CHAPTER TWELVE

They went to their quarters to argue.

Jiltanith opened her mouth, eyes flashing dangerously, but Dahak's electronic reflexes beat her to it.

"Senior Fleet Captain MacIntyre," he said with icy formality, "what you propose is not yet and may never become necessary, and I remind you of Fleet Regulation Nine-One-Seven, Subsection Three-One, Paragraph Two: 'The commander of any Fleet unit shall safeguard the chain of command against unnecessary risk.' I submit, sir, that your intentions violate both the spirit and letter of this regulation, and I must, therefore, respectfully insist that you immediately abandon this ill-advised, hazardous, and most unwise plan."

"Dahak," Colin said, "shut up."

"Senior Fl—"

"I said shut up," Colin repeated in a dangerously level voice, and Dahak shut up. "Thank you. Now. We both know the people who wrote the Fleet Regs never envisioned this situation, but if you want to quote regs, here's one for you. Regulation One-Three, Section One. 'In the absence of orders from higher authority, the commander of any Battle Fleet unit or formation shall employ his command or any sub-unit or member thereof in the manner best calculated, in his considered judgment, to preserve the Imperium and his race.' You once said I had a command mentality. Well, maybe I do and maybe I don't, but this is a command decision and you're damned well going to live with it."

"But—"

"The discussion is closed, Dahak."

There was a long moment of silence before the computer replied.

"Acknowledged," he said in his frostiest tones, but Colin knew that was the easy part. He smiled crookedly at Jiltanith, glad they were alone, and gave it his best shot.

"'Tanni, I don't want to argue with my XO, either."

"Dost'a not, indeed?" she flared. "Then contend with thy wife, lackwit! Scarce one thin day in this system, and already thou wouldst risk thy life?! What maggot hath devoured thy brain entire?! Or mayhap 'tis vanity speaks, for most assuredly 'tis not wisdom!"

"It isn't vanity, and you know it. We simply don't have time to waste."

"Time, thou sayst?!" she spat like an angry cat. "Dost'a think my wits addled as thine own? Howsoe'er thou dost proceed, yet will we never return to Terra ere the Achuultani scouts! And if that be so, then where's the need o' witless haste? Four months easily, mayhap five, may we spend here and still out-speed the true incursion back to Earth—and well thou knowest!"

"All right," he said, and her eyes narrowed at his unexpected agreement, "but assume you're right and we start poking around. What happens when we do something Fleet Central doesn't like, 'Tanni? Until we know what it might object to, we can't know what might get everyone aboard this ship killed. So until we establish communications with it, we can't do anything else, either!"

Jiltanith's fingers flexed like the cat she so resembled, but she drew a breath and made herself consider his argument.

"Aye, there's summat in that," she admitted, manifestly against her will. "Yet still 'tis true we have spent but little time upon the task. Must thou so soon essay this madness?"

"I'm afraid so," he sighed. "If this is Fleet Central, it's either Ali Baba's Cave or Pandora's Box, and we have to find out which. Assuming any of Battle Fleet's still operational—and the way this thing powered itself up is the first sign something may be—we don't know how long it'll take to assemble it. We need every minute we can buy, 'Tanni."

She turned away, pacing, arms folded beneath her breasts, shoulders tight with a fear Colin knew was not for herself. He longed to tell her he understood, but he knew better than to . . . and that she knew already.

She turned back to him at last, eyes shadowed, and he knew he'd won.

"Aye," she sighed, hugging him tightly and pressing her face into his shoulder. "My heart doth rail against it, yet my mind—my cursed mind—concedeth. But, oh, my dearest dear, would I might forbid thee this!"

"I know," he whispered into the sweet-smelling silk of her hair.

 

Colin felt like an ant beneath an impending foot. Fleet Central's armored flank seemed to trap him, ready to crush him between itself and the blue-white sphere of Birhat, and he hoped Cohanna wasn't monitoring his bio read-outs.

He nudged his cutter to a stop. A green and yellow beacon marked a small hatch, but though his head ached from concentrating on his implants, he felt no response. He timed the beacon's sequence carefully.

"Dahak, I have a point-seven-five-second visual flash, green-amber-amber-green-amber, on a Class Seven hatch."

"Assuming Fleet conventions have not changed, Captain, that should indicate an active access point for small craft."

