Shadow of Empire

by Jay Allan

  The particle accelerator sent a blast of highly charged protons ripping through the atmosphere at relativistic velocity. The blast smashed into the enemy tank, delivering an enormous amount of energy to the target. The particles ionized the air they passed through, creating a blinding white light lasting the barest fraction of a second but still perceptible.

  The shot was a direct hit, and the vehicle was wracked first by a small explosion then—a few seconds later—by a larger blast as its magazine exploded. Its burning remains careened off at an angle away from the ship, still moving but clearly out of control. Blackhawk brought the weapon down slowly and let it slide to the ground as he pulled the assault rifle from his back. Just using the imperial gun made him uncomfortable. Too many bad memories. It had done its job, but now he needed a tool better suited to the task.

  The particle accelerators were terror weapons, designed to instill uncontrollable fear in anyone facing troops so armed. On a planet like Saragossa, where many of the soldiers were armed with ancient single-shot breechloaders, the flash of an imperial particle accelerator seemed like the judgment of the gods. Anyone facing a force armed with such fearsome weapons was immediately demoralized. Imperial-armed troops went into battle against enemies already half defeated by their own fears.

  Blackhawk stood under the ship, taking cover behind a heavy structural support. He had his rifle set for single shots, and he was firing steadily. The spaceport was lit by several fires, as warehouses along the perimeter caught fire from poorly aimed shots. Blackhawk’s eyes were sharp, and the slightest bit of light was enough for him to focus on a target. He squeezed his finger again and again, and each time he did, one of the attacking soldiers fell to the ground.

  He glanced back toward the rear of the ship. Arn’s men were having more trouble. Most of them had discarded their shoddy old rifles for particle accelerators, but they had trouble aiming the heavy weapons. Blackhawk had shouted out a few basic instructions just before the fighting started, but they were still struggling. The rate of fire was slow, and half the shots went wildly off-target. Blackhawk would have encouraged them to use their own weapons instead, but most of them had been armed with bolt-action rifles that belonged in a museum, not a battlefield.

  The attackers weren’t better soldiers than Arn’s people, but they were armed with decent rifles they knew how to use—and there were ten times as many of them. They clearly weren’t well trained, but they were coming on relentlessly. The position was close to being overrun.

  This is an optimum time to retreat. It appears the southwest approach is undefended. You have a high-probability chance of reaching the perimeter of the spaceport unnoticed.

  He’d seen the opening too. But running away and leaving Arn’s men to die didn’t sit well with him. He’d only known the rebels a short time, but they seemed honorable. They’d done everything he’d asked of them, and he’d enticed them into the raid with the promise of securing advanced weapons for themselves. Fleeing now and leaving them all to the enemy seemed like the basest form of cowardice. He didn’t know if he could do anything to save them, but he wouldn’t abandon them.

  Blackhawk pulled a clip out of the small sack hanging at his waist and snapped it in place. His deadly accurate fire had cleared the area in front of him, and the troops he hadn’t hit had steered clear of the death zone, swinging around on wide arcs to both sides.

  He spared another look toward Arn and his people. At least a third of them were down, and the rest were trying to take cover behind the trucks lined up next to the ship. He was about to move toward them when he heard a new sound: automatic fire, heavier and faster than an assault rifle.

  Arn’s men started falling in clumps as the enemy autocannon roared into action. The projectiles tore right through the light metal plate of the civilian transports and into the rebels crouching behind.

  The rebels had fought bravely, but now they began to break. One by one they started to run, dropping their weapons and fleeing for their lives. Arn shouted at them, called them back to their positions, but Blackhawk had seen enough broken combat formations to know Arn’s men were beyond rallying. It was too late. His men had been battered and demoralized for too long. Their will was spent.

  The rebel leader was standing behind one of the partially loaded transports, holding a particle accelerator as he yelled to his fleeing soldiers. Three men stood with him, his staunchest and most dedicated comrades. Unlike their leader, who was still shouting to the fleeing soldiers, the other men had given up on the routers, and they were firing at the attacking forces.

