The Shattered Empire (The Shadow Space Chronicles Book 2)

by Kal Spriggs

  Mistress Blanc gave a slight sigh, “Tell your pet that I will not hesitate to kill you both if I even think you're about to do anything.”

  Kandergain put a restraining hand on Lauren's shoulder. “Relax.” Her light tone was belied by her eye flick at Mistress Blanc. They're the thralls she told me about, Lauren realized. That meant that they would act entirely on the psychic's commands... and if she thought Lauren was a threat, they would kill her without the slightest hesitation.

  But that meant that, unlike normal people, they probably couldn't reason out a threat on their own. Lauren imagined splitting ones attention between ten people meant that the psychic might miss some details from their senses. Without any apparent movement, Lauren's left hand, still behind her, shifted slowly down to the pouch on her belt.

  “So,” Kandergain said, “you didn't realize I was here until your informant tipped you off. That tells me something, at least.” She grinned and the slight squeeze on Lauren's shoulder suggested the psychic hadn't missed her intention. “Which brings us back to the question of exactly what you are doing here.”

  “I've made it something of a professional habit to have people paid to tip me off if a tall blonde woman comes around asking for me,” Mistress Blanc said. “You might look into using a disguise sometime... or maybe even modifying yourself to be somewhat less memorable.”

  “While I'm at it, I could just wipe myself out of people's memories, like you,” Kandergain said sharply.

  Mistress Blanc gave a slight smile, “Touche.” She sighed, “Well, if you won't tell me freely, I suppose we'll just need to settle our business here.”

  Lauren had finally worked the small, rubber-coated ball out of the pouch and she dropped it. In the dark, the black ball was almost invisible. It bounced down the steps, faster than she had expected. As it spun through the gap between the thralls, Lauren spun, dragging Kandergain with her to the side.

  She heard Mistress Blanc start to speak, “Kill–”

  There was a sharp pop and then a harsh hiss as the incendiary flash grenade ignited. Even with her eyes closed, the light was painful. Lauren heard a harsh scream from Mistress Blanc. Kandergain grabbed her around the waist and suddenly a force picked them up and threw them.

  Lauren let out a surprised shout, which trailed off into embarrassment as she opened her eyes to find that Kandergain had dropped them onto the rooftop above the stairs. A glance over showed a pair of thralls frozen motionless in the harsh light. Lauren didn't wait for them to receive orders, she put a burst from her silenced submachine gun into each of them. A sharp grunt caused her to turn. Kandergain smiled as two thralls pitched off the roof, arms flailing.

  Lauren wasn't sure what bothered her more: the fact that neither of them screamed as they fell or that she didn't care that one of them looked like a younger version of Cal Roirdan. Not the time to lose it, she thought sharply. Kandergain broke into a run and Lauren followed. The top of this warehouse led back towards the shuttle pad, but Kandergain was headed towards the next warehouse over, rather than back the way they'd come. No sooner had they reached the low wall between the warehouse roofs than there was a sharp concussion.

  A glance over her shoulder showed that the shuttle was gone and an ionized trail through the air suggested some kind of heavy energy or kinetic weapon. Bits of debris began to rain down. So much for the shuttle, she thought. “What now?” Lauren asked.

  Kandergain stayed low as her gaze swept the area. “Your little distraction caught her off guard, but if she's willing to destroy the shuttle, that means that she really can't afford me wandering around here. Which means whatever your boyfriend stumbled upon is absolutely vital to both her and Admiral Collae.”

  Lauren felt her face flush, “He's not my–”

  Gunfire cracked overhead. Lauren went low and returned fire without thought. Two of the thralls firing went down. A large crate flew over to bowl into the other three, tossing them like rag-dolls. Lauren rolled over the side of the warehouse as she saw more of the thralls climb into sight, weapons already firing. She gave a pained grunt as she landed hard on her back. Her duffel bag landed on her chest and the air wooshed out of her lungs. Kandergain landed lightly on her feet next to Lauren and offered her a hand up. Lauren slung her duffel over her back and winced as her back and ribs complained.

