Final Assault (12 page)

"When an Emperor sits on the sceptered throne again," groused the old man. The door clicked open and they stepped into the house.

It was the same room that L'Wrona remembered from before the war, but darker, shrouded in deep shadows that danced to the flickering light from the oil lamps and the hearth: a long, wide room of broad-beamed ceiling and wide wood floors that swept on into the dining area and the darkened kitchen beyond.

"If you'd stoke the fire," said the freeholder, "I'll heat the stew." Not waiting for a reply, he moved into the kitchen, turning up the oil lamps along the way.

Throwing the hardwood logs on the fire, L'Wrona replaced the mesh screen and stepped back, rubbing his hands. As he did so, he noticed the char marks burned into the floor in front of the stone fireplace. They were small, perfectly round and patterned into two rough clusters a few meters from each other, the sort of marks a hand blaster set on low would leave.

As the flames rose and the heat grew, L'Wrona unfastened his battlejacket and folded it over the back of a sofa. Unstopping the decanter that stood on a side table, the margrave poured the amber-colored brandy into two of the thin crystalline goblets. As he replaced the stopper, K'Sar appeared, wheeling a small serving cart.

"Best to eat in here," said the freeholder, unfolding a pair of floor trays and setting them before two chairs to either side of the hearth. "The dining hall's spacious but cold."

L'Wrona took a steaming bowl of v'arx stew from the cart, setting it at K'Sar's place, then took one for himself as the old man doled out the black bread. Before he sat, he placed one of the brandy goblets on the freeholder's tray, taking the other for himself.

"All kinds of rumors reach here about you, H'Nar," said K'Sar, carefully sipping the stew.

"Oh?"

"Hero on the run. Fleet's afraid to arrest you, the Imperials and Combine T'Lan want you dead." The freeholder dunked his bread in the stew, nibbled the crust. "If anyone's after you and they know you're on U'Tria, they'll be here as soon as they run your biog."

L'Wrona nodded, half listening, his eyes roaming the room. He remembered a bright-lit house, always a party for this or that occasion, music, laughter, the sound of children. As U'Tria's de facto minister of culture, a Freeholder was necessarily a visible, gregarious person. Now the house was as cold and as bleak as a tomb, while the man . . .

L'Wrona looked at the freeholder. Like the house, he decided—a bright flame all but gone.

"Your family," said the margrave, "did they survive the occupation?"

K'Sar's gaze shifted to the burn marks on the floor. "No," he said after a long moment, his eyes returning to L'Wrona's. "My family are all dead."

"Your grandchildren?"

"All," said K'Sar softly.

"Why've you come, H'Nar?"

"I need your help," said the margrave.

"My family has stood by yours since the High Imperial epoch," said K'Sar, setting down his spoon. "How may I help?"

"Once upon a time," said L'Wrona, picking up his brandy and leaning back in the chair, "there was an emperor who sent a fleet to stop a revolt—a revolt of our own homegrown AIs. That fleet jumped and was never seen again."

K'Sar laughed—an empty brittle sound that echoed through the rooms. "H'Nar,

H'Nar. You want the recall device. You want the legendary Twelfth Fleet of the House of S'Yal."

"Surely it's possible?" said L'Wrona, sipping his brandy.

K'Sar shrugged. "Anything is possible, My Lord—but not necessarily wise.

"Why come to me?"

"Because you're an amateur archaeologist and a first-rate archivist. And the House of S'Yal's your area."

"And a difficult area it is." Pushing his tray aside, the Freeholder rose and stepped to the fire. "Information is fragmentary, and much of it still classified." He stood looking down at the fire.

"Not to a former senior officer of Fleet Intelligence, Freeholder. You may not have published everything you know about the period, but ..."

K'Sar turned back from the fire. "Consider —as no one ever seems to—the consequences of recalling the Twelfth. Over eight thousand mindslavers commanded by death-oath officers fanatically loyal to S'Yal, suddenly freed from stasis and released upon us. Think they'll be happy, H'Nar? Think they'll even be sane—thrown fifty centuries downtime, everyone and everything they knew gone?"

