The general eyed him warily. He shook his head with a sigh. “You just can’t let things go, can you, Ezekial?”
“Sir, with all due respect—and that’s a very, very great deal of respect—you don’t know the half of it.”
Nakamura frowned at this. He pursed his lips, studied Tamerlane’s face, then nodded once. “Speak, then.”
“With pleasure.” Tamerlane quickly launched into an extremely abbreviated version of recent events. He began with the Emperor’s order for him to break into the Imperial vault on Candis and steal the Sword of Baranak from the Emperor’s own holdings.
Nakamura interrupted him immediately. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m dead serious.”
“That was you? You stole it?” He scoffed. “Ezekial—please. I find that extremely hard to believe—for several different reasons.”
“Oh, it gets much better.”
Nakamura offered him a strange expression and motioned for him to continue, but more quietly. To either side of them, their troops were filing past, withdrawing from the debacle their current mission had become.
Tamerlane reminded the general how his success at this covert and rather bizarre mission had of course resulted in his public demotion from colonel to major—seeing as how Tamerlane himself had been in charge of security—and his reassignment to the exploratory team aboard the Donbas at NM-156.
“I fought that tooth and nail,” the general interjected.
“I know, sir—and I appreciate it.”
“Nobody could have anticipated it,” the older man went on. “Someone being able to break into the Candis vault and steal the Sword of—wait,” Nakamura stopped himself, growing confused. “But—you’re saying you stole it. So you could have anticipated that someone—um—that you—um—”
Tamerlane snorted. “I know. It’s insane. But it gets even crazier.” He continued with his tale: No sooner had he taken up his new position than the Emperor’s representatives had come to him and assigned him an even stranger mission.
“They gave me the sword,” he told Nakamura. “They had recovered it from Candis after I had left it there in a prearranged hidden drop location. They told me the Emperor himself wanted it thrown away.”
Nakamura gaped. “Th—thrown away?” he stammered. “The most priceless object in creation—the weapon that allegedly belonged to the great golden god of battle himself, Baranak—and the Emperor wanted it thrown out?”
“Thrown away in a very specific place,” Tamerlane explained. He told the general of their instructions: to take charge of the team headed to the barren frontier planet, NM-156. To pretend they were investigating a mysterious energy spike there. The truth was far different: An earlier Imperial team had discovered a strange cavern on that world where the walls separating the various levels of reality were extremely thin. It looked as though ancient alien visitors there had already built some sort of equipment to open a portal into the Above. But the previous team had been unable to get the dimensional portal itself to manifest sufficiently for a human being to pass through it. Tamerlane was given a set of equipment that it was hoped would boost the portal’s coherence enough to open a doorway into the realms beyond our own. His chief lieutenant on the mission, Singh, was in on the secret: They were to take the sword with them to the cave, open the portal, and throw the Sword of Baranak through.
“And that’s exactly what I did, at NM-156,” Tamerlane concluded. “Or rather, what Lt. Singh did. I had already been recalled to join you, so I left it to him to finish the job, and I believe he did. And…”
Tamerlane trailed off. Nakamura, who had been listening to all of this with an incredulous expression, finished for him. “The explosion.”
“Yes, sir. As best as I can put it together, the moment Singh threw the sword through the portal, the entire mountain blew up.” He paused, then, “And my entire squad was killed.”
Nakamura stared at him in silence for several long seconds. Then he looked away, gazing off at the horizon.
“I know this is all hard to process, General,” Tamerlane began after a few seconds.
“That’s putting it mildly, Ezekial. And yet…” He frowned, closed his eyes, shook his head slowly, and then finally turned to face the other man. “If it were anyone other than you telling me this ludicrous story, Ezekial,” he said, “I would have them tossed out of the Legion—and up on charges—in a nanosecond.”
Tamerlane could only nod.
“It’s all true, then? Yes,” he answered himself immediately. “I know it is. I know it.” He inhaled deeply and exhaled. Around them, the last of the troops were passing by, headed for the shuttles. “And you don’t know why? Why the Emperor desired any of this to be done? Why he chose you—why he used you like an instrument, from beginning to end?”