  “We have to go,” Kandergain said. “She thought she had the upper hand, but she won't hesitate to call in support.” They moved quickly down the stairs, then Kandergain kicked in a warehouse door and they started into the dim space beyond.

  “Support, like more thralls?” Lauren asked.

  “Support like fire from her warship,” Kandergain said. “She'll try to pin us down, overwhelm us, and then hit us with something we can't dodge or hide from.”

  “Seriously?” Lauren demanded. She frowned, “We could have Mason fire on her ship.”

  “That would give him away,” Kandergain said. “Besides, a nasty fight in low orbit would get a lot of innocent bystanders killed.”

  Lauren grimaced, “I hate not being the bad guys, sometimes.”

  They jogged ahead and wove through the crates in the warehouse, to another set of doors. “What's the plan, then?” Lauren asked. She also hated not knowing what to do. If this were some kind of operation for the Baron, she would have just gone after the person calling the shots. Decapitate the snake and it would be no threat.

  “Evade,” Kandergain said. She glanced through the narrow window on the door and then unlocked it and pulled it open. She glanced back at Lauren, “The really dangerous part is that she's screening her people from my senses, so we have to keep an eye out.”

  “Seriously?” Lauren asked irately as they stepped into the next alleyway. This one seemed to run on this level, rather than up or down. They broke into a jog and the heavy duffel on her back seemed to measurably increase in weight. Lauren had heard all kinds of rumors about how powerful the psychic was, back when she worked for Captain Nix. That she seemed unable to sense threats from this mercenary seemed a little absurd.

  “Mistress Blanc is a specialist,” Kandergain said, obviously irritated. “She's very good at stealth and concealment. Opposite side of the coin is her senses, also very good. That ties into psychic navigation.”

  “And you're just okay at a lot of stuff?” Lauren asked.

  Kandergain turned, her face flushed, “Look...” She trailed off and her face took on a concentrated look. There was a sharp scream behind Lauren and she turned in time to see a man explode in gore. Okay, Lauren thought, maybe I should lay off the sarcasm a bit.

  “I'm good at a lot of things... just I'm trying to conceal our presence from her and her psychic henchmen while she hides her people from us... she's got a slight edge on stealth and she's got backup.”

  Lauren ducked low around Kandergain and opened up on the men who had rounded the corner behind the psychic. The first pair went down with the suddenness of dead men, but they were followed by others and they began to return fire. “We need an exit!”

  There was a sharp crunch behind her and Lauren heard a number of wet thuds, which sounded remarkably like bodies being slammed into the hard stone walls. “Not an option back here,” Kandergain called out.

  Lauren dropped another of the thralls ahead of her, then grunted as a round punched into her body armor just over her ribs. I'm really going to be sore, she thought absently, assuming I live that long. She switched over to fully automatic and emptied the rest of her magazine. Mindless or no, that at least slowed the thralls while their controller figured out a response. Lauren let the sub-gun drop and her friction sling swung it down to dangle from her harness, even as she pulled a pair of grenades from her front pouches, “Fire in the hole!” she called out as she tossed them forward.

  She ducked down, flat on her face against the stone just as they detonated. The sharp concussion was close enough that it made her insides ripple in a sick fashion. She pushed herself to her feet and glanced over at Kandergain,
who shook her head dazedly. “Nice work,” the psychic said.

  Lauren led the way ahead, reloading as she went. The two plasma grenades had incinerated the unarmored thralls and scorched the meat off their bones. The smell was horrid, a mix of burned pork and an almost cloying sweetness, like a barbeque gone horribly wrong. Kandergain paused at the turning and licked her lips. “I don't think she expected us to escalate that much.”

  In the distance, Lauren heard sirens begin to wail. She wasn't certain why the destruction of the shuttle hadn't brought some kind of response sooner. “Well, what did the bitch expect?” Lauren asked. The bit about calling her a pet still irritated her.

  “It's a war of shadows that we fight,” Kandergain said. “Normally their side is the ones to use high explosives.” She led the way to the right, down towards the next level.

  “Plasma grenades aren't high explosives,” Lauren said. She pulled out a block of explosive as they jogged and shook it at the psychic, “This is high explosives. Let me get close enough to Mistress Blanc's car or shuttle and I'll show her the difference.”