"I know." Colin swallowed, wishing his mouth weren't quite so dry. "Unfortunately, my implants can't pick up a thing."

Colin felt a sudden, almost audible click deep in his skull and blinked at a brief surge of vertigo as a not quite familiar tingle pulsed in his feed.

"I've got something. Still not clear, but—" The tingle suddenly turned sharp and familiar. "That's it!"

"Acknowledged, Captain," Dahak said. "The translation programs devised for Omega Three did not perfectly meet our requirements, but I believe my new modifications to your implant software should suffice. I caution you again, however, that additional, inherently unforeseeable difficulties may await."

"Understood." Colin edged closer, insinuating his thoughts cautiously into the hatch computers, and something answered. It was an ID challenge, but it tasted . . . odd.

He keyed his personal implant code with exquisite care, and for an instant just long enough to feel relieved disappointment, nothing happened. Then the hatch slid open, and he dried his palms on his uniform trousers.

"Well, people," he murmured, "door's open. Wish me luck."

"So do we all," Jiltanith told him softly. "Take care, my love."

 

The next half-hour was among the most nerve-wracking in Colin's life. His basic implant codes had sufficed to open the hatch, but that only roused the internal security systems.

There was a strangeness to their challenges, a dogged, mechanical persistence he'd never encountered from Dahak, but they were thorough. At every turn, it seemed, there were demands for identification on ever deeper security levels. He found himself responding with bridge officer codes he hadn't known he knew and realized that the computers were digging deep into his challenge-response conditioning. No wonder Druaga had felt confident Anu could never override his own final orders to Dahak! Colin had never guessed just how many security codes Dahak had buried in his own implants and subconscious.

But he reached the central transit shaft at last, and felt both relief and a different tension as he plugged into the traffic sub-net and requested transport to Fleet Central's Command Alpha. He half-expected yet another challenge, but the routing computers sent back a ready signal, and he stepped out into the shaft.

One thing about the terror of the unknown, he thought wryly as the shaft took him and hurled him inward: it neatly displaced such mundane fears as being mashed to paste by the transit shaft's gravitonics!

 

The shaft deposited him outside Command Alpha in a brightly-lit chamber big enough for an assault shuttle. The command deck hatch bore no unit ensign, as if Fleet Central was above such things. There was only the emblem of the Fourth Empire: the Imperium's starburst surmounted by an intricate diadem.

Colin looked about, natural senses and implants busy, and paled as he detected the security systems guarding this gleaming portal. Heavy grav guns in artfully hidden housings were backed up by the weapons Vlad had dubbed warp guns, and their targeting systems were centered on him. He tried to straighten his hunched shoulders and approached the huge hatch with a steady tread.

Almost to his surprise, it licked aside, and more silent hatches—twice as many as guarded Dahak's Command One—opened as he walked down the brightly lit tunnel, fighting a sense of entrapment. And then, at last, he stepped out into the very heart and brain of Battle Fleet, and the last hatch closed behind him.

It wasn't as impressive as Command One, was his first thought—but only his first. It lacked the gorgeous, perfect holo projections of Dahak's bridge, but the softly bright chamber was far, far larger. Dedicated hypercom consoles circled its walls, labeled with names he knew in flowing Imperial script, names which had been only half-believed-in legends in his implant education from Dahak. Systems and sectors, famous Fleet bases and proud formations—the names vanished into unreadable distance, and Quadrant Command nets extended out across the floor, the ranked couches and consoles too numerous to count, driving home the inconceivable vastness of the Empire.

It made him feel very, very insignificant.

Yet he was here . . . and those couches were empty. He had come eight hundred light-years to reach this enormous room, come from a planet teeming with humanity to this silence no voice had broken in forty-five millennia, and all this might and power of empire were but the work of Man.

He crossed the shining deck, bootheels ringing on jeweled mosaics, and ghosts hovered in the corners, watchful and measuring. He wondered what they made of him.

It took ten minutes to reach the raised dais at the center of the command deck, and he climbed its broad steps steadily, the weight of some foreordained fate seeming to press upon his shoulders, until he reached the top at last.

He lowered himself into the throne-like couch before the single console. It conformed smoothly to his body, and he forced himself to relax and draw a deep, slow breath before he reached out through his feed.

