Battlecry: Sten: Omnibus One (Sten Omnibus) (73 page)

The meeting room was a hush of diplomats. It was packed with the Tahn contingent and the Emperor’s aides. In the far corner of the room the Emperor himself huddled in conference with Lord Kirghiz and Tanz Sullamora. Underlings on both sides were waiting for the final word. Was there to be an agreement or were they about to go to war?

If they had been inside the Emperor’s head when the Tahn delegation arrived for the final meeting, there would have been no question. He had noted that everyone, from the lowest-ranking Tahn lord to Lord Kirghiz himself, was dressed in formal uniform. They were decked out in emerald green cloaks, red tunics, and green trousers. The tunics were covered with a rainbow of ribbons and dangling medals.

The Eternal Emperor covered a smile when he saw them; people put on their best for a party, not a declaration of war. He himself was dressed in his most simple uniform: It was a rich, light gray. And he wore only one decoration: his rank as head of state – a small gold button with the letters AM
₂
over a background of the null-element’s atomic structure. The Eternal Emperor had pointed out to Mahoney once that the way to stand out in a crowd of gold braid was to upstage with simplicity. ‘When you’re the ultimate boss,’ he once observed, ‘you don’t have to announce it.’

The Emperor rose to his feet and extended a hand to Kirghiz. ‘Then we’re agreed?’

Lord Kirghiz fought to maintain a dignified face. But he couldn’t help his smile of victory. ‘Agreed.’

‘Then let’s leave the details to our staffs,’ the Emperor said. ‘We can dot our i’s and cross our t’s on a mutually beneficial date.

‘Now, I have taken the liberty of anticipating our peaceful solution to the late difficulties. Gentlemen. Ladies. If I may invite you to a small dinner of appreciation.’

He waved his hand and huge doors hissed open behind him. The Tahn craned their necks to see a richness of food and drink yawning out behind the Emperor. There were loud cheers, much laughter, and the Eternal Emperor led his guests into the banquet room.

The banquet was the highlight of Marr and Senn’s long career. They had spared nothing to lay out one of the most exotic official dinners in Imperial history.

To begin with, they had been faced with the task of making the enormous ship’s banquet hall feel cozy. So they’d ordered the bulkheads moved in, and then draped them in soft colors to warm the atmosphere. The tables were artfully placed so that no one felt cut off from the main attraction, the Emperor and Kirghiz, who were seated across from one another at the head table. They had also gutted the lighting system and installed indirect illumination that picked out the gleam of silver and polish of plate and highlighted the appetizing dishes being served.

The greatest miracle was the food itself. Naturally, since the Emperor was the host, the menu consisted of Tahn dishes, offering condiments and spices that the caterers knew would compliment and entice the Tahn palate.

As for service, they went one step further. The ultimate in luxury was to be served by a person, rather than a machine or even a high-priced waiter bot. Therefore, Marr and Senn had pressed the Praetorian Guards into service. Behind each diner was a Guardsman in full dress who, at the slightest gesture, would pour wine, change a dish or sweep something out of the way.

The man most pleased with the arrangement was Admiral Ledoh. He couldn’t have planned it better himself. He picked up his wine goblet and took a small sip. He had to admit that Marr and Senn were a very talented pair. It was unfortunate that their greatest banquet was to be their last.

Ledoh glanced over to Colonel Fohlee, who was seated at the far end of the table. Ledoh raised his glass to Fohlee in a silent toast. Fohlee returned the salute.

In a time when subspace communication was nearly perfect, the ship-to-ship wire-line was as archaic as a speaking tube. But not off NG 467H. And so the bot jetted out toward the
Normandie
on peroxide rockets, trailing wire behind.

Its circuitry may have been thirty years old and out of use, but it still told the bot to home … home
there
… on that ring of sensitive metal … closing … reverse … jets … and the com-line clicked home and the line was open to the
Normandie.

‘This is Dr. Shapiro,’ came the voice from the
Normandie.
‘How many casualties do you have?’

‘This is Commander Lavonne. Thirty-five. My med officer says twelve are critical, third-degree flash burns, unstable. All others second- or third-degree burns, semistable.’

‘Stand by.’

Half-moon clamps slid out from the
Normandie
, locked onto the
San Jacinto
and pulled the two ships’ cargo doors into proximity mating, and the doors opened.

Sten’s forty Gurkhas spilled out into the
Normandie
’s hold firing. Each carried not only his kukris and willygun, but a stungun hung on a retracting combat sling around his neck.

Sten’s orders had been simple: (1) anyone you see is to be taken out; (2) if they are unarmed, stun them – if they are armed or violent, kill them; (3) find the Emperor and secure him; (4) no one, emphasis
no one
, is to approach the Emperor under any circumstances – anyone, no matter what explanation or rank, who tries is to be killed.

