David Weber - Empire from the Ashes

It would never have done for Jefferson to admit he was nervous. Nor would it have been true, for "nervous" fell far short of what he felt tonight. This was the absolutely critical phase, the one which would make him Emperor of Humanity—if it worked—and anxiety mingled with a fierce expectation. He'd worked over a decade—more than twenty-five years, if he counted from his first contact with Anu—for this moment, and even as a part of him feared it would fail, the gambler part of him could hardly wait to throw the dice.

It was odd, but, in a way, he'd actually be sorry if it worked. Not because he didn't want the crown, and certainly not because he regretted what he had to do to get it, but because the game would be over. He would have carried out the most audacious coup in the history of mankind, but all the daring, the concentration and subtle manipulation, would be a thing of the past, and he could never share the true magnitude of his accomplishment with anyone else.

He shook his head at his own perversity, and a small smile flickered. The curse of his own makeup, he chided himself, was that he could never be entirely content, however well things went. He always wanted more, but there were limits, and he supposed he'd just have to settle for absolute power.

Bergren straightened in his chair as five Narhani entered the outbound terminal with a huge, tarpaulin-draped object on a counter-grav dolly. The centaurs fussed with their burden, placing it carefully on the platform and taking their places about it in a protective circle, and, despite all his implants could do, the lieutenant swallowed nervously as he flashed a mental command to the power sub-net. It was a routine testing order, but tonight it had another effect, and he winced as the induced surge flashed through the gamma bank of capacitors and an audio alarm shrilled.

The Narhani on the platform looked up, long-snouted heads twisting around in confusion as the high-pitched warble hurt their ears, and Bergren sent quick, fresh commands to his computer to shut it down. Then he leaned forward and keyed a microphone.

"Sorry, gentlemen," he told the Narhani over the speakers in the terminal area. "We've just lost one of our main capacitor banks. Until we get it back, our transmission capacity's down to eighty percent of max."

"What does that mean?" the senior Narhani asked, and Bergren shrugged for the benefit of the control room security recorders.

"I'm afraid it means you're over the limits for our available power, sir," he replied smoothly.

"May we shift to another platform?"

"I'm afraid it wouldn't matter, sir. As you know, this system is very energy intensive. For this much mass, any of the platforms would draw on the same capacitor reserve, so you might as well stay where you are."

"But did you not say you cannot send us?" The Narhani sounded confused, and Bergren hid a smile.

"No, sir. I just can't transmit the entire load at once. I'll have to send your freight through in one transmission, then send you and the other members of your party through in a second, that's all."

"I see." The Narhani spokesman and his companions spoke softly and quickly in their own language. Bergren didn't know what the object they were accompanying was, but he knew they were a security detachment, and he forced himself to sit calmly, hiding any trace of anxiety over what they might decide. After a moment, the spokesman looked back up and raised the volume of his vocoder.

"Can we not send at least one of our number through with our freight?"

"I'm afraid not, sir. We'll be right at the limits of our available power, and Regs prohibit me from sending passengers under those conditions."

"Is there risk to our freight?" The question was sharp for a Narhani.

"No, sir," Bergren soothed. "Not if it's not alive. The regulations are so specific because a power fluctuation that won't harm inanimate objects can cause serious neural damage in living passengers. It's just a precaution."

"I see." The spokesman looked back at his companions for a moment, then twitched his crest in the Narhani equivalent of a shrug. "We would prefer to wait until your power systems have been repaired," he told Bergren, "but our schedule is very tight. Can you assure us our freight will arrive undamaged?"

"Yes, sir," Bergren said confidently.

"Very well," the Narhani sighed. He spoke to his companions in their own language again, and all five of them stepped off the platform and moved back behind the safety line.

"Thank you, sir," Bergren said, and his fold-com implant sent a brief, prerecorded burst transmission to a waiting relay as he began to prep for transmission.

"Alert signal," a woman said quietly in the control room on Jefferson's screen. The two men at the main console nodded acknowledgment without ever opening their eyes, and one of them activated the stealthed sensor arrays watching Shepard Center from orbit.

"Good signal," his companion announced in the toneless voice of a man concentrating on his neural feed. "We've got their field strength. Coming up nicely now."

"Synchronizer on-line," the third tech said. "Power up and nominal. Switching to auto sequence."

Carl Bergren watched his readouts through his feeds. This was the tricky part that was going to earn him that big stack of credits. The settings had to be almost right, and he straightened his mouth as he felt it trying to curl in a grin of tension. The power levels were already off the optimum curve, thanks to the failure of the gamma bank, and he very carefully cut back the charge on the delta bank. Not by much. Only by a tiny, virtually undetectable fraction. But it would be enough—if whoever was in charge of the other part of the operation got his numbers right—and he sent the alert signal to Birhat and waited for the response.

Lawrence Jefferson leaned towards his com, clutching his wineglass, and his heart pounded. This was the moment, he thought. The instant towards which he'd worked so long.

"Their field's building now," the sensor tech murmured. "Looking good... looking good... stand by... stand by... coming up to peak... now !"

Carl Bergren sent the release code, and the capacitors screamed. The shrouded object on the platform vanished as the mat-trans sent a mighty pulse of power into hyper-space, and he held his breath. The transmission he'd sent out was almost precisely four millionths of a percent too weak to reach Birhat. It would waste its power twenty light-minutes short of the funnel waiting to catch it for the reception units, but no one would ever know if—

The control room on Lawrence Jefferson's com screen was silent, its personnel frozen. Not even a mat-trans was truly instantaneous over an eight-hundred-light-year range, and Jefferson held his breath while he waited.

A soft tone beeped, and Carl Bergren let out a whooshing breath as the Birhat mat-trans operator acknowledged receipt. He'd done it! The person at the other end of the hypercom link didn't realize someone else had invaded the system. He thought he'd just received Bergren's transmission!

The lieutenant suppressed an urge to wipe his forehead. Deep inside, he hadn't really believed his employer could pull it off, and it was hard to keep his elation out of his voice as he activated his mike.

"Birhat has confirmed reception, sir," he told the Narhani spokesman. "If you'd step onto the platform, I can send you through now, as well."

"We did it!" someone shouted gleefully. "They accepted the transmission!"

The staff of Jefferson's illicit mat-trans whistled and clapped, and the Lieutenant Governor checked the computer tied into his com. Good. The exact readouts of the transmission, which just happened to carry the same identifier code as Lieutenant Bergren's system, had been properly stored. He'd have to wait until the regular Shepard Center data collection upload late next week to exchange them for Bergren's actual log of the transmission, but that part of the pipeline had already been tested and proved secure. It was inconvenient, since he would have preferred to make the switch sooner, yet there was nothing he could do about it. The mass readings of the transit would prove the statue Birhat had just received had not, in fact, been the solid block of marble Bergren had just destroyed, and for his Reichstag fire to work, it was vital that Battle Fleet itself discover that fact when the time came.