The Court of a Thousand Suns

by Chris Bunch

  The grand admirals who ordered the assault might have wondered why initial intelligence reported some seven moonlets around Saragossa, and the landing surveys reported only one. But no one wondered, and so nearly a million men died.

  The landing plan was total insertion, so the Guards' transports were committed, and the heavy support—five Imperial battleships—were moving toward the ionosphere when the question of the missing moonlets was solved.

  They'd been exploded, quite carefully, so the fragments maintained planetary orbit. And then any fragment larger than a baseball had been manned with Saragossans who were less interested in living than keeping the Empire away. Imagine trying to push a landing force through an asteroid belt that is shooting back.

  The first battleship was holed and helpless more than three planetary units offworld. The admiral in charge of the landing—Fleet Admiral Rob Gades—transhipped with what remained of his staff to a command ship in time to see his other four battleships explode into shards.

  At that point it was too late to recall the troopships. Even before the ships split into capsules, most of them were destroyed. The landing caps that entered atmosphere without support lasted bare seconds under the ravening fire from the surface.

  That, Hakone explained to Sten as he swung ships through the battle chamber, was when his own probeship was destroyed. He never saw the end of the battle. What ended it was Admiral Gade's order—sauve quipeut, save what you can. One third of the assault fleet was able to pull off Saragossa.

  "One third, Captain," Hakone said, as he shut down the battle chamber. "Over one million men lost. Isn't that enough of an axle?"

  Sten flashed briefly to the livie he'd undergone before basic training—experiencing the heroic death of one Guardsman Jaime Shavala—and his subsequent decision that he had less than no desire to see what a major battle felt like, ignored his gut agreement, and used the safe answer of stupidity. "I don't know, Sr. Hakone."

  "Perhaps you wouldn't. But now do you understand why I hired Stynburn? He went through the same hell I did."

  Sten noticed with interest that Hakone, while he'd been sitting behind the control chair of the chamber, had gone through half the decanter of Scotch.

  "By the way, Captain, do you know what happened to Admiral Gades?"

  "Negative."

  "For his—and I quote from the court's charge—retreat in the face of the enemy, he was relieved of command and forcibly retired. Do you think that was fair?"

  "Fair? I don't know what is fair, Sr. Hakone." Sten brought himself to attention. "Thank you for your information, Seigneur. Should we have any other questions, may I assume your further cooperation?"

  "You may," Hakone said flatly.

  Sten was about to try a wild card and ask if the phrase Zaarah Wahrid meant anything to Hakone. Instead, he shut off his recorder, nodded, and headed for the exit.

  If he had left a few seconds earlier, he might have caught one of Hakone's men clipping a tiny plas box to the underside of Sten's gravsled.

  Hakone walked out of the battle chamber, back into his library. Colonel Fohlee was waiting, and looking distinctly displeased.

  "You think I erred," Hakone said.

  "Why were you giving him all that, dammit! He's the Emperor's investigator."

  "I was fishing, Colonel."

  "For what?"

  "If he'd shown one iota of understanding—one flicker of what is important—we might have been able to make him one of us."

  "Instead you ran your mouth and got nothing."

  "Colonel! You are overstepping."

  "Sorry, sir."

  "As a result, I found that this Captain Sten is unreachable. I have a tracer attached to his gravsled. Put a team of the deserters after him. Track the sled until we have the location of the safe house he's using for his investigation. Then kill this Captain Sten. That is all!"

  Fohlee found himself saluting, pivoting, and exiting, and never wondered why he had that response to the command voice of a man who had not worn a uniform for almost a hundred years.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The vid-screen glowed in the darkened room. In one comer, the computer held its target: the phrase zaarah wahrid. The rest of the screen was filled with line after constantly changing line of information. At the moment, the computer was postulating that the phrase meant some kind of commercial product. It was searching the Imperial patent office for everything registered since the department was founded.

