Revenge of the Damned (34 page)

"And if there's a watch
inside
the ship?"

"We'll say we're solicitin' frae the home f'r wayward banshee bairns an' scoot wi' a smile. Three… two… hit it!"

Running on tiptoe up a ramp—even a cleated ramp—was interesting.
Pointe
, uphill, was straining.

They made it through the port. Kilgour was lucky—there was no interior boarding watch posted.

Sten extended his hands, palm up.
Well
? Kilgour shrugged, then spotted an order board and grabbed it. Assuming a worried expression, he waved them forward into the heart of the ship.

Actually, it was more of a private joke—nobody ever interfered with a man who looked upset and was carrying a clipboard—than a practical disguise. Both of them knew full well that no sailor worthy of his hangover would board until three blasts after the final call. The passageways were deserted. There was clattering from what probably was a galley and some drunken snores from a berthing compartment, but nothing else.

Sten noted that the ship was very, very clean—freshly re-finished. Either it was run by a bully captain, or high-level passengers were expected.

They found the hatchways leading down to the hold and slid down the ladders. The hold was a little over half-full. The loadmaster and his assistants were bellowing instructions to the laden soldiers as to what went where and why the clot was doing it wrong.

Sten and Kilgour found a pile of not yet secured crates near the forward area of the hold, and Sten deployed a pry bar quietly.

The first crate held dinnerware—expensive dinnerware with the Tahn Council crest embossed on it. Sten thoughtfully opened more crates.

The sixth was the tip-off. It contained ceremonial robes made of a material that no Tahn would have seen for years and years. And each robe's left breast area was embroidered in gold and silver with a small three-headed dragon. Kilgour's eyes widened, and he applauded silently.

The crate's top was replaced, and Sten and Alex went back the way they came, dancing a pas de deux past the searchlights and guards.

Neither of them needed a short course in heraldry to know what that triple-headed dragon was. The natives of Cormarthen were too well known for carrying that emblem wherever their intransigence led them and for putting that emblem on everything, including, some theorized, their toilet paper.

So, as Sten had predicted, Fehrle was not going anywhere near Arbroath or the other supposed systems. But he—or some other muckety on the council—
was
making a grand tour. And Sten thought the Emperor might be vaguely interested in knowing what Fehrle's
real
itinerary appeared to be.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

T
he eternal emperor
was
interested.

He just was not quite sure what to do about having the facts on Lord Fehrle's wanderings. Actually, he corrected himself, he knew quite well what to do about it. The problem was
how
to do it.

Damn, but he missed Mahoney. If the flaky Mick were still head of his Intelligence—Mercury Corps—the Emperor would merely have had to hint heavily. But his current intelligence chief happened to be a tolerably straightforward man.

Which meant too moral to be a good spy. Clot, he swore. Why'd I promote Mahoney?

The Eternal Emperor's fingers were on the decanter of stregg. They hesitated, then went to the concoction he called Scotch. He needed a bit of brainpower, not blind instinct.

Icing a fellow ruler was acceptable only in fiction—historical fiction. And even then it had better be hand to hand, the Emperor thought glumly. If Hank Doo had personally clunked Beckett with the nearest mace instead of sniveling about things to his clotpole court, he might have gotten a better press.

It was not that any politician found assassination
morally
abhorrent. But it made them nervous to think that the fellow across the negotiating table might actually take things personally. Killing millions of citizens was one thing—but wasting one of his own class? The boss class? Shameful, indeed.

After thought, the Emperor put the operation in motion. It never had a name nor any permanent fiche, even in the most classified files of the war.

The Emperor requested the specifications, to include the signature in all ranges from visual to output drive, of the most current Tahn battleships. Since Fehrle's profile showed that he liked to travel in style, he would use the newest, most modern class available—regardless of whether that ship would be better deployed in combat instead of being used for transportation.

Intelligence showed that the Tahn were building three new superbattleships. One was—?—in commission, one was in shakedown, and the third was nearing completion.

