Firstborn

  Sennion Crestmar, High Officer and Imperial Duke, stepped forward to greet his son. “In the name of the High Emperor, I welcome you, returning warrior.” His words carried over the wind that still whipped outside the pavilion. “Accept this as a token of our esteem, and take your rightful place as the greatest High Admiral the Empire has ever known.”

  Sennion extended a hand bearing a golden medal emblazoned with the double sunburst seal, the highest and most prestigious of the Imperial Crests.

  Varion stood in the wind, looking down at the medal that swung from his father’s hand. He reached out, taking the award in his hand, then held it up before the light, dangling it before his eyes.

  All were still.

  Then Varion let the medal drop to the grass.

  Sennion’s gun was in his hand in an instant. He pointed the weapon at his son’s forehead and gave no opportunity for retraction. He simply pulled the trigger.

  The energy blast burst just millimeters before Varion’s face and then dissipated. The High Admiral hadn’t moved. He was unhurt, and apparently unconcerned.

  Around Dennison, the pavilion’s occupants burst into motion. Flex-blasters and slug-drivers were pulled from holsters as men jumped for cover. Soldiers and officers alike drew. Dennison stood, immobile amid the yelling and the gunfire, and realized he wasn’t surprised.

  The greatest High Admiral the Fleet has ever known . . . perhaps the greatest commander mankind has ever seen. Of course he wouldn’t stop with the Reaches. Why would he? Dennison’s father fired again, weapon held just inches from Varion’s face. Again, the blast evaporated, hitting some kind of invisible shield.

  This is no Imperial technology, Dennison thought, stepping forward obliviously as others opened fire. Energy bolts and slugs alike were stopped by Varion’s strange shield. Twenty years on his own, autonomous and unfettered by Imperial control. . . . Of course! He captured the most technologically advanced worlds first. That’s why some of those choices didn’t make sense. He was planning for this even back then.

  Men called for Dennison’s father to get out of the way. Some were firing at Varion’s officers, but they too had the strange personal shields, and they stood calmly, not even bothering to return fire. Dennison continued to walk forward, drawn to his brother. He watched as Varion reached down and unholstered his sidearm and raised it to his father’s head.

  “You are no child of mine,” Sennion said, proudly staring down his son. “I disavow you. I should have done it twenty years ago.”

  Dennison froze as Varion pulled the trigger. The duke’s corpse crumpled to the ground, a few wisps of smoke rising from his head.

  A wave of gun-blasts stormed from behind Dennison, ineffectively firing at Varion. The grass and earth before Varion exploded with fire and weapon blasts. Someone called for a physician.

  Varion turned to regard the attack, raising a hand, waving his people back into the ship. Then he noticed Dennison. Silvermane steeped forward, carefully picking his way across the scarred ground. Dennison felt like scrambling back toward his speeder, but running would be useless. This was Varion Silvermane. He did not lose. People did not escape him. Those eyes . . . looking into those eyes, Dennison knew that this man could destroy him.

  Varion stopped right in front of Dennison. The High Admiral’s eyes looked contemplative. “So,” he finally said, voice clear even over the gunfire and yells. “They did clone me. Well, the High Emperor will find that I am even capable of defeating myself.”

  He turned and left. Someone finally got a big repeating Calzer gun working, and it fired a blinding barrage of blue bolts. Varion’s shields repulsed them. There should have been some blowback, at least, but there was nothing. Varion walked up the ramp to his ship as calmly as he had strolled down.

  The Calzer soon drained the pavilion’s energy stores, and the weather sphere collapsed, letting in the full fury of the winds. Dennison stepped forward through lines of smoke torn and then dispersed by the gale, ignoring the voices of angry, confused, and frightened men.

  Varion’s drop-ship blasted off, throwing Dennison to the ground. By the time his vision cleared, the ship was a dark speck in the air.

  * * *

  “We knew he had something,” Kern said, watching the holo for the tenth time. “But his shield. Where did he develop it? We put spies on each world. . . .”

  “He brought them with him,” Dennison said quietly, standing against the view railing.

