Vortex (42 page)

"Sten is down," an unemotional voice on the com said.

Shut up, Cind said. Don't look. Don't turn. Just hold on that dormer window and see the curtain flung out by the muzzle blast inside, bastard's trained, had enough sense to pick a stance back in the shadows, and she pumped three AM2 explosions through the window…

Sten's formal dress may have been bulletproofed by Kilgour. However, there is no way the human animal can withstand the impact of a solid bullet weighing just over one hundred grams being delivered at a velocity of around eight hundred meters per second, unless he or she is inside a tank, any more than a bulletproof vest is worth drakh to a pedestrian hit by a bus.

But it had been too long for Venloe's old training, as his mind flinched away from that shoulder-cracking kick-to-come.

Six hundred meters is not significant with a modern weapon. But it is a factor. It is especially a factor if a projectile weapon uses conventional propellant to punt an enormously heavy round to its target. So the trajectory taken by the bullet from Venloe's dinosaur-killing rifle was a high, looping howitzer-arc, subject to crosswind and heat/cold waves.

The bullet should have hit Sten in the stomach. Instead, it first struck the heavy chair beside him, and shattered. Most of the bullet ricocheted away to who-knew-where. But its solid jacket impacted directly on Sten's monkey jacket, just on the base of one of those solid plates Kilgour had sheathed his boss with. Sten was knocked spinning off the stand. The self-inflating shock cushion realized that its finest hour had arrived, and suddenly the Imperial ambassador greatly resembled a floating bath toy; then, as he touched down on corpses, the shock cushion deflated, and there was somebody just in front of him with a bayoneted rifle.

Somehow the pistol was still in Sten's hands, and he shot the man dead, and was looking for a target, then realized he was still alive, and able to hear that wonderful wonderful
Ayo… Gurkhali
as his backup arrived.

Cind's AM2 rounds blew the attic room apart, sending Venloe stumbling back, dazed for a moment; then he recovered, staggering toward the open hatch, but no, there'll be someone out there, remember you planned for this, too, reach down, reach down.

Venloe's hands found the pull cord on the two smoke grenades he had taped on either side of the patch, and yanked.

Wait… wait… wait for the smoke… now. Through the hatch and away with you.

"Clottin' missed him," Cind muttered, then her sights swung as the open hatchway gouted smoke.

"The ambassador is all right! I say again, the ambassador is all right," the com bleated.

Did the explosion start a fire…

Hell. It's a smoke screen, she thought, seeing a flicker of movement that disappeared behind the parapet.

Oh, you cute thing, she thought.

"Earle. Three rounds rapid. Into the middle of that wall. Forward one meter from that rainspout. Now!"

Crash… crash… crash.

The ancient stone of the parapet shattered. Cind could see a tiny, jagged hole through her scope.

Now, you behind that wall, what are you thinking? Do you think you're quick enough—or that I'm not a good enough shot-to wriggle past that little crack?

Cind sighted and fired. Her single round slammed through the crack and exploded somewhere on the parapet's far side.

Yes, you. I
am
that good a shot that I can slip a bullet through the hole if I see any movement.

Now, it would seem to me, were I stupid enough to be that man over there, thinking that twelve hundred meters and only one way out makes you bulletproof, I would now be considering modifying my avenues of egress.

"Earle, watch the smoke."

"NG for him. It's thinning."

Very good. So what do we have? We have you out there, lying prone behind that parapet. Your exit route is blocked by that hole Earle drilled and by the knowledge you have that I can see through it and shoot through it.

About twelve meters back of Earle's spy hole, the parapet ends against the dormer window. So you are lying somewhere within that twelve meters.

First we access the area…

She sent another round into the dormer window's sill, shattering away. Yes. Now, if I were lying there, would I be closer to the dormer, or to that little crack? I'd be closer to the crack, and waiting for some kind of miracle to cross that two-centimeter "gap."

Range to the dormer sill…
that
. She locked the range finder.

