Throne of Stars (92 page)

Dinshon
exercises could help her manage even this bitter cold, but only for a few minutes. So she’d come up with some additional refinements.

Around her wrists—all four—and ankles, she had tight leather bands, with a matching collar around her neck. The accouterments made her look something like a Krath Servant of the Flame, which wasn’t remotely a pleasant association, but the
important
part was that the bands covered heat strips that were hot enough to be on the edge of burning. More strips covered her belly and packed around the developing fetuses on her back.

With
those and the
dinshon
exercises, she should be good for a couple of hours. And no icky, unfashionable environment suit.

All in all, she looked to be in the very height of style, if you ignored the slight reflection from the poly-saccharide mucoid coating on her skin, as she stepped daintily out of the airtaxi and pranced up to the front door of the Caepio Neighborhood Association Headquarters.

“My name is Pedi Karuse,” she said in her best Imperial, nodding at the two men. One of them was almost as tall as she was. If she’d been wearing heels, she would have towered over even him, but he was big . . . for a human. “I’m here to see Mr. Siminov. I’m aware that he’s in.”

“The Boss don’t talk to any scummy walk-in off the street,” the shorter of the two said. “Get lost.”

“Tell him I’m an emissary from Mr. Chung,” Pedi said, doing her best to smile. It wasn’t a natural expression for Mardukans, with their limited facial muscles, and it came out as more of a grimace. “And he’d really like to speak to me. It’s important. To him.”

The guard spoke into his throat mike and waited, then nodded.

“Somebody’s coming,” he said. “You wait here.”

“Of course,” Pedi said, and giggled. “It’s not like we’re going to wander around back, is it?”

“Not with a scummy,” the bigger guard said with a scowl.

“You never know till you try it,” Pedi said, and wiggled her hips. It was another nonnatural action, but she’d watched human females enough to get the general idea.

The person who came to the door was wearing a suit. It looked badly tailored, but that was probably the body under it. Pedi had seen pictures of a terrestrial creature called a “gorilla,” and this guy looked as if he’d just fallen out of the tree . . . and hit his head on the way down.

“Come on,” the gorilla look-alike said, opening the door and stepping aside. “The Boss is just up. He hasn’t even had his coffee. He hates to be kept waiting when he hasn’t had his coffee.”

There was a loud buzz as Pedi stopped into the corridor, and the gorilla scowled ferociously.

“Hold it!” he said, surprise and menace warring in his voice. “You got
weapons
.”

“Well, of course I’ve got weapons,” Pedi said, giggling again as three more men stepped into the corridor. “I’m
dressed
, aren’t I?”

“You got to hand them over,” the gorilla said with the expression of someone who’d never understood jokes, anyway.

“What?” Pedi asked. “All of them?”

“
All
of ’em,” the gorilla growled.

“Well, all right,” Pedi sighed. “But the Boss is going to be waiting for some time, then.”

She reached through the upper slits on her dress and drew out two swords. They were short for a Mardukan, which made them about as long as a cavalry sabre, and similarly curved. She flipped them and offered the hilts to the gorilla.

When he’d taken those, she started pulling out everything else. Two curved daggers, the size of human short swords. A punch-dagger on the inside of either thigh. Two daggers at the neck, and two more secreted in various spots that required a certain amount of reaching. Last, she handed over four sets of brass knuckles, a cosh, and four rolls of Imperial quarter-credits.

“That’s it?” the gorilla asked, his arms full.

“Well . . .” She reached up and under her skirt and withdrew a long punch-stiletto. It was slightly sticky. “
Now
that’s it. My father would kill me for handing them over so tamely, too.”

“Just set it on the pile,” the gorilla said. When she had, he offered the armload to one of the other guards and ran a wand over her, carefully. There were still a couple of things he didn’t like. She had another roll of credits, for example, and a nail file. It was about two decimeters long, with a wickedly sharp point.

“I’ve got to have
something
to do my horns with!” she said, aghast, as he confiscated that.

“Not in here,” the gorilla said. “Okay, now you can see the Boss.”

“I’d better get it all back,” she said to the guard with the armful of ironmongery.

