St. Legier

by Blaze Ward

  Chapter XL

  Imperial Founding: 180/01/22. IFV Firehawk, Above St. Legier

  Gunter watched on the shuttle’s screen as they closed the last few meters to Aramis. He was reminded of a rabbit surrounded by a pack of wildcats. The teams of marines attached to the hull in armorsuits, plus the four men nearby in flying tanks, just added to the measure.

  Inside, the shuttle was darker than normal. Perhaps half light. Admiral Provst had set them that way on purpose. Several rows of passenger seats were mostly empty, as well as the cabin aft that could serve as a conference room. Four marines in light, boarding armor and guns, near the hatch and far enough away that the officers could speak without being heard.

  If Provst had said anything.

  Only he and Admiral Provst knew the whole story, here on the scene. Commander d’Noir had enough information to back them up in case things got weird, but there was an entire battle squadron around them. His old mates. Veterans of the apocalypse itself.

  Gunter saw the lines that guilt had carved into his former Admiral’s face. Hendrik had warned him that Provst was both on edge and in a bedrock state of mind. Gunter hadn’t understood the duality until he met the man today. Solid, but only barely in control of his rage.

  A gun, awaiting a target and a finger on the trigger.

  Probably exactly the sort of man Hendrik would want here. If the Crown took exception later, Gunter had no doubt that Tom Provst would be the right man to be executed. After the last several hours in his company, Gunter suspected the man would probably look forward to it with a smile.

  Gunter couldn’t remember the last time he had to play the straight man in such a good cop/bad cop routine. And yet, here he was.

  And Hendrik Baumgärtner had been right about guns, as well. Tom Provst had issued him a sidearm and taken one himself. The four bodyguards seated around them felt like guppies trailing a shark and a remora.

  On the screen, Aramis had grown until she filled the display. As yachts went, she was larger than most, almost a medium hull classification, but Gunter assumed that the man who commissioned her had carefully kept the vessel just below that limit, as well as the taxes that went along with it. She was still over one hundred meters long, and perhaps twenty across the broadest part of the beam. Three decks internal, plus what he would guess to be a stateroom over the engines, from the way the hull humped up there. Probably came with retractable shields so you could sleep among the stars, or the haze of JumpSpace.

  Money. Power. And arrogance.

  Hendrik and Tom had read the report, but Gunter had prepared it. As Hendrik had said, logistics officers make good spies, collating details and assembling stories. Or, in this case, having feelers out in the right quarters, the invisible places. Letting certain people know that blowing their cover might be more important than just sending a message.

  Time had indeed been critical. The vessel had arrived less than twenty hours after the message chain she had triggered. Aramis had a better navigator than she should have to make the run that fast.

  Gunter looked over at Tom Provst, dressed in his white day uniform. It belied the fact that the Grand Admiral had left the man in overall command of local forces, ranking on Admirals of the Red or Blue who had seniority, but not necessarily the other man’s complete trust. The entire Empire had balanced on edge for a few weeks, held safe by Provst and the men aboard Firehawk.

  Tom Provst was haunted. All the reports agreed, including the one Gunter had filed before they boarded the shuttle. Not suicidal, precisely, but long past the point where he cared about most things, including his career. Gunter had read the transcript of the conversation between Provst and Wachturm. Knew Provst wanted to die, but would not do it without that year elapsing or Wachturm giving his blessing.

  It had taken this situation to rouse the man from his apathy. Gunter hoped that it was enough. He missed the old commander he had known.

  The shuttle lurched slightly as she docked. Knowing how good most pilots were, Gunter assumed that the man up front had done that on purpose. Rattle Aramis with a good, ominous thump, when a kiss might have done. They had already rolled over and bared their belly to the warfleet around them. Anything Aramis did at this point would just hasten their demise, as it were.

  More clunks. The normal ones, this time, as the two airlocks embraced and began to join. Gunter could never get the juvenile joke out of his head, the one about ships mating, so he scowled instead.

