Empire's End (32 page)

Because the purpose of this long roundelay, back to the spoof in the dead system of Ystrn, was for an entire Imperial fleet to vanish.

Sten had deliberately chosen the area near NP0406Y32 for his plan’s payoff. Any initial reports of his attack would be blocked by the pulsar. His strategy had worked perfectly.

Twenty-six warships, their admiral, and crew had disappeared.

Without a trace.

That
would send a shiver through even the bravest warrior’s soul.

And just as Ystrn had created the stage for this battle, NP0406Y32 would create a larger arena.

The essay purported to be a speech made by the Eternal Emperor at the graduating ceremony for one of the Empire’s most prestigious naval academies, and was reprinted in
Fleet Proceedings
. In the speech the Emperor announced that these were parlous times the newly commissioned officers would face, but that they were also times of greatness. And as always, those who led from the front would be noted and rewarded.

The second item was buried near the end of the
Imperial Times
, a fiche no one in his right mind ever consulted for pleasure, but to check on the promotions, awards, and transfers of all Imperial officers.

Seven admirals had decided to take early retirement. All seven, analysts discovered, were respected—but all seven believed in the principle of leadership through battle analysis and ratiocination rather than noble posturing from the missile-torn bridge of a battleship.

The next item was the commissioning of a new superbattleship, the
Durer
. It had been especially honored by being picked by the Eternal Emperor himself as a command ship. Command ship, the analyst noted. Not yacht or personal transport.

All these smallish items were published in specialized fiches.

A larger item was the lead story in the
Imperial Times
. A mass assemblage of the Imperial battle fleets was ordered, on a most tight schedule. There would be barely six E-months for combat elements to ready themselves.

The last was big and public, however. With full fanfare, it was announced the Eternal Emperor had been requested by Fleet Admiral Anders and the rest of the Imperial General Staff to provide them with his centuries of wisdom and experience to extirpate the last, lingering traces of the bandit Sten.

The rebels had winkled the Emperor out of his bunker.

Now he was vulnerable.

Next, Sten would strike for the heart of the Empire and the Emperor himself.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE GREAT FLEETS of the rebellion rendezvoused in intersteller emptiness near a monstrous whirlpool galaxy. Emptiness—but emptiness very close to Prime World and the heart of the Empire.

There were thousands of ships. Zaginows. Cal’gata. Honjo. Bhor. Other ships from beings, cultures, worlds, even star clusters, Sten had never heard of. Systems’ entire navies had joined the rebel forces. Squadrons had “deserted” en masse. Other ships, and even in some cases individual beings, had found their solitary way to the rising.

Sten sometimes wondered at their motives. Gold? Gods? Glory? Perhaps sometimes a burning, inchoate sense of injustice, a desire to end the Empire’s tyranny. It had taken generations and centuries, but at last the hammer had lost its velvet padding.

The indicator lights in the battle chamber of the
Victory
now represented fleets instead of ships.

But less than one-tenth of the Empire was now in open revolt.

Sten thought that might be enough.

The orders went out. The rebellion would move into the Empire’s heart, ostensibly making an attack on Prime itself. Before they could attack the Empire’s capital, Imperial fleets would certainly come out to stop them.

That would be, Sten prayed, the final battle.

The real objective was not Prime at all, but the fleets themselves. Once the Empire’s ability to wage war was crippled, Prime and any other world could be easily attacked, seized, isolated, or ignored.

It would be, his own sense as well as his staff’s analyses, a near-run victory. Estimates were, given the present level of forces and that the rebellion had thus far maintained a tactical edge, 61 percent to 39 percent, favoring a victory for Sten. Expected casualties would be a staggering 35 percent of the rebellion’s forces.

But blood was the argument, and there appeared to be no peaceful alternatives.

So be it.

“So the traitor is moving,” the Eternal Emperor said. What might have been a smile moved his lips, then disappeared.

“Yessir,” Admiral de Court said. “Just as your estimate and our progs said.” De Court was one of the seven computer-brained admirals that the
Imperial Times
said had taken early retirement. In fact, they had been detached for special duties and were serving as a shadow general staff directly under the Eternal Emperor himself.

