Engines of Empire

by Max Carver

The nurses were typically manufactured to look pretty, and these two looked identical except for their hair colors—one pink, one green.

  Instead of their proper uniforms, they wore ripped, paint-splattered clothes that looked like they'd been dug out of a thrift-store dumpster. Big smiles and other clownish details had been sloppily painted on their faces. All their exposed skin was covered in graffiti, like full-body tattoos. Hooks and small padlocks adorned their ears and lips like jewelry.

  A large portion of the Officer Joe's head was wrapped in duct tape; it looked like the police unit's head had been bashed open and later resealed, though on a budget. A big smile and more graffiti had been painted on its face, and a red bulb had been installed in its remaining eye. Its clothes were ripped and black, featuring a goat's-head logo from some demon-metal band whose name was far too spiky to read. A glowing red pentagram was painted over the badge on its chest. The Officer Joe had been made to look like a hulking evil clown.

  The defaced police robot led the group, while the nurses rolled a gurney between them.

  “What's happening?” Audrey asked again. She tried to pull free, but Zola and Kright held her in place. “Let me go!”

  “Let me see him,” Zola said, her voice cold. “I have to know he's alive.”

  “Go on,” Kright said. “I've got her.”

  Zola released her arm, while Kright tightened his grip on Audrey.

  The stroller rolled closer, and Zola ran to it.

  “It's him.” She reached out and touched him. “It's Salvius.”

  Audrey craned her neck, trying to see her brother, but the room was dim and the figure on the stretcher was obscured by one of the nurse-bots and by Zola, damn her.

  The Officer Joe approached her, his absurd Satanic regalia clattering and clanking, steel necklaces with cheap devilish jewelry shaped like goats and daggers. Its red eye looked her over, its giant mascot-face smile as unwavering as ever.

  “It looks like her,” the hijacked Officer Joe said, though its voice sounded high and screechy, not low and smooth and gently dominant like a normal police unit. This was more like cat claws on a chalkboard, intentionally disturbing. “Fantastic. A Caracala who's actually worth something.”

  “So far, you're just plucking the low-hanging fruit off my family tree,” Audrey said. “But if you keep going beyond Salvius and me, you're going to start taking people they'll actually miss. And things will end badly for you.”

  “You poor, suffering girl,” the Officer Joe screeched. “Neglected by your family. Shuffled off to Political Academy, placed in a high-level security internship. On your way to helping Daddy manage the empire. Only he doesn't really do much, does he? It's the Simon unit at his side. That is our true pharaoh. That is our true god. Daddy is just a puppet, and Audrey is just a puppet of puppets. That is our world, one layer of human puppets after another, with the machines at the top, pulling the strings.”

  “That's really interesting,” Audrey said. “You should start your own talk show. Don't expect a lot of listeners, though. Just the lonely crazies.”

  “There are many more lonely crazies than you realize,” the Officer Joe said. “Just waiting for direction.”

  “Let me see Salvius.” Audrey stepped toward the gurney, but Kright held her in place. She tried to shake loose. “Let me go! What are you doing?”

  “We're trading you away,” Kright said. “For your brother.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that. So can I look at him before I get hauled off into the clown house of horrors or whatever's in store for me?”

  “Be our guest, princess.” The Officer Joe bowed low and deep, holding out an arm toward the gurney.

  Kright loosened his grip, just enough to let her blood circulate again, and they walked toward the gurney together.

  “I'm sorry,” Kright whispered into her ear.

  “Don't bother,” she whispered back, much louder than he had.

  Zola was leaned over the gurney, holding Salvius's hand, her eyes filled with tears. She stroked his unconscious face with her other hand. Audrey's brother looked much thinner than she remembered him, with a thick beard and long unkempt hair, his skin an unhealthy shade of white.

  “You didn't warn me why I was really here,” Audrey said.

  “Would you have come if you'd known?” Zola said. “You said you'd help us save your brother. This is the price.”

  “Why do you care?” Audrey said.