Mercury Corps technicians were given instructions to prepare a detonator that would explode the charge only when the active signature of that particular class of ship was within range. They had only days to build that detonator—Lord Fehrle's tour was almost ready to begin.

There was no problem. The technicians were—self-described—so used to doing the impossible with the improbable under circumstances that were preposterous that they felt capable of doing everything with nothing.

Explosive charges were prepared. Sixteen of them. The requirement was to provide a cased, nondeteriorating, small amount of explosive with the given classified detonator, capable of destroying a large object, such as a Tahn battleship, when it came within close range.

Sixteen was not an arbitrary choice. Cormarthen's capital port had sixteen pilot ships.

Mantis operatives were given those sixteen charges and inserted on Cormarthen.

All the pilot boats were booby-trapped, and the Mantis people withdrew without contact. They would have felt shamed if anything else had happened. They expressed no curiosity as to what was in the casing or what it was supposed to do and to whom at what date. They would find out—if the operation worked—in the privacy of their own bars or barracks. Very conceivably not until after the war ended.

The entire amount of "paperwork" on the operation against the ruler of the Tahn occupied one fiche. That fiche was hand delivered to the Eternal Emperor and destroyed. He then sent his Mercury computer experts back through the system, ensuring that there were no backup, ghost, or FYI copies of the fiche.

Satisfied, he poured himself a stregg and waited.

Lord Fehrle's battleship, the
Conemaugh
, cut AM2 drive power and, under Yukawa drive, closed on Cormarthen. The ship's commander felt proud that his navigators had been able to pinpoint within 0.10 AU. Six ships were reported coming out-atmosphere: the pilot boat and appropriate escorts.

The commander so notified Lord Fehrle, who was in his cabin making final adjustments on one of the dragon-breasted robes he would wear.

While Fehrle's staff diplomats were on the com with the escort ships, the pilot craft closed to a forward lock without ceremony. On contact, the bomb went off.

Mercury demolition experts had planned for the blast to remove the entire nose section of the Tahn battleship. But because the
Conemaugh
was new, its fire-control circuits were still under test. Backup systems were not what they should have been. And so the blast ravened through the hull and then down into the drive system.

The AM2 fuel detonated.

The
Conemaugh
no longer existed—nor did the pilot boat, two of the approaching Cormarthen ships, and six of the Tahn warships escorting Lord Fehrle.

The Emperor, as he had promised some years earlier, was getting very personal about things.

BOOK FOUR
ZANSHIN

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

I
t was the Rangers versus the Blues in what every sports commentator in the Empire agreed was the gravball match of the decade. One hundred thousand beings were packed defecating organ to elbow in Lovett Arena to see if the homeplanet Rangers would revenge themselves on the dreaded Blues, who had whipped the Rangers for the gravball championship three E-years in a row. Despite the war, billions upon billions more—including, it was said, the Eternal Emperor himself—were watching the match on their home livie screens.

So far, the game had lived up to expectations. At the bottom of the fifth and final period, the score was fifty-three all after a series of seesaw duels that had marked the four hours of play. In the last period, Naismith, the big red-uniformed Ranger center, had fought his way four times through and around the Blues' heavy-gravity hotspots until he was within scoring distance. And each time the Blues had rallied, blocking the light-gravity lanes and driving the Rangers back onto their own territory. The game had been so fiercely contested that every hotspot on either side had been racked up to a full penalty three gees.

Rabbaj, the Blues' center, took the ball. Forwards veed out from him, hunting for a weakness in the Rangers' defense. Blue guards took up position near the light-grav lanes in their own territory. Then it was Rabbaj! Shooting past his own forwards, feinting left at a hotspot, then driving through a hole in the line. Then he was in the clear. An undefended light-grav lane just ahead! And beyond that, the tantalizing splash of red that marked the Rangers' goal line! The home crowd groaned. They were looking into the maw of a fourth humiliating defeat. A heartbeat, and Rabbaj was into the light-grav lane and jumping… jumping… jumping—

Tanz Sullamora palmed the switch that chopped the sound and blacked out the big windows that overlooked the playing field. He shook an angry finger at his colleagues on the privy council.

