Steel Gauntlet (2 page)

“Sir, if you please.” Bong made a gesture toward their pistol belts.

“But you are armed,” St. Cyr said with some amusement.

“I will leave my side arm in the gate house, sir.”

St. Cyr nodded. “That may be so, but you were wearing your sword inside.”

“Yessir, secured with this.” He pulled the peace binding from his pocket and held it up. “I will resecure my sword before I return to the reception.”

“We can peace-bind our weapons as well.”

“Well, well, St. Cyr,” a new voice cut in. Chief-of-Staff Whithill stepped through the gate, followed closely by Major Katopscu. “I see you are as determined as ever to be a thorn in the side of civilized society.” As chief of staff, he felt he wasn’t always required to be as diplomatic as other members of the diplomatic mission. He didn’t deign to look at the tanks.

“Whithill. So good of you to meet me.” There was no humor or friendliness in St. Cyr’s voice. “We are coming in. And then the Confederation will recognize Tubalcain Enterprises as the sole legitimate power on Diamunde and conduct all of its business with me.”

“We will do no such thing. You may come in, but it will be on sufferance. By appearing this way, you will convince the few remaining undecideds how unfit you are as someone to deal with. Drop your weapons and follow me.” He spun on his heel and began to stride back into the embassy compound.

St. Cyr glared after Whithill for a second, then raised his right arm and sharply brought it down.

Almost as one, the sixty tanks fired their main guns, then fired their engines to life and rumbled forward, crashing through the cinder-block walls. St. Cyr jumped onto his tank as it began moving forward and was climbing back into its cupola as it ran over the vehicle gate.

Almost as quickly as the tanks fired, Krait fired back, killing one of St. Cyr’s staff before the plasma gun on the lead tank flamed him, Gunny Bong, Major Katopscu, and Minister Whithill. Lance Corporal Winterthur wasn’t able to get out of the gate house before a tank ground it to rubble. Farther back in the compound, Corporal Kovaks realized immediately that he and his seven Marines didn’t have a chance against the heavy armor so he hurried them to the ballroom to attempt to evacuate the reception attendees. But there were too few exits from the ballroom and from the compound. Very few of the four hundred people inside the compound were able to flee before the tanks broke through. None of the Marines was among those few. Nor was the ravishing Honorable Mistress !Tang’h.

CHAPTER 1

Marston St. Cyr was a man of direct methods.

He had been sitting patiently in the boardroom of Tubalcain Enterprises for the last hour as his fellow executives discussed his most recent request for additional research and development funds. As vice president for both Marketing and Research and Development, St. Cyr held the fate of the company in his hands. As VP for Marketing, he had cultivated an impressive array of clients for Tubalcain’s gems, ores, and by-products on dozens of worlds. Moreover, he had successfully tied major shares of those worlds’

economies to Tubalcain’s solvency.

But more important, as VP for R&D he was solely responsible for maintaining the corporation’s technological edge over its only competitor, the Hefestus Conglomerate: The supply of natural gems and valuable ores in the crust of Diamunde and its moons would last an estimated decade longer, at the most.

Tubalcain’s spies at Hefestus had reported its scientists were on the verge of a breakthrough in the manufacture of synthetic gems and minerals. In the normal progress of business, whichever company was first to develop artificial substitutes for the planet’s mineral wealth would survive the depletion of its reserves. The board was dubious about giving St. Cyr any more money for research that thus far had shown no results, despite his spectacular success in other areas. But very soon it would, he continued assuring them. The promised “results,” however, would not be what they expected, and in just a few moments they would find that out.

Now Tubalcain’s CEO, Mona Schroder, was arguing that the money St. Cyr wanted would be better spent diversifying the company’s interests. If they started immediately, while they still had enormous cash reserves and a top credit rating, she was saying, glancing nervously at St. Cyr as she spoke, within five years the company would not have to depend on its mining ventures but could continue to show a comfortable profit margin from a variety of other enterprises, as well as from the low-risk loans they had been making to various entities throughout the Confederation. At that point she nodded at St. Cyr, a sterile and reluctant acknowledgment of his marketing genius; he had engineered most of the loans. He smiled back coldly. It was Schroder’s plan to convert Tubalcain from a mining and industrial giant into an interplanetary banking system, and in that she was supported by most of the other members of the board.