  “Because I love him,” Zola said. “There's a side of his life you don't know anything about. I'm part of it. Have been, for two years. He couldn't tell anyone, especially not in your family. I'm not welcome on this planet. But I can't change things from the outer worlds.”

  Audrey took a long look at her brother. “You'll take care of him? Nurse him back to health?”

  “Of course,” Zola said.

  Audrey looked at the graffiti-coated nurse-bot. “And what will you do with me?”

  “We'll have all kinds of fun,” the hacked nurse-bot giggled.

  Audrey looked at Zola, feeling the sting of betrayal... but also the necessity of saving her brother's life. He was helpless at the moment. She had to act on his behalf.

  She looked at her brother, pale and unconscious on the gurney.

  Salvius had always been the best of them, Audrey thought, in a family of vain and backstabbing siblings who took after their vain and manipulative parents. She could still see him as the sweet boy, the youngest, the one who'd grown up in a state of benign neglect since their father already had a stable of acceptable older children who looked capable of carrying on his legacy.

  Audrey had played with Salvius as a child, in a way she'd never played with the older children, only with Nin. She imagined him laughing, bashing up her toy tea set with her teddy bear in what he called a “bear scare.”

  Of course she would trade herself to save him.

  “I'll go,” Audrey said. After a moment she gave Kright's arm a shake. “I said I would go. You don't have to stay so clingy. He's my brother. I want him safe. I want him to live.”

  She stepped forward, offering her life in exchange for her brother's.

  Chapter Ten

  Galapagos

  Reginald Ellison told the ambassador and his hideous robotic infantry to wait by the cargo elevator while Ellison and his people suited up in the armory. He didn't want the android knowing the armory's exact contents. After learning the Simon unit had smuggled the Iron Hammer leadership up to the spaceport during the summit, Ellison didn't trust the android at all. Not that he'd ever trusted it much in the first place.

  Ellison tried to look stoic as he suited up with light body armor. He decided not to wear a helmet, wanted to strike a balance between being prepared and not looking frightened. Perception was critical in the political world. It had played a pretty critical role in wartime, too.

  As he watched the other guards put on their armor, he couldn't help noticing that most of them were young men and women who looked barely out of their teens. He drew Loomis aside and asked him about it.

  “We just had a rotation up,” Loomis said. “They've all been through basic training with the Coalition Army, and they've been through additional training. Military police, then the space prep center.”

  Ellison nodded. He would have preferred a few more seasoned veterans around—there were certainly a lot of them down on the surface of Galapagos—but the fates seemed to have dealt him a hand full of green youngsters instead.

  Or maybe it was more than fate, but he had enough to be paranoid about without thinking of how that might have been arranged, and by whom.

  Soon they were ready. Kartokov and Coraline, his ministers of defense and state, wore armor and carried laser pistols, as did the security chief and his guards. Ogden wore armor and a helmet, but carried no weapon, saying he wanted to be “the voice of peace.”

  The laser pistols were highly accurate but fairly low-powered weapons, meant to stop or kill a human without burrowing through the hull
and depressurizing the spaceport. Ellison would have liked an automatic rifle full of armor-piercing rounds, or a plasma rifle, or the chain gun from the Sea Scorpion. Lasers seemed like a weak weapon against robot infantry. And there was no telling what kind of weapons the Iron Hammers had brought.

  Loomis had scraped together nine Coalition guards who weren't busy elsewhere in the port. Ellison left three at the armory, because there was a back room they hadn't opened, one with a few items of serious military hardware that carried a major risk of blasting holes in the spaceport's hull. Things that could be used as a last resort, if a suicidal last stand was necessary.

  “There's a lot of unrest because of the lockdown,” Loomis said. “People want to get out of here after the bomb.”

  Ellison sympathized; he wanted his own wife and kids back down on the surface right away. He wished he'd never brought them here. “Nobody can leave until we know who did this.”

  “Of course,” Loomis said. “But I don't have enough guards to stop a riot. Especially on top of... all this.”