Gurkhas being Gurkhas, and appreciating simple orders, every person in the hold was down and unconscious in five seconds. Even
the ‘talker,’ linked to the
Normandie
’s command center, had no time to report that the ship was being attacked.

On command, as if it were a drill, Corporal Luc Kesare stepped forward with a napkin-covered platter. Kirghiz turned and smiled, awaiting the new dish, as Kesare’s left hand retained the platter and his dagger-holding right shot out, the blade going through Kirghiz’s smiling mouth, through his palate, and into his brain.

And so the slaughter started …

The column of Gurkhas, Sten at its head, was doubling silently through the crew quarters central corridor when the ship’s PA system blared: ‘All hands … the banquet room … somebody … they’re trying to kill the Emperor—’ The voice stopped and confused sounds chaosed for a moment before the system went dead.

Crewmen stumbled out into the corridor and went down as the Gurkhas stunned them.

At a lift tube Sten raised a hand and the forty men were motionless. He issued orders sending half his men, under Havildar-Major Harkaman Limby, up through officers’ territory with orders to secure the
Normandie
’s com center and control room. The other twenty followed Sten toward the banquet room.

The huge main doors to the banquet room were yawning open when Sten and Alex sprinted up. Sounds of fighting raged somewhere deep inside the room. At Sten’s signal, Alex and the Gurkhas cautiously edged their way inside.

The work of art that Marr and Senn had created was gone. Tables were overturned and smoking. The room was ankle-deep in smashed plates and smeared food. Horribly mutilated corpses grinned up at the Gurkhas.

Sten and the others crept through a long, twisting aisle of gore. It was hard for them to keep their footing in the nightmare mess. Sten noted the many dead Praetorians and Tahn. Sprinkled here and there were the bodies of Gurkhas who had died fighting for their Emperor.

Alex viewed the massacre, his eyes hard and cold. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Tha be ae betrayal worthy a’ th’ Campbells.’

Sten noted with relief that the Emperor’s body was not among the carnage.

Just past the end of the head table was a circle of perhaps fifteen Praetorian traitors, all dead, and all with gaping wounds. In the center of the circle was a Gurkha who had been shot through the throat. Sten recognized him as Jemedar Kulbir. He had died on his oath to protect the Eternal Emperor.

‘Yon lies a hero, lad,’ Alex whispered reverently.

Before Sten could answer, a sudden blaze of fire erupted from a corridor off the banquet area.

‘Go!’ Sten shouted, and they hurdled the remaining bodies and charged across the room.

As they turned the corner, they found a squad of Praetorians mopping up the last of a three-man team of Gurkhas. Sten had just enough time to see Subadar-Major Limbu draw his kukri and suicide charge the knot of men. Two Praetorians died before they even had time to open fire, and then Limbu fell.

Sten’s Gurkhas sprayed the Praetorians from behind. In a blink, fifteen more were dead, and Sten’s people were sprinting past on the trail of the Emperor.

The Emperor booted Tanz Sullamora’s chubby body down the companionway, then turned, willygun in hand and went down the ladder after him. As his feet went off the risers onto the handrails, braking his sliding descent, part of his mind was mildly amused that his body still remembered how to move in an emergency.

The Emperor hit the gun-deck plates and threw himself to one side as an AM
₂
round exploded where he should have been standing. Four rounds went back up the companionway before the Praetorian’s chest exploded. The Emperor kept his finger twitching on the trigger, and hosed the gunblast across the top of the companionway. The antimatter rounds ripped the top of the ladder away, and the Emperor shoulder-blocked it down.

‘That’ll give ’em a minute, figuring how to get down,’ he said.

The Emperor took half of that minute considering his position. When the Praetorian had killed Kirghiz, the Emperor had frozen momentarily. A tiny segment of his mind snarled at him: Maybe it’s time to get in a couple of bar brawls and get the moves back.

The Gurkhas had saved his life during that blur of death, as short brown men swarmed the central table. Naik Thaman Gurung had wrapped the Emperor in his arms and brought him to the floor, taking a willygun blast in his own body. Subadar-Major Chittahang Limbu had a willygun on full auto, spraying rounds into the banquet room.

The Emperor had rolled out from under Thaman’s corpse, grabbed the Gurkha’s weapon, and put his troops into motion. Find a barricade, he kept thinking, as his group fought their way toward the exit. The Emperor might have chosen to retreat toward his own quarters, but the ex-engineer part of his mind propelled him toward the ship’s stern, toward the
Normandie
’s engine spaces.

He realized the handful of Gurkhas under Subadar-Major Limbu, who set up the rear guard, could only hold for a few moments. But those few moments would give him a start toward the engine room. Once there, the Emperor knew, he could run any number of assassins round and round into oblivion.

