Dobrynin, who had taken no more notice of Emperor Pyotr’s body than he had the room’s fine appointments, nodded. “Yes, sir. In the meantime, we would like to move Your Highness to a more secure location. The generals believe they can subdue the orbitals quick enough, but some greedy gunner might well squeeze off a shot beforehand. And with the Doormen headed this way, I’d prefer we move you now rather than later.”
“Very well.” Grand Duke Alexei turned to the remaining old men gathered about the table, most of whom remained seated in shocked silence. “Gentlemen, a new dawn has arrived. I proclaim myself this moment, emperor. You would do well to follow me if you wish to continue in your high stations. For now, those who haven’t already pledged your allegiance to my cause, consider yourselves wards of the empire.”
Grand Duke Boris Kamenev rose to his feet, his expression hard. He placed one age-withered hand on Alexei’s shoulder, his gaze sweeping the table. “My forces are aligned with House Rurikid. Fight him, and you fight me.”
Two more, Grand Dukes Vincent Blanastock and Kelis Renvich, likewise stood to affirm their allegiance. Symeon marveled at the breadth of Alexei’s power. Both men commanded formidable fleets with their own respected armies that yearly pushed the quota limits imposed on them by the throne.
“Sire,” said Colonel Dobrynin , “I think it best we split you up from Princess Kavya. We shouldn’t give our enemies a single target. I’ve taken the liberty of securing an escort for the princess.”
At a gesture from the colonel, one of his oxbrana opened the door to admit Duke Lev Gomarov in the company of half a dozen soldiers. Seven Luxing slaves, Fang and Czarina among them, followed in the duke’s wake.
“Lev, my boy.” Grand Duke Kamenev, his bearded face split into a wide grin, kissed the newcomer on either cheek. “I’m glad to find you well. Am I to assume our forces have secured the lower divor?”
Lev, a hale, broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties, matched his liege’s smile with his own. “Yes, Sire. We took the room without a fight. Duke Vobolesk has command with Emperor Rurikid’s oxbrana to thank for it. All dissenters have been arrested.”
“You’ve arrested our dukes and counts?” Grand Duke Osker Bovolev looked ready to stand from his seat, his silver cheeks flushed blue. “This is an outrage, Alexei!”
“This is civil war, Osker,” Alexei said without deigning to look round at the man. “Unless your next words come in the form of a pledge of allegiance, keep your lips sealed.”
“It’s time to go, Princess.” Czarina, fully ignoring the royals and their self-absorbed banter, bent to pull Kavya to her feet.
“Go where?” Kavya stared at the military escort with a look of mixed fear and resignation.
“My master will see us safe to Phoenix, Princess.” Fang cocked his head at Duke Lev Gomarov without so much as glancing Symeon’s way. “We’re to keep you there until the succession is complete.”
Kavya looked as though she might argue. She glanced at her father, who was sharing words with Colonel Dobrynin and Grand Duke Kamenev.
Czarina leaned close to her ear. “Nothing we do will change what’s happened, Kavya. Things bigger than us are in motion now. Please, come quietly and be safe.”
Kavya turned to Symeon, and he nodded. “I think she’s right, Princess. You should go.”
Reluctance fought a short, bitter war with anger in Kavya’s expression. She bared her teeth and hissed out a breath. “Very well.”
Unaware of his charge’s exchange with the slaves or her reticence to follow him, Duke Lev gestured for Kavya to follow him. “Come, Princess. I have a ship waiting.”
As if to punctuate the need for haste, a concussive boom shook the hall like a nearby thunderclap. Symeon, who knew next to nothing about battle and the waging of war, jerked in surprise, unsure from which direction the sound had come. His heart lurched in his chest, and he found his hands shaking.
Kavya, who looked no less jolted, nodded for him to follow. They, along with Czarina and Fang, joined the duke as six of the oxbrana peeled off from their fellows to surround them.
“We may face resistance,” Lev said, his gaze fixed on the exit as two of the escort guards prepared to open it. “Stay close to me and follow my orders. We’ll see you through.”
