Empire from the Ashes

Chapter Twenty-Six

Robert Stevens—no longer "the Reverend"—watched the broadcast with hating eyes. Bishop Francine Hilgemann stared out over her congregation from a carven pulpit, and her soft, clear voice was passionate.

"Brothers and sisters, violence is no answer to fear. Perhaps some souls are mistaken, but the Church cannot and will not condone those who defy a loving God's will by striking out in unreasoning hatred. God's people do not stain their hands with blood, nor is it fitting that the death of any human should be wreaked in anger. Those who style themselves 'The Sword of God' are not His servants, but destroyers of all He teaches, and their—"

Stevens snarled and killed the HD, sickened that he'd once respected that... that— He couldn't think of a foul enough word.

He paced slowly, and his eyes warmed with an ugly light. Disgust and revulsion had driven him from the Church, but Hilgemann and those like her could never weaken God's Sword. Their corruption only filled the true faithful with determination, and the Sword struck deeper every day.

As he had struck. The most terrifying—and satisfying—day of his life had been the one in which he realized why his cell had been sent against Vincente Cruz. The deaths of Cruz's wife and children had bothered some of his people, yet God's work required sacrifices, and if innocents perished, God would receive them as the martyrs they'd become. But that he had been the instrument which destroyed the heirs—heirs so corrupt they'd claimed a Narhani as a friend—had filled Stevens with exaltation.

There'd been other missions, but none so satisfying as that... or as the one he now looked forward to. It was time Francine Hilgemann learned God's true chosen rejected her self-damning compromises with the Anti-Christ.

Sergeant Graywolf was calm-eyed and relaxed, for he knew how to wait. Especially when he awaited something so satisfying.

He didn't know how the analysts had developed the intel. From the briefing, he suspected they'd intercepted a courier, but all that mattered was that they knew. With luck, they might even take one of the bastards alive. Daniel Graywolf was a professional, and he knew how valuable that could be... yet deep down inside, he hoped they wouldn't be quite that lucky.

Stevens gave thanks for the rainy night. Its wet blackness wouldn't bother Imperial surveillance systems, but the people behind those systems were only human. The dreary winter rain would have its effect where it mattered, dulling and slowing their minds.

Alice Hughes and Tom Mason walked arm-in-arm behind him like lovers, weapons hidden by their raincoats. Stevens carried his own weapon in a shoulder holster: an old-style automatic with ten-millimeter "slugs" of the same explosive used in grav guns. He didn't see Yance or Pete, but they'd close in at the proper moment. He knew that, just as he knew Wanda Curry would bring their escape flyer in at precisely the right second. They'd practiced the operation for days, and their timing was exact.

His pulse ticked faster as he reached the high-rise. It was of Pre-Siege construction, but it had been modernized, and he paused under the force field roof protecting the front entrance. He wiped rain from his face with just the right gratitude for the respite while Alice and Tom closed up on his heels, and the corner of his eye saw Yance and Pete arriving from the opposite direction. The five of them came together by obvious coincidence, and then all of them turned and stepped through the entrance as one.

There were no security personnel in the lobby, only the automated systems he'd been briefed upon, and he paused in the entry, head bent to hide his features, shielding Yance and Pete as they reached under their coats. Then he stepped aside, and their suppressors rose with practiced precision and burned each scan point into useless junk with pulses of focused energy.

Stevens grunted, jerked the ski mask over his face, and snatched out his own weapon, and the well-drilled quintet raced for the transit shafts.

Graywolf stiffened at the implant signal. Clumsy, he thought with a hungry smile. Obviously their information had been less complete than they'd thought, for they'd missed three separate sensors.

Nine more Security Ministry agents stood as one behind nine closed doors as Graywolf cradled his hyper rifle and moved to the window.

Stevens led his followers from the transit shaft, and they spread out behind him, hugging the walls, weapons poised. His own eyes were fixed on the door at the end of the corridor, yet his attention roamed all about him, acute as a panther's after so many months at the guerrilla's trade.

They were half way down the hall when nine doors opened as one.

"Lay down your weapons!" a voice shouted. "You're all under arr—"

Stevens spun like a cat. He heard Yance's enraged bellow even as he tried to line up on the uniformed woman in the doorway, but his people's reactions didn't match their murderousness, for none were enhanced. His barking automatic blasted a chunk from the wall beside the door, and then a hurricane of grav gun darts blew all five terrorists into bloody meat.

Graywolf heard the thunder and shrugged. They'd had their chance.

He held his own position and watched the getaway flyer slide to a neat halt. It was right on the tick, and he aligned his hyper rifle on the drive housing before he triggered his com.

"Land and step out of the flyer!" he told the pilot.

