The Glory of the Empress

by Sean Danker

  Rada threw down her pistol and mimicked his pose.

  The woman was speaking, but she wasn’t broadcasting. She was talking to her colleagues, probably telling them she had control of two imperials.

  Bjorn focused on keeping still. Did these people have any interest in taking them alive? He had a feeling that was what this woman was trying to find out.

  There was movement overhead, and Bjorn looked up. Another of the bizarre, hideous creatures was crawling on the ceiling. He felt his blood run cold.

  The contractor twitched, then looked up to follow his gaze. Rada struck, knocking the carbine aside and ramming her elbow into the woman’s helmet, sending her reeling. She followed up with a right cross that sent the contractor sprawling.

  Bjorn lunged for his sidearm, but one of the creatures emerged from a pile of old power cartridges, and he withdrew his hand, cursing and scrambling backward.

  Rada hauled him up, giving him a hard shove. He went with it.

  “She’ll shoot us for sure now,” he said.

  “She was going to shoot us anyway,” Rada snapped, plunging down a narrow set of stairs.

  Running seemed like the only option now, but it wasn’t a solution. Rada had damaged the contractor’s pride more than her body. She still had her weapon and her scanner; it wouldn’t take her long to catch up.

  After several turns, Rada halted and looked back. Bjorn opened his mouth to speak, but stopped when he felt a slight tremor through the deck.

  Frowning, he looked down, hearing low, rhythmic thuds. Rada dragged him back as the wall in front of them crashed inward with a wail of tearing metal. Wires snapped and flew, sparking wildly. Compressed gas hissed, pipes venting a fine white mist.

  A hulking figure stepped through the gap in the wall. It was another contractor, this one wearing powered combat armor.

  Bjorn and Rada backed away, but there was nowhere to go except back toward the other contractor.

  The bruiser raised his arm, taking aim with the cannon mounted on it.

  Bjorn called his bluff. He turned and plunged into the rows of pylons, and Rada did the same. The man in the suit knew better than to fire a weapon like that in close quarters, armored or not. He wanted to force a surrender, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Rada ducked as the bruiser smashed the archive she was hiding behind with a single sweep of his arm, then made a grab. She managed to roll away, and Bjorn spotted the other contractor. She was taking aim at Rada.

  Bjorn was out of options. He hit the contractor from the side, ramming her against a pylon. He jerked the combat knife from the sheath on her chest, slashing the harness connecting her to her carbine and taking the weapon for himself.

  The contractor grabbed for him, but he struck her down with the stock of the carbine. He turned back, intending to draw the bruiser’s attention away from Rada, but he’d already done that. The carbine was pulled from his hands, and massive, mechanized fingers closed around his throat, lifting him from the ground.

  Rada appeared behind the bruiser, scooping the fallen combat knife from the ground. She leapt from one of the toppled pylons, and landed on the bruiser’s back as his glove tightened on Bjorn.

  She reversed her grip on the knife and reached around to smash the suit’s main camera, momentarily blinding the pilot. Bjorn could imagine the bruiser’s surprise; unarmored, unarmed people were supposed to run away from powered armor, not attack it with knives. He’d clearly never dealt with imperials before.

  He released Bjorn, twisting his torso sharply and throwing Rada free. Tangled wires cushioned the impact a little, but she still hit the nearest pylon much too hard.

  Bjorn had landed on the contractor, who was gamely trying to rise. He bashed her back down with his elbow and rushed to Rada, who was struggling feebly to get up. Bjorn helped her, and they were through the gap in the wall before the bruiser could recover.

  The weak starlight filtering in through the streaked dome seemed bright compared to the interior of the archive.

  Bjorn tripped over more abandoned clothes in the street. These weren’t leftovers, forgotten during the evacuation. He didn’t know why or how, but he knew that every outfit represented someone who hadn’t made it off the station.

  One of the creatures was visible on the side of a building a short distance down the alley. This one was a meter across.

  Bjorn didn’t believe for a second that he could have missed these things earlier. Maybe the commotion was waking them up.

