Requiem for the Conqueror

by W. Michael Gear

  Kap checked with his Groups; they all reported being strung out throughout the caverns. No one seemed exposed.

  "We're all right Sink." Kap sounded slightly uneasy. "Sergeant? Fire a grenade into that barrier and duck."

  Sinklar waited, gaze darting from the holo to the screen that monitored the sally. Seconds passed.

  "Rotted Gods, no!" a hysterical voice called. Someone eise screamed. More screams overloaded the system.

  "Kap! Status report! Kap!" Sinklar bellowed into the cornm. His eyes were welded on the tunnel entrance as a searing fountain of flame erupted, scattering the waiting troops like dolls. The fireball rolled up into the sky, rounded and menacing.

  "Kap! Kap!" Sinklar hollered.

  "Rotted Gods, Sink," Kap called hoarsely. "Think it burned my lungs out! Half my face is fried."

  "How many this time?" Sinklar asked.

  "Sent in five Groups, Sink," Kap replied, stunned. "Don't know what that stuff was, but it sure burned. They've all gotta be crisped in there. Thank the Blessed

  Gods you caught on in time. I'd a had the whole command inside!"

  "Yeah," Sinklar whispered to himself, a hollowness under his heart. He took off the mike, eyes unseeing as the gout of fire continued to pour from the tunnel.

  Meter by blood-soaked meter, the Seddi had said.

  "If you just weren't down there, Mac." He bit off the rest, turning, pacing along the deck, head bowed.

  Ily Takka looked down at the continental masses of Rega. Home, at last. She chewed her lip, knowing the stakes now at hand. Here she faced her own battlefield. Sinklar might be a master of troops and tactical combat, but here her cunning and skills were unsurpassed. Treachery, bribery, and threats, the tools of power,,awaited her master's touch.

  "Subspace," the commander called out. "Personal to you, Minister, from Orbital Command on Targa. Rysta says she was asked by Sinklar Fist to forward this for ID. A report is attached. "

  Arta Fera's eyes gleamed where she lay bound to a narrow cot. Through the entire transit, Fera had watched, missing no smallest detail. Reticent, talking only when spoken to, or for the barest necessities of her survival.

  Ily took the transmission and played it, curious at Sinklar's request. As the dialogue repeated, she tensed. Impossible! No, indeed, it was!

  Ily scanned the request for ID. This was the voice of the Seddi commander inside Makarta?

  "This time, Staffa, I have you!" Her black eyes shimmered as her lips curled in gleeful triumph.

  An Initiate stared into space, hands pressing geophones to a sheer-cut wall of rock. He nodded suddenly, pulling his phones from the cold rock and scrambling back through the freshly cut tunnel to the waiting party who crouched in the halo of headlamps. The air remained hot from the cutting of the tunnel and had gone sour from lack of ventilation.

  "Five degrees left and seven down," the Seddi listener said. "We're close.

  They just started up again. They're getting as regular as clockwork. They stick to an average thirty minute work period, then they shut down to listen for us."

  "How far?" a gray-haired man with one eye asked from the rear of the knot of Seddi warriors.

  "I'd make it less than a meter."

  They waited, hearing the grinding, feeling the vibrations through the rock as the heavy mining machine chewed its way forward.

  "Poor bastards," someone whispered in the dark. "Poor us," another gritted.

  "It's all in the dance of the quanta." Minutes dragged.

  "All right," the Initiate with the phones called. "They're past the sally.

  Let's drill it."

  They lifted a hand-held unit and powered the laser bit into the wall, pulling it back every ten centimeters to check the depth.

  "One point one five," the driller remarked, his umber robes stained and smeared. He inserted the bit again and leaned into it. "Hold it, feels like we're through." He pulled the heavy unit out to peek into the hole. "Light."

  The Initiate nodded, telescoping a thin periscope into the hole. "Nobody there but the.... Wait a minute. Must be a Group back there. What are-" He jerked back. "Run! Get out of here!"

  They didn't have time to react as the wall exploded. Those nearest the blast were pulped immediately. The contorted bodies of the others were slammed into the opposite wall in a rain of rock and dust.

  Ears ringing, stunned, the one-eyed man stumbled to the rear, finding the black box. He tried to pick it up with one hand but failed. He blinked tears from his eye and stared, noticing for the first time how many fingers he was missing, how his lacerated hand streamed blood.

