Sten s-1

by Allan Cole

  Bet set the pickup to another frequency, and touched it to the door. Eyes closed. . .her fingers ran across the pressure switches. Inaudible pressure increased/decreased in Sten's ears. There was a click. The main lock was open.

  Bet extracted a plastic rod from her pouch. Touched the heat button, and positioned it carefully in the middle of the door's panel. On the end of the rod, heated to human body temperature, was a duplicate of Thoresen's index fingerprint. Sten wondered how Mahoney had obtained it.

  The door chunked—the Delinqs grabbed for weapons—and swung open.

  Sten and the others cat-walked inside.

  Time stopped. They were in space. They were in an exotic, friendly jungle.

  They were in the very top of The Eye. Thoresen's quarters. The cover to the dome top was open, and space glittered down at them. Sten was the only one who'd seen off-Vulcan. He had enough presence to softly close the doors and look around.

  There was no one else in the dome.

  A garden. With furniture here and there, flowing gently into flowering wildness, as if someone had removed the walls, ceiling, and floor of a very large house, leaving in place all of the implements of living.

  The Delinqs moved, recovering.

  Sten spotted a motion detector swiveling toward them. He ran forward and leaped, knife plunging through the pickup. Sten spotted other cameras and pointed. The Delinqs nodded. Moved forward, fading into the unfamiliar shrubbery.

  Sten, Oron, and Bet kept together, looking for what would be an office. At one side of the dome was an elaborate salle d'armes. Blades and guns of many worlds and cultures hung from the dome panels. And, on the other side, an imposing, free-floating slab that had to be a desk. Behind it, the most elaborate computer panel Sten had ever seen. Nearby stood a stylized sculpture of an enormously fat woman. Maybe.

  Sten looked at Oron questioningly. His eyes gleamed bright. He waved them at the sculpture.

  Sten and Bet slid up to it. It had to be. A narrow UV trip beam crossed in front of it. Sten took a UV projector from his belt, flipped it on, adjusted the intensity, and hung it in front of the pickup across the chamber.

  It took several minutes to find the tiny crack in the sculpture. Sten fingered all projections on the sculpture. It wasn't that simple. Probably a sequence release that would take forever to figure out.

  Oron turned, and Sten took the small maser projector from the ruck Oron wore. Opened it up, aimed the maser sights at the crack, and flipped it on. A little pressure on the trigger and the sculpture powdered. Underneath was a touch-combinationed door. Sten very carefully took a freeze carrier from his own pack and undipped a tiny tripod.

  He opened the freeze carrier and a white vapor spilled into the room from the near Kelvin-Zero cylinder inside. Sten pulled on an insulated glove and attached the cylinder to the tripod, aiming the release spout at the right side of the safe door. He armed the release and backed away.

  Spray jetted from the cylinder and crystallized against the hull-strength steel door to the safe. Then Bet took a hammer from her pouch and tapped. The metal shattered like glass. The three grinned at each other.

  They were in.

  Papers, more papers, bundles of Imperial credits—Sten started to stuff bills in his pouch but Oron waved at him. No.

  Then came a thick red folder. BRAVO PROJECT. They had it!

  None of them noticed the young Delinq who'd wandered into the salle. Fascinated by an archaic long arm, he took it from the wall. The bracket clicked softly upward.

  Sten handed the Bravo folder to Oron. The blank look suddenly returned to Oron's eyes. He looked, puzzled, at the folder and stood up. The folder spilled, papers scattering across the floor. Sten muttered and started gathering papers. No kind of order—scattered all over the floor. Sten worked as fast as he could.

  The first blast caught three Delinqs in the chest, and side scatter from the riot gun blistered the foliage. The Sociopatrolman in the door pulled the trigger all the way back and swiveled.

  The second blast caught a Delinq as he dived through some brush, burning away half his chest. Coughing screams broke the silence. Sociopatrolmen streamed through the door—guns out.

  Bet pulled a grenade from her belt, thumbed the fuse, and pitched it, going flat, as death seared above her head.

  Sten rolled toward the salle, ducking behind the first shelter he saw.

