by Chris Bunch
Sten found a third option. He deployed his entire fleet as a slashing cutting-out expedition, coming down on the Imperial units. His orders had been very simple: Attack any ship that is showing signs of fight. Hit them once—hard—and hold full speed. Regroup and reattack. If they go into normal space, go with them. Make sure they're either broadcasting a surrender signal or their main drive is disabled.
"Do not board. Do not close with and destroy. Ignore any ship obeying the Imperial orders.
"This is not a battle to the finish. Otho, I don't want any of your people playing berserker."
"What happens after they're broken?” a mercenary captain had asked.
"Sorry, Captain. There's no time for looting. I say again—no boarding. This whole damn mess is almost over. Let's not get anyone killed unnecessarily."
"What about Imperial survivors?"
"There'll be SAR ships put out. Eventually."
And that was how the battle was fought. Slice through ... form up ... hit them again.
Sten fought his ship—a cruiser—and three others. Time blurred. Each combat was different, each combat was the same. He gave his orders through a cold, clear anger.
The Emperor had returned. Very well. So let's end it.
Eventually there was no one left still firing that was worthwhile shooting back at. Sten came back to himself, staggered with fatigue.
He looked at a chronometer.
The ship-day was nearly ended. He checked the main battlescreen. The scatter of indicators gave no sign that just hours before there had been a fleet to attack. It was, indeed, over.
So much for the nits.
Now for the vermin they had bred from.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
POYNDEX NOTICED THE tree had lost half its leaves. Like the privy council members who awaited him on the top floor, the rubiginosa seemed to be cowering at the news: The Eternal Emperor was back!
When he saw them huddled in their chairs, he realized that “cowering” was a poor description. Each of them had heard the executioner's song and was dying inside. Malperin looked half a century older. Lovett was a shrunken, pouch-faced little being.
The Kraa twins were the most changed of all. The one who had once waddled about in thick wads of fat had become a baggy, anorexic thing. Her skin drooped disgustingly. The once-thin Kraa had turned herself into a bulging pink ball, skin stretched tight around the new fat.
There was no question on any of their faces that the being who called himself the Eternal Emperor was exactly that.
All four beings leaped on Poyndex as if he were the last lifeboat leaving a hulled ship. He could barely make out the questions in the frightened confusion.
"...The Eternal Emperor..."
"...What shall we do..."
"...Where can we run..."
"...Should we fight..."
"...Can we fight..."
On and on. They were working themselves into a suicidal frenzy. They were so hysterically afraid of the Emperor that they were ready to board ships and fling themselves onto his guns with all the troops they could command.
That was not what Poyndex wanted.
He soothed them and sat them down. He put on his saddest, most understanding face. “I think I know how to save you,” he said.
They looked up at him, sudden hope in their eyes. Anything would do now. But Poyndex was not after just anything. He believed he had found his way back to power.
"I have not been charged with any crime,” he said. “In whatever actions that were taken before I joined you, I had no part. Therefore, it should be no trouble at all for me to personally approach the Emperor."
No one protested, or warned him that it might be certain death, that no matter how blameless he might be, the Emperor was quite capable of killing any being vaguely involved with the privy council. Poyndex smiled to himself at that great showing of concern from his colleagues and friends.
"If you do not object, I'll offer the Emperor a deal."
Poyndex's proposal was simple. The privy council had lost, but they could still cause an enormous amount of damage and shed a great deal of blood. He urged them to retire to the emergency bunker that had been constructed deep under the rubiginosa tree. It was an ideal command center, plugged into every military channel. The bunker itself was constructed to withstand anything up to a direct nuclear explosion. From there they could fight to the death if the Emperor refused the deal.
Poyndex would point all that out to the Emperor. Then he would say that the privy council had no wish to cause so much harm if it could be avoided. In the interest of all the innocent beings of Prime World, they would agree to lay down their arms if granted their lives.
