by Sales, Ian
The doors nearest the hatch onto the troop-deck slid open. Two clones emerged from each. They turned and gazed blankly at Rinharte and Maganda. Moving slowly at first, but increasing their pace, they approached the hatch.
“Marine-Corporal! Get your men up to the quarter-deck. The clones have broken out!”
Rinharte glanced at Maganda and nodded in approval: the midshipman was calling for help using the ship’s pipe by the hatch. It might well be too late. Rinharte took position before the open hatch, feet apart, elbows out, sword held ready with point high. At least they could only come at her one at a time through the hatchway.
The first walked straight at her. He made no move to dodge or protect himself. She stabbed him in the eye. He toppled soundlessly backwards, hands up. What in heavens, she wondered, drove them on? They displayed no intelligence, no recognition of likely injury or death. And yet… The other clone, the one who had woken himself; he had seemed very much alive and aware. These could almost be automatons.
Maganda took Rinharte’s side, flashing her captain a nervous grin as she did so. The girl was holding up well. Rinharte had told Kordelasz many weeks ago that “Romi would suit”, and the young woman had not failed her yet. Despite her reputation aboard Vengeful. That had been lies and untruths, most probably dreamt up by Lieutenant Gogos. Rinharte still had plans for the midshipman, although she had so far failed to make much headway with them.
Two clones tried to squeeze through the hatch at the same time. They succeeded only in wedging themselves tight. Their hands reached out to grab Rinharte and Maganda. Rinharte leant forward and casually pushed the point of her sword into the breast of one. Maganda stabbed the other in the hand. He shrugged off the wound and continued to grasp for the midshipman. She stabbed him in the neck.
For a moment, the two clones hung in the hatch, unable to fall. Inexorably, they began to slide down. They tumbled backwards. The remaining clone trod on their corpses, staggering at the unsure footing.
Booted feet echoed up the ladder. Rinharte glanced down, saw figures in green racing up towards her. Marines.
“Come,” she told Maganda. “The bridge.”
She stepped through the hatch, made to stab the clone, changed her mind… And punched him between the eyes with the pommel of her sword. He went limp and fell to the decking. “We need one to question,” she explained as she stepped over the bodies littering the route forward.
The only access to the forecastle, where the bridge and signal house were situated, was via a ladder near the prow, at the other end of the quarter-deck gangway. Which was currently blocked by struggling figures. Rinharte hurried forward. Reaching the knot of battling clones and marines, she sought a route past. She hastily shoved her sword into its scabbard. A clone with his back to her kicked and punched at a marine. She grabbed his shoulders, lifted him bodily and swung him around. The blade of a sword speared him through the neck, erupting just below one ear and spraying blood across another clone. Maganda yanked back her sword, gave a mutter of disgust and then smiled brightly at her captain.
Another clone blocked their way. Rinharte grabbed the front of his coveralls, hauled him in close and punched him in the face. She shook her hand. It hurt, almost as if she had shattered her knuckles. The clone shook his head, and grinned redly through the blood pouring from his nostrils. She put a hand to the side of his head. And swung to the left with a fierce twist of her torso. His head impacted the bulkhead with sickening thud. She dropped him, leaving a bloody smear, and turned—
In time to receive a blow to the temple. Stunned, she stumbled backwards, tripping over the clone she had knocked out. The clone before her jumped forward, swinging his fists. Another punch caught her below the eye. She yelped at the pain and sprawled backwards. As she lay there, a figure in white coveralls and blue jacket hurdled her: Midshipman Maganda.
The young woman did not much resemble a fighter. Willowy and svelte, she seemed more clerical than martial. With an incoherent cry, she bowled into the clone, one knee high. The knee-cap caught him in the solar plexus. A fist smashed into his mouth. He went over backwards beneath the onslaught. Landing booted feet on his thighs, Maganda delivered a kick to the side of the clone’s head.
Rinharte accepted a hand up from her acting executive officer, and reflected briefly how little she knew about the midshipman. She put fingertips to her injured cheek and winced.