Kavya nodded but said nothing. She was breathing hard and a sheen of sweat glistened on her silvery brow.
Though he had never fired a weapon in his life, Symeon yearned for one of the oxbrana’s rifles, or even the plasma gun Ivan had used—anything to help secure Kavya. He had never felt so useless.
Survive the hour and then make certain you never feel this way again.
Symeon nodded, his jaw set, blood thrumming in his ears. “For certain.”
Kavya glanced at him, but didn’t have time to ask what he had whispered as the oxbrana shoved open the doors and ushered them into mayhem.
* * * * *
Chapter 18
The shooting began the instant they entered the hall. At first, Symeon thought someone was shooting at his group, but no, a line of armor-clad oxbrana soldiers lined the opposite end of the hallway, firing at an unseen enemy. The sound threatened to deafen him. Gas-powered machine rifles competed with the sizzle of plasma guns and laser fire for the loudest sound. Symeon and the others, including Duke Lev, clamped their hands over their ears as they hurried to follow their escorts away from the firefight. Stray bullets chewed through a section of wall not two meters behind them as they raced toward the far end and a hard right turn.
“This way! Keep your heads down and stay centered,” shouted the lead escort, a lieutenant with the name Serov emblazoned on his armor.
The group turned the corner, ran the length of another hall, and turned again. Serov kicked open a set of doors and they darted into a small formal dining room. Symeon thought he recognized it from holo vids of imperial dinners hosted in the palace. With no more pause than to check a screen set into the arm of his suit, Serov crashed through another set of doors at the opposite end of the room with an armored shoulder, and was met with a barrage of weapons fire that pinged off him like hailstones. Bullets scored the ceiling and doors as he beat a hasty retreat back inside and the remaining seven oxbrana soldiers corralled their charges behind them into one corner of the room.
Never shifting his gaze from the ruined doors, Serov motioned toward the dining table with one metal hand, his other gripping his rifle. Two of his men detached from the group to overturn it, sending an expensive set of fine plates and silverware clattering to the floor. To Symeon’s surprise, the table was made of stone rather than wood, and looked three centimeters thick. While that might not stop plasma or intense laser fire, it would deter bullets for a time. Or so he hoped.
No respecters of rank or station, Serov’s troopers thrust the noncombatants unceremoniously behind the overturned table. Less than a second later, three armored figures rushed into the room at machine-enhanced speed. Symeon caught little more than a glimpse of them in his haste to find cover with the others, but he saw enough to recognize the gold and navy battle armor uniforms worn by the Emperor’s Own Doormen. The elite soldiers tasked with defending the crown possessed a hard-won reputation for putting down insurrections and border disputes with prejudice. While a small force on the whole compared to most duchy armies, they nevertheless inspired fear in all those unfortunate enough to stand against them.
Symeon expected the Doormen to start firing. He braced for it, inching his body closer to the princess to put himself between her and their makeshift cover.
Nothing happened.
Serov glanced at his men, who were likewise looking at him. The lieutenant shrugged.
“Princess Kavya Rurikid?” The voice, amplified by speakers built into the Doorman’s helmet, sounded inquisitive.
Kavya’s eyes went wide. She started to speak, but Duke Lev placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.
“Princess, we have no wish to harm you or your escorts. We don’t belie
ve you served any part in your father’s treason. This is your chance to disavow him and swear fealty to the empire. Have your men lay down their weapons and we will take you to safety.”
Serov sprang to his feet faster than any unaided human could hope to move. Gun leveled, he fired in short bursts, his muzzle flaring. His men, whom he must have communicated with via radio, moved with their leader, all seven firing in unison. The sound created by the barrage made Symeon’s head pound. He expected it to end quickly—what in the known universe could weather such a storm?—but it went on and on. Return fire pock-marked the opposite wall, eating a chaotic pattern in the wood paneling. Kavya screamed, but the sound of it hardly reached Symeon's ears.
