The Emperor's Fist

by Jay Allan

He pushed forward, moving cautiously. Another forty meters down the corridor, he turned and continued down a smaller, narrower hallway that ended at a white metal door.

  “This should be an entrance to the main AI and processing center. This is a secure location where the actual processing units are housed, so there won’t be rows of workstations behind this door. That doesn’t mean there won’t be anybody in there. Based on my previous experiences, I estimate . . .” He paused as he saw Katarina jogging down the corridor and stopping when she reached the group. She looked at him with a touch of grim finality, a quick exchange of glances that told him all he needed to know. “. . . as I was saying, based on my recollections of standard procedure, there are likely to be somewhere between five and fifteen spacers in there. That depends largely on whether any sort of maintenance is under way. Two will be guards, and they will almost certainly be there. We have to take them out first. We’ll likely have surprise on our side, but don’t underestimate them.” Blackhawk felt he had to warn his people about the guards, but he was planning to take both of them out himself.

  He slung the assault rifle over his shoulder and pulled his pistol out of the holster. A handgun couldn’t match a rifle for aim, but Blackhawk’s pistol had been with him for decades, and it was almost like part of his arm. He didn’t know where the guards would be, or if there would be more than two, and he wanted to be ready to move smoothly if he needed to.

  “Okay . . . you’re all in, right after me.” A pause. “And we take everybody out.” It was an awful fate for the techs, but the stakes were too high to allow for anything less. They nodded.

  He turned back to the door and worked the controls, overloading the locking circuit, and then, suddenly, the door slid open, revealing a large room with a high ceiling.

  Again, it was just as he remembered.

  He was inside, almost without conscious thought, his pistol in hand, his eyes scanning, counting those present, and locking down their locations. There were technicians, two of them close, along the wall on his left, seated at workstations, and four more at the far end of the room. The technicians were dangerous, of course. Any one of them could sound the alarm, but it was the guards he needed to find first. But as he scanned the room, he couldn’t find them.

  His mind raced, images of the room, almost a mental schematic, floating in his thoughts. There was a large cylinder in the center of the room, the housing for the main processing units.

  They must be on the other side . . .

  He lunged forward, rushing as fast as he could. He could feel the sweat dripping down his back, the tension building. Every second he gave the guards was that much more time for them to prepare, to get into cover, to track his own people. To call for help.

  The technicians were just beginning to react to the intrusion, and even as they began to shout out some kind of challenge and jump up from their seats, his people opened fire. The two closest techs were slammed back, over their workstations, their bodies riddled with bullet holes.

  Blackhawk had ignored them, left them to his people. He had to get to those guards, and he was running out of time. He raced up to the edge of the processor casing, and he forced himself to an abrupt halt. He peered around cautiously, pistol in hand.

  Then all hell broke loose. A flurry of fire blasted from the far end of the processing tower, driving him back behind the cover of the unit. He had only a fleeting image of the space he’d just seen, but there were at least four guards, and all of them had been firing.

  But that wasn’t all. Even as he slammed his pistol down in the holster and grabbed the assault rifle, flipping it to full auto in one quick motion, things got worse. A lot worse.

  The klaxons went off, in the room, and out in the hall. Everywhere, he knew immediately. The guards had sounded the alarm, and that meant he and his people had minutes, maybe less, before a hundred guards were pouring into the room, weapons blazing.

  Damn it.

  Chapter 21

  Grigg Norgstrom moved his hands over the workstation almost too quickly for his eyes to follow. The first officer of Base Drendel was checking the status of every system on the asteroid fortress. Drendel had once had another name, long since forgotten, but like its brethren among the newly revived line of gun platforms preparing to fight the approaching imperials, Drendel was named for a hero of the Celtiborian army.

  “All systems check out, Commander.” Norgstrom turned toward the command station as he gave his report. “I’ve been through everything twice . . .” In truth, he’d checked three times, but he hadn’t had authorization for the third run. Norgstrom was a careful sort, the kind some would call paranoid, and while his knowledge of imperial technology and doctrine was quite limited, he had the same feeling all his comrades seemed to share. They were in trouble.

  That was something he knew he couldn’t change, not by himself at least, but what was within reach was to make sure Drendel’s weapons and systems were ready to give one hell of a fight to whatever came blasting into the system.

  “Very well, Lieutenant Commander. We have done all we can. Now, there is nothing but to wait.”

  “Yes, sir.” Norgstrom wasn’t crazy about his commanding officer. He’d been nothing but respectful and obedient, and in fairness, he had to admit the commander had run things entirely by the book. But the first officer could feel the gravity of what was about to happen, the doom that was coming, not only for the station crews, but for all Celtiboria. This fight demanded the best the planet had to offer, and Commander Crendus was far from that.

