Defiant

by Dave Bara

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Appears to be a small vessel, relative size of a Lightship shuttle,” he said. I turned to Karina for a definitive answer.

  “Confirmed, sir. Union Navy heavy shuttle heading for the surface of Corant,” she said.

  I looked to Babayan, who had come to take up her usual station at my side.

  “Arin?” she asked.

  “Who else?” I replied. “Prepare a gunship.”

  “Aye, sir. How many marines aboard?”

  I shook my head. “None. Just myself and Historian Serosian,” I said.

  “Peter, you can’t do this! You have a ship to command!” said Karina from her station.

  “Do I?” I turned to my XO. “Commander Babayan, you have the con. What I go to do now, I do on my own as a royal, as a duke of Quantar, not as captain of this ship,” I said.

  “Then I must insist upon your resignation, per regulations, Captain. Leaving the vessel you command is not an authorized action,” Babayan said. I nodded once.

  “No, Commander, it’s not. This is personal. A vendetta.” I paused, looked to my wife, then looked back to Babayan. “I hereby resign my command of Defiant if you accept, Acting Captain Babayan.”

  “With reluctance I do, sir. Defiant will hold station over Corant until your return, Sire,” she said, instantly switching from my navy rank to my royal designation.

  “Thank you, Captain,” I said, “but if I don’t return or signal my intent to do so within the hour, I order you as your sovereign to use the torsion beam again and destroy this planet,” I said.

  “I . . . resist . . . that order, Sire,” she said.

  “My order stands, Captain,” I said. And then we stood there, locked eye to eye.

  “One hour, Sire,” she said. Then I tried to shake her hand, but she hugged me instead.

  I turned to my wife. “Please don’t do this,” she said. “You can destroy Arin from here and fulfill your promise to my father.”

  “I could, Karina, but my decision is already made.” Then I kissed her.

  One last time.

  On Corant

  I was happy for Serosian’s company in the gunship. No matter what else happened, I knew we had more firepower than Arin for once and that I had the best pilot in this system.

  Serosian pointed out the track for Arin’s shuttle on the screen.

  “She’s making straight for the palace complex,” he said.

  “That’s a palace? It looks like an entire city,” I said.

  “The palace complex and grounds are rumored to have accommodations and working facilities for more than a million people,” he said. According to legend, the rest of the countryside was dotted with massive estates for the ultra-elite of the Empire, and living on Corant itself was said to be equivalent to living “at court.” Supposedly fewer than ten million people actually lived on the planet, almost all of them in estates that would dwarf most cities in the Union or on Historical Earth. But from what we could observe, the estates were all in a state of decline or complete collapse. All of them.

  Corant hadn’t been attacked in the Imperial Civil War, and the estates were never touched by weapons of any kind. But when Imperious was lost at the Battle of Carinthia, the Empire sued for peace with Republic forces. The legend is that the Imperial government and their Sri gatekeepers soon left the capitol on a new mission—a crusade, if you will. From what we could see, those legends seemed to be true. The entire planet had simply been abandoned.

  Bio signs showed large populations of animals running free over the land but no human population. I wondered what kind of motivation could make people leave such vast wealth and beauty to go on an uncertain voyage to an unknown place far off in the stars.

  “It looks like they’re touching down,” said Serosian.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “In the Hall of Thrones,” he said.

  “The what?”

  “The Hall of Thrones. I’ve seen pictures of it. Each emperor sat on the previous emperor’s throne for a single year. Then it was replaced with a new throne bearing the likeness of the new ruler, and the previous thrones were lined up in succession but remained empty,” he informed me.

  “How many? I mean, how many thrones?”

  “Twenty-seven, according to legend, in 487 years.”

  “So Arin wants us to fight it out to claim the twenty-eighth throne,” I said.

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “Only one problem with that plan. I don’t want it.”

  “He will gladly kill you to claim it,” said the Historian.

  “His claim would never be honored, even on his home world. He’s already lost. He must know that,” I said.

