A slightly pudgy man with dark hair slowly made his way out of the cell, hands clearly showing.
“Name’s Gaston Rouche,” he said slowly. “Imperial engineer, assigned to the Redoubt.”
She checked her briefing files and nodded. The name and face matched.
Apparently Corian didn’t have much use for him.
“Mind telling me how you got yourself locked in the detention cells?” she asked dryly.
Gaston snorted angrily. “That bloody traitor is how.”
“Corian?”
“Who? No. Commander Jessup. She was assigned command of the Redoubt. She’s been shifting assignments for months, getting her own people into position. The rest of us never stood a chance.”
Jessup. Bethany Jessup, commander, Imperial Army. Clean record. Mira consulted the files on her personal data system while keeping an eye on the engineer. No links to Corian in her files. No surprise. If there had been, she’d have had her command pulled before he was sent here.
Every time she learned something more about this mess, Mira thought it stank of conspiracy far beyond what she’d been led to believe.
Corian is good, but this is more than a military coup. He’s got backing from inside the Senate, at the very least.
That probably didn’t narrow the field as much as she’d have liked, however, given that the only thing the Senate hated more than its own members was the Imperial Family.
The empire balanced on three powerful forces, each not entirely in opposition but certainly not in alliance with one another: the Senate, the Corporate Alliance, and the Imperial Family. Militarily, the emperor commanded enough forces to make the other two submit, but using that power had cost. The Alliance could subtly bleed the empire, and did so when given half a chance, while the Senate was made up of the various lords, barons, and other assorted nobles, who weren’t much of a force as individuals but together could present a credible threat.
In practice, the corporatists were too focused on their profits to play the long game, and the nobles were too busy fighting each other to ally against the Imperial forces. That left Emperor Scourwind largely in charge, but exceptions had happened in the past and, it seemed, might just be happening now.
“Do you know what they were after?” she asked the engineer.
He shook his head. “Jessup locked me up from the start. Didn’t even bother trying to recruit me … Should I be insulted, do you think?”
Mira laughed humorlessly. “I don’t know. Maybe she just didn’t like you much.”
“There’s truth in that,” he grumbled. “Never got along with her from the start. She was always a little too interested in my project …” He trailed off, his eyes losing focus.
“What?” Mira asked, recognizing that he’d just thought of something.
“I need to get to secure storage,” he said. “Flight deck.”
“Knock yourself out,” Mira gestured, following him after he started to walk quickly away. “Don’t expect to find much.”
Gaston stopped, turning back to look at her sharply. “Why not?”
“Corian—I’m guessing it was him … It’s his kind of move—” she said idly as she caught up with him, “used an overpressure bomb to clear the Redoubt. Not a lot left in one piece up there.”
“That wouldn’t have destroyed my …” Gaston shook his head. “I have to check.”
Mira just gestured again, then followed when he ran off.
“Oh, burning skies!” Gaston swore as he looked over the large flight deck. “It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” Mira asked from behind him, still debating how much to trust the man.
“We were working on a prototype ship,” he said. “The Caleb Bar. It’s … it’s one of a kind.”
“That’s often what prototype means,” Mira said, now tensing up. “What kind of ship?”
“The Caleb is a strato-cruiser, heavily armed,” he said. “She’s got some of the heaviest armor projectors we’ve ever built, but that’s not what makes her so dangerous.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Rouche,” Mira growled. “What the hell did Corian fly out of here?”
“The Caleb’s equipped with a prototype quantum-rail drive,” Gaston said. “You know how those work?”
Mira nodded. “Sure. You lay a quantum rail by linking subatomic particles. Slow acceleration, unbelievable power, very efficient for superatmospheric transport over long distances.”
“Right, but with a quantum tractor drive you can’t go anywhere there’s no rail, so the rails have to be linked by a strato-ship or a reaction vessel.”
“So?”
“The Caleb can link its own rail as it goes,” he said. “She can travel above the atmosphere and strike from any angle, like a reaction ship, but the Caleb is hundreds of times the mass of a reaction ship and can do it without a thermal signature. It’s unstoppable.”
Mira closed her eyes, half turning away, as she tried to keep from swearing.
“We need to get back to the capital,” she finally said, “while there still is a capital to get back to.”
The open foredeck of the Caleb was awash in the wind of the upper atmosphere as General Corian walked stiffly to the large wheel mounted on the center platform. His missing leg had been replaced with a temporary prosthetic that was ill matched, but he didn’t have time to do things the right way just then. For the moment he’d eat the pain and walk on fire and plasma if that was what it took to finish the job.
The wheel was a throwback, a nod to a bygone era of Imperial greatness, but it did the job. He gripped it tightly, easing it back as he felt the ship respond under his feet. They were at full sail, with long runners reaching high up above the ship into the strato-winds, pulling hard for the Imperial capital.
He heard steps behind him but didn’t bother to look back.
“My compliments, commander,” he said, a smile flitting across his scarred face. “She is everything you said she’d be.”
“The best engineers in the empire worked for half a decade on design alone to make her so, general,” Bethany Jessup said as she came to a stop on his blind side.
“I’m shocked that something so purely beautiful could be made under the corrupt fools that control the empire,” he said, rolling the wheel to the right just enough to feel the big ship shift underfoot and dip her starboard side, showing the ground far beneath them as he finished adjusting the course and leveled out. “Magnificent.”
“I’ll take that as a personal compliment.” Jessup let the roll lean her into his side, careful not to put too much weight on him for fear of aggravating his injury.
“You should. You oversaw the construction of something that will change history,” Corian told her, turning his head so he could see her with his good eye.
He tilted his head down, his lips capturing hers for a long, deep kiss before Corian looked back over the foredeck of the ship.
Jessup just smiled. “What now?”
“Now we take the empire,” Corian said with a smile as he locked the wheel and stepped back. “Time to go belowdecks, love. Call down to the engines; tell them to warm up the tractor drive.”
“Of course, Corian,” Jessup answered.
“Seal all ports. Dog the hatches shut,” he ordered as he stepped down through the heavy door that led below. “We’re taking the Caleb clear of atmo. Next stop,” he said as the door swung closed with a heavy clang, “the capital.”