The house sat on top of a command-and-control bunker for an old antiballistic missile system. "Old" in this case meant way before the Empire, but still in nearly mint condition, thanks to the dry desert air. There was a command center, bunk rooms, individual rooms for officers, kitchen, storerooms, and magazines.
When he'd gotten the place, those spaces were all sitting empty, except for the ones which had been half-filled with the fine sand for which the region was famous. He'd spent a couple of years, working in the time available, to fix a few of them up. Now the command center was his "rec room," a comfortable room with some float chairs and, most importantly, a bar. He used one of the bunk rooms as an indoor range. The kitchen had been fitted up to be a kitchen again, he'd fitted out a couple of bedrooms, and the storerooms—lo and behold—held stores. Lots of stores.
People joked that he could hold off an army. He knew they were wrong. He'd have a tough time dealing with more than a platoon or so.
And, ritually, once a week, he swept all the rooms for bugs. Just an old habit. He'd never found one.
"Hey, Lufrano," Rosenberg said as the rest filed into the rec room. He had a long metal wand, and he ran it over the visitors as he talked. "Been a long time."
"Yep," Lufrano Toutain, late Sergeant Major of Steel Battalion, agreed. "How's the shipping business?"
"Same old same old," Rosenberg replied. He ran the entire group, then nodded. "Clear."
"Fatted calf," Toutain, said in an entirely different voice, grabbing a beer. "Son of a—"
"Empress," Tomcat finished for him. "And a pretty impressive one. Boy's grown both ears and a tail."
"Now that would take some doing," Youngwen Marinau said, catching the brew Tomcat tossed him. Marinau had been first sergeant in Bronze Battalion for eighteen miserable months. He popped the bulb open and took a long drink, swilling it as if to wash the taste of something else out of his mouth. "He was a punk when I knew him."
"There's a reason Pahner got Bravo Company," Rosenberg pointed out. "Nobody better for bringing on a young punk. Where in the hell havethey been, though? The ship never made it to Leviathan; no sign of them."
"Marduk," Catrone answered. "I didn't get the whole story, but they were there a long time—I can tell that. And Pahner bought it there. I took a look at what there is in the database about it." He shook his head. "Lots of carnivores, lots of barbs. I don't know exactly what happened, but the Prince has got about a company-plus of the barbs following him around. They're masquerading as waiters, but they're soldiers, you can tell. And they had some trouble with one of the carnivores they use as food. And that Roger..."
He shook his head again.
"Tell," Marinau said. "I'd love to hear that there's something in that pretty head besides clothes and fashion sense."
Catrone ran through the entire story, ending with the killing of the atul.
"Look, I don't shake, and I don't run," Catrone ended. "But that damned thing shook me. It was just a mass of claws and fangs, and Roger didn't even blink—just took it out. Whap, slash, gone. Every move was choreographed, like he'd done it two, three thousand times. Perfect muscle memory movement. Lots of practice, and there's only one way he could have gotten it. And fast. Just about the fastest human I've ever seen."
"So he can fight." Marinau shrugged. "Glad he had at least some MacClintock in him after all."
"More than that," Catrone said. "He's fast. Fast enough he could have left us all standing and let us take the fall. The thingprobably would have savaged one of us, and then either fed or left. He could have gotten away while it was munching, but he didn't. He stood the ground."
"That's not his job," Rosenberg pointed out.
"No, but he was the one with the weapon and the training," Toutain said, nodding. "Right?"
"Right," Catrone said.
"Any chance it was a setup?" Marinau asked.
"Maybe," Catrone conceded with a shrug. "But if so, what does that tell us about the Mardukans?"
"What do you mean?" Rosenberg said.
"If it was a setup, one of them took a heavy hit for him," Catrone pointed out. "It didn't kill him, but I bet it was touch and go. If they set it up, they did so knowing the thing couldkill them. Think about it. Would you do that if Alexandra asked you to?"
"Which one?" Marinau asked, his voice suddenly harsher with old memories and pain. He'd retired out of Princess Alexandra's Steel Battalion less than two years before her murder.
"Either," Catrone said. "The point's the same. But I don't think it was a setup. And Despreaux was interesting, too."
"She usually is." Rosenberg chuckled. "I remember when she joined the Regiment. Damn, that girl's a looker. I'm not surprised the Prince fell for her."
"Yeah, but she's trained the same way we are. Protect the primary. And all she did was get ready to back him up. What does that tell you?"
"That she's out of training," Marinau said. "You said she'd implied she'd lost it."
"She didn't 'lose it' in the classical sense," Catrone argued. "She stood her ground, unarmed, but she knew the best person to face the thing was Roger. And she trusted him. She didn't run, and she didn't go into a funk, but she also didn't move to protect the primary. She let him handle it."
"Just because he's brave," Marinau said, "and, okay, can handle a sword—which is a pretty archaic damned weapon—that doesn't mean he's suited to be Emperor. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about being a Praetorian Guard, just what we're not supposed to be. Choosing the Emperor is not our job. And if I did have a choice, Roger wouldn't be it."
"You prefer Adoula?" Catrone demanded angrily.
"No," Marinau admitted unhappily.
"The point is, he didn't do the deed. We already knew that." Catrone said. "And he's the legitimate heir, not this baby they're fast-cooking. And if somebody doesn't act, Alexandra's going to be as dead as John and Alex." His face worked for a moment, and then he shook his head, snarling. "You're going to let Adoula get away with that?"
"You're impressed," Rosenberg said. "I can tell that."
"Yeah, I'm impressed," Catrone replied. "I didn't know it was going to be him, just that something was fishy. And I wasn't impressed when I met him. But... he's got that MacClintock thing you know? He didn't before—"
"Not hardly," Marinau muttered grumpily.
"—but he sure as hell does now," Catrone finished.
"Does he want the Throne?" Joceline Raoux asked. She was a former sergeant major of the Raiders, the elite insertion commandos who skirmished with the Saint Greenpeace Corps along the borders.
"We didn't get into that, Jo," Catrone admitted. "I put them off. I wasn't going to give him an okay without a consult. But he was more focused on getting the Empress safe. That might have been a negotiating ploy—he's got to know where our interests and loyalties lie—but that's what we talked about. Obviously, though, if we secure the Throne, he's the Heir."
"And from our reports, he'll be Emperor almost immediately," Rosenberg pointed out gloomily.
"Maybe," Catrone said. "I'm not going to believe it until I've seen Alexandra. She's strong—I can't believe she won't get over it."
"I want her safe," Toutain said suddenly, his voice hard. "And I want that bastard Adoula's head for what he did to John and the kids. The damned kids..." His face worked, and he shook his head fiercely. "I want that bastard dead. I want to do him with a knife. Slow."