The Ganthoran Gambit (The First Admiral Series) (12 page)

As Geor Thardan sat back on his seat aboard the Ghost Hammer, the tall and willowy figure of a young girl named Slythra stumbled and staggered towards the wreckage and devastation of the Imperial Palace entrance. Corpses and discarded weapons lay strewn amongst the smouldering craters and ruined gardens of the Grand Entranceway, making her progress difficult.

When the new Emperor’s black-clad soldiers had landed in Ganthus City, Slythra’s grandmother had dragged out the old Imperial Guard pistol; that her grandfather had once carried, from its hiding place in the dry and crumbling wall. Then, with an instruction to Slythra; telling the girl not to leave the room, her grandmother had disappeared out into the darkened corridor. Two hours later, gnawing her bottom lip in apprehension, Slythra had crept around the door and into the corridor in search of her grandmother.

Picking her way unsteadily through the carnage, Slythra crept past the squat and intimidating Ghost Hammers and into the shattered remnants of the Grand Entranceway. Having been born and brought up in one of the many hundreds of industrial sectors of Ganthus City, she had never seen the Imperial Palace before. In fact, Slythra had never really strayed beyond her own neighbourhood. The ever-present threat of gang violence made her journey to and from school as quick and as short as possible. The Grand Entranceway, strewn with corpses, became a nightmarish maze of obstacles for Slythra who had never even seen a dead body before. Turning and stumbling her way through the horror, she knew that her grandmother had joined the civilian mob that had stormed the Palace, and that if she was still alive, then she would most likely be in the Palace somewhere.

Clambering over the bodies that littered the huge doorway, a terrified Slythra saw the destruction that the Alliance Ghost Hammers and Eagle fighters had wreaked on the majestic interior. Fine art, furniture and decorations, now reduced to so much garbage and rubble, cluttered the once pristine floor leaving a heavy fog of dust, with the acrid stench of smoke hanging in the air. To her left, the great wide ceremonial ramp littered was littered with dead civilians and Frontier Fleet soldiers. The scorch marks and craters of weapons fire turned the pristine white ramp into dark, streaked shambles, where blood ran in pale rivulets to pool at the base.

To her right, Slythra saw the corridor and open doorways to the dozens of formal reception rooms where the great and good of the Empire had waited to be seen. Once again, the savage hand of battle had torn through the once-sedate and perfectly tended rooms. Centuries old furniture lay smashed and smouldering amidst the devastation. Nothing had been spared by the looters and destroyers of generations of Ganthoran high culture. Exquisite vases lay in shards across the scorched and heavily scratched polished floors. And, the ever present dead; in small, pathetic huddles, bore testimony to the savagery of the fighting amidst the shattered splendour.

Following the contours of the corridor wall, Slythra edged nervously through the reception rooms: her eyes scanning the torn and scorched huddles of dead for the distinctive red scarf worn by her grandmother. At every entranceway, she steeled herself for the worst. But, at every room, the red scarf did not appear and Slythra moved on.

Deep in the Palace, the battle still raged. The muffled sounds of weapons fire, explosions, and shouts deepened the fear and anxiety of the already-terrified twelve-year-old. Turning through the corridor into the Audience Hall, Slythra stared in awe at the huge chamber where dignitaries and ambassadors were allowed to present their formal petitions and messages.

Once again, the savagery of the battle had left its mark on this once-proud auditorium. The soaring, spiralled columns that held up the vaulted ceiling were scorched and gouged by the intensity of the weapons fire that had criss-crossed the huge marbled floor.

The massive windows were smashed to thousands of shards, letting the sunlight, smoke, and smell of decaying bodies permeate the great Hall. With her young stomach on the point of rebellion, Slythra covered her nose and mouth and stepped nervously into the Hall. Anxiously, Slythra scanned the dead for any sign of her grandmother, and was silently relieved not to find any. However, as she skirted the Hall, delicately negotiating the dead and devastation, Slythra heard a faint groan. Moving forward carefully, Slythra saw a pile of bodies pitched up against one of the twisting pillars. A group of Frontier Fleet soldiers had finally been hunted down and trapped. This was where they had made their last stand in a vicious hand-to-hand fight.

