Книга: Shades of Grey

Shades of Grey

(When the Empire Falls, Book 2)

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Dear Readers

The four books in the When the Empire Falls series were written in 2008 and represent my first major attempt at creating a space opera. (The other major attempt, the Democracy’s Right series, can also be found on my website for free.) As you will see if you read them, elements that eventually became part of The Empire’s Corps were first explored within these texts.

I have been working on revising this universe and eventually writing them out again, using what I have learned in 5 more years of writing. If enough people think that there is potential in the storyline, I will return to it. As these are very much drafts (with spelling errors and other problems) please don’t let me know about problems in the text. I will do a complete rewrite if I return to this universe.

I don’t feel comfortable offering these books for sale. However, if you want to tip me, please visit the cookie jar - ^{http://www.chrishanger.net/cookiejar.html}

Have fun!

Chris

Some things were perfectly clear, seen with the vision of youthNo doubts and nothing to fear, I claimed the corner on truthThese days it's harder to say I know what I'm fighting forMy faith is falling awayI'm not that sure anymoreShades of grey wherever I goThe more I find out the less that I knowBlack and white is how it should beBut shades of grey are the colours I see

Billy Joel (Shades of Grey)Prologue

Once upon a time, because all the best stories start that way, there was an alien race called the Imperials – or, more accurately, a faction of that alien race called the Imperials. This alien race expanded into space, in the normal manner, and had the ill-luck to encounter as their First Contact a xenophobic race of natural racists, who treated the Imperial contact team as a declaration of war. Five years of heavy fighting later, the Imperials had crushed the xenophobic race and liberated their subject races. Empire was nothing less than a natural development for them; the faction called the Imperials had secured its grip on the leavers of power.

Somewhere around two thousand years – FTL travel does odd things to time - after the birth of the Empire, the Imperials encountered Earth. Naturally patient beyond anything a human could match, the Imperials watched and waited for almost a hundred years before striking…and when they struck, they struck hard. It took a week of hard fighting to suppress and conquer Earth, but the outcome was inevitable. Earth became part of the Empire, like it or not.

A thousand years passed, and along with it the memories of human independence; few of humanity’s children ever believed in a world where humanity had been the only race to walk the planet. Humans took advantage of the Imperial offer of technology and new worlds to conquer; the Imperials seeded humanity throughout the Human Sector – and throughout the Empire. Humans fought for the Imperials, humans worked for the Imperials, humans were a trusted and loyal component of the Empire, humans had prospered under the Empire…

…So it came as something of a shock when the Imperials just abandoned part of the Empire, perhaps all of the Empire. An unknown alien race was probing the borders of the Empire, a clear and present menace to interstellar peace and harmony, but the Imperials could no longer afford to maintain their Empire. The explanations were confusing and contradictory, but one thing was clear; humanity was suddenly independent again, after a thousand years as part of the Empire.

Humanity rose to the challenge, attempting to hold together in the face of a sudden and dangerous threat from the alien Greys, finally fighting the Greys to a standstill in the Sol System itself. Humanity had won its first major battle against the Greys, but it was not a decisive battle – how could it have been? The Greys knew where humanity and its worlds were, the Grey homeworlds were somewhere on the other side of the New Sector, almost a thousand light years from Earth. Where could humanity strike, to win a victory?

The Imperials could have handled the matter, but the Imperials were gone; they would be gone for at least three hundred years…

…Or at least that’s what they told us.

***

It was ten years after the Invasion.

The building confronting Tommy Hardly was cold and dark, but his inserts, a gift from his master, revealed the presence of humans further inside the garage, hidden from the view of the cops. The State Police, still weak and under-strength since the Invasion and the years of chaos that had followed the arrival of Earth’s new masters, were trying, but parts of America had returned to mob rule. They tried, he knew, to keep the peace, but it was hard; the remainder of the once-proud American Army and the National Guard had been removed to camps, far from the remainder of the human race. There was still a resistance out there somewhere, but everyone knew that resistance was futile against the Imperials.

The thought made Hardly smile. Resistance is futile…

He backed the van into the garage and watched grimly as the door came down, hiding them from the view of anyone passing by. Men in long white coats appeared as the lights came on, illuminating the garage and allowing Hardly and his men to open the van, revealing the girl inside. Secured firmly to a chair, her terrified eyes peered out at them as they unhitched her chair and carried it – and her – out of the van, then further into the building. She was unhurt; Hardly had his orders and he knew better than to disobey his masters. It didn’t matter; pussy was cheap these days, if you had food and water and a good home in one of the secure compounds. It didn’t help that the Imperials generally executed those who broke their rules – and rape was on the list of capital offences.

He shrugged and followed the men in white coats, deeper into the building. Inside, it was almost the stereotypical hospital, with sterile walls and cold bright lights; a faint smell of antiseptic completed the image. Hardly smiled grimly; most hospitals didn’t have the armed men defending all of the exits, or the secure facilities designed to hold dangerous criminals. The facility was wasted; what was so special about the seventeen men and women that he’d tracked down at the behest of his master?

She’d been one of the lucky ones; her town had been just far enough from civilisation to survive when thousands of Americans poured out of the cities, looking for food and water and security, something that had been lacking in post-Invasion America. Taking her had been easy; the town hadn’t been prepared even slightly for an attack, now that the world was pacified and even some few thousand Americans working to support the Imperials. Collaborators, the resistance called them; Hardly knew that collaborators, just like everyone else, needed to survive. His small commando force had moved in, captured the girl and fled; any outraged pursuit had been swiftly outraced. By now, her family would believe her dead; they would hope that she was dead…

There were still cannibal gangs in the hills…

The woman had been taken into a sterile examination room, where a pair of nurses had stripped her and injected her with a drug, something that Hardly had only heard rumours about. The Imperials didn’t play fair; not only had they provided the perfect lie detectors to their collaborators and the police, but they had drugs that sent their subject into a hypnotic state, one where they would have perfect recall…and absolutely no control over what they spilled out.

It just wasn’t fair.

Hardly watched dispassionately as the male doctor entered and examined the girl with remarkable professionalism. Like Hardly himself, he would know that possible consequences of failure; he wouldn’t waste time enjoying himself when there was work to be done. Hardly leaned against the wall and waited; the doctor was gently murmuring into the woman’s ear. Her eyes were dull and defocused; her head was lolling gently against the restraints. One of the nurses held her as she spoke; the doctor merely watched.

“What is your name?”

“Julia Timpson,” the woman said, after a moment. Hardly blinked; when he’d been asked to track her down, she’d been going under the name of Shelia Robertson. “I’m Julia.”

The doctor smiled. “Why did you call yourself Shelia Robertson?”

“I didn’t want them to find me,” Julia said. Her voice was hazy, almost as if she was speaking from a very great distance. “They’re coming for me still, whatever might have happened to the world, they’re still out there…”

The Doctor exchanged a glance with a figure standing on the other side of the room. Hardly frowned, cursing himself; he hadn’t even seen the figure until the Doctor had called his attention to him. Wrapped up in human clothes, almost like a Muslim woman from the Middle East, there was still no mistaking the figure for human. It was too tall, too oddly proportioned for that…

The Doctor smiled wanly. “Who’s coming for you, Julia?”

Julia screamed, her body suddenly twisting against the restraints. There was nothing sexual in it, only a desperate primal fear. “The grey bastards,” she screamed. Her voice was loud and filled with panic. “The bastards who take me from my home and children and rape me and hurt me and…”

She collapsed back into her chair. Hardly watched with interest as the Doctor patted her hand. “You’re safe now,” he whispered. He glanced – again – at the figure. “No one is going to hurt you now; we’re going to find the bastards and hurt them.” He paused. “What happens when they come?”

Julia gasped out her story. Hardly wasn’t sure if he believed it or not; she spoke of an alien ship visiting her home and taking her onboard. Once onboard, she’d been subjected to a series of scientific and medical examinations, ranging from simple tests to actually stealing blood and ova – even a foetus – from her body. She’d had her memories blocked from her mind, but she’d known, somehow, that something was wrong.

“They took my baby,” she screamed, her voice desperate for help that would never come. “They just sucked him out of me, took him from me, took him onboard their fucking flying saucer and took him away!”

“It’s all in the past,” the Doctor breathed. “I want you to pretend that you are looking back at it, as if you are spying on what’s happening to someone else, I want you to…pretend that you’re observing it…what happened?”

“They always come for her at night,” Julia said. Hardly was puzzled until he realised that Julia was pretending that she was only watching what had happened, rather than regressing to when it had actually coming. “Four of the little grey bastards, floating through the window; she opens it for them, the silly cunt. Doesn’t she know that they can come through the window?”

The Doctor said nothing. “They take her arms and carry her out of the window, into their craft,” Julia breathed. “She’s scared, but she cannot move; they keep lying to her, telling her that its all going to be fine, that there will be no pain. She knows they’re lying, but…they float her into her craft, tell her to remove her clothes and she does, standing there shameless in front of them.”

Hardly fought down a chuckle. “They put her on a table and then the pain begins,” Julia said. Her voice was starting to break slightly. “They send their machines into her, taking her body apart piece by piece, until they have found what they want. Sometimes they leave something inside her, something to watch her, something to be with her all the time; sometimes they take her memories out of her head…she’s sleeping with my husband, the fucking bitch!”

“It’s all in the past,” the Doctor assured her. “What are they doing with her memories?”

“They’re looking through her memories, trying to understand,” Julia said. “There’s a tall figure there, he’s watching her as she has her love and joys, her pain and heartbreak, he’s trying to understand and…”

Her body jerked suddenly; her eyes suddenly became focused…on the figure. The Doctor was ordering the nurse to dose Julia with more drugs, perhaps a sedative, but it was too late; she was staring at the figure, with fear and terror in her eyes. Hardly winced as she screamed, blood pouring down her face, bubbling out of her nose and ears.

“They were like you,” she screamed. The figure showed no reaction. “Just like you!”

Julia’s body slumped. “Dead, Your Eminence,” the Doctor said. Hardly watched as the figure stepped into the light. “She was programmed to suffer and die if we reached such buried memories, memories that could not be reached by anything we mere humans possessed.”

The Imperial ignored the hard edge in the Doctor’s voice. “You will find me another abducted human,” he ordered. In the bright cold light, the Imperial looked very alien indeed; the light did strange things to the entity’s appearance. “The program will proceed.”

Hardly bowed his head. Defiance was not an option. “It will be done, Your Eminence,” he said. His detective work had turned up several more ‘abduction’ victims, but only a handful had been worth the effort of tracking down…and none of the ones he’d brought in before Julia had been so…spectacular. “I will have the next for you within a week.”

The Imperial smiled.

Chapter One: A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest, Take One

“We are coming up on the emergence point,” Lieutenant-Commander Gustav Von Rosenberg said, very calmly. “Time to emergence, five minutes.”

Captain Nancy Middleton, commander of the Fleet Carrier Lightning, leaned back in her command chair and tried to look as if she knew what she was doing. Half of her crew wouldn’t have known brilliance from doddering incompetence – the Battle of Earth had cost the fleet dearly in its trained crewmen – but she had to make the effort. Their lives – and hers – would depend upon their confidence in her…and failure could cost the Human Union the war.

“All decks, final checks,” she ordered. Commander Clifford Trout, her first officer, was in his own bridge; if a Grey warhead struck the starship and killed Nancy, he would take over at once. These days, with antimatter warheads, it was something of a moot point, but Nancy understood the logic. “Cliff?”

Trout’s voice flickered through her communications implant. “All decks report ready,” he confirmed, after a moment. “We’re free and easy.”

“Good,” Nancy said, concealing her amusement. “CAG?”

Commander Rosalyn Cathedral’s face popped onto her private console. Only Rosalyn’s lack of seniority – and, of course, the political question – had prevented her from being promoted as rapidly as the system would bear it – and that was quite fast in wartime. Nancy herself, six months ago, had been a Commander and a first officer on a heavy cruiser – not something that lent itself well to command of a fleet carrier. Even more so, it didn’t lend itself to command of the small Operation Highjump force; her temporary promotion to Commodore had raised hackles throughout the task force. Admiral Glass had understood her reluctance – and had ordered her to carry out her duty anyway.

“There are too few good officers without political problems,” he’d snapped at her, when she’d tried to decline the Commodore rank, temporary though everyone knew it would be. “You will command the force and that will be an end of it.”

Nancy pulled herself back to reality with an effort. “The fighter groups are on standby and waiting for the launch command,” Rosalyn assured her. Her face was scarred and twisted by a near-miss on her carrier during the Battle of Earth; ‘near’ in the sense that it hadn’t destroyed the ship. She hadn’t had the damage repaired, beyond the basic requirements; she’d once claimed that it gave her face character when dealing with fighter jocks. “We can launch as soon as we enter normal space.”

Nancy nodded. Rosalyn was making her point. “Hold the launch until we confirm that we actually entered at a vulnerable point,” she reminded Rosalyn, making her own point. It was highly unlikely that the Greys could predict their emergence point closely enough to have a few superdreadnaughts ready to pour fire into her ships – but then, everyone had believed that FTL communications were impossible as well…until the Greys had taught everyone otherwise. “Once we launch, stick with the plan; this is no time for heroics.”

Rosalyn nodded once. Whatever her faults, she understood fighter operations in a way that Nancy, with her capital ship background, couldn’t grasp. She wouldn’t jeopardise the lives of her pilots needlessly; if the Lightning had to turn on its heels and run for it, any pilot unlucky enough to be left behind would be trapped with a bunch of very unhappy Greys. No one knew what the Greys did to prisoners – no one knew if they even took prisoners – and no one wanted to be first to find out.

Nancy settled back into her command chair, allowed part of her awareness to slip into the carrier’s computer network, and returned to worrying. In 2D, there were 360 possible points of entry for her fleet…and space was a 3D environment. Most starships would emerge somewhere around the plane of the system, just to make the transit time from the Phase Limit to civilisation as short as possible, but Nancy had ordered that they come in somewhere above the system plane. It was statistically impossible for the entire Imperial Fleet, at its height, to deploy in such a manner as to catch her whatever emergence point she used…and she knew that they might well be unlucky. A single Grey starship, close enough to pop off its missiles in their direction, would ruin the plan completely.

“Time to emergence, ten seconds,” the Helm Officer said. There was a dark note in Lieutenant Jackie Robinson’s voice; he’d come from New Brooklyn and had family on the surface, before the Greys had moved in. “All systems report optimal.”

Lightning shook slightly as the starship blasted out of Phase Space, nearly a single AU from the Phase Limit. Commercial starships would attempt to come in closer, just to save the expense of travelling from the emergence point as much as possible, but Nancy knew that if the greys had anywhere defended, it would be the Phase Limit. The Greys were far from stupid, after all; they’d fought humanity to a standstill, crushed one human fleet…and threatened Earth itself. The results of her mission could make or break the war.

“Launch drones,” she snapped. “Sensor report, now!”

Lieutenant Caroline Porter, a willowy blonde who was almost as young as she looked, worked her console with her long thin fingers. Like all of them, she’d been raced through the Imperial Fleet’s training centre; Nancy knew that her crew contained far too many people who were new, or had rusty skills, or who were from the various merchant combines and didn’t take well to Fleet discipline. Caroline looked around sixteen…and she was barely twenty-one.

“Captain, sensors report no contacts apart from the remainder of the fleet,” she said. Her voice was tight and very nervous; Nancy shot a private command into her system to ensure that she received more training, once they left the New Brooklyn system. “All seven starships have made transit and are awaiting orders.”

Nancy sent a mental command into the computer and a hologram of the system built up in front of her. The absence of Grey activity meant nothing, not on that sort of scale; until the Greys started to light up their drives and lightspeed tactical sensors, they could remain hidden as long as they liked. A star system was vast, on a scale utterly unimaginable to a human; the Greys could have moved five thousand – even a million – superdreadnaughts into the system…and they would never been seen as long as they kept their heads down. Sensors reported hints of mining operations in the belts – she wondered if any of the humans had remained hidden in semi-Black Colonies – and some transport starships, which were almost certain to be Grey ships. What else could they be?

“Launch the ready flight,” she ordered. The hologram flickered again as twenty-four starfighters launched themselves from the Lightning, heading into an escorting pattern around the nine starships that formed her task force. One fleet carrier, four modified bulk carriers that had been converted into carriers and arsenal ships and four light cruisers; she knew that it was unlikely that they would be able to do anything serious against the Greys.

She scowled. Raiding the system was a task for an assault carrier…and the Fleet had three of them, but no, they’d given the mission to a fleet carrier, one that was intended to serve as part of a vast fleet operation, not as an independent raider. The Lightning was designed for very long term operations – fleet carriers were the largest starships in the Imperial Fleet – but their very size made them easy targets. An assault carrier, built around a superdreadnaught-hull, would be tougher, but there were political considerations.

She shook her head. Life had been so much simpler before the Empire collapsed.

“Caroline, anything from the drones?” She asked. They were approaching the Phase Limit at nearly a third of the speed of light; once they were past the limit, escaping back into Phase Space would have been impossible. If there was a particularly nervy Grey commander there, waiting just beyond the Phase Limit and settling into ambush position, it could get very dicey. “Anything?”

Caroline shook her head. “Nothing, Captain,” she said. “There are flickers of power emissions from deeper within the system, but no sign of any starships near the fleet.”

“Good,” Nancy said. “Helm, take us in on our planned course.”

They’d rendezvoused outside the Sol System, light years from any Grey starship that might have been observing the human starships and flickering back their reports to the Grey High Command – assuming that such an entity even existed. Nancy wasn’t privy to all of the reports from the post-battle teams going through the wreckage of the Grey fleet, but few details had been located as to how the aliens actually handled tactical and strategic issues, or even matters of government. They were brave, no doubt about that, and clever, but no human knew how they organised themselves. Nancy knew that Admiral Glass suspected that the Greys were not in ignorance about such details about humanity – and the Empire.

At their meeting point, she’d given her commanders their instructions, including details on what they were to do if they encountered no defenders of the Phase Limit. They kept their communications to a minimum now – she knew that the Greys would certainly be trying to intercept their signals – but her subordinates weren’t bad. Perhaps their lack of spit and polish give them a grim appearance, but the raw material was there…assuming that they survived the coming battle.

“I have Grey drive fields,” Caroline snapped, into the silence. Nancy was almost relieved. The Greys had clearly been playing it safe…and keeping much of their activity stepped down when they’d detected the force’s arrival. They could hardly have failed to detect her arrival – in fact, her plans had depended upon the Greys knowing what they were doing. “At least five superdreadnaughts, heading towards New Brooklyn itself and seven battlecruisers, heading into an interception position.”

Nancy smiled as the image built up in front of her. The Greys might not have known that she was coming until they detected the emissions of her starships as they fell out of Phase Space, but they had clearly worked out their contingency plans for a raid on new Brooklyn. There were so few points of contact between humanity and the Greys that raiding New Brooklyn was almost the only offensive action that the human forces could take. It made sense, of course; the Greys had to be nervous about human strikes on the world that they’d stolen from its human masters…and they would prepare to meet them there.

“Helm, keep us playing stupid and dumb for a while yet,” she ordered. It would be hours, at least, before they came into missile range…even assuming that she continued to steer her way into the heart of the Grey formation. Her drones were revealing much more about what the Greys were preparing for her even as she spoke; the Greys had more of their cursed anti-starfighter ships and even some drone-carriers. “We don’t want them doing something…less clever than what they’re doing.”

There were some nervous chuckles. For all of the almost-supernatural capabilities of her starships, more than any human had dared imagine in the years before the Invasion, there was a certain brutal simplicity to the entire tactical scene. Her force was charging towards New Brooklyn at a fair percentage of the speed of light; the Greys were assembling their forces to block her…and spreading them out to ensure that they held her in missile range as long as possible. If she charged right at the planet and attempted to ram it with her ships, the Greys would have them in their sights as long as they needed…and if she attempted to evade coming into the range of the Grey superdreadnaughts, the smaller Grey ships would have their chance. In short, the Greys were doing everything right. As far as they were concerned, Nancy was as stupid as a newly-minted ensign, with none of the experience that went into commanding a garbage scow, let alone one of the most powerful warships in space.

That suited Nancy just fine.

“Keep tracking them,” she ordered. It was of vital importance to make their move at the best possible time, when all of the Greys were neatly out of position, yet not soon enough to allow them to adjust to compensate for their mistake. Random chance would also play its part; the Greys might just move on their own, rather than in response to her actions. Why should they? They had her right where they wanted her…except they were alien, and very alien at that. “Let me know when they have a classic funnel set up.”

“Two more Grey drive signatures detected,” Caroline said, after nearly an hour had passed. “Both well past the elliptic, on the edge of the Phase Limit.”

“Curious,” Nancy mused, taking advantage of the moment of peace to consider what it might mean. Given their position, the starships were hopelessly out of place to catch her ships; they would only have ringside seats to whatever happened in the system. “Keep tracking them; Intelligence would have a fit if we missed out on any information while we were here.”

Her eyes refocused on the display in front of her. “A funnel is developing now, Captain,” Caroline assured her. The Grey formation didn’t look anything like as neat as the formation dictated by the Imperial Fleet’s manuals, but not even the best and brightest of the Fleet could have pulled off such a manoeuvre under battle conditions. The funnel was a funnel in name only…and yet it served its purpose – a line of starships that were in position to trade missile fire with her ships…and a force of battlecruisers, moving into position to cut off any retreat.

“Good,” Nancy said. She caught Caroline’s clearly nervous eye and winked. “Time to show him just what kind of dumb blondes we are.”

Caroline blushed slightly. Nancy smiled to herself and checked the display; their objective lay on the other side of the gas giant Biko, but it was defended. If the force had to tangle with the fixed defences for too long, they might well be caught by the Greys…who would be trying to make up for their mistake.

“Helm, stand by to start the quick-change manoeuvre,” she ordered. Lieutenant Jackie Robinson looked up and nodded, his hands dancing over his console as his mind slid into the computers and adjusted the course of the massive starship. “Stand by…and dump!”

In theory, a starship could almost reach lightspeed itself…but theory had very little in common with reality. All starships, human, Imperial and Grey alike, seemed to share certain limitations, one of which was that they could only pull around 0.33C before the compensator fields started to collapse…and turn the crew into a very bloody mess. Worse, the larger the starship – and she remembered the escape of Morgan’s Hold with a cold fury that dwarfed her admiration for the tactic – the slower the acceleration curve, which meant that a superdreadnaught was a slow plodding craft compared to a destroyer, even through both craft could pull the same speed over a long flight. The faster a craft travelled, the less manoeuvrability it had; the danger of accidentally collapsing the compensators was too great.

But now…a human scientist had gambled, he’d invented something new…and the Lightning’s entire drive field shifted around it. The starship’s sensors screamed in protest as the starships spun, spinning dizzily through space, until they found their new course, almost directly away from New Brooklyn…and right towards Biko. The Greys would have seen what they’d done, of course, and…

“Captain, they’re sending their battlecruisers against us,” Caroline reported, her voice grim. The Greys had been caught flat-footed, but that wouldn’t prevent them from attempting to repair the situation, whatever it took. “They’re building up speed now, but they won’t get into weapons range until after we’ve passed Biko.”

Nancy knew better than to rely on that; the Greys were full of surprises, after all, and more than one strike might be needed against Biko III, the source of the Grey materials for their new yards. The moon wasn’t really a moon – the moon was more of a very tight asteroid field that was somehow almost perfectly balanced – but everyone had treated it as one, including several of New Brooklyn’s rival nations. Their disputes over what had been seen, very reasonably, as a priceless assert had prevented anyone from mining the moon…until the Greys had come along, knocked New Brooklyn out of the war, and taken the moon for themselves.

“We have sensor readings on the Grey facility,” Caroline said, as she launched more drones towards the Grey constructions. “It’s definitely a major automated mining complex, with some Imperial additions to its tech.”

Nancy scowled. The Greys – who showed more imagination than humanity would have liked – had adapted some Imperial technology to their own use. It made sense that they would be doing the same at New Brooklyn; they might well have taken one of the other native asteroid mining facilities and towed it to Biko. If they had, it – along with the Grey industrial modules – was a priority target. Humanity’s only hope was the – at least - thousand light-year distance between the Grey homeworld, wherever they were. If the Greys managed to set up a manufacturing shipyard in the Human Sector, the war was within shouting distance of being lost.

“Copy all of your information to Commander Cathedral,” Nancy ordered. They’d won themselves at least one free shot against the Grey manufacturing systems – and the weapons they carried would be certain to inflict some damage, assuming that they managed to hit anything. “Tell her to prepare her pilots for strikes against the Grey positions.”

Caroline blanched. “Captain, I think you should look at this,” she said, as alarms howled. “I think they’ve just pulled off another surprise.”

Nancy stared down at the display. It took her almost ten seconds to understand what she was seeing. “Belay that order,” she said, as calmly as she could. She was not about to let the unexpected snag prevent her from pulling off her mission. “Inform Commander Cathedral that I want her fighters launched as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Captain,” Caroline said.

“And general signal to the fleet,” Nancy ordered. “Tell them…to fire at anything that moves and anything that looks like it’s thinking of moving. Helm…tactical manoeuvres; engage the Don’t Get Shot pattern. All hands, brace for combat!”

Chapter Two: A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest, Take Two

“Sweet mother of mercy,” Caroline breathed. Her voice was more than a little stunned, and surprised. “Those are drones!”

Nancy nodded, already recovering from her surprise. It made more sense than she liked; the Greys might not – for some reason no analyst had been able to determine – be able or willing to use starfighters, but their drones made something of a replacement. Drones were not – could never be – the match of a live pilot, but they had several advantages of their own, not least the fact that they didn’t need compensators. Like starfighters, they were limited by the sheer need to keep their ability to manoeuvre, but their controlling computers didn’t have to worry about little details like keeping the crew alive.

“They’ve mated their drones to missile launchers,” Nancy noted, keeping her voice calm. A missile – which also had no crew to object to rough handling – could pull nearly twice the speed of a starship in normal space, but it lost ground in its inability to actually evade point defence at close range. Her mind raced, considering the possibilities; no human would take such a risk with starfighters…but the Greys weren’t human and hadn’t anyone at risk, in any case. “They’ll spilt up soon, giving them a speed advantage that will fade…”

She smiled grimly. “Commander Cathedral, report,” she snapped. “What’s happening with the starfighters?”

“We’re launching all of the ready flight now, keeping two squadrons back for close-in defence,” Rosalyn said. Her voice was calm and professional. “Captain, I intend to engage them at extreme range.”

Nancy looked down at the converted missile tubes powering the drones. “Belay that,” she ordered, without thinking. Rosalyn looked astonished at her comment, then swiftly covered it under a poker face. “They’ll just keep driving in on their converted missiles until they get close enough to still catch us, even without their speed advantage.”

Rosalyn nodded grudgingly. “I understand, Captain,” she said. “I’ll order all of the ready squadrons to stand as CSP.”

“Good,” Nancy said. The swarm of red icons was beginning to shatter, just outside her weapons range; she took a moment to admire the Grey commander’s plan. Outside her point defence range, the drones would have time to get their own engines up and running, with enough speed to catch her ships…and they hadn’t shown any hesitation to launch suicide attacks against human starships. She couldn’t fault the logic; one drone, expendable and easily replaced, in exchange for a fleet carrier that took months to build. “Remind all ships that we must cover each other against attack.”

Humans had developed starfighters, or at least they’d had the idea; the Imperials had provided the technology to make them possible. The starfighter carried no Phase Drive and hardly any shields, but it compensated for that by having a drive that gulped power like nothing else in the Empire, but could literally jump from 0.01C to 0.33C in a matter of seconds. A starfighter could turn on a dime, thread a dozen needles and evade the increasingly desperate point defence of any starship that had been expecting missile fire, rather than a tiny target that was almost impossible to hit. Their weapons were standard nukes, rather than antimatter warheads, which were far too dangerous on a fighter-sized craft, but placed in the right place on an enemy starship, they were lethal.

Drones had been an Imperial idea – one that the Greys had stolen. The Imperials detested fighter operations, preferring to leave them to their subject races, and so they’d invented the drone. Like a starfighter, the drones were very manoeuvrable at close range, but there the resemblance ended; unlike starfighters, their computers were guilty of the worst combat sin of all, being predicable. The Imperials – and God knew that there was no sign that the Greys disagreed – had compensated by building thousands, millions of the drones, hoping to swamp their targets by sheer weight of numbers.

The display altered, too quickly for her eyes to follow; she thrust her mind into the computer network and watched through the steel eyes of her electronic subordinates. The Lightning had flushed its entire combat strength of starfighters – six hundred starfighters, or fifty full squadrons – into space…and the Greys had launched nearly two thousand drones at her ships. She admired the tactic in a detached way, knowing that some of her superiors would want to copy it for attacking the Greys, as her forces knifed into the drones…and fought it out for superiority.

The starships weren’t helpless; they’d already had the combat datanet up and running. As the drones slashed closer to the starships, engaging the starfighters in passing with their plasma cannons, the starships wove themselves into a tightly-coordinated defence web. Only a qualified webhead – and there were never enough of them to go around – could have followed the flickering series of commands through the network as the computers steered and directed the blasts of point defence fire, all the while warning of the Grey battlecruisers racing towards them and the defences around Biko, which were becoming aware of her presence.

“Missiles on close-in speed detected,” Caroline said, her voice tightly controlled. Nancy felt a moment’s pride; Caroline was shaping up well. “Point defence and CSP moving to intercept.”

Not fast enough, Nancy thought, seconds before the Lightning rocked to the impact of a missile, followed sharply by a second impact. A drone, its computer-controller suddenly aware that it was doomed, had flushed all of its missiles at the Lightning before it was destroyed. She allowed herself a moment of relief; the drones, had they succeeded in slipping through her ship’s shields before they fired, might have inflicted serious damage on the Lightning. They’d been lucky.

“Captain, 15^th Squadron reports seven combat losses,” Rosalyn said, her voice breaking into Nancy’s thoughts. The note of concern in her voice brought Nancy up short. “Some of the drones are firing counter-missiles at us!”

Nancy blinked. That was curious…worse than curious, in fact; it was almost suicidal. Human starfighters didn’t carry anti-fighter missiles, mainly because they took up too much room that could be used for shipkillers. The same was true of drones, so why had the Greys decided to change their patterns and…sacrifice some of their drones to kill some of her pilots, rather than taking shots at the Lightning.

Just for a moment, she wished she were a Commander still; Captain Erickson would have known what to do. “They’re trying to strip us of our starfighters,” she decided. She checked her sensor board quickly and frowned; the majority of the Grey force around New Brooklyn had decided to chase her ships, but enough remained to make an attack on the planet impossible, even had she had the ships to mount one. “Why?”

Rosalyn’s eyes were just as puzzled. Kill one of the six hundred starfighters on the Lighting…so what? Starfighters were replaceable; they didn’t have to be fitted with Phase Drive, and there were millions of humans who wanted to train as fighter jocks. Kill the Lightning, on the other hand, and those six hundred starfighters would be trapped in the New Brooklyn system, along with billions of very pissed-off Greys. It made no sense at all…

“Perhaps they just didn’t have time to switch over to antiship missiles,” she said, and heard the doubt in her own voice. Given that the Greys had to have been preparing their unpleasant surprise for a while, perhaps not for engaging a raiding force, it seemed…odd, sloppy, not to have armed them with the right weapons. “Starfighter report?”

Another red icon vanished from the display as a starfighter pilot made ace. “They’re doing fine,” Rosalyn assured her. “The one problem is that there might not be time to have them rearmed with weapons designed to handle that station.”

Nancy peered down at the reports from her scouting drones. The Greys clearly didn’t agree with the Imperials on one respect – they’d built their ore extraction and refining facility into a massive construction, hanging in space around the semi-moon. The Imperials, of course, hadn’t expected to be attacked by anything more dangerous than pirates…and the Imperial Fleet had kept them under control…until the Empire had fallen. Now, what had once been the new sector was a pirate kingdom…and millions of humans and other races were under the thumb of ruthless overlords. The handful of reports that Intelligence had picked up were horrifying; Nancy would have liked nothing better than to have ordered the Fleet into the new sector with orders to hunt down and kill every pirate they could find.

Her lips twitched. That strategy hadn’t worked too well, even when the Empire was at its height. Pirates were like flies; when the Fleet could see them, it could kill them and the best that the pirates could do was kicking and biting on the way to the gallows. The problem was finding them…and pirates were very good at hiding – the ones that weren’t good at hiding were killed quickly, often by their own kind.

“Signal the fleet,” she ordered, as the display changed. The Greys had moved to a more conventional attack…which wouldn’t be effective for some hours. Thousands of drones had launched themselves from New Brooklyn, heading directly towards Biko…and they would be unable to catch up with her for hours, even if she dawdled longer than she needed to dawdle. The Grey battlecruisers would catch them before the drones. Even so, it was time to change plans; the Greys wouldn’t give them time to rearm the starfighters. She’d known that it was always a possibility.

“The arsenal ships are to launch a full spread of missiles – each – towards the manufacturing facility,” she ordered, without waiting for debate. The arsenal ships were very much a compromise solution to the Fleet’s desperate requirement for heavy hitters; converted fast freighters that carried missiles instead of freight. They came with a price; very little in the way of point defence and crewmen whom were very aware that they were on starships that were easy targets for Grey missiles. “That base has to be taken down.”

The last Grey drone vanished in a ball of plasma; she tallied the damage to her fleet with some relief. For a totally unexpected attack, the Greys had inflicted minor damage on her starships – a single unlucky hit on the Lightning could have doomed the whole operation – and killed twenty-three starfighters. If the two forces had possessed equal firepower and ships when the war had begun, it would have been a very favourable rate of exchange, but she knew that the Greys had much more firepower than humanity. The war, despite the victory at Earth, remained in the balance.

“The arsenal ships are launching,” Caroline said, her voice slightly more relaxed. “Captain, the facility is returning fire!”

Nancy swore. It wasn’t unexpected – missile pods might be impractical on a starship, as they got tangled with the drive fields – but it was dangerous; the fleet would be passing far closer to the facility than she would have liked. If the facility got in a lucky hit, they could end up trapped in the system, or…

“Captain, I am picking up a very low-level laser signal,” her communications officer, Ensign Uganda said. His voice was puzzled; the Greys had never communicated with humanity before – Nancy had missed the attempt at first contact, but she knew that it had been attempted. “It’s a human communications protocol.”

“Move the starfighters forward to add to the point defence,” Nancy ordered. First things came first, after all. “Exec, take command of the point defence. Ensign, what are you picking up?”

Ensign Uganda frowned. “It’s a low level laser,” he repeated. “It’s coming from the rings around Biko.”

Nancy scowled. “Send them a basic reply back,” she said. She was starting to suspect she knew who was signalling her…but she knew that it was dangerous to be too trusting. The Greys had made attempts to take over starships with computer attacks before; Captain Erickson had barely survived one such attempt. “Demand identification and clearance codes, if they have one.”

The display changed again as missiles raced towards the Grey facility. The Greys had compensated for its vulnerability by installing thousands of point defence systems, some of them cribbed from the remains of New Brooklyn’s defences. They didn’t waste anything, clearly; she wondered if that could be used against them somehow. Could the Fleet slip them something with a Trojan Horse program inserted, or would they replace any captured unit’s computers with their own crazy biomechanical computers? There was no way to know…but not even the defence around Centre could have handled so many missiles at such close range. Two antimatter warheads struck the facility…and, moments later; it vanished in the tearing white flash of an antimatter explosion.

“They’re claiming to be a small research station belonging to Sudanasesia,” Ensign Uganda said. “They’re copying their files over to us now.”

“Dump them in secure storage and let Intelligence worry about them,” Nancy snapped. There wasn’t time to risk a Grey attempt to knock out her starship, not when they’d just killed the object of their raid. “What do they have to tell us?”

“Just that they’ve heard nothing from Sudanasesia, or from anywhere on New Brooklyn, and they’re wondering if we can take them out of here,” Ensign Uganda said. “Orders, Captain?”

Nancy stared down at the display. The Grey battlecruisers were gaining on her force – slowly, very slowly, but very surely – and once they got into firing range, her force would have real problems evading them. If she wasted time trying to pick up people who might well be Grey slaves, perhaps even implanted body-slaves, she would be risking her entire force, but if they were real…

“Find out if they have a shuttle,” she said, her mind tossing over scenarios for recovering the crew. “If they do, tell them to launch at once, heading out to meet us as we move out. If not, then…we’ll have to make arrangements for them to be picked up by a stealth ship in the next few days.”

Ensign Uganda nodded. “They’re willing to wait,” he said. Nancy smiled; cynically – she knew that the crew would be able to see the horde of drones and the battlecruisers bearing down on them. “They’re copying other files as well.”

Nancy nodded. “General signal to the fleet,” she ordered. “I want us out of here yesterday, on a below-plane course.”

“Yes, Captain,” Lieutenant Jackie Robinson said. His voice was bitter; Nancy knew that he had dared to dream that they would drive the Greys off New Brooklyn, rather than just raiding an outlying station. He couldn’t be taking the abandonment of the crew well, even though there really was no choice. “The course is laid in.”

Nancy checked the display. “Then move us out,” she ordered. “Commander Cathedral, you will recall half of the starfighters for a rest and arm half of those for anti-shipping strikes, should they be needed. Helm, keep us on a course well away from the drones, if we can; it’s possible that the Greys will just send them directly at us, whatever the cost to their endurance.”

She scowled as the fleet altered its course again; the Grey starships slowly slipping into pursuit. If they were lucky – which they might well have been – they would have a chance to escape without having to exchange fire with more Grey starships. In an hour, perhaps less, they would be across the Phase Limit and into Phase Space…

“Captain, I’m picking up two Grey battlecruisers and one light cruiser, dropping out of Phase Space, dead ahead of us,” Caroline snapped suddenly. “They’re positioning themselves to intercept us!”

Nancy felt stunned, just for a moment. FTL communications system or not, the Greys shouldn’t be able to do that; it beat all of the logic about not risking everything on complex and ultimately unworkable attempts to coordinate over interstellar space. She understood in a flash of admiration; the Greys had cheated. The ships they had noted at the edge of the system had moved out and waited…until their comrades had been able to inform them of her course, and then they had simply slipped through Phase Space and positioned themselves to intercept her.

“Bastards,” she muttered ruefully to herself. They were only an hour from contact…and contact might well be impossible to avoid. “Commander Cathedral, have all of the resting flight of starfighters prepared for anti-shipping strikes,” she ordered. “We have to take those bastards out as quickly as possible.”

“Understood,” Rosalyn said. Her voice was very grim. “They don’t have any anti-starfighter craft there, so we’ll eat them for breakfast.”

“I really hope you’re right,” Nancy said, checking her ship’s systems. The Greys were moving to prevent her from escaping, with a horde of drones and seven battlecruisers racing to cut off her retreat – smashing frontal attack on enemy rear, her mind whispered drunkenly – and she didn’t dare slow down. “Tell your pilots I’ll buy them all a drink when we get home.”

She watched grimly as the enemy starships drew closer. The Greys were decreasing their own acceleration, trying to keep the range open as long as possible when they finally met in open combat, and she was determined to ensure that they didn’t have time to engage her before her starfighters swarmed them. The Greys would know just as well as she what she was trying to do, which meant…that the battle could still go either way.

She keyed her communicator as the moment approached. “All ships, prepare to engage the enemy,” she said. The Greys chose that moment to open fire with their long-ranged missiles, no longer a decisive advantage since the ill-fated Battle of Harmony. Admiral Johnston had been surprised and horrified – commanders since him had known about the weaknesses in the Grey system that had prevented humanity from deploying its own version of the missiles. “All starfighters launch…all batteries, commence firing!”

She took a breath as her starfighters launched. Everything depended on them now.

Everything.

Chapter Three: A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest, Take Three

Commander Avishai Sumrall wiped her hand through her hair, feeling dirty; two weeks in the tiny starship had left all three of her crew feeling unwashed and filthy. No one commented on the smell – it would have been a breach of unwritten protocol – but they all knew that they were operating at the very limit of their endurance. The human force currently fleeing the New Brooklyn system had a force of massive starships; the Intelligence starship Sneaky Bastard was tiny, hardly large enough to swing a cat. The three women and one man of her crew lived practically inside one another, something that normally made her smile. It didn’t now; she was just too tired.

“That’s a Grey battlecruiser at the very edge of the system,” Lieutenant Marco Conrad muttered, whispering despite the fact that the Greys couldn’t possibly hear them. If the Greys had picked up a trace of the Sneaky Bastard, they would have moved drones into the area and swept it clean, hunting them down. If they had known just how close to New Brooklyn the tiny starship was, they would have spared no effort to catch them; they were far too close to the Grey occupation forces for comfort.

“I see it,” Avishai said, forcing her voice to remain normal. Conrad was right; the human task force that had challenged the Grey defenders of the system was bugging out – and she couldn’t blame them. She understood the need to launch offensive operations against the Greys, just to keep the enemy off-balance, but at the same time she knew what the limited offensive really meant; they were too weak to push a major attack into the system and punch out the Grey occupation force. If the Greys ever deduced just how weak humanity really was, they might abandon their cautious approach and launch a second attempt to take Earth.

She glanced down at the display, willing for something to happen as the Sneaky Bastard glided along her course. The Greys and the humans now knew more about their respective technological capabilities…and one thing that the humans – thanks to the Imperials – did better than the Greys was sensor systems. Human sensors were better and more capable than Grey compatible systems, and the Greys had failed to detect a cloaking system in operation, even though they clearly had cloaking devices of their own. Sneaky Bastard, at least, didn’t depend upon a cloaking device to remain alive; human research and development had been poured into building her.

The starship, barely twenty meters long, wasn’t cloaked; instead, it was covered with a hull coating that absorbed almost all energy that was directed against it, scattering what it couldn’t absorb until it was almost indistinguishable against the background of space itself. Even visual contact, assuming that the Greys ever got close enough, would have problems picking the starship out of the background; she’d had pilots who had almost rammed her ship in the secret base when they hadn’t realised just how close they were to her. The Greys, she hoped, had nothing like her…and, irony of ironies, the curious drive unit on the starship was derived from Grey technology.

“Kate, check the passives,” she ordered, as the starship drifted closer. She could have raced in within minutes if she’d used a normal space drive, but the Greys would have seen her from right across the solar system. “Any sign of trouble?”

“Only the Grey drones circling the planet,” Kate Tamara said. The sensor operator brought up a hologram of what her ship could see. “They’re sending out all kinds of sensor probes, including some that I can’t identify offhand, and they’re poking right through space itself, looking for someone trying to be sneaky.”

Avishai smiled to herself. The Greys weren’t being stupid; if they played their cards right, they would cause a standard cloaking device to overload and release something that betrayed their presence. If Captain – now Admiral - Martin Solomon hadn’t used his superdreadnaughts to hit the Greys in the rear, they might well have won the Battle of Earth. The Greys had suffered problems – one thing she’d heard whispered was that under certain circumstances it was possible to crack the Grey computer datanet – and in the end they’d been destroyed. If Solomon hadn’t acted…

It didn’t matter, she decided. Who cared about alternate realities anyway?

“Show me,” she ordered. Kate focused the hologram on the Grey drones, which were maintaining a sweep pattern that was changing rapidly, running through dozens of different formations almost faster than the eye could follow. She would have bet her entire leave time that the Greys had seeded space with sensor platforms, all passive, to back up the drones. Behind them…”

“Bugger,” she commented, as Kate’s sensors revealed part of a Grey battle fleet that had remained in orbit around the planet. “Had we planned to come in and hit the place, I think we would have failed.”

“You’re telling me,” Conrad said. His voice was still quiet, nothing like his normal irrepressible state. “There are seventeen superdreadnaughts out there, along with some of their flanking elements and yet more drones.”

Avishai scowled. She’d seen the drone launch against the task force and wished that she could have passed on a warning to Captain Middleton, even though the fleet carrier would have seen them almost as soon as they launched. The Greys had pulled a fast one then, something that should have been clear in foresight, not hindsight. Just because the Greys had chosen to plod along to Earth didn’t mean that they were stupid; given what they’d thought they’d known about Earth’s defences, it had made a great deal of sense from their point of view.

“See if you can get some readings on their drive fields,” she ordered. A starship radiating drive field energies could be detected from quite some distance, even if it was almost at rest – and if they didn’t have their drive fields on standby, at least, they would be caught with their panties down if a threat suddenly arrived. Even better, from her point of view, a starship’s drive field was unique; it might be possible to actually start putting together the mystery of just how many Greys in humans space there actually were.

Her eyes strayed towards the hologram of New Brooklyn. She had an uncomfortable feeling that the people on the ground were all-too-aware of just how many Greys there were.

“I’m picking up new drive fields, for the most part,” Kate said, after a long moment. Avishai cursed under her breath; new drive fields meant that the Greys had received reinforcements – and God only knew where their homeworld actually was. There were thousands of possible target stars on the other side of the new sector – a search could take years, years they didn’t have.

“They might have retuned their drives,” Nadia Darkling said. Nadia’s skin was as black as space itself, a certain sign of semi-illicit genetic modification, rather than any body-shaping. Nadia’s father had fled New Brooklyn, years ago; he’d been accused of something that wouldn’t have occasioned more than a raised eyebrow on any other world in the Human Union.

“I doubt it,” Avishai said. Retuning a drive took weeks, during which time the starship was helpless. It just didn’t sound like something a Grey would do, unless they had no choice. “What’s our status?”

Nadia, who served as engineer on the Sneaky Bastard as well as several other posts – the starship was too small for a properly regulated chain of command, let alone standard regulations regarding intimacy – smiled grimly. “The drive is ready to be brought up at a moment’s notice,” she said. “I don’t think that anything is leaking from the hull at all.”

Avishai scowled again. The Greys had produced something that the Imperials had never thought of – but then, they’d never had to consider such a problem. They’d captured – no one in Intelligence credited the thought that the Greys had built it – a massive STL interstellar colony starship, which they’d somehow fitted with a Phase Drive. In order that the starship actually could travel STL without taking literally years, they’d developed what engineers had called a cross between the bastard son of a reaction drive and a drive field, linking the entire system into a STL propulsion system. Once it had been duplicated, it rapidly proved itself useless for the newer generation of starships, but as for Intelligence ships…

Well, Avishai knew that there were people who regarded it as a gift from the gods.

“Good,” she said. They could use tiny bursts of drive field energy to move themselves forward, without risking detection unless they got very unlucky. “I think we’d better take a look around the other side of the planet.” She took a breath. “Kate, deploy the platform.”

A dull clunk ran through the starship as Kate tapped a single command into her console. “Platform deployed, Avishai,” she said. The formal chain of command had completely broken down between them; given their relationship, how could it be otherwise? “I have a laser link, but nothing else.”

Avishai nodded. “Take us out,” she ordered. “Carefully, now.”

Conrad nodded. “I have the course laid in,” he said. Avishai nodded once to him, her attention on her displays. “Moving us now.”

There was the faintest shimmer of…pressure on her body as the starship glided forwards, heading into a course that took it around the planet. A normal drive field never allowed its occupants to feel anything – unless, of course, the compensator failed, at which point it was too late – but the new system gave them some feelings as it shimmered into life. She watched her displays carefully; if the Greys caught a sniff of them, they would have moments to bring the drive field up and run before the drones caught them…and Sneaky Bastard had nothing to fight with. If the drones caught them, they were dead.

“Now, that’s interesting,” Kate mused, as the other side of the planet came into view. “Just look at that.”

Avishai studied the image with some interest. New Brooklyn had had seven asteroid habitats orbiting around the planet – the lowest number of orbiting facilities in the Human Union. The Imperials had never understood just how…nationalistic some humans could be, and New Brooklyn, which had several different nations, was the worst of them all. If one nation mounted an asteroid capture mission, the others would suspect a rat – it wasn’t for nothing that Nadia’s father had fled the system. The Greys would have taken the facilities intact and…

“Fuck me,” she breathed. “What the hell have they done?”

Kate built up the image rapidly. The Greys had somehow brought all of the facilities together, then rapidly built connections between them…and a host of captured industrial modules and some new modules they’d transported in from God only knew where. Worse, New Brooklyn had no orbital tower, but they had started to string cables connecting the orbital facilities right to the surface, which meant that they could move any number of people, or supplies, from the surface and into orbit. It spoke volumes about their control of the planet; resistance was clearly no longer a problem. She refused to think about what that could mean for the population at large.

In the centre of the…construction, there were…

“Superdreadnaughts,” Kate said. “Those have to be superdreadnaught frames, ones large enough to handle superdreadnaught-class weapons, or perhaps assault carriers, if they decide to go that route. That facility might be able to complete that force there in a few more months.”

Avishai winced. No wonder the Greys had moved to defend New Brooklyn when the task force had arrived. If Captain Middleton had come into weapons range, she could have destroyed the facility with ease – surely not even the Greys could produce shields intended to cover something that size. The ‘merely’ titanic orbital battle stations were tiny compared to the construction yard.

A thought struck her. “Just how stable is that…things orbit?” She asked. No Imperial would risk something that large in orbit because of the possibility of total disaster. “Could it be forced back into the planet’s atmosphere?”

“Daring commando raid?” Conrad asked. “I wouldn’t assume that the four of us could handle it alone.”

“It’s very stable,” Kate said, after running a projection. “The Greys might just intend to cannibalise the asteroids for materials over the long run, perhaps even consuming them all when they’re finished to build their starships. Even if we attacked, we’d have to get lucky to shove it into the planet’s atmosphere, and in any case that would destroy the biosphere.”

Avishai heard the note of faint censure in her voice and nodded in grim understanding. The Imperials had valued life-bearing worlds above all others; they’d absolutely forbidden genocidal attacks against biospheres, an odd note given just how willing they’d been to use bombardment against human resistance fighters. If humanity somehow caused the orbit of the massive shipyard – and she was sure now that that was what it was – to decay, everyone left on the planet would be very likely to die. That meant…

She tapped a question into her console. “I wonder,” she said. “What happened to the inhabitants of the asteroids?”

“The records from the last stand here showed that they were evacuated along with everyone who didn’t have a military role,” Kate reminded her. Her voice was coldly puzzled. “Unless I miss my guess, the Greys actually have a whole series of deception techniques set up in orbit; its quite possible that Captain Middleton and her crewmen missed that thing, no matter how large it is.”

An alarm bleeped. Avishai almost wet herself. “The drones that went in pursuit of the task force had been recalled,” Conrad said. He scowled down at his display. “I think Captain Middleton got a battlecruiser and perhaps another ship, but she lost one of the arsenal ships herself. Captain, if they get close to us here.”

Avishai checked her display. The Greys had been busy; they’d built literally thousands of drones, even the ultra-fine-tuned sensors onboard the Sneaky Bastard couldn’t give more than a vague idea of just how many there were. If that force flew too close to her fleet, it was all-too-possible that they would detect their presence, and there would be no hope of escape. Still, they had nearly an hour before that became a danger, but she knew now that they dared not risk any chance of hostile contact.

“I think that we’ll have to use Plan B,” she said, sensing the agreement of her comrades. They were more than her subordinates; they were her friends, one of them was even her lover from time to time. They all knew what was at stake. “Conrad, take us away from the Greys, out past the moons. Kate, keep us in direct contact with the platform; we’re going to have to sacrifice it.” She scowled. “Make ready to launch a second platform when we reach Point Alpha; I want both of them linked to this ship until we lose the first platform.”

Kate chewed her thumb as she rewrote some of the commands in the system. “Platform ready for deployment,” she confirmed, after a long moment when Avishai feared that it had proven impossible to reset the system. “We can launch at your command.”

Avishai watched as the starship slid closer to Point Alpha. On the display, the other Grey battlecruisers were returning to New Brooklyn, perhaps frustrated at the stalemated battle. They had nothing to be ashamed of, even through they had lost the mining station; they’d done fairly well for the encounter. She hoped bitterly that the Greys were as frustrated as humans had felt, after the Battle of Harmony…and before the Battle of Earth.

“Drop the platform,” she ordered. A second clunk ran through the starship as it released the second stealthed platform. “Nadia, how are the drives looking?”

“They’re ready to move us faster, if need be,” Nadia said. “If they’re needed, that is.”

“They will be,” Avishai predicted grimly. Her fingers braced themselves above her console. “Sending the signal…now!”

A command pulsed along the laser link, a command she’d pre-prepared for the encounter. The Greys would react at once, of course, but it wouldn’t matter. There were only a few moments left, then only a few seconds, then…the platform started to transmit on all frequencies, directly towards New Brooklyn.

“The Greys are moving,” Kate said. “They have four drones charging towards the platform now.”

“Keep sweeping the bands for any attempt from New Brooklyn to respond,” Avishai ordered. If there was anyone down on the planet with access to a communicator system, they would know that there was still help, somewhere out in the stars. “Anything?”

“Nothing yet,” Kate said. “I think that the Greys are getting a little pissed.”

“The first drone is clearly preparing to attempt to rendezvous with the platform,” Conrad injected. “Recommend that we blow it.”

Avishai felt her warrior blood, passed down from the ancient and probably mythical Gurkas on Earth, burning within her. “Wait one moment,” she said, as the drones closed in on their target. The lead drone was getting just a little bit too close. “Now!”

A white flash burned in space, vaporising the drones as they closed in. Only a tiny amount of antimatter had been provided, but it had been more than enough; the Grey drones had never known what had hit them. The blast would screw up their sensors for hours, at least; they’d have to race to get their starships into position to block any attack, assuming that a human attack was actually on the cards. Down below, she hoped that someone had seen the blast; she wondered if anyone down there was even alive to see it.

“Take us out of here,” she ordered. They would take a week to sneak back out of the system, but it would be time well spent. “Kate, did we pick up any response?”

“Nothing,” Kate said. Her face was very pale. “New Brooklyn is as silent as the grave.”

Chapter Four: Tallying Success and Failure

“I must admit, Admiral, that things could have been a great deal worse,” Captain Nancy Middleton said, as she sat in his office on the Titan orbital tower. “Even so, we lost two ships, and a third will need to be repaired before it can go out again, and we lost thirty-seven starfighters. I shudder to think of what could happen if we ever have to face such a drone charge directly.”

Admiral Adam Glass sat back in his chair and studied Nancy thoughtfully. She looked older and far more tired than the last time they’d met, just after Nancy had accepted the command of the Lightning. Her short-cropped blonde hair, carefully kept within regulation length, hung limply down the side of her narrow face. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for a week; they all looked a little like that. In a society where a person could look like almost anything they wanted to look like, the eyes always told the true age…and they were all getting old. The strains of the war were getting to them.

Glass wanted to offer her the use of his couch to catch up on her sleep, but there wasn’t time; the war wouldn’t place itself on hold for her. Nearly four months had passed since the Battle of Earth, since the final desperate defence of Earth, and the Greys seemed no weaker. Hardly a day passed without a report of a Grey attack on a convoy, or a Grey starship dropping out of Phase Space to attack starships right on the edge of the Phase Limit. They just didn’t have time.

“And they pulled off another surprise,” Nancy continued. “We never thought of mounting drones on heavy missiles, but it’s a natural outgrowth of their long-range missiles. They almost had us then, Admiral; had they been able to mount all of their drones on missiles, my force would have been wiped out.”

Glass scowled down at his display. He’d reviewed the reports of the battle personally, watching through the recordings as Nancy had commanded her starships during the running battle, and he knew that she was right. The Greys were just…well, alien. They were clearly at least as smart as humans – and they seemed to have been spending more time considering some of the implications of long-term space warfare. The Imperials – and the Imperial Fleet – hadn’t been considering any such thing; when one was part of an Empire that claimed nearly a third of the galaxy, it was hard to conceive of anything that could defeat them…

…But the Empire was gone, and the Greys were ever-present, and…he knew that his people were being pushed right to the edge. The Imperials swore blind that all intelligent races had the same basic IQ, apparently because a race’s mental evolution stopped when they reached a level that allowed them to keep their inferior specimens around, but there were times when he wondered just what the Greys had done to themselves. The handful of Grey bodies recovered from the wreckage had held worrying implications.

The results of the autopsies, conducted by no less a personage than Doctor Glen Finney, who was trained in xeno-medicine, were a closely held secret. Only a handful of Fleet officers and the War Cabinet knew about the results; it would only have upset people. The Greys had taken the natural possibilities held in cerebral implants and run with them, right up to creating full cyborgs. A smaller Grey, one of what Finney believed were servants to the taller Greys, was almost a living breathing bio-bot; a taller Grey was still augmented beyond anything that humanity or the Imperials had created, except perhaps one. The Greys could survive unaided in the hostile environment of space, were incredibly strong and resilient, had weapons built into their bodies and seemed to possess a degree of mental linkage that dwarfed even the fighter jock gestalt that pilots shared. Just how smart were they? No one doubted that they were dangerous.

“I understand your concerns,” Glass said, knowing that he sounded far too like a bureaucrat than a war commander. “It’s something that we’re going to have to counter – again.”

Nancy nodded. “They’re also going to start making more patrols around New Brooklyn and its planets,” she said, her voice thoughtful. “If they don’t start leaving a few drones on power-down around the edge of the system, I’ll be very surprised, and now that they might well have seen those surviving natives…”

“I sent a stealth ship in to rescue them,” Glass said. That had been almost two days ago, as soon as the Lightning had transmitted its first report to the human capital. “Once they’re recovered, we can see about sneaking more intelligence teams into the system, perhaps even mounting a raiding force permanently outside the system.”

“Makes you want a Hold,” Nancy commented, ruefully. The crew of the Vanguard had come into some criticism for ‘allowing’ Morgan’s Hold to escape into FTL, despite the fact that no one had ever considered building an FTL ship that size. “Somewhere mobile that we can use as a base.”

“It’s been considered,” Glass admitted. “The Strategy Board feels that a single Hold-sized craft would be a massive waste of resources, and of course not even the Greys could shield it from being destroyed by a single antimatter missile.” He shook his head. “What about the final encounter?”

Nancy closed her eyes, remembering. “I’ve seen the skimming around a system in Phase Space trick worked before, now I come to think of it,” she said. Her voice took on a bitter note. “Commercial starships do it all the time, or did it all the time before we had to start escorting every single ship. Even so, the Greys did it very well; if I’d been a little slower, or delayed by the drones, they would have been able to knock the Lightning’s drive out and then the ship would have been swarmed and killed. No one plans to take a fleet carrier into a knife-range fleet action.”

“We have to keep the Greys off-balance, whatever it takes,” Glass said. It was the truth – that, and the plain fact that the entire human armed forces – the Imperial Fleet’s Sol Picket and the remains of the various Home Guard forces – were desperately short on ships, experience and trained personal. He’d tried to keep enough of his senior fleet commanding officers, including Captain Erickson, in their original billets, but every week there was a new demand for men and starships. The Greys were playing it more carefully than before; they were forcing Glass to respond to more emergencies than he could handle.

“And that’s hard on all of us,” Nancy said. She didn’t have quite the easy confidence of someone who had been in command of a starship long enough to develop an over-inflated opinion of their own importance, but she was learning. “Admiral, my crew needs time to rest before we carry out a second attack.”

Glass scowled. “I know,” he said. “You’ll also need more starfighters – no shortage of those, at any rate. Well, if I can convince the local authorities to cut loose some of their own squadrons; they’re all determined to keep as much firepower as close to home as possible.” He sighed. “There are times when I think that the Grey Communicator was an invention designed to make my life difficult.”

He sensed Nancy’s wry amusement, even through her tiredness, and understood. One of the most important opportunities from the Battle of Earth had come with the chance to examine Grey hardware at close range. Many of their starships had self-destructed after their situation became hopeless – and others had fought until they were smashed, even damaged – but some of their larger superdreadnaughts had survived. Glass’s own aide, Captain Jeremy Damiani, had drawn an interesting conclusion; the superdreadnaughts that had been observed to be venting air during the battle had not been among the group that had destroyed themselves. Almost all of the intact Grey hardware had come from those ships.

The recovery teams and post-battle assessment teams had been horrified when they’d entered the Grey starships; the starships had been a bizarre mix of organic and mechanical technology, drawn together into one mass that had been completely ruined by the battle. The ships, in a very real sense, were almost as much cyborgs as their builders. Some of the researchers had wondered if the Grey FTL system was in fact a form of telepathy, even though the only known telepathic race in existence had a very short range, but endless exploration had finally located the communicator. It had been destroyed, of course, even through no one knew if the Greys had done it on purpose, or if it had just been destroyed when the Grey system crashed, but it had provided enough clues to duplicate the system.

He shook his head. “That’s still not a problem for the moment,” he said, and heard Nancy’s sigh of relief. Like many of his people – the former officers of the Sol Picket – she’d had to take on responsibilities that she wasn’t exactly ready to handle. The Sol Picket was politically neutral; the worlds of the Human Union were profoundly concerned about one of them gaining an advantage over the others. They’d faced that demon once – when Admiral Johnston had captured the Sirius Yards – and none of them, not Roosevelt, not Zion, not Hindustan, were prepared to run that risk again. “I think that I can do you one favour.”

Nancy looked attentive. “You and your crew can have a week’s shore leave on Mars,” he said. “That’ll give you enough time to have a rest, before its time to go back on the front line again, somewhere.”

Nancy stood up. Her uniform was unkempt; her drill sergeant would have burst into tears. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

Glass paused, then nodded once. “Sir, we’re all running out of steam,” she said. “The strain of constant operations is wearing us all down, and we have no prospect of a rest for the crews alone, let alone a chance to actually perform some much needed maintenance. We need, desperately, to find some way of taking the war back to them.”

Glass nodded slowly. “I know,” he said. Some Admirals would have bitten her head off – permission to speak freely or no – but he knew better. She deserved better; they all deserved better. “You’re right, but…you are dismissed.”

She saluted once, and left his office. Glass studied his holographic map of the galaxy – at least of what had once been the explored galaxy – and knew that she was right. They needed something to win the war – or at least win them a breathing space - desperately…and there was nothing that could do that, except perhaps…

On impulse, Glass stood up, sending a mental command through his implant to Captain Jeremy Damiani, who had been recently promoted. Damiani could handle the paperwork for a few hours; Glass himself had something he wanted to check. As soon as Damiani had replied, Glass stepped into the personal transport tube in the corner of his office, and ordered it to descend. The tiny compartment took his breath away as it transported him down the orbital tower faster than any shuttle, into one of the more secret complexes under Titan’s gloomy sky. The Imperials had had over a thousand years to convert Titan to serve their purposes; Titan had more warrens and surprises than any other world save Centre itself.

He sighed. There were times when he wondered just how many of Titan’s secrets were unknown to even him.

The tube stopped inside a bunker, grim and grey; the irony made Glass smile. Titan itself was a security zone in itself, even to the extent that unauthorised starships attempting to approach the planet were fired upon; it was literally impossible for anyone to arrive on the planet undetected. It was the safest place in the Sol System – and the only place where they could take the remains of the Grey starships and their bodies, all, but one of the bodies that had been captured. The final body, the one captured just before the Collapse, had been taken by the Imperial Envoy, just before she had delivered her fateful message. No one knew what had happened to it afterwards.

Doctor Glen Finney met him at the entrance to the high security section. He was a tall unkempt man, who had based his appearance on Alfred Einstein; a single white lab coat completed the picture of a distracted scientist. He’d served on the Vanguard during the early days of the war; Captain Erickson hadn’t been pleased to lose him, even though it was likely to be temporary. If Glass had to order the start of Plan B, Erickson would find himself charged with the most important mission in the history of the Human Union.

“Admiral,” he said. His voice, at least, held no trace of a mock accent; few people knew that German had once been a language, let alone knew how to speak it. “I trust that there have been some interesting developments?”

“We were beaten away from New Brooklyn,” Glass said, sourly. A little of Doctor Glen Finney’s company could go a long way. “I need to know if you have made any progress with SILVER BULLET.”

“Very little,” Finney admitted. His voice took on a more thoughtful tone as he escorted Glass down a long corridor towards one of the storage rooms. “I must admit that all of this has been frightful exciting, but we believe that we now know what happened during the final stages of the Battle of Earth.”

Glass, who’d known that they’d been saved by the Imperial Envoy’s rather curious gift for him personally, wasn’t amused. “I know what happened,” he said. “I need to know if we can make it happen again.”

Finney frowned. “I very much doubt it,” he said. His face brightened. “It was a fascinating puzzle, studying that charming young lady and her unique biology…you do know that she’d actually built that way, rather than just being augmented?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Glass said. He allowed some of his impatience to slip into his voice. “Do you know how she was able to bring down the Grey datanet?”

“Yes,” Finney said. “She’s…built using similar technology, if you’ll pardon the expression; there are few words to explain what she actually is. It’s not like human mental biology at all, Admiral; a xeno-medical expert was needed to see what had happened to create her.”

Glass nodded. A normal human doctor could call upon literally centuries of human and Imperial research into what made humans – or one of the other races in the Empire - tick. A xeno-doctor had a good background in alien biology, but they were called in to treat subjects of newly contacted races, often working without a guideline as to what they were actually doing. Their medical counterparts – rudely – considered them blunderers; the success rate wasn’t high.

“The point is that the Grey…biomechanical systems are based on similar principles,” Finney said. Glass looked up with interest. “The Greys created a network using their own minds as part of the system, much like fighter jocks do, but they carried it along to its logical conclusion. Admiral, it’s possible that, at least to some extent, that we’re facing a hive-mind, or at least something that reassembles a fighter pilot mindlink for starships.”

Glass stroked his chin. “I see,” he said. There was no logical reason why the Fleet couldn’t have developed a similar system – except it would have been far too dangerous in combat operations. The Battle of Earth, oddly enough, hadn’t proven the Fleet right; the Greys had clearly held the network together through the fighting until Corey took it out. “What happened at Earth?”

“I believe that Corey was able to…synchronise herself with the network, then break it down,” Finney said. “None of our fleet computers could match the Grey system, so hacking it was never an option, but the…biological computer inside Corey’s head – that is her head – was able to do the trick. However, do you want the bad news?”

Glass nodded grimly. “It won’t work twice,” Finney admitted. “I checked the reports from the Lightning; the Greys have clearly learnt from experience and altered their system enough to make it impossible to accomplish again. We can probably come up with a system for interfering with their network during combat, but suppressing it will prove…challenging.”

Glass wanted to hit him. “Why are they so damn adaptable?” He demanded. His fury made no real impression on Finney. “What the hell are they? What race goes and does something as…awful as that to themselves?”

“They’re aliens,” Finney said, his voice unsubdued. “There is a race out there where sexual congress between anyone is so commonplace that it can even take place in the street, between strangers, perhaps even inviting other races to take part. That same race will never sleep with anyone else – sleep as in real sleep – and the suggestion that they should is a fighting insult.”

“I see,” Glass said. The Imperials had banned sexual relations between different races; Glass suspected that they needn’t have bothered. Most alien females were so alien as to pass well outside what humans found attractive; performing with them would be difficult, if not impossible, in any case. “You’re telling me that the Greys might have done this to themselves, knowing exactly what they’re doing, and they want…what?”

“I don’t know,” Finney admitted. “They were probing the Empire, so perhaps they want the Empire.”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Glass mused to himself. He closed his eyes in thought, and then activated his communicator implant. “Jeremy, would you please call Prince Roland and ask him if we can set up a private meeting between him and myself as soon as possible,” he ordered. “Tell him that it’s urgent.”

He scowled. “Keep working on the Greys, Doctor,” he ordered. “Your research might just help us help ourselves.”

Finney shrugged. “Or perhaps lead us to our destruction,” he said. “Do you know how many humans would be delighted to use tech like this?”

Chapter Five: Down Among the Dead Men

“The radiation is remaining stable,” Sergeant Tuan Lepke muttered, as the small platoon crested the ridge and looked down the valley, down towards the massive city of Douglas, or at least where it should have been. “I think we’re fairly safe, for the moment.”

Captain Alison Dostie nodded once. Months ago – what seemed like years – she’d been fighting to retain her rank in the face of rampant sexism in the army; New Brooklyn was the only planet in the Human Union to have any limits on sexual integration in the military, yet another reason why there were so many people trying to leave. Now, now she had undisputed command of an oversized platoon of thirty men…and aliens occupying her world.

She checked her implants and scowled. New Brooklyn was the poorest major world in the Human Union, which meant that its army was long on brawn, short on brains. It had the largest ground combat formations in the Human Union, most of which had been nuked from orbit by the Greys. The aliens might not have set out to exterminate the population, although no one knew what was really happening in the cities, but they’d taken a dim view of human resistance. Where kinetic weapons would have crushed an armoured division, using fusion-powered tanks, they’d deployed nukes; everywhere that was broadcasting a signal received a present, courtesy of the Greys. Whatever was left of the New Brooklyn armed forces – and she knew all too well that only a few units and a few thousand men were left on the main continent – had grave difficulties in continuing the fight.

“There,” Lepke said, as a light appeared above the city. The darkness of the night washed around them – she knew that it would soon be light – but it was broken by the glowing presence of a force of Grey aircraft, hovering over the city. The city itself was dark and cold; the Greys had descended upon it, and…no one knew what had happened since. “The bastards are watching.”

Alison watched the lights, flickering high in the sky, and scowled. The remains of the armed forces – at least on the main continuant; Sudanasesia had lost contact with the other nations, and wasn’t that a joke now – had few options; they’d spent the four months since the Greys had landed trying desperately to rebuild enough combat power to fight, while the Greys continued with their plan, whatever it was. They descended on a city, surrounded it…and then? No one knew. Alison and her platoon had to find out…and she knew that it would be difficult.

“As long as they don’t sense us attempting to transmit, we should be fine,” Alison said, checking out the situation as she talked. “We’ll set up camp here, and then proceed towards the city in the morning.”

They worked quickly; they’d prepared as best as they could for the mission…and all of them knew the price of being discovered. A mountain range, only two hundred kilometres to the south, stood as a very visible warning of what the Greys could do; in daylight, as they’d walked towards Douglas, they’d seen the blackened stump that had once been a mountain…that had housed a planetary defence centre. The Greys had nuked it with an orbital weapon.

Something buzzed past, high overhead, and they grabbed for their SAM launchers reflexively. Alison pulled out her military-grade binoculars and peered into the lightening dawn; a larger Grey flying craft was passing overhead, well out of range. She considered, briefly, firing on it anyway, but knew that they dared not risk being detected. She turned her binoculars towards the city and swore; it was a grim sight.

“Fuck,” one of her men said. “Captain, that’s…”

“Never mind, not now,” Alison snapped. Her voice was tart; harder than she wanted it to be. “Finish setting up the heavy weapons!”

The city stood at the bottom of a valley, looking out to sea; it had been started in the days before the first New Brooklyn War, when the different factions had first come to blows. The valley sloped down from their position, where farms and small factories had once stood, and the Greys had been busy. The city was dark and silent, even in daylight, but the Greys had built a fortress of their own nearby. Alison studied the black blocky building – utterly unadorned with anything remotely aesthetic – and winced. The Greys had linked their complex to the sea…and she could see some of the aliens, moving around in the city.

The city itself looked as if it had been hit by a tornado; Douglas had been heavily defended, although few had anticipated an alien attack, rather than a resurgence of open civil war. Everyone in the city, like in all Sudanasesia cities, had been expected to own a weapon, something that had given the Imperials fits before they’d washed their hands of the entire situation. Buildings that had once kissed the sky had fallen to the ground, their wreckage smashing into other cities; other places of the city looked obscenely intact. Dead bodies could be seen, very decayed; the Greys hadn’t bothered to clean up at all. Had they even taken prisoners?

“There,” Sergeant Lepke muttered, pointing towards a small complex in the shadow of the Grey complex. Alison nodded her thanks; the Greys had erected a simple set of fences, and trapped thousands of women and children inside, with a small group of Greys guarding them…along with a small group of humans. She peered closer, wondering if she knew any of them, but…they seemed strange, almost inhuman.

“I wonder what rewards they get,” one of her soldiers’ said. “The bitches in there will be putting out for them…”

Alison cracked her hand across his face without missing a beat. “You will fucking pay attention on the mission or you will never do any fucking again,” she snapped. A male officer wouldn’t have had to assert himself so hard; a female officer had to constantly keep reminding the more assertive soldiers who was boss. Without the sergeants, she would have killed one of them by now. “Look at them; do they seem normal to you?”

She turned and studied one of the Grey collaborators. She could make out his features with some of the enhancement systems on her binoculars; her implants provided a little more resolution…and what she saw was terrifying. The collaborator didn’t look happy, or sad, or ashamed; he moved almost as if a different person was controlling each of his different limbs. He held a standard plasma rifle in one hand, a club in the other, he mooched around the fence like a bad comic turn. All of his comrades were moving the same way; she tried to find signs of humanity in them, and saw nothing. Their faces were slack and lifeless; they showed no sign of lust for any of the women, no fear of any of the Greys, nothing.

Creepy didn’t begin to describe it.

“It makes sense,” Lepke muttered, into her ear. She wished, just once, for a proper set of communicator implants. “They must have been implanted, rather than being forced to work for the Greys, or willing victims.”

Alison focused in on one of the Greys. She had the eerie sense that its black insect-like eyes were looking right back at her, even through it was several kilometres away. The Grey showed no reaction; its strange alien flesh made her skin crawl, even as it passed through a forcefield – its form briefly surrounded by a halo of fire – and entered one of the Grey buildings.

“Shit,” she breathed. “He saw me, I’m sure of it.”

She led half of her team around the mountain range, trying to head around the city. The sun had risen completely, scattering its light over the valley, and she could see more details of the city. The richer folks in Douglas had built their houses right up to the mountains; she’d intended to sneak through the developed region – perhaps meeting a few refugees on her way – but she could see that it was going to be difficult. The fighting had passed through the small secure village – of the city, but not part of it – and left only devastation in its wake.

“At least the rich fucks paid with their lives,” Lepke muttered. Alison didn’t disagree; the massive mansions and houses, complete with swimming pools, parks, gardens and every modern convenience, were a far cry from anything she’d had back when she’d been growing up. Class warfare was alive and well on New Brooklyn, or at least it had been; the Greys had put a stop to it themselves. “Perhaps they’re out trying to buy off the invaders.”

“Or perhaps they fled,” Alison said, as she surveyed the devastation. A gully ran down into the complex; from its design, she suspected that it had been deliberately created, rather than something that had formed naturally. “If we go down there, we can get into the complex, and then into that house over there.”

She pointed to a large mansion that had escaped any real destruction. Five minutes of careful climbing and crawling later, they passed through the mansion’s garden and slipped in through the French windows, into a scene of total devastation. The mansion might have been tastefully decorated – although there was more pink than any sane woman would have tolerated for a moment – at one time, but it had clearly been stormed by…someone, or something. Debris lay everywhere; a body lay on the carpet, decayed and half-eaten by something.

“At least a month old,” the medic reported. Her face – she was the only other woman in the platoon – was very pale. “My sensors are picking up traces of canine DNA around the wounds, but that’s not what killed him. He seems to have been killed by something that jangled his nerves, shocking him.”

“So it wasn’t the dog,” Alison commented. She addressed her men. “Spread out and search the house; avoid any dogs if you meet them, keep the gunfire down.”

She found a large window and peered out across the city. There was still almost no movement – and what little there was that moved seemed to be either Greys or their devices. It might have been nearly three months since the city had fallen – and God knew that thousands of the inhabitants would have fled to the refugee camps that had been established for the long-expected planetary war – but had they all died, or had they all been rounded up and dumped in the prison camp? Where were all the men?

Something moved, spinning down the street.

“Shit,” she snapped, as the device came into view. It was a hovering drone, hardly larger than a football, emitting a horrible sound as it moved. The noise, whatever it was, wore away at her mind; her implants moved at once to compensate for the effect. All of a sudden, she understood how the city had fallen so quickly; a weapon like that would be worth more than its weight in gold if the Greys didn’t face augmented soldiers. How many of the citizens had been augmented?

“Move,” she said, as her soldiers ducked back. The Grey drone moved towards them, spinning; it crashed through the window as if it was made of thin air. It came to a halt as she moved backwards, covering it with her plasma rifle, and then angled itself towards one of her men. It hummed louder for a long chilling moment – she had the strange sense that it was examining her man somehow – and then it fired a single burst of strange multi-coloured light towards him. He screamed, threw up his arms, and collapsed.

She pulled her trigger. Sergeant Lepke pulled his at the same time; two burst of plasma fire caught the Grey robot, blowing it to pieces. The debris hit the ground; she snatched up as much of it as she could, ignoring the pain from her burnt hand when she touched it, and shouted for two of her men to pick up the wounded soldier.

“Out,” she snapped. The Greys were bound to have noticed them, or they’d come to find out what had happened to their drone. It didn’t matter; she threw open the French windows and ran out into the garden, cursing her luck. “What happened to him?”

“He’s been stunned, I think,” the medic said. “I don’t have anything that can help him, Captain; his entire nervous system has been hit, badly.”

“Captain,” Lepke said grimly. “Look.”

Alison felt her breath catch in her throat. Greys, at least thirty of them, were coming towards them, faster than she would have believed possible. For the first time, she saw the enemy moving on the ground faster than a slow walk, and shuddered. Child-like in their size, the Greys radiated an…alien sense of pure wrongness that attacked her mind on a very basic level. She knew, then, that there would be no peace; she would have found it easier to live next to alien insects than the Greys. She found herself staring in numb horror…

…As the lead Grey raised his – its – hand and fired a single burst of red energy towards her platoon. Something hit her from behind – she only numbly realised that Sergeant Lepke had knocked her to the ground – and she hit the ground hard, the impact stunning her for a chilling moment. Her implants kept her awake; she lifted her weapon and fired blast after blast of brilliant plasma fire towards the Greys. Her men were firing as well, trying to hit the Greys. The little aliens moved with terrifying speed; it seemed to her that they were actually dodging the plasma blasts.

“Die, you bastards,” Lepke bellowed, unslinging his heavy plasma cannon. He fired from his prone position, firing a massive stream of bursts into the Grey formation, catching some of them…and blowing them apart. Their bodies didn’t bleed, she noted numbly as she killed a Grey that moved with marginally slower speed than its comrades, they just came apart. Sometimes they exploded, other times they just flopped to the ground, dead.

At least she hoped that that meant that they were dead.

Something landed behind her. She had only a moment to realise that there were more Greys behind them, and then one of the aliens picked up Lepke with a single childish hand, punching the second right through his body. She fired once, avenging his death as his blood and guts poured down onto the sands, and then a Grey lifted its hands and fired at her. Her body…screamed with pain, her nerves hurting like nothing on Earth; her body collapsed in a heap and refused to move. Her implants couldn’t do anything; she lay helplessly and watched as the Greys completed the capture or annihilation of her men. She could only hope and prey that the other men, back at their base, would see what had happened and…

Her body hurt. A Grey walked over and she was aware of its scrutiny as it studied her, its face expressionless as it studied her, tipping its head from side to side as it took in everything about her. As if it had come to a decision, it picked her up effortlessly, one hand slashing through her belt and dropping her entire collection of military tools to the ground. Other Greys, she saw, were picking up the seven men who had survived the encounter; one of the men tried to fight, his body somehow undamaged or unfrozen, and his Grey casually broke his arms and legs. His screams echoed as the Greys carried them through the streets and right towards the Grey base.

Alison forced her mind to work, even though the pain; she was in a position to gather valuable intelligence, which she knew now there would be no hope of using to attack the Greys. The air…the feeling in the air…changed somehow as the Grey carried her into their base, into a region of horror and death, made somehow worse by the fact that its natives were unconcerned. She could feel it, somehow; there were no bodies or blood on the ground, but there was an aura of deep…evil spreading through the Grey base. Silver walls, glinting lights; no human could live in such regions and remain sane; no human could ever hope to comprehend such an environment.

Everything went black, long enough for her to notice. When she opened her eyes, she was in a room of brilliant white; light, blinding light, poured from every wall. She could move her head, but nothing else; she tried to speak, and nothing came out of her mouth. She felt ill, feverish; her body desperately wanted water, and there was nothing, nothing at all. She gasped, forcing her body to work, and tried to speak. Again, it failed; she was helpless…and naked.

Do not resist, a voice hummed, or thought; she wondered for a moment if she had imagined it. It was part of a chorus of murmuring voices, right on the edge of her perception, a whispering hint of…what? We mean you no harm.

“Bastards,” she snapped, finding the strength to speak suddenly. Raw pain and hatred coloured her voice. “Let me go!”

A shape detached itself from the light and stepped forward. It was only in silhouette, but she could make out enough to know what she was looking at, a taller version of a Grey. It’s head, smaller than the head of the smaller Greys, was mercifully hidden in the glare; she felt its chilling regard as it studied her. A pressure formed on her body; she felt something pulling at her legs, pulling them apart. She tried to look and saw…smaller Greys, performing their work. The larger Grey showed no reaction as her last secret was ripped from her; no humiliation, not even boot camp, compared to this. What where they doing to her?

She tried to speak again, tried to demand an explanation, but even that was denied to her…

And then the real pain began.

Chapter Six: Fatal Decisions

“In conclusion, we would face serious difficulties in launching a liberation offensive against New Brooklyn,” Admiral Glass concluded. Prince Roland watched as the faces of the War Cabinet reflected their feelings; some relieved, some disappointed. The political situation was grim, he knew; Earth might have escaped invasion at the Battle of Earth, but in the nearly four months that had passed, the constant skirmishing was starting to grind people down. “Even if we succeeded in recovering control of the planet, we would still have to recover before the Greys hit us again.”

“We would also have to take back the planet by fighting on the surface,” General Max Weinberg injected. The Commander of Earth’s army – a force that had also been rapidly expanded in the months following the Collapse – looked grim. “I have seen some of the videos that the crew we saved from the station near Biko; the Greys used nuclear weapons freely on the surface. Nukes are somewhat overestimated as to their effects, but there can be no denying that my people would face horrendous losses in the fighting, and we can’t afford them.”

Roland nodded, allowing the discussion to rage around him. He had no military experience – his invalid father had refused him anything, but service to the Government of Earth – but he knew enough to know that Weinberg was right. There were few known examples of actual knife-range fighting with the Greys – the recovery of Morgan’s battlecruiser was the only example that had been studied in detail – but everything suggested that the Greys would be dangerous. One of them had even punched through a human battlesuit, something that had horrified the Marines, and the soldiers on the ground. New Brooklyn was in serious trouble.

“But, dash it all,” Lord Collins said. His nasal voice – he had been known to comment once that the only true measurement of a man lay in his appetites – echoed through the room. His bulk – he had declined any treatment that would slim him down to a more fashionable size – wobbled alarmingly as he spoke. “We know that they have a shipyard there, so why not just destroy it? Mount an antimatter bomb on a stealth drone and send it in.”

Roland scowled. Lord Collins, like the other Lords, had vast interests in dozens of different industries – the Lords held together interstellar commerce – but many of his companies were coming closer and closer to collapse under the impact of the war. The economic shocks that had killed the Empire, at least according to the Imperials, might have receded, but the Greys were pushing the Human Union back towards the brink. Lord Collins, unlike his old nemesis Chairman Mann, was becoming one of the Lords urging a quick end to the war.

“You make it sound easy,” Admiral Glass observed. His face – he seemed to have aged terribly in the last few months – tightened. “Destroying New Brooklyn is easy; a standard antimatter missile, targeted in the right place, will push the planet to the brink of becoming uninhabitable. Destroying the shipyard would be harder, not least because the Greys have dozens of sensors and sensing fields around the shipyard and their orbital installations, but it could be done. Unfortunately…”

He took a breath. “We could hit the shipyard and smash it, sending thousands of chunks of rock falling onto the planet,” he said. He scowled down at the table. “If we do that, we will not only exterminate anyone left on New Brooklyn, but encourage the Greys to do the same to Earth and the other human worlds. They, too, would find destroying a world easy.”

Roland nodded. Earth had a population of over ten billion, despite all that modern technology could do to prevent overpopulation, and the solar system as a whole had nearly twice that. A strike on Earth, combined with strikes on Mars and Venus, could wipe out nearly three quarters of the Solar System’s population; the figures for the rest of human space were equally as grim. Encouraging the Greys to strike at human worlds was a Bad Idea.

“Perhaps we should strike New Brooklyn, or Harmony,” Lord Collins pressed. He seemed to have forgotten that Harmony had been an Imperial-designed space complex, rather than a planet. “If we did that, we might convince them to talk to us.”

“We have tried,” Roland reminded him. He fought to keep his voice even; the last thing the Human Union needed was a political catfight. “The Greys have shown no interest in talking to us.”

Lord Baen attempted to play mediator. “Did the crew we recovered know anything about Grey activities on the surface?”

“Very little,” Admiral Glass said. He exchanged a long glance with Roland. “According to them, the Greys blasted through the fleet defending the planet, and then started to land. Communications were cut off or jammed almost at once; the final transmissions spoke only of lights in the sky and clear landing patterns. The Greys definitely landed an army on the surface, but as to what that army has been doing…”

“You can’t tell us,” Lord Collins snapped. He turned to face Roland. “Your Highness, this war is grinding us down; we can’t take it much longer before…”

Lord Baen snorted. “You have to tighten your belt?”

“Before we have a major economic collapse,” Lord Collins said. “Your Highness, we are spending much more we can afford on new warships, and that’s just the tip of the problem. Taxes are rising, to pay for those warships; at the very time that people’s earning power is degraded. My shipping lines are already in serious danger, even without the dangers of a Grey raid against one of our ships.”

Roland frowned. The Greys raided convoys almost at random, almost like pirates; they certainly didn’t seem to waste time hunting for convoys. Standard pirate tactics, stolen from the Imperial Fleet, involved lurking around the edges of a given system’s Phase Limit, waiting for a convoy or an individual starship to come into range. The new Grey Communicator, deployed with unseemly haste to every world in the Union, made it easier to provide escorts at both ends of the journey, but at the same time it provided more wear and tear on the equipment.

Lord Collins spoke before anyone else could speak. “Admiral, is it not true that we are in serious trouble, just over the wear and tear?” He asked, unknowingly mimicking Roland’s thoughts. “How long can our dedicated fighting men keep up this rate of continued combat performance before something breaks?”

Glass’s eyes narrowed, but he responded civilly enough. “There are three separate components to that answer and I will attempt to handle them separately,” he said, almost like the professor he’d spoken of becoming in later life. “First, general starship construction is increasing, now that we’ve worked out some of the bugs and spread out our own capability. Although we are still very dependent upon the Sirius Yards, we have been able to place construction of almost seventy percent of spare parts at other shipyards, including your own civilian yards.”

Lord Collins scowled. “Although those items have not been manufactured to military standards and therefore need replacing on a fairly constant basis, we can free up construction systems at Sirius Yards for additional military-grade components that we can’t build elsewhere,” Glass continued. “Although it will be a month yet before our first from-keel superdreadnaught is launched, we have repaired the units that fought in the Battle of Earth and have completed the units that were under construction at the time of the collapse. We might not have the hard core of superdreadnaughts that I wanted, but we can be fairly confident of holding Earth against a renewed Grey offensive.

“Lighter units are actually an easier problem,” Glass said. He tapped the table in front of them; a holographic list of produced ships appeared in front of him. “Home Guard shipyards can produce destroyers and cruisers; we have actually started – or rather expanded the original program – of replacing Home Guard components with Imperial-grade components, therefore allowing us to rapidly expand our capabilities. Convoy escort remains a problem, but we are confident that the smaller units will provide enough point defence to prevent the Greys from simply crushing our smaller force of superdreadnaughts with overwhelming numbers. Starfighters remain a monopoly – although the Greys are clearly building drones in vast numbers – and that helps even the balance. That said, we don’t know if the Greys will actually produce starfighters of their own; there seemed to be no obvious reason why they can’t build them themselves.”

He altered the hologram slightly. “Morale in the service remains something of a problem,” he admitted. “We won at Earth, which did give us a boost, and raiding New Brooklyn gave us another boost. At the same time, the incessant Grey raids against convoys and the Phase Limit of the different human worlds are damaging morale, and manpower is becoming a problem. We’ve called up everyone who had experience in either the Home Guard or the Imperial Fleet, including some of the aliens who were granted residence on Mars, but we’re now more or less out of people, except for those who were granted exemption.”

Roland watched as Lord Collins spluttered. He’d fought hard for that, apparently unaware that the people he wanted to protect – the crewmen on his starships – were the very people who were needed to crew warships to defend him from whatever fate the Greys had in mind for humanity. Roland felt little concern; Collins had inherited his title, he hadn’t the intelligence to deserve one on his own merits. He had a private suspicion that the House of Commons would not be quick to confirm Collins’ son as Lord, once the older Collins met with his maker.

“In some ships, discipline remains a problem, but we are coming out on top,” Glass continued. “Freighter crewmen, generally a looser environment than a warship, resent being subordinated to military officers, including young ensigns. It’s been a harder road than I expected, but we ended up making a few graphic examples and trouble dropped off sharply. The worst offences in the last month were pleasure implants and drink-related problems.

“Finally, we have the tactical problem,” Glass concluded. “The long and short of it is that the Greys can pretty much hit us when and where they please; they know where all of our worlds are, and they can choose a target and hammer it. I have long suspected that the Solar System – and by extension the rest of the Human Union – is under covert surveillance; the Greys were certainly able to have their fleet in place to intercept and crush Admiral Johnston. We, at the same time, are limited; we know of only two places occupied by the Greys, and both of them are heavily defended.”

Roland steepled his fingers and scowled over the tips. The Greys didn’t talk to humanity – or did they? They had certainly made a deal with the pirate Morgan and his men; Morgan’s forces had occupied the remains of the New Sector, where once his people had dreams of expanding their power. Now, a pirate starship hung above every world and the citizens laboured for the pirate empire. There was nothing he could do to help them, nothing that could be spared from the war against the Greys.

He almost admired them, at that moment; they’d moved neatly and well to take the offensive against what remained of the Empire. Using pirates was not only as deniable as a person could get, but it also freed up Grey combat power for other uses, such as pressing an offensive into the Human Union. Mentally, he cursed the Imperials; what had they been thinking?

Alistair Darlington, Prime Minister of the Human Union, summed up the meeting. “So, in short, we have to roll with the blows and keep building,” he said. “Is there no hope at all, Admiral?”

Glass looked up at the holographic starmap. Roland had often wondered about it, before he’d learned the secret; the Imperials had seeded human colonies on worlds they’d discovered before they’d stumbled across Earth. Earth itself was dangerously exposed to a Grey attack – they’d learned that from the Battle of Earth – and so it sucked up deployable combat power.

“If we can hold out for six months, we will expand our superdreadnaught production to allow us to deploy over a hundred superdreadnaughts,” Glass said. “The designs are somewhat weaker than the ships of the Sol Picket, but they actually take in lessons from the Greys themselves as well as our former masters. At the same time, the production of fixed defences will allow us to guarantee the security of our rear areas, which will free up ships for offensive action.”

He met Roland’s eyes. Roland caught the hint; Glass wanted to talk privately. “We have to locate their homeworlds,” Glass said. “For that, we need some luck, some care, and thousands more smaller ships to do the scouting.”

Roland blinked as a thought occurred to him. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was a way to solve that problem. “Thank you, Admiral,” he said, before anyone else could say anything. He made a show of checking his watch. “We’ve been here nearly three hours, Gentlemen; I believe that its time for dinner. Please change your clothes, then make your way to the smaller dining room.”

He watched as the War Cabinet stood up, almost as one, and slipped out of the room. Admiral Glass remained, his face grim; Roland tried to smile. They’d become friends, of a sort, and yet both of them knew that it was only because of the war.

Glass spoke first. “Is Lord Collins sane?”

Roland snorted. “He brought his granddaughter, sixteen years old, here,” he said. “I believe, from the hints he dropped, that he was looking for a dynastic marriage for her, to me. So no, I would say he’s not sane, but what do I know?”

Glass sighed. “I know,” he said. “We’re in a very bad situation, worse than it looks from the map, Your Highness. I have something I need to ask you.”

Roland nodded. “I wanted to ask you something too,” Roland said. “It’s really two points; your daughter has accepted the commission from me to do research into the issue of pre-Invasion Grey contacts.”

“I heard,” Glass said. “Good luck when you talk to her; I don’t think that we’ve exchanged words for years. I need to ask you something controversial.”

“Me too,” Roland said. “Admiral, how would you feel about an alliance with the pirates?”

Glass gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t know,” Roland said. He knew that he had to tread carefully; hatred of pirates was Imperial Fleet dogma…and the pirates themselves did nothing to save their reputations. The Fleet, which had to clear up the mess after pirate attacks, operated on a shoot-first policy when pirates were involved. “We need to find the Grey homeworlds, and the pirates are based closer to them than we are.”

“True,” Glass admitted. “It doesn’t sit well with me, but you have a point.” He laughed suddenly. “And I thought that my suggestion was bad.” Roland quirked an eyebrow. “We are in a bad way, Your Highness.”

“You said,” Roland reminded him. He took a breath. “Just how bad is it?”

“There are six months coming when we could lose the war,” Glass said. “If we can hold out that long, we have a very good chance of surviving, at least, but…it won’t be easy. We really need help…and only the Imperials can help us.”

Roland looked at him for a long moment, uncertain how to feel. “The Imperials abandoned us,” he said, finally. “They left, remember?”

“I remember,” Glass said.

“We’ve built all of this ourselves,” Roland said. “They left us with a mess – God, how long has it been since we heard anything from outside our own sector? Rumours of war, rumours of tyranny, rumours of…well, the second coming – nothing, but rumours. We built all this and I’m proud of it; it’s ours, damn it!”

His voice had started to rise. “Why should we invite the Imperials back here?”

“Because we’re on the verge of losing,” Glass snapped. “You saw the reports from New Brooklyn, Your Highness; they’re expanding their own fleet. They’re doubtless getting more units from their own worlds as well, tightening their grip. Once they have enough ships, they’ll attack, and if they come in force, we might not be able to stop them. New Brooklyn means very little to them – Earth and the Sirius Yards mean everything to us. We lose either of them and we lose almost all of our chance of actually winning the war!”

Roland met his eyes and held it. “Do you trust the Imperials?”

Glass held his eyes. “I served them loyally and faithfully for three times as long as you have been alive, Your Highness,” he said.

“That’s not quite an answer,” Roland replied, after a long moment. “They kept things from us; they gave us a weapon to use against the Greys. I don’t believe, not any longer, that that was a coincidence. They might even have known about the Greys for centuries!”

Glass frowned. “Do you really know that?”

“I hope that your daughter can tell me,” Roland said. “Do you trust them?”

“I don’t know,” Glass admitted. “However, I do know that unless we get help, we are in serious danger of losing. Your Highness, I formally request that a starship be sent to attempt to contact the Imperials.”

Roland nodded slowly. “Very well,” he said. “Not a word to anyone else about it.” Glass nodded. “Which ship do you have in mind?”

“The Vanguard is due back at Earth in a week,” Glass asked. “I believe that Captain Erickson can carry out the mission effectively.”

“Poor bastard,” Roland said. “Very well, Admiral, you’ll have your mission…and let’s just hope that it doesn’t come back to bite us.”

Chapter Seven: Who Dares to Speak of Treason?

“This is not exactly the best of possible situations, is it?” Chairman Mann asked. His voice was very dry. “I mean; you’re not exactly doing yourself any favours, are you?”

Lord Collins glared at him. He was angry, almost as angry as he’d ever been, and the mockery didn’t help him to remain calm. Chairman Mann was not a Lord – and, given the way that the Humanists spoke about the House of Lords, would never be one – but he held power. Lord Collins was old enough to know that Chairman Mann held power…and young enough to resent the fact that Chairman Mann had earned his power. Lord Collins had inherited his position from his father, who had inherited it from his father; what had once been one of the first companies to trade with the Imperials had become one of the most powerful companies in the Human Sector, and then the Union. He should not be treating Chairman Mann, the jumped-up upstart, as an equal…but he had no choice.

He resented that too.

“The rules have changed,” Chairman Mann said. His voice levelled out slightly; Lord Collins had contributed, from time to time, to the Humanist funds…but what had that bought him? Clearly not votes in the Commons…and the Humanists had almost no presence in the Lords. Keeping them in check had been easy, until the Imperials had withdrawn from the sector, and the Human Union had been founded. “I don’t think you get to dictate to Prince Roland any longer, let alone the Commons.”

Lord Collins drew on his implants, keeping his face schooled to show almost nothing. “I was not attempting to dictate to him,” he said, very calmly. “However, the fact remains that this war is going to grind us all down…and it won’t end soon.”

“Humanity must remain independent,” Chairman Mann said, with all the conviction of a priest saying his prayers. The thought almost made Lord Collins smile. “We know nothing about what fate awaits us under a Grey-ruled sector.”

Lord Collins smiled. “Humanity surrendered to the Imperials and look how many benefits that brought us,” he said. “I do not, however, urge a surrender, merely…a truce with the Greys.”

Chairman Mann eyed him carefully. “There is a saying as old as humanity – perhaps as old as the Imperials,” he said. “It takes one to make a war – and two to make a peace. If the Greys refuse to talk to us, they can hardly be interested in a peace, and why should they? They’re winning!”

