The Mandate of Heaven (38 page)

At these words, Sanderson and the rest of the team rose to their feet from behind their cover, training their weapons on the form of High-Lord Stanton, standing alone and unguarded at the edge of the room.

“I believe this is what you call a stalemate,” Alex smirked.

*****

“By the Gods, Stanton,” Lord Hadley exclaimed.  “Things are getting out of hand here.  Who are these people, do you know them too?”

Lord Stanton’s expression meanwhile slipped from a confident calm, to mottled fury.  “Traitors, Hadley.  Every one of them.  I’ll have them all dead, along with Grey, every last one of them, as that’s what they all deserve.”

“These men used to work for you too?” Lord Hadley groaned.  “Do you have anybody left in your employ that doesn’t want you dead?”

The venomous look on Stanton’s face put to rest any further conversation.  Instead he raised his hand, making a forward motion, and within a few seconds a dozen troops had materialised from the shadows, rushing forward to form an impenetrable barrier between him, Alexander Grey and the guns pointed in their direction.

“Major, Report?” Stanton asked one of the tall, broad shouldered men, who appeared at his side.  Just like Sanderson he was wearing combat armour, carrying a large assault rifle, with a pistol strapped to his side.  Resting on his forehead was a pair of light-amplification goggles and it was because of these they’d been able to monitor the proceedings, unimpaired by the darkness and gloom.

“Colonel Grey and his men are completely surrounded my Lord, there is no escape for them.  We’re just waiting upon your word to signal the rest of the fleet.  They’ll secure the surrounding space and send reinforcements to escort you, Lord Hadley and Lady Jessica back to your flagship.”

“Good work Major.  We’ll soon be finished up here, so go ahead and signal the fleet.”

“Very good my Lord, and what of your orders regarding Colonel Grey and his men?”

“They’re traitors and there is only one sentence for that.  Kill them all.”

“Lady Jessica is still in the line of fire, my Lord.  It’s likely that the Colonel will use her as a human shield—”

“Lady Hadley is a paragon of virtue and should be an example to us all,” Lord Stanton interrupted, glancing at Hadley, before continuing on more softly.  “She would gladly sacrifice her life, in the sure and certain knowledge that Grey also died.  Anyway, I hear that she has a younger sister, she’ll do equally as well.  Kill them all.”

*****

“Can somebody shut off all of those alarms!” Granville shouted, to be overheard above the blaring sirens, as he stepped out onto the bridge of
Elysium Fields
.  It was a place that he rarely frequented, after all he paid considerable sums of money each cycle to ensure that it was adequately staffed, by people far more experienced than he, who knew what all the bells and whistles meant.  He might have stolen this ship, but that didn’t mean he had a clue how it worked.  “I’m here now, so what’s the sudden emergency?  We’re not about to blow up, are we?” he asked in a worried tone.

“No, my Lord,” his mercenary Captain reassured him.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Granville muttered, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, motioning the man out of the Captain’s chair.  Once the seat had been vacated, he wiped his brow with the handkerchief, before placing it on the recently emptied chair, before taking a seat.  “So what’s the problem?”

“Massive distortions in space-time, my Lord,” the Captain explained.

“Oh good,” Granville said relieved.  “Or not?  I take it,” he guessed from the man’s demeanour.

“Very bad, my Lord,” the Captain corrected him.  “It means that we’ve got one absolutely massive ship exiting faster-than-light, or several very, very, large ones.  As per your orders, nothing is scheduled for arrival.”

“Any news regarding our recently arrived guests?” Granville enquired.

“Nothing yet my Lord, your scouts report that everything is quiet, eerily so, they report.”

“I’m obviously paying them too much,” Granville cursed.  “If their idea of a detailed report is,
it’s quiet, eerily so
.  Go,” he motioned with both hands.  “Find out who is arriving and how much I’ll have to pay to send them on their way again.”

“We’ve found a match!” one of the obviously more excitable youths whooped from the front of the bridge.  “It’s the Battlecruiser
Valkyrie
, High-Lord Stanton’s flagship, along with escorts.  Looks like he’s brought the entire fleet with him, my Lord.”

“Captain?” Granville motioned for his Captain to step closer.  “Does that battlecruiser pose any sort of risk to us, and this ship?”

“Possibly, my Lord,” the Captain frowned.  “The Nova-Class Dreadnought has the thickest armour of any ship ever built and at that time no weapon existed that could penetrate such armour.  However, that was over two centuries ago and things have moved on since then.  The
Valkyrie
was built in the past few years and her main guns could penetrate our armour in places, as well as the fact that she is also armed with anti-capital ship torpedoes.  They could inflict massive damage on us.”

“Hmm, sounds expensive,” Granville stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“My Lord,” the Communications Officer shouted down the two hundred metre long bridge.

“Yes,” Granville replied.  “Yes!” he called back a second time, more loudly when he failed to get a reply.  “This is ridiculous,” he cursed.  “Don’t we have some sort of intercom or thingy.”

“It broke, my Lord,” the Captain informed him apologetically.  “You said it was a waste of
your
money to repair it.”

“I have an Admiral Sloane, trying to contact you.  Said something about wanting to discuss terms before he proceeds to blow us to pieces.  You want me to get rid of him for you?”

“No,” Granville shook his head, glancing at his Captain resignedly.  “I’ve been informed that talking would definitely be a preferable option.  Put him through.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Hello?  Hello!  Is this thing working?” Granville shouted.

“I can hear you perfectly fine, whom am I addressing?” a refined voice enquired coolly.

“Oh, sorry about that, technical difficulties.  I’m Lord Granville and who do you think you are?”