Following the sound of the groaning, Slythra saw the slight movement of an arm amongst a pile of bodies. At first, she wanted to run away and hide from the moving arm in the twisted, contorted mound of corpses. However, she choked back her gorge and moved shakily forward.

“Help...help me.” A feeble voice pleaded from the nightmare of twisted bodies in front of her.

“Please...,” The voice, no louder than a whisper, continued.

“Hello?” Slythra nervously approached the moving arm.

“Please, help me..,” the voice whispered urgently, the outstretched hand pleading for assistance.

Holding her breath and trying not to make a sound, Slythra stepped carefully around the mound of dead to the outstretched hand. For a moment, she considered simply abandoning the survivor and getting as far away from this place as she possibly could.

“Please, please, help me,” the survivor insisted.

Slythra was now caught in two minds as to whether to abandon someone so desperately in need or to try to help them. Turning back to the outstretched hand, Slythra could see two dead civilians on top of the arm. Drawing a deep breath, and steeling herself for the ordeal, she took hold of the foot of the topmost body and dragged it down. Fighting back the urge to vomit, Slythra dragged and pulled the body of an elderly man onto the floor. The wreckage crunched beneath her feet as she pulled the dead weight clear. With the old man moved, Slythra saw that the survivor was wearing a Frontier Fleet uniform. Returning to the pile of bodies, Slythra strained and grunted to push away the remains of a young woman to finally uncover the survivor.

Looking closely at the survivor, Slythra saw a young woman in a Frontier Fleet uniform. Two heavy scorch marks on her chest indicated a blast from a twin-barrelled laser weapon.

The young woman, trembling with shock from the loss of blood, held out her hand for Slythra to hold. Kneeling beside the young soldier perched on top of two layers of corpses, Slythra held the offered hand. The skin was cold and clammy to her touch; the flesh more dead than alive.

“Bless you,” the shivering soldier said softly. “Water?”

Looking around, Slythra saw a water canteen hanging from the belt of another dead Frontier Fleet soldier. With some trepidation, she snagged the canteen and tore it from the dead soldier’s body before returning to the dying woman. Flipping open the canteen cap, Slythra tried to manoeuvre the open neck to the soldier’s mouth. After several attempts, she realised that she would have to lift the soldier’s head to allow her to drink. Nervously and delicately, Slythra gently raised the soldiers head and saw the pale slick of blood seep onto her bare arm. With great tenderness, Slythra tilted the canteen to the soldier’s lips.

The injured soldier drank greedily from the canteen, the water splashing her face as she gulped down the cooling, soothing, and refreshing liquid. When the soldier started to choke on the clear bright cascade of liquid, Slythra gently drew the canteen away.

“Thank you.” The soldier gasped in short, rasping breaths as Slythra gently lowered her head down again.

“You’re welcome,” Slythra whispered and re-sealed the canteen.

Turning to set the canteen onto the ground, Slythra gasped as she suddenly noticed the band of a dozen armed civilians staring silently at her.

Instinctively, Slythra knew that she was in extreme danger as the silent mob began to close in on her. Brandishing all forms of outlandish weapons from captured Frontier Fleet lasers, to sharpened household implements and makeshift clubs, the mob were eager for more blood. On a day when the Palace floors had been slick with blood, this mob was in no mood to ask questions or listen to explanations. Shying away from the encroaching mob, Slythra found herself stepping anxiously over the dead and pressing against the twisting pillar in her panic to escape.

“And, what do we have here?” A heavily built man leered at the cowering Slythra.

“Please, sir...she...she...she was thirsty.” Slythra backed away from the encroaching crowd.

“It’s a piece of Frontier Fleet scum!” a voice from deep within the crowd riled up the angry mob.

“Kill her!” An older woman’s voice yelled as a hand shot out from the mob, grabbing the shoulder of Slythra’s dress, as a chorus of yells and shouts erupted.

All around her, the terrified Slythra saw faces twisted and contorted with hatred as she was dragged away from the flimsy comfort of the pillar and out into the open.