Lord Collins smiled. “Are they?” He asked. “Think about it; who’s urging war? Lord Baen, who has massive interests that are earning billions of credits from the war, eh? Lord Asteroid, who has similar interests. Ambassador Wakanda, whose planet is under occupation, by the Greys. Prince Roland, whose power will be increased by serving as our warlord; perhaps he has more at stake – personally – than anyone else. Anyone else?”

Chairman Mann shrugged. “I find it difficult to believe that some of our most trusted and esteemed leaders – and, I might add, your fellow lords – would set out to ensure that the war went on as long as possible,” he said. He paused. “I’m an old man, My Lord; what exactly do you want?”

“Peace,” Lord Collins said. “I want you to introduce a motion in the House of Commons calling for peace talks with the Greys.”

“That would be tricky,” Chairman Mann said. “I have been pressing for the war to be fought until we win, one way or the other. Why should I change tack now?”

The answer was bitterly obvious – but Lord Collins knew that Chairman Mann would never go for it. “Because we could win this war, but lose the peace,” he said, after a moment. “You’ve seen the economic reports; if the war carries on for the six more months that Admiral Glass predicted – and note that that was only when we would be fairly safe from a massive Grey attack – we face economic ruin. At some point, we will be literally unable to pay for the war, let alone anything else.”

“I have relatives who fought in the rebellions against the Imperials,” Chairman Mann said. “I am directly descended from one of the most famous resistance generals…”

“Oh, come off it,” Lord Collins snapped. “At nearly…what? Nine hundred years? From the end of the Occupation to now, most of the population could make such a claim, except it’s almost certainly nonsense, is it not? The resistance died, died in the ruins of a dozen cities and countries; California, Russia, Europe, Australia, Saudi and other names that are almost forgotten now!”

Chairman Mann pulled himself to his feet. “I do not believe that we have any chance of seeking a peace with the Greys, at least successfully,” he said. “I will not assist you.”

“I see not,” Lord Collins said. At one time, he could have ordered his servants to execute Chairman Mann and they would have obeyed…and there would have been no comeback at all. Now, with far too many people considering reaching for power themselves, it was far too dangerous to show too much power, or disregard for the law. “I’ll have you shown out.”

He called for Sara, his assistant. Chairman Mann’s face darkened when he saw her; Sara was a body-slave, dressed only in the standard orange uniform they wore when they were allowed to wear clothes. Chairman Mann had campaigned against commercial control implants; he must have found Sara more than a little creepy. Sara was totally loyal to him; the implant in her head kept her loyal – and obedient. Resistance was literally futile.

“Sara, show the gentleman out,” Lord Collins ordered, and watched as Sara obeyed his command. Her dark hair fell over her eyes, reminding him of things he could no longer do; just for a moment, he considered using his private medical centre to restore his vigour. “And then, send in Kevin.”

He sat back in his chair and thought, hard. The blunt truth was that the war was cutting badly into his profits, even through he owned dozens of large companies; profits were falling faster than he could control, which meant that he himself would soon suffer the effects. The Imperials had had a habit of making examples of Lords who failed in their economic duty – pour encourage les autres – and he knew that he had enough enemies to have Prince Roland or the House of Commons bring down a hammer on him.

It wasn’t fair. He owned dozens of service industries, but all of them had been hit hard by the war; liners had been pressed into service as troopships, pilots and crewmen had been conscripted into the Fleet and the rise in taxes meant that more people couldn’t use his facilities, even the very basic ones. The House of Collins was about to collapse, unless the war came to a halt; he would end the war. It wasn’t treason, he told himself; it was…duty, business.

“Father,” Kevin Collins said. Lord Collins looked up as his eldest son entered the room, seeing only the boy who was his son. He’d heard dreadful things whispered about his son and heir, but they were all lies; the women had been paid to lie about him by one of his enemies. That had to be why they had made such awful claims about Kevin. “You called and I came.”

Lord Collins took a moment to examine his son as Kevin took a seat. He had been using the body-shaping technology more than most young men – Kevin was nineteen – were permitted to, but Lord Collins had been permitting Kevin to use the private medical centre from when he has passed the age of twelve. Kevin was strikingly handsome – in a world of gods and goddesses – and very muscular. His long brown hair hung down his back; it was his only vanity, well, that and his boosted penis. Lord Collins had had to order the family doctor to allow Kevin that modification; it was something illegal for anyone under twenty-one.

“Of course you did,” Lord Collins said, finally. “I trust that you were listening to the conversation between myself and Bill?”

Kevin shook his head. Bill was Lord Collins’s personal accountant; a short thin man with glasses – which he didn’t need – and a nitpicking attitude that irritated everyone around him. His boring voice could break up a party at twenty meters; Kevin detested him, although Lord Collins knew that an accountant was necessary.

“I spent enough on your more…private education to ensure, I had hoped, that you knew what you were doing when it came to private meetings like that,” Lord Collins said, crossly. “I admit that they can be boring, but valuable nuggets of important information are always concealed in boring information. Just what were you doing last night anyway?”

Kevin blinked. “I was out with friends,” he said. “What did Bill say?”

“We – and by we I mean the family – need this war to come to an end,” Lord Collins said. “If it does not end soon, we will be ruined and that will be the end of the lordship, the one that I had hoped to pass down to you.”

He saw the glint in Kevin’s eye and allowed himself a moment of paternal pride. “Once we can end the war, we will be in a position to benefit hugely from the end of the war, but the war has to end before it ruins us. Let me repeat that; the war has to end before it ruins us. Are you listening, boy?”

Kevin snapped to attention. “I am at your command, father,” he said, and only a very careful ear could have heard the faint note of irritation under his voice. “I do not see, however, how we are to end the war with the Greys. I was unaware that they accepted human money – or Imperial money – and they are certainly unwilling to listen to human messages of peace.”

“So you have been paying attention,” Lord Collins said. He smiled in approval. “Of course, do you not think that the fact that the message was being transmitted by a heavy cruiser would have alarmed the little bastards?”

Kevin had once dreamed of a fleet career. “Father, a starship is necessary to transmit the message,” he pointed out. “They attempted to hack into the starship’s computers and take it over.”

“True,” Lord Collins agreed. “That is why our own private attempt to make contact with the Greys will be conducted from a harmless private yacht, which you will command. You will take the family ship to New Brooklyn, where you will make contact with the Greys in the name of the family.”

Kevin stared at him. “You want me to make that flight?”

Lord Collins nodded. “Of course,” he said. “It has to be someone that the Greys will respect and understand, someone who can speak with my voice and talk with authority.” He paused. “The Greys clearly captured databases, and they talked to Captain Morgan, so they know who we are. All you have to do is talk to them, Kevin, something that will ensure that you remain my heir.”

He saw the emotions playing over Kevin’s face. Pride, that his father had considered him for such a mission, fear of the unknown. Kevin knew that his father had other heirs, other children; any one of them could be selected as his heir, if Kevin didn’t undertake the mission that could save the family. There could be no room for evasion.

“There is a point that needs to be made, sir,” Kevin said, after a long moment. “The Greys will clearly be on alert at New Brooklyn, following Captain Middletar’s raid…”

“Middleton,” Lord Collins corrected smoothly.

“And in any case the Fleet will be observing the system,” Kevin continued. “If we attempt to make contact there, Fleet will attempt to intercept us, or perhaps simply assume that we’re a Grey trick and lob a missile at us from a safe distance. If this entire…plan is to remain a secret, then New Brooklyn is perhaps not the best place to attempt to make contact.”

Lord Collins lifted one eyebrow. “And so…where do you think that we should make contact?”

“There are two possibilities,” Kevin said, licking his lips. His voice was very uneven. “We might be able to intercept a Grey raiding force and transmit our message then…”

“Not particularly likely,” Lord Collins said. It would be impossible to ambush a Grey raiding force unless the Fleet got very lucky…and they had many more starships than Lord Collins could deploy. “Where else?”

“There’s only one other possibility,” Kevin said. “If we use the family yacht, we could reach Harmony and transmit our message there.”

Lord Collins smiled. “I suppose that that might work,” he said. He leaned forwards and patted his son on the shoulder. “It’s good to see that you’re thinking at last.”

Kevin looked…irritated. “Father, is this really a good idea?”

Lord Collins rounded on him. “Kevin, who are you to question my ideas?” He snapped. Memories of his childhood, where he had been endlessly mocked for being his own father’s son, came flooding back to him. “I would be really interested to know why you feel that you are in a position to question my position!”

Kevin flinched. “Father, this is something that will seem like…defeatism to the rest of the House of Lords,” he said. He knew better than to mention the House of Commons in front of his father. “They will not be amused. They may even consider it to be treachery. They may insist that we stop, or worse, they may urge His Highness to do something about it.”

Lord Collins glared at him. “The sooner you get married to someone and start producing children, the better,” he said. “The family is what gives us our power…and the family is powered by all of the industries that we have created over the years. From Lord to Lord, all of my predecessors have maintained the machine; their children helped to remind them that the machine had to be kept in working order. That is the first priority and nothing comes before that, understand? If the Greys want to keep New Brooklyn, that’s fine; if they want to mine the undeveloped systems, that’s fine too, understand?”

He leaned forwards. “The House of Lords exists to maintain the position of the Lords,” he snapped. “As long as we don’t sell the Greys Earth, we will be untouchable, understand? That is our right as Lords – and that title carries with it duties, duties given to us by the Imperials themselves.”

Kevin bowed his head. “Yes, father,” he said. Lord Collins nodded slowly at his son’s submission. Kevin had had no choice, of course; none of his children had any choice. “Has Suzie had any success?”

“I am wondering if His Highness is a gaysexual,” Lord Collins sneered. There was nothing, but contempt, in his voice; a homosexual Prince would produce no natural children, and the Imperials had ordained that the Heir to the Throne had to be naturally conceived and born. “Suzie was presented to him at the debutante ball, only a month ago, and Prince Roland has shown no interest in her at all. She has pressed him, and invited him out of the palace for walks and pleasant chats in private places, she has done everything, but sneak into his bedroom at night.”

He felt no remorse at discussing his daughter like she was a prize pig; it was Suzie’s duty to serve the family, just like Kevin – and himself. “The entire Human Sector – this new Human Union – is in flux, Kevin, and that means opportunity, if only we can grasp it. But, boy, as long as the war goes on, it will steadily keep eroding our power base, and that will be the end of our family.”

They talked long into the night, discussing exactly how best to make contact with the Greys. Kevin, once he’d gotten over the shock, had actually managed to impress him; he did a much better job of preparing for peaceful contact than Lord Collins had managed to consider on his own. Some of his ideas were much better; others were more practical, including the need to prepare for a hasty retreat if necessary.

“If I’m to do this, I have one request,” Kevin said, as he stood up to leave his father’s study. “Can I take Sara with me?”

Lord Collins considered it. “Why?”

“It might be useful to have a person along who is absolutely under my command,” Kevin said. “I’ll take one pilot, without any other servants, but I will need her, to relieve me, if nothing else.”

Sara had done something terrible before she had been caught, tried, and implanted. Lord Collins knew what she’d done, and there were times when he wanted to hurt her more than the Imperials had done; she deserved so much more pain and humiliation than a group of drunken sailors could give her. There were times when he considered selling her to a whorehouse.

“Very well,” he said finally. He was tired of the discussion. “You will leave within a week.”

“Of course, father,” Kevin said. His tone was very tired, but amused; a faint hint of mockery could be heard behind the respect. “I live to follow your commands.”

He left the room, already calling for Sara; she would have a hard night with him. Lord Collins sat back in his chair and wondered; had he done the right thing? It could go badly wrong…and only the certainty of disaster made taking the risk worthwhile. It wasn’t for power, or ambition, although he was honest enough to admit that those factors did play a role in his thoughts, but to save his family. It was worth it…

Wasn’t it?

Chapter Eight: Refugee Crisis

“Now,” Captain Erickson snapped. “Bring us out now!”

The shimmering lights of Phase Space vanished, revealing a shocked Grey light cruiser, utterly caught by surprise as millions of tons of heavy cruiser appeared far too close to it for comfort. Lieutenant-Commander Herkimer Branson acted without waiting for orders; he triggered the Vanguard’s energy weapons, firing on the Grey starship from point-blank range. Moments later, the Grey starship exploded into a flaming ball of plasma, and the Vanguard drove through it triumphantly.

“I think we got it,” Commander Miranda Rothschild said, through their private communications link. His new first officer, a native of New Zion, looked delighted; the Vanguard had been taking a pounding from the Greys. Risking everything to jump through Phase Space and emerging far too close to the Grey starship had been a gamble, but it had worked.

“I think they’re pissed,” Branson said, as the Vanguard shuddered with long-range missile hits. A force of Grey drones had altered course, bearing down on the starship and firing as they came, trying to knock out the Vanguard before its point defence could kill them. “Captain, there are seventy drones coming our way, followed by a battlecruiser.” Something flickered on the tactical display. “Make that a cruiser as well, appearing out of Phase Space.”

“Jump us out, random coordinates,” Erickson snapped. His chest heaved as the starship flickered back into Phase Space, and then out again, faster than anyone would have liked. If his crew hadn’t had implants to help them handle the shock, half of them would be on the floor being violently sick; humans weren’t meant to handle the shock of jumping though Phase Space for very long. “Report!”

“I think the convoy is almost safe,” Lieutenant Kevin Smarts reported. Erickson knew that Smarts was due a promotion soon; he’d been lucky to hang on to him for as long as he had. The Vanguard had lost its original first officer – who had been promoted to Captain – but he’d managed to hang on to most of his crew. It gave them an unrivalled efficiency index, in the dull tones of the Fleet’s bureaucrats, but it wasn’t that good for morale. The death of the Grey cruiser would boost their morale; how could it not?

He glared down at the display. The Grey Communicator might require so much power that only a handful of starships could carry it – which suggested that there was a superdreadnaught-sized starship lurking near Earth – but there was no reason why each of the planetary systems couldn’t have one, apart from the minor detail that the communicator wouldn’t work inside the Phase Limit. No one knew why, which meant that the stations had to be outside the limit, but it was still more than helpful; in this case, it had allowed Utopia, one of the original human worlds, to mount a reception committee for a convoy carrying vitally needed defence components. Erickson, knowing that his orders were to return to Earth, had resented it, but he no longer minded; the Greys had gatecrashed the party.

The Greys had arrived right on the heels of the Convoy, which suggested that they’d set up an ambush nearby, then hopped forward to the very edge of the Phase Limit. The battle had rapidly developed – or degenerated – into a mêlée of conflicting starships, popping in and out of Phase Space to gain an advantage, rather than remaining tied to STL speeds. Individual starships duelled with their Grey counterparts, fighting it out in a battle that covered nearly ten AUs of space; he knew that losses were far too likely to be heavy.

“Good,” he said. The Greys didn’t have any heavier units – the largest unit they had was a battlecruiser – which meant that they would be unlikely to attempt to chase the convoy beyond the Phase Limit. “Helm, take us towards the Grey carrier; tactical, stand ready to engage as soon as we enter firing range.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant-Commander Paul Lafarge said. He had been promoted, which meant that Vanguard was more than a little rank-heavy, but he hadn’t been transferred off the starship. He would take up a position on one of the new ships soon, unless something happened to require him taking an emergency berth. “No Phase Space?”

“No,” Erickson said firmly. The sensor debris caused by two starships ramming each other by accident could still be detected. “I think we’ve used up enough of our luck.”

The shape of the Grey carrier built up on the display as they glided closer to it, Erickson could almost sense the concern of the Grey minds commanding the starship, knowing just what a blind they were in. The carrier, unlike a human carrier, didn’t have any starfighters, but drones. Lots of drones. If they recalled their drones, which were hammering away at the human starships covering the convoy, they would doom their own ships and probably cost them the chance to destroy the convoy. If they didn’t recall their drones, they would be blown apart by the Vanguard…and if they slipped into Phase Space themselves, they would lose control of their drones.

“Sensors, watch out for one of their craft trying to leapfrog out to get us,” Erickson said. “Tactical, fire as you bear.”

The Greys came to a decision; moments later, just as the Vanguard spat a hail of missiles towards the carrier, the Greys retreated, vanishing into Phase Space. Erickson cursed as his sensors tried to track its probable emergence point and failed; they just hadn’t been close enough to get a proper reading…and they hadn’t had an Intelligence drone to deploy.

“They came out near the main body of the Grey fleet,” Smarts said grimly. The ‘main body,’ four battlecruisers, seemed to be considering their next move; the sudden loss of many of their drones as the control links broke had to irritate them. The battle could still go either way, unless the Greys got reinforcements, but he was confident now of victory. “I think they’re…”

An alarm bleeped on his console. “Oh no,” he breathed. Erickson felt a flare of real alarm. “Captain, we have multiple emergence signatures, at least thirty starships, one AU out from the Phase Limit. I don’t know who they are.”

Erickson swung around to stare at the holographic display. One AU was eight standard light minutes, further from the Phase Limit than any reasonable Captain would come in, if he had a choice in the matter. Military starships didn’t require fuel, but most commercial starships required fuel for their power plants, and the most travel they had to do in normal space, the higher their fuel demands became. Whoever had come in was either playing it very safe, or they’d gotten their maths wrong.

Miriam’s voice was very alarmed. Erickson had to remind himself that it was her first major battle since becoming his first officer. “An overdue Grey attack force?”

“Perhaps,” Erickson said. “Sensors, do you have any identification on the craft?”

Smarts frowned. “Nothing as yet, Captain,” he said. “They don’t have standard Grey drive fields, if that proves anything, but…I think.” His voice broke off. “Captain, the Greys are retreating.”

Erickson blinked. The display was changing as the Grey starships, one by one, blinked out of existence, back into Phase Space. He stared, unable to understand it; the Greys were many things, but they were hardly cowards; they had always fought until the situation had become utterly hopeless. They rarely refused battle. They certainly never showed their heels and ran…but that was what they had just done. The final Grey battlecruiser vanished…and the battle was over, apart from hunting down the drones and preventing them from making suicide runs on the human starships.

“Bloody hell,” Erickson said, in sudden understanding. There was one possible explanation. “They saw the craft and assumed that they were human starships, and thirty more starships would have tipped the balance in our favour…”

“Except they’re not our starships,” Miriam pointed out. “Who are they?”

“Good question,” Erickson said. “Ensign Lundy, signal Admiral Stevenson; inform him that I intend to try to make contact as far from the Phase Limit as possible. Exec, secure from Red Alert; get me a damage report as soon as you can.”

“Yes, sir,” Miriam said. “It will be done.”

Erickson smiled. “Helm, take us towards the newcomers,” he said. “Communications, transmit a standard greeting; sensors, launch a single probe towards them. Keep transmitting what the drone sends back to Admiral Stevenson; if something happens to us, he’ll have to know about it.”

He sat back in his command chair and waited; one AU required nearly thirty minutes at flank speed, and Lafarge kept the speed down, while the unknowns turned to meet the Vanguard. He watched as the sensors probed away at them, picking out the details of individual ships, some of them very old and worn. Others seemed newer, recently built; they were still too far away to pick out the actual designs, until…

“Captain, one of them is clearly a Marah-class assault cruiser,” Smarts said, as more details became clear. “Two of the other ships have military-grade drive fields, but I don’t recognise the fields themselves, and several more ships have…odd designs, but they’re all clearly based on Imperial technology.”

Erickson narrowed his eyes. Imperial technology suggested that they’d come from further into the Empire, and it seemed unlikely that they’d crossed human space without pausing at Earth or one of the other colony worlds. Utopia was the closest human world to Centre – not that such details really mattered with such distances involved – which suggested that the newcomers had come out of the Tarn Sector, the next sector towards Centre. He wished, just for a moment, that they’d had time to try to set up more Grey Communicator stations outside the Human Sector; since the fastship network had collapsed, they had heard only rumours from outside the Human Sector.

“I don’t like this,” he admitted. “Who are they?” He scowled down at his display. “Do we have any identification on the cruiser?”

“I’m just trying to pick out its individual harmonics now,” Smarts said. Erickson nodded; all starships had a unique drive signature, utterly impossible for anyone else to duplicate. “It’s the Ying, sir; Fleet records suggest that it was assigned to Eden, but that was…”

“Before the Collapse,” Erickson said. Eden was an Imperial pleasure world; they’d created it, using Earth-based lifeforms to ensure that species that humanity had hunted almost to extinction survived well away from humanity. There were several worlds like that in the Empire, including Garden; Garden had lifeforms from almost every world in the Empire dumped on it, in some mad Imperial’s idea of an experiment. “No reply yet?”

“Not yet, sir,” Lundy said. “They have had five minutes to reply.”

“Interesting,” Erickson said. He frowned; could the Greys have slipped an attack force past the Human Sector into the Tarn Sector? It wasn’t impossible – there was no reason, whatever the pundits said, why they couldn’t do that – but it violated every principle of Grey warfare. Every known principle, he reminded himself; the Greys would have had plenty of opportunity to capture Imperial hardware if they wanted to do so. “Repeat our hail.”

“We are picking up a signal,” Lundy said. “On screen.”

Erickson looked into the display as it changed, revealing the face of a human, wearing Imperial Fleet uniform. “This is Captain Erickson of the Vanguard,” he said, keeping his voice calm. It wasn’t unusual to see a human serving outside the Human Sector, but it was odd; the Ying had been specifically listed to have an alien captain. “Please identify yourself.”

There was a long pause. “This is Commander David Symons, late of the Tarn Picket, then the defence force,” the man finally replied. “Captain, which side are you on?”

Erickson blinked at the question. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Which side are you on?”

Symons looked relieved. “Captain, this sector, is there a civil war going on?”

Erickson frowned. Symons would have seen the final moments of the battle. “No, there’s an alien invasion going on,” he snapped. “Did you not hear anything since the Collapse?”

“Only that there was a war going on,” Symons said. He leaned forwards. “Captain, I don’t know what’s happening around here, but can my ships ask for asylum? We’re very short of places to go, Captain; this is the last place we could reach.”

Erickson considered. “That’s not really within my bailiwick,” he said. “Can I invite you onboard the Vanguard? I believe that we should talk, face to face.”

Symons nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll come over in a shuttle, in” – he glanced down at what was obviously a console – “in thirty minutes.”

Up close, the fleet looked rag-tag, a mixture of human, Imperial and other designs. Erickson watched as the fleet came to rest at his request; Admiral Stevenson had been unwilling to allow them past the Phase Limit until their credentials had been established. Erickson had agreed to wait on returning to Earth long enough to meet Symons in person; the records had actually dug up some information on him, information that didn’t quite match with his command of a starship. It was all very curious. And, as Commander Evensong pointed out, it was likely to be very important to them personally.

“You know what Admiral Glass wants us to do,” she’d reminded him, as they waited in his office. His lover had remained focused on their long-term mission. “Commander Symons could tell us what we need to know.”

Symons himself looked older, more haggard, in person. “This is a starship designed for humans,” he said, as the Marine guard showed him into Erickson’s room. “You have no idea just how much better this ship is, compared to the Ying.”

Evensong fetched Symons a small mug of tea. “I think I can guess,” she said. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing here?”

Symons laughed. “It’s a long story,” he said. “I was posted to Eden as part of the defence force there, but I was supposed to cover the entire sector, part of, but not part of, the Tarn Picket, if you get my drift. Some Imperial had wanted the world guarded, even though the entire population of the system was only half a million, so a few starships were permanently stationed there, including me. I wasn’t the commanding officer at that time, of course; that was old Admiral Xavin, a Cnc.”

He paused to sip his tea. Erickson listened attentively. “The first we heard about the Collapse was from a freighter that had been attacked by pirates, just on the edge of the system. One of our ships got lucky and caught the pirates, saving the ship, but…the crew told us about the Empire falling. Admiral Xavin didn’t believe them, so he set out with three of his ships, including the Ying, to Tarn itself, the heart of the sector.”

Erickson frowned as information flooded into his head, from his implants. The Tarn Sector had no dominant species; no intelligent race had been born at Tarn. Tarn itself was a cosmopolitan world, with dozens of races in permanent residence; the entire sector had been very peaceful. Humans had come late to the sector, of course, but they had blended in well, or had they?

“I was there,” Symons said. His face darkened with stress. “Tarn itself was a wreck, between several rebellious factors, loyalists, and the Tarn Picket had been torn apart by mutinies. We only picked up a few details, but there had been a human and Rehash rebellion, with the humans taking the lead. Some rebellious units had mutinied when ordered to end the rebellions with planetary bombardment, and then some loyal units had struck at Kathmandu, the majority human world, and then a force of Kijamanro had invaded the sector, coming from God only knows where. Sir – Captain – there’s a civil war going on there.”

“God bless Admiral Glass,” Erickson said, heartfelt. He briefly outlined what had happened at Earth, up to the Battle of Earth and the ongoing war. “What happened?”

“Oh, Admiral Xavin had the bright idea that he should work to declare peace,” Symons said. “That didn’t work that well; Rehash make much better fighters than we had realised, and of course the rebels had most of the starfighters, so our force was beaten, battered, and then we had to run. Some of the non-humans started trying to purge the humans from the force, despite the fact that we’d worked together well before, and all hell broke loose. By the time the dust settled, we had ended up with a battered fleet and enemies; everyone in the civil war thought that we were a target. So I – I’d ended up in command somehow – took the remaining starships and fled, first to a world on the edge of the sector, where we lost our other cruiser, and then here, and then I saw the fighting.”

“And you thought that your war had come here,” Erickson concluded. He knew what Glass wanted – had known for the four months since Glass had discussed the plan with him – and knew that what Symons had told him made the entire plan considerably harder to pull off. If the Vanguard had to fight its way through the Tarn Sector, it would be almost certainly destroyed. A civil war – worse – was bound to ruin asserts that Admiral Glass had hoped could be used against the Greys. “How many of you are there?”

“Thirty thousand,” Symons said. “There are others, at Eden and Garden, but thirty thousand was all that could be packed on the ships. I had to come; my implants were needed for Ying, but…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Erickson said. “I will have to take you back to Earth with me, but I am sure that we can give your people somewhere safe, for the moment.”

“Thank you,” Symons said. “That means a lot to me.”

Erickson smiled.

Two hours later, they finally set out towards Earth.

Chapter Nine: I Am The Very Model Of A Model Intelligence Officer

“I’m just entering the complex now,” Captain Paul Baldson subvocalised, using his implants to send a signal out to his supervisors. The door ahead of him would have daunted a force of battlesuits; it was sealed with battle-steel and backed up by a forcefield, controlled from inside the secured part of the complex. Baldson, who knew all-too-well that the entire base was based around Grey technology, found it chilling. He also had a trump card.

He used his implants to check the entire region, ensuring that there were no Greys nearby to stumble over him, and slid up next to the door. Intelligence was sparse, but it had suggested that the Greys used their own implants to transmit a signal to the door to open it, which meant that there had to be a sensor around somewhere. No one knew just how capable the Grey communication implants actually were, but Intelligence believed that the Greys couldn’t be that advanced over the Imperials, or the war would have ended long ago. His own implants scanned the door, prodding it with bursts of different energies, finally locating the sensor. The Greys hadn’t been imaginative; the sensor was right in the centre of the door.

“Now,” he breathed, and placed his bare hand next to the sensor. There was a moment’s pause, and then a tiny monofilament emerged from his finger, touching the sensor and slowly sliding into the system, connecting some of the most powerful and compact intelligence systems ever devised – which had been placed into his body – with the Grey’s system. It wasn’t a Grey biological-machine net; the Greys didn’t seem to waste such systems on merely stupid systems. Intelligence wondered if it was because the more complex systems could be fooled with ease, given the right technology; Baldson didn’t care. All that mattered was that it worked.

He felt, on the edge of his mind, his implants go to work, launching a hacking attack right into the Grey system. The conflict was over almost as soon as he had become aware of it; he felt a moment of relief as the system extracted the Grey entry code and deployed it, ordering the door to open. He lifted his right hand, which held a small plasma gun built into his arm, as the door hissed open, revealing the heart of a Grey operations centre. He stepped in, every implant scanning for trouble, and smiled; so far, so good.

The door hissed closed behind him, trapping him; he looked around, remembering the time when he'd been trapped before, a prisoner of the mad pirate king. The thought made him focus; Morgan had good reason to hate him, and very good reason to want him dead. The Greys had given him a battlecruiser, which he’d then lost thanks to Baldson, and he still held three of Baldson’s friends’ prisoner. God only knew what had happened to them, in the five months since the Queen Anne’s Revenge had been captured; Baldson could only pray that they were alive, somewhere.

“There should be a command centre somewhere,” a voice hissed through his implants. The Intelligence implants were light-years ahead of anything he’d been able to use when he’d been on the fuelling station, let alone the implants he’d purchased at the Hold. He knew – now – that if he’d had a full set of implants at the time, he would have been able to take over the battlecruiser without having to rely on the Vanguard to save him from the pirates revenge for sabotaging the ship. “Find it; hack it.”

“All right, all right, keep your hair on,” Baldson muttered. It was cruel, his controller had no hair, but that was a fashion statement, one of many of the stranger fashions that had popped up in the months since the Collapse. Humans were looking for a human way of doing things, no matter how silly it looked; Baldson had drawn the line at the inflatable male breasts. “Let me see where it is in this mess.”

The Grey Control Centre looked like a mad computer genius’s wet dream. Dozens of computers, consoles, half-opened systems and blinking lights were scattered over the room, his implants were reporting that they were all taking to one another with a dazzling variety of computer languages. One system stood out, one with what looked like a human brain in a jar suspended above it, and he touched it gently as his implants examined the system. Everything seemed to be flowing through the brain.

“I’m going to access the system now,” he said, and touched the Grey console with his hand. A low buzzing noise whined through the room; he cursed as he realised that he had made a mistake. Lights flared, beating away at his mind; his implants blocked out the worst of the attack, something that would have stunned, if not killed, a normal human. As a crowd control weapon, it would be unbeatable; even shielded, he felt terror – artificial terror – hammering at the core of his being. “Fuck!”

“I think its time to make a strategic withdrawal,” his controller said. “The Greys will have locked out that node by now, eh?”

Baldson scowled. Enough people – good people who had been in Intelligence all of their lives – had been killed trying to disable Grey nodes on the captured starships that he knew just how dangerous it was. On the other hand, it was important that he completed the mission, which meant…he brought his augmented hand down, slamming it hard into the brain’s jar. It shattered under the impact, scattering blood and gore everywhere; his implants reported that the node was going offline.

“Take that, you bastards,” he muttered, and then ducked on instinct as something hurtled over his head. His implants took control, forcing him to leap backwards in a move right out of the holo-movies; he saw his attacker clearly as his implants forced him back, dodging a second blow which carried enough power to separate even his augmented head from his body. His attacker…wasn’t a surprise at all, and he felt raw rage as the attacker turned to face him, already moving to hit him again.

He had expected to face a Grey, and knew from reports just how fast and tough they were, but his attacker was no Grey. The bulky body and hard skin, almost reptilian in its design, was a dead giveaway, but the face was one that had haunted his nightmares for months. He’d met a Cnc before, on Morgan’s ship…and his new attacker was a Cnc. Cold hatred flared to life; his implants matched his rage, setting new attack patterns. If the Cnc was not augmented, they would be more than evenly matched. If…

The Cnc launched a punch right towards his face and it was the easiest thing in the world to duck and bring up his own hand, faster than even his augmented eyes could follow. The Cnc’s arm broke, shattering like nothing, and Baldson howled in triumph as a kick smashed right through the Cnc’s chest, ripping the alien apart. The Cnc said nothing, made no sound; it simply sank to the ground, dead. Baldson paused, breathing heavily, and then the Greys poured in through the door. His hand slipped up, firing pulses of plasma fire into the Greys, but a forcefield appeared in front of him, trapping him. A Grey lifted his hand and everything went black…

…And then the Greys just froze as a new figure walked into the room. Baldson glared at him as the forcefield vanished, releasing him. Octavos Tallyman, the more-or-less default commander of what remained of Imperial Intelligence, and one of the two heads of Human Intelligence, which had replaced Imperial Intelligence in the Human Sector and the New Sector. He was a tall man, wearing a simple black outfit; his baldhead shone under the eerie lights of the Grey room.

“You’re dead,” he said, simply. Baldson looked down at the wreckage of the Cnc and sighed. It hadn’t been Grimm, not even a real Cnc; it had only been a robot, backed up by some of the most sophisticated holographic technology in the Empire. The room itself was fake, a design copied from one of the explored Grey starships; Baldson had never been in any real danger, but his implants had kept him believing that he was in very real danger. He was still breathing heavily as Tallyman turned, leading him out of the room.

“Not bad at all, Mr Baldson, but you are going to have to learn to focus on the mission,” Tallyman said, as they stepped out of the simulation room. Intelligence had built a large copy of a Grey superdreadnaught’s operations room – Fleet didn’t believe that it was a real bridge – and used the room in the Queen Anne’s Revenge as a template for the main system. “Destroying the node; what do you think that did?”

Baldson had to walk quickly to keep up with him. “It would have disabled part of the starship,” he said, as Tallyman marched down the corridor. There was no one else around; he only rarely saw other Intelligence operatives in the complex. He suspected that many of them were concealed while he was around, just to maintain security. “That might have won us a battle.”

“Perhaps,” Tallyman said. He opened a door, leading Baldson into an office. “If you did that, of course, the Greys would simply have rerouted around the damaged node and kept fighting. We don’t understand that much about how their system works, but we know from the Battle of Earth that each of their superdreadnaughts required a great deal of killing before they lay down and died. The mission brief was to extract information from the Grey system, or crash it; it took us dozens of lives before we even worked out a basic method for doing that. I imagine that you read the mission instructions?”

He took a seat. “Bottom line, Mr Baldson, you have yet to get over your rage about what happened while you were Morgan’s unwilling ally,” Tallyman said. “That Cnc was used to test you; what should you have done?”

Baldson controlled the anger that threatened to overwhelm him. “Run,” he said simply. “I should have knocked him back and fled.”

“Precisely,” Tallyman said. He leaned forwards and tapped Baldson’s head. “Inside that head of yours, as you should know very well, are examples of some of the cutting-edge technology, and you stayed there long enough for the Greys to get to you.” He held up a hand. “Yes, I know that your body would have exploded if the Greys tried to take you to bits to see how you worked, but that’s not always a certain solution, is it? You did well, when you weren’t an Intelligence Agent, but I confess that I’m not sure you have what it takes to be one.”

Baldson said nothing. “The Intelligence Agent must be completely focused on the mission,” Tallyman said. “The Intelligence Agent must not let anything get in the way of completing the mission – or cutting his losses if something goes wrong. You allowed your hatred for the Cnc to blind you to the purpose of the mission.”

Baldson found his voice. “But I did everything right,” he protested. “I got into the main complex, I evaded the systems, so why did it go wrong?”

“You missed the second sensor,” Tallyman said. “Once you stepped into the room, you should have checked for other security devices. It might not have been on the brief, but you should have thought of it.”

“That is…cheating,” Baldson snapped.

“We used to think that we had a monopoly on starfighters,” Tallyman reminded him. “The Greys might not have deployed starfighters of their own, but they used drones; worse, they stole the idea from us, and used it. We might have stolen a few ideas from them, such as the Grey Communicator, but how many other surprises do they have up their sleeves?”

“They don’t wear clothes,” Baldson said, feebly. “They have nothing up their sleeves.”

Tallyman ignored the weak joke. “I said that I don’t feel that you’re up to the task,” he said. “However…”

Baldson felt his heart sink. “Are you telling me that I’m out of the service?”

“Not exactly,” Tallyman said. He seemed uncomfortable. “I have been given orders that I do not agree with. This is not the first time, of course, but there is something particularly irritating about it. You must know, of course, that there were some grave reservations in Fleet about training you at all, and it was only through the personal intervention of Prince Roland that you were accepted into the training course. Those orders are simple; you, as the greatest expert on Captain Morgan, are to attempt to communicate with him.”

Baldson’s mouth fell open. “Oh, do shut your mouth,” Tallyman snapped. “Those orders have been sent to me, by the War Cabinet; I believe that only Admiral Glass of Fleet knows about it, outside of Earth itself. They believe that it might be possible to talk to Morgan, to convince him to help us, and you might be the only person who can do that.”

Baldson stared at him. “With all due respect, I would much prefer to be facing him with several million tons of superdreadnaught wrapped around me,” he said. “He hates me, he must know what happened to the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and you want me to talk to him?”

Tallyman tapped a hidden console and a starmap appeared in front of them. It focused in on the new sector, revealing Garland, where Baldson had been based, before Morgan had captured him, along with his friends. He’d been taken onboard Morgan’s ship and inducted into the pirate crew, finally escaping Morgan through a set of illegal implants. He’d hoped that the crew of the Vanguard could capture Morgan, but Morgan had had a surprise up his sleeve; Morgan’s Hold itself was a massive starship and it had vanished into Phase Space, along with his three friends.

“Morgan’s people seem to have made a deal with the Greys,” Tallyman said. “That’s actually rather worrying; they somehow managed to talk to the Greys, something that we’ve never managed to do. We would give an arm and a leg to know how that was done, just so we could talk to them ourselves, but we need more than that. We need intelligence on the Greys.”

His eyes held Baldson’s eyes, cold and hard. “Are you familiar with interstellar strategy?”

Baldson shrugged. “I know something about the subject,” he said, still rolling in confusion. He wanted to wring Morgan’s neck, but…if he went, he might have a chance to recover his friends. “Why is Morgan so important?”

“He might know where the Grey homeworld is,” Tallyman said. He tapped the map. “Pundits are fond of telling people that there is only one point of contact with the Greys – New Brooklyn. There’s only one thing wrong with that statement – it’s total nonsense. There is no reason why the Grey’s can’t launch an offensive from their own homeworld and strike at Earth; one of the conclusions that the Strategy Board has considered is that the Greys are forcing us to concentrate against New Brooklyn, rather than seeking out their other bases.”

Baldson remembered Morgan’s Hold and winced. “They could have a second Hold out there somewhere, supporting a fleet,” he said. On paper, the idea seemed wonderful – for the Greys. “Has no one considered building a Hold-sized craft for ourselves?”

“It has been considered,” Tallyman said. “You’ll forgive me, I trust, if I don’t say anything else about it?” Baldson shrugged. “You’re right, of course; we know that the Greys are far from superhuman, which means that their craft will probably suffer from needing repairs, like ours, but…yes, it is possible that they have a Hold-sized craft around somewhere. Of course, we don’t have the slightest idea if they actually do…”

Baldson shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I see,” he said. It was the only chance he had of finding and recovering his friends. “Very well; I accept your mission. Where do you think I’ll find Morgan?”

Tallyman shrugged. “We have a ship for you, which can take you and a pair of assistants to Cerutti,” he said. “Morgan’s forces have occupied that system, along with several others, so you should be able to transfer your message there. If that doesn’t work, we have the locations of several black colonies, or grey colonies, that you can use.”

Baldson eyed him. “That seemed rather vague,” he said. He was still far too used to the strict orders from his former corporation, which hadn’t hesitated to remind him of the proper method for doing anything. “Don’t you know anything else?”

“It’s not Englishman; The Movie, or those Paladin of Shadows movies that have become popular recently, again,” Tallyman said dryly. “You should know by now that a great deal of intelligence work is guesswork. If you can’t find Morgan at either of those locations, then it’s up to you, so…you’re perhaps the best we have, certainly the only one who’s met him.” He shrugged. “You’ll depart tomorrow, after reading all of the intelligence that we have been able to gather for you, and good luck.”

Baldson scowled. “Anyone would think that you weren’t happy,” he said.

“Anyone would be quite right,” Tallyman snapped. “I have sent people into positions where I expected them to die, sometimes, but this is something different. I wish you luck, Mr Baldson, but if it were up to me, you wouldn’t be on this mission. It’s personal for you, and personal and Intelligence don’t mix.”

He held out a hand. “Good luck, as I said,” he said. Baldson took his hand and shook it once. Tallyman smiled for the first time. “I’ll see you when you come back.”

Chapter Ten: Shades of Grey

“Prince Roland is expecting you,” his personal assistant, who had announced herself as Marie, said. “You can go right in.”

“Thank you,” Elspeth Grey said. She kept her voice under very firm control. Visiting the Imperial Palace – or Royal Palace, as it had been renamed after the Collapse – was something that most young people dreamed of, but Elspeth had never wanted to visit, particularly since her father had publicly refused a dukedom, even a lordship, of his own. She was more nervous about meeting Prince Roland than she’d been when she’d presented her first paper at the Imperial Institute; the fact that she hardly talked to her father didn’t make it easy.

She pulled out a small compact and checked her appearance, taking in her neat bob of black hair and very pale face, then stepped up to the door. Her implants – only a basic set of commercial implants for her, despite her parentage – reported security systems probing at them, ensuring that she didn’t carry any unexpected surprises for the Prince. She tensed, reflexively, as the scan was competed, and then the door unlocked itself. She pushed against it, surprised that the Prince hadn’t ordered a sliding door, and entered the Prince’s study.

The room itself surprised her, being surprisingly bare and clean for a room that belonged to one of the noble children, many of whom were nothing more than spoiled brats. It had a desk and some comfortable chairs, with a picture of a superdreadnaught hanging on one wall, but that was the sum total of luxury. A simple food machine and a shelf of genuine books completed the picture of a fairly orderly mind.

“Ahem,” a voice said, clearing its throat.

Elspeth found herself tensing again as she took in the figure sitting neatly on one of the comfortable chairs. There could be no mistaking Prince Roland, despite the fact that brothels all over the Human Union regularly had their human meat body-shaped to reassemble the Prince, and everyone else who was remotely famous. The Prince was handsome, with a sly smile flickering around his mouth; short dark hair drew attention towards a strong chin and calm dark eyes. It was his natural face, or so the glossop colonists claimed; like her, the Prince had seen no purpose in altering his body to suit fashion.

“Your Highness,” she said, curtseying. Her long black dress, created from a fabric that automatically returned to its normal shape when she moved, wisped soundlessly around her legs. “Thank you for inviting me.”

Roland stood, and bowed, and then took her hand and kissed the air directly above it, a human custom that the Imperials had resurrected to serve their purposes. Elspeth, as one of the foremost experts on the Imperials, knew that they’d done it to create a group they could rely upon, something that came close to providing the continuity that their own awesomely long lives provided. Humans, even with a great deal of enhancement, only lived around three hundred years at most; the Imperials were known to live much longer. An unclassified report had suggested that Imperials who had been around at the time of the Invasion still existed.

“Thank you for coming,” Roland said, as he waved her to a chair. The chair was one of the latest designs; it sent an offer of a massage into her implants as she sat down, which she declined. Consumer goods like that were becoming rarer as the war ground on; families like the Collins Family were having real problems with producing them, largely due to the war demands. “I had intended to discuss the matter sooner, rather than later, but it’s been one emergency after another.”

He sighed, loudly enough for Elspeth to suspect that he didn’t mean it. “The Grey Communicator might have been the greatest invention since augmentation and implants – well, we didn’t invent it, but stole it off the Greys – but it complicates things. We now know things that are happening on the other side of the Human Union, such as Utopia, weeks before we would have known about it in the old days.” He scowled. “If we’d had the Grey Communicator, we might have prevented the Collapse.”

Elspeth smoothed down her skirt. “Perhaps,” she said. “It’s still fairly clear that Centre lied to us, presumably lied to everyone, about the economic collapse. If we’d been able to gather information from sources directly, we might have known about the coming storm years before it actually broke, although my researches have suggested that humans are actually pretty bad at preparing for such problems.”

“Perhaps,” Roland said. “It seems clear, however, from the debriefings conducted by Admiral Stevenson that civil war – rebellion against the local authorities – had broken out in the Tarn Sector; humans and Rehash against everyone else. If we had wanted help from them, we might be disappointed, and if they wanted to help, they might have some problems in actually helping. Why?”

Elspeth smiled at the question. “Why they can’t help, or why the war broke out?”

“Why the war broke out,” Roland said. His face tightened. “I know that we had some problems here, not least because of the pirates and then the Greys, but why did rebellion break out in Tarn? It was one of the most cosmopolitan sectors in the galaxy!”

It was also, Elspeth knew, the only sector to be named after a race where its homeworld was on the other side of the Empire. The Tarn species had been unlucky; they’d lived far too close to another race, which had been favoured with the honour of the sector capital and giving their name to the sector. The Imperials, perhaps trying to make a point, had named the sector capital of Tarn New Tarn…and moved several million Tarn into the sector.

She frowned, composing an answer, and then laughed. “You ask that question,” she said. “You should know the answer already.”

Roland smiled. It was a surprisingly handsome smile; it transformed his face completely. “Most people just tell me the answers,” he said. “I don’t know; the entire sector has been settled for over two thousand years, so why now?”

Elspeth grinned. “Because all of the levers of power were taken, years ago, by other races. The Tarn Lords weren’t human; a human could never rise to significant power, and the Tarn Picket wasn’t anything like as tested as the Sol Picket. Humans breed fast, even now, and there were soon human representatives in Tarn’s Commons, but not in their House of Lords, which meant that humans – and Rehash – were permanently consigned to inferiority.”

She allowed her smile to tighten. “I don’t know what happened, but I can guess that movements like our own Humanist Party were operating there for years,” she said. “Someone probably panicked, someone else overreacted, and then the sector plunged into war.”

“Perhaps,” Roland said. He scowled down at the table. “In any case, it means that we will have to watch out for the war spilling into our territory; that means that more starships will have to be deployed away from the Greys, perhaps even into the Tarn Sector. I wonder…is it possible that the Greys might have been…assisting factions in the Tarn Sector?”

“I am not an expert on the Greys,” Elspeth said. She frowned; like all humans, she’d seen the images of the Greys at work, but very little was known of the way their minds worked. Sometimes, the Greys seemed as bright and sneaky as humans, sometimes they seemed almost robotic, unimaginative to a fault. It made no sense, which meant that they were missing something, but what?

“True,” Roland said. For some reason, he seemed reluctant to discuss exactly what he’d summoned her to discuss. “Have you heard anything from your father recently?”

Elspeth, just for a moment, glared at him. “I have heard nothing from my father since his note asking if I was fine, after the Battle of Earth,” she said. “I was about the most unmilitary child imaginable, and I resented how he would leave my mother to go back to the Fleet. I deliberately took up history and alien studies to annoy him, and then to learn why the Imperials kept him away from me. By the time my mother died, I no longer wanted anything to do with him, which is why I kept my mother’s name.”

“Grey,” Roland mused. “Under the current circumstances, that was rather unfortunate, wasn’t it?”

Elspeth smiled. “I don’t think that ‘Greys’ are their real name, any more than ‘Imperials’ are the real name of the race we call Imperials,” she said. “We do know – now – that Imperial refers to a faction within the race; they get hung up on factions, just as humans used to get hung up on race, or sex, or skin colour. The Greys will have their own name for themselves, and one day we’ll learn what it is.”

“One would hope so,” Roland said. “Ms Grey – you are regarded as the foremost expert on the Imperials, perhaps the only person in the sector who knows more is Yardmaster Phelps, and he has an unfair advantage in this, being an Imperial himself.”

Elspeth was surprised. “I thought that there were no Imperials left in the sector,” she said. “Where did he come from?”

“He refused to leave the Sirius Yards,” Roland said, helpfully. “You will have to interview him at some point.”

“I would be delighted,” Elspeth said. All of the Imperials she’d dealt with had been well…Imperials. “However, what do you want from me?”

“The Greys have appeared in human history before,” Roland said. He picked a folder of the small table and held out a single image, a Grey face drawn against an imaginative backdrop of an exploding star. “That image was recorded over a thousand years ago, before the Invasion, and it is too close to the reality for comfort. The Greys were recorded as being active on Earth, before the Invasion, which is more than a little worrying.”

Elspeth stared at him. “If the Greys were active on Earth at that point, then why didn’t they come to blows with the Imperials?” She asked. “What were they doing at the time? There’s no report of alien contact before the Invasion, even though all of the records are rather…messed up.”

“That’s something you might need to find out,” Roland said. “You see, one possibility is that the war was started by the expansion of the Empire into the new sector, which might be close to the Grey homeworld. Another possibility…do you know what happened to the first Grey body to be recovered?”

Elspeth shook her head. “I always assumed that it had been kept on Titan,” she said. “Why? What did happen to it?”

“The Envoy took it with her,” Roland said. “Which is interesting, don’t you think? I wonder if the Imperials know much more about the Greys than they are telling, including the fact that they clearly deployed a modified human, giving her to your father…and that modified human won us the Battle of Earth. I don’t believe for one moment that that was a coincidence. The Imperials took their time, according to your own research, when scouting out Earth; did they not notice the Greys?”

Elspeth looked down at her fingers, feeling…curiosity, and not a little worry. Roland was right, it didn’t make sense, even though she knew that some humans had conceived of creatures not that unlike races from the Empire. If the Imperials – the race she’d studied – had been willing to break their own rules to develop a weapon that could only be used against the Greys…

“I think I want to explore this problem a little further,” she said. Her mind danced backwards and forewords; many records from the pre-Invasion period were tainted with political bias, something called ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ publications confused everyone, making it much harder to rely on anything from that era. It seemed that half of the world had had one idea, and the rest of the world had the exact opposite, one half of the world had been convinced that the other half was mad, and the other half had thought that the first half were fools or knaves or both. Historians were going mad trying to understand it all; it wasn’t surprising that any covert alien visits had passed unnoticed. Humanity had had too many other problems. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“We still have no idea of what’s happening on New Brooklyn, and that world is under Grey control,” Roland said. “Neither a fleet attack, nor a covert probe, found any traces of signals from the surface. The Greys seem to have used nukes extensively – we assume on any resistance – but many of the cities are still intact. What are they doing down there? We don’t know.”

He took a breath. “Why were the Greys active on Earth?” He asked. “What were they doing here if they were? Why didn’t they challenge the Imperials for control of Earth if they thought it was so important? What really happened so long ago?”

Elspeth sighed. “I can look through some records, but others have been classified, or restricted,” she said. “I know for a fact that military records – human military records from the Invasion – have been restricted; researchers have been complaining about that for years. I’m not convinced that anyone has seen them for years, perhaps since the Invasion itself.”

“I can, and I will, get you some access to them,” Roland promised. He leaned forwards, his handsome face half-cast into shadow, and met her eyes. “I can – and I will – ensure that you get permission to travel to the Sirius Yards and meet Yardmaster Phelps, although he might not agree to talk to you, but if he does, then you must talk to him.”

“I can do that,” Elspeth said, her mind already considering options. The chance to interview an Imperial alone was worth anything. “Why the sudden change in speed? Why now?”

Roland held her eyes for a long moment. “This is between you and me,” he said, and waited for her nod. “The Greys are battering away at us, and they’re having some success. At the moment, they’re contenting themselves with raiding our convoys and launching lighting attacks on our star systems, but every time they do that, they cause a panic. Did you hear about the alert two weeks ago?”

Elspeth shrugged. “A force of Grey ships, no capital units, fortunately, appeared on the edge of the solar system, shot hell out of a couple of unlucky tin-cans, and then vanished again, just in time to force us to sound a general alert, bring all of our ships into their positions, and place more wear and tear on our equipment. Economically, we’re in serious trouble, and hits on any of three major targets would ruin us.”

Elspeth took a breath. “In short,” she said, “you’re saying that we’re losing the war.”

Roland frowned. “Your father was not encouraging,” he said, his face grim. “If the current trends continue, we might be unable to repeat our success at the Battle of Earth, or perhaps do so at the cost of losing most of our ships. One more victory like that would ruin us, particularly since we cannot launch a strategic strike of our own. We do have plans to engage New Brooklyn again, but…driving an attack home would be difficult. The Greys aren’t fools, of course; they intended us to be in trouble.”

He took a breath. “We have decided to dispatch a starship to Centre to ask for help,” he said. “The news from the Tarn Sector doesn’t make that seem any more possible, but quite frankly, we’re very short on options. Some people want to risk starships on search-and-destroy missions on the other side of the new sector, but there are thousands of possible stars for the Greys to use as their homeworld. We need the Imperials to help before it’s too late, and that, Elspeth, is why we have to know what happened, so long ago.”

Elspeth felt…shocked. “I don’t talk to my father that often,” she reminded him. Roland looked oddly disappointed. “I didn’t know.”

“Not many people know,” Roland said. “It’s still something of a secret, not least because we don’t seem to be able to get the Greys interested in talking to us. We know – damn it, we know – that they sometimes do talk to people, so why not us?”

“They think they don’t have to talk to us to win,” Elspeth said. It was almost how an Imperial would have handled such a situation. “Whatever they want, they think that they can get to it without having to talk to us, not even to ask for our surrender.”

“True,” Roland said. He smiled at her. It was an odd smile, one that made him seem curiously boyish. She felt a wave of sudden attraction and fought it down; it wasn’t the time. “What is your opinion of asking the Imperials to help us?”

Elspeth, her mind still reeling, shrugged. “I would expect that they’ll listen, at least,” she said. She paused. “Are you sending an expert in Imperial Protocol with the ship?” Roland nodded. “Good; you’ll need that, because the Imperials wouldn’t listen without the proper protocol.”

“That’s what comes of being the absolute masters of a third of the galaxy for nearly a thousand years,” Roland muttered. “Thank you for coming.”

Elspeth stood up. “You’re welcome,” she said. “I hope I’ll be able to see you again soon.”

Roland seemed almost flustered. “I hope that too,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “I’ll have your clearance papers prepared for you tomorrow, and then you can start at once.”

Elspeth felt her hand warm where he’d kissed it. “Thank you, Your Highness,” she said. She clamped down hard on her own emotions. “I’ll start as soon as possible.”

Chapter Eleven: In the Heart of Darkness (Again)

Captain Alison Dostie slowly opened her eyes, feeling her senses reel as light poured in. The last…she’d lost track of time completely…had been a nightmare; reality and her imagination had combined to produce visions of leering Greys and strange alien ships, hovering in the darkness. There were some things that the human mind was never designed to handle; her mind shied away from exploring exactly what had happened to her since…since her capture by the Greys.

The thought exploded into her mind and she sat up, forcing her eyes to open. An older woman was bending over her, examining her with a standard medical diagnostic tool; a young child, a pre-teen child, was helping her with eager eyes. Alison fought for control as the woman stepped back; her dark eyes, set within a dark face, full of pity. The child-woman jumped back as Alison forced herself to sit up; she let out a squeak and fled behind the older woman.

Alison met the older woman’s eyes. “Who are you?” She said, through the pain. “Where am I?”

Her body suddenly hurt; she felt the medical field switching off. Medical fields were rare when people had implants and nanites to help them heal faster; she wasn’t entirely surprised to discover that her implants had been disabled. A thought struck her and she looked down at her naked body; she was clean, someone had cleaned her. From the pain, only half-remembered, she’d expected to have been literally ripped apart.

“I’m Jan,” the woman said. “This is a terrible place indeed.”

Alison swung her legs over the examining table and felt a wave of dizziness that forced her to lean back. Jan put out a hand and held her firmly, holding her until the dizzy spell passed; Alison felt her gorge rise and the child-woman passed her a bucket. She gagged, desperately, but nothing rose through her throat to be expelled into the bucket.

“Lie still, honey,” Jan said. Her hand felt marvellously cool when she pressed it against Alison’s forehead. “Everyone is like this, until it passes; don’t worry, it will pass.”

Alison fought for control. “What will pass?”

Jan’s face was bitter. “I don’t know,” she said. “They do something to you when they bring you into this place, all of us, except me. Sameena, there, is too young, I guess, but when she starts her periods, I guess that they’ll take her too. Everyone who comes here goes through one of their treatments, and then gets dumped here under my care. I…they tried to do something to me, and then decided that ordering me to help them saved their resources.”

Alison blinked. “Hang on,” she said. Her mind was sounding an alarm, an alarm she couldn’t comprehend. Something was important…and she’d missed it. “They talked to you?”

“One of them, one of the taller bastards, talked to me after they found out that I was useless for them,” Jan said. Her face crumpled. “He said that it wasn’t important to them, to the monsters, if I lived or died, but if I helped them, I would be spared and my daughter would be spared their program. You can’t face him; he just looks into you with those dark eyes of his and you’re helpless before him. They took my son and made him their slave, but…”

She broke down. “Oh, child, I wish you’d been killed before you came here,” she said. “Why did you come here?”

Alison knew that the Greys would know – now – what she was. “I was part of a group sent to figure out what was happening here,” she said. “What did happen at Douglas?”

It took several tries, and some questions, before she had a clear picture. Jan’s husband had been on one of the orbital defence stations, and had been killed in the fighting. Jan and her children, including a teenage boy and young girl, had been foolish; they’d remained behind in the city until the Greys had descended. Resistance had been rapidly crushed; the Greys had surrounded the city and attacked, using powerful sonic systems to jam up the minds of the defenders…and everyone else in the city. When Jan had recovered, she’d been inside a Grey facility, separated from the rest of her family.

“They took me and the others there, and tried to use me,” Jan said. “I’m useless to them, so they were about to discard me, but their boss had an offer for me. I have to manage this camp for them, and in exchange, but…when I met my son, he was no longer my son. Something else was looking out behind his eyes; they have dozens of our men working for them and none of them are men any more.”

“Implanted,” Alison said. It struck her, suddenly, that she knew what she was missing. “Jan, what is this place?”

Jan said nothing. Sameena looked up from where she’d hit…and Alison frowned as she took in the girl’s appearance. New Brooklyn was the only place in the Human Union where extensive body-shaping wasn’t permitted, and in any case Sameena would have been too young for such treatment. Her very dark skin suggested that she’d come from one of the Somali tribes on the other continent, but that was on the other side of the world. What was she doing here?

She reached out a hand to Jan. “Jan, I need to know,” she said. “What is this place?”

Jan was weeping. “It’s a breeding farm, honey,” she said. “Don’t you get it? You’re pregnant with one of their children.”

Memories came flooding back. She remembered tearing awful pain in her virgin body; something had been forced into her, right into her womb. One of the larger Greys had been watching dispassionately as the smaller Greys used their machines to hurt her, somehow impregnate her with their own child. Her hand fell to her chest; was she imagining it, or was there already a bulge there?

“They do something to the children,” Jan said. “They’re not human, not any more; I had to help at one of the births. They grow quickly inside you, hybrids between Grey and human, and then they take the child when it comes out. Oh Alison, in three months you’ll have one of their children, and another, and another, until they’ve got all they can out of you.”

She tried to tell Alison about what had happened to her. She’d been raped, badly, as a young girl and had been damaged so badly that she’d been unable to give her husband children – she’d had to use an artificial womb to have their two children. The Greys clearly didn’t have the patience to use such wombs themselves; when they’d discovered that she was unable to have children, they’d given her the choice of helping them, or being slaughtered on the spot.

“I will not accept this,” Alison said. She’d always known that her military career would preclude having children for years yet, but she had wanted children – her husband’s children, assuming that she ever met a man worthy of her. “I will not carry one of…them to term.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Jan said. “Allah forgive me – I have tried to abort some of the children, but that kills the mother, somehow. I don’t have the tools to do it properly, not without killing the…”

“Host,” Alison snapped. “They’re using us to reproduce themselves.” She glared at the room’s walls. “Can’t they charm women into bed themselves?”

Jan looked nervous. Sheer terror hung in her voice. “I don’t think that they have women,” she said. “The smaller Greys go naked, honey, and they’re apparently utterly sexless. They’re like bees, bees in a hive. I’ve never heard of a race like this one, not since I started my medical studies, although we were discouraged from learning about non-human races.”

Alison forced her mind to focus as she stood up. Three months until the birth; that was odd, to say the least. Most human women carried a child for none months before her or she was born, which meant that the greys had to be fiddling with the genetics somehow. Would her child be a Grey, a parasite inserted in her womb, or would it be something that was still partly hers?

“Allah spare me, I don’t know,” Jan said. Her voice was very tired. “The babies are far from human, they have bigger heads and strange hands, and they don’t cry. They don’t seem to have any reaction to us at all…and then the Greys just come in and take them from us. The mother’s scream and plead and…the Greys don’t care. We’re nothing to them.”

Alison took some steps. Her body, at least, was returning to normal; someone had been performing some surgery on her. A scar she’d kept, from a training accident, was gone; the Grey doctor wouldn’t have wanted anything around to damage the child. She looked around the room, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon, but saw nothing. Jan held out a long dress, chillingly large, and Alison wrapped herself in it willingly; it was large enough to hold her when she was near the birth.

“No,” she said. “I will not let this happen, as God is my witness.”

“They all say that,” Jan observed. “I have been trying to keep Sameena useful, so that she won’t have to go through something like that, but I don’t think they really care. If I wasn’t here, they would have just let the mothers get on with whatever they want, as long as the children aren’t hurt. Feel your neck.”

Alison blinked, and then touched her neck slightly; there was a bulge under her chin. “No one remembers that,” Jan observed. “I think they actually implant a post-hypnotic suggestion in the heads of the mothers; they never notice it until it’s pointed out to them. No one can leave the complex, you see; they just…don’t. They don’t even seem to think of it.”

The very concept seemed to fade from Alison’s mind. “Take me outside,” she ordered, as she tried to think of an escape plan. The implant clearly wasn’t a mind control implant – not where it was – but it was devilishly placed; she might have been able to hack it out of her arm or leg, but trying to remove the implant from her neck would be almost certainly fatal, unless she was very careful. “I need to see this place.”

“It’s not nice,” Sameena observed. Alison had been wondering if she even spoke English, despite the Imperial edict on the subject; everyone had to speak at least one Imperial language, and they’d adopted English as Imperial Seventeen. Sameena’s voice was that of a child with a skinned knee; Alison remembered some of the tales about the women of the tribes and shuddered. “They’re bad people.”

“Come on,” Jan said, taking her arm and opening the door. They stepped through into bright sunlight; she could just see the glinting of the Grey complex, high overhead in space. Grey craft flitted through the atmosphere on their missions, moving faster than the eye could follow; there seemed to be no sound at all in the air, except some muffled voices. Jan led her out onto a hard surface; she realised bitterly that it had once been a parking mall. Ahead of her, someone had rigged up an awning…and under it were women, lots of women. Some of them were clearly very pregnant, others were only just starting to show, but they were all pregnant.

“My God,” she breathed. She couldn’t count how many women there were, but they came from all over New Brooklyn. The Greys had knocked away buildings and human systems to provide their breeding ground; she could see some of the creepy aliens, moving around on their own missions. A handful of human slaves, all with the vapid expression common to implanted slaves, were guarding the women, others were helping slightly. She saw some of the women, crying as they looked at the men, and knew that the men were their relatives. “How many are here?”

“Hundreds,” Jan said. The complex was much larger than seemed possible; her team hadn’t taken in enough of the complex while they were exploring around the city. “Don’t you get it, now? All of these women – most of them, at least – have had at least one Grey baby, and there will be others. You’ll have Grey babies yourself, at least until your body gives out, and there is nothing that you can do about it!”

Alison stared around the camp. The conditions were awful beyond words, worse than the worst army camp she’d been in, back when she’d been going through basic training. The women had running water and some comfort, but that was all they had; the Greys didn’t seem to have bothered to even install them a proper roof. If it rained, something that happened in this part of the country, the women would be soaked.

She cast her eyes up towards the mountains, where she hoped some of her team had survived; perhaps they could see her now. Some of the men would be happy to see her brought so low, others would be worried – either way, she had to get out of the camp, but it seemed impossible. The Greys controlled the guards directly, which meant that trying to seduce them was out of the question…and they had installed a tracking implant in her. They could probably follow her wherever they wanted, assuming that they cared enough to try.

“There must be some way out of this,” she said, trying to think. Her head was starting to hurt, badly. A Grey passed by, passing through a forcefield with no ill effects, and she found herself cringing away from it. The Greys might have messed with her mind, but it wasn’t perfect; she found herself wishing that she could crush that slender Grey neck. The Grey showed no sign of being aware of her homicidal desire; it passed through the camp and headed on into the city.

“There isn’t one,” Jan said. Alison wanted to hit her. “I think that you have to accept that from now on, your only function is that of brood mare for the Greys.”

Alison said nothing. Her eyes took in the children, almost teenage, running around playing with a ball. They were half-naked, but they seemed happy…and none of them were male. The girls would reach puberty, and then they would become brood mares themselves, host mothers for the next generation of Greys. For a moment, she understood the Greys; they had no kinder emotions, but they were merely determined to ensure their own survival, whatever else happened. They had laid their plans against humanity with care, and then they had carried them out and…

She almost cried. The Greys didn’t understand what drove humanity, how could they? They had no softer emotions themselves, just the determination to keep going; by now, they could have overrun much of the old Empire. They wasted nothing, they made use of human women to carry their children and implanted human men to serve as their slaves, they were farmers, farming the human race. The Imperials and the Greys had both sought to use the lesser races to their advantage, but, in the end, the Imperials had gone…and only the Greys were left. Eventually, they would be the only race left in the galaxy.

She ran her hand down her body, feeling the hard muscle that she had earned through hours of exercise and military training. She was a trained combat soldier, she had earned medals in an environment where women had to be superhuman to earn any medals, and she would not remain to end her days producing children for the Greys. No merely human atrocity had ever touched upon the true uncaring evil that the Greys had unleashed, how could it have? Humans…had never used animals to grow their children.

“You need to eat,” Jan said, waving towards a large table. A male slave, naked and scarred, was carrying a massive caldron towards the table. Alison could see the heat of the caldron, burning the slave’s hands, but the slave showed no reaction; the Greys would work him to death and then just dispose of him. They could have produced robots to feed the mothers, or paid humans to do it, but instead…they used slaves. “It was an awful struggle convincing them that we needed some proper cooks.”

“No, it doesn’t seem like something they would be interested in,” Alison said, as she took her place at the table. The other women seemed uninterested in her; many of them were trapped in their own funk, others were talking very quietly among themselves. “Why did you tell them to feed us?”

Jan gave her a horrified look. “People need food to live,” she said. Alison remembered – bitterly – the first creed of most nurses. “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

Alison stared at the food. It was a stew, made from meat; she didn’t want to think about what sort of meat it could be. The meat smelt slightly wrong, but she took the bowl she was offered and ate with her fingers, tasting the oddly fatty meat. A slave passed her a strange drink and she sniffed it; it smelt terrible.

“Drink it,” Jan snapped, her face suddenly hard. “That muck contains stuff the babies need; it won’t actually hurt you, but if you don’t drink it, the Greys will punish us all.”

Alison glared at the drink, and then swallowed it in one gulp. It tasted as awful as it had promised to taste. “I don’t care what you say,” she said, her voice filled with as much determination as she could. “I am getting out of here.”

“Really,” Jan said. “Tell me, just where will you go with a Grey child in your womb?”

Chapter Twelve: We Will Bear Any Burden To Keep The Human Race Free

“Thank you for coming,” Admiral Glass said, as Captain Erickson stepped into the private briefing room. It had once been part of a complex belonging to the Imperial Viceroy; now Admiral Glass used it for private briefings, ones that didn’t involve the main fleet command. “I’m glad to see you again.”

“Thank you,” Erickson said wryly. The last time they’d met and talked in the private complex, it had been before the Greys had been more than a rumour, before they’d known just what was coming towards Earth. “It’s been something of a wild few months.”

Glass nodded grimly. After the Battle of Earth, Erickson had ending up shepherding convoys from world to world, holding a brevet rank of Commodore for the journey. Commodore was a rare rank, never permanent; it was used to prevent anyone from disputing seniority, or sometimes using seniority to claim command. Erickson knew that they’d done well, but the Greys were developing as well; they’d attacked hundreds of convoys over the last three months.

“You may remember that I discussed, some time back, the possibility of a mission to Centre,” Glass said, smiling dryly at Commander Evensong, who looked surprised. Erickson himself was surprised; Glass had discussed it with him, three months ago, but since then it had been pushed aside by the desperate attempts to develop the Grey Communicator and then trying to keep the human race free. “It has been decided by Prince Roland and myself that it is time for that mission.”

Erickson blinked. “Just you and the Prince?” He asked. “What about the War Cabinet?”

Glass looked uncomfortable. “Opinion in the War Cabinet is divided over such issues, particularly since hearing the news from the Tarn Sector,” he said. “Although pundits were quick to claim that the…civil unrest is likely to be restricted to just that sector, it made a very bad impression on the Human Union. There was actually talk of sending a peacekeeping force – as if we didn’t have enough problems with the Greys – or of inviting the human forces in that rebellion to come to the Human Union.”

Erickson smiled. “Is that such a bad idea?” He asked. “Commander David Symons brought dozens of experienced Imperial Fleet personnel with him when he came here, and his ships, once repaired, will be a useful part of the fleet. If it would end the other war, is it not worth it?”

Glass shrugged. “There are billions of humans in the Tarn Sector, assuming that the other side in the war is not genocidal,” he said. “It’s going to take years upon years to move them all…and where would we put them, anyway? Oh, I wouldn’t say no to having those ships, but I don’t think that we would have much success in inviting them to leave.”

Evensong leaned forward. She was still as hauntingly beautiful as she’d been the first day Erickson had met her. “That means that we would have to travel through a war zone,” she said, ruefully. “I admit that we don’t have to stop at Tarn, or the Eden-Garden pair, or…”

“Part of getting Commander Symons to come with you as native guide was agreeing to send a few starships to recover the rest of his people,” Glass said. “In addition, His Highness is very hopeful that your mission can…if not bring peace, then at least convince them that there are worse threats out there than races that have been in the Empire for years.”

Evensong smiled. “The problems that led to the rebellion, if Symons is to be trusted, have been there for nearly a thousand years,” she said. “The newcomer races to that sector have been unable to get their hands on the levers of power, or to get themselves into a proper economic position. The Imperials could handle it; clearly, the local authorities couldn’t handle it. You know what humans are like; the war is not going to end quickly.”

“It seems that neither side actually managed to get their hands on the major shipyard in that sector,” Glass said. “Symons could not be certain, of course, but unless whoever is in charge of one side is stupid, holding the Yard should have given them a decisive advantage. That’s going to be one of your other mission priorities; I need you to have a look at the Yard and find out who actually holds it.”

Erickson scowled at the sector chart as it displayed itself in front of him. “What do we know about the Yard?”

“Very little,” Glass said. “It was built nearly a thousand years before the Sirius Yard, following the standard Imperial practice of building one massive shipyard in each sector to support the Imperial Fleet. That means, by the way, that it will be far more developed than the Sirius Yards, which could mean that it could change the balance of power alarmingly.”

Erickson winced. The Sirius Yards were the most developed space facilities in the human sector; hundreds of industrial modules, dozens of slips, enough facilities to build an entire warfleet on its own. Harmony, in the new sector, had been intended to grow into a similar yard one day; even that had been capable of grinding out thousands of drones – for the Greys. The thought of the Tarn Yards – whatever they were called – in the hands of the Greys was terrifying…and clearly some of the other races had unpleasant ideas about humanity.

“If we could convince the holders of the Yard, whoever they really are, that helping us is in their best interests, it could change the course of the war,” Glass said. Erickson nodded; it didn’t take a genius to note that the human race was in very real trouble – the ongoing Grey raids were taking their toll. “That means that you have to visit the yards there first, before proceeding onwards to Centre.”

He smiled. “Fortunately, we have something new for you, an experimental version of the Grey Communicator,” he said. Erickson leaned forwards with interest. “It’s still got the same range limits as the old communicator, but it can be mounted on the Vanguard without drawing so much power; something to do with using Phase Space to boost the signal.” He shrugged. “The discovery of the Grey Communicator has really put the scientific cat among the pigeons.”

Erickson laughed. Scientists – both human and Imperial – had never been able to understand what Phase Space actually was; it could be either a separate dimension or a fraction of normal space, phased around the starship travelling FTL. Scientists did everything, but fight duels over the true nature of Phase Space; spacers tended to take a more basic view – if it works, don’t look too closely.

Glass sat back in his chair. “We’ll be giving you that and a freighter carrying a second transmitter to relay your signals from the yard,” he said. “Once you pass the yard, you will be out of touch, which means that you will be on your own. I’m giving you the permanent rank of Fleet Captain; it would be Vice Admiral – God knows you’ve proved that you can handle it – if it were possible, but…”

Erickson blinked. Fleet Captain, unlike Commodore or Fleet Admiral, was a permanent rank – one that conferred automatic seniority on any Captain who held it. It was a rare rank – the Imperials didn’t like to use it themselves – but Glass was well within his official powers to promote him. It would give him some clout with loyal Imperial Fleet units, assuming that any still existed. What would those who had mutinied in the Tarn Sector make of him?

Glass seemed almost tired. “Those are your orders for the Tarn Sector,” he said. “Captain, I know it will be hard, but I expect you to make diplomatic communication with both sides, offering them both the Grey Communicator.” Erickson stared at him. “If we fall to the Greys, everything we know about them will be lost; we have to pass on some bits of technology, just to make the Tarn Sector just a little bit stronger. Once that’s done, you can make your way to the yards and see what’s happened there – it’s quite possible that they were destroyed in the crossfire, but…”

He shook his head. “Do you have any questions?”

“None,” Erickson said. “They might have a working communicator up in time to relay signals from the Vanguard further into the Empire.”

“It’s possible,” Glass said. He tapped a console in front of the table and a holographic map of the Empire appeared in front of them. It was misleading – a massive collection of spheres, each representing a sector – but it was the only way to present such information to the human eye. The Empire was so vast – had been so vast – that few people could have hoped to travel over every world and sector. Erickson knew that some people did just that – endlessly travelling – and he wondered what had happened to them now.

“Intelligence knows very little about what happened outside the human sector, as you know,” Glass said. “Symons and his people told us a lot about the Tarn Sector – it’s all in the briefing notes – but they were unable to get a truly comprehensive glance at the sector. How could they have? They were in Eden before the Collapse. We will tell you everything we can tell you, but you must know just how little that actually is; your guess is as good as mine. We have intelligence that there’s a civil war going on in the Grax Sector, which is to Galactic South of us, but in any case you will not have to go through that sector. Not going through Tarn, unfortunately, will set you back at least another month, and it’s a six-month journey to Centre.”

Erickson felt his eyes narrow. “You can tell us nothing?”

“The fastship network faded away,” Glass reminded him dryly. “The fuelling stations clearly were destroyed, or something happened to them; we haven’t had a fastship for months on end outside our own sector. So no – I can tell you nothing, only some speculation, and it might well be completely wrong.”

He tapped the console and the hologram of the Empire rotated. It had an eerie beauty to it, something that awed Erickson; even Imperial Fleet officers rarely had to get to grips with the sheer size of the Empire. Now, of course, God only knew what had happened to the Empire; the peaceful stars might just be wracked with civil war, or the Greys might have launched other attacks, or…there was no way of knowing.

“On the direct line to Centre, you will have to pass through Tarn, Lio-Lang, Butler, First – the name, as you know, passes for Imperial humour – and then finally the Centre Sector itself. Lio-Lang, like the Tarn Sector, is a basically even sector – no single race holds dominance. It might be peaceful, or it might be a war zone; you’ll have to use your own judgement. Butler, as you should know, is the home of the first race to be brought into the Empire; they have a tendency to look down on humans, but at the same time their sector is about the most well developed sector in the Empire, save only Centre.”

Erickson scowled. The natives of Butler had provided most of the ground troops that had subdued Earth, following the Invasion, and they disliked humans after fighting a long underground war against various resistance groups. They had also had an empire of their own before running into the Empire; they felt nothing, but contempt for a race that had never reached for the stars when it could have done so.

Glass read his thoughts. “Yes, I know they can be unbearable, but we need their help,” he said. “They also might be having problems – they’re right next to the Kerr Exclusion Zone and you know how they feel about the Kerr.”

Erickson felt knowledge flooding into his head from his implants, but he had known; almost every Imperial Fleet officer looked up what little was known about the Kerr when they first heard about the mysterious race. The Kerr were the subject of much of the legends on Butler, ranging from them having played a role in the foundation of life on Butler, to early contacts – never proven – with the Butler Space Navy, before it was overwhelmed by the Imperials. Almost the entire planet of Butler bitterly resented the Exclusion Zone, even though there was no evidence to suggest that a Butler contact attempt would meet a better fate than several Imperial attempts to make contact.

“It might not be a problem, and it certainly doesn’t concern us in any way, but…if they do learn anything, try and find out what it is,” Glass said. “If not, give them the details of the communicator and encourage them to spread it far and wide. You might actually run into real Imperials there – it’s not a sector I would expect them to give up – and if you do, then you can transmit your message, and move on to First and Centre.”

The map altered again. “First actually has an Imperial world in the sector, although it’s not the sector capital,” Glass said. “I want you to visit that world and try to talk to them there; it might save you travelling all the way to Centre. If you can’t make contact there, and the people on First can’t point you towards any Imperials, you will have to go onwards to Centre. Once there, you know what message you have to give them, and how we need to ask for help.”

Erickson nodded slowly. “We need support before we lose to the Greys, who will then have an entire Imperial Sector at their disposal,” he said. “Admiral, the Imperials have a Grey body, the one I captured back before all this began. They must know that the threat exists.”

Glass sighed. “I know, Captain,” he said. “I don’t know what they think they’re doing, but I do know that they’re not helping, except…maybe they did; did you hear about what happened at the Battle of Earth?”

“Only rumours that we were able to jam up the communications network the Greys seem to have,” Erickson said. “What did happen?”

Glass briefly outlined what had happened, from the Envoy giving him Corey as a gift, to Corey using her augmentation to bring the Grey network crashing down. “I don’t believe that that was a coincidence,” he said. His face twitched into a proud, half-sad smile. “It was my daughter who worked that out.”

Evensong blinked. “The Imperials created a weapon used to fight the Greys?”

“A weapon built to fight only the Greys,” Glass said. “One of our tactical datanet systems would not have fallen like that. Only the unique biomechanical systems the Greys use could be attacked in such a manner, and it was, by a person who had been created as a living weapon. The Imperials know about the Greys, and all they gave us was…”

“Something – someone – who won us a battle,” Evensong said. “Don’t knock it, Admiral.”

Glass gave her a sharp look. “We are on the verge of losing the war,” he snapped. “We need help, fast; whatever they can send us, even if its just one of their superdreadnaught fleets, will be more than welcome. Don’t fail us, not now.”

He reached into a drawer and pulled out a datachip. “These are your official orders, along with messages direct from myself, Yardmaster Phelps, Prince Roland, His Majesty the Emperor and Prime Minister Darlington,” he said. “The orders are rather vague, largely because we don’t know enough about the situations you’ll face. You have considerable discretion, at least until you reach Centre.”

He stood up. “Captain, I won’t lie to you,” he said. “This mission – everything depends upon it. It’s more important than anything else, even the new operation we’re planning; if you need anything for your ship, requisition it.”

Erickson lifted an eyebrow, his interest piqued. He had heard that no new offensive operations were being planned. “New operation?”

Glass smiled. “We’re going back to New Brooklyn,” he said. Erickson’s face showed his surprise. “The Greys keep hammering at us, so…we’re going to get some of our own back. New Brooklyn won’t know what hit it.” He held out a hand. “Good luck, Captain; you too, Commander.”

Erickson returned the handshake. “We won’t let you down,” he said. He tried to put as much confidence into his voice as possible. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

“There’ll be at least a year before we hear from you,” Glass reminded him. He ran a hand through his white hair. “If we can’t keep the Greys off-balance ourselves, then…you might end up commanding the last human starship in the galaxy.”

Chapter Thirteen: The Hope of New Brooklyn

The thirteen men in the room looked like scruffs. Each of them wore civilian clothes – radically different civilian clothes – and some of them had neglected to shave. A civilian, looking at them with a civilian mindset, would have seen nothing, but workers, the perfect stereotype of rough working men. A military mindset, assuming that the observer wasn’t an officer dedicated to spit and polish, would have noted other details; the men held themselves like trained and experienced soldiers. They hadn’t used body-shaping to form their disciplined bodies; they had formed their bodies through endless training and dangerous missions.

Captain Anung Sato glanced up and down the group of men, checking their readiness for the mission. The men of the Special Assault Service – modelled after a military unit that had existed before the Invasion – looked as if they were slouching; the appearance of military discipline wasn’t something that came naturally to them. As one of them had once remarked, they’d spent the time other units spent learning how to salute learning how to fight and survive in completely hostile environments. All of them were augmented; Sato knew that they had more augmentation than a basic Grey. They considered themselves the best of the best…and that was very good indeed.

“Stand at ease,” he snapped. It was something of a redundant command under the circumstances; the SAS group had already abandoned what little pretence of discipline they had shown. “We did well on the last mission, so we have been rewarded – with another mission.”

There were some chuckles. The SAS was a volunteer group; everyone who fought as part of the group knew what they were doing…and what the odds of survival actually were. They’d assaulted pirate bases and black colonies, pressing against the Rim and watching for new and strange threats…and they had all known that sooner or later they would be going head-to-head with the Greys. Sato had been drilling them relentlessly for that moment.

He scowled, forcing the soldiers into something reassembling quiet. The mission they’d completed had been a fairly basic raid on a rogue black colony, nothing to do with the Greys, but since then they’d been simulating fighting Greys, and it wasn’t good. The Greys moved faster than any human and they were far stronger than unaugmented human beings; he knew that if the SAS and the Greys had to fight hand-to-hand, the SAS might well come off worst. Fortunately, they had some surprises up their sleeves, and everywhere else.

“We have been ordered to prepare for an insertion on New Brooklyn,” Sato said, shortly, and transmitted a command into the room’s processor. A holographic image of New Brooklyn appeared in front of them. “As you may have heard, from the classified reports you’re not supposed to read” – there were more chuckles – “the fleet engaged and destroyed a Grey mining camp, but was then chased away from the world by a force of bad-tempered Greys. That was billed in the media as a victory, but in point of fact it was a defeat; classified intelligence suggests that the Greys have simply moved back to the gas giant and resumed their activities. Their control over New Brooklyn remains as strong as ever, mainly because of our fears about accidentally smashing their orbital shipyard into the planet and just incidentally ruining the planet.”

He paused. “Perhaps we should,” Sergeant Jamestown said. “There might no longer be anyone down there, at least, no one human.”

There was a dull mummer of discussion. The SAS had been active on New Brooklyn before, during several attempts to keep the peace; Sato had put his team together on the basis of people who had experience with the planet, including himself. Sato, himself an oriental person, would go through extensive body-shaping, until he looked just like a native of Sudanasesia. New Brooklyn had never been a favourite holiday destination, however; the natives made that tricky.

“That’s not our decision,” Sato snapped. He glared around the room until he had silence. “One of our missions is to attempt to make contact with whatever remains of New Brooklyn’s population, just to find out what the Greys are doing down there – because the Fleet has not been able to get any communication with the surface. Some analysts think that the Greys are simply jamming every communications link, others have collated the signs of Grey nukes to known locations of military bases, still others fear that the population might have been exterminated. Attempts to slip in spy satellites have been only partly successful, but we know that there is a high concentration of Grey activity on Sudanasesia itself, which is our destination.”

The map altered itself at his command. “The Fleet is going to launch a fairly major attack on the system, which is basically a small probe,” Sato said. “What they don’t know is that the attack will be covering our insertion, using an intelligence stealth craft to get us towards the planet, then falling down to Sudanasesia in a crash landing stealth craft. That’s going to be about as fun as it sounds.” He tapped the map. “We may actually have been given something useful from Intelligence for once.”

“As if,” Sergeant Lethbridge said. “The first bit of useful intelligence we get from Intelligence will be the first.”

Sato snorted. “Perhaps,” he said. The map altered again. “As you can hardly have helped noticing, the nations on New Brooklyn hate one another. It has long been suspected that they would have fought a civil war between themselves – which would make it somewhere around the tenth such war – which would destroy the planet. Sudanasesia, as it happens, took a precaution that it never discussed with anyone else, but Ambassador Wakanda knew about it and shared it with the Fleet, when it became apparent that there would have to be a contact team to New Brooklyn, in the hopes of sharing information we could use to attack the Greys.

“Here – some fifty kilometres from anywhere of real importance – is a secret command post,” he said. The map altered slightly. “Ambassador Wakanda knew only the location and some details of what its purpose was; it was intended to provide command and control over Sudanases military forces, in the event of one of their enemies mounting a decapitation strike. It’s been four months, but it was intended to survive for years, so it might just be possible to make contact with whoever’s there.”

“We might end up running into a Grey trap,” Sergeant Jamestown said. “They might have found the place already, or they might have simply destroyed the place without bothering to investigate.”

“It’s possible,” Sato agreed. He leaned forwards. “Although we cannot be certain, seeing that Ambassador Wakanda was not cleared for much information that we would have liked to have, the command post was very well hidden and built to survive a nuke strike. It looks, from the orbital pictures, that the Greys haven’t nuked it, and there’s no Grey activity around the region, until they reach Douglass, which is nearly two hundred kilometres from the command post. There’s no way to be certain, of course, but…”

He leaned forwards. “If we cannot make contact with anyone native, we are to proceed to Douglas and find out what the Greys are doing there,” he said. “We have a particularly important mission to carry out, one that only we can do, as it’s impossible.” The group looked up attentively as Sato sent a final command into the system and a hologram of a taller Grey appeared in front of them. Their faces twisted, all of them angry; they all hated the Greys. “We know very little about the Greys, but these bastards seem to be in charge.”

He tapped his hand to make his point. “The smaller Greys seem to have little authority, or control,” he said. “The larger ones seem to have that control, as well as being the only Greys to actually talk to anyone. From the only direct report of contact we have, we know that it was a taller Grey who did the talking, which means that they’re probably in charge.” He paused. “Unfortunately, a lot of this is speculation.”

The display altered again. “In the event of us being unable to actually make contact with the natives, we are going to kidnap one of these Greys,” he said. There was a long hiss of indrawn breath; all of them had trained on simulations of Grey buildings and starships, all of them knew that it wouldn’t be easy. “I won’t lie to you; we might have real problems subduing our target, before we bundle him off into a small stealth craft – one will remain nearby and it will risk the descent if a Grey is actually taken alive – and ship him back to Titan. Once that happens, we go out for a drink and a drunken riot.”

He laughed and his men laughed with him. “It’s going to be impossible, but…we’re going to do it anyway,” he said. “We know that the Greys do try to keep the bigger bastards alive, so…they might actually allow us to escape, or perhaps they’ll just write him off and open fire. Still, it’s just what we’ve done before, against much more dangerous opposition.” He paused. “Any questions?”

“Another kidnap operation,” Private Bunsen said. His eyes glittered. “They’ll be calling us The Kidnappers next.”

Sato ignored him. “Any other questions?”

Sergeant Jamestown looked up. “When are we leaving?”

“In a week, apparently,” Sato said. “It’ll take them that long to get the Fleet ready for its attack; they don’t know about us, you see.” He smiled. “Go rewrite your wills, then I want to see you all here tomorrow for more training, now that we actually have a mission. Anyone who’s late will be thrown out the nearest window.”

Sergeant Jamestown laughed. Any of them could survive being thrown out a window. Their augmentations were designed to endure much worse punishment at the hands of the Greys. “Slave driver,” he said. “We’ll be there.”

***

The hologram that greeted Captain Nancy Middleton was a work of art in its own right; a nearly-perfect representation of the New Brooklyn system, confirming her suspicion that a starship with a Grey Communicator was on station near the system, watching the Greys. The Greys had been busy, and very active; they’d moved in more superdreadnaughts from somewhere, almost certainly their homeworld. They couldn’t have gotten Harmony into a shipyard yet, could they?

She closed her eyes. The Greys knew where every major human world was…and humanity didn’t know the same about the Greys. Humanity had to keep a major force of starships in the Sol System to cover the shipyards; the Greys didn’t have to worry about covering New Brooklyn, because everything in the New Brooklyn system wasn’t important to them, not in the long run. The Greys might be scouting out other worlds for locating their own shipyards…and the human race had no way of finding them, except through sheer dumb luck, except…

The thought struck her suddenly, and she wondered why it had taken so long; she’d been present when a Grey battlecruiser – admittedly one commanded by a human pirate – had been tracked through Phase Space. She made a mental note to suggest it to Admiral Glass; if they were lucky, they might just be able to follow the Greys to a shipyard of their own, raiding them somewhere where they wouldn’t expect to be hit. If they could just hit the Greys, knock them back on their arse, perhaps it wouldn’t be hopeless after all, perhaps they could win.

She took her seat in the small briefing room, using her implants to check to see if there was an agenda or a mission brief in the room’s computer. There was none, which wasn’t usual; normally, commanding officers would be expected to have read the brief and be prepared to ask questions if something wasn’t clear. She sat back and waited, noting that the room was filling with commanding officers – Captains, Commanders and a handful of CAGs. She looked around for Captain Erickson – she’d heard that the Vanguard had returned to the Sol System – but she didn’t see him. Some of the Captains were senior to her, others Home Guard and therefore junior by default until they picked up more interstellar experience; she’d heard that there had been unhappy rumbles over that from experienced Home Guard commanding officers.

She shrugged. Like all such problems, it would go away on its own, given time.

“Attention on deck,” a sharp voice snapped. She stood up as Captain Jeremy Damiani called them to attention. His voice held all of their attention as a door hissed open. “Admiral on deck.”

It wasn’t a deck, more of a briefing room on the Titan Orbital Tower, but she knew that the principle mattered. Admiral Glass, looking older than ever, stepped into the room and accepted their salutes; he returned them briskly and took the stand. His eyes swept the room, meeting Nancy’s eyes briefly; he smiled as he sent out a command to activate the security systems and seal the room off from outside.

“At ease,” he said shortly. Nancy sat down with some relief. Glass nodded once to the hologram, which spread out to show New Brooklyn in front of them. The planet looked lovely – blue and green – in the display; it showed nothing of the Greys occupying the world. “As you might have gathered, we’re raiding New Brooklyn – again.”

A mummer ran around the room. They all knew the odds; only a major commitment of the forces defending Earth, or the Sirius Yards, could take back New Brooklyn, given the way the Greys fought. At the same time, with so many unknowns about the Greys, there could be no giving up those defence forces; the shipyards had to be held at all costs. All the forces that could be spared could do was raid New Brooklyn. Challenging the twenty known Grey superdreadnaughts near the planet would be fatal.

“Intelligence has been working hard to put together a picture of what the Greys are actually doing,” Glass continued. “Thanks to Captain Middleton” – he nodded once at Nancy – “we recovered some natives who had a chance to actually tell us something about the hidden colonies in the New Brooklyn system, colonies that have now fallen into the hands of the Greys. New Brooklyn had more than its fair share of black and grey – now that was ironic – colonies, and some of them are being used by the Greys. In particular…”

The display altered, revealing an asteroid cluster. “The miners here declared independence some time ago, before the Collapse, and were treated as a grey colony by the local authorities. For political reasons – New Brooklyn-style politics – nothing was done about preventing the independence or recovering the asteroids, and by the time a consensus was reached, the newly independent asteroids had become a vital part of the systems economy. The Greys came there, took over, and…they turned the asteroids into one of their shipyards. We believe that they are using it to produce drones.”

A cold hiss ran around the room. “We have no…delusions that the twenty-three starships and support craft, even the experimental Arrow ships, can actually take the system,” he said. “We expect you to raid the Grey asteroids, destroying them, and then making a fighting withdrawal. This will not only spare us from losing more ships, but also allow us to test the Arrow system in combat. It’s something that we borrowed from the Greys, so we might have to work on the system to ensure that it works against them.”

He leaned forward. “There will be two groups of starships and two commodores; Brown” – he nodded towards a battlecruiser commander – “and Middleton. Brown, as the senior officer, will hold the overall command; Middleton will command the carrier element and serve as deputy commander, so there will be some drilling next week before the mission is actually mounted.”

Brown coughed. Nancy hadn’t seen much of him – his starship had been assigned to escorting convoys – but she liked what she’d heard. “Admiral, with all due respect, splitting our forces is asking for trouble,” he said. “Are we expected to feint at New Brooklyn first, or what?”

Glass nodded at the question. “As you can see” – the hologram became a chart of the system – “the asteroids are currently on the other side of the system from New Brooklyn, which gives you some time to get into position before the Greys can come howling after you. Exactly how you approach the target is up to you, Commodore Brown; I will not dictate everything.”

Nancy nodded thoughtfully. Glass wasn’t shifting the blame; it was standard practice in the Imperial Fleet to give the person responsible for planning any operation an objective…and then discretion in how the operation was to be conducted, as long as it didn’t violate the Imperial Articles of War. Brown would have full authority, as he would be the person charged with carrying the operation out.

“We can’t say for certain what opposition you’ll face,” Glass said. “It’s possible that they’ll come after you with everything they have, or that they’ll just leave you to get on with it. They have more drones than ever before, hence your much larger starfighter forces and the Arrow ships; we expect that they’ll at least send drones after you. Again, if the Greys are too strong for you to succeed, break contact; we don’t want a victory that leaves us worse off than the enemy.”

He stood up. “I expect to see a preliminary operations plan within the day, but remember, New Brooklyn is a human world,” he concluded. “We’re going to take it back, whatever it takes, eventually. Everything we do until then is going to lead towards that final objective – the liberation of New Brooklyn and the defeat of the Greys.”

Chapter Fourteen: The Little Big Decoy

It just wasn’t easy being an Admiral’s daughter.

Elspeth Grey had been brought up by her mother, who had never married her father, but as her father gained more rank, he had much less time for her. Imperial law drew no distinction between a legitimate child and a illegitimate child; Admiral Glass had acknowledged her as his daughter long before they fell out. The media – which had discovered that hounding Imperial officers resulted in them being brought up on charges – had generally left her in peace, until the Collapse. Since then, they’d demanded background interviews, interviews that she hadn’t been willing to give them. That hadn’t stopped them; just because she’d had a private interview with Prince Roland, they were inventing a romantic link between them.

On the eve of leaving Earth, she’d picked up a newspaper sheet, a media that had steadfastly refused to die, despite the datanet and even the Grey Communicator. The lead headline had read PRINCE TO WED ADMIRAL’S CHILD – with the implication that they weren’t remotely sure of her sex – and had gone into detail that had to have been dreamt up by a lazy writer. Even Casanova could not have performed so much in half an hour.

The crew of the cruiser Balefire hadn’t been much better. The Balefire was a standard light cruiser, one due to be modified at Sirius Yards to compensate for the latest Grey surprise, and had been due to be sent to the Yard long before she’d met Prince Roland. Despite that basic – and very obvious fact – the crew of the starship persisted in treating her as their commander’s daughter, inviting her to observe their endless drills and even offering her a command seat on the bridge. She’d feared that they intended her to command the starship as it emerged into the Sirius System – a honour normally granted to guests of the fleet, but one she couldn’t have done to save her life – but Captain (junior-grade) Balsam had reassured her; few commanding officers willingly gave up their command seat in the middle of a combat zone.

“Take us in now,” he ordered, as Elspeth looked up from her chair on the bridge. She would have preferred to have continued her research, examining the records that had been copied into Imperial storage units years ago, but Captain Balsam had insisted. The shimmering lights of Phase Space, something that had always made her a little sick, faded…as her chest flipped inside out and the starship returned to normal space. Combat operations – and all of human space was a warzone with the Greys around – demanded that the starship came out at speed, rather than at rest; the only cost was that it hurt the crew much more than a normal transit would have done.

“Local space is clear,” the sensor officer reported. “No sign of Grey starships.”

“We are receiving a challenge from system command,” the communications officer said. “Permission to signal them and inform them of who we are?”

“Granted,” Captain Balsam said. “Helm, take us in.”

Elspeth knew what every other citizen of the Human Union knew about Sirius – and quite a bit more. The Yards had been created by the Imperials, building on the wreckage of a very ancient battle that had shattered several worlds in the system, years before the Invasion. Hardly a starship in the sector had not been touched by the Yards in some way, from commercial starships that had been used to jump-start the sector’s economy to the warships that had defended Earth and the early colonies from pirates. There were other shipyards, mainly commercial and Home Guard yards, but the Sirius Yards represented the largest collection of Imperial-grade technology in the sector…and the greatest target, past Earth itself, for the Greys. It was heavily defended; the starship’s sensors were picking up superdreadnaughts, heavy cruisers and thousands of drones. Sirius was the only place in the Human Union that deployed drones to take part in its defence force.

“The Yard has cleared us to approach,” the communications officer said. “We are to proceed to Slip Four, while a shuttle will come to pick up Miss Grey.”

“Thank you,” Captain Balsam said. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “What the hell is that?”

Elspeth followed his gaze as the sensors revealed something new, a construction right on the edge of sensor range, nearly an AU from the main shipyard complex. She stared at it, puzzled; whatever it was, it was radiating enough energy to be detectable at very long range, and it was huge. It was almost fifty kilometres long, with dozens of smaller craft bobbing about it; she saw a freighter-robot transporting supplies towards the…object.

“I’m not sure,” the sensor officer said. “They’re not giving up any information on passive, past the limited radiation effects, and its against regulations to use an active sensor probe in this environment.”