“Romi!”
Rinharte recognised the yell as Kordelasz’s; she turned… to see Maganda pirouette urgently away from an axe swung by a clone. The blade swished down, the midshipman moved out from beneath it… Not far enough. The axe caught her on the forearm. But the angle was too flat, and both arm and blade moving. Still it cut deep. Red well up through rent blue cloth. Maganda cried out and fell back.
Rinharte stepped forward, grabbed the clone’s hand wrapped about the axe’s shaft. She pulled him forward, brought an elbow round and struck him on the head. She was in the act of bringing a knee up when a pair of hands grabbed the clone by his ears and rudely jerked him backwards. Across a raised knee. With a muffled crack, his back broke. He rolled and dropped to the floor. The marine responsible nodded respectfully at Rinharte, then turned back to the fray.
The gangway was sufficiently clear to pass the melee. Rinharte and Maganda—the latter cradling her wounded arm—ran for the ladder and scrambled up to the forecastle.
Two clones were busy struggling to open the hatch into bridge, and did not notice the arrival of Rinharte and Maganda. One flicked the open switch repeatedly, to no effect, while the other scrabbled with bloody fingers at the hatch’s edge. There was, decided Rinharte as she moved forward, nothing intelligent in their actions. Almost animal, in fact. She drew her sword and spiked the one at the switch through the back of the neck. Maganda followed suit on the other. The pair dropped, loose-limbed, without a sound.
Rinharte opened a circuit on the caster by the hatch. “You can open up,” she ordered. “The clones are seen to.”
Turning to Maganda, she instructed, “Get yourself to the sick-berth, Romi. Have someone see to your wound.”
The midshipman turned to go.
“And Romi?”
Maganda turned back.
“Well done,” Rinharte said. “I’ll see you get a promotion to mate for your actions today.”
The young woman grinned. She raised a hand but stopped in mid-salute, wincing. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Behind Rinharte, the hatch to the bridge clunked loudly and began to swing open.
Rinharte leaned forward, hands flat on the table-top, arms straight. “How many did we manage to save?” she asked.
Marine-Captain Kordelasz looked down sheepishly. “Er, none, ma’am. Every single one dead.”
She stared at him. “I,” she said slowly, “know of at least two I took care only to stun.”
Maganda, bandaged arm in a sling, nodded. She had been there.
“When we came to clear up the bodies, none were still breathing,” Kordelasz explained. “One or two showed no wounds.” He gazed up at his captain. “Speaking of which… That’s a nice bruise you have there, ma’am.”
She put a hand to the darkened flesh on her cheek and winced. There was some slight swelling, but a surgeon’s mate had told her it would last no more than a day or two. The multi-hued bruise would remain longer. “It’s trivial,” Rinharte told Kordelasz. “Romi took a much more serious wound.”
The marine-captain directed a sunny smile at the midshipman.
“What were our casualties?” Rinharte asked.
Kordelasz sobered. “The two marines on duty on the quarter-deck were found dead. No other fatalities.” He paused, smiled once again at Maganda. “Or—other than Romi—wounds, for that matter. I’d say we got off lightly, but there wasn’t much to them, to tell the truth. They fought with no skill or intelligence.”
“I thought that too.” Rinharte frowned. “They couldn’t have been more d
ifferent to the one who escaped when we were at Linna.”
“Do we know what woke them?” Maganda asked.
“No. We know just as much as we did before. But…” Rinharte smiled grimly. “Now that the sarcophagi are empty, we can dismantle one to understand its workings. Get a mechanician and an artificer on it.”
The midshipman nodded in acknowledgement.
“Tell them to take the thing to pieces and to follow every hose and pipe wherever it may lead.”
“To the armoury,” said Kordelasz matter-of-factly.
Rinharte shook her head. “No. You’re wrong there, Garrin. I’ve no evidence why I think so, but I believe the clones were woken remotely —”
“We’re in the toposphere,” scoffed Kordelasz. “No ship can communicate here.”
