Assassin

by Kali Altsoba

  “Wait for my order to fire, you hear?”

  “Fire general? Why would we fire? They wear the same uniforms we do!”

  “That doesn’t matter, not today. Take up your post, colonel.”

  “Who the hell are they? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but they’re not following my orders.”

  “I can’t shoot at fellow Rikugun! I won’t!”

  “You will fight whoever and whenever ordered. Is that clear?”

  “Clear as fucking mud, general. Who and why are we fighting?”

  “I said I don’t know, colonel. But no one gets into my HQ, so you just fight!”

  “What kind of order is that?”

  “It’s mine! And you will obey! Die if you must, just don’t retreat!”

  “General, it’s not right. I think we should…”

  “Shut up! What’s that noise?”

  “Small arms fire! Someone started shooting!”

  “I gave no order to open fire, damn it!”

  “It’s the first column. It’s here! They’re shooting at us!”

  “Colonel, get outside! Stop those tanks any way you can!”

  “Yes sir, immediately.”

  “They’re breaking through the barricades! They’re inside the perimeter!”

  “Call in all armor reinforcements. Get the 77th on the line. Tell them to…”

  “Incoming missile! Get down!”

  Too late. Another HQ goes up in acrid, multicolored smoke. Many more are hit by ruthless Provo generals on seven different worlds, in just the first hour of the rebellion. More are under attack by artillery and skycraft. The fighting is getting fiercer, spreading to contested sky bases and orbital platforms. It’s most vicious where determined Resistance troops seek to disarm and arrest enraged Special Action Commandos. The men in gray are fighting back, hard.

  Fighting is most intense in the center of Novaya Uda, from the first minutes. Within an hour, thousands of bodies litter feeder streets leading to Victory Avenue and the Waldstätte. More are outside, and under, SAC HQ. Defending troops are putting up a ferocious struggle, much more effective and determined than Onur and Winter anticipated, especially with Pyotr dead.

  “What do you think it means, major?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m not sure.”

  “Why do they fight so hard? He can’t have survived!”

  “We saw the vid, sir. And Admiral Adamu confirmed it. Pyotr is dead!”

  “I know what we saw and heard. Still, his guards are fighting almost as if he’s with them.”

  “We cut off all their offworld coms, blocked incoming transmissions. They can’t know more than we do.

  “They must have seen the kill shot on Aral. Still, I confess, it confuses me.”

  “It could be General Watanabe. I didn’t see him on Aral, with Pyotr.”

  “That’s it! The snake is driving the Washi to resist us. SAC as well.”

  “We can’t afford confusion. We must seize the palace and the city. Call in the Air Cav units. Tell them to land SOF on rooves of the palace compound buildings, then head down. Tell them that the bird guards are not fighting like leaderless, demoralized men. They’re fighting hard.”

  Onur sends in heavy Air Cav. But he wants as little bloodshed as possible between former comrades and fellow soldiers. So he orders minimal force used. “Remind our troops and pilots that these men we fight were our brothers-in-arms yesterday, and will be again tomorrow. Go, send the orders!”

  It’s a huge mistake.

  Now is the time to strike!

  With defiance and determination,

  kill and maim without mercy!

  Accelerate the attack, Onur!

  Don’t hold back! Don’t brake!

  Too late. Right behind Onur’s communiqué, within an hour of the coup starting, a second vid sails up from Kestino, racing to counter the first and the bloody images from Aral. It’s sent from a secret transmitter under the Waldstätte Palast, bounced off dark satellites Main HQ doesn’t control. It changes everything.

  ***

  Takeshi watches news of the assassination of Pyotr’s programmable clone over the memex, while dining with the original in his chambers deep below the Waldstätte Palast. He thinks the clone is doing a grand job with the speech, until the moment his head explodes. He takes a last, careful bite of sushi and smiles wryly across a small table at his gluttonous host. Pyotr is flying into one of his rages. A tray of boiled sturgeon and fiddle greens is still falling from where he flung it high and away from his royal person when he leaped to his feet. An oily bit of fish clings to the shoulder of his worn, favorite blue ermine robe. It’s part open, his belly sagging out. His mood is worsened from staying three full days in chambers to allow the clone to stand in for him onboard a battleship to Aral, then speak to full dress troops and bohr cameras and get his brains blown out.