  “Arn, you’ve got to get out of here!” Blackhawk shouted to the rebel commander, turning and making his way toward the rear of the ship as he did. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for Arn. The man had made his own decision to stay behind, but Blackhawk hadn’t tried too hard to change his mind. He’d used the rebels as a distraction, a diversion to allow his own people to escape. He stayed behind himself, partially to make sure the fight lasted long enough for Ace to get the others safely away from the spaceport. But he’d also felt a responsibility to assist the rebels, to try to help them get away with at least some of the weapons they needed.

  Arn turned and looked over at Blackhawk. “We can’t leave without the weapons.” His voice was raw, frantic. “We have to get the trucks out of here.”

  Blackhawk could see the rebel commander unraveling quickly. He’d seen it before—more times than he could count—and he knew there was no way to reach him, that rational arguments would be to no avail.

  Too stubborn to not try again, though. He could almost hear Ace’s voice agreeing with him.

  He crouched down and moved back toward the remaining rebels, ducking behind one of the landing gears as a spray of projectiles swept the area. He knew he had to make a break for it soon, whether or not he could get Arn and his people to follow. Just a minute, he told himself. I’ll stay just one more minute, and then I’ll slip away.

  His head whipped around, back toward the enemy positions. There was heavy fire, but there was something different about it, a new sound. Arn and his men didn’t notice anything, but Blackhawk’s acute hearing zeroed right in on it. It was coming from behind the attackers . . . and it wasn’t targeted at Blackhawk and Arn’s people. Someone was attacking the Revolutionary Army units besieging the spaceport. And they were using high-tech assault rifles, not the archaic things the revolutionaries were firing.

  Now’s our chance. He had no idea who else would be getting into this fight, and he didn’t care. He had a fleeting concern it was his people disobeying his orders, but the sound of the gunfire was different. They were good weapons, but not as good as the extremely high-end stuff he’d bought for his crew. But it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that they had the distraction they needed to make an escape.

  He leaped forward, scrambling back to where Arn stood behind one of the trucks. “Arn, listen to me. We’ve got to make a break for it. Right. Now.” He gestured off to the southwest. “There’s an opening over there. If we can make it across the field, we can slip into the woods outside the city.”

  Arn’s head snapped around. “And leave the weapons? Even the ones we have loaded? That’s ridiculous.” He was wounded in the shoulder, but he was ignoring it completely. His eyes were wild, almost glazed over, and Blackhawk knew the long-suffering rebel leader had lost his sanity. Arn turned toward his remaining troops. “Each of you get on one of the transports. We’ll take what we’ve got loaded and make a run for it.”

  Blackhawk exhaled hard and stared at Arn. “You’ll never make it out in these things. Hell, I doubt they even run at this point. But if they do, they’ll just be rolling targets. On foot, we have a chance to survive—to fight another day.”

  “We can’t leave the weapons!” Arn turned to his men. “Go!”

  Blackhawk could only stand there as the rebels ran to the transports, climbing inside the cabs and trying to get them started. He was frustrated, as he so often was
when dealing with foolishness. But he would waste no more time with these fools. The sounds of fighting along the enemy line were becoming louder. Something unexpected was going on. He had no idea what it was, but it offered a perfect chance to escape, and Blackhawk was going to take it.

  One of the trucks roared to life, its engine miraculously still functional despite the dozens of bullet holes marking its sides. The others were dead, too badly damaged to run, and the men inside raced to join their comrade. Blackhawk almost yelled to them as they ran by, but he stopped himself. It was pointless.

  Now it was time to save himself.

  “Blackhawk, come on!” Arn yelled from the running transport.

  Blackhawk sighed. “I’m going to head out on foot.” Like you should too.

  He turned to slip around behind the ship. He’d originally intended to destroy the vessel, and all the weapons Arn’s people hadn’t taken, but there was no time now. He had to get moving or he’d never make it. Whatever was going on in the enemy rear, it was the chance he needed.