There was a split-second pause, and then the flyer leapt ahead with blinding acceleration. But unlike Stevens' killers, Graywolf was fully enhanced, and the exploding flyer gouged a fifty-meter trench in the street below as its drive unit vanished into hyper-space.

Lawrence Jefferson completed his report with profound satisfaction.

He'd never really been happy about penetrating security on Birhat. The distance was too great, and any communication with agents there was vulnerable to interception. But that was no longer necessary; his plans had matured to a point at which it no longer mattered what the military did, and he controlled Earth's security forces from his own office.

His lips pursed as he considered his intertwining strategies. His latest ploy should remove Francine from any suspicion. She'd openly become the Church of the Armageddon's leader, but as one who denounced the Sword of God's fanaticism. Her masterful pleas for nonviolence only underscored the Sword's growing ferocity, yet she was emerging as a moderate, and Horus and Ninhursag were obligingly accepting his own "astonished" conclusion that she was someone they could work with against the radicals.

Now his security forces' defeat of the Sword's attempt on her life would make her whiter than snow. He'd wondered if he was being too clever, for it would never have done for any of Stevens' people to be taken alive and disclose the truth about Imperial Terra, but he'd chosen his agents with care. All were utterly loyal to the Imperium... but each had lost friends or family to the Sword. He was certain they'd tried to take the terrorists alive—and equally certain they hadn't tried any harder than they had to. And, of course, he'd known he could trust Stevens' fanatics to resist.

He was just as happy to have that loose end tied, for Ninhursag's decision to flood Earth with ONI agents worried him, especially since he didn't know why she was doing it. Her official explanation might be the truth, for reinforcing Earth Security and opening a double offensive against the Sword made sense. He didn't like it, but it did make sense. Yet he wasn't quite convinced that was her real motive. At first he'd been afraid she was somehow onto him, but five months had passed since she'd started, and if he had, indeed, been her objective, he'd be in custody by now.

Whatever she was up to, it enforced greater circumspection upon him. Since taking over from Gus, Jefferson had found it expedient to make adjustments in certain background investigations, culling his own cadre of fully-enhanced personnel from the Ministry of Security itself. It was so convenient to have the government enhance his people for him, but Ninhursag's swarm of busybodies had forced a temporary shutdown in such activities.

Not that it worried him too much. His plans were in place, centered upon the crown jewels of his subversions: Brigadier Alex Jourdain and Lieutenant Carl Bergren. Jourdain's high position in Earth Security made him invaluable as Jefferson's senior field man and cutout, but Bergren was even more important. That lowly officer was the key, for he was a greedy young man with expensive habits. How Battle Fleet had ever let him into uniform, much less placed him in such a sensitive position, passed Jefferson's understanding, but he supposed even the best screening processes had to fail occasionally. He himself had stumbled upon Bergren almost by accident, and he'd taken pains to conceal Bergren's... indiscretions, for thanks to Lieutenant Bergren, Admiral Ninhursag MacMahan had just over five months to do whatever she was doing before she died.

Senior Fleet Captain Antonio Tattiaglia looked up in surprise, trowel in hand and his newest rose bush half-planted, as Brigadier Hofstader entered his atrium. Hofstader was a small, severe woman, always immaculate in her black-and-silver Marine uniform, and this hasty intrusion was most unlike her.

"Yes, Erika?"

"Sorry to bother you, Sir, but something's come up."

Tattiaglia hid a sigh. Hofstader had commanded Lancelot's Marines for over a year, and she still sounded as if she were on a parade ground. The woman was almost oppressively competent, but he couldn't warm to her.

"What is it?"

"I believe we've just detected a Sword of God strike force en route to its target, Sir," she said crisply, and he forgot all about her manner.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, Sir. The scanner tech of the watch—Scan Tech Bateman—decided to run an atmospheric-target tracking exercise, in the course of which she detected three commercial conveyors with inoperable transponders executing a nape-of-the-earth approach to the Shenandoah Power Reception Facility."

Hofstader had her expression well in hand, but excitement was burning through her professionalism for the first time since he'd known her.

"Have you alerted Earth Security?" he demanded, already trotting towards the transit shaft.

"No, Sir. Fleet Captain Reynaud informed ONI." She moved briskly at his side, and her smile was cold. "ONI has requested that we investigate."

"Hot damn," Tattiaglia whispered. They stepped into the shaft and it hurled them towards Lancelot's bridge. "Do we have something in position?"

"Sir, I alerted my ready duty platoon as soon as Bateman reported the conveyors. They'll enter atmosphere in approximately—" she paused to consult her internal chronometer "—seventy-eight seconds."

"Good work, Brigadier. Very good work!" The shaft deposited them outside the planetoid's bridge, and Tattiaglia rubbed his mental hands in glee as he raced for the command hatch.

"Thank you, Sir."