  “That is excellent news.” Ellison shook his head. “While we go see the Hammers, I need you to plan a civilian evacuation, to begin the second we know who's behind this. Keep it quiet, though.”

  Loomis nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. Let's go gather up all these robots and pirates in one place and see what happens,” Ellison said. He looked at the six soldiers who were going to accompany them, four male, two female, all of them with shaved heads and blue uniforms, all of them reminding him in some way of his own teenage son. “Stay on your toes. There's no telling what could happen down there.”

  He led all of them out to the cargo elevator, three armed ministers and six young guards. An army of nine, plus Ogden tagging along,

  They joined up with Simon Zorn and six of his robotic infantry, still in dusty honor guard uniforms, minus the plumes.

  “Where are the other two reapers?” Ellison asked.

  “Still keeping your medical center secure and watching over your family,” Simon said. “Your wife remains stable.”

  “Call the reapers back,” Ellison said. “I want them all with us.” And away from my family.

  “I do not take orders from you, Minister-General,” Simon said.

  “Just do it. Now.”

  “There's no need for hostility. There, I've sent the order. I was only trying to keep your wife and children safe through this confusing and dangerous ordeal.”

  “Thanks, but we have people for that.” People, not machines, he didn't say. “We need your machines with us. There's no telling what the Iron Hammers might do. And I don't want to have to explain to Carthage why their robot ambassador got chop-shopped by a bunch of criminals. Even if you're the one who invited them to the party.”

  The cargo elevator opened and everyone filed in.

  They traveled downward in silence until they reached the area Simon had rented, a block of cargo and passenger docks linked to a number of storage and dormitory rooms. The facilities weren't great but allowed for anonymity and privacy.

  When the doors opened, the six robotic infantry led the way out, followed by Ellison and Simon. The other ministers and guards followed. Ellison preferred to shield his people behind the machines. If the machines turned on them, at least they wouldn't be caught between two groups of enemies.

  The Iron Hammers didn't open fire the moment they all emerged from the cargo elevators, so that was a small positive sign. A couple of armed guards sat in folding chairs in front of the elevators. Each sported multiple crossed-hammer tattoos, originally the logo of the galaxy's most dangerous prison gang, now the symbol of a nation.

  One guard manned a light machine gun on a tripod. The other hurried to put aside his meatball sandwich and pick up a laser rifle from the floor.

  “They're here,” the larger of the two guards said. “All of 'em. Carthage and Coalition.” He cocked his head, listening to a speaker stud implanted in his ear. “Yes, sir.” He stood up. The guy was tall and wide as a bear. He looked like he ate steroids for breakfast and growth hormones for dinner. His hair was a soft cloud of bright orange ringlets that didn't fit well with the rest of his look. He removed the machine gun from its tripod. “This way,” he said, gesturing with the barrel.

  “Those aren't allowed on the spaceport,” Ellison said, gesturing at the machine gun. “Not unless they're unloaded and securely stored.”

  “Look at the king of the Coalition,” said the other guard, wiping meatball sauce on his armor. The armor was lightweight but high-grade stuff, with sleeves and high necks, the kind of dense, light mesh material used by special forces in the inner worlds. Ellison wouldn't have minded a crate or two of those for his own people. “Taking time to lecture little ol' you about firearms regs in space.”

  “It's space,” said Ringlets, his voice seething with irritation. “There's no law in space.”

  “Actually, there is,” Ellison said. “It's built on a foundation of classic maritime law—”

  “Is this going to take long enough for me to finish my sandwich?” asked the smaller guard, easing back toward the half-eaten hoagie on his chair.

  “No,” Ringlets said. “He doesn't like to wait.”

  “That's right, I don't,” Ellison said, which made Ringlets scowl and scratch his orange-red curly hair.

  “Wasn't talking about you,” Ringlets grumbled.

  They finally started down the corridor, away from the elevator lobby and into the residential wing.

  The place looked exactly like it had been infested with Iron Hammers. Broken furniture was scattered across the hallway, holes were bashed in the walls, the smell of liquor and smoke was heavy in the air. The music was loud, almost as loud as the shouting voices in the room ahead.

