The Emperor's Fist

by Jay Allan

  Five intruders.

  He turned one of the controls, and he felt a slight vibration. An instant later, the hatch slid to the side. Blackhawk felt a momentary panic. He’d remembered standard procedure was to leave the vestibules at vacuum conditions, but that was something that could have changed at any time, even by a ship commander’s whim. It hadn’t been anything worth worrying about . . . there was no way he could have vacated the chamber with the outside controls, anyway. But a blast of uncontrolled decompression would have been bad on multiple levels, the two most severe being the fact that it would likely have sent him and his friends careening off into space without tether lines . . . and the near certainty that such an event would be immediately detected inside the ship. Even if his people managed to hang on and get inside, they would almost certainly walk into a swarm of armed security personnel.

  The chamber was in vacuum state, as he’d expected—hoped?—and Blackhawk realized his people had sidestepped one more thing that could have gone wrong. He slid inside, looking around and confirming his recollection. They weren’t all going to fit. He reached out and pointed at Ace, gesturing for his number two to follow him in. Then he did the same with Shira. He held his hand out in a stopping motion, his way of telling Sarge and Katarina to wait.

  He turned and looked at the control panel as Shira and Ace worked their way into the chamber. There were no locks on the inner section, just a control pad with large buttons and keys, designed for use by personnel in space suits. He was almost certain he could work the system from the vestibule, though he was just as sure the whole thing would show up on some screen somewhere in the massive ship. With any luck, some midlevel tech would assume it was a malfunction and report it to maintenance instead of up the command chain. He didn’t need much of a delay before the alarm was sounded, mostly because he knew they wouldn’t have long anyway. They’d run into spacers in the corridors or walk past a security bot. They would have minutes, if they were lucky. Planning the operation, troubleshooting it from every angle, even worrying about it . . . he’d done all those at great length. Now, it was time to do it, and there was no time to waste, no room for the slightest error.

  He worked the controls—again, unchanged from the ones he remembered—and he closed the outer hatch. Then he activated the pressurization sequence, extending his hand after he did, gesturing for Ace and Shira to wait and stay where they were. A red light on the small panel turned yellow as soon as the air began to flow, and thirty seconds later, it switched to green.

  Blackhawk popped open his suit and took a deep breath. He reached inside and pulled out his pistol. Then he hit another control, and the inner door slid open.

  He leapt out, as quickly and carefully as he could with the baggy suit still flopped down all around his body. There was a small room inside the airlock, about four meters square, with corridors stretching out in three different directions. His eyes darted all around, searching for any signs of imperials. But the room was empty, and the corridors, too, at least as far as they stretched out in a straight direction.

  He waved for Ace and Shira to follow him, even as he whipped his body around and pulled himself from the suit. It was cumbersome, but Blackhawk’s enhanced dexterity served him again, and he slid out and righted himself in a combat pose, spinning around and checking each corridor again.

  “You guys okay?” Ace and Shira were both having a bit more trouble extricating themselves from the bulky suits, but they were managing, after a fashion.

  “Yeah, Ark . . . we’re fine.” Ace answered for Shira as well as himself, and as he spoke, he shook his arm hard, throwing the suit down to the floor in disgust.

  Shira just nodded, a sure sign they had all been together for a very long time. Blackhawk remembered when Shira would never have allowed Ace to answer for her without hitting him with some kind of barb or another. He wondered if they’d become a smoother team . . . or if the years had just made them too tired for such pointless sparring.

  Blackhawk reached out to the controls, shutting the door and vacating the airlock. Then, he pulled his weapons pouch from the back of his suit, even as Ace and Shira did the same. He pulled out his sword and fastened the sheath to his belt, opposite his reholstered pistol. He’d brought a pouch of grenades as well, and he slung it over his shoulder. He pulled an assault rifle out next, a top-of-the-line model, of imperial and not Far Stars design.

  He punched at the controls, opening the outer hatch, and looking through the plexi window into the airlock. Katarina came in first, with Sarge next, bringing up the rear. Kat had a slender bag hanging on her back, small but no doubt carrying a surprising quantity of deadly weapons. Sarge’s sack was immense, and Blackhawk had some idea from past adventures just what the ex-noncom had packed in there.

  He shut the outer hatch and repeated the procedure, from the panel in the room now, instead of the smaller one in the airlock. A few minutes later, his entire group was assembled, their space suits discarded in a giant pile, and all manner of weapons in their hands and strapped across their shoulders and backs.

  They were ready.

  He turned back and looked at each of them, his eyes pausing for a few seconds, returning each of their gazes. Finally, he said, “Follow me . . . and keep an eye out for any of the crew. It’s a quiet part of the ship, but we’re bound to run into someone soon enough.”

  Then he leveled his rifle and he set off down the rightmost corridor . . . toward what had been—and hopefully still was—the main AI center.