  “What?”

  “The scientists,” Dennison said from the side of the hologram room. “Varion doesn’t trust anything he can’t watch directly. He would have brought the scientists from Gemwater with him, probably on his flagship. That way he could supervise their work.”

  “Gemwater . . .” Kern said. “But he conquered that planet over fifteen years ago! You think your brother has been keeping secrets for that long?”

  Dennison nodded distractedly. “He knew from that first battle at Seapress. He understood that by quelling the Reaches, he would make the High Empire stronger and harder to defeat when the time came. That’s why he took Gemwater so early, to give its scientists decades to build him secret technology.”

  Kern watched the holo again.

  The universe felt . . . awry to Dennison. His father was dead. Sennion Crestmar had never been loving, but he had instilled in Dennison a powerful will to succeed. He’d been demanding, rigid, and unforgiving. Yet, Dennison had hoped that someday . . . maybe . . . he would be able to make the man proud.

  And now he never would. Varion had robbed Dennison of that.

  What does it matter? Dennison thought. The hologram below showed the firefight through smoke and verdant grass. Sennion wasn’t even really my father. I have no father. Unless Varion was wrong.

  No. Varion was never wrong.

  Only two men could verify the claim for certain. The first lay dead from an energy blast to the head. The other—The High Emperor, who had to approve all cloning requests—had yet to respond to Dennison’s request for an audience. But Dennison knew what the answer would be. The saddest part wasn’t that Dennison was a fabricated tool, it was that he was a defective one. Genetically, he was the same as Varion. He had even checked in the mirror and found a few silver hairs. Varion had started to go gray at twenty-three—Dennison’s age now.

  So many things made sudden and daunting sense. You cannot be like other officers, his father had said. The High Empire expects more. No wonder they had pushed Dennison so hard; no wonder they had refused to let him leave the service. He was Varion.

  And yet he wasn’t. Whatever Varion had, it hadn’t been transmitted to Dennison. That confidence of his hadn’t come from a random mingling of chromosomes. The victories, the power, the sheer momentum. These could not be copied.

  The High Emperor will find that I am even capable of defeating myself. Varion knew—knew that he was special, somehow.

  “Dennison,” Kern said.

  Dennison looked up. Kern sat below, in a chair just before the holo, looking up disapprovingly. He had paused the recording. The point he had inadvertently chosen showed a disturbing image. Varion’s weapon raised, smoking, a corpse falling to the grass below. . . .

  “Dennison, I asked you a question,” Kern said.

  “He’s going to win, Kern,” Dennison said, staring at the holo. “The empire . . . to Varion, what is the empire but another collection of recalcitrant planets to be brought into line?”

  Kern glanced at the holo, and—realizing where he’d paused it—turned off the image.

  “We are High Officers, Dennison,” Kern said sternly. “Such talk isn’t fitting.”

  Dennison snorted.

  “Varion can be defeated,” Kern insisted.

  Dennison shook his head. “No. He can’t. And why should we bother, anyway? When does a man stop being a hero and start being a tyrant? If he had the right to bring the rebellious Reaches into line, then why shouldn’t he claim the same moral right regarding us?”

/>   Kern frowned. “Only the planets that raided us were conquered—at least, at first, back when Varion was still nominally under control. This complete conquest of the Reaches was his own plan, done against the High Emperor’s wishes. By the time we realized our mistake, he was already too powerful. We really only had one option—gather strength and wait, hoping that he would be satisfied with taking the Reaches.”

  Dennison shook his head. “If you hoped that, then you never really knew him. He is a conqueror, Kern. It’s like he feels some divine right to take the High Throne for himself.”

  Kern’s frown deepened. He reached over, turning the recording back on. Once again, Dennison was confronted by the frozen image of his father dying, his brother . . . his other self . . . watching impassively.

  “At least the High Empire believes in honor, Dennison,” Kern said. “Is there honor in that face? The face of a man who would slaughter his own father?”

  Dennison glanced away, shutting his eyes. “Please.”