Tamerlane shook his head. “No idea, sir. But I did as I was commanded. Every bit of it.”
“Yes,” Nakamura replied. “Yes, you did. No one can fault you there.” He gazed out at the ruined city, but he was obviously deep in thought. “This occurs to me,” he said after a minute. “If the Emperor intended all along to have the sword thrown into the Above, he would’ve had to have it stolen for that purpose beforehand.”
“Sir?”
“Think about it, Ezekial. He couldn’t very well have openly gone to the vaults on Candis and demanded it be handed over to him, so that he could just toss it through some cosmic doorway. The Imperial Senate, among others, would’ve balked. He’d have been deposed, at the very least—or found to be mentally unstable and removed from power for medical reasons.”
“Yes,” Tamerlane nodded. “It had to look like it had been stolen—taken off the grid entirely. At that point, he could do whatever he wanted with it, and no one could stop him. No one would know.”
“No one but you,” Nakamura pointed out.
“And Singh,” Tamerlane said—then winced. “But he’s dead.”
“And you’re the only one left—or were, until you told me.”
“And here we are,” Tamerlane added after a second, “having been sent unprepared into the middle of a death trap.”
Nakamura raised a hand. “Hold on there, Ezekial. Let’s not stretch the conspiracy aspect of this too far. We don’t know—we can’t begin to say—that the Emperor and his top advisors would send our entire unit into a firefight for the sole purpose of having you—and, by extension, the rest of us—killed.”
“We can’t say that, no, General,” the colonel replied. “But it’s hardly the strangest aspect of all of this. It’s a lot less strange than being ordered to steal the Emperor’s own sword and throw it away.”
Nakamura took this in, frowned even more deeply, but didn’t reply.
Before Tamerlane could say anything further, the general jerked his head up sharply—a movement recognizable to anyone in the service as indicating he was receiving a signal over the Aether.
Nakamura engaged in silent conversation for a few seconds, then turned to the colonel and motioned toward the shuttles parked nearby. “Our ships in orbit are safe,” he reported with very visible relief. “We’re clear to evacuate the surface.”
Tamerlane nodded at this. Maybe they would live—maybe everyone in this detachment of the Legion had a chance at survival now. He couldn’t help but wonder if that fact might disappoint someone higher up the chain of command.
After another few seconds of brief conversation, Nakamura’s eyes widened. He broke the connection and looked at the colonel, seeming at a loss for words.
“It’s the Emperor,” the older man managed to blurt after Tamerlane finally had to ask what had so disconcerted him. “He’s on his way into this sector.”
Tamerlane frowned at that. “This sector? But—” He’d started to point out that there was a war going on here, but figured the general was already perfectly aware of that fact.
Nakamura was already hiking rapidly toward the shuttles. Tamerlane hurried to catch up.
“We have
to intercept him,” Nakamura said in a low voice as the colonel moved up alongside him. “He’s young; impetuous. Anxious to be involved. He means well, but he could get himself killed out here. We have to persuade him of that fact, and send him packing back to the palace.”
“He nearly got us killed out here,” Tamerlane couldn’t help but point out.
Nakamura’s eyes flashed up, met his. “We’ll go into that later,” he stated in a low but firm voice.
The two men boarded the nearest shuttle and settled into the cushioned acceleration couches in the passenger cabin. After making sure there would be more than enough space left in the other vehicles for their evacuating troops, Nakamura ordered immediate liftoff.
Once the shuttle was airborne and streaking upward in the direction of the support fleet in orbit, Nakamura turned to Tamerlane. “I’m naming you my adjutant,” he told him.
Tamerlane was taken aback by this. He’d only risen to the rank of colonel a year before Nakamura had reassigned him to Imperial security—and then, of course, he’d lost that rank. To be the top assistant to the top general… Tamerlane’s mind was reeling. Then he considered it from Nakamura’s point of view and his mood darkened. “Are you certain you want to do that, General?” he asked, frowning. “I wouldn’t want my reputation in certain circles of the government to reflect poorly on you.”
