Usurper
Page 27
“Shit. And your people are ready to go?”
“Yeah. We don’t know where in the palace she is during the day, so there’s no doing anything before late evening. We know which apartments in the Imperial Residence are in use, though. We’ve been watching the lights from the windows now for a couple weeks. We know where she’ll be then.”
“All right. I don’t see any way around it. Do it. As soon as you can. Tonight.”
“OK, Larry.”
“I’ll cover you and your people once the smoke clears. Once the Council has taken control.”
“I appreciate it, Larry.”
“No problem, George. Good luck.”
Game Move
Gorecki’s second, Steve Johnson, was one of the shuttle pilots. He called Marc Olestri, who was a shuttle co-pilot and weapons officer, into his office in the closed hangar at the Imperial Police Headquarters in the southern outskirts of Imperial City.
“Hey, Steve. What’s going on?”
“They can’t find Stash. He’s disappeared.”
“Fuck. Just like Peabody and those other guys.”
“Yeah, three weeks and we still ain’t found ‘em. And now they got Stash. So we’re gonna put an end to this shit. Take her out. Tonight.”
“Hot damn!”
“You good with that, Marc?”
“Fuck, yeah. That bitch cost us our badges over that asshole Solisbury. It’ll be a pleasure. We taking both shuttles?”
“No. Better to hold one in reserve. That’s what the boss thinks, and I ain’t gonna argue with him. Probably smarter anyway.”
“Hey, that’s why he gets paid the big credits. So it’s you and me, then? When do we do it?”
“Eight, nine o’clock. We know where she is in the evening. That’s when we’ll hit her.”
“I’m gonna love this.”
They were in the sitting room of the Empress’s apartment in the Imperial Residence. It was drizzling and chill tonight, so it wasn’t a good night to be up in the gardens. Given the dreary and chill weather, the kitchen had opted for a hearty beef stew with vegetables. It also had dumplings like her mother made, which Dee had showed the kitchen staff how to make. It was a welcome reminder of home in a threatening time.
“You guys are all pretty somber. What happened today?” Cindy asked.
“Stanley Gorecki was killed resisting arrest when they tried to pick him up,” Dee said.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “He only saw the two cops, and he drew a pistol on them. A sniper shot him from across the street. They tried to tranq him first, but he was moving too fast for the drug to work, and the guy took the shot. Can’t say as I blame him.”
“I don’t blame him,” Dee said. “But that leaves us without that link in the chain, and it gave them another alarm about what we’re up to. Now what do I do?”
“Whatever you do, it should be soon,” Bobby said.
“I think it’s either Kershaw, Stanier, or Pomeroy,” Sean said.
“I won’t move against anyone on the Council without them being named by a witness,” Dee said.
“Kershaw or Stanier, then,” Sean said.
“I’d say Stanier,” Cindy said. “If you take Kershaw, that still leaves Stanier in charge. Who knows what he’ll do if we pick up Kershaw.”
“Which leaves Kershaw in charge,” Bobby said. “Why not pick them both up?”
Dee looked out the windows over Imperial Park as she thought. Picking up Stanier and Kershaw would be a big move, but it wouldn’t be a strike against the Council without proof. That could shatter the government, and with it the Empire. She did have the goods on Kershaw, though. She had Peabody’s testimony that it had been Kershaw who had given the orders to Peabody to be in place prior to Vash’s murder.
“Kershaw, for sure,” Dee said. “I’ll think about Stanier.”
“Well, don’t think too long,” Bobby said. “I think these guys are gonna pull something. They’re not gonna go quietly, that’s for sure.”
“OK, to start out, we’re gonna go nice and easy, just like the other nights,” Steve Johnson said.
“Got it. Nice and easy,” Marc Olestri said.
“And don’t fire up that weapons panel until I tell you.”
“I won’t.”
When the alarm went off in the hangar of the Imperial Park motor pool, the pilots ran for their attack ships. One engine on each already was spooled up, and the other three were starting when the pilots settled into their cockpits as the ground crewmen climbed down the other side.
“All right. Here we go again. Launch,” Captain Bertrand said.
When Bobby and Sean got the alarm, so did the two Guardsmen in the room. They walked up from their at-ease positions in the corners.
“Your Majesty, we have an alarm. We need to move you.”
“Not again,” Dee sighed.
“We tweaked their nose with Gorecki today. I think you should all at least move to our sitting room, rather than stay in the Empress’s apartment. It’s two doors down. That would be better.”
“All right. Come on, everybody,” Dee said, and led everyone out into the hallway.
“The channel’s kind of confusing. I’ll go see what it is and be right back.”
“All right, Bobby,” Dee said, waving as she went on into the living room of the next-door family apartment where Bobby and Cindy lived.
Bobby walked down the hall toward the elevators.
“All right, bring the weapons panel up and arm the birds,” Johnson said.
“Panel on. Arming birds,” Olestri said.
As he did that, Johnson spooled up the engines and swung out over Imperial Park. They were headed due north, and he could see the palace in the distance ahead.
Bertrand and his flight of attack ships were bearing down from the motor pool shuttle launch area at the north end of Imperial Park. They were looking for targets in their heads-up displays.
“Joey, it’s that big Imperial Police shuttle, but he’s out over Imperial Park,” First Lieutenant Trucco said.
“He’s weapons hot, Joey,” Captain Falletti said.
“All birds, go weapons hot,” Bertrand said.
“Weapons hot.”
“All birds, fire one,” Bertrand said as he fired an air-to-air missile.
“Firing one,” Trucco said.
“Firing one,” Falletti said.
“Firing one,” First Lieutenant Rasinowski said.
“Here they come, Steve,” Olestri said.
“You let me worry about that. You get those targets acquired,” Johnson said.
“One, two, three, four windows. Got ‘em. Waiting for target acquisition.”
Olestri looked up as the four incoming missiles shot past them.
“The missed us!”
“Bullshit. Those are heat-seekers. They’ll come in from behind. Have you got target?”
“Yeah, just now!”
“Fire!”
Olestri pulled the trigger and the four air-to-ground missiles launched from the shuttle.
“Shit! He got rockets off!” Trucco said.
Bertrand rolled his ship over and dove on the rockets. He could just barely reach the two on the right, maybe. He dove down on them, timing his arrival.
Bertrand was successful. The rockets impacted against his ship, which blew up and slammed into the palace lawn.
The heat-seekers had turned around behind their target and bore in on the Imperial Police shuttle from the rear. Mere seconds after the shuttle’s rockets launched, the missiles found their targets in the shuttle’s turbofan engines and exploded.
The other two air-to-ground missiles continued on their path and hit the palace in the windows of the sitting room and living room of the family apartment. They blew through the windows and exploded in the rooms.
The Imperial Police shuttle lost power and control. It’s velocity carried it forward and it slammed into the palace at the eighth floor offices level
.
The elevator had arrived and Bobby was just getting on when he felt the impact on the palace. He hit the deck and covered his head with his hands. The elevator doors were almost closed as the shock wave hit them, staving them in. The concussion was attenuated by the small opening and the volume of the elevator car, but it was enough to knock Bobby unconscious.
General Daggert was horrified to see the multiple alerts scroll up in his VR.
Empress Ilithyia II: dead.
Captain Sean Garrity: dead.
Cynthia Dunham: dead.
Major Robert Dunham: unconscious.
“The Empress is dead,” Stanier said.
“Thank God,” Pomeroy said. “Now we control the Empire.”
But Bobby – Major Robert Allen Dunham – was still alive.
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