“I’m going to love watching you put it all back,” the guard replied cheerfully as he carted it into one of the side rooms and dropped it on a convenient table with a semimusical clang.

“So, what’s it like, working for Mr. Siminov?” Pedi asked as they walked to the elevator.

“It’s a job,” the gorilla said.

“Anyplace in an organization like this for a woman?”

“You know how to use any of that stuff?” the guard asked, punching for the third floor.

“Pretty much,” Pedi answered truthfully. “Pretty much. Always learning, you know.”

“Then, yeah, I guess so,” the gorilla said as the doors closed.

“She’s in,” Bill said.

“One more body to keep from killing.” Clovis shook his head. “I hate distractions.”

“‘Just follow the yellow brick road!’” Davis said in a munchkin voice. “‘Just follow the yellow brick road! Follow the, follow the, follow the, follow the, follow the yellow brick road! Just follow—’”

“I’ve got live ammo,” Clovis said, shifting slightly. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Can it,” Tomcat said, reaching up and lowering the visor on his helmet. “Forty-five seconds.”

Honal wiggled to try to get some more space in the seat. He failed, and snarled as he began punching buttons.

“Damned dwarfs,” he muttered.

“Say again, Red Six,” the communicator said.

“Nothing, Captain,” Honal replied.

“Outer doors opening,” Rosenberg said. “Move to inner door positions.”

“Dwarfs,” Honal muttered again, making sure he wasn’t broadcasting, and picked up on the antigravity. “A race of dwarfs.” But at least they made cool toys to play with, he thought, and pressed the button to transmit.

“Red Six, light,” he said, then flipped the lever to lift the landing skids and pulled the stingship out of its bay, turning out to line up with the doors to the warehouse. They were still in the underground facility, but once out of the cover of the bunkers’ concealing depth of earth, they were going to light up every beacon in Imperial City.

It was time to
party
.

“Three, four, five,” Roger counted as he trotted along the damp passageway. Water rose up to the lip of the catwalk, and the slippery concrete surface was covered with slime.

The passage was an ancient “subway,” a means of mass transit that had predated grav-tubes. Imperial City’s unending expansion had left it behind long before the Dagger Years, and the Palace—whether by accident or Miranda MacClintock’s design—was right over a spot that used to be called “Union Station.”

Roger was counting side passages, and stopped at seven.

“Time to get the mission face on,” he said, looking at his team of Mardukans and retired Empress’ Own. The latter were mostly sounding a bit puffed by the three-kilometer run, but they checked their equipment and armed their bead and plasma cannon with the ease of years of practice.

Roger consulted his toot one last time, then opened what looked like an ancient fuse box. Inside was a not much more modern keypad. Hoping like hell that the electronics had held up in the damp, he drew a deep breath and punched in a long code.

Metal scraped, and the wall began to move away.

Roger stepped into the darkness, followed by twelve Mardukans in battle armor, a half-dozen former Empress’ Own, likewise armored, and one slightly bewildered dog-lizard.

“Your first meeting is in twenty-three minutes, with Mr. Van den Vondel,” Adoula’s administrative assistant said as the prince entered the limousine. “After that—”

“Cancel it,” Adoula said. “Duauf, head for the Richen house.”

“Yes, sir,” the chauffeur said, lifting the limo off the platform and inserting it deftly into traffic.

“But . . . but, Your Highness,” the girl said, flushing. “You have a number of appointments, and the Imperial Festival is—”

“I think we’ll watch the parade from home this year,” he said, looking out the window. Dawn was just breaking.

The Imperial Festival celebrated the overthrow of the Dagger Lords and the establishment of the Imperial Throne, five hundred and ninety years before. The Dagger Lord forces had been “officially” beaten on October fifth; the removal of minor local adherents, most of whom had been dealt with by dropping rocks on their heads, was ignored. For reasons known to only a few specialized historians, Miranda MacClintock had stomped all over any use of the term “October Revolution.” She had, however, initiated the Imperial Festival, and it remained a yearly celebration of the continuation of the MacClintock line and the Empire of Man.