  “I’ve treated these traitors too gently! No more! I’ll rip their families apart! I want everyone in the conspiracy in my dungeons and camps by tonight! I want their sisters and brothers, their wailing mothers and white beard fathers. I want their cousins and nephews. Everyone! Do you hear? Everyone!”

  ‘Careful, my son. I also once acted in bloody haste. I ordered the Red Purge, and lived to regret it. Do not repeat my mis…’

  ‘Not now, Mother! Be gone. I have men of substance I need to kill!’

  ‘I know. But be careful how you proceed. Do not let your rage…’

  ‘Enough! I said leave me, you harridan!’

  “Orders will be sent to all worlds of the Imperium and Conquest, as soon as possible. But first, Pyotr Shaka, you must…”

  “Don’t dare tell me what I must and must not do! Not in this room! Not in this moment! You are nothing! I am Imperator!” He has death in his eyes.

  “A slip of diction, no more. I meant only to say that it’s in your interest that we leave these chambers immediately and that you go before the full Court.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until the head of my guard tells me that it’s safe.”

  “It may never be safe, if you wait on your head canary to say it. Your palace guards, in this critical instant, in this hour where balance and imbalance in the Imperium teeter on a high beam, think that you are dead. Men are making fatal decisions as you stand here temporizing. Many are for you but others against.”

  “I’ll exterminate any who speak or move against me!”

  “Yes, fine. That’s well and good, and only to be expected.” Takeshi nearly sighs out loud with exasperation at Pyotr’s dullness. “But to do it you must be seen, so that you can hold onto power and use it to stop any rebellion.”

  “I am the rightful sovereign. It’s all I need. My peoples will rally, my armies will cheer me. I need only stay safe until they suppress this putsch.”

  “With respect, it’s not enough to be their rightful sovereign. And you know it. You must also act the part. You need to go up, display anger and royal threat. Your peoples need to see that you are alive. Your troops will expect you to lead from the front. Armies and navies are already moving. Can’t you sense it?”

  “How many more of my clones are in the vats?”

  “Three.”

  “Get the next one ready.”

  “It will be done. But not in time. The programming alone would take days. You must act, and do so in public. In these key minutes, you must go to the Jade Court. You must show yourself before the military and High Castes. You must display resolve to lead a terrible vengeance.”

  “Again, you dare say what I must do!”

  “Yes, I dare. You must show yourself alive, in public, to deny the truth of the vid feed of your assassination on Aral. It’s racing at light and bohr speeds as we speak, across the Imperium and out to all the Thousand Worlds.”

  “I will not! It’s not safe! Don’t say it to me again!”

  ‘I knew you were many things, some savory, others less so. But not until now did I know that you’re a cr
ass coward. Well, that will never be said of me! No matter your bluster or threats.’ “I will say it: you must go up! This was not just an assassination attempt. The shooter was helped. He could not have killed your clone so easily otherwise. A coup or even a full rebellion is underway right now, as we linger overlong here in your chambers debating. The only way to stop this rising is to rally all loyal legions to your defense, immediately. There’s no more time for your indulgences. You need to leave this stone bubble, now.”

  Pyotr’s resistance melts in face of Takeshi’s firmness, slowly as a glacier. He looks daggers at the young general in SAC black and silver, but to save face he asks the question to which both men know the answer. “My appearance in the Jade Court will accomplish that, it will rally more military to my side?”

  “Yes. Men are hesitating. Many will refuse to follow the subordinates of a warlord whom they believe is dead. They’ll question the legitimacy of orders. They must be shown that you are still alive. Then they will rally and slaughter the enemies of a leader they know both lives and is filled with a killing wrath.”

  A quarter minute passes before Pyotr speaks. “Alright, but you’ll lead the way up and out. I won’t trust to have anyone stand or walk behind my back, never again. Not even you, my golden child.” ‘Especially not you. You’re too full of raw talent and hard ambition. I wonder if I have waited too long? No, but your time will come sooner than you think. I still have steel claws.’ His mind wanders back to the Dowager. He hears her trying to tell him something urgent. He brushes her wraith aside. He draws his stained blue robe around his gut and pushes his feet into slippers. He starts walking to the private elevator door. Her voice finds him again when he’s only halfway there.

