The Fourth Empire s-3

by Mack Maloney

  In all his travels, real or imagined, Hunter had never seen anything so gruesome.

  It was sunrise when they reached the cliffs of Moher.

  They could hear the ocean crashing and the wind blowing, but the fog and smoke were so thick, it was impossible to see more than a few feet in front of them. Here at Moher, the sea had battered the land and won for thousands of years. Until the massive triad had been put in place, that is. Now the coastline was as straight as a razor, perfect and unending in both directions. But it was still a long drop down to the water. And the next stop after that was New York City, or thereabouts.

  The cliffs were as deserted as the roads. But it was clear the path of destruction that had started at Kelly's Hollow an indeterminate amount of time before had gone right through here — and far beyond, as it turned out. For an especially stiff wind began to blow as if on cue, as Hunter knew it would, and suddenly they were able to see through the thick mist. Before them, a dozen gigantic structures appeared, stretching far out to sea. Dull gray, devoid of ornamentation, some of them still burning from battle damage, but most being intact, they ran atop the rough ocean waters all the way to the horizon and beyond.

  They looked odd, especially from this vantage point, yet there was no doubt what they were.

  Bridges.

  "The forbidden spans…" Joxx breathed. "They originated here?"

  Hunter had been surprised upon first seeing them, too.

  Along the shoreline, the wreckage of dozens of enormous warships was also visible. They'd all been hit by cobalt bolts, and in some cases their remains were crashing up against the side of the gigantic bridges and the massive triad. Hunter knew a strange battle had been fought here. Between the people on the warships and the people on the bridges, both using and being hit by cobalt lightning bolts, fired by both sides from starships flying deep in space.

  It was clear, too, that the people who built the bridges had bested those fighting on the warships. Through Hunter's talent at time-shortening the mind ring trip, he was presenting Joxx with the remains of a battle that had actually been fought months before. While the Isle was still being bombarded by isolated cobalt weapons flying in outer space, the war had moved on from there. And it was clear that it had moved across these huge bridges.

  But how had the spans been built? Where did the material come from? The craftsmen? The designers?

  There weren't any…

  They had not been needed.

  "My God," Joxx said, collapsing to his knees at the edge of the cliff. "Electron torches! Real ones. That's obviously the key. They can take any atomic structure and combine it with another until it is strong enough to rival ion steel, the strongest material known in the Galaxy. And they can shape materials into any design wanted, then have the torches' brain come up with the best way to actually build it."

  Electron torches building bridges? Why not? Warships can be hit and sunk; flying machines can be shot down. But bridges can be repaired, and with electron torches, they can be repaired very quickly, almost at split-second speed. Networks of tubes built into the center of the spans indicated some sort of high-speed transport system had been factored into the design as well. A troop transport equipped with an ion-powered engine could make it across the ocean to New York in the same amount of time as a shuttle flying over it: approximately seventeen minutes.

  Joxx stared out at the wreckage and the bridges for a long time. "So they launched an invasion from here. It's certainly a novel way to get to the other side of the ocean."

  "And start the disaster that Jimmy hoped would never happen," Hunter agreed.

  "But why would anyone in their right mind want to dis-mantle what Emperor Jimmy had put together? For what reason? There were no wants. No problems at all. The Galaxy had been settled peacefully, and everyone was prosperous and free to do what they want. Why ruin that?"

  A stiff, bitter wind blew off the ocean and began wearing down Hunter's face just as it had worn down the rocks here for ages.

  "Why ruin it?" Hunter asked the question again. "Because you weren't the one running it…. You weren't the one in power. It's called hubris. Ever hear the word?"

  Joxx didn't reply. He just sat down and stared at the destruction around him, the debris left behind after the invasion forces had departed.

  "It's a campaign that will succeed beyond its creator's wildest dreams, I can tell you that," Hunter said, taking a soggy seat on the wet grass beside him. "There will be bitter fighting here on Earth and on just about every planet in the Galaxy. Nearly twenty years of it. Ever wonder why there is so little history left from this period? It's because all life, all culture, was almost totally destroyed.

  "I've seen many of the battles within the mind rings. I was even involved in some of the fighting. It was brutal— and not something we have to revisit here, though maybe, at a future day it would be wise to. All you have to know is that Brother Michael won, because somehow he'd gained access to an army and, even more important, to a technology more powerful than what was currently available. This technology allowed him to build weapons, to fly in space faster, to build these bridges. That technology was the electron torch. That's all it took to overthrow the First Empire."

  Another silence between them. The wind was howling now, the rain coming down in sheets.

  "But how did he get himself out of that bog?" Joxx wondered aloud. "How was he able to bring himself back to life?"

  Hunter didn't answer the question.

  Instead he told Joxx, "Just hang on. We're going back across the Pond."

  Flash!

  The booty stretched on forever.

  Miles of it. Stacks of it. Some of it packed inside airtight, deep-space containers, some of it lying broken and scattered on the ground. Jewels. Comet dust. Small meteorites made of solid gold. Coined money, sheets of shimmering aluminum, silver bars, tons of it, lying unattended. Tarnishing. Rusting. Melting away in the very hot sun.