The Festival was having a bit of a problem being festive this year. The crowds for the fireworks the night before had been unruly, and a large group of them had pressed into Imperial Park, calling for the Empress. They’d been dispersed, but the police were less than certain that something else, possibly worse, wouldn’t happen today.

The Mardukans unloading from trailers, however, were simply a sight to boggle the eye. The beasts they were leading down the cargo ramps were like something from the Jurassic, and the Mardukans were supposedly—and the saddles and bridles bore it out—planning on riding them. The riders were big guys, even for Mardukans, wearing polished mail, of all things, and steel helmets. The police eyed the swords they wore—cultural artifacts, fully in keeping with the Festival and, what was more, tied in place with cords—and hoped they weren’t going to be a problem.

The same went for the infantry types. They bore long pikes and antique chemical rifles over their backs. One of the sergeants from the local police went over and checked to make certain they didn’t have any propellants on them. Scanners weren’t tuned for old-fashioned black powder, and they looked as if they knew which end the bullet came out. They didn’t have any ammunition, but he checked out the rifles anyway, just out of personal interest. They were complicated breechloaders, and one of the Mardukans demonstrated the way his broke open and was loaded. The ease with which he handled the rifle spoke to the cop of long practice, which was troubling, since they were supposedly a group of waiters from a local restaurant.

But when they unloaded the last beast, he nearly called for backup. The thing was the size of an elephant, and
clearly
not happy to be here. It was bellowing and pawing the ground, and the rider on its back seemed to be having very little effect on its behavior. It appeared to be searching for something, and it suddenly rumbled to life, padding with ground-shaking tread over to Officer Jorgensen.

Jorgensen blanched as the thing sniffed at his hair. It could take off his head with one bite from its big beak, but it only sniffed, then burbled unhappily. It spun around, far more lightly than anything that large should move, and bellowed. Loudly. It did
not
sound happy.

Finally, one of the big riders in armor gave it a piece of cloth that looked as if it might have been ripped from a combat suit. The beast sniffed at it, and snuffled on it, then settled down, still looking around, but mollified.

It was a good thing the crowds were still so sparse, Jorgensen thought. Maybe that was why the parade marshal had swapped these guys around to the head of the parade from somewhere near the tail? To get them and their critters through and out before the presence and noise of bigger crowds turned the cranky beasts even crankier?

Nah, it couldn’t be anything that reasonable, he thought. Not with all the other crap going on this year.

But at least it was going to be an
interesting
Festival.

“Here he comes,” Macek said, glancing up from the panel he’d pulled apart and sliding the multitool back into its holster on his maintenance tech’s belt.

Macek and Bebi had both been stationed with the Moonbase Marine contingent in an earlier tour, which was why they’d been picked for this job. They didn’t like it, but they were professionals, and they’d followed Roger through too many bloodsoaked battlefields to care about one bought-and-paid-for admiral.

“What about the aide?” Bebi asked.

“Leave her,” Macek said, glancing at the attractive brunette lieutenant and pushing down his goggles. “Stunner.”

Bebi nodded, withdrew the bead pistol from the opened maintenance panel, and turned. Greenberg had just enough time to identify the weapon in his assassin’s hand before the stream of hypervelocity beads turned his head into gory spray. The lieutenant beside him opened her mouth as her admiral’s brains and blood were deposited across her in a red-and-gray mist, but Macek raised his stunner before she could do anything more.

“Sorry about that, Ma’am,” he said, and fired.

Both men dropped their weapons and put their hands on their heads as Marine guards pounded suddenly down the corridor, bead pistols drawn and very angry looks on their faces.

“Hello,” Macek said.

“You mother-fu—!”

“Fatted Calf,” Bebi interrupted conversationally, lowering his hands. “Mean anything to you?”

“Inner doors opening,” Rosenberg said. “Initiate.”

The Shadow Wolves swept forward, bursting from their hiding place in the very heart of Imperial City. As soon as he’d cleared the inner doors and had full communications capability, Honal keyed the circuit for all squadrons.

“Arise
civan
brothers!” he cried. “Fell deeds await! Now for wrath, now for ruin, and a red dawn!”

Roger had taught him that. He didn’t know where the prince had picked it up—probably some ancient human history—but it was a great line, and deserved to be repeated.