The Armageddon Inheritance (1999)

The Armageddon Inheritance is a science fiction novel by American writer David Weber, formed by two books containing a total of 27 chapters. It is the second book in his Dahak trilogy (after Mutineers' Moon, and before Heirs of Empire). Thematically, it forms a duology with Mutineers' Moon; the latter dealt with the suppression of Anu's mutiny as part of the groundwork for repelling the Achuultani assault, whilst Heirs of Empire is more of a stand-alone bildungsroman work concerning survival on a remote planet. In 2003, it was republished in the omnibus volume Empire from the Ashes.

Plot summary

Book 1

After the events of Mutineers' Moon, the evil mutineer Anu has been defeated by the warship Dahak, aided by its new captain, Colin MacIntyre. As the highest-ranking officer of the Imperium present, MacIntyre had elevated himself to the rank of "Governor of Earth" in order to absolve the loyalist mutineers of their crimes; he then unified the worlds' governments under his authority (backed up by his advanced Imperial armaments and Dahak) and set Horus the task of preparing defenses against the Achuultani scouts, which have been methodically advancing on the Sol system, detected by self-destructing Imperial sensor arrays. This gave frantic defenders under Lieutenant Governor Horus and his assistant, Gerald Hatcher, barely two years to pacify the holdouts to the new world order (such as the Asian Alliance), to modernize the world economy, and to construct and power a planetary defense shield, as well as construct and train a space fleet and the fortresses on the ground which will support the fleet; and then of course to defeat both the scouts and the main Achuultani incursion. The primary holdout to participation in the planetary defense plan was the Asian Alliance, a group of all Asian nations except Japan and the Philippines. It was effectively controlled by a Marshal Tsien Tao-ling, who is convinced to join by the obvious military imbalance (the moon having disappeared, and several Middle Eastern nations forcibly disarmed by Imperium technology-equipped troops) and by the promise of considerable local autonomy and control of four seats on the nine-person council advising Horus. Regardless, the military programs soon get underway. To withstand the Siege (as the coming attack on Earth has come to be called) the Earth's defenses consists of front line spaceships, constructed by "orbital industrial units" left behind by Dahak (clanking replicators, in other words); a planetary shield powered by a core tap; and all backed up by numerous hypermissile launchers built into "Planetary Defense Centers" (sheared off and embedded with armaments mountains around the Earth).

In the meantime, Colin and his new wife, Jiltanith (daughter of Horus), take Dahak and depart for the nearest known Imperial system to seek military aid from the Imperium; little is expected to come of this quest, as Dahak had been attempting to contact the Imperium via his FTL "hypercom", but failing completely.

The first system they arrive at, the Sheskar system, is devoid of life, its inhabited planet shattered to pieces in what apparently was a civil war using gravity warping implosive "gravitonic warheads". Even worse, the system had not been reclaimed by the Imperium as it should have (due to its strategically vital location). Reluctantly, they proceed to Defram, where they find merely two barren orbs. Their next visit the planet Keerah in the Kano system; they reason that Defram was simply a Fleet base, and so perhaps a civilian system would have more answers or life.

In Keerah, they are attacked by an automated quarantine orbital system; after disabling it, Colin and his crew discover that the dead planet had fallen victim to a horrific biological warfare agent designed to be effective against all forms of life (by rapidly mutating until a successfully lethal form is obtained), which spread throughout the entire Empire (the form of government having changed in the ensuing thousands of years) too quickly to be contained, thanks to widespread use of a teleportation (or "mat-trans" as it was known) device. Colin makes the fateful decision to go straight to the Bia system and the planet Birhat—the military and political centers of the Empire. This decision means that it would be impossible for them to return to Earth in time to help defeat the scouts.

At Birhat, they discover an enormous number of installations in the system, such as a shield which protects not merely the planet of Birhat, but the entire inner system. After successfully picking his way through a labyrinth of emergency programming protecting "Mother" (the master computer overseeing the Fleet and the Bia system), Colin resorts to ordering Mother to implement "Case Omega"—an order which, unbeknownst to him, appoints the senior surviving Fleet official and civil servant as Emperor. This unexpected elevation has the happy side effect of granting Colin control of the Imperial Guard Flotilla: 78 planetoids, each vastly more powerful than Dahak (but also vastly stupider). The crew of Dahak immediately sets to work reactivating and repairing the planetoids so they can return to Earth.

Book 2

Book 2 begins with a different point of view; the subject is now a minor Achuultani tactical officer named Brashieel, attached to the scout forces about to drop out of hyperspace and destroy Earth. However, the Achuultani warships are extremely slow in hyperspace, and the Earth defenders use their several hours of advance notice to prepare an ambush in the outer system. The ambush, while successful (because of the element of surprise and the generally superior Imperial technology), nevertheless sets the tone for the rest of the Siege by being extremely bloody on both sides.