  He heard the holo wink off. “I’m sorry,” Kern said sincerely. “Here, let me show you something else instead.”

  Dennison turned back; the holo shifted to an image of Varion. This image, however, was in motion. Varion sat behind a broad, black commander’s desk, a small data pad in his hand.

  “What is this?” Dennison asked, perking up.

  “The feed from a bug we have in Varion’s study,” Kern explained. “Aboard the Voidhawk.”

  Dennison frowned. “How—?”

  “Never mind how,” Kern said. “This is our only bug feed of the Voidhawk that didn’t fuzz off within an hour of the incident on Kress. I doubt that Varion’s scanners caught the other twenty but missed this one.”

  “He knows about it, of course,” Dennison said. “But why would he. . . .” He trailed off. Silvermane had left the bug because it amused him. Even as Dennison watched, Varion looked up—directly toward the ostensibly hidden camera—and smiled.

  “That man . . .” Kern said. “He wants us to watch him, to know how unconcerned he is by our spying. He’s so arrogant, so certain of his victory. You would bow before this creature? Whatever the empire is now, it will be worse with him at the head.”

  Dennison watched Varion lounge in his study. But I am him—an inferior knock-off, at least.

  Kern eventually snapped off the feed. “I’m giving you a sub-command, Dennison.”

  Dennison frowned. “I thought we had an understanding.”

  “We have too many fighters and too few officers. The time for study is over.”

  Dennison felt himself pale involuntarily. “We’ll be facing . . . him?”

  “Just a minor battle,” Kern said. “A preliminary skirmish, really. I doubt Varion will even bother directing his side of it. It will happen some distance from the bulk of his fleet.”

  Dennison knew Kern was wrong. Varion directed all of his battles personally.

  “This is a bad idea,” Dennison finally said, but Kern had already turned back to his review of the Kress incident.

  * * *

  “Yes, son. It’s true.” The emperor looked . . . weary.

  “It’s illegal to clone a member of a High Family,” Dennison said, frowning as he knelt in front of the wallscreen image.

  “I am the law, Dennison,” the emperor said. “Nothing I do can be illegal. In this case, the potential benefit of a cloning outweighed our reservations.”

  “And I was that benefit,” Dennison said bitterly.

  “Your tone threatens disrespect, young Crestmar.”

  “Crestmar?” Dennison snapped. “Clones have no legal house or family.”

  The High Emperor’s aged eyes flashed with anger at the outburst, and Dennison looked down guiltily. Eventually, the emperor’s voice continued, and Dennison was surprised at the softness he heard in it.

  “Ah, child,” the emperor said. “Do not think us monsters. The laws you speak of maintain order in High Family succession, but exceptions can be made. It was your father’s stipulation in agreeing to this plan. Your right of succession was ratified by a closed council of High Dukes soon after your birth. Even had your father not required this, we would have done it. We did not create a life intending only to throw it away.”

  Dennison finally looked back up. The weariness he had noted in the High Emperor’s face was evident again—during the last few years, the man had aged decades. Worrying about Varion would do this to any man. “Your majesty,” Dennison said carefully. “What if I had turned out as much a traitor as he?”

  “Then you would have gone to war against him,” the High Emperor said. “For Varion would never be willing to share rule, even with himself. We hoped maybe you would weaken each other enough for us to stand against you. That, however, was a contingency plan—our first and foremost goal was to see that you did not turn out as he. It . . . seems that we were too successful in that respect.”

  “Apparently,” Dennison mumbled.

  “If that is all, young Crestmar, then I must be about the Empire’s business—as must you. The time for your battle approaches quickly.”

  Dennison bowed his farewell, and the wallscreen winked off.

  * * *

  Dennison paused in the doorway, the command bridge extending before him. This would be his first time commanding a real crew since he had begun studying under Kern’s direction.

  The bridge of the Perpetual was compact, as one would expect from a ship of its class. Kern’s fleet had a dozen such minor command ships which traveled attached to the Stormwind. During a battle they were released and stationed across the battle space, allowing for a division of labor, as well as de-centralizing leadership.