The general regarded him with a half-smile. “Ezekial, if you have indeed done the things you say you’ve done at the behest of the Emperor, then—conspiracy theories aside—he can only respect and honor you for that, privately if not publicly. And that means everyone else should, too.” Nakamura offered his old friend a tight smile. “You won’t reflect poorly on me, my old friend. Quite the opposite.”
Tamerlane argued a bit more before at last yielding and accepting the appointment. For a few moments afterward he said nothing, merely considering his sudden change of fortunes. Then he thought about the man who had been his predecessor as adjutant; a man he had scarcely known at all, and that only briefly. “General, what’s become of Colonel Barmakid?”
Nakamura reddened. He rubbed at his chin for a second before answering. “Barmakid has been…removed from First Legion. From the military. From any connection with the government.”
Tamerlane reacted to this with a start. He hadn’t heard about any of it. “Why?”
The general squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “Hard as it is to imagine, evidence was discovered linking him to a cult. A Vorthan cult.”
Tamerlane blinked, completely taken aback. “You have to be kidding. Sir,” he added quickly.
Nakamura shook his head. “It was the most remarkable thing. When interrogated by the Imperial Inquisition, he utterly broke down and started… raving.”
“Raving?”
“About how everything will be different soon… about how some new savior is coming to shake up the galaxy—to pave the way for Vorthan’s return.”
Tamerlane shook his head in astonishment. “Barmakid? I can’t imagine it. He was always intense, of course, but not like that…!”
“You never know,” Nakamura replied. “It’s funny—in our society, there are many gods, both living and dead, that one can worship. But there are a few that, if you’re caught worshipping them, your career will be over. Vorthan, obviously, is one.”
“Even though he’s been dead for centuries.”
“Living or dead doesn’t matter, Ezekial. Gods are gods. The cults surrounding some of the dead ones are bigger than any of the living.”
Tamerlane thought about the pantheon of gods—or at least semi-immortal, godlike beings—that their Empire held in highest regard. The golden sword that had so prominently figured in his activities of late had belonged to one of them—to Baranak, the golden god of battle, dead these many centuries. It had passed to the Emperor’s family many years later, through circumstances that always varied depending on who was telling the story.
“So, Barmakid turned out to be a secret cultist,” Tamerlane marveled. “And now I have his job. Hmm. Never thought my career path would depend on something like that.”
Nakamura chuckled. “You’re exactly where you need to be, Ezekial,” he said. “Right where—” He broke off as a message came through the Aether link. “The Emperor’s ship will arrive at NM-156 ahead of schedule,” he reported after listening. “And likely ahead of us. We have to hurry. When we get back to the ship, get into your dress uniform as quickly as you can and be ready to move.”
Tamerlane nodded. Then he frowned and looked at the general. “Sir—are we supposed to be joining the Emperor there? Do we have orders—or even permission? Does he even know we’re coming?”
Nakamura looked away for a second, then turned back and regarded Tamerlane with his trademark half-smile. “I’ve never let something like that stop me before, have I?”
As a sense of dread fell over Tamerlane, the shuttle moved into position for its rendezvous with Nakamura’s mothership. It slid inside the hangar bay and the doors closed behind it. The instant the hatch opened, Nakamura was on his feet and hustling away. Tamerlane fought his way out of the seatbelts and hurried after him, his sense of gathering danger not diminishing at all.
4
Out onto the wide balcony of the palace at the heart of Anakh strode the planetary governor, Amon Rameses. A tall, stout man in his early forties, he wore the full ceremonial robes afforded to the ruler of the planet Ahknaton—strongly Egyptian in motif, complete with headdress, shimmering blue and gold robes, gilded sword and hooked staff—along with the eight-pointed-star emblem of office of the Imperial court. His skin was deeply tanned, his dark eyes rimmed with black in the local tradition. He stood alone for a moment at the center of the balcony, gazing down at the open square some seventy meters below, and the throng of people gathered there. Seeing him, they cheered; in response, he brought one hand up and offered a very slight wave, as if only grudgingly acknowledging their presence.