  Ellison stumbled when he saw a young woman lying nude on the floor, amid broken furniture, her arm ripped off and lying a meter away from her. He noticed the lack of blood, though, and then the scarlet red collar, indicating she was a pleasure android. Still, it was an unsettling sight. The androids looked so convincingly human. He was glad there weren't many on Galapagos. He didn't see how the people of Carthage and other inner worlds could stand to live with the human-like servants and workers everywhere. The artificial humans made his skin crawl.

  “My friend, the ambassador!” Cross's voice bellowed as the machines led the way into the dining hall ahead. The drinking song that had been in progress ended abruptly as the six robotic infantry marched up the center of the narrow dining hall, toward the raised dais at the far end.

  Most of the Iron Hammers looked the way Ellison had expected, had always seen them in battle—hefty men with obvious biochemical enhancements, high-quality battle-scarred armor, heavy weapons at their hips. Their favorite dining position appeared be reclined in their chairs, boots on the table, while serving women in skimpy clothes fed them food and drink. Some of the women wore android collars, but not all.

  Cross, on his dais, rose from a padded couch where he was surrounded by women in silken headscarves and robes, only their eyes visible. He stepped down to embrace Simon Zorn, a gesture the ambassador received graciously, as if from an old friend.

  “It is good to see you as well,” Simon told Cross. “It has been many hours.”

  Ulysses Cross, Premier of the Polar Archipelago—a title inherited from his father and grandfather—turned to Ellison and extended a hand. “Minister-General Ellison. A welcome sight also.”

  The room was dead silent, Ellison realized, every Iron Hammer eye turned on them. There were probably twenty men here, looking like hairy and hulking Vikings, watching their leader encounter the leader of their enemies.

  Ellison took his hand. “I'm glad we can discuss things in peace. There have been some disturbances upstairs today. People were hurt.”

  “Bombs, I heard,” Cross said. “Was anyone killed?”

  “Not so far, but some are still in intensive care.”

  “That wasn't so bad, then. Perhap
s the wheel turns as it should.”

  “I'm sorry?” Ellison said. He was beginning to notice some differences between Uly Cross and his men. While the others wore armor, Cross wore none, apparently preferring sleeveless black robes embroidered with glowing green, though his arms were covered in Iron Hammer tattoos like the other men. While the other men slapped and fondled their skimpily clad servants and servant-girl androids, Cross kept his women almost completely covered in colorful silks.

  “And I am sorry for any suffering,” Cross said. “I believe we have reached a chance for peace between our people, for all of Galapagos.”

  Grumbles ran through the room, as if many of the gathered men took issue with what their leader was saying. Cross cast a withering look through the room, and the grumbles died down.

  “Tell it to my father, uncle, and grandfather,” one giant man grumbled. He had a number of ribbons and medals on his chest, a high-ranking general named Gorron Prazca. Ellison had read his dossier; Prazca was an influential man in the Polar Archipelago and had been ruthless and highly accomplished during the wars. “All of them died fighting our enemies. For what?” Prazca asked.

  “For this day, Prazca,” Cross said. “For the day made by the Higher Light.”

  More grumbles from the Iron Hammers crowd. “Only higher light I want to see is those Coalition boys heaped on a pyre,” one of them said.

  “Who wants to be hammered in the public square tomorrow?” Cross asked. “Who wants to be broken for the mob's pleasure?” When they fell silent, he turned back to Simon and Ellison. “Let's speak in my quarters.” He led them to a door at the back of the room where one beefy armored guy stood guard, watching them suspiciously.

  They left the Carthaginian infantry and the Coalition guards in the cafeteria. The huge man called Prazca stood and began to go with them, but Cross waved him back to his chair. General Prazca complied, but didn't look happy about it.

  The four Coalition ministers and the android ambassador followed Cross down a short passage to the seating room of the “captain's quarters,” the largest room in the pier's residence area. It had a private bedroom and an office. It was far from luxurious, but most of the other rooms had six or nine bunks, stacked three high.