Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

“Please, as you were. I am not empress yet,” she said calmly as she stepped over to a seat that was empty and settled into it.

“An empress in exile is an empress all the same, my lady,” Kennissey said firmly. “I was about to give the order to lift.”

“By all means,” Lydia said. “I am not here to give orders, and if I were, I would not think to give orders on how things should be done … merely what those things might be.”

“Of course,” Kennissey said and smiled, nodding to Groven. “Issue the order to lift.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Groven nodded smartly. “All ships, lift by the numbers!”

“Lift by the numbers, aye!”

The order was repeated across the deck, and they soon heard the distant echoing thumps of projectors being launched.

The first ships rose, catching the first wind layers with their massive sails. Ten, twenty, over fifty in the first wave took to the skies before the second round of launches thudded through the air. Over the next forty minutes the flotilla lifted in waves, until over five hundred cruisers and transports were in the skies, and all you could see for miles from below were the gleaming sails of light that pulled them on to their fate.

While it was a bad idea for an invading force to use the magnetic and quantum rails, that little truism didn’t hold for all those intent on visiting the capital.

Across the empire a small handful of men and women simply purchased tickets and took their seats like faithful citizens. Though they were scanned for weapons, as was the norm for most transport to the capital in troubled times, the scanners looked for things like explosives, lase cartridges, and gamma carbines.

None of those turned up, so no one was bothered and the transports all left smoothly and on time.

“Skimmer showing on the long-range scans, ma’am.”

Jessup walked over to the instrument section and looked over the officer’s shoulder. “What kind of hit?”

“Small,” he admitted. “Could be any number of private skimmers, I suppose, but the vector is a little off and they’re coming in on the third layer.”

“Third layer? They’re in a hurry.” Jessup nodded. “What’s odd about the vector?”

“They’re not aiming for any of the fields,” he answered. “Honestly, it looks like they’re just vectored to bypass, heading somewhere else …”

“Hmm … probably what’s going on. Keep an eye on them and nudge traffic control to get an ID.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Let me know when they’ve been identified.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jessup sighed as she walked away from the station, wishing that they could have based operations out of somewhere with less traffic to monitor. Unfortunately the capital was very nearly the center of all Imperial traffic, for obvious reasons. That had died down in the recent conflict, and things had been quiet for the last couple weeks. They were experiencing a surge in traffic as more transports had to be put on the job just to catch up on lost deliveries.

It was great for the local economy, which had taken a nasty hit, but security was a nightmare.

Unfortunately, with skimmers like the one they’d just tracked, by the time they had an identification the vessel would have blown clean past them or already be settling in for a landing. The speeds involved were such that they needed more tracking centers across the empire, but air movement was still such a small part of traffic, and Imperial resources were largely focused on the rails.

One more thing to address once the situation calmed down.

Jessup knew one thing only: Corian was the man for the job of fixing all the problems the previous corrupt administration had caused.

She had faith.

“Drop zone in three minutes!”

Mira heard the call but didn’t look up as she cleared the bulkhead and stepped into the now cramped cargo hold of the Andros . She took a moment to look over the hive of motion, taking a degree of pride in how well the crews were working. Then she spotted two figures pushing a large pallet into position and frowned slightly.

“I thought you two had gone with the empress,” she said casually as she walked over.

Mik and Dusk looked up, startled, and both jumped up straight.

“Skipper!” Mik blurted. “We heard you were short some crew down here, so we volunteered.”

“I see.” She nodded. “Carry on, then.”

“Yes, ma’am!” they both chorused, leaning back into their work.

Mira headed for the back of the hold, shaking her head. She’d wanted them off the Andros , just in case, but she supposed they were as safe here as on any of the ships in the loyalist flotilla.

The boarding teams were waiting for her as she walked up, just as the one-minute call went out.

“We ready?” Mira asked coolly, looking around.

The men and women looked bored as they nodded.

Mira smiled, nodding her approval. One rule for prefight talks was to not get excited. It was just another day at the office. There would be time enough for excitement in what was to come.

“Let’s get this done, then,” she said, activating her projection armor and stepping up to the doors as they rumbled open and the light went from red to yellow.

“Ten seconds to drop!”

Armor bloomed around her crew as they lined up, looking out over the terrain below as the master of the deck called out the last few seconds, and then the light turned green.

Mira went first, stepping into the air and letting the force of gravity take over.

Behind her the rest followed, and the first phase of the assault was officially underway.

Dropping from high atmo was an unreal experience no matter how many times you did it.

At first the air was so thin and you had so few points of reference that, even though you were moving at incredible speed, it just felt like you were floating in place. That didn’t last long, though, as the air began to thicken and buffet you around, spinning you above the ground below unpredictably.

That was the first dangerous obstacle to a high-altitude drop. An out-of-control spin could easily cause a person to black out, which might well be the last thing they ever do.

Mira spread her legs, flipping head down and using her limbs as drag to control her fall. As the atmosphere thickened around her, she pulled her arms and legs in, cutting the air like an arrow aimed straight down.

Behind her, the Andros ’s crew followed suit. They were using Cadre projected armor, slave linked to Mira’s own. Without the individual ability to link the armor, it was the best they had been able to work up on short notice. None of the crew was happy with it, but then few men or women of action ever truly wanted to hand their destiny over to someone else.

If they were going to trust anyone, however, they had unanimously elected to put that trust in the skipper.

Below them the world stabilized from the spin, and the thickening air began to whistle and roar around them as they plummeted toward the ground. A little over one minute into the fall, they broke the sound barrier and continued to accelerate.

An alert sounded across the bridge of the Caleb Bar , bringing Jessup back to the instrumentation station at a dead run.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“Something fell off that skimmer we were tracking,” the officer said.

“Fell off? Not fired?”

“No chance. It’s unpowered and settling into a terminal velocity of eight hundred and forty-three miles per hour. They’re gonna make holes when they hit, but we’re not scanning any warheads, so they’re not bombs.”