L'Wrona shook his head. "They're Imperial Fleet—the finest military force humanity ever fielded. They'd recover, adapt, help their own."

"The Imperial Fleet." The freeholder picked up his glass, holding it to the firelight. He sipped, then turned to face the margrave. "There were Imperial Fleets and there were Imperial Fleets, H'Nar."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"S'Yal followed T'Nil to the throne—and undid much of the good T'Nil had done. He reactivated the mindslavers. He reneged on concessions T'Nil had granted the Empire's evolving machine race. He created a fascistic command structure within Fleet and encouraged a hideous mystical religion based on his alleged ability to grant immortality to his chosen preceptors."

K'Sar tossed back his brandy and set the glass on the mantlepiece. "When the machines revolted—as well they should have—it took S'Yal by surprise. He gambled and sent his personal fleet under his most loyal admiral to hold the machine advance in check while the Fleet rallied. S'Yal's personal fleet, H'Nar, under his most loyal admiral." K'Sar pointed a finger at L'Wrona. "That, My Lord, is the Imperial Fleet we're discussing."

L'Wrona nodded silently, then finished his own brandy. "I need that Fleet, Freeholder. If the AIs break through, we're all dead anyway. Legend has it that just before S'Yal was overthrown, his technicals created a recall device and that it lies buried with him in his last citadel."

"What makes you think I've the location of the citadel?" said K'Sar, turning to toss a stout log on the fire.

"Don't toy with me, Freeholder," said L'Wrona, standing. "If you know, you owe it to the Confederation, to your oath of loyalty, to . . ." He stopped as K'Sar turned, his face suddenly white with rage.

"Don't you dare question my loyalty, My Lord Margrave," he said, voice quivering with anger. "When the S'Cotar came, they demanded the location of the Planetary Guard fallback points. I knew them and had an L-pill under my tongue, should they try to rip the information from my dying mind. But they were more clever than that. They brought in my two grandchildren, and, when I still wouldn't tell, slowly beamed them down in front of me." K'Sar pointed with both hands to the two burn marks flanking him on the floor. "Don't question my loyalty," he repeated softly.

"I wasn't questioning your loyalty, Freeholder," said L'Wrona carefully, unable to take his eyes off the nearest burn mark. The kids were too young for him to remember —born during the war, their birth announcement a vague memory. Their mother K'Yan had been his friend, though. K'Yan of the laughing eyes dead, too, he supposed.

L'Wrona looked up at the stern old man.
"I
apologize if . . ."

Sighing, K'Sar waved his hand. "It didn't happen," he said.

"The citadel's on K'Ronar, H'Nar, at a point very dear to S'Yal and the Imperial treasury —I'll give you the coordinates. But I beg you, H'Nar, be careful—S'Yal was an evil man, and he had the old knowledge. His last resting place may not be entirely ... at rest.

"You have a file on it that I could have, sir?"

The freeholder nodded. "In my study safe. I'll get it." He was back in a moment, holding a gray commwand. "Here," he said, holding it out. As L'Wrona took it, the Freeholder placed his hand atop the younger man's. "Your word," he said, looking into the margrave's eyes, "you'll make no copy of it and destroy it when you're through."

"My word on it, Freeholder," said the Margrave.

Satisfied, the old man nodded, releasing L'Wrona's hand and the commwand.

The blaster bolt took the Freeholder in the back, crumpling him to the floor between the old scorch marks, eyes staring into forever.

Whirling, L'Wrona dropped to one knee, drawing and firing as a burst of blue bolts exploded around him.

L'Wrona's three quick bolts shattered the front window, sending a stream of glass slicing into the falling body of the black-clad man with the blaster hole through his chest.

The firing had masked the faint sound of soft-soled boots slipping in from the kitchen. A sharp gasp turned L'Wrona left, blaster raised.

A woman—black-clad, short-haired, an Mil A clutched in her hand—lay facedown across the threshold, another woman straddling her, knee to the small of the back. Before the margrave could move, the woman on top pulled the other's head back by the hair and deftly slit her throat, then rose nimbly as her victim died, convulsing in a growing pool of blood.