“Then don’t,” Captain Balsam said. A shuttle appeared from out of the electronic haze surrounding the main complex. “Miss Grey, I believe that that is your ride.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Elspeth said, shaking his hand. She knew that he couldn’t help, but see her as his commander’s daughter, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. He believed that a word from her would ruin his career…and it wasn’t true, but she knew that he felt that way. Admiral Glass wasn’t like that at all – and he would know that she was hardly qualified to pass judgement on a Fleet officer – but Captain Balsam had to fear her. “It’s been an interesting voyage.”

The Balefire had a small shuttlebay; the shuttle from the shipyard docked neatly, without needing to use an access hatch. Elspeth shook hands with Captain Balsam again, and then stepped into the shuttle, careful to keep her head down. People had been known to injure themselves when climbing into military-grade shuttles; comfort wasn’t important to the designers.

“Welcome to Sirius,” the pilot said, as she took the shuttle out of the starship and headed back towards the Yard. She was a buxom red-haired woman and Elspeth was surprised to know that she knew her; Manager Rachael Grant, the second-in-command of the Sirius Yards. “I dare say you’re surprised to see me?”

Elspeth nodded, silently cursing her father’s name. “Don’t worry about it,” Rachael said, and instantly made a friend for life. “The Yardmaster himself was very keen to see you, once he heard about it. He actually asked me to ensure that you were brought back to the main complex as quickly as possible, and so I decided to take you myself.”

Elspeth smiled. “What about your work?”

Rachael laughed. “What about it?” She asked. “Problem is; we have all of the slips fill at the moment, but it takes three months, at least, to build a capital ship. Drones and starfighters are easy, but we don’t build starfighters here; smaller starships only take a month or so. We’re actually contemplating building a completely new class of superdreadnaught, which is something that we’re keen on and the Strategy Board is less keen on, just because of the dangers of losing the materials to build a superdreadnaught. Have you ever heard of the Ambassador?”

Elspeth shook her head, slightly bemused by Rachael’s enthusiasm. “It was supposed to be a new superdreadnaught, one that would be much more powerful than the standard Commander-class, in either of its variants. Instead, the whole idea had problems, so they ended up with a starship five kilometres long with hardly enough power to hold itself together, let alone fight a battle,” Rachael said. She took a mocking breath. “It turns out that there are problems with power sinks – systems that draw power directly from space itself – and the Ambassador was simply unable to draw enough power to serve all of its requirements.”

She laughed. “They had to stuff enough fusion cores into the ship, just to turn it into a glorified yacht,” she said. Elspeth had to smile. “That caused some heads to roll, and then came the collapse and so…”

Elspeth shrugged. “What’s that thing over there?”

Rachael followed her pointing finger. “That’s something of a private experiment,” she said. “It’s also something that is drawing up excess production capability, which makes it a nuisances, but if we crack some of the problems – ironically, using the Ambassador and something that Captain Erickson found to solve them – we might have something very new for the battlezone.”

She shrugged. “We call it the Little Big Decoy, because it might soak up some Grey missiles if they ever attack this place,” she said. “There’s nothing too important being used on it, so we just…get on with it.”

The shape of the main complex zoomed up in front of them. “One question,” Elspeth said, feeling nervous as the shuttle flashed closer. “What is the Yardmaster like?”

Rachael turned to face her, placing the shuttle on automatic. “He’s a typical Imperial in most ways, so he will demand respect,” she said. Her voice held a very real trace of affection. “I think that he’s a little lonely – there are no other Imperials anywhere nearby – but at the same time I think he genuinely likes the human race, and he loves his job. He’s forgotten more about using a shipyard than most of us ever learn.”

Elspeth smiled to hear the affection. “How do you get on with him?”

“Well enough,” Rachael said. “Oh, he’s not the type of person to whom you can discuss problems like the absence of suitable male flesh with” – they shared a giggle – “but he isn’t as…stuck-up as some of the Imperials I’ve met. Be honest and open with him, Elspeth; I think that you don’t like being your father’s daughter, but he will treat you as that.”

Elspeth felt her face fall. “I think that they believe that blood tells,” Rachael said. “My father worked for them and so did his grandfather; if they approve of your father, they will certainly give you the benefit of the doubt. They live an awesomely long time – I have met Imperials who claim to have been around since before the Invasion – and I think they set up the aristocratic system just to get something like their own long lives from humanity.”

She shrugged as the shuttle docked. “Don’t make the mistake of treating them as humans,” she said. Elspeth, the expert on the Imperials, smiled at that. The shuttle hissed open, allowing the dry hot air of the shipyard to enter her lungs. “They might look like humans, but they’re nothing like us.”

The Imperial part of the shipyard hurt Elspeth slightly as she stepped through a forcefield that had been keeping the heat in, trapping it within the Yardmaster’s private suite. Spacers had vast quarters – there were no limits to what could be built in space – but the Yardmaster had nearly a kilometre of rooms to himself. A robot drone – this Imperial clearly didn’t like having live servants – led her though a twisting corridor into a room that had stepped out of Garden itself; it was nothing less than dedicated parkland. Plants, scattered around and twinned together in a Darwinian display of survival of the fittest, surrounded a pair of chairs, set in the centre of the room. In one of the chairs…

She felt her breath catch in her throat. The Yardmaster stood almost as tall as Elspeth herself, his skin, completely hairless, had a very slight orange tint; his eyes, larger than human eyes, seemed to be almost like an insect’s…or one of the Master-Greys. He wore a simple black outfit, without a badge of nobility on one shoulder; she knew enough to know that that meant that he wasn’t from the Imperial faction of the Imperials.

“Miss Glass, I presume,” the Yardmaster said. He waved one languid hand to the other chair. “Sit, if you would.”

Elspeth felt stunned. The Imperials were normally known for long-winded protocol; the Yardmaster was offering to cut through it all. She curtseyed once, knowing that she had to make a good impression, and took the seat, fighting to keep her face calm. Being addressed by her father’s name, proof that the Yardmaster knew who she was, had surprised her, even though Rachael had warned her. There had to have been some reason why the Yardmaster had smoothed the way for her – could it be that he was as eager to talk as Elspeth was to listen?

“Welcome to Sirius Yards,” the Yardmaster said. His head turned and moved relentlessly, taking in every inch of her; his face remained expressionless, not even an Imperial smile lit his face. “What do you think of the place?”

“It’s amazing,” Elspeth said, truthfully. “All of the construction work that will keep the Empire free of the Greys.”

The Yardmaster smiled for the first time. “This is my place,” he said, his voice still flat and atonal. “I built it, designed it, and it is finally being used for its rightful purpose. Your father played a role in that, after some…slight unpleasantness, so I am delighted. My faction will be delighted, too, when they find out.”

Elspeth felt her eyes narrow slightly. “I assume that you know that a starship is being dispatched to Centre,” she said. Roland’s briefing had hinted at that. “What do you think of that?”

“I do not feel that the decision to leave this sector was a wise one, for it was based on false pretences,” the Yardmaster said. His head bowed slightly. “I feel that reminding the…Centre that we have responsibilities is something that must be done.”

There was something important there, Elspeth was sure, but she couldn’t tell what it was. “I sent a note ahead about the subject of this discussion,” she said. “Are you willing to discuss such matters?”

It seemed a stupid question, but she knew that it was Imperial protocol. “I believe that I am willing to answer your questions,” the Yardmaster said. His voice, for the first time, showed some emotion. “I must add, however, that I know very little compared to the Viceroy and those of the faction that became very involved with Earth.”

“The Viceroy has gone,” Elspeth reminded him. “I have only you to ask. Yardmaster, just how long were the Imperials watching Earth before they moved in?”

The Yardmaster eyed her. “That is a matter of public record,” he said. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice. “It has been clearly stated, more than once, that the original exploration unit, which included my fine self, was present in the Sol System for nearly a hundred of your years before the Invasion. Earth was studied for that long before we moved in and…took over, improving the condition of the human race immeasurably.”

Elspeth, the historian, knew that he was partly right. She doubted that the citizens of a dozen cities and countries punished for rebellion would have agreed. “That is true,” she said, agreeing with him for the moment. The African nation had been saved from a fate worse than death by the Imperials, even though she couldn’t really understand how the human race had gotten into such a mess. Had they no sense of responsibility back then? “However, many records of that time remain classified, even the records belonging to human military units and Imperial units that took part in the Invasion.”

She paused for breath. The Yardmaster said nothing. “The Humanist Party, which is strongest in Colorado, has long demanded the return of the records from the final surrender at Cheyenne Mountain,” she said. “What exactly happened then?”

“The human race surrendered,” the Yardmaster said. “I confess I see no point to this…line of questioning.”

Elspeth took a breath. “During the time of the Invasion, and the time before, I assume that the planet was under very tight surveillance?” The Yardmaster nodded; Elspeth had expected that. The Imperials had had the art of conquering worlds down to a fine art. “During that period, were any other spacecraft tracked by Imperial craft?”

The Yardmaster’s face tilted slightly. “Human spacecraft were tracked and observed,” he said. “Humans did not attempt to develop space for themselves before we moved in to assist the human race.”

Elspeth winced at the charge. It was regularly tossed at humanity by some of the older races in the Empire. “Not human spacecraft,” she said. “Other spacecraft.”

“The planet was outside the borders of the Empire at that time,” the Yardmaster said. “No other Imperial starship visited the planet.”

“Not an Imperial starship,” Elspeth said. “A Grey starship.”

The Yardmaster looked…not surprised, but resigned. “The Greys are unique,” Elspeth said. “Unlike almost all races, they were…prominent in many human reports and fictions from that period; only the use of something called the Fantastic Thing, which bares some resemblance to a Cnc, shares that appearance in pre-Invasion reports. The Greys are the only race that seem to have been not only correctly identified as alien, but they seem to have been everywhere during the final years of Earth’s independence…until the Invasion. Sighting reports seem to come to a screeching halt after that.”

“Unsurprising,” the Yardmaster commented.

“The records from that era have been carefully sealed, but there are still dozens of reports that leaked through the gap,” Elspeth said. “One rather strange man in America, a Mr Harbinson, seems to have collected thousands of reports, which were later absorbed into other collections and placed in storage. Of course, you forbade the destruction of any knowledge; the books and reports remained intact, but no one knew they were there until I stumbled over references to them.”

She took a breath. “The reports – as he noted – seem to have stopped once you moved in,” she said. “He wondered if you – an unknown Imperial race – had conducted all of the reports linked to the Greys – but really…that seems a little unlikely in light of recent events. Yardmaster, what really happened back then? Were the Greys active on Earth at the time?”

The Yardmaster seemed to come to a decision. “You need to know,” he said. Elspeth felt her heart leap inside her. “Sit back and listen; this is going to take a while.”

Interlude One: Area 51

It was thirteen years after the Invasion.

Night was falling over Nevada as the shuttles raced towards their target, passing over the desert and heading towards the mountain range ahead of them, concealing what had once been an American military base. It had been listed as disused in the records that Hardly had dug up for his master, but that had been before some of the other discoveries had been made, before they’d learned that there was a working underground running through America.

A flight of fighter craft flew ahead of the main shuttle, containing not only Hardly, but one of the Imperials, and dozens of support units, mainly Bulterians. There were other races of the Empire present, including dozens of Kijamanro – who were used by the Imperials as shock troops because they had no sense of mercy to non-Kijamanro, and a Mirfak. The Mirfak – who had not been introduced to him – scared him; the race was telepathic. As the fighters flashed over the darkening desert, he could see traces of refugee camps, assembled in defiance of the Viceroy’s orders.

He shrugged. It was their own fault for not getting on the winning team. Other imperial ground units would be moving in to support the raiding force; one of them would round up all the refugees and register them in the Imperials computers, along with nearly half of the population of Earth. Some resistance people, assuming that there were any in the camp, would fight; those who were captured would suffer a fate worse than death. The Imperials could do something every human despot had dreamed of being able to do; they could reach inside a man and make him do their every bidding. Resistance fighters had returned, under Imperial control, and betrayed their comrades.

How could they not be the winning team?

“The advance craft are flying over the target, Your Eminence,” Captain Raze said. The Bulterian had completely ignored Hardly while he was on the transport; all of his attention was fixed on his Imperial guest. “Should I display the results?”

The Imperial nodded. “Please do,” he said, graciously. “We must see what happens when the first units fly overhead.”

An image of the military base, dark and silent, appeared in front of them. Hardly wondered if, just for a moment, they’d gotten the details wrong; had they missed the real base they’d been hunting for years? The fighters seemed equally puzzled, flying lower towards the base as the first transports hovered into view…and then the base opened fire. From hidden emplacements around the base, from soldiers on the ground holding hand-held missile launchers, missiles rose to contest the skies.

“Whatever else happens, we have stumbled across their base,” Hardly assured his master. The Imperial didn’t seem interested; all of his attention was fixed on the battle as the missiles roared towards the transports, hammering into their shields and slapping fighters out of the air. The fighters were returning fire, pouring plasma blasts down onto the human defenders, while the transporters concentrated on their own point defence. There was a moment, a tiny moment, when the resistance could have driven the Imperial force away…and then it was gone. A transport opened its hatch and expelled dozens of armoured soldiers, wearing heavy battlesuits, which fell towards the base below. Hardly could track the fight on the display – human forces had never managed to jam Imperial systems – and he could see that the human forces were losing, losing badly.

“The danger,” the Imperial observed, as calmly as if he were ordering dinner, “is that they will have a nuclear warhead they can use to blow up the base. If they have such a weapon, one that we have not been able to find, it might make life interesting.”

Hardly saw one of the Kijamanro stiffen slightly at the Imperial’s unconcern. The Kijamanro hated the Imperials; to them, any member of another race was nothing better than an animal. Hardly had met southern racists who had kinder thoughts about their own particular nemesis; the Kijamanro – literally – were natural racists. The fact that they served Imperials, a race that had crushed them almost effortlessly, was only the insult, added to injury. Hardly suspected that they would have been happier being exterminated; being pulverised and then dictated to by the Imperials had to grate on them.

Fuck them, Hardly thought. He pulled out a cigarette – nothing, but the best for those who served willingly – and lit it. The Imperials, whatever else someone could say about them, had done the galaxy a vast favour when they crushed the Kijamanro. Now…

“We have successfully secured the computer network,” a Bulterian reported. She – the Bulterian females had three breasts – sounded pleased; the Imperials could hack any human computer network without breaking a sweat. “The self-destruct system has been disabled.”

Hardly wondered, grimly, if the defenders would find a manual way to trigger the system, but it seemed not. The armoured Bulterians and Kijamanro smashed into the main complex, buried under the ground, and searched through it, using the human computer system and its primitive sensors to track down their targets. Half an hour after the attack had begun, the site was declared secure, and the Imperial transport landed. Hardly followed his master out onto the ground.

“Cold,” the Imperial commented, more to himself that to Hardly. He looked back at the Mirfak, and then at Hardly. “Which one is the commanding officer?”

Hardly’s eyes swept the group of surviving Americans. They didn’t look like a military unit any more, but they had fought well; a dozen Imperial soldiers had been killed, despite their battlesuits. They eyed him and he felt himself slipping backwards; they had to hate him. He'd chosen the winning team…and they were about to face the fate of those who chose the losing team. The rank badges hadn’t changed; doubtless they’d dared to hope that they were still American soldiers.

“That one,” he said, pointing to a blonde-haired man with a deeply-lined face. The Mirfak stepped forwards; his strange, almost plant-like hands extended, and gently touched the side of the commanding officer’s face. Hardly shuddered, seeing the reaction of the other defenders; they had to know what was happening. The Mirfak was literally reading the mind of their commanding officer.

“I have found it, Sire,” the Mirfak said, in his breathy voice. The CO slumped backwards and collapsed. “The items we seek are in an underground hanger, Hanger 18.”

“Come,” the Imperial said. “Show me.”

The Mirfak led the way, leaving behind a catatonic commanding officer and a group of stunned defenders. Most of them would go into the camps before long, just to keep them out of trouble, or they would be implanted and sent back to work as spies. Hardly followed, dropping his cigarette, as a group of armoured soldiers followed them, down a long hidden ramp into a massive hanger. A craft – he realised suddenly that it was a damaged Imperial fighter – lay on the hanger, half-dissembled.

“Wow,” he breathed. “How long has that been here?”

“That is not what we are looking for,” the Imperial said. He led the way through the hanger, looking for…something. “You?”

The Mirfak looked at the Imperial. “In there,” he said, pointing to a cabinet. Hardly frowned; alien artefacts were all around them, so what was so special about that cabinet? The Imperial nodded to Hardly, who stepped forward and pulled at the cabinet; it slid open effortlessly, revealing…

“My God,” Hardly breathed. The alien body in the wreckage wasn’t an Imperial, nor was it any race he knew, and he thought that he knew every race, apart from the Kerr. It was short, much shorter than a human, almost child-like, but its grey skin glittered with half-revealed metal and cyborg implants. “Is that yours?”

The Imperial was opening another cabinet as other Imperial servants came into the hanger. A taller version of the strange grey alien was revealed, looking almost human-sized; Hardly wondered where they had come from. It was…

“No,” the Imperial said. His voice cut Hardly’s thought off as he looked up at his master. There was something…unreadable on the Imperial’s face. “Not one of ours. Something else.”

Chapter Fifteen: Goodbye, Farewell, Come Back Soon

“I think that, whatever happens, this will be something new,” Erickson said. “I always wondered if I should transfer to the survey service.”

Evensong looked up from the bed. “I don’t think that being part of a survey fleet would have suited you,” she said. She was naked, looking utterly lovely in the light of the cabin. “You’re a commanding officer through and through.”

Erickson smiled and tapped a command into his personal computer. A holographic representation of what the Vanguard’s sensors saw, as the fleet gathered around Titan, appeared in front of them. Nearly twenty starships – three more would be joining the fleet near New Brooklyn after flying directly from convoy escort – were gathered around the moon; they would be leaving later in the day.

“I wonder if that means as much now,” he mused. “The Greys stole that from us when they invented their communicator. What’s the point of being a commanding officer if the senior officers can look over my shoulder?”

Evensong sat up and grinned. “I think that even the most irritating commanding officer would have problems bossing you about from light years away,” she said. “Commanding officers have considerable autonomy because they’re the people on the ground – well, the people in space – and they know what they’re doing. Even being able to signal Earth won’t change that, just like at Persian Station.”

Erickson nodded slowly. Persian Station had been created by two different corporations, mainly to save costs, with the net result that they had gotten their figures messed up and accidentally destroyed the station, along with thousands of lives. Spacers like Erickson hadn’t been able to understand it – in space, simplicity was everything – but the inquest had shown that the plans had looked good on paper, but when translated into real life, they had been about as possible as a working Orion spacecraft. The men on the spot had known what was wrong; higher authority had refused to allow them to fix it.

“It means more paperwork,” Erickson said wryly. “I really should start thinking about hiring a secretary for all of this.”

He waved a hand at the computer, which had dozens of requests he had to countersign, even though many of them could simply be referred to Admiral Glass’s office, which would bite the head off the offending supply officers. The mere concept of a trip as far as Centre, thousands of light years away from Earth, meant that the Vanguard dared not risk travelling on any damaged components. His chief engineer had obtained more components than he would have thought possible, including missiles and replacement weapons, just to ensure that they were as independent as possible.

“Just point them towards Admiral Glass,” Evensong said. “Of course, they don’t know about the fact that we’re off to Centre, so they probably think that you’re a selfish shit.”

Erickson gave her a droll look. “You’re hopeless,” he said. He shook his head slowly. “You know, I think that we pretty much are survey service now; the Empire has receded, having scattered dozens of races everywhere and really messed up the galactic map. We don’t know what we are going to find, if we visit Centre; the Imperials might be gone completely.”

“I doubt it,” Evensong said practically. “I once had a chance to glance at the unclassified report on Centre’s defences; the entire Imperial Fleet couldn’t break through them. I suppose that someone could have used c-fractional weapons against the Imperial homeworld, if it is their homeworld, but that would still leave thousands of them in orbital habitats and other worlds.”

Erickson lifted an eyebrow. “If it is their homeworld?”

“Some people were fond of speculating that Centre wasn’t their original homeworld,” Evensong said carelessly. “Even so, they’ve been on that world for at least ten thousand years, so perhaps they’ve forgotten themselves. It’s just that…there were some odd patterns in the original settlements they created, almost as if they saw Fermi’s Paradox and laughed at it – again.”

Erickson nodded. Fermi – a human scientist from before the Invasion – had pointed out that any alien race should have expanded over the galaxy before the human race grew into civilisation. He and his followers had then used it to explain why there were no aliens out there. The Imperials had laughed at it; the one time it had been discussed in the Fleet’s training centre, the tutor had pointed out that Fermi should have looked at the Sun, worked out just how many other Sun-like stars there were in the sky, and then put that as a possible number of nearby alien races. Aliens and humans…just didn’t think alike.

His face darkened. The Imperials, for reasons he suspected had more to do with a ‘white man’s burden’ attitude than anything else, had uplifted at least seven races from pre-space societies to becoming part of the Empire. They hadn’t been able to reach space on their own, but humans had, before the Invasion. Would humanity have had a higher status if they had reached for the stars? Yes.

He stepped into the shower and allowed the water to clean him and then the hot air to dry him, before stepping back out and pulling on his uniform. The Imperial Protocol expert had warned him to ensure that he had plenty of dress uniforms for everyone; the Imperials would expect it if they inspected the starship. For the moment, he could wear his normal uniform, and pretend it was a normal day.

“You’d better have a shower,” he said, watching with appreciation as Evensong stood up. They weren’t a married couple – regulations frowned on married couples serving together – but they had been living together for what seemed like months. A Fleet shrink – automatically the lowest form of life, at least in his book – had concluded that there were many more relations between crewmen than before the Grey War had broken out; the men and women of the Fleet were under more stress than ever before. Erickson wasn’t worried; all of the women of the Fleet had contraceptive implants, and as long as none of the regulations were broken in too…dramatic a manner, he found it hard to care.

“Yes, master,” Evensong said, giving him a ludicrously sassy twitch with her behind as she headed into the shower. Erickson had to laugh, and then settled back down in front of his computer, examining the reports from his first officer. They’d been working separate patterns for too long, giving them less time than he’d wanted to learn about her, but she had handled herself well during the battle near Utopia. Commander Miriam Rothschild was shaping up nicely; she would probably be stolen from the Vanguard, once they returned from Centre. The same would go for his other officers, some of whom had technically outstayed their rank; Admiral Glass had bent the rules for him, just because of the mission.

The console chimed. “Captain,” Ensign Lundy said, “you have a call from Admiral Glass.”

“Thank you,” Erickson said. “Please put him through.”

Glass’s face appeared in front of him. “Captain,” he said, by way of greeting. “Some interesting information has surfaced from Yardmaster Phelps.”

Erickson lifted an eyebrow. “The Imperial?”

“Oh, yes,” Glass said. “I’m attaching a private file for you – it was forwarded to me through the Grey Communicator network – but the gist of it is that the Greys were definitely active on Earth a thousand years ago, and the Imperials knew about this to the extent of recovering Grey bodies from Earth. God alone knows how they ended up there, but that means…”

Erickson could draw his own conclusion. “The Imperials knew about the Greys for a thousand years,” he said. “They…if they did, why didn’t they do anything about it?”

“Perhaps they did,” Glass said. “Even so, why are we only hearing from the Greys now?”

Erickson frowned. “Perhaps they have an empire of their own and Earth – more likely, the new sector – is on the edge of their space,” he suggested. “Or, maybe they decided to sit back and start building starships to fight the Imperials.”

“I would have expected to see more starships if they’d been building for a thousand years,” Glass said, after a moment’s thought. “It would make sense, I suppose, if they had an empire the size of the Empire, that they would have just as many problems as the Imperial Fleet when trying to concentrate their force.” He shook his head. “We’re speculating without hard evidence, here.”

“I know,” Erickson said. He looked down at his hands. “Do you have any other orders for us, sir?”

“I think that there will have to be a slight change in plans,” Glass said. “Your former subordinate Captain Middleton and Captain Brown will have to leave later than you, while you head to Utopia to pick up the freighters there. It runs some risks – the Greys might try to ambush you directly – but we can slip the information to Utopia and they can have a pair of heavy cruisers there to greet you.”

Erickson lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think that they would waste a few starships just to take out the Vanguard?”

“It’s possible,” Glass said. “How quickly could you leave, if you had to go?”

Erickson consulted his implants. “An hour,” he said. “Give us an hour after that and we’ll be on the Phase Limit and out towards Utopia. Is that what you want me to do?”

“Yes,” Glass said. “Any other points?”

“Just something,” Erickson said. “Are you sure that the Greys cannot listen into the Grey Communicator?”

“The scientists swear blind that the signals can only be heard by the reception unit,” Glass said. His face darkened. “Of course, they used to swear blind that FTL transmissions were impossible, and the Greys have so much more experience with their own systems than we do, so…every transmission is encrypted, which adds some extra protection, but we don’t know for certain.”

Erickson nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Glass met his eyes. “Captain, I don’t know what you’re getting into, but I wish you the best of luck.” He smiled grimly. “I’ll clear your departure with system command; good luck, from me and everyone else in the Fleet.”

His image vanished. Erickson pursed his lips and thought carefully, then tapped his console. “Miriam?” He asked. There was a moment while the computer found her and opened the channel. “I have news for you; it seems that we are leaving much earlier than we had been informed.”

He smiled at her reaction. “I’ll meet you in my office in twenty minutes,” he said. “We’ll just have to move as quickly as we can.”

Pausing to say goodbye to Evensong, who was still scrubbing herself in the shower, he stepped into the corridor and walked towards the bridge, passing several crewmembers who were working hard to ensure that the starship was ready to move. Chief Engineer Jorge Allmanritter saluted him as Erickson paused to examine a power conduit that had blown out during their final battle; the repair crew had quickly replaced it with a brand new system.

“We’re as good as we’ll ever be,” Allmanritter assured him, when Erickson asked. Chief Engineer was one of three specialised roles in the Fleet – the others being medical and intelligence – and he was an expert in his work. Erickson had known him for years. “There are some decks that need additional scrubbing – those nasty yardmen have been making a mess of my lovely floors – but apart from that we’re as good as we’re going to be, without going into a shipyard for replacing the computer core.”

“Not really possible under the circumstances,” Erickson said dryly. Replacing the starship’s computer cores was a task that could take months, months they didn’t have. “What about the replacement crewmen?”

“They’ll be up to scratch when we need them,” Allmanritter said cheerfully. “I have some of the Marines leaning damage control techniques, as well as how to repel boarders before they reach my systems.”

Erickson lifted an eyebrow. “Repel borders?”

“If there is a shortage of starships out there, someone might try to take this one off us,” Allmanritter pointed out.

“True,” Erickson agreed, and headed back to the bridge. The crew had been busy, preparing with frantic haste for their departure date; the bridge didn’t have the feeling of being his any longer. It was silly, he knew, but it would take time for him to settle back into his role. He made a quick check of the systems, and then entered his office; Commander Miriam Rothschild stood up to meet him.

“Commander,” he said, gravely. She was a short dark woman, clearly of Palestinian descent, with dark grave eyes that sparkled. She had served in the Zion Home Guard, rather than the Imperial Fleet; her experience was different to his, but it would be necessary. “Where do we stand?”

“We’re ready to move,” she said. Her voice had grown up a little; she’d seen fighting now. She also had something Erickson would have wanted, under other circumstances; experience in survey command. Zion had funded several missions from its own resources. “We can leave within the hour.”

“Good,” Erickson said. They briefly discussed their mission, quickly going through some of their final checks, before Erickson stepped back onto the bridge. An hour passed in frantic activity, ensuring that the Vanguard was almost as good as new, before they could proceed. Finally, it was time to leave. He felt almost like a child waiting for his birthday; the mission was something that he really wanted to do. Humans had never – really – had a chance to explore space, but now…

“Captain, system command has cleared us for departure,” Ensign Lundy said. His young voice was flushed with excitement; he would be a Lieutenant when they returned from Centre, perhaps a senior-grade Lieutenant. Erickson had to smile; everyone on the starship would rise up one grade when they returned, even though it would irritate the personnel department. “The flagship is wishing us good luck.”

“That would be Admiral Martin Solomon, the commander of the superdreadnaught Honor Harrington,” Erickson said. He sat back into his command chair. “Ensign, please signal Admiral Solomon and thank him for his good wishes; we’ll be back before he knows it.”

“Yes, sir,” Ensign Lundy said. His hands worked his systems; Erickson watched him, wondering if he had ever been that young. “Signal sent.”

Erickson smiled. “Helm, take us out,” he ordered. He couldn’t help a note of anticipation from gliding through his voice. “We want to be on our way.”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant-Commander Paul Lafarge said. His hand danced over his console, imputing the final command sequence. The dull note of the starship’s engines rose louder as the Vanguard slid out of orbit, pushing them away from Titan. Erickson tapped his console and called up an image of the moon, its surface mercifully clear for once, revealing the effects of nearly a thousand years – or had it been longer? – of Imperial development. Titan had once been called the best piece of real estate in the system; the Imperials had agreed. “We’re on our way.”

A flight of starfighters, armed and prepared for anti-shipping strikes, escorted them as they rose away from Titan. Admiral Glass had deployed his forces well; one group of superdreadnaughts were at Titan, another group were positioned near Earth. If the Greys attacked, threatening either target, Admiral Glass could have the force redeployed to concentrate against the threat before the attacker reached him. Other targets in the Sol System were covered by thousands of starfighters; it was a powerful defence force…and he had no illusions as to how long it would last if the Greys assembled a hammer big enough to take it out.

He watched grimly as they rose out above the system plane. The starfighters waggled their wings once at the cruiser and flew back towards their launch bays, orbiting Titan to provide additional starfighters for the defence of the world. Two other cruisers escorted the Vanguard out, knowing that only real firepower would deter a lurking Grey cruiser, assuming that one was watching for an easy target. They couldn’t risk it; if they couldn’t defend Earth and the shipping lanes, they were doomed.

“Captain, we are crossing the Phase Limit,” Lafarge reported, after a while. Erickson watched grimly as the display updated itself. “I have the course for Utopia laid in.”

Erickson smiled. “Prepare to enter Phase Space,” he ordered. Lieutenant Kevin Smarts was staring at his console. Erickson felt a flicker of alarm; the last time Smarts had looked like that, they had been jumped by two pirate ships, just before the Empire had collapsed and the Grey War began. “Lieutenant, problems?”

“I’m not sure,” Smarts said, after a moment. “There was just a blip of energy, right at the edge of sensor range, and then it was gone.” He frowned. “It could have been random energy flickers from the quantum field, or zero-point flicker, or something.”

“Or it could have been a cloaked ship,” Erickson said, wondering. He had the nasty feeling that someone was carefully placing a crosshairs on his back. “Tactical, sound Red Alert. Communications, signal Admiral Glass, inform him of the contact.”

“Yes, sir,” Lundy said. The howling of the Red Alert sirens echoed through the starship. “Signal sent.”

Erickson relaxed slightly. “Helm, take us into Phase Space,” he said. “It’s time to begin the journey.”

“Yes, sir,” Lafarge said. He sounded delighted; the mission had appealed to him, right from the start. He hit a single command on his console…and the starship flickered into Phase Space. “We’re on our way.”

Miriam looked up at him from her chair, surprised. “Captain?”

Erickson smiled. “If it was a cloaked ship, it would have to be very lucky to engage us,” he said. “Now we’re in Phase Space, it couldn’t even begin to track us…and we’re on our way. Right towards space that might as well be unexplored.” His smile grew wider. “We’re on our way.”

Chapter Sixteen: The Unwise Child

“I think that we’re approaching the Phase Limit,” Captain Samantha Jones said, silently wishing that the Greys would not be present in the Harmony system and that they could take the yacht somewhere more…civilised. Not that Kevin Collins was a civilised person, of course; Samantha knew more than she wanted to about his treatment of his body-slave, or of his repulsive habit of assuming that he was God’s gift to every woman in the universe. A trip to the heart of Morgan’s Kingdom would probably suit him fine.

She smiled as he came into the Michael Collins – named for one of the final American senators on Earth before the Invasion – bridge, carefully buckling up his pants. She hide the smile behind her hand as she turned to face the control console – no direct neural links for the yacht – and checked their position again; Kevin was stupid enough to believe that he would fit in perfectly among the pirates, who would eat him for breakfast. If it weren’t for the fact that they would do the same to Samantha herself, she would have suggested making the trip; Kevin, among other traits, was a coward; only the fear of his father kept him from ordering her to set out for a black colony somewhere.

“I trust that you will ensure that we can be seen when we arrive,” Kevin said, making it a statement. No, she reflected, he wasn’t exactly stupid…but like most aristocratic children, he thought that the world owed him respect just because of who his father was, rather than earning respect. His father had earned respect – he was a tough bastard at heart – but Kevin hadn’t yet made his mark. If he failed to do something spectacular enough to convince the House of Commons that his reputation was unjustified, he might be put aside in favour of one of his siblings, or even have the lordship passed to a different family altogether.

“Of course,” she said, cursing his father. Lord Collins had discovered enough about her past to know that she would face implantation herself if she ever fell into the hands of the Imperials; she knew that simply deserting his son wasn’t a possibility, not if she wanted to return to the Human Union. If that meant ignoring his sexual advances, when she wanted to slap him through the bulkhead, she could endure it, for the moment.

Her lips twitched. Once they returned from the suicide mission, assuming that they did survive, she would have them over a barrel. “The Greys, assuming that they have tech like us, will be capable of detecting a transit flux in normal space at up to ten AUs past the Phase Limit,” she said, taking refugee in technobabble. Kevin looked blank. “Stealth ships have to come in from further out and keep their drives stepped down and their cloak engaged to slip into the system.”

“Good,” Kevin said, looking uncharacteristically unconfident. “How long until they respond to our hails?”

Samantha hesitated. Kevin’s plan to contact the Greys had a touch of simplicity around it, which wasn’t a bad thing, but it was dangerous. He had wanted them to drop out of Phase Space right next to the Harmony complex – which was not only impossible, but likely to have the Greys launching missiles at them in any case – and she’d had to talk him out of it. No one knew what happened – in scientific teams – what happened when a starship hit the Phase Limit, but spacers knew that the starship was never seen again.

“I think that we will attract interest from them right from the start,” she said, knowing that she was almost certainly right. The Greys would be foolish to let them move around the system at will, poking through for intelligence about their movements. “Once one of their starships gets near, we’ll transmit our message and see who answers.”

“Good,” Kevin said again, taking the command chair. She ignored the implied insult; she had to command the starship from the helm console, which meant that if they had to fight, they would be seriously undermanned. Lord Collins had spent more than a billion credits on the ship, but automation and AI could only do so much, or drones would be the next superweapon. AIs just didn’t have nasty little human minds. “Take us out.”

Samantha rolled her eyes, but complied, bringing the starship into normal space, at rest. She’d wanted to come out at maximum speed, but Kevin had protested; he had vomited badly during the first part of the trip, and he didn’t want to repeat the experience. The memory was one of her most amusing memories. The lights flickered back into stars…and, ahead of them, she could see Harmony’s star.

“That’s the star,” Samantha said, very softly. It was the furthest she had ever been from Earth; Kevin seemed to pick up on a little of her mood. A console chimed and she glanced down; someone – or something – had just lit off its drive. “Kevin, we have company.”

“Don’t call me Kevin,” Kevin snapped. He stood up and paced over to her console. His breath, tainted with joyjuice, touched her nostrils and she fought to prevent herself from feeling sick. Joyjuice was not only additive, but somehow only tasty to the person drinking it; nanites alone couldn’t clear it out of someone’s system. “What is that?”

“A large starship, one AU out, coming our way,” Samantha said. She felt herself growing nervous as the Grey starship took shape and form on her display. “It was lurking there, waiting.”

Kevin blinked. “It was waiting for us?”

“I doubt it,” Samantha said. If Lord Collins could have contacted the Greys any other way, he would have done so without sending his son and heir into their clutches. “I think that it was just waiting for someone to come and fall into its web.” She tapped her console. “Sir, this is the last chance to leave now, without contacting the Greys.”

“My father has issued his orders,” Kevin said, shaking slightly. “Transmit the first signal.”

Samantha tapped a preset key on her console. “The signal has been transmitted,” she said. The Grey starship was drawing closer, and closer; she could make out its class now, a battlecruiser, perhaps one modified by them to act as a picket ship. It was well within signals range now, so why wasn’t it answering? “They’re not responding.”

Kevin took a breath. “Send the signal again,” he ordered. “I want them to listen to us.”

“We are not exactly in a position to dictate terms,” Samantha observed wryly, as the Grey starship moved closer. It wasn’t emitting anything hostile, no tracking radar or targeting systems, but it hardly needed such systems, not when they were transmitting to it repeatedly. “I don’t think…”

Her console buzzed. “They’re talking to us,” she said. She had become convinced that they were merely going to pop off a missile once they entered weapons range. “They’re actually trying to talk!”

Kevin smiled. “I told you so,” he said, his voice thin. “Put it on.”

“Identify yourself,” a voice said. Samantha had never heard a voice like that before, not from any alien or AI that she’d ever heard; it seemed to be thin and sibilant, almost a high-pitched hiss. It sounded as if the speaker wasn't used to speaking at all. “Identify yourself or this unit will open fire.”

Samantha opened a channel. “This is Lord Kevin Collins of the House of Lords,” Kevin said, borrowing his father’s title. “I would like to meet with your leaders to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire between your forces and humanity.”

There was a long pause, almost two long. “You will be boarded,” the voice said finally. “Remain exactly where you are or you will be destroyed. Resistance is futile.”

“How…cliché,” Samantha muttered, as the channel closed. The Grey battlecruiser was closing in on them; she could almost see it through the starship’s optical sensors. Her mind reeled; starships just didn’t come close enough so that they could be seen with the naked eye, it just…wasn't done. “Sir…”

The Grey battlecruiser came to a stop, far too close to the Michael Collins for comfort, and a sensor bleeped an alarm as…objects started to move from the battlecruiser, heading towards her ship. She cursed once, checking the system, and then froze; she’d half-expected missiles, or limpet mines, but what they were seeing shocked both of them. Greys, dozens of Greys, were crossing space, without wearing spacesuits or any protection at all.

The hull thumped as the first Grey landed on the hull and fixed itself onto the starship. “You will open the airlock,” the voice instructed. Samantha obeyed without consulting Kevin, who was still staring at the screen; moments later, the first Grey stepped into the bridge. A second followed, dragging an unresisting naked Sara, her body torn with welts and bruises. “You will stand aside.”

It took her a moment, stunned by the sudden evidence of just what Kevin’s sexual tastes consisted of, to realise that it was the first Grey that had spoken. She vacated her seat and watched as the Grey stepped up to the console, and then pushed its hand directly against the console, making a direct connection with her computer. Up close, the Grey was an appalling sight, a strange and terrifying mixture of flesh and metal; it stank, somehow deeply corrupt. It’s eyes, black pools of shadow, showed no emotion; it started to input commands as if it had been flying the Michael Collins all of its life.

“We’re moving,” Kevin said. Samantha mentally gave him a prize for stating the obvious; the Greys hadn’t bothered to deactivate any of the sensors, which she suspected meant that they weren’t worried about them seeing anything, because they intended to kill them once they reached Harmony…except, they could have been killed at once, had the Greys wanted to kill them. “Where are we going?”

Samantha said nothing. The flight passed in silence, broken only by some quiet questions from Kevin to the Greys, who said nothing. She saw, through the sensors, as they approached the gas giant…and saw dozens of starships, including at least twenty-one superdreadnaughts, orbiting the star. Something…so big her mind refused to grasp it loomed in front of them; it looked like a madman’s dream space complex, large and blocky and completely out of control.

The starship drifted up to the complex; there was a moment of banging and thumping, and then the hatch opened. She felt a sudden wave of panic – all the reports suggested that the Greys preferred to have no atmosphere at all in their starships – but the air was breathable, although foul. She wanted to grab a mask as the Greys escorted them out of the starship, but the Greys gave them no time, pushing at them when they didn’t move fast enough.

One of the Greys led the way, into a complex out of nightmare. Greys were everywhere, swarming over the complex, sometimes walking up the walls or floating through the air as they carried out their complex tasks. Lights flickered on and off randomly, blinding her and sometimes making her feel dizzy; Sara, oddly enough, seemed unaffected. They passed a piece of opened wall that seemed somehow terrifying; she looked inside and saw brains, far too many brains to count. Some of the brains were human.

Lights flared…and she almost lost control of herself. She had lost track of time; it felt as if they had walked through the Grey nightmare for eternity. Kevin was sniffling quietly, scared to death; Samantha shared, for once, his feelings. The Greys might have agreed to hear them – and she wasn’t sure that that was what they had meant – but they clearly felt no obligation to make their guests welcome.

A wave of cold struck her as a massive door opened, revealing a single chair placed neatly in the centre of the room. The room itself was dark and bare, without any of the Grey computers they seemed to use to decorate their starships, but all of her attention was focused on the chair as it turned around, revealing a single Grey – a larger Grey. She stared at the Grey, trying to understand it, and sensed, somehow, that the Grey was very old. It seemed to be studying Kevin, its dark eyes peering right into his skull; suddenly, it turned and stared at Samantha.

She felt weak at the knees; the Grey seemed to hold her in place by the force of its gaze. It stared at her for what felt like years, but could only have been minutes, and then it moved its gaze to Sara. The body-slave wasn't important, clearly; the Grey looked at her, then looked back at Kevin.

It’s voice was more…human than the voice of the smaller Greys. “You wanted to talk to us?”

Kevin stared at the Grey, clearly on the verge of panic. Samantha forgot her dislike of him and reached out a hand, squeezing his hand tightly; Kevin forced himself to stand up. The Grey watched them without concern; she had the feeling that it could have waited for years before they answered without running out of patience.

“I represent a faction on Earth – that’s the human homeworld, sir – that wants peace between your people and ours,” Kevin said, forgetting the long speech that his father had written for him. The Grey’s head tilted to one side as Kevin talked; Samantha suddenly realised what scared her the most about it. The room was silent, not even a hum of engines in the background, and she couldn’t hear it breathing. “We would be interested in forming a peace treaty to end the war.”

The Grey seemed to consider. Samantha was certain that it already knew what it wanted to say; it was just…considering all the angles first. “We have our requirements for our survival,” it said. Its voice seemed neither pleased nor displeased; it simply was. “The Imperials have suppressed our requirements long enough.”

Samantha felt her head spin. Had the Imperials traded with the Greys, abandoning the Human Sector just to let the Greys move in? How could a race as powerful as the Greys have escaped notice for so long? Her mind fought to remain calm; she didn’t dare panic, not now.

“We are not the Imperials,” Kevin said, his voice somehow smaller compared to the Grey’s voice. The Grey was old; she wondered if it had been old when the human race was young. “We don’t have any link with them, not any longer.”

If the Grey had been human, it would have laughed. “Your ship is powered by Imperial technology,” it said. “We have examined it and scanned its computers; they are based on Imperial systems. You are the children of their Empire.”

Kevin said nothing. He seemed to shrink back into himself under that cold regard. “We will hear you,” the Grey said. “If we were to discuss a peace with your people, it would come with a price; you have been servants of the Imperials too long.”

Kevin gasped for breath. “We would have to know what you would offer us,” he said. Samantha blinked at his comment. “I am authorised to surrender New Brooklyn and the human worlds in the new sector to you, if you will agree to spare only the remaining human worlds.”

Samantha knew, right then, that it would fail. The Greys had those worlds already – well, they had New Brooklyn and the pirate-held worlds wouldn’t last ten minutes if the Greys decided that they wanted them – so why should they deal? The only thing that Kevin could offer them was to sell out other human worlds…and she wondered if Lord Collins was prepared to go that far.

“Perhaps,” the Grey said. It shifted its body slightly, moving to look closer at Kevin. “Those worlds are already in our hands; are you seeking to act like King Morgan?”

Kevin nodded. Samantha felt her mouth fall open. “We would be willing to work with you to end the war,” Kevin said. He was sweating, despite the cold; Samantha wondered spitefully if it would freeze on his body. “If that meant accepting your…supremacy in certain issues, then it could be accepted.”

Samantha had the odd feeling that the Grey was laughing at them. It’s face was expressionless – it could show almost no expression – but she somehow knew. “That would be acceptable,” the Grey said. “You would have to send us a tithe; we require humans to work for us.”

Kevin nodded desperately. “My friend here” – he indicated Sara – “is willing to do anything for us.”

“You would be required to send us information on human deployments and human slaves,” the Grey said shortly. It’s head tilted back to look down at Samantha. She flinched back under the force of its regard. “Is that acceptable to you?”

Samantha shook her head. “Sir, it’s madness,” she protested. She threw caution out the window. Trying to make a peace was one thing, but actively betraying the Human Union was another. The Greys couldn’t be trusted. “You don’t know that they’ll keep their word.”

The Grey didn’t seem offended. “We know that you are in charge,” it said, looking at Kevin. It seemed to dismiss Samantha in one moment. “We have scanned your vessel’s computers. Do you accept our terms?”

Samantha looked at him. Kevin refused to meet her eyes. “Yes,” he said. His voice was shaking with fear and a chilling desire for power. “Peace must come, whatever the price.”

“No,” Samantha said. Something was pushing at her, forcing her to talk. “I won’t let this happen.”

Something caught onto her arm; she looked down and saw one of the little Greys. It held her hand in a grip of steel, holding her tightly, and then it held something against her body. She heard a brief whine…and then blackness…and then the pain began.

Chapter Seventeen: Operation Mousetrap, Take One

“You know, this could go very badly wrong,” Commander Clifford Trout said, his voice echoing through their private channel. “If we get the timing wrong, or if something else happens, we could lose all of the task force.”

Nancy nodded. They were gambling, gambling in their determination to give the Greys a black eye. She’d worked out the plan with Captain – temporarily Commodore – Brown, but war was a democracy; the enemy got a vote as well. The Greys had probably never heard of democracy, but she was confident that they would be willing to do anything to avoid a second successful strike on the New Brooklyn system. If everything went right…

She sat back in her command chair and forced herself to concentre on the mission. “Sound red alert,” she said. They’d committed themselves to Operation Mousetrap as soon as they finalised the plans and launched themselves back into Phase Space. “All hands to battle stations. Rosalyn?”

“The fighter pilots are ready to launch,” Rosalyn assured her. The CAG’s voice was firm and confident; she knew what her people could do. Like all CAG officers, she was a former fighter pilot herself; she knew what she was doing. “The ready groups are ready to launch on your command.”

“Ensure that we only launch from the fore tubes,” Nancy said, reminding her again of the most dangerous problem facing them. “If we mess this up, the entire deception will be worse than useless.”

“My pilots weren’t happy, but they understood,” Rosalyn assured her. “They’ll handle the launch properly.”

Nancy nodded. The countdown was falling faster now, right down towards zero, when they would re-enter normal space…and do it fast enough to suggest that they had drained all of their energy in the raid. The shipyard officers would have a lot of sharp things to say about the wear and tear on her equipment – and they would insist that repairs came out of her budget – but if it worked, it would be worth the effort. If it worked…

“Stand by to re-enter normal space,” Lieutenant Jackie Robinson said. There was a low note of feral excitement in his voice; he’d taken to the Mousetrap plan with glee – Nancy had been happy to leave much of the tactical planning in his hands. It involved using the newer technology – stolen from the Greys – to plan a trap, something that the Greys themselves had perfected when they’d ambushed Admiral Johnston. “Ten, nine, eight…”

Nancy smiled grimly. Payback was going to be such a bitch…

“Two, one…emergence,” Robinson said. Nancy clutched her stomach automatically as her lunch tried to force its way back up her throat. Several of her crewmen were moaning in pain – the emergence had been rougher than it needed to be – but her implants assured her that the pain would be gone quickly. “Captain, we have emerged at the correct point.”

“I never doubted you,” Nancy said. The pain was fading already. “Tactical?”

“Sensors have located Bogey One,” Lieutenant-Commander Gustav Von Rosenberg reported. “Captain, I think they’ve seen us.”

“I’m not surprised,” Nancy muttered. The fleet would have been detectable right across the New Brooklyn system; they certainly hadn’t tried to hide. “The ECM?”

“It never flickered,” Von Rosenberg assured her. “They know we’re here, but not exactly what we are.”

Nancy nodded. “Ensign, transmit the results to the rest of the fleet,” she ordered. “Tactical, stand by to engage; CAG, launch starfighters, ready flight only.”

“Bogey One is altering course, coming to meet us,” Von Rosenberg said. “I’m getting some targeting sensors, right on schedule.”

Nancy forced herself to relax. They’d cast the die; all that mattered now was playing their part. Intelligence had managed, at least, to get some of the details right; the Greys had been right where they’d placed them, back when they’d met the Intelligence ship near New Brooklyn. All that mattered now was ensuring that the Greys didn’t get suspicious…before it was too late.

Intelligence had proven it’s worth, for once; they’d flung up a network of stealth and sensor platforms around the Phase Limit of New Brooklyn, trying to parse out the secrets around the Grey deployments. She knew that they’d been wanting to do the same procedure to Harmony, but their resources just didn’t allow them to cover two star systems, not at present. Harmony had to be monitored by a handful of starships making the occasional sweep; it just wasn’t good enough.

“They’re taking the bait, Captain,” Von Rosenberg said, as the moments passed. “They don’t know what we are.”

“Keep us spinning, evasive action,” Nancy ordered. The Greys had pulled off enough surprises on the human race; it was time to hit them back. “Don’t let them get a clear look at our drive signatures, helm, make it look like we’re running away like little sissy girls.”

“Aye, Captain,” Robinson said. “Evasive pattern Run for It engaged.”

Nancy smiled grimly. The Greys had tech the human race – or the Imperials – hadn’t suspected existed, but humanity had some advantages of its own, starting with sensor tech and ECM. The Greys had much more limited systems – she had been told that people trying to reverse engineer Grey tech believed that more advanced ECM would interfere with their computer datanet – and at the moment, her ECM was in full deception mode. To the Greys, without any hope of getting a visual on her ships, they looked like an attack force that had accidentally mistimed their return to normal space…and then run smack into a Grey patrol force.

Her smile deepened. The Greys might have drawn the line at engaging a fleet carrier, crippled or not; her ECM was currently claiming that the Lightning was a light carrier, along with its five consorts. The heaviest unit she seemed to possess was a heavy cruiser, which was currently swinging into position for a desperate last-ditch attempt to cover the carriers…if they had been really running for it. The Greys had no way of knowing that they had tracked the Grey patrol force – three superdreadnaughts, five cruisers and a dozen light cruisers configured to hunt down starfighters – from a distance, and drawn up Mousetrap around it. If the timing was right…

“Stand by,” she ordered. The Imperials – and God knew that the Greys didn’t seem to disagree – had been insistent on keeping interstellar warfare as simple as possible; the more components to the plan, the more things that could go spectacularly wrong. She and Captain Brown had made the decision to dump the KISS principle, just this once, and hopefully the Greys would be surprised. The Imperials would have gone in all guns blazing…and the Greys would have fallen back and rendezvoused with the rest of their fleet. This time, it would be different. “Send the signals and keep updating…”

She took a breath. The Greys knew – or thought they knew – that her ships couldn’t return to FTL without some time to recharge; they had every incentive to chase them down and destroy them. She could have cloaked and scattered the fleet, had she wanted to run, but the Greys wouldn’t have tried to waste their time searching for cloaked ships this far from New Brooklyn. Any moment now…

“Transits,” Lieutenant Caroline Porter snapped. Nancy felt herself tense; the enemy still had a vote in the outcome. “They’re our ships!”

Nancy felt endless relief as the icons for two human superdreadnaughts, four battlecruisers and ten heavy cruisers appeared on his display, between her force and the surprised Greys. The Greys would be racing to hit the firing button, convinced that they would get in at least one good shot…and the human starships opened fire. The superdreadnaughts belched a hail of missiles towards the Grey superdreadnaughts, hammering at their defences, and confusing the Greys. Nancy smiled; the Greys didn’t seem to have understood some of the possibilities in their own technologies, or perhaps they had been too wedded to the KISS principle to see them.

“Heavy impacts on the leading superdreadnaught,” Lieutenant Caroline Porter reported. The Greys had to have been astonished at the sudden accuracy of what seemed like random shots; hadn’t they realised that Nancy could have been feeding information using their own communicator to another fleet? “The Greys are returning fire.”

“Launch all starfighters and drop the ECM,” Nancy ordered. There was no point in keeping the ECM any longer; as soon as the Greys counted the starfighters, they would know what they were facing. “All squadrons, but White, are to move to cover the superdreadnaughts from the Grey fire; allow the big boys to clear the anti-starfighter ships out the way before you move in and attack the superdreadnaughts.”

Space became a maelstrom of boiling energy as both sides engaged. There was no longer any subtly in the fighting; five superdreadnaughts were fighting it out for superiority, while the smaller ships attempted to cover the larger ships, melding their weapons with the larger ships to provide additional coverage for them from enemy fire. Both sides were launching thousands of missiles, slamming away at each of the larger ships; the Greys were fighting with their usual cold determination to win, humans with fury and ferocity. Grey drones flashed towards the superdreadnaughts and human starfighters lunged to intercept them, others slipped around the superdreadnaughts, heading for the carriers and building up speed.

“They’re suicide strikes,” Von Rosenberg said. “Captain?”

“All point defence to engage at will,” Nancy said, very coldly. Thousands of drones might just succeed in striking the Lightning; the two hundred that had been launched at her were just cannon fodder. She’d half-expected the Greys to have cut and run by now; they were brave, but they were far from stupid. “White squadron, move to intercept.”

Space flickered and flared as the Lightning’s escorts wove a deadly web of laser and plasma cannon fire down between the carrier and her assailants. Nancy scowled, noticing that the Greys had targeted the Lightning in particular; somehow, they had identified her as the command ship. It might have been a coincidence, but she doubted it; there had been easier targets than her ship, including her other fleet carrier.

A Grey drone almost made it; it was picked off just short of her shield perimeter. She watched as its icon vanished from the display; there were no hints of antimatter weapons, or something that would be dangerous even in defeat. She smiled as the Greys seemed to hesitate, and then…

A Grey superdreadnaught exploded.

For a long moment, there was nothing, but the brilliant ball of plasma as warheads detonated inside the starship, blowing it apart. Her display hazed slightly as it fought to break through the sudden wave of distortion, before clearing, to reveal that the Greys were trying to break contact. She frowned; she would have expected them to try to blow through Commodore Brown’s ships, rather than trying to reverse course, but they were clearly fighting to reverse their course. A Grey superdreadnaught, almost at rest relative to the human starships, was turning to expose its other broadside to the human superdreadnaughts; it belched missiles as if they were going out of fashion.

“That was the last Grey drone killed,” Caroline said. Her voice was delighted; they were all combat veterans now. “Bogey One-3 is taking serious damage, but so is General Wellington…”

“Commodore Brown is ordering the starfighters forward to cover the General Wellington,” Ensign Uganda said. “He wants us to prepare to advance if necessary.”

Nancy nodded. The carrier had suffered no damage, apart from the loss of seven fighters, five to Grey drones. No one would ever know what had happened to the other two. She checked her systems reflexively, just in case, but everything was fine. The sensor drones were still expanding out, watching for cloaked ships, but she suspected that if there were other Grey starships around, they would have interfered by now. A threat to the carriers would have forced Commodore Brown to release her fighters…

Two Grey cruisers exploded as human starships concentrated their fire on them, wiping the smaller craft out of existence as they fought to cover the larger ships. The Greys had to posses comparable limitations to humanity when it came to building new superdreadnaughts – if they could build them faster, the war was within shouting distance of being lost – which meant they had to cover the ships they had, which meant that they couldn’t spare point defence to cover the smaller craft, which meant…

She showed her teeth. Her starfighters were falling on the Grey superdreadnaughts as they fought to cover themselves, hacking away at their defences and searching for their few vulnerable spots. If they scored a hit on one of the vulnerable points – actually placed a missile inside the starship – the Grey ship was in serious trouble. It might survive one strike, but the effects of dozens of strikes would be fatal. A Grey drone carrier was destroyed, almost nothing in the maelstrom of energy surrounding the superdreadnaughts, and then a second Grey superdreadnaught exploded. Seven starfighters vanished in the ball of rapidly expanding plasma, destroyed before their pilots could even blink, and then…

“Captain, I’m detecting charging Phase Drives,” Caroline said. “They’re…”

The display flickered. When it cleared, the remaining Grey starships had vanished into Phase Space. “Bugging out,” Nancy said coldly. “Sensors, did we get a track on them?”

“I don’t think that I had enough to make a really accurate prediction, but at least a light year away,” Caroline said, after a moment of checking. “Captain, I think we won.”

“The first battle, yes,” Nancy said. She sat back. “Communications, open a channel to Commodore Brown.”

She smiled tiredly as Brown’s face appeared on the display. “Nancy,” he said, something intended to be tactful, a reminder that they were still social equals. Nancy sometimes thought that it was protocol, not zero-point energy, that powered the Fleet. “Good work.”

Nancy smiled. Her implants were already clearing away the stress of the battle. Being live bait wasn't conductive to good health. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I think that your ships did just as well.”

“Thank you,” Brown said dryly. “I’m sending the General Wellington back to Earth; she’s just too damaged to risk taking into battle again. Are your ships in acceptable condition?”

“Some of my pilots could do with a rest, but otherwise we’re fine,” Nancy assured him. “They only sent a few drones out to meet us.”

“Lucky you,” Brown said. If the Admiral Yamamoto had been targeted instead of the General Wellington, Brown would have had to hand command over to her and return to Earth with the damaged starship. “I think, then, that we can proceed with the second stage of the plan, while the Greys are still scrambling to respond to this sharp defeat.”

Nancy understood the unspoken question, the question that could never be asked openly, and tried to convoy her unspoken response. “I concur, sir,” she said. It was as close as she could come to reassuring the man who was, however temporarily, her superior officer…and the man ultimately responsible for all of them. “I suggest, however, that we move as quickly as possible.”

Brown nodded. “Good,” he said. “We will merge the two fleets, and then proceed.”

The connection broke. “We have our orders from fleet command,” Ensign Uganda said. His voice no longer had the nervous tremor he’d had when he’d assumed his post. “We are to move up and link with the other starships.”

“Helm, take us in,” Nancy said. They could have micro-jumped through Phase Space, just to make it quicker, but this close to the Phase Limit, she knew that it was far too dangerous. The risk of overshooting was too high. “Rosalyn?”

“My people need a rest,” Rosalyn said, echoing Nancy’s own words. “They’re still willing to do what they have to do.”

“Good,” Nancy said, as the Lightning slowly slid into the heart of the human formation and began its flight down towards their target. They’d decided earlier that there was little point in being subtle; the Greys would have to be stupider than a particularly stupid Cnc to miss their target…the only question was what they could do about it. “I want a shell of recon fighters out watching for trouble, such as cloaked ships, and two squadrons covering the fleet. The others can rest and prepare for launch, as soon as possible.”

“You do work them hard,” Rosalyn observed. Nancy refused to rise to the bait. “I’ll have the orders issued at once.”

“We have linked into the fleet defence datanet,” Von Rosenberg said. “If the Greys launch an attack, it could get interesting for us, and unpleasant for them.”

Nancy scowled. Using a fleet carrier in such a role was asking for trouble; not even an assault carrier could handle the sheer fury of a full-scale fleet action. Carriers were meant to hang back, avoiding enemy fire, but she knew that there was little choice. They had to use what asserts they had available, and they had far too few to always do the ideal action.

Time passed as the fleet sped into the system. Even at their speed, nearly a third of the speed of light, it took time to reach their destination; Nancy knew that the Greys would do something to interfere with them, apart from the defences around the asteroid field. What? What could they do? In their place, she would at least have tried to prepare an ambush. She watched the displays, waiting for the penny to fall.

It fell.

“Captain, I have multiple emissions from near New Brooklyn,” Caroline said. Her voice was grim. “I think they’ve taken the trick of mounting the drones on missiles and improved on it.”

Nancy smiled. “We have improved on our systems as well,” she reminded her. She had expected the Greys to do that; it was their most logical course of action. She’d worked out one possible solution to the Grey trick, something – again – that would only work once, but once would be enough. “Time to intercept?”

“Thirty minutes, if they push it,” Caroline said. “Orders?”

“Stand by to engage,” Nancy said. Victory in this war would go to the side that thought up the last trick. “Order the ready flight to prepare for launch, and then raise Commodore Brown. Inform him…that its time for Phase Two of Operation Mousetrap.”

Chapter Eighteen: We’re Not Going Away to Bide Away

Space was silent. No sounds travelled in space. The Greys could not have heard the Sneaky Bastard’s crew, even if they had been less than a kilometre close to the starship; they whispered anyway. There was something utterly exhilarating about slipping through the heart of the Grey defences…and yet, Commander Avishai Sumrall knew that she was scared. The Greys had adapted their systems, building even more sensors…and, with their cyborg minds to monitor the results, even the merest flicker of betraying energy would give them away.

They spoke in whispers.

“That’s the fleet,” Kate Tamara said, as battle flared at the edge of the New Brooklyn system. They’d been sneaking in for a week; the fleet had come in with all guns blazing, firing enough weapons to concern even the Greys. They watched in silence as the trap was set…and Grey starships died. “They just killed one of the big buggers.”

Avishai ran her hand through her long dark hair. She had refused to cut it, ever since they had fled the system, until they completed their mission. She had wanted to attack the Grey shipyard directly, even volunteering for a suicide attack, but Admiral Glass had refused permission to try to sneak an antimatter mine close to the shipyard. She had to admit that he had a point, but it galled her to allow the Greys to get away with so much.

“That only leaves twenty,” she said, as the Grey superdreadnaughts brought up their weapons. They’d monitored Grey movements from a safe distance – as if any distance was truly safe when the universe held little Grey monsters – and they’d tracked Grey patrols; the Greys had been expanding their control over near-New Brooklyn space by flying superdreadnaughts around the Phase Limit. She’d wondered why they were wasting their time – even though the fleet had used it to mousetrap a Grey force – but now she wondered if they had a point. As Grey forces brought up their drives, revealing themselves to her prying sensors, she could see a pattern developing.

“They wanted to trap our force here,” she muttered. If the deception had been real – if the human fleet had been what it appeared to have been – the Greys would have wiped it out at little cost. “Why?”

“I don’t understand,” Kate said. She had more experience in fleet movements and the problems they caused than most Fleet senior officers. Avishai wanted to keep her, not just for the obvious benefits; she knew enough to know when something was wrong. “This world can’t be that important to them, can it? Twenty superdreadnaughts and nearly a hundred smaller starships, they could have knocked out almost any world within the Human Union.”

She scowled. “Hell, I’m not sure they couldn’t have knocked out Earth if they had tried again as soon as they lost the last fight,” she said. “Why?”

Avishai stared down at the Grey emissions, trying to pull it into a coherent picture. “I don’t know,” she said. There were thousands of smaller Grey ships now, many of them mining vessels, along with a handful of human craft that were either crewed by collaborators or had simply been taken over by the Greys. They weren’t warships, but miners; she had the uneasy feeling that New Brooklyn was well on its way to becoming a major Grey shipping node, perhaps something comparable to the Sirius Yards. “Perhaps…”

She ran her hand over her console, wishing, not for the first time, that they had better information on what made the Greys tick. The scale of the Grey effort dwarfed the creation of the Sirius Yards, which had been built up over nearly a thousand years, and it had to cost them something, even if they didn’t use Imperial-style economics. She wondered if they could slip a few escort carriers, armed with starfighters with shipkillers, into the system to harass the Greys, before realising that it would be useless. There were just too many mining ships; where had they all come from?

A console chimed. “I think that we’re seeing the official response to the probe,” Kate said. The five Intelligence crewmen and the twelve SAS soldiers were the only people who knew that the probe was intended to cover their entry into the system. The display altered as large Grey missiles launched from what seemed like empty space; she was confident that they would carry drones, like they had a month ago. This time, the fleet was ready for that trick.

Other Grey starships lit off their own drives, powering out of New Brooklyn orbit. “That’s at least seven superdreadnaughts and fifteen battlecruisers, along with more drones, taking the slow path,” Kate continued. “I wonder – that lot is not going to meet the fleet unless the Fleet slips up.”

Avishai nodded. “That’s what they call a long shot,” she said. “They still have enough to cover New Brooklyn, while they can attack the fleet and force it to take its winnings and run, rather than risk an engagement. If the fleet tries to fight, they win; if the fleet runs, they still come out ahead.”

She looked back at the display covering near-orbital space covering New Brooklyn. The Greys had been busy; they’d not only assembled three more heavy orbital weapons platforms, but remote platforms, free-floating missiles, and a massive swarm of mines. Mines were outdated as weapons of war, just because any starship with anti-mine weapons could clear a path even through antimatter mines, but in such densities…

She looked again and knew what they were for. “We’re going to have to be very careful,” she said. Intelligence regularly scrubbed all starship records of any mention at all of stealth ships, but it wouldn’t be hard for the Greys to deduce their existence, even if they hadn’t come across a missed reference. If they got too close to a mine, they would be very likely to be engaged before they could evade it…which would reveal their presence to the Greys…and the Greys had placed their weapons with diabolical accuracy.

“You’re telling me,” Kate said. “Shall I tell the ground pounders?”

Avishai shook her head. There was one other detail that made their mission of utter importance; the Sneaky Bastard was carrying a pair of stealth landing craft under its wings. One of the landing craft held all twelve of the SAS soldiers, who were currently in hibernation stasis, apart from their commanding officer. Avishai thought a command into her implant and the communications link opened; she felt his cool regard, even though the dispassionate link.

“Captain,” Captain Anung Sato said. Avishai had half-expected a group of cocky squaddies who would have hit on her female personnel and demanded that she perform miracles for them. The cool disciplined mind of Captain Sato and his two sergeants – most of the soldiers had been in hibernation stasis right from the start – had been a welcome relief, even though Nadia claimed that it had been a disappointment. “What’s happening?”

“The little grey bastards have been busy,” Avishai said shortly. She’d assumed that he was accessing her ship’s sensors through his own implants. “They’re going to make this tricky.”

She scowled, twisting one long strand of her hair around her fingers, thinking hard. The problem was that the landing craft would have to descend in a pattern that would make it very easy to spot…and nothing was more conspicuous than a starship trying to hide itself with increasing desperation. The Greys would have plenty of time to track it and destroy it, unless the craft looked like something else. A falling piece of space debris, perhaps, or an asteroid.

She shook her head. The Greys, assuming that they had anything in common with humanity at all, would have programmed their automatic servants to fire on asteroids automatically. That meant that the landing craft would have to pretend to be a piece of debris, one small enough to avoid being noticed by the Greys, one large enough to survive the fall through the atmosphere without seeming to be too lucky.

“There’s a ton of wreckage in a decaying orbit here,” she said, after outlining her conclusions. Sato did not disagree with her. She found that rather reassuring. “The Greys” – she consulted quickly the records taken from the Battle of New Brooklyn – “destroyed a set of platforms and then ignored the wreckage for some reason.”

Sato’s puzzlement sounded even though the atonal link. “There must have been some reason,” he said. “Does it look odd to you?”

Avishai studied what little her passive sensors could pick up. “Slightly higher than normal radiation count, but nothing else,” she said, after a moment. “Perhaps they just looked at the radiation and decided that it wasn't worth the bother.”

“I suppose,” Sato said. His voice seemed almost alarmed for the moment. “If we go through there, where will we land?”

Avishai had worked that out already. “You’ll be thirty kilometres from your planned landing site, using the back-up site,” she said. “You could use the boat’s systems and hover closer, but that might draw attention from the Greys and that would be…fatal.”

“I know,” Sato said. At the very least, the Greys would want to know what the hell was going on under her nose…and her last probe near to New Brooklyn hadn’t seen any human aircraft at all. The Greys would be more likely just to fire on the unknown craft and not worry about asking questions. “I think that it’s the best choice we have.”

“I have contacts at the edge of sensor range,” Kate said, interrupting their discussion. “I think that a Grey convoy has just arrived, from the rough direction of…I’m not sure, the new sector at least.”

Avishai lifted an eyebrow. “Can you backtrack?”

Kate shook her head. “Not enough to be useful,” she said. “There are thousands of possible origin points, and that’s only possible if the Greys didn’t make a second jump before coming here.”

“Nuts,” Avishai said. She contemplated, for one brief moment, breaking silence and warning the fleet, but she knew that it wouldn’t be possible. If she transmitted, it was far too likely that the Greys would hear her transmissions, and then all hell would be out for noon. Even a laser would be too risky, this close to the Greys. “Captain, I suggest that you begin awakening your men; we will be launching you in exactly one half hour.”

“Understood,” Sato said. She would have liked to have watched as the soldiers awoke to discover that they’d stepped instantly from their base on Titan into a combat zone. She knew that some officers wanted to keep the men in stasis until they landed, but official opinion was against it; if they had to move from the craft, they didn’t dare risk the confusion that could result. “My men will be ready.”

Avishai smiled. They wouldn’t have much to do. Either the computers would bring them in on the correct course, or they wouldn’t. Either way, they would have to deal with it, and the SAS was supposed to be the best at what they did. They would complete their mission or die trying.

“That’s the edge of the minefield,” Kate said, as the stealth ship crept towards the planet. The minutes passed with agonising slowness, and yet they didn’t dare move faster; they were well within attack range of dozens of mines. The Greys were clearly firm believers in overkill. There were enough mines there to wipe out much of the human starships, if they attacked. “I think…no, we got missed then.”

The mines were almost close enough to touch, but Conrad steered them very carefully, right through the field and down towards the planet. The Greys had been busy; she managed to sneak a quick look through optical sensors at their shipyard, wrapped in enough detector systems to track Santa Claus, and saw other starships being constructed there. The Greys seemed to be moving in space without spacesuits, or any protection at all; for the first time, she felt very real fear. Even the best human augmentation couldn’t protect a human in space without giving up their humanity…but wasn't that what the Greys had done? Whatever they had once been, they weren’t any longer.

She wanted to cry. What had they been, once?

“We’re coming up on the launch point,” Conrad said, as the minutes ticked away. Whatever else happened, the computers would see to it that the boat launched at exactly the right time, unless the Greys had them in the middle of a sensor sweep. If they had, she knew that they would have to orbit the planet and try again, later. “Captain?”

“Continue,” Avishai ordered. She felt her hands clutching her chair as she…sensed the presence of the space debris, floating through space on a decaying orbit, some of it falling even as they passed through it. The Greys hadn’t attempted to reuse the material, they’d just ignored it; she wondered if there might be survivors, clinging to life on one of the larger pieces of debris. “Captain, good luck.”

A dull thump ran through the starship as the landing craft disengaged, falling into its own orbit. Now, all they would have to do is wait…and hope that the Greys missed the insertion team.

“Take us back to the meeting point,” she ordered. They would be on very long-term duty in the system. “Once we’re there, I guess we’ll just have to wait.”

***

Captain Anung Sato took a deep breath, using his implants to keep himself calm, as the landing craft fell away from the stealth craft. Minutes seemed to stretch into hours as the craft plummeted down towards the surface, its orbit rapidly decaying; the Greys should just see it as a piece of minor space debris and ignore it. They had a fleet invading their system, after all; what was a piece of space junk compared to that?

The craft shook violently as it entered the atmosphere, falling down towards the surface. It was designed to be almost invisible to most active sensors, even without the masking field covering it, but he knew that everything depended upon them remaining in the same trajectory. Altering course, for any reason, would bring the Greys down on them like the wrath of God. He watched through the crafts sensors as they fell down towards the poles of New Brooklyn, then over the smaller continent, well away from the Grey bases. Assuming, he knew, that they had seen all the bases; if they’d missed one, the team was dead.

“Captain, I think I’m going to puke,” Private Bunsen said. There were some nervous laughs from the rest of the team. Joking was their way of handling difficult situations. “Can I open a window?”

“Only if you want to be tossed out,” Sato snapped, too worried to share in the joke. It might have broken the tension, but there was another detail about their landing site, one designed to make the Greys even less inclined to open fire; it was underwater. The landing craft would hit the sea and sink like the stone it was pretending to be. He watched as they completed their fall, heading down and down and…

“Brace for impact,” he snapped. They would have one chance to migrate the shock; they would hit the water and skip across the water before they sank. “Get ready to move as soon as we’re under!”

The craft hit the water. There was a long moment of utterly uncontrolled motion…and then the craft hit the water again, sinking rapidly. Water rushed in through sudden breaches in the hull, rapidly filling the crew compartment; the team’s implants would use the water for breathing, rather than drowning them. The sudden shock of cold water was a surprise – he mentally kicked himself for forgetting that detail – but his implants overwhelmed the cold. They didn’t have time.

The team knew what they had to do and did it, swimming as quickly as they could. Each man had a waterproof pack, which he found and pulled with him as the side of the craft disintegrated. If the Greys left them alone for ten minutes, there would be very little for them to find. He led the way through the breach in the hull, swimming as hard as he could away from the craft, relying on his internal sensors to guide him. The water was filled with shocked fishes, some of them species that he had never seen before, and he ignored them. There wasn't time.

They had planned carefully and surfaced under the jungle. It had once been a popular destination for young lovers – an interview with someone who had been near the back-up landing site had turned up that fact – and it was completely invisible from the water. Under the large leafy trees, they sorted out their equipment and prepared to move out.

“Captain,” Sergeant Jamestown said, suddenly. The note of alarm in his voice had every man in the camp lifting their weapons before their minds caught up with him. “I really think that you should look at this.”

Sato frowned, stepping through the trees…to come across what had once been a camping site. A body, young, female, lay on the ground; a male body lay some distance away, a single hole in his temple. Both bodies had been partly eaten by animals, but it was clear that animals hadn’t killed them; the girl had been killed by a quick knife-slash to the neck.

“Rape,” Private Euston said. His voice was very cold. “This isn’t a safe place any more.”

Sato shrugged. “It never was, private,” he said. He checked his men quickly; all of them were ready to move out, their weapons ready to use if they need them. He hoped that they could avoid all contact before they got to the command post; if they started firing, they might draw attention from the Greys…and that would be unfortunate. “Move out!”

Chapter Nineteen: Operation Mousetrap, Take Two

“Here they come,” Lieutenant Caroline Porter said. The horde of red icons flashed towards their fateful rendezvous with the human fleet. A civilian would have been puzzled – the Greys seemed to have fired at empty space – but Nancy knew better. The Greys had fired their drone-missiles towards the point of contact between the human forces and the drones; they would have five minutes to deploy before they entered human weapons range. It was crafty…and, for once, would be a wasted effort.

“Signal from the flag,” Ensign Uganda said. “They are prepared to deploy the second part of Mousetrap.”

Nancy watched the display, timing it. “Signal that we understand and are ready to move,” she said. “Rosalyn, speak to me.”

“The fighters are ready for launch,” Commander Rosalyn Cathedral assured her. “They’re refreshed and recharged.”

“They’ll be expecting us to launch now so that everything is in the battlezone,” Nancy muttered. It was standard Imperial tactics, after losing a carrier – along with its entire fighter force – to a rebel starship twenty years ago. No one in their right mind took carriers right into the heart of the fighting; that convention, too, would fall today. “If we get it right.”

She cleared her throat. “Inform the flag that we are ready to launch on warning,” she said. “All decks, stand by to take heavy fire.”

“Mousetrap is launching,” Caroline said. “They’re firing!”

Nancy watched…and prayed. The genius of the Mousetrap plan had been to use Grey technologies against them, using the human gift for attempting utterly insane plans to manipulate the Greys into making mistakes. The Greys knew, of course, that their drones wouldn’t be a surprise the second time – her first retreat from the system had ensured that Earth would know about them – but they wouldn’t know what humanity had invented to counter the system, perhaps even to destroy the drones before they became a threat.

She smiled grimly. Whatever else happened, the Greys would never underestimate humanity again, as a superdreadnaught and three battlecruisers poured out a hail of missiles. The Greys had invented long-range missiles, rediscovering something that everyone else had already dismissed as useless…and had just incidentally suggested all manner of interesting possibilities to human tacticians. The Greys hadn’t wasted their time, developing newer weapons, but neither had the human race.

“The Greys aren’t responding,” Caroline said. “Why not?”

Nancy smiled. The catch with missile drives, such as the ones pushing the drones towards their targets, was that they weren’t easy to steer. A missile that missed its target would almost certainly be lost in interplanetary space. The Greys had to suspect that something had just gone wrong, but how could they guess what? Could they realise – in time – that they had shown the way for a useless system to suddenly become useful? Had they the time…?

“Missile separation,” Caroline snapped. “The drones are being launched now!”

Nancy sat back and waited. The Grey in command, wherever he – it – was smart; he’d done the only thing he could have done. The drones were out of position to intercept the human starships – which wasn’t necessarily a problem for them – and they had deployed. It was time for the sucker punch.

“Our missiles are separating too,” Caroline said. The drones showed none of the shock larger Grey units sometimes showed; their computers would be recalculating rapidly, trying to adjust. “They’re on their way.”

“Launch fighters,” Nancy snapped. “Clear point defence to engage the drone survivors!”

A fleet engineer had once developed a missile that was absolutely lethal to starfighters; it carried a starfighter-grade drive, although without the starfighter power plant, and therefore could follow a starfighter through any manoeuvre it cared to make. The flaw in the plan had been obvious; the starfighters could simply evade as long as it took for the missiles to run out of their stored power…and the missile lacked the versatility of a human mind. A missile couldn’t catch the starfighter, but if it was launched at point-blank range…

Another fleet engineer had worked out how the Greys launched their drones – a simple engineering problem – and copied it, turning a handful of experimental long-range missiles into MASM – Multiple Anti-Starfighter Missiles. As the drones had begun to separate from their transports, the MASMs had separated themselves, dumping several thousand missiles into space, far too close to the drones for them to evade. Their computer minds couldn’t beat the missile computer minds…and drones began to die.

“They’re using their plasma cannons as point defence,” Caroline said grimly. Nancy nodded; they’d expected that much, human starfighters did the same thing. The drones could have out-flown the missiles, had they the time to adapt, but they had no time, no time at all. “Captain?”

“CAG, move the ready flights up to intercept,” Nancy ordered coldly. The human force was still plunging towards hundreds of drones, and some of the drones had clearly decided to make a run towards their targets. Their computer minds were too stupid to know fear; they would happily commit suicide for their masters. “Don’t let them come too close.”

Drones raced towards the human starships – and the missiles that would kill them. Nancy frowned as the MASMs started to run out of power, something that had been all too predicable, leaving nearly two hundred drones making a run right at the General Wellington. It wasn't a wise choice – the superdreadnaught was protected by the massive point defence of the entire fleet – and drone after drone started to vaporise as plasma cannons picked them off, one after another. Only four survived to unleash their missiles at the superdreadnaught; only one survived long enough to ram the superdreadnaught directly.

“The flag reports minor damage to its drive field,” Ensign Uganda said. His dark face was pale and wan. “Captain, we are ordered to continue with the advance.”

Nancy smiled grimly. She’d known that that would be the command; nothing else was possible now, they had committed themselves to flying right through the New Brooklyn system, while the Greys slammed the door behind them. Her sensors were tracking several superdreadnaughts, gathered near the scene of their last battle, and she knew that there would be no retreat. In their place, she would be considering an ambush; she ordered more drones launched to cover their passage.

“Pull back the fighters,” she ordered, as the last drone died. “I think that we can proceed to the target now.”

The target took shape and form on her display, a fairly typical – if massive – asteroid settlement. Like all settlements, it had grown from one asteroid into several, converting asteroids into building material, and then into homes. The sheer scale of Grey activity across the system was frightening; she wasn’t convinced that humanity could have made such an effort, even if they had taken the system completely intact. The Greys had turned a system that had suffered from permanent economic doldrums and converted it into a mining camp that would feed a shipyard that might grow to become larger than the Sirius Yards.

She remembered her briefing notes and flinched at what they were about to do. The asteroids had been colonised from Sudanasesia, by a group of miners, and the miners had then declared themselves independent. In ten years, they had taken what had started as a mediocre mining enterprise into a commercial success…and then the Greys had come along and just walked in. It hadn’t been easy – some of the wreckage from the battle was still floating near the asteroids – but they had done it…and she was about to destroy it. Years in the future, those asteroid miners would curse her name, assuming that the Greys had left any of them alive. She wondered…were there collaborators on New Brooklyn?

“Not my problem,” she muttered to herself, as the asteroid grew closer. Her communicator implant buzzed. “Sir?”

“I have decided to send in starfighters on a strike mission,” Captain – no, Commodore – Brown said, without preamble. “I don’t like the look of that Grey force.”

Nancy could only agree. There was one Grey force, heading from the planet, with enough firepower to destroy her ships with ease. A second Grey force was gathering along their projected endpoint – the point where they could slip back into Phase Space and flee – and…she frowned, that was odd.

“Why are they letting us see them?” She asked. It just didn’t make sense. The Greys had played it smart so far, so why had they suddenly become careless? “They could have formed that force up and ambushed us.”

“I don’t know, but I would prefer not to face it,” Brown said. He had a point; either force had enough firepower to take them apart. “Are your starfighters ready for launch?”

Nancy didn’t have to check with Rosalyn. “We can launch two squadrons armed with heavy missiles, with two more clearing the way,” she said. “I would prefer to use starship missiles to assist with clearing the path through the asteroids.”

She sensed more than heard Brown’s reluctance. The Grey starships had started to head in towards them, leaving their chance of a surprise ambush, just to come in to attack them. She blinked as she checked the display; the Greys would have a crack at them if they continued along their course, but there was still time for them to evade, easily.

“One barrage,” Brown said, after a moment. He had to be worried about depleting his starships’ bunkers before they encountered the main Grey force, which would be…unfortunate if they had to fight their way out of the system. “I think that we should avoid engaging the enemy if we can.”

“Understood,” Nancy said. “I’ll deploy the attack starfighters at once.”

The connection broke. Nancy issued her instructions and checked the timing; they would have to launch the starfighters before the missiles were launched, right towards the asteroids. She designated targets quickly, trying to avoid targeting civilian habitations, and sent the instructions to the pilots. Moments later, four squadrons of fighters launched from the hanger bays, heading directly towards their target.

“The General Wellington has opened fire,” Lieutenant-Commander Gustav Von Rosenberg reported. The tactical officer took a breath. “The Greys are still coming in towards us.”

Nancy, suddenly a helpless spectator, watched grimly as the missiles lanced towards their targets, the orbiting Grey defence platforms. It was difficult, almost impossible, to defend a stationary target in space against a determined offensive, but the Greys were trying; their defence platforms were firing on the missiles until, one by one, the platforms were destroyed. The starfighters closed in, firing as they came, sweeping mines and smaller defence units out of space; the Greys seemed to have covered every last part of the larger asteroids with point defence weapons.

“Missiles away,” Von Rosenberg reported. There was something…indefinably grim in his tone as three asteroids were struck; moments later, they shattered as the heavy weapons focused fission waves around their targets, causing a massive explosion. Nancy smiled grimly; not even fission waves, weapons that were almost useless against starships, could utterly vaporise things that size. The Greys would have enough trouble clearing up after the attack. “We got the targets, Captain.”

“And shut the shipyard down for a while,” Nancy said. “Communications?”

“Commodore Brown has forwarded the new course,” Ensign Uganda said. “He wants us to move now.”

He must be getting nervous, Nancy thought, and allowed herself a moment of amusement. She shook her head as the thought struck her; there was nothing funny about a possible engagement with the Greys at point-blank range, and they would have had exactly that if they had tried to challenge the Grey fleet directly.

On impulse, she tapped her console and called up a chart. Grey-one was still heading directly for them, coming from New Brooklyn, and picking up speed fast. If they changed course, they were likely to have at least ten minutes in missile range before they could cross the Phase Limit, but that held no fears for her. Grey-two was coming directly for them along their present course, but assuming that they changed course to intercept the moment that the human fleet changed course, they would miss their chance to intercept entirely.

“I do not understand,” she muttered. The Greys were being dumb…and one thing the human race had learned about them was that they weren’t dumb. “Helm, take us out along the flag’s course, and…launch drones along our flight path.”

“That’s the last of our drones,” Caroline warned, as they were launched. The Lightning’s escorts closed in around it as the human fleet pulled away from the damaged shipyard. Perhaps the Greys had only meant to scare them away – and in that case they had succeeded – but it was…odd. “They could have a cloaked fleet ahead of us.”

“I know,” Nancy said. She wanted to bite her fingernails. Instead, she called Commodore Brown. “Sir, they’ll being too good to us.”

“We can’t engage that fleet,” Brown pointed out, correctly. “We have to evade and this is the best possible course.”

“I know,” Nancy said. “Sir, might I recommend that we alter course just before we reach the Phase Limit?”

Brown frowned. “That would keep us in missile range of Grey-one,” he protested. “We cannot fight a battle now.”

“We can survive a running battle for a few more minutes,” Nancy said. “They’re being too good to us and that worries me.”

“Very well,” Brown said, and broke the connection.

Nancy sat back in her chair and waited. Grey-one was pushing it, but at the same time it was flying as a coordinated unit, which placed obvious limitations on its acceleration curve. Time passed and the Greys drew closer, taking full advantage of their course change; they were gaining – now – on the human fleet. She ran the projections again; thanks to her planned course change, they would be fighting a long-range battle with Grey-one for around thirty minutes. As the fleet hove into range, all that mattered was holding out as long as they could and getting back across the Phase Limit.

She scowled. There would be nothing fancy, just a flight from danger.

“Captain, I am picking up targeting signals from Grey-one,” Von Rosenberg said. “I believe that they are about to open fire.”

Nancy felt her lips twitch. “Good,” she said. Von Rosenberg gave her an astonished look. “Deploy all decoys and transfer control of our point defence to the flag.”

Grey-one, twelve superdreadnaughts and assorted smaller starships, belched a hail of missiles towards the human fleet. Nancy forced herself to breath normally as the missiles closed the range between the two fleets, targeting the smaller human craft. She wasn't surprised; the Greys had had plenty of time to analyse their own successes and failures – and they had plenty of launchers. Three superdreadnaughts, a quarter of their force, had more launchers than the entire human force.

“Point defence is engaging,” Von Rosenberg said. Lightning hummed slightly as her plasma cannons added to the web of firepower sweeping Grey missiles from the battlezone. His voice darkened. “The decoys have become active.”

Nancy studied the ghostly images on the display as the Grey missiles roared in. Their little brains couldn’t tell the difference between decoys and real starships…and they had only moments to decide their target before they either engaged or were destroyed. Dozens of missiles roared in towards fake starships, expanding their remaining energy on a terminal run on an imaginary starship, others picked on real starships and lanced in straight and true.

“We just lost two destroyers,” Von Rosenberg said softly. Her voice was very grim as the Greys launched a second blast of missiles at them. “One more battlecruiser was hit, with drive disruptors.”

Nancy cursed. The Greys had invented a modified drive field system that wasn’t so easy to knock down…and humanity had promptly copied it. The battlecruiser Thande had been modified, but seven missiles had hit it, and knocked it out of formation. Moments later, the Greys targeted the stricken battleship and hit it with enough missiles to shatter a moon; there was nothing left at all of the battlecruiser as it vanished inside a ball of tearing plasma.

“Damn,” someone said. The return fire from the human ships seemed pathetic. “Just…damn.”

“Signal from the flag,” Ensign Uganda said. Nancy made a mental bet with herself that it was an instruction to disregard the planned course change and just keep running. “They are ordering us to prepare to change course.”

Nancy shook her head ruefully. Captain Brown clearly had more spine than she had realised; his starship had scored hits on two of the Grey starships, including knocking one of them back, out of weapons range. If they managed to do that to the other superdreadnaughts, they might not have to leave so quickly…

“Take us out along the planned course,” she ordered. “Starfighters, prepare to return to the starship for a quick exit…”

“Transitions,” Von Rosenberg snapped. “They just jumped in right along our planned course.”

Nancy allowed herself a moment of heartfelt relief. A Grey Admiral, assuming that such a being existed, had to be spitting tacks right now. The Greys had copied the humans in learning from their enemies; they had simply duplicated the first part of Operation Mousetrap…but they’d mistimed it. She shook her head; no, they hadn’t mistimed it, not exactly…if she hadn’t had the paranoia to suggest that they changed course, they would have been trapped and destroyed. As it was…

“They’ll have only a few moments to fire at us,” Von Rosenberg assured her. “We’re safe.”

A heavy cruiser, hit with nine missiles, exploded. “You have a curious definition of safe,” Nancy said, as two missiles slammed into the Lightning. They were both standard nukes; her ship survived, but it had been hurt. “How long?”

“Five minutes,” Lieutenant Jackie Robinson said. “We’ll be over the Phase Limit in five minutes.”

Nancy took a breath. Five minutes. Would the Greys try to micro-jump in this close to the Phase Limit? “Take us out,” she ordered. The Greys fired a final hail of missiles at them, but they clearly knew that they had failed. “It’s time to go home.”

Chapter Twenty: Shadows of the Past

“We stamped on the dragon’s tail,” Roland said, as he sipped his wine thoughtfully. It was nearly midnight in the Imperial Palace, but he didn’t feel tired; he could have talked all night. They’d eaten a fine, if small, meal; now they had time to chat. “I can’t help, but wonder what the Greys will do in return.”

Elspeth looked up from her chair. “The dragon’s tail?”

“It’s a line from a poem, something that is very old,” Roland said. He thought for a moment. “It goes…

“I think there are bats in your belfry,

“Bats have been guiding your way.

“But now you've stepped on the dragon's tail,

“And bats won't help you any more.”

“An early work by one of the pre-Invasion writers,” Elspeth noted. Roland lifted his glass in silent salute. “I believe that he subscribed to the Giant Sheep religion.”

Roland smiled. He was enjoying her company. She was smart, and intelligent, and clearly not impressed or intimidated by his title. He would be Emperor of Man one day, unless he managed to find a way out of the role; he knew when a woman was genuinely interested in him, rather than just claiming to be interested. Unlike so many of the women of the court, she knew enough to hold up her end of a conversation, something he needed desperately. He could rely on so few for impartial advice.

“I think that you’re right,” he said, for once unsure how to proceed. So many of the women of the court would have happily opened their legs for him…but they would have used it as a way to snare him for their own, allowing them to become the Empress. “Did you have a productive trip?”

Elspeth frowned. “Yes, I’m very much afraid that I did,” she said. Roland heard a hint of dull anger under her voice and frowned; something that could really upset her had to be bad. “It is not easy to know that so much of…our history is incomplete, even if the Imperials never actually lied to us.”

Roland matched her expression. “I am not a history expert,” he said. It was the understatement of the century and he knew it; he could hold his own in politics and could bluff his way through military strategy, but history was something of a closed book to him. He could have accessed entire libraries of information through his implants, but it wouldn’t help him to understand the information. “What did you find?”

Elspeth took a long breath. “Several things that…were both actively concealed and in some cases simply ignored,” she said. “Some people had kept very precise records of pre-Invasion alien contact, but there were so many reports that its impossible to tell which are actually real reports, and which are complete nonsense. So many reports have instant teleportation involved, which is impossible, isn’t it?”

“If the Greys had that big a military advantage, we would have seen it at work,” Roland agreed. The thought of bombs being teleported onboard starships was chilling – not even the Greys could have missed the potentials of such a weapon, given the chance to use it. “It could just be the humans of that time mistaking something for teleportation.”

“I hope so,” Elspeth said. She scowled darkly. “If we take only the reports that feature the Greys themselves, then we are left with the conclusion that there literally thousands of incursions, enough to actually spawn an entire subculture of…Grey devotees, or something. No two reports agree completely, and…there seems to have been almost no attempt to investigate the Greys by human authorities, despite the fact they possessed a Grey ship and bodies.”

Roland felt his mouth fall open. “They…had a Grey ship?”

“Several, if all the reports are to be believed,” Elspeth said darkly. “As I said, there are reports ranging from aliens who are human, female, and willing, to aliens which are horrible crystalline monsters. They can’t all be true, can they?”

“I would hope not,” Roland said wryly. He looked down at the table for a long moment. “So, which reports were true…and just what did the human authorities of that time do?”

“Very little,” Elspeth said. She shook her head. “Unfortunately, we only have Yardmaster Phelps’ account of those events to go by, and while I believe that he was being honest, I don’t know if he was actually as…present as he seemed to be implying. The Imperials clearly investigated reports and studied the Greys, but they seem to have done very little, past that.”

She ran her hands through her long hair. “From what Phelps told me, the Imperials never tracked Grey activity, but they found enough to suspect that something funny was going on, particularly through the common points that each…human encounter seemed to share,” she said. She held his eyes. “At some point, they stumbled onto reports that aliens – ironically, they seem to have gotten the blame for this – were abducting humans from Earth for malevolent purposes. I don’t know exactly how – but I can guess – that they found that some of the abducted humans were telling the truth. So, they started to investigate, which ended with a short battle at what had once been an American military base.”

She briefly outlined what Yardmaster Phelps had told her about the encounter. “The Imperials recovered several alien bodies and examined them,” she said. “They’d never encountered such a race before and – for some reason – they were scared. I don’t know why, but whatever happened, the Imperials set up a much larger defence net around Earth than normal, and worked harder to control various rebellious factions.”

Roland frowned. The Imperial attitude to suppressing rebellion was very simple. It boiled down to killing the leaders, then killing the rebels, and then saturation bombardment if the first two steps had failed. The Imperials had smashed all of humanity’s warring factions with an impartiality that had stunned human warlords…and a brutality that had scarred the planet. One hundred years after the Invasion, the Imperials had established themselves as The Boss…and no one dared disagree. In the long run, they might have done humanity a favour.

“I wonder,” he said. “Did they do that because they wanted to make it harder for the Greys to operate?”

“I don’t know,” Elspeth said. “I’m hardly an expert on military technology, but surely the Imperials could have prevented the Greys from coming to Earth if they’d wanted to make the effort, and in fact the reports of alien abductions seemed to come to a screeching halt after the Invasion. Perhaps they were scared off, or…”

She smiled grimly. “The real question is what happened to the Grey bodies,” she said. “Any guesses?”

Roland allowed himself a moment to consider. “The standard procedure would be to examine the bodies, but to keep them safe,” he said, remembering a lecture on that once from Elspeth’s father. “They’re from an unknown race, after all, and they wouldn’t want to irritate the race until they knew what they were dealing with.”

“Correct,” Elspeth said. She sounded almost like a professor at that moment. “But wrong, as it happens; the Imperials apparently took the bodies to Titan, and then Yardmaster Phelps said that they had gone onwards, perhaps all the way back to Centre itself. And what happened to them there? Phelps said that the bodies were examined, analysed, and studied.”

Roland blinked. “That’s…completely against Imperial Law,” he protested. It wasn't a moral display, he knew; the Imperials were careful to the point of extreme paranoia. “They should at least have kept them in the sector.”

“I know,” Elspeth said. “I wonder, though; if the Imperials knew about the Greys, why didn’t they do anything about them? They’d taken Earth, so humans were their responsibility, and you know how they are on responsibility. Why didn’t they do something?”

Roland considered. “Perhaps they did,” he said, as he understood in a sudden moment of insight. “They created Corey. Your…father’s gift.”

“A poisoned chalice,” Elspeth said, her voice icy cold. Roland would have almost prepared to face a horde of Greys naked and armed only with his natural weapons. “Was she really responsible for our victory?”

“It is not something commonly known,” Roland said. “There’s also no other explanation; the Greys had us bang to rights, and then Corey works her magic and the Grey fleet disintegrates into its component units. She did it, somehow; Intelligence thinks that she was literally built to attack only the Greys, rather than anything else. The…implications are terrifying.”

“Starting with the fact that the Imperials apparently saw nothing wrong with building a biological robot,” Elspeth said. Her voice shook. “Is…my father sleeping with her?”

Roland knew that few men would have resisted. “I don’t know,” he said, truthfully. He had refrained from making enquiries; far too many people had advocated ordering Corey killed – if such a word could be applied to whatever she was – to make him easy about knowing the full details of her relationship with Admiral Glass. “I do not believe that your father would do anything to compromise our security.”

“He has not had an easy year,” Elspeth said, very grimly. “The only question remains, however, why did the Imperials, who knew now that the Greys had returned, choose not to engage them, but to retreat?”

Her voice grew more animated. “If they could build such a weapon – and that’s what she is – why would they choose to retreat?” She asked. “Economic history is not really my forte, but a war might have been just the thing to put the Empire back on an even kneel. Did they know that the Greys were back?”

“They knew when Captain Erickson brought back the Grey body,” Roland said. He scowled. “Perhaps the disintegration had gone too far to be stopped.”

He remembered Thomas Howell, and his claim that Centre had been lying through its collective teeth to conceal the news of the Collapse. Why? Had the Imperials been buying time? If so, why? Why had they needed time? Time for a miracle, had they been inclined to believe in miracles, or something else? Time to…prepare some defences?

“I meant, did they know before Captain Erickson found a dead Grey?” Elspeth asked. Roland frowned at the question, before understanding. “Did anything happen to tip them off?”

“One moment,” Roland said. He closed his eyes and opened his implants, reaching out to the Palace’s computers, and through them to the Home Guard and Imperial Fleet computers positioned in the bunker deep below Imperial City. He sent questions into the AI controlling the system, asking it to collate thousands of terabytes worth of information, and waited. It took real time, the search covered so many files, but finally he had an answer.