  Admiral Provst looked over at him with the faintest ghost of a grin.

  “We have mounted them,” he said. “Now they will bear our children.”

  Gunter chuckled in spite of himself. That was the old Admiral. Perhaps some of the man remained alive inside.

  The next few hours would tell.

  Provst unbuckled and rose. Gunter joined him. The four marines were already up and poised. They smelled danger in the air. Everyone did, with the level of secrecy being maintained.

  “Open the airlock,” Provst ordered in a gruff voice.

  “Should you be this close, Admiral?” one of the marines, faceless inside his helmet, asked. “It could be a trap.”

  “If it is, then Charlie d’Noir splatters their silly asses all over space,” Provst responded in gravel-hued tones.

  The marine nodded and triggered the hatch. Three of them crowded the opening as it pivoted inwards, with nobody in the airlock itself.

  Gunter could see movement beyond the far lock door, but no one opened fire. And no grenades appeared, rattling off a bulkhead. As a former logistics officer, Gunter had been in charge of tracking all the armaments on his old battleship, so he was aware of how many different ways he could die today.

  Still, he had sworn an oath. They all had, including the man on the other side of that wall. He had apparently forgotten that. It was time to remind him.

  To remind them all.

  Gunter felt the anger billowing off Admiral Provst infect his own soul. He had managed to keep it at bay this long, but it was straining at the leash now. Of course, Gunter didn’t figure he would have made it this far in his career if he was unable to adapt to changing circumstances.

  That was part of what made a good spy.

  “Admiral, perhaps I should lead?” Gunter asked as Provst was about to move. “This is an official situation after all, sir.”

  “Yes,” Provst replied darkly. “I suppose it is. I forget that there are rules again. Good call, Tifft.”

  Gunter took point. He held the ominous satchel in his left hand, just in case he needed to actually draw the weapon with his right. Logistics officers as cowboys.

  Today, he was a spy.

  Into the airlock with a firm tread. Careful crossing the threshold, because they had the gravplates running lower over there, maybe ninety percent rather than the one-hundred-two that Provst maintained on Firehawk.

  Two obvious guards, neither of them with guns on their person, waited in the hall, along with a man Gunter could only describe as a flunky.

  “What’s the meaning of all this?” the flunky demanded.

  Gunter stopped and considered the man from close enough to punch him without stepping into it first. The other two appeared more sanguine about the situation, so Gunter mentally upgraded them to the kinds of goons that rich people hired as fixers. Tough, but not dumb enough to start trouble with Imperial marines.

  “Are you the captain of this vessel?” Gunter asked solemnly.

  “Yes, but…”

  Gunter snapped his fingers in the man’s face.

  One of the real spies he worked with occasionally had taught him that trick to throw people off kilter. It worked. The man blinked and fell silent.

  Gunter turned to the closest marine and nodded.

  “Put this one aboard the shuttle under guard,” he ordered, before turning to the goons. “Which of you is senior?”

  The short one nodded without speaking. Again, smart player aware that anything he did might be wrong.

 
Gunter pointed to the tall goon.

  “Him as well,” Gunter continued. “Lethal force is authorized, if necessary.”

  Tall goon understood faster than the captain did. He actually grabbed the sputtering flunky and propelled the smaller man into the airlock and custody, well away from whatever was about to happen over here. They were all just pawns at this point.

  Gunter glanced back to confirm that the Admiral was right behind him, and turned to the remaining man.

  “Lead us to your principal,” Gunter ordered. “Don’t do anything stupid and we probably won’t need to do anything more than take your statement, afterwards.”

  Again, the nod. Hard man, used to hard knocks.

  Gunter decided he had spent too much time around Hendrik Baumgärtner and that man’s spies over the last year. He couldn’t remember ever being this…inflexible. This belligerent.

  Maybe Tom Provst was rubbing off on him, too.

  The hard man moved. One of the marines followed, then Gunter, Provst, and the remaining two gunmen.

