The Glory of the Empress Read online

  “Are we doing this?” she asked.

  Bjorn followed her to the armory. Kladinova got the maneuvering-wire launchers strapped to his forearms in a businesslike fashion, then ran a check.

  “Good?” she asked, looking at the readout.

  Bjorn gave his hands a little shake. “It’ll be fine. I’m better with this than actual free-space gear.”

  She stared at him. Bjorn had never been face-to-face with the aristocracy before serving on this ship. It wasn’t that she wasn’t expressive, because she was. He just didn’t know what any of these expressions meant, except for the frequent and obvious ones of annoyance.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him.

  “Golding’s more than twice my age,” he said, hefting his wrists, feeling the weight of the gauntlets. It was a silly thing to say; Golding had begun her career in the security forces, and become a negotiator before moving into the procurement office from which she’d been plucked for the Everwing program. She could thrash Bjorn hand-to-hand, post better scores than he could in marksmanship, and probably perform this operation just as easily.

  That wasn’t the point.

  Kladinova was still just looking at Bjorn, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. Usually she just looked at him like something loathsome and walked away, as though she’d be happier supporting herself.

  “Listen,” he said, glancing at the hatch. “If I’ve offended you, we should talk about it. For the Empress’ sake—it’s a combat mission. We need to at least act like we can work together. I’m not a prodigy like you, but I’m doing my job. I know you were supposed to be working with Cophony, but let it go.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I know you trained with him. I know you’re probably upset about what he did. I’m sorry that didn’t work out. But we’re here and we just have to deal with it. We’ll talk when I get back.”

  Kladinova set her jaw.

  “You’re sure you’re coming back?” she asked finally.

  Bjorn wanted to retort, but he just shook his head and left the armory.

  Major Lucas was the most gregarious officer Bjorn had ever met. Lieutenant Ibuki was a little quiet, but friendly. Even General Dayal had a sense of humor, even if she hid it well.

  And Bjorn’s pilot was Diana Kladinova. It didn’t seem fair, especially without a third team member to share the load.

  The bay lights had taken on a blue tinge. Bjorn could feel the air growing cooler as the ship’s AI lowered the interior temperature slightly. The Lydia was getting ready for combat.

  “DiJeur, hit it!” Major Compton called as Bjorn entered the bay.

  “It’s live, Major!”

  “We’re locked in, LT.” Compton motioned to Bjorn. “The bay’s yours.”

  “Sir, I’ll be standing by with the tether in case you have to come in hot,” Ensign Grigori said, pointing to the launcher on the deck near the shield. “And here’s your tracker.”

  Bjorn took the device and turned it over in his hands. It was only about six centimeters across, but still much larger than it needed to be. The tracking device itself was probably the size of his fingernail; the rest was to shield it from radiation.

  “It’s already live. You just put it on and get out, nothing else. Should take about two seconds,” Grigori said.

  “And how many seconds have I got?” Bjorn asked Compton.

  “At least ten. Maybe more.” The major winked at him.

  “But your cutoff is eight,” Grigori said.

  “Says who?” Bjorn asked.

  “Me.” She put her hands on her hips.

  “Want me to check those?” Compton asked, eyeing Bjorn’s gauntlets.

  Bjorn looked over his shoulder. Kladinova had followed him into the bay.

  “Lieutenant Kladinova already did.”

  “Rebecca, let’s clear out. Counting on you, Ensign,” Compton said to Grigori, clapping her on the shoulder.

  “Don’t count on me. Count on Lieutenant Bjorn.”

  “Him too.”

  “This is not going to be that hard,” Bjorn said, but nobody was listening to him.

  Compton and DiJeur left the bay. Kladinova glared at Bjorn for a moment, then jogged off.

  “She’ll cheer up after she fixes her hair,” Ensign Grigori said. She had a short, regulation haircut. It was still a mess. She must’ve been sleeping. “Are you really all right with this?”