  Liz Collins, the hunter, tried to keep her eyes glued to the screen, looking for some kind of connection or vague reference. As each line rolled up the screen, her eyes followed, and then automatically clicked down a stop for the next. At the moment, she was scanning a catalogue of household bots, almost all of them a century or more out of date.

  She had to fight to keep her brain on her job. Steady on, woman, she thought to herself. If you think this is boring, guess what comes next. Then she groaned as the finis asterisks rolled up and the next and a worse category came up: Defense.

  The air stirred behind her and then she heard the door open and soft footsteps pad in. She turned to see Alex standing behind her, two mugs of frothy beer in his hands.

  " 'Bout that drink, lass?" he said softly. "Ah whidny be disturbin' y' noo, would Ah?"

  "Oh, my god, yes," she said, meaning the drink. Then she caught Alex's crestfallen face and corrected herself. "I mean, no. No, I mean… right, I could use a drink."

  She palmed the computer to automatic, setting up the search alarms, and then rose to take a glass out of Alex's hand. She took a small sip and gave a bit of a start. "This isn't just beer!" She grinned. And then she noticed the shot glass sitting in the bottom of the mug.

  "A wee boilermaker," Alex explained. "Beer and a good single-malt Scotch that'll oil th' bubbles."

  Liz took a long, slow swallow. "Mmmm, I don't mind this at all."

  She crossed over to the fur-covered couch and sat down, crossed her legs, then started to tug her uniform skirt down over her knees. She stopped when she saw the wistful look in Alex's eyes as the slight flash of thigh started to disappear. "What the clot." She patted the place next to her. As if almost suddenly coming awake, Alex shook his head then took the few steps required to reach the couch and sank hesitatingly down beside her. He carefully studied the wall opposite them, afraid to meet her eyes.

  "So," he finally said, "do y' think we'll be finding this Zaarah whatever it is?"

  Liz remained absolutely silent. She just took another sip of her drink.

  "Ah mean, y' been workin't your pretty, beg your pardon, y' been workin't hard, lo these many—"

  "Alex," Liz whispered, breaking in.

  He turned and looked directly at her for the first time since he entered the room. "Yes, lass."

  "Do we have to talk?"

  "No, lass."

  "Well, then…"

  Alex finally got the point. He reached out his arms to enfold her, and he felt the muscular but somehow so soft arms go around him. Slowly they sank down into the couch.

  Once again, Liz didn't bother about the flash of thigh as the uniform skirt rose higher and higher and…

  Unnoticed by them, the computer screen began winking red. It sat patiently, pulsing that it had found it… found it… found it…

  The screen read:

  ENT: JANES, Historic Records. BATTLESHIP: ZAARAH wahrid (Flower class—14 constructed).

  The entry went on, covering the ship's dimensions, crew, armament, launching date, and history, ending with the information that Zaarah Wahrid had finished her illustrious career as flagship on the Saragossa invasion during the Mueller Wars. The ship was totally destroyed, with a loss of 90 percent of its crew…

  Fortunately for the lovers, it would be many hours before they read the entry. Because once again the case had come full circle. Zaarah Wahrid was a ship that no longer existed.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sten lifted the gravsled away from Hakone's mansion
and set his course directly from Soward across the city of Fowler toward the Imperial palace.

  Once past the city limits he dropped the sled's height to 50 meters. Thus far, he was doing exactly what Hakone had predicted, and would next set his course for the safe house in Ashley-on-Wye.

  But several hundred people, were they not deceased, might have advised Kai Hakone never to predict Sten's actions.

  The gravsled may have appeared standard Imperial issue, but it was not. The man who planted the tracer on the sled should have noticed its fairly elaborate com gear. But he didn't.

  So while Sten put the sled's controls on auto, and hung the aircar in a slow orbit over the trees, he checked himself and his vehicle for bugs. At 22.3 Hz, his detector sounded off like a banth in heat. Sten unhooked the directional transponder from the board and went over the sled. It took only a few seconds to find the tracer unit.