“Cut her! Slice her up!” another voice bellowed as Slythra was thrown to the ground amongst the blood and debris.

“No!...No!...Please...,” the feeble, voice of the wounded soldier pleaded above the soft, menacing, guttural growl of the mob facing Slythra.

A moment later, the pleading voice was silenced by the sharp ‘ZIPP’ of a laser weapon.

Scrambling onto her backside, Slythra began to slide away slowly from the mob that was intent on killing her, only to find that she was now surrounded.

“I’ll deal with this treacherous little runt!” Slythra felt a big, strong hand lift her bodily from the ground.

Being lifted as if she weighed no more than a feather, Slythra screamed her panic and alarm. The loud, piercing alarm call echoed from the walls and vaulted ceiling of the Hall. And, as she screamed Slythra felt the huge hand clamp around her fragile and vulnerable throat. Unable to breathe, Slythra struggled and convulsed in the over-powering grip. Lashing out at the vice-like grip with what feeble strength she possessed, Slythra started to feel dizzy as her brain; starved of oxygen, began to shut down.

“Go on, Falron!” someone egged on the strangler.

“Choke the life out of her,” a member of the mob yelled.

“Cut her! Cut her! Cut her!” Another voice began the rhythmic chant that was quickly taken up by the rest of the mob.

“Cut her! Cut her! Cut her! Cut her! Cut her! Cut her! Cut her!” The mob chanted the rhythmic animalistic litany of Slythra’s imminent doom.

With her vision clouding, and with little strength left to fight, Slythra saw the heavy-curved blade held up before her eyes.

The smiling and leering face of her soon-to-be killer wreathed in an ecstasy of cruelty and sadistic delight, turning the blade in his hand, letting the shards of light dance from the viciously-sharpened edge. With one last convulsive snap, Slythra threw her last scraps of energy into breaking free from the savage grip, and failed. With her vision quickly narrowing into a long, dark tunnel, Slythra heard a faint voice seemingly from far away sneer.

“I’m gonna gut you, you little traitor!” The knifeman grimaced at the near-unconscious scrap of life held in his enormous hand.

As the darkness closed in around Slythra, the litany of “cut her!” intensified and quickened as the knife was drawn back to slash her throat.

Thankfully, the fatal sting of cold sharpened metal to her exposed throat never came for Slythra.

As she finally drifted into unconsciousness, a sharp ‘ZIPP” was the last sound she heard before she fell heavily to the floor. Then, with a loud, desperate gasp, Slythra arched her back and began to cough, splutter, and gasp the precious air into her crushed windpipe and starved lungs. Within seconds, she was clutching at her throat as if she could tear it open to force more air into her tortured air passage.

“That’s enough!” a voice familiar to Slythra echoed in the Hall.

Still unable to comprehend what had happened, Slythra opened her eyes; gratefully gasping down great lung-fulls of air, and saw her would-be-killer lying a few metres away. The face that was once so contorted with hate and delight now bore a mask of astonishment and stunned surprise. The bulging, sightless, glassy eyes seemed to protest his amazement to Slythra, who had, only a few moments before, been at his tender mercies.

“What do you think you’re doing, old woman?” the voice of the ringleader protested.

“Don’t move!” The familiar voice of Slythra’s grandmother was calm and deliberate.

“What are you...?!” The curious member of the mob’s voice was cut short by another sharp ‘ZIPP’ of a laser weapon.

“I said, don’t move, and keep your hands away from your weapons.” Slythra’s grandmother defiantly stared as another body hit the floor to join the large number of corpses already there.

Behind Slythra, the crowd were silently and resentfully parting in the face of the elderly woman with the old Imperial Guard laser pistol.

“That’s right, keep your hands where I can see them.” Slythra’s grandmother shepherded the sullen crowd away from where her granddaughter lay.

When the mob had moved back sufficiently, Slythra’s grandmother crouched down next to her.

“Are you all right, sweetness?” The courageous old woman checked on Slythra; using the pet name her father had always used, as she kept a wary eye on the rest of the mob.