Edvard Scourwind scowled deeply as he pushed off the wall and rushed down the long corridor that led to the strategic command bunker of the palace. He reached a bend in the hall and came to a skidding stop as he saw what lay beyond the turn.
The command bunker had taken a strike. Smoke was pouring through the wrecked blast doors, and without progressing farther he could tell that there was little point in trying to utilize the space.
There was only one weapon that could have made that strike, and if it weren’t for the urgency of the situation, he’d have been forced to laugh outright at it being used against him. The fortress busters should have secured the empire for all time against the Senate and its mix of traitorous and ambitious nobles.
Damn you, Corian. You were the best of us.
He turned, running now as he dodged through the confused men and women pouring into the corridors. With the command center eliminated, strategic command would fall to the Cadre general. However, reports had already singled out that area as having been struck as well. That meant that the defense of the capital and the palace would be fractured, likely confused, and almost certainly not as efficient as it should be.
He needed to get to a system he could use to coordinate the response. Even if they beat back the attack, the cost could cripple the empire for cycles to come.
Outside, across the capital, the shock of the attack had just begun to set in as the rumble of the explosions was surpassed by a deep vibration that shook everyone to the core. Citizens, militia, and emergency workers all paused what they were doing and looked around for the source.
No one could quite tell who spotted it first, but a scream went up and people started pointing to the skies, and in seconds nearly everyone was watching as a massive ship slowed to a crawl over the city and came to a stop a few hundred feet above the skyline. The vessel was black, without the peculiar shimmer of plated metal.
No, it was the same color as the palace, a black that sucked in the light and didn’t let any of it go.
No flag could be seen, but movement was clear on its decks as the capital held its breath as one, waiting to see what the unknown ship would do.
Assault lines were flung from the Caleb Bar a moment later, and city dwellers had their answer as soldiers began to drop along the ribbon cables to the ground, even while the ship opened fire to cover their descent.
Shock turned to panic then, and few people remembered much else from that point on.
“Squads deploying, captain. We’ve heard from our allies in the Senate. They’ve ordered their own forces forward.”
Corian nodded. “Good. That will keep any units outside the city from responding. They’ll be too busy with them. Have our men secure the air defenses first. I want to call in our backup.”
“Aye, captain.”
Corian was standing on the foredeck again, looking over the smoking city below as the wind plucked at his coat and hair. He was keeping his weight on his good leg, the prosthetic now a deep irritation that he would be glad to be done with once he had time for proper care.
Until then, however, he would endure.
“You should be belowdecks, captain,” Jessup said softly at his side. “You can command the action from there.”
“No, I’ll stand where I can be seen,” he said simply. “If there’s a sharpshooter on the other side capable of making a kill shot on me here, they’ve earned it.”
She shook her head, clearly disapproving, but said nothing more.
He turned from the scene, stalking toward where the defense guns were firing. “Let me know when we’ve taken the city. I will lead the assault on the palace personally.”
CHAPTER 5
Kayle held his issued blaster in his off-hand as he waved to a squad moving into position to reinforce the primary access to the Cadre facilities.
“Set up the squad heavies to catch the door in a cross,” he ordered. “Bastards have to come through here if they want to secure our command center. We’ve got a call out for reinforcements. Stop them here. Make them pay for every inch!”
The Cadre nodded, backed up by dozens of men-at-arms for each one of them. They were putting heavy weapons into place so as to hammer to atoms anything that dared stick its head through that passage.
While the heavy weapons were being set up, Kayle turned to where William was following his example and coordinating another group.
“Does anyone have any idea what the hell happened?” Kayle demanded, hoping that William had heard something.
Anything would do.
William just shook his head. “Nothing. Looks like a precision kinesis strike, but I didn’t think anything existed that could do this.”
Kayle nodded grimly, understanding what William was talking about.
Until only minutes earlier, he’d have personally sworn that there wasn’t a weapon in existence capable of the damage whatever had hit the hangar had done. The palace was next to invulnerable, the same as all the ancient Redoubts that dotted the Imperial Sector.
Someone just shifted the balance of power in a big way.
“General!”
Kayle half turned, noting an armsman running up to the general as the man was trying to coordinate responses as best he could.
“What is it, son?”
“We’ve reports of fighting all through the palace, but it’s not coming our way!”
The general scowled. “That makes no sense. If they want to take the command and control, now that they hit the primary, they have to come through us.”
“Sir, the Imperial Family isn’t within our lines.”
Kayle felt like a hammer had just struck him between the eyes when he heard the exchange, his throat running dry as he looked around.
“William,” he croaked out, a plea evident in his pained tone.
“Go. We have this,” William said. “I’ll have a squad on your heels within five minutes.”
Kayle nodded gratefully and broke into a run as he sprinted out of the Cadre facilities and headed for the Imperial residency as fast as his feet would carry him.
Brennan picked himself up off the floor of his room, shaken almost as badly as the room itself had been a few moments earlier.
What in the burning sky was that?
He didn’t think anything could shake the palace like that. In fact he was pretty certain that nothing should be able to. He walked to his window, looking out, and his jaw dropped when he saw the smoke and fires burning.
Is that shooting? What’s going on?
Brennan checked the information broadcasts, but they seemed to be just as confused as he was. He shut off the projector and took a few breaths, trying to treat this like a situation in his skimmer.
Fear is good; panic is not. Be afraid, but address the fear.
He thought back to his perfect older brother’s request.
What the burning sky did Kayle know about this?
For the moment that didn’t matter.
Lydia.
Brennan burst out of his rooms and skidded as he turned down the corridor, heading for his sister’s suite at a dead run. Kayle was a pain in the ass, but one thing Brennan knew was that his older brother didn’t joke around when it came to family safety.