  Sten went back to the controls and considered the various possibilities. He decided, turned the sled onto manual, and lifted it to 1000 meters. Then he set a new course, directly for the Great South Sea. This was, on compass, 80-plus degrees, magnetic, away from his proper destination, the Blue Bhor. Sten had no idea what the tracer was intended for, but he had decided to play the hand, at least for a few thousand kilometers.

  It didn't take that long.

  Sten's prox-radar blipped at him and advised that an object was rapidly approaching from his rear. He turned and scanned through the sled's binocs.

  Ignoring the modifications, Sten's gravsled was a standard combat car: McLean-generator-powered, ten meters by five meters in dimension, seating four people in the open. The object coming toward him was also a standard Imperial combat vehicle, about twice the size of Sten's gravsled, and intended for a combat platoon of twelve or so beings.

  Sten counted six men in the sled, which was closing on him at a rate of about 60 kph. He decided to make their job a little easier, and slowed his own sled. The sled behind also slowed.

  Tacmind thinking, Sten automated: They are trying to track me. Given mission: Find the safe house and… six men in that sled… take me out.

  Sten tsked to himself and snapped the double safety harness around him.

  He shoved the control stick forward for full-speed and snapped the built-in dopplering radar off. On normal combat cars, this was permanently on, insuring that no matter how much an idiot the pilot was, he could not run into something in fog, smoke, rain, or drunkenness. But Sten's car was a modified one.

  Another modification went on, a second, also doppler-stupid radar. It fixed on the platoon gravsled coming up on Sten, giving a closing speed of nearly 80 kph. Very slow reactions, Sten decided.

  Before the pilot of the sled realized what was intended, Sten chopped the control stick, then lifted the stick into control attitude and yanked it back again, almost into his lap. Standard combat cars—gravsleds—had no such capability. Which may have been the reason that the pursuing pilot gaped as Sten's sled curved straight up and around in a perfect Immelman, then dropped directly toward the pursuers.

  Sten saw fear, panic, and motion as he dove straight for the other sled. The platoon sled's pilot cut power and sank, barely in time to avoid Sten's seemingly kamikaze dive.

  It banked and recovered. Doors on the smooth side of the vehicle opened, and missile banks whirred into sight. Fire, smoke, and four air-to-air (atmo) missiles blasted out.

  Sten already had his combat car on its back. As G-forces yanked at his face, his hands clawed for the distress flare button.

  The flares bloomed out, multicolored phosphorus fires. And, obediently, the pursuers' heat-seeking missiles homed on the flares. Four missiles impacting at the same time made a helluva bang, enough to send the platoon sled skidding out of control momentarily, the five passengers grabbing for handholds. And then out of the smoke dove Sten's combat car. The platoon sled's pilot panicked and pirouetted his sled on its own axis. Again late, since Sten's car was now just above him.

  And then the last thing the six thugs in the sled might have expected happened. Sten flipped his combat car to orbit, unsnapped his safety harness, and jumped straight over the side, into the other gravsled.

  He twisted in midair, his clawed hand bringing out his knife, while his mind looked for a soft landing.

  The landing was on the first man, Sten's heels crushing his rib cage and Sten going down to his knees—under the clubbed willygun swing of the second man—and then straight up, spread fingers going into eyeballs and brain.

  Sten whirled as the second corpse fell. His knife swung across the wrist of the third man, whose hand fell away, blood hosing across the sled. He gaped at the spouting blood, stumbled, and fell away into nothingness.

  Sten never saw that he was on automatic pilot, realizing a man was swinging a long, issue Guards combat knife at him. Sten blocked with his own crystal blade—and sheared through the alloy steel. The fourth man didn't even have time to react before Sten's steel bootheel slammed up, crushing his skull.

  Air ionized, and Sten went flat, skidding across the checkered metal of the aircar's deck, the willygun projectile sizzling overhead, and Sten was diving forward, and his foot went out from under him as he skidded on a patch of blood.

  Sten took the fall, but his knife hand lashed out, braced at the wrist. The speared knife caught the fifth man just below the belt, then slashed through his spinal cord. The living corpse spasmed backward over the sled's pilot, who was trying to unbuckle himself.