“Casimir can,” replied Rinharte.
Kordelasz closed his mouth. Maganda sat up straighter.
She asked, “Ma’am?”
Slowly, Rinharte settled in her seat and leaned back. “Surely you’ve heard the tales, Romi? No? Well… How to put this? Casimir Ormuz, the young lord who leads us, can access a place he calls the ‘nomosphere’. In there, he has at its fingertips all the information in the Empire. No one understands the how and why of it, least of all Casimir. But it is a talent he shares with the Serpent. He has, in fact, met the Serpent there.” A thought occurred to her. “Perhaps the nomosphere is how the clones are woken? Some signal sent from there?”
“It makes as much sense as any other explanation,” conceded Kordelasz.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Finesz did not believe in making moral judgements, but she took seriously her responsibilities as an inspector in the Office of the Procurator Imperial. It was her job to investigate and indict those who committed felonies. And treason against the emperor was the most heinous felony of all.
The atmosphere about Linna had been thick with it.
Much as she liked her fellow plotters—Casimir Ormuz was a fascinating young man; Captain Rinharte, despite her stiff neck, could be warm and friendly; the Admiral was… well, an Imperial Princess… In spite of her feelings, Finesz found herself uncomfortable amongst the conspirators. She had spent most of the last ten weeks on Linna, and made only infrequent forays to the fleet in orbit. While technically resident in Rusko Palace, she’d spent much of her time at the ducal aerodrome, in the company of her prisoner and lover, Commander Abad mar Mubariz, Baron Mateen.
It was no surprise, then, that Finesz felt freer of spirit once Lantern had left the Linna planetary system and was travelling to Shuto. She did not confine Mubariz to a cabin, since there was nowhere he could go. If Lantern’s crew thought giving Mubariz freedom of the ship was odd, they said nothing. Finesz no longer cared—the last year had been one long journey across burnt bridges, from the moment she’d disobeyed her superior, Gyome mar Norioko, Baron Kanban, on Darrus and continued to investigate the murder of Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo.
So much had changed since then.
She had caught her suspects. No, that was not strictly true. She now knew who had killed Regimental-Lieutenant Merenilo: the knights sinister. But at the time, she had been convinced the crew of the data-freighter Divine Providence were crucial to solving the mystery. And so they were. Ormuz, erstwhile cabin-boy, was now the fulcrum around which a plot to defend the Imperial Throne revolved. A plot in which she, Inspector Sliva demar Finesz of the Office of the Procurator Imperial, had become a valued member.
Norioko would have her hide for that.
Footsteps in the gangway caused Finesz to look up from the cup of coffee on the table before her. There was little enough to do when ships were in the toposphere—no scenery to admire, for certain, just endless formless grey. She had been enjoying a hot drink in the wardroom, thinking on her course of action once Lantern eventually reached Shuto. She had plenty of time: it would take her almost half a year of travelling to reach the capital.
Commander Mubariz appeared at the table. It had been his footsteps she had heard. Briefly, she wondered how she had failed to recognise them. His slow steady tread was quite distinctive. Her mind had been elsewhere, she decided.
“Abad,” she said, smiling up at her prisoner. “Won’t you join me?”
Mubariz looked for’ard but there was nothing to see except the ladder leading up to the crew quarters and control cupola. He pulled out a chair, sat down opposite Finesz and gazed placidly across the table at her.
“We are heading for Shuto?” he asked.
Finesz nodded.
“Directly?”
“As directly as we can.”
The commander frowned. “And what is to be my fate once we have arrived?”
“Fate? You make it sound far too melodramatic, Abad.” She paused. He was not biting: his face retained its serious expression. Finesz sobered. “Your fate is your own,” she said. “You were a prisoner of the Admiral, not of the OPI. I couldn’t hold you if I wanted to.”
Of course, she hoped she could hold him, but not in any legal sense.
She continued, “I suppose you’ll report to the Imperial Admiralty as soon as we make land-fall?”
