December, 2349, off of Pluto
The central monitor zoomed in on the rebel ship as it belched fire into space. As they watched the ship shuddered and then broke up. There was an expectant hush across the bridge as everyone realized the import of the moment at the same time. Finally, the silence was broken by the sensor officer.
“Life pods in space. The target is confirmed destroyed, sir.”
The silence hung on for a few seconds, then cheers broke out across the bridge. After a few seconds more the cheers spread throughout the ship. Victor sat, stunned, as the enormity of the destruction of the last enemy ship settled in. The war was over, really, really over.
He looked over to the bridge repeaters and saw that the jubilation that had broken out on his normally subdued bridge was repeated on the bridges of the other six System Defense Cruisers of his Battle Group. One by one he sought out his fellow commanders, the commanders of his most critical units.
These officers had been with him from the first, and had stood with him through the hell that was the first few minutes of the Mutiny. He trusted them with his life, and they had proved worthy of that trust every step of the way. As always his eyes were drawn to Captain Isaac Gibbons first. Isaac had been with him since the academy. He was reliable and one of the best men he knew at shepherding along new officers and crews. Commander Sam Craig was next, commander of the System Defense Cruiser Aurora. Aggressive and decisive, Sam was one of the best commanders in the fleet. Commander Lucas Dennis, on the surface, was the polar opposite of Craig. Where Craig was rough-hewn and bristling in his energy and aggressiveness, Dennis was refined and affected a studied indifference. For all of that he was an excellent ship-handler and very good with his junior officers. Next was Commander Kane Franklin. Just like Dennis, Kane presented a deceptive front to the world. On the surface he appeared nothing more than everyone’s idea of a bumbling professor, and indeed his interest ran to astronomy and astro-physics, and he could talk for hours on the subject. For all of that he was perhaps the best ship-handler in the navy. Then there was Cord Sims, commander of the Trafalgar. Cord could rival Craig for his brutal appearance, and his stubbornness was legendary throughout the Navy. Finally he turned to Brigadier General Louise Hutchinson, originally the commander of his marine detachment before the mutiny and now the CO of all the marines assigned to his Battle Group. General Hutchinson was always there, guarding his back. It was Louise who had commanded the marines he had deployed during the initial attack that started the war, and she had been instrumental in stopping the rebel units long enough for loyal militia units to arrive and finish the rebels before they could complete their missions.
One by one, looking at his friends and companions, he saw the reality of the war’s end reflected in their faces and he broke into a smile himself. It was over!
Twenty-five days later, in orbit over Terra…
The return of the System Defense Fleet to the inner system was not as triumphant as Prince Victor had thought it would be. Throughout the war his father had made sure that everything he and the fleet had done was presented in the best light to the public, in an effort to rally the people behind the government. He was uncomfortable with the mystique that his father’s propaganda machine had built up around him, but he had to admit that it had proved useful in the past. Now, with the final defeat of the rebel fleet in hand, their return to orbit had been quiet and apparently unnoticed, except for a brief, rather terse, command from Fleet HQ for him to shuttle down to the Mount Sterling Spaceport. Alone. Immediately.
Mount Sterling Spaceport was the little-used port that serviced the Imperial Household, so it was clear to Victor that this was a summons from his father, the Emperor, or his brother, who really ran things these days. Either way it was a little puzzling, but not alarming. After all, they had won the battle, right?
Victor pondered the situation during the short trip down from orbit, and then during the equally short ride from the spaceport to the household complex. All of this was accomplished without fanfare. Again, while he preferred it this way, it was such a substantial change from the way things were the last several times he had returned home that he had to wonder what was going on.
His thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when they reached the entrance to the Household Compound, which included the Summer Palace, an administrative center where much of the work of the Imperial government was accomplished, and several vast and sprawling parks and carefully preserved wild-lands, as well as the Residence. After his car was passed through the outer security cordon, he was interested to note the fact that they proceeded directly to the Residence. He had assumed, given the apparent secrecy of his visit that he would be going to the Imperial Administration Center, but apparently not.
The car dropped him off at the side entrance to the house, commonly known as the servant’s entrance, although it really was a service door used mostly for deliveries. There he was met by two plainclothes security people whom he did not recognize, and who did not seem to be in the mood for chit-chat. They took him through the sprawling residence complex via several back routes. They seemed to know where they were going, but before they were very far into their seemingly endless trip he was completely lost.