  Sten slammed into the copilot's seat, then tucked his feet under him and snapped up.

  The sled's pilot had fought his way free of the body and was standing. Sten came in on the man. His intentions were to take one prisoner and ask very serious questions.

  But the pilot took one look at the gory Sten and that small sliver of metal that was death itself, screamed, and hurled himself over the side of the combat car.

  Sten grabbed for the man, but too late. He watched the screaming form pinwheel down toward the parkland far below.

  Collect… collect… and no-mind died, combat madness went away, and Sten swore to himself. Breathe… breathe… and he sat down, not noticing the blood that swirled and trickled across the gravsled's deck.

  Rationality returned, and Sten looked at the five dead men in the sled. Haines can find something out about them, one part of his mind decided. Less important, another told him. You don't believe in coincidence. You went to Hakone. You were given a song-and-dance. On your leaving, someone attempted to kill you.

  Considering the Imperial warrant he had been given, Sten had enough to arrest Hakone and use any means necessary, including brainscan, to find out how Hakone tied into the conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor.

  But that was too easy a solution.

  Somehow Sten had the idea that no one as highly visible and vocal as Kai Hakone would be the mastermind behind the attempt.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Fog swirled over the long, brilliant-black ship that sat on a landing field barely longer than itself. Lights haloed around the loading ports as men and women loaded equipment and themselves on board.

  The landing field was carried on Prime World's books as an Imperial Fleet tacship/emergency field, but it was actually used only by the Emperor for arrivals and departures he did not want to see blazoned on the vid-screen.

  The ship itself was equally obscure. According to the record books, it had been constructed as the Imperial Merchant Ship (Passenger) Normandie. A luxury, super-speed liner that had been mothballed after its third voyage.

  The Normandie did appear, from the outside, to be a conventional liner, but it had been built for one purpose only—to be the Emperor's vehicle, whether for secret missions or for vacations. It had the armament of a fleet destroyer and the power drive of a fleet cruiser.

  It took less than a hundred men to run the Normandie, which was state-of-the-art automated. That did not mean the ship was cramped, since the largest percentage of the Normandie was taken
up with Imperial accommodations. Movable bulkheads and decking insured that the Emperor could hold anything from a private party for himself and a lady to an Imperial summit meeting.

  Since the ship officially did not exist, it did not have to worry about proper clearances. When necessary, it was easy for the Normandie to assume one or another of the identities of its supposed sister ships.

  It may have been the biggest cloak-plus-dagger ever built.

  "Marr, you are being a daffodil. There is no possible pollution here."

  "You talk and talk," Marr sniffed, "but I tell you, I can smell the fumes from the drive."

  Marr and Senn were possibly the only caterers in history given an eyes-only security clearance.

  They stood near the waist of the Normandie, watching as their supplies rolled up the conveyor into the guts of the ship.

  "All right, so there is pollution. I touch your delicate nostrils. But what will that matter to the fish? They are in tanks, not standing out here in the murk catching their death.

  "I am merely concerned that these Tahn beings will find our food offensive," Marr said. "How would you like to be responsible for this conference's falling apart because of indigestion?"

  Their predawn bickering was broken off as Subadar-Major Limbu strolled up. The Gurkha officer was in full combat gear, including willy gun and kukri, hung in its sheath in the middle of his back. He saluted. "These fish," he indicated. "They are not for my men?"

  "They are not, Chittahang. I have enough dahl, rice, and soyasteak to turn every one of your naiks into balloons such as the one you are starting to resemble."

  Chattahang glanced at his stomach reflexively, then recovered. "Ah. Very good. But I shall tell you a secret. That bulge is not from my stomach. I find it necessary to coil some of my other organs above my belt." He grinned, winked, and went back to supervising the loading of his men.

  "Marr, do you ever think we shall get the better of these small brown ones?"

  "Probably not." Marr turned and reacted. "Our fearless leader has arrived."