Exodus - Empires at War 04 - The Long Fall (Exodus Series #4)

by Doug Dandridge

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The office of Emperor seems to be one of privilege, but it is anything but. The office of Emperor is a position of duty. And Emperor has no rights, no privilege other than service to his people. Empress Victoria Romanov, Victoria the Tragic.

  CAPITULUM, JEWEL, JULY 9TH, 1001.

  Sean was really worried that the unavoidable delay might have doomed Jennifer. That scared the hell out of him, but it couldn’t be helped. No good would have come from going in unprepared, so that he and Jennifer would both die. It had taken the time it had taken to get the assets needed in place. The military had howled just a bit when he had asked them for what he needed. A couple of words as their Commander in Chief had silenced the objections.

  The Emperor waited at the appointed place. His security had wanted to conceal themselves in the area, but he forbade that. They had howled about that, but again, a word as Emperor and they had let him do what he wanted. Which is the way it should be, he thought, standing there waiting, hoping that the Secret Service wasn’t right about his just setting himself up as a target.

  The subway tunnel had been evacuated, no one within ten horizontal kilometers of this point. He had insisted on that, and was hoping that his security chiefs would follow his orders to the letter. If they didn’t there was not much he could do about it now. Later would be another story, if there was a later.

  There was a slight grinding sound from part of the wall behind the Emperor. He turned quickly, seeing a panel open that had not been there a moment before. It slid back and to the side, then in, a two meter square section of ferocrete wall. After it retreated for a meter it slid aside, revealing a dark opening. A light flashed out of the opening, the agreed upon signal, and Sean walked forward, knowing that he was being observed on the subway system cameras, and that his prospective kidnappers were not.

  As soon as he cleared the door it started to close behind him. When it sealed into place the lights came on, and Sean found himself face to face with a trio of humans, two men and a woman, all masked and pointing weapons at him.

  “I didn’t think you would have the balls to actually come,” said the woman, waving one of the others forward.

  “I really didn’t think you would be stupid enough to come,” said one of the men, running a sensor wand over the Emperor. “He’s clean, except for the normal implants. Wait a second,” continued the man, running the wand over Sean’s left forearm again. “There’s something here.” He ran the wand over Sean’s forearm yet again, looking at a holo screen that popped up over the device.

  Sean tried to keep his face blank, hoping that the kidnappers didn’t catch on. If they figured he was carrying something that might give him an advantage he was screwed. He might be able to take them out, if he acted fast enough. But taking them out here would not save Jennifer. And making a move early might just get him killed for no purpose.

  “It’s just a piece of inert metal as far as I can tell,” said the man with the wand. “What’s it there for,” he asked the Emperor, gesturing toward his forearm.

  “I had a bad break as a child,” said Sean, allowing just enough nervousness to show on his face to make his presentation look legit. “They replaced the bone with carbon nanotubes wrapped around hard alloy.”

  “Makes sense to me,” said the man, looking over at the woman who seemed to be the leader. The man stuck Sean with a needle and looked at the holo screen. “It’s definitely him, not a body double.” Next the man checked his clothing, pushing and prodding, grunting when he was satisfied that it wasn’t impact armor.

  “OK. Get the suit on him.”

  The second man tossed a coverall to Sean. “Put that on, your Majesty.”

  “You’re in a shielded area,” said the woman, nodding toward the suit. “But we’re going to be traveling through places that don’t have such shielding, so I insist that you put on that suit so you won’t be connected to the net.”

  “Go ahead, pretty boy,” said the man who had run the wand over him, now pointing his gun at Sean. “Put the damned suit on, and we can take you to the whore.”

  Sean felt his face flush, and he almost activated the system that would allow him to destroy the man. He held back, knowing that such a move would doom Jennifer. He put the suit on, making sure to seal it at the wrists and ankles after pulling on the gloves and boots. He pulled the hood over his head and the transparent mask across his face, while one of the men connected a small breathing system to the suit.

  “Now, your Majesty, you are ready to travel,” said the woman. “We know you are enhanced, like all your line. So are some of my people, and I would recommend not doing anything stupid. Not if you want to see the bitch. Now, follow me, and remember that the men with me have weapons on you at all times.”

  Sean nodded and followed the woman from the room into a downward sloping tunnel. He looked at everything as he walked, sure that the kidnappers would think he was totally cut off from his security forces. And knowing that he was anything but.

  *

  Jennifer sat in the chair staring straight ahead. There were three people in the room with her, all wearing holo masks to obscure their faces. Normally that would be a good thing. The kidnappers wouldn’t want to give their identities away to someone they might let go. In this case she didn’t think it meant that at all. They just wanted to give her the false hope that might keep her calm. Nothing else.

  He can’t come, she thought, the ambivalent feelings warring within her. She didn’t want to die, but she also didn’t want Sean to put himself in the hands of these people. Not just because it would mean his death, after they got what they wanted out of him. She loved him as a man, not as an Emperor. That said, it was really more important to the Empire that he survive, no matter the cost to her.

  “We have him,” said one of the men, the one she thought of as the nice one, as compared to the other two who looked like they would love to rape and kill her. At least that’s what their body language said.