  The hallways over here were broad and well-appointed. Pretty. Gunter had spent too much time on warships to appreciate the lush carpet under his feet or the gold sconces off-set down the corridor. The logistics officer he had been was tracking the quarterly costs to clean and replace the carpet and polish the metal. Effort wasted to make exactly one man happy.

  They were headed aft. Gunter assumed that the bridge was the last place this man ever went, so all the crew would be forward. He would have his mistress close to that bubble, so he could open the shields to the stars and pretend to be a god while fornicating. The hallway, the fittings, everything just pointed at that.

  Decadence.

  A man emerged from a side corridor, spotted them, and froze.

  “You,” Gunter ordered. “Stay put.”

  He was dressed like crew, a uniform close to Imperial Fleet in cut, but green instead of blue.

  The sight of armed men, Imperial marines, froze him. Gunter grabbed the man’s arm as he came even and directed him towards one of the marines aft of the column.

  “Bring him along,” Gunter ordered.

  Part of Gunter’s brain found it amusing that Admiral Provst had remained silent through all this. The man hadn’t spoken since he set foot on this deck.

  Maybe Gunter really was supposed to play good cop here? Who knew? He was the expert on the ground.

  Time to expert.

  Another long corridor, past a bulkhead hatch. The carpet was even nicer here. It felt handmade, rather than an expensive, machine import, like the other had been.

  He considered his prey. The man had only been a number until three days ago. A cypher.

  Gunter had not developed a particularly high opinion of the man in the time since.

  The goon stopped at another hatch. He turned and grimaced at Gunter.

  “Officer country beyond this, sir,” he said, indicating a naval background at some point.

  That or he had watched a lot of military vids.

  “Understood,” Gunter replied. “Open it and stand aside.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The man keyed a combination into a pad, waited for the door to chirp, and put his shoulder blades against the side wall as the door moved. Gunter tapped the lead marine on the arm and directed him to take the goon and bring him along as Gunter led the way into a Dionysian paradise decanted in gold and expensive. His inner logistics officer snarled at the effort to keep a place like this up to par during operating conditions.

  One man, seated. Youngish, perhaps. Lean and rangy, with golden hair and long arms. A scarecrow knitted out of barbed wire. Possibly forty standard years old. It was hard to tell, through the makeup trying to cover the scars of dissipation.

  Duke Kiril Hahl.

  Another man, older, obviously a servant of some kind. Perhaps a butler, over-dressed in baggy, black attire that looked wholly uncomfortable. Pudgier, with the roundness of good eating and not enough sun or exercise.

  A woman. Gunter was willing to assume she was old enough to be here without a chaperone. He wouldn’t have been willing to place any money on that bet. His first guess was a daughter. She was young enough, hopefully over eighteen years standard. But she looked nothing like the Duke. Short and lush to the man’s lean sparseness. Dusky skin with black hair. Eyes that appeared empty for a moment, before they locked onto the gun on Gunter’s hip. Then he saw a highly-refined intelligence flash into being, before vanishing into the mists of her soul at a dead run.

  So, probably a professional. Hopefully a licensed one. And hopefully of age. Gunter was willing to throw that book at the man, as well, although it really wasn’t necessary at this point. Unless he wanted to destroy the Duke’s reputation first.

  There was always that.

  Barely a moment had passed. Gunter had flowed into the center of the room. Tom Provst was right behind him, off to one side in case he needed to draw and fire suddenly. At least one of the marines had entered. The other two had the rear covered. Those men were professionals.

  “What is the meaning of this charade?” the Duke demanded in a voice used to abusing servants and underage girls.

  Fortunately, he didn’t try to move, trapped behind a lovely, oak table by the shag of the golden carpet and how it would hold the feet of his chair with friction if he tried to stand suddenly. The glass of sparkling wine in the man’s right hand also rendered him fairly harmless.

  The butler stood up from being hunched over to pour from a glass bottle. The look on his face was comparable to a cow chewing cud.

  The girl didn’t move at all, but that was expertise in her field. He hadn’t seen fear, nor anger.