  Rada clung to him, breathing raggedly. She was hurt badly, but there wasn’t time to stop.

  Bjorn didn’t see or hear it coming. The body just thudded to the ground in front of them. It was another contractor like the woman in the archive. This was a man, though—and there were no fewer than three of the many-legged creatures attached to him.

  Rada choked, her fingers tightening on Bjorn, who immediately reversed course.

  The station groaned and shuddered; it felt to Bjorn like a meteor impact, but more likely it was some kind of weapons fire. He couldn’t see the Lydia through the dome anymore, but the ship could be anywhere now. The exaggerated creaking of the superstructure was loud and prolonged. It didn’t bode well for the integrity of the dome.

  There was a crash from the alley behind: the bruiser had broken his way out of the archive, and was on their trail.

  Bjorn stopped, looking back. He knew they didn’t have a chance. The man in the suit would be on them in moments. Even without Rada slowing him down, there was no hope of outrunning these people. Something had distracted the mercenary unit, probably these things, but that bought him only seconds, not a free pass.

  Their only hope of survival was to get communications back, and for the Lydia to help somehow—but that wasn’t going to happen in time.

  23

  BJORN knelt, bringing Rada down with him. She just groaned.

  “Play dead,” he told her, laying her down. Her vitals would give her away on a scanner, but the mercenaries would prioritize the more active target. Bjorn could only stall for time and hope the Lydia could turn things around. This wasn’t a guarantee, and it wasn’t even a particularly good play. But it couldn’t hurt Rada’s chances.

  He got to his feet. The bruiser was approaching; the deck was shaking with every step that massive suit took.

  Bjorn didn’t look at Rada; he just stepped out of the alley, reflecting on how fragile they were without the Everwing fighters.

  Now he had greater appreciation for Commander Mao’s reluctance to let them leave the ship. This had been a blunder, and yet Bjorn hadn’t seen a better way. The Lydia and her crew had an obligation to Doyle and to the Imperium. They just hadn’t come up lucky this time.

  There was a pistol on the deck, half-covered by yet another pile of clothing. Bjorn picked it up. It was a galactic weapon, a handgun for killing unarmored humans. It was a weapon with limited utility.

  Not something one would take into battle.

  Bjorn kept his eyes open, but didn’t see any of the many-legged creatures. The Ganraen colonists had brought more than just a contagion to Oasis. Bjorn didn’t understand how this could have happened, and the chances of him ever finding out weren’t looking good.

  He rounded the corner to face the man in the suit, who was making his way down the next alley as quickly as his armor would allow.

  The alley was cramped, but not dark. There was a massive smart screen on one wall. It was taller than he was, and displayed a woman dancing spiritedly against a painfully bright pink background. The advertisement was running on some internal power source. Bjorn had seen a few others like it during the trek through Oasis’ innards.

  There was no light on the bruiser’s helmet. He was using his backup camera now.

  Bjorn fired into the screen to his left. The liquid surface exploded outward with expanding gas and vapor as
electricity arced from the shell. The sudden flash was blinding, and Bjorn rolled clear as the man in the suit fired on reflex. The blast from the cannon eliminated all sound. Bjorn’s EV couldn’t fully compensate for that kind of audio.

  There was impact, and a tinny buzzing in Bjorn’s ears. He leapt to his feet as the bruiser righted himself, bringing up the cannon a second time. Debris was raining all around, and Bjorn didn’t stop to look. There was now a perfectly good entrance to the structure behind him, and he threw himself inside.

  A second shell sailed past, obliterating another wall and knocking him flat. Bjorn intended to leap up and make a run for it, but something was pinning his leg, and dust was so thick in the air that he couldn’t see.

  Bjorn tried to pull free, but it wasn’t working. A massive shape loomed out of the swirling flecks of rust all around.

  The bruiser raised one of the suit’s huge arms, intending to bring it down on Bjorn. The suit wasn’t built for this kind of close combat, but it was more than capable of flattening a man. Bjorn braced himself and shut his eyes, pointlessly trying to shield his head.