“A number of starships disappeared in the new sector,” he said, after a long moment. The Imperial Fleet, suddenly reduced to just the Sol Picket, had been attempting to gather as much information as possible, but the Collapse had destroyed the web of fastships that had kept the Empire together. “Only one military starship, not counting the Lightning, but at least seven commercial ships and one survey service ship vanished within the new sector.” He scowled. “In hindsight, that’s rather frightening.”

His implant twitched. A new datum had been located. “A routine interrogation of a captured pirate revealed that he had visited a black colony, which had been destroyed,” he said. “It was blamed on the Imperial Fleet, but the Sector CO knew perfectly well that we hadn’t anything to do with it. It was marked for a later investigation by a starship, except everything went to hell and…well, it was never followed up as far as we know.”

“Curious,” Elspeth said. Her head tilted; she would never be classically beautiful, but she was stunning under the right circumstances. “If the Imperials had some reason to believe that it was the Greys, might they have made the decision to stand back from the war, or what?”

“Or perhaps we’re making cloth out of counterfeit materials,” Roland said dryly. She gave him a half-nod of understanding. There really was too little information to build a real picture of what was happening. “We might well be drawing the wrong conclusions from the few scraps of information we have.”

She nodded again. “That remains a serious problem for us,” she agreed. She leaned forwards. “I don’t understand; if the Greys had such a force orbiting New Brooklyn, why not use it to attack further into our space?”

Roland knew that the Strategy Board had wondered about that, almost to the exclusion of all else. “There are dozens of theories,” he said, after a long moment. “One theory is that they intended to snatch a world to convert into a base, one that they would have to defend, which would have the additional benefit of focusing our energy towards tossing them off New Brooklyn, which would save their other worlds for supporting their attacks.”

Elspeth frowned, her lips twisting in front of her. “But if they attacked us, and won, they would have won the war,” she said. Her face darkened. “If they hit Earth…”

“They would lose,” Roland said, with as much confidence as he dared. “Even I was astonished at the amount of sheer firepower that we have gathered to protect Earth, the Ceres shipyards, Titan and the other vital targets in the system. Any of them could stand off a Grey attack long enough for the fleet to respond and hunt down the intruders. The same goes for Sirius.”

Elspeth nodded. “I hope you’re right,” she said. Roland heard the concern in her voice and understood. He wanted to reassure her. “I just don’t think that underestimating the Greys is a good idea.”

“I try not to,” Roland assured her. He wanted to ask her if she would be interested in a more formal date, but he…didn’t quite dare. “Did your research turn up anything that might be useful in learning what is actually happening on New Brooklyn?”

“Nothing,” Elspeth said. The frustration in her voice was obvious. “The Greys never came out of the shadows on Earth, and…I take it that we’ve had no contact with the planet?”

Roland shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Oh, some of it is clearly due to the Greys jamming some of the most common frequencies – including the emergency ones, bastards – but they can’t cover all of the frequencies, so the people on the ground should be able to transmit. Nothing.”

Elspeth sighed. “There are so many different reports that its impossible to determine what might be real,” she said. “There were reports that the Greys had infiltrated the highest centres of power on Earth, using implants to control the world leaders, and that those leaders had sold out humans in exchange for Grey technology. There were others, including one report and dozens of copies of a man being taken onboard an alien craft and invited to have sex with an alien woman.”

Roland snorted. “I think that that one, at least, was the result of too much drinking,” he said. “Has anyone ever slept with someone not of their race?”

“It’s only been known to happen a few times,” Elspeth said. There was something, a kind of mutual understanding, in her voice. Roland met her eyes and smiled; she smiled back. “Alien men…just don’t have the same cues as human men; the impulses that lead us poor helpless women to ignore sweaty armpits and unshaven faces just don’t apply to them. I imagine that the same is true of you men?”

Roland nodded. “I cannot say that I have found alien women attractive,” he said. There was something almost surreal about the conversation. He had never held such a conversation before, not with anyone, certainly not with one of the court women. “It’s unlikely that the Greys would waste time trying to sleep with human women.”

Elspeth smiled. “Apart from some really hardcore pornography, such as the latest DOCTOR WHAT touchy-feely, alien love is a myth,” she said. “I can’t see any rational race concentrating on anything like that. Still, the Greys never gave any information, as far as anything report that seems reliable suggests, about what they actually wanted.”

She shrugged. “It’s possible that the Greys who were active on Earth long ago were merely criminals,” she said. “Now, perhaps, they’re the ones running the show.”

Roland yawned suddenly. “I beg your pardon,” he said, automatically. His implants were telling him that it was well past his normal bedtime, almost three in the morning. That had never happened before. Elspeth seemed to realise at the same time; he caught her eye…and then they shared a laugh.

“I think that its time for me to find a bed,” Elspeth said, standing up. Roland carefully refrained from making the obvious comment. “Thank you for a lovely meal and chat, Your Highness.”

“Call me Roland,” Roland said. He extended a hand towards her. “You’re welcome.”

Elspeth took his hand and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you,” she breathed. Her voice affected Roland on a very basic level; his body shuddered with sudden instability. “We will do this again?”

“Of course,” Roland said. He felt suddenly like a helpless love-struck teenager. “You would be welcome at any time.” He paused. “Would you like to visit again next week?”

Elspeth kissed his cheek. “I’d like that,” she said. “I’d like that very much.”

For a moment, everything seemed right with the world.

Chapter Twenty-One: Boots on the Ground

“This planet,” Private Bunsen observed, for the third time in as many minutes, “is nothing like Africa.”

Captain Anung Sato said nothing. The force had been travelling across rough country in a world that had been settled for over seven hundred years. They had passed through jungle – their maps had claimed that it had been a Sudanasesia national park – and through into farmland, skirting through under-developed regions as they walked across the land. They could have easily walked directly to the command post, had they been willing to risk detection, but he had kept them well off the beaten path.

“Africa is not all desert or jungle,” Sergeant Lethbridge said. The burly sergeant could have walked over three hundred miles without becoming tired; their implants saw to that. Sato knew better than to do that; the human mind would become tired if all it did was to pace itself, rather than moving as fast as possible. “Even around the impact craters, there are still so many different kinds of land.”

Sato shrugged. Africa had suffered badly under its human rulers; it had the unenviable distinction of being the only place on Earth that had suffered worse under humanity than the Imperials, back when they were establishing themselves as the Boss. Human warlords, concerned only with their own power, had been no match for powered combat armour, drone spies and orbital bombardment. The last African warlord had been slaughtered, along with his conscript army of children and slaves, twenty years after the Invasion.

Thunder cracked in the sky and rain poured down. That wasn’t usual at all; he wondered if the Greys had done something to the weather, or if they were actually attempting to reshape the entire planet. The developed region of Sudanasesia had been famed for being excellent farmland, years ago; now, there were no signs of humans and the crops were falling into disuse.

“There are more traces of radioactivity in the rain,” Sergeant Lethbridge commented. His voice was bitter; he’d been enjoying the walk. There were no signs of Grey activity, or human activity; they had seen no other humans at all. “The bastards must have let off a few nukes nearby.”

Sato scowled. “There’s a farm up ahead,” he said, as he received a burst transmission from Private Hanson, who had taken point. It was a task he would have preferred to do himself, but he had ordered a strict rota of alternating the point man. They dared not risk fatigue affecting the man on point. “I think we’d better deviate around it.”

A farmer, he supposed, had planted enough trees to hide an army; it was easy for the SAS men, with their camouflage armour, to pass through unobserved. The farm itself was dark and cold; a quick passive sensor scan revealed no sign of life…and plenty of dead livestock. Someone, or something, had come to the farm, and killed and slaughtered at will.

“Aircraft,” Private Hanson snapped. Sato threw himself under cover automatically as a Grey craft appeared, racing through the sky like a giant flying saucer. He saw it as it passed overhead, emitting a terrifying whining noise that seemed to reach into his very soul, before vanishing over the horizon, back towards one of the Grey bases. “Everyone all right?”

“I think so,” Sato said, once they’d all checked in. “Where is everyone?”

“Perhaps they put everyone in camps,” Sergeant Lethbridge speculated, as the team resumed their march. It wouldn’t be long before they could enter the wildlands and head into the mountains, where the command post had been hidden. The Sudanasesia Government had been canny; they’d built a road through the mountain, one that passed close enough to the command base without drawing unwanted attention…although Sato privately doubted that it would come to much. Human Intelligence was very good at finding out things that he knew people thought were secret…and he saw no reason to assume that the New Brooklyn intelligence services would be any different.

He smiled as they walked on. It hardly mattered now.

The road headed into the mountains and they slipped through the jungle by its side, hidden from casual view. It was like stepping into a whole new world; Earth plants and animals competed with New Brooklyn’s own foliage, creating a dizzying mix of colours and a nightmarish place to hunt. The rain grew hotter and hotter, and then faded altogether as the skies cleared, revealing a blue tint that was hauntingly like Earth. They avoided paths, passing through the wood itself, watching out for the first guard post. Their informant had been unable to tell them anything about guards.

“There,” Sergeant Lethbridge hissed, through their private communications link. Sato looked…and allowed himself a moment of admiration. Against unaugmented soldiers, the guard post would have been almost impossible to find; even they had had real problems seeing it. It was well hidden, behind natural camouflage rather than a masking field or a hologram, and there were two armed men there, holding old automatic rifles.

“Take them,” Sato ordered. They’d planned what to do carefully; they moved forward quickly, relying on all of their stealth to keep themselves hidden, and leapt. Moments later, two disarmed men, both as black as the night, were staring at them in horror, convinced that they were dealing with Grey allies.

“Collaborator,” one of them hissed. He had clearly had some semi-legal procedure done on his skin; that shade had never existed naturally. He was shaking in fear, and tears were running down his face. “Get on with it then.”

Sato opened his mask, revealing his face. “We’re from the Human Union,” he said, knowing that his accent, if nothing else, would mark him as being from offworld. His oriental face had been swept away, replaced by a standard African appearance. “Give the men back their weapons.”

The guard took his weapon – his comrade was still staring at them – but had enough sense not to point it at any of them. “Why did you come like that?” He asked, searching for common sense. “Why didn’t you help us when we needed help?”

Sato smiled wryly. “Take us to your leader,” he said. “All will be explained.”

The command post itself was under a mountain, with one entrance hidden under a waterfall. Sato watched as the guards demonstrated the technique for accessing the entrance – walking carefully along an underwater bridge – and carefully refrained for mentioning that any of his men could have made the trip unaided. The interior didn’t look that impressive, until they were escorted along a long corridor, and into a lift, which descended down almost half a kilometre.

“Welcome to the command post,” a tall military officer said. He was grey-skinned, something that made Sato smile behind his hand, but his eyes were sharp. “Where have you been?”

“The little grey bastards have your world under a very tight interdict,” Sato said, as the officer led them along a stone corridor. His sensors reported hostile gases in the air, ones that the New Brooklyn soldiers would have been protected against, and knew that his men would be safe as well. “It took us this long, after Earth, to put together a relief mission.”

The officer nodded. “I am General Nelson,” he said. He tapped once at a door, which opened, revealing a conference room. Sato felt a flicker of disapproval – he hadn’t seen gilt and luxury like that since his last trip to a high-class brothel – but suppressed it as a short heavyset man stood up to greet them.

“Officers, allow me to present Ambassador Floid, who might as well be the President for all the good it will do,” General Nelson said. He waved them all to chairs. “Ambassador, these are the soldiers from the Union.”

“I am very pleased to see you,” Ambassador Floid said. There was a hard edge under his voice. “Where the hell have you been?”

It was the same question, Sato knew, even as his implants tossed up information on Floid. He’d been reported dead when the Greys hit New Brooklyn, but no one had heard much from the fall of the planet, but confused and scattered signals. Floid had a nasty scar running down the side of his face, but otherwise he seemed fine, although the command post probably had enough medical equipment to repair any serious injuries.

“The Greys hit Earth soon after they overwhelmed you,” Sato said shortly. He saw the shock on Floid’s face and pressed on. “They were beaten off by the Sol Picket, but since then they’ve been raiding at us, hammering away at convoys and bleeding us white. We sent a fleet to see if you would respond, but there were no signals, so my team was inserted onto the planet.”

General Nelson’s voice was harsh. “How did you get through the Grey defences?”

“Classified information,” Sato said sharply. He didn’t know how far he could trust them yet. “Ambassador, one thing that no one knows is what’s happening on the surface; what is happening?”

Floid held his eyes. “I was in the military command centre when the Greys took over the high orbitals and started to pour fire down on the PDCs,” he said. “We knew then that they were going to land and there was nothing we could do to stop them, so myself and a team of military officers headed here, to meet the President and the Cabinet. When I got here, I was told that the capital had fallen and the President had been reported killed.”

“Resistance only brought devastation,” General Nelson said. He tapped a control panel and a map of Sudanasesia appeared in front of them. “They nuked everywhere that showed more than a little resistance, then they just landed around the cities and walked in, killing anyone who resisted. Since then, those cities have been no-go areas, and we don’t know exactly what they’re doing there.”

He scowled. “Much of the Sudanasesia Military was knocked out in the fighting,” he said. “They clearly captured at least one Imperial database, because they couldn’t have been shooting entirely at random, but they didn’t know everything about our forces. I ordered all of the remaining units to abandon their heavy equipment and go to the underground supply bunkers, which were prepared to allow us to conduct a war against a human invader, but the Greys took down the datanet.”

Sato felt his mouth demand to fall open. “They took down the datanet?”

“Yes,” General Nelson said. His face couldn’t darken, but he rubbed a hand over his face as he spoke. “They somehow sent a virus into the datanet, something everyone here swore blind was impossible, and crashed much of it. We managed to establish other communications links to the bunkers, but much of our forces are in a state of disarray.”

Sato nodded slowly. “So, what are they doing here?” He asked. “What about the civilians?”

“Inside the cities?” Floid asked. “We don’t know. In some places, the Greys seem to have established prison camps, but we don’t know the purpose of the camps, except they must have something in mind because they have not hesitated to engage in mass slaughter when they felt like it. Outside? They have generally left settlements alone, but there has been a major breakdown in law and order; farmlands have been pillaged by thugs and robbers, even some deserting soldiers. The Greys have ignored all of this, but if there is any resistance, they come down heavily.”

General Nelson scowled. “That does not even begin to describe it,” he said. “We had a combat group operating near one of their bases, and we deployed SAMs against their aircraft, those silly disc-shaped craft.” He grinned. “We got one, too, and then we fired at a second one, and then they came down on us like a ton of bricks. Thousands of the little bastards swarmed out of their craft, wiped out my team, and then did the same to the nearby town, slaughtering everyone. Resistance, such as it is, has almost fallen to nothing; the Greys just come after us and kill us all.”

Floid looked down at the table. “They’re a strange bunch,” he said. “Any human invader would have searched for this place, perhaps even started to enslave the natives, but they don’t seem to have done either. All they have are those prison camps, and they generally ignore anything outside them.” He looked up. “How can you help us?”

Sato felt his mind racing. “Our orders were to find out what they’re doing down here and transmit it back to our ship,” he said. “Once that’s done, we are to attempt to capture one of the Greys for study.”

“Out of the question and impossible,” General Nelson said, before they could say anything else. “We have tried, from time to time, to raise settlements in the asteroids, and the Greys have just nuked us when we’ve tried, fortunately not from this place.”

“The asteroids are gone,” Sato said flatly. He decided not to mention that the fleet had certainly played a large role in reducing the asteroid settlements. “The Greys have taken your orbiting asteroids and turned them into a massive shipyard.”

“Regardless, I cannot let you breach our security in such a manner,” Floid said. “We dare not lead the Greys to this place; we’re the last group of organised opposition, at least as far as we know. If we’re lost, all of our little groups become no better than armed bands.”

“Our signal will not be detected,” Sato assured him. He pushed forward slightly. There were always ways around problems. “We could always make the transmission from a distant location.”

“Perhaps,” Floid said. He met Sato’s eyes again. “How can you help us?”

“They can’t,” General Nelson said. His face twisted with sudden anger. “We paid our own dues to the Empire, and then to the Human Union. And then, what happened? Admiral Johnston and his force were wiped out, and then the Greys came here, and we fought, and lost, and now we’re all that’s left! How can they help us?”

“They could slip more weapons to us,” Floid said thoughtfully. His eyes were pleading. “You can do that, can’t you?”

Sato sighed. “Yes, we could, if circumstances were right,” he said. “However, we do intend to take action as part of a coordinated attempt to free the planet.”

“Really?” General Nelson said. “Can you promise a fleet attack on the planet?”

Sato fought the temptation to claim that yes, they could arrange for a fleet attack. “The fleet is building up to launch a counterattack,” he said. “Once the fleet is ready, it will launch a major attack on the planet and destroy the Greys orbiting the planet. Could you not take advantage of that?”

“Of course,” General Nelson said. “However, we have tried to capture one of the smaller Greys. Do you have any idea how strong and tough they are?”

“I fought one on one of their ships,” Sato said. The memory had been bitter. “Yes, I know just how capable they are.”

“They also transmit signals regularly to other Greys,” General Nelson said. He thumped the table to make his point. “We have tried to take one of them alive, but their people just follow us and either recover him…and then kill us, or kill everyone, including their fellow.”

Sato winced. Under certain circumstances, the SAS would abandon a comrade, but they wouldn’t kill him. They prided themselves on team sprit and holding the group together, whatever the cost. “Have you ever tried to take one of the taller Greys?”

“No, for the very simple reason that they’re always inside their compounds or supported by vast numbers of the smaller Greys,” General Nelson snapped. “We cannot attack one of them without taking massive losses, and that would cost us our chance at success. Captain, they dominate this world, just as the Imperials once dominated Earth; we cannot fight them in open battle and hope to win.”

He glared at Sato. “We have tried to fight an underground war against them, and we have failed,” he said. “They either have places that are very well defended, or they just don’t care. No invader avoids controlling the countryside, except the Greys haven’t bothered; they just don’t care. Mr Ambassador, we can’t reach into one of their bases, take one of their leaders, and hope to get out alive.”

Sato kept his face blank. Leaving the command post would be easy, but the team would have to operate on its own. “Perhaps we could compromise,” he said. “We could try to arrange weapon deliveries, if you push against the Greys and help us to take one of them alive.”

“Were you not listening?” General Nelson demanded. “We can’t do it.”

Floid held up a hand. “General Nelson is correct,” he said. “The Greys have a nasty habit of occasionally engaging military targets if they stumble across them. Gathering too many of our people in the same place is asking for trouble, but…”

He leaned forward. “Tell your superiors this,” he said. His voice brooked no argument. “We are prepared to attempt to seize a Grey leader alive, if they mount a mission to attack the system and drive the Greys away, once and for all.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: If It Can Be Done…

“They want us to do what?”

Admiral Glass peered down at the report from the insertion team. The results from the battle near New Brooklyn had been decent – more starfighters than predicted had been lost to Grey fire, or from being left behind accidentally – but the insertion team had always been a gamble. Discovering that it had paid off pleased him, but not the report directly from the team leader.

Octavos Tallyman shifted uncomfortably. “They are insistent that we attempt to liberate New Brooklyn at the earliest possible moment,” he said. His voice was very droll. “They have, in fact, staked their willingness to help us, or at least the team, on our willingness to send an assault force that can actually drive the Greys away from the planet.”

Admiral Martin Solomon cleared his throat. “They do have a point, sir,” the commander of the Earth-based defence forces said. The former Imperial Fleet officer and superdreadnaught captain leaned forwards, one hand stroking his beard. “If half of these reports are accurate, they’re in real trouble.”

Glass considered. The transmission had come from one of Intelligence’s little secrets; in this case, a burst transmitter that could compress terabytes of data into one microsecond transmission that could easily be missed by any hostile sensors. Only someone who knew exactly what they were looking for could hope to pick it out of the background noise, such as it was. Captain Sato had done well, taking records from New Brooklyn’s defence force and adding his own observations.

His implants funnelled the information into his mind. He scanned the last line of the report and winced; we will be unable to proceed with the kidnap mission without the active cooperation of the locals, Sato had written. Glass understood the underlying message; the locals might actively attempt to prevent the team from kidnapping a Grey leader. That would be technically treason, but under the circumstances, no court in the Empire would convict them, let alone the Human Union.

Other information flowed through his mind; the Greys had…a curious attitude to occupation. Not unlike the Imperials, they established themselves as The Boss quickly and through the same method; extreme violence. Unlike the Imperials, they hadn’t bothered to go out of their way to engage in extreme violence; they hadn’t bothered to hunt down each and every petty nuisance. He knew that the Greys had more than enough resources to do exactly that, so why hadn’t they bothered?

He scowled. The news about areas not touched by the Greys, at least within Sudanasesia, wasn’t good. The framework of Sudanasesia society, never very strong at the best of times, was falling apart. There were bandit gangs in the countryside, refugees fleeing from rumours of Grey advances and worse; there might not be a planet left to liberate by the time the Greys were finished. The Greys had implanted a handful of people, mainly to use them as slaves, but they hadn’t attempted to implant and use the politicians, assuming that they had actually taken any of them prisoner.

It was…odd.

“I cannot order the team to engage the Greys on their own, not now,” Tallyman said. Getting a signal back to the team was easy; they would just send in a stealth platform and use it to send the signal before a Grey drone patrol destroyed it. “If the locals are unwilling to assist them, they would have some real problems in carrying out the mission, and if the locals are correct about the Greys hunting down kidnappers ruthlessly…”

Glass nodded. “I understand your logic,” he said. He frowned thoughtfully. “Martin, what are the final results from the battle at New Brooklyn?”

Solomon frowned. He would have preferred to command the fleet himself, wearing his hat as commander of the superdreadnaught Honor Harrington, but he was stuck to Earth as commander of the Earth-based defences. It had been a political decision; the Home Guard didn’t have the experienced officers to command the defence of the entire system, and Glass himself – who had commanded during the first Battle of Earth – had too much else on his plate.

“We lost seven craft and took heavy damage to three more,” he said, after a moment to collate the results. Glass said a silent prayer for those who had died. “Starfighter losses were around three hundred, although some of the craft that were left behind in the system may make it to one of the hidden supply dumps, on the edge of the system. Several craft were lost during their desperate attempts to get within the drive field of one of the larger craft; the Greys correctly timed their fire to take advantage of that.”

Glass scowled. Starfighters could not go into Phase Space themselves; their power reserves lacked anything like enough power to twist space in just the right manner. They could, if they had skilled pilots, hitch a lift within the drive field of another starship, such as one of the carriers, but the Greys had clearly managed to use that against the human pilots.

“The Greys?” He asked. “How many did they lose?”

“We killed around seventeen craft, including two – perhaps three – of their superdreadnaughts,” Solomon said. “Intelligence, analysing the results of the battle and the sensor probes, thinks that we damaged several more craft enough for them to require repairs. And, of course, we took out the asteroids we came to target.”

Glass shook his head. “How many did humans we kill?”

“It’s war,” Solomon said. Glass sensed the quiet respect in his voice; both of them had joined the Fleet to save human lives. “We don’t have the luxury of acting to always save lives, even Grey lives. They used nukes on the planet’s surface, contaminating the world; it’s going to take years to clear up all the damage, even if the Greys all drop dead tomorrow.”

Tallyman smiled. “I know how you feel, Admiral, but we came out ahead,” he said. “We kicked their arse right through the system!”

“Did we?” Glass asked. “We got to dictate the terms of that engagement, old friend; the Greys won’t be so accommodating next time.”

“You’re making me feel old,” Tallyman said. He smiled grimly. “Can we liberate New Brooklyn, even to the extent of seizing control of New Brooklyn?”

Solomon scowled. “I was unaware that this was a meeting of the Strategy Board,” he said, rather dryly. “Should the other members be present?”

“Not all of the members are cleared for all of this information,” Glass said softly. He would have preferred to have had the other members present as well, but security had to be taken seriously when the universe was inhabited by Greys. He had even banned Corey from his rooms during the discussion. Captain Damiani, can you outline the current state of planning for New Brooklyn?”

Captain Damiani, the lowliest officer in the room by several different means of counting, frowned. “The Strategy Board has debated the matter on several occasions and the Tactical Board was ordered to develop a plan,” he said. If he knew that he was the lowest-ranking officer in the room, only a faint tremor betrayed in his voice him. “They came up with several different concepts, but all of them have some degree of risk involved.”

“Risk is our business,” Solomon reminded him. Glass sensed his worry about being left out of combat operations for the foreseeable future, unless the Grey response to the attack on New Brooklyn was to try to drop another hammer on Earth. “What is the simplest plan?”

“A major attack,” Damiani said. He sent a command into the room’s processor, which displayed a hologram in front of them, dimming the lights automatically. “We take the Rapid Reaction Force from Earth and mate it up with the Home Guard’s carriers and four of the Sol Picket’s superdreadnaughts, and also take most of the covering forces from Hope, Baen and Terra Nova.” The display altered. “The fleet would rendezvous half a light year from New Brooklyn, then advance and attack.”

“The House of Lords is going to have a fit,” Tallyman observed. Baen was the private world, in fact if not in name, of Lord Baen; it was also one of the most well-developed industrial systems in the Human Union. Its loss could not be contemplated. “Hell, so will the House of Commons.”

“Only if we tell them about it,” Damiani said, with a sudden burst of amusement. Glass concealed a smile – Damiani had said something he would never have been able to say - and waved for him to continue. “If we had all of those units, we would have two-thirds the firepower of the known Grey forces in the system, not counting starfighters. With the starfighters and some of the newer techniques we’ve developed to handle drones, we would be able to crush first one Grey force, and then the other, before occupying the high orbitals and landing Marines to support local forces.”

“The General is going to love that as well,” Solomon observed. The Imperials had never developed the Marine Corps – the nearest human translation to the Empire’s standard translation – to the sort of numbers required to actually invade a world, preferring to rely on Home Guard forces and orbital weapons. “How many soldiers would we need to defeat the Greys on the ground?”

Damiani frowned. “Assuming no help at all from local forces, we would need upwards of a million, as well as unrestricted orbital bombardment,” he said. His face darkened still further. “We would do even more damage to the planet when we attacked, and the death toll could be terrifyingly high.” He frowned. “The plan has two disadvantages.

“The first major problem is that we will be stripping two planets almost clean of defences just to mount the attack,” he said. “Although the Attack Commit will be much later than it was before the Grey communicator was developed, it will still mean leaving two systems almost defenceless – and weakening Earth quite badly – for at least a fortnight, perhaps longer.”

Glass scowled. “The Greys would know about it,” he said. They had had too much proof that the Greys had Earth under fairly constant observation. It was what Glass would have done in their place…and what they were trying to do to New Brooklyn. He had wanted to do the same to Harmony, but it was too far away for a semi-permanent deployment; Intelligence had had to settle for a fly-by each month or so. “They might take advantage of it. What’s the second problem?”

“It relies too much on the Greys doing what we want them to do,” Damiani admitted. “War is a democracy and the Greys have a vote. They have two fleets in system, as of the last report, and our plan involves crushing each of them separately. If they manage to link up before we reach them, they will have an advantage. Worse, they might link up during the first battle; while we’re crushing one of them, the other will attack us.”

He sighed. “We can get around that problem by calling in starships from three other systems, or leaving Earth completely bare apart from, the starfighters, but that would mean taking too many risks. I don’t believe that the government would go for it.”

“I’m not convinced that the government would go for either variant,” Solomon said. Glass nodded; the political risks would be terrifying to anyone with less spine than Prince Roland. “Is that the only plan you have?”

“No,” Damiani said. “The second plan involves launching a major attack – basically, Commodore Brown’s force, mated with a superdreadnaught unit and two additional fleet carriers from Earth – and playing matador with the Grey units. It would take less time to organise and launch, but the Greys would have their best chance of defeating us in detail; if they trapped the fleet, it would be difficult to escape, particularly since the Greys have copied our trick of jumping around the edge of the system.”

“Too dangerous,” Glass said shortly, without debate. Far too much could go wrong. “Next?”

The hologram altered. “Plan four allows us the greatest chance of cutting and running if necessary,” Damiani said. “At the same time, it has the least chance of producing a quick victory; it basically calls for using smaller forces and escort carriers, using them to attack the Greys down around New Brooklyn and trying to strip away their defences, something that would force them to respond or withdraw. We would mate it up with antimatter mines and stealth weapons, making their lives as difficult as possible – of course, they might try to scratch the itch, whatever it takes.”

“Such as attacking Earth,” Glass said. He had been expecting the greys to make a renewed attack on Earth for months; it puzzled him that they hadn’t launched such an attack. “You said that there were four plans?”

“Five,” Damiani said. “We seize one of the moons or asteroids in the system and harass the Greys throughout the system as much as we can, forcing them to deploy to attack us and fighting us on our terms. It has the best chance, assuming that the Greys don’t simply ignore us, of challenging a small percentage of the fleet there, but they might also have the chance to defeat our smaller units, which would not have an effect on our overall combat power.”

“Fat lot of good that combat power is if we have it all tied down defending key systems,” Solomon observed. Glass scowled at him. He understood Solomon’s desire to attack the Greys, but reckless activity would lead to a disaster. “So, it’s basically go in for expanding our raids, or risking a defeat by gathering the force necessary to destroy the Greys in open battle.”

Damiani nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. He altered the hologram. “Although production figures are slightly out of my bailiwick, I can report that production of small units, including some of our own anti-starfighter craft, is increasing faster than we predicted, a month ago. If we have a month, perhaps two, our ability to fend off drone attacks will be much greater; if we can hold out for six months, we will have newer superdreadnaughts and a constantly expanding building capability. If we can hold out for that long, we can afford to take a few risks.”

“Perhaps,” Glass said. He looked around the room. “I don’t need to remind you, then, that this is perhaps the most dangerous period in the war. We have pulled off two direct attacks right into an enemy-held system, but at the same time, the Greys are bound to be determined to retaliate, so we may face an attack directed here. A destructive raid here, or on the Sirius Yards, would cripple us…and bring the possibility of outright defeat that much closer.”

Only a few of them knew about Erickson and the Vanguard’s mission. Glass himself had only a few hopes for it; they just knew so little about what the Imperials were actually doing, but they had thousands of theories. One theory had been that the Imperials were building a new war fleet, another had been that the Greys had already taken out Centre – that one, at least, was nonsense. If the Greys had been able to reach Centre, why would they have bothered with Earth?

It wasn’t important at the moment. “This will be our last meeting for a week,” he continued, “and I have to brief His Highness and the War Cabinet. Are there any issues that any of you want to raise here?”

“Only one,” Solomon said. He tapped the display, projecting a composite display of the Third Battle of New Brooklyn. “Watch.”

Glass watched as the human fleet made its escape, twisting slightly, changing course, just as a Grey fleet micro-jumped through Phase Space to engage the human starships. He made a mental note to ensure that Captain Middleton received a medal; she might well have just saved the fleet from destruction.

“I see,” he said finally. He’d reviewed it once, when it had been transmitted to him, and there was no difference. He massaged his head thoughtfully. “What do you want me to see?”

“If someone was looking at it with a nasty suspicious mind, they might think that we had the ability to read Grey communications, or perhaps to detect a fleet moving through Phase Space,” Solomon said. “Is either even theoretically possible?”

Tallyman, on the spot for once, frowned. “As far as I know, no,” he said. “From what we have determined from experimentation, the Grey communicator sends its signals to another communicator, using that communicator’s unique signature as an address. The range, of course, is somewhat limited; two hundred light years, and of course it cannot be used inside the Phase Limit. Now, the scientists are wondering if it might be possible to send out an ‘all-ships’ signal, but so far there has been no success.”

He grinned. “One possibility is that it might be possible to track down an active Grey communicator,” he continued. “Some of the scientists have been experimenting, but…as far as some people are concerned, the messages might as well come from nowhere or anywhere. They just appear in the communicator.” He paused. “We do take the precaution of encrypting the messages, just in case, but…the Greys might well be able to decrypt Imperial signals. It’s supposed to be impossible, but so was FTL communication.”

Glass nodded. “Nothing is ever simple these days, is it?” He asked. The thought was bitterly amusing; humanity might well become dependent upon a system that was a grave security risk. It was worth almost anything to ensure that that wasn't possible – which might have been the point, after all. “What about tracking a ship in Phase Space?”

“Not possible as far as we know,” Damiani said, after a moment. “Admiral, are you suggesting that the Greys might have such a method, or that they might start looking for one under the impression that we might have one?”

“It’s possible,” Solomon said. “I would feel a lot happier if we knew for sure that it was impossible.”

Chapter Twenty-Three: Any Means Necessary, Take One

“In short,” Kevin Collins said, “the Greys were responsive to our peace proposal, although they insisted on receiving a formal mission from Parliament or the House of Lords before a peace agreement could be worked out.”

Lord Collins smiled up at his son. The media had been running amok with the news from New Brooklyn, glorifying the recent victory and demanding more…and more. He knew that it wouldn’t be long before the Prime Minister asked the House for a new spending bill, which would have an effect on his companies. It couldn’t help, but weaken him still further, and that would be bad. Kevin might inherit nothing, at the rate they were losing money; the House of Lords might be forced to interdict Lord Collins for misjudgement and mishandling part of the economy.

“Good,” he said. Sara’s opinion was untrustworthy, of course; she was only a body-slave. “Captain Jones, what do you think?”

Samantha looked up from her seat. There was something…different about her, something that reminded Lord Collins of something, but he couldn’t place it. He thought it might be an effect of seeing the Greys up close – they were known to have an odd and terrifying effect on humans when they were very close – but it didn’t matter. Only his opinion mattered in the family.

“I believe that they will go along with an agreement that gives them New Brooklyn,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly strong and confident; he wondered what had happened on the trip between Samantha and Kevin. They were certainly always in close proximity, which suggested that they might have become lovers; he made a mental note to investigate it. Samantha couldn’t marry Kevin, of course, but a steady relationship would do him good. “The only question is if the House of Lords can be convinced to make a peace feeler out to the Greys.”

“Let me worry about that,” Collins said. “Is there anything else that you can tell me?”

“The Greys have demanded a tithe of humans as an additional price, something to pay them for the results of human and Imperial aggression,” Kevin said. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I think that we should pay, because it will help keep people focused on the costs of the war, which will result in far fewer deaths than the tithe.”

Collins replayed that sentence in his mind and frowned. “I confess I’m not sure that I understand you,” he said, understating the case. He met his son’s eyes. “Are you suggesting that we send people to the Greys as…what? Slaves? Human sacrifices?”

Kevin looked down. “The human costs of war would be so much higher,” he said, his voice hushed. “That’s what we have to keep reminding people.”

“And in any case the deal could be kept secret,” Samantha injected. She also seemed to be more confident in dealing with him. “Pirates, prisoners, people we don’t want around…all of them could go to the Greys and no one would be any the wiser.”

Collins thought about it. It was a high price, but Kevin was right; so far, the war had claimed over a million lives, not counting the billions of people who had lived on New Brooklyn. No one knew how many Greys had died. Even so, it would be hard to sell to Parliament; it could cost the MPs their seats if they started to send people to the Greys for an uncertain fate. That hardly mattered; his lordship was secure.

Samantha pushed at him. “I have seen enough of their fleet to know that they are much more powerful than we thought,” she said. Her voice was almost unconcerned. “They had intended to work away at the Empire, but when the Empire did them the vast service of collapsing, they sent what they had on hand into the fight and used it to trap Admiral Johnston. They have thousands of starships and they’re running out of patience, particularly since what happened to New Brooklyn.”

She leaned forwards. “My Lord, we have a Grey Communicator system with us, one that works on slightly different principles,” she said. “If we don’t reassure them that there will be peace, they will start looking for a quick end to the war a different way, either through contacting the government directly, or by gathering those superdreadnaughts and charging directly at Earth. If that happens…”

“If that happens,” Kevin said, “we will all lose to the Greys. Worse, we will lose all credit for bringing about the peace.”

Collins nodded slowly. “Very well,” he said. “I will call for a meeting of the House of Lords, and then I will propose that we make an attempt at peace after we won at New Brooklyn. If nothing else, it might pre-empt Roland or that fool Darlington from trying to swing the House towards supporting more military action and continuing to provoke the Greys to the point where they…smash us.”

He thought rapidly. Very little was decided quickly in the House of Lords, even though the Grey Communicator made communication between the Lords and their proxies easier than it had been six months ago. He could spend a week making deals that would ensure that his motion would at least be read, but there wasn't time. Roland and Lord Baen would whip the Lords into a war-fever, and Prime Minister Darlington would do the same for the Lords.

“I think I will make the speech tomorrow,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “Samantha, I want you to work with Kevin to determine what the Greys will be willing to concede to us in exchange for peace; will they be willing to allow the remaining people on New Brooklyn to leave, even if they want the planet?”

“I will ask them,” Samantha said. A faint smile played around her lips. “May we have access to your system to send the signals?”

Lord Collins shrugged. What harm could it do? “Of course,” he said. “Make sure that you get the Greys to give us something we can use, or we will not be able to convince the Lords to make a peace offer.”

***

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” Lord Baen said, as they walked down the long corridor towards the House of Lords. A Viceroy had designed the chamber as a multiracial facility; it was not only larger than anything a human designer would build – at least one without megalomaniac ambitions – but capable of making almost any species feel comfortable. Lord Collins could have ridden an elephant down the corridor and into the debating chamber without difficulty, although he had to admit that the cleaning staff would make a fuss about the mess. “You have not yet bothered to inform us of the reason for this…unscheduled debate.”

Lord Collins shrugged. By law and right, a Lord could summon a quorum of Lords and their proxies to the House of Lords at any time, but it was a right that was rarely used, not least because of the ever-present threat of impeachment. If a Lord, who had to be the best of the best to hold the title for very long, wasted the House’s time, it could lead to an impeachment. He had never exercised his right before; only Prince Roland, who was not technically a member of the House of Lords, had exercised it in recent memory.

Lord Baen nodded towards a picture of a grim-faced oriental woman; the very first Speaker of the House of Lords. “She would never have allowed you to do this,” he noted. Lord Collins lifted an eyebrow; Lord Baen might be pushing two hundred, but that woman had lived well before then. “Dear boy, what is the…cause of this debate?”

“That will have to wait,” Collins said. The House of Lords tended to support the Royal Family; they were nervous about the growing power of the Humanist Party in the House of Commons. It would be difficult to remove the House of Lords without causing an economic crisis, but Chairman Mann would seek to try. “It’s time to go in.”

His implants twitched, registering all manner of sensors probes, as they walked into the debating chamber itself. Security was important, so important that if guests had accompanied him, they would have been searched physically as well before they stepped into the chamber. He nodded to his allies as the Lords filed into the chamber, their eyes missing nothing, all well-dressed in their working robes.

He found his seat and sat down, preparing to wait. The chamber filled up slowly. Unlike the House of Commons, there was no fixed pattern of seats, or numerical limit; they could have made thousands of Lords without breaking Imperial Law. It was one of the reasons why marriages had to be conducted so carefully; a man whose natural talent had brought him to the attention of the Viceroy – Prince Roland now, he supposed – was much more useful as part of a Family than as a Lord in his own right. A new Lord, against rhyme and reason, was often more important, or capable, than one who had inherited his title.

The doors swung shut at the precise time; as normal, a group of running proxy voters were caught on the outside. The Speaker would refuse to allow them to enter, although some exceptions were made for Lords who were on their way; the House and its debates were serious business. Every year, the Lords swore that they would put a stop to that practice and every year, they did nothing; the House had to maintain its dignity.

“The House will come to attention,” the Speaker said. He had no name; it had been forgotten long ago, rumour had it that he had forgotten it, or an Imperial had brainwashed him to forget it. He was neutral in every debate; he held no responsibilities, but to the House. “God save the Emperor.”

It wasn’t an idle wish, Collins knew, and he joined the House in a murmured prayer. The Emperor had been very unlucky, catching a rare degenerative disease that affected those who had more than the normal amount of augmentation. He was now hardly alive, but he refused to die; Roland had been confirmed as the Prince Regent years ago. Sadistically, Lord Collins wondered just how Roland felt about it; his father’s condition had to wear on him as well.

“We have been called here today by Lord Collins, who has summoned us,” the Speaker said. His face twisted slightly. “Does anyone want to claim urgency before we turn our attention to Lord Collins?” No one spoke. It would have been unlikely in the extreme that anyone would, but stranger things had happened. “Lord Collins, you have the floor.”

Lord Collins stood up, knowing that the systems surrounding the House would make his words audible to everyone within the House, as well as recording them for later review by historians. A summoned debate was always secret, at first, but the news would leak out soon; it often did when someone had something important to share with the media reporters.

“We have just won a great victory,” he said, his voice calm and firm. It was important not to show any sign of weakness in the House or he would be eaten alive. “I salute the brave men and women who led the fight and served on the starships that raided New Brooklyn, and I ask the House to join me in a vote of thanks.”

The vote was quickly taken. His patriotic credentials established, Lord Collins pushed on. “And yet, I must ask the House, how long can this go on?” He continued. “We have major economic damage from one problem – the Collapse – and now we have to support a war of thousands of starships and starfighters, fought across thousands of light years. Can we take it?”

He leaned forward. “We all know the production figures,” he said. He knew less than he wanted to know, but more than he was comfortable knowing. Such details as were in the public domain were less than encouraging. “At some point, the Greys are going to overwhelm us at one point, and that will be disastrous. We have attacked the New Brooklyn system twice with major fleet elements, and in each case, we were driven off. Can we go on?”

The Speaker looked uncomfortable, just for a long moment. “We have no choice, they say, and yet…have we really tried to discuss peace with the Greys?” Lord Collins asked. “We sent a starship, an armed warship, to try to discuss peace, and it failed; should we be surprised? Now, however, we have a chance to force them to discuss peace; we hurt them in the second battle.”

There was a long pause. “I move that we send a peace ship to the Greys and try to make a proper peace agreement with them,” he said. “We cannot go on like this; the war has so far cost almost a million lives, more if you count New Brooklyn. We need peace!”

The Speaker coughed as Lord Collins sat down. “There are several requests to respond from the noble Lords,” he said, his voice as dry as dust. Collins winced. That was as clear a sign as any that the Speaker disapproved of his speech. “I call on Lord Birmingham to respond first.”

Lord Birmingham, a man who was known to wear outlandish clothes, stood up. His outfit was a riot of colour, so much so that it was distantly effeminate, something that disgusted Collins. His face, half-hidden behind a long red beard that had been implanted onto his skin, was twitching with shock and horror.

“I shall be brief,” he said, without preamble, a statement that made many of the Lords groan. Briefness was in the ear of the beholder. “I have seen much in my fifty-seven years as Lord of my Family, but I have never heard such nonsense in my time; has my noble Lord lost his mind? Peace with the Greys? Really? Has he forgotten so quickly that the Greys launched bitter and brutal attacks against us?”

Lord Birmingham glared at Lord Collins. “I do not understand,” he said. “How can the Greys be dealt with? They do not talk to us mere humans; they only laid a trap for one of our fleets and wiped it out to the last man. Since then, they have taken one of our planets, launched a brutal attack on Earth itself, and raided our shipping enough to cause a major shipping crisis. You want to talk to them? Are you out of your mind?”

“That is not a legitimate question for this forum,” the Speaker said, before Lord Collins could respond. Duels had been fought before over such a response. “Does anyone else have any points to add?”

Lord Collins knew that the vote had failed, even before nearly two-dozen Lords rose to castigate the proposal. They attacked him, they attacked the Greys, and they slammed the peace proposal in no uncertain terms. By the time the vote was called, with proxies taking a moment to enquire of their principles, it was a foregone conclusion.

“The tally is three hundred not in favour, forty-seven in favour, and seventy abstentions,” the Speaker said finally. “The motion is rejected.”

***

“They are determined on war,” Collins said, later. He spoke to Samantha, who was linked to the Grey system that had been returned with Kevin to Earth, and Kevin himself. No one else was present, not even Sara. “I fear that we have been hammered in the House.”

He made no attempt to conceal the scale of the political disaster. Already, some of the pundits – the news had leaked out even during the debate, which was supposed to be impossible – were predicting that he would be impeached, even though he was a Lord and forty-seven Lords had supported him. Prince Roland would be asked to call a special meeting of the House of Commons soon…and that would be very bad.

“They are not happy,” Samantha said, after a long moment. It only stood to reason that the Grey Communicator the Greys themselves used would be better than the one the human race had copied. It seemed to allow much more personal communication. “They are warning of increased war, perhaps striking a blow to strike fear into the hearts of humanity.”

“Of course,” Lord Collins said, grasping at a straw. His political future and the future of his entire Family were on the line. He would pay any price to prevent the Family from coming apart. “If the Greys scare the House of Lords enough, they might agree to consider a peace on those terms.”

Samantha nodded and worked the system. “They have decided to mount a major attack on one system,” she said. “They want, as a price for continuing to work through you towards peace, some information from you.”

Lord Collins blinked. “What kind of information?”

“Defences, political structure, what the defence plans are, what sort of support might be expected from other human worlds and so on,” Samantha said. “Of course, they say that if you lie to them, they will betray you to Human Intelligence.”

Lord Collins shuddered and saw some of his alarm mirrored in Kevin’s face. Human Intelligence would just kidnap the pair of them if they suspected that they were dealing with the Greys, but what choice did they have? Their entire Family was on the brink of total collapse, even without the peace plan. Whatever he had to do to prevent that, he would do it, whatever the price.

He looked up. He’d already made his choice. “Which planet?”

Samantha told him.

Lord Collins smiled for the first time. “I think that that would actually be a pleasure,” he said. Only one planet in the Human Union resisted the power of the House of Lords, with the possible exception of New Brooklyn. “I’ll see to it at once.”

Chapter Twenty-Four: Any Means Necessary, Take Two

“Captain, we are entering the Cerutti system,” Monique Lingberry said. Her face, heart-shaped and framed with dark hair, was lovely beyond human imagination, the product of what looked like a rich girl and unlimited access to body-shaping technology. “As yet, I am detecting no signs of pirate activity.”

Captain Paul Baldson looked up from his own console. The Intelligence starship Eeyore reassembled nothing so much as a small fast freighter. To a bored customs officer, it looked perfectly normal and unremarkable; to a pirate, who might well have a similar ship, it was clearly a commercial ship adapted to serve as a warship. Unknown – he hoped – to both of them, his ship had been built from the kneel up as a warship…and had more firepower than most destroyers.

In keeping with the standard design, the bridge was tiny and cramped; it was dirty in the manner that suggested a careless crew, or at least a sloppy one. It offended Baldson’s soul to act in such a manner – back on the fuelling platform, he’d insisted that the crew kept it spick and span – but it was necessary. They had to project an aura of…not incompetence, because the pirates would be quick to take advantage of it, but of…the type of sloppiness not normally associated with the Fleet. The pirates would be suspicious – living with the knowledge that Fleet starships would shoot them on site tended to make them more than a little paranoid – and he had to convince them not to open fire on first contact.

“Good,” he said. Monique scared him slightly; he knew, from her files, that she had seventeen successful missions to her credit, all of which would have defeated a lesser woman. The five of them could command and fight the ship – Intelligence had fewer restrictions on the use of AI in combat – but any major damage would be fatal. He was also aware that she was a stone-cold killer who projected an air of normalcy. “Keep us heading in on this heading.”

Monique nodded. Her outfit was designed more to appeal to pirate minds than common sense; her low-cut top was designed to attract the eye and keep it trapped. Pirates wore outrageous outfits, promoting their vision of an alternate culture based around social Darwinism, but he knew that if Monique fell into their hands, she would suffer a fate worse than death. Of course, the pirates, had they known what she was, wouldn’t have tried to take her alive.

He forced himself to focus on his console and watched as the starship bored further into the star system. He’d been to Cerutti before, back when he’d been trapped on Morgan’s starship, but he hadn’t had time to play tourist. Morgan and his ship had fought the Vanguard and Captain Erickson in the system, just before the pirates had secured the surface; who knew what would have happened if the Vanguard hadn’t arrived in time? The Greys had also been active here; they’d attacked and destroyed a heavy cruiser, back before the war had broken out.

He shook his head. It seemed like years ago.

“I have three contacts,” Monique said suddenly, her voice as calm and controlled as ever. Eeyore had a sensor suite that put almost all others in the shade; even the passive sensors were beyond anything Baldson had known was possible before joining Intelligence. “All some distance from us, in the asteroids.”

Baldson nodded as the display updated; Cerutti had been mining a few asteroids before the pirates had launched their first attack, but he had expected that all of the mining craft had been destroyed or fled, if they’d had the capability. He sucked in his breath as more details were revealed; the pirates had been busy, even to the point of deploying more mining equipment. Where were they getting them from?

“The black colonies,” Monique said, when he asked. Eeyore’s sensor suite was revealing more and more activity throughout the asteroids, including what looked like a little shipyard. He tapped his console as a nasty thought struck him, but all of the equipment was of Imperial origin, rather than Grey. There didn’t seem to be any Grey starships in the system at all, or if there were, they were keeping them well hidden. The only starships in the system seemed to be from the black colonies, judging by how outdated it was.

An alarm chimed. “We have a new contact,” Gary Pimento said, through the intercom. Unusually for a merchant ship, but par for the course on a warship – or a pirate craft – Eeyore had two bridges, one to replace the other if something went badly wrong with the first bridge, such as the enemy scoring a direct hit on it. “It reads out as a warship from engine powering, but there are some odd things about it. Sensors pulses are consistent with designs from twenty years ago.”

“Launch a stealth probe,” Baldson ordered. The ship shuddered slightly as the probe launched itself out towards the newcomer; he allowed himself a moment to feel puzzled. The Greys had technology equal to the Empire’s, so why would they not equip Morgan and his forces with similar tech? “Keep patching through the results to me.”

Monique smiled at him. “Do you want us to hail them?”

“No,” Baldson said. “Let them think that we haven’t seen them.”

Moments passed. The probe reported back through what was supposed to be an untraceable laser link; the detailed picture of the craft built up in front of him. It was a modified Empire cruiser, a light cruiser from forty years ago; it seemed to have been heavily refitted by whoever held it now. If it still had its original weapons, Eeyore would have been a fair match for it, but he would have bet good money that it had been refitted. Imperial officers hated pirate ships; they tended to carry unpleasant surprises for unwary officers.

“We’re being hailed,” Monique said. Her voice seemed almost amused. “They’re identifying themselves as the Alliance ship Warlord and they’re demanding that we state our business.”

Baldson sent a query into the ship’s database; no report mentioned either the Warlord – apart from an Imperial battlecruiser that carried the same name – nor did it mention any Alliance. He scowled; Morgan had had to have named his new pirate empire something, but Alliance? What exactly was happening here?

“Open a channel,” he said. No one using visual equipment would be able to tell that the starship was anything other than what it seemed. “This is Captain Baldson of the Eeyore.”

There was a long pause. Baldson wondered just what they knew about what had happened to the Queen Anne’s Revenge; his name might just provide them with a quick ticket to Morgan and Morgan’s Hold, or it might just cause incomprehension on the other side. Just before he was about to repeat his message, a voice echoed back over the communications link.

“This is Captain Valour,” he said. Baldson snorted quietly; pirates were fond of absurd false names for themselves. “You will state your business in this system.”

It wasn’t a request. “I have messages for Captain Morgan,” Baldson said flatly. “I request that you provide escort to the current location of Morgan’s Hold.”

Captain Valour, he was amused to note, didn’t blink at the assertion that Morgan’s Hold could move. That little detail had been in all of the news reports. “That would be the headquarters of the Alliance,” he said. “I cannot escort you there, but I can give you the coordinates, if you make it worth my while.”

Baldson had to smile. Once a pirate, always a pirate. “I have some reason to believe that Morgan will reward you heavily,” he said, thinking about the implications of Morgan’s Hold being called the headquarters of the Alliance. It didn’t look good. “If that is not enough, we have Human Union credits and some other items.”

“I would hate to offend Morgan,” Captain Valour said. “I will send you the coordinates now.”

“I will pay you for them as well,” Baldson said. It would give Valour less reason to betray them. “One other point; what is the Alliance?”

Captain Valour’s eyes gleamed with the light of a true fanatic. “The Alliance is us of the Diaspora finally coming into our own,” he said. Baldson’s computer bleeped; the coordinates had arrived. “We have taken what once belonged to those who have oppressed us, and one day we will take the war to the Empire itself and force it to respect us. I will send you some details, and perhaps your group will seek to join us.”

“Perhaps,” Baldson said. Captain Valour had clearly taken him for a pirate, which wasn't the disaster it could have been. “I look forward to talking to you again.”

The second piece of information arrived. “Take us out of here,” Baldson ordered Monique. The Eeyore turned and headed away from the Warlord, pausing only to gather as much information from the stealth probe as they could. The probe was drifting towards the planet, revealing a small degree of radio transmissions, more orbital installations, and much more settlement. “What has been happening here?”

***

He didn’t relax until they were back in Phase Space, heading to the coordinates that Captain Valour had transmitted. Somewhat to his bitter amusement, they were near Garland, where he had been stationed before his life had crossed paths with Morgan’s life. ‘Near,’ of course, was relative; Morgan’s Hold was currently located several light years into interstellar space from Garland. It made a kind of sense; the Hold would be able to escape without having to cross the Phase Limit first, so they would be much safer if they had to run.

“This is interesting,” Monique said, as she examined the files. She was leaning forwards in a manner calculated to draw male attention to her…assets. Baldson knew that she had had such moves almost programmed into her, intended to disarm a man when the blood rushed to his groin, but it didn’t stop the effect working. “Look.”

Baldson looked at the file on his own console. It was safer than leaning over Monique’s shoulder. Captain Valour had sent them more than just a primer of the Alliance – which was portrayed as a union of the former black colonies into a genuine interstellar government – but also some details of the system. Baldson suspected that half of it was plain and simply propaganda – unless Morgan had purged around three-quarters of the pirate force - but it looked encouraging. Of greatest interest was an offer of amnesty, to any pirate or Imperial Fleet officer who wanted to join the Alliance.

“It’s all bollocks, of course,” Monique said, speaking in a very unladylike tone. Her face twisted as if she had smelled something unpleasant. “They make no bones about having overwhelmed the worlds in the new sector – or about resettling thousands of people onto the worlds – and they make no mention of the Greys. According to this, Harmony is off-limits, and the Greys do not exist.”

“Morgan’s been a busy little bee,” Baldson agreed. He stood up. “I’m going back to my cabin; wake me up when we reach the Hold.”

Monique snorted. The Hold was several days off at best speed. Baldson went to bed anyway, and then spent more time studying the details of the Alliance, wondering just how much of it was true. One long article told of an attempt to re-establish the fastship network, using some black shipyards to rebuild the mining stations like the ones that had been destroyed in the early states of the ‘liberation,’ which suggested that the Greys hadn’t shared their communications technology with their allies. It gave him something to bargain with, if necessary; he had wide latitude and there were possibilities in the information.

He almost ordered a diversion to Garland itself, but he decided that it wasn’t worth the time; they maintained their course directly towards the Hold. The details provided by Captain Valour suggested that there were designated emergence points, which made sense; there would be a very real danger, no matter how microscopic, of accidentally trying to emerge in the middle of the Hold. No one knew what would happen then, but they all agreed that it would be bad.

“Five seconds,” Monique said, as her fingers danced over her panel. Baldson would have given an arm and a leg for a Grey Communicator, one that could be used to reach Earth, or at least another starship. They were jumping right into the heart of Morgan’s space, and Morgan had every reason to want him dead as painfully as possible. “Two…one…zero!”

The strange lights of Phase Space vanished as the Eeyore returned to normal space. The alarm buzzed at once – the computers were not used to emerging so close to such a large structure – and Baldson slapped it off irritably; there was no immediate danger. The Hold spun in space, its shape illuminated by bright running lights; it drew the eye towards its tremendous bulk…and the primitiveness of its design. The Greys hadn’t built it and humanity had only dreamed of such craft before the Invasion; Erickson had been convinced that the Hold had been built by an unknown race that had been invaded by the pirates. Baldson wished, for the first time, that the Vanguard were present as well; the heavy cruiser would come in handy.

The computer chimed as its sensors picked up more surprises, including dozens of OWPs floating around the Hold, their sensors already coming active and targeting the Eeyore. There was no shipyard, which surprised him at first until he remembered just how large the Hold actually was; the shipyard might well be inside the massive starship. Dozens of smaller ships floated around the Hold, including two battlecruisers like the Queen Anne’s Revenge…and another battlecruiser that looked as if neither humans nor the Greys had built it. Baldson studied its lines, crude but functional, and wondered; where had that come from?

“We are being hailed,” Monique said. “I believe that they don’t know who we are.”

Baldson nodded. He had planned it as a small experiment; if Captain Valour had been able to send a message that outraced the Eeyore, it would have had to have been done through a Grey Communicator…and no message had been sent. Morgan wouldn’t know who they were, until he sent his message.

“This is Commander Paul Baldson,” he said, into the communicator. “I would like to talk to Captain Morgan, and I believe that he will want a few words with me.”

The pause was longer than it had been with Captain Valour. “The starships are bringing their weapons online,” Monique said. Her voice sniffed with disapproval. “Far too slow to win a serious battle, Captain; a single superdreadnaught could have destroyed them all by now.”

A voice echoed over the communications link. The computer informed him that the voice was far from human, but Baldson had known that already. “This is Grimm,” the voice said. Baldson remembered the bulky Cnc who had been charged with breaking him and his friends to the pirate crew and winced. “Good Morning, Paul; it has been a while.”

Baldson knew that he was being mocked. “Good Morning,” he said. It was afternoon by the Eeyore’s time; the Hold must take its time from a very different world from Earth. The Imperial starships shared such details as a matter of course; the pirates clearly disagreed with that policy. “I have come to discuss matters with Captain Morgan.”

“That would be President Morgan to you,” Grimm said. Baldson had an absurd image, spinning through his mind, of the Cnc in a standard business suit. “I imagine, traitor, that you have heard of our Alliance.”

Baldson refused to rise to the bait. “I have and I have been sent as a diplomatic envoy,” he said. It was a half-truth; neither Admiral Glass nor Director Tallyman had known about the Alliance, they had only expected to find a pirate empire. “I have matters of mutual interest to discuss with him.”

“Really,” Grimm said. The Cnc sounded doubtful. Baldson was struck, once again, by just how human he sounded; he had wondered if Grimm had been raised by humans. It wasn’t something that the Imperials approved of, for all sorts of reasons, but it was known to happen. “Perhaps he does not want to talk to you…”

Baldson, who was fairly certain that Morgan was listening in to the conversation, smiled. “If he has ambitions of keeping this…Alliance,” he said, “he will have to open relations with the Human Union at some point.” He remembered an old joke about a force of implacable evil having to become responsible and keep the trains running on time, just to keep the empire moving, and smiled. “I have much to offer him.”

The pause returned. This time, it brought friends. “I will clear you for a docking bay,” Grimm said finally. “I trust that you understand that your ship will have to be inspected first?”

Baldson shook his head, knowing that the Cnc couldn’t see him. “No,” he said. The Hold had always respected the integrity of the starships docked there before…well, before the Alliance. It had been one of the reasons it had been such an important pirate base and link between the pirates on one hand and the black colonies on the other. “The ship remains under our control.”

Grimm didn’t press the point. “Very well,” he said. “You are cleared to dock with Bay Seven. Do not deviate from your course, or you will be fired upon.”

Baldson couldn’t wait any longer. “Grimm, what about my friends?” He asked. Monique gave him a sharp look as he spoke. “Where are they?”

Grimm’s voice became flat and emotionless. “Your friends?” He said. Baldson knew before Grimm could answer. “They’re dead, I’m afraid. Such a pity, really; they were so lovely, but…that’s what happens when someone leaves them behind.”

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Garden And Eden

“Sound red alert,” Erickson said, as the countdown to emergence ticked down. The Phase Limit for the Garden system was still two AUs off, but he’d decided that the small force would come out of Phase Drive some distance from the limit. “All hands to battle stations!”

He scowled as the crew raced to their positions. They’d checked for a probe following them, like he himself had done to Captain Morgan’s starship, and found nothing, but he knew as well as anyone that that didn’t prove anything. When they’d picked up the freighters from Utopia, he’d managed to convince Admiral Stevenson to permit him to borrow a second cruiser for the voyage to Garden, but if the Greys had been curious, they might have sent something more powerful in pursuit.

“Emergence in ten seconds,” Lieutenant-Commander Paul Lafarge said. “Nine, eight, seven…”

“All stations report battle-readiness,” Commander Miriam Rothschild said. Her voice was nervous; they were moving into what might as well be unknown space, and they might be blinded by the fact that they had known the system. Imperial starships didn’t normally have to sound battle stations just to enter an Imperial system, even though along the Rim it was common sense. “The Vanguard is ready for battle.”

“Two, one, emergence,” Lafarge said. The strange lights of phase space vanished, to be replaced by star lights and the present of a star that was just slightly more prominent at this distance than any other star. “Drive cycling into reset mode; all systems report nominal.”

Erickson nodded. The Fleet bureaucrats would have a lot of sharp things to say about recycling the drive so fast, but there was little choice; he wanted the ability to vanish back into Phase Space if they were greeted with a hail of fire. The starship shuddered slightly as drones were launched, fanning out around the ship; he watched as the sensor displays updated themselves, revealing…nothing.

“Sensors report no contacts, hostile or otherwise,” Lieutenant Kevin Smarts reported. His voice was slightly nervous. “Sensors also report no sign of turbulence or anonymous energy discharges.”

Erickson met Evensong’s eyes. The Greys had a cloaking system too, but it wasn’t as capable as the Imperial system – yet. Turbulence in the fabric of space-time could be caused by a cloaked ship, or it could be caused by natural events in the darkness of interstellar space. It wasn’t unknown for starships to venture out to do battle against minor tremors in empty space, or for a random zero-point energy discharge to sound alarms and – in some cases – trigger an automated missile launch.

“Good,” he said. “David?”

He’d given David Symons a place on the bridge, in one of the spare consoles. It had been more of a gesture on his part than anything else, although Symons had Imperial Fleet training; he had none on the Vanguard in particular. They’d spent a month trying to bring him up to the standards that Erickson demanded of his crew, but time had been limited, more than he had expected.

“There should be a listening post out here,” Symons said. There was a bittersweet tone to his voice. Coming to the world that had been his home for far too long was something new for him. “If we find it, we have to signal it and identify ourselves before there’s a panic.”

Erickson nodded. “Ensign Lundy, signal the listening post and inform them of who we are and what we’re doing,” he said. “David, how quickly can your people be prepared to move?”

Symons frowned. “We planned to leave within an hour, if we ever had help,” he said. “I can only hope that my deputy kept everyone in order.”

A listening post was somewhat misnamed; there were no sounds in space. The Imperials used them in hopes of getting early warning of any threat, assuming that one came out near the post, and they also served as warning buoys if they were required. Commercial ships were required by law to identify themselves to a post, assuming that one of them existed in the system; military starships had other requirements.

“Signal sent,” Lundy said. His voice was calm. “They’re sending a signal back towards the planet.” He paused. “I’m getting a direct signal, relayed through the listening post.”

“David, thank God,” a voice said. It was female, harsh and nervous. “The pirates might be coming back at any moment, so please hurry.”

Symons spoke at Erickson’s nod. “We’re coming in as fast as we can,” he said. Erickson smiled at the raw relief in his tone. “Please have everyone ready for evacuation as quickly as possible.”

“Take us in,” Erickson ordered. He opened a private channel to Captain Hawk. “Captain, I want you and your ship to cover us and the freighters, then we’ll escort you back out of the system.”

“Understood,” Hawk said, a man of few words. “We’ll cover your back.”

The Imperials classed Garden and Eden as a twin-system, despite the fact they weren’t a binary twin-planet system. The Survey Service had found only one example of a twin-pair of habitable worlds, further up towards the Butler Sector; those worlds literally orbited around one another. There were two gas giant binary systems, along with several smaller rocky paired planets, but the Garden system didn’t possess any examples of that style of system. Instead, the two planets had been declared off-limits for settlement, at least on the surface; the Imperials had had other uses in mind for them.

Erickson knew the basic story; every human did. It was something that the official Imperial-approved histories covered, which had to be studied in school and then university. Humanity, before the Imperials had arrived, had hunted thousands of animal and plant species to extinction, almost decimating the number of species on the planet Earth. The Imperials, in their wisdom, had scooped up thousands of examples, cloned millions of them, and placed them all on Eden. Garden was something different, a world with literally millions of species from all over the Empire, placed to see what would happen. A thousand years after the project had started, according to Symons, some of the stranger vegetation was almost showing signs of intelligence.

Under other circumstances, Erickson would have been fascinated, and worried. Humans had dreamed of ‘uplifting’ other animal species on their homeworld, but the Imperials banned that practice and enforced it rigorously. Erickson himself, according to the terms of that oath, was supposed to prevent such uplifting from ever taking place, whatever the price. Now, of course, it hardly mattered, although an Imperial story about a group of aliens who had used seeds floating across interstellar distances to propagate their race warned of some of the possible dangers.

“We’re getting a beacon,” Lafarge said, as they moved into the system. “I think they’re leading us towards the Eden station.”

“That’s right,” Symons said. “We had to consolidate after the first pirate attack, which meant that we had to abandon some of the systems, and others were destroyed in the attacks. Garden station has just been abandoned, at least for the moment; perhaps one day we’ll come back and see what’s happened here, but now…”

Erickson shrugged. It didn’t look as if there would be any return to normalcy for the Tarn Sector. If half of the reports, from Symons and the other refugees, were accurate, the Tarn Sector’s civil war would devastate the system by the time it was finished. It made him wonder if the prohibition on the use of heavy weapons on the surface of a planet would survive; certainly, the Greys had shown little reluctance to use nukes on the surface of New Brooklyn. Their sheer ruthlessness gave them an edge.

“We are coming into shipping range of Eden station,” Lafarge said. “Captain, they’re sending a docking signal for the freighters.”

“Communications, have the freighters dock,” Erickson ordered. “David, could you ask if they have any updated information on the situation in the sector?”

There was a pause. “Only what another refugee freighter brought,” Symons said, his implants using the communications system to talk to his deputy. He’d been worried about her; he’d lost the chess game they’d used to determine who would stay behind. “There’s been several major pirate attacks, confusing both sides in the civil war, and civil liberties are almost none existent for members of the rebelling species.”

“There’s something for us to worry about,” Evensong muttered, on a private channel. “What is the Admiral in charge of the Tarn Picket going to make of us?”

“We won’t go into the Phase Limit there, unless we have no choice,” Erickson confirmed. He’d thought about that; the last thing they needed was to be arrested as rebels, rather than envoys. “If worst comes to worst, we’ll transmit our signal and the details of the Grey Communicator, and then vanish back into Phase Space.”

Eden Station grew in the display. It had clearly started life as an asteroid habitat, not unlike the ones orbiting Earth, but it had grown, and grown, until it had swallowed several asteroids and had lost its spin. It would be relying on a gravity generator, rather than anything natural, to generate gravity; the entire complex was large enough to make re-establishing the spin impossible. An insane mixture of rocky asteroids, processed metal tubes and repaired components, it would have enough room for thousands of people, and thousands of refugees.

“The first freighter is preparing to dock,” Lundy reported, as the Vanguard fell into a holding orbit, just outside of weapons range. The entire system seemed to be as dark and silent as the grave, but there was very little that anyone would want from the system, just as they would want nothing from an agrarian colony, like the one that had been established by the Amish. The only things there that might have interested pirates would have been food and women, and visiting it was hardly worth the effort when richer prises existed outside those systems. “The station confirms that they have the loading procedure ready.”

“Remind them that we have very little room for luggage,” Erickson said. The freighters weren’t colony starships, capable of carrying millions of colonists at a time, like the ones that had transported settlers from Earth to the new worlds. They had limited room and everyone was going to be packed in very tightly. “Any information they have has to be transferred to the starship’s computers, or they can’t take it with them.”

He ignored Symons’ half-hearted protest. They had little room for manoeuvre; things like data security and private information and research would have to take a backseat to keeping everyone alive and well. The Imperial Fleet wouldn’t be interested in much of the information, but he knew that there would be commercial interests who would be very interested indeed. If worst came to worst, they might need the information at Centre as a bargaining chip.

The second freighter docked, and then the third, as thousands of refugees flooded into the starships. Parts of the station began to go dark as the caretaker crew shut down elements of the system, others continued to glow, revealing automated defences that would keep pirates away from the station. Erickson suspected, privately, that the defences wouldn’t last long against a determined attack – proximity nukes would kill many of the orbiting system surrounding the planets – but it hardly mattered. Absently, he wondered what would happen if the plants on Garden actually did become intelligent and started to probe into space; would they wonder what had happened far above them?

He shook his head. The Imperials had no qualms about invading a primitive world and improving it for the better; they had done it before for races that hadn’t reached the Iron Age, let alone space. If the Empire were ever re-established, it would be very interested in what had happened on Garden, and perhaps it would be willing to make contact and aid the newcomers.

“That’s the last ship docking now,” Symons said. Erickson nodded; they’d been orbiting the world for what felt like twelve hours, and was almost two hours. The refugees, at least, knew how to move quickly; they weren’t wasting his time. “Once that’s done, we can close down and leave.”

“Good,” Erickson said. Two of Smarts’ probes were already sweeping through their egress route, but he was having that cross-haired feeling again. If there were pirates, or Greys, in the system, they might have to fight their way out. “Order them to move as fast as possible; time is not our friend.”

He leaned forward. “It’s time for you to make a choice as well,” he said. “Do you want to come with us or go back with Captain Hawk?”

Symons didn’t hesitated. “I want to come with you,” he said. “If nothing else, I want to ask the Admiral at Tarn why all of this happened so quickly.”

Erickson nodded and settled back into his seat. The display kept updating as the probes reported back, but the feeling that something was very wrong refused to fade, even as the probes constantly reported no enemy contact at all. If there were hostiles in the system, where were they? If not, why did he keep worrying?

“Expand the probe network out,” he ordered. “Keep watching for unpleasant surprises.”

“That’s the final freighter departing now,” Smarts said, as Eden Station went dark. “They’re signalling that they’re ready to leave.”

“Good,” Erickson said. “Helm, take us out of here; sensors, keep sweeping for trouble, watching out in particular for cloaked starships.”

He forced himself to sit down. His growing concern was starting to worry the other crewmembers, and the Captain could not afford to allow that to happen. It would only upset them; the Captain had to appear to be in control at all times. The Imperial Fleet gave its commanding officers considerable latitude, not least because it wasn’t often possible to ask for orders along the Rim, and that brought responsibilities with it. Not least, the responsibility to act as if he knew what he was doing.

Captain Hawk and the Tornado moved in front of them, searching for possibly hostile starships, sweeping backwards and forwards along their flight path. Erickson ran dozens of mental simulations, considering his options; he would have sold his soul for another cruiser, or a destroyer squadron of his own. Whatever happened, the enemy was very likely to get the first shot in, and that was bad. An hour passed, than another, and nothing happened.

“We’re crossing the Phase Limit,” Lafarge said. “The freighters are ready to leave.”

“Then let’s not hesitate,” Erickson said. “Captain Hawk, get the freighters back to Utopia, apart from the one that’s coming with us.”

Hawk nodded as his face appeared on the display. “Understood,” he said. “Good luck, Vanguard.”

“Thanks,” Erickson said. He watched grimly as the freighters vanished into Phase Space; the Tornado waited until they were all gone, and then vanished itself. “Weber, have you any more news from home?”

The converted light freighter Weber carried the Grey Communicator. The Vanguard lacked the power to operate one. “No,” Captain Riker said. “There’s been another raid on New Brooklyn, but no other orders.”

Erickson nodded. “Sensors?”

“Nothing to report,” Smarts said. “If there was someone nearby, they probably took a look at the warships and decided not to push their luck.”

“Good,” Erickson said. “Helm?”

“Course laid in,” Lafarge said. “We’re all set to move to Tarn.”

“Take us out,” Erickson said. His stomach twisted as they launched themselves into Phase Space. “Secure from red alert; first officer to the bridge.”

He felt more than heard his crew relax as he cancelled the red alert. It was a week until they reached Tarn; they would have some time to relax and enjoy themselves. Miriam entered the bridge, looking relieved; she’d clearly picked up on his nervousness herself.

“You have the bridge,” Erickson said. He stood up and accepted her salute as she sat down on the command chair. He stepped off the bridge, aware of both Evensong and Symons following him into the intership car, and smiled grimly at them both as the doors hissed closed. “An interesting time, I think.”

“I know,” Symons said. He sounded very tired and bitter. “All that work is likely to be wasted, just because of all of this…civil war.”

Evensong’s face was grim. “We will find the Imperials and ask them what the hell they were thinking,” she said, trying to reassure Symons. The intership car came to a halt at the officers’ quarters. Erickson accepted the salute of two enlisted men as they stepped out of the lift. “Captain?”

They’d give Symons one of the guest quarters. “We’ll discuss, tomorrow, what we will do at Tarn,” Erickson said. Symons nodded and stepped into his cabin, leaving them alone. “Under the circumstances, we have little choice, but not to travel to Tarn itself.”

“Too dangerous,” Evensong agreed. She said nothing else until they were in his cabin. The Imperial Fleet gave its captains vast quarters; Erickson would have been happier in smaller rooms, even with Evensong practically living with him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I don’t know,” Erickson said, as he gazed into her soft brown eyes. “Back then, I just had the sense that we were being watched by unfriendly eyes, and it worried me. With the freighters along, we were in no state for a battle, even if we had the Tornado as well to assist.”

Evensong nodded. The freighters had pathetic acceleration rates; they could neither outrun nor outfight a determined pirate. The Vanguard could have done either, but not if they had to cover the convoy, and the pirates would be hampered by their desire to take the freighters intact. The Greys would just fire a spread of missiles and then sit back and watch the fireworks.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “We’ve seen no signs that we were being watched.”

“I know,” Erickson said. “I just think…that something has gone wrong, somewhere.”

Chapter Twenty-Six: Dealing With The Devil

“Don’t lose your temper,” Monique Lingberry said, as they stepped through the airlock and into what was clearly a decontamination bay. Baldson’s implants reported that medical sensors and security systems were probing them, although he didn’t expect that they would be disarmed. The Hold had hosted thousands of pirates, although, to be fair, Morgan’s people had rigorously enforced order. “This is too important.”

“Yes,” Baldson said, wondering just who was in charge. Monique sometimes acted as if she was the boss, not him; she had more experience, true, but not with Morgan and his people. Her outfit, dressed as a pirate moll, would draw the eye, but it wouldn’t make them respect her. Only extreme violence could do that, just as Alice had, back on the Queen Anne’s Revenge. “I won’t lose my temper.”

Monique gave him a sharp look as the second airlock hissed open, revealing a Grimm. The Cnc’s bulky body shifted slightly as he leaned forwards, welcoming them into the Hold; Baldson felt a wave of hatred and remembered fear. The Cnc seemed unaware of any hostility; he beckoned them into the Hold with one easy arm.

“Welcome back,” he said. There was something in his voice that worried Baldson, almost as if Grimm was playing a role of some kind. He didn’t seem to take himself quite seriously. “I am to escort you to the President.”

“President,” Baldson repeated, as he led them into the main body of the Hold. It was as disreputable as it had been the last time he had been an unwilling visitor; clubs, entertainments and sleeping quarters contrasted with shops, piles of equipment, and visitors. The Hold thronged with visitors and not all of them were pirates. Some of them were clearly colonists, others seemed to be…well, grey. He wondered if there were any real Greys around, but he couldn’t see any. There were dozens of aliens, but no Greys. “How did he become President?”

Grimm seemed to smile. “He had the dream,” he said. Baldson sensed that he wasn't telling the exact truth. “He wanted an empire and finally he managed to create the beginnings of one.”

Monique lifted one eyebrow. Doing that alone did interesting things to her breasts. “Some of these people are from the black colonies,” she said. “Are they part of this Alliance?”

“Of course,” Grimm said. “They wanted so much to break out of the limits imposed on them by the Empire, so when the Empire collapsed, Captain Morgan was able to convince them to sign up with his new empire.”

Baldson wasn’t surprised. The Imperial Fleet had long known that black colonies – colonies founded illegally, mainly for illegal purposes, occasionally people who just wanted their privacy – were supporting the pirates. Given the strict limitations imposed upon them by their desire to remain hidden, even thought the latter kind could always move to the ‘grey’ category if they chose, they had every incentive to work with pirates, who tended to respect them. Pirates who didn’t tended to end up dead, or worse. The participation of some of them – he doubted that Morgan could have convinced all of them – to take part in the Alliance was worrying; they might be able to provide Morgan with the help he needed to make his empire permanent.

He looked up as they passed a slave auction. The slave’s owner was proclaiming the value of his wares, bare-breasted women from one of the colony worlds, and declaring that they were all virgins. That wouldn’t last, even assuming that such a preposterous claim was true; unless they had vital skills, they would end up in a brothel or as a sex slave to an individual pirate. It wasn’t a death sentence – a smart girl who was lucky might be able to still make something out of it – but most of them would be dead within the year.

He scowled. What did the black colonies think of that?

“Their world resisted the Alliance,” Grimm said dryly, as they passed the slaves and left them behind. Baldson wondered, insanely, if he should offer to buy them; the sheer horror of the dog-eat-dog world of the Hold was chilling. People wrote long and tedious romance novels – and films, and touchy-feelies – about being in a relationship with a pirate; Baldson knew that it was a lie. “They had to be broken.”

“Of course,” Baldson said. His implants went into overtime, preventing him from losing his temper completely; it was too dangerous to lose his cool. His new implants and augmentation would allow him to defeat Grimm, but he wasn't so foolish as to believe that Grimm was alone, or unprotected. Morgan hadn’t survived long enough to become legend without knowing to be cautious…and Grimm would have learned that from him. “How many worlds are there in the Alliance?”

“You would be amazed,” Grimm said. “There are dozens of settlements that the Imperials, may they be cursed, never knew anything about. Worlds that have small settlements, asteroids, tiny habitations that are barely able to keep themselves going – they all came to us. Many of them brought new technologies, particularly medical technology, to us; the Imperials, in their foolishness, banned some technologies that have been developed here.”

Baldson and Monique shared a look. Some of the strangest – and most unpleasant –groups had fled to the Rim, from neo-nazis who had somehow survived the Occupation, to human-independence groups and even weirder groups. There were legends that one group of genetically-engineered ants had set up on a planet, although Baldson suspected that someone had run into the Greys and had made up the ant part of the legend. The Greys did seem to act like an insect-like race, although they certainly had individuals as well.

He looked up at Grimm. “Have you any of the Greys onboard?”

Grimm just smiled as they walked towards an airlock that seemed to have been built for creatures several times the size of Cnc-type beings. It hissed open as they approached…and a wave of cold air wafted out at them. It was cold and sterile; Baldson felt himself shivering as they walked down a long corridor, and through another airlock. It was warmer there, and more…human; he wondered, just for a moment, if they’d been near a Grey.

“This is the private meeting room of the Alliance members,” Grimm said, sounding much more serious now. Baldson had never been in that part of the Hold before; it seemed much more business-like than the commercial area. “I believe that the President will see you now.”

A door hissed open. Baldson felt his heart beat faster as he stepped into the room, somehow unsurprised to see a simple meeting table and standard display hologram in the centre of the room. A second door hissed open and Morgan stepped out, followed by a second man. Baldson felt Monique’s hand on his, just for a long moment; he fought down the wave of rage that threatened to overwhelm him. There was no time for rage.

Morgan hadn’t changed at all. He wore a ludicrous red outfit, with garish red and orange frills and rustles, topped with a black hat covering his head. A long black beard ran down from his chin to his waist, something that no Imperial Fleet Captain would have tolerated for a microsecond. His eyes, as black as the night, seemed to sparkle as they saw Baldson; only Monique’s presence prevented Baldson from going for Morgan’s throat.

The man behind him…was almost impossible to describe in a meaningful way. He was utterly anonymous, the kind of man who blends into the background without being commented upon; his face was neither handsome nor spectacularly ugly. His hair was grey; his face was…almost grey; he was just…grey. Baldson almost found it hard to see him; he was just…there.

“Good Afternoon,” Morgan said, his voice exactly as Baldson had remembered. He took the seat that Morgan waved him to with lordly disdain and stared at the pirate king with cold burning hatred. “I was under the impression that you had chosen to leave my band.”

The mockery was almost intolerable. “I have been ordered to hold a meeting with you,” Baldson said. “Against my judgement, against my feelings, I have been ordered to open communications with you.”

Morgan shrugged. “We all have to do things we find distasteful from time to time,” he said. Baldson glared at him openly, using his implants to try to keep his temper down. “If you don’t believe me, you could just ask the Imperials.”

Baldson ignored the jibe. “Your little grey backers,” he said. He noticed Morgan’s quiet amusement. “Can they hear us in here?”

Morgan shrugged. “I don’t believe that they can,” he said. “We tore this room apart and rebuilt it, just to remove anything they might have left when they gave me this ship. Of course, how do you know that I’m working with them?”

Baldson gaped at him. “You just admitted it,” he said. There were plenty of other reasons. “We found a Grey body and several live little bastards on the ship I took from you.”

“Yes, that was clever,” Morgan said. His face twisted. “You cost me a great deal.”

Baldson matched him, glare for glare. “You killed my friends!”

Morgan smiled grimly. “You knew what would happen if you betrayed me, and here you are again,” he said. “That’s what happens in this world.”

Baldson felt Monique’s hand on his knee. “We will allow that to slide, for now,” he said, hating himself. There would be time to kill Morgan later. He knew exactly how it would be done. “What is your little…empire about?”

Morgan seemed pleased to talk about it. “There are millions of colonies out here that the Empire knew nothing about,” he said, echoing Grimm. “Do you know; there might well be more humans out here than there are in the Human Sector – your Human Union, now – but the census continues to report that there are few humans, even with the war going on. They all want a chance to be themselves, to not live under the hypocritical rule of the Imperials, and when I offered them the chance…

“Oh, with the Collapse, it was surprisingly easy,” he continued. “You might have thrown a spanner in the works – losing my ship was a serious blow to my prestige – but in the weeks since you lost New Brooklyn, I have established control over the new sector. I have ships, I have shipyards, and I have colonists who no longer have to hide from hunting starships. The new empire might have a much looser structure than the old Empire, but it will be stronger, in the end.”

“And all you had to do was sell out the Empire to the Greys,” Baldson commented. “You do know, of course, that the Greys will come for you last?”

Morgan’s eyes flickered. “The Greys were willing to see me establish my empire, provided that I stayed away from the Imperials,” he said. “They will leave us alone…”

“But do you really trust them?” Baldson asked. “When we took the Queen Anne’s Revenge apart, we found evidence that the taller Grey, the one in charge, could have taken over the ship at any minute.”

“A shame that he didn’t intervene to stop you,” Morgan commented. “Or did he try?”

“He allowed it to happen,” Morgan said, not entirely sure if he was lying or not. It was possible that the shock of the collapsing computer net had killed the Grey; it was certainly known to kill human webheads who were linked into a computer when it crashed. It was also possible that the Grey had committed suicide…and there was no way to know for sure. “It is possible that he meant to have the ship fall into the hands of Captain Erickson. Tell me, do you trust them?”

Morgan met his eyes. “There is certainly little reason to trust them,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Still, I do not trust the Imperials.”

Baldson leaned forwards. “Why?”

“Didn’t they ever tell you?” Morgan said. There was a mocking note in his voice. “I used to work for them.”

Baldson was surprised. He was amused to note that Monique also looked surprised. “No, I didn’t know,” he admitted. Morgan laughed. “What did you do for them?”

“Covert operations, mainly,” Morgan said. He smiled bitterly. “I had enough, eventually, and deserted.”

“And now you’re a respectable President,” Monique said, speaking for the first time. “Are you the sole ruler or do you have a council?”

The grey man spoke for the first time, his voice as dull and forgettable as dust. “I am the Administrator of the Alliance,” he said. His voice blew like wind through a desert. He didn’t even have the emotions required to stare lustfully at Monique. “I have been charged to represent some of the colonies here, at the Hold.”

Morgan seemed to smile. “This is Scott,” he said. “Scott Patron. Scott is my advisor and assistant.”

Baldson smiled. “You do realise that, sooner or later, one of the forces in the Grey War is going to win,” he said. He stated it as a fact; Morgan was far from stupid. “The Human Union might come up with a new weapon, or the Greys might punch through to take Earth, or something else might happen. The Imperials might get back in the game. Other sectors might start contributing to the war. Who knows?”

He grinned. “And, if you’re seen as Grey allies, it makes you a target,” he continued. “Didn’t you know that when you signed the agreement with the Greys?”

Morgan showed a hint of annoyance. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Still, one of you is going to go down hard.”

“Your worlds will be targets,” Baldson pressed. He looked directly at Patron. “Look, the Imperials are no longer involved in this part of the Galaxy, which gives us some leeway. At the same time, we have to fight a foe who used you and your people as cat’s paws, perhaps even to the degree of causing you to create your empire to weaken the Empire. You’re targets – get used to it.”

Morgan’s eyes glittered. “Are you threatening us?”

“Not exactly,” Baldson said. “I have been ordered to open up a diplomatic link with you. Have the Greys told you that they can send FTL transmissions?”

Morgan’s face shifted oddly. “No,” he said. Baldson understood in a moment of insight; Morgan had known, with or without the Greys actually telling him, and had hoped to use it as a bargaining chip. “Nor have I told them that you came here.”

Baldson thought about the possibility of one of the taller Greys being on the Hold and shuddered. If that Grey had been listening in to his conversation with Grimm, there might be a Grey starship on its way already to seize them. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Morgan would hand them over…which would be as hard as an antimatter bomb on his ship could make it.

“We wish to offer you an agreement,” Baldson said, suddenly very tired. “We are willing to recognise your empire – we certainly have no interests in the worlds you have occupied – and Imperial Law no longer runs here anyway. We are also prepared to trade items you need desperately, perhaps even military technology.”

Admiral Glass had made that clear. Baldson didn’t like it at all. “We need something from you in exchange, one little piece of information that you could find out and the rest of the Human Union could not. We need to know the location of the Grey homeworld, or one of their major worlds.”

Morgan said nothing. It was Patron who spoke. “That would be useful,” he said, his voice still dry, without even a hint of character. “Mr President, the Greys have left us alone provided we leave them alone, but they might turn on us one day. Their…requirements might well cause us problems later.”

Baldson seized on the important world. “Requirements?”

Morgan, for a moment, showed a hint of irritation. “They want a certain number of humans for their purposes,” he said. “They were given three hundred young women and children, many of them prisoners who opposed us, and they want the same amount each year.”

“And what happens when that gets out to your public?” Baldson asked, pushing Morgan as hard as he dared. “You might end up losing your empire as it gets torn apart, or you’ll run out of prisoners, or…”

“Many have gone under the impression that they were going to a new colony world,” Patron said. He showed no hint of remorse, or even concern. “Many black colonies have bought their survival through such a tithe.”

Morgan seemed to be thinking. “You want us to find you the Grey homeworld, or one of their major bases,” he said. “What will you do with the information?”

Baldson smiled. “What do you think?”

“You’ll scorch it,” Morgan said. “You won’t have a choice.”

There was something in his voice, something he knew, that worried Baldson. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps we can talk them into something reassembling a peace agreement. Will you do as we ask?”

Morgan smiled grimly. “We want your recognition and trade goods first, and we want some other guarantees from you,” he said. “We also want some of the FTL Communicators, assuming that you duplicated the system, and we want some support if the Greys decide that they want us to bend over for them, or else.”

There was something hidden in his voice. “Is my cooperation enough to keep you from tearing out my throat?”

Baldson hated himself. “Yes,” he said. Later, there would be time. “We will need some information on the Alliance for the government.”

Morgan smiled at his surrender. “You’ll have everything you need,” he said. “Why not spend some time exploring the Hold? Why not enjoy its pleasures?”

Baldson said nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The American Nightmare, Take One

“Have I ever told you that I hate politicians?”

Captain Travis Pournelle looked up at his first officer, Commander Niven, and smiled. The USS Enterprise, a battlecruiser that served in the American Home Guard – more often referred to as the United States Navy outside official correspondence - was patrolling the outer region of the Roosevelt system, a concept that had been dreamed up by a politician with more enthusiasm than common sense. The idea had been to watch for Grey spy ships, which everyone knew were watching the Phase Limits of the human stars, but the entire USN couldn’t hope to stumble across a Grey scout. The entire Imperial Fleet, pre-Collapse, couldn’t have done it; space was so vast that a billion starships would have problems searching for a single starship lying doggo.

But the politicians had insisted, and so the battlecruiser combat group were on patrol, light-seconds from anywhere useful. The USN had units serving with the Human Fleet, or whatever it ended up being called, but the Roosevelt system was well defended. It could take care of itself, or so the politicians claimed, ignoring the fact that if the USN suffered a defeat in detail, they would be defeated before help could arrive. Roosevelt was well behind the lines; no one expected anything more than a Grey attempt to engage a convoy.

“You’ve only mentioned it a couple of thousand times,” Niven said. Their patrol was even more useless than it seemed; there was no point in searching for Grey ships inside the Phase Limit; why would the Greys bother with coming into the system when any sensors worth their salt could track starships from outside the Phase Limits. It was done to get votes, plain and simple; it added nothing to the USN’s combat power, but only weakened it. Had the recent battle at New Brooklyn not convinced them that such a tactic hadn’t worked for the Greys?

Pournelle shrugged and returned to his display. The Enterprise was new construction, built in the Washington Yards, and if she lacked some of the elegance of Imperial construction, she had incorporated all the lessons from the first months of the war. The Greys had been surprised as well – Enterprise had taken part in a running battle when the Greys had attacked a convoy with cruisers – but Pournelle wanted more. Knowing that their mission was useless was the worst of all.

“I want some additional drills done for repelling drones,” he said. Some of the reports from New Brooklyn, distributed throughout the Human Union by the new Grey Communicator network, had warned that the Greys were improving their own tactics. Pournelle couldn’t say that he was surprised; there was no reason to assume that the aliens were stupid…and service in space had convinced him that aliens were people too. They were smart, or stupid, and it was dangerous to assume that they were always the latter.

Niven nodded. “I have a new simulation just working up,” he said. Pournelle noticed the crew, who had been working on their consoles, prick up their ears and prepare to listen. “We’ll go over it later, but it’s a right bastard of a simulation.”

“Good,” Pournelle said. He briefly considered making false claims, but decided against it; it wasn’t worth the effort. “Did the Supply Department get back to us on those components?”

“Evidently they’re still delayed,” Niven said, with a snort. Pournelle shared his disbelief. The Supply Department acted as if the war was on the other side of the Empire. “I’ve been getting at them and I’m starting to think that we should pass the buck to Admiral Wilson, or perhaps send a stronger request, or…”

An alarm sounded. Pournelle blinked; there was no convoy expected for a week yet, and that was the emergence alarm; something had emerged from Phase Space on the edge of the Phase Limit. He looked at the display and swore; the unknown craft had emerged right on the edge of the Phase Limit. That didn’t bode well…

“Captain, we have a Grey cruiser, Type-three, on the Phase Limit,” his sensor officer reported. “I’ve forwarded the alarm to Roosevelt and System Command, but…”

More chimes from the sensor console. “I am now reading seventeen Grey cruisers, fourteen anti-starfighter craft, spreading out from their emergence point,” the sensor operator said. “They’re powering up their drives and taking up escort positions.”

Pournelle felt a wave of excitement, tempered with concern for his ship. “Sound red alert,” he said, running through the possibilities. He hardly noticed Niven leaving the bridge for his post on the secondary bridge. The Greys seemed to have brought no larger units along, which suggested that they had intended to raid a convoy, but there was no convoy and…he was puzzled; no convoy was even leaving that might have suggested to the Greys that they could intercept it. Why…?

“All stations report battle-readiness,” his tactical officer said. Pournelle noticed that Niven had taken up his position and patched him into the tactical circuit. “It will take us fifteen minutes to intercept the Grey craft.”

Pournelle shook his head. They had three battlecruisers and nine destroyers, not enough to take on such a Grey force and hope to survive. “Negative,” he said. “General signal, form us up into a defence pattern, and prepare for manoeuvres.” He forced his mind to work; there had to be some reinforcements that could be moved up to support them.”

“Signal from System Command,” his communications officer said. “The 5^th Battlecruiser is being ordered to rendezvous with us, along with the 6^th Heavy Cruiser and the 13^th Destroyer. Admiral Wilson has ordered you to wait until joined by them, and then prepare to engage the enemy.”

“Good,” Pournelle said. “Signal back an acknowledgement, then prepare to evade combat until we are reinforced.”

He scowled. There was something not right about the Grey force, something…odd. If they’d expected a convoy, they would also have expected an American force on the Phase Limit, prepared to kick the shit out of any Greys who dared to try to intercept the convoy. By now, they had to know that something had gone wrong, and in their place, he would have bugged out as soon as he knew that there had been a little mistake. The Greys clearly didn’t agree with him; their force remained spreading out, launching drones everywhere. They’d improved their stealth systems; the drones were almost impossible for his sensors to track, drives or no drives. It was…odd.

“The units are coming up into position,” his tactical officer reported. “I have signals from all of them; you have command.”

“Thanks,” Pournelle said dryly. The Greys were being dumb…and one thing the human race had learned about them in five months of all-out war was that the Greys were far from stupid. It reminded him of something, but what? “Order the ships to form up around us and prepare to advance…”

“Emergence,” his sensor officer snapped, interrupting him. Pournelle swallowed his sudden wave of anger; this was far too important. “At least four new contacts, right in the heart of the Grey formation.”

Pournelle watched…and felt his heart sink. The Greys had finally showed their hand…and it was bad, very bad. The lead icon needed no explanation; only one type of craft had the massive SD icon. More followed, at least two-dozen superdreadnaughts, followed by Grey drone carriers and more cruisers. The Greys had brought a massive force to New Brooklyn, far behind the lines…this was no mere probe, but an all-out attempt to take the system.

“Forward everything we know to System Command,” he said. Now, his displays could track thousands of American starships, some commercial and racing to get out of the way of the Grey juggernaut, some military and racing to form up with Admiral Wilson and the USN. The display changed again as the Greys moved, thousands of drones leapt ahead, heading right for his units. In less than ten minutes, perhaps sooner as drones didn’t have to worry about the safety of their crewmen, they would be swarming all over his ships.

He took a breath. Retreat – abandoning any attempt to contest the outer system – didn’t sit well with him, but there was no real choice. They couldn’t hope to stand off such a force of drones, let alone the remainder of the Grey fleet; they could only hope that they could reach Admiral Wilson’s starfighters before the Grey drones caught up with them. He knew that it was unlikely to work properly; if they were lucky, they might outrun the drone endurance.

“General signal,” he said. “We’re pulling back to rendezvous with the main body of the fleet.”

The display altered as they pulled back, trying to evade the drones. The drones were at least as manoeuvrable as starfighters, and they had more time to build up speed. The Grey main body was forming up now that it knew there would be no attempt to contest the outer system; it was heading inwards, following the Enterprise and its task force. He ran a projection thoughtfully and wasn't surprised; the Greys were actively seeking battle with Admiral Wilson, and they had the firepower to win a divisive victory. If that happened, the world would be defenceless. No one believed that the orbital defences could stand off a Grey fleet.

“Signal from the flag,” the communications officer said. “They’re launching starfighters to escort us in to the main body.”

Pournelle saw the display blossom with starfighters and knew that it wouldn’t work. Unless the Greys broke off their pursuit, his force would be caught by the drones in twenty minutes, and the starfighters would take at least ten to reach them and provide support. That assumed, of course, that his force kept moving; the Greys would almost certainly try to knock out their drives and leave them stranded for the bigger ships to deal with, instead of wasting time killing them with drones. Once that happened, they were dead.

“Launch drones, launch all decoy buoys, launch mines,” he ordered. It might buy them some time if the drones became confused as to what their actual targets were, and if they had to evade mines, they might gain so much as an extra minute. “I want them to have real problems tracking us, standard antimissile dispersal pattern, and then I want us to start rotating units to confuse them further.”

The drones, unimpressed by the mines, closed in. Three of them were destroyed in nuclear blasts as the mines detonated, four more were damaged and fell out of formation. Statistically, Pournelle knew that they’d been very lucky; a moment’s evasion and the Greys would have escaped without a single loss. It said something about their resources that they were prepared to tolerate such unnecessary losses; they just didn’t seem to think like people who had to husband their resources. It was truly terrifying.

He took a moment to consider as the drones flashed down on them. In minutes, they would enter point defence range, but by then it would be too late to inflict serious damage on their vast numbers. He scowled; there was another option, but it was one that neither the USN nor the Imperial Fleet would consider under normal circumstances. It would strip his ships of any hope of standing off the superdreadnaughts…that hardly mattered under the battle conditions.

“Tactical, prepare to launch dispersal missiles, anti-fighter pattern,” he ordered. “Keep them under control; detonate them when you have a chance to actually take some of them out.”

