The Emperor's Fist

by Jay Allan

  Astra almost jumped from her chair when she heard Graythorn’s voice instead of Blackhawk’s. “Ace . . . Ark . . . is he . . .”

  “Ark’s alive, Astra. He’s just . . . busy right now. I’m sorry, though—I don’t have a lot of time.

  “Admiral, listen to me carefully. We were able to transmit a cybervirus onto the imperial battleships—all but the one that just entered the system. I can’t tell you exactly what it will affect or how long before they’re able to regain control, but right now, every computer system on those ships should be down, or malfunctioning badly. It’s the best we can do for you. The rest is up to you. Use whatever time you’ve got as well as you can.”

  Desaix listened to Ace’s words, but he had trouble fully comprehending them. Was it possible? Had the Claw’s crew really found a way to disable imperial battleships? If it had been anyone else, he probably wouldn’t have believed it.

  But with what he was seeing on the screens, something had definitely happened to those ships. And with the Wolf’s Claw in the immediate sector, it was the explanation that made the most sense.

  “Thanks, Ace . . . we’re on it.”

  He turned, pausing a minute, and feeling a twinge of emotion as he caught Astra’s face. It didn’t matter what Ace had said . . . Desaix knew she was well aware Blackhawk would have made that transmission. Unless he was hurt, or worse . . . .

  Doing something insane.

  But he didn’t have time, not even for Astra. If Blackhawk had given them all a chance, any chance at all, they had to take it right now.

  “Commander, all ships are to proceed at maximum thrust, directly toward the imperials. And, by ‘maximum thrust,’ I mean full overloads. It’s time to hit those bastards with everything we’ve got.”

  The officer acknowledged, and he turned toward his workstation, relaying the orders.

  For the first time in hours, Desaix sat still, no longer filled with exhaustion and nervous energy, staring straight ahead. He didn’t dare look back at Astra, not just then. He had a job to do, and the last words he’d uttered said it all.

  Hit those bastards with everything we’ve got.

  Chapter 35

  Blackhawk pulled back on the throttle, pushing up the small attack ship’s thrust and flying it out from the massive battleship. If everything had been set up properly, the immense warship would erupt in thermonuclear fury as the magnetic bottles in the core of every reactor ceased functioning and released enough energy to create a very short-lived star.

  And Blackhawk intended to be far from it when that happened.

  If it happens . . .

  It will happen. There were no mistakes in the setup or in our final activation.

  Don’t be so sensitive.

  As much as he enjoyed the seeming return to the norm, he didn’t have time to spar with the AI. He had a job to do. But first he had to clear the impending explosion.

  He blasted away for another forty seconds or so, and then every readout on the tiny ship maxed out as the battleship vaporized and became a dense cloud of plasma and hard radiation. Blackhawk was far enough away to escape the heat and the fury of the explosion, but if he survived the next hours, he suspected he might need a solid rad cleanse.

  Not a big worry. Tomorrow seemed a distant, almost unattainable goal. He was resigned to that, too—as long as he could do what he had to do first.

  He reached out and activated the comm panel. “Imperial battleship, this is Frigus Umbra. Connect me with Ignes Inferni at once.” His voice was harsh, imperious, demanding. At least as much as his battered and exhausted body could manage.

  “Frigus . . . I am pleased to hear from you.”

  “I would speak with you, brother.”

  “I would like nothing more. You can land as soon as . . .”

  “No. Not on your ship. It has been many years, my brother, and much has happened. I would speak with you, but not as your prisoner.”

  “Frigus, that is not my intention at all. Your involvement in the invasions of the demesne worlds can be forgiven. I will stand before the emperor myself in attestation of your renewed fidelity.”

  “Then you must prove that to me. Alone. The third moon of planet seven has a breathable atmosphere. It can support life, for a limited time, at least. I will send you coordinates when you launch, in an attack ship, alone as I am.”