  Chapter 20

  “Stay down, all of you!” Halvert had lost two dozen of his people since the sun had risen, but four of them haunted him more than the others. Death was part of war, and while he mourned for any of his people lost, he understood they all took their chances. Some got hit, others were missed. But the four sinking their teeth into his psyche were newbies, rookies arrived from Celtiboria less than two months before. Babies, still wet behind the ears, seeing their first combat . . . and their last. He’d watched all four of them die, and every one of them was lost to stupid, careless nonsense. They didn’t crouch low enough, or they got up from cover too soon. One by one, they were made to pay the ultimate price for their inexperience, and with each one of them, Halvert lost a little piece of himself.

  The imperials were good. Damned good. Their training was fine, as was their discipline, but their weapons and equipment were incredible. Halvert was used to his Celtiborians being the best, and they were just that, at least in the Far Stars. But the imperial legions made his people seem almost like primitive savages by comparison. Worse, perhaps, the forces on Galvanus were garrisons and peacekeepers, and they didn’t have any armor or airpower. A large percentage of the rank and file was green, with new recruits facing their first real combat. It was only by happenstance that a commander of Halvert’s stature and ability had been given the top posting, a nod of sorts to the planet’s status as the old imperial capital more than any real perceived military need.

  Now there was a military need, a dire one. The entire Celtiborian army would be hard-pressed to defeat the imperial forces. Halvert’s small garrison had no chance at all.

  Still, they were fighting. And he intended for them to keep at it while he had anyone still standing. When the assault rifles ran out of ammunition, they would use pistols, and when they were exhausted, knives and swords. There would be no surrender. The empire was a bit of a mystery in the Far Stars, impressions about it heavier on legend than fact, but Halvert was pretty sure he knew what would happen to any of his people who yielded . . . and if they were going to die anyway, he was determined they would do so in arms, resisting to the last.

  Halvert looked up, out of the small ditch he was using for cover. His knees pressed down into the ooze, the lower half of his uniform and body soaked and caked in mud. Those who talked of the glory and grandeur of war had never seen the filth and blood up close, nor felt the stark terror of death moving across the field. Halvert’s eyes were fixed on one sectio
n of the wall of fog stretching across the field. He’d seen movement . . . or, perhaps seen was too strong a word. He’d felt something. Slowly he brought his rifle up to bear, staring at the spot with focused intensity.

  He heard shots fired—imperial weapons first, but an instant later, his own people responding—but he remained where he was, his eyes locked on a single spot, just as an imperial soldier came forward out of the mist.

  He was big—they all seemed to be big, though he wasn’t sure how much of that was armor and accoutrements and how much was actual physical build—and he was coming right at Halvert’s position. Before the fighting of the past couple weeks, it had been a long time since Halvert had stood in a foxhole in the front line, rifle in hand. But the combat on Galvanus demanded foot soldiers. There was little strategy involved, and all his people really had left was grit and determination. And he served those strengths better in the field alongside his soldiers.

  He was almost robotic, his mind acknowledging the target, and his hands, arms, eyes, all working together, shifting the rifle slightly and lining up the shot.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  Three shots in rapid succession. He could tell immediately, he’d hit the target. The imperial lurched backward, stumbling, clearly trying to remain on his feet. Halvert didn’t think the soldier would manage it, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  Another three shots, and as far as he could tell, three hits. The imperial dropped hard, and Halvert’s military experience and instincts told him the soldier would never get up again. He couldn’t confirm that, of course, but he was sure nevertheless.

  He didn’t have time to celebrate the kill, though. Two more soldiers came bounding out of the line of fog, their weapons swinging into place, and firing in his direction.

  He ducked down, an instinctive reaction, then he realized the enemy soldiers were firing blindly, that they hadn’t spotted him. That gave him a chance, a second, maybe two.

  He lurched forward, his body rising just high enough to get a solid location on his enemies. Then he repeated the actions of a moment before, his eyes locked on the target, his hands bringing the weapon to bear, lining up the sights.

  He fired another burst of three shots. The soldier staggered. He would have liked to fire another burst, made sure he’d put the imperial down, but even as he started moving his weapon toward the other enemy, he could see his adversary doing the same. They saw each other, and it was a race to see who could aim and fire first. Halvert had some cover, which was an advantage, but the top third of his body was exposed, and that was more than enough for the imperial to put him in the ground. If he’d learned one thing in the fighting on Galvanus, it was that imperial troops were well trained in the use of their sophisticated weapons. Simply put, they didn’t miss that often.

  Halvert’s mind was racing, even as his body was struggling to bring his rifle to bear before the enemy could do the same. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and he found himself trying to get a read on who was ahead, his enemy or him. It was close.

  He continued, even as he saw the hazy images of more imperials coming forward out of the fog. He ignored them all. None of that would matter if he didn’t manage to shoot first.

  He could feel the sweat on his arms, dripping down in rivulets, his palms moist, slick. He tightened his grip. If he had to die, he had to die . . . but not because the rifle slipped in sweaty hands.

  His finger tightened, even as he was still aiming the weapon. He would have liked another second to finish aiming, but he didn’t have it, and he forced the shot. Even as his finger closed on the trigger, he half expected his enemy’s rounds to tear into him before he fired.