  Three joined tanks, with a long hose and twin handles. Some kind of weapon.

  The placard above the museum piece read: EARTH PRE-EMPIRE. RESTORED. FLAME WEAPON. It Was Sten's luck that Thoresen, like many collectors, kept his weaponry ready for use. Sten grabbed the hose's two handles, and pulled them both. He saw the puff from the cone head at the nozzle, a small flare of fire, and then greasy, black flame spurted from the nozzle.

  It spouted fifty meters across the chamber—a far greater range than its aeons-dead builders planned—and napalm drenched the Sociopatrolmen. They howled, for it was a very unpleasant series of deaths, whether a patrolman was lucky enough to have the oxygen sucked from his lungs by the searing flames, or, worse, as the sticky, petroleum-based napalm burnt through to the bone. But one man stopped screaming long enough to spray a burst from his gun just as a still-bewildered Oron walked forward. His head spattered through the chamber.

  Robotlike, Sten stalked forward, hosing the nozzle back and forth. Finger locked on the trigger, eyes wide in panic. And then the flame sputtered and dribbled back to the nozzle.

  Sten dropped it and just stood there.

  Bet grabbed his arm.

  "Come on!"

  Sten came back to the world. The patrol team that had been blocking the entrance was gone. All dead.

  Sten and Bet ran for the door, and only one other Delinq came out of his hiding place after them.

  They went out the door and pelted down the corridor. There wasn't time enough to make it back to their rat paneling. All they could hope to do was put distance between them and Thoresen's quarters.

  A running blur—the three of them down corridors, ducking as patrolmen came after them. Panicked Execs back and doors slamming and locking.

  A floor grating. Sten and Bet heaving up. The grating coming clear.

  Sten looked down. The passage went down, endlessly. No fans or acceleration ducting. He didn't know what it was for, but it didn't matter. A team of patrolmen was jogging down the corridor after them.

  Narrow climbing cleats ran down the side, and Sten could make out some kind of tunnel about ten meters below the main passageway. He waved Bet into the hole. She clambered in awkwardly and Sten realized she'd been hit somehow. Sten followed.

  The other Delinq was still shaking his head when the riot gun blast caught him and blew him apart.

  Bet slipped, one foot left the cleat and her leg fluttered into the passageway. Gunk. Grease. Something. She clawed at the cleat, lost her handhold. Screamed.

  Too late, Sten reached for her as he stared down half a world. Bet, screaming endlessly, fell away from him.

  Sten watched her body drop away. Until he couldn't see it. Then, somehow moving quickly, he slid sideways and began working his way down the passageway.

  Mahoney paced his office. After he heard the alarms, he had monitored the patrol net and heard the riot squads being sent in.

  The door opened suddenly and Sten walked into the room. Empty-handed. "They caught us. They caught us. Bet's dead."

  Mahoney caught himself. "Bet. That girl?"

  "Yes. She's dead. Dead. And the file. What you wanted. Oron had it."

  "Where's Oron?"

  "Oron's dead. Like Bet."

  Mahoney squelched his natural reaction to curse. "All right. It's blown. But the bargain still stands. I've got the cruiser standing by."

  "No. I don't want to go."

  "Then what do you want?"

  "A gun. Bet's dead, you see."

  "You're going back out there?"

  "Bet's dead."

  "Yes. I keep two over there.
In that desk."

  Sten turned around and walked to the desk. He never heard Mahoney's step or saw the meat-ax hand snapping down. Sten crashed forward, across the desk.

  Mahoney eased Sten around and gentled him into the chair. Then allowed himself a personal reaction. "Clot!" He brought himself back, and took a copy of the Articles from a drawer. He laid Sten's right hand on it.

  "I'm not knowing what religion you have. If any. But this'll do. Do you—whatever your name is—Sten it is. First name unknown. Swear to defend the Eternal Emperor and the Empire with your life—I know you do, boy. Do you solemnly swear to obey lawful orders given you, and to honor and follow the traditions of the Imperial Guard as the Empire requires? You do that, too. I welcome you, Sten, to the service of the Empire. You've not made a mistake, enlisting in the Guard. And it's a personal honor to me that you've chosen me own mother regiment, the Guard's First Assault."

