The Chosen

by S. M. Stirling

  * * *

  "Hell!"

  Jeffrey Farr rolled frantically as a one-ton pallet of cargo crashed out of the sky towards him. It landed, slithered downslope, and pitched on its side, resting against a gnarled dead grapevine. The outline of the dirigible was suddenly clear against the stars, the diesels bellowing and the exhausts red spikes in the night. For an instant the heavy oily stink of the exhaust overrode the other smells of the night battle, the fireworks scent of black powder and death.

  He rolled again as a dark figure lunged out of the shadows at him behind the point of an eighteen-inch socket bayonet, an Imperial infantryman. Jeffrey's pistol came free in his hand as the bayonet went skunk into the rocky clay next to him, and his finger tightened on the trigger. In the red light of the muzzle blast he could see the contorted face of the Imperial soldier for a flickering second, before the man dropped away, folding around his belly. Jeffrey froze for an instant; he'd just killed a man, an ally . . .

  Happens more often than you'd think, Raj thought/ said crisply. Get moving, lad. Time enough for nightmares later.

  Something went pop overhead. Actinic blue-white light flooded the field.

  * * *

  The man behind the gatling pitched forward; his face jammed the mechanism as the cranker kept grinding for an instant. Several of the crew turned, snatching up their carbines. Gerta went down on one knee, snuggled the butt of the machine-carbine into her shoulder, and began shooting. The range was less than thirty meters, point-blank if you knew the weapon. Someone was shooting at the crew from the other side, a rifle by the sound of it. That distracted them the few seconds necessary to cut down half of them with four short bursts. Muzzle flare from the Koegelman was blinding in the darkness, enough to make her eyes water and leave afterimages of a bar of fire dancing before them.

  The drum of the machine-carbine clicked empty just as the parachute flare went off overhead; whoever had been supporting her wasn't anymore, and the Imperials stopped trying to get their jammed gatling going again. Six of them charged her; no time to reload one of the cumbersome drums. She blinked her eyes frantically in the jerky shadows, waiting tensely.

  They were trying for her with cold steel, probably out of ammunition or saving their last shots for point-blank range in this uncertain light. The first lunged, almost throwing himself forward behind the point, eyes wild. Gerta buttstroked aside the bayonet and slammed the steel plate into his throat. Cartilage crunched in and he fell backward, choking, knocked off his feet by the combined impetus of her blow and his own rush. She dropped the carbine and drew the long fighting knife slung at the small of her back with one hand and her automatic with the other.

  One. Coming at her with his carbine clubbed, grasped by the barrel. Wait, wait. She went in under the blow, felt it fan the air inches from her forehead, and ripped the long blade upward. It slid in under the left ribs, sawing upward until the point was through lung and heart. Weight slumped onto her right hand.

  Gerta pivoted with the body before her, and the man behind hesitated an instant. She shot over the shoulder of the twitching corpse. The bullet hit the bridge of the Imperial's nose and snapped his head backward as if it had been kicked by a mule. A bullet thumped into her meat-shield; she fired again, again, until the twelve rounds in her automatic were exhausted.

  I'm alive, she thought, staggering and letting the dead weight slip off the end of her knife. She took a step and stumbled; something had gouged a groove across her left thigh and she hadn't even noticed. Gerta pushed away the pain while her hands automatically ejected the spent clip and reloaded the pistol. She moved forward, limping, up the slope to where the bulk of her unit should—should—be. Another parachute flare burst, and she threw herself down and crawled as machine-gun bullets whipcracked through the air where she had been. Spurts of sand and rock flicked into her face, and the wound was starting to hurt. The Land position ought to be just ahead . . . assuming there was anyone left alive besides that trigger-happy gunner who'd just come within a hair of sawing her in half.

  "What a ratfuck."