  Why the hell did you have to put yourself in their hands, she thought, denying the sense of relief she felt for a moment. You couldn’t be so stupid as to let these people get a hold of you.

  Unless he had something up his sleeve that the kidnappers wouldn’t think about. She couldn’t imagine what that was, but she was not an expert on the military, or the intelligence game. She could only hope that the brain trust had figured out a way. But she still couldn’t see why they would let him put his head in a trap. Because he’s the damned Emperor, she thought, and he’ll do what he wants.

  “He’ll be here in five minutes,” said the nice guy, walking away toward the door.

  “And then we’ll cut your throat in front of him,” said another of her captors in her ear. “And let him watch you die before we kill him, and leave your Empire in disarray.”

  Then please don’t come, Sean, she thought, cringing from the closeness of the cruel man. But it was already too late, and he was in their hands.

  *

  “We have them at three thousand meters depth, moving northeast,” came the voice of the Marine Master Sergeant who was monitoring the Emperor.

  Senior Agent in Charge Catherine Mays was looking through the Emperor’s own eyes as he moved through the tunnels with the enemy agents, for such they had determined them to be. But whose? That was the question. Ekaterina Sergiov was also on the link, along with Lord T’Lisha and several other chiefs. She would worry about the question of who they were later. Right now the only thing any of the security people were concerned about was the safe return of the Emperor. And why does he have to be so bullheaded. Of course they had to obey him. He was the Monarch they swore their oaths to. But if he died they would still become the scapegoats. Not that she really cared about that part. If Sean was killed they all deserved to be canned.

  The Emperor kept looking around, doing his part, and the kidnappers had to think he was just extremely curious. They thought he was off the net, and so he was. Which didn’t mean
he wasn’t linked in to the security apparatus.

  “What a wonderful intelligence tool this would make,” said Sergiov over the com, obviously talking to Lord T’Lisha.

  Just too damned expensive, thought the Secret Service Agent. Putting a wormhole in a com link had not proven as challenging as many had thought. It was just too expensive a proposition, and they couldn’t afford to place untraceable links into the heads of many operatives, if any. This was thought to be important enough to do so, and the enemy they were working against had no idea that they were being tracked, despite all their precautions.

  “Turning to the north,” came the call of the Master Sergeant. “Moving on a downward slant.”

  And on the tactical plot in the command center the dot that showed the Emperor moved along a map, some of which was being generated as he moved through the area and matched with what they already had of the city’s underground. The vid take from the Emperor’s link was being fed into computers and compared to pictures from that underground, giving the security people a very good idea of what the area looked like. And moving through the tunnels above were hundreds of Secret Service Agents in light combat armor, the strike force, getting as close as they could to the Emperor’s destination before it was time to move.

  “Just follow the plan,” said the Senior Agent under her breath. So far everything was going according to plan. So she wondered when things were going to head for the shitter, just like they always did.

  *

  “No one is following,” said one of the men to the woman in charge. “The takes from all the sensors are clear.”

  Sean looked at the man, who was still hidden behind a mask. He memorized the body language, the gestures, the voice, anything he might be able to use in the future to identify the man. But you are not going to get away from me, you shit. You are all dead. If we can capture some of you and get some information out of you, great. Then you die.

  “Calm down, your Majesty,” came a voice through his link into his auditory centers. “The time will come, but not yet.”

  He sent back a reply by thought. He really didn’t like the idea of a handler, but the people he paid to handle security insisted. He followed the order and lowered his blood pressure with a thought, then said a calming mantra. One of the men looked over at him and huffed a laugh. He thinks I’m scared. Good. The more helpless they think me the better. He looked down at the floor, away from making eye contact with any of his captors. He didn’t want them to see the anger in his eyes.

  “In you go, your Majesty,” said the woman in charge as they came to a small underground car. There were more men waiting inside, and Sean was sure that they would feel confident of being able to handle him with six armed agents.

  He climbed into the car, the door slid closed, and the car accelerated on a maglev track. The trip only took two minutes, but probably covered twenty kilometers. A check on his link verified that fact, as well as that his security had him pinpointed and the strike force was keeping up with him by flying above ground.

  The car stopped at a small station, and the woman gestured for the Emperor to step out. “Get out of the suit,” she ordered, and Sean looked up to see that the ceiling of the station was set with superconducting wires, shielding any contact from the net that they didn’t control. He took a look around the room as he pulled his gloves and boots off, then the hood and the rest of the suit, giving his monitors a good look.

  “I want to see Jennifer,” he said to the woman in charge as soon as he dropped the suit to the ground.

  “You’ll see her when we decide to let you see her,” said the woman. “First you will answer some of our questions.”

  “That I will not do,” said Sean, crossing his arms over his chest. “Until I see the woman you will get nothing from me.”

  “I’ll bet we can make you talk,” said one of the men, making a move toward Sean.

  “He will tell us nothing,” said the woman, shaking her head. “He is of the Imperial line. They are conditioned to resist any kind of duress. He will only talk to us if we give him something he wants. So yes,” she said, looking at the Emperor. “You may see the woman. And then you will talk with us, or she will suffer for your silence. In front of you.”