There was a quick flicker of response, and he felt a surge of hope—then grunted and flinched as he was hurled violently out of the net.

"Implant interface access denied," a voice said. It was a soft, musical contralto . . . utterly devoid of life or emotion.

Colin rubbed his forehead, trying to soothe the sudden ache deep inside his brain, and looked around the silent command deck for inspiration. He found none, and reached out again, more carefully.

"Implant interface access denied." The voice threw him out of the net even more violently. "Warning. Unauthorized access to this installation is punishable by imprisonment for not less than ninety-five standard years."

"Damn," Colin muttered. He was more than half-afraid of how Fleet Central might react to activating his fold-space com but saw no option. "Dahak?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"I'm getting an implant access denial warning."

"Voice or neural feed?"

"Voice. The damned thing won't even talk to my implants."

"Interesting," Dahak mused, "and illogical. You have been admitted to Command Alpha; logically, therefore, Fleet Central recognizes you as an officer of Battle Fleet. Assuming that to be true, access should not be denied."

"The same thought had occurred to me," Colin said a bit sarcastically.

"Have you attempted verbal communication, sir?"

"No."

"I would recommend that as the next logical step.".

"Thanks a lot," Colin muttered, then cleared his throat.

"Computer," he said, feeling just a bit foolish addressing the emptiness.

"Acknowledged," the emotionless voice said, and his heart leapt. By damn, maybe there was a way in yet!

"Why have I been denied implant access?"

"Improper implant identification," the voice replied.

"Improper in what way?"

"Data anomaly detected. Implant interface access denied."

"What anomaly?" he asked, far more patiently than he felt.

"Implant identification not in Fleet Central data base. Individual not recognized by core access programs. Implant interface access denied."

"Then why have you accepted voice communication?"

"Emergency subroutines have been activated for duration of the present crisis," the voice replied, and Colin paused, wondering what "emergency subroutines" were and why they allowed verbal access. Not that he meant to ask. The last thing he needed was to change this thing's mind!

"Computer," he said finally, "why was I admitted to Command Alpha?"

"Unknown. Security is not a function of Computer Central."

"I see." Colin thought more furiously than ever, then nodded to himself. "Computer, would Fleet Central Security admit an individual with invalid implant identification codes to Command Alpha?"

"Negative."

"Then if Security admitted me, the security data base must recognize my implants."

Silence answered his observation.

"Hm, not very talkative, are you?" Colin mused.

"Query not understood," the voice said.

"Never mind." He drew a deep breath. "I submit that a search might locate my implant codes in Fleet Central Security's data base. Would you concur?"

"The possibility exists."

"Then I instruct you," Colin said very carefully, "to search the security data base and validate my implant codes."

There was a brief pause, and he bit his lip.

"Verbal instructions require authorization overrides," the voice said finally. "Identify source of authority."

"My own, as Senior Fleet Captain Colin MacIntyre, commanding officer, ship-of-the-line Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One." Colin was amazed by how level his own voice sounded.

"Authorization provisionally accepted," the voice said. "Searching security data base."

There was another moment of silence, then the voice spoke again.

"Search completed. Implant identification codes located. Anomalies."

"Specify anomalies."

"Specification one: identification codes not current. Specification two: no Senior Fleet Captain Colinmacintyre listed in Fleet Central's data base. Specification Three: Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One, lost fifty one thousand six hundred nine point-eight-four-six standard years ago."

"My codes were current as of Dahak's departure for the Noarl System on picket duty. I should be added to your data base as a descendant of Dahak's core crew, promoted to fill a vacancy left by combat losses."

"That is not possible. Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One, no longer exists."

"Then what's my non-existent command doing here?" Colin demanded.

"Null-value query."

"Null-value?! Dahak's in orbit with Fleet Central right now!"

"Datum invalid," Fleet Central observed. "No such unit is present."

Colin resisted an urge to smash a bioenhanced fist through the console.

"Then what is the object accompanying Fleet Central in orbit?" he snarled.

"Data anomaly," Fleet Central said emotionlessly.

"What data anomaly, damn it?!"

"Perimeter Security defensive programming prohibits approach within eight light-hours of Planet Birhat without valid identification codes. Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One, no longer exists. Therefore, no such unit can be present. Therefore, scanner reports represent data anomaly."