The thought had occurred to him more than once during the trip down from orbit and then again on the ground that the secrecy surrounding his return could easily be perceived as sinister under other circumstances. He knew exactly how popular he was with the fleet, and, because of his father’s well-oiled propaganda machine, with the public. Some would see that as a threat, but they had always been a close family, at least until the war split them up. His father, the Emperor, and his brother, the Crown Prince, knew damned well that he had no ambitions towards the throne, and that he wouldn’t allow himself to be used by others to that end either. Still, this was all very strange.
Finally, after winding through the Residence for what seemed like an endless time, his escorts waived him through a door, then, as he entered, they took up positions outside and closed the door behind him. He stopped just inside the room and looked around. The room was one he didn’t recognize, but wished he did. It was a well-appointed, moderately large room. The walls were lined with books and at the far end a fire burned in a large fire place. He was just beginning to wonder how long he was going to have to wait when a rustling sounded at the far end of the room, close to the fire place. He started when he realized that there was someone there, ensconced deep within a chair and covered with blankets. “Father?”
After a second the figure in the chair moved, waiving him over to another chair placed somewhat farther from the fire place. Slowly Victor moved to the proffered chair, shocked to his core. His father was 176 years old this year, which, with modern Imperial medicine, was late middle age, if that. Even so, his father looked wasted, like he had aged drastically since Victor had seen him last. Victor dropped into the chair thoughtlessly, still focused on the husk that was his father. “Father, what happened to you?”
A dry chuckle escaped from his father, which then turned into a dry, rattling cough. After a few seconds the old man took a deep breath. “I’m dying, son. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but you needed to focus on your duties.”
“But…what happened? How?”
The Emperor shook his head. “I’ve been living on borrowed time since the start of the rebellion. The doctors brought me back from near certain death then, but there was a price for that. They promised me five years then, but I’ve managed to last long enough to see those damned rebels fall. To see vengeance for your mother and brother. You brought me that, you, your brother, and your sister. I wanted to thank you before I go.”
Victor fell to his knees at his father’s feet. “Father! Why…” He stopped there, before he said something that he couldn’t take back. His relationship with his father had always been complex, and his father had always been a loving but distant man. For much of his earlier life he had been a dilettante with no real responsibilities or authority. It was only late in life he had come to a sense of responsibility, and perhaps because of that he had been stern with his children, when he was present, but much of the time he was gone, trying to restore the family to the power it had once had.
The old man smiled and reached out to his son, patting him on the head clumsily. “Son, I was granted a gift when I survived that explosion. I got to stay here and make sure the three of you were ready to take over when I leave. Over the last ten years I’ve seen you and your brother and sister grow into responsibility that it took me a century to achieve, and I’m proud of you.”
Victor, speechless, got up and walked across the room, his mind whirling. “Father, if I’d know I’d have been able to spend more time with you. Before…”
The old man shook his head. “No, you couldn’t. My illness had to remain a secret or the rebels would have used it to undermine our support. If you had constantly been running back here to spend time with me, it wouldn’t have been long before someone figured it out. As it is I’ve got Edward to run the day to day affairs of the Empire, and you to run the military, and Victoria to keep an eye on the research establishment. Everyone got used to seeing the three of you in the forefront of the war, and I was able to retire to the background. Now, when I pass, it will be tragic, but not a tragedy for the Empire or our family.” The Emperor paused and his gaze sharpened. “This wasn’t why I called you here, though. There is something else. Sit and I’ll explain.”
Victor shook his head, at a loss. What else was going on? Taking his father’s advice he returned to his chair and sat, staring into the flames in the fireplace.