  He heard the blow land, but felt nothing. Bjorn looked up.

  A figure in white was standing over him, arms crossed to block the blow. As the dust swirled away, Bjorn saw that it was General Dayal. Her EVX suit appeared to have no difficulty matching the output of the bruiser’s powered combat armor.

  The man in the suit got over his surprise quickly, pulling back and trying to bring his cannon around, but the general was too fast for him. One moment she was protecting Bjorn, and the next she was beside the hulking armor, gripping the cannon itself.

  The bruiser tried to pull away, and Dayal pushed, adding all the power of her suit to the bruiser’s own momentum and overbalancing him.

  The bruiser crashed to the ground with such force that it seemed to shake the entire station. The pilot might have survived the impact, but it was unlikely that he was still conscious.

  General Dayal straightened, brushing herself off. Effortlessly she shifted the beam pinning Bjorn, and pulled him to his feet as though he weighed nothing.

  He winced as he put his weight on his leg.

  “Serious damage?”

  “Too early to say, ma’am.”

  She stepped back into the alley. Bjorn followed as two more figures appeared. Sergeant Golding was supporting Rada.

  “We don’t have long,” Dayal said as Golding handed the ensign off to Bjorn, who took her gladly. He hoisted Rada up and watched Golding ready the carbine that had been slung across her back. It wasn’t an Evagardian weapon, which meant she’d probably commandeered it from one of Tenbrook’s men. She settled it against her shoulder and looked up, not at the dome, but at the roofs of the structures surrounding them.

  “What’s the plan?” Bjorn asked the general.

  “What else?” she replied, her voice cold and firm. “We take back the ship.”

  Bjorn’s blood ran cold, and he felt Rada stiffen beside him.

  “I didn’t realize we’d lost it,” he said quietly.

  “We don’t know how they found us,” Golding said, leading them out of the alley. “They jumped in, launched jamming probes, and jumped out. Cophony’s behind this. They had our frequencies, and found a way to get people through our force shields.”

  “They got in through the bays?” Bjorn asked, picturing it.

  Sergeant Golding nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “The general is in contact with the commander. I don’t have the details. We have to follow her lead.”

  Bjorn looked back at Dayal, who was walking with her head slightly bowed. She was probably deep in conversation with Mao. How, though?

  “I thought we were jammed,” he said. “My coms are out.”

  “They can’t stop command nanocommunications.”

  “Then why don’t we all have them?”

  Golding snorted. “Because then the fleet wouldn’t be able to listen in on us.”

  “Where’s the trust?” Bjorn grumbled. He didn’t know which was worse: the state of the mission or the irony.

  “Have you seen these xenos?”

  “The things with the legs? Lots of them.”

  “But you weren’t attacked? They didn’t compromise your suits?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t let them get close. They’re lethal. They’ve already spoken for a couple of Tenbrook’s headhunters,” Sergeant Golding said. “Woodhouse was right.”

  “They got him,” Rada groaned.

  “I know. They’ve jammed our coms, so I decided to listen in on theirs.”

  “So that’s how you found us,” Bjorn said, struggling to keep up. “Do you know the way back?”

  “The general does.”

  “How big is this team tracking us?”

  “No idea.”

  “We have to get to the viewing deck for extraction,” General Dayal announced.

  “Back to the presidio?”

  “No. We’ll take the lift. It’s closer.”

  “Without power? Does the commander know we’ve got wounded?” Golding asked, troubled.

  “I chose not to burden her with that information,” Dayal said, glancing back at Bjorn and Rada. “There’s not much time. Our window to get back aboard will be small.”

  The station shook under another barrage of fire. A noise like thunder filled the dome, and Bjorn looked up to see massive cracks spreading through the carbon shield.

  “Forget that,” he said. “We don’t have much time before that gives.”

  Dayal quickened her pace, pointing at a magnificently tall gray cylinder, one of many holding up the atrium’s highest tier. “There.”