The Emperor surveyed the gun deck. Except for the missile launchers, gun racks, and gun positions studding the passage that curled from near the ship’s nose back to end before the fuel/engine areas, the
Normandie
’s gun deck would have looked like any conventional liner’s promenade deck. Not here, he decided. This isn’t a place for even a moment’s stand.

Ledoh was already waiting at the next hatchway that led down toward the kitchen areas.

The Emperor motioned, and his men moved. He was mildly startled to realize that he had only Sullamora, Ledoh, and two Gurkhas left.

And even more surprised when he caught himself enjoying what was going on.

Sten, Alex, and the Gurkhas dropped down to the gun deck through an overhead shell hoist. Fifty meters away a knot of Praetorians was crowding a down-passage.

Twenty of them – and Sten’s eyes registered that one of the Praetorians had seen him and was shouting an alarm.

As Sten went down, his hand slapped a red switch on the wall. The switch read LOAD.

A Goblin missile sitting on the overhead of the gun deck slid smoothly down track toward a launcher on the far side of the Praetorians.

The system could launch one missile per launcher every six seconds, so the missile moved very, very rapidly down the loading track, approaching a speed of nearly 60 kilometers per hour when it intersected the Praetorians. One thousand kilos of steel contacting a few hundred kilos of flesh at that speed produces casualties.

By Kilgour’s count five Praetorians were down before the remaining fifteen found shelter behind launchers, gun tubes, and such, and opened up.

‘Ah hae quite enow a’ this drakh,’ he muttered and took action.

The
Normandie
’s armament was intended not only for deep space but also for planetary action. Of course atmospheric weapons such as chain guns were normally mag-locked in place behind the sealed ports they fired through. An assortment of weapons was racked on
the bulkhead, but all were intended for firing from a mount, and – of course – out-ship. One of those devices was a flare projector which, under normal circumstances, took four men to wrestle to the firing port.

Sergeant Major Alex Kilgour, heavy-worlder, was not normal under any circumstances. He had the projector off the wall, loaded, aimed, and the firing switch keyed before anyone could react.

The flare burst down the long corridor, hit the far bulkhead, ricocheted, and … flared.

A signal flare that is intended to be seen for about half a light-second makes quite an explosion when it goes off in a ten-meter-by-ten-meter passageway. The Gurkhas and Sten had barely enough time to flatten ahead of the oncoming fireball before the
Normandie
’s automatic extinguishing system
yeek
ed and dumped several tons of retardant on what it perceived as a fire.

Too late for the fifteen little mounds of charcoal that had been Praetorians.

Sten and his troopies hot-footed down that melted companionway to find their Emperor.

Marr and Senn had taken refuge inside an enormous sonic oven. They were in the vast stainless-steel kitchen of the liner when the massacre began. When they heard the hysterical shouts on the PA system, they had wisely decided to stay put.

Senn hugged Marr close. ‘When they’re done,’ Senn said with a shiver, ‘they’ll hunt us down and kill us, too.’ He stroked the fur of his lifelong companion. ‘Oh, well. It’s been a good love, hasn’t it?’

Marr suddenly rose to his full height. ‘Bugger them,’ he said.

‘Do we have to?’ Senn asked.

‘One thing we know, dear,’ Marr said, ‘is kitchens. And if those brutes invade my kitchen they are going to be a sorry set of humans.’

He began bustling about, getting himself ready for the final confrontation. Senn saw what he was doing and leaped up, all thoughts of a tender death swept from his mind.

They started with the sonar oven. It was about three meters high and as many wide. Inside were many cooking racks and a retractable spit that could hold an entire bullock. The cooking source was a wide-beam sound projector, which looked somewhat like a large camera, mounted on hydraulic lifts. When the oven was operated, thick protective safety doors automatically locked, and the projector swept across the food, spitting bursts of ultrasound to cook whatever was inside.

The first thing Marr did was smash the safety lock. Then the two of them muscled at the sonar cooker.

Many boots thundered just outside the kitchen, and the two turned to see the Eternal Emperor back into the huge room. He was dragging Tanz Sullamora with him, and firing back through the doorway. A split second later they saw first the chamberlain and then the two remaining
Gurkhas follow. Naiks Ram Sing Rana and Agansing Rai shouted defiance at their pursuers and sprayed them with their willyguns.

They ducked as the Praetorians returned fire. Behind them, the stainless steel walls of the kitchen hissed and bubbled and turned to molten metal.

‘This way,’ the Emperor shouted, and he led his tiny group toward the kitchen’s emergency exit. Just beyond that was a tunnel leading to the main storehouse area and then the engine rooms.