Their role would never be known, of course. None of the seven would be disloyal enough to mention that the final obliteration of Sten came from the brilliance of anyone besides the Emperor.

They were not disloyal… or suicidal.

Admiral de Court did not appear pleased that the anticipated events were, in fact, occurring.

“What are the numbers,” the Eternal Emperor asked.

“Fifty-one percent chance of Imperial victory.”

“That is all?” The Emperor was startled.

“Yessir. Too many Imperial elements lack real battle experience. Or else they’re relatively new formations.”

“I ordered the secret mobilization months ago.”

De Court was silent. Not even the Eternal Emperor could create Weddigens or
Golden Hind’s
simply by the laying on of hands.

“Anticipated casualties?”

“Well over 70 percent.”

A long silence. Then, “Acceptable.”

De Court licked dry lips. He’d been chosen, as the most diplomatically gifted of the technocrat-admirals, to handle this presentation.

“One other thing, sir. We have two single progs, not entirely quantifiable, but a probability estimation of approximately 82 percent, that the traitor Sten will be killed in this battle. And— and yourself, as well.”

The Emperor was very quiet.

“Sir.”

Still nothing. Then, finally, “Thank you,” the Eternal Emperor said. “You’re dismissed.”

Scoutboats, then destroyers, then light cruisers met between the galaxies in a sudden snarl of blood. Ships swirled, launched missiles, took hits, died.

The engagement was all the bloodier because it was unexpected.

“So the bastard mousetrapped us,” Sten hissed.

“I wouldn’t put it that baldly,” Preston said. “But the Emperor hasn’t just been sitting there waiting for us.”

Kilgour was in a glower of rage.

“Skip,” he said. “Ah dinnae ken whae’s th‘ matter wi’ our Intel. But Ah’ll hae some gonads frae breakfast kippers. Later. A‘ th’ mo, Ah dinnae hae time frae ‘crim’nations. Th’ sit’s as follows:

“Th‘ Emp’s got its fleets already mob’lized, aye? I’s nae a total disast’r, unlike th’ Emp mos’ likely thinks it’t‘ be. But it’ll noo be a bonnie prog.”

“GA,” Sten said.

“We’ll trash th‘ clots. Est 80 percent a’ th‘ Imps’ll nae see home again. But wi’ a price. We’ll take 75 percent hits ourselves. I’s a Kilkenny cat’s war, lad.

“But we’ll mos’ likely kill th‘ Emp i’ the bloodbath. An‘, same prob’ility, die i’ th‘ doin’t.”

Sten nodded.

He stared at, but did not see, the screens as he ran his own set of numbers.

He would probably die in this battle in the galactic dark. Very well. Sten was surprised he could accept that with a certain equanimity—or at least he had fooled his mind into thinking that.

At least the Eternal Emperor would die, as well.

And the Imperial forces would be shattered.

But a navy could be rebuilt.

Especially if—and he’d completely accepted Haines’s verification of Mahoney’s improbable theory—the Emperor would return. Return, and be handed the throne in exchange for the resumption of AM2.

The Emperor would be gone for at least three, possibly six, E-years. During which time the “civilized” universe would sink further into chaos. And then a madman would return, slashing out to regain his kingdom. A fifth horseman of the apocalypse.

How long would it take for another rebellion? A rebellion that wasn’t aimed at the New Boss replacing the Old Boss? A rebellion unlike the Tahn war or the Mueller Rising before that?

No.

Sten issued orders, then retreated to the solitude of the
Victory’s
admiral’s walk. The rebels were to take a defensive posture. He could not—would not—allow the projected orgy of mutual destruction to occur. Not when it would be unlikely to completely excise this tumor that called himself the Eternal Emperor.

No. If necessary, they could retreat. Regroup. Rethink. Or, in a worst-case scenario, follow the example of countless liberation forces through the centuries—dump arms, go to ground, and try again.

Hell, Sten thought. If this is where it ends, I can disappear into the woodwork. Change my face, change my name, and try again.

The next time, by myself.

The next time, with a bomb or a longarm.

No surrender, Sten promised himself. But now it’s time to keep the beings who followed you from dying.

Inaction, his mind told him. Retreat. Passivity.

No other options occurred.