  * * *

  Boots nearly landed on him as the dirigible turned away. Something whipped across his body, hard enough to hurt: a sisal cable. Dozens of others were dropping down out of the night, and human forms were sliding down them. Two more nearly trampled on him, ignoring Jeffrey and the corpse in their rush; they did use the body of the man he'd just killed as a springboard. A half-dozen grappled with the big pallet that had nearly crushed him. Seconds later they were stripping out a heavy water-cooled machine gun with its tripod and ammunition, slapping it down and opening up on the masses of Imperial infantry caught charging to finish off the Land blocking force. Tracers whipped out through the darkness, iridescent green, like bars of St. Elmo's fire. Infantry shook themselves out into their units and swept down the Land line, winkling out Imperials who'd made it that far.

  Damn, I've never seen troops move that fast, he thought. They were in full marching kit, and they moved like leopards.

  an all-chosen unit, Center observed. Jeffrey's vision took on a flat brightness. identifying markers—The brightness strobed over unit badges.

  They've been culling out the weakest ten percent of their own breed every generation for four hundred years, Raj said. And skimming off the top one or two percent of their Protégés at the same time. You'd expect it to show.

  Jeffrey shuddered, even with rounds still splitting the air above him. It's a good thing there aren't more of them, he thought. There'd be no stopping them.

  if there were more, Center observed, it would be impossible to support so large and so specialized a nonproductive class.

  Always a lot fewer carnosauroids than grazers, Raj amplified.

  The image that came with the thought made him shudder a moment even then: something man-sized and whip-slender, leaping to slash a bloody gouge in an ox's side with a sickle-shaped claw on its hind foot, like a fighting cock grown big enough to scythe his belly open.

  Heinrich was back on his feet, bellowing orders. Protégé troopers broke open boxes of ammunition, dashing back to their positions with cotton bandoliers around their necks and boxes of machine-gun belts in their hands.

  Jeffrey did a three-point spin at a sound behind him, landing on hip and one hand. He froze as he found himself looking down the use-pitted muzzle of a Land automatic. A Chosen woman with captain's insignia on her field-gray rose; short for one of that race, and dark, he could tell that even in the moonlight. Blood was runneling black down one thigh, where the uniform had been ripped open by a grazing shot.

  "What the hell is a Santy doing here?" she said, standing, favoring the wounded leg a little.

  "You!" Heinrich said, turning, a broad grin on his square face. "I might have known."

  "I was the closest—the marching reliefs ought to get here about dawn," the woman said. "What the hell is a Santy officer doing with you, Heinrich?"

  Closer, he could see the General Staff Intelligence Commando flashes on cuff and collar. Must be—

  gerta hosten, captain, intelligence branch, Center supplied helpfully.

  A dangerous one, son, Raj said. Be very careful.

  Jeffrey could have told that. The eyes fastened on him were the coldest he'd ever seen, colder than the far side of the moon.

  "Oh, we picked him up in Corona," Heinrich said.

  "You should have turned him over to us, or the Fourth Bureau."

  "Well, he's a neutral—and a relative of sorts, Johan's foster-brother. At loose ends, the Santy legation in Corona stopped a couple of thousand-kilo bombs with its roof."

  "Jeffrey Farr," Gerta said; she seemed to be filing and sorting information behind her eyes. "He's a spook, Heinrich. You ought to shoot him."

  "I haven't been showing him the plans for the new torpedo," Heinrich said, a slight exasperation in his voice.

  Gerta shrugged, and holstered her automatic. Jeffrey felt a slight prickle of relief. Unlikely that she'd just shoot him down as
he stood—

  probability 27%, ±7, Center said.

  —but it was still a relief. She shrugged.

  "It's your command. Let's get this ratfuck organized, shall we?"

  "Ya." Heinrich turned his head slightly, towards Jeffrey: "My wife, Captain Gerta Hosten." Back to her: "What's the theater situation?"

  "FUBAR, but we're winning—not exactly the way we expected to, but we are. Once this position's blocked, General Summelworden's got them in the kettle and we can turn up the heat; Ciano next. Where do you want my machine guns? And get me something to stop this leak, would you? I can't keel over just yet."

  "Automatics over by—"

  The conversation slid into technicalities. Heinrich waved at a passing medic who then knelt to put a pressure bandage on Gerta's thigh.