  A blaster bolt whipped by his head as he pitched forward, clawing at the box with his good hand. He curled over the box, hugging it fetally, aware of armored troops leaping over him as he found the button and pushed.

  Numb and dying, he barely felt the concussion as the roof fragmented, tons of angular blasted rock falling in the darkness.

  Somewhere a Regan screamed.

  Staffa sipped at a cold cup of stassa as he studied the worn map that lay spread over the wooden table. The conference room had been turned into war ops. By the hour, Staffa and Kaylla monitored the progress of their slow defeat.

  "Another party gone." Staffa marked the map with a stylus. "At least we saved the mining machine. Sinklar's people seem to be keeping to small tunnels. Less chance of fire trap that way. More chance of mines exploding under their feet.

  "

  Kaylla rubbed red eyes. "I don't like allowing them inside. I don't like working so close to our caverns. I don't like our people dying like that."

  Staffa blinked, fighting back sleep. How long had it been? "Our only chance is to hurt them, make them bleed. Our only bargaining leverage is based on the number of casualties we can inflict."

  "I know. I just wish it didn't have to be." She filled her lungs and exhaled wearily. "We do have our backs to the wall." She made a smacking noise with her mouth. "Listen. Get some sleep. You need it. You haven't been off your feet since they hit us with orbital."

  He nodded and staggered off to one of the little cells down the hallway. He entered the alcove and collapsed on the hard pallet.

  Sinklar blinked, trying to rid his eyes of the gravelly feel. His mouth tasted stale. A numbness of the soul battled with the fatigue in his mind and body.

  Every muscle ached. Despite his exhaustion, fear crept through his very veins as he stared at the comm monitor in the command center in his LC. Stacks of flimsies covered the little fold-down table behind him. The monitors surrounding him displayed the diagrams of Makarta. Sinklar thought he knew the place by heart.

  "We're inside," Kitmon reported through the comm. "We backtracked, fooled one of their, listening posts. Anyhow, this time we killed them before they could blow the roof. We're there, Sink! It's only a matter of time now!"

  "Be careful," Sinklar warned, his gut churning.

  "Yeah, my net tells me they know we're in. My people are drawing fire. This time it's for real," Kitmon sounded ecstatic.

  Skyla smiled at him, her face almost shimmery with beauty. He reached for her, drew her near, entwined her in his arms as he hugged her close. Her body pressed warm and firm against him, her breasts full on his chest. He pulled back, staring into eyes as blue as an Ashtan sky.

  "Staffa!" Kaylla called to him, changing Skyla's eyes from cerulean blue to tan, Skyla's classic features blending into the Maikan woman's high-cheekboned severity.

  "Staffa!" Kaylla insisted. "Wake up, damn it! They've broken through! "

  His eyes came open to a dim gray room with rock walls and cumbersome wooden furniture. He blinked, forcing himself to sit up. "Where?"

  "Level Two, just back of the distillery." Kaylla stared at him, face bleak, lips pursed.

  "Withdraw everyone from Levels One and Two. Shoot the mines under the Novice quarters. What happened to our team in there?"

  "We don't know. They were trying to set up the tunneling there. Something must have gone wrong. The R
egans caught them. Someone didn't get to the switch. I don't know."

  He pulled her close, seeing defeat in her eyes. "We still have the renegade hole. Maybe, somehow, that will work." She looked up at him, tan eyes filmed with tears. "Yes," she mumbled, voice unsteady. "Maybe it will."

  He left her, running for the upper levels, hearing a cacophony of explosions.

  His body roused to the old battlesharpness. People rushed frantically through the hallways,

  faces grim, the despair of defeat in their eyes. Staffa charged up the steps, taking them three at a time. He rounded the corner into the main hallway on Level Two. The sounds of combat filled the air.

  The ubiquitous Wilm was crouched behind a sharp spur of rock, blaster ready, covering the Novice quarters. "What happened?" Staffa asked as he threw himself down and crawled forward.

  "Broke through. They're still organizing. Damn, there's a lot of them!" Wilm shook his head, white dust incongruous on his black skin. "Got me as to how they managed it."

  "Are our people out of the upper level?"