  He put the book down, and stopped. Ruffled Sten's hair.

  "You're a poor sorry bastard, and it's a shame things have worked the way they did. The least I can do is get you off this hellworld and let you be alive awhile longer."

  He tabbed the communicator switch.

  "Lieutenant. In my office. A new recruit for the Guard, Seems to have fainted when he realized the awful majesty of it all."

  Mahoney took a bottle of synthalk from his desk and without bothering with a glass, poured a long drink down nis throat.

  "With the wind at your back, lad."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THORESEN WAS WADING in excuses and assurances from the chief of security. The more he looked at the man's vid-screen image, the more he wanted to smash his earnest face. "No real harm done," the man said. How could he know?

  Thoresen didn't really give a damn about the damage to his quarters or the charred bodies of the patrolmen. But what about Bravo Project? He had recovered the file. But he'd be a fool not to act on the assumption that someone had seen enough of the file to be dangerous.

  Thoresen's head snapped up as he caught something in the drone from his chief of security.

  "What did you say?"

  "We have recovered the bodies of thirteen Delinqs and full identities have been made."

  "Not that. After."

  "Uh, one, possibly two of them escaped."

  So. He was right to worry.

  "Who were they?"

  "Well, sir," the chief said, "we recovered a hair particle in your quarters. A chromosome projection estimates the man would have been—"

  "Let me see for myself," the Baron snapped.

  A computer image began to build on the screen as the chromoanalysis built the image of a man cell by cell. Finally, there was a complete three-dimensional figure. It was Sten. Thoresen studied the image carefully, then shook his head. He didn't recognize the suspect. "Who is he?"

  "A Mig named Karl Sten, sir. Reported missing in that Exotic Section explosion some cycles—"

  "You mean the man responsible for that debacle is alive? How could he possibly—oh, never mind. That's all."

  "But, sir, there's more infor—"

  "I'll go over the report myself. Now. That's all!" The Baron scrolled the report that was Sten's life. It didn't take him long. There wasn't much to it, really, if you separated out all the legal and psych trash.

  Suddenly, the connection was made. The Bravo Project. Sten was an orphan of Recreational Area 26. The Row had come back to haunt him.

  He palmed the console board and the startled face of the chief leaped on the screen.

  "I want this man found. Immediately. I want every person available on this."

  "Uh, I'm afraid that's impossible, sir."

  "Why is that?" Thoresen hissed.

  "Well, we—uh. . .have located him. He's on an Imperial troop ship, bound for—"

  Thoresen blanked the man out. It was impossible. How could—? Then he pulled himself together. He'd find this Sten. And then. . .

  A few moments later the Baron was talking quietly to a little gray man on a little gray world. The hunt for Sten had begun.

  BOOK THREE—THE GUARD

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  NUCLEAR FIRES BLOOMED up from the planet, silhouetting the warships hanging just out of the atmosphere.

  "H minus fifty seconds and counting. Red One, Red Two detached to individual control. Begin entry maneuvers." The command ship's transmission crackled in the assault ship's control chambers.

  Controls went live, and the fleet transports swung in from their orbital stations. Braking rockets flared as the ships killed velocity and sank closer toward atmosphere's edge.

  "Foxfire Six, I have an observed ground launch. Predicted intersection. . .uh, thirty-five seconds. Interception probability eighty-three percent. Beginning diversion. . ." signaled an observation and interdiction satellite.

  Foxfire Six's pilot cursed and slammed full power to the drive on his assault transport. He picked a random evasion pattern chip and fed it into the computer.

  Deep in the ship's guts, Sten crashed forward against the safety straps. His platoon sergeant slammed against the capsule wall. The ceiling rotated around Sten, swung up crazily, and then went away as the artificial gravity went dead.

  Sten and the other men in his platoon wedged themselves more tightly in the shock cocoons as gravity came and went in a dozen directions while the transport veered. The control room speaker crackled: "Four seconds until atmosphere. H minus thirty. . .antimissile evasion tactics in progress."