  Ciano next, Jeffrey thought. That's going to be ugly.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Everything was calm and unhurried in the Imperial situation room. There was a huge map of the Empire on one wall, stuck with black pins to represent Land forces and green ones for Imperial. A relief map of the same territory stood in a sunken area in the center of the floor, with a polished mahogany rail around it, and enlisted men pushed unit counters with long-handled wooden rakes. One wall of the big room was all telephones and telegraphs, their operators scribbling on pads and handing them to decoders.

  Aides in polished boots and neat, colorful uniforms strode back and forth; generals frowned at the maps; the Emperor tugged at his white whiskers and bunked sleepy, pouched eyes. Behind him stood guards in ceremonial uniform, and several civilians . . .

  No, John Hosten thought, appraising them. Their eyes flickered ceaselessly over the room, appraising, watching. Waiting. The real guards. And by their looks, the only people in this room who're doing their jobs.

  John Hosten approached, flanked by two ushers, and made his bow. Behind the surface of his mind he could feel Raj and Center examining the maps, the computer's passionless appraisal and Raj's cold scorn.

  Systematic lying, Raj thought. All the way up the chain of command. It's always the commander's fault when that happens. Once you let people start telling you what you want to hear, you're fucked—and everyone else with you.

  "Rise, Signore Hosten," the Emperor said.

  He was an old man, but John was slightly shocked at his appearance; there was a perceptible tremble to his hands now, and a faint smell of sickness. Count del'Cuomo beside him looked even worse, if possible—but then, he probably had better information available, as Minister of War.

  "Your Majesty," John said.

  He handed over the folder of documents, neatly tied with a green-and-red ribbon.

  "My credentials, Your Majesty. And my regrets, but my government requires my services at home. I will be returning to Santander City."

  The Emperor smiled absently. "And taking one of our fairest flowers with you . . . where is young Pia?"

  "Currently, she's working as a volunteer nurse," John said. Against my advice.

  The Emperor frowned. "Not . . . not really suitable, I'd have thought," he murmured.

  Count del'Cuomo shrugged. "She was always too much for me, your Majesty," he said. He looked up at John. "But my son-in-law will take good care of her, and return in happier times, when we have driven the tedeschi back to their island, as we did before."

  John bowed again, more deeply, and took the required four paces backward. That nearly ran him into an aide with a stack of telegrams, but he ignored the man. Ignored everything, until a turn down the corridor gave him a view down over the city. Then he took in a sharp breath.

  It was early morning, still almost dark. The news of the fall of Milana must have reached the people in the hour or so he'd spent waiting. Not from a courier or coded message, surely; the Imperial armies hadn't fallen apart quite that drastically . . . yet. More probably from a refugee on a fast riverboat. As for official statements, by this time they just confirmed what they denied. Even when they were sincere, and he'd bet it just meant that the lower-level functionaries writing them had been suckered by their own propaganda.

  John Hosten stood for a moment looking down at the rioting and the fires, past the gardens of the palace and the cordon of Guard troops stationed along the perimeter. A man of thirty, tall and a hard-faced, in a diplomat's black morning coat, wing collar and dark-striped trousers. A servant almost walked into him, saw his face and silently stood aside.

  "Back to the embassy," John said to himself; then aloud, to the driver of his car.

  "Don't know if we can, sir," the driver said. He was an embassy man himself, diplomatic service, and quite capable. Harry. Harry Smith, John reminded himself. It was too easy to forget about people, when you spent time looking at the world through Centers eyes.

  Too true, son, Raj said. And if you think it's a problem for you . . .

  "Lot of the streets looked to be blocked," Smith went on. He shrugged. "Kin find m' way through, maybe."

  "Mr. Smith," John said.

  The driver twisted around to look at him; he was a slight, grizzled man, with blue eyes and wrinkles beside them. There was a slight eastern twang in his Santander. John recognized it, and the manner.

  "My wife is down near the train station, working in the emergency hospital," he said. "I have to get to the embassy to get some help so I can get through to her. If you don't think you can make it through, I'll drive."

  The blue eyes squinted at him. "Nossir. You watch our back, I'll drive." He reached under the front seat and pulled out a pump-action shotgun. "You know how to use one of these, sir?"