  “Like I keep saying, it’s not that complicated,” Bjorn told her.

  “More complicated than just destroying both ships.”

  “The commander’s doing the right thing. The Empress wouldn’t destroy a helpless ship, and even if they don’t take the hint, they’ll be doing our job for us.”

  “They should make these with explosives,” Grigori noted, looking at the tracker. “Then we wouldn’t even have to be there to take care of them.”

  “Explosives are too easy to detect.” Bjorn put the tracker in his EV pouch, then took it back out. He put it in, then took it out again.

  “Don’t do that—it’ll slow you down.” Grigori applied a patch of adhesive to his left biceps. “Put it there.”

  Bjorn followed her instructions. “I never knew special ops was so informal.”

  “Yeah, it’s actually kind of nice.”

  Bjorn would have said the opposite, but instead he cleared his throat. “Ten seconds is longer than it sounds like.”

  “Eight seconds,” she corrected him. “LT, can I ask you something?” Grigori was always friendly to Bjorn, as if she was trying to make up for the hostility he suffered with Kladinova. He was glad someone was taking pity on him.

  “Sure.” Bjorn started toward the shield. Grigori picked up the launcher and followed him.

  “How’d you make first at your age?”

  Bjorn stiffened. “I didn’t,” he said. “It just happened. I don’t know any tricks to fast promotion,” he said, “if that’s what you’re looking for. None that I’d recommend, anyway.”

  “I just thought I’d ask. Everyone’s curious.”

  It hadn’t even occurred to Bjorn that people might be talking about his rank. But it was strange. Ibuki was twenty-four, and he’d only recently been promoted.

  “I’ll bet they are. This is my first combat op,” Bjorn said.

  “Mine too.”

  “Nervous?”

  “I’m not the one going out there, sir.”

  “Don’t call me that. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m actually a private. Just like DiJeur.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. If you do have to use that thing,” Bjorn said, pointing at the tether launcher, “don’t shoot me in the head.”

  “I’m a good shot. I had to do security training for this. Apparently the guy that defected used to be an acolyte candidate. Studied at Valadilene and everything. Made it to the late stages of the program, got really close.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what they say. He was going to be our onboard security. When he ditched, they put me and DiJeur through a quick negotiator course. Like we can make up for an acolyte.”

  “The most famous acolyte ever was a girl that weighed, like, thirty kilograms,” Bjorn pointed out.

  “Yeah, but she was special.”

  “Do you know what’s going on with Kladinova?”

  “It has to be that she’s not getting the treatment she wants,” Grigori said, shrugging. She sounded bitter. “They coddled her in training because she’s so good. They treat her like spun glass, and she’s got blood more valuable than this ship. Her genes are in the Empress’ Garden. She’s the third daughter in her family, but she’s still practically a baroness. But now that she’s here, nobody cares. Nobody’s disrespecting her, but you’re not touching your forehead to the ground or licking her toes either.�
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  Bjorn sighed. He’d heard that theory. He wasn’t convinced. “Why can’t she lighten up?”

  “Because that would be too easy,” Grigori said. “And trust me when I tell you people with good genes aren’t having fun when things are easy.”

  Lieutenant Ibuki entered the bay. He smiled and waved. The cockpit of his Everwing opened as he approached. Bjorn watched him strap in and start his checklist.

  “We’re going in five,” Commander Mao said over the com.

  Bjorn looked out through the bay’s force shield. The two ships that had been on the feed were now directly in front of him, only a few hundred meters away. The Lydia, completely undetectable, was drifting slowly toward them.

  “They have no idea what’s coming,” Grigori said. “Thirty people.”

  “If you’re squeamish, you might be on the wrong ship, Ensign Grigori.”

  “Call me Rada. I mean, if you’re telling the truth about not being a real officer.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Why wouldn’t someone lie to get closer to me?” She tossed imaginary hair over her shoulder.