  Pinpoint flames leaped from the O and I satellite as it launched a dozen intercepts down toward the six pencil lines of smoke curling up for the transport. Close to the black of space, pure light flashed. "Foxfire Six, I have a hit on one of your birds. Hit also tumbled gyros on second bird. Suggest you make diversionary launch."

  The transport's weapons officer dumped two batteries of gremlins to home on the upcoming missiles. The gremlins spewed chaff as they dropped.

  A missile fell for the ruse, and diverted onto a gremlin. The others, probably ground-guided, homed on the huge troop transport.

  "Foxfire Six, intercept now ninety-nine percent. Suggest you launch troop caps."

  Inside Sten's capsule, the beeper went off, and a computer voice announced, "Capsule launch on short countdown. Surface impact one minute twelve seconds."

  The transport pilot hit the launch key and the craft seemed to explode. The huge cone separated from the ship's main body, then spewed twenty long capsules into space. The capsules went to automatic regime, and targeted on the robot homer already in place on the target zone.

  The grizzled corporal cocooned next to Sten said thoughtfully, "Guess they got us targeted. Six to five they'll take us out before we ground. Naw. Make that eight to five. Want a piece?"

  Sten shook his head, and the capsule rotated around him again.

  Forty-six seconds had passed since the invasion elements, Red One and Red Two, had dropped away from the fleet.

  The sky around the planet was blazing from nuke and conventional explosions.

  Two missiles proximity-detonated on troop capsules. Sten's capsule juddered. "In atmosphere," the corporal said. An idiot-level radar in the capsule nose tsked and told the capsule's computer to kill speed. Huge wings snapped out from the capsule's sides, and nose rockets bellowed. The capsule's vertical dive shallowed as the wings' leading edges went red then up into white. The air-howl was deafening inside the capsule.

  Nearly simultaneously, the capsule's computer dumped three tear-away parachutes out the tail, and pulsed rockets to turn the capsule's course away from the ocean, back on track with the TZ homer. The computer deployed two sets of divebrakes to burn away before the capsule was subsonic.

  Short-range ground/air missiles flashed up from the air defenses around the planet's capital below Sten's capsule. One- and two-man tacships skipped and skidded through the black blossoms, then tucked and went in.

  Laser sights targeted launch sites, and glidebombs dropped, locked in.
>
  The second wave of tacships swept across the city, scatterbombs cascading down. In the city's heart, a firestorm raged, solid steel and concrete flowing in rivers as the city melted.

  A terrain-following missile picked up Sten's incoming capsule, targeted and went to full boost, but lost the capsule in ground clutter. Unable to pull his bird out, the missile's officer manually detonated, hoping to do damage with a near miss.

  The capsule pancaked in, up a wide avenue. Touchdown!—and the shockwave caught the capsule, one wing slamming against the street, and then the capsule pin-wheeled.

  Sten's eyes came open. Blackness. Then the minicharges blew and the capsule's bulkheads dropped away.

  The men cascaded out, onto the street.

  Sten stumbled, regained his feet, and automatically knocked down his helmet's flare visor. He hit the breakaway harness on the willygun; magazine in; armed; Sten went down on one knee. Ten meters away from his nearest squadmate.

  Landing security perimeter complete. A bellow from the platoon sergeant: "First. Second squads. Maneuver. Third squad. Security. Weapons squad, set up over by that statue."

  "Come on. Diamond. Move it."

  Sten and his squaddies moved forward, hugging the side of the street. Sten's ears finally decided to return to life, and now he could hear the clatter of bootheels and the creak of his weapons harness.

  The first missile from the weapons squad's launchers shushed into the air, and swung, patrolling for a target. "Come on, you. You ain't got time for bird-watching. Keep your—"

  The squad went flat as rubble crashed. Sten rolled through a doorway and came back up.

  He ducked down, out of sight as the huge, gray-painted assault tank rumbled through a building and toward his squad.

  Sten fumbled a grenade from his belt, armed it, and overhanded the small ovoid toward the track. The grenade burst, meters short, and Sten dove for the deck as one of the tank's two main turrets swiveled toward him.