Stars of Blood and Glory (25 page)

The colonel chuckled good-naturedly, making
Kenta bristle. “Your Highness, my men are busy escorting the
refugees from New Vela to safety. Would you have me abandon
them?”

If you truly want to protect those refugees,
then join us, you spineless bastard.

“
Once Tagatai is killed, the
Hameji forces will be thrown into disarray, effectively halting
their advance.”

“
But Your Highness, that’s a
suicide mission,” said Webb. “I couldn’t sacrifice the lives of my
men on a mission that will most likely fail. It would be grossly
irresponsible to do such a thing.”

The officers on the bridge eyed Katsuichi
with concern. They knew, as he knew, that if no one from the
Federation joined them, the colonel’s words might well prove
true.

Katsuichi glanced behind him shoulder at the
unsheathed heirloom sword over the bridge doorway, then leaned
forward and smiled. “The true warrior fights as one already dead,”
he said over the transmitter. “If I must sacrifice my life and the
lives of my men to save my people, that is a price I’m willing to
pay for victory.”

“
You’re crazy,” said the colonel,
his voice losing confidence. “You’ll never come back from that
mission alive.”

“
And what if I do, Colonel? What
if I do come back alive? You want to be seen as a hero—the one who
stayed and fought while the rest of the Federation fled. That’s why
you stayed behind to rescue the
Blue Dolphin
at New Vela II—am I right?”

No answer. That was as good as a yes.

“
If that is indeed your plan,
then you can’t afford to turn me down. Even if I die with all of my
men, after we kill General Tagatai we will forever be revered as
the martyrs who saved the Federation, while you will be just
another commander who was too cowardly to stand and fight. What
would become of your ambitions, then? Of your legacy?”

“
You really think you can pull
this off, do you?”

Katsuichi leaned forward, the eyes of all his
men planted on him. “I don’t just think we can, Colonel. I know we
can.”

Silence. Outside the window, the
old flagship
California
loomed nearer as it came around for another flyby. The deep
space starfield glittered down on them, the faint light of the
distant stars gently illuminating the bridge.

“
Very well,” said the colonel.
“I’ll join my fleet with yours on one condition.”

“
Certainly,” said Katsuichi,
trying not to betray his relief. “What is that?”

“
I want to join you on board
the
Divine
Wind
for the
attack.”

The eyes of his men grew wide, and a low hiss
of hushed whispers rose throughout the bridge. Next to him, Kenta
leaned forward, his muscles tense.

“
Don’t do this, Katsuichi-sama,”
he whispered. “This man is a snake—he cannot be
trusted.”

Katsuichi hesitated, but only for a moment.
He waved Kenta back and leaned forward to speak into the
transmitter.

“
Why do you wish to join us,
Colonel?”

“
Well, between you and me, my men
aren’t nearly as tough or as disciplined as yours. If the
temperance of my men would have allowed it, I would not have fled
when I did at Eyn-Gatta. I give you my word.”

Your word isn’t worth the
breath used to speak it,
Katsuichi thought to himself. He shifted in his
seat, glancing at the confused and disquieted faces of his
men.

Kenta leaned forward again. “Your Imper—”

“
We have no choice,” Katsuichi
whispered furiously. “Besides, if he’s commanding his fleet from
our flagship, it won’t be as easy for him to run.”
Better to keep your
enemies in front of you than behind you.

“
Very well,” said Katsuichi,
speaking into the transmitter. “I’ll await your shuttle. We leave
for the rendezvous before the top of the hour.”

“
Fair enough, Your Majesty. I’ll
see you then.”

The transmission clicked off, and the
muttering of hushed whispers soon grew to a low rumble. Kenta let
out a long breath, his face impassive and unreadable.

“
I hope you know what you’re
doing, your highness.”

So do I,
Katsuichi thought silently to
himself.
So
do I.

* * * * *

“
Initiating jump,” said Yuri.
“Stand by.”

Rina held her breath as her stomach turned
the way it always did in jumpspace. She closed her eyes as the
universe seemed to turn itself inside out, then released a long,
silent sigh as the sensation passed.

“
Jump complete.”

“
Raise ship-wide alert to level
two,” said Danica, leaning forward in her command chair. “Ready
weapons and prepare for action. Al-Najmi, what do you have on the
scanners?”

“
Checking now,” said Rina,
running through the various instruments. A gravity well sat some
ten thousand kilometers off their port bow, but the sensors didn’t
pick up any trace of a signal—not even so much as a jump
beacon.

“
The local sector is empty,” she
said. “No sign of any ship, Hameji or otherwise.”

Yuri and Mikhail visibly relaxed, but
Danica’s expression remained tense and unreadable, like a cat on
alert for prey.

“
Lieutenant Avanadze,” she said,
“do you have a reading on the resupply station?”

“
Negative,” said Yuri. “I don’t
even have so much as a radio signal. We’ll have to sight it
ourselves and calculate its orbit independently.”

“
Do you want me to attempt to
find a network?” Rina asked.

“
Negative, Al-Najmi,” said
Danica. “Not until we have a hard-line connection. I don’t want to
do anything to alert the Hameji that we’re here.”

“
I’ve got a reading on
something,” said Yuri. “It’s hard to tell, but it could be the
station.”

“
Excellent. Can you get a
visual?”

“
Just a second—there.”

The forward window dimmed and turned into a
giant display screen. As Rina watched, the image zoomed into a
giant black circle in the midst of the milky starfield. Without a
sun to light its surface, the rogue planet was like a maw of
darkness, a cold, empty world, lost in eternal night. The image
reddened slightly, brightening to translate the infrared into
visible light. A tiny faint speck drifted across the face of the
darkened world, and the camera panned to follow it, zooming in to
show a large, rounded disk, with three short docking arms jutting
out from the center and several large supply tanks along the
flattened underside. As they zoomed in closer, a number of windows
became visible, but all of them were dark.