Enterprise shuddered as it launched the first missile from its rear tubes. Other starships fired as well, launching missiles that were intended to pound at larger ships into the swarm of drones, which ignored the threat until the first missile exploded, taking several drones with it. The drones responded then, using their plasma weapons as a form of point defence, scything missiles out of space as they came on, unstopped and unstoppable.

“Make a note for the research department,” Pournelle said, feeling very calm. It was unlikely that Roosevelt would be doing any research once the Greys were through with it. “We need to place more effort into weapons that can deal with drones, let alone starfighters.”

“Yes, sir,” the communications officer said. There was a long pause. “Admiral Wilson informs us that he’s forwarded the signal to Earth and the Human Union; they might be able to do something with the suggestion.”

“He meant well, I suppose,” Pournelle said. He watched as the drones grew closer, and closer, until they reached firing range. “Point defence, fire as you bear.”

The drones swooped down on three real ships and five decoys, launching antiship missiles as they made their first pass, exploiting their speed and power to hit the American ships hard enough to hurt. A destroyer, struck by seven missiles, exploded in a hail of fire; the blast killed several drones, caught in the expanding blast. More missiles passed through the sensor ghosts that made up the decoy fleet; Pournelle allowed himself a moment of hope. If the Greys kept coming in like that, they might just get some ships out intact.

“A flight of drones is targeting us,” the tactical officer reported. Pournelle felt his blood run cold; they didn’t have the sheer fire and survivability of a superdreadnaught. “They’re engaging us now.”

At least they’re not ramming, Pournelle thought coldly. It felt as if they’d been fighting for years as the drones raced through the net of fire cast up by the linked point defence, scything drones into space dust, but unable to catch all of the craft. Antistarfighter missiles launched as the drones closed in, but the drones were evading rapidly, firing as they slipped into range.

Enterprise rang like a bell. “Major hits, we lost several weapon arrays, all point defence,” the engineering officer said. His voice sounded like he was about to cry; the engineer loved his ship. All he needed was a Scottish accent. “The drive is still active, but I don’t know how long we can keep it moving and keeping us running.”

“Make what repairs you can,” Pournelle ordered. The Grey drones had fallen back, regrouping, and three of his ships launched missiles at their formation, lurking out of point defence range. The drones jumped about like fleas on a hot griddle, bouncing around to avoid their fire, and swooped down again on a different battlecruiser. The battlecruiser was unlucky; the drones concentrated their fire on its drive section…and it vanished in a ball of expanding plasma.

“We lost the Patton,” the sensor officer reported. Pournelle remembered the commander of that ship, a man who had objected to his ship being called the ‘Patton-II’ because the Imperials had named a superdreadnaught after General Patton; he’d claimed that it was an American name and shouldn’t be shared with the Imperials. He’d only grudgingly conceded that the rest of humanity could share the name, but only after the Collapse…and it no longer mattered. “No survivors.”

Pournelle wasn't surprised. The drones were leaning, even as one of them fired a spread of missiles at a decoy, another rammed – or tried to – a decoy. The drone passed right through it, somehow giving off the impression of being surprised – before a plasma bolt blasted it to dust. Other drones were leaning rapidly, swooping down on drones projecting decoys and picking through the deception.

“They’re leaning,” the tactical officer said. His voice darkened; Pournelle knew he was about to recommend something he wouldn’t like. “Sir, I recommend that we blow the decoys now; they’re no longer any use to us.”

Pournelle nodded. “Do so,” he said. The decoy drones exploded, their blasts killing some drones, but he knew what that meant; the drones would no longer have problems telling the real craft from the fakes. There had been no choice; the Greys would have learned from the drones about how to duplicate or to detect the effect…and used it to kill more humans. “ETA on our starfighters?”

“Five minutes,” the sensor officer said. Pournelle shook his head; had it really been that long? A cruiser, hit badly, fell out of formation, its drives failing even as it tried to kill three more drones. A fourth drone fell on it and rammed it; the resulting explosion blew both craft away. “They’re pushing it as hard as they can.”

Pournelle looked at the main Grey fleet, pursuing them with a sense of calm disdain; they were not going to just let the humans go, even the handful of craft that had been battered beyond being combat-effective. A second cruiser exploded, then a battlecruiser; Enterprise shuddered as a drone rammed directly into its shields. The Greys were closing in, and there was no longer any time for fancy tricks.

“Incoming missiles,” the tactical officer said. It was the death knell of the Enterprise. Pournelle could see it clearly; ten missiles, three of which would be enough to kill the wounded battlecruiser, followed by five drones. If the point defence couldn’t kill them all, they would be killed by the missiles, or by a ramming drone. The datanet had fallen apart with the loss of so many ships; there would no longer be any help from the other ships. “Sir?”

“All power to rear shields,” Pournelle ordered, knowing that it was futile. There was only one thing left to say. “Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a honour to serve with you. God bless Roosevelt!”

Two missiles impacted directly with the reinforced shields, three more bored into naked hull and exploded. The Enterprise died before anyone other than the bridge crew knew what had hit it, and took its tormentors into hell with it. Unconcerned, the Greys bored on to destroy the remaining ships in the force, before turning to deal with the main fleet.

The first part of the Battle for Roosevelt had been won and lost.

Both sides knew which was which.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The American Nightmare, Take Two

“Admiral, there’s an attack,” an excited voice, typically Ensign-like, snapped through Admiral Glass’s implant. Glass was awake at once, his implants forcing sleep from his body; he would have to pay for that later, but for the moment there was no choice. If the Earth System were under attack, he would have to command the defence, even with Admiral Solomon in command of the defences of Earth itself. “You have to come to the command centre.”

“I’m coming,” Glass said, silently making a note to have the ensign commended for his bravery in waking the Admiral. He would have found that difficult when he’d been newly commissioned as an ensign, years ago. “What’s the situation?”

The Ensign seemed to hesitate. “The Greys just attacked the Roosevelt system,” he said. “The attacks underway now!”

Glass swore. He had forgotten the Grey communicator. He now would have to go to the command centre and observe a battle hundreds of light years away, so far away that he would be unable to do anything to prevent it from being lost or won. He pulled on his robe – he could be forgiven casual dress just this once – and exited his quarters, accepting the salute from the Ensign as a matter of course.

“Report,” he snapped, as he entered the command centre. “What’s the situation?”

Irritatingly, Captain Jeremy Damiani looked fresh and clean, although he had youth on his side. “The Greys have attacked the Roosevelt system,” he said. “We had a warning flashed to us through the network, but there seem to be no other attacks going on…Admiral, they came in strength; twenty-one superdreadnaughts. They just blew hell out of a force near the Phase Limit and are advancing on Roosevelt itself.”

Glass didn’t have to consult his implants to know that twenty-one superdreadnaughts were not a raiding force, nor that the American defenders couldn’t stop them if the Greys were willing to soak up their own losses. Roosevelt was well behind the lines; what the hell were the Greys doing there? They had to know that the fleet could scoop up reinforcements and regain control of Roosevelt before they could dig in…didn’t they?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Roosevelt was about to take a beating. “Captain, send out a formal warning to every system near Roosevelt; tell them I want the units there prepared to move to join a fleet to recover Roosevelt. Then send an alert to the War Cabinet, and then to the ships near New Brooklyn; perhaps they uncovered New Brooklyn to launch the attack.”

He sat down in his command chair, hating the Greys; there was nothing he could do. The Battle for Roosevelt would be fought, won and lost…and all he could do was watch, and learn. Roosevelt’s fate would depend on its own defenders, and he knew just how weak they were; their starfighters were the only thing that might tip the balance.

“Bastards,” he hissed, as the live feed updated. Roosevelt was certainly ensuring that the rest of the Union would know what had happened there. “Bastards!”

***

“Bastards,” Admiral Wilson snapped, as the final ship of the battlecruiser force fell to the Grey drones. Not one of them had escaped, even as the starfighters fell to the attack, trying to drive the drones away from the fleet. The drones didn’t bother to fight it out with the starfighters; as soon as the last ship was destroyed, they turned and fled from the battlezone, heading back to their fleet.

“Recall the starfighters,” Admiral Wilson ordered, in a voice like ice. “I want them rearmed for the time the Greys come to challenge us.”

The ponderous mass of the Grey sledgehammer slowed slightly as the Greys recovered their drones. The Grey carriers would be rearming the drones now, loading them with new missiles to launch new attacks on his fleet…and he felt fear as he knew just how unlikely it was that he could stop them. The Greys had brought nearly seventy starships to the fight, and while he had two hundred and seven, only one of his ships – his own America – was a superdreadnaught. The Grey superdreadnaughts would crush it like a bug.

He ran a hand through his hair as he thought rapidly. He might be able to win a missile duel, except that that had been what Admiral Glass had done during the Battle of Earth, and the Greys would have had plenty of time to absorb the details of their mistakes. He had no secret weapon – whatever had really happened at Earth – to somehow bring the Grey network crashing down, and without it, the Greys would just keep coming and eventually ram him into the planet.

If they hadn’t destroyed him by then, of course; the superdreadnaught would draw fire like nothing else in the system. As his starfighters rearmed, the Greys would have time to launch their own strikes; his recon fighters were already stumbling across Grey drones, picking away at his fleet and ferreting out his weaknesses, as if he didn’t have enough problems. Many of his ships were older than comparable Imperial Fleet ships; if the Greys acted properly, they could destroy him within an hour, if they didn’t back him up against the planet, where he would have no choice, but to stand and fight.

“Order the first flight of starfighters forward,” he ordered, after a moment. Starfighters were pretty much the only advantage he had…and to use them to their best advantage, he would have to risk much of his fleet to Grey fire. “Tactical, I want a spread pattern of missiles, targeting their anti-starfighter craft.”

There was a pause. “Missiles armed and ready,” tactical said. The orders would have gone throughout the fleet; unlike point defence, the flagship didn’t control attack weapons. “I assume a Kludge Manoeuvre?”

“Yes,” Wilson ordered. He leaned forward, examining the display; the Greys were starting to advance again, sending their carriers to the rear. It was standard doctrine, even for humans; the Greys clearly didn’t disagree. At the rear, carriers, the most vulnerable craft in the fleet, would be shielded from his fire; his own carriers were well back. He had one other advantage, however; the Greys would be charging forwards onto his fire, which in some ways gave him a longer range than his enemy. “Signal to all ships; the fleet will advance and open fire as soon as we enter weapons range!”

He took a breath. The Greys, for whatever reason, didn’t use starfighters, which meant that if his starfighters could get close, they could attack the Grey superdreadnaughts and weaken them, just as the Grey drones had overwhelmed the Enterprise and its fleet. The Greys anti-starfighter craft, however, could destroy his starfighters, which meant that they had to be destroyed first, which meant…

“Fire,” he snapped, and seventy ships, armed with missiles, belched forth a major attack. The Greys didn’t flinch; not unlike human doctrine, they immediately fired back, a massive salvo of missiles from their superdreadnaughts. Their battlecruisers didn’t fire, which was interesting; the Greys might well have intended them for other purposes. “All ships, engage.”

He watched as the hail of red icons reassembling Grey fire moved close. “Starfighter group two and group three is to intercept the missiles and take as many down as possible,” he said. Doctrine didn’t like attempting to use starfighters for such an action, but doctrine had never faced such a situation. He had thousands of starfighters orbiting Roosevelt itself; starfighters were the only ships he wasn’t short of. “All point defence is to go fully active.”

That was another order that doctrine didn’t like, but he couldn’t care less. Point defence normally had a second-delay worked in, just to avoid the possibility of a serious accident of friendly fire. Now, it was all too likely that there would be an accident, probably several accidents, but there was no other choice. He watched as the missile swarms passed through one another, passed the starfighters, and then slammed into the point defence.

The America shuddered twice. “We took two hits, both to our forward shields,” he heard the engineering officer reporting to Captain Potter. The Captain would be fighting his ship, while Wilson tried to win them the fight. “They’re still intact, but that won’t last.”

“No, it won’t,” Wilson agreed sharply. “Report?”

“We took out most of their anti-starfighter craft,” the tactical officer reported. “There’s only four left, and one of them is seriously damaged.”

“Good,” Wilson said. “Order the starfighter flight to attack and take down as many of the big bastards as they can. If they can cripple their drives, then that’s fine; we can polish them off at leisure. The battleline is to move to cover the starfighters.”

The display clumped up as thousands of starfighters swarmed down on the Grey superdreadnaughts, falling victim to Grey point defence and Grey drones as they roared up to confront their tormentors. The Grey battleline tried to ignore the starfighters as much as possible, firing missiles towards the USN, even as drones and starfighters fought it out in a bitter struggle for supremacy. The display couldn’t keep up with the struggle as the two sides collided, hacking away at each other with a furious resolve. A Grey superdreadnaught blew up, then another, and then two more dropped out of the battleline, their drives failing as starfighters hit them hard.

“Admiral, the Greys have launched more drones towards us,” Commander Parkinson reported. Wilson nodded; the Greys had taken a page out of the human book – or rather, out of a page Wilson himself had rewritten – and were launching their drones to drive away the starfighters providing early point defence. “Three of our ships have taken serious damage…one of the battlecruisers has been destroyed.”

Wilson muttered a curse under his breath. The Greys were concentrating on his heavy ships; such as they were, which at least kept the smaller ships free to concentrate on covering the larger ships. They were still coming, however, aiming right at the planet. Privately, he calculated that they had twenty minutes to inflict enough damage to force the Greys to break off, or their backs would be up against the planet. The thought of Grey mushroom clouds exploding on the planet filled him with new resolve.

“Order up additional starfighters to cover the starfighters on point defence duty,” he snapped, as the Grey superdreadnaughts belched new missiles. They’d spread out their firing sequence this time, he noted; the missiles were targeted right across his force. “Keep us back, move us out of range now!”

He calculated quickly as his fleet moved backwards, trying to open the range; they’d matched course and speed with the Greys before they’d opened fire. The smaller ships, at least, might well evade the Greys by moving fast enough, his own ship and the other heavies wouldn’t be able to get out of Grey range before they hit. The smaller craft, those that weren’t targeted by the Greys, moved carefully, their weapons spitting fire at the hostile missiles.

The America shuddered again as it launched a series of missiles towards a Grey superdreadnaught. Moments later, it shook, violently, as more Grey missiles impacted with it; alarms rang as bursts of energy burnt through the shields and blasted against the hull. Shield-less, the America was still tough, but the Greys packed a huge punch. Shields stabilised and he allowed himself a moment of relief, which then faded; the Greys were still coming in towards Roosevelt.

“Stage out some of the fighters from Roosevelt,” he ordered, as his first wave of starfighters broke off to rearm. They could move faster than the Grey ships, unless the Greys decided that they wanted their fleet to stagger, and they should be able to evade. Grey drones moved to block their escape, firing as they came, and the human fighters blew through them. “Don’t let the Greys have a moment to recover.”

Time passed. Three more Grey superdreadnaughts died, but they were learning themselves; they killed four American heavy cruisers, and then started to pick away at the lighter craft. Their weapons were becoming more accurate as they grew closer to the planet, or perhaps they’d learned too much from the Enterprise’s final action; they seemed less impressed by the drones than he would have hoped. Sensor decoys and missile lures did their best, but the Greys were scoring more hits now; as he watched, two more destroyers died.

“We’re hurting the bastards,” he observed, to no one in particular. In five minutes, they would have the choice between trying to retreat to the outer system, or of standing and dying in front of the planet. He’d already made up his own mind; if the Greys landed on Roosevelt, a much more developed world than New Britannia, they would do it over his dead body. “We just have to hurt them enough.”

He tapped his communicator. “Vice Admiral Crenshaw, you and your carriers are to break contact and head for the base at Crockett,” he ordered. Crenshaw sputtered an objection. “I believe I gave you orders,” Wilson snapped, unwilling to deal with defiance. “If they reach the planet, your carriers are useless, so get the fuck out of here!”

The carriers left. Wilson watched as they slid around the planet and headed out towards the outer solar system. They would either be recovered later, or they would harass the Greys when they had taken over the system. It hardly mattered; one way or the other, he wouldn’t be around to care. All that mattered was killing as many Greys as possible before the end came.

“Link us into the planetary defence grid,” he ordered, as the Greys forced them closer and closer to the planet. America was streaming plasma now; it was sheer blind luck that they still had a drive. The Greys had largely ignored disabled vessels, unless they fired on their ships as they came closer, but Wilson knew what would happen if the Greys knocked out the main fleet. “Tell them to stand by to coordinate fire against Grey missiles.”

Commander Parkinson cursed. “Admiral, they’re retargeting their weapons,” he snapped. For a moment, Wilson didn’t understand, and then he saw as the display filled up with new and terrifying images. “They’ve let go of us and…”

“Deploy all decoys now,” Wilson snapped, as the terrifying truth crashed into his mind. “All point defence, shift to priority one…”

The Greys fired. A hail of missiles launched from their craft, targeted on the orbital habitats and industrial systems orbiting Roosevelt. Wilson barked orders as the AIs controlling the point defence automatically reprioritised; everything apart from the incoming missiles was ignored as every effort was bent to destroy the missiles before they started to slam home. The Greys fired again, and again, and Wilson saw with sheer horror that it wouldn’t be enough. His starfighters tried, his point defence tried, and it wasn’t enough.

The first missile slammed into an asteroid habitat and detonated; seconds later, the habitats own spin completed the task of destroying it, sending thousands of pieces of rocky debris into orbit. Others followed; he wanted to howl with frustration as an orbital shipyard was destroyed, along with two superdreadnaughts that would have been launched in a month. The Greys had done more, perhaps, than they’d intended; as chunks of debris hurtled towards the planet, point defence systems started to pick them off, just to prevent a major impact. He knew that their luck wouldn’t last…

…And it didn’t. A major piece of one of the asteroid habitats hit the planet, large enough to do much more damage than any Imperial sanction. Part of the planet below seemed to glow red in the dead night of space; the reports of widespread devastation echoed through the communications links as thousands of starfighters threw themselves upon the Greys. The fighting became even more savage as the Greys fired again, and again, wrecking the result of nearly eight hundred years of work, and then…

“Admiral, the Greys are altering course,” Commander Parkinson said. His voice showed too much implant control; regulations didn’t approve of using implant emotional control too often during a battle. “They’re…they’re leaving!”

Wilson stared at the display as the Greys slowed, spinning their ships and launching one final spread of missiles before starting to retreat from the system. His mind refused to grasp it; the Greys had lost ten superdreadnaughts and nearly thirty smaller ships – along with nearly a thousand drones – and they were leaving? They weren’t trying to take the planet?

Understanding came, and with it new shame. The Greys had known – they had to know – that there were other human units in nearby systems. A week of communication, using their own communicator, and manoeuvre would have a hundred human starships descending on Roosevelt, too quickly for them to dig in and hold the planet. It would be worse if the American forces broke contact; they would join the other human ships or contest control of the outer system until the other humans arrived. Instead, they’d come, wrecked havoc and dealt a major blow to human productive capability; Roosevelt would no longer be producing much in the way of starships for the foreseeable future.

Commander Parkinson coughed. “Admiral, the fleet is waiting for orders,” he said. Wilson said nothing. The President would probably insist on his removal and he wouldn’t blame him. “Admiral?”

Wilson’s voice was like ice. “The starfighters are to continue to attack the Greys until they are out of range,” he ordered. “The remainder of the fleet is to assist with recovery work surrounding the planet.”

He tuned out the ensuring battle; Crenshaw had tactical command over his carriers and he used them well. He watched, instead, the recovery effort; he knew that far too much of the damage would be impossible to repair, not least because of the death toll in space and on the surface. Millions would have died; if the Greys had targeted the orbital tower, it would have been so much worse. Even so, it was a disaster.

“Fuck you,” he said softly. Commander Parkinson gave him an odd look. “That’s all it was; one single grand ‘fuck you’ gesture. And, Commander, don’t you think we’ve been fucked?”

Commander Parkinson said nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Question of Sanity

“A terrible business, simply terrible,” Admiral Grak-Ka said, as he settled back into a chair designed specifically for Tarn. Like all of his kind, Admiral Grak-Ka sat on three legs, reassembling nothing so much as an animal plant. The Tarn were sometimes called ‘The Trees’ by humans; they just looked like walking trees, with rapidly changing colours all over their skin. Three large eyes peered from what Erickson couldn’t help, but think of as foliage; two of them were focused in on his face.

“One moment and the Envoy is coming back from the Human Sector and all is well, the next the Empire and the Imperials have retreated, and then we have a civil war on our hands,” he continued. “A third of my fleet mutinied against me and then we had a big battle out at Kathmandu, the majority human world; in the end, the war stalemated, because of the Imperials at the Tarn Yards.”

Erickson felt his ears prick up. The Tarn Yards, unlike the Sirius Yards, were named after the sector itself, but they weren’t in the Tarn system. He’d thought that Yardmaster Phelps had been the only Imperial left in the abandoned regions of the Empire, but now it seemed that there were more. They’d seized the Sirius Yards; clearly, Admiral Grak-Ka had not been able to do the same. Did that mean that there was a yard intact, waiting to be taken?

“The Tarn Yards?” He pressed. “What happened there?”

Admiral Grak-Ka gave what Erickson’s implanted translator insisted was a shrug. “The Imperials there sealed the shipyard off from all contact, following the civil war breaking out, and have deployed enough defences to prevent either side from taking the shipyard. Without it, our own production of starships to crush the rebellion is moving slowly, but we will defeat the rebels.”

“You may have a worse problem,” Erickson said, and outlined the details of the Grey threat. “If the Greys burst through us, they will come for you next.”

Admiral Grak-Ka paused as his implants allowed him to study the information that Erickson had supplied him with, once they’d met up with his superdreadnaught on the outskirts of the Tarn System. His face, insofar as the term face could be applied, seemed unsettled; Erickson wished that he had more experience with the Tarn. They were a proud race, he knew, but they were also smart, if somewhat unimaginative.

“The Envoy told us nothing of this,” Admiral Grak-Ka said finally. The details of the threat had to alarm him; his files said that he was a competent officer…and the Imperials had clearly trusted him with command of the Tarn Picket. “Can your people stop them?”

“It seems that it will be difficult,” Erickson said, reluctantly. Admiral Glass had supplied enough information to warn Admiral Grak-Ka of the real threat. “We held them off from Earth itself, but they’re still grinding away at us, and of course the Grey Communicator only makes their advantages more pronounced. If they take off the gloves and advance on Earth, or the Sirius Yards, they could win the war.”

Admiral Grak-Ka waved his fronds in the air, the equivalent of a human frown. “Perhaps,” he said. “However, I cannot spare forces from covering Tarn itself in the wake of the civil war. Even with the rebels concentrated around Kathmandu” – Erickson stiffened at the implied suggestion that it was humanity’s fault – “they are still a dangerous threat.”

Erickson leaned forward. “Why not try a diplomatic solution?” He asked. “If the Greys come rampaging into this sector, it will be very difficult for you to defeat them, even if the rebels are defeated before then; it’ll cost you to defeat them, and you clearly can’t replace your ships without the Tarn Yards.”

“We have started a major building program,” Admiral Grak-Ka said, defensively. “If you give us the Grey Communicator, we can use it to crush the rebels quickly, with massive force at the right point.” He leaned forwards. “Captain Erickson, you are sworn to the defence of the Empire, just like those human rebels who revolted against the House of Lords.”

He emitted a whistling sound. “The House of Lords is determined to avoid any appearance of weakness,” he said. Erickson felt a brief moment of sympathy; Admiral Glass had had his own political struggles. “If you help us, then we can win the war and help you.”

Erickson rolled his eyes. “Admiral, with all due respect, the Imperials have abandoned this sector of the Empire,” he said. “You know as well as I do that humans were ill-treated by the House of Lords, as well as the Rehash; why do you want to fight the war to its logical conclusion of mutual extermination?”

Admiral Grak-Ka froze for a second. That wasn’t a good sign. “They were not expected to demand political rights outside their own sector,” he said. He spoke in a flat atonal tone, but Erickson’s implant interpreted it as defensiveness. “They were moving towards control over the House of Commons.”

Erickson smiled suddenly as the final piece clicked into place. Humans bred fast, particularly humans who were poor…or humans concentrating on developing a new world. Imperial science ensured that no more human children died in childbirth, which meant that the human population would have skyrocketed, which in turn meant that humans would be able to elect their own candidates to the House of Commons. At first, some MPs would have promised to handle human issues, later some faction of the Humanist Party or something like it would have their own candidates.

The thought made him shake his head. The House of Lords in the Tarn Sector would have been composed of older races, or at least races that had spent longer in the sector…and there would have been little room for humanity. The Tarn Sector House of Lords couldn’t do much in the way of inbreeding – naturally, as there were several races represented – and so they would have closed ranks against the new threat. A few years later, the Tarn Sector would have become a tinderbox…and then some idiot lit a match.

“A few thousand humans lost their jobs in the economic collapse,” Admiral Grak-Ka continued. Erickson privately read it as employers making sure that the burden of the Collapse fell on the human – and the Rehash, who were always exploited. “There were riots, they spread out of control; some human units of the police joined the riots, and then I was ordered to suppress it as the rebels moved on the House of Lords. Half an hour later, half my fleet had either mutinied or was torn apart by internal fighting.”

He hissed softly. “Kathmandu declared independence and its Home Guard joined it, along with the mutinying units,” he said. “Two months later, they held several worlds and were threatening Tarn itself, so we struck back, and the war has see-sawed backwards and forwards ever since.”

Erickson smiled. “Can you win the war?”

“If I had the Tarn Yards, I would have won by now,” Admiral Grak-Ka said sharply. He was speaking almost above Erickson’s level of hearing; his ears hurt as Admiral Grak-Ka spoke. “Instead, the war has stalemated, and now you are telling me that there is a new alien invasion going on.”

“Then reach out to the rebels and offer them a truce both sides can live with,” Erickson said sharply. Admiral Grak-Ka seemed to consider. “You know, now, that there are real aliens – a real unknown threat – pressing into the Human Sector, and you’re next on its list. If they knew just how weak you were, they would have attacked you by now, and that would have destroyed both sides.”

“I will put it to the House of Lords,” Admiral Grak-Ka said finally. “Your records will terrify them in any case; they don’t want to handle one threat just to end up with another. It was bad enough trying to round up every last human on Tarn itself; the Rehash took over the shipyards, just long enough to sabotage everything, and that caused even more damage.”

Erickson felt his blood run cold. That answered one other question; what had happened to the shipyards that they’d only now started a building program. The Rehash were shaped like Centaurs, which made it odd, to humans, that they made the best technicians, builders, and shipyard workers; no other race could match them for their skill at technical matters. They had been a primitive race before being brought into the Empire; not unlike humanity, they were considered to be lower-class than the older races. If they had been angry, the normally peaceful Rehash could have wrecked havoc; they controlled far too many vital components to take them lightly.

“You’re losing, aren’t you?” He said slowly. If the Rehash had joined the rebellion, with their normal abilities forced into rage, they could have shattered much of the Tarn Sector. “How long will it be before the humans take Tarn?”

Admiral Grak-Ka didn’t seem surprised. “Two months, assuming that nothing else goes wrong,” he said, bitterly. “The House of Lords is terrified of human revenge, and they are suddenly scared of the Rehash. I have told them that the war is a chancy thing, but they will not listen.”

Erickson stood up. “I have given you what files I can,” he said. “I can also give you the Grey Communicator, and I would advise you to use it to contact the rebels and discuss peace terms.” A nasty thought occurred to him and he fought to keep it off his face. “I’m taking the Vanguard to the Tarn Shipyards, to ask for help from the Imperials; I’ll give them the system as well.”

“And I assume that you’ll give the system to the rebels as well,” Admiral Grak-Ka said. His voice was as atonal as ever. Erickson kept his thoughts off his face; he had thought of that – and he’d thought that Admiral Grak-Ka would prefer to try to destroy the Vanguard, rather than let the rebels get the communicator as well. “I’ll do what I can, but…in the end, I swore to hold the Empire together, rather than let it break apart.”

Erickson held out a hand, feeling the vegetation-like skin of the Tarn as one of Admiral Grak-Ka’s manipulators clasped his hand. “That’s what we’re trying to do,” he said. He picked up a datachip from the table and passed it to the Admiral. “The problem is that if the Greys win, there will no longer be an Empire to save.”

He watched as Admiral Grak-Ka shuffled out of the conference room. Watching a Tarn move was always fascinating; the being seemed to shuffle forward on its three legs, as if it was a spinning top. He refused to allow himself to feel fear, or concern; if the Tarn system was about to be torn apart by civil war, then…

He shook his head. There was no ‘about’ involved. Whatever came of Admiral Grak-Ka’s half-promise to search for peace, it would be impossible for the Tarn Sector to help the Human Union for quite some time. They’d left the communications freighter a light-year away; they’d rendezvous with it, and then head to the Tarn Shipyards. It was only a day’s flight away at flank speed.

He tapped his communicator. “Helm, as soon as Admiral Grak-Ka’s shuttle has cleared the Phase Drive perimeter, I want you to take us into Phase Space and back towards the Weber. Don’t wait for more orders; just do it.”

“Aye, sir,” Lafarge said. “The command has been inputted.”

Erickson sat back and waited. Moments later, the starship spun on its heels, and then he felt his ship racing back into Phase Space. If Admiral Grak-Ka had been planning to attack them, he hadn’t had time to order his superdreadnaught to open fire; he wondered what had become of them. A year ago, he might have been under Admiral Grak-Ka’s command; now he was worrying that Admiral Grak-Ka was planning to knife them in the back.

“My God,” he muttered, as he sat there alone. “Is it always going to be like this?”

***

Admiral Grak-Ka, like all Tarn, prided himself on being pragmatic. He had considered, seriously, ordering the Deathcloud – named for a figure from Tarn mycology – to open fire on the Vanguard; only the certain knowledge that it would be unsuccessful had prevented him from issuing the orders as soon as he left the starship. As his shuttle headed back towards his ship, which was already preparing to return to the inner system, he thought about his options.

The blunt truth, he admitted to himself, was that Erickson had been right. He had attempted to deceive the human about just how strong his forces were – and in numerical terms, they were strong. Practically speaking, he’d lost access to the Tarn Shipyards, thanks to the Imperials on the Yard itself, and then the Rehash had torn the commercial shipyards apart during their rebellion. They hadn’t just lost the shipyards, they’d also lost most of the people who maintained them; either as rebels or killed during the rebellion. He privately estimated that it would be a year before his force simply ran out of supplies – and that would destroy them as surely as any missile.

He ran through it in his head. If he assumed that Erickson went directly to Kathmandu, they could give the rebels the information they had – and the communicator. That alone would tip the balance in their favour; they could strike directly at Tarn itself and end the war in a blow. The House of Lords had been lords and masters of all they surveyed, under the Imperials, of course, that they had forgotten that their power was fragile; it needed to be maintained, and that was no longer possible.

He thought about it while his starship returned to the Imperial Fleet base, orbiting Tarn’s own moon. Even as he landed at the orbital tower, watching through his third eye as Ankaa and Yunyin workers assisted his people, he was thinking; what could be done to end the war before it was too late? Only one course of action came to mind, and he shrank away from it; where did duty end and rebellion begin? His mind made up, he proceeded down towards the prison layer, silently thanking his lucky stars that he hadn’t handed the prisoners over to the authorities on the surface.

“Admiral,” the Dorf guard said, as he entered. “I must warn you that MP Giscard is being his normal self, and is not fit to be visited.”

Admiral Grak-Ka gave a Tarn shrug of unconcern. Most of the under-running details would have been wasted on the Dorf, of course. “I will see him,” he said. “Open the door.”

A Tarn had no sense of smell. Giscard, who had once been leader of the human faction in the House of Commons, hadn’t been washed for some time. Admiral Grak-Ka allowed himself a moment to feel gratitude; some of the other races had been complaining about the smell, not least the Dorf who had been brought up to replace the human Marines who had mutinied. It was wasted on him.

“Admiral,” Giscard said. His voice spoke only Imperial Seventeen; Admiral Grak-Ka knew that it had been a human language that had been adopted by the Imperials. He himself spoke four Imperial-approved languages; the others were outside the ability of even a Tarn. “Have you come to gloat?”

“No,” Admiral Grak-Ka said sharply. The humans bore grudges; the Tarn did not…and neither race really understood the other. Perhaps that, as much as anything else, had been the cause of the rebellion and the civil war. “Something has changed.”

He spoke rapidly, outlining the encounter with the Vanguard. “So, part of the Empire is under attack,” Giscard said, rattling his chains mournfully. There was little point in the chains; Admiral Grak-Ka knew that they were there just to rub in Giscard’s status. “Of course, you are not going to do your duty and help, are you?”

Admiral Grak-Ka knew that Tarn didn’t have the full range of human emotions. It would have felt good to scream in outrage. “I would be delighted if I could carry out my duty,” he said. He felt his fronds shaking, the closest he could come to outrage. “I have not come here to bicker with you, or to have any…contact with the past.”

Giscard rattled his chains again. “Figured out that you can’t beat us?” He asked dryly. “How goes the war?”

“Yes,” Admiral Grak-Ka said shortly. “There is a greater threat now.”

“I always thought that it was unwise of you to suppress a race and at the same time trust them with the most dangerous starships in existence,” Giscard said, as if he hadn’t heard him. “Your…greater threat won’t end the war.”

“Perhaps it could,” Admiral Grak-Ka said firmly. “What would your people’s terms be for entering the war?”

Giscard burst out into high-pitched human laughter. “I am inside this dirty rat-infested cell and you want to negotiate with me,” he said. “That’s it; I have finally gone mad. You must have gone mad as well; you think I can talk for the others?” He laughed again. “You’ve cracked, Admiral.”

“No,” Admiral Grak-Ka snapped. The flicker of almost-human anger surprised him. “What would your people do if we offered them a truce? What would they want to end the war?”

“Either equality or the recognition that Kathmandu and the Rehash worlds are independent,” Giscard said. He leaned forwards. “They’d also want the Lords to be cut down to size. Do you think that you can get the House of Lords to agree to that?”

“That’s my problem,” Admiral Grak-Ka said. It felt surprisingly good to be taking positive action for once. “Would your people agree to refrain from mad slaughter?”

“Slaughter is not a human virtue,” Giscard said. “What about your people?”

The barb stung. “I will end the war,” Admiral Grak-Ka said, and knew that there was only one way to do that. It didn’t matter, however; he was sworn to protect the Empire, and the Greys threatened all of it. “I will do it, whatever it takes.”

Chapter Thirty: Make Them Hurt, Take One!

“They’re both clear,” Doctor Mélange said. Lord Collins eyed him suspiciously. There weren’t many doctors who were experts in controlling implants…and most of them were regarded as lowlifes by their peers. Mélange looked normal, but there was something in his eyes that Lord Collins didn’t like; his habits of using more electronic simulation on himself than was regarded as legal gave him a vulnerable point. He could be blackmailed, something that would get him thrown off the rolls within seconds if he was even suspected of being vulnerable…and Collins knew that he was utterly untrustworthy.

He was also the best that he could get.

“You are entirely certain?” He pressed. Mélange looked outraged at the mere suggestion that he could be wrong. “They might well have been implanted by hostile forces…”

“Ah, hostile corporate takeovers,” Mélange said, his voice jocular in a manner calculated to grate on Lord Collins’ nerves. “I don’t think that one of your corporate rivals would dare to implant your own son.”

Lord Collins ignored him. Under normal circumstances, anyone who had close contract with the Greys – a number that could be counted on the fingers of one hand in the Human Union – would have to be checked over by the Fleet’s doctors; there was little doubt that the Greys had the capability to implant and control humans. They certainly showed little hesitation in implanting each other – some of the smaller Greys were almost completely cybernetic – and he saw no reason why they should not implant humans as well.

But Kevin – and Samantha and Sara – hadn’t been seen by the Fleet. They couldn’t be seen by the Fleet, not without admitting what had happened at Harmony, and he’d heard awful rumours about something else that had happened within the Union. If he had the Fleet look at them, the Fleet would be curious, and he knew the Fleet’s inspectors, to say nothing of either Imperial Intelligence or Human Intelligence, too well to believe that they would be satisfied with some evasions. They would bore in, and bore in, until they had peeled away all the lies and found the truth…and then they would shoot whatever was left for high treason.

“This is your son,” Mélange said, as a hologram appeared in front of them. Kevin’s body, a holographic vision of his bones, and the augmentation that had been piled into his body, including a penis modification, could be seen in magnificent detail. “You will note” – Mélange pointed with a pencil as the hologram zoomed in – “that Kevin has the standard library implant located in his right temple, and the standard control processor…”

Lord Collins’ interrupted. “Control processor?”

“A control processor for his augmentation,” Mélange said patiently. He adjusted the display as he talked further. “That implant is tied into the…movement centre, for the layman’s mind, of Kevin’s mind, and it basically ensures that his implanted augmentation works perfectly. I checked the control programming and there is nothing that has been inserted into the implant since it was implanted, ten years ago; there was no attempt to access it without the proper codes, which I assume you’re aware are not held by the owner.”

Lord Collins nodded. The dangers of illegal access to the implant programming was so clearly a danger that only people with the proper access codes could make the implant open up for them…and even then, they could only engage in a few adjustments, normally fine-tuning elements of the program. A single failed attempt to press into the system would bring the implant to seal itself off from any other probe; it would have to be replaced if that happened.

“The library, of course, remains a library and much of it is read-only programming,” Mélange continued. His voice brightened as he spoke with real enthusiasm. “Of the programming that can be altered, much of it is very basic; Kevin had a diary in his head, along with some stored information that was under a password. I could, however, ensure that there were no unpleasant surprises present and there were none. In any case, none of Kevin’s implants are linked directly into the mind and there is nothing new there.

“Samantha’s implants are more capable and their effects more detailed, not least because she served in the Fleet before transferring to your service,” Mélange said. He leered cheerfully at Lord Collins. “She’s quite hot, so I assume you seduced her to your service. Notice” – the hologram of Kevin was replaced by one of Samantha – “that she has a primary data receptor implant and also a secondary implant, both located in her temple. Both of them are used for communication, one with outside processors, the other dedicated to a single ship.”

“The Michael Collins, at the moment,” Lord Collins supplied. His eyes followed the hologram of Samantha’s body; it looked to be packed with augmentation. “Are you sure that she’s safe?”

“Although there is much more brain-implant connection in her head, she does not have any direct links from the implants into her…into the part that controls her activities,” Mélange said, apparently unwilling to share more trade secrets than he had to share. “There is also nothing that was not picked up before, when she joined your service; although there are parts of her Fleet implants I can’t access, I can state conclusively that they cannot control her actions.”

His face twisted into a disturbing grin. “The body-slave, however, has implants tied directly into her mind,” he said, as Sara’s body appeared on the display. “You will see this implant here” – he tapped one of them with a finger – “which controls her body. If you give her an order, this implant will see to it that it is carried out; if you implant a post-hypnotic command in her, this implant will stamp it into her mind. It’s a crude piece of work, but there’s nothing new in it.

“Unfortunately” – his disturbing grin grew worse – “I cannot access her implant directly to check that it is actually working, although its internal self-monitoring system is reporting that everything is hunky-dory. The Prison Service keeps all of those codes firmly locked up in its computers, and only a court warrant could force them to supply anyone with the controlling codes, depending on just what the cause was for the request. You certainly could not get the codes without a very good reason; Sara has quite a criminal record, hasn’t she?”

“I am not supposed to know about that,” Lord Collins said. His face tightened. “Are you sure that you’re normal?”

“Define normal,” Mélange said, as he deactivated the hologram. “None of them, apart from Sara, obviously, have controlling implants. Sara’s implant seems to be working fine; self-diagnostics confirm that and her implant continues to record data is per its instructions. Kevin seems to have a larger penis implant than I would have thought necessary, and Samantha has her birth control implant working overtime.”

Lord Collins shook his head in disgust. “You took the Hypocrite Oath, didn’t you?”

Mélange smiled. “You can talk,” he said. His face twisted again. “No, My Lord; they’re fine. Do you want to tell me why you were so insistent that they get checked over?”

“No,” Lord Collins said shortly. “The normal sum?”

His pager rang. “Excuse me,” he said, and checked it. “Shit!”

Mélange lifted both his overgrown eyebrows. “Bad news?”

“There’s an emergency meeting at the House of Lords,” Lord Collins said. “They’ll be sending an aircar for me now, so I’ll have to take my leave of the medical centre here.”

He’d paid for the centre personally. At the moment, he was inclined to think that it had been precognition; it was far enough from him, officially, to seem to have little connection with him, allowing him to use it for certain things that the House of Lords would not have approved of, or been willing to tolerate. The House would tolerate a great deal from the Lords, just to keep the system working, but there were some lines that even they couldn’t cross.

Aircars were not common sights in the Houses of Parliament; they were far too exposed for anyone’s comfort. Lord Collins remembered the riots, six months ago, when the news had broken that the Imperials had left Earth, apparently for good. Several aircars had been shot down, others had been used by rioters to attack the Imperial City itself; the massive river running through the city concealed many bodies, despite a clean-up effort and a harsh response by the police. As his aircar descended towards the House of Lords, he was surprised to see several more heading in as well; his fellow Lords had been summoned as well.

“We have been ordered to proceed to land,” the pilot said. He was a trained Marine, one capable of fighting and controlling the aircar at the same time; the House of Lords provided bodyguards for each of its Lords, rather than allowing them their own so close to the House. A solution, he knew, that held within it a threat; ‘don’t cause trouble, or your own bodyguard might turn on you.’

Lord Collins had never forgotten it.

The interior of the House of Lords was filled with Lords and – this time – the public and the media were being discouraged from entering. That had to mean bad news; some of the Lords were wearing civilian clothes, rather than their robes of office, although that wasn’t a bad thing. There were times when Lord Collins wondered if the Imperials were colour blind, or if it was their idea of a joke. Purple and orange did not go together, particularly on men who had let themselves slip a bit.

“Collins,” Lord Baen said. “I thought that you were under attack!”

Collins scowled at him. It was true that some Lords – and MPs from the House of Commons – had attacked his attempt to cause a peaceful outcome to the Grey War. At the same time, the Lords wouldn’t allow it to go too far; impeaching a Lord could easily become a habit, after all, and the Commons were determined to maintain their right to impeach whenever they felt like it.

“I have survived,” he said. It wasn’t entirely true; some patriotic boycotts had harmed his interests still further, but he was still holding his own. The recent lull in Grey activity hadn’t helped his case, but it had made people take a breath of relief, and then move towards buying more of his supplies. He knew that that wouldn’t last. “I still feel that peace is the only solution.”

“I’m sure,” Lord Baen said. They stepped into the main chamber; the Speaker was already calling the room to order. The doors were still open, allowing the stragglers to enter the room. “It’s going to be bad, I’m afraid.”

The Speaker finally closed the doors. “There has been an attack,” he said bluntly. Lord Collins flinched inwardly; alone of all the Lords, he had more than suspected that the Greys were up to something. “The following images have been sent directly to us through the Grey Communicator. You should be aware that these are terrifying.”

The hologram in the middle of the room sparkled, and flickered into life, revealing starships – Grey starships. A massive force was deploying out of Phase Space, their motion speeded up to compress the time of the display; they marched in toward their target, launching drones ahead of them. A human force was overwhelmed by the drones, wiped out to the last unit; the main body of the human force was pushed back against the planet by the ponderous Grey advance.

And then the horror began. Grey missiles slammed into orbital targets, shattering asteroids and space installations, sending debris rocketing in all directions. One chunk of debris fell towards the planet, only to be blown apart by a PDC, but more were falling, hurtling down towards the surface…and impacting. Many were too small to be serious, they burnt up in the atmosphere, but some were big; one slammed into the ocean, another into the land, sending devastation raging out across the planet.

Lord Collins stared. The Greys had promised a warning shot; that was much more than a warning shot. Even as the Grey fleet turned away from the planet, refusing to land and complete the task of destroying the planet’s population, he knew with a sinking heart that his peace plan was dead in the water. There was no way that the House of Commons would let that go, not even the House of Lords would permit that to pass; they might not like Americans – who had the only world to have minimal contact with the aristocracy – but they were humans too.

A silence fell in the chamber.

“At last report, an hour ago, nearly two billion Americans have died,” the Speaker said. “The vast majority of the orbital industry was wiped out, along with the industrial experts who would be needed to recover as much as possible from the debris; chucks of debris will have to be blown to smithereens, rather than take the time to recover it just because of the danger of a planetary impact. The death toll remains an estimate, but several cities were struck by falling debris, and at least three cities were almost completely destroyed by tidal waves. Seventy starships and over a thousand starfighters were destroyed; the orbital defences took a pounding as well. It could have been worse, if they’d targeted the OWPs first, but instead they shattered the industrial heart of the system.”

There was a long pause. “Which system?” Someone shouted finally. Lord Collins already knew the answer. “Who got hit?”

“Roosevelt,” the Speaker said. “The planet has been hit badly.”

A Lord finally buzzed for attention. “Would Lord Collins kindly explain to me what happened to peace?” He asked. Lord Collins said nothing. “These…monsters have wrecked damage on Roosevelt on a scale utterly unseen since the long-ago war that we know only through legend. No Imperial sanction matches this, nothing that we ever did to ourselves matches this; we have no choice, but to wipe these bastards out of the universe!”

The pause returned. “We must not let this pass,” Lord Baen said finally. Lord Collins said nothing. “Peace with these bastards is impossible, they have just slaughtered thousands – millions, billions – of humans. We are all humans together, My Lord; we must see now that this is not a normal war, but one of extermination. We cannot let a peace treaty foil us now; we are in a war where there will only be the winning side – and the dead!”

More followed, Lord after Lord rising to denounce the Greys and to demand their extermination. The House of Lords even passed a bill agreeing to assist the Americans in rebuilding, putting aside a very old grudge to work together, and Lord Collins hunched further into his chair. Some Lords, his political enemies, took cheap shots at him; others very obviously refrained from mentioning it, just to get under his skin. As soon as the session entered, he took his aircar and headed back to his estate, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before the media was attacking him.

“Kevin,” he snapped, as he entered their vast estate. There were no servants there, apart from the butler and Sara, both body-slaves. “Sara?”

Sara answered her communicator; she had, of course, no choice. “Yes, master?”

“Where is Samantha,” Lord Collins demanded. Body-slaves never got any courtesy. “Find her for me! Bring her to me!”

He waited five minutes until Sara dragged an unresisting naked Samantha into his rooms. “The Greys, the people you talked to, have destroyed Roosevelt,” Lord Collins snapped. It was an exaggeration, but he knew that it wasn't a great one; the American industrial base had been shattered. Given a few months, they might manage to get some of the productive plants, those that had escaped attack, working again, but the Greys might not give them that time. His mind caught up with him. “Where were you?”

“She was in Master Kevin’s bed, Master,” Sara said. Lord Collins felt himself purple. “They were busy, Master.”

“It might teach my son a lesson,” Lord Collins snapped. Someone had to pay for all that had happened to him. “You bitch! You will tell them that there will be no peace, and then you will destroy their communicator, and then you will fucking get out of my fucking house and…”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Samantha interrupted. Her voice had a strange, almost alien, tinge. Lord Collins looked at her and fought the urge to take a step backwards. “You exist to serve us.”

Lord Collins grappled for words. “Doctor Mélange checked you,” he said, in disbelief. Had the Greys somehow tricked him? “What are you?”

Samantha’s eyes were bright…and dead. “I am Grey,” she said. “I am of the Grey.”

“Next you’ll be telling me that you stand between the darkness and the light,” Lord Collins said, searching desperately for a line of action, something he could do. He tried to stall. “What happened out there?”

Samantha, or whoever was talking through her, ignored him. “You are a slave, Collins,” she said. Her voice was becoming more alien. “You were born to serve the Grey.”

Collins felt some of his weapons implants activate. “You will leave this place and never return,” he said. Sara couldn’t be trusted with weapons, of course, but…it suddenly occurred to him that Sara had been on the voyage of the Michael Collins and his blood froze. He turned, slightly, and saw her face; it was cold, and hard, and somehow alien. “You will…”

“You will serve us,” Samantha said. Her face seemed almost illuminated by alien light; she took a step forwards and this time Lord Collins almost jumped backwards. “You have already betrayed the people of Roosevelt, Collins, and now you will betray the rest of your people. You were born to serve the Grey.”

Chapter Thirty-One: Make Them Hurt, Take Two!

“We have to make them hurt,” Prince Roland said. Admiral Glass didn’t disagree. “We can’t let them hit us like that and not strike back.”

Admiral Glass nodded slowly. A day had passed since the Battle of Roosevelt – and everyone knew that the Greys had retreated, rather than being driven off by the human forces. The death toll kept rising; humanity had never endured such suffering since the Invasion and the Occupation – Glass suspected that the final death toll would be over three billion. The Roosevelt system had been heavily populated, with over ten billion humans living in the system, and seven billion had lived on the planet itself.

He scowled. There was no more talk of peace, not any longer; the House of Commons had risen in a body and demanded that the Fleet find a Grey target of comparable importance and hit it. There was just one problem with that; the Grey homeworld, even their important colonies, were well away from human space…and in any case no one knew where they were. The contact with Morgan, no matter how much that stuck in his craw, might one day turn up a Grey world to attack, but for the moment…they didn’t have any target.

“New Brooklyn,” Roland said. Glass had expected that much. “Admiral, the House of Commons is determined that we strike back, and New Brooklyn remains the best target for a strike.”

“Harmony is a possibility,” Glass said, but he knew that it wasn't a serious possibility. Yes, the Greys had a base there, but it was too far away for a strike mission to be mounted…unless they didn’t mind sending the fleet away for a month. Humanity had felt confident when Admiral Johnston had been dispatched; there was no longer any reason to be confident. Admiral Johnston had died at Harmony; Glass knew that they simply couldn’t uncover any worlds long enough to reach Harmony.

“The House of Commons is determined to take New Brooklyn back, whatever the cost,” Roland said shortly. His normally handsome face was pale and wan. “Admiral, there are political costs of being inactive; the politicians were delighted when we formed the Union, but at the same time they expected us to protect places like Roosevelt.”

Glass nodded down at his datachip. “The scouts watching New Brooklyn, from the Sneaky Bastard to the patrolling units on the edge of the system, did not see any Grey starships leaving,” he said. “I checked back with them, as soon as I got the first report, and there were still twenty-one superdreadnaughts orbiting that star. Do you understand the implications?”

Roland looked blank…and tired. “No, Admiral,” he admitted. He yawned suddenly. “I’m sorry, I’ve been awake for too long. What are the implications?”

Glass frowned. “The Greys staged an attacking force out of somewhere other than New Brooklyn,” he said. “If that force didn’t leave New Brooklyn, they had to have come from somewhere else, which means that they have another base, one we don’t know about, somewhere nearby.”

Roland looked blank. “Harmony?”

“It’s a possibility,” Glass admitted. “However, I wouldn’t have done that myself; they would have a long voyage to the target star…hell, the reason no one seriously expected an attack on Roosevelt was that it was so far behind the lines.”

“To add insult to injury, that cost us badly in terms of prestige and Home Guard support,” Roland said. “Every world with deployable firepower suddenly doesn’t want to deploy it away from their homeworld; the MPs are feeling the heat from back home. They want us to deploy more forces to cover them, and God alone knows what the economic and strategic damage is going to be like. Roosevelt had two superdreadnaughts being prepared for commission before the Greys got them.”

“We can’t cover everywhere,” Glass said. “There are limits, Your Highness. If we try to cover every world with an equal level of firepower, we will spread ourselves too thin to be effective against a smaller Grey push than the one that landed on Roosevelt.” He paused. “It could shorten the war.”

“It could do more than that,” Thomas Howell said. The economist learned forward from his seat. “The economic damage from the strike has only just begun to hit the markets, but someone in the Grey Communicator office used it for stock advantages, which means that they made a killing by selling suddenly worthless shares. The loss of much of Roosevelt’s industrial capability will hurt, not least because of the fact that all of a sudden what’s left in the system will have thousands of bottlenecks.”

He shook his head, addressing Roland. “Your Highness, my office has only just started to look at the issues involved,” he said, “and we do not have anything like a good estimate of the damage to Roosevelt’s industries. At a worst case, we’ve lost everything that was orbiting Roosevelt itself, and that means that Roosevelt might be down to twenty percent of what it had a week ago. Worse, it will actually be mining much, much, more ore than it needs; it no longer has the ability to turn that ore into something useful. The death toll of the workers only compounds the problems; it could be years before we can rebuild, assuming that we have time.”

Glass, tired himself, glared at him. “There are countless lives lost,” he snapped. The cold clinical list of economic problems was getting on his nerves. “What does this mean for the war?”

Howell looked away. “The shipyards orbiting the planet are gone,” he said. “A chunk of one of them came down in the middle of the Great Forest and started a massive fire, adding to the ecological damage suffered by the planet. That means that Roosevelt’s only surviving military-grade shipyard is the yard in the asteroids – we were lucky there, the Greys could have taken it out in passing – and that yard is rated only for destroyers and frigates. That’s a chunk of our productive capability gone there.

“The main facility for producing fixed defences is also gone,” he continued. “That means that production of orbital weapons has also been crippled, which means that Roosevelt will not be supplying the worlds it contracted to supply. It hardly matters, under the circumstances, and certainly no one will sue, but…it won’t do the market any good. Much of the asteroid capability for producing military-grade components remains, which will actually give us a surplus if we can ship them to other star systems…”

“Which will provide more targets for Grey raiders,” Glass said. He scowled down at the table. “I think I get the picture.”

“Yes,” Roland said suddenly. “Admiral, you were there when we created the Human Union; you know as well as I do that we were building on sand, and sand that was being threatened by human…follies, let alone the Greys. Some worlds have been whispering that we – Earth – provoked the war with the Greys so that we could build the Union, and now some of them want to take back control over their own Home Guard.”

“God damn the Grey Communicator,” Glass said, with some fury. It had completely changed the political picture, not least because orders could come from homeworlds to politicians without the fortnight’s delay from the furthest world to Earth in the Human Union. “Your Highness, did you study the plans we sent you for retaking New Brooklyn?”

“God damn the Grey Communicator indeed,” Roland said, amused. “Yes, Admiral; I did. Is there no other way to take back the target?”

Glass hesitated. “There are possibilities,” he admitted. Captain Jeremy Damiani had actually come up with several possibilities that hadn’t been included on the official briefing, ideas he’d ordered discarded on general principles. Now, however, they might be all the human race had left. “Captain, do you want to tell His Highness about Operation Certain Death?”

Roland lifted a single eyebrow. “Operation Certain Death?”

Damiani shrugged. “For the Greys, of course, Your Highness,” he said, nervously. Damiani came from Medina, where aristocrats were common, but few of them had any real power. Roland, of course, had a great deal. “The Admiral considered the idea too risky to be used in combat.”

Glass nodded. “If we have to take back the world quickly, then this is the best option,” he said. “It also sends a powerful lesson to the Greys, after what happened at Roosevelt; it might, however, convince them to strike back at us.” He met Roland’s eyes. “I don’t recommend this plan, Your Highness; if it goes wrong, it will do so spectacularly and will cost us badly.”

Damiani took control of the display. “As of this morning, there were twenty-one Grey superdreadnaughts in the New Brooklyn system and seventy smaller ships, ranging from a battlecruiser force down to their little anti-starfighter craft. These ships have been concentrated into twp forces, designated Grey-one and Grey-two, following the recent Mousetrap raids. Each of those forces has at least ten superdreadnaughts – they have a tendency to rotate ships, which at least suggests that they have limitations not unlike ours – and a comparable number of smaller ships.”

He altered the display slightly. “Intelligence has not yet made its final pronouncement on the Battle of Roosevelt, but it has been strongly suggested that the Greys intended to at least try to return the Mousetrap One trick on us,” he said. “They waited for the Enterprise and its battle group on the off-chance that they would come into interception range, and then they either lost patience or concluded that the Enterprise was not going to take the bait.

“Regardless, the forces at New Brooklyn are deployed to cover the two main targets within the system,” he continued. “If one of them is under major threat, it will either fall back on the other, or it will attempt to avoid contact. Our main problem is that both of those forces have to be destroyed before we can try to reclaim New Brooklyn, and we can’t gather the forces required to crush them both together…except, if we do it properly, Certain Death will force the Greys to engage us from a position of weakness.”

He spoke rapidly, outlining the plan. “Launching an attack like this is essentially a political decision,” he concluded. Glass smiled as Roland flinched. “The main problem, quite apart from the need to hit the Greys at New Brooklyn to delay them, is what could go wrong if the Greys catch a sniff of our ships too early. If they see us coming, they’ll fire on us before we’re ready to engage them, and that would be…bad.”

Roland stared up at the display. Tiny starships, modelled in every perfect little detail, raged across the New Brooklyn system. Glass could almost read his thoughts; every one of those starships, the human starships, represented months of effort, months the human race might not have. If he could have taken three more months to prepare before attacking New Brooklyn, he would have done so, but there was little choice; the Fleet’s morale would hit rock bottom long before they had the new ships ready for action.

No, he decided; he didn’t envy Roland at all.

Roland turned to face him. “Admiral, could we cancel the plan if we made the preparations?”

Glass frowned. “We could cancel it up to the moment when the fleet entered the system,” he said. “Once that happens, withdrawing might become very difficult; if the Greys saw us then, and we know they have been scattering sensors around almost at random, they might catch on and take a few precautions.”

“Ambassador – no, President - Floid would be unhappy if we mashed New Brooklyn in the crossfire,” Roland said. “Will that part of the plan work?”

“Nothing is certain in war, apart from uncertainty,” Glass said. Roland gave him a sharp look. “The Greys will have contingency plans of their own. The new weapon, rather, the modified weapon, might have an effect on their orbiting shipyard; if not, we will have scored a massive own goal…”

Roland nodded. “The friendly fire incident to beat all friendly fire incidents,” he said. He yawned again. “At the very least, they will be hurt, won’t they?”

Glass nodded. “I can assure you that they will be hurt,” he said. “We will have two assault carriers taking part in the attack, with their ground-attack craft as well. General Max Weinberg informs me that the Army can spare several companies of ground troops, and of course there will be several brigades of Marines. If we regain control of the high orbitals, we can coordinate with Floid and destroy the Greys on the ground. If we don’t…we will at least hurt the bastards!”

Roland looked down at the table. “Thank you, General,” he said, after a long moment. Glass thought of reminding the tired Prince that he was an Admiral and thought better of it. “Can I let you know my decision soon?”

Glass wasn’t surprised. “Your Highness,” he said, desperately looking for the right words to say. Roland was a young man, one who had to take on responsibilities that would have stunned an Imperial. “Get some sleep. Make your decision in the morning.”

***

The invitation to the Imperial Palace had surprised Elspeth Grey. Her research project had been turning up new answers, when everything had been forced off the news programs by the news about Roosevelt. Pundits – her father’s special pet hate – had been on the news, blathering about how it would have never happened if they had been in charge, and calling for immediate attacks on the Grey homeworld. Seeing, as far as anyone knew, that the Grey homeworld was impossibly distant, Elspeth knew better than to think that that would happen soon.

Prince Roland looked awful, but he managed to smile for her as she sat down. “Elspeth,” he said, his voice very tired. There were dark rings around his eyes. She felt her heart go out to him and she could no longer hide her own feelings; she was attracted to the Prince. At the same time, it scared her; Roland had been born to his world…and she didn’t want to be part of it, except she wanted him. “Thank you for coming.”

He stayed silent for a long moment, just long enough that Elspeth wondered if he’d fallen asleep, before he spoke again. Elspeth reached out a hand and placed it gently on his hand; he looked up at her gratefully, before shaking his head. His hair, normally short and well-combed, was lank as it hung down over his face; he hadn’t slept for far too long.

“There is a plan to attack the Greys,” Roland said finally. Elspeth listened as he outlined it for her. “It’s my decision, legally, but the way politics are going at the moment, the War Cabinet would overrule me if I decided not to launch the attack, except they don’t know about this particular attack plan.”

Elspeth, no stranger to Imperial-style politics, wasn't surprised. There were plenty of things that Roland wouldn’t discuss with Parliament; the price the Royal Family played for their prominence was serving the people to the end of their lives. The Imperials had bred them at first, like horses; Roland was a product of a breeding program of chilling alien thinking. The Imperials had thought that they’d known what they were doing, but humans were something different to Imperials, different to almost everyone else.

“We heard from the Vanguard,” Roland said, his voice hazy. “The Tarn Sector is too weak to help us for a long time, even if their civil war ends tomorrow. Unless we get that shipyard, so far, the Vanguard’s trip has been a waste of time. We can’t count on the Imperials, we can’t count on the rest of the Empire; if the attack on New Brooklyn fails, we lose enough ships to make our defeat a certainty.”

Elspeth said nothing. Roland looked up, into her eyes. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” Elspeth said. She wanted to hold him; she reached out and pulled him into a hug. Her own conflicting emotions were tearing at her. “Does the attack have to be launched?”

Roland nodded. “I know…but why did I end up making these decisions?” It was almost a plaintive cry. “Billions dead on Roosevelt, God alone knows how many dead on New Brooklyn…where does it end?”

He held her tightly. “Your father was right,” he said. Elspeth stiffened slightly at the mention of her father. “This is a dangerous gamble, but there is no other choice.”

“I know,” Elspeth said. She paused. “I do understand something of what you’re going through.”

Roland stood up, one hand of his still holding her hand, and picked up a communicator. “Admiral,” he said, “please begin the preparation for Certain Death, but…change the name, please.”

Elspeth stood up, unwilling to let go of him for even a moment, and stepped over to the drinks cabinet. She didn’t know what Roland drank, so she poured him a small glass of the first bottle she found, a dull red liquid. She carried it back with her as Roland talked briefly to Glass; she smiled at what her father would say if he knew that she was with Roland.

“Operation Vengeance,” Roland ordered, finally. “Not a word to anyone about it; if the Greys have ships watching the system, I don’t want them to pick up anything from us about the operation.” He paused. “I want Captain Middleton in command; she’s from Roosevelt and she’s proved her competence. Politics again, Admiral; we have no time for someone from the Roosevelt Home Guard to reach Earth.”

He shut off the communicator. “That’s done,” he said. He took the drink and drank it in one gulp. “It was so easy and…”

He folded. Elspeth caught him with her arms and gently picked him up, relieved for the first time that her father had paid for genuine Imperial-class augmentation, in the hope that she would become a Fleet officer. Carefully, she carried Roland towards his bedchamber and placed him on the bed, kissing him goodnight as he slept. She watched him as he lay there, twitching from time to time, and held his hand.

She remained there all night.

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Last of Their Kind

“That is…not good,” Evensong said. Erickson gave her a sharp look. “Charles, what will that do for the war?”

Erickson scowled. There were times when Evensong’s Intelligence training got on his nerves. She was required to be cold and analytical at all times, while he was still recoiling from the news of the defeat at Roosevelt. No one doubted that the Greys could have pressed on to take the planet, had they chosen to do so; their refusal to open a second front in the war was a strategic masterstroke.

“It’s…not good,” he said, wryly mimicking her. “We all thought that Roosevelt was safe, and now the Greys have just proven that they can hit one of our systems and punch out the covering force any time they like. Oh, its not as bad as it sounds, but…”

He shook his head. They were right on the edge of Grey Communicator range; he had half-decided to order the Weber to remain at the Tarn Shipyards, depending on what they found. If not, he would order it to go to Kathmandu; there was suddenly much less time than they had thought.

“The Greys just punched us in the nuts,” he said, nodding towards the display. “Now, every last system is going to demanding that we station a superdreadnaught-led covering force there, and we can’t; we can barely assemble enough superdreadnaughts to cover Earth and Sirius. We may as well admit it; we had our collective arses kicked.”

Evensong looked down at the deck. “Do we turn back?”

Erickson shook his head. “Of course not,” he said, as the warning echoed through the starship’s hull. They were only ten minutes out from the Tarn Shipyards…and he was nervous. The shipyards were normally off-limits; the civil war in the sector meant that the Imperials still running the place were likely to be paranoid…and they might not give him the time to explain himself before opening fire. “We have to reach Centre, now more than ever.”

He stood up. “I have to get to the bridge,” he said, checking the ship’s status through his implants. The shipyards hadn’t fallen into one side or the other of the civil war, which suggested that the Imperials had established some serious firepower around it; he’d wondered, at first, if some of the ships from the Tarn Picket had reached the shipyard. The Admiral commanding the fleet had sworn that they hadn’t…and, in the absence of further data, Erickson knew that he would have to be believed. “Coming?”

Evensong followed him back into the intership car. They rode up towards the bridge in silence, Erickson using the time to run through some of his plans. Their sheer lack of any real information made certain that they would almost have to play it by ear; would the Imperials be welcoming, or would they be told to piss off in short order?

“Captain on the bridge,” the AI said, as they stepped into the bridge. Miriam rose from the command chair, already saluting him; the other crewmen didn’t salute. They only saluted when they weren’t on duty; it was too dangerous to waste time on protocol when they might be emerging into a battlezone.

“Captain,” Miriam said. He felt his implants tickle as they accepting the feed directly from the bridge’s processors. “All systems nominal; emergence in seven minutes and counting.”

Erickson felt anticipation flowing through him as he took the command chair. “Sound battle stations,” he ordered calmly. The news of the Roosevelt disaster had hit the crew hard; they were in a nasty mood. He half-hoped that there were Greys around, following them with bad intentions; they needed to burn off some anger. “All hands to battle stations.”

The alarms sounded through the ship. “All stations report battle-readiness,” Miriam said, as she took her station on the secondary bridge. “The Vanguard is fully at your command.”

“Good,” Erickson said. He settled back into his command chair. “Helm, take us out at the emergence point.”

The starship shook slightly as the lights of Phase Space shimmered around them, before Lafarge brought them out of Phase Space as smoothly as Erickson had ever felt it done. The starship positively hummed; he heard the sighs of appreciation from crewmen who had expected to find themselves vomiting on the decks. The dull red star of the Tarn Shipyards, unnamed by the Imperials and unnoticed by many, glared in front of them, and…

“Missile launch,” Smarts snapped. Erickson felt alarm flaring through his body. They couldn’t have had the awesome bad luck to come out close to an OWP, could they? “I have multiple missile launchers, firing at us!”

“Point defence to full, launch decoys,” Erickson snapped, as the display updated with flaring red icons. The Vanguard had automatically started to raise its shields; only the results of six months fighting a war no one had expected to have to fight saved the ship. Before the Collapse, few crews would have been so proficient at raising their defences…and it might be futile. “Communications, start screaming our IFF, now!”

The horde of missiles swept in towards the Vanguard. Erickson felt the Phase Drive cycling, preparing to hurl them back into Phase Space, and yet he knew that if they retreated, they would never be able to return. Some of the missiles fell for the decoys and were lured away from their target, others were tricked by ECM systems and lost their locks on the Vanguard. The point defence started to fire as the missiles closed in, and came closer, and…

“Brace for impact,” Erickson snapped. His crew had as much experience as anyone else at breaking hostile locks, but they were facing more firepower than he had considered possible. He had never seen a tactical situation go to hell so quickly; his hand hovered above the button that would jump them back into Phase Space…and abandon the shipyards. “All hands, brace for…”

The hammer of God struck the Vanguard. The starship was literally tossed away from the star system, Lafarge working to compensate as Branson and the point defence picked off missile after missile. A second missile impacted with the shields, then a third; Erickson’s sensors could see the launchers now, a tiny group of missile platforms, heavily stealthed. It had been wasted effort, something that a civilian would dream up; the missile platforms betrayed their presence by launching their weapons.

“Tactical, target the platforms,” Erickson snapped. They didn’t have time to determine if they would be shooting at empty units or at platforms that were still dangerous. “Prepare to…”

The missiles…stopped. Their drives refocused, then halted them, and then funnelled energy into local space, bringing the missiles to a halt. Erickson felt his mouth fall open, he closed it with a snap, as the missiles rewrote the laws of what he had believed possible. Weapons like that would change the entire face of war; floating near the Vanguard, he was somehow certain that they could be retargeted and launched at once, if their commander desired it.

“We are being hailed,” Lundy said. His voice sounded shocked. “It’s coming from a platform some distance into the system, at least ten light seconds away, on standard radio.”

The display cleared to reveal the face of an Imperial. “Captain Erickson,” he said. Erickson was fairly certain that it was a male, although rumours had persisted for years that the Imperials were able to change sex at will. “You are a long way from home.”

Erickson struggled to remember the correct form of address; the Imperial wasn't a Viceroy, or an Envoy, but a Yardmaster. Yardmaster Phelps hadn’t been hung up on protocol, but his aide had been clear on the point that he was an exceptional Imperial, one dedicated to his work. Another Imperial might not be so generous…if it was an Imperial. Imperial factions were still a mystery; Yardmaster Phelps had only hinted at the complexities of their society.

“Yes, Your Eminence,” he said finally. That might have sounded like sucking up, but at the same time it could hardly be insulting. “We were sent directly by the provisional authority on Earth.”

The Imperial looked tired. He also hadn’t bothered to introduce himself, something that Erickson knew was a bad sign. “We have stated our position to both sides of rebels,” the Imperial said. Erickson blinked, before realising that from the Imperial point of view, both sides would be rebels. “We are not interested in supporting one side of the war against the other, only in keeping this shipyard intact for the reestablishment of the Empire.”

He paused. “You may leave now,” he said. His tone darkened still further. “If not, you will be fired upon.”

Erickson held his temper in check. “I have important messages for you from Yardmaster Phelps and the Prince Regent of Earth,” he said. He nodded to Lundy, who began transmitting them. “I would ask you to read them now, and then…we need to discuss matters with you.”

There was a long pause. It stretched out into minutes; Erickson could tell that the Imperial was accessing the DataStream from Yardmaster Phelps directly. It was impossible to forge a DataStream, even one limited to simple text; there would be no question of either the authorship, or the lack of coercion. Yardmaster Phelps’ message would fall on ears that might be disbelieving, but would not – ever – be able to question that he had written it.

“Those things are understood,” the Imperial said finally. Erickson realised that he had said that in Imperial Prime, the first language; the translator had translated it automatically. “I will come onboard your vessel to talk with you, Captain Erickson; please have a conference room available for me.”

The next half-hour passed in frantic activity as the crew prepared a conference room for the Imperial, all the while wondering what the Imperial would say. David Symons had asked permission to join the meeting, but Erickson had to refuse; he didn’t want to give the Imperial any excuse to claim that the humans were being rude to him and leaving, or – worse – ordering the strange missiles to engage the Vanguard. The Imperial didn’t come in a superdreadnaught, which was one good thing; the Vanguard’s sensors had detected no less than forty superdreadnaughts, and hundreds of smaller ships, orbiting the star, along with thousands of independent weapon platforms. The Imperials had clearly intended to hold on to the system.

The shuttle docked beside the conference room; Erickson had ordered one of the spare airlocks prepared for the purpose of docking the shuttle. Technically speaking, it was a breach of regulations, which said that such airlocks were to remain clear for evacuation if necessary, but under the circumstances, he felt that it was justified. The Imperial stepped into the warm air of the conference room – whatever else was known about them, it was known that they liked it hot – and bowed once. That, at least, was a better sign.

“I am Talik,” the Imperial said. Erickson returned the bow. “I am Yardmaster of this station.”

Erickson inclined one hand towards an Imperial chair. “Thank you for your welcome,” he said. “Would you be seated?”

He’d had water – clear water was the drink of choice at interracial meetings – prepared already; the Imperial drank a single sip as Erickson took the chair opposite him. Talik seemed…younger than the Envoy, the female Imperial who’d told Earth that the Empire was on the brink of collapse; Erickson had the odd sense that Talik was being as friendly as he could.

“I have reviewed your statements and those of Yardmaster Phelps,” Talik said. Erickson thought that he detected a hint of admiration in Talik’s tone. “He has correctly identified the race you call Greys as a threat to the Empire. He has also insisted that I do what I can to aid you in your fight against them. Under the circumstances, that will be difficult; there are only forty of us here, along with a handful of refugees before we started turning them away.”

Forty, one for each superdreadnaught, Erickson’s mind gibbered. “While we have been engaged in producing weapons to keep the sides involved in the…recent unpleasantness away from the Yard, we do not have the capability to deploy ships outside this system,” Talik continued. The statement was so preposterous that Erickson gaped openly at him. “This Yard was originally designed to support operations in this sector, but we lack the crewmen to man the starships we have produced.”

Talik hesitated. “We also have little confidence that either side in the civil war would be willing to assist us in making the ships we have here battle-ready,” he said. “The fact remains that the House of Lords, to use the human term, in this sector failed grossly in its responsibilities, although clearly the flaws were epidemic in the recent changes to the scheme of things. Uncovering the Yard risks losing it to one side or the other, with disastrous results for the sector.”

Erickson stared at Talik, hardly able to speak. It would have made life a great deal simpler if they had known that Yardmaster Phelps could have simply ordered Talik to assist Earth, and he would have done so. Even so, there were still problems, but at least there was an easy solution…or was there?

“The Human…Sector can provide crew for many of the ships,” he said, and knew that it wouldn’t work, or not completely. A superdreadnaught gobbled up nearly two thousand crewmen…and that was with the massive automation that the Imperial Fleet built into the ships. They’d made vast progress in tapping into the latent manpower reserves of the Human Sector, but they’d planned on crewing twenty superdreadnaughts built in the Union, not forty from the next sector. “At the very least, we can try.”

“Of course you can try,” Talik said. There was a hint, running under his words, that Talik was not as sure of himself as he sounded. There were Imperial experts on the Vanguard, experts in the strange race, and none of them had been invited to the meeting. Talik’s introduction, opening fire on the Vanguard, had boded ill; Erickson suspected that any ship from the sector would have simply been pummelled until it had been destroyed, or had been forced to flee. “You might even succeed.”

Erickson smiled grimly. “Do we have a choice?”

“They just…ordered us to remain here until they came back,” Talik said. There had been upwards of two thousand Imperials in the Tarn Sector; Talik and his fifty Imperials had to have done the equivalent of losing a card game. “Something has happened, back on Centre; something that made them bring in as many Imperials as they could, and place this place on permanent cold storage until they came back.”

Erickson blinked. “You started to build new ships,” he said. The sectors further in towards the core of the Empire, including the Butler Sector, had had massive fleets stationed there, covering them from largely imaginary threats. “I cannot say that I am ungrateful.”

Talik inclined his head, an attempt to imitate a human nod. “We had to hold this place,” he said, nodding at the display of the system. “We just…built, and kept building, until it got to the point that we have thousands of weapons and hundreds of ships, and no way of getting them to anywhere outside the system.”

“We can have crewmen sent here,” Erickson said. He made up his mind on one thing. “Will you place the resources of this Yard at our disposal?”

“I will support you in your fight against the Greys,” Talik said. It wasn't, Erickson noted, quite an answer. “Anything after that rather depends on what happens after the Greys are defeated.”

Erickson smiled. “In that case, I will leave the Weber and its communicator here,” he said. “If you are willing to work to create a peace in the sector, you might end up with new workers, or at least you won’t have to worry about gaining more enemies. We’ll have new people sent out and we’ll be able to use many of the ships to attack the Greys.”

“The people in this sector are untrustworthy,” Talik informed him. There was a cold dispassionate note in his voice. Erickson realised that he would never budge from that option; the Imperials took the concept of the ‘bad seed’ seriously. “Their leaders, the leaders who were commended to us, have betrayed their responsibilities. They will be punished.”

Erickson said nothing. “An FTL communicator,” Talik said. “I always believed that that was impossible.” For a moment, there was a note of genuine wonder in his voice. “What will you do now?”

Erickson allowed himself a moment of relief. They might just have bought Earth some more time, time that could be used to recover from Roosevelt and press the new ships into service, then perhaps they could take back New Brooklyn for good and then seek out and destroy the Grey homeworlds.

“I have to continue my mission,” he said seriously. Talik seemed pleased by that commitment. “We’ll look in at the Lio-Lang Sector, then Butler, and then First and Centre itself. Do you want transport there?”

“No,” Talik said. Erickson blinked in surprise; he’d had the impression that Talik and his men were lonely. Humans would have been demanding answers by now, whatever it took. “I have my duties here.”

“Understood,” Erickson said. “Once we’re there, we can find out if we can get more help from Centre itself, perhaps even the 1^st Fleet. If we have that, then perhaps we can end the war before the Greys crush the human race.”

Talik looked pensive. “Perhaps,” he said. He paused. Erickson had the impression that he was struggling with himself. “I am a very young Imperial, as Imperials go, and the old ones, the really old ones, insisted on this. I do not know what they were thinking, or what they will think of you.”

Chapter Thirty-Three: This Time It’s Personal

The rank badge glowed under the light of her cabin.

Nancy held it as she paced from side to side, unable to decide, unwilling to put it on her neck. The Imperials had copied the basic style of human military uniforms – a single uniform style was impossible for a Fleet had had dozens of different races serving side by side – and senior officers wore their rank on their collars. She might still wear the black and silver of Fleet’s combat arm, but she no longer wore a Captain’s rank badge.

Her badge lay where she’d put it, on the table, as she turned the new badge over and over in her hand. It was golden – she knew enough to know that it was real gold – and new; the rank badges were made for specific officers and each one carried a hidden identification chip. The Imperial script for Commodore was written neatly in the centre of the golden badge; she knew that there was more to it than just another temporary promotion.

She sat down as her thoughts caught up with her. The last week had been heretic, as they struggled to organise a war fleet out of the forces that had been sent to rendezvous with the Lightning; there hadn’t been time to catch up on her mail from home. She’d known, of course, that Roosevelt had been hit and hit badly by the Greys, but she hadn’t known – she hadn’t wanted to know – what had happened to her family. They’d disowned her, when she’d joined the Fleet instead of going into the family business…and it had saved her life. If she’d been on the asteroid when the Grey missiles shattered it, her body would have fallen down towards Roosevelt along with the rest of her family.

Her fist suddenly clenched on the badge. She would not allow the Greys to get away with attacking Roosevelt, not like that. The gloves had been taken off, and while she was not privy to all of the details of the attack plan, she knew that it would be terrifyingly damaging for the Greys. Even if her force failed to regain control of the New Brooklyn system, the Greys would take a hammering; she knew that she could take command and hurt the bastards who had killed her family.

But there was more to it than that. The mere presence of the rank badge, one marked ‘Commodore,’ showed that the Human Union had changed…and not for the better. She understood just how the rank of Commodore worked; she would have held it, for a week, for a month, but it would never be her permanent rank. Now, because of political pressure, it would be her rank; Roosevelt had demanded it – the Americans had demanded that the mission to avenge the billions of deaths on Roosevelt be commanded by an American, and that she was to be given a permanent rank.

She held the badge, and something died inside her. The Imperial Fleet demanded that it’s officers renounce all ties to planetary governments and peoples; they served the Empire first and foremost. Since the Collapse, she knew that some officers had accepted the new order of things, others had rationalised their compliance in terms of trying to keep part of the Empire alive, and still others had fought the Greys on the grounds that they were a clear and present menace to the Empire. She’d heard that some officers had resigned, rather than serve the Human Union; Admiral Glass had let them go, but her…

She moved the badge so it glinted in the light. She had earned her rank of Captain; she was proud of it. Her temporary rank of Commodore had been earned; she’d had the ability to hold the rank, and it had been temporary. Most Captains served a time as a Commodore from time to time, but now…now she would be the first permanent Commodore that the Fleet had ever had, and she owed it all to politics. The remainder of the Fleet’s Captains would see it as an insult, a direct slap in the face, and rightly so; there were other Captains who deserved it more than her.

Politics had played little role in the Imperial Fleet. Politics…had started to affect the Human Fleet, or the Union Fleet, or whatever it ended up being called. Nancy…wanted to cry, she wanted to scream at the world, but she knew her duty. Carefully, quickly, she pinned the new rank badge on her collar, checked her appearance, and left her quarters. As she walked through the corridors to the conference room, she felt as if everyone was staring; she knew that she no longer felt like a Captain, but more of a fraud.

“No,” she said aloud, drawing on all her reserves of discipline. She forced herself to centre, to remember that she had a duty…and that she would carry it out, whatever the cost. Captain Erickson would be proud of her.

She entered the conference room and her Captains rose to greet her. None of them, she was relieved to see, seemed surprised to see her rank badge; their implants would have picked up what she was as soon as she entered the room. Captain Brown, who by rights should have had the command, winked at her; he, at least, didn’t hold anything against her. She cleared her throat and the muttered conversations halted.

She had to smile. No one was quite sure what to make of a real Commodore.

“Please be seated,” she said, looking around the room. Fifteen superdreadnaught commanders looked back at her, along with five carrier skippers, seven battlecruiser commanders, and twenty-three destroyer commanders. “We have a lot to get through and this is the last chance we’ll have to meet in a group.”

She tapped the display as they took their seats. “For the record, this operation has been formally re-designated as Operation Vengeance,” she said. There was a brief mutter of conversation as the officers took that in. “Our objective is to regain control of the high orbitals above New Brooklyn and hold them long enough for General Yamamoto’s forces” – she nodded at the stocky Japanese who commanded the ground forces element – “to be landed and secure the planet. As you can understand, this requires us to destroy both Grey-one and Grey-two, the forces in the system.”

The display altered. “This is our latest information on the system,” she continued. “Someone in Intelligence has had a brainwave; they’ve actually made some of the raw data available to us, rather than giving us the sanitized crap three years after we need it.” There were some chuckles; Intelligence had a bad reputation for failing to share information until it was far too late. “As you can see, Grey-one remains in orbit around New Brooklyn, Grey-two remains on isolated patrol. At their furthest distance from each other, there is roughly a thirty-minute time before one can reinforce the other, although we expect that Grey-one could send missile-drones to aid Grey-two if it had to do so. In that case, the drones would arrive at Grey-two roughly ten minutes after launch, depending on their exact position at the time of our attack.”

There was a long pause as the officers digested the information. They were all professionals, and experienced professionals at that; those who weren’t experienced by now had been killed by the Greys. They all knew the bottom line; they would have ten minutes – at most – to kill Grey-two before Grey-one and its drones could intervene…and that would be tricky. Superdreadnaughts were tough.

“Grey-two, our main target, is composed of ten superdreadnaughts and thirty smaller ships, including two drone carriers,” she said. “In some method I have not been permitted to learn, Intelligence is convinced that they can hit Grey-one in orbit, which means…”

Captain Taylor waved for attention. “I’m sorry…ah, Commodore,” he said, “but do they have a fleet of superdreadnaughts they haven’t bothered to tell us about?”

“That would be just like Intelligence,” someone muttered from the rear of the room.

“Not as far as I know about,” Nancy said. Her finger traced Grey-one’s position on the display. “I am working on the worst-case assumption, that Grey-one will remain ready to fight us and will set out at once to engage us. If that happens, we will have ten minutes to complete the annihilation of Grey-two before their drones can reach us, and then…twenty more minutes before Grey-one’s main bulk can move up to fight. We will not be avoiding battle this time, but actively seeking it.”

A low rumble ran around the room. Many of the Captains had friends on Roosevelt, or New Brooklyn; all of them would know people who had lost people on the planet. The desire for revenge was terrifying, but they were all professionals; they had to know just how unlikely it was that Grey-two would just roll over and die. They were all brave, they were all determined; cowards too had been weeded out of the service by months of constant warfare. They all knew the odds…

Captain Brown put them into words. “Commodore” – he at least had no problems using her rank – “we will have the superdreadnaught numerical advantage for the first encounter with Grey-two, but if we hammer at them, we are likely to lose at least four of our own superdreadnaughts, and almost all of our ships will take damage.”

Nancy scowled inwardly. Someone who really didn’t like her could make a nasty case out of the fact she would be on the Lightning, rather than the General Patton. She didn’t have a choice, of course, and her captains knew that; the pundits who were already predicting that the Union would be defeated within six months would make capital out of it. Idiots like Lord Collins, who had attempted to get the House of Lords to talk peace, would demand her resignation, if not her discharge.

“That depends on how quickly we take them down,” she said. There were two components to her plan…and only one of them had to remain a secret until they were ready to deploy. “Analysis of the Grey tactics at Roosevelt has turned up some interesting facts.”

She altered the display as the Greys took fire from the American starships. “You will notice that the Greys, in previous battles, acted to cover their larger ships from our fire, regardless of losses among their smaller craft,” she said. “This might have looked good on paper” – there were some chuckles – “but it gave us an advantage. We blew away their destroyers and anti-starfighter craft first, and then we killed their big bastards with starfighters. At Roosevelt, they devoted more effort to protecting the smaller craft; unsurprising, given that Roosevelt’s main defence consisted of thousands of starfighters.”

The bitter tone in her voice shocked even her. “We’re not going to target the smaller craft,” she said. “We’re going to hammer the superdreadnaughts with our first shots.”

There was instant uproar. The anti-starfighter craft might as well have been classed as point defence destroyers; they were capable of covering the larger craft as well, tripling their point defence. There wasn't a choice, however; if they managed to get the first blows in against the Grey superdreadnaughts, they might well win quickly.

“We will be combining missile strikes with fighter strikes,” she continued. “The starfighters will be attacking from a different angle, forcing them to split their point defence, or what remains of it. I have been permitted to unleash some experimental weapons, including a communications disruptor that might knock down their datanet for long enough to get a few blows in.”

There were hungry looks as they worked out what they could do if the Grey command network came down while they were under attack. It had happened at Earth – something like it had happened at Earth – and the results had been disastrous for the Greys. If they could repeat that trick, they might just have a chance of defeating the Greys quickly and with minimal losses.

“Once we get the first blow in, the Greys should be confused,” Nancy continued. She hadn’t told them the final part of the plan yet. It was a shame that they couldn’t bring along fake superdreadnaughts, like Admiral Glass had deployed at Earth, but they couldn’t have kept up the pretence at point-blank range. They just didn’t have the missile launch bays, or they would have been superdreadnaughts in truth. “If we use that to best advantage, our first barrage should damage them, the second destroy their point defence craft, and then we can send in the starfighters to finish the job. Once we do that…”

The display altered again. “We don’t know exactly what the Greys will do at this point,” she said. “It is entirely possible that Grey-one will take one look at us, particularly after the damage that Intelligence estimates they can inflict on them, and bug out. It is also possible that they’ll try to scorch the planet, in which case we will have to stop them. If they leave, we have to secure the high orbitals, rather than chasing the bastards down; if not, we will have to seize the high orbitals.”

Her face darkened. “There will be no room for subtlety in that fight,” she said. “It will be a slamming match, and I’m sure that I don’t have to remind you of the dangers caused by missiles flying around near the planet. We will be taking the bastards on at point blank range, and we can win – we will win! Once we secure control of the high orbitals, we will fire on any Grey structure on the planet that fires on us, and then we will support General Yamamoto as his forces land on the surface. Any questions?”

Captain Garrows looked up from his personal display. “What about the Grey facilities in the rest of the system?”

Nancy smiled. “We’ll exterminate them once we have secured the planet,” she said. “The Intelligence pukes will want to take a look at anything that can be secured, but it hardly matters; our main target is the planet.” She leaned forwards. “Remember, the laws of war do not apply to these bastards; if they try to surrender, accept it – but if they offer the slightest resistance, kill them all.”

No Grey had ever attempted to surrender. They had never accepted human surrenders. She didn’t expect that there would be any attempt to surrender; Admiral Glass had ordered that surrenders should be accepted because Intelligence needed a live Grey, or ten. She wasn’t sure that she would have passed on the instructions if Parliament or the House of Lords had supported it; she liked and respected Admiral Glass.

“One final question,” Captain Hammond said. Her voice, normally tainted with a strong Britannica accent, was dulled; Britannia and Roosevelt had had good relationships and there had been a lot of intermarriage. She had been studying the display, running through the battle plan time and time again. “How exactly are we going to get into position to attack them without them concentrating their forces?”

Nancy told them.

***

There were a thousand and one things to do, at a minimum, before a fleet could be sent on a mission. The starships had to be checked, time and time again, to ensure that everything that could go wrong was well covered. Starfighter pilots simulated endless missions, incorporating the latest intelligence from Roosevelt and past battles; starship captains simulated the battle as they hoped, and the battle as they feared. Nancy didn’t let them have any rest; they would run through every possibility that their fertile minds could think of, just so they could pull the entire mission off like clockwork.

She knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

There were too many things that could go wrong. Captain Taylor had been right; if the Greys caught them in the act, the boot would literally be on the other foot. They might succeed in killing Grey-two, but whatever Intelligence was up to, it didn’t promise to destroy Grey-one…and she would have disbelieved them if they had claimed it…although she would have been more polite about it.

There was a polite cough behind her. She turned, to see Admiral Glass; moments later, she was on her feet and saluting. Glass smiled at her, his face pale; it struck her, for the first time, just how old he was. Glass was over a hundred years old, and while he might have more years left in him, he was far from young. What would happen when he was gone?

“Commodore,” Glass said. He inspected her uniform badge with interest. “You deserve that.”

There was a regard, an acceptance, in his tone, that transcended her doubts. “I never asked for it,” Nancy said. They were light years from Earth; she was surprised to see Glass at the staging point. “Why did you come here?”

”To give you this,” Glass said, passing her a datachip. “Look at it once you’re in Phase Space, on your way to New Brooklyn; I had to twist arms at Intelligence to get them to give it to me.” He shook his head. “Me.”

Nancy had to smile. “I take it that rank counts for nothing any more,” she said, feeling some of her worries disappear. “I never expected such a…high-level courier.”

Glass shrugged. “I needed to come talk to you one final time,” he said. “This is important, very important; everyone is expecting a shocking victory over the Greys.”

Nancy nodded. “I’ll do my best,” she promised. Glass held out a second datachip. “Admiral?”

“Special orders,” Glass said. His voice sounded very old for a long moment. “If you face overwhelming Grey force, you are to cut and run at your discretion. Those orders will cover you if you have to run.”

Nancy stared at him. Glass nodded, once, and left the room.

An hour later, the fleet set out for New Brooklyn.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Countdown to Vengeance

“There’s still no sign that we have been detected,” Kate Tamara said, as the Sneaky Bastard drifted closer and closer to New Brooklyn. It had been three weeks since Roosevelt; three weeks since a second human world had been blasted by the Greys. None of the crew had been born on New Brooklyn, but they all knew that it could happen to any of their homeworlds; the urge for revenge was strong.

“Good,” Commander Avishai Sumrall said. The Sneaky Bastard paid a price for its stealth; it was almost certain that a limping Grey destroyer could catch up with it and destroy it. Whoever had designed the stealth ship – and Avishai had promised him or her a horrible death one day – hadn’t thought through what he’d done; the craft was far too small and very vulnerable, if, of course, it was detectable.

It was the age-old problem. If they brought up their active sensors, every Grey ship within scanning range would know exactly where they were…and open fire. Grey mines, scattered about in a rather out-of-character step for the Greys, would home in on them; Grey missiles would be targeted perfectly on them and fired. If they relied on their passive sensors alone, they would be likely to miss things, things such as silent mines, Grey stealth ships, assuming that they existed, or other threats.

She scowled. They had one option; the Greys had been busy. They might not have known exactly where the Sneaky Bastard was – and, given the disparity in firepower, probably hadn’t even obtained a glimpse of her – but they knew that the Empire possessed stealth ships. The planet was ringed with sensor fields, scanning beams, radars, radio direction-finders, gravity-wave detectors; anything she could name, the Greys had deployed. If she took the Sneaky Bastard into low orbit, they were almost certain to miss something…and then the Greys would have them. They probably wouldn’t have time to know that they’d been detected before the Greys hit them.

Her lips twitched. One little detail the Greys had missed, or had ignored, was that their sensor systems were active – active enough for her to map out much of the Grey activity within low orbit. Their own sensors showed her where much of their systems were located, including the force that the Fleet had designated Grey-one, floating in high orbit.

“I don’t think we dare go closer,” Kate said. Her voice was hushed. “They just lit off some more sensors, on the other side of the planet.”

Avishai nodded. The Sneaky Bastard had emplaced a handful of remote platforms near the planet…and one of them had been used to transmit an encrypted warning to the forces on the surface. She wasn't sure that she approved – her Intelligence training made her reluctant to risk revealing anything where the enemy might hear it, even through the codes were supposed to be unbreakable; the Greys might well know that they were coming. They’d certainly detected the transmission and destroyed the platform with a single drone pass; they would have some cause to suspect…something.

“I think its time to begin,” she said. The sooner they started, the sooner they could fly out of the Grey-occupied region and return to safer space. “Marco, start deploying the weapons.”

No officer in the Imperial Fleet would have agreed – willingly – to take part in such an operation; it went against every law that the Imperials had created and then used the Fleet to enforce. Intelligence…was more flexible when it came to morally dubious actions, and after Roosevelt few would have questioned that they were necessary. Avishai, like many other Intelligence officers, knew that that would come later; the African and Middle Eastern warlords crushed by the Imperials were now being rehabilitated by the Humanist Party, among others. They had all deserved their fates.

The Sneaky Bastard shook slightly as the first weapon was released. Avishai felt her nerves shaking slightly as the second weapon was deployed, then the third; tiny balls of something even she found unspeakable, wrapped in stealth covering and very basic sensors to hide them from probing inhuman Grey minds. If Roosevelt had not been hit, Avishai would have questioned her orders; now, she only prayed to all the gods that she would complete her mission and then withdraw without being detected. Now, their capture could be fatal…and, worse, it would compromise the attack fleet before it could enter the system.

“The weapons have been deployed,” Kate said finally. Avishai relaxed slightly; it had felt like hours, perhaps years. It had only been thirty minutes. “I believe that we can withdraw now.”

The die was cast, Avishai knew; fleet or no fleet, New Brooklyn and the Greys would have the collective fright of their lives. Everything was in the hands of random chance now; if, by however improbable a coincidence, the Greys found one of the weapons, their part in the attack would begin early…and surprise would be lost completely.

“Take us out of here,” Avishai ordered, hoping that Kate wouldn’t be able to find the weapons. If she, one of the most capable sensor operators in Intelligence – and possessing the advantage of knowing what she was looking for – couldn’t find them, then only blind luck would save the Greys. “Get us back to our watching position.”

A communications laser flickered across space, to a relay ship light minutes from the Sneaky Bastard; Avishai’s report on what had happened. There was no reply – but she had expected none – and there had been no reply from the planet either. That wasn’t exactly a surprise; the Greys had to be on the alert after Roosevelt, and reports of conditions on the surface were grim. If everything went well, they could at least make life uncomfortable for the Greys as well.

“We have reached our safe position,” Kate said, after a long moment had passed. Avishai let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. “I can find no traces of Grey activity anywhere nearby.”

Avishai smiled and settled back in her command chair. “Good,” she said. “Now, we wait.” Her smile grew sharper. “And see.”

***

“That’s the news from outside,” Captain Anung Sato said. Floid’s face couldn’t darken, but he looked sceptical. “The Fleet is coming to rescue us.”

“A rich world, one with billions of credits invested in the Human Union, gets hit and then they make the decision to commit themselves to save us,” Floid said. There was a hint of bitterness in his tone. “I see just how important we are to the planners back on Earth.”

Sato controlled his anger with an effort. “Mr President,” he said, as tightly as he could, “do you not feel that New Brooklyn is worth fighting for?”

Floid’s eyes flashed fire. “I have remained here when I could have fled before the Greys entered orbit,” he said. “I don’t think that you can doubt my courage, or my patriotism, can you?”

Sato scowled. “Mr President” – reading behind the vaguer lines on the message, he had the odd feeling that something that Floid wouldn’t have approved of was being planned – “your planet is about to be liberated, and that means that the Fleet needs your help.”

“And if we engage the Greys before your fleet has taken the high orbitals, we will still be fried,” Floid snapped. His voice seemed to grow colder. “What happens if the Grey scorch the planet?”

“Then they do that,” Sato snapped. Red fire was flickering behind his eyes; his implants did what they could to relieve his growing headache. “Mr President, you have demanded, and demanded, and demanded, that the Human Union put together a fleet to liberate you and your planet from the Greys, whatever the cost.” He leaned forwards. “For political reasons, reasons you should be more than capable of appreciating, if not approving, the very real concerns about total military disaster have been replaced with a desire to hurt the bastards!”

He stood up, tapping the map. It only covered Sudanasesia; there was only intermittent landline communication with redoubts on the rest of the world, but it was covered with signs of Grey activity, and the human units that had been positioned nearby in hopes that they would be able to stage a raid on the Greys. There had been short, violent encounters between human forces and the Greys; all of them, unless they had been won quickly, had been lost to overwhelming Grey firepower and a ruthlessness that would have shocked Adolf Hitler.

He shook his head. It wasn’t a fair comparison. The Greys had no half-mad ideology to guide them, only their own nature; he was starting to feel out how they thought. Their operations showed little of the flair – and risk-taking – of human operations; in many ways, they seemed to think like the Imperials. They had plenty of resources, but they were careful to husband them; if a patrol was destroyed, they very rarely bothered to interfere with the retreating humans, but if the patrol was still holding out…

“You got what you wanted, Mr President,” he said, pushing his thoughts aside for the time being. “Why are you suddenly reluctant to commit your own people to the war?”