Cind moved her scope sideways, sweeping the cross hairs along the blank face of the parapet but keeping the barrel aimed exactly at the shattered window sill. About… there. The linear accelerator hummed. Ready.

Cind fired.

The AM2 round spat across the twelve hundred meters. Then, at the appropriate range, it turned a sharp right.

Venloe was lying flat, trying to figure what his next option might be, just where Cind had estimated.

The bullet hit him at the base of his pelvis and exploded.

Half of Venloe's body pinwheeled up into the air and over the parapet, and splattered down on the rooftop. Then it slid, greasily, hands splayed as if trying to hang on, over the edge of the roof and fell two hundred meters into the square.

The time elapsed since Venloe had set off his smoke screen was just under two minutes.

Milhouz stood alone on the reviewing stand. At length, he realized he was still alive.

He was the only one.

There… there were the bodies of his parents.

He would mourn them.

But the dynasty would continue.

Iskra was dead.

But Milhouz lived.

The beginnings of that look of saintly self-satisfaction crept across his face.

It was still there as the kukri slashed from behind, and his head rode a crimson fountain to bounce off the stand and paint a red semicircle on the square's paving.

Jemedar Lalbahadur Thapa stepped back as the headless corpse dropped. He sheathed his kukri and nodded once, in satisfaction.

The Gurkha had been at Pooshkan University.

The Square of the Khaqans was almost quiet, except for the moans and screams of the wounded and the roar of runaway engines from crashed gravlighters.

Sten heard wails and screams from the crowd as the equally stunned security forces began clearing the square. A few meters away was a sprawled body he identified as that of Dr. Iskra.

Overhead, the bright cheerful day was gone, and storm clouds were rolling in. So much, Sten thought, for weather prophesying hurly-burly, witches, or anything else.

He walked over to the body and used a toe to turn it over.

"Th' lad's aboot ae dead as Ah've e'er seen."

"He is."

"Well," Alex said as he walked up beside Sten. "Th' king's croaked, an' long live th' king an a' thae. What the clot are we goin' t' do next?"

Sten thought about it.

"I will be double-damned if I have even the slightest," he said honestly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

T
hirty-seven E-hours later, thunder rolled across Rurik.

Sten was carefully composing his dispatch on Iskra's assassination that would give the full details—following up the initial flash sent to the Eternal Emperor and Prime within minutes of Sten's race back to the embassy.

Someone at the spaceport buzzed the embassy—an Imperial unit or units had just broadcast that they were inbound for landing.

Neither Sten nor Alex had time for more than a fast wonderment: Was this support? Some Imperials that had nothing to do with anything? An invasion?

The sky rumbled louder than one of Jochi's super thunderstorms, and ships swept overhead.

"Sufferin' Jesus," Alex swore. "Ah dinnae glim's' many putt-putts since th' war ended. Thae must be… twa, no, three squadrons. Wi' battlewagons. Somebody's through muckin' aboot—or else they've finally found us oot, lad."

Sten didn't answer—he was also watching the sky. The second wave was coming in, behind the warships.

Troop transports, auxiliaries, and their screens.

Sten estimated that a full division of Imperial soldiers was arriving.

Now, just what in the hell…

"…are you doing here, Ian?"

"You want the answer as of the day before yesterday," Ian Mahoney asked, "or what it is after we intercepted your charming message to Prime?"

"Whichever one I can handle," Sten said. They were on the flag bridge of the Imperial battleship
Repulse
, flying Mahoney's command flag. Outside, Rurik's once-deserted spaceport was studded with ships and looked like a central military field on Prime World.

Sten and Alex's estimates had been quite correct—Mahoney's force consisted of three battleship squadrons and Mahoney's "home" unit, the First Guards Division.

Mahoney had greeted them, introduced them to the admiral in charge of the naval forces, a rather officious sort named Langsdorff, chased him off the bridge, and opened a bottle of the special liquor made for the Emperor called Scotch.

"I'll give you both sets of my orders, then. The Emperor ordered me to put together a peacekeeping force just after the barracks bombing. He told me he wanted me to arrive, with muscle, at the proper time. My job description was to be Imperial governor. I was supposed to back you up, and make sure Iskra stayed on his throne."