  Are you one of them? thought Sean, looking at the woman for a moment. He was sure there were more of the shape shifters in his realm. From what he understood they could reproduce by fission, so one penetrating the Empire could have led to hundreds of them by now.

  They led him through a number of chambers, then down a long corridor to another room. There were a half dozen people here, all armed with military class weapons. All glaring at Sean as he walked into the chamber.

  “He wants to see the bitch,” said one of the men who was escorting him. With a nod one of the guards went to the door and pushed a panel. The door opened, and the woman in charge gestured for Sean to go into the room.

  Sean’s heart leapt in his chest as he saw Jennifer strapped to the chair in the center of the room. That heart fell in the next instant as his fear overran his elation.

  “Why did you have to come?” said Jennifer, tears in her eyes.

  “I had to save you,” said Sean, starting toward her. Two men grabbed his arms to prevent him from going forward.

  “You’re not going to save anyone,” said one of the men into his ear. “You’re going to watch her die, and then wish you had.”

  Sean felt the rage come on, and he wanted more than anything to tear these two men apart.

  “Calm down, your Majesty,” came a steady voice over the link. “We’re moving into position. Just give us five minutes.”

  I don’t know if we have five minutes, thought Sean back into the link, frantically trying to come up with a way to buy time.

  “You have me,” said Sean, turning toward the woman in charge. “Let her go. She can do nothing to you.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not in the plan, your Majesty,” said the woman in an icy cold tone. “Neither of you will leave this hideout alive. How much pain you both endure while you are still alive is totally up to you.”

  “Please. I beg you. I will tell you everything you want to know. Just let her go.”

  “I think I might just kill the bitch right now,” said one of the men. He pulled out a laser pistol and aimed it at her head.

  Sean tensed as he sent the command through his link. “Not yet, your Majesty. We’re not in position.”

  I don’t care, sent Sean, staring at the man with the pistol to his lover’s head. Do it, now. He pushed a decorative button on his cuff, activating the field of the high tech impact armor, then sent the commands through his link.

  A pain shot through his left arm, the wormhole in the metal block expanding, ripping through muscle and tendons. That was nothing compared to the agony that came next, as a large object was shoved through the now expanded hole, completing the rip of the forearm muscles.

  A moment later a thick gas filled the room, transported in by a quantum teleportation device. Of course not all of the gas made it into the room. Some went into the adjoining chambers, with the same effect as this chamber, knocking some of the kidnappers off their feet to land unconscious on the ground.

  Sean wrenched free of his captors, raised his left arm at the same time as the gas appeared, and triggered the laser that was in his arm. The agony before was as nothing, and Sean clamped down his jaws while the X-ray laser beam cut through his own flesh, vaporizing half of his left hand. He swept the beam through the gun arm of the man holding the weapon to Jennifer’s head, cutting it cleanly from the body to drop to the floor. The man stared at it for a moment before his eyes rolled up and he followed his limb to the floor.

  Some of the gas was teleported inside the bodies, and Sean felt light headed for a moment until the nanites that had been programmed to attack the gas molecules went to work. Nanobubbles released oxygen into his system, obviating the need to breath. He still had to keep his mouth shut and remember to not breath
in, despite the urge to scream his lungs out.

  Something hit him hard in the shoulder, the impact armor stiffening up and stopping the round from penetrating all the way through. He spun and fell to see the woman in charge still on her feet and tracking him with a pistol. He swept his arm across her body and triggered the X-ray laser, cutting through her like a sword blade. Her upper body slid off the angle of the cut, and Sean stared at the internal structure that was revealed. As he had thought, that structure was not human, and she was a shifter.

  The door opened, and a pair of men tried to run in at the same time, weapons questing. Sean cut them in half with the laser, then shot a blast through the door. The floor was shaking underneath, and the rumbles of explosions sounded in the distance. Sean shot down another man, then fought to stay conscious, knowing that if he blacked out there would be no one to defend Jennifer or himself.

  The light faded in front of him, and a distant scream sounded in his ears. Then he knew nothing, his last thought wondering if he would wake up again.

  *

  JULY 11TH AND 12TH, 1001.

  Sean opened his eyes lying in bed, the face of the woman he had risked everything for looking down at him.

  “He’s awake,” yelled Jennifer over her shoulder, then smiled at him. “You were an idiot.”

  “So they got there in time,” said Sean, watching as Ekaterina Sergiov and Senior Secret Service Agent Mays came into the room, just ahead of the doctor. Lord T’Lisha came stomping in next, along with CNO McCollum. He looked back at the woman. “If it worked, it was genius.”

  “And you will never do such a thing again, your Majesty,” said Ekaterina Sergiov, a frown on her face. “Do you hear me?”

  Sean nodded as he studied the woman’s face. The same name as my last ship, he thought, telling himself to look up her lineage and see how she was related to that long dead Duke. “Where am I?”

  “You are at the Naval Hospital in the Hexagon, your Majesty” said the Doctor, the rank of a Captain on her lab coat. “You are recovering nicely, but I would like to keep you here for observation tonight.”