"No prison,” the once-fat Kraa snarled. “Me sis couldn't bear the filthy thing."
"I'm not suggesting prison,” Poyndex said. “I'm suggesting exile. Under the terms I plan to negotiate, you would be permitted to freely board your private ships and flee to the farthest reaches of the Empire. Beyond the frontiers, if The Emperor wishes it. And you would be forbidden ever to return."
"Do you think he'll go for it?” Lovett whined.
Oh, yes, Poyndex assured. Yes, indeed he will. The Emperor, like Poyndex, was a practical man.
Then he told them they ought to proceed instantly to the bunker. There should be no delay—in case the Emperor struck unexpectedly.
Poyndex watched the privy council members hurry off to the fates he had planned for them, like beasts to the butcher.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE KRAAS, ALWAYS aware of that area of the human back between the third and fourth ribs, were the first to correctly analyze the subtext of the Emperor's transmission: “Clottin’ Poyndex! Clottin’ bassid set us up an’ sold us out."
Why not? They would have done the same, had they the chance.
"Shoulda knowed,” the now-fat one growled. “Sit here in this clottin’ bunker, waitin’ an’ waitin’ an’ waitin'. We got no forces in space, th’ air, or holdin’ the ports."
Their screams of outrage were the loudest it had gotten in the privy council's underground retreat in days. The Kraas had spent the time since Poyndex had left on his “negotiating mission” gorging and purging. Malperin and Lovett found themselves together frequently—but with nothing to say. They might have been a pair of silent ghosts, haunting the cellars below the castle they once ruled from.
The guards and servants learned the art of swiftly and silently following whatever orders they were given and then disappearing into their own quarters.
Then came the announcement, on the special wavelength set aside: “This is the Eternal Emperor.
"I have been approached by an emissary of the traitorous privy council. They wanted conditional terms for their surrender.
"I reject these, in the name of civilization and the Empire itself. There can be no negotiation with murderers.
"I demand immediate, complete, and unconditional surrender. “Citizens of Prime World—"
At that point the Kraas had begun screaming. No one in the com room heard the details of what else the Emperor ordered. It was nothing surprising: Prime was declared under martial law. All military personnel were to report to their barracks and remain there. Officers and noncommissioned officers were to maintain discipline, but no more. All ships to ground and remain grounded or be fired upon. Police were instructed to keep public order—without violence, if possible. Rioters and looters would be punished...
Nothing surprising.
Until the end:
"Imperial forces will be landing on Prime within the hour."
Impossibly, the Kraas’ howls became louder. Trapped ... clot that ... out of here.
One of them was on a com to the capital city of Fowler's main port, giving hurried orders to the commander of their “yacht"—a heavily armed ex-cruiser—and its two escorts, ordering preparation for immediate takeoff.
&nb
sp; "Why?” Malperin wondered in a monotone. “There is nowhere to run to."
"Clot there ain't! There's allus a back door!"
The other Kraa broke in. “Even if there ain't, damned sure rather go down fightin’ than just waitin’ f r th’ butcher's hammer!"
And they were gone.
Lovett started to pour a drink. He put the glass down, unfilled, and sat. He stared at Malperin. The silence returned.
* * * *
A flotilla of tacships were the first to scream down and across Soward's launch grounds. Other flotillas provided Tac Air over the rest of Prime's ports.
The lead tacship's exec/weapons officer reported three ships, drives active.
"All elements ... Fairmile Flight ... Targets as indicated and illuminated ... Goblin launch ... Fire!"
Non-nuclear medium-range missiles spat out of the tacships’ tubes, homing on the Kraas’ three ships. Three blasts became a single fireball belching up thousands of feet.
And Mahoney ordered in the fleets.
Sten, as per orders, was the first to bring his in. Destroyers and cruisers hung over Soward and Fowler. He brought his own battleship and its two fellows down onto Prime—flashthought: A bit different than when I skulked out of here last—and behind them the assault transports landed, and armor and troops spilled out.