  “Frigus, this is absurd. There is a battle going on in this system, one to restore imperial pride and control. You would have me stand aside, fly to a moon, and speak alone with you while our forces are engaged?”

  “Do you doubt that seven battleships can annihilate the Celtiborian fleet? Have things changed that much in my absence? Think you so little of imperial arms?”

  Blackhawk waited as the comm went silent. It was only twenty seconds or so, but it felt like an eternity.

  “Very well, Frigus . . . but I must have your word, spoken to me, your brother, the only being in the universe who knows what it is like to be what you—what we—are, that you have no hostile intentions toward me.”

  “You will have my word bond, if I have yours. You will come alone, and with no hostile intentions toward me.”

  Another silence, perhaps half as long as the first. Then: “You have my word, Frigus.”

  “And you mine, Ignes. Come now, and let us talk, brother.”

  “No . . . nobody falls back, not now. Every ship that has a gun as hot as a candle stays in the line!” Emile Desaix had taken Ace Graythorn’s message at face value and he’d sent his fleet headlong at the enemy in response. But he’d harbored doubts, not to Graythorn’s honesty—he was one of Blackhawk’s people, and that was good enough for him—but he still couldn’t quite believe the Claw’s crew had somehow nearly disabled seven imperial battleships.

  And yet, it appeared they had done just that.

  The fight wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot, and it wasn’t won, either. The imperial targeting systems were a mess, and their data net seemed to be down, but the gunnery teams appeared to be switching to manual control and targeting by hand. It wasn’t a match for a properly functioning system, but it wasn’t the total loss things had been for those first moments, when it seemed the imperials couldn’t have hit a passing planetoid, much less a Celtiborian ship running wild evasive maneuvers.

  Desaix winced as another one of his ships winked off the display, reinforcing his realization that the imperials, while seriously handicapped, were still incredibly dangerous.

  “All ships, cut thrust to minimum to support evasive maneuvers, and redirect all power to weapons.” Desaix had no idea how long whatever the Claw had done would last, but he knew the imperials could regain their targeting systems at any time. He had a chance to dish out damage, to try to take down at least some of the behemoths, but he had a feeling time wasn’t on his side.

  “All ships acknowledge, Admiral. Full power to weapons systems.”

  Desaix moved his eyes across the display. “All ships” didn’t mean what it had hours before. Fifteen percent of his hulls were gone, destroyed outright, and another 10 percent were strung out along the line of advance, chugging forward with damaged engines, or floating helplessly, knocked out completely.

  And those numbers are going to grow.

  As if to emphasize his concerns, Augustin shook. He could tell immediately it wasn’t a bad hit . . . but it was a hit. If he’d let himself hope the imperial gunners couldn’t target his ships without their targeting systems, that shot had purged him of it entirely.

  He watched as a pair of laser blasts streaked by on the display, two near misses. And they’d get a lot nearer than missing, because he’d had to close to knife-fighting range. There was no other way his ships’ smaller guns could do the kind of damage they had to do to destroy the battleships. But the point-blank range was helping the imperials, too, offsetting some of their disadvantage.

  Desaix didn’t care. Damn the risk. He and his spacers had a job to do, and they would do it, regardless of the
cost. But Astra . . .

  He’d been horrified when the marshal had advised him she was coming to Augustin, that she would remain on the flagship throughout the battle. He hated thinking of any of his people as expendable, but the cold truth was, they all were, himself included.

  Astra Lucerne was not.

  He couldn’t pull the flagship back from the line, not without massive damage to his spacers’ already fragile morale. He thought about trying to convince Astra to leave, packing her in a shuttle and sending her back to Celtiboria. For an instant, he told himself he could convince her, and then he realized the absurdity of that plan. A company of steroid-pumped stormtroopers couldn’t have dragged Astra into a shuttle.

  He held the thought for a moment, wondering if his shipboard marines would obey that order to at least try, but then reason intervened. Dragging the ruler, of not only Celtiboria, but of half the worlds in the Far Stars, off the bridge was not something that was likely to end well.