A thunder of Praetorians followed them. Ram gave a soft cry and dropped as a willygun round sizzled into his abdomen. The rest of the Praetorians crowded toward the Emperor’s group, who were just disappearing through the emergency-exit door.

Without hesitating, Senn turned his body into a furry ball and rolled out of the oven they’d retreated to. He palmed the KITCHEN STEAM-CLEAN button and then dove back into the oven.

Steam hissed from nozzles in the walls. Sanitation sniffers instantly analyzed the area for foreign – meaning biological – objects and then directed the huge volumes of steam on the invading organisms.

Eleven Praetorians opened their mouths as one to scream. Their lungs filled with intensely hot steam and were parboiled before sound could reach their lips. Their flesh swelled and blistered, then the blisters broke and ran.

The cleaning process took only thirty seconds – just as the instruction manual predicted! – before shutting off. By then, all eleven Praetorians were dead. Or dying. The human body is tough.

More bootheels, more firing, and another group exploded through the doorway, Fohlee at the head. He saw Senn’s small face peering from the oven. ‘Kill them!’ Fohlee shouted. A squad leapt forward as Marr and Senn rolled out of the oven. Fohlee and four of his Praetorians ran for the emergency exit the Emperor had taken. But the door was momentarily blocked.

Meanwhile the flying squad of Praetorians was pounding toward Marr and Senn.

‘Help me!’ squeaked Marr, and Senn slid his tiny shoulders under the sonar cooker and strained upward.

Slowly … slowly … it came up.

‘
Now
!’ Marr shouted, and the two of them jumped through a rain of willygun fire. Marr just had time to hit the cooker button before they were safe behind a steel food bin.

The lens of the sonar cooker blinked and then glowed full on. The invisible but deadly beam coned outward as the squad of Praetorians charged directly into it.

Marr and Senn huddled behind the bin, listening to the terrible sounds of the Praetorians dying. Within seconds every member of the squad had been cooked. The high-frequency waves heated from the inside out, and so, even before the flesh began to curl and smoke and brown, their internal organs exploded outward, spattering fifty meters of kitchen wall with gobs of flesh.

Marr peered out at the gore and shuddered. Senn tried to peek out after him, but Marr pushed his lover back, saving him from what he knew would be a lifetime trauma. Marr felt a small place of beauty shrivel inside him.

Many shouts and thundering. Marr looked up at the main entrance to the kitchen and repositioned himself at the cooker control button again. Whoever came through the door would die like the squad of men before. His finger was almost hitting the button when he saw the slim figure crash into the room.

In one heartbeat he recognized Sten and his finger brushed past the button. Marr didn’t even wait to see what happened next. He dropped back behind the bin, beside Senn.

Marr looked at the large luminous eyes of his friend. ‘I almost killed our young captain!’

He buried his face in Senn’s soft fur and wept.

Sten and Alex back-shot the four Praetorians who were straining at the emergency-exit door. Fohlee had just enough time to spot them, and crammed his body behind the butchering machine, a free-standing bot of red-enameled steel. Its three-by-five-meter bulk stood motionless, razor-sharp knives and meat-gripping claws still and lifeless.

Sten dropped to his knees and edged his slender body into the gap between the machine and the walls. He pushed slowly down the dark tunnel. Would Fohlee keep moving, or was he waiting just around the turn? There was almost no room to maneuver, and Sten had to shift his gun to his left hand to move forward.

There! He saw the black snout of Fohlee’s weapon, and Sten struck out at it, losing his balance and falling to the floor. But his knuckles hit cold metal, and he felt the weapon rip from Fohlee’s grip, then heard the gun clatter to the kitchen floor. Sten kick-rolled out of the narrow tunnel and started to his feet. A heavy blow sent him down again, and he twisted his body clumsily as he fell, just avoiding Fohlee’s dagger. He saw the shadow of a boot flashing down at him, but he managed to get three fingers on a heel and twist. Fohlee staggered backward, slamming against the bot.

Machinery came to life with a shriek, and the bot’s upper body whirled, meat-grabbing claws searching for flesh. Before Sten could recover, Fohlee dodged the claws and picked up his gun. The two brought their weapons up at the same time. But a meat hook on a chain swung out of the bot and caught Fohlee in the throat. He screamed in agony as the hook dragged him into the butcher bot’s claws.

Sten found himself watching in awful fascination as the machine skillfully dealt with Fohlee. Within seconds, many knives had skinned him while still alive. Tiny hoses snaked out to suck up the blood. Saws whirred in to cut the joints, and boning knives flicked in and out to separate the flesh.

Fohlee’s final scream was still echoing through the kitchen when the last of him had been carved, packaged, and shipped into cold storage.

Absently, Sten reached out and shut off the machine. Then he walked heavily around the butcher bot to find Alex.