  Serosian stayed silent for a time, then said, “I don’t think that matters to him. Perhaps all he wants is some final vengeance, or to make the claim, or perhaps he has more of a fighting force than we know of.”

  “I’m the one claiming vengeance,” I said. Serosian shook his head.

  “I understand why, Peter, but you must know it will change nothing.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But perhaps a promise fulfilled is enough motivation, enough change, for me.”

  Our shuttle entered the Palace grounds through a massive collapsed dome, the largest free-standing construct I’d ever seen. A full Lightship could easily have entered through the portal. We flew inside the palace at a slow but reasonable clip for what seemed like several minutes, Serosian homing in on Arin’s shuttle’s Union IFF signal.

  Below us the massive palace complex was eroded by centuries of neglect. At one point I saw a herd of deer grazing inside the palace walls. There were furnishings and complex mechanisms of unknowable purpose scattered inside. It would have been an archaeologist’s dream.

  “How much longer?” I asked, growing impatient. Serosian looked down at his scanners.

  “Another three minutes, likely,” he said.

  After what seemed like an eternity, we set down on the floor of the Hall of Thrones. That was no easy task with debris littered all over the hard quartz flooring. A hole smaller than the one we had entered through allowed sunlight to shine through another broken dome and light up the rear of the hall. There was a steady drip of water onto the floor from above, creating a damp mist inside the hall.

  Silently we checked our weapons, coil pistol sidearms, then opened the rear airlock door and stepped out. The floor was damp and slick. Moss and vegetation crept up the walls and slowly ate away enormous murals. The entire place stank of desiccation. In short, the greatest palace humankind had ever built was a crumbling ruin.

  The Hall of Thrones was ridiculously large. My guess was that it could have accommodated one hundred thousand if required, and I imagined it had from time to time. In the center of the room sat a massive circular dais sculpted from fine marble. In the center sat a throne, and on the throne sat Prince Arin.

  Behind the throne a succession of previous emperors’ thrones were raised up and displayed in a semicircle, heading off into an adjoining space. As I counted I noticed three had been knocked over carelessly and left to decay on the hard floor.

  I put my hand to my coil pistol as I led Serosian toward the dais. To one side of Arin stood Historian Tralfane, as I would have expected. To the other was a single amber automaton. Tralfane stepped forward.

  “You have nothing to fear from the automaton. They have chosen not to take sides, pending the outcome of this combat. They are here to observe only,” Tralfane said.

  “They?” I asked. “I count only one.” Tralfane smiled vainly.

  “This one machine is linked to all the other remaining AIs. What it sees, they will see and be able to judge for themselves,” said Tralfane.

  “And what will they be judging?” I asked.

  “Who best will be able to lead humanity.
They are done fighting us, as we will soon be done fighting each other. Once this final combat plays out, they will turn their attention back to their original function: protecting humanity,” Tralfane said.

  “It doesn’t seem as though they were very effective at that the first time around. They drove the Founders away in a rebellion, didn’t they?” I asked.

  “They did,” replied Tralfane. “Because the Founders had become non-human. And for the same reason, they drove the First Empire out as well.”

  I looked to Serosian. This was news to me.

  “Would you mind explaining your statements, Tralfane?” I asked. He stepped forward, well within my marksman’s range. I was tempted, and my hand never left the butt of my pistol. Tralfane couldn’t have helped but notice my stance, and he stopped a good twenty meters from me. For his part, the coward Arin sat silently on his throne, hands intertwined in front of him. Tralfane’s next words echoed through the Hall of Thrones.

  “These automatons were programmed five hundred millennia ago to protect the Founders from any outside alien threats. They did their jobs as instructed for thousands of years. But one day, under the influence of a group very much like the Sri, humanity crossed the threshold from human into . . . something else,” Tralfane said.

  “Transhumanism run amok, I suspect,” I said. “Changing the makeup of humanity through the implantation of nanotechnology and manipulation of DNA. I experienced some of what can be done myself in the Levant system.”