An explosion shook the room and one of their escorts caught fire. Flames and pieces of metal spurted from his armor as he flew backward to collide with the wall. He collapsed, his helmet propped up, his chest open to the world, blackened and aflame. The smell of death wafted over Symeon and the others. With it came the scent of burning plastic and hair.
Kavya screamed again at the sight, and clutched Czarina in a fearsome embrace, her eyes buried against the slave woman’s shoulder. Her tears left dark stains on Czarina’s loose shirt.
Symeon considered the rifle the downed oxbrana soldier had dropped. It lay near the dead man’s feet within reach for Symeon if he stretched and kept his head low. Part of him wanted nothing more than to pick it up and join their defenders, but that presented a twofold problem. First, he had to wonder if the gun would function for him. He had read once that some oxbrana units keyed their weapons to individual soldiers in order to discourage theft amongst the ranks. As new men joined a company and old ones cycled out, their supply masters would refit the weapons for new owners. That meant, even if Symeon overcame more than twenty years of conditioning to pick up the weapon and start firing, it may not work.
And he had no idea how it functioned beyond the age old wisdom of point and pull the trigger.
Don’t be a fool. Stay under cover. Your escorts are professional fighters. You wouldn’t suffer a novice who challenged you in the boxing ring. Why would Doormen do otherwise in a shooting match?
Yudi had a point. Symeon couldn’t keep Kavya safe if he got his heart blown from his chest like that poor trooper on the floor. Knowing that, however, did nothing to assuage his feelings of worthlessness. He could provide their group no more protection than a child might in his place.
A second explosion sent another of Serov’s men hurtling backward. This one had taken some sort of shot directly to his visor. Plumes of smoke rose from the horrendous wound. Whatever weapon the Doormen were employing to make that sort of hole, the oxbrana’s armor stood no chance against it. Serov must have agreed. He bellowed something Symeon couldn’t make out in the din of active fire and his men broke from their positions to rush toward their enemies.
The shooting ceased, replaced by the sound of metal ringing against metal. Symeon, too curious to remain still, poked his head above the table in time to see the five remaining oxbrana, including Lieutenant Serov, extend silvery blades from hidden ports on both arms as they sprinted to close the distance to the Doormen. They concentrated on the lead man who held an oversized gun before him, its smoking barrel wide enough Symeon could have pressed a closed fist inside.
Not a gun, a grenade launcher.
Symeon knew the word, grenade, and that such a thing would explode, but he had never seen one nor given that sort of military weapon much regard. It hadn’t been part of his world before today. The grenade launcher must have been the source of the Doorman’s one shot/one kill firepower that had maimed the downed oxbrana soldiers, because their compatriots appeared eager to neutralize the man holding it. Serov led two others to assault him while the other two squared off with the remaining Doormen.
“Symeon, get down.” Kavya pulled at his formal jacket to make him obey. “You’ll get your head blown off.”
“Someone has to see how the battle’s going, Princess,” he said, resisting her urgent tugs. “We need to know when to run.”
The grenade launcher man—
Grenadier .
—managed to fire off a shot before Serov could reach him, but it went wide, missing the lieutenant, and in turn Symeon’s head, by a few centimeters. It exploded against the dining room’s back wall, sending a shower of sharp wood fragments, plaster, and dust into the air. Though the concussion rang his ears, and detritus hit Symeon’s back, he hardly noticed. He was too busy watching the battle in rapt fascination.
Serov closed the distance between himself and the grenadier before the other man could fire another shot. The oxbrana soldier sliced the last six centimeters off the grenade launcher’s barrel with a note of screeching metal. At nearly the same instant, one of his troopers punched the grenadier’s helmet on the cheek, cracking his silver visor.
A blow that fierce would have broken an unarmored man’s neck, but the grenadier’s head barely moved. With the deft skill imparted both by his body-enhancing suit and, Symeon had no doubt, endless hours of training, the grenadier managed to block Serov’s attempt to slice his throat on the back swing. He captured Serov’s arm and pressed a fist to his outstretched shoulder.