  Desaix focused on what he could do and looked over at the main screen, turning toward the tactical station. One of his divisions had gotten sloppy with their formations, and he was about to read them the riot act. But he never got the words out.

  “Admiral!”

  He spun around, catching Astra leaping up out of her chair as her eyes fixed on the display.

  One of the long ovals, the symbols representing the imperial battleships, was gone, replaced by energy readings he couldn’t quite believe as he read them.

  He knew what it meant, but it took a few minutes to register. His people had destroyed one of the imperial ships!

  They had drawn blood, real blood.

  He felt a rush, an almost animalistic, carnivore’s call to the hunt. He knew the fight was still raging, and that his people could very well lose. But something had changed, and he felt it in every fiber of his being.

  His people could destroy the imperial monsters . . .

  And that meant they could win the battle.

  “Something’s happening!” Norgstrom was leaning against a fallen column, staring down at a portable workstation, the only one still functioning in Drendel’s control center. The base was a blasted wreck, and while he didn’t know for sure, the officer would have bet most of its complement were dead, burned to death in fiery explosions as the fortress was blasted apart, or thrown out onto the frozen, lifeless surface of the asteroid.

  But the gunners in turrets two and seven were still there, at least enough of them to keep the guns firing . . . and, in what he could only see as a miracle, reactor three was still operational as well, and the sweating and dying damage control teams had somehow managed to route temporary power lines to both batteries.

  That meant Base Drendel, battered and half reduced to radioactive slag, was still in the fight.

  “Happening?” Crendus’s voice was weak, and the oxygen mask over his face made it even more difficult to hear what he was saying. The base commander was badly wounded, but it was nothing sick bay couldn’t handle. The only problem was, Drendel didn’t have a sick bay, not anymore, just a crater where the base’s infirmary had been.

  Norgstrom put his hand to his face and took a deep breath. Then he slid his own mask to the side. “The imperial ships, Commander. They’re pulling away from us, concentrating on the fleet. But there’s something else. Their targeting is suddenly . . . off.” He slid the mask back into place and sucked in another lungful of air. The control center’s life support was still operational, at least partly, but the two small rents in the hull were sucking out the air as quickly as the damaged pumps could bring it in.

  He shivered and pulled the emergency blanket over his shoulders. The hull breaches were taking the heat out as quickly as the oxygen. Then he pulled away from the workstation and made his way over to Crendus.

  They were the only two left in the command center, but Norgstrom could draw consolation from the fact that not all the others were dead. At least he didn’t know they were dead. He’d sent them to reinforce the still operational sections in the fortress. The control center was mostly wreckage, and there wasn’t that much left to control anyway.

  Then Crendus had been hit by the structural support. He had multiple broken bones, and internal bleeding, too. Norgstrom had done all he could with the first aid supplies he’d been able to find, but all that was left was to keep the commander as comfortable as possible and hope against hope for some kind of rescue.

  Before he dies.

  Before we lose the last of the air and heat, and everybody dies.

  He dropped down to his knees and reached out, pulling the pile of blankets up, covering Crendus where he’d accidently shoved them away. The commander hadn’t answered again, and Norgstrom could see he was only semiconscious. His eyes were unfocused, and his body was cool to the touch. Norgstrom pulled the blanket from around his own shoulders and placed it on top of the others.

  “Hang in there, Commander. Things just might be looking up.”

  Norgstrom tried to sound hopeful, but he wasn’t sure how believable he’d been. He did think that something had changed in the battle, and it had kindled some hope in him that the fleet might have a chance after all.

  But he didn’t believe Commander Crendus would make it through the battle. He didn’t think he would either, nor anyone else sweating and struggling to keep the mortally wounded base still in the fight.

  Chapter 36

  “It has been a long time, Frigus.” The tone was cold, dark, the voice of a man who’d visited death on uncounted millions. Yet there was something else there, a hint of . . . warmth?

  “Indeed it has, Ignes. You seem well.”