  The bridge was manned by five younger officers. Dennison realized with chagrin that he didn’t know their names—he had been too engrossed in his studies to mingle with the rest of Kern’s command staff. Dennison walked down the ramp toward the battle hologram. The officers stood at attention. There was something odd about their postures. With a start, Dennison realized what it was. None of them showed even a hint of disrespect. Dennison had come to expect a certain level of repressed scorn from those under him. From these men, there was nothing. No hint that they expected him to fail, no signs that they were frustrated at being forced to serve with him. It was an odd feeling. A good feeling.

  These are Kern’s men, Dennison thought, nodding for them to return to their posts. They’re not just some random crew—they trust their ultimate commander, and therefore trust his decision to assign me to this post.

  The battle hologram blossomed, and a crewman approached with a view-visor. Dennison waved her away. She bowed and withdrew, showing no surprise.

  They trust me, Dennison thought uncomfortably. Kern trusts me. How can they? Can they really have forgotten my reputation?

  He had no answers for himself, so instead he studied the battle space. Varion’s ships would soon arrive. His forces were pushing toward Inner Imperial Space, surrounding the High Emperor’s forces in an attempt to breach the Imperial line simultaneously in a dozen different places. Kern’s forces were arrayed defensively—a long, double-wave of ships positioned for maximum mutual support. Dennison and his twenty ships were at the far eastern end of the line—a reserve force, unless they were directly attacked.

  As seen in the holo, Varion’s squadron suddenly appeared as a scattering of red monoliths disengaging from the klage-dynamic. Their klage wouldn’t have been very fast—only a small multiple of conventional speeds—because of the large command ships at the rear. When traveling together, a fleet could only move as quickly as its largest—and therefore slowest—ships.

  Just a moment after the command ships disengaged from klage, fighters spurted from Varion’s fleet toward Dennison’s squadron. So much for staying in reserve. Dennison’s hologram automatically zoomed in so he could deploy his ships. He had twenty fighters and the Perpetual, a cruiser which could, in a pinch, act as a carrier as well. Directly to port was the Windless, a gunship wi
th less speed and maneuverability but greater long-range firepower.

  Kern would make the larger, battle-wide decisions, and sub-commanders like Dennison would execute them. Dennison’s own orders were simple: hold position and defend the Windless if his sector were pressed. Dennison’s crew waited upon his commands.

  “Expand hologram,” Dennison said. “Revert to the main tactical map.”

  Two of the officers shared a look at the unconventional order. It wasn’t Dennison’s job to consider the entire battle. Yet they did as he asked, and the hologram zoomed back out to give Dennison a view of the entire battle space. He stepped forward—bits of hologram shattering against his body and reforming behind him—studying the ships in red. Varion’s fleet. Though the Silvermane wasn’t present personally, he would be directing the battle from across space. Dennison was finally facing his brother. The man who had never known defeat.

  The man who had killed his father.

  You’re not perfect, Varion, Dennison thought. If you were, you’d have found a way to bring our father to your side, rather than just blasting him in the forehead.

  Varion arranged his defense. Three prongs of fighters bracketing larger gunships formed the most direct assault in his direction. Something was off. Dennison frowned, trying to decide what was bothering him.

  “Kern,” he said, tapping a dot on the hologram, opening a channel to the admiral.

  “I’m rather busy, Dennison,” Kern said curtly.

  Dennison paused slightly at the rebuke. “Admiral,” he said, a little more formal. “Something is wrong.”

  “Watch your sector, Lieutenant. I’ll worry about Varion.”

  “With all due respect, Admiral,” Dennison said, “you just had me study this man for months on end. I know Varion Crestmar better than any living man. Are you sure this is the time to ignore my advice?”

  Silence.

  “All right,” Kern said. “Make it quick.”

  “The orientation of his forces is odd, sir,” Dennison said. “His fighter prongs have been deployed to focus on the eastern sector of the battle. Away from you. But the Stormwind is by far the most powerful ship in this confrontation—stronger, even, than Varion’s own capital ships. He has to deal with you quickly.”