Serov screamed loud enough to be heard through his helmet even without his exterior speakers activated. For an instant, Symeon wondered what had happened until he noticed the sharpened end of a spike poking out of Lieutenant Serov’s back. The grenadier shoved him sideways, eliciting another scream of agony, and into the second oxbrana who had thrown the all-but-ineffective punch. The two men crashed to the floor in a heap. The grenadier stood over them, a bloodied spike as long as his forearm dripping blood on the expensive floor.
That move alone might have proven enough to save the man had there not been three oxbrana attacking him. Serov’s second man dove over his commander and fallen comrade to shove his extended arm blade through the grenadier’s chest. The Doorman’s armor withstood much of the force set against it, and even slowed the blow enough so that the oxbrana’s blade didn’t penetrate all the way through. Not that it mattered. It sank plenty deep enough to reach the flesh beneath the steel.
The grenadier jerked in place, stumbled away from his attacker, and clattered to the floor like an empty suit of clothes, blood pooling beneath his inert form.
Symeon shuddered despite his satisfaction. Watching a man die, even an enemy, turned his stomach, though he knew he would have done the same thing in the oxbrana soldier’s place.
Unfortunately, the victorious oxbrana had no time to revel in his win. The downed grenadier’s compatriots, having dispatched the men sent to deal with them, converged on him like starved wolves. The Doorman on the right fetched him a suit-enhanced kick that batted him into the nearest wall, leaving a dent in the wood and the man’s powered armor alike. Something sizzled, and an arc of electricity flashed on the oxbrana’s chest plate as smoke rose from the damaged area. No sooner had the first Doorman landed his kick, the second rammed his wicked arm spike through the oxbrana soldier’s torso and then neck. The soldier gurgled, armored hands clutching at his throat in a vain attempt to staunch the copious amounts of blood running through his fingers. He slid down the wall to the floor and did not rise.
Symeon watched all this in morbid fascination and rising fear. The Doormen had cut their escort from seven to two, one of those the injured Serov. He doubted the remaining oxbrana could stand long against the imperial special forces Doormen now turning toward them.
“What’s happening up there?” Duke Lev asked.
“It’s not good, sir,” Symeon whispered in the lull between fighting.
Serov, blood still leaking from his shoulder, and his last remaining trooper had gained their feet. In a show of courtesy, or perhaps sheer contempt for their enemies’ ability to harm them, the Doormen gave the oxbrana time to rise. They could have used the rifles affixed to their shoulders at any time, but elected to square off with Serov and the uninjured trooper.
&nb
sp; Definitely a show of contempt. They’re making sport of the fight, because they don’t believe the oxbrana capable of harming them.
“Too bad they’re probably right,” Symeon whispered.
Despite his grievous injury, Serov launched himself at the Doormen ahead of his trooper, his arm blades flashing. Years of boxing told Symeon the courageous lieutenant favored his injured side—Serov couldn’t lift that arm above his waist—and yet he attacked in order to protect his assigned charges. His trooper followed suit, arms a blur as he sought to catch the second Doormen a telling blow.
The sight made Symeon’s heart swell with pride for the men whose faces he had never seen. These brave oxbrana had done more to protect Kavya inside five minutes than Symeon had done since they arrived at the palace. Both must have realized their futile last stand was doomed to fail, and yet they stood, they fought, they chose to give their lives for duty. The fighter in Symeon yearned to aid them, though he knew his fists would prove meaningless against a powered suit of armor. Killing him would cost the Doormen all the effort of swatting a fly.
There is the rifle.
I thought you said leave it alone.
That was when we had seven oxbrana to defend us. Yudi’s silent voice sounded worried. I fear in a moment, we’ll have none.
Symeon tore his gaze from the ensuing battle which, as he had suspected, looked grim for the oxbrana troopers. The weapon lay where it had fallen. None of the others cowering behind the overturned table had bothered with it, and Symeon doubted any of them would. Should the Doormen win, and that looked a foregone conclusion, Duke Lev would likely offer them no resistance. Doing so would only serve to get him killed. He would give Kavya over to the imperial guards, and who knew what despot would eventually own her person after that?
Salvage Mind (Salvage Race Book 1) Page 16