  A large shape flashed past the dome, followed by bright blue streaks of weapons fire.

  There was a blinding light, and Bjorn saw against the stars a line that could only be the afterimage of a passing Everwing fighter.

  “They’re regrouping,” Golding reported, looking back, then up at the rooftops.

  “We don’t have time for these people,” Dayal said, annoyed. “More of Tenbrook’s forces are jumping in. If we can’t get back to the ship before Perdita gets here, we’re all done for.”

  “They’ve cut me out,” Golding said with a groan, touching the side of her helmet.

  “Keep on,” Dayal ordered.

  Bjorn heard Rada let out a short gasp of pain, then an incoherent moan as they hurried down a shallow staircase to an open square, ringed by what had once been businesses.

  There were more clothes, and Bjorn spotted one of the xenos scuttling across the ground a short distance off. Golding pointed to indicate that she saw it, but it didn’t seem interested in them.

  “Are there more with that armor?” Bjorn asked breathlessly.

  “At least one,” General Dayal replied without looking back. That wasn’t good news, but they were nearly to the lift tube.

  A bullet punched through Rada’s chest, and Bjorn felt another strike his right side. He stumbled, and fell to the deck under Rada’s weight.

  A strong hand took Bjorn by the collar, and he kept hold of Rada as Dayal dragged him behind the massive pedestal.

  “Where is he?” she asked calmly.

  “Over there,” Golding replied, leaning against the stone and peering out. “He’s not very good.”

  “Obviously,” Dayal said distractedly, pulling Rada free of Bjorn and turning her over. Blood bubbled from the wound in her breast, and she wasn’t moving or making a sound. Her EV would try to repair the breach and suppress the bleeding, but it would take several minutes.

  Bjorn fumbled with his pouch, clenching his jaw. He’d been hit, and it was more than a graze. There was a lot of blood, and the way the pain was spreading through his entire chest with every breath told him his ribs wer
e involved.

  “He doesn’t have to be good,” Golding said. “He just has to keep us here.”

  “I can’t stabilize her,” Dayal said, taking her hands away from Rada’s breast. She applied sealant to the wound, then injected the ensign with something.

  Bjorn didn’t look at Rada’s limp body as he got out his own med kit.

  “She’s already gone. She might have a chance if we can get her into stasis,” the general said.

  “Take her, LT,” Golding said, calibrating her carbine’s optical sight. The station groaned, and Bjorn heard what could only be a set of jump jets. The contractors were flanking them.

  He finished sealing his own wound. He could still move, thanks to painkillers and the stimulant he’d just shot into his hip. He took Rada’s decontamination unit from her pouch and activated it; their suits were compromised, and they would take time to mend.

  Dayal got to her feet. “Get her to the viewing deck,” she ordered Bjorn, then nodded to Golding and darted into the open.

  The sniper immediately opened fire, and pillars of dust sprang into the air where his shots struck. He couldn’t keep up with Dayal; the EVX suit made her stronger and faster than any human. She took off across the square like lightning, and none of the shots were anywhere near her.

  Sergeant Golding leaned out to fire back.

  There was no room for hesitation now. Dayal’s interference and Golding’s cover fire were the best Bjorn was going to get. He grabbed Rada and struggled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his side and stepping into the open with her in his arms.

  She didn’t weigh much. He wouldn’t set any speed records this way, but he could manage. He was halfway to the tube access, Golding’s shooting loud in his ears, when he was hit a second time, from behind.

  Shocked by pain and impact, Bjorn spilled to the ground, Rada with him. Now bleeding from his neck as well, he dragged the ensign the remaining distance to the doorway as more fire rained down on the square. He got her behind the corner and sagged against the wall. Several rounds punched through the carbon, and he hurriedly pulled Rada out of the way.

  The interior of the lift station was dark. Bjorn could still hear Sergeant Golding’s carbine firing. He didn’t even have a weapon to offer her the cover she’d need to reach safety. She was on her own.