  He felt the kick of the rifle as the first shot went off. Then again, almost instantly, as the second and third rounds fired. He gritted his teeth and braced himself for the incoming fire he knew was coming. But there was nothing.

  He saw his enemy drop to his knees, the rifle that had been half a second or less from firing dropping from his hands. The imperial paused for an instant, and then he fell forward, facedown into the mud.

  Halvert barely saw all that. At least four more enemy soldiers were coming out of the fog, and he dropped down hard into his foxhole, just as incoming fire whizzed by overhead. He had no idea how many enemy troops were coming. His comm was just about down, reduced by enemy jamming to less than half a kilometer in range. He had no satellites, no aircraft, no way of getting any kind of reliable scouting info. He was an experienced warrior, an officer who had learned his craft from Augustin Lucerne himself . . . but there was nothing he could do but crouch down in that foxhole and hold the enemy back.

  Somehow.

  He glanced down at his rifle as he flicked his thumb, toggling the weapon to full auto fire. He’d go through his ammo quickly—he had half a dozen clips, which wasn’t much for that kind of fire—but the enemy was coming on, more and more of them emerging from the fog.

  His enemy was in the open, having to cross the flat plain to reach his position. It was his only advantage.

  He took a deep breath and poked his head back up, even as he swung the rifle to bear again. There was fire all around, but he’d bought a few seconds of luck, and none of the shots hit him. He didn’t aim, not more than a rough direction toward the oncoming soldiers, and he opened fire, spraying down the field in front of him.

  He let out a shout, a war cry of sorts, as he gunned down the approaching imperials, knowing the shot that finished him could come at any second.

  Blackhawk reached out, grabbing the man and spinning his body around, covering his victim’s mouth to stifle his scream as he jammed the point of his shortsword deep into the spacer’s back. The man seemed harmless enough, unarmed, clearly some kind of low-level technician, whose duty at that moment had brought him to a deadly place.

  The spacer himself was no danger, but what might have been harmful was the shout, or the half of it he’d managed before his life was snuffed out. That was a danger if anyone was close enough to hear it, of course, but it could also be a problem if it triggered some kind of AI alarm. Blackhawk and his people could handle a few spacers, even armed security guards, but if the whole ship ended up on alert, their already tiny chance of success would fade away to something very close to zero.

  Blackhawk let the body drop, and he moved forward, perhaps a dozen steps, to an intersection his people had been heading toward. He peered cautiously around the corner in both directions. Nothing.

  No . . . wait . . .

  He saw movement in the distance. His memory told him the corridor was one of the main ones in this section of the ship, over three kilometers long, and probably the most traveled route on the vessel that his people would pass. They were lucky no one was closer, and he didn’t think the spacer he could barely see—no, more than one . . . three—could possibly have heard the partially muffled scream.

  Still, he waited until he could see them move off.

  While he did, his tension about the alarm systems faded as well when no alarms sounded. Again, it was possible some security system could have alerted a guard station without any kind of klaxons going off, but that hadn’t been standard procedure.

  He turned and waved for his people to come forward. Then he walked across the intersection, looking in every way like some imperial officer who had every reason to be striding through the ship’s corridors. He wasn’t even sure the approaching spacers, lacking his genetically engineered long-distance vision, were close enough to see him, but they damned sure were too far off to realize that the garb he and his companions wore looked nothing like any imperial uniform.

  He moved a few more meters and stopped. He couldn’t press on, leaving those spacers behind. They might just cross over the intersection and go on their way, but he couldn’t risk it.

  “Somebody’s got to hang back to handle them. We can’t leave them behind us.�
� He didn’t say anything else, but his eyes moved toward Katarina. She just returned his gaze with a slight nod.

  “Let’s go,” he said to the others, and he continued down the corridor. It was all there, as clear and accurate as it had been twenty years before. Still, he questioned every step.

  Even if you remember everything and nothing’s changed, there is no accounting for how eighty thousand imperials go about their days. Every corner we come across is a potential for exposure.

  A chance for this to be over before it even starts.

  The layout of the sections of the vessel we have traversed matches your recollections exactly, including the locations of all control panels and lighting installations. While there can be no certainty to assurances that this condition will continue, there is a very high probability—in excess of 90 percent by my calculations—that the systems we seek will be in the same location you remember. Lack of data makes projections on the AI system itself, and its accessibility to what you plan, more difficult.

  Blackhawk just nodded, continuing forward, his mind still on the approaching spacers despite his almost complete confidence in Katarina’s ability to dispatch them. He felt an instant of hesitation at the brutality of it, at the killing of what were probably just low-ranking technicians or other crew, but he pushed it aside almost immediately. More likely than not, they were going to have to kill everyone on the ship . . . or die there themselves. There was no place in war for hesitation, for allowing moral concerns to stay needed action. All that would do was get his people killed. It was one of the few conclusions that had remained almost unchanged in his journey from Frigus Umbra to Arkarin Blackhawk. His own people were his first priority. Always. Them, and the mission, which was to save the Far Stars from falling into imperial slavery. That was worth any cost, any amount of blood spilled.