Sten pursed his lips. "So nothing changed his mind, then? About Iskra."

"Was something supposed to?"

"Yeah. About twelve metric tons of the best stones I could polish and a solid silver bucket to keep them in. Never mind. I'll show you my rock collection later. The Iskra situation has taken care of itself."

"So I got my orders changed," Mahoney said. "The Altaics are now to be put under direct rule from Prime."

"Home rule," Alex wondered. "Thae's clottin'
ne'er
an answer. Sorry, sir."

"Kilgour, the day you can't put in an oar is the day I'm ready to go back to wearing a uniform. I don't like it either. But that's the direct orders from the Man."

"For how long?"

"I wasn't told."

Sten rolled his yet untouched drink between his palms, looking for the right way to ask his question. "Ian—what did your orders say about me?"

"Nothing. Should they have?"

"I don't know."

Sten explained that he had asked to be relieved previously, and that the Emperor had refused. Now, with Iskra dead, and the Altaics even closer to the cliff edge of chaos, he assumed he would either be headed for home in disgrace or at the least offered another assignment.

"I guess," Mahoney said, "that you're to continue as ambassador. At least until the shock waves settle down. Then I guess one of us will be moved on. I can't picture the Emperor keeping both of his high-dollar troubleshooters in the same forty-holer for very long. There's too many barns burnin' out there."

"Yeah."

"I don't think we need to worry about any kind of pecking order, do we, Sten?"

"That wasn't why I was asking."

"Okay. Everything's settled. Let's see if we can't jerk these clots into something resembling armed truce, starting tomorrow.

"Now, would you slug that back? You're getting touchy, being out here with all these murderous clots, touchy and paranoiac."

"I guess I am," Sten said, and followed Mahoney's orders, trying to relax.

Now, at least, he has something and somebody to lean on with some real clout. But the back of his mind told him that somehow, in some way, the Altaic Cluster would find a way to drag Mahoney, the navy, and the Imperial Guard down, into the bloody anarchy they seemed to love all too well.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

T
hey sat on the banks of Menynder's desolate pond. The old Tork was silent as Sten painted the bleak future facing the Altaics.

"You're at one of those moments in history," Sten said, "when disaster and opportunity are equal options. What happens next is your choice."

"Not mine," Menynder said. "Choices are made by people with hope. Right now, I have about as much hope for my people as I have of ever catching a clottin' fish in this pond.'' He gestured at the dead waters.

"Someone
will
replace Iskra," Sten said. "Chances are, all you'll do is trade one despot for another. Why leave it to chance?"

"Because no single person can successfully lead the Altaics," Menynder said. "In case you haven't noticed, none of us are very clottin' easy to get along with."

"I've noticed," Sten said dryly.

"In fact, we're rotten at it. We'd as soon as kill each other as breathe. So the top man is top killer. By definition… It's the way our stupid system works. The biggest and baddest tribe kicks drakh out of everybody else as often as possible. Which is how it stays big and bad."

"I was going to suggest something else," Sten said. "I was going to suggest putting together some kind of coalition government."

Menynder snorted. "Coalition? On the Altaics? Not clottin' likely.''

"You almost put one together before," Sten said flatly.

Menynder's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

Sten didn't bother with being casual. "The infamous dinner with the old Khaqan," he said. "I've never believed that story."

"What
do
you believe?" Menynder's voice was cold.

"I think the Khaqan was never invited at all," Sten said. "He wouldn't sit down with a bunch of Suzdal, Bogazi, and Torks. Much less
eat
with them.

"I think you… General Douw… Youtang and Diatry… had no idea he was even going to show up. In fact, I think you were all sitting together in that room trying to figure out how to get rid of him. And
you
are the only being in this cluster capable of hammering together a plot involving all representative species."

Sten gave a chilly smile. "If that's true," he said, "it only follows that you are also the only being capable of putting together the kind of coalition government I have in mind."