She was opposed only by St. Cyr. She thought that at long last she was in a position now to force him out of power, and her heart raced at the thought that in a few moments she would make the announcement. A small rivulet of nervous perspiration trickled down her left side as she anticipated her triumph.

St. Cyr was calm and confident. Actually, he had spent none of the money in his considerable budget developing synthetic substitutes. The board members did not know that. Schroder suspected St. Cyr had diverted the money to his own business interests but she had no positive proof. In a few moments it would make no difference, because St. Cyr was about to be dismissed. He knew it was coming. He let her rattle on for a few more moments, and then:

“Ladies and gentlemen,” St. Cyr announced suddenly, cutting the CEO off in mid-sentence, “you have sat long enough.” He kicked the Woo crouching at his side beneath the table. “Briefcase,” he said in a low voice, and the Woo obediently held up to him the briefcase he always carried along to these meetings. St. Cyr snatched the case and slammed it on the table, kicking the Woo again, harder this time, to discourage it from looking for a reward. Smiling wryly, he drew a pistol out of his briefcase and shot the CEO where she stood.

The blaster was set on low power, and the bolt, instead of hitting Schroder square in the chest, merely vaporized her right breast and shoulder. She shrieked and stumbled away from the conference table, flailing her one good arm helplessly as the horrified board members leaped to get out of her way. She staggered back into the table, leaving gobs of singed flesh on its highly polished surface, then fell to the floor where she writhed helplessly. The room filled with the stench of vaporized flesh. Board members gagged or vomited or screamed in terror while Marston St. Cyr sat quietly in his comfortable chair, casually toying with the blaster.

The Woo at St. Cyr’s feet cringed even closer to the floor, moaning “Wooooo, wooooo.” It began to glow brightly, as Woos did when experiencing distress or other strong emotion. “Stop it!” St. Cyr kicked the Woo. Its glow faded immediately.

“Security! Security!” Tubalcain’s VP for Human Resources shouted into his wrist communicator. The man should have been a Woo, St. Cyr had often said, always worrying about the health and welfare of the company employees. He had vigorously, if unsuccessfully, opposed St. Cyr’s enormous budget, arguing that the money would better be spent on what he called “social services.” Marston smiled. “Paul, security is in my hands now.” He depressed the firing lever on his weapon and the social services programs at Tubalcain vaporized along with the VP’s head. His body stood upright for a few seconds before collapsing to join the CEO on the floor. St. Cyr regarded his pistol admiringly, as if congratulating himself on the shot. Meanwhile, the board broke into pandemonium. “Gentlemen, I’d hate to flame the rest of you,” Marston shouted over the screaming. “It’s getting a little close in here right now.” Marston coughed politely. The surviving board members huddled in terror at the far end of the conference room.

A door opened and several men in black uniforms armed with blasters trooped into the room. “Major Stauffer, remove those,” Marston ordered, gesturing at the smoldering corpses.

“Yes, General,” Major Stauffer replied. He signed to two of his men, who grabbed the corpses by the feet and dragged them outside. “Will there be anything else, General?” the major asked, looking at the remaining executives, the beginning of a smile on his lips.

“No, Clouse,” St. Cyr said, and then added, “Oh, yes, one thing: have building maintenance scrub the air supply in here, will you?” He turned his attention to the surviving executives. “Sit!” he commanded, and they began to sit, staring apprehensively at St. Cyr’s blaster as they returned to their places.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “briefly, I am in charge of this company now. I am going to destroy Hefestus’s management team and take it over as well. Those of you who wish to join me are welcome. Those who do not may leave.” He paused. Nobody said anything or even moved a finger. “Good! You have decided to go your own separate ways then. You are dismissed. Major Stauffer will see you out immediately.”

A long moment of silence passed before the first shaken executive arose and stumbled out of the conference room. Then, more quickly, as if they couldn’t wait to be gone, the others followed him. In the hallway outside they were met by St. Cyr’s security guards, escorted to the parking garage and summarily shot. The bodies were incinerated. Teams were dispatched to the executed men’s homes, and their families and servants were murdered. Using lists compiled long before, the teams then spread out to find the friends and business associates of the newly dead, and they, as well as their families and friends, were shot. Before the day was out, the entire management elite of Tubalcain, along with a substantial number of the corporation’s lower-ranking management, were dead. A student of ancient Roman politics, Marston St. Cyr knew he could leave no one alive who might oppose him.