“
It’s the station, all right,”
said Yuri. “I’m not picking up any energy signals, though. It’s
almost as if it were—”

“
Abandoned,” Danica finished.
“Left behind when the Federation fled this sector.”

Roman grunted. “Then let us pray they left a
cache behind.”

It took several minutes for Yuri
to bring the
Tajji Flame
into a parallel orbit. As they brought up the docking
clamps and crept inch by inch into position, Rina stared listlessly
at the darkened world below, lit only by the cold, distant light of
the stars. She could vaguely recall a scene like the one before
her, almost certainly from a job she’d completed before coming onto
the
Tajji
Flame.
The
admiral—yes, that was the one. Without any malice, she recalled his
face in her mind. Her heart beat a little faster as she remembered
plunging the needle into his neck, the deep satisfaction that came
from feeling his body stiffen and go limp as he passed away by her
hand.

A low grinding sound reverberated through the
bulkheads as the ship’s clamps made contact with the docking node
on the station. A few more clangs broke the ensuing silence,
followed by an almost imperceptible hiss as the seals locked into
place. Then, nothing.

“
Krikoryan,” said Danica, “take a
team of your men inside and secure the station while Konstantin
checks for supplies. I want you to be thorough—we have no idea what
might be in there.”

“
Acknowledged, Captain,” said
Roman. He rose to his feet and stepped past her off the bridge,
followed by the chief engineer, Mikhail.

“
Al-Najmi, establish a hard line
and try to access the network. It’s probably down with everything
else, but even so, I want you to check.”

“
Yes, Captain.”

“
Good. Avanadze, watch those
scanners and be on the lookout for any incoming ships. Let me know
the moment you detect anything.”

“
Understood.”

Danica leaned back in her chair while Rina
and Yuri went to work. Rina searched for any sort of network on the
station, but found nothing; it might as well have been a chunk of
space rock. She was about to report this, when her datalink implant
buzzed in her ear, coming slowly to life.

Roman?
she transmitted, putting a hand to
her ear.
Roman, is that you?

No reply—the link was probably too tenuous to
support direct communication at anything other than close range.
She turned back to her display screen and—

Kill them.

The words sent chills down her neck as images
flashed before her mind’s eye: Danica Nova, Roman Krikoryan, the
rest of the mercenary crew, and finally Princess Hikaru. She froze
where she sat, hardly daring to breathe as the all-too-familiar
hunger surged through her, compelling her to action with an urge
that was inescapable.

Kill them.

Her cheeks paled, and her hands began to
shake. Sweat began to pool in her armpits, and as she turned to the
captain, it was all she could do not to pull out the knife tucked
inside her boot and spill her gushing blood across the floor.

“
C-captain?” she said, struggling
to keep her voice even.

Danica turned in her chair to face her. “Yes,
Lieutenant Al-Najmi?”

“
I—I must request permission—to
go to the medical bay.”

“
Why?” she asked, frowning. “Are
you not feeling well?”

“
N-no,” Rina said, unable to lie.
“I must—leave now.”

“
Very well,” said Danica, nodding
solemnly. “But when you’re better, I want a report. You are
dismissed.”

Rina rose to her feet and stumbled off the
bridge, making Yuri turn his head. That hardly mattered, though, if
it meant putting off the kill order. Even so, she knew she couldn’t
resist it forever.

Kill them.

Chapter 15

Katsuichi took a deep breath
before stepping onto the bridge of the
Divine Wind.
His legs were numb and his stomach
weak, yet he felt strangely calm, as if he were observing
everything from a great distance. Kenta eyed him with concern, but
before the old samurai could ask what was the matter, he reached
out and palmed the access panel to the bridge. The door opened with
a brief hiss, and the officers and technicians rose to their feet
as he entered.

He stood by the familiar command
chair for a brief moment, examining his men before taking his seat.
In their faces, he saw a mixture of fear and dread, but also
discipline and cold, hard determination. Behind him, over the door
to the bridge, the ancient heirloom sword of his people hung
unsheathed on the wall, a testament to their undaunted will.
I will not
disappoint you, Father,
he thought to himself.
I will save our people and redeem
their honor.

The door opened again, and a tall, rugged man
in a crisp blue uniform stepped in. Kenta’s eyes narrowed; it was
Colonel Webb. He nodded to the samurai and gave a short bow,
standing with his hands at parade rest behind his back.

“
Well, Your Highness,” he said,
“shall we prepare the fleet for departure?”

Katsuichi didn’t respond for several moments.
The colonel met his gaze and smiled, with only the barest hint of
unease.

“
Yes,” said Katsuichi, turning to
take his seat. Colonel Webb stepped over to a chair near the door,
next to the gunnery and communications officers. They eyed the
Colonel briefly as he sat down, but dutifully remained standing. At
Katsuichi’s gesture, the officers and technicians returned to their
posts.

“
Open a link to the main
channel,” he ordered.

“
Yes, sir,” said the
communications officer. “Channel open.”

He took another deep breath, his
fingers tingling. “This is Emperor Katsuichi of the
Divine
Wind,
” he
said, speaking loudly. “All commanders, report in.”

The line went blank for a brief moment, as
the stars shone down through the giant windows that surrounded
them.

“
Admiral Uematsu of the
Mikawa
reporting ready,
sir,” came a voice over the speaker.

“
Commander Yasuhiro of the
Ginza
, ready as well,” came another.

“
Commander Takahashi of
the
Miyamoto
, ready.”

“
Commander Aizawa of the
Akiba
, ready.”