  ‘Think on it!’

  ‘On what, Mother?’

  ‘On the vengeance that you plan.’

  ‘No, you have no right to speak to me on that! Leave me now!’

  ‘Hear me, my vile son! Don’t listen to this copperhead serpent who whispers you toward a bloody end. You cannot trust him. You must not trust him.’

  ‘He gives me only sound advice, and you underestimate my cunning. I have the guile to crush him when I choose. My artistry is in the timing!’

  ‘You vain fool! He is a viper! He will strike you down!’

  ‘Enough! I said begone, Mother!’

  With Takeshi in front, Pyotr labors up a green marble staircase to a secret lift that leads from his stonecut chambers to a changing room below the throne. His herald is astonished to see his lord alive before him and not dead on Aral.

  “Summon my guards! Call out the Jade Court! I mean everybody!”

  As they wait, Pyotr tells Takeshi: “When I reflect on this near escape from treason and death at the hand of a brute assassin, I conclude that Providence wants me to complete my special purpose. I shall proceed to win this war and secure my dynasty! The fruit of my lion’s loins shall sit on the Jade Throne, from where he shall rule absolutely over the Imperium, unchallenged and forever.”

  ‘Near escape? You were worlds and bohrs away. What a very minor destiny you must have! Were I in your position, with Providence as my backer, I should set out to conquer the Thousand Worlds for the sheer adventure of it. As for your heir, you have not sired one. You left that onerous duty too late, in your sloth. Besides, when a man dies and turns to rotting meat, what does it matter what happens to a random squirt of his loins in the night, Pyotr the Last?’

  Ten minutes later, Pyotr strides boldly into the Throne Room. He’s dressed in plush, green ermine robes and flanked by hundreds of Palast Wache guards with warm, humming masers. Takeshi is right behind him, in a SAC general’s black and silver. The great room is jammed with hundreds of big hat military and Old Family headmen, yet it’s as silent as the cold green floor they stand on. Pyotr walks up to the throne and fits his ample ass tightly into it.

  Takeshi leans over to whisper in his ear: “Now, Pyotr Shaka, now is your moment. Do it like Shaka Zulu would have done.” His face is a perfect mirror, hiding behind its silver coating that his thoughts are filled with black venom. ‘Put on the old costume and look as you did the night you declared war on the Calmar Union, when the High Castes watched the ultimatum hour strike and saw you as a fat fool, half naked and trimmed in lion’s fur. Not as a leader to follow. Not in the next hour, but in time, as men across the Imperium look back to this day and this moment of high drama and laugh at you, that laughter will mark the beginning of your end. I shall be there. I promise to watch you die.’

  “Yes, let it be done! Bring me the lion’s fur! Take my iklwa from the wall and bring it to me, here on the throne. Tonight, I am no mere Oetkert. Tonight, I shall exact vengeance as my dread ancestor Shaka did! Let there be blood and terrible murders! Hurry my servants! Hurry my soldiers! Hurry my vengeance!”

  ***

  When the lion vid arrives offworld its effect on both Resistance and Loyalist morale is as sharp as the assassination vid that arrived live, first and direct from Aral. It dashes one side’s hope, exhilarates the other, like a boulder tossed in a mill pond, rippling waves of despair or assurance of one sure thing: Pyotr Shaka lives! It shows him seated securely, if too plumply and half naked, on the Jade Throne. On either side lie chained male lions, growling and shaking manes. He stands up, but with some difficulty. His belly is exposed and sags over a furred waistband. He’s in Zulu ceremonial regalia, wearing lion fur trim around his elbows and ankles, and a feathered headdress in place of the imperial crown. He carries the iklwa of war in one hand, scales of merciless justice in the other. A knobkerrie is jammed too tightly in his belt, so that his fat belly oozes and wraps halfway around it. Pyotr is supposed to look as fierce and intimidating as his conquering, half mad ancestor, the terrible impaler Shaka Zulu, Lord of the Mfecane. Instead of commander of the Annihilation, of the Crushing, he looks like one of Shaka Zulu’s overweight uncles overseeing a wedding banquet.