  Bjorn looked over at her, then put out his hand. “Oen.”

  They shook.

  “What’s it like rooming with Morel?”

  “Like rooming with a statue. He doesn’t want to be here. He has, like, ten kids, and he’s totally miserable being away from them. He was a comptroller before the fleet grabbed him for Everwing. He had a good thing going.”

  The Lydia continued to drift forward. Going over the plan in his mind, Bjorn watched the two ships grow nearer.

  Ibuki and Lucas would deploy. Ibuki would gather his protector, then do a flash burn right across Green Dragon Wei Man’s bow. The speed and his disruptor nimbus would shock both ships’ shields into a reset, making them vulnerable. During that period, Bjorn would rope over and place the tracker on the smaller vessel, then get clear before the shields reinitiated.

  By then the mine that Ibuki’s fighter would release would have attached to the pirates’ hull.

  As Bjorn made his way back to the Lydia, the nanomachines deployed by the mine would eat through the enemy ship’s exterior. Once through the armor, the mine would do its own burn, crashing through the ship’s interior, homing in on the reactor. There, or close to it, it would detonate.

  Green Dragon Wei Man would disintegrate so abruptly that the people aboard wouldn’t realize what was happening. They would be atomized, and there would be very little of the ship left over.

  From start to finish, the operation would take only a few seconds. Ibuki would get to a safe distance, even though the Everwing was more than fast enough to be safely docked inside the Lydia before the mine detonated.

  The Lydia itself would be in full retreat at that point, and its repulsors would deflect the blast and the debris.

  The smugglers that Bjorn was about to tag would be damaged by the blast, but not destroyed.

  “Bjorn, are you ready?” the commander asked over his private com.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “If anything goes wrong, don’t try to fix it. Just get clear.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I want you en route before Ibuki burns. He’s going to lurk while you get into position. Then you’re both going in on my mark. Ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All right, people. Make the Empress proud. And your families, and whoever, whatever else. Is anyone religious? Actually, let’s not go there.”

  Bjorn raised an eyebrow. “Commander?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Go.”

  Bjorn deployed his EV suit’s helmet and got a running start, keying his suit to allow him through the force shield. He took aim and jumped, transitioning to zero g and flying away from the ship. Space yawned around him, a sudden and jarring dark after the pervasive light and whiteness of the Lydia’s interior.

  Ibuki’s Everwing emerged from the bay, gliding down and under the ship. Ibuki would move slowly while they were still undetected; charging his kinetic protector could alert the pirates to their presence.

  A pirate looking out of a carbon-shield viewport would not see the Lydia or Ibuki’s Everwing, but Bjorn would be perfectly visible: a lone figure in white coming out of nowhere. Real special-operations EV suits could be fitted with active camouflage, but the crew of the Lydia hadn’t been issued those for this tour. Bjorn had never felt more exposed in his life. He was one man floating in space halfway between two ships. Even the primitive weapons of galactic pirates would make quick work of him if he was spotted.

  Luckily the smuggling vessel was between Bjorn and Green Dragon Wei Man, and the smaller vessel had no old-fashioned viewports.

  Bjorn raised his right wrist and squinted down the launcher’s sights, which were synced with his helmet’s targeting system. He was getting close to the smaller ship.

  “On target, ma’am. I’m in range.” He struggled to stay oriented. Zero-g operations had never come easily to Bjorn.

  “Ibuki?”

  “Ready, ma’am.”

  “Do it,” Commander Mao said.

  There was a flash, and a glow of afterburn as Ibuki shot past.

  Bjorn fired his wire and hit the release, letting it pull him the remaining twenty meters to the hull of the smuggling ship. He pulled the tracker from his arm and slammed it to the metal. He detached his wire and shoved off, just as he would from the side of a swimming pool.

  “Clear,” he announced, swinging around and launching another wire at where he knew the Lydia to be; of course he couldn’t see the ship, with its active camouflage. He didn’t need precision; he just had to get close enough for Rada to hook him with her handheld launcher. “Arm the mine,” he said as he was pulled back toward the ship.