  "Yeah, they skedaddled down our first trap tunnel." "Shoot the mines."

  "But what about all of our equipment? We'll lose half our counterstrike ability!"

  "Wilm, we can't get it back!" Staffa gritted. "Why leave it for Sinklar Fist to use against us? Evacuate to Level Three and blow it!"

  Wilm let out a series of curses and jerked his head in a nod. He fired a string of shots into the darkness beyond, waving his people back. Blaster bolts strobed the air in actinic violet as Initiates and partially armored Seddi retreated. Staffa recognized the redhead from the sally tunnel a half-second before a blaster bolt caught her in the hips. The blast tossed her torso in one direction, her legs in another.

  "Go," Staffa motioned to Wilm. "Get to the switch. I'll cover. "

  The Master gave Staffa a hard look, biting his lip. "No, Lord Commander. You stay out of the way. You're more important than I am. I'll cover and you flip the switch. Just blow these damn Regans apart."

  The rock behind which they crouched shuddered and snapped, sharp fragments spattering around while dust filtered down with a brimstone odor.

  Staffa slapped Wilm on the back and ran. Fear iced his veins. He found the jury-rigged switch, waiting as men and women pelted by, some wounded, others burned. Wilm came running, nodding as he passed.

  Staffa pushed the switch. Concussion slammed the floor.

  Somewhere behind him rock fell. The very mountain shook as tons of stone tore loose. This time, there could be no escape. Not as they were pushed further and further into the bowels ofTarga.

  Sinklar had shoved himself into the corner of the acceleration couch in the LC's command module. He continued to glare at the comm display across from him. A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes. The weightless sensation of falling hovered at the edges of his senses. Periodically his vision blurred and he'd jerk upright as his head bobbed with fatigue.

  "I wish you'd get some sleep, sir," Mhitshul told him. "Soon as we get Mac out."

  He could see Mayz start in the bright sunlight and look up at the comm pickup where she monitored the latest sally. Then the LC shook while a muffled rumble rolled across the land.

  "Sink?" Mayz called.

  "Here. What the pus was that?"

  "They've blown half the mountain down. It's crazy. They could have killed everyone." Mayz shook her head, dark features tense and worried.

  "What do the engineers say?" Sinklar rasped hoarsely. His heart dropped like a sodden weight. Mac? Damn it! Mayz filled her lungs and shrugged. "It's all loose in

  there. No way to excavate it without strip mining the mountain.'

  "We don't have that kind of time. What do the seismic people say about Mac's position? Did they survive?" His heart stopped dead in his chest as a terrible dread sucked at his soul.

  "They report the cavem is still intact down there." Mayz looked relieved.

  "Thanks for the update. Continue tunneling from the other side." More dead.

  Another Section gone. Sinklar hung his head, physically ill.

  Mayz turned back to her duties.

  Mhitshul disappeared through the hatch, eyes averted. Sink filled his lungs and rubbed his face with a tired hand.

  What if he agreed? He could let the Seddi go. Get it over with instead of bleeding his force down to dregs. Was Mac's life worth it? Or Mayz's, or Shik's? All he had to do was. . . .

  A light flashed as one of the monitors lit with the features of Rysta Braktov.

  "Sinklar Fist?" No honorific, this didn't bode well, but somehow, he couldn't bolster the energy to care. "I have just had confirmation from Rega. We have an ID on your mysterious 'Tuff.' Her smile cut like a scythe. "Your antagonist down there is the Lord Commander of the Companions. Staffa kar Therma."

  Sinklar straightened, blinking and shaking his head. Had he heard right?

  "Staffa kar Therma? The Star Butcher?"

  Rysta crossed her arms. "The very same."

  "Holy Rotted Gods!" Sinklar smacked a fist against his knee. "If I'd only known!" He immediately began to recall the Lord Commander's strategies, the devious and intricate ways he'd smashed defenses just as impregnable as Makarta Mountain. The key lay just beyond his grasp, but it would come to him now.

  "But you didn't." Rysta's eye narrowed to a squint. She didn't look pleased.

  "Nor did I. His presence here is a mystery . . . and it appears it will continue to be."

  "Why?"

  Rysta hesitated and gave him a sour look. "Because you are to evacuate Makarta in preparation for orbital gravitational flux bombardment."