  “I'll keep that in mind in the future,” Kandergain said dryly. Lauren wheezed a bit under the weight of her duffel and felt a spurt of bitterness that the other woman didn't seem to be even out of breath. They ran for several more minutes until the stairs opened out on a flat stretch. Kandergain paused in the shadows at the base of the stairs.

  Lauren bit back a curse as she remembered her combat goggles. She pulled them down and then smiled as the thermals and low light amplifiers turned the dimness into daylight. She also bit back a curse as she saw three figures only a dozen feet away, already bringing up their rifles, “Down!” Lauren tackled Kandergain from behind as they opened fire. She grunted as at least a pair of rounds punched the back of her armor. She returned fire from the ground and two of the three dropped, while the third pulled out a grenade of his own.

  Before Lauren could take the shot, there was a sound like tearing cloth and the man's arm ripped off. On her thermals, Lauren saw the arm fly off towards the fence. The thrall brought his other arm up in an attempt to fire, but Kandergain ripped his head off before he could finish the action. The blood glowed bright on Lauren's thermals for a moment before it began to cool. Kandergain grunted underneath Lauren, “You can get off, now.”

  Lauren did another visual sweep of the area and then stood, “You're welcome.”

  Kandergain rubbed at her back and scowled a bit, “Not that I'm ungrateful... but did you have to bring that much equipment?” Clearly the tackle had bruised the psychic a bit. Serves her right, Lauren thought, even as she shrugged her shoulders under the heavy duffel.

  “Shouldn't we be going?” Lauren asked.

  Kandergain shook her head, “There'll be a psychic nearby. Not Mistress Blanc, she's got a different feel. They were screened by someone else, one of her lieutenants, I think.”

  “So... we're waiting for them to show?” Lauren asked, even as she dropped her duffel. For the big, open area, she wanted something with better range than her submachine gun. She popped it off her harness and pulled her rifle hard-case out of the duffel. “Won't the gunfire bring more thralls?”

  Kandergain shook her head slightly as her eyes ranged the open space. “I muffled it. Also, I think we've worked over to their flank. I'm not sure, but I think Mistress Blanc's people are more focused in the other direction... and whoever is here doesn't want to give away his position by calling for help.”

  “What are you going to do?” Lauren asked as she opened the case. She pulled the Samsonov SKL 15 six point eight millimeter rifle out of the case and connected the receiver and barrel in one smooth motion, even as she pulled out her scope. By the time Kandergain answered, Lauren had already loaded the magazine and attached the rifle to her harness.

  “I'm going to go out and challenge him, whoever he is. He has to know he's not a match for me, one on one, but he probably thinks he can keep me distracted long enough for help to arrive.” Kandergain put her words into effect and walked out of the shadows. She was ten meters out when another figure emerged from hiding near the gate, almost directly opposite Lauren. She watched as the pair of them walked towards one another.

  They paused, around ten meters apart, and Lauren saw the air crackle around them. She stood in thought for a moment, watching the two still figures. Then she gave a shrug, knelt, and brought her rifle up. She leveled her sights on the enemy psychic's head and triggered a single round.

  Kandergain spun as her opponent flopped limply to the ground, “Really? It was supposed to be a duel, one on one! That's really bad form.”

  Lauren snorted as she walked up to where Kandergain stood, “We don't have time to dick around. I'm sure you could apologize to him, maybe that would help?” When the psychic didn't answer right away, she smiled, “No? Well, let's go then. We can let him make his complaint to the police. I'm sure they'll be very sympathetic.”

  ***

  Halcyon Colony

  Garris Major System

  October 7, 2403

  Garret stepped into the conference room into a storm of swearing.

  He paused, taken aback, to find Commodore Pierce storming back and forth. It wasn't so much the language the other man used, as the complete break of his military bearing. Commodore Pierce almost never swore and on the few occasions he did, it was a mild invective at best. “Bloody stupid bastards, what the hell are they thinking...” The Commodore finally seemed to notice Garret and the other man paused.