  With the mine already physically on the pirate vessel, there was no reason to hide. The pirates had only seconds to live, so it wasn’t a problem if they saw the Lydia. There wasn’t time for them to run, fight back, or even tell anyone what they had seen.

  The Lydia appeared in front of him.

  Bjorn could clearly see Rada in the bay, aiming at him. The tether hit him hard in his right side, but thanks to his EV it would be only a bruise, not broken ribs. He found himself jerked toward the bay doors, but the launcher’s reel was too slow.

  Rada almost could have magnetized her boots and pulled the line in hand over hand faster.

  Bjorn fired his own line into the ship and pulled himself in, spilling to the deck as he entered the gravity field.

  “Got him,” Rada reported.

  Bjorn rolled over in time to see Green Dragon Wei Man vanish in a blue burst. There was no sound, only the blinding light, and the vague shimmering as debris struck the Lydia’s shields.

  5

  “ALERT lifted,” the ship’s AI announced. “All clear.”

  The hatches opened, and the crew streamed into the bay, Commander Mao in the front. There had been a delay because Bjorn had been outside the ship, and the AI had been obliged to decontaminate the bay after he came back in.

  “Good flying, Ibuki. Well, good flying for both of you, I suppose.” She started to applaud, but Woodhouse stepped past her to shake Ibuki’s hand.

  “Almost like you’d done it before,” Golding was saying to Bjorn, who was removing the wire launchers from his wrists.

  “You did it with six seconds to spare,” Rada said, beaming at him.

  Lucas clapped him on the shoulder. “Solid. And you,” he said to Ibuki. “Good timing. That was nice and clean.”

  The slender man nodded, looking thoughtful. “Did anyone notice us?”

  “Lydia?” Mao asked.

  “No signals, Commander.”

  “Then we got away with it. I don’t want to be that officer that talks too much, but this went down exactly the way I wanted to see it.
It’s the standard the Empress demands and deserves, and I’m glad we could deliver it.” She smiled at Bjorn. “So thank you.”

  Bjorn nodded, uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to say. No one had ever said anything like that to him when he was an analyst.

  “That’s thirty people,” Sergeant Golding pointed out.

  “Enemy combatants,” Mao corrected. “In violation of an imperial decree. People who don’t obey the Empress don’t deserve to live. That’s something we all know is true. I won’t order you not to pay your respects, and I’m certainly not asking you to trivialize what we’re doing. What you do is your business, between you and the Empress. But as a unit, as a warship, as servants we don’t show remorse, or anything that could even be construed that way.” Her voice softened. “I hate to shut you down, but our work is the will of the Empress. And the will of the Empress is never to be regretted. It’s the only justice there is. It’s right. Always.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Golding seemed taken aback.

  “Having said that,” Commander Mao went on, sweeping them with her gaze, “I enjoy serving. Serving is a privilege. You could say I take pleasure in it. But I don’t take pleasure in death, and neither should you. Look at our history. It’s bloody, but the Unification wasn’t about war and death—it was about life. The Empress is no different. Her only wish is better lives for us. We fight for her; she fights for us. Should we sing?”

  “Yes,” Major Lucas said.

  “No,” Major Compton said, more loudly.

  “All right, we won’t. But I’m humming. I’m humming because I’m happy. Good work, all of you. And speaking of work, you all have it. So don’t take too long patting these two on the back.”

  Humming loudly, she marched out of the bay.

  “I do not get her,” Woodhouse said, staring after the commander. “All those company lines, and then— Actually, never mind.”

  Bjorn knew how Woodhouse felt, and it looked as if Major Morel did as well.

  “Can we take a second for the damn pirates?” Sergeant Golding said, tossing back her dreadlocks and folding her arms.

  “Yes,” General Dayal said, stepping forward. “Form up.”