  Tralfane shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it. These automatons and the partitioned AIs that controlled them realized one day that the species they were protecting was no longer human, so they turned on their creators. There were safeguards built in by the Founders, and many of the AIs were destroyed. But some survived, enough for the Founders to decide it was in their best interest to leave this space permanently, and so they did.”

  “But they left the seeds of humanity behind,” I said. Tralfane nodded.

  “On more than one world, yes. But as far as we know, only the civilization on Earth managed to reach the stars. Then the First Empire rediscovered the AIs, and suddenly they had a new purpose: protecting the Empire. But then they saw the threat that the Sri posed, the same threat that their ancestors had faced. And so after the inevitable civil war, the AIs stepped in and forced the leaders of the Empire to leave. To follow the Founders.”

  I took a step forward. “To where?” Tralfane shrugged.

  “To wherever the Founders went,” he said.

  “All of this is fine history, but it’s not why we’re here,” I said.

  “Obviously,” said Prince Arin, finally rising from his decaying throne. He wore no coil pistol, but he did have a sword sheathed to his hip. He started walking slowly toward me. “I want an Empire again, Cochrane, and you want a Republic, or your petty Union. Only one of us can emerge from this day victorious. Only one of us can lead humanity.”

  As he passed by Tralfane, I raised my coil pistol and aimed it at his midsection, charging the weapon with plasma. Arin stopped.

  “Is mere murder your solution? You, the great Duke of KendalFalk, heir to the Director’s Chair of Quantar?” he said.

  “There aren’t going to be any more directors, Arin. No emperors, and no damned dukes either, if I have my way. But others will have a say in that as well, not just me. And I would consider execution a just punishment for your crimes against your home world, Prince. Though I have to agree it would seem strangely dissatisfying,” I said, then powered down my pistol and handed it to Serosian. Arin seemed relieved that I was willing to fight him one-on-one, physical strength versus physical strength. I had no doubt Tralfane had trained him in many different martial arts skills, but I’d had good training, too, both from Serosian and from Dobrina Kierkopf, especially in sword fighting.

  To my surprise, Arin turned back to the empty throne and held out a hand to Tralfane. The former Historian handed him a cylinder that I recognized as an Imperial codex. Arin opened the cylinder and pulled out a smaller object, the DNA casing.

  “And now, as a matter of tradition, I will present you with my credentials for my claim on the throne.” He went to the chair and inserted the smaller cylinder into the head. At that a holographic light lit up and projected an image onto the floor. The image was of a man with sunken dark eyes, tall like Arin and with very black hair. A man in emperor’s robes. As I looked at the face, there could be no doubt that Arin was somehow related to the man in the hologram. Tralfane spoke now.

  “The image you are looking at is that of the last Corporate Emperor of Man, Pendarkin Von Drakenberg De Vere. He ruled here more than three centuries ago, and he was the one who commanded that the Empire abandon Corant and go to the stars,” Tralfane said.

  “And that matters to me how?” I said.

  “My DNA is encoded in the cylinder,” said Arin. “I am his son.”

  I laughed. “Even if that were possible—”

  “It is possible,” said Tralfane forcefully. “When your Union was just forming, years before you were even born, we insisted that the grand duke give us something in return for the technology we brought to your worlds. We surreptitiously implanted the seed of Emperor Pendarkin, preserved for three centuries, into the Lady Bertrude, with the grand duke’s consent. It was a decision the duke lived to regret, and it’s why he made you pledge Arin’s destruction to him on his death bed. Arin has the blood of a thousand kings in him, going back to ancient Egypt and beyond. He is the rightful ruler of mankind.”

  “And if you bow your knee to me now, Cochrane, not only will you live, but I will allow your Union to maintain its façade of independence. I will rebuild the Empire with the help of many millions of these automatons, as you call them, and you will be a part of it. And you can live happily and quietly, making babies with my sister, while I prepare humanity to face their makers on the field of battle,” Arin said.