“Because every time we have gone up against the Greys, we have taken massive causalities, even when we won,” General Nelson said. His gruff voice echoed through the room. “If your fleet is somehow driven away, the Greys will have plenty of time to attack, and counterattack; they’ll be giving us a real pounding and we won’t be able to do more than hurt them.”

His hand thumped the map. “It gets worse,” he continued. “Unless you know better, unless you have other teams on the other continents, we would only be able to attack the Greys here, in Sudanasesia. We would be inviting them to concentrate their wrath here.”

Floid leaned forwards. “Are there any other insertion teams?”

Sato shrugged. “If there were, I wouldn’t know about it,” he said. “The Imperials developed interrogation implants, after all, and the Greys are bound to have other tricks up their sleeves. If I fell into their hands, the less I know, the better; the less I would be able to tell them.”

“The point remains that we will have real difficulties launching the attack,” General Nelson said. “Are you aware of how humans stack up against Greys?”

“Yes,” Sato said shortly. The entire team had been through simulation after simulation, based on everything Intelligence knew about the Greys, and most of the news was grim. The little Greys were stronger and faster than any unaugmented human, and they were strong enough to punch through battlesuit armour. The Marines had been developing countermeasures to use against them, assuming that the Greys tried to rush them, but Sato knew that anyone without augmentation would be torn apart by the Greys.

“If we engage the Greys, we are looking at a very heavy death toll,” Floid said. “I fear that I cannot commit anything without some guarantees that our rights will be respected.”

A penny could have dropped in the silence and broken windows. “Your rights?” Sato finally managed to ask. “Your rights? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Floid’s eyes glinted. “The only question of any importance,” he said. “Who rules New Brooklyn after the war ends?”

Sato took a long breath, feeling his implants tense within him as a sudden mad desire to tear their heads off flashed through him. The vision of headless bodies was so strong he had to override safety settings on his implants to force them down; the rage, horror, and fury was overpowering. He could have killed them both, and they both knew it; they were still expecting him to comply with their sudden bout of lunacy.

Something of his fury showed in his face. “There are three-dozen officially recognised factions on New Brooklyn,” Floid said, uncomfortably. “I do not wish to burn out Sudanasesia’s military power fighting the Greys, when half of the remaining factions are our enemies, and the other half want to bring us down a peg or two.”

“You know,” Sato said, forcing his voice to remain calm through sheer effort, “there were people who predicted that your society, even more obsessed with arming the citizens than the Roosevelt loyalists were, would be able to put up a fight that would deter even the Greys. They were clearly talking out of their orifices, weren’t they?”

He stood up, feeling the rage building again. “You had three-dozen factions,” he snapped, remembering that there hadn’t been three-dozen countries on New Brooklyn. Some of the factions must have been internal threats. “Now, you have a world occupied by the Greys, and many of the factions will have died off, including just how many of your own people? How many billions have died now in the war?”

Floid started to speak. Sato easily talked over him. “You have a chance to escape Grey domination, don’t you? You have the chance, but you have to help make it work; I can promise you that your…rights will not be respected if you do nothing to help recover your world. If the Fleet loses because of your refusal to get involved, the Greys will have all the time they could possibly need to exterminate you. Mr President, get off the fence and choose a side! Which side do you want to win?”

He hit the table with the full force of his augmented arm. It shattered with ease. “I need your help to complete my task of capturing a large Grey,” Sato said. His arm wasn't even sore. Several guards looked in, saw his face, and started forward; General Nelson waved them back. “If you want to have anything left of your world, you have to help me, just to prevent the Greys from returning to attack again, and again, and again.”

Floid took a step backwards. “Choose,” Sato demanded. “Will you help or not?”

“We will help you to capture your Grey,” Floid said finally. His voice steadied slightly. “We will not commit anything else.”

“I don’t understand you,” Sato snapped. “Why would anyone choose to live on this world? If it wasn’t for the Greys, you would have wiped yourself out, long ago.” He scowled. “Where is the closest Grey base?”

General Nelson pointed to the map. “Douglas,” he said. Sato’s history files informed him of Fredrick Douglas and his work in the service of humanity. He wouldn’t have tolerated Floid’s treatment of his own planet. “There’s a large base there.”

“Good,” Sato said. “We will attack it, and you are going to help me.”

Wisely, neither of the native Sudanases chose to argue.

***

Captain Alison Dostie had known humiliation – she had been molested by drill sergeants who had believed that a woman would be useless in combat – and fear before, but nothing had ever rivalled the feeling of being utterly helpless in the Grey camp. She’d studied martial arts to learn how to overcome the disadvantages of being born a woman in a macho culture – it had been some consolation to know that she could kick the tar out of most men twice her size – but the Greys weren’t human. Physical resistance was useless against them; they seemed willing to run the risk of hurting the cuckoo they’d placed inside her, if she tried to cause trouble. Most of the women hadn’t been any trouble at all; she wasn't sure if it was shock, implanted commands, or something simple like drugs.

She felt her swelling chest and wanted to cry. The men the Greys had guarding the camp were under their control, which at least meant that they couldn’t take advantage of any of the women, but at the same time there was a cold dispassion about their actions that chilled her. One of the guards had been in her group when they’d been captured, one of the men who had eyed her behind when he’d thought that she wasn't looking; now, he didn’t seem to have any feelings at all.

There was nothing normal about her pregnancy, based on what little she knew about having children; she knew that the average human child took nine months before it was ready to come out, but the Grey slaves had told her that the cuckoos came out after three months. Her breasts had never been large – in the army, she had been grateful that her figure had been slight, almost mannish – but now they were swelling; some of the brooders had been going around squeezing their milk out because the Greys took the children away at birth. She had seen a cuckoo and knew, somehow, that one of them was growing in her as well.

Somehow, killing herself was impossible. She could barely even consider the possibility. She knew at some level that the Greys had altered her; she understood, now, just what the Greys were. They had grown into a system that used each and every little thing, animal, vegetable or mineral, that fell into their hands; she wondered if the smaller Greys were victims, just like her. They showed no pleasure in what they had done, but then, neither had the larger Greys. They didn’t even bother to gloat.

Escape also seemed impossible…

High above, the sky flared a brilliant white…

Chapter Thirty-Five: Vengeance is Mine, Take One

“We have completed emergence sequence,” Commander Clifford Trout said softly. By rights, he should have been promoted to Captain with Nancy’s promotion, but the Personal Department – known to the crews as the impersonal department – hadn’t gotten round to doing the paperwork. He was practically serving as the Lightning’s Captain; it was the first time that Nancy had commanded from the flag command room, rather than from the bridge.

She didn’t like the feeling.

“Good,” she said. “Were we detected?”

“It’s impossible to know for sure, but I think that we weren’t detected,” Trout said, after a long moment. He would be looking at displays related to the Lightning; Nancy had to study displays focused on the entire combat group. That wasn't easy when the entire group was under stealth protocols. “There’s certainly no sign that the Greys have seen us, or that they have platforms out here.”

Nancy nodded coldly. They had appeared well above the system plane, and two hours flight from the Phase Limit, rather than appearing right along the edge of the Limit; there was no logical reason for the Greys to have scouts or pickets that far from the system. They had risked coming in blind – showing attention to that particular section of the limit might have warned the Greys – but only someone with unlimited resources or a really paranoid mind would have strung out sensor satellites that far from the Limit.

Her lips twitched. If the Greys had unlimited resources, then it might be time to start discussing surrender terms…except they couldn’t have them. They had held the New Brooklyn system for seven standard months; they hadn’t had the time to make more than the basic installations of warning systems. The probes that Intelligence had had monitoring the system had revealed no sign of the Greys deploying a wider network than anything mere humans – or Imperials – had built, although she knew that that was not reliable. The Greys acted as if they had to conserve their resources; surely they would have reached the point of no return well before they had scanners out this far from the star.

Surely.

She forced her mind to work properly. “Report,” she ordered Commander Marius Roodt, her new fleet coordination officer. Roodt’s head was already linked into the network of computers connected to the Fleet, searching for information that would be needed to support her decisions; the webhead could send an order to the fleet within seconds of her issuing the order. “What is our status?”

Roodt’s voice was harsh, yet soft; he’d been wounded in one of the early battles and had barely survived the Grey attack, along with the ship that had been carrying him. His grim face, tinged with scar tissue that he’d never had removed, was enough to daunt children, but Nancy knew him to be a gentle soul…one roused to anger at the thought of what the Greys had done.

“Every ship has appeared, and all cloaking systems are functional,” Roodt reported. His voice was barely above a whisper; there was something about sneaking about right under the Greys collective noses – such as they were – that forced quiet on them. She commanded the largest – certainly the most powerful – human force ever to take on the might of the Greys, and yet if she was caught between Grey-one and Grey-two, her force would have to carry out the most difficult manoeuvre in the fleet’s books; a tactical withdrawal under fire. “Laser links have been established with the spy probes and the other ships; the starfighters are reporting that they are ready for launch.”

Nancy shook her head sharply. Starfighters had many advantages, but they couldn’t cloak, nor could they escape back into Phase Space if they were detected. She’d had a long and barely civilised decision with the CAG officers on her five fleet carriers, but her decision had stood; the starfighters would remain in their bays until the shooting started, at which point they would be launched into space to do or die.

“Inform them that if anyone launches without my permission, they will be shot,” she said shortly. She wasn’t joking; technically, Imperial Fleet Captains had the authority to order crewmen shot if necessary, although it had never actually been used for longer than she could remember. “Any sign of Grey activity?”

“One small patrol force, nearly a light hour away, heading away from us,” Roodt said, after a moment. Red icons flashed into existence on the display and her heart leapt despite the cold logic that told her that they couldn’t see her force. “We could have them targeted now, Commodore.”

“No,” Nancy said firmly. The Greys had drawn in most of their patrolling forces after Mousetrap; they had to have that force out there for a reason, perhaps to watch out for anyone insane enough to try what they were trying. “Shape our course to avoid them. What about the main forces?”

“Grey-one remains near the planet,” Roodt said. Nancy remembered what Intelligence had planned – Admiral Glass had told her in person on the grounds that she needed to know – and shuddered; Grey-one was likely to survive the experience, but humans, at least, would be shocked into panic. “Grey-two is on a long patrol course” – his finger traced out a pattern – “and we would be best advised to meet them there.”

He pointed to a location on the display that would give them at least fifteen minutes before drone-missiles could reach them and interfere with the fight against Grey-two. She knew that she had the firepower to force and win an engagement against either force, but if they combined their efforts, or if the human forces suffered badly in the first engagement, they would have to retreat from the system. The Greys would still hurt, but it wouldn’t be enough, would it?

“Transmit the course to all ships,” Nancy said. They’d agreed on the formation back at the launch point; the superdreadnaughts would go first, backed up by the smaller ships; the fleet carriers would hang back and rely on their starfighters for defence, if they were discovered. It was risky, but there was no choice; the Greys could not be allowed to get in their own hits against the superdreadnaughts. If they managed to hit the human ships hard enough, she would have to withdraw.

“Course transmitted,” Roodt said. “The fleet is acknowledging.”

“Take us in,” Nancy said. She allowed her hands to rub together as the full weight of the risk that they were running sank in on her; it sounded so simple on paper, but when it came to actually carrying it out…she was scared. Her implants assisted her, calming her; she forced herself to sit back and wait as the cloaked starships slid into the New Brooklyn system. They were entering the point of no return.

Cloaking devices were not, she knew, perfect; Imperial sensor crews were taught to watch for the patterns of energy turbulence that suggested the presence of a cloaked ship. Pirates – and perhaps the Greys – possessed cloaking devices; they were the most common item on the black market, coming from black colonies that possessed some degree of tech development capability. She was almost sure that Morgan’s Hold possessed such capability; she remembered, all too clearly, the duel with two of Morgan’s ships, before the Empire had collapsed.

Her eyes glittered as she looked down at the display. A cloaking device worked by creating the impression that there was nothing different about the region of space where the ship was lurking, except by its very nature it could hardly hide everything, and it came at a cost. Her ships could normally pull 0.3C; now they were slinking in at a much reduced speed, just to avoid generating more gravimetric turbulence than they could hide with their cloaking devices. Worst of all, a cloak drew so much more from a starship that only a massive starship could shield and cloak at the same time, and only the latest class of superdreadnaughts – including, ironically, the America – could handle the power requirements. The techs kept promising a cloaking device that worked without draining every starship that used it, but Nancy would believe it when she saw it.

She smiled. They had also promised a FTL communicator, but that had come from the Greys, so it didn’t count.

“Commodore, we are coming around the asteroids,” Roodt muttered, almost still whispering. Everyone onboard the ship knew just how exposed – and dangerous – their position was; a single lucky Grey scout hanging around the asteroid clusters could ruin them. No one had visited the asteroid cluster as far as the records knew; the New Brooklyn natives hadn’t been able to agree on any actual ownership of the resources. Nancy snorted; if they’d put aside their differences and built a larger space industry, they might have been able to stand off the Greys…although, to be fair, that hadn’t helped Roosevelt. Cold determination awoke – again – within her; she would defeat the Greys or die trying.

Hours passed and they crept their way across the system, heading down towards Grey-two, moving towards the meeting point. Grey-two was just patrolling, as far as she could tell; it wasn’t pushing its speed or scanning with active sensors. If they had suspected the presence of Intelligence’s scoutships, they would have been scanning with more vigour, unless they believed that it was a waste of effort. In interplanetary space, they would probably be right.

“Signal the fleet, make sure that Captain Weinberg and Captain Brown” – her two designated successors and former ‘Commodores’ in their own right – “know everything we know,” she ordered, knowing a hint of shame. By rights, she should be flying her flag on one of the superdreadnaughts, rather than her own fleet carrier; the Lightning would be out of the first round of fighting. “I want a detailed breakdown on Grey-two.”

The Grey starships grew in the display as the fleet inched into intercept position. Nancy ordered their drives stepped down and then stepped down again, moving to avoid the danger of the Greys picking up something – anything – that would betray their presence. Roodt provided the breakdown without comment; nine superdreadnaughts, ten battlecruisers, twelve destroyers of a standard type, and fifteen anti-starfighter craft. The Greys were travelling in a tightly-bunched group – she scowled as she realised that not everything was going to go her way – and normal practice demanded blowing away the anti-starfighter craft first, but she’d changed that. Now, she wondered if it had been a good idea after all…

“No,” she said seriously. Roodt looked up at her. “Continue with the plan.”

“Yes, Captain,” Roodt said. The datanet was restricted to encrypted, whisker-thin, lasers, but there was no problem in targeting the starships on the correct targets. Her superdreadnaughts were slipping into prow position, their weapons ready to strike at any moment, and she dared to hope that they would get away with it. “Ten minutes until optimum firing range.”

The Greys had only their limited shields up, providing protection from space dust and other threats, but hardly enough to stand off a singe missile strike. There was little debris this far from anything that might attract it, but she wasn't surprised; the Greys had proven their paranoia before. If they’d kept their full shields up at all times, it would have drained their energy before long, but they’d settled on a compromise. She couldn’t fault their logic…

“General signal,” she ordered softly. “If they get so much of a sniff of us and start to charge weapons and raise shields, fire without further orders.”

“Yes, Commodore,” Roodt said. He had remembered her rank this time. “The order has been sent.”

“And a second general signal,” Nancy continued. Her voice grew in resolve and power; she couldn’t be the only one who had lost people at Roosevelt, or New Brooklyn, or in any of the skirmishes between the Fall of New Brooklyn, the Battle of Earth, and the Battle of Roosevelt. “Tell the fleet…to remember those who died, and no quarter!”

The Greys came closer. A human fleet would have had drones running ahead of them and Nancy tensed, expecting at any moment that they would be detected. She’d planned on the worst-case assumption, that the Greys would detect them as soon as they came into weapons range, but so far their luck had held. She watched grimly, feeling the burning desire for revenge that was flooding through her ships, and smiled.

The Greys couldn’t escape. They could only hurt her ships before they were destroyed. They were dead; they just didn’t know it yet.

“Fire as soon as they cross the minimal range limit,” she ordered coldly. Roodt gave her a thumbs up sign; he had been as pessimistic as her about how close the Greys would come before they smelled a rat. “Stand by…”

“Energy surge,” Roodt snapped. “They’ve seen us!”

“Fire,” Nancy roared. She gave the order bare microseconds too late; the Captains of the superdreadnaughts, right in the line of fire, struck their firing keys just before she bellowed her order, hurling thousands of missiles right into the teeth of the Greys. “Kill them all now!”

The superdreadnaughts belched missiles…and the Greys seemed to flinch. Fully half of the human weapons were clearly targeted directly on the superdreadnaughts, a quarter were aimed at the drone carriers, trying to kill them before they could launch their drones. The remaining missiles had been a gamble, but one that Nancy had known needed to be taken; they were a powerful collection of the most advanced electronic warfare systems that the combined ingenuity of the races of the Empire had been able to devise.

The Greys flinched…and Nancy smiled. They weren’t just seeing the real missiles; they were seeing sensor ghosts, fake missiles, Jammers…systems that were disrupting their response and delaying their ability to strike back against the human ships. They would have to switch their datanet to laser communications before they could fight as a coordinated unit, and, for the Greys, that was harder than human starships would have found it. They seemed to fight as a body most of the time; now…now, they would have to link up again…and they didn’t have the time. Their answering fire was weak and misguided…and badly out of place.

Nineteen missiles slammed into a Grey superdreadnaught. It could have survived the hits if it had its full shields up, but even Greys couldn’t get their shields up in time to survive. Seven missiles punched into the shields and knocked them down; twelve standard nukes hit the side of the Grey ship and detonated. The resulting explosion left nothing, not even dust; three more superdreadnaughts quickly followed their fellow into destruction. They hadn’t even managed to return fire!

“Commodore, I confirm,” Roodt said, his voice delighted. “We got a complete run of kills on the drone carriers; they only managed to launch seventeen drones.”

Nancy almost laughed. “Order the carriers to launch their starfighters,” she said. All that mattered was taking Grey-two out of action quickly, before something could go wrong. “I want four squadrons of CSP fighters over here, now; the rest are to concentrate on the superdreadnaughts and the cruisers.”

“Yes, Commodore,” Roodt said. His display altered, then became covered with red icons as the remaining Grey superdreadnaughts opened fire. They hadn’t managed to get their datanet working, she noted with a coldly gleeful part of her mind, but they had managed to target her ships, even through the ECM – too late. They had had an opportunity to hit unshielded hulls…now, they would have to kill the human starships honestly, and she was in no mood to fight fair, or to even give them half a chance. “What about the smaller destroyers?”

Another Grey superdreadnaught blew up. One of her own superdreadnaughts had become unlucky; it had clearly been picked as the target for the remaining four Grey superdreadnaughts. Drones flashed towards it as well, firing plasma weapons, but no missiles; they must have been configured for CSP duties rather than anti-shipping strikes. She muttered orders; the smaller ships moved forward to cover the General Amherst. The superdreadnaught would survive.

“Target them now,” she said, as a sixth Grey superdreadnaught staggered out of the Grey line of battle. For a moment, she thought that it hadn’t been seriously damaged at all, and then it exploded, simply blowing into a ball of expanding plasma. A force of human starfighters flew through the cloud of plasma, heading directly into the teeth of a Grey battlecruiser as it turned, trying to retreat.

The superdreadnaughts fired…and Nancy realised that the Greys, again too late, had re-established their datanet. The anti-starfighter craft, still vainly trying to recover from their first mistake, fired time and time again into the horde of missiles, killing hundreds…but a few got through their defence, and they were weaker craft, unable to stand up to a real pounding.

“Commodore, I’m picking up an energy discharge from the planet,” Lieutenant Caroline Porter said. The Lightning’s sensor officer sounded puzzled. “It’s a big one, very big; I don’t understand it.”

“I thought you might,” Nancy said. It wasn’t a problem at the moment. “Commander, give me a status report on the anti-starfighter craft?”

A red icon flashed once and vanished from the display. “We just killed the last of them,” Roodt said. The Grey formation was breaking apart, with the remaining craft trying to retreat, but she had no intention of allowing them to escape. Her starfighters descended on the remaining superdreadnaughts and fired; moments later, only small Grey craft remained in the battlezone. Those too were hunted down.

By any measure, it had been the most successful battle of the Grey War.

“Commodore, Grey-one is coming this way,” Roodt said. “No drones.”

“It must have worked better than I expected,” Nancy said, shaking her head in awe. Intelligence had clearly had a surprising attack of intelligence. “ETA?”

“Twenty minutes at their current speed,” Roodt said. He paused. “I should remind you that the General Amherst has taken heavy damage.”

Nancy nodded. “Order it to retreat from the battlezone,” she said. She looked up at the display; the new Grey force knew that she was there, which meant…she would have to kill it honestly, rather than cheating. “General signal to all ships; well done.”

On the display, the wreckage of the Grey fleet spread out from the battlezone.

It wasn’t over yet.

Chapter Thirty-Six: Vengeance is Mine, Take Two

The plan had a certain brutal simplicity.

Before the Invasion, when only a few humans grappled with even primitive spaceflight, humans had considered antimatter the most lethal weapon that a starship could possibly load its missiles with, allowing the largest explosion for minimal effort. As normally happened when theory ran up against reality, theory found itself falling short; neither the Imperials nor the Greys used antimatter weapons if they could avoid it. More bang for the credit seemed a good idea, but not at the cost of losing an entire superdreadnaught every time a containment field fluctuated; the few attempts recorded by the Imperial Fleet to attempt to deploy antimatter weapons had ended in disastrous failure.

The mines weren’t real spacecraft, not in the sense that they had more than minimal independent motive power; all they were, at bottom, was small balls of antimatter, wrapped around with a containment field generator and stealth coating. The Sneaky Bastard had deployed seventeen of the mines, sending them coasting in towards New Brooklyn…and right through the Grey defences. Three of them were heading right towards the shipyard when the Grey drone-missiles sprang to life…and Commander Avishai Sumrall touched a command. The containment fields failed…

Matter met antimatter. Microseconds later, a massive explosion of fire and fury flared out from each mine, one of them right in the heart of the drone formation. The wave of energy and radiation was more than any of the Grey drones could stand; they melted and vaporised under the heat of the sudden fury within their formation. The blast wave raced on, wiping out Grey orbital weapons and a handful of unlucky Grey ships, before the second wave of mines detonated. The Grey shipyard, composed of enough asteroid rock to deter a nuclear strike with the promise of massive pieces of space junk crashing to the planet, was struck by a wave of fission energy; useless against shielded starships, but all too effective against the rock of the asteroid. A wave of destruction passed through the asteroid, a hellish chain reaction that caught and destroyed the half-completed Grey ships in the shipyard, before blasting the remains of the shipyard into space dust.

Grey-one, already coming up to battle stations as Commodore Middleton sprang her trap on Grey-two, was hardly affected by the wave of destruction washing through New Brooklyn’s orbit. EMP and a tidal wave of radiation meant little to real starships; military and civilian craft were shielded against bursts of radiation much more powerful than the blasts that struck Grey-one. All it did, in the end, was disrupt the Grey communications datanet…

But that might just have been enough.

Commander Avishai Sumrall gazed down upon her works, destruction on a level specifically forbidden by the Articles of War, and smiled. Over the coming years, New Brooklyn would suffer massive ecological damage – exactly the reason the Imperials had used to ban such attacks. They had banned it…and Intelligence, smarting over what had happened to Roosevelt, had circumvented the rules.

“Pull us back,” she said, unable to take the smile from her face. Surely Shiva the Destroyer could not have wrecked such havoc, or perhaps she had used her as Her tool; the devastation was almost total. “Keep us out of range; the blasts might have exposed us as well.”

Her smile grew. They had wiped out almost all of the Grey defences around New Brooklyn, slaughtering thousands of Greys, and they’d done it at minimal cost. The rational thing for Grey-one to do would be to change course, perhaps to run from the system, but they weren’t doing anything of the sort. Coldly, with more determination than a human force might have shown under similar circumstances, Grey-one was advancing to meet the human fleet.

More Greys would die today.

***

“That’s Grey-one, according to the remaining probes,” Commander Marius Roodt said. Her fleet coordination officer looked tired and elated at the same time; the ease of their victory over Grey-two had convinced him that perhaps they should withdraw and call it a victory. Nancy, whose orders did allow for such a decision, knew better; they had the chance to recover the system and she wasn’t about to lose it. “Ten superdreadnaughts and fifty smaller ships, including some freighters and…”

The display changed. “No, scratch that,” he said. “The freighters have just altered course, they’re heading out towards the Phase Limit.”

Nancy wondered, just for a moment, what the Greys thought they were doing. Perhaps they intended to cover the freighters…which meant that there had to be something vital onboard, but what? They had hardly had the time or warning to have the freighters loaded with important supplies, had they? Perhaps…

She shook her head. They didn’t have time to worry about it as Grey-one grew on the display, sixty starships, some of them clearly not capable of FTL. She had to wonder why the Greys through that mining ships and captured commercial starships would be helpful, unless they’d spent resources in refitting them, instead of building new ships. It didn’t seem likely, although she had to admit that they were likely to soak up her missiles.

“Deploy for general battle,” she said. There would be no surprise this time; Grey-one would crash into her force and then they would fight it out to determine the winner. For once, in her battles with the Greys, she had the edge in firepower…and the devastation wrecked behind on New Brooklyn’s orbitals had to upset the Greys. If the Greys did get upset, of course; the jury was still out on that one as well.

“The Greys are launching drones,” Roodt said. Nancy nodded; she had hoped that the Grey drone carriers would have all been attached to Grey-two, but whoever – whatever – was in charge of the Grey forces had kept two back to cover Grey-one. It would actually give them a numerical advantage in drones, but a slight one…and, given the actual disparity between a drone and a starfighter, it wouldn’t be enough. “Orders?”

“Signal to the starfighters,” Nancy ordered. The Lightning was already unloading its starfighters, having given the pilots a quick rest while the craft were reloaded, and they were forming up outside the ship. “I want those drones killed by the CSP, and then the starfighters can start taking out the big boys.”

The drones raged forwards to meet their tormentors…and then they just…stopped. Nancy had barely a moment to react before the drones started to retreat, heading back towards Grey-one, moving faster than she had expected. The starfighters roared forwards, knowing that the Grey drones would have to stand and fight at some point, and swarmed down towards the Grey ships.

“Call them back,” Nancy snapped, as something occurred to her. “Call them back…”

Roodt’s face was ashen. “Too late,” he said, as the civilian craft in Grey-one disgorged thousands of anti-starfighter missiles and plasma bolts, aiming towards the core of the human force. Nancy’s starfighters were well trained, the pilots flipped at once through a series of evasive manoeuvres, but the Greys had scored a surprise. Starfighters began to die, even as they took some of the drones with them. “Commodore?”

“Recall them,” Nancy said, very coldly. The Grey commercial craft didn’t have the sheer kill-power of anti-starfighter craft, but they were armed to the teeth; she mentally kicked herself for ignoring what, in hindsight, was an obvious threat. “The battleline will advance to attack the enemy.”

She stared down at the display as the Greys adjusted course, trying to keep the range open, playing to their strengths. Their superdreadnaughts were preparing for the duel, with their smaller craft, armed with energy weapons, moving up to cover the bigger craft. It made a certain diabolical kind of sense; it reminded her of when Admiral Glass had led the Sol Picket during the final desperate defence of Earth.

“New targeting orders,” she said. She had fourteen superdreadnaughts – she briefly considered recalling the retreating ship, before remembering that it would be unable to return to the fleet in time – to ten; she could take some risks. She wanted to crush the Greys in open battle, and prove that humans could do more than hit and run raids on the Greys, but they weren’t making that easy.

She smiled. “The battlecruisers and the heavy cruisers are to concentrate their fire on the smaller Grey ships,” she said. The Greys weren’t refusing battle, which wasn't exactly surprising, but she would bet her last credit that their smaller craft would have reverted to covering the larger ships to the exclusion of all else. It was the only thing that could have held the possibility of a victory, but at the same time…it would weaken them. “Once the smaller craft are wiped out, we will proceed to engage the drones with the starfighters, and then send them into the bigger ships.”

The time ticked down. There would be no finesse in the fighting; the two forces would crash, one would emerge victorious, and that would be the end of it. The Greys had a chance at victory, which explained why they were still trying to engage her force rather than bugging out as fast as they could, but unless they were very lucky, they wouldn’t even come close to defeating her.

“Fire,” she ordered, her voice very calm. “Give them hell.”

Fourteen superdreadnaughts belched a hail of missiles, confirming one of her suspicions; this group of drones didn’t posses long-range missiles. Given the disadvantages against anyone, but a foe utterly unaware of the existence of the weapons, she wasn't surprised; Intelligence suggested that this proved the existence of factions among the Greys, but Nancy didn’t believe it. Everything the Greys had done suggested that they were a monolithic force, rather than the fragmented human planets and nations.

The hail of missiles flashed towards the Grey force, which swung around and unleashed their broadsides back towards the human force, before settling down to the serious business of destroying or decoying the wave of human missiles sweeping towards them. Nancy felt her heart sink as her missiles confronted the point defence of sixty heavily-armed Grey starships, all aware of the threat and ready to meet it. Missile after missile vanished in the hail of fire…and then the smaller starship missiles began to strike home.

“Commodore, I confirm a clean kill on most of the commercial craft,” Roodt said. His voice sounded delighted. “We got them all.”

Nancy scowled as the reports came in from her ships. The Greys had concentrated fire on three of her superdreadnaughts and one of them was already damaged, hit by seven missiles in quick succession. Her own missiles had been more spread out, concentrating on damaging and degrading the Grey ability to hurt her, and she wondered now if that had been a mistake. The damage to the Grey support ships, however, argued that it wasn't; the clean kill should not have been surprising.

She smiled. Commercial ships were not warships, as several pirates had found out to their cost, and couldn’t really be used for such purposes. They lacked military-grade shields, proper drives, the structure needed to survive being placed in the wall of battle; the Greys had made a mistake there. Their anti-starfighter craft lasted longer, long enough to save two Grey superdreadnaughts from destruction, and then they too were gone.

“Order the smaller ships to adjust their targeting to target the Grey superdreadnaughts,” Nancy ordered. The remaining Grey starships, ‘only’ battlecruisers and destroyers, wouldn’t be that dangerous; the real problem was taking down the superdreadnaughts. Fully-shielded, fully-aware, it wasn't going to be easy; she saw Grey shields struggling to repel missiles strikes as the human missiles struck home.

A human superdreadnaught blew up. There was no warning; one moment it was taking its place in the line of battle, the next it was expanding plasma floating through space. A Grey superdreadnaught, taking fire from three human ships at once, followed it; the explosion tore away at the Grey network.

Nancy leaned forward. “Have we had any luck in identifying a command starship?”

“Intelligence is working on it, but its so hard to pick apart Grey signals,” Roodt said. His voice darkened. “At least whatever they’re using won’t allow them to deploy decoys.”

Nancy nodded. Two of her superdreadnaughts had been saved by decoys, luring Grey missiles onto imaginary superdreadnaughts instead of the real, almost irreplaceable, ships. A second Grey superdreadnaught exploded; she noticed with part of her mind that her starfighters were swarming over the Grey drones and utterly raping them, taking them on at three-to-one odds and coming out ahead. The Grey point defence simply ignored the starfighters; they just couldn’t worry about the flies when the massive superdreadnaughts were pounding them into scrap.

“Admiral Howe is taking heavy damage,” Roodt said softly. Nancy nodded grimly as three battlecruisers and two destroyers moved forwards, trying to cover the larger ship while the battlecruisers threw their own weapons towards the Howe’s tormentors. “It really needs to pull back.”

Nancy shook her head. Two more Grey superdreadnaughts were on the verge of being destroyed; one of them had lost its shields, the other had started to lose them…and then four nuclear warheads detonated against the unshielded craft. Insanely, impossibly, it kept fighting, but then it exploded in a tearing sheet of fire. The other followed it quickly into the flame, and then…a Grey battlecruiser raced out of line, heading right towards one of her superdreadnaughts.

“Take that ship down,” Nancy snapped, as the horrifying possibilities became clear. The Greys had never used suicide tactics before in space, unless one counted the drones, but this was something new and dangerous. “Crush it!”

Four superdreadnaughts fired as one and the battlecruiser vanished in a ball of fire. “Commodore, the Howe is on the brink of coming apart,” Roodt snapped. Nancy felt the mark of Cain at the heart of her soul; she needed every last superdreadnaught she could get in the wall of battle. “Commodore…”

A glare of light, a burst of radiation, marked the death of the Admiral Howe. “Push in to them,” Nancy snapped, as her starfighters swarmed one of the Grey superdreadnaughts. No starfighter on its own could destroy a superdreadnaught, two hundred working together could and did…and, as another Grey superdreadnaught exploded, the Grey force started to fall back. Nancy stared. For the first time in the war, the Greys were abandoning the fight…and leaving.

“They’re altering course,” Roodt said. The Greys were being daring; they were rolling their drive fields to slow their plunge towards the human craft, and then altering course so that they rolled upwards and outwards, heading away from New Brooklyn. She stared, unless one counted Roosevelt, the Greys had never done that. “Orders?”

“Keep firing,” Nancy ordered sharply. The final two Grey superdreadnaughts had to be killed before they could escape, or they would see them again. “Pour on the fire, now!”

The superdreadnaughts turned to follow their defeated enemy, the starfighters raging in ahead of them, and the ninth superdreadnaught died. Something happened to the Grey force…and it seemed to just come apart. In the moments between losing what Nancy now realised had to be a command ship and the reestablishment of command by the other superdreadnaught, the Greys suddenly lost their ability to coordinate a defence…and at the worst possible moments. Even as the final superdreadnaught tried to run, her missiles caught it…and blew it apart.

“Commodore, they’re scattering,” Roodt said softly. His face was tight and drawn. “Orders?”

Nancy scowled. There were only – ‘only’ – twelve Grey starships left in the system, and her force would have to track them all down and kill them. She could track a starship down over a long distance, but she didn’t have the time to kill them all, not if she wanted to gain control over the high orbitals before the Greys could come up with something new and unpleasant for the planet.

“Leave them,” she ordered, hating herself. She had wanted a clean sweep of the Grey starships. Now, some of them would remain in the system and harass her, or spy on her for other Grey ships, including the ones that had to be making their way home from Roosevelt. “Recover the starfighters, and then take us towards the planet.”

“Aye, Commodore,” Roodt said. Nancy took a moment to check the status of the fleet; all of her superdreadnaughts, those that had survived the battle, had taken damage of one level or another. She’d lost three hundred starfighters, expended nearly half of her missile stocks; all in all, she knew that they’d been lucky. If Grey-two had extracted as much punishment as Grey-one, they would have had to retreat, rather than fight it out with a fresh Grey force. “Moving in now.”

New Brooklyn grew in her display, a beautiful world that had once been the most disparaged world in the Human Sector, now occupied by Greys and humans, some slaves, some refuges, keeping their heads down and trying not to be noticed. The antimatter blasts in orbit had done an excellent job; the Greys had lost much of their orbital weapons, leaving only a few platforms to harass her ships.

“Standard missile deployment,” she ordered. Starfighters, their pilots tired, but happy, roared ahead of the fleet, seeking out targets to kill. “I want space cleared of weapons before we bring the Marines in and deploy them.”

Time passed. A handful of Grey defences fought, tried to kill, and were killed. A disabled Grey destroyer, missed in the first sweep, appeared out of cloak and tried to attack a battlecruiser; it was swiftly destroyed and ignored. The Marine craft wobbled out of cloak themselves, nine massive troopships and twelve monitors, craft built to bombard a planet. Grey PDCs were still spitting defiance at the humans, but she knew that it no longer mattered.

She turned to Roodt and held her head up high. “Land the landing force!”

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Vengeance is Mine, Take Three

“Captain, I think we have incoming,” Sergeant Jamestown said, as the sky flared for the second time. The insertion team had hidden from the glare of the antimatter warheads – they’d had no warning at all about them – and waited, waiting for the right time to move. “I have transmissions on the Marine frequencies and…”

A streak of light flashed across the sky as the first Marine landing craft headed into the atmosphere, ducking and weaving as it came, avoiding Grey ground-based weapons with ease. More and more streaks of light descended on the planet, some kinetic weapons, targeting the Grey defences, others more and more shuttles, carrying thousands of Marines in battlesuits. Sato felt the desire to grin; the Marines might be bound by what he considered to be silly rules, but they knew how to bring firepower to the party.

Explosions flared up around Douglas as the shuttles added their firepower to the din, creating landing zones for their units, while thousands of Marines launched themselves from their shuttles, heading for the assault zone – on the other side of Douglas. Sato could only hope that the Greys would do the logical thing, the thing that human and Imperial doctrine agreed upon, and advance at once towards the enemy. Sitting where they were, they were easy targets for orbital weapons…

…Except there would be no serious bombardment of Douglas, something that would be bound to confuse the Greys, and perhaps tip off their suspicions; the Marines would advance unsupported. Sato knew that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Marines would die because of his insistence upon that, but there was no choice; if they had to take one of the Grey leaders – and incidentally free some of the Grey female captives – they dared not risk a bombardment.

“I’m getting a general message,” Sergeant Jamestown said, after a long moment had passed. More bangs and cracks echoed over the horizon, some of them local weapons, not Marines or Imperial Fleet. Sato smiled grimly; the local talent must have decided to ignore their leaders and attack the Greys anyway. “The Marines will form up and attack right down the valley, leaving the rear clear.”

“Do not acknowledge,” Sato said shortly. Grey sensors were supposed to be inferior to human and Imperial sensors, but there was no point in tempting fate, armed and augmented through they were. If the Greys picked up a transmission, they would be bound to come to see what was transmitting, if they had the chance. “That should keep the Greys busy.”

He slipped into combat mode, linking their minds together into one fighting unit. There was no shortage of volunteers for the SAS, but only a handful of humans could handle the direct mental link that was the provenance of the webheads, starfighter pilots, and a handful of tactical officers. As a group, they were almost unbeatable by any other force, unless the Greys deployed heavy firepower and destroyed their own force as well. His viewpoints altered as he felt his men joining the link, and then they started to move forward, heading towards the rear of the Grey base.

General Nelson had been running patrols up around Douglas, watching for unpleasant surprises; the Greys had been busy, extending their grip into the sea surrounding the coast, pumping thousands of litres of water into their base, before spewing it out again, into the sea. The team kept their heads down as they advanced around the pipes, relying on their stealth to keep them from enemy contact, and headed towards the main Grey base. It had seemed simpler to slip in through their water-cooling system, rather than trying to slip in through the front doors, but now he was starting to wonder if it had been the right choice. The Greys might have created the ideal industrial wasteland, complete with thousands of places to hide, but he had a nasty feeling that it was dangerous as well.

He laughed at himself. Danger was his business.

“There,” Sergeant Jamestown muttered, through the link. The pipes ran into part of the Grey complex, unguarded except by one of the Grey security doors, proof against most weapons that any infantry unit could carry. They slipped up to the door, checked around for hostile eyes, and then Sergeant Jamestown placed his hand against the door. “That’s the sensor disabled, sir,” he said. “Shall we go in?”

Sato nodded, unwilling to speak. Up close, there was something…eerie on a scale beyond his imagination about the Grey building; there was nothing human in it at all, despite the rising screams of the Grey captives in their pen. The door hissed open smoothly as Sergeant Jamestown used his implants to trigger the door locks, and Sato tensed. If there were Greys there, they would have to fight their way out, or at least kill them before they could be killed.

“Stand by,” he muttered, kneeling down to ensure that he would have a better shot when the Greys appeared. The door completed hissing open, revealing a massive – and empty – room, with only a massive pool of water in the centre. He peered at the water, wondering for some insane reason if it was really nothing more than a swimming pool, but his instincts told him that it was something far more sinister. “Spread out, secure the room…”

His team spread out. “We’re going to have to go through there,” Sergeant Jamestown said grimly, pointing to a long corridor. “I’m detecting security beams, but I can spoof them, keeping us hidden.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Sato advised, as they inched their way towards the corridor, and then into the corridor itself, bathed in eerie white light that seemed to rise and fall automatically. He peered down a side corridor and saw a Grey, standing with its back to the humans, working on a computer console. It took him a moment to realise that the computer was Fleet-issue, one that the Greys had to have recovered from somewhere. He slipped past, advising the remainder of the team to do the same, as they reached the end of the corridor and looked out…into a room of horrors.

A normal human would have been sick. Sato felt the gorge rising within his throat as he found himself confronting vats, filled with green liquid…and human men. It took him a moment to check that his first impression had been correct and there were no women, only men. The men were naked, floating in the fluid, their eyes dead and lifeless, but their bodies kept alive by technology that Sato recognised unwillingly as life support technology. The men had tubes connected to each of their orifices, feeding them and removing their wastes; there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the action at all.

An instinct made him look up.

“Shit,” he breathed. Two Greys were looking back at him from a higher platform; for the first time, he realised just how large the room actually was. It was large enough to hold thousands of humans, all men, and there were nearly a dozen Greys there, all coming around to stare at the team. Somehow, he knew that they knew he was there; there was no hive mind in the room. “Get ready…”

The Greys snapped their hands up as one. The team, well aware of the weapons the Greys carried in their palms, fired first; a hail of plasma fire struck consoles and equipment as two of the Greys jumped down, moving with impossible speed, but the team had their measure. Implanted reflexes merged with human skill and cunning; the drones died before they could do more than bruise one of the team.

“Stay here, cover the exit,” Sato snapped, to the unlucky Private Harris. The Grey hadn’t hurt him much, but the injury to his leg would keep him from moving quickly until after he had regenerated. “Come on!”

Their best guess had been that the centre of Grey activity, and hence one of the planetary command centres, was at the top of the building. Now he had seen the inside, Sato doubted it; he kept the team low, searching for the entrance to a bunker as alarms howled around them. The Marines outside, suddenly free of the need to be careful – not that Sato would have willingly said that the Marines were careful anyway – fired more kinetic energy weapons at the Grey defences, hoping to distract them. The ground shook violently as the Marines unloaded their weapons; the lights blinked on and off as power was rapidly shifted around by the Greys in command.

“I think I’ve located their command centre,” Sergeant Lethbridge said. He was the only one of them with full Intelligence training, although several others knew almost as much as he did, and it showed. “Their orders are being transmitted from here.”

He pointed to a spot on the map. “Can it really be that easy?” Sato asked, as they slipped down the corridor. Three Greys appeared out of nowhere, blocking their way; the team cut them down and kept moving onwards. “I think…”

More Greys appeared, firing as they came; the team bathed the corridor in fire, revealing an unexpected threat. A force field stretched around the Grey command centre, blocking their progress as more and more Greys poured in, their hands firing long bursts of energy towards the team. Sato cursed and ordered the team to take cover as a battle began, the Greys fighting as if they were linked into one mind, just like his team. He wondered, bitterly, if that was what the Greys actually were; a race that shared themselves between being part of a hive and also individuals. It didn’t seem likely, but he’d seen stranger things.

“I want you to call the Marines,” he snapped at Sergeant Jamestown. The Greys had obviously decided that his team was the main threat; once they’d realised that their base had been infiltrated. Asking the Marines for help galled him, but as the Greys threw themselves forward in a suicidal manner, he knew that they were in grave danger of being simply overrun. “I need them to press the Greys as hard as possible.”

Part of his mind expanded, seeing the imagery of the base from outside as thousands of Greys swarmed out of their defences and headed back towards their base. The Marines didn’t hesitate; he saw them running forwards themselves, their battlesuits making them almost as fast as the Greys, using their weapons to wipe out thousands of Greys at once. The Greys seemed totally unconcerned about their own losses, determined only to smash his team. His conviction grew; there had to be a taller Grey in the command centre, perhaps more than one.

“There,” Private Bunsen said, holding out a long probe that had grown out of his hand. “I’ve figured out a way to bring down the shield.”

“Move,” Sato snapped, pouring a series of plasma grenades down the corridor. The wave of explosions blew the Greys apart, winning them a moment to lunge against the force field, Bunsen’s probe touching the field. There was a heart-stopping moment of resistance, and then the field collapsed, forced to feed back on itself by his attack. The Greys, for the first time, howled; they fell back and massed, out of his own range. Between his team and the Marines, they had to know that they had lost, but they were preparing to make a final rush for his position.

Sergeant Jamestown touched his own probe to the door and it hissed open. A Grey, on the other side of the door, lunged at him, its long clawed hands, half-organic, half-metal, tearing at him. Sergeant Jamestown had no time to react before the Grey tore him apart. Blood and gore fell everywhere as Sato pressed his weapon to the Grey’s head and fired, sending a chilling mass of green blood and metallic components spilling out over the ground. He looked up…

…Into the eyes of a taller Grey. For a long chilling moment, he was transfixed; the alien was sitting stiffly on a chair – the term ‘throne’ came to his mind – and staring at him. Its still face showed no sign of emotion, but he was convinced that it was angry; a wave of pure malice seemed to be emitting from it as the team entered the room, the sound of shooting fading away at last. The taller Grey was connected into the room’s computers – he could almost sense its connections with the Grey datanet – and its black eyes flickered around the room.

Sato stared, unable to help himself; the Grey seemed to be peering right into his soul. He had never been scared of aliens before – he had thought, once, that people who hated and feared aliens just because they were aliens were stupid – but there was something about the Grey that touched off a very old memory. He’d heard rumours that the Greys had been active on Earth, long ago, and for the first time he believed them. Something in his mind remembered the Greys.

He remembered himself and lifted his weapon, pointing it directly at the Grey’s head. “Disconnect and step away from the console,” he ordered. The Grey’s head tilted; it said nothing. “I know you understand me; disconnect and step away from the console!”

For a moment, he thought that the Grey wasn’t going to obey, and then it stood up. Up close, it smelt funny, deeply corrupt, as if it was made of rotting flesh; it wore, uniquely for any of the Greys he’d seen, a simple tunic. It was Grey, of course. It moved with an icy dignity that reminded him of his old girlfriend, moving on spindly legs that didn’t seem to be able to carry so much weight. It’s eyes were the only natural thing about it, deep black, somehow blacker than space itself; he found himself staring and forced himself to look down.

“You will order the rest of your people on the planet to surrender,” he said. as if to underscore his words, an explosion shook the building as the Marines completed the destruction of the Grey force. “You will tell them to stand down, so that we can take them prisoner.”

The Grey spoke for the first time. Its voice was paper-thin, chilling, and somehow deeply inhuman. “No,” it said simply. Nothing else.

Sato lifted his weapon again and pointed it directly at the Grey. “You will order your forces to surrender,” he repeated. “I won’t ask again.”

The Grey fixed him with its big black eyes. “No,” it said. “I cannot order the other Masters.”

Sato blinked. “You are not the commanding officer of your forces?”

The Grey didn’t bother to reply. “You are my prisoner,” Sato said shortly. “You will come with us. I promise that you will be given good treatment if you behave, perhaps handed back to your people once the war is over. If you fail to behave, we will hurt you, and then kill you.”

The Grey said nothing. Sato nodded to two of his men, who handcuffed the alien, and then checked it for weapons, their noses twitching at the smell. The alien stank, somehow, of scents that touched deeply buried memories in the human mind. Sato caught another whiff and thought, somehow, of the grave.

“The Marines have a shuttle landing outside,” Private Bunsen said. He sounded as horrified as Sato was by the death of Sergeant Jamestown. He’d been a good man, better than any of the Greys, but had they cared who they’d killed? “We might want to get him out of here.”

Sato nodded. “Come on,” he said, to the unresisting Grey. Unlike its smaller brethren, the Grey seemed unable to move quickly. It inched down the corridors, passing the scene of so much carnage, showing no sign of any reaction at all. More and more Marines were flooding in, their eyes dark with hostility towards the Grey; Sato wondered if they should have placed a blanket over its head, but it was too late. “Do you have a name?”

“Master,” the Grey said.

Sato looked at him. The alien face was unreadable. “Master?”

“Yes,” the Grey said simply.

***

Captain Alison Dostie had thrown herself to the ground as the first assault shuttles raced overhead, their weapons spitting fire at the Greys. Her body twisted as she fell, somehow placing her on her back, rather than landing on her pregnant stomach. She wondered, bitterly, if it was too late to have the child aborted, whatever it really was, and then she felt her chest. Something was kicking, inside her, and she wondered if she was about to give birth on the spot.

It didn’t happen; instead, she saw Greys marching to the attack, and found it impossible to even think of hurting them. Armoured figures fell from the sky as the assault shuttles moved to the attack, landing their Marines, and the enslaved men moved to attack on Grey command. They seemed to have forgotten about the hostages – or any tactical sense they had once possessed. Implanted sheep, they died before Marine fire; their bodies bought the Greys limited time…

An explosion, and another, and then all the Greys were gone, fleeing from the slave compound and heading back towards their main base. She wanted to cry as energy blasts flashed over her head, targeting the Greys; a small Marine walker marched past her, its weapons firing bolts of energy faster than the Greys could move. Suddenly, everything was quiet…and then a black figure loomed over her.

“Madam?”

Alison saw, for the first time, that the figure was a Marine in battle armour. This time, she did cry; the nightmare was finally over. The Marines flooded into the camp, some of them assisting the captives, others looking for surviving Greys. Her new friend unhooked his helmet and peered down at her, taking in her condition with puzzled eyes; they were such nice eyes.

“My God,” he said, “what have they done to you?”

Alison just cried.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: We Hurt The Bastards!

“I take it that no one knows about this?”

Admiral Glass looked up at Roland. It was a week after the Battle of New Brooklyn, as the media were already calling it, and both of them were tired and happy – and nervous. No one outside the War Cabinet and the handful of officers and Marines knew about the Greys latest – and nastiest – trick, and Roland hoped that it would stay that way, at least until they had decided how to handle the matter.

“Not…as far as I know,” Glass said. Roland snorted; he’d spent enough time as the Prince Regent to know that the media was very good at digging up embarrassing and sensitive information, particularly when there was something of such great importance as the liberation of New Brooklyn; they’d descended upon the planet in droves. “Everyone actually involved with the…Grey breeding program has been picked up, we hope; we must have killed a few thousand of them ourselves during the Liberation.”

“Damn Floid,” Roland said, although cold honesty forced him to admit that there had been little choice. The Marines would have taken much heavier casualties if there had been no bombardment of the PDC centres and the Grey troop concentrations. “Why didn’t he help us?”

Glass said nothing. The battles on the ground had been savage, despite the fact that the Marines were much more prepared for encountering the Greys than any previous human force. They’d rigged up plasma cannons, set to automatic triggers, to hammer at fast-moving Greys, they’d used HVMs ruthlessly, and there had still been an awesome fight for the planet. The Greys had fought…oddly; some units had fought to the death in their standard cold disciplined manner, others had gone mad and rampaged across the planet, killing all the humans they came across. The Marines had noted, grimly, that there were likely to be far too many Greys left on the ground, presenting an eternal danger.

Worse, New Brooklyn had almost slipped back into civil war at once. The ground commandant, General Mumtaz, had reported that units of native soldiers had been firing on each other, confirming that there was a new round of power struggles going on. Half of the population was dead, the other half had been in hiding or Grey slaves, and the politicians wanted to continue the old power struggle. Sudanasesia was likely to come out ahead, at least in the short run, but…it didn’t matter! The Greys were still out there.

“I don’t think that that’s my concern,” Glass said finally. He leaned forwards. “Your Highness, the Greys were using human women as…brood mares. That cannot go unanswered!”

“I know,” Roland said tiredly, thinking of how the human race would respond. After Roosevelt, they had wanted to exterminate the Grey race; now…they would want something worse to be done to the Greys. “I think we’ll keep it to ourselves for the moment.”

He looked down at the table. “Why?”

Glass understood the question. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was brought up to believe that sexual relationships between humans and aliens were impossible, whatever their…mutual lust. The Imperials banned such relationships, even to the degree that they were actually willing to punish couples for such actions, but medically half-breeds are impossible.”

Roland shook his head slowly. “Then why would they use humans as brood mares?”

“I don’t know,” Glass repeated. “Doctor Finney is going to examine the women, at least the ones we saved, at the medical centre orbiting Mars; he might be able to tell us what the Greys were doing, or at least what they thought they were doing, whatever that actually was. Once he tells us – it could be as simple as producing more human slaves, although some of the women tell us differently – we might know more about the enemy.”

He met Roland’s eyes. “It’s clear, just from a basic check, that the women were subjected to something that affected their minds,” he said. “They’re…co-operative, much more co-operative than I would have expected; they just…slouch about, with a few exceptions. Incidentally, President Floid tells us that he wants the women back to stand trial for treason.”

Roland banged the table. “Those women were put through hell by the Greys, and then they want them to be charged as traitors?” He demanded. “What about the Grey implanted slaves?”

“They’re all dead, we think,” Glass said. He smiled. “The really good news is that we took a prisoner, a live taller Grey. One prisoner, Your Highness; the others were either killed in the crossfire or took their own lives.”

“Make sure you keep him somewhere well out of the way,” Roland ordered shortly. “I don’t need lynch mobs forming up to take his life, Grey alien through he might be. He’s our one source of intelligence…do the New Brooklyn natives know that we have him?”

“We never told them,” Glass said. It wasn’t quite an answer and both men knew it. “They might well know that we took one of the Greys out and got him back to a secure colony on Pluto, but they never demanded that we hand him over to them. Once they do find out, of course, they’ll claim that we betrayed them.”

Roland shrugged. “Not our problem at the moment,” he said. There remained the greatest piece of news, the best he’d had since the victory at Earth, but there were more practical matters to discuss first. “I’ve heard all of the reports, from all kinds of sources, Admiral, but…just how bad was it?”

Glass tapped the display. “We lost twenty starships and one hundred and seventy starfighters,” he said. “Almost every ship that took part in the battleline took damage, from minor damage to damage that will have to be dealt with here or at Sirius. The death toll in space, Your Highness, was over ten thousand lives, mainly during the second engagement.”

He scowled as the display altered again. “On the ground, we took around two thousand casualties, mainly Marines who engaged at Douglas,” he said. “General Max Weinberg will want to give you a detailed brief, but most of the lives were lost because of the restrictions involved in using heavy firepower near Douglas. Other Grey bases were either hit from orbit or taken out with airstrikes, which saved us thousands of lives. Just how many Greys died…well, we won’t know that for a long time, if ever.”

Roland spoke very quietly. “And how many people on New Brooklyn did we kill?”

“It’s impossible to estimate,” Glass said softly. “The antimatter blasts in orbit will have some effect on the ecology, which will commit us to a clear-up effort or moving the population elsewhere for some time, which might be a better solution, if impractical. If we still had access to the new sector, we might be able to do it, but…”

Roland nodded. “We’ll give them what help we can,” he said. “Admiral, how well did we do?”

Glass smiled. “We killed over a hundred Grey starships, liberated a planet, discovered part of what the Greys were doing to us, and scored a victory for morale,” he said. “I think we did fine.”

Roland relaxed slightly as Glass spoke on. “The downside is, according to what we had before we heard back from Erickson, we have fifteen superdreadnaughts which are now destroyed, damaged, or out of position. The Greys must have launched their attack on Roosevelt from somewhere – and the one place we know it wasn’t was New Brooklyn – which means that there’s a Grey base somewhere out there that we don’t know about.”

Roland thought about it. “Harmony?”

“It’s possible,” Glass admitted. “At the same time, using Harmony would commit them to losing the ships, including the superdreadnaughts that had survived, for around two months at the very least. Oh, they might have intended to have them head to New Brooklyn after hitting Roosevelt, but it’s still bad strategy. There has to be a Grey base out there.”

“I see,” Roland said. There were pundits calling for Harmony to be scorched, which said more about their research than anything about tactics; Harmony, a space-station complex, could hardly be scorched. “Where?”

Glass nodded to the display, which drew out to reveal the human sector. Hundreds of stars floated within the display, a testament to the Imperial survey service and human determination to colonise. At the same time, there were stars that were almost useless, and others that needed to become economically viable before they were exploited, normally because they had no habitable planet orbiting them. Some of them played host to black or grey – an irony under the circumstances – colonies; others had never been visited since the Invasion.

“I have been trying to put together a series of recon missions, using Intelligence assets,” Glass said softly. Like Roland, he was awed by the realities of space; he’d lived and worked there all of his life, and yet it was something no one ever became used to seeing. “Now that we can withdraw probing craft from New Brooklyn – the crew of one of the craft, the Sneaky Bastard, deserve a medal, by the way – we can start exploring, but…I’m not hopeful. We might have better luck trying to attach a shadowing probe to a Grey ship…and that only worked once under ideal circumstances.”

Roland nodded. “We can go through the main issues at the War Cabinet meeting later this week,” he said, suddenly unwilling to discuss the problem any longer. “That leaves us with two – two other, I should say – rays of home; Tarn, and Morgan.”

Glass nodded. “Forty superdreadnaughts,” he said. “It’s a dream come true.”

Roland nodded. “I know,” he said. “How can we best employ them?”

“You know what they say about being careful what you wish for?” Glass asked. “In some ways, we suddenly have ships…and fewer crewmen to place on them. We had crews being worked up for the new ships – Roosevelt’s cadre was almost completely wiped out during the attack – and we expected over the next two months that we would be crewing ten superdreadnaughts. All of a sudden, we’re crewing fifty; of course, seeing how far from here Tarn is, we might be able to get crews trained up on their way out there.”

Roland gave him a mischievous look. “Be careful what you wish for,” he repeated. “I can’t say that we’ve come off badly.”

“Perhaps,” Glass said. “As it is, we’re going to have to spend at least three weeks – more like a month – moving crewmen there, if we use the old colony ships as transports. Once they get there, I anticipate at least a month for working up the ships and preparing them for action, and then another month before they can get here. Once they do, of course…”

He allowed the promise to hang in the air. “I think – and unfortunately, seeing we know nothing of Grey numbers, this is speculative – that we can afford to stand on the defensive for those three months,” he said. “I don’t see any other choice, unless we get very lucky, and that is something we can’t count on. Frankly, Your Highness, we have exhausted a lot of our deployable strength in attacking and recovering New Brooklyn, while the hits on Roosevelt deprived us of a great deal of our industrial strength as well. It’s not fatal, but…”

Roland studied the display for a long moment. “What do you think will happen to the rest of the Human Union?”

“I don’t know enough about what the Greys are planning,” Glass admitted. “if we knew just how many ships they had, we could make a few predictions, but at the moment, it’s impossible to make any real predictions; we might as well start pulling names and locations out of a hat. I suspect that we’ll have a long period of raids and counter-raids for a few months, and then…well, we’ll see. Tarn…is something we need, desperately; I think we have to work to keep it secret from everyone. If the Greys heard about it, now, they could have starships heading there in a day, perhaps less. Tarn is armed to the teeth, thanks to those Imperials there, but…the Greys are powerful.”

Roland nodded thoughtfully. “I take it that Commander Symons is likely to be promoted?”

“Oh, yes,” Glass said. His grin grew wider. “He chose to remain at the shipyard, and I think that command of one of those superdreadnaughts is a fitting reward. I don’t know if anything will actually come out of his attempts to convince the Kathmandu rebels to agree to a peace with the Tarn, but…you never know; maybe the horse will learn to sign.”

“Sign,” Roland corrected, with a flicker of amusement. What happened on New Brooklyn suggested that Commander Symons would have a difficult job if he tried; he wished that the communications network was more reliable. They had to use several communicators in a chain to hold contact with the Tarn Shipyards, and that meant that if something went wrong, connection would be broken. “That leaves us with one other matter.”

Glass stood up and paced around the room. “I will be blunt,” he said, his voice and tone grim. “I admit that I believed that Mr – or Captain now, as we must call him – would not succeed in his mission. I did not anticipate the foundation of an alliance between Morgan and the black colonies that will actually serve as a government, let alone the fact that they are willing to stand aside from the Greys.”

“If what Captain Baldson has sent us is accurate, and now we understand it a lot better because of what the Greys were doing on New Brooklyn, their desire to stand aside makes a lot more sense,” Roland said softly. “The…tithe that the Greys demand in human women must be for producing their little…babies, and it shows that the Alliance is not an equal partner.”

“Or Morgan is taking the opportunity to offload troublemakers onto the Greys,” Glass said cynically. He stared at the display. “Do you know how many movies there are about pirates?”

He went on before Roland could answer. “Thousands,” he said. “There are dozens of movies that treat pirates as romantic heroes. There are dozens of DOCTOR WHAT porn flicks that treat pirates as romantic rapists. There are…people who claim that the pirates do a useful service for the black colonies, in that they keep people alive who would otherwise be dead.”

He turned to face Roland. “I’ve been cleaning up after pirate attacks throughout my entire career,” he said. “Some colonies were left without a single person alive; others had the men killed and the women transported away to God knows what fate. Worlds have been wrecked, people have been tortured and killed, others have been impressed into pirate crews and made to steep their own hands in blood; if history had been a little different, Commander Baldson would have suffered that fate. His women were killed, remember; killed because of his defiance of Morgan.

“We can trust him about as far as I can pick up and throw a superdreadnaught,” He continued, his voice growing harsher. “If he gets a better offer from the Greys, I would expect him to accept it, or perhaps the Greys will simply put a gun to his head and tell him to cooperate, or else. Your Highness, it’s a political decision, but I believe that working with the bastard is asking for trouble.”

Roland wondered if Elspeth knew just how much like her father she sounded. “Admiral,” he said slowly, “can we afford to pass on the offer?”

“Morgan wants a pardon, which, incidentally, something that neither of us is legally permitted to give him,” Glass said softly. Roland thought of pointing out that Imperial Law no longer applied on Earth and thought better of it. “He wants us to recognise the Alliance, to support it…Your Highness, we might be arming a bitter foe! No, there’s no might about it; that is exactly what we are thinking of doing.”

Roland looked sharply at him. “Admiral, is it your considered military judgement that the Alliance poses a real threat to us?”

“Not yet,” Glass said. “And yet…we know – we knew – that some of the black colonies were actually producing their own starships. Could Morgan have more ships than we know about? Or, what about Grey ships? Could he have been given more of them, or perhaps direct armed support, or…?”

“We have to deal in facts,” Roland said. “One fact is that we do not know where Grey space actually is, or what it would take to attack it and end the war. So far, Morgan has offered us the only ray of hope we have for locating it…and we have forty superdreadnaughts the Greys know nothing about at all. If Morgan could find their homeworld…”

“Forty superdreadnaughts couldn’t punch through Earth’s defences, not now,” Glass said. “Admiral Solomon and myself – I’m thinking of sending him out to Tarn to command the new ships – have overhauled everything. We could refight the Battle of Earth now and take far fewer losses.” He sighed. “I don’t believe that just knowing where their homeworld is will lead automatically to victory, but…you’re right; it is the only shot we have.”

He sighed. “I just wish I didn’t feel so dirty.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Loathing the Alien

Admiral Glass didn’t like Pluto.

It was cold, somehow the cold seeped into the very soul; even the heated base seemed cold. The Imperials had cared nothing for the debate over Pluto’s status, but they’d had no real use for it as anything other than a dumping ground for embarrassing officers and a handful of sensors, monitoring the Phase Limit for gravimetric fluctuations. A small research base completed the population of the world; Pluto had only three hundred people stationed there – until now. Now there were nearly a thousand humans, most of them experts in alien medicine and human medicine…and one who was far from human.

“Can he see us?” Admiral Glass said. “Does he know we’re here?”

The object of his question seemed to be looking right at him. Glass had met, at one time or another, all of the different races in the Empire…and the Grey topped them all. It stood tall, when it was walking; sitting, it still seemed to dominate the room that held it. Its big black eyes seemed to be seeking out Glass, even though he was looking through a one-way mirror; he had the unmistakeable conviction that it could see him.

“I don’t know,” Glen Finney admitted. The xeno-science expert was studying the alien with undisguised curiosity. “I think – I’m pretty certain – that the alien has some telepathic capabilities, but as you know, telepathy is pretty much a mystery to us, particularly since we don’t have a baseline for the Grey race. If that one” – he nodded towards the Grey – “is dying, he could die on us and we wouldn’t know about it until he actually conked it.”

Glass recognised the signs of a mind trying to cope with the extraordinary and let it pass. “I see,” he said. “What can you tell me about our guest?”

Finney waved once to the alien, through the glass; the alien languidly lifted a hand and waved back. Glass felt a chill run down his spine; the alien had some way of watching them, perhaps reading their very thoughts. He’d known, of course, that there was at least one telepathic race in the universe – and the Imperials had long been rumoured to have such a capability – but the Grey spooked him, despite his hundred years of age and seventy in the Imperial Fleet. There was something about it that was…wrong on a very fundamental level.

“Quite a bit, based on what we have been able to determine through standard probes,” Finney said cheerfully. “I was half-expecting it to be spoofing the detectors, like Corey did, but it seems that we have full access to the wonders of Grey biology. It doesn’t seem to be organised like any other race we know, at least at the DNA-analogue level, but it’s form is basically familiar.”

Glass nodded. The Imperial Fleet had discovered that most races were built around a humanoid – Imperial-oid – design; nature had found similar answers to similar problems. It had puzzled humans, during the first years of the Invasion, but now Glass took it for granted and was oddly relieved to know it. The Greys were normal, at least in that respect; they would have more in common with humanity.

“Secondly, someone has been very busy inside his body,” Finney continued. He shook his head slowly. “Are you aware that there are limits on just how much augmentation a human body can stand? You or I couldn’t tolerate this level of augmentation” – he nodded towards the Grey – “but nearly three-quarters of his body is composed of augmentation in one form or another. I think – because the small amount of research that has been done on this proves very little – that he actually has a form of biomechanical nanotechnology running through his body; that alone would be worth billions of credits if we could get it on the open market.”

Glass ignored the jibe. “How dangerous is he?”

“I have not been able to shut down any of his implants,” Finney admitted. Glass gave him an astonished look. “His implants are so woven through his body and mind that I don’t think they can be deactivated, let alone removed, without killing him in the process. I have not been able to detect any implanted weaponry, although we are still working on breaking down what his implants actually are, and he doesn’t seem to be much stronger than an augmented human.”

His face became thoughtful. “We have separated the processors in that room, part of the security network, from the remainder of the network here,” he continued. “I don’t think that he can hack into them – the computers here are programmed to refuse any request that doesn’t come from an authorised user – but in any case we have several security systems watching him and watching each other. Even if he did manage to subvert the systems, what could he do?”

Glass had to nod in agreement. Escape seemed impossible. “Good job,” he said finally. “So, how does he relate to the smaller bastards?”

Finney looked puzzled. “I confess, I have a suspicion that they’re actually related at only a basic level,” he said. “There are definite matches in the DNA-Analogue between the two, which suggests that they’re definitely the same species, but past there? They might as well be two different races. That one” – he looked back at the Grey – “has a brain and is able to communicate, even to talk to us. The smaller Greys seem to have only limited intelligence and don’t seem to be able to talk. That one…is able to talk, even though he seems to insist on being called Master.”

Glass snorted. “Fancies himself, doesn’t he?”

“I tried to explain the concept of individual names to him and drew a complete blank,” Finney said. “I’m not sure that they even have the concept of names; it’s possible, perhaps probable, that ‘Master’ is a term they were given by an early conquest, and then they just ran with it. Perhaps, like us, they use translators and just don’t really understand what the words mean to us.”

He shook his head. “It’s possible that…he’s the queen of a hive, with the smaller creatures as his drones, but…that doesn’t explain the children,” he said. Glass felt a moment of remembered pain and rage from the moment he’d discovered what the Greys had been doing to New Brooklyn’s female population…and he knew that the rest of the human race shared it. “There seems to be no logical explanation for that, but some of our research has led us to some interesting speculations.”

He led the way down the corridor. “During their attack on the base near Douglas City, the team encountered what can best be described as a production plant, involving thousands of human males. The Greys had killed their minds and left their bodies intact, sir; that alone suggests something about their mentality. I don’t – yet – understand how, but they had rigged the men to produce sperm on a regular basis. They were hooked up to small computers and simulated into producing sperm, which was then sucked away into a vat.”

Glass felt sick. He'd seen something like it on one of the DOCTOR WHAT porn flicks, but he had never really expected to meet anything like that in real life. The demand for the extermination of each and every separate Grey would be almost irresistible, and yet he knew that the Human Union would be unable to take the military offensive for at least three months, perhaps longer.

Finney’s tone had become fascinated. “I don’t understand how they do it, sir, but they somehow rewrote chunks of the male sperm, then implanted it into the females, making them pregnant. There was a particularly nasty sting in that tail; they actually implanted something that would re-impregnate them as soon as possible after they had had their children, and all of the women were…programmed not to consider that odd. They would continue becoming pregnant as long as they could have children, and then I suspect that they would be quickly terminated.”

“So it’s not a bad porn movie about alien rape,” Glass said, oddly relieved. DOCTOR WHAT had done one of those too. “Or is it?”

Finney’s voice was sober. “No, it’s worse,” he said. They reached a second window, looking into a ward holding dozens of women, all heavily pregnant. Glass had no trouble recognising them as being the liberated captives; they all shuffled about, unconcerned who was seeing them, their eyes dull and lifeless. A handful seemed active, they seemed aware, but the others were as much sheep. “All of them are carrying Grey hybrids to term.”

He met Glass’s shocked eyes evenly. “I would have sworn a mighty oath that that wasn't possible, but it seems that I was wrong,” he said. “I cannot abort the children without killing the mothers, but I managed to take a DNA sample; it’s not good. There are very clear strands of Grey DNA wrapped around the human DNA, and that will be unable to help influencing the growth of the children. Sir, this is so far beyond anything that I can do that I might as well be a witch doctor chanting spells.”

His grim face darkened still further. “I can’t get rid of the children, despite the demands from some of the women, but I’m not convinced that we dare let them be born,” he said. “They could be dangerous…and I don’t even know how to handle them.”

Glass was thoughtful. “How dangerous could they be?”

“Everything that we have seen from the Greys has a sting in the tail,” Finney reminded him. Glass thought cold thoughts about the Grey they held prisoner and wondered if something should happen to him. “They might have all kinds of strange abilities, but all of the women are due to pop for late this month or the next month. Once that happens, I can at least remove the implant which will otherwise keep making them pregnant, but then…I don’t know. According to Alison, who is the most coherent of the women, the Greys just took the children as soon as they were born and…”

Glass scowled. “What happened to them?”

“I don’t know,” Finney said. “They might well have been able to pass for human.”

Glass felt his mouth fall open. “That was a joke, right?” He asked coldly. “I don’t have much of a sense of humour at the moment.”

“I wish it was,” Finney said. He scowled. “Some of my team have been following in the footsteps of your daughter” – Glass felt a tinge of pride – “and have been looking at the literature dating back that far. There’s a very clear focus on breeding activities by the Greys, ranging from natural seduction to implantation, but as to why? The people who studied pre-Invasion aliens were clearly a very disagreeable lot. There are all kinds of reasons given, from hybrids to get the aliens to merge with humanity, to slaves for later colonisation missions.”

He sighed, loudly enough to irritate Glass. “I have had the people on New Brooklyn looking out for possible Grey hybrids, in between searching through the wreckage of the Grey bases, but they found nothing,” he said. “It could be that they were all killed – some of the Grey bases self-destructed – or they might have been missed altogether. Quite a few people have been accused of working for the Greys – there is no evidence to support that theory – and have been killed; its possible that many hybrids were killed in that fashion.”

He paused. “Incidentally, their controlling implants seem to be clearly inferior to ours,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “Our Interrogation Implants can produce complete obedience or merely restrict behaviour to within acceptable limits; they seem to have relied on very limited control. I don’t understand that, sir; they could match or even improve upon ours with the tech that went into the Grey, or into those poor bitches.

“As to what their children will be…”

His voice trailed off. Glass scowled, studying the women. “We could have them all killed, as soon as they are born,” he said. He wondered if that would be the safest course of action. “If they’re a danger, then we can remove the danger.”

“I would not advise it, unless you want bad publicity,” Finney said. “Some of the women seem programmed to like their kids, even the hybrids; they would kick up a real fuss. Even without that, I do think that we need to keep them around for study; if the Greys do this on each and every world…”

His voice broke off. “Oh, shit…”

Glass forced his mind to focus. “What?”

“I just had a nasty thought,” Finney said. “If they somehow manage to code the changes in the human genome into a virus, they could use it to infect entire planets, making them Grey. If they can do it with humans, they might be able to do it to other worlds, including ones on the other side of the new sector.”

Glass felt his blood run cold. “If they could do that,” he said slowly, “why not just bio-bomb Earth and the other worlds, and then let nature run its course?”

“Nanites would get it,” Finney assured him. “Everyone in human space has at least the basic set of nanites, and anything that made changes to DNA would be wiped out, like the viruses that were going around the second year after the Invasion. If they did that, we would have all the excuse we need to strike back against their worlds…”

“We’re going to have the galaxy in ruins before we are done,” Glass said. “I want to talk to the Grey.”

Finney blinked. “I would not advise it,” he said. If ever a man had meant to say something stronger, he meant it then. “Admiral, you don’t know what you’re talking about and you don’t know…”

Glass cut him off with a glare. “I want to talk to him,” he repeated. “Lead me back to him at once.”

Finney nodded and set off down the corridor, reluctance written in his face. He said nothing until they reached a single airlock, carrying a grim sign; NO WEAPONS PERMITTED. Glass pulled his Fleet-issue sidearm out of its holster and placed it on the table, under the watchful eye of a guard who didn’t seem to have realised who Glass was, and then ordered the airlock to open.

“Good luck, sir,” Finney said, as the airlock hissed open. Glass inspected it with a bemused air; the airlock seemed as tough as the airlock would be on a superdreadnaught, designed to hold in a being who seemed to be frail, even through Glass knew that underestimating him could be fatal. The second airlock hissed open and Glass stepped into a bright room…and stopped dead.

The big black eyes of the Grey were looking right at him.

For a moment, Glass felt the ancient, primal terror of knowing what the Grey was…and understood that the battle against the Greys was as old as time. Humanity knew the Greys, knew them from long ago; the Greys had once represented the embodiment of evil on the planet. An almost superstitious fear rose up within him, backed by the cold look of the Grey, colder still for the lack of any emotion; no anger, no hate, just cold dispassion. The Greys did not hate.

Somehow, that only made it worse.

He forced it down with the years of training and discipline that years in the Fleet had given him. “I am Admiral Glass of the Imperial Fleet,” he said, drawing on his experience of dealing with Imperials. “What is your name?”

For a long moment, the Grey refused to speak. “Master,” it – he – said finally. Glass had the sense, somehow, that it was male. Its voice was cold, almost as if it was whispering dreadful threats; it made Glass feel weak and small. “We are called Master.”

Glass frowned, but refused to consider it; Finney and his team would study the entire discussion later. “You have attacked us,” he said, laying down the charges with as much efficiency as a lawyer in a courtroom. “You have killed thousands, millions, billions of humans, causing endless damage to our worlds. You have used us as breeding stock for your own hybrids; why?”

The Grey’s head tilted. “All your worlds belong to us,” he said. Its voice seemed to be breathy – and cold. Very cold. “You are ours to do what we need to do to keep the race alive.” It’s head tilted back again. “We were once here and then we had to leave, but now there will be no retreat from what is rightfully ours and we will destroy those who once drove us out.”

It spoke – somehow – without the need for breath. “You are not our equals and you never were,” it said. It didn’t even gloat as it delivered a damning judgement on the human race. “Your race lacks any understanding of its place in the universe.”

Glass stared at it. “If this war continues, many thousands of billions of your kind will be exterminated,” he said. It was only a slight exaggeration. “Are you telling me that endless war is the only solution?”

“The war will continue and you will lose,” the Grey said. It turned away slightly from Glass. “Return me to my people.”

“No,” Glass said shortly. “We will keep you here until we are able to convince you that human lives are precious.”

The Grey looked back at him. “The Imperials did not believe that human life was precious,” he said. “They never believed that any life was precious, important enough to be allowed to develop on its own. Never.”

Glass frowned. “You know the Imperials?”

“We have known them for a very long time,” the Grey said. Its voice seemed to grow just a little more animated. Glass had the feeling that it was laughing at him, somehow. “They have known us for almost as long.”

Chapter Forty: Allies and Aliens

When you have nothing left to lose, you have nothing left to lose, the old saying ran. Lord Collins had reflected on that more than once since discovering that his son, his body-slave and his pilot had been taken over by the Greys, their knowledge of the Human Union bent to the purposes of the cold grey aliens. The thought terrified him, not least because he knew that it was his fault; his dreams of a peace had put him in a position where he stood to lose everything, including his son. Kevin…had never been the same since he’d gone to Harmony.

The remainder of the House of Lords celebrated the victory at New Brooklyn, even though disturbing rumours were leaking out; Lord Collins knew that he had nothing to celebrate. He was on the very edge of the House, barely tolerated within its walls; if the Lords had never started the practice of never starting the impeachment of their own members, he would have been impeached. Even the handful who still supported him overtly, people who felt that the victory would now make it easier to make peace, shunned him in public; he had become a pariah.

But still, he had been summoned to the House of Lords; his position, publicly, remained intact. Lords were flocking into the House, none of them acknowledging him; he bowed his head and walked on, right into the House. An artist had already added a painting of the victory – entitled, very imaginatively, The Victory – and he paused for a moment to examine it. A woman with breasts large enough to make walking impossible had her foot placed on a Grey’s neck, squashing him; the expression on the Grey’s face was almost amusing. Smiling bitterly, Lord Collins walked on, taking his place among the Lords, noticing how the stalls next to his had been left pointedly empty. The Lords might have closed ranks around him, just to maintain their position, but he had no doubt of their hatred.

They did so love making their points.

In time, he was certain, they would embrace him again, but the question would be just how long that would take – and if it would be long enough to save his Lordship. The House of Lords was charged with maintaining the stability of the Empire’s economy, and they all had massive interests; if he went down, the demands for an impeachment would only grow and grow until the House of Commons moved to impeach him. At that point, he would lose everything…and Kevin would not be confirmed as the next Lord Collins. And if they found out what he’d done…

“The room will come to attention,” the Speaker said. Lord Collins felt his blood run cold; that particular phase was only used when there was bad news on the war front; the last time it had been used had been when the Greys had punched out New Brooklyn and headed to Earth. Not even Roosevelt had been treated in such a manner. “There has been a disturbing development on New Brooklyn.”

Lord Collins wanted to hide. The pundits had been warning of the danger of the Greys simply taking the starships that had hit Roosevelt – and survived the experience – and hammering the force that Commodore Middleton had been allowed to keep in the New Brooklyn system. A classified briefing had suggested that the starships that had been dispatched by the other Home Guard forces were the only effective forces in the system, something that he had been careful to keep from Samantha. If the Greys punched out the picket and landed again, it would deal a fatal blow to the war effort.

“We have discovered that the Greys have been using human women to create hybrids of humanity and Grey,” the Speaker said, and ran through the details. Lord Collins, shocked into silence, listened as the Speaker explained that several human women had been found dead, with half-Grey children in their wombs. The New Brooklyn provisional authority, under Commodore Middleton’s supervision, had declared a state of emergency, but that hadn’t stopped dozens of pregnant women from being killed as panic swept around the planet. “This represents a disturbing development in the war.”

The House of Lords, for once, seemed utterly stunned. No one spoke as the Speaker waited, saying nothing, allowing the news to sink in. There hadn’t been so much shock in the chamber since they’d heard the first whispers that the Empire might be about to leave Earth forever; more than a few nasty looks were directed at Collins, who ignored them as best as he could. Finally, Lady Athens spoke.

“I dare say,” she said, “that every member of this house is as stunned and horrified by the news as I am.” One hand touched lightly on her chest; Lord Collins knew that Lady Athens had had at least one child naturally, unlike most women of her class. She would be bound to sympathise with the women on the planet – and the truth of it was that he did too. The problem…the problem was that he knew that the Human Race would be utterly unforgiving of everything he'd done. “In fact, I dare say that this reveals exactly how futile the cause of peace is.”

She directed a nasty look, somehow entirely fitting on her youthful visage, at Lord Collins. “This shows us exactly what the Greys think of us,” she said. “They treat us as…cuckoos treat other birds; they push the native chicks out of their nests, just to replace them with their own. How can there be mercy? How can there be peace? If the Greys win, will we become nothing more than breeding stock for them? Is that what they have in store for us?”

She leaned forward. “I have rarely asked for anything from the House,” she said, truthfully. Ladies – as opposed to Lords – tended to just get on with things, rather than endless debate. “I ask now that the House of Lords pronounces a death sentence against the entire Grey race; that we ask – nay, demand – that the House of Commons supports us in this, and that the Fleet be ordered to scorch every Grey planet we can find, including Harmony. I ask that we press the war to the logical conclusion; I ask that we exterminate the Greys from existence.”

There was a long pause. The Imperials, for whatever reason of their own, had refused to exterminate intelligent races, whatever the provocation. Lady Athens was asking the House of Lords to overturn a ban that had lasted longer than the Empire itself; Lord Collins knew that it was a massive step…and then knew that her motion would pass. The House was in an ugly mood.

“Lord Collins, perhaps you would like to speak against the motion,” the Speaker said, after several other Lords and Ladies had risen to support the motion. It was a breach of his political position – he was supposed to be neutral in every matter, no matter how important to the House of Lords – but Lord Collins knew that this once, no one would care. “Someone has to tell us that the Greys are worth saving.”

Lord Collins, insanely, felt surprisingly calm as he stood up. A murmur of astonishment ran around the chamber; none of them had expected that he would speak against the motion, not when it risked more than just a political debate, but almost life and death itself. Some were surprisingly respectful, others were barely concealing their hatred, but they were listening. All he had to do was make use of that.

“I share your fury and absolute disgust at what happened on New Brooklyn,” he said, calling on every last part of his speaking skills. He had to make his case without sounding as if he approved…and at the same time, he had to avoid showing weakness. That was a sure-fire killer in the House of Lords. “I share your rage and your determination to punish and destroy the Greys. I just…question that we can accomplish that.

“You asked – nay, demanded – that we scorch Harmony,” he continued, grateful for the first time that he’d sent Kevin to Harmony; it allowed him to remember one final detail about the system. “There is no Harmony, not in the sense that there’s an Earth; all there is happens to be a massive gas giant and some worthless rocks. Do you believe that we could turn that gas giant into a supernova? Power on that scale is rumoured to belong only to the Kerr.

“History teaches us much,” he said. “A battle won does not win us the war. The Greys won at Roosevelt and did not win. The Greys lost at Earth and did not lose. We won at New Brooklyn; just because in the fortnight since the attack there has been no contact with Grey ships, do you believe that we have won? Why do you believe that? Why?”

He spoke on with increasing confidence as the chamber fell into a more respectful silence. “This is not a situation where the Greys fall apart after one blow,” he said. “The Greys, if some of the rumours are to be believed, have been around for thousands of years; there were reports of contacts between them and humans from before the Invasion! Do you think that the fifty-odd superdreadnaughts that we have destroyed in the war represents some kind of hard limit on their capabilities? We know that there are at least ten more out there – somewhere – and we know nothing about the location of their shipyards! We know nothing…and you want to embark on a genocidal campaign against them?”

He smiled at their faces. “Do you remember that The Society movie that was popular before humanity became part of the Empire – and has recently been reissued? The aliens there were so slow and stupid that they were quickly exterminated by the humans, without even knowing what was happening to them! Is that true of the Greys? No! The Greys are at least as smart and powerful as we are…and you want to start a genocidal campaign against them?

“We cannot start taking such a risk,” he concluded, aware that he’d repeated himself to hammer the point home. “They know where our homeworlds are…and we know nothing about theirs! We can strike any world we find with antimatter bombs, or other weapons, but they can do the same to us! Do you really want to start a campaign of genocide against them?”

There was dead silence.

The motion was defeated, three to one.

***

“Thank you for your efforts on our behalf,” Samantha said. She sounded much more human…and Lord Collins wondered, inanely, if she was a Grey hybrid rather than an implanted slave. She had claimed that she was part of the Grey…although that could have been an attempt to translate a Grey word into something that humans could understand. “It was not necessary, but it is…appreciated.”

Lord Collins glared at her with undisguised hatred. “You’re welcome,” he snarled. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Samantha lifted one eyebrow. “About what?” She asked, her voice almost disinterested. “You came to us, not the other way around, My Lord.”

“Your people were using humans as…brood mares,” Lord Collins thundered. He thumped the table hard enough to hurt himself, augmentation or no augmentation. “Why? What’s the fucking point?”

“We will create a race that will have the finest parts of the human race, but integrated into our structure,” Samantha said. “Imagine it; all of the problems and woes of the galaxy, coming to an end as we all merge into one race with many shapes. We are the vanguard of that movement, blending with other races to develop ourselves. Your people will become part of a great civilisation spreading across all of space until we control the entire universe, one race everywhere.”

Lord Collins stared at her. “You’re not controlled by the Greys, you are a Grey, aren’t you?” He demanded. “I had you checked, I had you tested, and…”

“Your human technology could not appreciate what we can do,” Samantha said, as if she was becoming tired of the discussion. “I am one of the Grey.” She leaned forwards. “You will help us further.”

Lord Collins took a step backwards. The sudden shift in personality was more than disconcerting, it was terrifying. He didn’t believe her, but at the same time, he suspected that she was telling at least part of the truth, but…he didn’t know what to believe, and everything was a mess, and…

“You will find out for us the location of the captured Grey,” Samantha said. “One of the Masters was taken prisoner by human forces, on New Brooklyn. You will locate him for us.”

Lord Collins took a breath. “I thought you guys killed yourselves rather than be taken prisoner,” he said, after a long moment. “What was so important about this one?”

“That is none of your concern,” Samantha said. “You will find him for us and provide us with the location, or you will be betrayed to your human authorities.”

Lord Collins bowed his head. “I understand,” he said. “I will do as you ask – on one condition.”

Samantha smiled. “You are in no condition to make bargains,” she said. “What do you want?”

Lord Collins flinched from her tone, but forced himself to stay calm. “I want my son freed, and then I want to leave the Human Union,” he said. “I want to arrange a small colony ship and leave, heading somewhere well away from here.”

Samantha nodded slowly. “If you serve us well for the next year, you will be permitted to leave before we take this sector,” she said. “You will keep your side of the agreement – or else your family will be the first to be incorporated when we take over.”

***

Admiral Glass stood up as Admiral Martin Solomon, commander of the superdreadnaught Honor Harrington, entered his officer. He held out a hand, accepting Solomon’s handshake in return, before removing his cap and waving Solomon to a chair. It was an old ritual; removing the cap was a way of granting permission to talk freely.

“This is going to be a short meeting,” Glass said, knowing that Solomon wouldn’t mind that at all. “I apologise for the short notice, but I have a new assignment for you.”

Solomon smiled. Glass knew that he had hoped – and expected – to command Operation Vengeance; only Roosevelt’s political demands had given the role to Commodore Middleton…although Glass knew that she’d done well enough to deserve the trust that they’d placed in her.

“That’s good,” Solomon said. “I was getting bored of hanging around Earth, waiting for something to happen; the Grand Admiral was starting to look mighty good to mine eyes.”

“Shut up,” Glass said mildly. It wasn’t the time for jokes. “As you may be aware though the rumour mill – although you should not be aware of it – we recovered some Imperials and forty superdreadnaughts, and assorted smaller ships, from the Tarn Yards. That force is going to need crewmen, it’s going to need to be worked up, and then it is going to have to be brought into battle as soon as possible. We might have had a stroke of luck to repair the damage we took at Roosevelt.”

He scowled. “As you also may be aware, we took heavy losses at Roosevelt and New Brooklyn,” he continued. Solomon nodded once. “The Roosevelt station actually lost many of the people they were training up to crew the newer ships; they have to start again at what is definitely the worst possible moment. New Brooklyn has provided thousands of volunteers, but few of them had even any training at all; you know that new Brooklyn had the smallest pool of spacers before the Collapse began.”

“I know,” Solomon said. “Forty superdreadnaughts – it’s like a dream come true.”

Glass nodded. “I’m ordering your ship, and ten escorts, to take a massive convoy of crewmen to Tarn and have them trained up on the ships there,” he said. “I have a nasty feeling, somewhere, that the Greys have managed to get some penetration into our systems, either through the datanet for a planet or through a good old-fashioned spy.”

Solomon blinked. “Admiral?”

“The attack on Roosevelt was far too aware of what it was looking for, when it attacked,” Glass said. He shook his head. “I can’t prove anything, Admiral, but I’ve kept as few people as possible aware of Tarn and the superdreadnaughts that the Imperials built. Yardmaster Phelps has issued orders to the Imperials there – I had the impression that they were part of the same faction – and they’re going to cooperate, so I want you to take command there and get that fleet ready for action.”

He leaned forwards. “I know, it’s a bit of a poisoned chalice under the circumstances, but I would not have given it to you unless I thought you could do it,” he said. “I’m going to have more people sent out, but even stripping the best from the crewmen we had training for the new ships, its going to leave us something of a shortage in trained crewmen. We’re actually offering promotions to enlisted crewmen, rather than requiring them to apply; even so, we’re critically short in some of the most vital categories.”

Solomon smiled grimly. “At least what happened on Roosevelt will make recruitment easier,” he said. “That’s something, at least.”

“Untrained recruits,” Glass said, with a shudder. The two men shared a grin; the thought of placing untrained people in a superdreadnaught was a minor nightmare for starship commanders. “Yes, they’re good, but they’re going to need time to prepare – and are the Greys going to give us that time?”

“I don’t know,” Solomon said. He stood up. “I’ll do my best, Admiral; I promise you that, whatever it takes, those ships will be back here as soon as humanly possible.”

Glass smiled. “No,” he said. “I think I have another use for them…”

Chapter Forty-One: Wreckage

Captain Erickson was feeling alone, very alone, as Vanguard prepared to drop out of Phase Space on the edge of the Lio-Lang Shipyards, orbiting a star that humans had never known existed until after the Invasion. He’d made the decision, after leaving the Tarn Shipyards and David Symons behind, to proceed directly to Centre, only pausing at the shipyards as they passed – apart from Butler. Butler might just still be part of the Empire; they could shave months off their journey if they could contact the Imperials there.

But he still felt alone. They were isolated in a way that no starship had ever been, apart from the Survey Service ships…and they at least had the knowledge that people knew where they had been trying to reach. Nowhere within the Empire, at least as it had once been, was more than a few years from any possible disaster area at sublight; there were Imperial bases everywhere. If Vanguard had lost its Phase Drive, months ago, rescue would have been possible; now, they would be lost without any hope of rescue, or even of anyone knowing what had happened to him. Chief Engineer Jorge Allmanritter had complained, but Erickson had made his decision; they would run the risk of losing the Phase Drive through making longer hops, just so that they would come out near inhabited stars.

“Sound Red Alert,” he ordered, knowing that it was becoming routine procedure now, right across the Human Union. They’d never had to come out of Phase Space prepared to fight or die before, but now there was no other choice; hostile Greys – or other forces – could be waiting for them. “Stand by for action.”

The crew raced to their positions. After what they’d found at Tarn, including the concept of disposable missile pods, there was no longer any complacency at all. None of the Imperials at Tarn had been able to give them any idea of what the permitted emergence zones at Lio-Lang actually were, which meant that they might be greeted with a hail of missile fire, rather than demands to know who they were and what they were doing. Erickson smiled to himself; the crew’s response time had improved tenfold, more than anyone would have believed possible before the Grey War. If nothing else, the war had been good at removing the incompetent or cowardly from the service.

“All stations report ready for action,” Commander Miriam Rothschild said, following the standard protocol. “We’re ready for action.”

“Good,” Erickson said. “Helm?”

“Twenty seconds to emergence,” Lieutenant-Commander Paul Lafarge said. His voice ran down the seconds; Erickson felt the tension rising as they raced towards their emergence point. “Three, two, one…emergence!”

The Vanguard shuddered slightly as she fell out of Phase Space, almost at rest relative to the orbiting shipyard. Like Sirius or the Tarn Shipyards, Lio-Lang had no orbital planets, just masses of asteroid rock, used for building materials. The Imperials had turned the shipyards into the core of each of the sectors and they never came under sector command, unless one counted the Sirius Yards, which was still technically under Yardmaster Phelps. Erickson tensed, expecting a challenge, or a hail of fire…and nothing came. There was nothing.

“I am detecting no signal,” Ensign Lundy said, after a long moment. Erickson blinked at him. “They must know we’re here, sir; our emergence splash could have been detected from right across the system, but there’s nothing.”

“Odd,” Erickson said. “Sensors?”

“I am detecting few energy emissions from the shipyard,” Lieutenant Kevin Smarts said. His hands danced over his console. “In fact, I am picking up almost nothing, nothing at all. There are no signals, no starships; there’s nothing at all.”

Erickson blinked. He studied the display, wondering if it would provide an answer if he stared long enough, knowing that it would not. Taking the Vanguard into the system seemed to be the only way that they could find a possible solution, but he knew that if they risked slipping into the system, they might be caught…if, of course, there was something hostile out there. There was no way to know.

“Confirm,” he said harshly, his voice betraying his sudden stress. “No starships, no turbulence, no nothing?”

“Nothing,” Smarts said. Erickson rubbed his chin, caught in an agony of indecision. He knew what to do if his ship was attacked and he knew what to do if there was someone to talk to, but when there was nothing? “If there are any starships here, they’re either cloaked outside our short-ranged sensors, or they have their drives stepped down and they’re running doggo.”

Erickson settled back into his chair. “Send a standard greeting and identify us,” he said. “Tell them that we want to talk.”

The silence lengthened. “Nothing,” Lundy said finally, after an hour had passed. “Nothing on the blink-transmitter, nothing on the standard radio frequencies; nothing at all.”

Erickson made a decision. “Cloak us and take us in, random course,” he said. The lights dimmed slightly as the cloaking device sucked power away from everything non-essential. “I want to hide until we know what is happening here.”

He heard Miriam’s voice through their private channel. “Captain, I don’t like this at all,” she said. “We should just leave.”

Erickson shook his head automatically. “I think we need to know what happened here,” he said. “Even if they open fire on us, we’ll have time to launch drones and shield ourselves.”

“With all due respect, Captain, Tarn proved that that’s not necessarily true,” Miriam reminded him. “I know how you feel, but I don’t think its wise.”

Erickson frowned. “I know what you mean, but we don’t have a choice,” he said. “We have to know what happened here.”

Time passed. Lundy kept watching for new signals and found tiny emissions, some signalling on very faint wavebands, bands used only for short-range transmissions. Erickson felt himself getting edgy as they closed in on the shipyard, or where the shipyard should have been, until they finally closed in on the shipyard and saw…

“My God,” Erickson breathed, as he came to his feet automatically. “What the hell happened here?”

Floating through space, glinting in the cold red light of the dim sun, was…wreckage. Lots of wreckage, some of its identifiable as pieces of starships, some of its identified as pieces of the shipyard. The shipyard had been nearly two thousand years old, established during the first expansion phase of the Empire; it had been far, far larger than the shipyard at Sirius…and it had been destroyed. Erickson wondered, for a brief moment, if the Imperials had actually taken the important parts of the shipyard and destroyed the rest, but there was just too much debris.

The drifting wreckage of a superdreadnaught drifted past and he shuddered.

“Report,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. A shattered habitat, covered in frozen atmosphere and bodies, moved across the viewscreen. The cold of space would keep the bodies intact. “What the fuck happened?”

Smarts looked up at him grimly. “I am detecting traces of weapons fire,” he said. His mind was clearly half-elsewhere, focusing on the problem. Erickson looked back at the shipyard and wondered who would have dared to attack it. “Some of it is clearly Imperial Fleet residue, the other…the other is unknown, nothing that I recognise.”

Erickson paced over to Smarts’ console. “You don’t recognise it?”

Smarts nodded. “The weapons were clearly energy-based, some standard nukes, some antimatter…in fact, quite a lot of them were antimatter,” he said. Erickson shuddered; few people in their right minds would use antimatter on an expensive starship. Not even the Greys were crazy enough to risk losing control over a missile containment field. “The energy-based weapons were similar to Imperial designs, but definitely based around slightly different principles; I don’t recognise them at all.”

“So you said,” Erickson said. “Grey?”

Smarts shook his head. “We have enough baselines for Grey weapons to say, with some certainty, that the Greys did not destroy the shipyard,” he said. “If I had to stand up in court, I would have to say that the shipyard was destroyed by attackers unknown, after a battle. There was very clearly a fight here.”

“I see,” Erickson said. There were only a few steps he could take. “Launch probes; see if you can pick up any debris from the opposing side, or any survivors.”

He paced the bridge, unwilling to allow the Vanguard and her crew to stand down from Red Alert, while the probes scanned the wreckage. “Nothing,” Smarts said finally. Erickson made a growl of frustration. He paused. “I think I’m picking up a largely intact command post for part of the shipyard; we might be able to download its information, if we brought its datacore back onboard.”