  It seemed to take him a long time to get himself under control, “Captain Penwaithe.” He said Garret's last name like a curse.

  “What happened, sir?” Garret asked.

  The other man ran a hand through his blonde hair. He let out a deep breath and shook his head, “Apologies, I should have better control over myself.” He looked up and his ice blue eyes met Garret's. “Your sister-in-law has just returned from Port Klast. No doubt you noticed the large number of vessels in orbit?” He waited for Garret's nod, though in truth, Garret had only mentally noted them in passing. “Well, apparently Counselor Penwaithe recruited some additional privateers, somewhat augmented by some gutter scum that Admiral Mannetti recruited.”

  “I haven't spoken with her or my brother for that matter, since I left Halcyon, sir. Are their privateers all that bad?” Garret asked.

  The Commodore slid a document down the table. “The ones that Admiral Mannetti recruited are scum. Really, some of the worst filth in human race. Hell, there's even a pair of Wrethe raiders in that bunch.” Garret blanched as he recognized some of the names. Some of them had serious bounties. “What about the ones from Jessica Penwaithe?” Garret asked as nonchalantly as possible.

  Evidently his boss was better at uncovering secrets than Garret was at keeping them, “Your former girlfriend picked some of the better mercs there at Port Klast. I'd almost say she did a good job, except for a couple of those names... like Captain Bloody Stavros Fucking Heraklion!”

  The pure, condensed vitriol in Commodore Pierce's voice shocked Garret. Whoever this Stavros was, there was a very solid hatred between them. “Who is he, sir?”

  “Scum,” Commodore Pierce snapped. “A self-centered slime-bag, born on old Earth. Thinks of himself as a ladies man and a gentleman, but he's pirated and raped just like the worst of Admiral Mannetti's lot.” The Commodore shook his head, “We've something of a personal history. Honestly, I thought he was dead... that's half of my anger. A... friend of mine swore he would kill the bastard and idiot that I was, I took him for his word.”

  Garret shifted uncomfortably. The Commodore rarely, if ever, discussed his past. Very little was known about him before he started up the War Dogs. This glimpse into his past suggested a very personal connection to this Stavros Heraklion. That wasn't the kind of relationship a legitimate mercenary would cultivate. Garret had just assumed that the Commodore had military experience, probably in the Colonial Republic or maybe the Centauri Confederation. Certainly h
e couldn't have founded a mercenary company with the Guild on Tannis if he had a known criminal background... yet those things could be erased, records could be modified and expunged.

  Commodore Pierce met Garret's gaze and gave him one of his sardonic smiles, “Don't worry, Commander, my personal disagreement with Stavros won't be an issue. I won't let it. Though if he sides with Admiral Mannetti, then, well, all bets are off.” His smile turned into a hard thing, something that suggested he would love to take the other man down.

  “Well, sir,” Garret said, “I'm not sure why Counselor Penwaithe signed him on. I would have thought she had better taste than that.”

  The Commodore gave a snort, “People change over time, trust me, Commander.” He shook his head, “She probably was a little too excited over his vessel. The Kraken is a fine ship, more than a match for the Warwagon by herself, and it carries two squadrons of fighters so it might well be a match for our entire force in anything like a fair fight.”

  “Truly?” Garret asked. He glanced again at the sheet, “It says here it's a heavy cruiser... Aram-class?” He had never heard of an Aram-class cruiser, it didn't sound like something built in the Centauri Confederation or Tannis's shipyards.

  “That's something of a joke,” Commodore Pierce said. “The ship was discovered by Sergio Aram, a xenoarcheologist, in orbit over a dead world. He was able to power her up and bring her back to human space. Sergio was something of a treasure hunter, so he used the Kraken pretty aggressively for a few years until a bank seized it and his other effects for debts unpaid. She's seen service as a mercenary ship, a privateer, and a pirate and it's since changed hands a dozen or more times until Stavros hijacked her from her last owner at Anvil.”

  “You seem to know a lot about the ship,” Garret asked.

  “Oh, I'm very familiar with the Kraken's history, trust me,” the Commodore said. He shook his head, “In any case, clearly you came here with something in mind, what do you have for me, Captain?”