"Drop it," said L'Wrona with a flick of his weapon.

The big kitchen knife fell to the floor.

"Step forward," he ordered, walking toward her. He stopped short when he saw the face. "K'Yan?" he said uncertainly.

"Do I know you, sir?" said the woman. She was the Margrave's age, hair close-cropped like a boy's, wearing the shapeless gray uniform Fleet issued to war refugees. She had a pretty oval face and light green eyes without a spark of life in them.

"It's me," said L'Wrona, touching her shoulder. "H'Nar."

He watched K'Yan's face as she struggled to remember, saw her almost catch hold of the thought, lose it, then win it in a rush of comprehension that restored fife to her face and animation to her body. "H'Nar!" she sobbed, throwing her arms around him. K'Yan clung to him like a lost child, great sobs racking her body, tears soaking into L'Wrona's shirt.

He held her till the sobbing and the tears eased. Then K'Yan stepped back, wiping her face with the back of a gritty gray sleeve. "Better?" he asked, still holding her shoulders.

She nodded. "Better. It comes and goes. I hope I can hold it for a while." "It?"

"My mind," she said. "The S'Cotar brain wiped me."

"I see," he said, letting go of her.

"It's not contagious," she said with a faint smile. "Just permanent. And with fits of lucid-ity."

"Can't it be . . . ?"

"No." She said it flatly. "I've a moron's intellect till I die, H'Nar. The war killed my children, now my father . . ."—she glanced at the still figure by the fireplace—"and took away my humanity."

"How . . . how do you live?" he stammered.

"Badly," she said. "Fleet handouts are spotty. The garrison troopers sometimes share their food if you share yourself, but they're on tight rations and God knows there's a lot of competition . . . What's the matter?" she said, seeing his stricken face.

"I'll get you out of here," he said. "K'Ronar has facilities. I know we're working on a means of reversing ..."

"There's no known way to reverse a neurological brain damp, old friend," she said, hand on his arm. "You're talking to a neurologist ... at least for the next few moments."

"I'll take you . . ."

"You sound like a chipped commwand," said K'Yan. "There is something you can do for me."

"Anything."

She moved her hand down to his wrist, raising it until his sidearm was pointed at her heart. "Kill me."

"No." L'Wrona took her hand from his wrist.

"Please, H'Nar," said K'Yan, strong hands gripping his arms. "To be like this and to remember what I am, what I've lost and what I do to live ..." She leaned close, imploring. "I'd do it for you."

"No," he repeated, shaking his head violently. "You can't give up hope, K'Yan, it's all any of us have left." As he spoke, he saw her face reverting to the empty, green-eyed mask it had been when she entered the room.

"I know you," said K'Yan uncertainly. "Don't I?"

Tearing himself free, L'Wrona turned and fled into the night.

13

"that's it?" said
John, staring at the small black cube in R'Gal's hand.

"That's it," said the AI. "One alternate-reality linkage." He turned, passing it to K'Raoda. "Install and activate, please, Commander."

Filled by great, gray hulking shapes of multi-storied machinery that swept on and on,
Devastator's
engineering section dwarfed the small cluster of human figures: K'Raoda standing next to the control console, John, Zahava and R'Gal watching intently as the young officer slid open a small panel on top of the console.

With a faint whirring, a cube-shaped piece of duraplast extended from the console, supported by a thin duralloy rod. Thumb and forefinger carefully aligned with the transparent holder, K'Raoda dropped in the black cube. Accepting the offering, the arm retracted and the little hatch slid shut.

"Now what?" said K'Raoda, looking at R'Gal.

"Push that button, that and that," he said, indicating two red buttons and a yellow one that lay nestled among three rows of like-colored controls, all labeled in what seemed a series of dots.

"Pushed," said K'Raoda, looking up again. A green light winked in the center of the console.

"And engaged," said R'Gal. Reaching past the human, he touched the console's commlink. "Portal should be appearing and dilating, S'Rel," he said. "Take us through as soon as it's within limits."