Erickson nodded. “See to it,” he said, as another drifting chunk of wreckage floated past on the display. He hadn’t seen anything like this before, not even after the Battle of Earth; many of the destroyed starships there had been lost completely, leaving only dust behind. Whatever had hit the shipyard, he couldn’t help thinking, had wanted the Imperials there to suffer. “Commander Evensong, you will handle the decryption of the datacore; Commander Rothschild, you have the bridge.”

“Aye, Captain,” Miriam said. Her voice darkened. “Should we remain at Red Alert?”

Erickson frowned. There was nothing left with the capability to harm them…and then there was that nagging feeling in the back of his mind, once again, of crosshairs being targeted on his head. The shipyard seemed harmless, but he knew all too well that seemingly harmless things could have unpleasant stings in their tails.

“Yes,” he said. He had made up his mind. “If there is any sign of trouble, get us out of here at flank speed; don’t wait for orders.”

“It’s a fairly standard Mark-CV datacore,” Evensong said, twenty minutes later. The term of engineering crewmen who had recovered it and its two twins from the command centre had done an excellent job and would be promoted, if they agreed to be commissioned, or given a large bonus, if they would not. “Like all of them, it was a back-up for the shipyard’s main computers; its ROM memory held everything that the shipyard knew.”

She was all business, something that relieved Erickson; he wasn’t in the mood for affection. The Imperials had been obsessive about storing information – he’d heard that there were records on human grain harvests available on the other side of the Empire – and not a sparrow fell that wasn’t noted, somewhere, within their vast databanks. Human companies that manufactured Internet search engines had found themselves defeated by the sheer volume of information that the Imperials produced on a regular basis; he had often wondered if the Imperials included a Librarian Faction or something like it. Wading through the information was a vast, almost impossible task; human minds found it hard to cope.

“According to the information,” Evensong said, one of her implants having connected to the datacore, “this unit was a back-up command centre for one of the larger construction complexes, which meant that it had copies of everything and ran regular checks to insure that it had the latest information…ah.”

Erickson frowned. “Ah?”

“The shipyard was attacked,” Evensong said. Her voice was chillingly cold. “From the reports, the attackers seem to have been…Kijamanro.”

Erickson felt his heart sink. “Shit,” he said. “That’s…not good.”

He knew about the Kijamanro; everyone knew about them. They had been the first conquest of the Imperials, after starting a war with the advanced race that had been almost hopeless right from the start. Unlike humans, they had evolved from reptilian ancestors…and were simply incapable of recognising any other race as sentient. They had literally enslaved several races, including using genetic engineering of a truly crude kind to create the Sadal Melik subspecies from the Suhail, a race that had been unlucky enough to encounter the Kijamanro before they encountered…say, the Imperials or the Bulterians, or…

“How?” He asked. If there was a large Kijamanro fleet running around, that meant that the blockade on their homeworld had to have failed completely; the Imperial Fleet had enforced the blockade, while other parts of the Empire had called for trying to help the Kijamanro to ‘integrate’ with other races. It had failed; only the fact that extermination had been banned by the Imperials had saved their race from final destruction. “Are they out of their cage?”

“I think so,” Evensong said. “The Imperials on the shipyard didn’t know about it; all they wanted to do was hold the shipyard and so they sealed it off from the rest of the sector. The Yardmaster recorded several entries in his log about taking in some refugees – I guess that was what that wrecked habitat was intended for – but there seems to have been little communication with the rest of the sector. A month or so ago, a large Imperial fleet arrived, with odd configurations. The Yardmaster challenged…and the fleet opened fire.”

Erickson had through his temperature couldn’t fall any further. “They captured an Imperial fleet?”

“They must have done,” Evensong said. “The ships weren’t homebuilt, but their weapons were; either that, or they managed to build a shipyard without anyone knowing about it. They have plenty of black colonies, colonies that they established to hide in, so they must have been researching while they were under the blockade, perhaps laying their plans.”

Erickson scowled. “That close to the Empire’s core, they must have had some idea just how bad it was becoming,” he said. Kijamanro were also chillingly patient, and determined…and utterly ruthless when non-Kijamanro were involved. “Why didn’t they just destroy them? What sort of idiot lets a Kijamanro assault force onboard his ship without making sure that they were unarmed?”

“Insufficient data,” Evensong said, making a sly joke. “The Yardmaster knew nothing about that, of course; all he knew was that he was under attack, and fought desperately. The refugees had been training in using some of the starships that had been created here, but of course they had no way of summoning the Lio-Lang Picket. Without it, in the hours of fighting, much of the shipyard was destroyed.”

Erickson looked up at the display, back at one of the damaged superdreadnaughts; he didn’t know how it had held together so well. The Kijamanro had hammered it hard, with missiles and their new energy weapons; absently, he wondered if they would have time to search the wreckage for any clues as to how the weapons went together. If they were new and efficient, they might just give him a chance to deploy them against the Greys.

“Oh,” Evensong said, as her mind raced through the datacore. “There’s some other information here; the Yardmaster was apparently approached by a group from Butler, asking him if he would be interested in participating in a new alliance. He told them to piss off – he put it much more politely, of course – but that’s the first piece of encouraging news we’ve had.”

“No, it’s not,” Erickson said. Butler had been one of the most loyal sectors of the Empire, not least because they had thought, for a time, that they were equal to the Imperials. The fact that a group from Butler was considering forming a new alliance was worrying. “What exactly was happening up there?”

“Nothing that the Yardmaster knew about,” Evensong said. “Apparently, when it became obvious that the shipyard was going to fall, he triggered most of the self-destruct systems and killed almost everyone left. The command post was lucky to survive, but as its power faded, the system put the information into storage and shut down.”

Erickson tapped his communicator. “Miriam, the shipyard was attacked by a rogue Kijamanro fleet,” he said, trying not to think about some of the implications. Much of the industry in that sector had been controlled by non-Kijamanro – not even the most fanciful and deluded do-gooder mind could avoid the Imperial Fleet’s determination to limit what the Kijamanro had access to – and the Kijamanro would see them, if they were lucky, as slaves. If they weren’t lucky…

He forced the thought aside. “I want us to head out of here, directly towards Butler,” he said. The world was a month away, but they’d expected that much. He’d expected a six-month trip, although he had shaved some of it off by heading directly to the shipyard. “Once we get there, we’ll see what’s happened there, and then prepare to head on to First and perhaps Centre.”

“Aye, sir,” Miriam said, without arguing. Moments later, he heard the drives start to spin up as they propelled the Vanguard out of the system. The echoing noise, just barely above human perception, throbbed through the ship, as if she herself was as determined to leave the system as he was. “Should we do anything with the wreckage?”

“No,” Erickson said. Later, if the Grey War was won, perhaps someone would come back to the system and attempt to salvage the remains, but for the moment such a task was well beyond his little ship. If they found the Imperials, perhaps they would be able to convince them to come back and handle the funeral arrangements for the Yardmaster and his crew, but…

“Leave it,” he ordered. There would be time for niceties once the war was won. “Just take us out of here.”

Chapter Forty-Two: Past and Present

“I think we just kicked the dragon in the nuts,” Roland had said, when they’d last met and talked. Elspeth smiled as she remembered their meeting. Like it or not – and she liked it – she was starting to develop strong feelings for the Prince. “Never mind stamping on his feet; we just sneaked up and kicked him in the nuts.”

The thought warmed her as the shuttle descended towards the icy moon of Titan, passing through enough firepower to wreck several worlds without being challenged. Her pilot had been given direct instructions and clearance to land directly on the planet, rather than using the orbital tower; from what she’d been told, that was unusual enough to raise eyebrows. She hadn’t wanted the fuss, but apparently the main Imperial record building wasn’t connected to the Titan transport grid; she couldn’t have used the tower in any case.

The shuttle shook slightly as it entered the atmosphere, enough to make her nervous. She pulled out her newsreader and forced herself to concentrate on the latest update, supplied directly from the Titan datanet; the latest edition of the newspapers that she had subscribed to, carrying the news in a format unimaginable hundreds of years ago. The Imperials had never discouraged human newspapers, or the media, but they had insisted on placing it under certain laws, not least granting everyone the right to some privacy. Only two of the newspapers had linked her name and Roland’s; only one of them had alleged that they were to wed.

She rubbed her forehead. Her father would have a heart attack. The man who had turned down a Lordship or a Dukedom of his own would be astonished to learn that his daughter was in a relationship with the Heir to the Throne, even though they hadn’t made their feelings official, let alone set a date. It was far too early for that.

Smiling, she turned to the more serious pages and frowned; the news was not good. The discovery that the Greys had literally been breeding human-Grey crossbreeds, no matter how impossible it seemed, had provoked a firestorm of rage. Notwithstanding Lord Collin’s speech – some of the newspapers called for his immediate impeachment and exile – the demands for an eternal war against the Greys were echoing everywhere around the Human Union.

She read on. Medina, shocked beyond words at the treatment of Muslims on New Brooklyn – never mind that their moderate version of Islam had found the Islamic states on New Brooklyn more than a little embarrassing and immigration restrictions had had to be set – had declared a Jihad against the Greys. Not to be outdone, the Elders of Zion, the religious council of rabbis on Zion, had made a similar declaration, while the Pope-In-Exile had demanded a new crusade against the Greys. The Patriarch of the United Religion was the only major religious figure to have avoided calls for holy war…but few took the United Religion seriously outside Earth itself. The Imperials, and she understood why, had slipped up there; the United Religion just didn’t stir the blood.

Humanity had declared total war against the Greys, and yet Elspeth the Fleet brat knew enough to know that winning the war would be difficult. There had only been a handful of encounters between human and Grey starships since the victory at New Brooklyn – pundits were still arguing over what the victory should be called – which some people were claiming meant that the Greys had fallen back. Elspeth doubted it; the Greys had probably considered New Brooklyn a vulnerable point – as the only major point of contact between the two sides – and hadn’t been too unhappy to lose it. As one of the few people who knew that a Grey Master – which seemed to be the actual name – had been captured, she suspected that the Greys were taking stock and deciding what they wanted to do next.

Roland agreed. As he’d said in their last meeting, the Human Union had taken a beating as well, and it would be several months before they could go back on the offensive. Elspeth understood what that meant, even if she didn’t know the actual figures; they were going back on the defensive, which meant that the Greys would be able to pick a target and attack it. All it would take was one world that was…taken by the Greys, and the nightmare would begin, again.

The shuttle shook again. She looked out of the portal, into what looked like a snowstorm, but one that was eerily alien. Titan had never been a normal world, not even before the Imperials had taken it and converted it into their main base in the Solar System; its weather was crazy enough to make the howling storms of Roosevelt – the ones that had appeared since much of the orbiting facilities had fallen into the atmosphere – seem normal and predictable. Her father, during one of his unguarded moments, had told her that careers had been wrecked on studying Titan’s weather; there had even been suspicions that there was something alive, deep below the frozen seas.

“We are approaching the Records Store,” the pilot said, through the intercom. Elspeth said alone in magnificent splendour; the shuttle had been intended for high-ranking officers, perhaps even lower-ranking Imperials. There was more gold and gilt around than she could have afforded on her salary; the Imperials seemed to have limited tastes. “Please have all of your identification ready and be prepared to prove yourself at a moment’s notice.”

He paused. “I am obliged to warn you that the Records Store is a weapons-free zone,” he continued. There was a hint of nervousness in his voice. “If they suspect trouble, they are legally permitted to open fire without asking questions; please be careful and don’t do anything that could be considered threatening.”

Elspeth nodded to herself as the shuttle docked neatly on a pad, which rotated down and carried the shuttle down into a docking bay. Darkness closed over the shuttle as the hatch slid closed, before lights flared, illuminating the shuttle in brilliant light. She stood up as the hatch opened, stepping out into a warm docking bay, with three augmented soldiers looking at her.

“Papers, please,” the lead one said. “You must prove yourself before we can allow you to enter.”

Elspeth nodded and allowed them to sweep her away. The news that the Greys had been creating hybrids, with some of them apparently indistinguishable from humans, had sent paranoia levels soaring higher than ever before. Newcomers to any port had to go through dozens of scans, looking for signs that the Greys might have illuminated a few of their hybrids into human society; thousands had been killed on New Brooklyn on suspicion of being Greys. She wondered, sometimes, why no one had checked to see the identities of those killed – she would have bet good money that many of them had belonged to rival factions on the planet’s surface.

The entire checking process took over an hour; the guards were polite, but very through. There was no procedure for looking for a Grey in human clothing – during the Invasion, the Imperials had paid spies to serve them and sometimes implanted people, but there had never been any human-shaped Imperials – and so they checked everything, from her blood to her brainwave activity. Two of the guards examined her implants carefully, noting some of the improvements with amazement, before realising that they were all accounted for by the brief they’d had from Earth. At the end, she felt as if she’d been stripped and scoured by the guards; she wasn’t sure if she had any secrets left at all.

“You seem to be who we think you are,” the lead guard said, finally, and led her along a long dark corridor. “Welcome to the Record Store; have you been before?”

“No, as you know from my records,” Elspeth said, with undisguised irritation. “You took me to pieces back there.”

The guard ignored her irritation. “You may not take anything from here without the permission of the Chief Librarian, nor may you attempt to alter or destroy the information,” he said. “If you are caught trying to break those rules, you will face a maximum sentence as a body-slave for the rest of your life, understand?”

Elspeth nodded as they reached a lift shaft, which opened neatly. “I understand,” she said. The guard waved her towards the lift. “You’re not coming?”

“No,” the guard said. He smiled for the first time. “Good luck with your research.”

The lift headed downwards, so far down that she wondered if the Record Store was at the planet’s core. It wasn’t; a few thousand meters down, the door hissed open…and she had the surprise of her life. Facing her was not a human, but an alien; a member of the Yunyin race. She hadn’t even known that there were any Yunyin in the Solar System; their homeworld was halfway around the Empire.

“I bid thee welcome to the Record Store,” the Yunyin said. Elspeth hastily pulled up information from her implants; the Yunyin was clearly female, with a slight willowy body, one that would be very uncomfortable on Earth and its gravity field. “I am the Librarian.”

“I think you for the welcome,” Elspeth said, bowing slightly. The Yunyin did not use handshakes and, unless she was augmented, she might well hurt her by attempting to shake hands. “Might I enquire as to your name?”

“You may call me Petha, if you like,” the Yunyin said. “It is the closest that most humans can get to my name, lpth.”

It took Elspeth a moment to realise that that was the Yunyin’s name. “Thank you for the honour, Petha,” she said. The alien bowed again. “Might I ask why you’re here?”

“I came here on a long-term contract from the Viceroy himself,” Petha said. She started to lead the way down a long cold corridor. “He had the task of collecting information from Earth, which could be accomplished by his human agents, and storing it, which really required someone who cared nothing for human feelings. My great-great-great grandmother served the Viceroy in that role during the Invasion; I held the same post until the Collapse, whereupon I was ordered to keep the records in order until the Imperials returned.”

Elspeth felt a moment of awe. Just how old was the Viceroy anyway? There was no way she could ask him, but perhaps Captain Erickson would find out when the Vanguard finally reached Centre. Roland had worried about that; what had happened to the ship after it left Tarn? It could vanish into nothing…and no one would ever know. Space was vast enough to hide a thousand Grey fleets; it would have little difficulty hiding a single heavy cruiser.

Petha led the way onto a balcony and Elspeth stopped dead. It was a research scientist’s dream, thousands, millions, perhaps billions of books, all related to subjects that the Imperials had wanted to discourage interest in, even to the point of moving the vast collection to Titan. Her implants awoke, becoming aware of vast datastreams floating through the air from massive computers; the Imperials had obsessively collected all of the information that they could ever want…and placed it here, on Titan. There was no one else in sight.

Elspeth turned to her. “How many people work here?”

“Myself and three others,” Petha said. “Do you have any particular requests?”

Unable to help herself, Elspeth stepped over to the first row of books, and examined them. Some of them were in a language she didn’t recognise, others were in English, covering the details of a war that had lasted long…until the Invasion had put a permanent halt to it. Elspeth knew from her research that there had been humans who had been very grateful for the Invasion; the Imperial determination to establish a firm monopoly on violence had saved thousands of humans from their own leaders. Her gaze ran along the shelves, recognising some old friends that had been stored in her university as well, seeing other books that she would have killed to have been able to study, years ago.

“A Comprehensive History of the Invasion,” Petha said, pointing to a thick book that had been placed aside from the others. “It was banned by the Viceroy, being published a few years after the Invasion by a researcher who actually managed to do some proper research.” Elspeth nodded; standards had been a little less strict in those days. “It was considered disruptive and banned; only a handful of copies were available and the researcher himself went underground.”

She smiled thinly. “Curiously enough, there was a report of a meeting with him later, from one of the Imperial Agents,” she continued. Her pale green skin seemed to flush slightly. “The odd thing is that that report, along with a lot of alien-related human works, were ordered sealed here by the Viceroy…and, frankly, I’m not convinced that you have the right to see them.”

Elspeth lifted an eyebrow. “You may have seen the note from Yardmaster Phelps, the last Imperial remaining in human space,” she said. “I was unaware that you had taken the Viceroy’s role, or that of Parliament here, or the Royal Family.”

She watched Petha’s face tightly, wishing she knew more than the handful of stereotypes and truisms about the Yunyin. They were known, not without reason, as the bureaucrats of the Empire; their intelligence was not that high above humanity’s, but they tended to run down logical tracks, including having very high capabilities for endless sums. They tended to work as accountants; it was something that they were very well suited to handle, along with the more repetitive space work.

They had been called the Vulcans, as well; the reason for that was lost in the mists of time.

“I am charged with maintaining this place until the Viceroy returns,” Petha said. Her face showed little of human emotions, but her hands moved in an agitated pattern; her species was not good at dealing with surprise or being forced to use their own initiative. There were dozens of aliens on Mars who had been left behind by the Collapse; some of them had tried to make their way home, others had started to carve out a home there…and Petha hadn’t even had the initiative to do that. “That means maintaining his restrictions.”

Elspeth thought, just for a moment, of pointing out that a group of armed and armoured Marines could overrun the Record Store with ease, presenting Petha with an impossible problem to solve. She pushed the temptation down and leaned forwards; she would speak researcher to researcher. It was the only way.

“There is a war on,” she said, carefully. “There is some very clear evidence that records on pre-Invasion contact were collected by the Imperials, but they were not kept in the Record Store on Earth. That means that they had to come here, and that means that you are holding them. Petha, that information could make the difference between life and death.”

Petha seemed to flinch slightly. The Yunyin were also almost completely non-violent; they were the kind of race that would have crying fits over accidentally stepping on a snail. The thought of war made them sick; the Imperials had had absolutely no trouble in bringing them into the Empire, before they ran into the Kijamanro. They’d been lucky; if the Kijamanro had headed away from Centre during their first great expansion, they would have encountered the Yunyin before any Yunyin had heard of the Empire.

Elspeth held her gaze. “The Yunyin homeworld is not that far from here, and who knows what the Greys will do, when they break through here and go towards the Yunyin Sector,” she said. “We need that material to hold the line.”

“You may have access,” Petha said. She led the way towards a reading room. “There are two sets of information; books and records collected by the Imperials and never collated, and the records of various Imperial Agents operating on Earth. I will have them brought to you at once, or you may use a direct data dumb into your implants.”

Elspeth smiled. “I thought I couldn’t take information out of here,” she said. “Can I have copies?”

“I will make you copies of the stored information,” Petha promised. “We used library nanites to make copies and keep the information intact; you will have access to it with my full permission.”

“Thank you,” Elspeth said, as Petha opened the reading room. It was small and neat and – oddly – made her think of Imperials; it was possible that the last person to use it had been the Viceroy. She asked. “Petha, was the Viceroy the last person to use this room?”

“No,” Petha said. “It was the Envoy.” She paused significantly. “You may be interested to know that some of the records that you are going to study were studied by Her Magnificence, before she left, along with the Viceroy.”

The table opened, allowing a small set of tractor beams and gravity fields to produce a set of books from the stores deep below, some of them heavy and bulky, others almost too small to be credible. One of them was on the top; she picked it up and jumped – it was decorated with the face of a Grey. The artist had gotten a few of the details wrong, but it was far too similar to be coincidence.

She’d known that it was coming, but it was still a shock. She skimmed through the smaller books first, wondering just how seriously some of the writers had taken their material; they’d reported early human space travellers seeing aliens on the moon, alien contacts, and some of the more disturbing materials involving alien experiments on humanity, conducted by the Greys.

“This may interest you,” Petha said. She seemed to have nothing else to do. “This is the report of an investigation conducted by one of the Imperial Agents.” She smiled grimly. “You might find it of real interest.”

Elspeth picked it up and started to read.

Interlude Two: Books, Books, and Banned Books

It was fifteen years after the Invasion.

There was something about the entire scene that made Tommy Hardly smile; it was almost too trite to be true. His quarry was hiding a log cabin, halfway up the mountains; his cabin well hidden from prying eyes. Hardly himself had not been able to find the man for a very long time, only a piece of Imperial technology and sheer luck had allowed him to gain even a minor clue as to the man’s location. It was very hard to hide, so long after the Invasion, and in some ways the country was returning to normal.

In other ways, it would never be the same again.

“Stand where you are,” a voice snapped. Hardly smiled to himself; his implants had tracked the man as he emerged from his hiding place. Absently, he wondered where the man’s warning sensors were; something that a handful of tribesmen in Africa had taught the Imperials that natural traps were more effective than they would have liked to believe. “Get out of here!”

Hardly lifted his eyes. He was staring into the sun, but ocular implants took care of that; the man stood there, holding a rifle. It looked old enough to have been used in the Civil War…and the man himself didn’t look much better. Once chubby, with brown hair and a calm disciplined manner, he was now decked with waving long white hair, he was almost painfully thin…and the light of madness was in his eyes. The former professor who had claimed to have been a Marine – Hardly didn’t believe that, but odder things had happened – looked nothing like his picture.

Hardly smiled. “Professor Grafton, I presume?”

Professor Grafton glared at him. “Mr Hardly, the Invaders cock-sucker,” he sneered. “I knew that you would come and…”

He fired. Hardly’s implants took control, knocking his augmented hand out…and catching the bullet in one simple catch. It hurt more than he had expected – the one time he’d seen an unaugmented man try that, it had broken a hand and nearly taken a life – but he caught the bullet. Professor Grafton stared at him, his hands shaking; Hardly tried his best at a reassuring smile.

“I mean you no harm,” he said, wondering exactly how he could explain that the Imperials were hardly concerned about one single professor of modern affairs. Professor Grafton’s famous history book – famous among those who knew of its existence, that is – hadn’t had the impact that Professor Grafton might have expected; it had been his more private research that had interested the Imperials. “May I come in?”

“I would feel a lot more comfortable if you would get lost,” Professor Grafton sneered. “Or are you going to drag me off to your goddamned gulag at my age?”

“No,” Hardly said, as patiently as he could. “Professor, if you earned your position, you must have worked out that I can take you now, whatever you do; even without my…improvements, I am still stronger and faster than you, so…”

Professor Grafton lowered the gun slightly. “I am not going to surrender, not like the thousands of true Americans who will…”

“Oh, grow up,” Hardly snapped. “I am not here to arrest you, or kill you, or anything you might have imagined from your research. Honest fucking injun! I merely need to ask you a few questions.” He opened his rucksack and showed Professor Grafton the contents. “As you can see, I came with gifts.”

Professor Grafton’s face flickered. The sight of the food, purchased with one of the new Imperial credit cards, must have tempted him; without such a card, he would have been unable to buy more than a little food. He seemed to come to a decision, waving Hardly up the final few steps to the cabin and opening the door.

“Booze?”

“No, thank you,” Hardly said. A copy, one of the handful printed, of A Comprehensive History of the Invasion, lay on one table; he glanced at the name of the author and smiled; Professor Grafton had done well with that book. It was a shame that its truthful statements had been considered too inflammatory for human consumption. “I just have a few questions to ask you.”

“I wrote the book and I’ll do it again,” Professor Grafton snapped. “What has happened to the world when copies of The Turner Diaries and Invasion spread throughout the world, but a book on the Invasion gets banned?”

“It falls into the hands of aliens who don’t want some bits of the truth getting out,” Hardly said. He took a seat and waited for Professor Grafton to finish drinking some kind of homebrewed wine from a bottle. The smell alone was appalling. “Professor, I have to ask you about some of the statements you made to the dean of your university.”

“Every one of those reports was true,” Professor Grafton said, clearly bright enough to figure out where the conversation is going. His voice grew more agitated. “That man wouldn’t know genuine research if it came up to him and kicked him in the nuts.”

The dean had also done very well out of the Invasion. Hardly decided not to mention that. “There were several points that attracted the interest of my…superiors,” he said. “In one interview, you claimed that you knew the homeworld of the Imperials, which you do not state.” He leaned forward. “I would be…fascinated to know where you learned that, particularly given that there was no real contact between humans and Imperials before the Invasion and President Coffey’s surrender.”

Professor Grafton glared at him through two beady eyes and took another swig, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I have incontestable proof that the Imperials – the fucking Invaders – were taking humans from their homes well before they came into the open,” he snapped. “I have dozens of reports of Imperials abducting humans and using them for medical experiments.”

Hardly felt a thrill running through him at the confirmation of his own private theory. “Did you ever wonder why the descriptions of the Imperials did not actually match with the Imperials?” He asked. “The reports you cite mention little grey aliens; they do not mention large orange aliens, do they?”

“The Internet has pictures of at least seven races that form part of the Empire,” Professor Grafton proclaimed, his voice booming through the room. “Could it be impossible that there is an eighth?”

There was already an eighth on the Internet; humanity. “Could it be impossible that the Greys are not connected to the Imperials at all?” Hardly parried. “What did you find out about them?”

Professor Grafton eyed him. “I may have burned out my taste buds drinking this, young man, but I still remember basic logic,” he said, his voice a sneer. “Basic logic; it is a capital mistake to invent new aliens where none existed beforehand. There is a public alien race, or alien group; logically, they are responsible for all contacts.”

Hardly puzzled through the statement for a moment, and then decided that it didn’t quite make sense. It didn’t matter. “Perhaps logic is wrong,” he said, and then decided to go for broke. “Regardless, Professor; those little grey bastards have nothing to do with the Imperials.” Professor Grafton snorted. “For the past seven years, I have been charged with collecting as much information about them as possible.”

“I trust that they have given you the thirty pieces of silver,” Professor Grafton said. “What do you want from me?”

Hardly smiled. “You mentioned a location of the aliens homeworld,” he said. “What was it?”

Professor Grafton lifted an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

“It could matter a great deal,” Hardly said. “Professor Grafton; if you want to come back to normal life, having the Imperials owing you a favour might make it a hell of a lot easier.”

Professor Grafton wilted. “I investigated a report of an alien abduction, some years before the Invasion,” he said. “The grey bastards told the victims where they were in space.”

Hardly shrugged. “And where was that?”

Professor Grafton closed his eyes. “Zeti Reticuli,” he said. “That’s where they claimed to come from.”

Chapter Forty-Three: The Way of the Imperial

“Thank you for coming,” Yardmaster Talik said. “I was starting to worry.”

Admiral Martin Solomon nodded. The trip had been a long and difficult one, not least because of the fact that political – he made the thought a swear word – reasons had demanded that he pick up a few hundred volunteers from Roosevelt, not only going out of his way to pick them up, but enduring complaints from Admiral Wilson, who resented Solomon ‘borrowing’ the volunteers, who were desperately needed by the American Home Guard.

Still, there had been no sign of Grey activity; the only activity for a month had been the brief engagements between convoy escorts and attacking Grey ships. That tended to prove Admiral Glass’s belief that there was a hidden Grey base somewhere in the Human Sector, one that might have been set up years ago, but no one was near to finding it. It could be anywhere…and Solomon knew just how unlikely it was that it would be discovered quickly.

“It’s good to be here,” he said. The Tarn Shipyards had been larger than he’d expected – he’d expected something comparable to Sirius – and he was starting to realise that Yardmaster Talik could have held the Yard for some time with only the fixed defences. The Imperial crew had built well, with a kind of paranoia not unknown among humans; they’d done very well indeed with the resources they’d had. Forty superdreadnaughts orbited the star, with more under construction; it would take hundreds of years to exhaust the resources of the system.

“Since we were…abandoned here, I have been busy,” Yardmaster Talik said. “It was considered of prime importance that neither side in the civil war – your Captain Symons has been working to get a peace conference together – take control of the Yard. There are plenty of weapons here, Admiral; now that we have your men here, we can actually man some of the other ships, even building starfighters for your men.”

Solomon had to smile. Yardmaster Talik was certainly like no other Imperial he'd met; he seemed young and easy to please. Imperials didn’t use starfighters themselves; they preferred larger ships, but Yardmaster Talik had seen the need to build them to replenish Roosevelt’s depleted stocks, let alone taking the offensive.

“Thank you,” he said, sincerely. “What about carriers?”

“We have four assault carriers under construction now,” Yardmaster Talik said. He nodded towards the display in the centre of his office; four craft, built on superdreadnaught hulls, hung in front of them. The hologram was so real that he could almost touch it. “We didn’t see the need for them until after hearing from your Captain Erickson; now we will have to catch up quickly with them. It will be three months, unfortunately, before we have the first carrier ready to launch.”

Solomon frowned. “You can’t speed it up?”

“I’m afraid not,” Yardmaster Talik said. “We have to manufacture all of the vital components here, without actually having spares on hand, like we would with the superdreadnaughts. Items like flight decks can’t be cannibalised from the other ships under construction.”

“I see,” Solomon said. “Do you have any other surprises for us?”

“There’s the new missiles, or rather, adaptations of older missiles,” Yardmaster Talik said. “We actually managed to cram a smaller power plant into the system, something that will make the missiles much harder to hit and destroy. If the Greys come here, we’ll give them a bloody nose.”

“You’re telling me,” Solomon said. The shipyard itself was surrounded by a shell of orbital weapon platforms, orbiting the shipyard itself rather than the star, and dozens of smaller armed systems. Drones floated about, chillingly like the same drones that had killed hundreds of human pilots; their scanners looking for trouble and finding none. On the outskirts of the system, the Imperials had placed missile pods and other weapons; one pod had come close to destroying the Vanguard. “That could stand off the 1^st Fleet.”

“Well, perhaps,” Yardmaster Talik said. The 1^st Fleet was unusual, being the only fleet that was actually commanded by an Imperial, although the Imperials certainly controlled the others from behind the scenes. “How long until you can have the ships crewed and ready?”

Solomon considered his answer. When Grey Communicator links had been established with Tarn, he’d asked the Imperials to start building dormitories and training centres for his men, but the Imperials had built much more than he had expected. Most of his men and women were already familiar with crewing a superdreadnaught – half of them had expected to serve on the newer human-built ships – and they knew what was expected of them, but there were so few of them.

“I hope a month,” he said. For once, there was plenty of material to serve for training purposes; the Imperial Fleet had always been careful about paying for such materials, but cut off from the rest of the Empire, Yardmaster Talik had allowed his imagination to run riot. “We will be dealing with under-crewed ships, though; I hate to think what could happen if the ship datanets took a beating, or if they were damaged.”

Yardmaster Talik nodded, “I believe that your Captain Symons had an idea about that,” he said. “He was intending to return last week, but he’s overdue.”

Solomon scowled. Ships were regularly overdue; it didn’t always mean much, but in this case it could signal disaster. The Yards had to be the number one target of both sides in the civil war – and the Greys too, for that matter – and whatever Yardmaster Talik’s confidence, Solomon knew that there was no such thing as an impregnable target. If the Greys learned about the shipyard, they would have no choice, but to attack it, as soon as they could.

“I’ll talk to him when he arrives,” he said. “What about the Grey Communicators?”

Yardmaster Talik beamed, insofar as an Imperial could be said to beam. “They’re really interesting devices,” he said. “One of my people is an expert in Phase Space and she thinks that what really happens is that the message is folded and phased through Phase Space, emerging in the prepared receptacle in the destination communicator. We duplicated the one on the Weber and produced several dozen of them; Captain Symons took some to Kathmandu with him.”

Solomon nodded. They spent the next hour examining records and issuing orders, trying to get the crews ready to start activating the superdreadnaughts. It was simpler, in some ways, than he had feared; the ships hadn’t been derelict, after all, but placed in power-down to wait until they were ready to be deployed. Solomon had to shake his head as more and more details came in; freed from the conservative nature of the Imperial Fleet, Yardmaster Talik had created dozens of new and interesting weapons. The Greys would be in for a bloody nose once his new fleet was ready to deploy.

“That’s one of the concepts that we’ve been trying to get to work,” Yardmaster Talik commented, as Solomon studied an odd design that had appeared in the datanet. “If we can get it to work, we will almost guarantee a hit on any starship targeted, but so far it seems impossible to get it to work properly.”

He brought up the design at Solomon’s request. “The idea was that a missile’s drive could latch on to a starship’s drive field and home in on it, using part of the energy from the enemy ship to pull it in, making it harder to hit,” he continued. “The problem was that the technology is far too large to fit in a missile, which is a real problem…”

An alarm chimed. “Excuse me,” Yardmaster Talik said. His voice was chillingly calm. “We have incoming.”

Solomon’s communicator buzzed. “Admiral, something just set off the warning satellites,” Captain Kitty Windsor said. Her voice was alarmed; if a pair of Grey superdreadnaughts arrived, they would have the chance to slaughter all of his crewmen before they could have a chance to defend themselves. “I’m reading…one battlecruiser and one light cruiser; they seem to have come in together.”

“Interesting,” Yardmaster Talik said. “Both of those ships were formerly part of the Tarn Picket, one of them was part of the rebel force, or at least it was at Kathmandu when the rebellion began.” He frowned. “Admiral, we ought to warn them off; we don’t know what we want them here.”

He paused. “They’re hailing us,” he said. “They want to parley…and they have Captain Symons onboard.”

An hour later, Captain Symons led Admiral Grak-Ka, Gordon Giscard and General Jared Barr into the Honor Harrington’s conference room. “Admiral, thank you for coming,” Symons said. “I had hoped to have been back here before you arrived, but it was not to be.”

He seemed to have a small smile playing around his lips. “It’s good to see you too,” Solomon said. They’d met, briefly, before the Vanguard set off on its voyage, what seemed like months ago. “I confess; I am surprised to see all three of you together, here.”

“There are more important questions,” Yardmaster Talik said. His voice was surprisingly nervous; Solomon was starting to realise just how young he was. “Why are you here?”

Admiral Grak-Ka gave the Imperial a look of fury mingled with respect. “That is a fine question to ask,” he snapped. “You did not help us when we were called upon to restore order.”

“That’s a damned lie,” Barr snapped. He was the only man who didn’t seem to have an Intelligence file; Solomon wasn't sure if that made him interesting or dangerous. “If you and your crummy Lords hadn’t tried to make millions of humans starve…”

Symons tapped the table pointedly. “If we could all return to the trifling matter of defeating the Greys, we have some interesting facts to discuss,” he said. “In particular, of the greatest importance, is that the House of Lords of Tarn no longer exists.”

Yardmaster Talik lifted one eyebrow, a gesture that had been curiously identical between humans and Imperials, and frowned. “I have…removed the House of Lords,” Admiral Grak-Ka said, carefully. The Tarn seemed agitated. “It is my belief that they were deliberately prolonging the war and inflicting needless suffering on millions of people.”

There was a long pause. Solomon wasn't sure what to think; it was something that had clearly been necessary, and yet…it surprised him to even consider anything like that. Yes, the House of Lords on Earth had Lord Collins, who was clearly stupid enough to believe that the Greys could be reasoned with, and yet…it seemed almost blasphemous to think about removing them. They served the Empire…and then he remembered that the Empire no longer existed.

“Am I to understand that the war is over?” Barr asked, after a long moment. His voice was deeply concerned. “Have you decided to call a truce?”

“Yes,” Admiral Grak-Ka said, simply. “We can work together to defeat the Greys and end the war.”

“We know that the Greys can be beaten,” Symons said. He had been very relieved to hear about New Brooklyn. “If we can work together, turn this sector into a powerhouse of industry, we can actually oppose the Greys and defeat them, once and for all.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Barr said, his voice infuriatingly reasonable. “Might I remind you that humans – and Rehash, of which we have a representative on our ship – have been mistreated in this sector for almost seven hundred years, and threatened with losing whatever rights we had under Imperial law.”

He looked up at Yardmaster Talik. “When the Imperials were in charge, there was a sense that it was the duty of the system to ensure that everyone had at least a basic standard of living, and all the opportunity they could want, but now there is nothing. When the Collapse hit, it was humans who felt the pinch, humans who lost their jobs, humans who lost even the basic rights of Imperial subjects. Are we to forget all of that?”

Admiral Grak-Ka stared at him for a long moment. “Are we to forget Imperial officers, members of the greatest fighting force the universe has ever seen, deciding to forget their oaths and turn on each other? Are we to forget that human Marines decided to try to take starships from their lawful commanders? Are we to forget the battles in Tarn orbit that left the orbital industry in tatters? Are we to forget…?”

“Yes,” Symons said sharply. He looked at both of them. “This…civil war has cost thousands of lives and weakened the sector; the Tarn Picket is a shadow of what it once was, along with most of the Home Guard forces. If the Greys decided to invade…well, New Brooklyn put up tougher resistance than any of your worlds could put up, as you well know. It’s time to bury the hatchet.”

“We have been discussing a solution,” Gordon Giscard said. The human MP leaned forwards; his time in jail didn’t seem to have dimmed his sprit. “If we ensure that discrimination is removed, we will have a chance for peace, even at the cost of dissolving the former structure of the Tarn Sector.”

Barr looked…careful. “And if we – the world of Kathmandu - apply to join the Human Union?”

“There is little question that the Human Union exists to govern that part of the galaxy until the Empire is re-established,” Yardmaster Talik said. The Imperial, perhaps the youngest and perhaps the most respected of the people in the room, spoke very gently. Solomon wondered if he understood that he was giving Barr and his fellows a way out of their trap. “We would see little harm in Kathmandu applying to be part of the Human Union, provided it took part in the economic development of the Tarn Sector.”

“The economic development which came at the cost of thousands of humans and Rehash lives,” Barr muttered. “Will you, Admiral, give Tarn a through house-cleaning?”

“Yes,” Admiral Grak-Ka said simply. Solomon’s implants told him that the Tarn was being sincere. “That was not, however, the purpose of this meeting.”

David Symons stood up. “We have a common enemy in the Greys,” he said, sending out a mental command to the starship’s computers. An image of one of the pregnant human women appeared in front of them. “If we end up losing to them, that is the fate that awaits some of us; permanent use as broodmares for Grey babies. I submit to you that the civil war has to take a backseat…and we have to rebuild the Imperial Fleet in this sector if we are to provide any assistance at all to the Human Union.”

He leaned forwards. “Both of you have large forces of trained spacers,” he said. “We need those people here, helping to crew those ships, which will remain under Human Union command.”

“Which means human command,” Admiral Grak-Ka said. His fronds seemed to rattle. “That might be a hard sell.”

“Humans being humans, they are capable of fighting each other at the same time as fighting a common foe,” Solomon said wryly. “If you wish, we could have Yardmaster Talik holding the position of final commander of the fleet.”

The Imperial said nothing. “I think, under the circumstances, that I have little choice,” Admiral Grak-Ka said. His fronds shifted again. “As Captain Erickson deduced, we are in poor shape and we need an end to the civil war. There are places where a Grey bombardment could only improve matters, and that is a pretty poor place for us to begin our reconstruction. However…we will try it; it’s that, or…”

He waved a single frond towards the image of the Grey-impregnated woman. “I understand,” Giscard said. He looked at his friend from Kathmandu. “Jared?”

“Very well,” Barr said finally. Solomon wondered just what he had once been, before the civil war had broken out; something in politics, or what? “Will the resources of this facility be used to defend the other worlds in this sector?”

The discussion ranged backwards and forwards for hours, but at the end of it Solomon felt real hope; if they could just keep the civil war from breaking out again, they might have a chance to have their ships entering service soon, soon enough to turn the tables against the Greys. If they failed, they would face the civil war ripping apart the Tarn Shipyards as Tarn’s industrial orbital facilities had been – without, thank God, pieces of junk falling on the planet as had happened at Roosevelt. Admiral Grak-Ka had gone very still after seeing that footage.

“Exceeded your remit a bit, didn’t you?” He asked Symons, later. “I was expecting you to be focusing on how to get your superdreadnaught ready for combat.”

Symons smiled. “I couldn’t do that without a crew and there was always the chance that the Human Union would be unable to provide crews for the ships,” he said. “I had visited Kathmandu – the women there are wonderful, by the way – and told them about the Greys, then started to work on setting up a Grey Communicator network. A few weeks later, I had a network and by then Admiral Grak-Ka had overthrown his government and was willing to enter into discussions. And then I heard that you would be coming and…”

He smiled. “It all worked out for the best,” he said. His voice had become more confident, much more confidant than he had sounded, months ago when they’d first met. “Now, we will have enough crewmen to teach them to run the superdreadnaughts and then we can join Medina in declaring a jihad on Grey arse.”

“They don’t have arseholes,” Solomon said. He smiled grimly. “Well done, I think,” he said. He found himself laughing and Symons joined in; a body-shaking laugh of pure relief. “All we have to do is get these ships ready…before the Greys pull another trick out of their non-existent sleeves.”

Chapter Forty-Four: Stand-Off and Deliver

“Admiral, we have Grey starships breaking out of Phase Space,” Commander Tucker reported. His pale face paled still further. “At least seventeen starships, mainly battlecruisers and…four anti-starfighter craft.”

“Curious,” Vice Admiral Tom Crenshaw said. The American leaned forwards; seventeen Grey battlecruisers would be a problem under other circumstances, but against his seven carriers and ten heavy cruisers, they would be swiftly destroyed – if they came into the Phase Limit. They had to have come for the convoy, which was interesting…and worrying; had they simply had a starship watching for the convoy departing, or had they had someone on the inside, reporting convoy movements to them? He was as familiar as anyone with Admiral Wilson’s suspicions that there was a security breach somewhere; the Grey attack on Roosevelt had been luckier than it had had any right to expect.

He scowled, and then smiled; unless there were more Grey starships on their way, there was a chance for some payback. He’d hoped that he would be permitted to take his small force, composed of units from several different Home Guard units, to join in the liberation of New Brooklyn and the pounding of the Grey forces in that system, but there just hadn’t been time. Admiral Glass had ordered the operation to launch as soon as possible…and that meant that no unit from Roosevelt could reach Earth, let alone New Brooklyn.

Instead, he’d been assigned to guarding the Legrand System, twenty-two light years from Roosevelt and barely populated. Legrand itself had only two gas giants and three rocky worlds, along with a dull red star and a massive asteroid belt. It had been the obvious place for a black colony and one had been discovered, five hundred years ago, at which point a consortium had bought the rights to develop the system and started a major industrial project there. In time, he’d heard, they had hoped to rival the Sirius Yards…but if the Greys had their say, Legrand would become as wrecked as Roosevelt.

“Order all carriers to prepare to launch their fighters,” he ordered, keeping his voice calm. The USS Independence – an irony, given that Roosevelt had been under Imperial authority until the collapse – was a large fleet carrier, one of Roosevelt’s own designs…and, now, the only one that would be built until Roosevelt managed to rebuild its yards. The planet had done well in preparing for the Grey War, but now the Greys had smashed the Yards and there would be no more ships larger than a destroyer until the yards were rebuilt. “Keep them in the ships for the moment; launch probes.”

He watched as the Greys deployed. It was far too much like what had happened at Roosevelt – and the destruction of the USS Enterprise – for comfort; the Greys might have a force of superdreadnaughts just waiting a light year away to jump him when he came too close to their force, or they might just be waiting to see if he would take the bait, or not. He glanced down at the feed from the probes; a second possibility was the Greys stealing the Vengeance idea and trying to sneak up on his ships in cloak. It would be their best option, given how hard it was to catch fleeing carriers, but their cloaking devices were supposed to be inferior to human devices. He knew better than to take that on faith; war games and endless exercises had made it clear that they could still be surprised.

“They’re launching probes into the system,” the sensor operator reported. Crenshaw blinked; why had they done that? They had to have seen his ships – or rather, their drives – so why would they bother trying to scope out more of the system. They might have worried about him trying to lead them into an ambush, but the truth was that he didn’t have any ships to ambush them with, apart from the starfighters and smaller ships around the inhabited asteroids.

An idea occurred to him and he smiled. “Laser link, direct to System Command,” he said. Laser link would mean there would be a time delay, rather than using the gravity pulses from their drives, but it would be harder for the Greys to intercept. “I want them to launch some ECM drones, tuned to reassemble cloaked ships, heading out to meet us.”

“Signal sent,” the communications officer said. His voice broke off. “Sir, we are receiving a message from the Grey starships.”

Crenshaw felt his mouth fall open. The Greys never communicated; they never did anything, but moved towards their targets, knocking resistance out of the way. Dark and silent ships moved through space, sometimes destroying, sometimes being destroyed…but they never talked to humanity. Never.

“On screen,” he ordered, after a moment. The idea of talking to Greys had never been seriously considered after the Vanguard had been attacked while trying to communicate. “What do they want?”

There was no visual signal. “Human starships, surrender or be destroyed,” a voice said. It was like no other voice Crenshaw had ever heard; it was high-pitched and whispery at the same time, with undertones of nails scraping down blackboards and a cold dispassion that seemed somehow worse than hatred or malice or greed. “You will stand down your shields and prepare to be boarded.”

“Drive fields are flaring, they’re coming in,” the sensor operator said. Crenshaw looked at the display; the seventeen Grey ships were crossing the Phase Limit and heading right for his position. “Admiral?”

Crenshaw found his voice. “This is Vice Admiral Crenshaw of the United States Navy, on secondment to the Human Union,” he said. A determination to spit defiance in the Grey’s face warred with a very real concern for the system he had to defend. Two months after the victory at New Brooklyn, everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop. If Mousetrap had led to the Greys attacking Roosevelt, had Vengeance led to the attack he now faced? “You will leave this system or be fired upon.”

There was no response. “Admiral, they’ve broken communications,” the communications officer said. “System Command has acknowledged your signal; they’re carrying it out now.”

“Let’s hope we can bluff the bastards,” Crenshaw said grimly. If nothing else, the threat of a Grey assault should get the different Home Guard ships working together; for the first time, he cursed the absence of a single Imperial Fleet ship, even though its Captain would have been automatically senior to any of the Home Guard Captains. “Standard deployment pattern; order all starfighters to engage the Don’t Get Shot pattern, and then…order our cruisers to prepare to engage the enemy antistarfighter targets.”

He scowled as the enemy formation became clear. The Greys didn’t seem to have brought along any major combat ships – superdreadnaughts or dreadnaughts – which meant that, in theory, he should have an advantage. He might lack any battlecruisers himself – and no heavy cruiser could stand up to a battlecruiser for long – but his force of starfighters should be enough to tip the scales in his favour. The Greys had to know that too, which meant…they had something else up their sleeves. Whatever else they were, they were not stupid; they had to be able to count his ships, so why were they coming in so hard?

“I want total massed fire on their antistarfighter craft,” he warned, as the distance between the two sides narrowed sharply. His own craft were picking up speed, trying to keep the range open; the Greys were still building up their own speed, suggesting that they would stabilise at medium missile range. Once that happened, they would be able to slam away at the human ships, while his starfighters would be able to attack them and…hurt them. “Take those away, then we can pick off the battlecruisers.”

“Aye, sir,” the CAG said. His fingers danced over his console, assigning missions to each of the starfighter contingents on the seven carriers; nearly two thousand starfighters in all. “I’m assigning Green, Orange and Red squadrons to providing additional cover for the cruisers; they’re bound to open fire soon.”

“Good thinking,” Crenshaw said. If the Greys stayed true to their standard practice, they would pour fire into the human force as soon as they could; they would have nearly twenty minutes to destroy them before they came into range of the asteroids…and of the massive fixed defences around the asteroids. “Launch starfighters!”

“Launch starfighters,” the CAG echoed. The alarm for fighter launch stations – an idea that was only used by American carriers – echoed through the carrier. “Launching now!”

Crenshaw watched as the display filled up with the small green icons of starfighters and smiled. The Greys would have no choice, but to engage as soon as they got into range, while they would be racing down towards his missile fire; they would have to cover their own smaller ships, rather than the larger ships. It was a reversal they would never have tolerated at the beginning of the war; then, they’d concentrated on covering the larger ships.

“Launch missiles,” he said. “Exterminate them!”

“Missiles away,” Commander Darkling reported. The screen blossomed with red icons as the Greys returned fire. “Sir, I think…”

The display flickered as the Grey starships dumped speed. Crenshaw cursed as the Grey ships widened the range as they decelerated, dumping speed as fast as they could without losing their compensators, which would be disastrous for them. Their missiles swept onwards, right into the teeth of the human formation and its point defence, while human missiles lost their locks as the distance between them and their targets suddenly widened sharply. The missiles worked hard, regaining their locks, but they had been skewed; they had to take whatever targets they could hit before they ran out of power…and Crenshaw knew that it wouldn’t be enough.

“Point defence to full,” he said, as the Grey missiles passed through the fighter screen. Missiles could pull nearly twice the speed of starfighters; each of the starfighters would only get one shot at the missiles, some of which would explode if their brains saw no chance of breaking through and try to take out the starfighter. Seven missiles broke through the point defence and lanced into one of his cruisers, knocking down its shields and sending it staggering out of formation. “Order the Nixon to return to system command; it’s useless here.”

“Aye, sir,” the communications officer said. Crenshaw forced his mind to think; the Greys had just taken out one of his ships, for the cost of no ships themselves…and they were now pulling away, turning their ships and launching more missiles towards the human formation. They were their notorious long-range missiles, with enough range to make hitting his ships a viable prospect…and he knew that the Greys had done well. His ships could counter the long-range missiles, but at the cost of delaying in chasing the Greys…not, as he had to admit, that he wanted to catch them!

Cold hatred welled up within him and he had to admit that he was wrong. He wanted to catch the Grey starships and break them open like eggshells, punishing the Greys for the death of so many people on Roosevelt. Many of the dead might even have been lucky, he was honest enough to admit; New Brooklyn had shown what life would be like under the Greys. Here, at Legrand, the Greys had outsmarted him…and he knew that it would cost him.

“Damn them,” he muttered. “Report!”

“The Greys are breaking off,” the sensor officer said. “Sir, they just…fired on us, and now they’re heading towards Bella.”

Crenshaw muttered a curse under his breath. Bella was one of the gas giants…and a major source of hydrogen gas for freighters and manufacturing processes. Apart from the mining barges, it was almost uninhabited…and almost undefended. The Greys would have no trouble at all picking off the mining barges…and the defences wouldn’t even make them take a breath.

“Set course to pursue them,” he said, knowing that breaking off the pursuit was impossible. The Greys had managed to make him look like an idiot; if they managed to destroy the mining barges and retreat, they would have scored a propaganda victory. “I want our starfighters armed for long-range strikes against their battlecruisers.”

The CAG felt moved to object. “Admiral, we have not taken out their antistarfighter craft,” he protested. “If we send our starfighters against them, it will be…unpleasant for all concerned.”

“I know,” Crenshaw snapped. “If we launch our own missiles as soon as we enter missile range, we can at least give them some cover.”

The Greys weren’t playing around; this time, their ships were building up speed as fast as they could, their battlecruisers pressing right at the limit of what they could pull without risking compensator failure. Crenshaw silently cursed their refusal to send superdreadnaughts, even though a single superdreadnaught would have made it much harder for the human forces to win; they could have caught up with a superdreadnaught before it could have escaped them.

Hah, he thought, remembering a cartoon of a crippled destroyer Captain announcing cheerfully to his First Officer that they had the enemy on the run now. If a superdreadnaught had come, along with more antistarfighter craft, they would have lost control of the system, perhaps even the asteroids, depending on what the Greys actually wanted.

“Perhaps they just want to make us run around like headless chickens and exhaust ourselves,” he muttered to himself. The Human Union ships had performed more combat operations in the last seven months than the Imperial Fleet had performed in the last hundred years…and all at the same time. Wear and tear on the equipment was becoming a serious problem; soon, ships like the Independence would require refurbishment…and they couldn’t do that in the middle of a war. “Perhaps…”

“They’re altering course again,” the sensor officer reported. “They’re now going to spin around Bella and head out of the system.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Crenshaw muttered. He smiled as he sorted out the problem; the Greys would have to lose some speed as they altered their drive fields to change course…and he would have a chance to catch up and fight an engagement with them. The Greys weren’t stupid; they’d attacked his force, and then they’d decided to make him wear himself out instead of pushing the offensive. “CAG, order the fighters to launch…and order the cruisers to fire the moment we enter missile range.”

He settled back in his chair and watched, grimly, as the starfighters launched. At their size, they could accelerate to their full speed very quickly, as the Greys fired; a hail of missiles…heading towards Bella. Crenshaw leaned forwards as the missiles plunged towards the gas giant, visions of supernova bombs or another rumoured superweapon spinning through his head, and swore as he realised what the weapons were doing. They would engage the platforms…and there wouldn’t be a hope in hell of stopping them.

“The cruisers are firing,” the tactical officer said, as his cruisers belched a hail of missiles towards the enemy. The Greys seemed to be forcing themselves to pick up speed again, trying to escape, but this time they would have to fight or die honestly. His missiles raced towards the Grey ships, their drives forcing them into terminal attack manoeuvres, and he allowed himself a moment of hope as the Greys started to fire on his weapons with their point defence. “Four missiles down, nine missiles, down…hit on primary target, several hits on primary target…”

One of the Grey antistarfighter craft exploded, followed rapidly by another, as the Greys picked up speed, forcing themselves out of the battlezone. Crenshaw settled back as his starfighters raged in towards the Grey battlecruisers, now trying to swat the human bees as they buzzed around their hulls, and knew that, whatever happened, the Greys could not be allowed to escape. If they escaped, they would have gotten away with it.

“They took out three of the barges and damaged a fourth,” the tactical officer reported grimly. Crenshaw nodded; the barges floated just above the gas giant’s atmosphere, collecting gas for human use…and they made easy targets. The other missiles must have been unable to lock onto a barge before gravity made a claim on them and sent them falling into the atmosphere. “I don’t think system command is happy.”

Crenshaw looked at him. “I’m not happy,” he snapped. Two Grey battlecruisers exploded; the others kept up their point defence fire, pouring blast after blast into the human starfighters. It was hard to hit a starfighter, even with datanet units linking the ships together, but one hit was fatal. “The bastards have just thumbed their noses at us…and won.”

In the end, five Grey ships escaped the system.

Chapter Forty-Five: The Light of Ancient Days

The Sneaky Bastard practically drifted out of Phase Space, coming to a halt, relative to the twin stars of Zeti Reticuli. Long chilling moments passed while the starship’s sensors searched for any sign of trouble, and then its sensors locked onto its consort, the Untruthful Lie. Laser signals were exchanged, confirming identities and sharing information between the ships, and then they drifted together, deploying sensor platforms as they moved. More laser signals, utterly undetectable to anyone watching, flickered across the void of space and Commander Avishai Sumrall allowed herself a moment of relief.

Minutes passed, then an hour, and no Grey starships jumped out of Phase Space to destroy them. They’d made it into the region without being detected – assuming, of course, that there were any Greys around. The ether was as dark and silent as the grave; her sensors had located absolutely nothing, no signs of any intelligent life at all. Even as she conferred silently with her opposite number, Captain Chad Roberson of the Untruthful Lie, she was starting to wonder if it had been a wild goose chase all along.

Avishai and her crew had pulled out of the New Brooklyn system, soon enough to ensure that they had very little in the way of shore leave, or even a chance to stretch their legs; late enough to learn what the Greys had done to human women on the planet. Avishai knew, now, just how lucky they had been; the Greys might not have blown the Sneaky Bastard apart, but taken the ship intact – assuming, of course, that she failed in her duty to destroy the ship rather than let it fall into enemy hands. If so, she could expect to be used as a…brood mare herself, which meant…

Her fists tightened. She would have rather died like a warrior.

Intelligence’s orders had had a curious note of…embarrassment about them, when they’re returned to Titan; she’d never had such a set of orders before. At face value, the entire situation seemed ludicrous; the Zeti Reticuli was only forty light years from Earth itself, with two stars orbiting in a complex pattern that had been bound to excite some interest from Earth-based researchers. Of course, the Imperial Fleet was fond of laughing at astronomers, who were notoriously bad at handling starships, but it seemed unlikely that they would have missed the chance to examine Zeti Reticuli…except they hadn’t. The star system was noted, simply, as having been surveyed around ten years before the Invasion…and had been classed as utterly useless. Two dead planets, one large gas giant…when there were three-dozen worlds in the Human Sector that could support human life without major terraforming, why would anyone bother with Zeti Reticuli? It didn’t even have an asteroid belt.

She’d searched the records herself, just in case Intelligence had missed something, and had found nothing. The various Imperial Fleet units charged with keeping track of starship movements in the Human Sector had no recordings of any voyages to Zeti Reticuli – hardly surprising if there was nothing there worth even the establishment of a black colony. It wasn't unknown for stars to be left alone for hundreds of years, but so close to Earth? If the Imperials had wanted to discourage people from visiting, why not simply quarantine the entire system?

“I am definitely picking up no traces of any intelligent life,” Kate Tamara said, after a second hour had passed. “If the Greys are here, they’re a long way into the system, perhaps at the barycentre itself…”

Avishai lifted an eyebrow. “The barycentre?”

“Yes,” Kate said thoughtfully. “Look.”

She threw up a display of the star system’s Phase Limit…and Avishai sucked in a long breath. Like all star systems, Zeti Reticuli had a Phase Limit thrown up by its star – or stars, in this case – but Zeti Reticuli was…odd. At the point of balance between the twin stars, the barycentre, there was…a clear space where there was no Phase Limit. A good and lucky pilot could have put a starship through it without any problems at all. Zeti Reticuli might not have been the hazard to navigation that most stars were, if used properly.

“You’re right, that is odd,” Avishai said. “Still, does it have anything to do with the Greys?”

“I doubt it,” Kate said, checking her equipment. “If they could manipulate power on that scale, we would all be making Grey babies by now; no one can do that, except perhaps the Kerr.”

Avishai scowled. She had long wanted to take the Sneaky Bastard into the Kerr system, just to find out, once and for all, just what they were. The Imperials, much to the annoyance of their allies on Butler, had banned all contact with the Kerr, even to the degree of declaring a twenty-light year exclusion zone around their star. It didn’t seem likely that the Kerr were that powerful…but, at the same time, might they have stood off the Empire for so long if they didn’t have far superior technology?

She smiled and opened a laser link to the Untruthful Lie. “Chad, we’re going to examine Zeta1 now,” she said. “We’ll keep transmitting, so if you lose contact with us, get the fuck out, understand?”

“Understood, Avishai,” Roberson said. They’d been lovers once, before Avishai had decided that women made better lovers and dumped him; he had never quite forgiven her for that. “If something happens to you, we’ll haul ass out of here, ok?”

Avishai nodded to Conrad. “Take us in,” she said, silently thanking all of the gods for her augmentation. Without it, weeks cooped up in the Sneaky Bastard would be utterly unbearable. “Remember, don’t lose any of our stealth, even through this is starting to seem like a waste of time.”

Kate smiled. “So did the last sweep for black colonies in the new sector,” she said, cheerfully, “and we found three.”

Avishai said nothing as the hours passed and the Sneaky Bastard inched its way towards Zeta1’s Phase Limit. Zeta1 was a yellow-orange main sequence dwarf star, with two planets, one more than had been listed in the catalogue. By now, Avishai wasn’t exactly surprised, although, to be fair, it was clear that whoever had conducted the original survey had either skimped on it, or had simply made up the results. Their sensors were picking up details about the star, and its companions, that flatly contradicted some of the information in the catalogue. She knew that the Imperial Fleet often had to correct mistaken information in the general Fleet catalogues, mainly when observing weirder stars than Zeta1, but this was…

“Why didn’t they just put up an exclusion zone and tell everyone not to go there?” She asked herself, and then answered. “Because we wouldn’t have listened, of course.”

Time passed, very slowly. She would have given half of her annual pay packet to have a proper survey fleet along, with all of its instrumentation; the Sneaky Bastard had some of the finest systems in the galaxy, but there were flaws in what they knew about star systems. Simply having information dumped into a person’s head didn’t make them an expert…and Avishai had been around long enough to know that from bitter experience. A genuine expert in star systems would have been useful…

“Captain, I think you should see this,” Kate said, as they inched closer to one of the worlds they’d located. “This world was once inhabited.”

Avishai studied the display and nodded grimly. The world was surrounded by…wreckage, lots of wreckage, some of it clearly primitive, other bits more advanced. The world itself seemed to be brown, rather than green; something ghastly had happened to it, so long ago. She bit her lip, feeling someone walking over her grave; they’d come to a very old graveyard. What had happened here?”

“Kate,” she said, carefully, “can you give me some idea of a time span?”

Kate worked her console. “Without a sample from the wreckage, its impossible to know for certain,” she said. Her fingers danced as she interacted directly with the ship’s computers through her mental connection. “I think…I think that it happened around seven to nine hundred years ago, whatever happened here…”

Her voice broke off. “Captain, look at that…”

Avishai said a word under her breath as the world’s moon rose into view…except it wasn't a moon. They’d seen something like that before; a starship built without the benefit of FTL drive, serving as the headquarters of Morgan’s pirate group. This one was half-ruined, as if an asteroid had struck it without utterly destroying it; she felt a moment’s pity for whatever race had been born on Zeta1’s world.

A thought struck her. “Kate, are there any traces of weapons fire?”

“Nothing that we can use,” Kate said, after a long moment. “Judging by the radioactive traces on the planet and in orbit, nukes were used, but I can’t pin them down to a particular world. Whoever did this, Captain, is long gone.”

An alarm sounded. “Perhaps I spoke too soon,” she said. “I think…”

Avishai felt an almost sexual thrill of knowing that they were about to test themselves against a real opponent. “Report,” she said, as calmly as she could. There was no point in sounding Red Alert; the Sneaky Bastard could not hope to outrun or outfight a real warship. “What have you got?”

“A ship just appeared out of Phase Space, near the Barycentre,” Kate said, after a long moment. “I don’t have an ID yet, Captain; I don’t think that it’s any ship we know, which means that it could well be Grey.”

Avishai scowled. “You can’t even get a general read?”

“Not at this distance,” Kate said. She scowled. “The Untruthful Lie might have missed the ship altogether, Captain; that ship is right on the other side of the star system.”

“If no one human has come here, then that ship has to be Grey,” Avishai said, realising, for the first time, that they hadn’t come on a wild goose chase. If the Greys had been active here, hundreds of years ago, they might have been the race that had destroyed the world below, killing it with a weapon she couldn’t understand or fathom. “I think that we’d better investigate, but after we’ve had a rest; we all need it.”

“Sleep, right,” Conrad said.

Avishai smacked him with a wave of her hand and checked the communications link with the Untruthful Lie. Captain Roberson would know what they’d seen once the transmission reached him, and then he would be able to act on the information, if they were somehow detected and destroyed. Once she’d ensured that the information had been sent, she returned to her tiny cabin; moments later, Kate joined her. Both of them needed to spend time together.

Seven hours later, refreshed and ready, the Sneaky Bastard crept back out of the system, heading back towards the Barycentre. Avishai kept her mind firmly on what they faced, rather than what they’d been doing, and studied the display as it started to pick up signs of unusual activity in the system. Tiny flickers of energy, too clearly artificial to be a coincidence, too tiny to attract much attention from anyone without a nasty suspicious mind – like hers – were flickering out of the system. As they moved closer, they started to take on a consistent pattern…which reminded her far too much of the Sirius Yards for comfort.

“Emergence,” Kate snapped. Avishai felt a wave of panic, grateful for her implants like never before, as a red icon spangled into existence on the display. This close, there was no mistaking the ship as a Grey battlecruiser, moving into the system at what was almost a crawl, for a battlecruiser. She couldn’t help, but notice that the starship was in serious trouble, with its drive field fluctuating enough to tear the ship apart if they lost control of it for a moment. “That ship’s been in the wars, Captain.”

“Very funny,” Avishai snapped, remembering the time when their hot vital bodies had pressed against one another in her cabin. “Do you have any backtrack on it?”

Kate smiled up at her seductively, causing Conrad to snort rudely. “Not really, Captain,” she said, turning back to all business. “It came from somewhere in the general direction of Roosevelt, but judging by the emergence splash it actually came from somewhere a lot closer. Might have been going to Roosevelt as part of the attack force and had to limp home, or it might just have been a convoy raider that came off worst in the battle.”

Avishai nodded thoughtfully. That meant nothing, on one hand, and at the same time it very clearly proved that the Greys were at Zeti Reticuli. She thought – and considered, seriously – about leaving the system now, but she knew that the fleet would want to attack Zeti Reticuli as soon as possible, which meant that she would have to gather as much information as they needed before they left the system.

“Keep us going in, slowly, and give that wounded ship a wide berth,” she said. “Kate, keep watching for any real problems…or where the Greys have set up.”

“My God,” Kate said, after nearly half an hour had passed. “Captain, look at that!”

It was an asteroid field, but the kind of asteroid field that only existed in bad movies, rather than around real-life stars. Starfighter pilots were fond of proclaiming their skills at dodging asteroids and space junk, but the truth was that the entire Imperial Fleet could have flown in a line through Sol’s asteroid field without hitting anything. Here, in Zeta2’s orbit, was an asteroid field that daunted even a skilled pilot…and the Greys were all over it.

“I think that that’s…the remains of a planet,” Kate said, her voice awed and utterly terrified at the same time. “Look; the asteroids seem to have all come from the same source, a planet blasted apart for mining, all of that valuable material placed in space where anyone could get it…and I think it happened recently.”

Avishai studied the asteroids, arranged nearly in the rough shape of a planet, and nodded. The Greys – if it had been the Greys – had shattered the planet; not an impossible task, but something she would have classed as a waste of effort. If they’d wanted to get rid of the natives, a few antimatter bombs would have gotten rid of them…but as a mining tool? Humans had suggested blowing up Mercury for mining purposes; the Viceroy had banned all speculation on the subject. She saw their craft moving through the wreckage, scouting for vital resources, and knew that it had been the Greys. It was just what they would do.

“Shit,” Kate said mildly. “Captain, I think I’ve located their base.”

Grey drive signatures floated across the display, surrounding…something that she was almost sure was a spacecraft, rather than an extra-large space station. There were dozens of Grey superdreadnaughts – she counted at least fifty within detection range – and thousands of drones, all patrolling endlessly around the…thing. It was a mothership, something that had been discussed ever since Morgan’s Hold had been revealed to be a massive starship…but no one had ever built one. No one would have done that…except the Greys. To them, it probably made excellent sense.

She ran a hand through her long dark hair. “That’s…going to be something of a problem,” she said, with classical Hindustani understatement. There were dozens of smaller ships, floating around what she was starting to realise was an entire fleet train on its own, defending it, while worker craft worked hard on building a shipyard. The Greys had to have moved in while Earth was fighting the Battle of Earth…and no one had even suspected it until they’d hit Roosevelt. A base almost in the centre of the Human Union…

“Why?” She asked. “Why did the Imperials discourage people from coming here?”

Kate’s concerns were more practical. “That force…they must be preparing to attack Earth again,” she said. Her voice shook slightly. “We have to warn them.”

“I know,” Avishai said. “Have you made the recordings?”

“Everything,” Kate said. She scowled. “I don’t think that we can go any closer; look.”

Avishai muttered a word under her breath. The Greys had wrapped their entire main complex in a series of sensor networks, networks that her craft couldn’t just slip through without altering the shape of the network…and bringing the Greys down around their heads. She’d seen the idea in concept, but not – ever – actually carried out in practice; the Greys had just the systems they needed to watch such a network.

“Bastards,” she hissed. There would be details, such as whatever defence the mothership itself carried, that they would never be able to learn without setting off alarms and starting the Greys hunting them. Admiral Glass would want them to come back, later, to feel out the defences…and the long-standing question over if the Greys could detect the use of one of their communicators had not yet been resolved. “Helm, get us out of here.”

The Sneaky Bastard slipped slowly out of the system, leaving the Greys behind. “They must have been here, long ago,” Kate said, later. They were holding each other, their shivering bodies pressed against each other as they realised just how dangerous the war had become. “Now they’ve come back…and we’re the only ones who know where they are.”

Avishai nodded and kissed Kate’s forehead. “We’ll get the word out and then Admiral Glass can find the ships required to stamp on the bastards as hard as possible,” she promised, knowing just how difficult it could be to succeed. One hand found a sensitive place and played gently with it. “You never know, Kate; the end of the war could be in sight.”

She knew, as they held each other long into the night, that it wasn't anything like over.

Not yet.

Chapter Forty-Six: The Popular Front for the Restoration of the Empire

“Captain, we are being hailed,” Ensign Jake Lundy said. Erickson frowned; nearly ten minutes had passed since the Vanguard had flashed its identity to the Butler System’s System Command, but there had been nothing from the planet. “The signal is coming from a starship accelerating to meet us.”

“Put it on,” Erickson said. He wasn’t surprised when a Bulterian face appeared in front of him. “This is Captain Erickson of the Imperial Fleet Heavy Cruiser Vanguard,” he said, trusting in the translation implants to handle the communication. “Might I ask to whom I am speaking?”

The Bulterian inclined his head towards Erickson. The Bulterians could almost pass for humans, were it not for their almost cartoonish white faces and glowing, almost albino, red eyes. He knew that they were highly intelligent, perhaps one of the oldest races in the Empire…and that some of them looked down on humans, Rehash and the other races in the Empire. Their faces, unlike human faces, showed little emotion; their emotions came from their hands.

“I am Captain Klamath,” the Bulterian said. Erickson’s implants informed him that that particular family was one of the Butler Lords. “Have you been contacted by one of the survey ships?”

Erickson blinked. “The survey ships?”

Klamath, had he been human, would have looked down his nose at Erickson. “We sent out some survey ships from the Committee, when we realised that the Blessed Imperials had withdrawn from this sector,” he said. Erickson felt his mind spin; why had the Imperials abandoned the Butler Sector? His sensors were revealing dozens of starships and other ships, moving across the system; the industry seemed to be working better than ever. “We were trying to make contact with other committees that were formed to coordinate the restoration of the Empire…and I assumed that you had been sent by one of them…”

Erickson considered. “We came directly from Earth, through Tarn,” he said. “Captain, the Kijamanro are loose.”

“We are far too aware of that,” Klamath said, his voice surprisingly friendly. Erickson would have expected more trouble from one of his kind. “The first we heard of them was that they managed to somehow overwhelm the Imperial watch stations over their world, then gaining control of several starships and launching several invasions. That sector is in chaos; how did you hear of them?”

“They destroyed the Lio-Lang Shipyard and might have wrecked havoc on Lio-Lang itself,” Erickson explained. “They’re not a problem at the moment, Captain; Earth needs your help.”

“I can’t speak for the Committee,” Klamath explained. His voice was almost regretful. “I have summoned Admiral Klamath, my…foster parent and commander of the 1^st Fleet, to meet with you here. Unfortunately, we cannot allow you to enter the system without clearance.” His voice altered slightly. “He will be here in thirty minutes; I will provide you with some material concerning the Committee and Earth’s place in it.”

The connection broke. “Arrogant son of a bitch,” Miriam muttered. “That’s what happens when you have nepotism as a guiding principle.”

“It doesn’t work that way for them,” Erickson remembered, as his display began to produce the information from Klamath. “Like us, they try to co-opt new talent into the House of Lords; Admiral Klamath probably decided to recruit Captain Klamath and gave him his name to make the point clear to anyone else.” He scowled. “Jake, forward to Captain Klamath our information, including the technical information.”

He skimmed through the information quickly. The Imperials had been a little more ordered in the Butler Sector; they’d had the time to make a clean sweep of the sector, which meant that around the same time the original Lightning had been destroyed, they’d pulled out of the Butler Sector, giving control of the 1^st Fleet to Admiral Klamath, who had been given similar orders to Admiral Glass; save as much as possible until we return. It hadn’t worked out that well; Admiral Klamath and a confusing mixture of power bases and planets – the Butler Sector was one of the most well-developed in the Empire and they had links to other sectors as well – had formed a Popular Front for the Restoration of the Empire, headed by a Commission.

He scowled. “They don’t seem to see any room for the Imperials now,” he said, after reading through the Commission’s charter, as decided by those who had moved quickly to take power. It didn’t go so far as to suggest that any Imperial who returned to Butler would be at risk of his or her life, but it was clear on the fact that authority would not be returned to the Imperials. “Commander, what can you tell me about Admiral Klamath?”

Evensong tilted her head as she accessed her implants. “He was apparently born in an upper-class Butler family, one of the ones that think that the days when Butler had an interstellar empire of its own were the greatest time in their history,” she said. “He ended up commanding the 1^st Fleet – there doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that he actually took part in any actual fighting – and remained permanently based at Butler. Married…several times, according to his files; lots of children, all of whom are part of his family.”

Erickson smiled grimly. Humanity had developed an open-ended tolerance of most sexual actions, but there was one exception; the House of Lords and the Royal Family. The Lords had to be formally married to produce children, in order to stay within the Imperial rules on primogeniture; they had to be careful only to marry commoners to keep the blood fresh and young. Sex was fine; procreation outside marriage was not. The Family came first.

Evensong was still speaking. “He’s not listed as a Kerr Worshipper, if he was, the Imperials would have blocked him from commanding ships so close to the Kerr Exclusion Zone, and he has no known political views,” she continued. “Interestingly, he has an award for keeping the 1^st Fleet in order…and you know what that means.”

Erickson frowned. The five main battle fleets were stationed around the Centre Sector…and they were intended to provide back-up for any of the Picket Fleets if they ran into something they couldn’t handle. Some people had actually claimed that the 1^st Fleet, in common with all military units that didn’t actually have anyone to fight, wasn’t ready for anything beyond looking good; Erickson knew that two hundred superdreadnaughts – a force that could have kicked the Greys right out of the Human Sector – were almost unbeatable; he knew that no one could beat the 1^st Fleet…and then it occurred to him that he didn’t know that.

He returned to skimming through the information, which was written in the bombastic style he had come to expect from Home Guard units, not regular units of the Imperial Fleet. The new Committee had sent out messengers to the other sectors, working to put the different sectors back in touch with one another, and had started to re-establish interstellar trade on a fairer level. Erickson, fairly practice at reading between the lines, concluded that the Imperials would be amused to notice just how much of their trade had been stolen by Butler and the other older worlds. They’d slapped back two Kijamanro incursions, but…they hadn’t encountered the Greys. How could they have?

There was nothing about Earth in the file. Nothing about Tarn. Nothing about Lio-Lang, except for a note that the Committee had sent a ship there and it hadn’t returned; yet. He had the unmistakeable sense that, in this case, the lack of information was a very bad sign. If Captain Klamath had known about the Greys, wouldn’t he have tried to urge his foster-parent to hurry? They’d been waiting for hours as Admiral Klamath’s superdreadnaught meandered its way across the system.

“They should let us in,” Lafarge muttered rebelliously. “It’s not like we have a horde of Greys in the hold.”

Erickson nodded, although he had the feeling that they might be very grateful that they were outside the Phase Limit. If Admiral Klamath, who had claimed power at the expense of the Imperials, decided that the Vanguard couldn’t be allowed to go any further, they would have to run. They’d defeated a battlecruiser – with some help – but they couldn’t take on a superdreadnaught.

“Plot us a course directly to Centre,” he ordered. The Committee had clearly included First among its member sectors, which was curious; the Imperials had once had a large settlement there, before their own sector. In any case, he didn’t want to stop there; it was too dangerous. “Keep the drives on standby; if I give the order, I want to be out of here within seconds.”

“They’re reaching communications range,” Lundy said. “Admiral Klamath wants to talk to you on a private channel.”

Erickson stood up. “Patch it through to my office,” he said shortly. “Miriam, you have command; if they light us up, get us out of here.”

His office looked as warm and welcome as ever. He took his seat and activated the display, noting with some surprise the elaborate verification procedures that the semi-AI program insisted he went though, before it deigned to permit him to talk directly to Admiral Klamath. Admiral Klamath seemed to be older than his foster-son; his white face and very white hair, a shade lighter than Admiral Glass’s hair, and more inclined to be suspicious. He had, very clearly, Erickson’s own file open in front of him; absently, Erickson wondered what the Imperials had recorded about him.

“Captain,” Admiral Klamath said shortly, his voice unwelcoming. “How much truth is there in the information about the…Greys?”

Erickson was taken aback and fought hard not to show it. “The information is accurate,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as possible. “The Greys are real, as is the civil war in the Tarn Sector and our desperate need for reinforcements. It won’t be long before the Greys reach here, if they manage to break through the Human Sector and…”

“Your people are very incompetent when it comes to space-based matters,” Admiral Klamath said, cutting Erickson off without embarrassment. His voice tightened. “When every other race that had the capability to move into space did so, yours chose to remain on the ground, despite near-shaves with asteroids and other unpleasant surprises. You doubtless blundered the first contact with the Greys and started the war yourselves.”

Erickson held his face still by sheer force of effort. “Admiral, with all due respect, we have testimonial from Yardmaster Phelps himself, along with other non-humans who were stuck in the sector, including several of your own kind,” he said. “There is little question as to the facts; the Greys set an ambush for a human fleet and wiped it out. The Greys overran a human world and practically destroyed another; we only barely stopped them from doing the same to Earth itself.”

Admiral Klamath seemed unconcerned. “And all of that is real?”

Erickson glared at him. “Sir, I was there,” he snapped. “I have, in that information package I sent you, detailed the designs for an FTL communicator – one that was not invented by humanity, or Imperials, but the Greys! The Greys produced and deployed something that we never developed, we never even thought possible, and who knows what else they have up the sleeves they don’t have?”

Admiral Klamath looked puzzled for a second. Even the best translation software didn’t work perfectly; the Imperials, who had a very simple language – which was also complex at the same time – hadn’t ever really understood human idioms, to say nothing of the idioms of other races. His face twisted in disdain, and then he focused on Erickson again.

“This remains a minor problem, outside the Committee’s jurisdiction,” Admiral Klamath said finally. “Will your…Human Union choose to join the Committee?”

“I think that that will have to wait until we learn what happens to the war,” Erickson said. He had expected many different possibilities, but not complete disdain for the war with the Greys. “Admiral, we need the 1^st Fleet!”

“The 1^st Fleet has two separate missions,” Admiral Klamath said. “In one mission, we will finally remove from existence the Kijamanro, who have been enough of a menace to galactic peace for far too long. My Family remembers how they threatened – they dared to threaten – us, before the Imperials smashed them flat…and if the Imperials had remained content to play a cooperative role, all would have been well. No, they insisted on forming an empire…and now they have abdicated. We will do what they should have done, years ago, and destroy the Kijamanro.”

His voice had risen to a note that grated on Erickson’s ears. “And then…we will be the heirs of the Empire,” Admiral Klamath said, his voice sharp. “There remains only one other thing to do.”

Erickson felt himself shiver slightly. “And that is?”

“We will finally make contact with the Kerr,” Admiral Klamath said. “For far too long, the Imperials have prevented us from making contact with the Gods of old legend; now, we will finally go to them and see them as they always were; Butler’s oldest and greatest friends.”

Once again, Intelligence shows a deplorable lack of intelligence, Erickson thought coldly. Either through concealing his beliefs, or through later conversion, Admiral Klamath had become the Imperials worst fear; a Kerr-worshipper in a position where he could tickle the sleeping dragon called the Kerr. His display showed him, at his command, the Kerr Exclusion Zone; a sphere of space, twenty-light years around the Kerr star, where no spaceflight was permitted at all. Ships that went close to Kerr never came back.

Long-range sensors, from the basic systems like telescopes to much more complex systems, had studied the Kerr star and its planets. It was a normal planetary system, or so it seemed, but there was nothing else special about it. There was no electromagnetic leakage from the system, like Earth and the other Human Union worlds emitted radio and radar leakage; the system was as dark and silent as the grave. It would have seemed ideal to colonise…except it killed anyone who went too close.

The Bulterians had legends about them. How could they not?

Erickson took a breath. “Is that wise?”

Admiral Klamath glared at him. “Wise?” He asked. “We have waited three thousand years for the time we could enter Kerr and bask in the radiance of their glory.”

Erickson blinked. There was something that didn’t quite add up there. Admiral Klamath didn’t seem inclined to give him time to pick at it until he worked out the solution; the Bulterian was giving him icy looks, along with looks that he had no difficulty recognising as contempt and a certain amount of disgust.

“If recent history is anything to go by, the 1^st Fleet will not come back,” Erickson said finally. With Bulterians – and Admiral Klamath - in command, he was starting to wonder if that was such a bad idea. The Committee might end up a worse enemy than the Greys. “Admiral, the Empire is falling to pieces…”

“And we are the ones who will rebuild it,” Admiral Klamath said. He leaned forwards, until his red eyes seemed to be glaring into Erickson’s blue eyes from point-blank range. “We hold the majority of the Empire, us and the other races that were the first to be, willingly or otherwise, incorporated into the Empire. With our gods on our side, we can rebuild the Empire.”

His voice altered. “The Greys will be destroyed when they reach us,” he said. “Your kind…will suffer the punishments for those who are too disruptive; your people have been troublesome here, so we have removed them to other worlds. There are planets undergoing terraforming where they can make the world live…or they can die there. Captain Erickson, as the senior representative of the Imperial Fleet, I am ordering you to hand over your ship at once.”

Erickson took a breath. “No,” he said calmly. He sent a quick message through his implant; they would have to be prepared to run as quickly as they could. “Admiral, I have no authority to hand my ship over to anyone, least of all someone crazy enough to try to knock down the doorway to Kerr.” Admiral Klamath’s face seemed to pale still further. “I have a mission, to contact the Imperials and ask them why they have done what they have done, and I cannot change it because of yours…”

“I have nearly two hundred years in the service,” Admiral Klamath said. His voice had taken on a distantly frustrated air. “I am the senior officer here; hand over your ship!”

Erickson shook his head. “I have never betrayed my oath,” he said. He remembered a brief discussion with his uncle and knew that Chairman Mann would have been proved right by Admiral Klamath; the Bulterian had gone mad. With the Greys and the Kijamanro around, poking the Kerr was madness. “Admiral, I will not…”

The connection broke. “Captain, we’re being targeted,” Lieutenant-Commander Herkimer Branson snapped. “Radar and targeting sensors; they’re locking on.”

Stupid bastard, Erickson thought, with real contempt. Admiral Klamath had never been in a real battle; that much proved it. He was too furious to reflect; he wanted to act, fast, before Admiral Klamath could do something else stupid…like dragging the Vanguard along to visit the Kerr. In fact…

“They have us,” Branson said. His voice rose in alarm. “They’re launching missiles.”

“Get us out of here,” Erickson snapped. There was no time to raise shields; either they escaped, or they didn’t. Everything depended on Lafarge’s speed…and his plotted course. “Now!”

The starship’s lights flickered as it vanished back into Phase Space…moments before a hail of missiles could hit it, and destroy it. The Vanguard fled Butler, running away from Admiral Klamath and the Bulterians…and heading directly towards the formal centre of the Empire. Perhaps…the former centre of the Empire.

Centre.

Chapter Forty-Seven: Poisoned Chalice, Take One

“The good news,” Admiral Glass said, “is that this is almost certainly the place where the attack on Roosevelt was launched from; some ships that were noted as taking part in the attack have appeared here. The bad news is that it’s a tough nut to crack.”

Roland nodded as the display flickered to life in front of them. The crew of the stealth ship – he made a mental note to ensure that they were promoted – had taken plenty of recordings while they had been probing the Zeti Reticuli system; even now, other ships watched from a very safe distance. The Greys had been busy; not only had they shattered a world for their building materials, but they’d destroyed a world, long ago.

He looked up at Elspeth, who was sitting next to him. Admiral Glass had raised an eyebrow when he’d seen her, but he’d shown no other reaction; Roland knew that that particular confrontation could not be long delayed. Her research had turned up exactly what he’d hoped to find – the location of the Grey base – but it had also opened up a major can of worms. Destroying the Grey base would be…tricky.

Glass’s voice echoed over the table. “As you can see, the Greys have fifty-seven superdreadnaughts – three more were observed leaving during the period of observation – and several dozen other ships, including light cruisers, heavy cruisers and more of their damned antistarfighter craft. While there is no indication that they have detected our probes, they have to have taken precautions, particularly after we hit them at New Brooklyn. Just to make that point, we have this…”

The display altered; a webbing of energy surrounded the Grey base. “We got very lucky,” Glass observed, his voice showing the first hint of real emotion; relief. “Commander Avishai Sumrall deserves a promotion and a mention in the next honours list; her people located this before one of our ships tried to cross it. The Greys have somehow – God alone knows how – wrapped this…web of energy around their base and most of their outposts; if a cloaked ship, or even a stealth ship, tried to cross it, the alarms would go off. Repeating the New Brooklyn stunt won’t work here; the bastards have managed to adapt far too well to us.”

He nodded to Captain Jeremy Damiani, who took control of the display. “Intelligence has put all material on this system - Zeti Reticuli – under a very tight lock; surprise will be of the utmost importance if we are actually to attack this system,” he said. “Analysis has been limited to one team, collecting the material sent back via fastship from the observation scouts; we have made a decision to limit the use of the Grey Communicators so close to their star. Furthermore, it has been ordered that no starship is to go within two AUs of the…early warning system, which limits what we can collect, but there is no other choice.”

The display altered. “Despite that,” he continued, “we have actually been able to gather a considerable amount of information, starting with the fact that the devastation surrounding Zeta1 was apparently…created at the same time as the Invasion, give or take a hundred years. Until we are able to have a team of proper researchers visit the ruins, we will know nothing else about the race that lived there or who killed them, but it seems unlikely to be the Grey homeworld. We haven’t dared land, yet, but all the dead tech floating around in orbit seems to be much less advanced than Grey tech; we’re talking dawn of the space age here.”

He paused. “That’s beside the point at the moment,” he said, as Glass coughed meaningfully. Roland concealed a smile as Damiani flushed slightly. “We have been able to determine a great deal about the Grey base – or mobile base, as I should say – and, as the Admiral pointed out, it’s not going to be an easy nut to crack. It seems to be based along the same lines as Morgan’s Hold, which means that it might be able to go FTL on its own.”

Grand Admiral Sir Pascal Schmidt scowled. The Commander in Chief of the Sol Home Guard looked grim; Zeti Reticuli was only a few days from Earth at most. The thought of those superdreadnaughts attempting to repeat the Battle of Earth had to be terrifying to him, even though Earth’s defences were much stronger than they had been, months ago.

“So that’s where Morgan got his ship,” Schmidt said, his voice icy. “The Greys loaned him one of theirs.”

Damiani hesitated. “I wouldn’t say that the Greys built it,” he said, altering the display to throw up images of both monstrous starships. “As you can see, sir, they both have clear signs of being built by a technology inferior to Grey technology, inferior to such a degree that they have neither FTL, drive fields, or artificial gravity. The refitting came later, and, if the reports from Morgan’s Hold are accurate, wasn’t complete enough to remove the need for spinning the ship; the Greys clearly had limitations to how much they could do to the Hold.”

Roland scowled, sharing a worried look with Admiral Glass. He’d asked Captain Baldson to ask Morgan about what the Greys had done to the Hold, but the wily pirate had so far refused to disclose much, even as pirate ships started to look for Grey homeworlds on the other side of the…Alliance. He ground his teeth as he thought of the Alliance; once the Grey War was over, he would see how the pirates treated their conquests…and if it was evil, he would do whatever it took to end it.

“However, this one is not spinning, and indeed seems to be being treated as a mobile shipyard,” Damiani said. The image of the new Grey mobile base appeared in front of them, surrounded by armed starships and deployed weapons. Without the spin, could it move faster in normal space? “The Greys have several superdreadnaughts, including at least one we think was at Roosevelt – it wasn’t easy to get a line on its drives so we’re not entirely certain – being repaired; I suspect that the starship can actually carry smaller ships in its main bays, either repairing them or giving them whatever the Grey equivalent of shore leave is. It’s a bloody big target…and that’s the only good thing we can say about it.”

The display pulled out, revealing the defences around the Grey base. “Apart from the mobile units, there are literally thousands of drones on constant patrol,” Damiani said. “We can’t prove it, not without closer observation, but we think that the drones are literally launched from the big ship – the mothership, to use a term from the old literature – as there are no Grey carriers present. The Greys have deployed thousands of orbital weapons platforms, some of them larger than any we have deployed around Earth…and they’ve mined some of the approach routes to the mothership. In effect, if this is not the single most heavily protected…thing in Grey space, I hate to think what might be much more protected.”

There was a long pause. “That…was rather worrying,” Roland said finally. There were some grim chuckles; he wanted to hold Elspeth, just long enough to draw strength from her. Her face was pale and wan; her father didn’t look much better. “We wanted to know where the Grey base was…and we found it; what now?”

Glass looked up at him. “I have been giving the matter some thought,” he said, as calmly as if he was discussing the latest sporting results. “The…mothership, to use Commander Damiani’s term, is powerful, but it’s not impregnable. It has one weakness that New Brooklyn never had; it is right in the centre of the Human Union and we can concentrate against it with ease.”

He looked down at the display, then around the room, his white hair seeming to shine in the cold light of the display. The secured conference room, deep enough under the Earth to give a claustrophobia nightmares for life, seemed bitterly cold as Glass spoke quickly, as if he didn’t want to remember the words after speaking them. Roland felt chilled as Glass outlined his plan…and knew that there was no choice.

“We have little choice, but to try to destroy it,” Glass said softly, almost whispering. “That ship…is something that we never expected to face, but we should have done after seeing Morgan’s Hold. Unlike the base we destroyed above New Brooklyn, this one can move; if we attack it and fail, the Greys will move it, rather than sticking around for us to try again. We cannot move the Sirius Yard; that thing is just as dangerous as the Yard and it can move. We will have one – one – shot at it, or we will have to start hunting for it all over again.”

He altered the display. “We can destroy it,” he said, “but we have to accept that our own losses will be heavy, right from the start.” A hiss of indrawn breath. “We have to come in with overwhelming force, both to ensure its destruction and to provide a possibility of being able to pull back – fight our way out – if things go badly. We will also need time to build up and make preparations, which will run the additional risk of the Greys either tumbling to what we’re up to and moving the mothership, or the Greys putting those ships to work and attacking us somewhere alarming enough to distract us. Fifty-odd superdreadnaughts…there can only be three or four worlds here that could stand them off, let alone destroy them.”

The display flickered. “We have the forty superdreadnaughts from Tarn,” he said, “and so far we have been careful to ensure that there has been no clue about them in the media. Although some pundits have been predicting that we have a secret shipyard somewhere, most of the media simply thinks that we have been moving people from Roosevelt and New Brooklyn to other fleet yards, getting them trained up on newer ships. In addition, if we plan it properly, we can gather together fifteen more superdreadnaughts, from the ships that are new construction and the units that are being repaired after New Brooklyn.”

He took a breath. “We can pull together ten fleet and assault carriers, along with several dozen converted escort carriers and support ships, which will give us three thousand starfighters, along with some of our more capable antistarfighter ships. We built a few of them, using the Grey idea as a template, and we have been looking forward to testing them against Grey drones. Those ships, Your Highness, will tip the balance of power in our favour, particularly if we include Project Omega.”

Roland frowned, feeling almost as if he’d been punched in the belly. When he’d first heard of the concept, he’d wanted to vomit – and then ban the person who had suggested it from the palace. Admiral Glass had argued that it made sense to develop the capability…and so Project Omega had been born.

Glass sensed his hesitation. “It might save us from losing more ships,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t advise it under other circumstances, but…”

Roland nodded. “Deploy it,” he said, harshly. Elspeth gave him a concerned look. She was starting to know him…and Roland welcomed that; later, he would tell her what he'd ordered…and then he would know if she would still…like…love…him. “What about support elements?”

“We’ll call in units from several different star systems and Home Guard units,” Glass said. If he recognised the worry on Roland’s face, he didn’t show it. “That should give us up to a hundred supporting starships, backing up the heavy hitters; I’m reluctant to draw down our defences any further.” He paused again. “Without the Tarn Fleet, hitting that…bloody mothership would be utterly impossible.”

Roland nodded. The Sol Picket had started out with nine superdreadnaughts; thanks to Yardmaster Phelps and the Sirius Yards, they’d ended up with twenty-one, and then the Home Guards had started to produce their own units as construction capability was spread out. If they hadn’t had starfighters – something the Greys seemed incapable of deploying themselves – they would have lost the war by now.

“We owe Captain Erickson a vote of thanks and a peerage,” Roland said softly. “Admiral, how long until you can launch your attack?”

Glass hesitated. “Around a month, perhaps six weeks,” he said. “We have to bring the ships home from Tarn, and then get all of the support elements into position to support the fleet…and we have to do it all without tipping off the Greys. That’s not going to be easy; they have to have this star system and the others under surveillance, and they’ll notice some ships moving out of position and – perhaps – wonder why. If they do that…”

Roland nodded. “We can afford to take the time to do it properly,” he said grimly. He looked around the room. “Are there any final statements?”

“Only one,” Admiral Glass said. “I would like to take personal command of the fleet.”

Roland lifted an eyebrow. “Admiral?”

“I’m the most experienced officer in this kind of operation,” Glass said softly. “I have experience serving in fleets of two hundred starships, more than Martin or Commodore Middleton or any of the other American officers have. I have to take command personally, Your Highness; it’s the only way to ensure that we have the best chance at winning.”

Roland looked down at the table. “What happens if we lose?”

“We will still hurt them,” Glass said. “Assuming total disaster, we can still keep the vital elements of the Human Union covered…and we have the expanded building program. It won’t cost us the war, it’ll just put us back a few years.”

Roland held his eyes for a long moment. “Very well, Admiral,” he said finally. He could use his discretion in such matters. “The command is yours.”

***

Elspeth was unable, just for a moment, to believe her ears. As her father bowed, as the other participants in the meeting got up to leave, she muttered a hasty goodbye to Roland and followed her father out of the conference room, back to the lift up to the main body of the Palace.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” her father said to Damiani, who was trying to discuss something with him. “Elspeth?”

She allowed him to lead her into his private quarters in the Palace. She’d been surprised to discover that everyone who came was assigned quarters, although she understood that before the Grey Communicator, often people had to spend days or weeks in negotiation before returning home. Like all such quarters, it was comfortable and surprisingly welcoming.

She turned to face him as he closed the door. “What are you doing?”

Glass held her eyes. “My duty,” he said, his voice tightly controlled. They hadn’t had a proper talk for far too long. “There’s no choice…”

“There’s always a choice,” Elspeth snapped, her voice on the verge of breaking. “You left my mother, you left me, and you left everything to carry out your duty!” This time, she did cry; tears falling down her face. You’re just an old warhorse, going out to fight one last battle!”

Glass reached out to put an arm around her and she pushed him away angrily. “I have no choice,” Glass said, his voice soft and very reasonable. “There’s no one else as experienced as I am in these matters. Oh, Elspeth, I wish that things had been different, but…”

“I was at home, with Mum, waiting for you,” Elspeth said. “You came home from time to time, and I wanted you to stay! Everyone else said that I had a famous daddy, but my daddy never came home and then mum decided to replace you and then that was…”

She broke down and sobbed. “It’s going to be all right,” Glass said softly. She let him hold her this time. “I’ll come back to you, and I won’t leave again.”

“I’m not stupid,” Elspeth snapped, angrily. “You’ll have to command thrusts into Grey space, because it’s the only way you can win the war. You’ll have to leave me again.”

“You and the Prince,” Glass said. Elspeth, inanely, found herself blushing. “I saw the way you two were looking at one another.”

Elspeth felt…strange. Glass produced a Fleet-issue handkerchief and wiped her face with it. “I…I didn’t realise that everyone knew,” Elspeth said. The moment she said it, she realised how stupid it was; the media had worked that out long ago. “I think…do you mind?”

Glass looked…pensive. “I refused a Lordship, and then a Dukedom,” he said. “I have never thought that the aristocrats were the best people to be running things, although young Roland is doing well. I didn’t want that for my family, however - answer me a question; do you love him?”

Elspeth hesitated. “Yes…no…I don’t know,” she said. “I just…I just like him, and then I liked him more, and then…”

Glass smiled and gave her a hug. “Make up your mind first,” he said. “The life of a Prince Consort or Emperor Consort is not an easy one, and Emperor David won’t be around much longer. Once his disease reaches the brain…”

He frowned slightly. “You may find yourself in a very public role,” he warned her. “The media loves royal relationships and Roland has the most important role in their eyes; he has to find a wife and produce a few children to carry on the line. They will think of you as…their animated doll, and that can be worse than serving under a Captain Bligh.” He paused. “Be careful, whatever you do; you will always be my daughter.”

Elspeth pulled herself together. “I know,” she said. There was a hint of bitterness in her voice. “I am never allowed to forget that.”