Captain Tattiaglia arrived on his bridge just as Hofstader's assault shuttle entered atmosphere at eleven times the speed of sound. A corner of the command deck display altered silently, showing them what the shuttle pilot was seeing, and the captain dropped into his command couch with hungry eyes.

"Listen up, people," Lieutenant Prescott said as his shuttle hurtled downward. "We don't know these're terrorists, so we ground, watch 'em, and get ready to move if they are, but nobody does squat unless I say so. Got it?" A chorus of assents came back. "Good. Now, if they are bad guys, ONI wants prisoners. We take some of 'em alive if we can—everybody got that?"

The fresh affirmatives were a bit disappointed, but he had other things to worry about as the shuttle grounded to disgorge his Marines, then swooshed back into the heavens in stealth to give air support if it was needed. Prescott didn't even watch it go; he was already maneuvering his troops into the hastily chosen positions he'd selected on the way in.

Three big conveyors ghosted to a landing in a patch of woods, and forty heavily armed people filed out with military precision. The raiders moved quietly towards the floodlit grounds of the Shenandoah Valley Power Receptor, then split, diverging towards two different security gates.

The commander of one attack party studied a passive scanner as he neared the perimeter fence, hunting security systems their briefing might have missed, then stiffened. He whirled, and his jaw dropped as his eyes confirmed his instrument's findings.

Well, they sure as hell aren't picnickers, Prescott thought as his armor scanners confirmed the intruders' heavy load of weapons, and— Oh shit! So much for surprise!

"Take 'em!"

The terrorist leader saw the armored shapes and tried to scream a warning, but a burst of fire splattered him across his troops halfway through the first syllable.

His followers gaped at the Marines, but they had weapons of their own and two of them were fully enhanced, and a Marine blew apart as the night exploded in a vicious firefight. An energy gun killed a second trooper, the whiplash of grav gun darts crackled everywhere, and a third Marine went down—wounded, not dead—but the Marines had combat armor, and the terrorists didn't.

Forty-one seconds after the first shot, three Marines were dead and five were wounded; none of the four terrorist survivors was unhurt.

Prescott waved his medics towards the casualties, then turned as the parked conveyors screamed upwards. They were still climbing frantically when Lancelot's assault shuttle blew them apart from stealth.

Funny, I could've sworn I told Owens to challenge 'em before she shot. Prescott ran back over his conversation with his pilot. Oops, guess not.

"Friend," Fleet Lieutenant Esther Steinberg said, "I don't really care whether you talk to me or not. We've got three of your buddies, too, and one of you is going to tell me what I want to know."

"Never!" The young man cuffed to the chair under the lie detector looked far less defiant than he tried to sound. "None of us have anything to say to servants of the Anti-Christ!"

You're talking too much, friend. Got a little case of nerves here, do we? Good. Sweat, you bastard!

"Think not?" She crossed her arms. "Let me explain something. We caught you in the act, and you killed three Fleet Marines. Know what that means?" Her prisoner stared at her, sullen eyes frightened, and she smiled. "That means there's not gonna be any fooling around. You're gonna be tried and convicted so fast your head swims." The young man swallowed audibly. "I don't imagine your mama and papa'll be real pleased to see their itty-bitty son shot—and they will, 'cause every data channel's gonna carry it live. I'd guess you've seen one or two people catch it with grav guns, haven't you? Kinda messy, isn't it? I figure a half second burst ought to just about saw you in two, friend. Think your folks'll like that?"

"You bitch!" the prisoner screamed, and she smiled again—coldly.

"Sticks and stones, friend. Sticks and stones. I'll make sure I've got some spare time to watch, too."

"You—you—!" The prisoner writhed against his restraints, wounds forgotten, eyes mad, and Steinberg's laugh was a douche of ice-water.

"You seem a mite upset, friend. Too bad." She turned towards the hatch, then paused, listening to his incoherent, terrified rage and gauging his mood. This boy's just about ripe.

"Just one thing." He froze, glaring at her. "Talk to me, and ONI'll recommend leniency. You still won't like what happens, but you'll be alive." She smiled like a shark. "Only catch is, we only make the deal with one of you—and you've got ten seconds to decide if you're the lucky one."

"That," Fleet Captain Reynaud observed, "is one nasty lieutenant."

"She is, indeed," Tattiaglia murmured, watching the holo of the "interview" with his exec as the terrorist began to spill his guts, then glanced up at the captain from ONI. "I'm not going to shed any tears for the prisoners, but will any of this stand up in court?"

"Not in a civilian court, but it won't have to. His Majesty's invoked the Defense of the Imperium Act, and that gives military courts jurisdiction over prisoners captured by the military. Besides," the captain's grin was as sharklike as his lieutenant's, "we don't need any of it. Your boys and girls caught these jokers with enough physical evidence to shoot them all."

"Then what's the point?"