Seeing that Victor wasn’t going to speak, the Emperor nodded to himself. “Early last year our troops on Mars found something. Something that the Council has kept secret for sixty three years.” The Emperor paused, clearly trying to figure out how to proceed. After a second he shrugged and plowed on. “Have you ever heard of Professor-Doctor Ernst Skaidon?” Victor shook his head, so the Emperor continued. “Ernst Skaidon was a professor of astro-physics at the Imperial University sixty five years ago. Back then he was fascinated by the disappearance of the warp points, and had devoted the last several decades to studying the Collapse. In 2286 his research was suddenly put under Council Seal and he subsequently disappeared. At the time it was unexplained, but we now know that he was taken to by Duke Allan’s people to a secret Council research station on Mars, where he completed his work. Skaidon’s work showed, fairly conclusively, that the warp point network collapsed because the gravitic stress lines running down the galactic arm from the galactic center to the far points of the arms became “stretched” due to the independent motions of the various stars, and when that stress reached a critical point the warp points, which depend on the gravitic stress lines, disappeared. All of that was interesting, but what got Skaidon’s work classified was the next step. Skaidon proved that it would take between one hundred and one hundred and twenty years for the warp point network to re-establish itself. We found that proof in one of the Duke’s holdout locations.”
Victor’s mind was whirling. “But that doesn’t make sense. That means that the warp points could have returned over seventy years ago. Why would the Council keep that a secret?”
A sigh escaped from the Emperor. “Because of me. Because they feared the loss of their positions and power. The Council was fundamentally conservative. They liked the way things were and didn’t want anything to change. It was right at the time that Skaidon disappeared that I first decided to try and take control of the Empire from the Council. I’m sure that they saw the potential chaos in interstellar expansion as a threat, not an opportunity. You see where that attitude got them.”
“So the warp points may be there now, waiting for us? The rest of the Empire might be out there, waiting for us?”
The Emperor shook his head feebly. “There are several problems with that. First off, Skaidon’s work makes it clear that the new warp point network will bear little resemblance to the old one. In fact, there is a measurable chance that the new warp links will lead to entirely unexplored territories. The other problem is a little more mundane. As you said earlier, the warp points have likely been back for over seventy years. That is seventy years for other races, or even our old colonies, to expand while we sat here and stagnated. How far did the first interstellar empire go in seventy years?”
“But…this is incredible! The stars! They withheld the stars from us!” Prince Victor’s head was so filled with the possibilities that he forgot about his father’s infirmities, if only for a moment.
“Yes, they did. They also gambled that no one would stumble upon us. Tell me son, you’ve read the old histories. What happened when the first interstellar empire found a ‘one-system race’?”
“They were invited to join the Empire.”
“Yes, quite often at the point of a missile launcher. The Empire was so large during the later stages of the interstellar era that no one-system power could reasonably hope to oppose it. What would happen to us here if one of our former colonies which has spent the last seventy years expanding through the newly re-established warp network, were to find us blithely going about our business here in our little backwater?”
Prince Victor frowned. “That might not go well for us.”
“No, it probably wouldn’t, and that is with a human colony. There were aliens out there as well, and some of them didn’t care for humanity at all. Everyone in this system is at risk, and it is our responsibility to do something about it.”
“What are you proposing?”
“Edward and I agree that we have no choice, we must explore and expand. We must become strong again, and find potential threats before they find us. The Empire’s first new gravitic survey ship to be launched in over one hundred and seventy years is ready to begin surveying the system now that you’ve eliminated the last rebel holdouts. Now that you are back I am going to go before the people as I am, and credit you and your brother and sister with this final victory, and then I’m going to announce that I am going to retire to our estates, and that Edward will be Regent in my stead. In reality he has already been acting in that capacity, so it won’t be any large change. Still, he will need you to be his strong sword arm. We will be moving into uncharted waters. Right now the population of this system is united behind the three of you, and the opening of the warp points will give them hope. They desperately need that hope, given how far we’ve fallen.”
“This is all so incredible! To think that we are finally going back to the stars!”
“Yes we are, and you will lead the way…” Having imparted the information he needed to, and having set the scene, the old Emperor had a simple meal with his son, talking about old and better times. Later they were joined by the Crown Prince and they began hashing out the future.
End of December, 2349
Rear Admiral Prince Tannenbaum is jumped two ranks to Vice Admiral, making him the ranking officer in the newly re-established Imperial Navy. Vice Admiral Tannenbaum initiates a shakeup of the Navy, promoting several of his closest supporters and ousting several others. In addition, Vice Admiral Tannenbaum orders a return to many of the traditions of the old Imperial Navy.
Shortly thereafter the Emperor announces that he is going to retire to his estates. The public is shocked and saddened by his obvious infirmity, but cheer the associated announcement that Crown Prince Edward will be Regent.