  "Impossible!" Sinklar shot to his feet, glaring at the monitor. "I've got six hundred people inside that mountain!"

  He could see Mhitshul leaning in the hatch, eyes wide. The LC had gone deathly silent.

  "I am aware of that, First. But I have an order from Tybalt the Imperial Seventh. It appears that he considers your six hundred well worth the price to detroy the Lord Commander. My orders are to destroy the Seddi fortress . . .

  and I will do so. Get your people clear of the area, Sinklar."

  "How ong?" Sinklar asked, voice hoarse.

  "One Targan day," Rysta told him succinctly.

  "But I—"

  "One Targan day, Sinklar Fist. Take an azimuth because at this very time tomorrow, I'm blowing that mountain down there into dust!" Rysta smiled again and the monitor flicked off.

  CHAPTER 32

  The room where Tybalt the Imperial Seventh worked radiated the ornate splendor worthy of an Emperor: Gilded gold; fine Myklenian fabrics; holos of waterfalls; glittering star fields; and the planets under Regan rule filled individual niches in the walls. The high ceiling panels gave the impression of endless height diminishing into an eternal blue while the lush fiber-optic carpet created the illusion of a sea of molten gold that swirled and surged.

  Tybalt's gold-inlaid desk wrapped around his gravchair in a semicircle. Holo monitors glowed with multicolored images and numerous displays that reflected the health and progress of the Empire. The polished sandwood top gleamed, the grain running deep into the wood, almost translucent.

  "I will see Minister Takka now," Tybalt the Imperial Seventh told his secretary through the private comm. He watched in the monitor as the security officer smiled professionally and gestured Ily and the woman with her toward the door.

  "So you're back, Ily," Tybalt whispered to himself. "And from that glint in your eyes, you think you've got everything under control. This will be very interesting."

  Ily passed through the security fields before the double doors to Tybalt's office, and after she received security clearance, the doors swung open. The Imperial Seventh noted that Ily still carried her little pistol and security kit. She wore a formfitting black jumpsuit and a sable cloak of Myklenian silk that swirled about her. The woman following her, however, only wore a slave collar under a tan-colored gauzy gown.

  Tybalt glanced up as Ily entered and casuall
y removed his headset, thus canceling the holo monitors before him.

  He settled back, gravchair automatically conforming to support his bulk. His black skin contrasted with the gleaming white robe he wore. A slow smile curled his lips and extended to his eyes. Yes, indeed, no matter what his anger and suspicions might be concerning his Minister of Internal Security, life had been boring with Ily gone.

  "Ah, my sweetest Ily! How good to see you again!" Tybalt shifted his glance to the tight-faced woman who followed behind. His breath stopped in his lungs and his heart skipped as he caught sight of her fiery amber eyes and gleaming piles of auburn hair. Her beauty dominated him, leaving even the opulence of his office drab in comparison.

  "What have you here, Ily?"

  "Greetings, Tybalt." Ily smiled, and he missed the gleam of excitement in her dark eyes. "Considering your trials and tribulations, Lord Emperor, I decided I had best see to my interests and come with offerings. I bring you a gift.

  She's yours. If it turns out you don't want her, I'll dispose of her with the slavers."

  Arta Fera tensed, body radiating animal tension, eyes riveted on the Emperor.

  Hatred sparked feral-yellow in her animal glare.

  Tybalt stood and took a step forward as he struggled to keep his breathing even. "My God, where did you find her, Ily?" His loins tightened under the fine Myklenian fabric of his clothes.

  "Beware, Lord Emperor!" Ily held up a slim hand, eyes narrowing in warning.

  "This, Tybalt, is a Seddi assassin. Her name is Arta Fera. As an assassin, she is most skilled. Do not, I repeat, do not, underestimate her powers, Lord. Do you understand?"

  Tybalt nodded, unable to teaT his eyes off those majestic breasts, now straining at the buff-colored fabric as the captive woman's breathing deepened.

  "She's in the collar," he whispered, half-aware of Ily's warning.

  "She's also psychologically triggered," Ily added. "Don't touch her. "

  Tybalt nodded again, eyes caressing Fera's firm body. He marveled at the swell of her hips, the firmness of her long thighs. Then his gaze traced up the flat belly, past those