Kilgour tossed Sten his combat harness, and Sten buckled on the webbing that held the heavy Gurkkha kukris and a miniwillygun.
He would command the assault on the council's bunker himself. The Eternal Emperor had given him explicit orders: he wanted the Kraas, Malperin, and Lovett—alive if at all possible. He did not want to see, he added, the work of Sten's Tribunal wasted.
"Admiral.” A screen was indicated.
Five armored gravsleds pulled onto the field about three kilometers away. Four were standard squad combat types; the fifth was a command unit.
"Ah think w’ flushed some ae them,” Kilgour said, mentally plotting their intended destination, that fireball that had been the ready-to-lift ships.
Before Sten could issue orders, a tacship bulleted across the field, scattering area-denial cratering bomblets. The blast flipped two of the sleds out of control, and a third lost power and slammed, nose first, into the smoking, newly dug ditch.
Two were left. Their pilots spun them through 180 degrees, back the way they had come.
But Sten saw that their exit had been sealed, not by Imperial forces or bombing, but by a screaming, boiling mob. Armed and unarmed. Human and alien.
The gravsleds fired into the mob. Beings fell and were shattered. More replaced them.
The squad gravsled was disabled and grounded. Someone, somewhere, had found, stolen, or seized an anti-armor weapon and fired. The blast disintegrated the gravsled—and sent its attackers spinning.
The command sled changed course once more, this time toward the grounded Imperial ships.
It never made it.
Sten saw the flash as a homemade incendiary landed on its top deck and fire poured down into the McLean intakes. The sled shuddered to a halt. Sten saw the rear ramp drop and then—
He thought he saw two beings come out: one enormously fat, the other looking like a skeleton wearing a tent. Their hands were upraised, and they were shouting something.
And then the mob poured over them. Sten turned away from the screen.
"Ah hae i’ recorded,” Kilgour said. “We'll need ae frame-b'-frame f'r an’ ID an’ confirm't thae wa’ th’ Kraas. Thae'll be nae enow lef f'r th’ autopsy."
Sten nodded, still not looking at the screen. “Let's go, Mr. Kilgour. I want the courts to have somebody to bring to trial."
The assigned Imperial troops were no better or worse than the rest of the Empire's units Sten had faced lately. It did not matter—Sten had already assumed inexperience and formed his spearhead from the mercenaries.
He assumed they would have to fight their way through the streets of Fowler to the privy council's headquarters—but they did not. The riots and the revenge had already swept through the streets they took: overturned gravcars and -sleds, some burnt-out; improvised barricades; bodies, some uniformed, some not.
Burning and burnt businesses and buildings. Three times bodies dangling from street lamps.
But nothing they had to stand against.
Surprisingly, there was order, of sorts. Civilians directed traffic as best they could—what little traffic there was. More civilians patrolled the walkways.
The sergeant commanding the combat squad in Sten's assault gravsled stuck his head out of the hatch, shouted a question to one of the civilians, and received an answer.
"Cult a’ the Emp, sir. Helpin’ pave the way, sir."
Sten thought the cult practiced nonviolence. Perhaps the bruised man he saw being frog-marched by three large women had tripped and fallen downstairs. Or maybe there would be a confession to make later.
He heard the sound of firing as his assault force closed on the council's headquarters.
There were bodies in the mottled brown of the Imperial Guard and riddled gravsleds in front of it. Sten dismounted and was greeted by a sick- and worried-looking captain, a young woman who could not decide whether to cry or swear. It had been the first time she had led a unit into combat—and the first time the unit she had so carefully knitted together took casualties.
She neither cried nor swore—but professionally made a sitrep. The council had guards inside the building—there. Four antitrack launchers sandbagged there and over there. Snipers and rapid-fire weapons upstairs in the building itself. All orders to surrender had been ignored.