“If it still exists.” He said it in a matter-of-fact manner, as if he fully expected Admiralty Fort to be a smoking ruin and the Lords of the Admiralty dead and scattered.
“Why in heavens should it not?”
Casimir Ormuz had explained to her that the Serpent, Ariman umar Vonshuan, Duke of Ahasz, planned to launch an attack on the Imperial Palace—had very likely attacked already. She thought he was unlikely to succeed. What army could he take to the battle? Half a dozen battalions of the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls? Against the knights stalwart, knights militant, Emperor’s Own Cuirassiers, Imperial Navy, and who knew what other forces currently on Shuto? It would be a rout, the Serpent’s assault was sure to be defeated almost immediately.
The battle on Geneza, however, was an altogether different matter…
“Sliva,” Mubariz replied slowly, “you have not spent the last six years fighting the Serpent’s conspiracy. While I disagreed with the Admiral’s methods—there was no need for her to mutiny—I recognised that the Serpent was a very real threat to the Imperial Throne. I think it likely he will succeed.”
“Succeed?” she scoffed. Treason might well be a serious matter, but she still could not credit that the Admiral and her officers took the Serpent’s treason seriously. The Imperial Palace was a mountain. Not some indefensible wooden lodge. She said as much, and added: “And if he should succeed, well, then the Admiral and Casimir will travel from Geneza to Shuto and knock him off the Throne he’s taken.”
The commander shook his head. “They might very well be out-matched.”
Ormuz had told her what forces he expected to meet on the Old Empire’s capital world and she mentioned it to Mubariz. After all, while he had spied on the Admiral, it had not been for the enemy.
“You think Casimir’s…” She trailed off. What should she call it? Not a rebellion. Ormuz was not revolting against the Imperial Throne. It was the Serpent who was doing that. Certainly, Ormuz’s actions—and those of the Admiral, too—were illegal. The Emperor had made it clear, through various agents, that he disapproved of his daughter’s “crusade”. That thought prompted a memory of Finesz’s run-in with the knights sinister. The Order of the Left Hand had come to Linna to take Mubariz into custody. Finesz had fought them off.
She smiled wanly. No. Troop-Sergeant Assaun had fought off the knights sinister.
“You find it amusing?” demanded Mubariz. He leaned forward, brows lowered, his great bear-like hands flat on the wooden table-top.
“What? No, not at all. I was just remembering Sudnik—you know, the knight sinister who tried to take you from me.”
Mubariz grunted. “Perhaps you should have let them do so.”
She stretched out a hand and laid it atop one of the commander’s. Against his enormous hand, her n
arrow palm and long fingers seemed to belong to another species. She stroked his knuckles lightly with her finger-tips. “You are mine, Abad,” she said softly. “I’ll not let you go.”
For a long minute, he said nothing, just stared at her hand on his. Then he slid his hand from beneath hers. “I never asked you why you chose to follow the Admiral,” he said.
“I’m not sure I know myself.” She gazed with disappointment at his withdrawn hand. “I may not have been fighting the Serpent for the past six years but I was investigating a conspiracy that seemed to include the highest reaches of Imperial society. Fiscal malfeasance, corruption, abuse of privilege… Oh, I could tell you of millions paid for battleships which exist only on paper, cruisers on patrol being paid for three times more crew than they actually carry… It’s endemic—No, it’s systemic. There are Imperial regiments with more battalions on the Rolls than in the barracks, OPI bureaux that delegate their policing to local constabularies and pocket the excess in their budgets. And the Electorate—they’re just in it for what they get. It’s not about government anymore, it’s about fattening their own coffers. At the expense of the Empire.”
“It has always been this way,” Mubariz replied heavily. “It is the… price we pay for our freedoms.”
Finesz let out a brittle laugh. “Oh, Abad. Do you seriously believe that?”
“I have studied history,” he replied stiffly.
At times like this Finesz wondered what she saw in the man. His integrity, his deep sense of personal honour, was appealing. She had known no one like him during her years as a courtesan in the Imperial Court. But sometimes…