David Weber - Empire from the Ashes

Colin went white as he realized only Mother's interruption to correct an incorrect regulation number had saved his life.

He shuddered. What other tripwires were buried inside Fleet Central? Damn it, why couldn't Mother be smart enough to tell him things like this?!

Because, a small, calm voice told him, she hadn't been designed to be.

Which was all very well, but if he couldn't assume command, Mother wouldn't tell him the things he had to know, and if he tried to assume command, she'd kill him on the spot!

"Dahak," he said finally, "find me an answer. I've got to be able to exercise command authority here, or we might as well not have come."

"Fleet Central command authority lies in the exclusive grant of the Emperor, Captain. There is no other way to obtain it."

"Goddamn it, there isn't any emperor!" Colin half-shouted, battling incipient hysteria as he felt the situation crumbling in his hands. All he needed was for Dahak to catch Mother's lunatic literal-mindedness! "Look, can you invade the core programming? Redirect it?"

"The attempt would result in Dahak 's destruction," the computer told him. "In addition, it would fail. Fleet Central's core programming contains certain imperatives, of which this is one, which may not be reprogrammed even on the Emperor's authority."

"That's insane," Colin said flatly. "My God, a computer you can't reprogram running your entire military establishment?!"

"I did not say all reprogramming was impossible, nor do I understand why these particular portions cannot be altered. I am not privy to the content of the imperatives or the reasons for them. I base my statement on technical data included in the material downloaded to me."

"But how the hell can anything be unalterable? Couldn't you simply shut the thing down, dump its entire memory, and reprogram from scratch?"

"Negative, sir. The imperatives are not embodied in software. In Terran parlance, they are 'hard-wired' into the system. Removal would require actual destruction of a sizable portion of the central computer core."

"Crap." Colin pondered a moment longer, then widened the focus of his com link. "Vlad? 'Tanni? Have you been listening in on this?"

"Aye, Colin," Jiltanith replied.

"Any ideas?"

"I'faith, none do spring to mind," his wife said. "Vlad? Hast some insight which might aid our need?"

"I fear not," Chernikov said. "I am currently viewing the technical data Dahak refers to, Captain. So far as I can tell, his analysis is correct. To alter this would require a complete shutdown of Fleet Central. Even assuming 'Mother' would permit it, the required physical destruction would cripple Comp Cent and destroy the data we require. In my opinion, the system was designed precisely to preclude the very possibility you have suggested."

"Goddamn better mousetrap-builders!" Colin muttered, and Chernikov stifled a laugh. It made Colin feel obscurely better... but only a little.

"Dahak," he said finally, "can you access the data we need?"

"Negative."

"And you can't think of any way to sneak around these damned imperatives?"

"Negative."

"Then we're SOL, people," Colin sighed, slumping back in his couch, his sense of defeat even more bitter after the glow of victory he'd felt such a short time before. "Damn it. Damn it! We need an emperor to get into the goddamned system, and the last emperor died forty-five thousand years ago!"

"Captain," Dahak said after a moment, "I believe there might be a way."

"What?" Colin jerked back upright. "You just said there wasn't one!"

"Inaccurate. I said there was no way to 'sneak around these damned imperatives,' " the computer replied precisely. "There may, however, be a way in which you can use them, instead. I point out, however, that—"

"A way to use them? How?! "

"Under Case Omega, sir, you can—"

"I can take control of Fleet Central?" Colin broke in on him.

"Affirmative. Under the circumstances, you may be considered the highest ranking officer of Battle Fleet, and, in your capacity as Governor of Earth, the senior civil official, as well. As such, you may instruct Fleet Central to implement Case Omega, so assuming—"

"Great, Dahak!" Colin said. "I'll get back to you in a minute." Hot damn! He found himself actually rubbing his hands in glee.

"But, Captain—" Dahak said.

"In a minute, Dahak. In a minute." Elation boiled deep within him, a terrible, wonderful elation, compounded by the emotional whipsaw which had just ravaged him. "Mother," he said.

"Yes, Senior Fleet Captain Colinmacintyre?"

"Colin," Dahak said again, "there are—"

"Mother," Colin said firmly, rushing himself before whatever Dahak was trying to tell him could undercut his determination, "implement Case Omega."

There was a moment of profound silence, and then Hell itself erupted. Colin cringed back into his couch, hands rising to cover his eyes as Command Alpha exploded with light. A bolt of pain shot through his left arm as a bio-probe of pure force snipped away a scrap of tissue, but it was tiny compared to the fury boiling into his brain through his neural feed. A clumsy hand thrust deep inside him, flooding through his implants to wrench a gestalt of his very being from him. For one terrible moment he was Fleet Central, writhing in torment as his merely mortal brain and the ancient, bottomless computers of Battle Fleet merged, impressing their identities imperishably upon one another.

Colin screamed in the grip of an agony too vast to endure, and yet it was over before he could truly experience it. Its echoes shuddered away down his synapses, stuttering in the racing pound of his heart, and then they were gone.

"Case Omega executed," Mother said emotionlessly. "The Emperor is dead; long live the Emperor!"

"I attempted to warn you, Colin," Dahak said softly.

Colin shuddered. Emperor? That was... was... Words failed. He couldn't think of any that even came close.

"Colin?" Jiltanith's voice was gentler than Dahak's, and far more anxious.

"Yes, 'Tanni?" he managed in a strangled croak.

"How dost thou, my love? We did hear thee scream. Art thou—?"

"I-I'm fine, 'Tanni," he said, and, physically, it was true. He cleared his throat. "There were a few rough moments, but I'm okay now. Honest."

"May I not come to thee?" She sounded less anxious—but not a lot.

"I'd like that," he said, and he had never spoken more sincerely in his life. Then he shook his head. "Wait. Let me make sure it's safe."

He gathered himself and raised his voice.

"Mother?"

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty?" the voice replied, and he flinched.

"Mother, I'd like one of my officers to join me. Her implant signatures won't be in your data base either. Can you have Security pass her through?"

"If Your Imperial Majesty so instructs," Mother responded.

"My Imperial Majesty certainly does," Colin said, and smiled crookedly. Maybe he wasn't going to crack up entirely, after all.

"Query: please identify the officer to be admitted."

"Uh? Oh. Fleet Captain Jiltanith, Dahak 's executive officer. My wife."

"Acknowledged."

"'Tanni?" he returned his attention to his com. "Come ahead."

"I come, my love," she said, and he stretched out in his couch, knowing she would soon be there. His shudders drained outward along his limbs until the final echoes tingled in his fingers and his breathing slowed.

"Mother."

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty?"

"What was all that? What happened when you executed Case Omega, I mean?"

"Emergency subroutines were terminated, ending Fleet Central's caretaker role upon Your Imperial Majesty's assumption of the throne."