  He heard the roar of the transport’s engine as the heavy vehicle began to move across the tarmac toward the access road. It had only traveled a few meters when the enemy concentrated on it, raking it with autocannon and small-arms fire. Blackhawk sighed but continued to move toward the end of the spy ship. He was going to walk around the back of the vessel and slip off into the darkness on the far side.

  He’d only taken a few steps when a lucky shot found the transport’s fuel tank. The vehicle exploded in a massive fireball, sending chunks of debris flying in all directions.

  Blackhawk reacted quickly, ducking down and putting a hand up to protect his face . . . but he was too late; he had stayed too long. A heavy chunk of metal slammed into his head. He staggered back, trying vainly to stay on his feet. He struggled to retain consciousness even as he fell to the ground and the darkness took him.

  Ace was spraying the area with automatic fire. To an untrained eye, he was firing wildly, but his shooting was actually quite precise, and he’d taken out at least four of the enemy already. His eyes were darting around, trying to get an idea how big a force he was facing, but it was just too hard to see in the darkness. Maybe it was just a squad, but for all he knew he was up against a battalion.

  He stopped firing. He couldn’t see any more targets in the immediate area, but he could hear the fighting off to his right. He moved away from the buggy, back the way he’d come. He knew Von was in a nasty firefight, and he didn’t intend to get shot by one of his own comrades. It was costing precious seconds, but it was the only way to get to Von without charging through his firing arc.

  He could feel the leaves and small branches slapping against him as he raced through the woods in almost total darkness. He glanced down at a small device in his hand, a reader that homed in on Von’s comm unit. He winced as he slapped his arm hard into a tree, but he kept going, running to his friend’s aid.

  He saw a muzzle flash ahead, then another. “Von,” he said in a hushed tone. “Is that you?” He knew it was, but he still wanted the verification. Walking into an enemy in the dark would be an embarrassing way to die.

  “It’s me, boss.” The soldier’s deep voice was tense, distracted. “There’s bogies all around here. They’re trying to get behind me.”

  Ace was close enough to hear Von’s heavy breathing. “I’m here,” he whispered as he ran up to the hulking warrior. “Swing around. We’ll go back to back.” Ace turned and faced the opposite direction, leaning back until he felt Von behind him. They were trapped, almost surrounded, but now they covered each other’s blind spots. They’d hold out longer this way.

  If they’d been by themselves in these woods, Ace knew they’d have been done for. But they weren’t alone, and it was only a few seconds before they started hearing gunfire from the direction of the road. It was a familiar sound, the R-111 assault rifles Sarge and his boys carried, the same weapon Von was firing right behind Ace’s ear.

  “Watch your fire, Von. We’ve got friendlies out there too.” Ace was firing off to his left. He could hear enemy troops moving around the flank, making a lot of noise doing it. He was thankful the Saragossan revolutionaries were such amateur soldiers. If it had been Sarge and his boys sneaking around their flank in these woods—or God forbid, someone like Katarina or Shira—he and Von would already be dead.

  He could hear the friendly fire getting closer. It was splitting up, branching to both sides of them. Ace knew Sarge’s people had the same scanners he did. It was a damned good thing too, because he couldn’t see a thing in the thick blackness, and he knew it was no better for his comrades.

  “Von, hold up.” Ace pulled back his own rifle. Sarge and his boys had cleared all the enemy in his field of fire, and he and Von were more likely to hit friendlies than anything else now.

  He was watching the small monitor as Sarge, Ringo, and Buck slipped around them, hunting the rest of the enemy forces. He could hear more gunfire, a mix of sounds at first, then only the staccato tone of the assault rifles Sarge’s crew carried. Then the shooting died completely. After a few minutes, he could hear someone approaching. He snapped up his rifle, but a glance at the scanner confirmed it was a friendly.

  “Ace, Von?” It was Sarge’s voice calling to them from the darkness.

  “Yeah, Sarge,” Ace answered, sighing in relief. “And thanks for the assist.” He took a step forward and slapped the big man on the shoulder. “Let’s get back to the buggy and get the hell out of here.” He turned and started to walk toward the armored vehicle.