  Norgstrom could hear the arrogance in the commander’s tone, even though the officer was clearly trying to restrain it. The base commander had come from aristocratic stock, and his position in what had been Augustin Lucerne’s forces was owed entirely to the amnesties and merging of forces that had ended the last of the civil wars. Norgstrom himself had served the marshal his entire life, as his father had before him. He was a hard-core Lucernite, part of the old guard, and like his brethren in that group, he harbored some resentment for those who didn’t quite belong in that elite group. He understood the need for unity, the wisdom in accepting former enemies into the combined ranks, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  “Commander, may I suggest that we move extra pods to the main guns? I reviewed the firing chambers myself, and I am certain we can fit two additional pallets in each bay.” The main lasers based on the asteroids were big, far larger than those on the most powerful Celtiborian warships. That increased range and hitting power considerably, but it was also difficult on lenses and firing chambers. The large turrets could manage three shots, at most four, and then they needed to replace their pods. Standard procedure called for positioning a spare pallet, six replacements, right behind each gun, but when those were gone—assuming the base was still there—it would take half an hour, at least, to bring more from the storage holds. Prepositioning extras would triple the firing time of the guns, at a cost of no more than a little crowding and inconvenience for the gunnery crews.

  “That is not standard procedure, Lieutenant Commander.”

  Norgstrom bristled every time the commander called him by rank. Adding the “lieutenant” was not standard procedure, either, though not technically wrong. It wouldn’t have bothered him if he wasn’t so sure the only reason was to emphasize Crendus’s higher rank.

  As if anyone here doesn’t know he’s in command.

  “With all due respect, sir . . .” he began, and, to be clear, it was a good deal more than he really thought was due, “. . . the ‘standard practices’ for these stations were thrown together in a single day. I’m not advocating disobeying any requirements or procedures, but I believe prepositioning ammunition is well within your prerogative, Commander.”

  Crendus didn’t answer right away. Finally, he turned toward Norgstrom and said, “Very well, Lieutenant Commander. You may issue the orders.”

  “Yes, sir.” Norgstrom leaned down over his board, activating the comm line and i
ssuing the orders.

  Thank you, you pompous ass.

  Chapter 22

  A thousand thoughts ripped through Blackhawk’s mind like a torrent. Somehow, faster than his conscious mind could follow, he was reviewing scenarios. What to do.

  For all the complex tactics racing through his thoughts, though, there was a single, dominant realization. One thing hadn’t changed. He had to take the guards out. Immediately. If more security forces arrived while the ones in the room were still active, it was going to be a disaster. A worse one than he already had on his hands.

  He lunged out from behind the tall metal cylinder, away from his cover, and he tumbled down toward the floor, even as he brought his rifle to bear, firing once, twice, a third time . . . and dropping as many guards in a passing instant.

  Blackhawk felt as though something was controlling him. He’d experienced the battle trance for forty years now, but he still didn’t completely understand it, any more than he did the rest of the conditioning . . . the monster that still lived inside him.

  There were five guards in total, with three down. The two still standing had been taken completely by surprise by his sudden move, and they were struggling to reorient themselves.

  Too late.

  Blackhawk fired again. The fourth guard dropped, a line of blood pouring from a perfect red circle on his forehead.

  One left . . .

  Blackhawk’s eyes were on the guard, even as he heard—and felt—movement behind him. One of the spacers . . .

  He had an urge to turn, see what threat was moving up from behind him, but he resisted, forcing his attention back to the guard. Imperial spacers were generally unarmed on board a ship, but that didn’t mean an enemy moving up behind him wasn’t a problem. It just meant it was a lesser danger than an armed guard bringing his weapon to bear.

  It was a difficult thing for Blackhawk to trust anyone, especially in a combat situation, but he knew his people had his back, and he had to focus on the final guard. That meant leaving whoever was behind him to his friends.

  He brought his rifle around and aimed at the final guard, even as he heard a soft, high-pitched sound from the side, a gunshot. A familiar one.

  He could feel the air moving from the spacer dropping behind him, and he knew immediately what had happened. Katarina’s gun. He’d recognize that sound anywhere. He nodded, slightly, a show of appreciation he doubted she could even see, and then he pulled the trigger . . . and blew the top of the guard’s head off, perhaps half a second before the imperial could get off his own shot.

  He gulped down a deep breath, and he spun around, checking out the rest of the room. Kat was standing about ten meters away, still looking at him and the spacer she’d taken down. It was the second time in as many weeks that she’d saved his ass. Ace was the farthest in the room, and from where Blackhawk stood, it looked like his number two had taken down three spacers. Shira was about midway in, drawing her knife sharply across the throat of what seemed to be the last imperial alive in the room. He hadn’t seen the prelude, how she’d ended up in such close quarters, but he knew Shira had a soft spot for knife work.

  Sarge was at the door, standing guard as the klaxons continued to go off. Blackhawk could see from his expression that the old soldier could hear someone approaching. He turned and gestured, his hands signaling four imperials coming down the corridor.

  Shit. Four would be just the beginning.

  Blackhawk knew they needed more time . . . time they weren’t likely to get. “Cover the doors.” He had four people and there were three entrances. Whatever they managed, it wasn’t exactly going to be defense in depth. He wanted to join them, but he had other work to do. The reason they’d come.

  He had to take control of the ship’s AI.

  It seemed almost impossible, even for someone of his talents, but he had a secret weapon. At least he thought he did.