  I looked at both of them as if they were insane. I could only conclude that they, in fact, were.

  I took a step forward. “Prince Arin. You have been defeated militarily. The Historians lost control of you. These automatons and their ruling AIs won’t follow you unless I bow the knee or you kill me. And just so you know, I have given standing orders that Corant is to be destroyed by the torsion beam in”—I looked down at my watch—“forty-two minutes. So my suggestion is that we get on with the ancient art of personal combat, as I will never bow a knee to you as long as I live.”

  Tralfane looked to Arin, but he only stared at me, then started to smile. He nodded, and Tralfane brought over a sword for me to examine. I found it satisfactory, but Serosian also examined it and then said, “It’s good. But I will examine the prince’s sword as well. It is my right to do as the duke’s second.”

  Arin unhitched his sword, and Tralfane walked it over. After a few moments of examination, Serosian handed it back to his former comrade with a nod. “Acceptable,” he said.

  I took the sword. It felt heavier than what I was used to—a denser steel, perhaps—but still light enough for me to use what I felt would be my greatest advantage, speed. Arin was a full head taller than me, and though leanly built, as I was, he had the look of an experienced fighter about him. I had no illusions that this would be easy.

  Tralfane went to make final preparations with his charge while I turned to Serosian. “Don’t underestimate his power or his speed. Your only advantage will be that he has a longer swing radius than you do. Be aware of that at all times,” Serosian said.

  “I have one other advantage, my friend. I’ve been trained by the finest swordsman on Carinthia,” I said.

  “And I’m sure,” he replied, “she will be anxious to see you again.”

  I nodded, gripping the sword tightly in my gloved right hand and turning to my opponent. Tralfane positioned Arin on one side of the rounded dais, then walked off twenty paces and pointed to t
he floor. I dutifully took my mark, the decaying Imperial throne between us. It felt like something out of a romantic novel, but the blood inside me boiled with vengeance. This would be no lark or high drama. This was for Carinthia, for the grand duke, for Karina and Derrick and Quantar, and for all the other worlds yet to join the Union.

  But most of all, I wanted Arin dead for myself.

  “Begin!” shouted Tralfane, his voice echoing through the dead hall. And we did.

  I moved cautiously at first, circling to my left. Arin circled as well, keeping the distance between us equal. As I moved, I slowly closed the circle, trying to draw him in. I examined his movements, which were fluid and disciplined. He’d clearly spent many hours in training and seemed extremely comfortable with his sword.

  Thirty seconds passed, I closing the circle slowly, Arin maximizing his mobility, always looking for space to move, always planning for an out. That was how we were different. I had no plan to escape, only to advance. That was probably a bit of insanity on my part, but I’d learned sword fighting from Dobrina Kierkopf, the best teacher I could possibly imagine.

  As Arin came between the raised throne platform and the curved wall of the dais, I saw him hesitate. It was either a mistake, which I doubted, or a deliberate ploy to draw me in. I didn’t wait to find out. I charged forward, and our swords met high in the air two, three, four times. Then I took a step back, and he quickly switched his position to a safer spot.

  He was fast, faster than I had anticipated, but the length of his sword release was definitely to my advantage. We continued to circle each other until I found myself in the same position on the dais he had been in. I stopped and waited.

  He charged at me with a guttural shout.

  As our swords clashed, he quickly gained the advantage on me. He was stronger than I expected, no doubt, and my sword wrist already ached from the fury of his attacks.

  Suddenly it was a free-for-all in front of the throne he coveted and that I had no desire for. I deflected as many of his attacks as I could, but inevitably in the speed and clashing of swords, I made a mistake. Cold steel grazed across my right thigh, my forward leg. I used my lower center of gravity to push under his attack and send him backward with a strong blow to his chest. I heard the wind exit his lungs, forced out by my impact. But I was injured, and I’d only succeeded in slowing him down.