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Unfortunately, none seemed to have returned to Bia itself—which made sense, given that Birhat, the first victim of the bio-weapon, had been quarantined at the very start of the Empire's death agony. Less than a dozen active units had responded to Mother's all-ships hypercom rally signal, and the nearest was upwards of eight hundred light-years away; Earth would be dead long before Colin could return if he waited for them them to reach Birhat.
There was a bitter irony in the fact that Birhat's defenses remained almost fully operational. Bia's mammoth shield, backed by Perimeter Security's prodigious firepower, could have held anything anyone could throw at them. But everyone who needed defending was on Earth.
"Mother," he said finally, "let's try something different. Instead of reporting in sequence, list all mobile forces in order of proximity to Birhat."
"Acknowledged. Listing Bia System deployments. Birhat Near-Orbit Watch Squadron: twelve heavy cruisers. Bia Deep-System Patrol Squadron: ten heavy cruisers, forty-one destroyers, nine frigates, sixty-two corvettes. Imperial Guard Flotilla: fifty-two Asgerd-class planetoids, sixteen—"
"What? Stop!" Colin shouted.
"Acknowledged," Mother said calmly.
"What the fuck is the Imperial Guard Flotilla?!"
"Imperial Guard Flotilla," Mother replied. "The Warlord's personal command. Strength: fifty-two Asgerd-class planetoids and attached parasites, sixteen Trosan-class planetoids and attached parasites, and ten Vespa-class assault planetoids and attached planetary assault craft. Current location: parking orbit thirty-eight light-minutes from Bia. Status: inactive."
"Jesus H. Christ!" Colin stared at Jiltanith. Her face was as shocked as his own, and they turned as one to glare accusingly at the console.
"Why," Colin asked in a dangerously calm voice, "didn't you mention them earlier?"
"Sire, you had not asked about them," Mother said.
"I certainly did! I asked for a complete listing of Battle Fleet units!" Mother was silent, and he growled a curse at all computers which could not recognize the need to respond without specific cues. "Didn't I?" he snarled.
"You did, Sire."
"Then why didn't you report them?"
"I did, Sire."
"But you didn't report this Imperial Guard Flotilla—" Flotilla! Jesus, it was a fleet! "—did you? Why not?"
"Sire, the Imperial Guard is not part of Battle Fleet. The Imperial Guard is raised and ma
Colin blinked. Personal demesne? An Emperor whose personal fiefdoms could raise that kind of firepower? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. He sagged back, trembling, and a warm arm crept about him and tightened.
"All right." He shook his head and inhaled deeply, drawing strength from Jiltanith's presence. "Why is the Guard Flotilla inactive?"
"Power exhaustion and uncontrolled shutdown, Sire."
"Assess probability of successful reactivation."
"One hundred percent," Mother said emotionlessly, and a jolt of excitement crashed through him. But slowly, he told himself. Slowly.
"Assume resources of one hundred seven thousand Battle Fleet perso
"Impossible to reactivate to full combat readiness," Mother replied. "Specified perso
"Then compute time to reactivate to limited combat readiness."
"Computing, Sire," Mother responded, and fell silent for a disturbingly long period. Almost a full minute passed before she spoke again. "Computation complete. Probable time required: four-point-three-nine months. Margin of error twenty-point-seven percent owing to large numbers of imponderables."
Colin closed his eyes and felt Jiltanith tremble against him. Four months—five-and-a-half outside. It would be close, but they could do it. By all that was holy, they could do it!
"There," Tamman said quietly as a green circle bloomed on Dahak's visual display, ringing a tiny, gleaming dot. The dot grew as Dahak approached, and additional dots appeared, spreading out in a loose necklace of worldlets.
"I see them," Colin replied, still luxuriating in his return to Command One and a world he understood. "Big bastards, aren't they, Dahak?"
"I compute that the largest out-mass Dahak by over twenty-five percent. I am not prepared to speculate upon the legitimacy of their parentage."
Colin chuckled. Dahak had been much more willing to engage in informality since his return from Fleet Central, as if he recognized Colin's shock at suddenly finding himself an emperor. Or perhaps the computer was simply glad to have him back. Dahak was a worrier where friends were concerned.
He watched the planetoids grow. If Vlad was right about the Empire's technology, those ships would be monsters in action—and monsters were exactly what they needed.
"Captain, look here." Ellen Gregory, Sarah Meir's Assistant Astrogator, placed a sighting circle of her own on the display, picking out a single starship. "What do you make of that, sir?"
Colin looked, then looked again. The stupendous sphere floating in space was only roughly similar to the only Imperial planetoid he'd ever seen, but one thing was utterly familiar. A vast, three-headed dragon spread its wings across the gleaming hull.
"Well looky there," he murmured. "Dahak, what d'you make of that?"
According to the data Fleet Central downloaded to my data base," Dahak replied, "that is His Imperial Majesty's Planetoid Dahak, Hull Number Seven-Three-Six-Four-Four-Eight-Niner-Two-Five."
"Another Dahak?"
"It is a proud name in Battle Fleet." Dahak sounded a bit miffed. "Rather like the many ships named Enterprise in your own United States Navy. According to the data, this is the twenty-third ship to bear the name."
"It is, huh? Well, which one are you?"
"This unit is the eleventh of the name."
"I see. Well, in order to avoid confusion, we'll just refer to this young whippersnapper as Dahak Two, if that's all right with you, Dahak."
"Noted," Dahak said calmly, and continued to close on the silently waiting, mille
"By the Maker, I've got it!"
Colin jumped half out of his couch as Coha
"Try penicillin," he advised sourly, and she looked blank, then gri
"Sorry, sir. I meant I've figured out what happened on Birhat—why it's got that incredible bio-system. I found it in Mother's data base."
"Oh?" Colin sat straighter, his eyes more intent. "Give!"
"It's simple, really. The zoos—the Imperial Family's zoos."
"Zoos?" It was Colin's turn to look blank.
"Yes. You see, the Imperial Family had an immense zoological garden. Over thirty different planets' flora and fauna in sealed, self-sufficient planetary habitats. Apparently, they lasted out the plague. I'd guess the automated systems responsible for restraining plant growth failed first in one of them, and the thing cracked. Once it did, its inhabitants could get out, and the same vegetation attacked the exterior of other surviving habitats. Over the years, still more oxy-nitrogen habitats were opened up and started spreading to reclaim the planet. That's why we've got such a screwy damned ecology. We're looking at the survivors of a dozen different planetary bio-spheres after forty-five thousand years of natural selection!"