The GQ alarms yammered aboard the Victory. The ship, already at standby, went to full combat readiness.
Cind, Otho, Freston, and Lalbahadur had not been asleep, nor had they intended to go offshift until Sten returned, even if they'd had to progress to stimulants and cold showers.
"All stations ready, sir," the officer of the watch reported. "No external signs of GQ readiness apparent."
"Very good," Freston said. He turned to Cind. "My orders from Mister Kilgour in the event of alarm were to place myself under your command, and obey your instructions absolutely. Take over."
"Thank you." Cind took a deep breath, and keyed her pore pattern into the small fiche holder Alex had given her when they left the Victory.
The instructions were simple:
WAIT IN PRESENT ORBIT UNTIL THREATENED. DO NOT, REPEAT DO NOT, ATTEMPT OFFENSIVE MOVES AGAINST EMPIRE. DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CLOSE PLANET OR MAKE PLANETFALL. MAINTAIN WATCH ON FREQ QUEBEC THIRTY-FOUR ALPHA. IN THE EVENT IMPERIAL COMBAT ELEMENTS ATTEMPT TO ENGAGE, BREAK CONTACT, MOVE COVERTLY TO [a set of coordinates]. THIS WILL BE RENDEZVOUS POINT. IF NO CONTACT MADE AT SECONDARY RV, VICTORY IS TO REVERT TO INDEPENDENT COMMAND AND TAKE WHATEVER ACTION OR ACTIONS IS DEEMED CORRECT AT THE TIME. GOOD LUCK.
... and the squiggle that was Kilgour's signature. "We just wait," Otho interpreted.
Cind growled—a noise that dignified her Bhor training—and then gritted, "We wait."
The Emperor's feet touched down, and he slid down to his knees. He broke the climbing thread off and discarded the jumars.
A few guardspots glared around the three ships on the landing field. Once again, there was no movement except for the single sentry at the Normandie's ramp.
Crouching, he made for the picketboat.
The broken static-buzz signaled to yet another ship.
Hannelore La Ciotat was awake, feet out of her bunk and on the tacship's deck. Her tacship's GQ alarm was a civilized bonging, the synthesized sound of a bell. It was more than loud enough to cover the cramped crew area.
La Ciotat sealed the front of her shipsuit and damned near physically threw her onwatch weapons officer/XO out of the command seat.
"I relieve you, Mister." Her fingers were like fluid across the panel.
POWER... UP... SYSTEMS STANDBY... CREW READY... WEAPONS READY...
She touched keys, and the tacship lifted clear of the ground on McLean drive, ripping away from the camouflage net that La Ciotat and her crew had staked over the tiny ship a day earlier.
The tacship was hidden just inside the first twist of one of the canyons leading to the great valley the Guesting Center was in the middle of.
La Ciotat ghosted the ship around the bend.
"I have the center on visual," she told her XO.
"Roger. All screens show same."
"Drive status?"
"Drakh-hot, Hannelore."
And she, too, waited.
"Up, lad! Th‘ Emp's movin'!"
Sten's mind groped out of a disremembered, terrible dream, and Kilgour was pulling him up.
"What's the—"
"Shut up!"
Alex tossed him a phototropic suit, and Sten pulled it on. He looked around for some boots.
"No time, Sten! Move!"
Kilgour shoved him toward the door that yawned into a deserted open corridor, light glaring, and Sten was in a stumbling, nightmare run, not sure if he was still asleep and dreaming, but the rough carpet hurt his feet, and Alex slung him around a corner and up a ramp, toward the top of the crater.
"Which way—"
"!‘ y' speaki't again, Ah'll coldcock y‘, Ah swear! We're i' th‘ eye ae th' storm!"
A great door, barred, that led out onto a balcony on the outer wall of the crater. Alex, without slowing, crashed into the door and sent it pinwheeling away. Some sort of alarm—fire, intrusion, it didn't matter—began sounding.
The Eternal Emperor came in the picketboat's port. The duty officer jerked in surprise, even though he'd been briefed.
"Lift ship," the Emperor snapped, as he turned and slapped the PORT CLOSE switch.
"Broadcast as ordered!"
"Yessir."
The officer lifted a security cover, and slid the port of the recently installed control across, and the machine across the field, in the Normandie, began ticking seconds.
Overhead, in space, the signal yammered the Durer and its escorts and sailors into combat alert.
The McLean drive brought (he tiny picketboat clear of the ground
Across the landing field, the sentry at the Normandie's portal came fully awake, his willygun coming up in his hands. What the clot was going on? Nobody told him anything? Clottin‘ corp of the guard hadn't said anything—
A predawn wind whistled across the balcony, a wind Sten never felt. Alex had his com up.
"Pickup! On this station!"
"Got you," came a calm, unhurried woman's voice that Sten thought he recognized. "On the way."
"So you were right," Sten recovered.
"Aye. The bastard's ducking out the back door. Solo."
"Oh, Christ. We've got to alert the Manabi," Sten said, knowing futility.
"What can they—" Kilgour winced as the com screamed at him, as a transmitter aboard the Normandie obediently began jamming cast on all freqs.
Across the valley, they saw a tiny miniature sun. La Ciotat's tacship, blazing toward mem.
The Imperial picketboat's commander lifted his ship onto its tail, and kicked in full Yukawa drive, shooting the craft straight toward the stars. Barely clear of the crater, he went to stardrive, and the picketboat vanished into space.
A relay closed aboard the Normandie.
The whine/roar of the picketboat shattered Ecu's sleep. His sensors came instantly aware, forcing him from that other universe he inhabited in times of differing consciousness, a universe of soft-chiming crystal in mild winds where thought itself was sentient, beautiful and visible, a universe of nonflesh and forever widening horizons.
He had drifted toward one clear panel in his alternate state, a panel looking out on the center of the Guesting Center. His sensors picked up the flash as the Imperial picketboat went into space.
Ecu felt the wings of his mind spread, spread like his own great lifting sails, and that other universe open to him, welcoming him, like a silken bridge.
La Ciotat bashed the com into silence when the jamming started its screech.
"Ma'am, I lost—"
"Shut it!" She had the balcony on visual. La Ciotat brought the tacship screaming toward the Guesting Center, flipped it end for end, McLean antigrav lagging far behind trying to define down, braked on Yukawa drive, and skidded down on the balcony, backward, fins grinding at the synthetic stone.
Her bosun had the port open, just as Sten came through it—in the air. Alex had picked him up and hurled him five meters as the port opened. A second later, the bosun was ground zero as Kilgour impacted on her. The woman wheezed, sure that ribs were broken. Kilgour rolled off, not noticing, hit the port-closing switch, shouting, "Get out of it!"
La Ciotat hit the Yukawa switch, spitting the tacship off, into the air. Her thumb was stretching for the STARDRIVE panel when
The final switch closed.
The Emperor had chosen the Normandie not only because he was reluctant to sacrifice the Durer, but because the yacht/liner had great galleries and banqueting rooms.
Great rooms that had been stripped and filled with AM2. And now, on command, they detonated.