Walsh gave him a dumb grin. "Praise Him!" he shouted. "Praise Him."
Out in the crowd of representatives, Nikolayevich and the others were suddenly very much aware that beings very close to them were watching.
Nikolayevich almost choked, knowing that his lover's tusk was not the only bloody message delivered this day.
"Hail the Holy Emperor," Nikolayevich chanted. A moment later hundreds of other voices joined in. " Praise Him! Praise Him!"
The Emperor smiled and spread his hands. Then he wheeled around and swept off the platform with his contingent.
He rushed down the aisle, nodding here and there as he went. Even in his speed, Poyndex could see that he was savoring the shouts of "Hail the Holy Emperor!"
Poyndex was the last out. He could hear the Speaker's hammer coming down. Then his cry: "In the matter of PB 600323—titled, Declaration of the Eternal Emperor's Godhood... how do you say, gentlebeings?
"All for approval say Yea."
And the thunder came back: "Yea !"
Poyndex didn't bother sticking around for the "nays."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"NOTHING?" FLEET ADMIRAL Madoera glowered to the com watch officer. He refrained from adding, "Again?"
"Nossir. The Neosho reports no transmissions on any freq from any planet in the system. All unnatural EM bands are clean. And no sign of any ships, either, hostile or friendly.
"I had it make a double-sweep. We're picking up a lot of crap from that radio star, so I wanted to make sure before reporting."
"Right. File a preliminary report to Prime that Intel blew it again. No Sten, no nothing. We'll take the task force through on a high pass just to confirm."
"Sir... we won't be able to transmit until we're clear of the star ourselves. All long-range com links are blanketed."
"It doesn't matter. We'll report fully after we clear the system. Not that this'll be a surprise..."
He stopped before adding "... to those clots who think they're Intelligence."
Madoera's task force had spent too many ship-days and months chasing will-o‘-the-wisp sea stories about the elusive traitor around their assigned galactic AOR to be surprised. In Madoera's estimation, this new Internal Security that'd replaced Mercury Corps wasn't capable of pouring pee out of a boot if the instructions had been printed on its heel.
None of the Alpha One-rated stories had turned out to be true. Either Sten had never been there, Sten had passed through rapidly a long time ago, or some unknown ships had been reported in a particular cluster and assumptions made they were rebel.
Why, he wondered, didn't IS realize all of the stories were almost certainly a crock, since every system his fleet had been punted toward was dead, abandoned, or a backwater. Just like this one. It didn't even have a name—and its only coordinates were from a charter radio pulsar, NP0406Y32.
Maybe he should name the damned thing. Poyndex, perhaps.
Right. And face a loyalty board when he got back to Prime. Although at the moment he didn't think he was ever going to see civilization again. He and his sailors and marine infantry would waste their substance and years pooping around the hinterlands until one day somebody discovered this Sten had died of old age and they could all go home. Or maybe they'd just lose the task force's fiches in toto, and the fleet would wander on, until the Last Donald, like some sort of Flying Duchess, or however the legend went.
Hell.
Madoera slammed out of the daycabin onto his flagship's bridge. He glanced at one wallscreen that showed the system, a scatter of burned worlds too close to the radio pulsar, whose image—virtual, of course, as was everything else on the screen—flashed near the screen's top. He reached over a watch officer's shoulder, and tapped three pads.
Another screen opened, this one showing just Madoera's task force. A heavy combat fleet—a tacship carrier/flagship, the Geomys Royal; a modern battleship, the Parma; two cruiser divisions, one with two heavies, the second with three light cruisers; and seven destroyers for a screen. A second crudiv was in support, with three light cruisers and four destroyers in its screen. His logistics tail was small—two supply ships and one tender, escorted by two destroyers.
A force to contend with. If he ever—and he privately thought never—could bring the rebels to battle, the action would be brief. But bloody, he was certain. Sten was misguided, but not stupid, and he and all of his fellows must know that if they surrendered they'd be merely prolonging then" lifespan until a tribunal could be set up to try and execute them.
Knowing this, Madoera had issued as part of his standing orders instructions that if any rebel ships were encountered, extreme caution should be taken—they would certainly try any subterfuge or trick and fight to the last being. Certainly Madoera would do the same, if he ever slipped his shackles as badly as Sten.
Staring at the screen, Madoera wondered if there were any drills he hadn't run lately, or some highly obscure false emergency he could produce, just to keep his sailors from slacking off.
Clot it, he decided. It was bad enough they were hither-and-yonning so much. At least this time his swabs didn't need to think the old man was messing with them, as well as everyone else.
"In-system," the watch officer reported.
"Thank you, Sr. One pass. Double-diamond formation."
That, at least, would be a test of how well his navigators could handle a complex formation. Especially with the real external problem of trying to keep their corns open while that pulsar sent out its tsunamis of white noise in the background. Now, just hope there's no collision while they're doing it, which probably would get me a nice reassignment to some water world with real ships. With oars.
Madoera listened with half an ear to the chatter as his flag navigator issued orders for the fleet's exercise in synchronized "flying." He yawned.
The rebels attacked.
There was no warning—the two DD's on flank security simply ceased existing. Someone shouted an alarm, and ships blinked onto the Geomys Royal's screens. From "behind" the Imperial task force.
They must have known, Madoera realized, exactly what orbit the task force would set to approach this NP0406Y32, and followed them in.
The Imperial ships were at general quarters—but weapons stations were still at standby, and some missiles hadn't even been loaded in launch tubes. It had not made sense to chance damaging an expensive missile—or a more valuable crew-being—in another empty run.
A moment of panic, shouted down by Madoera and other officers throughout the task force. Steadiness returned—Madoera had turned his recruits into hardened professionals in long months of drill.
Numbers swirled across the screen showing the incoming attackers.
"Sir," a watch officer reported. "Six cruisers, estimated heavy, ten destroyers attacking."
"Thank you, Mister. I can prog that myself. What class? What origin?"
"Sir... the Jane's has no data," the woman said. "Unknown. Except—they're state-of-the-art design. Jane's offered the theory they're new construction."
Another wave of attackers appeared—this one from "below" the task force.
"Three battleships, seven cruisers, twenty destroyers incoming, sir. I have an ID, sir. On the battlewagons. Jane's has a make. All three of them were designed and built by the Cal'gata. Pre-Tahn war. Jane's has them as mothballed and for sale. Five of the destroyers are Honjo origin, and we have a positive ED on one. The Aoife."