Chapter Forty-Eight: Poisoned Chalice, Take Two

“The plan is a bold one,” Yardmaster Talik said, as they studied the plan in silence. The sheer scale of the Grey mothership had silenced any criticism of the plan; they had to take it out, quickly, before the Greys could move it again. “Do you believe that it can be carried out?”

Admiral Grak-Ka looked over at Admiral Solomon, and then waved his fronds in a manner suggesting agreement. “It can be done,” he said, slowly. “I can’t say that I’m happy taking the starships out of here, but there’s no choice.”

“No,” David Symons agreed. His starship, the Responsive, had been one of the first superdreadnaughts to be fully crewed; he had confided privately to Solomon that he was delighted to be out of the political struggle. Now that both sides were actually talking, which the Yardmaster serving as a political go-between, they didn’t need him any more. “We have to hit that place with everything we can scrape up and throw at it.”

He scowled. “We should just concentrate everything we have and hit them,” he said. “We need everything, sir; we could put a hundred superdreadnaughts into the battle if we tried.”

“It would take too long and leave everywhere else undefended,” Solomon said. He understood the impulse, but they didn’t dare leave anywhere completely uncovered, not now that they knew what happened to worlds the Greys invaded. If that happened again, the Human Union might well fragment into nothing…and then the Greys would just walk in and take over. “I think that Admiral Glass’s plan is the best one.”

Symons blinked. “Sir, he’s taken command from you,” he protested. “You’re the commanding officer of this force…”

“Strictly speaking,” Admiral Grak-Ka said, “he hasn’t. He has assumed command of the Main Strike Fleet, which just happens to include the forty superdreadnaughts we have here, along with every other ship and weapon that we can scrape up.” He moved across the room, moving in a fashion that in a human would unquestionably be called slouching. His massive black body, so alien and yet so…understandable, turned to face them. “I believe that we need to speed up our plans.”

Solomon nodded. “I think that you’re right,” he said. He had considered proposing it, but politically, it was too difficult; it had to be proposed by one of the leaders of the opposing factions. “How many additional men could you send?”

Jared Barr looked at him. “I can spare an additional five thousand, if you want to get some of the smaller ships ready,” he said, clearly unwilling to be outdone by a Tarn. “I had crews rotating constantly during the war; they have experience, all they need is ships.”

“I could spare two superdreadnaughts,” Admiral Grak-Ka said, his fronds waving agitatedly. “I could call them here from Tarn, now that we have peace and some attempts to restart the local economy.”

Solomon kept the smile from forming on his face though his implants; the Tarn House of Lords had accidentally given the humans a massive boost when it came to economics – the fighting in the Tarn System between the security forces and the Rehash had ruined much of the industry. Kathmandu’s industry remained intact; they would almost certainly end up as the economic powerhouse of the sector…assuming, of course, that they chose to remain in the sector. If the Empire’s fall was not halted, somehow, Kathmandu’s people might well choose to join the Human Union instead.

Admiral Grak-Ka looked irritated. Perhaps he’d been having similar thoughts. “I think that we have to continue building here as well,” he continued. Barr nodded; for once, he was in total agreement with his opponent. “If we can get the next set of superdreadnaughts ready in time…”

“We won’t,” Yardmaster Talik said flatly. The Imperial had taken his seat at the head of the table; he now peered at them through his long thin fingers. Bright eyes glittered as he eyed the display. “There are twenty superdreadnaughts in various stages of construction, but it will take at least two months to get the first one ready, unless the offensive is delayed. Frankly, I don’t think that we have much of a chance to do that, do we?”

His tone was deliberately light. Admiral Solomon sensed his reluctance to commit his ships to open battle without some guarantee that they would be fine, but in the end, he’d made his choice to side with humanity and the Human Union when Captain Erickson had passed through. His fingers kept twitching, his eyes kept blinking; they were all sure signs of nervousness.

“I don’t think so,” Admiral Solomon said finally. He studied the display with concern. “There’s at least a month from here to the rendezvous point, even assuming that we don’t have any problems along the way, which really gives us a few days to get everything ready. We can take every ship we have that’s in working order – the Tarn ships can meet us at the rendezvous point on their own – and meet up with the crewmen from Kathmandu…”

He shook his head. “No, we have enough crewmen here, but if the crewmen from Kathmandu come here instead, they can crew the next generation of ships,” he said, changing his mind. “That would speed up construction by at least a week, perhaps more; that would give us an additional twenty ships, given time. They might be able to take part in the first attack into Grey space.”

Barr nodded reluctantly. “I believe that you have the right idea,” he said. “I wish that we had people taking part in the direct attack on the target star” – Solomon hadn’t been told where the Grey base actually was – “but I do understand your logic.” He brightened slightly. “At least we’ll be taking part in the first offensive into Grey space.”

“You make it sound like a good thing,” Yardmaster Talik said. Solomon frowned; he had wondered if the Yardmaster knew anything about the Greys, but his attempts to probe had been brushed off. Yardmaster Phelps, the classified note had made clear, had known something…and there were very clear indications that the Greys had been around since the time of the Invasion. “We will be fighting this war for years, at least until we can find and destroy their homeworlds.”

Solomon nodded. “I think that we all know what we have to do,” he said. “We have four days to get the fleet ready to move out, so let’s get on with it; once we’re on our way, we’ll have time to get everything into shape…and prepare to test the new weapons on targets that actually shoot back.”

Four and a half days later, seventy starships, including forty superdreadnaughts, set out to join the attack fleet.

***

Admiral Glass studied the attack plan, as refined by Captain Jeremy Damiani, and made notes while waiting for his guest. Corey – her presence a silent reminder that there was something missing in his life – drifted in and out behind him; some in the media had wondered just what they were doing together. Glass…had not taken advantage of her, like many body-slaves were taken advantage of by their new owners, but the media hadn’t cared for fact. He was half-surprised that Elspeth hadn’t thrown that in his face.

The door bleeped at him; Glass tilted his head in its direction, using his implants to send an open command to the door, and it hissed open. Corey made herself scarce as Doctor Glen Finney entered the room, dressed in a dirty lab coat. Glass lifted an eyebrow, knowing that Finney must have forgotten to dress properly again, which meant that he’d found something interesting in his new captive.

“Doctor,” he said, eyeing Finney’s outfit with as much disdain as he could muster. Finney had done well, after all; they wouldn’t know half so much about the Greys as they did without him. “Have you come to see me off?”

Finney blinked. “So the rumours that an offensive is planned are actually true,” he said. Glass scowled; he’d hoped that even rumours wouldn’t get out on Titan, let alone the rest of the solar system. The more people who knew, the greater the chance that someone would pass the information to the media, or perhaps the Greys. Intelligence suspected that at least one person had been subverted by the Greys, which meant that they might hear something…

He made a face. The pre-Invasion spymasters had had it easy. They hadn’t had to worry about aliens who could implant humans and make them do their bidding…or perhaps they had. They’d clearly known about the Greys, and they’d done nothing; had they tried to do something and failed? The reports were contradictory and confusing; he made a mental note to talk to Yardmaster Phelps himself when he returned from Zeti Reticuli.

The Target Star, he reminded himself. Life had been much simpler before they had become suspicious that the Greys had some telepathic capability. I must keep thinking of it as Target Star.

“We’re off on a little trip,” he said shortly. The security settings on the display had blanked it automatically when Finney entered. “If you’re coming to tell me that I’m too important for it, don’t bother; I’ve had it already from Johanna.”

Finney shrugged. “Something has come up,” he said. “Our captive has asked to talk to you.”

Glass felt his head come up sharply. “The…so-called master has decided to talk to me?”

“Yes,” Finney said. He sensed more than saw Corey’s presence as she entered with a cup of tea for him and a mug of coffee for Finney. “The Grey has asked if he can talk to you again.”

“I can’t go, not now,” Glass said. “If the…oh hell, if the Master is telepathic, it could lead to disaster.”

“There’s only limited proof that the Master Greys are telepathic,” Finney said. His eyes glittered. “Unfortunately, only one other race is known to be telepathic, and that race seems to be completely different from our Mr Master. I can’t get into his brain without killing him – I sent a batch of nanites in to have a look around and discovered that his own nanites killed them – but there don’t seem to be any of the normal telepathic markers…”

Glass clenched his teeth. “Can’t you just hook him up to an interrogation implant?”

“Not unless you want him dead,” Finney said. “It took the Imperials years to get the process right for humanity – and Mr Master is the only sample we have. Incidentally, do you know we managed to get the first useful piece of information out of him?”

“No,” Glass said. “I thought that I ordered that any change was to be reported to me, at once.”

Finney managed to look both abashed and defiant. “You have too much else on your plate,” he said. “Three of the mothers started to die, so I asked Master what was wrong; he actually seemed concerned about the children.” His voice seemed to break slightly. “It turns out that the children need some supplements that the human female doesn’t provide; once we knew, we started to pump it into the mothers and they all recovered.”

“They must have just given it to them in the camps,” Glass said. He activated the display and called up the image of the Grey. “What are the children going to be?”

“Hybrids,” Finney said. “As I told you before, that’s supposed to be impossible…but, you know, so was FTL communication. Incidentally, do you know that the bastards have fucked up their own DNA-analogue? I don’t know how, but they’ve actually altered it slightly in ways I would have considered impossible, and then compressed it down so much that we can’t get a clear read. You can read basic human DNA within moments, using a medical scanner; the Grey DNA-analogue is so compressed that it will take us at least a month to unlock it all.”

He paused. “You know, I’m pretty convinced that the Greys endured a biological attack, sometime in the past,” he said. “Their DNA-analogue has all manner of problems, from broken strands of DNA-analogue to entire chains that seem to have been hit with virus attacks well beyond anything thought possible. God alone knows how advanced the people who did that were, but Admiral, we might have an ally out there, somewhere.”

“Or perhaps the Greys got them,” Glass said. He sighed. “Please explain to Master that I’ll be along to see him after I return from the Target Star. We’ll talk then.”

Finney nodded and left the room. “Master,” Corey said, from behind Glass, “are you going to leave me behind?”

Glass nodded. Corey’s trick with the Grey datanet had only worked once; he knew that it wouldn’t work again. He turned slightly to face her, knowing that she was not exactly in perfect control of herself, and tried to smile. She looked almost like a kicked puppy, her big eyes luminous with tears, and he felt like a bully.

“You should take me,” Corey said. She stepped forward until their bodies were touching; her hands touching him in all the right places. Glass found himself, despite himself, becoming aroused; it had been too long since he'd been with a woman. It was becoming impossible to think as her hands roamed over him. “Can I go see the Grey?”

It was hard, almost impossible, to remember what she was; her hands were skilfully undressing him…and a single touch to the collar of her outfit brought it falling down around her legs. She was naked under her outfit, one that body-slaves by law had to wear, and Glass felt himself growing weaker as she gently stroked his manhood. Discipline fled, restraint fled, as Corey took him into her mouth and brought him to the boil, and then let go of him, her kisses running up his body until she could pull him inside her…and he lost all control. His hands clutched and squeezed at her breasts and buttocks; his member fought to get deeper and deeper inside her…

“Yes,” he breathed, as Corey brought him to a shattering climax. Nothing had been like it, nothing. “Yes…”

Two days later, he set out for the meeting point.

***

The report from the third doctor had not been encouraging, Lord Collins found, mentally cursed the massive expenditure on the doctors, none of whom had been able to find anything wrong with the three who had returned from Harmony. He was half-inclined to wonder if he was imagining things, except Samantha, at least, no longer responded like a human. Something had been done to her, at Harmony; something that had warped her into a Grey. She had to have been implanted, but…how? How had the Greys done it without leaving some traces?

He scowled as he sat back in his massive chair and thought hard. His position was still weak, despite what was being called his greatest speech ever; he dared not attempt to ask for more official help, and he certainly could not ask the three of them to step into examining chambers. He had given some thought to simply having Sara and Samantha executed – then daring the Greys to prove anything if they bothered to unmask him from a safe distance – but he couldn’t do that to Kevin. If a Heir died, the first thing that the Prince Regent would do would be to order him to be interrogated…and everything would come out. He knew that Kevin was no longer Kevin, but he didn’t know how it was done…and his enemies would be happy to use it against him. They would accuse him of spilling family blood…

The worst of it was that he was considering that as the best possible option.

He blinked as his computer reported the arrival of a message, heavily encrypted with his personal code, rather than commercial ciphers he was mortally certain that Imperial Intelligence would have penetrated six ways from Sunday. That meant it had to come from one of his sources, one of the people who sent information to him in exchange for rewards of one kind or another. He opened the message and read it…and felt his heart sink.

His informant…had caused him a great deal of trouble. Lord Collins muttered curses under his breath as he skimmed though; his friend had discovered that a major human attack was being planned, on a newly discovered Grey base. He didn’t know the location, and he admitted that he only believed that it was a Grey base, but there seemed to be no obvious target apart from Harmony. Lord Collins struggled, trying to decide what to do, and came up with nothing.

His wife had died years ago; his daughter, who seemed to have lost out to Admiral Glass’s daughter, was far away in the Imperial City. There was no one he could talk to about the Grey base established in his very own mansion; he certainly couldn’t take it to Prince Roland or one of the security services – they’d have him shot on the spot. If someone from Roosevelt caught him…it didn’t bear thinking about. He had sold out Roosevelt…and the Americans would be utterly unmerciful.

Where could he go that was safe?

He took a breath and deleted the message, making a mental note to stay out of Samantha’s way for a few days. If he kept his mouth shut, the Greys would have no reason to suspect that he knew something; if he could lie to the House of Lords, he could lie to the Greys. He wiped the computer memory, just in case, and pulled himself to his feet. He had a sudden urge to go visit another of his properties, but he felt pleased with himself; for once, he had done the right thing.

It was just as well he didn’t know about the computer tap Samantha had installed.

It would only have upset him.

Chapter Forty-Nine: To the Heart of Empire, Take One

“All of this,” Erickson said, “raises an interesting question. Do we come out of Phase Drive at Centre with shields up and weapons ready?”

Evensong looked up at him thoughtfully. Hours from Centre, there was no question of being off-duty, or at least more off-duty than they already were, but she still looked hauntingly lovely. Her lips twitched slightly as she thought, her mind racing; Erickson knew that it was one issue he’d refrained from thinking about…but it couldn’t be put off any longer.

The Vanguard had taken no damage at Butler; fortunate, as that many missiles would have almost certainly blown the starship apart, shields or no shields. The crew’s morale had suffered, however; many of the senior officers, as opposed to the enlisted men, had still thought of themselves as belonging to the Empire…and the treachery at Butler had stunned them. The Imperial Fleet had been above politics…until it had been dragged into the fires of civil war. The Imperials…might just present them with even more treachery.

“That would be considered an act of rebellion under normal circumstances,” Evensong pointed out dryly. Erickson smiled grimly; normal circumstances had changed…and were unlikely to return to normal, anytime soon. “I mean, we’re talking about the most heavily protected world in the sector – in the Empire. If we turn up looking hostile, they might just open fire…seeing that we have no idea of the emergence zones here.”

Erickson scowled. Most star systems had emergence zones; regions around the Phase Limit where starships were suppose to emerge…with starships that appeared away from the emergence zones being considered hostile. Centre would have its own, he was sure…but they had no idea where they were. He’d considered trying to put in at one of the other worlds in the sector, just to ask, but he'd dismissed the thought. The sense that time was running out was growing stronger…and it would still take time to get any help at all back to Earth, even assuming that the Imperials acted quickly to recover their power. If Butler was any indication…

He closed his eyes. The remainder of the Empire couldn’t be like that, could it?

“We won’t be appearing anywhere they would expect to see us,” Erickson agreed. He considered the thought, looking for any possible way out, and shook his head. There wasn’t one. “We could always just keep the drive cycling; we could hop out if they opened fire, unless we’re really unlucky and we appear next to an energy-armed fortress. It’s a shame we don’t have locations on them, but…”

Evensong smiled. The Imperials might have heard of the word ‘overkill,’ but they’d clearly never learned what it meant; the information in the public domain about Centre’s defences – which was almost certain to be incomplete – suggested a combination of paranoia and obsessive-mindedness that could only be tolerated by a mind that commanded unlimited resources and a willingness to waste them. Centre was surrounded by armed fortresses, armed stations, hundreds of starships…and they’d ringed the Phase Limit with fortresses. The defences had been built up over thousands of years; they would have cost the Imperials more than the Human Union’s annual GNP to maintain, let alone build.

“We’ll be telling them who we are from the start,” she said. Her face crinkled. “Of course, if they know what’s been happening in Butler, they might be unimpressed by our Fleet credentials.”

Erickson scowled. “I can’t believe that it went bad, so fast,” he said. “It’s been barely nine months since the Empire…retreated from the Human Union.”

“I wish I could say that I was surprised,” Evensong said. Her face seemed to darken. “There were originally five or seven – it depends which races you count – that had been around near here before the Empire was founded. They used to think of the Imperials as just another race…and then the Imperials founded the Empire and started to pull them all into their orbit. Some of them, perhaps like that idiot who wants to go poke the Kerr, might have dreamed that they were equal to the Imperials, but everyone else knew better.”

She smiled bitterly. “And now, the Empire has decided to withdraw, they have decided that they’re going to stop paying homage to the Empire,” she said. “Some of them will have pushed the others into rebellion, and they really don’t like the fact that the Imperials regarded the newer races, the younger races, as equal – well, equal under them, at least.”

Her hand reached out and gave his a squeeze. “I read through that promotional material they sent,” she said. “Shorn of the crazy desire to attempt to poke the Kerr, which is bound to end badly, they want to re-establish the Empire, but on their terms…bad news for humanity, and the Tarn, and the…”

Erickson laughed. “That would surprise Admiral Grak-Ka,” he said bitterly. “Having fought a civil war against humans, he would find himself rapidly reduced to the status of second-class citizen by Admiral Klamath and his people.”

“I know,” Evensong said. “My guess – I can’t prove it – is that they intend to destroy the Kijamanro, and then go on to take the place of the Imperials. Given what they’re saying and doing a lot of reading between the lines, they intend to set up a new economic structure that would concentrate on rebuilding, putting much of the power in their hands, and then expanding out towards Earth. I think – again, it can’t be proved - that they thought that we humans would have waged a civil war and destroyed ourselves.”

“They weren’t far wrong,” Erickson said. Admiral Grak-Ka had waged a civil war with humans, after all; taking the Sirius Yards had nearly prompted a human civil war. “Without the Greys, we might have ended up fighting one…but what about the Imperial Fleet? Didn’t they try to prevent it?”

“Admiral Klamath was the fleet’s commanding officer,” Evensong reminded him. Erickson nodded ruefully; he'd forgotten that for a moment. “Imperial Intelligence clearly dropped the ball on that one; clearly, he must have been a member of any number of underground factions for a very long time, long enough to plan for the fall of the Empire.”

“There are times when it feels as if we humans were the only race that knew nothing about the coming Collapse until it hit us,” Erickson growled. He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Why didn’t we know?”

“We were further from Centre and we got more of the doctored information,” Evensong said softly. “By the time we realised that something was wrong, it was far too late to make many preparations, even if the Greys hadn’t been around to cause trouble. If Yardmaster Phelps had obeyed orders and headed towards Centre, we would have been smashed flat by the Greys.”

Erickson nodded, remembering Roosevelt. “I think that whatever’s happening at Butler will have to wait,” he said grimly. The main problem was the Greys…although if the Greys did break through the Human Union and then swept on into Tarn, it was unlikely that they could be stopped short of Butler itself. “If we stop the Greys, or at least make contact with the Imperials, then we can deal with Butler?”

He shrugged. “Do you remember anything else about the Kerr?”

“Nothing other than what I told you,” Evensong said. She looked up at the starchart, displaying their location…and the Kerr Exclusion Zone, a glowing red sector, blinking a steady red. They’d skirted the outskirts of the zone, but Erickson hadn’t wanted to risk stopping to investigate; if they vanished there, no one would know what had become of them. “Just odd legends that spacers tell, from time to time; that said, most encounters are reported as being on the Rim, rather than this close to the Exclusion Zone.”

“I know most of the stories,” Erickson said. “Massive black bat ships, seen in remote corners of space; wrecked worlds wrecked by unknown forces. Strange and terrifying encounters on the Rim, with nothing ever proven or recorded; people vanishing and appearing, years later, far from where they had been.”

He snorted. “Nothing was ever proven,” he said. “Most of the losses tended to coincide with pirate activity, so there was an explanation right there. If these…alien ships did really exist, why hasn’t anyone taken a visual image?”

“Legend is much more wonderful than fact,” Evensong said dryly, as she stood up. Seeing her, Erickson wanted her…and knew that they had no time. “If people looked too closely at the legends, people would start wondering why we bothered to have legends, or the occasional Contact Fleet that heads off into the unknown, trying to discover the mythical race of elder beings that are supposed to exist.” She smiled. “We have the Kerr as a real-life mystery; we don’t need black bat ships.”

Erickson laughed. The Imperial Fleet had a name for people who headed off into the unknown in search of fabled worlds and wonders; idiots. Many of them didn’t come back, although from time to time the survey service stumbled across worlds that had been colonised by the survivors of those fleets. All of them, invariably, claimed to have found El Dorado…and it was gravely included in the founding legends of that colony.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s time to have the Council of War.”

The Imperial Fleet preferred to avoid Councils of War, not least because the Captain was supposed to exert total authority over his ship. Some Captains refused to call them, or to accept their advice; one Captain had once famously started that “there are four ayes, and one nay, mine. The nays have it.” Erickson would have preferred to have avoided the requirement, but as they were heading in towards Centre, the Council was mandated by the mission briefing.

“This meeting will come to order,” he said, ten minutes later. “The security and recording settings are in effect; please be careful what you say as it may be used in evidence against you.”

There were some chuckles. The ship’s computer would record everything – literally – that was said within the room. That had caused some embarrassment to crews in the past, including court martial threats and charges of plotting mutiny. Starship crews weren’t generally recorded, although it was common sense to have monitors in the more exposed parts of the ship; Erickson knew that mutinies had been threatened over Captains who had recorded everything that happened on their ships.

He nodded to Chief Engineer Jorge Allmanritter, who spoke first. “We have everything in working condition, holding up better than I had dared hope,” he said. “Although if we’d been hit, it would have been a lot worse, but the Phase Drive and the normal drive are both operating at normal levels, along with their back-up systems. We took the opportunity to replace several components from the drive and the support systems while we were in transit; the newer components have bonded perfectly into the system.”

He took a breath before continuing. “Our weapons and sensors are in good condition,” he continued. His eyes swept the room. “Of course, finding replacements for the drones that we lost during the visit to Tarn was difficult – the new drones are not really as…capable as the ones we had modified following the first battles of the Grey War.”

Erickson smiled to himself. Yardmaster Talik had been unpleasantly surprised to learn how many improvements humanity had made in the field of warfare and weapons technology, almost more surprised than he’d been over the Grey Communicator. Now, Erickson would have bet on the Vanguard against a Butler-crewed heavy cruiser of the same class; the Butler ship could hardly have acquired the same combat experience as the Vanguard’s crew.

“So we’re basically ready for anything,” he said, before Allmanritter could continue. He nodded instead. “Tactical?”

Branson smiled grimly. “We have been drilling, and drilling, and drilling, using the old rebellion protocols to serve as the simulated enemy,” he said. Erickson scowled; the rebellion protocols presumed that a single Imperial Fleet starship had gone rogue and had to be hunted down. Several starship captains had done just that, from time to time; it was still something only talked about in whispers. The concept of actually attacking Centre itself…he shuddered; only a Grey could come up with such a horror. If Butler felt that it’s plans to re-establish the Empire on its terms were being threatened, would they try to attack Centre themselves? They resented their long subordination…

“We are fairly confident that we can hold off any attacking Imperial Fleet starship long enough to escape back into Phase Space,” Branson continued. “Officer Bone has actually managed to destroy several simulated battlecruisers, although, to be fair, the enemy destroyed him many more times. Once we’re on the opposite side of the Phase Limit, the wrong one from our point of view, it gets…just a little bit harder.”

“I want your department ready to start shooting if we are attacked,” Erickson said. He ran his hand through his hair and frowned; he was treating Centre, the heart of the Empire, almost as if it was a deadly threat to him and his ship. He felt dirty. “I hope that we won’t be fired upon at once, but after what happened at Butler – and, for that matter, Tarn – I don’t want to take chances. Helm?”

Lieutenant-Commander Paul Lafarge looked mournful. “The main problem remains spinning back into Phase Space,” he said softly. Erickson frowned; the Vanguard, like all starships, would have to cycle its drive before it could return into FTL and flee. “I have programmed in a series of evasive manoeuvres, but if we are attacked, we might have no choice, but to try to flee in normal space.”

“No change there, then,” Erickson said. He glanced around the room. “Sensors? Communications?”

“No problems in the sensor department,” Lieutenant Kevin Smarts assured him. “We took the opportunity to run sensor calibrations while we were making our jumps through Phase Space; incidentally, look at this.”

He displayed an image, of a star that seemed almost to be half-hidden by…something, in front of them and the room fell silent. “This was picked up after we dropped out of Phase Space for the second time since Butler,” Smarts said. “It’s not included in the star catalogue at all, and…well, it’s in the Kerr Exclusion Zone.”

Erickson found himself leaning forward. “How come no one ever heard of this before?”

Evensong shrugged. “There has to be a reason why the Bulterians worship the Kerr,” she said. “As it’s inside the Exclusion Zone, I guess that Intelligence was asked to cover it up.”

“I see,” Erickson said, feeling his head spin. How could someone – anyone – hide something like that? It defied belief; a star encircled by a shattered Dyson Sphere. Everyone should have heard about it! “Communications?”

“The communicator systems are all working perfectly,” Ensign Lundy assured him, his voice slightly nervous. “I have a message prepared for transmission to the Imperials as soon as we drop out of Phase Space.”

“We are going in with our shields up,” Erickson said, pre-empting the discussion. He held up a hand. “There is little other choice, not given our reception everywhere else we’ve been, so we’re going in with them. If anyone wants to object, say so now and it will be noted in the log.”

There was a long pause. No one spoke. “Stations, then,” Erickson said, feeling a flicker of the old excitement passing through him. “We have a star system to visit…and then, we have to talk to our old masters.”

He took his seat on the bridge and waited. He’d made the decision to emerge out of weapons range – unless the Imperials had invented something new – just in case the Imperials shot at them, rather than asking questions. Time ticked away and he waited, checking on the different stations as they all reported in, until finally Lafarge began the countdown.

“Three, two, one…emergence,” Lafarge said, as the strange lights of Phase Space vanished, to be replaced by a normal starfield. Centre’s sun, at least, was perfectly normal; human children were sometimes told that it was as white as a pearl. “All systems reporting nominal.”

“Transmit our signal,” Erickson ordered. Their emergence could have been detected right across the system. “Sensors…?”

“Nothing to report yet,” Smarts said. His fingers danced over his console. “There’s very little electromagnetic leakage from the system, but that was always true and…missiles incoming, missiles incoming!”

Alarms howled as new and lethal icons spangled into life on the display. “Point defence, engage them,” Erickson snapped, as his eyes flashed up towards his display. Something was very wrong indeed; the missiles were coming from behind their position, homing in unerringly on the Vanguard’s engines, blasting their way through the point defence as they went to terminal attack mode. One struck directly into the shields, blasting a wave of simulated drive harmonics into the drive fields; a second forced pulses of deadly energy through the Phase Drive.

“Phase Drive is out, I repeat, the Phase Drive is out,” Allmanritter’s voice snapped. Erickson flinched at the sudden panic, tightly-controlled, in the engineer’s voice. “I’m going to have to shut the entire system down…”

Erickson said nothing. Their foe had wobbled out of cloak, already locking its weapons on the Vanguard…and he knew that they had lost. There was no mistaking the enemy ship, no misunderstanding what it’s presence met…and he knew that he would never underestimate them again. Their very presence meant that the war was over, at least for his crew; his voice snapped orders, but it was too late.

They knew what it was now.

A Grey battlecruiser.

Chapter Fifty: To the Heart of Empire, Take Two

We are so screwed, Erickson thought. So close and yet so far…

He forced his brain to work. “Helm, evasive action,” he snapped. “Tactical, return fire; launch drones, give us some room!”

They’d beaten a Grey battlecruiser before, but that had been under the command of a pirate, one who hadn’t been fully familiar with the starship and its limitations. The pirates had mixed and matched Grey and Imperial technology, causing the starship to develop a blind spot in its rear, but the ship facing them now was crewed entirely by Greys. It would have no blind spot…and it had them bang to rights. Unless they got lucky, they were almost certain to lose.

Blind rage forced him onwards. “Helm, take us in towards the Phase Limit,” he said, trying to think. If they could recover their Phase Drive, they could escape, but if they couldn’t, their only hope lay with the Imperials. “Engineering; Jorge, speak to me!”

“They’ve buggered us up the arse, Captain,” Allmanritter said, his voice furious at the Grey barbarians who had dared to do that to the ship he maintained. “Fuck alone knows how they did it, but they’ve caused the Phase Drive to fail catastrophically; we need time in a yard to repair. They’ve buggered parts of the drive nodes as well; we can only make a third of our normal speed!”

Erickson winced. The crippled starship couldn’t outrun the Greys and it couldn’t outrun them; they could only hope to defeat it in single combat, and he knew that that was unlikely. The Greys had played it smart; they’d lost the chance to destroy the Vanguard in their first strike, but they’d wrecked the starship’s drives. Now, all they had to do was destroy her…as escape would be almost impossible.

“Launch missiles,” he said, keeping his voice cold and hard. “Helm, keep us moving; Communications, send out a distress call.”

Vanguard shuddered as Branson unleashed the full might of her broadsides towards the Grey ship, which was moving closer and carefully targeting the Vanguard. Missiles launched from its tubes, then it flipped over, exposed its other tubes, and fired again; the battlecruiser had launched twice as many missiles as the Vanguard could launch…

Erickson knew that it was a losing proposition. “Launch decoys,” he snapped. They already had drones disrupting some of the Grey communications links; now, they would have to hope that they could decoy some of the missiles away. “Tactical, load drive disruptors; fire at will!”

“We hit them, three times,” Smarts reported. His voice grew into a snarl. “No appreciable damage!”

Erickson wasn’t surprised. The Greys had stronger shields and much more point defence than the Vanguard; the universe had screwed them several times over. He watched coldly as the Grey missiles closed in on his ship, several falling for decoys, and felt his blood run cold; how long had the Grey starship been shadowing them? Had they been the ship hinted at, all the way back at Sol, or had they picked up the Vanguard somewhere along the way? If they’d been following the Vanguard since Sol, that meant that the Greys knew about the Tarn Yards…and if they’d somehow gotten a message back to New Brooklyn or Harmony…

“Brace for impact,” Branson said, as Vanguard launched a spread of nukes and drive disruptors towards the Grey starship. Erickson hoped – as Vanguard was knocked end over end by the Grey bombardment – that they could disable the starship’s drives…and give themselves a chance to escape. “Incoming…”

Vanguard shook again. “Report,” Erickson snapped, as emergency notices flared up on the internal display. “What hit us?”

“Major damage to several sectors,” Allmanritter reported coldly. “Captain, we’re taking one hell of a pounding; I don’t know how long the drive can take us.”

“Missiles away,” Branson said. “Captain, we hit them several times with drive disruptors; I think that we slowed them down slightly…”

Vanguard shook again. “Shields failing in stern,” Smarts reported. “In two minutes, we’ll be space dust…”

“Captain, I am picking up a signal,” Lundy said. “It’s from the Greys!”

Erickson blinked. “You will lower your shields and prepare to be boarded,” a flat computer-generated voice said. Erickson remembered a previous attempt to communicate with the Greys and shuddered; there was nothing human in the voice the Greys had chosen to talk to them. “Failure to submit will result in your total destruction.”

Erickson paused. The Greys seemed to be waiting, holding fire long enough to allow him to reply, but there seemed to be no end to the number of tactical locks the Greys were placing on his ship. If they fired as many weapons as they had locks, the Vanguard would be blown apart before they could escape, and yet, there had been no response from Centre. Without help, they were doomed, but he knew he dared not allow Vanguard to fall into their hands. It would give them far too much information they could use against humanity.

“Get a target lock on him,” he muttered. “Open channel.”

“Channel open,” Lundy said. Erickson was proud of him, proud of all of his crew; they’d come so far, only to fail at the last minute. He shot Evensong a final glance, knowing that regulations no longer mattered, and stood up.

“Go to hell,” he said. The channel broke. “Tactical, open fire.”

Vanguard turned slightly to face her tormentor, exposing her broadsides one after the other, firing directly towards the battlecruiser’s prow shields. Erickson allowed himself a moment to hope; if they could take the shield down, they would force the Greys to back off while they restored their shield, or risk destruction…and perhaps the Vanguard could escape. He watched…and knew that it wasn’t going to work; the Greys hadn’t wasted their time during the long months of war. The battlecruiser’s point defence was much more capable than the Queen Anne’s Revenge had been…and the crew much more responsive. The battlecruiser moved, sacrificing speed for survivability, taking the blows it could not evade all over its shields…

“They are targeting our main engines,” Smarts said. “They’re firing…”

A set of plasma bolts appeared out of nowhere and picked off the Grey missiles. Erickson stared in astonishment as a force of starfighters – or so he thought, the craft were almost impossible to pick up, even on active sensors – swept into the battlezone. The Greys, stunned, turned to evade…and they opened fire with small missiles that lanced into the Grey shields…and stuck.

“Sensors, report,” Erickson said. “What the hell are they?”

“I’m not sure,” Smarts said. “I think they’re forcing the Grey shields into a rotating modulation that will screw up their attempts to generate a Phase Field and…Captain, I can barely get a read on those craft!”

The Greys seemed to have the same problem. As a wave of the strange starfighters swooped down on the battlecruiser, their weapons lancing into the battlecruiser, the Greys opened fire almost at random. Glass saw one of the strange craft disintegrated by a lucky shot from a plasma cannon, but the Greys were losing ground; their weapons were almost unable to lock onto the craft as they remained close to the battlecruiser, their weapons…

“Captain, the Greys are taking heavy damage,” Smarts said, suddenly reduced – like all of them – to the role of a spectator. “They’re being taken apart!”

The Grey ship turned to run…and the newcomers got serious. A spread of their tiny missiles lanced out towards the Grey ship, burning through the hull and detonating inside the ship. The Grey ship staggered, their drive field fluctuating like a madman’s drive field…and then it exploded. Erickson found himself on his feet, cheering along with his crew, as the newcomers swept around the expanding cloud of plasma and rolled into a victory display.

“Captain, we are being hailed,” Lundy said. “It’s an Imperial code; priority one.”

“Greetings,” the voice said. Like the Grey voice, it was flat and atonal; Erickson shuddered at the resemblance. “Welcome to Centre. Please state your reason for visiting us.”

Erickson settled back into his chair. “We have come from Earth to plead for a meeting with the Imperial Council,” he said, remembering the protocol lessons. His implants threw up a protocol program; he had to smile as he read through some of the instructions. “There is a grave threat to the Empire.”

He nodded at Lundy. “Send the data package, Ensign,” he ordered. There was a very long pause. “We require assistance.”

The pause grew longer, and longer. “We have a visual signal coming in,” Lundy said finally. Erickson nodded. “I’m displaying it now.”

Erickson looked up at the display…and felt his mouth fall open. He smiled inwardly, laughing at himself; why should it have been a surprise? The face of a human woman, with long red hair and bright blue eyes, looked back at him; there was something…oddly perfect about her. In a world – a galaxy – where women and men could indulge their vanity as much as they liked, she would still stand out…except there was something chillingly…wrong about her.

“Welcome to Centre,” she said. Erickson studied the background and realised that she was one of the starfighter pilots. There was something about her that was oddly familiar. “We have been ordered to provide you with an escort to meet with an old friend.”

The connection broke. Moments later, the starfighters fell into position around the Vanguard, escorting the starship into the Centre System. Erickson puzzled over the identity of the ‘old friend’ for a long moment, then turned his attention to the sensor reports on the starfighters; they had to have been a new development, rather than something that had been in service before the Collapse.

“I can barely pick them up,” Smarts muttered, as Erickson leaned over his console. His voice was astonished. “I couldn’t track them at all until they opened fire; they’re nifty bastards…and there was no trace of their presence until they started to shoot. I think…I think that they could have kicked Grey ass even without half of their weapons.”

He paused. “Those things are more like really small gunboats than starfighters,” he said. “I think that bodes ill for the Greys.”

An hour passed as they moved deeper within the system. Erickson studied the displays and noted that Centre, at least, seemed to be enjoying considerable economic activity; thousands of starships were moving around the system, some of them clearly new construction. There were few starships that hadn’t been built in the Centre Sector; he wondered just what the Imperials knew about the Butler and what they were doing. Dozens of starships flickered across the star system, some of them turning to come closer to the Vanguard; others ignored the ship completely. As one superdreadnaught-sized ship rose up to meet them, he wasn't surprised when he recognised it.

“That ship is the Ambassador,” Smarts said. His voice was hushed. “I remember from when the Envoy came, that starship brought her.”

“The Captain and one other officer will present themselves onboard the Ambassador,” the starfighter pilot said. She was human…and yet, there was a strange dispassion in her voice, a strange sense of…unconcern. “Please take a shuttle and move as soon as possible; the Vanguard will enter a holding position near the Ambassador.”

“And right under your guns,” Miriam muttered. Her voice was acidic. “You arrogant tart…”

“That’s enough,” Erickson said. “You have command; Commander Evensong, we’re going on a little trip.”

Up close, the Ambassador showed little of the superdreadnaught it had once been intended to become, before its engines failed to prove themselves sufficient to power a five-kilometre-long superdreadnaught. The Envoy had used the ship to visit Earth, long ago; Erickson had been onboard it then, when he had tried to tell her about the Greys. As they boarded the ship, he muttered that to Evensong, who seemed uncomfortable with the wave of heat that struck them as they stepped into the ship’s main hull.

“Captain Erickson, I presume,” a voice said. Erickson blinked; the man confronting them was…human, but a very old human. Short white hair, not unlike Admiral Glass’s hair, topped a face that seemed almost preserved, almost shining plastic. He just seemed…to be older than any human had ever been before, older than Admiral Glass, older than his Grandfather, older than…well, anyone. “Welcome onboard.”

“Thank you,” Erickson said. Evensong still seemed impressed. “Might I ask as to who you are?”

The man didn’t answer the question directly. “You have been asked to visit the Viceroy,” he said. Erickson nodded; the ‘old friend’ might well have been Viceroy Markea, the former Viceroy of Earth. “Please, come with me.” He led the way down a long white corridor. “It has been hundreds of years since I saw a true human.”

Evensong looked up at him. Her body was sweating slightly in the heat. “But there were humans onboard the fighters,” she protested. “What about them?”

“They don’t count,” the man said. He stopped in front of a massive ivory door; Erickson had never visited this part of the starship before. The door opened, revealing a crystal table…and the orange shape of an Imperial, standing by the table. “Viceroy Markea; I have brought you true humans.”

Erickson went down on one knee, the accepted position for a senior officer in the Imperial Fleet. “Your Eminence,” he said. Beside him, Evensong bent herself into a curtsey. “I must claim indulgence.”

There was a long pause. “My friend Thomas has claimed it for centuries,” the Viceroy said finally. Indulgence, the right to speak freely to a senior Imperial, very rarely granted. Who was that man? “Did you get your cruiser command?”

Erickson remembered expressing that wish once to the Viceroy. “No, Your Eminence,” he said. He searched for words. “I have been sent directly by His Highness Prince Roland of Earth, Admiral Glass, Yardmaster Phelps and…”

“I knew that Yardmaster Phelps would do his duty,” Thomas said. His face didn’t seem to be capable of smiling properly, but he managed a creditable imitation. “That should put the cat among the factions.”

Viceroy Markea inclined his eyes towards Erickson. “You may raise and claim indulgence,” he said. One long hand indicated the chairs and water glasses, rising into sight in the centre of the table. “I have reviewed all of the messages forwarded to me.”

Erickson waited. “I have forwarded some of the messages from the Yardmaster to members of his own faction, who regard him highly,” the Viceroy said finally. His face seemed to change faster than Erickson could follow. “The developments in the Butler Sector and others have…alarmed members of the Imperial Faction, but they have fallen out of favour recently, and my own faction is…ambient about attempting to tackle the problem.”

Erickson took a breath. “Your faction?” He asked. “You’re not an Imperial?”

“No,” the Viceroy said. “My faction does not translate well into Imperial Seventeen.”

“Call them the ‘White Imperial’s Burden’ faction,” Thomas injected. There was something curiously amused about his voice. “They used to be part of the ruling coalition, but there was a power shift because some of the problems of Empire were starting to affect the folks at home.”

“We need your help,” Erickson said flatly. “Your Eminence, you must have seen the reports of the Greys and what they’re doing to us. By now, Earth itself might have fallen, or gone the same way as Roosevelt. The barbarians are at the gates and…why won’t you interfere?”

There was another long pause. “It has been too long since we engaged in a war,” the Viceroy said finally. Thomas snorted. “There are factions that no longer want to uphold the ideals of Empire.”

“You knew about the Greys for centuries,” Erickson said. He pressed forward. “You built weapons to defeat them…and you certainly knew that they were coming back when I recovered one of their bodies. You found bodies yourself, on Earth; why did you content yourself with…?” Something clicked in his head. “Those fighter pilots; they’re like Corey, aren’t they? Living weapons?”

“Genetically-modified humans,” Thomas observed. His eyes flickered. “Khan Noonian Singh and all that jazz.” That meant nothing to Erickson. “They’re not real humans, not even those who take up service with the Imperials; they’re…something new and dangerous.”

The Viceroy’s eyes glittered. “You no longer please me,” he said. “Our actions are not yours to judge.”

Erickson saw it then. “What are you scared of?” He asked coldly. The Viceroy showed no reaction. “What happened, so long ago, that you were scared of the Greys?”

Thomas coughed meaningfully. “And who is he?” Erickson asked. “Why is he here?”

“I’ve been here for nine hundred years,” Thomas said. He paused, just enough to be dramatic. “I am almost certainly the oldest human alive; I have even thought about changing my name to Lazarus Long.”

“That means nothing to me,” Erickson said. He leaned forwards. “Why? If the Greys win, you’re going to be threatened as well.”

“I will call for a conclave,” the Viceroy said. He got up. Erickson followed the alien body as he reached the door, and then looked back at them. “I will discuss the matter with the Imperial Council…and they will decide if we should aid you, or if we should continue our isolation.”

He paused. “Perhaps Thomas can tell you what happened, so long ago, while you wait,” he said. “When we first met the Greys, it was traumatic for both of us, but far more so for us.”

He swept out. “I can’t believe that you lot forgot Lazarus Long,” Thomas said, his voice cheerful. “Next you’ll be telling me that you forgot Star Trek as well.”

“I know what Star Trek is,” Erickson said. “If you’re nine hundred years old, then what are you doing here? Why? What are they scared of?”

“The Greys, of course,” Thomas said. He sobered slightly. “You see…”

He paused. “Perhaps I should start from the beginning,” he said. “Everything came back to Zeti Reticuli, you see, everything. It was fifteen years after the Invasion…”

Interlude Three: Confrontation

It was fifteen years after the Invasion.

The Combat Information Centre of the superdreadnaught Ironhand – Hardly’s translation implants had argued that that was an accurate and politically correct translation – was much less complex than Hardly had expected. Brought up on a diet of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and the Honor Harrington movies, he had expected a glittering room, filled with glowing consoles and dozens of officers running about, shouting orders. The reality was a little more disappointing.

The Viceroy, who had taken command of the mission, sat in a chair in the centre of the room. A holographic display floated in front of him, but his eyes were half-closed; Hardly, who had been given a small seat by the starship’s crew, was the only person looking at it. The Viceroy directed the fleet through his mental implants- he had, in a moment of generosity, promised Hardly a similar set when the bugs were worked out of the design – and muttered orders under his breath. Hardly could barely hear them; he could only hope that the Viceroy’s subordinates could hear and understand.

The fleet spread out slightly as it entered the system, heading directly towards Zeta1. The Imperials had been astonished – and not a little worried – to learn that one of their scouts which had been supposed to investigate the star had vanished; for a reason he didn’t understand, that had scared them more than anything else. As an image of the system was built up in front of them, he could make out the energy signatures surrounding one of the planets…and saw what Earth might have been like if the space visionaries had had their way. Spacecraft moved in orbit around the planet, some primitive, others almost equal to Imperial technology.

Four red icons appeared on the display. He’d been given some information on how to read the display; he knew that that meant the newcomers were almost certainly hostile. He fought down awe as the fleet moved towards the planet, the newcomers moving to intercept them; he might well have been the first human to take part in a space battle, even if it had been as a bystander. It was awesome…and terrifying, all at the same time; he knew what countless lower decks officers had felt, when their Captains took their ships into battle. They, at least, might have been able to swim if something went bad…

“They’re locking weapons on,” the Viceroy said. There was something in his voice, a hint that he knew what was being targeted on the Ironhand. He sounded…irritated, and concerned; the display was showing much more of the planet now, a ruined world that was dominated by living breathing grey aliens. The probes sent back their reports…and Hardly knew, for certain, that he was on the right side. Whoever – whatever – had lived at Zeta1, they had been subjected to the Greys.

Hardly fought down the urge to ask questions as the aliens opened fire, missiles lancing out to strike the Imperial starships, which returned fire with weapons that seemed more powerful. The Greys didn’t flinch; they kept moving closer and closer to the Imperial fleet, even as two of their number died. They killed a destroyer before the destroyer’s killer could be blown away; the final Grey battleship rammed a battlecruiser and took both ships out. Hardly sighed in relief; they’d survived the battle.

“More contacts,” the Viceroy said, with chilling dispassion. “They’re just watching us.”

“We are not alone,” Hardly said. The joke fell flat as robot units were launched towards the wreckage of the Grey ships. “Sir?”

“We need to know if they are infected,” the Viceroy said, and would say no more. Time passed, ignoring Hardly’s impatience; the drones probed the wreckage while the planet seemed to be watching them, carefully. “Ah.”

“Ah?”

“The ships are infected and the world is clearly infected,” the Viceroy said. “It must be scorched.”

Hardly blinked. “Infected by what?”

“Something very old,” the Viceroy said. He was muttering orders again into his neural link. “Open fire.”

The fleet opened fire. Hardly felt his jaw drop as missiles were launched towards the planet, some exploding in space as orbital point defence units killed them, others falling through the atmosphere and detonating on the surface. It was a terrifying sight; he’d seen more impressive images from science-fiction movies, but this was real! The Imperials, coldly and callously, were slaughtering an entire planet!

“We will deploy a plague to ensure that life does not reform on this world,” the Viceroy said. “The infection will not be allowed to spread.”

Hardly found himself grasping for words. “You killed them all!”

“It was a mercy,” the Viceroy said coldly. “They were infected.”

“By what?”

The Viceroy looked up at him. “That is a very long story,” he said. “Do you really want to know?

Chapter Fifty-One: Zeti Reticuli, Take One

“Twenty minutes from entering the Zeti Reticuli-2 system,” Captain Jeremy Damiani said. His voice was grimly confident; no human fleet had been as powerful, or as capable, in history. It was a force that could seize a sector, or lay waste a star system; fifty-five superdreadnaughts and nearly two hundred supporting ships, from carriers to destroyers. “Admiral, all decks on the Humanity report ready.”

Admiral Glass nodded. The Humanity – the first superdreadnaught to be built at Earth itself – was the finest fighting machine in their sector of the galaxy, built incorporating all of the experience that they’d gained from nine months of warfare with the Greys. It was more powerful than any observed Grey starship; Glass could only hope that it would possess the firepower to complete the destruction of the Grey base and the fleet defending it.

“Order Captain Lombardi to fight his ship,” Glass said. An Admiral couldn’t issue orders to the ship that carried him, or he would lose track of the bigger picture. He took a breath, knowing that they wouldn’t know anything from the other starships until they entered normal space. “Prepare the CIC to update as soon as we emerge from Phase Space.”

He’d planned on the assumption that they wouldn’t have to fight a battle as they emerged from Phase Space. The Sneaky Bastard and its consorts had kept the Grey system under close observation, watching the planned emergence report, and their final signal had been that that Greys hadn’t moved anything into position to intercept them. There was a risk, which was why they would be emerging prepared to fight, but he’d cut it as fine as he dared; even if the Greys had read the signal from the stealth ships, they wouldn’t have time to plan an interception if they moved at once.

“Yes, Admiral,” Damiani said. The display flickered with the eerie lights of Phase Space, disrupted by the passage of so many starships in close proximity; Glass silently cursed the fact that starships in Phase Space couldn’t communicate with one another. If they could, he would have known about problems before they were in the battlezone, problems that might affect his ability to continue the offensive. “Ten minutes to emergence.”

Glass closed his eyes, running through several different possibilities; the Greys might have been planning to move their base and started to move it before the fleet arrived, the Greys had unexpected reinforcements, the Greys had launched an attack on a Human Union world…there were two many possibilities to count. Despite what he’d told Roland, and Elspeth, there were few examples of anyone commanding so many starships in combat; if they hadn’t had the Humanity, it would have been much more difficult. The fleet had good and capable sub-commanders; if something happened to him, they would be able to fight their way out.

Damiani counted down the minutes as the starships raced closer and closer to the Target Star, Zeti2. Whatever had happened at Zeti1, it could wait to be investigated after the Greys had been defeated; they had probably destroyed that world, so long ago. It had been destroyed around the same time as the Invasion…and that was all they knew. The Fleet, whatever its problems, existed to protect the Empire; Glass had meant it when he had sworn the oath to avoid acts of genocide.

He closed his eyes in sudden bitterness. He had hurt – killed – thousands of Greys at New Brooklyn and almost certainly slaughtered thousands of humans unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. The war…the war might have given them a chance to pull the Human Union together – he hated to think what would have happened to it if the Greys had not existed as a common threat – but at the same time…he knew what had happened to Tarn, and even if David Symons, commander of the Responsive, had managed to convince them to talk peace, Glass knew that the civil war could break out again at any moment.

“Three, two, one…emergence,” Damiani said. The display flickered and filled up rapidly as starship after starship emerged from Phase Space, their shields and weapons flickering into life. “All starships are checking in now; everyone seems to have made it to the party, Admiral.”

“Good,” Glass said harshly. “The Greys; what are they doing?”

Damiani’s hands flickered over his console as starships belched drones, trying their readings into the fleet’s datanet, providing a comprehensive picture of the system…or at least what they could see of the system. Glass watched, grimly, as the flickering icons of thirty Grey superdreadnaughts appeared in front of him – they could hardly have avoided seeing his fleet arrive – and something much larger. An analyst popped up a comment; the drive field readings were identical to the readings from Morgan’s Hold.

Their base, Glass thought coldly. There were thirty Grey superdreadnaughts…which meant that some were missing, gone somewhere. Encrypted communications entered the fleet’s datanet as the stealth ships transmitted their readings to Glass; the Greys had sent ten superdreadnaughts out of the system, leaving an hour before the fleet had been due to arrive. The stealth ships hadn’t been able to get a good reading on the Phase Drives, but they suspected that the Grey starships had headed off towards Utopia. A warning had been flashed up the chain.

“The fleet is signalling for orders,” Damiani said. “The Greys do not seem to have expected us.”

“Good,” Glass said. The reports that the Greys could detect a fleet arriving through Phase Space before it actually arrived seemed to have been inaccurate, then; the result of faulty scanner readings. If they had seen the fleet coming, they would have massed their ships to intercept and won a decisive victory in the first ten minutes. “Any problems I should know about?”

“Number four launch tube on the Jackson is suffering from field shock,” Damiani said, after a moment. “No other problems.”

Glass smiled. The Greys had to know that they were coming…and they had to know that even if they started running now, their massive mothership would be unable to outrun his fleet. For the first time, they could fight a battle on human terms; an open honest battle. New Brooklyn had been an ambush; this battle would be open, honourable, and a human victory.

“Take us in towards them,” Glass ordered, savouring the moment. “I want a direct line intercept course; don’t give them any wiggle room at all.” He smiled. “I think we’ll go with Ringo-three; they don’t have the time they need to escape.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Damiani said. He paused. “Starfighters?”

“Launch the CSP, and launch a second set of recon drones,” Glass ordered. Cold duty and training reasserted themselves as he spoke. “If there are any unexpected surprises, I want to know about them as soon as possible.”

The CSP fanned out around the carriers, and then the entire fleet, as they moved slowly into the system. Ringo-three was a very simply plan, in its essence; Glass had been taught that a plan where almost nothing could go wrong was a plan where there were as few variable as possible. They would head towards the Grey fleet and the mothership…and they would open fire when they entered missile range. If the Greys tried to fight, they would be crushed by superior firepower; if they tried to run and protect the mothership, they would be caught and crushed. If they scattered…they might have a hope of saving everything…but the mothership.

“Starfighters are deployed, configured for covering duty and anti-drone missions,” Damiani reported. Glass sat back in his chair and waited; military operations were very often a mixture of hurry up and wait…and screaming terror. He’d stacked the deck as best as he could in his favour; all that mattered now was not losing his control of the situation. “The fleet is advancing.”

The humans pressed forward and the Greys…behaved oddly. Glass watched as the results from the prowling drones came in and scowled, trying to understand what they were doing; it almost looked as if they were panicking. First some smaller units were vectored towards the human ships, and then they were called back; drones were moved around the Grey ships, flickering in and out of motion, while the capital ships seemed to be spreading out, rather than concentrating. They still had time to concentrate, but…no human strategist in his right mind – or, at least, not affected by delusions of infallibility – would have risked being caught out of formation. It was offering victory on a plate…and Glass knew better than to take it at face value.

“The Greys don’t panic,” he muttered, looking down at Damiani’s dark face, pale in the light of the CIC. The human fleet was picking up speed as it moved in-system; only a few hours had to pass…and then they could open fire on the Grey mothership. The mothership itself was heading out of the system, at a course almost in a straight line from the human fleet, which made sense; it would force them to engage in a stern chase, rather than just moving to intercept it. “So what are they doing?”

“Forming up a battleline,” Damiani said. The Greys seemed to have finally made up their minds; thirty superdreadnaughts and one hundred and fifty smaller ships were starting to finally form a wall of battle. It was simple and brutally elegant; the humans would have to smash their way through the Grey force to reach and destroy the mothership, which would have time to make a run for it.

Glass tapped his console, running simulations, and smiled. Unless the Greys managed – somehow – to inflict an impossible amount of damage, the mothership couldn’t hope to escape without being attacked…and he had just the weapon to launch the attacks.

“Captain,” he said slowly, “what is the status of the Omega Group?”

Damiani looked horrified. Those in the know about the Omega Group had been universally horrified by the program; Admiral Glass himself hadn’t been happy, but after New Brooklyn, there was no shortage of volunteers. Deploying them in battle against the Greys was a moral issue…but there was really no choice. The Greys had to be stopped, whatever it took.

“They’re ready to be deployed from Pariah,” he reported. Pariah was the only starship to bear that name; a joke, played on the Omega Group, but with an unpleasant sting in the tail. “Captain Hassan assures me that his people are prepared to carry out their duty.”

“Keep them back for the moment,” Glass ordered. Pariah was already too far from the main fleet for comfort, but if something happened to her, it would be scoring a massive own goal. The fleet could lose the battle within seconds. “I want the starfighters prepared for a massive strike on the Grey superdreadnaughts.”

“Aye, sir,” Damiani said. His voice tightened. As a traditionalist, he had disapproved of changes in the fleet’s rank register. “Commodore Middleton informs us that her starfighters are prepared to be launched upon command.”

Glass nodded. He would have to see about promoting Commodore Middleton to Vice Admiral, were it not for the fact that she was hopelessly junior to anyone else who might have been considered for a Vice Admiralty or command of an attack fleet. She hadn’t thrown her unexpected and suddenly acquired political connections in anyone’s face – Glass would have beached her, whatever it cost, if she had – but Roosevelt would never let her go. It wasn’t fair, least of all to her…but it was understandable…it was human.

“Good,” he said. There was no need to say anything else. “I want the starfighters launched as soon as we come into attack range…”

His voice broke off as the display spangled with new icons, the dull-red bat-wing icons of drones. The Greys had clearly decided to start the shooting themselves, which made a certain kind of sense; five thousand drones could hurt his fleet badly, even though his starfighters had a massive qualitative advantage. Drones lacked the capability of starfighters, their only means of command attack computers; they couldn’t compete with starfighters except through one means; sheer mass. There were thousands of drones coming towards his fleet.

“Countermand those orders,” he said, as calmly as he could. He was almost relieved to see that the Greys had finally started acting true to form. “I want starfighters launched to reinforce the CSP, and then I want the pickets to move forward to provide an extra level of protection for the starships.”

“Understood,” Damiani said. His hands danced over his console. “I have the orders sent…and here come the drones.”

Glass closed his eyes for a long moment as the drones roared down on the human fleet, their weapon sensors already searching for targets, drawing on what they could see to determine their targets. The drone computers might not have had the skill of human pilots, but they did know how to read their sensors; not all of them would be drawn off by the decoys the fleet was already launching. Their datanet might be much less elaborate than the datanet used by human pilots, but they were more than capable of sifting through sensor records to make informed guesses of what was real…and what was not. If they threw themselves on a decoy, they would take out the decoy drone…and clear other drones for engaging real targets.

The starfighters spread out to meet the offensive, ‘mere’ hundreds of craft, firing bolts of plasma into the drones and their formation. The drones reacted with lightning speed, spitting back at the same time as evading human fire, twisting and turning in an insane dance that would have defeated any normal mind. Drones began to die under starfighter fire, their numbers rapidly rising beyond anything Glass would have considered acceptable…and then the Greys launched a second wave of drones as the first wave broke through the starfighters and roared down towards the picket line. Nearly two thousand drones had died…and three thousand were still coming…and five thousand more behind them.

Glass’s mind raced. I wonder how many drones they could fit into the mothership…?

“Admiral, they’re altering their tactics,” Damiani snapped, his voice alarmed. “Sir, they’re focusing their attention on the picket line.”

“They’ve taken a leaf from our book,” Glass said, as the drones closed in on their targets; the thirty smaller ships that were providing much of the covering fire for the fleet. The Imperial Fleet had targeted such ships as a matter of course during the war, forcing the Greys to adapt their own tactics to prevent human starfighters from ripping them apart; they’d had to cover their smaller craft, rather than the capital ships. Now, they’d adapted their attacking tactics as well…and Glass knew that they were all too likely to succeed.

The drones raced into the hail of fire from the smaller ships – and the larger ships, as the command datanet issued new orders with the Grey plan revealed. Drones exploded, ripped apart by the fire they were taking, and thousands more pressed on to take their place. All it required were a handful of missile hits…and then a picket ship blew apart, it’s killed flying through the ball of expanding plasma and seeking new targets. More than a few drones launched themselves into suicide attacks, ramming their targets, while the others fired at human starfighters, trying to force them to stop covering the smaller ships...

“Order the pickets to fall back to the main body,” Glass snapped, unwilling to allow the loss rate to continue to rise. If he lost all of the pickets, his point defence would have suffered far too much to be allowed to happen if it could be avoided. The second wave of Grey drones would complete what the first one had started, unless it could be somehow diverted from its cause…and he knew that that was impossible. They would have to kill all of the drones; with the mothership at stake, the Greys would risk everything to save it.

“The point defence from the other ships is engaging now,” Damiani said. He sounded grim; neither of them had expected the battle to be a walkover, but they had hoped. “We might be able to thin out the Greys if we flush the anti-drone missiles from the bigger ships.”

Glass scowled. Like all tricks, he fully-expected that that trick wouldn’t fool the Greys twice, but there was little choice. “Do it,” he ordered. “Launch all of the missiles, and then prepare for ship-to-ship action.”

The Grey fleet was very close, almost within missile range, and it had stopped running. Glass saw more drones, hopefully the final batch of drones, launched; they were falling into a protective pattern around the Grey capital ships, rather than pressing the attack against the human ships.

“Raise Commodore Middleton,” he ordered. “I want strikes launched now against those Grey ships; launch the long-ranged missiles to force them to keep their heads down, firing plan Delta-four.”

“Aye, sir,” Damiani said. “Lightning is responding; she’s launching now…”

His voice broke off. “Admiral, I think you’d better see this,” he said. Glass felt a cold shudder running down his spine. “We have cloaked ships, appearing behind us.”

Glass stared at the display. The Grey ships, some of them masked by masking fields rather than cloaking devices – or, rather, not cloaked any longer – had appeared well out of weapons range. They couldn’t see how many ships there were, but the Greys had messed up; they’d lost the opportunity to fire into his rear…

”They’re launching drones,” Damiani said. Glass scowled; the CSP was covering the prow of the fleet, not the rear. “Admiral?”

Something was very wrong. “Order two of the escorting squadrons to fly to cover our rear and engage the Greys as soon as they can,” he said. There was something…odd about the Grey drones, they just…didn’t seem right. “I want them to engage the Greys without waiting for cover.”

He watched as the human starfighters flashed to intercept…and the Greys turned to meet them. That alone was odd; drones that had the option of avoiding knife-range combat with a starfighter tended to try to avoid. There was something very wrong and Glass half rose from his seat…

…As the very first Grey starfighter to see active combat scored a direct hit on a human starfighter.

Chapter Fifty-Two: Zeti Reticuli, Take Two

Commodore Nancy Middleton stared at the display as new hostile icons flashed into existence. “They’ve got starfighters!”

“Confirmed,” Commander Marius Roodt said. His unshakable calm helped her to focus. “From preliminary scans, they seem identical to Mark-VI starfighters, such as the ones that took part in the Battle of Harmony.”

They must have captured a few when the life support ran out, Nancy thought coldly. Her mind raced as the Grey starfighters swooped into a dogfight with her own – outnumbered – pilots. The Greys seemed to have less experience, but they were learning fast and…

“They can’t fly starfighters,” she protested, as the CSP exchanged fire with its counterparts. She forced down the desire to rebuke the universe; all of a sudden, the war had taken a turn for the worse. “They can’t!”

“They must be as aware as we are of their problems,” Roodt said gently. “We always knew that they were adaptable and…hell, perhaps they have hybrids flying those craft.”

Nancy closed her eyes for a long moment. “Order the strike on Grey-one to be aborted,” she said. There was very little other choice; they needed to reinforce the CSP as rapidly as possible, before it was overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, let alone the rapidly learning Grey pilots. She wondered if Roodt was right; might the Greys have implanted human pilots, or had they placed some of their hybrids in the craft? How long did it take for a hybrid to grow to maturity?

“The escorting fighters are to reinforce the CSP, apart from the three lead squadrons, which are to cover the carriers,” she continued. Antistarfighter tactics had suffered over the past months of warfare; no one had expected Grey starfighters. “I want the carriers to pick up speed…and I want all of the anti-drone missiles flushed at the Grey starfighters.”

Roodt blinked. “Commodore?”

“Do it,” Nancy snapped, harshly. Her voice ran with her own concern and her determination to prevent her ships from being hit. They’d loaded missiles designed to deal with Grey drones, not starfighters; missiles just didn’t work well against the smaller craft. There was a good chance that all of the missiles would be wasted, but if she could use it properly, they might have a chance. “Fire the missiles…and raise Admiral Glass!”

Lightning shuddered as a hail of missiles launched from its tubes, breaking up and scattering their sub-weapons into space as they raced towards the Grey starfighters. Her own starfighters – she noted with bitter amusement that the Greys had practically copied a human design – had IFF transponders, but she also knew that missile brains could make mistakes; she might well have condemned some of her own people to death.

“Admiral, the Greys are likely to engage the carriers,” she said, as Glass’s face appeared on her display. “I need support, fast.”

Her reinforcements dived into the Grey starfighters, spreading out rapidly into another dogfight; she knew from that point that losses would be fairly even. The Greys seemed to fly in larger groups than human starfighters; the human ships adjusted their own formation to compensate, firing as they charged into the mass of Grey ships. The Greys accepted the challenge, showing the proper fighter jock mentality; her lips twitched bitterly as they fought it out with the human starfighters. Whichever side came out on top would have only a few ships left…

“Everyone needs support,” Glass said, suddenly sounding very tired. New icons were flickering into existence on the display. “Commodore, I want you to spread out your craft; I’m detaching some of the light cruisers with the new weapons to reinforce you. Cover your craft; don’t worry about striking at the Grey carriers” – Nancy cursed under her breath as a second wave of Grey starfighters appeared, heading towards her ships – “and wait for orders. We might…have to alter our plans.”

His face vanished from the display. Nancy watched as the Greys accelerated towards her, taking advantage of their smaller ships to pick up their full speed almost instantly. Starfighters had that great advantage over every other kind of spacecraft; they could reach their maximum of 0.3C within moments. The Greys would be upon her craft within minutes, perhaps less, and she shuddered at the thought.

“Move the support ships into position to block them,” she ordered, and narrowed her eyes. If the Greys had really been learning from humanity – she looked at the new icons on the display and knew that they had – they would attempt to take out her support ships, which would give her a chance to winnow them down before they could reach the carriers. Fleet carriers were tough, and assault carriers were almost as tough as superdreadnaughts, but the escort carriers couldn’t stand up to a prolonged exposure to close-range battle. “I want the CSP fighters moving to intercept the newcomers as soon as they can.”

“That’s the last Grey starfighter from the first batch gone,” Roodt said. Nancy ignored the silent accusation in his eyes. She’d made her decision and it had been the only one that she could have made. “The CSP is moving to intercept the second group now.”

Let’s hope that they didn’t learn anything from the first group, Nancy thought, as she watched the engagement. The Greys learned fast and very well; they made their share of newbie mistakes – Noobs, as the experienced pilots called them – but they were learning…and avoiding repeating mistakes. That alone was worrying; some Grey ships had repeated the same mistake, time and time again.

Perhaps they have their fair share of incompetents, she thought, and smiled. The Grey force swooped down on her carriers, ignoring the support ships…and dozens of them fell to fire from the support craft they’d ignored. Dozens more survived, making attack runs towards the carriers; they launched missiles as they entered range, rather than waiting until almost point-blank range.

“The escort Patty Henry has been destroyed,” Roodt said. Nancy scowled; it was a mistake, for the Greys, but they wouldn’t repeat it. Damaging her ships, given the number of other Grey craft in the system, would be much more rewarding in the long run. She wondered if the hybrids were as given as humanity to boosting of their success; would one of them paint an escort carrier on his ship?

A plasma bolt struck the killer and it no longer mattered.

“Move the new escorts into position to fend off a flanking attack,” Nancy said coldly. The Greys launched a second attack, then a third, hitting a fleet carrier hard without quite knocking her out of action. One Grey starfighter tried to be clever and accidentally – she thought it was accidental – rammed a light cruiser in an attempt to avoid it’s fire; the cruiser was torn apart by a series of explosions. “We have to kill them all before their battleline gets here, or we’re all dead.”

She looked up at the display, knowing what it meant.

They were losing.

***

Admiral Glass watched as the size and scope of the Grey trap became obvious. His probes were reporting monstrous fleets – or at least monstrous sections of space that seemed to be inhabited by cloaked ships – and he knew that some of the ships had to be false images. It made a grim kind of sense; the Greys had to know, from ships they’d taken if nothing else, that their sensors were inferior to human sensors, so they’d taken the chance to spoof human sensors instead of trying to hide from them.

Damn low tech solution, he thought. “They can’t have three thousand superdreadnaughts bearing down on us,” he snapped, forcing everyone to calm down. “If they had that many ships, they would have crushed Earth long ago.”

He forced himself to speak calmly. “Recall the other strikes and prepare the battleline for action,” he said. The starfighters would be needed to cover his force against the Grey starfighters – and also to improve on their point defence; there was no point in losing them for nothing. The Grey force, Grey-one, was slowing…and he saw the trap clearly…too late.

They must have known we were coming, he thought, his mind racing. The Greys had set up a trap, a trap laid with enough patience to defeat a human mind and enough stealth to avoid the stealth ships noticing that something was happening. They’d baited the trap with one of their motherships…and they’d prepared to meet them, accepting the possible loss of their base as the price for defeating and destroying his fleet. Escape…was going to be difficult, if not impossible; unless they worked out which of the Grey ships were real, and which were not.

“Launch additional probes,” he said, working it out as logically as he could, knowing that the Greys, being very alien aliens, didn’t think exactly like humans. If they’d had three thousand superdreadnaughts, they wouldn’t have needed games, and they understood the KISS principle as well as anyone else. Certainly, they understood it better than some of the more ambitious human officers understood it; they wouldn’t have lost New Brooklyn if they could have held it. Logic dictated, because they’d launched starfighters, that one enemy group was right behind his force…and it might be the only force. “I want to get a clear look at space around us.”

He studied the Grey positions and knew what they meant. Grey-one had slowed, awaiting him charging onto its guns, except he knew that that would be a mistake – now. He could punch his way through Grey-one, taking horrific casualties in the process…and then Grey-two and any other Grey ships out there would finish off whoever was left. A chill ran down his spine as he saw exactly what the enemy wanted; this was no skirmish, but an all-out attempt to destroy his fleet. They’d known what was coming, they’d planned and prepared, and that meant that…

They have to know about Tarn, he thought, and forced his mind to concentrate on the battle. They couldn’t have blocked off every possible escape vector, unless they actually had well over a million starships; it was just a question of finding it in time to avoid close-quarter combat with either of the Grey ships. That…would not be easy. He had no choice; he had to get the fleet out, or the Human Union would be destroyed and Erickson would come back to Grey-occupied worlds.

“Reduce our speed to open the range,” he ordered. The Greys had planned very well; he didn’t dare send in strike missions against their ships without escort…and he didn’t dare strip starfighters from the CSP because of the Grey starfighters. They’d sprung their trap perfectly…except it wasn't quite perfect because he had time to act, unless there was something he wasn't seeing. They couldn’t have mined any possible approach vector, could they?

He dismissed the thought. “Report,” he snapped. The Greys themselves seemed to be slowing down, launching their own probes; counting human ships before they started to try to destroy them. Grey-one would enter missile range in ten minutes, now that both sides were slowing; Grey-two would enter missile range in twenty. If one force hadn’t had any superdreadnaughts, he wouldn’t have hesitated to force an engagement…except both sides did have superdreadnaughts and a bad attitude. They weren’t fighting Kilmanjo, after all.

“I think I have managed to sort out the real from the fake,” Captain Jeremy Damiani said. Glass was proud of him, continuing to do his duty despite his fear; he made a note to have Damiani promoted, or offered a chance to quality for fleet command. “There’s one large Grey force behind us, and some smaller forces to each side, merely there to delay us.”

“And slightly out of position,” Glass said softly. The Greys had copied his own trick, just as humans had copied some of their tricks, and they’d tried to sneak up on them in cloak, except they clearly hadn’t want to risk entering sensor range. “Order the fleet to alter course to a new bearing,” he said, detailing the bearing. “I want the carriers to cut loose a recon shell of fighters, to patrol our exit and…”

Damiani spoke over him. Glass, knowing that Damiani would only do that if it was urgent, ignored the breach in protocol. “Admiral, there’s something odd with their drive fields,” he said. “They’re…I don’t know; there’re more powerful, much more powerful, than they should be…and they’re fluctuating.”

The last time Glass had seen a fluctuating drive field, the starship in question had been about to explode, but he knew better than to hope that the entire Grey force was about to self-destruct. The Greys were moving to intercept them as they tried to remove themselves from the trap, but Damiani was right; they were pumping out enough power to move three superdreadnaughts from each superdreadnaught. Why?

“Keep us on this course,” he said. Grey-one was moving slightly, dumping its speed and preparing to move to intercept. They might just have managed to evade…and then the display changed again. Grey-two had fired, fired at them from outside their own range…and Glass saw, suddenly, exactly what the Greys had done.

“Shit,” he breathed.

“Admiral, they have launched long-range missiles,” Damiani said. Glass had already worked that out; the display was flaring with light as the long-range missiles launched from the Grey starships…more missiles than any superdreadnaught should be able to launch in one group. “Admiral?”

Glass caught his breath as thousands of missiles were launched towards his fleet. Missile pods had been discarded as a concept for hundreds of years, but he’d heard, vaguely, of a project to use a drive field as a way of carrying missiles and launching them towards their targets. He’d thought, along with many of his brother officers, that it was a ridiculous idea. The Greys had clearly disagreed. All of a sudden, he wasn't so sure that they were wrong; thousands of missiles were bearing down on his ships.

“Point defence to full,” he snapped. Long-range missiles had many disadvantages compared to the more standard missiles, but there were thousands of them; they would be bound to score some hits…and they had targeted his superdreadnaughts in particular. Twenty superdreadnaughts, bearing down on his ships, were about to hurt his ships…

The Grey missiles raced towards their targets…and Grey starfighters came in their wake. Part of Glass’s mind admired the tactic – it gave the human starfighters something else to worry about – the other part cursed it. The Greys had stripped away some of his point defence…and they’d done it at a price that would be cheap, assuming that they hit some of his ships. The missiles closed in, the point defence datanet weaving an invisible web of death around them…and missiles started to die. They vanished in their hundreds…and hundreds more broke through to enter terminal attack runs…and hit their targets.

“Incoming…” Damiani snapped, and then the Humanity rocked sharply as three missiles struck its shields, spitting energy into the drive field. Glass hung on for dear life as the gravity field fluctuated wildly, the starship howling in protest…and he knew what had hit them. The Greys had opened fire with drive disruptors, using them to knock out the human drives…and to trap them in the system. Zeta2 would be their grave.

“Report,” he snapped, pulling himself to his feet with only a dim memory of how he’d fallen to the deck. The display showing the status of the Humanity was flickering with red light, mainly concentrated around the drive section; humanity had copied the Grey drive modifications that had allowed them to keep some drive field, but the superdreadnaught had lost most of its speed.

“Shit,” he said again, knowing exactly what that meant for the fleet. “Damiani?”

Damiani was pulling himself up as well, one hand rubbing his temple. Under other circumstances, Glass would have sent him to sickbay; at the moment, it would be rather pointless. A thin tickle of blood was running down his forehead; the lights were flickering on and off as the engineers struggled to repair the starship. Glass knew that it was futile.

“Admiral, they hammered twenty-seven of the superdreadnaughts,” Damiani said, after a moment. Glass felt his blood run cold; he’d known that it was going to be bad, but not how bad. He’d hoped – prayed – that he could have saved much of the fleet, not only a bare handful. “Several smaller ships are disabled; one battlecruiser is dead in the water.”

The first ones to die today, Glass thought. “Open a channel to the Honor Harrington.”

Admiral Solomon’s face filled the display. His ship, Glass was relieved to note, had been one of the superdreadnaughts that had been spared the indignity of losing its drive. His face was pale and wan, but his eyes were determined; Glass almost felt sorry for the Greys.

“Admiral, here are your orders,” he said, before Solomon could say anything. “Your ships and every ship still capable of reaching max are to detach themselves from the fleet and start running, heading out of here as fast as you can. When – if – something happens to me, declare yourself in command and keep moving, understand?”

Solomon started to protest. “Understand, Admiral?” Glass snapped, knowing just how little time they had left. Grey-one was already moving in for the kill…and all he could do was ensure that as few crewmen as possible met their maker. “Pick up lifeboats if you can, on the way out, but don’t hesitate. Start running and don’t look back.”

Solomon held his eyes for a moment. “It was a honour to serve under you, Admiral,” he said. “I won’t forget.”

His image vanished. Glass felt curiously free; he'd issued his final orders to the once-proud fleet…and many ships would escape the trap. He closed his eyes for a long moment, making peace with himself, and smiled.

“Bring us about,” he ordered, as the fleet’s datanet split into two sections. One group would escape, the other would fight long enough to try to restore their drives. Either they would make it, or they wouldn’t…and either way, he’d done his duty. “Order the Omega Group to launch,” he said. “It’s time to test the concept…”

Chapter Fifty-Three: Zeti Reticuli, Take Three

“All right, Jihadis, follow me in,” Captain Hassan said. He took a long deep breath, perhaps one of the last Allah would ever allow him to take, and placed his hands firmly on the small craft’s console. Unlike a starfighter, it had no mental control system – which was lucky as Hassan could not have used it – but it had additional weapons of its own. The tiny craft was far from indestructible, but the thinking suggested that the Greys would be more concerned with the human starfighters, rather than the larger craft of Omega Group. “Allah Ackbar!”

He’d been born in the Islamic Republic of New Salaam, which had been on New Brooklyn…before the Greys arrived. Hassan, who had piloted a hypersonic interception fighter, had been awesomely lucky; he’d concluded later that Allah had clearly spared him for another purpose. Damaged, rather than being outright destroyed, by a Grey landing craft during the invasion of the planet, he’d been able to bail out of his stricken craft and land on farmland belonging to one of the Mullahs. The local Mullah had welcomed him, ordering him to carry on the fight against the Greys along with what remained of the army, but it had been impossible to do more than die bravely. They’d been trained in techniques that had been handed down from a war in a long-forgotten place called Iraq – he’d checked the records while onboard the Pariah and hadn’t been surprised to discover that the infidels had won that war – and expected to use them against the Greys.

There was just one small flaw in the plan.

The Greys did not possess anything reassembling a conscience. Cities that should, according to military orthodoxy, Mullah-style, have proven bastions of resistance had been the easiest places on the planet for the Greys to assert their authority. Grey ships had landed outside the cities, the men had gone out to fight…and had been slaughtered. The survivors had talked of the Greys casually mowing them down…and then walking into the city. Any attempt at resistance drew an overwhelming response…and then the Greys had started to round up women. Allah alone knew the truth, but Hassan believed that only a hundred Greys had died in the war for Salaam; thousands of natives had been killed, and the women…

Hassan clenched his fists as the craft sped towards Grey-one. The Greys had taken his city; they’d walked in and taken over. The handful of people who’d been lucky enough to escape had terrifying tales to tell; the Greys had deployed strange weapons against the armed men who had tried to fight, weapons that had reached inside their heads and hurt them. They’d overrun the city…and then they’d taken his sisters and his mother…and only one of his sisters had survived the breeding camps. She’d been killed, shortly afterwards, by one of the Mullahs…and civil war had almost broken out. It hadn’t lasted long; by the time the Mullahs realised they had a military uprising on their hands, most of them were dead and the rest were hunted criminals.

Hassan himself no longer cared. All that mattered to him was killing Greys, Greys, and more Greys; it was something that New Brooklyn was no longer capable of doing. When he'd heard about the Omega Project, founded by General Nelson, he’d signed up at once along with his remaining friends; Nelson might have been an infidel, but Allah had clearly meant him to serve as His agent; the Greys had to be wiped from the universe.

Hassan smiled. The starfighters were giving his craft a wide berth; anyone would have thought that they were a little scared of them. Anyone would have been right…and Hassan didn’t blame them; his craft was flying on top of hundreds of tons of compressed antimatter. Used properly, his force could destroy all thirty of the Grey superdreadnaughts, assuming that the Greys didn’t open fire before it was too late. General Nelson had explained it to him, once they had entered a certain range, they could almost guarantee to hurt something. As long as that something was a Grey, Hassan would be happy…and his family would be avenged.

“Our target is the lead group of superdreadnaughts,” he said, trusting in his comrades to know which ones he meant. Flying a hypersonic interceptor was very different to flying a space-based attack craft, even if it had enough firepower to destroy a planet. Opinion differed on what would happen if his ship was hit by Grey point defence – although their shields would give them some safety margin – but everyone had agreed that several AUs would be a safe distance. “Engage at long range, then run; run like the devil himself is after you!”

The Grey superdreadnaught grew in the display; there was absolutely no hope at all of seeing it with his naked eyes. It was a massive ponderous beast, closing in on the trapped human ships, including a handful of cruisers from Medina. Medina, a world that actually lived up to the Prophet’s rules, had been unknown on New Brooklyn; Hassan hoped, if Allah willed that he survived the fighting, to visit, perhaps even to immigrate. The display showed the range of the Grey ship’s missiles…and produced a warning; his craft was vulnerable to anti-drone missiles. He didn’t care; the Greys were losing their chance to detonate him as far away as possible…and then it was gone.

“Fire,” he snapped. Seven missiles, half of his weapons load, lanced away from his craft; his comrades fired at the same moment towards their targets. He pushed his craft as hard as he could, trying to get out of the blast range if the Greys hit something…and then the display went white as Grey point defence encountered a missile…and detonated it. He closed his eyes as the raging fury of antimatter detonations triggered other detonations…and poured energy into the Grey shields.

“We got three of the bastards,” one of his co-pilots, a dark American from Roosevelt, shouted. Hassan had tried to convince him to accept Allah into his life, but he had refused; he’d been a Christian all of his life. “One more damaged, perhaps doomed!”

Other detonations, other craft scoring hits, then the Greys went mad. Grey starfighters flashed out to do battle with the Omega Group, trying to drive them away from the capital ships, and Hassan knew that everything depended upon his ability to hold them off before they could destroy his craft…and incidentally detonate more antimatter, far from their targets.

“Get the datanet back up,” he snapped at his co-pilot, who had been trying to restore it. The datanet had gone down in the wave of electronic distortion from the antimatter detonations; it was a shame that the Grey ships were shielded against EMP, or they would have won the battle single-handily. His plasma cannons started to fire as Grey starfighters closed in, firing desperately to stop him from doing any more damage, and two Grey starfighters exploded. A third closed in and fired at point-blank range.

The explosion, for a long moment, outshone a sun.

***

“The Omega Group took down seven superdreadnaughts in all,” Captain Jeremy Damiani reported. His voice was very composed; like Glass, he had accepted the futility of their situation. Glass had actually considered surrendering, once the remainder of the fleet had escaped, but he knew – now – what the Greys did to prisoners. “I think they proved themselves then.”

Glass scowled. The concept of the Omega Group had disgusted him as soon as he’d heard about it, but politics had insisted, just as they had insisted that Nancy Middleton become a permanent Commodore, that New Brooklyn’s revenge be permitted to go ahead. Seven superdreadnaughts…and dozens of starfighters, some of them Grey…wasn’t such a price, was it? He knew that the dying had only just begun.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Keep the datalink open to the Harrington; copy it to the Lightning and the Responsive. Once they know everything that happens to us, they’ll know enough to adapt to defeat the Greys, next time.”

The Greys weren’t in a hurry, he saw; they were gliding closer, taking their time. They knew that they had their foe trapped; they knew that Glass and his fleet could not escape, and they knew that every starship that could start running had already started to move. Twenty-four superdreadnaughts, one fleet carrier and thirty-two smaller craft were trapped; Glass knew that all they could do was try to take as many of the Greys down with them as they could.

“Form up formation around the Royal Oak,” he ordered, allowing Damiani to issue the orders. Protecting the fleet carrier was important, even though most of its starfighters would make the run to the Lightning or another carrier when the Royal Oak was destroyed; it would continue to rearm fighters as long as it could. “Link our weapons together and prepare to fire on my command.”

The Grey superdreadnaughts weren’t bothering with being clever, not any longer…but they didn’t need it; they swarmed closer, forming up into two concentrations, their weapons and sensors probing the human fleet. If they had any long-range missiles left after the first round, they weren’t using them; Glass suspected that that meant that they didn’t have any left, but knew that he didn’t dare count on it. The Greys were starting to surround them…and he knew that the end could not be long delayed.

“Here they come,” Damiani said, as Grey-one started it’s final advance. “They’re locking missiles on now.”

“Order the starfighters to attack Grey-one,” Glass said. He smiled; if they were doomed, they had to do what they could to ensure that the Greys were defeated. Even the Greys had to have limits to their strength, didn’t they? “Then…take the fleet, as fast as we can, towards Grey-one; weapons free…and fire at will.”

He grinned. “No one can do wrong who fires at the enemy,” he said. “Give them hell.”

Damiani didn’t argue. He wasn't stupid, after all; he would have worked out that they would die anyway, so they might as well go down kicking and scratching. He sent the orders into the datanet as the Greys opened fire, their missiles lancing out towards the human ships, and then the Humanity returned fire, launching a concentrated barrage towards the Grey ships.

“Concentrate on a handful of targets, and include the remaining antistarfighter ships,” Glass said softly. The Omega Group had wiped out most of the antistarfighter craft…and no one had noticed in the chaos. Glass hoped that nothing like the Omega Group would be seen again, but after Roosevelt and New Brooklyn…and now Zeti2, he suspected that there would be no shortage of volunteers. “We want to knock the ships into the junkyard, not just damage them; we can’t get our own ships out.”

Humanity shuddered as seven Grey missiles slammed into its shields, fortunately spread out enough to avoid losing the shield. The Greys had concentrated their own fire on five superdreadnaughts…and one of them was already heavily damaged. As Glass watched, it exploded in a burst of plasma; another was seriously damaged and falling out of formation as it’s drive field failed. Moments later, a Grey nuke struck it…and blew it to smithereens. Glass watched the blast with grim eyes.

“I’m picking up some lifeboats from the ship,” Damiani reported. Glass knew that it hardly mattered. The Greys would either pick them up or they would leave them to die when the life support ran out. Some lifeboats had stasis generators, but he couldn’t remember if those superdreadnaughts had any of those onboard; in any case, it didn’t matter. “Sir?”

“Concentrate fire on the Greys,” Glass said, wishing, just for a moment, that he were a lowly tactical officer again. He was giving orders that were hurting the Greys – they had to be hurting the Greys – but it wasn't as satisfying as he wanted it to be. He wondered, just for a moment, if he should order the display reconfigured to allow him to take personal control…and then reminded himself that he was being silly. His place was giving orders.

The fleets moved together slowly; the humans because their engines were damaged, the Greys because they obviously wanted Grey-two to catch up and add it’s firepower to Grey-one. Glass knew that it wouldn’t be long before that happened – he was surprised that the Greys weren’t pushing it themselves – and knew that they had only a limited amount of time to hurt Grey-one.

A superdreadnaught exploded as a human starfighter fired a missile right into a breach in its hull, blowing it apart in a blast of plasma. Glass didn’t have time to be awed as one of his cruisers was struck by a missile intended for a human superdreadnaught, it’s drive field billowing out of control before it exploded; one human superdreadnaught lurched out of formation and fell behind, where missiles from Grey-two completed its death.

“There are more lifeboats,” Damiani said. His tone was almost pleading; Glass knew that there was nothing that they could do. Humanity shuddered as it launched more missiles; Glass smiled, knowing that they were almost within energy range. Then…they would see what they could do. “Admiral, can’t we…?”

“I’m sorry, son,” Glass said. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was sorry for; the fact that they would have to abandon the lifeboats, or the fact that they were about to die. “There’s nothing we can do.”

He tapped his communicator. “Captain,” he said, “pick a Grey ship and steer towards it; ramming speed.”

“Yes, sir,” the Captain said. “May I say that it has been a honour to serve with you?”

The lights dimmed slightly as the heavy energy weapons opened fire. “You can say that,” Glass whispered, as they drew closer to the Grey fleet. “I’m proud of all of you.”

He fought, suddenly, for a suitably dramatic line, one for the history books. “We did what was asked of us,” he breathed. He knew, now, what the price of humanity’s survival would be. “May God forgive us all.”

***

Commodore Nancy Middleton felt tears running down her cheek as the starfighters from the carrier Royal Oak fled towards her ship, knowing that their mothership had been destroyed. The Greys were closing in, pounding the human ships…and she watched from a safe distance as the remaining human craft tried to ram their tormentors. Two cruisers and the remaining battlecruiser were blown apart by heavy Grey fire; the others reached their targets and rammed. In a series of thunderous explosions, they killed and were killed.

The Admiral is dead, she thought. Lifeboats had been escaping the Humanity, along with other ships, but she knew better than to think that Glass would have taken one. She would have prayed that he had been, for once, so selfish and self-interested, but he wasn't that kind of man. If he had been, he would have not commanded her loyalty…

Roodt looked up at her. If the tears surprised him, he said nothing about them; she would have torn a strip off him if he had. “Commodore, orders?”

Nancy forced her mind to consider. The Greys were turning now, turning to chase the fleeing human ships, and Nancy knew what her orders had been. Every cell of her body demanded that she turn the carriers around and pound the Greys to scrap, but she knew that that would be impossible. Her ships were damaged, nearly three-quarters of their starfighters had been destroyed by the Greys; neither her ships, nor Admiral Solomon’s, or both of them acting in concert could inflict enough damage on the Greys to make the cost worthwhile.

“Sound the retreat,” she said, knowing that they’d failed. The Greys would move their mothership; they’d send it somewhere else to continue the war…and humanity had just lost upwards of half of its superdreadnaught strength. Victory…had suddenly become a lot harder to visualise, even if the Greys themselves had taken a pounding; she tried to portray it as a victory, but she knew better.

The Greys had kicked their arse.

They had lost the battle…

…And perhaps the war.

Epilogue

“The Imperials sterilized an entire planet?”

Hardly smiled at Erickson’s shock. They’d sat and listened to him for hours as he told them about the past; it was a version of the past that had never been written into the history books, or told to children; the Imperials had covered their tracks well. Elspeth Grey had done wonders tracking down the truth, but even she had never suspected just how much truth there was to find.

“They used nuclear weapons against the Grey bases and then deployed a bioweapon to exterminate much of the planet’s life,” he said. “Kind of ironic, given the fuss they made back in my day to gather up and destroy humanity’s bioweapons, although they had a point about that. Ten-odd years after the Invasion, some nut let something really nasty loose in Japan.”

Erickson stared at him. “Why?”

“I have no idea,” Hardly said. His voice darkened slightly. “You can’t understand it, you can’t grasp the chaos back then; the world itself had been tipped on its edge…and more than a few people thought that God had decreed the end of humanity and only needed a helping hand from his chosen people. One of them managed to blanket Tokyo in something from Russia; ten days later, they were dropping like flies.”

“Didn’t the Imperials do anything?”

“They sent in their doctors, made a tailored plague of their own to eradicate the bioweapon, and then started searching for other weapons,” Hardly said. He smiled wanly. “They had thousands of people like me, hunting for dangerous things; I was just the lucky one who learned about the Greys – not that the Imperials called them Greys, of course.”

Erickson ran his hand through his hair. “The Imperials knew about the Greys, then,” he said. It wasn't a question. “They destroyed an entire world to get rid of a Grey base?”

“They regarded the world as infected,” Hardly said. “Whatever that meant, I learned then that they were prepared to do anything to remove the infection, whatever it was. I hated the Viceroy then, for a while; he insisted on my coming back here along with other humans, mainly children; something of me is in the enhanced humans who fly those starfighters.”

Erickson slowly lifted his eyes to meet Hardly’s eyes. The sense of age, present in humans older than a hundred years, was overwhelming; Hardly’s claim to be over a thousand years old was suddenly believable. He was talking to a man who had lived during the Invasion, perhaps the first real human Imperial Agent; he wondered just what Hardly could tell historians in the future.

“They produced enhanced humans,” he said. “I take it that Corey is one of them?”

“They produced them to fight the Greys,” Hardly said. “You see, they know what the Greys actually are…”

The Viceroy entered the room. “I have been discussing matters with the Imperial Council,” he said. Erickson had been briefed, by Hardly, that the Imperial Council served as the centre of government for the Imperials, settling one puzzle that had puzzled even the Imperial experts; how were the Imperials themselves governed? “They have come to a decision.”

Erickson felt time come to a standstill as he waited for the Viceroy to continue. “We have neglected our duties for far too long,” the Viceroy said. There was a strange undercurrent running through his voice; Erickson felt Hardly shifting without looking at him. “We will assist you in defeating and exterminating the Greys.”

Erickson blinked. “Exterminating?”

Hardly smiled grimly. “Have you learned nothing?” He asked coldly. “The Greys are a threat to every living thing in this galaxy. They have to be exterminated…or they will exterminate us. There is no middle way.”

***

Cold rain was falling from the sky as they laid Admiral Glass to rest, deep below his native soil; he’d been born in Norway, long before committing his life to the Empire. Roland held Elspeth’s hand as the preacher spoke his words before the Stave Church, asking the God of his fathers to protect the man who had died to cover the retreat of the final starships from the Target Star; the man who, in the end, had given his life for the Human Union. The preacher finished his talk – they would hold a proper wake later – and the seven remaining members of Glass’s class at the training centre slowly lowered the casket into the grave. The casket was empty of course; that was almost fitting, given what had happened…

It hadn’t sunk in yet, Roland knew; it wouldn’t be long until some pundit counted the numbers and worked out just how badly the Human Union had lost. The destroyed starships were bad enough, but the losses in trained starfighter pilots were equally horrifying…and fifteen superdreadnaughts and carriers would need time in the Sirius Yard before they could be returned to the battleline. For all intents and purposes, the Human mobile forces had been crushed; it would be at least two months before the damaged ships could be reactivated…and the Greys would have a window of opportunity. In the two weeks since the battle, they hadn’t launched any attack of their own…but Roland dared not assume that they couldn’t launch an attack. If – when – they launched their attack, he knew that defeating it would be hard…and new tactics would be needed.

He held her hand and met her eyes, seeing the tears, and held her tightly. The Omega Group had proven itself, reinventing a nightmare that humanity had hoped had been crushed by the Imperials, during the Invasion. It would have to be expanded, despite the cold certainty that the Greys would be looking for countermeasures…and other weapons would have to be deployed. Yardmaster Talik’s weapons would have to be deployed, quickly…and other ideas would have to be tried. Their backs were against the wall…

…And someone had betrayed them to the enemy. Roland knew that Abigail Falcon and Octavos Tallyman – Human Intelligence and Imperial Intelligence – had come to the same conclusion. Someone, somewhere, had sold them out to the Greys; the mystery of who had both access to the information and the motive to betray them taunted Roland, even as the pallbearers started to bury the empty casket. Would that person reveal to the Greys just how badly they’d been hurt? When would the Greys stop licking their own wounds and go right for Earth?

The public – and most of the politicians – didn’t know how bad it was.

They would.

Soon.

Elspeth allowed him to lead her away from the gravesite, back towards their aircar; Roland knew that he didn’t dare remain too long in the open. There were always desperate assassins out there…and he had more than his fair share of political enemies. One of them could have paid for a hitman, even launching an attack at the funeral; how many chances would they have to take a pot shot at him? She didn’t resist, allowing him to help her into the aircar and take his seat behind the driver. He didn’t wave as they left, their escort settling into place around them; he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

Admiral Solomon had been promoted; someone had had to take Admiral Glass’s position and he was the only real candidate. He would have to split his role as Commander-In-Chief of the human forces with command of the defence of Earth; Grand Admiral Sir Pascal Schmidt had other worries, now that the evidence of what the Greys could do had been rubbed in their face. Commander Avishai Sumrall and Commodore Nancy Middleton would be likely to get promoted as well, no matter how many noses were put out of joint. They were pitifully short on flag officers; David Symons would end up with a superdreadnaught squadron, unless a more experienced candidate suggested himself…

…And if they survived the next few months.

His implant buzzed as they swooped down towards the Imperial Palace. “Your Highness, this is Doctor Glen Finney,” Finney said. “I was supposed to report to Admiral Glass when I had a breakthrough, and now…I think I have to report to you.”

Glass must have given him Roland’s personal com-code; only a handful of people could call him at any time of the day. “You had better come to the Palace,” Roland said, remembering Glass and wincing. Corey had just…gone into Glass’s quarters and…stopped; she was still alive, but she wasn't doing anything. Without knowing what the Imperials had done to her, there seemed to be no way to alter her programming, or even to bind her to someone else. “I’ll clear you to enter.”

An hour later, they met; Roland, Elspeth and Finney. Roland had held her while she cried and they knew – now – that they couldn’t put off their own feelings, not any longer. The media had already tagged her as a possible Prince Consort – although given how many names, from Suzie Collins to Abigail Falcon, they’d linked him with – few people would take it seriously. One day soon, Roland promised himself, he would ask her to marry him…but duty called. Finney’s perpetually unkempt appearance reminded him of that all too well.

“Your Highness,” Finney said. He hadn’t seemed to recognise Elspeth, or even understand her presence in the room; he just…talked. “Admiral Glass wanted me to work on the Master Grey we captured, trying to understand it. I had a breakthrough when I was exploring its DNA; someone modified the DNA so that it’s incredibly complex and…well, I had to uncompress it to take a look at it.”

Roland held up a hand. “Uncompress it?”

“Yes,” Finney said, apparently unconcerned that Roland hadn’t understood him completely. “You understand that DNA is a general term now; the Grey DNA bears no resemblance to human DNA?”

“Of course,” Roland said. That was basic logic. “What did you find?”

Finney seemed to be torn. “I was trying to unpick – to use a basic term - their DNA, trying to understand it,” he said. “I hoped that we might get a clue as to their location in space, so I was poking away at it with some of the most sophisticated sensors we could devise, and…well, I found some of the original DNA coding…and…well, I recognised it.”

Roland felt his mouth fall open. “You recognised it?”

“Yes,” Finney said. Roland had a sudden chilling presentiment of doom. “Sir, there’s no room for doubt; we’ve met that race before.”

He took a long breath. “Your Highness,” he said, “they’re Imperials.”

The Story Will Conclude In:

The Three-Edged Sword

Coming Soon!