  The plunder wasn't made up solely of precious metal and stones. There were millions of pieces of artwork, 3-D sculpture, and holographic reliefs. Some of these objects were more than two thousand years old. Some were ancient before humans ever went into space. Most of it, too, was withering away in the brutal heat.

  The holding area for this tiny universe of spoils was an island so large it was once called Long Island. It was located just east of New York, one hundred miles long, twenty miles wide, hundreds of square miles. To say every foot of it was covered with some sort of boodle, paid as a tax, taken as part of a fine, or simply taken, was not an overstatement. The truth was, the looters were running out of space to put their loot. The soldiers of the fledgling Second Empire had done their jobs too well.

  The means by which all this ill-gotten gain made it to Mother Earth was, of course, by spaceship. In this era, the first year of the Second Empire, the first spaceships made by electron torches had appeared. They were enormous, clumsy, sometimes dangerous vessels. They needed a large area to land in, required many hours of maintenance, and had a tendency to blow up on takeoff if their delicate early-model ion-ballast engines were not stoked correctly. Few were built to the same standard, but most were 2,500 feet in length, bulbous and bullet-shaped, weighed more than 500,000 tons, and carried enormous amounts of raw ion-ballast fuel. If one lit off incorrectly, the resulting explosion usually obliterated a good chunk of real estate around its takeoff spot. Anyone within a mile of the blast usually went up with it.

  This shaky fleet built by the crude craftsmen of the early Second Empire grew exponentially as more planets were reclaimed after the fierce civil war, and more electron torches got into the hands of people just learning how to use them. There were at least a million ships operating inside the One Arm alone. Many more were flying around the Galaxy, full of imperial soldiers terrorizing the locals, plundering entire star systems, spreading fear, causing instability.

  Rape, on a galactic scale.

  This was the first legacy of the new Emperor, the ma
n that just about everyone had taken to calling Brother Michael.

  The miles of largesse ended, so to speak, at the huge arena recently built near the eastern edge of the monstrous, un-scrubbed city of New York.

  The arena was meant to fit about a hundred thousand comfortably. There were nearly twice that number jammed into it on this grimly historic day. Most of them were intoxicated on something. Clouds of can-can hung over the oval stadium. Wine was spilling everywhere. The distinctively sour smell of jamma sweat was much in evidence, too. These were the most important people on the planet, the most bloodthirsty commanders of the recently concluded galactic civil war. Uneducated except in the ways of murder and mayhem, they came out of the celestial woodwork once Michael had made his call to arms against Emperor Jimmy simply on the claim that he was "too weak" to rule the Galaxy. Having emerged victorious but no less brutal, these neo-barbarians were now the elite of the newly formed Second Empire.

  Most of those in attendance were men; that's just how these guys were. Literally thousands of different battle suits and uniforms were in evidence, a perfect if badly stained mosaic of the disparate groups that had banded together to overthrow the First Empire. Chaos and violence had reigned inside the arena since midnight, and in the streets outside as well. Hundreds murdered certainly: shot, stabbed, poisoned, suffocated. Old disputes settled, new ones begun. Thousands more were wounded or maimed. The noon hour was approaching, and in this era before absolute atmospheric engineering had been discovered, it was a brutally hot day.

  At the stroke of noon, a large orange air car appeared over the stadium. The crowd quieted down some, but in no way did it lapse into silence. The arrival of the air car was just a minor distraction to the roughhousing going on in the stands. Even when the air car descended to the small landing platform set up at midarena, and its doors opened, the crowd took only a passing notice. Only when the Emperor himself stepped out of the vehicle did the crowd finally fall silent.

  This was Brother Michael in the flesh. The new caesar of the Galaxy. The crowd let out a thunderous cheer at first sight of him. He was short, stocky, muscular, a red face with an even redder nose. He was surrounded, as always, by a small army of personal bodyguards. Some bald, some hairy, many missing eyes, ears, fingers, toes, they were all thugs and very dangerous. These men were taken to wearing tight uniforms made of black faux leather, draped with thin chains between front and rear pockets, and always with a short, five-inch dagger hanging in a sheath held on the right side of their belts. Many also carried razor blades on the tips of their jackboots.

  Those in attendance maintained the drunken ovation for five minutes. They knew it was wise to give Brother Michael and his gang their props. The stands were thick with Michael's hated undercover security teams, on hand with only one mission: to identify anyone who might not be showing the requisite amount of respect toward the new regime. These security men were well-known for meting out their own kind of instant justice, on the spot, for anyone displaying even a sniff of disloyalty toward the new boss. The means of execution was not by electric pistol or crude blaster but by stabbing the victim with knives, usually more than once, always from behind. The victims rarely had a chance to fight back.

  With this a fact of life here on Earth as well as every planet in the Galaxy, for Michael's reach now touched every swirl, every arm and inward to the Ball, cheering long and loud served as a way of prolonging one's own life in this dangerous gathering, a song of self-preservation.

  When the cheering finally calmed down, though, it petered out in a strangely cautious way. The new Emperor was heard to belch and then seen to spit. He was as intoxicated as those around him. Staggering up the steps as opposed to ascending them, it took him some effort to reach the throne erected nearby. Once there, he fell into the seat in a very nonimperial manner. No sooner was he down when he stood again and performed a mock bow to the crowd. The place erupted again in a chorus of grunts and laughter.