“I know perfectly well who I am, I’m Admiral Sloane, Commanding Officer of the
Valkyrie
, Admiral of High-Lord Stanton’s Fifth Fleet.”

“Well, that’s good,” Granville shifted nervously.  “Always good to speak to a man who knows who he is.  You said you wanted to discuss terms of surrender?  Well, I’m not too greedy, if you’d be willing to offer a few thousand I’d be amenable to let you go on your way.”

“I was actually speaking of
your
terms of surrender.”

“Oh,” Granville said disheartened.

“Surrender
Elysium Fields
and power down all systems, weapons, if you even have any, and assemble all your crew on the main hanger deck.  If you don’t I’ll order my ships within firing range and we’ll see how many holes I can make, before nobody is left alive over there.  You have five minutes to comply.  Sloane out.”

“That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped,” Granville said out loud.

“My Lord, the
Valkyrie
is launching fighters and assault shuttles.”

“How long until they arrive?”

“Five minutes, my Lord.”

“Well that makes sense, I guess,” Granville said morosely.  “I just
knew
I should have paid off Alex, instead of agreeing to this vague future favour.  Alex
always
comes out on top in these sorts of deals.”

*****

Alex was unsure what caused him to act.  Call it over two decades of finely honed instincts, having an evolved premonition to danger.  Perhaps, as well, it was the way the troops simultaneously took a small step back, with an infinitesimal tightening of their grip on their rifles, tiny subconscious actions in preparation to firing—when he tackled Jessica around her waist, knocking both of them to the floor.  Their natural momentum carried them several feet onwards, before they collided with some discarded crates.

“What—” Jessica began.

Her next words were drowned out by a massive, deafening, barrage of gunfire all around them.  The sound took on a life of its own, bouncing from walls, reflecting off the floor, resonating with each subsequent explosion of gunfire, until it grew into one great enraged beast.

It smashed and destroyed everything in sight.

Crates, chairs, boxes, seats and tables were instantly shredded.  The gunfire was so intense that there was nothing that Alex could do but lie still and prostrate behind what little remained of their cover, with his body smothering hers, their eyes closed while they waited out the hail of bullets.

When it finally came, the clips of automatic weapons running dry, the noise slowly abated like a retreating thunderstorm and the peace was silent and blessed.  Alex didn’t wait for the storm to resume, instead he pulled himself and Jessica closer to what remained of the half shredded crates.  Using his freehand he withdrew his fusion pistol, resting it on the top of the nearest crate, and started firing back indiscriminately.  The weak hail of gunfire, that closely followed, indicated that at least some of his men had likewise taken cover and were still alive.

But they were just delaying the inevitable.

Surrounded on all sides, massively outmanned and outgunned, it was only going to be a matter of time before the troops started to move in, picking them off, one by one.  At most they were just buying themselves a few extra minutes to live.

“So I take it this means the wedding is off?” Alex grunted.  “As usually the groom shooting at the bride,
prior
to marriage, isn’t a good sign.  Now after marriage, that’s a completely different matter entirely.”

“Whatever are you doing?” her muffled reply came back in response, from somewhere beneath him.

“What do you think I’m doing?  Shooting back!” Alex roared, sending another volley in the direction of Stanton.

“Well stop it.  You could hit my father.”

“You’re
still
worried about him?  At a time like this?  Is he aware of this extreme devotion from his eldest daughter?  What are you angling after?  The majority of the inheritance?  We’re all about to die and there is something that I want you to know first—this is entirely your fault.”

“My fault?” came back the indignant, and still muffled, response.

“Yes.  You wouldn’t give me my pearls.”

“What is it with you and money?  Anyway it still belongs to my father, as he only promised it to you, in return for my life.”

“So?” Alex snapped, crouching back down, lowering his pistol.

“I think I’ve been shot,” she whispered softly.  “And you’re not having any of my father’s money if I die.  That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“What?” Alex replied frantically, rolling off her.  He glanced down at her abdomen, where a bloodstain could be seen rapidly spreading outwards from her once pristine white dress.  Prising her hands away from the wound, he glanced at it, sighing with relief.  “You’ll live, which is more than I can say for Granville’s dress.”

“What?” Jessica demanded, looking up at him, eyes wide with shock.

“It’s not your blood,” Alex clarified.  “It’s mine.  They’re firing fragmenting rounds and one of the fragments must have slipped through the gap in my armour.”

“What?” Jessica repeated.  “Where?”

“My right shoulder—argh!” Alex screamed, as her fingers probed around his shoulder.  “Yes, right there.  So whatever you do, don’t
ever
touch there again.”

“You need medical attention.”

“Sure.  You want to ask them to stop shooting at us for a minute, while I call a surgeon?” he caught her in a firm grip before she could stand up.  “Rhetorical question,” he hissed in pain at the movement of his arm.  “Just give me the pearls.  You’ll live, which is more than I can say for me, so you still owe me.”

“Fine,” she huffed.  “I hope that you enjoy the last few minutes that you’ve got alive, before they shoot you.”  She passed across the heavy pouch that she’d managed to keep hold of during the intervening time.

“Finally,” he sighed taking a firm hold of the pouch, before gritting his teeth against the pain, threw it up and away, as far and hard as he could.

“What,” Jessica gasped, mouth agape in shock, as she watched the pouch fly high up into the arena.  She didn’t know it if was her imagination, but the bag seemed to fly far higher and faster than its weight should allow.  What she didn’t image, but had to blink twice to confirm, was at the very top of its parabolic trajectory it stopped, hanging motionless, in the middle of the room.

Where it stayed.

As is often the case with such happenings, the gunfire fell silent, as all eyes in the room were trained on the pouch, in disbelief, as none were able to comprehend what they were seeing.  There was more than one muted uttering of witchcraft and magic.