  Gunter paused long enough to make sure all the other doors into the vast chamber were closed. Standard practice on a starship, no, check that, on a warship. You had to double-check aboard a flying boudoir like this one.

  “His Excellency, Kiril Hahl, Duke of Blue Essex?” Gunter called in a very formal cant.

  “That’s right,” the man snarled. “Who are you? What are you doing aboard my yacht? And where’s Robert?”

  Gunter started to speak, but felt a hand descend on his shoulder. A giant raptor about to grab him and carry him off would have a grip like that.

  Perhaps the semi-legendary Firehawk.

  Tom Provst, Admiral of the White, Supreme Commander, Home Fleet, St. Legier, stepped around Gunter and became the center of gravity for the entire room. Maybe the entire star system.

  “Kiril Hahl, you are under arrest, charged with treason.”

  Provst pronounced the words like an oracle who had seen the Face of God. Terrible and destructive. He pointed a finger like a gun at the butler and the girl.

  “Remove those two and place them aboard the shuttle with the others,” the Admiral continued in that deadly voice. “Remove everyone from this vessel and secure them. Only Commander Tifft will remain with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” a marine barked.

  In thirty seconds, the room had come down to the three of them. The Duke might have gone white, but it was hard to tell through the layer of pancake designed to cover up ruptured blood vessels in his nose.

  Tom Provst had apparently turned to bronze. The flush under his skin wasn’t anger, unless a rage could do that. Considering the circumstances, Gunter wasn’t sure it was impossible. Tom Provst had joined him and Hendrik at the peaks of wrath.

  Hahl had fallen silent. Occasionally his mouth moved, like a fish, but no words came out. Provst wasn’t filling in the space with gabble either. Gunter had an active recording device secreted in his belt, just in case they needed something even more damning to back up their case.

  If there was anything more.

  Provst took the seat across the table from Hahl. Gunter found a spot with a good view, good audio pickup, and a solid bulkhead behind him.

  “Do you know who I am?” Hahl demanded, finally working up the courage, or the bile. It was hard to differentiate.

&nb
sp; “Yes I do,” Provst replied serenely. “I know your name. But I don’t really care. To me, you’re just a number on a page. What was his number, Tifft?”

  Gunter saw the good cop/bad cop routine take shape now. Provst, seated at the table with the witness. Gunter close by to fill in damning details. The Duke as the only victim.

  “Twenty-seven, Admiral,” Tifft replied.

  “Yes,” Provst agreed calmly. “Twenty-seven.”

  Long pause as Gunter watched both men. They had pulled back into themselves, gladiators about to make the first pass.

  “It is an interesting list,” Provst continued, almost serenely. “The Imperial Succession Plan, as published by the House Of Dukes. You appear on page three, in space number twenty-seven. As if you mattered.”

  “She cannot be Emperor,” Hahl hissed. “No woman has ever held the throne. She must be put aside. If no one else has the courage, then I will do it.”

  “But the House of Dukes has been destroyed,” Provst continued, as if the Duke had never spoken. “So we cannot even update that list until the new government figures out how to invest a new crop of Dukes, empanel them, and then go about figuring these sorts of things out.”

  “Admiral, the Dukes will not stand for a woman, you know that,” Hahl ranted. “Something must be done, and done right now, or the Empire will fall to pieces and Aquitaine will roll over us!”

  “So here we have a man who believes that he has the answer to all our ills,” Provst said over his shoulder to Gunter, gesturing to Hahl. “The Admiral commanding that sector did not suddenly swear fealty to a newly-proclaimed Emperor. According to what I’ve read, he even tried to talk you out of this absurdity. He failed to arrest you afterwards though, so we’ll probably just court martial him in disgrace, rather than have the man executed. I’ll leave that one to a jury of his peers to decide. But I still have to deal with you.”

  Somewhere in the middle of that speech, Hahl registered Provst’s words. Or his underlying anger. The Duke of Blue Essex fell silent. And turned even whiter, if that was possible.