Colin punched a couch arm in sudden understanding. For some reason, this dummy—or its outer surveillance systems, anyway—had accepted Dahak's ID and let him in. For some other reason, the central computers had not accepted that ID. Faced with the fact that no improperly identified unit could be here, this moron had labeled Dahak a "data anomaly" and decided to ignore him!

"Computer," he said finally, "assume—hypothetically—that a unit identified as Dahak was admitted to the Bia System by Perimeter Security. How might that situation arise?"

"Programming error," Fleet Central said calmly.

"Explain."

"No Confirmation of Loss report on Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One, was filed with Fleet Central. Loss of vessel is noted in Log Reference Rho-Upsilon-Beta-Seven-Six-One-Niner-Four, but failure to confirm loss report resulted in improper data storage." Fleet Central fell silent, satisfied with its own pronouncement, and Colin managed not to swear.

"Which means?"

"ID codes for Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One, were not purged from memory."

Colin closed his eyes. Dear God. This brainless wonder had let Dahak into the system because he'd identified himself and his codes were still in memory, but now that he was here, it didn't believe in him!

"How might that programming error be resolved?" he asked at last.

"Conflicting data must be removed from data base."

Colin drew another deep breath, aware of just how fragile this entire discussion was. If this computer could decide something Dahak's size didn't exist, it could certainly do the same with the "data anomaly's" captain.

"Evaluate possibility that Log Reference Rho-Upsilon-Beta-Seven-Six-One-Niner-Four is an incorrect datum," he said flatly.

"Possibility exists. Probability impossible to assess," Fleet Central replied, and Colin allowed himself a slight feeling of relief. Very slight.

"In that case, I instruct you to purge it from memory," he said, and held his breath.

"Incorrect procedure," Fleet Central responded.

"Incorrect in what fashion?" Colin asked tautly.

"Full memory purge requires authorization from human command crew."

Colin cocked a mental ear. Full memory purge?

"Can data concerning my command be placed in inactive storage on my authority pending proper authorization?"

"Affirmative."

"Then I instruct you to do so with previously specified log entry."

"Proceeding. Data transferred to inactive storage."

Colin shuddered in explosive relaxation, then gave himself a mental shake. He might well be relaxing too soon.

"Computer, who am I?" he asked softly.

"You are Senior Fleet Captain Colinmacintyre, commanding officer HIMP Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One," the voice said emotionlessly.

"And what is the current location of my command?"

"HIMP Dahak, Hull Number One-Seven-Two-Two-Niner-One, is currently in Birhat orbit, ten thousand seventeen point-five kilometers distant from Fleet Central," the musical voice told him calmly, and Colin MacIntyre breathed a short, soft, fervent prayer of thanks before jubilation overwhelmed him.

 

"All right!" Colin's palms slammed down on the couch arms in triumph.

"What passeth, my Colin?" an urgent voice demanded through his fold-space link, and he realized he'd left it open.

"We're in, 'Tanni! Tell all hands—we're in!"

"Bravely done! Oh, bravely, my heart!"

"Thank you," he said softly, then straightened and returned to business. "Computer."

"Yes, Senior Fleet Captain?"

"What's your name, Computer?"

"This unit is officially designated Fleet Central Computer Central," the musical voice replied.

"Is that what your human personnel called you?"

"Negative, Senior Fleet Captain."

"Well, then, what did they call you?" Colin asked patiently.

"Fleet Central personnel refer to Comp Cent as 'Mother.' "

"Mother," Colin muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. Oh, well, if that was what Fleet Central was used to . . . 

"All right, Mother, prepare to accept memory core download from Dahak."

"Ready," Mother said instantly.

"Dahak, initiate core download but do not purge."

"Initiating," Dahak replied calmly, and Colin felt an incredible surge of data. He caught only the fringes of it through his feed, but it was like standing on the brink of a river in flood. It was almost frightening, making him suddenly and humbly aware of the storage limitations of a human brain, yet for all its titanic proportions, it took barely ten minutes to complete.

"Download completed," Mother announced. "Data stored."

"Excellent! Now, give me a report on Fleet status."

"Fleet Central authorization code required," Mother told him, and Colin frowned as his enthusiasm was checked abruptly. He didn't know the authorization codes.