  “And you.” Blackhawk knew that was a lie. He was weak and haggard, still carrying the aftereffects of interfacing with the battleship’s computer and going days without sleep.

  Far too weak to defeat Ignes.

  Still, he knew he might have to try.

  Oaths didn’t mean a lot with his kind.

  The moon was dark, illuminated as it was by a permanent gloomy twilight. It was cold, too, and for all Blackhawk’s rugged endurance, the chill cut through him. The air had an unpleasant odor, the result of trace gases that weren’t dangerous, not over a short period. The key was that the atmosphere had oxygen, more, in fact, than most inhabited worlds.

  Which was why they were both standing here right now.

  He looked at the other man, the only other sentient creature on the large moon, and in many ways, he felt he was looking into a mirror.

  “You must go home, Ignes. Back to the empire. Leave the Far Stars. Tell the emperor he has all of human-inhabited space, all of it save this one distant sector. Leave it at that.”

  Inferni looked back, his expression almost a perfect poker face, unreadable save for a hint of something so slight, no one less perceptive than Blackhawk would have noticed it. What was it? Affection? Respect? Or just remembrance?

  Or . . . pity?

  “You know our master as well as I, Frigus. His destiny is to rule all mankind. Not some of it. Not most of it. All. This can be no surprise to you, brother. And you must know there is nothing in the Far Stars that can resist the forces the emperor has sent. All will be over soon enough. Give up your defense of these barbarians. I ask you now, return with me, swear to your old allegiances, honor the oaths you made long ago . . . and I will stand with you in the imperial court and petition the emperor to restore you to all your old honors and commissions.” Inferni was a dark and malevolent presence, but Blackhawk could hear the sincerity in his words.

  You fool! Twenty years in this oblivion. Fleeing from civilization, from palaces, women, treasure. We were feared, throughout imperial space, richer and more powerful than any save the emperor himself. It is time. Time for us to go back . . .

  Blackhawk could feel Umbra screaming in his head, battering at the last of his defenses, struggling to break out. The Blackhawk part of him was strong, but it was also tired. So tired. And Umbra was waxing in power, fed by memo
ries and the residual feelings for Inferni.

  For the time, at least, he pushed against them.

  “Ignes, have you never thought about what we do, the orders we carry out? The numbers of people we killed? Even if you feel the rebels need to be defeated, how many innocents died in the bombardments and the merciless invasions?”

  “Collateral damage is unavoidable. Certainly, unintended damage has accompanied pacifications. Surely you don’t imagine your Marshal Lucerne united Celtiboria without spilling innocent blood. Do you imagine your forces conquered Galvanus Prime without killing civilians who were not resisting? Or the campaigns under way to bring the worlds of the Far Stars under Astra Lucerne’s rule . . . or, as you prefer to characterize it, under your Far Stars Confederation.”

  Blackhawk was being provoked, and he wanted to lash back. But the words didn’t come. Inferni was the sword of a tyrant, awash in blood, but there was truth in all he’d said.

  How does someone argue with a tool?

  “They are sheep, Frigus,” Inferni continued, “meant to be ruled. Beneath shallow calls for liberty, they crave to be told what to do. I have studied much since I arrived in this forsaken stretch of space. What have the people of the Far Stars done without imperial rule, save to battle one another, endlessly, for a millennium? How many worlds here have bloody histories of endless battle, how many housed pirate kings or were ruled by gangsters? Still are. What number of despots thrived in the Far Stars, century after century, drunk on power and amused by inflicting torment on their subjects? Even your precious Celtiboria endured three hundred years of internecine warfare, constant struggles so that petty generals could crave to rule, in pale imitation of the emperor himself. It is united now, only by the efforts of a gifted warrior—who himself wielded absolute power, as, I believe, his daughter still does. How long will your crusade to bring the sector together, to force these savages to accept your version of enlightened rule, continue? How different are you, brother, in truth, you and your comrades here, from the emperor?”