  A trio of frightened, scantily clad girls was brought out. Each was bearing a golden tray with a full cup of wine on it. At the first appearance of the girls, many of the cronies of Brother Michael quietly slipped their daggers from their sheathes. A whiff of misogyny mixed with lust wafted through the imperial reviewing stand.

  The first girl was pushed toward Michael, shaking and alone. Anything could happen at this point, and she knew it. The Emperor, however, only saw yet another cup of wine coming his way. He grabbed it and downed it in one noisy gulp, perhaps forgetting that drinking this cup was the signal to begin the first of two big events that were to take place this day.

  There was a large form standing, covered, in the middle of the arena's oval racetrack, right across from the reviewing stand. Seeing Michael drain this first cup of wine, those people out on the infield took their cue and lifted the covering from this form. Beneath was a block of burned glass, a material that had absolute clarity with a strength approaching that of ion steel. It had been built right into the body of a small ion-ballast rocket. Locked inside the chunk of burned glass was a man. He was still alive, even though there was no air inside the glassica, nothing that could support any life at all. That didn't make any difference. The man inside had always claimed to be immortal, though he'd been known to tell a tall tale or two in his long lifetime.

  It was Jimmy, former Emperor of the former First Empire, the man who first settled the Galaxy and then lost it. The deposed brother of the new man in charge.

  Brother Michael burst out in laughter at first seeing his brother's plight, so much so, he involuntarily spat out half of his mouthful of wine. The bawdy crowd erupted again.

  Those immediately surrounding Michael began a spontaneous mantra of "Maccus! Maccus!" The crowd took up the chant in lockstep, and soon the multitude was screaming as one. Jimmy the maccus. The fool. The clown.

  The second girl bearing a golden tray was pushed forward, the first girl having been swallowed up by the nearby crowd. This second tray held a cup of wine plus a remote control device with a huge orange button on top. Did Michael pause a moment to stare soberly at his brother, who was staring right back at him from his tomb of burned glass? Did their eyes meet? One set bloodshot, the other wet with the tears of betrayal? That's how some romantics would later characterize the scene.

  But it did not happen. Michael simply downed the cup of wine and in the same motion punched the orange button. The ion engine of the small rocket was lit, and the craft blasted off, gaining more speed with every foot it climbed. It was very quickly a mile above the stadium; then a second later, it was in orbit; ten seconds later, it had passed the orbit of Venus; ten seconds after that, it plunged into the sun. The death rocket had been equipped with a special ion reflector, which allowed its trajectory to be followed by the naked eye until the very end. Everyone in the stadium, indeed just about everyone on the day side of Earth who was able to shield their eyes properly watched as Jimmy was hurled into the sun, where his glass coffin would eventually break down, but only slowly, guaranteeing him several normal lifetimes of excruciating pain until his body itself was reached and consumed. The telltale red spark splashing into the sun told of the deed done.

  The Emperor fell back into his seat again, waving goodbye and locked in the throes of laughter once again. He summoned the third girl bearing a tray. The small army of hangers-on drew even closer around her. Still victim to hysterics, Michael downed his third cup of wine, then waved his hand to a gaggle of nearby flunkies.

  This message was clear: The second half of the festivities should commence. "Let the race begin!" Michael bellowed.

  Thirteen air cars appeared on the oval track a few moments later. They'd emerged from a door located just below the imperial throne. Though the crowd had gone back to its brand of mass pandemonium, there was a huge, bawdy ovation when the vehicles were first spotted. Each air car was painted in garish colors and festooned with caricatures of broken skulls, perforated hearts, slashed and degraded women. These were known to be the favor
ite images of the new Emperor.

  The air cars were all of the same design, long thin tubes, stiletto in style, riding an invisible cushion of compressed atoms. Each had a thin, burned-glass cockpit and a slightly rotund aft section where the very primitive small-power ion engine was held. Just the barest hint of two wings were visible about halfway down the twenty-foot fuselages. Each car was also sporting a huge ray gun beneath its very pointed nose.

  The vehicles were noisy and smoky, and each driver seemed intent on being louder than the next. More than a few times, two vehicles would intentionally bump each other, causing even more engine noise and an increased ruckus from the crowd. The poisonous exhaust of ionic-dispersal waste filled the already smoky air.

  Though hopelessly disorganized on first appearance, the thirteen air cars eventually lined up at a starting point of sorts set before the imperial seat. Another scantily clad female, one of the very few left alive in the arena, was pushed forward before the throne, holding another tray with another a golden cup. With little flair, Michael gulped from the cup, then simply turned it over. A red liquid that might have been blood poured out and splattered the steps before the throne. Another roar from the crowd. A gigantic door opened at the far end of the stadium. Exactly 666 people stumbled out into the brutal heat and intense sunshine. They were men, women, children. All ages, all races. A horn sounded from somewhere in the arena. At this, the people on the track were told to run. The air cars revved their engines on cue. Michael turned the cup upright again. The air cars took off.