“Clouse,” St. Cyr said to Major Stauffer after the doomed executives had departed, “I must change now for the embassy reception.” They both laughed. “Is everything ready?”

“All is ready, General. Your commanders are waiting.”

St. Cyr absently swatted the Woo crouching at his feet, his briefcase dangling from an appendage. The creature cringed and uttered a mournful sigh. Stauffer had worked for St. Cyr for forty years and was prepared to do whatever his boss demanded, but the way he treated the Woos disturbed him. Once, many years before, when Stauffer had been recovering from injuries sustained during a mining accident, St. Cyr had come to visit him in the hospital. It was the only time his boss had ever done anything so remotely human, and Stauffer had been impressed. Still woozy from painkillers, Stauffer had been bold enough to ask him why he treated the Woos so inhumanely. “Because, my dear Clouse,” St. Cyr had answered, “I can’t treat people that way. Yet.”

Now, St. Cyr said, “Since all is ready, my dear major, let us proceed. The hors d’oeuvres will be getting cold. Oh, you are now Colonel Stauffer.”

Marston St. Cyr had not spent Tubalcain’s money on the synthetic gems project or even mining R&D.

He had not spent it on himself. He had spent it building armored fighting vehicles.

CHAPTER 2

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant said, “it is my decision, after extensive debate and a voice vote of all the members of the Congress present, having obtained a quorum of votes, that we commence military operations immediately against Diamunde and Tubalcain Enterprises.” A chorus of angry shouts and denunciations rose from the floor of the Confederation Congress, but they were countered just as loudly by Madame President’s supporters on the floor. fistfights erupted. “Sergeant at arms! Sergeant at arms!” Madame President Chang-Sturdevant shouted. It was twenty minutes before the delegates could be quieted down and put back into their seats.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began again, “I will overlook this disgraceful conduct—”

“Madame President, Madame President!” The delegate from Cinque Luna rose to his feet. “No more disgraceful than this decision of yours to make war on a member world! I demand—”

“Madame President!” the delegate from Gimel Ghayn protested. “The honorable gentleman from Cinque Luna forgets that it was our ambassador this monster murdered! We cannot let his crime go unavenged!”

“Madame!” an opposition member screamed. “If this war goes sour, we’re all finished!” There was more shouting, but this time the delegates remained seated. When they had quieted down, President Chang-Sturdevant tried again. “We have discussed this in the Council and on the open floor of this congress. We have discussed this decision endlessly. Each of you has had his turn to speak. The talking is now over. By the authority invested in me under the Confederation Constitution, I hereby declare that a state of war now exists between our member worlds and Diamunde.” She slammed her gavel on the podium, caught her breath, stepped down and out the door behind the platform into the private chamber behind the podium.

“Jesus God,” she sighed, “I’ve never seen the bastards so riled, Marcus.” Marcus Berentus, the Confederation Minister of War, smiled and handed her a towel, with which she wiped the perspiration from her face.

“This war will upset a lot of members’ egg baskets, Madame. But you had a quorum. Your decision is legal and binding. We go to war. The other ministers support you one hundred percent in this, and the Combined Chiefs are unanimous that we can defeat St. Cyr quickly and with minimal casualties.” Under the Constitution, the President of the Confederation Council was empowered to make certain binding decisions on behalf of the entire Confederation, providing a quorum of votes could be obtained from the Congress. That was because even using hyperspace travel, it could take six months or longer for the delegates to obtain instructions from their home worlds. These decisions were never taken lightly, however, only in cases of the gravest emergency, because if they proved mistaken, impeachment proceedings could be initiated.

“The war you served in, Marcus, the First Silvasian?” She tossed the towel down a disposal chute, glancing briefly in a mirror and straightening her hair. There were more strands of gray. Madame Chang-Sturdevant had been a beauty in her youth and she still remained a very attractive woman, but there were crow’s-feet under her eyes now, brown spots on her hands, and the beginning of wrinkles around her neck. She couldn’t remember having any of them before she became President of the Council.