"The point, Captain Tattiaglia," the ONI officer said, switching off the holo and turning to Lancelot's CO, "is that I've got another little job for you. Among the other tidbits our gallant fanatic let slip is the location of his own cell's HQ—and Esther set a new personal record breaking that little prick. If we get a move on, we can hit them before they figure out their raiders aren't coming back."

"You mean—?"

"I mean, Captain, that twenty more terrorists are just sitting there waiting for you to drop a few Marines down their chimney."

"Oh boy," Tattiaglia whispered. "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Now I know there's a God."

Fleet Admiral MacMahan's smile was wolfish as she studied the report. That Lieutenant Steinberg is one sharp cookie. Have to do something nice for her in the next promotion list. And Tattiaglia's people deserve one hell of a pat on the back, too.

She finished the report with a sigh of satisfaction. Nice. Very nice. Jefferson's people swat an assassination attempt Tuesday, and we pick off an entire cell Thursday. Not a good week for the Sword of God.

Of course, it hadn't gotten them any closer to Mister X, but she wasn't complaining. She punched up the holo record of the terrorist hideout and studied it. Steinberg had accompanied the Marines in and gotten every bit of the raid and its aftermath for her report, and Ninhursag whistled at the size of the terrorists' arsenal. There was a lot of Imperial weaponry in it, and she made a mental note to ask about the serial numbers. They hadn't had a lot of luck in that regard from Jefferson's occasional successes, but they had a lot more hardware this time, and all they really needed was one hard lead.

The holo record shifted to a view of the terrorist's main planning area. They seemed to have been well equipped with maps, too, and she frowned as she saw the precision with which some were marked. They even had a trophy room, she noted, grimacing at the wall-mounted displays. Stupid bastards. They'd collected bits and pieces from past raids as if they were counting coup! Well, it might help her people figure out which attacks this bunch had been responsible for, and—

Ninhursag MacMahan slammed the hold button and stood slowly, face pale as death, and walked into the holo to peer at one particular trophy. She licked her lips, trying to tell herself she was wrong, but she wasn't, and she whispered a soft, frightened prayer as she stared at her worst nightmare: a second-stage initiator from Tsien Tao-ling's super bomb.

The council room was quiet. Colin and Jiltanith sat between Gerald Hatcher and Tsien Tao-ling, and their faces were as pale as Ninhursag's own.

"Sweet Jesu," Jiltanith murmured at last. "Thy news is worse than e'er I durst let myself believe, 'Hursag, yet 'tis God's Own grace thou'st beagled out this threat."

"Amen to that." Colin frowned down at the tabletop. "Does this suggest a link between the Sword and Mister X?"

"I don't think so," Ninhursag said. "None of the survivors can tell us where that particular 'trophy' came from, but they're all souvenirs of attacks their cell carried out. I wish we did know where they got it; at least then we'd have some idea where to look for whoever has the thing. It's possible the Sword hit them before they finished it, but it wouldn't mean much if they did. Whoever's behind this must've made more than one copy of the plans. Losing one construction team might slow them down; it wouldn't stop them."

"Lord." Colin pulled on his nose, and Ninhursag saw the lines months of worry had carved in his face. "Gerald? Tao-ling?"

" 'Hursag is correct," Tsien said. Hatcher only nodded, and Colin sighed.

"Okay, 'Hursag. Where do we go from here?"

"We start from a worst-case assumption. First, the thing's been built. Second, the people who probably have it killed eighty thousand people just to get the twins. Third—and scariest of all—the Sword may have captured it." A visible shudder ran through her audience at that thought.

"I think we're still fairly safe in assuming Earth isn't the target. I'm not going to cast that in stone, but I simply cannot conceive of anyone wanting to destroy the bulk of the human race. Certainly the Sword wouldn't; their whole purpose is to save the rest of humanity from us back-sliders and the Narhani. And there's not too much doubt Mister X is operating from Earth, which means he'd be blowing up his own base."

"Agreed." Colin pulled on his nose again, then looked at Hatcher. "Get hold of Adrienne, Hector, and Amanda. I want an evacuation plan for Birhat yesterday. We can't rehearse it without risking warning Mister X that we know he's got this thing, but we can at least get organized for it. I'll warn Brashieel's people personally. There's not much chance of a leak at their end, and there's still few enough Narhani we can pull them all out by mat-trans if we have to."

The admiral nodded, and he turned back to Ninhursag, nodding for her to continue.

"While they do that," she said, "I intend to start an immediate high-priority search of Narhan and Birhat. Maker knows that bomb's a damnably small target, but Battle Fleet can carry out centimeter-by-centimeter scans without tipping Mister X. It'll take time, especially under a security blackout, but if it's out there, Gerald's and my people will find it."

She paused, and her dark eyes met her Emperor's.

"I only pray we find it in time," she said softly.