brant had received grave news via Stiletto: on the planet Caden was now calling Echo, he had found clear evidence of a Viskr offensive against the Empire. It was a troubling revelation, and Brant had sent it forward to Branathes’ holo at once, knowing that the monitor was already in session with most of the invigilators of Eyes and Ears.