  The emperor, and imperial culture as a whole, were nothing if not paranoid. At every level, officers, nobles, ministers—right up to the emperor himself—distrusted their subordinates and guarded constantly against efforts of those below to topple them and take their positions. Everyone was watched, monitored, spied on . . . and there were all kinds of secret systems, backdoors into systems, ways to crush any disloyalty before it became a larger problem.

  Blackhawk had been Frigus Umbra. He’d held a position near the very top of the imperial hierarchy, and he’d been privy to all sorts of secrets and codes.

  Including Imperial-37 . . . a secret backdoor into controlling the AIs of every battleship in the fleet. Ambitious admirals with their eyes on a throne had been the fear of emperors for centuries, and only the most trusted henchmen were privy to such information. Assuming the codes hadn’t been changed, he could cut life support, close every hatch and door on the ship, even overload the reactors and destroy the ship. He just wasn’t sure he could do it in time.

  He raced across the room, flopping hard into a chair at one of the workstations. His hands moved quickly over the controls, and he stared intently at the screen. He entered an access code, and he held his breath for an instant, waiting to see if his twenty-year-old information was still valid. He was hopeful—changing the Imperial-37 routines in every battleship in the fleet would have been a titanic job.

  The screen went blank for a few seconds . . . and then, a single prompt appeared, awaiting the entry of more data.

  He was in.

  He stared at the screen, organizing his thoughts, confirming to himself the codes he would need at each step of the process. A mistake, any mistake, could have unintended consequences. Specifically, it could shut down the whole thing, lock him out of the Imperial-37 protocols entirely. He had to be careful.

  But you don’t have time to be careful . . .

  Even as the thought drifted into his mind, he heard gunfire. Sarge’s heavy assault rifle, from the sound of it, but then return fire, imperial weapons. He resisted the urge to look. He needed to stay focused. But even as he forced the fighting at Sarge’s door from his mind, he heard Shira’s higher-pitched gun open up.

  There were imperials coming at them from two directions.

  His fingers raced over the keyboard, his eyes darting across the screen, checking everything. He was moving as quickly as he could, but even as he pushed himself to the limit, a grim reality became clear.

  He wasn’t going to finish in time.

  I can assist . . . if you will allow me to assume greater control than I have in the past.

  Blackhawk felt a wave of apprehension. Allow you to take control . . . what does that even mean?

  It means I will directly control your motor functions and the connections from your cerebral cortex to your hands. I will be able to input the required codes far more quickly than you can, and with perfect accuracy. But, if you do not agree immediately, we will run out of time anyway.

  Every fiber in Blackhawk’s being told him to refuse. Trust came hard to him, and giving control of himself to anyone or anything was anathema to his way of being. But the AI was right. There was no time.

  If it aids your decision-making process, I do not need your consent. However, if I take control and you attempt to resist, there is a great risk of permanent mental injury. Perhaps my unwillingness to proceed without your consent will be meaningful to you. Indeed, you must also understand that, even with your approval, the process will not be pleasant for you.

  Blackhawk was decisive by nature, and even more so by conditioning. But he didn’t know what to do. He could hear the gunfire increasing in intensity, and getting closer, yet he still hesitated . . .

  “Do it.”

  The words came out, almost on their own—

  And then a wave of pain slammed into him, almost as if his brain was exploding.

  He recoiled in the chair—no, he only felt as though he had. His body was . . . gone. At least, he couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel his hands, his legs. But he was aware of what he was doing and he could see his hands
moving over the keyboard and the controls, so quickly they were almost a blur. He could feel the codes coming from his brain, knowledge long buried in the depths of his mind streaming out at a pace he couldn’t comprehend.

  And he could feel the pain.

  It was intense, debilitating. Blackhawk had been in many desperate fights, he’d been tortured by enemies, he’d endured almost everything a man could. Yet now he would have wept from the pain, tears streaming down his cheeks . . . if he could have. He didn’t have control, even of his eyes, and all he could do was sit there and endure.

  Time was amorphous. It seemed as though minutes were passing, hours. His thoughts were jumbled, flashes of concern about the enemy, mixed with dreamlike remembrances. He could feel information moving, somehow, but he was lost, too. Everything was unclear.

  Always, though, everywhere, there was the pain. Relentless, unbearable.

  Then it was gone.

  He felt sleepy, and he struggled for awareness. He could feel his arms again, his hands. He reached up to his face, moved his hand across it. It was covered in blood.

  Am I shot? The thought raced into his mind. He moved his hand back to his face. No, not shot. A nosebleed.

  We have completed the Imperial-37 protocol, and the system has responded as expected. We now control the ship through the AI. To the best of my analytical capacity, it will accept any orders you choose to give. I have closed all hatches on the ship, including those to this room, and I have deactivated life support in the corridors approaching our location. Any security forces will be compelled to withdraw until they can equip themselves with survival gear.

  Blackhawk heard everything the AI said—he wasn’t sure listened was the right word—even as he was checking for himself. He looked around the room. The doors were closed, and his people were standing, looking toward him. All except Shira. She was moving toward him.

  “Are you okay?” She stopped about a meter away and looked at him, her eyes focused on the blood covering his chin and the front of his tunic.