"I'm the one taking all the risks," he said, his voice shaking in fury. "We all vote Volmer has to go. Fine. But then I'm the one who has to do it. We all agree on the plan. Wonderful. Except once again, it's good old Tanz who sticks his neck out with Chapelle."

"We're all behind you, my friend," Malperin murmured. "I don't see what the problem is. If you fall, we all fall. We agreed on that, didn't we?"

"Sure," one of the Kraa twins soothed. "Me 'n' my sister been with you from the start, Tanz. All the way in or not at all is our motto."

Sullamora snorted at this. There were few businessbeings who were more notorious than the Kraas when it came to backstabbing. He looked over at Kyes for support, but the silvery eminence did not seem to be paying attention. Instead, he was lolling in one of the huge, ornate overstuffed armchairs, staring at the blank window as if he were still watching the in-progress gravball match. Sullamora slumped down in frustration and choked back a fat drink. The other members of the council were silent, staring around the owner's suite in pretended curiosity at the baroque-upon-baroque setting.

One of Lovett's more eccentric ancestors had built the enormous all-weather arena. It had no equal on Prime World. It could be converted within a few days to play host to any event from agricultural fairs to high-speed boat races. The seating was designed so that even the poorest fan could see the action. And looming over all of it was the imposing dome that was the owner's suite. Several hundred "close friends" could easily be entertained in that suite, although the multitude of garish paintings, stuffed animal heads, rickety statuary, and oddly formed furniture tended to make even two people feel claustrophobic. It produced the kind of atmosphere that would bring out the violence in even the most committed pacifist.

Perhaps that was what was making Sullamora behave so out of character, allowing his anger to be seen by his peers. Or maybe it was because he was suddenly feeling very vulnerable. The way things stood, if the plan failed, only Sullamora would take the blame. The others were clean. Nothing could be traced to them. Adding to the pressure was that this was most certainly the last time the members would be able to meet out of public view without arousing suspicion. The match between the Rangers and the Blues was likely to be their last excuse.

It was Kyes who finally broke the silence. He went right for the bottom line. "What do you require of us, Tanz?"

Sullamora acknowledged him with a nod and fished six cards out of his pocket. He skimmed them across the table like a dealer, one for each being at the table and one for himself. The cards were made of indestructible plas. Kyes was the first to slide his card into the viewing slot in front of him. A small port opened in front of him, and words lit up on a tiny screen. The others did the same with their cards.

WE, THE MEMBERS OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL, AFTER DUE CONSIDERATION, HAVE COME TO THE RELUCTANT CONCLUSION THAT THE ETERNAL EMPEROR HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY AND DANGEROUSLY UNSTABLE. THEREFORE, WE HAVE DETERMINED TO TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS…

It was the preamble to assassination. And at the bottom were six places for the signature prints of each being at the table. Once the marks were made, there would be no turning back. And each conspirator would be equally culpable.

There was a long moment. Once again it was Kyes who went first. He smiled and made his mark. One by one the others did the same.

Chapelle would be activated.

Out on the playing field, the home crowd happily rioted. The defeated Blue team was retreating behind a phalanx of armored cops. Naismith was being hoisted on his teammates' shoulders. And the celebrating fans poured out of the stadium for a glorious night of rapine, looting, drinking, and general head busting.

Honor had been restored.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

"G
ot a question. Sir," Fleet Marshal Mahoney growled. "And a request. Sir."

"GA," the Eternal Emperor said.

"First. What's the official Imperial policy on torture?"

"Bad thing. Don't get caught doing it."

Mahoney nodded. "You mind if I brainburn this clot a little bit? Slow? Promise not to get caught doing it."