  Sarge paused, looking off into the wood behind where Ace had been standing. “She’s still out there, sir.”

  “Who?” Ace stopped and turned. Then it came to him. “Katarina?”

  Sarge nodded. “Yes, sir. A couple of the enemy troopers got away from us. She went after them.”

  Ace felt a shiver go down his spine. He didn’t know anything about the men trying to get away, and they had attacked him, made him an enemy. But he still couldn’t help but feel sympathy for two amateur soldiers being stalked in the woods at night by Katarina Venturi. The assassin had been studying the art of tracking and killing since she’d taken her first steps, and she wasn’t about to let live enemies escape to warn their comrades. “A couple you say?” He tried to stifle a small laugh. “This won’t take long. She’ll be back shortly. Let’s get the buggy started.”

  He was right. They’d barely gotten the buggy’s hatch open when Katarina glided silently from the densest part of the woods. “Are you ready to leave?” Her voice was calm, as if she’d been sitting under a tree and waiting for them.

  “We’re ready.” Ace turned and looked back at her. “I don’t think we should waste time trying to move the core, so you bring the transport back, and I’ll drive the buggy.”

  She nodded silently and slid into the shadows, back toward the heavy vehicle. Ace felt another shiver, a bigger one this time. He was glad he and Katarina were on the same side. Damned glad.

  CHAPTER 20

  KERGEN VOS STOOD IN FRONT OF A MASSIVE WINDOW, STARING out at the formal gardens behind the Capitol. It was like every other part of the imperial establishment in the Far Stars: all show, no substance. The magnificence of the compound was a show of wealth and opulence, but it was also useless. No one in the sector respected imperial power, and marble halls and fancy gardens weren’t effective substitutes for fear and obedience.

  Vos had vowed to change all that, but so far his efforts had been frustrated by a lack of reliable subordinates. He tried to imagine himself relying on someone as useless and incompetent as the ka’al back in the empire proper. It was preposterous. But out on the edge of human habitation, there wasn’t much to choose from, and he was desperately short of options.

  He’d purged the worst of the imperial staffers when he first arrived, but even the ones he’d kept on had proven to be immensely disappointing. Generations of poor leadership had built a culture of failure and entitlement. They de
manded the prestige of imperial position, but they lacked the skill and power that gave those trappings any meaning. The miserable sycophants groveled in his presence, but they were insufferably arrogant and officious when dealing with anyone from the independent worlds. Arrogance and incompetence made a poor pairing, and Vos was tired of his own staff making his job harder.

  Vos’s plans were moving forward, but they’d been slowed by a lack of capable operatives. The team he’d brought with him was performing well, as always. But alone, they were too few to impose imperial control over a hundred fiercely independent worlds, meaning he was forced to rely on a legion of mostly incompetent bureaucrats for much of what had to be done. But it was Tarn Belgaren he was thinking about now. He’d used the petty monarch and his minions to kidnap Astra Lucerne from Celtiboria because none of his imperial assets stationed there were capable of seeing it done. If he’d had a competent intelligence force in place on the planet, she would be on Galvanus Prime already—and he’d have some leverage with Augustin Lucerne. Instead, he didn’t have her at all.

  In spite of his lack of reliable subordinates, Vos was reasonably content with the progress so far. He had schemes in the works on a dozen worlds, with more in the planning stages. Slowly, but surely, he would undermine the independence of the Far Stars. He knew there would be problems along the way—Augustin Lucerne the one he was most worried about. That’s why he’d formulated the abduction plot in the first place.

  By all accounts, Astra was the only thing Lucerne cared about other than his quest to unite the Far Stars. Vos had intended to use her as a bargaining chip to control Lucerne, or at least to restrict the brilliant general’s influence to his home world. He didn’t think Celtiboria’s iron marshal would yield to him fully—even to save his only daughter—but if Vos’s threats could keep his forces on Celtiboria instead of launching their push for confederation, that would be enough of a victory. If the rest of the sector fell, so too would Celtiboria eventually—even with Augustin Lucerne leading its armies.