Sten thanked her and issued orders. She was to pull her company back. Make sure the area was sealed—nobody out but, more importantly, nobody in. Especially not another lynch mob.
The captain watched in awe as Sten and Kilgour issued a string of orders to their mercenaries and Bhor troops.
You get good, Sten thought, when you're doing it for the fortieth or four hundredth time around and you're armored against seeing your people get killed.
He brought up a company of heavy tracks and used them to bulldoze barricades and smash through the buildings around the headquarters to provide firing positions. Heavy weapons were readied, and fire was opened against the snipers and crew-served guns.
"Th’ wee antitrack launchers,” Kilgour said. “Ah hae their medicine ready.” He did.
Kilgour had ordered snipers—the best an’ y’ ken who y'be, dinnae be tryin’ t’ t’ smoke me—into flanking positions.
As Sten ordered a gravsled to move forward, he sensed Cind moving in close to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her scanning the confusion for hidden danger—danger against him.
The antitrack crews aimed—and were sniped down. More of the council's—soldiers? secret cops? private goons?—ran to replace them.
Willyguns cracked, and the new gunners never made it. A third try ... and volunteers suddenly got scarce.
"Mister Kilgour?"
Alex shouted orders, and Sten's hand-picked squad doubled into the lowered troop ramp of a heavy track.
"Y’ dinnae hae't’ be knockin't,” Alex ordered the track commander. “An’ gie y'self a bit ae coverin't fire. Go!"
The track ground forward, turrets flaming. Its tracks clawed over one of the abandoned antitrack launchers, and then the multiton monster exploded through the entrance of the council's building, into the huge atrium.
The ramp banged down, and Sten and his “arresting officers” came out. He noticed the green-encrusted fountains and what must have been some kind of tall dead tree in the atrium's center. The tank had felled the tree as it slid to a halt before the troops dismounted.
Sten glanced at the small map case he held. “Bunker entrance is ... over there. Move slow, dammit! Don't end up makin’ history by bein’ the last one dead."
Good advice, Sten thought. Listen to it. A dead admiral being the last casualty of this ... war? Revolt? Insurrection? Whatever might rate more t
han a footnote.
* * * *
They went down and down, into the bowels below what had been the privy council's proudest construction. Cind and Alex kept close to Sten as they moved from cover to cover like cautious snakes.
There was no need to be careful. There was no resistance.
Malperin and Lovett were found sitting in a room. They did not seem to hear Sten's orders.
Cind stared at the two beings, at the husks who had once been her rulers. Sten thought he saw pity in her eyes.
Kilgour repeated Sten's orders.
They finally responded to his growls. They stood when Alex told them to, were strip-searched for weapons and suicide devices without protest, then followed the arresting squad back up and out.
It almost seemed, Sten thought, as if they were secretly glad it was all over.
He wondered if their apathy would continue past the moment when the trial began.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
"SIT DOWN, STEN,” the Eternal Emperor said. “But pour us both a drink first."
From long habit as former commander of the Emperor's personal guard, Sten knew he was at ease when drink was mentioned.
But being “At Ease,” and being “at ease” were difficult under the circumstances. It had been many years since he had a shot of stregg with the boss. And in those times, Sten had thought that the word “Eternal” was merely a symbolic title, if he thought of it at all.
He noticed, however, that when the Emperor took his drink, he only gave it an absentminded sip. Sten did the same.
"I won't thank you for all you've done,” the Emperor said. “The words would seem silly. At least to me."
Sten wondered what was up. The Emperor, despite his pose of informality, was being damned formal. That usually meant he had a surprise up his sleeve. Sten hoped it did not involve him. He saw the Emperor frown at him slightly, then look at the barely touched stregg in his own hand. The frown vanished, and the Eternal Emperor tossed it back in one swallow. He slid the glass across the table for more. Sten drank his own down and redid the honors. He felt the stregg light its way down and spread out its warmth, but he still felt no more at ease.