He pulled on the end of his nose, thinking hard. Only Mother "herself" could give him the codes, and the one absolute certainty was that she wouldn't. She accepted him as a senior fleet captain, which entitled him to a certain authority in areas pertaining to his own command but did not entitle him to access the material he desperately needed. Which was all the more maddening because he'd become used to instant information flow from Dahak.

Well, now, why did he have that information from Dahak? Because he was Dahak's commander. And how had he become the CO? Because authority devolved on the senior crew member present and Dahak had chosen to regard a primitive from Earth as a member of his crew. Which suggested one possible approach.

To his surprise, he shrank from it. But why? He'd learned to accept his persona as Dahak's captain and even as Governor of Earth, so why did this bother him?

Because, he thought, this brightly lit mausoleum whispered too eloquently of power and crushing responsibility, and it frightened him. Which was foolish in someone who'd already been made to accept responsibility for the very survival of his race, but nonetheless real.

He shook himself. The Empire was dead. All that could remain were other artifacts like Mother, and he needed any of those he could lay hands on. Even if that meant assuming command of a long-abandoned headquarters crewed only by ghosts and computers.

He only wished it didn't feel so . . . impious.

"Mother," he said finally.

"Yes, Senior Fleet Captain?" the computer replied, and he spoke very slowly and carefully.

"On this day, I, Senior Fleet Captain Colin MacIntyre, commanding officer—" he remembered the designation Fleet Central had tacked onto Dahak "—HIMP Dahak, do, as senior Battle Fleet officer present, pursuant to Fleet Regulation Five-Three-Three, Section Niner-One, Article Ten, assume command of Fl—"

"Invalid authorization," Mother interrupted.

"What?" Colin blinked in surprise.

"Invalid authorization," Mother repeated unhelpfully.

"What's invalid about it?" he demanded, unreasonably irritated at the delay now that he had steeled himself to it.

"Fleet Regulation Five-Three-Three does not pertain to transfer of command authority."

"It does so!" he shot back, but it was neither a question nor a command, and Mother remained silent. He gritted his teeth in frustration. "All right, if it doesn't pertain to transfer of command, what does it pertain to?"

"Regulation Five-Three-Three and subsections," Mother said precisely, "pertains to refuse disposal aboard Battle Fleet orbital bases."

"What?!"

Colin glared at the console. Of course Reg Five-Three-Three referred to transfer of command! It was how Dahak had mousetrapped him into this entire absurdity! He'd read it for himself when he—

Understanding struck. Yes, he'd read it—in a collection of regulations written fifty-one millennia ago.

Damn.

"Please download current Fleet Regulations and all relevant data to my command."

"Acknowledged. Download beginning. Download completed," Mother said almost without pause, and Colin reactivated his com.

"Dahak?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"I need some help here. What regulation replaced Five-Three-Three?"

"Fleet Regulation Five-Three-Three has been superseded by Fleet Regulation One-Niner-One-Five-Seven-Three-Niner, sir."

Colin winced. For seven thousand years, the Imperium had managed to hold Fleet regulations to under three thousand main entries; apparently the Empire had discovered the joys of bureaucracy.

No wonder Mother had so much memory.

"Thank you," he said, preparing to turn his attention back to Mother, but Dahak stopped him.

"A moment, Captain. Is it your intent to use this regulation to assume command of Fleet Central?"

"Of course it is," Colin said testily.

"I would advise against it."

"Why?"

"Because it will result in your immediate execution."

"What?" Colin asked faintly, certain he hadn't heard correctly.

"The attempt will result in your execution, sir. Regulation One-Niner-One-Five-Seven-Three-Niner does not apply to Fleet Central."

"Why not? It's a unit of Battle Fleet."

"That," Dahak said surprisingly, "is no longer true. Fleet Central is Battle Fleet; all units of Battle Fleet are subordinate to it. Battle Fleet command officers are not promoted to Fleet Central command duties."

"Then where the hell does its command staff come from?"

"They are drawn from Battle Fleet; they are not promoted from it. Fleet Central command officers are selected by the Emperor from all Battle Fleet flag officers and serve solely at his pleasure. Any attempt to assume command other than by direction of the Emperor is high treason and punishable by death."

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!"