  Behind and all around the Jade Throne stand half a hundred ‘big hats’ from Rikugun and Kaigun, and many more heads of the very best Old Families. The whole scene is slickly scripted, as vids always are when Jade Court Productions churns out a special show for their Imperator. Pyotr shows no confusion or doubt. His voice is strong, even majestic. There’s no quaver as he condemns “these traitors and assassins, a tiny criminal element that doesn’t represent the officer corps of Rikugun and Kaigun. These jackals defy the true loyalty of my armies, fleets, and peoples.” He looks directly into the camera, as he practiced and was directed by Takeshi in recent years. “I’ll hunt them down. I’ll obliterate this vicious, illegal clique. Stand with me, your Imperator, as I stab and stamp out treason against your fathers and sons, treason against my brave fighting men on all the battlefields and in all the space lanes of Orion’s spur.” Next he calls on supporters offworld: “Loyalist soldiers and crews! You must cleave to your oaths! Preserve your honor! Rally to your rightful emperor! Fight back!”

  The mask slips as he goes off script. He spreads his legs wider, assuming the braced stance of a Zulu general and shaking his iklwa in threat. It would be more frightening if the motion did not make his exposed breasts jiggle: “Make it a bloodbath of my justice. Destroy every betrayer! Spare no one who stands against me! I’ll exterminate anyone who shows mercy to these filthy swine who oppose me! Demonstrate your loyalty, to me your Imperator! Kill all traitors!”

  And that’s what he says in public. He tells Takeshi’s eager mercs, and stone killers in Sakura-kai and Kempeitai, something more primal. More barbaric. He gives an order that Pharaoh might have spoken to eager charioteers in Sinai, or Chingis Khan to pony troops pawing the ground outside the gate of Samarkand. Moctezuma I said it at the awful dedication of his new Temple of the Sun, where 20,000 screamed in ripped agony over four days and nights of human sacrifice. It echoes Toyotomi Hideyoshi asking for boatloads of Ming ears and noses to be shipped back to Japan from Korea; or Yu Fong standing at the head of the Red Horde after Mars III, when he broke open the biodomes an
d left millions slow gasping for escaping air. It recalls Jade Eye culling all wounded and massacring prisoners as he overran his enemies last stands and won the Foundation War. Or even Jahandar sending his Shishi curs to redden Dauran worlds. And it remembers Pyotr’s mother, the Red Regent, dripping with fresh afterbirth and cowls’ blood, demanding the murder of tens of millions more.

  Pyotr says: “I want the traitors’ heads! Stack them in the desert outside the city. I want a pyramid of skulls rising over the salt flats. Make it so broad and high I may gaze down from my elevator skycab and see it with my own unaided eyes.”

  ‘Careful, son. Remember the high price that I paid for too much vengeance. I gave the order, and the Imperium fell into imbalance.’

  ‘You slaked your blood thirst by paling and impaling monks. It’s my turn now! From tonight, you and everyone in the Imperium and in Orion will call me Shaka!’

  ‘You are a Shaka, it is true. His blood is in your veins. But you are also an Oetkert. Kill whom you must, but then return to seeking balance. It’s the only…’

  ‘Away with you, Mother! Your day is done! Back to your green tomb. Never trouble my mind again. I renounce all Oetkerts. I renounce balance! I renounce you! I embrace only my Shaka line. Never again speak to me, Mother. Never!’

  ***

  Onur and Winter watch the lion vid on a closed system in GGS HQ. It’s finished before they can interrupt or block the signal, restoring coms blackout. It’s up and out there, racing from LP to LP by bohr relay, leaping from system to system, then inside systems at light speed, then out from HQs to barracks to armed camps and barricades, spilling fighting men into the streets and worlds.

  It rallies Loyalists.

  It depresses Resisters.

  It intensifies the fighting.

  It does fatal damage to the revolt.

  “Damn him!” Onur exclaims. “He wasn’t on Aral.”

  “That must’ve been a clone. How did we miss that?”

  “It doesn’t matter now. We’re fully committed. Keep this from our troops as long as you can, at least here in the capital. We can still win, if we storm the palace and kill him ourselves.”