A moment later, he was joined on the balcony by another figure—a man wearing a very different outfit. He was clad in the heavy black livery of an officer in the Second Legion of the Empire, with silver metal trim and insignia here and there. His collar was high and his jaw strong. How he stood wearing such clothes in the blazing heat of midday in Anakh was beyond Rameses’ understanding.
“Shall we tend to this last bit of business, Governor?” the man asked, his voice deep and resonant.
Rameses didn’t bother to turn. Truthfully, he found the man’s company distasteful and was anxious for him and his soldiers to depart Ahknaton as soon as possible.
“Certainly,” he replied, placing his hands on the railing and looking down the sloping surface of the pyramid-shaped palace. “Again you have my thanks for the fine work your army has performed on my world, rooting out the cultists that had infested it. I am hopeful that this sector, at the very least, has now seen the end of this fighting for good.”
The other man said nothing; he merely moved alongside the governor and laced his fingers behind his back. His expression was cold and hard; his eyes stared fixedly out at the horizon. After a few seconds of silence, he looked up, touched his index finger on his right hand to his right ear, and nodded. “Thank you, Major,” he sent over the Aether connection. Then he turned to Rameses. “The prisoners are here. My men are bringing them out now.”
Rameses nodded absently. He couldn’t ignore the fact that his skin seemed to crawl whenever the other man was near him. He wasn’t insubordinate; not overtly, at any rate. Could it be entirely psychological on his part? “I don’t know,” he muttered—but didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until the other looked at him suddenly.
“What was that, Governor?”
“Nothing,” Rameses replied, setting his jaw firmly. Now he cast a quick look at the other, assessing him once again, as he had already done at least a half a dozen times since he and his army had arrived on Ahknaton, allegedly at the direct order of the Emperor to settle matters permanently
. There was no question that the man exuded the air of someone who enjoyed settling matters permanently.
Colonel Ioan Iapetus appeared to be in his late thirties, with rough features that looked to have resulted from a lifetime of fistfights. Given the man’s personality and his nickname within the Second Legion—”the Unyielding”—Rameses didn’t find such a possibility all that unlikely. The crisp, well-tailored black uniform lent him an air of sophistication belied by his physical appearance. In short, he looked to Rameses to be a mere street thug dressed up in fancy army clothes.
Seeing Iapetus’s eyes narrow, Rameses turned back to look down into the courtyard. There, soldiers in black carrying gleaming silver blast rifles were herding a group of approximately two dozen men and women through the open archway at one end and out into the open center of the space. The soldiers were not being the least bit gentle with these people, who were quite obviously their prisoners. Seeing the violence exhibited by the troopers, the crowd hurriedly parted to let them all through.
“That’s all of them?” Rameses asked, puzzled.
“It is,” Iapetus replied. “All that are left.”
“I was expecting a much larger group,” Rameses said, looking from the huddled mass of prisoners back to Iapetus. “A terrorist cell—dangerous cultists.”
Iapetus nodded. “Just so.”
Rameses frowned even more deeply. He studied the faces and demeanors of several of the accused, then shook his head slowly. “These would appear to be very average citizens. You mean to tell me they are—”
“Cultists,” Iapetus said flatly, his eyes never once moving away from the circle of prisoners down in the courtyard.
“And their guilt is beyond question?”
Iapetus didn’t bother to reply to this. Perhaps, Rameses thought, he felt such a question was beneath him. This only served to anger the governor. He already didn’t care for the man on a visceral level—now he was making himself an open annoyance.
Rameses turned to face Iapetus, starting to ask another question, determined to gain more of an understanding of the crimes the people below. Before he could speak, however, Iapetus raised a hand to his ear and spoke a command that was inaudible to Rameses.
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 6