He thought of alk, or stregg. Neither was acceptable. He slumped into a chair. Stared out at the kaleidoscope that was hy-perspace.

Seconds… minutes… hours .. centuries later, the com blatted at him.

Sten slapped the switch and started to growl. Stopped himself. It was Alex onscreen, his face and voice carefully bland.

“Com ‘cast frae th’ Imperial forces,” he said, without preamble. “Tightbeam. On a freq thae Freston says is exclusive’t‘ th’ Emperor. An‘ th’
Victory’s
one ae th‘ few ships wi’ th‘ capability’t’ receive it. Y‘ recollect the Emp built this ship frae his own use?”

“Do you have a point of origin?”

“Ah dinnae, Sten. Noo frae any listed world. Frae a ship, Ah reck. Wi‘ th’ Imperial forces, Ah’d guess.

“An… i’s
en clair
. Vid an‘ voice. Wi’ a card sayin’t it’s f r y’r eyes only.”

Sten started to order it to be transmitted to his com, then caught himself. No. Even at this time, at this moment before the storm, it would not be unlikely for the Eternal Emperor to transmit something meaningless—and then leak the story that the message contained private instructions from the Emperor to one of his double agents.

“Hang on,” Sten ordered. “I’m on my way down. Set it up for projection on the bridge.”

“Boss? Are y‘ sure?”

“Hell, yes. I’m getting too old to play games. Stand by.”

The screen showed the Eternal Emperor. He was standing alone on the awe-inspiring bridge of a warship. The
Durerl
He wore a midnight-black uniform with his symbol in gold on his breast—the letters AM2 superimposed over the null-element’s atomic structure.

“This message is intended for Sten, and only for him.

“Greetings.

“Once you were my most faithful servant. Now you have declared yourself my most deadly enemy. I do not know why. I thought you served me well, and so I made you ruler over many things, and thought that would bring you joy. Evidently it did not

“And I have seen, to my great sorrow, that some of my sub-jects believe themselves to be ignored, believe they have been somehow slighted, in spite of my efforts to help them as best I can in these troubled times.

“I could reason, I could argue, I could attempt to present a larger view of the chaos that looms before all of us in the Empire.

“But I shall not. Perhaps some of my satraps
have
enforced their own immoralities under the cover of my rule, which has always been intended to provide the maximum benefit to all beings, human and otherwise, a rule of peace and justice that began before time was recorded and, with the goodwill of my fellow citizens, will continue until time itself must have a stop.

“Beings—many of them my good and faithful servants— have died. Died in this murderous squabble that history will not even dignify with a footnote. It shall not be remembered because I propose a solution, a solution that no one could argue with.

“You, Sten, say that my rule is autocratic. Dictatorial, even. Very well.

“I invite you to share that rule.

“Not as a co-ruler, because you, or those who rose in rebellion with you, could well define that as a cheap attempt at bribery. At co-option.

“No. I propose a full and complete sharing of power between myself, my Parliament, and you and your chosen representatives, in whatever form we agree to be the most representative and just.

“I further propose an immediate truce, to avoid further bloodshed. This truce will be of short duration, so that neither side can argue it is being used as a device to seek an advantageous position to destroy the other. I would accept two E-weeks as an outside figure.

“At the end of that time, you and I should meet. We should meet with our best advisers and allies, to prepare the grounds for this new and promising time for the Empire.

“I further suggest that our meeting ground be on Seilichi, the home planet of the most respected, most neutral, and most peaceful beings this universe has ever known, the Manabi. I would also ask that their most honored savant, Sr. Ecu, mediate our negotiations.

“I ask you, Sten, as an honorable being, to accept my most generous offer.

“Now, only you can keep innocent blood from showering the stars.”

And the screen went blank.

A blast of babble on the
Victory’s
bridge. Then silence, as ev-eryone turned to look at Sten. Son of a bitch, he thought. He has us.

And there’s no way out. No way whatsoever.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

STEN RUBBED TIRED eyes and tried to think. He hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep in the past two weeks. What little he’d had time for had been constantly interrupted by messengers, corns, and delegations arriving from his allies. Even his thoughts, when he was alone with Cind, yammered at him.