  Smiling, John took it and racked the action. A shell popped out; he caught it one-handed and fed it back into the gate in front of the trigger. A wary respect came into Smiths eyes; it increased when John tucked the weapon under a traveling rug on the seat beside him.

  "I'll bring it out if we need to use it, or show it to somebody," he said. "Now let's get going."

  * * *

  "I need some volunteers," John said. "To get someone out of the city."

  He nearly had to shout over the clamor of the crowd outside the gilded wrought-iron gates of the embassy compound. There were thousands of them, more crowded down the street, surging and screaming. Marine guards in blue dress uniforms were stationed inside the gate and along the walls, carrying rifles with fixed bayonets. A little ceremonial saluting cannon had been wheeled out and faced the main entranceway, just as a hint in case the crowd decided to try and batter the metal down. That was unlikely; under the gilding the bars were as thick as a woman's wrist. The Marines were discouraging those trying to break through with the butts of their rifles, or short jabs with their bayonets. Nothing more was needed, not yet.

  A slow trickle was getting in, through the postern gate beside the main ones; people with valid Santander papers, or spouses, or embassy personnel who'd gotten trapped out in the city.

  "Sir?" The Marine captain looked around incredulously.

  "Captain, my wife is out there, and I need some volunteers to help me get through the crowd."

  The captain opened his mouth; John could see the snap of refusal forming. He looked the man in the eye.

  "This is very important duty," he said meaningfully.

  It wasn't much of a secret in the compound that John was with the Secret Service. Nor that he was immensely rich, or that he had connections at the highest levels, military and civilian.

  "I'm not sending any of my men out into that," the officer said bluntly, jerking a hand towards the near-riot beyond the gate. Just then was a barked order, and the dozen troopers by the gate fired a volley into the air. The crowd surged back with screams of panic, then ran forward again when nobody fell.

  "I wouldn't ask you to," John said. "I'm going, whether anyone wants to come with me or not. I'd appreciate some help, but I don't expect you to order anyone out."

  The Marine officer hesitated. "My responsibility is to guard the perimeter."

  "And to assist the staff
in their functions."

  Decision crystallized. "All right, sir. You can ask. Sergeant!"

  A thickset man with a shaven head covered in a network of scars looked up. The Santander Marines saw a lot of travel, mostly to places where the locals didn't like them.

  "Sir!"

  "Mr. Hosten needs some volunteers to accompany him into the city and pull someone out. See if anybody feels like it."

  What was left of the sergeant's eyebrows—they'd evidently been burned off his face at some point—rose. He looked appraisingly at John and smiled like a dog worrying a bone.

  "Hey, Sarge."

  John looked around; it was the driver.

  "Yeah, Harry?"

  "It's righteous, Sarge. I'm going."

  The noncom looked down at the drivers legs, and the graying man shrugged.

  "Hey, we're driving—I don't have to sprint."

  "You always were a natural-born damned fool, Harry," the sergeant said. He looked back at John. "I'll pass the word, sir."

  John stripped off the morning coat as he waited, switching to the four-pocket hunting jacket his valet brought and gratefully throwing aside the starched collar of his dress shirt. Smith glanced at the shoulder rig that lay exposed.

  "Guess I shouldn't have asked about the scattergun, sir," he said.

  "How could you know?" John pointed out. "Look, am I likely to get anyone?"

  "Besides me?" Harry shrugged. "I've been out of the corps a while now, but Berker knows me—hell, Berker carried me out when I got a slug through both legs. He'll—"

  The bald sergeant returned, with five men behind him. They were all armed, and several of them were stuffing gear into field packs.

  "Sir!" he said. "Corporal Wilton, privates Goms, Barrjen, Sinders, and Maken." In a whisper: "Ah, sir, I sort of hinted there'd be some sort of reward, you know?"

  "There certainly will be," John said. To the men: "All right, here's the drill. We're heading for the main train station and the emergency hospital that's been set up there. We're going to pick up Mrs. Hosten—Lady Pia Hosten—and then we're either coming back here, or getting out the city to the east, depending on which looks most practical. I expect anyone who comes with me to follow orders and not be nervous about risks. Understood?"