Death Match, page 4
part #3 of Sten Omnibus Series
“I even warned him about his behavior. A year or so ago our ambassador to the Altaics rotated out. It was routine. What wasn’t routine is that I haven’t named a replacement yet.”
That was a fairly heavy duty gig against the Khaqan, Sten thought. “I’m surprised he didn’t wake up,” he said.
“So am I. Like I said, he’s old. Set in his ways. But if he goes under, all the doubting Thomases among my allies will get the jitters. Demand more AM2. Which would blow the clot out of the economy.”
Sten understood. All money was pegged to the value of the basic power unit of the Empire. Produce more, inflate the money. Produce less, and it deflates. Here there was a double whammy: since there was less power, fewer goods would show up at market. So all prices would shoot up, leading to more scarcity. Black markets. And finally, restive populations. The Emperor was walking a helluva tightwire.
“Who’s the Khaqan’s likely successor?” Sten asked.
The Emperor sighed. “No one. He has no living heirs. And he’s also a micromanager. Decides on every detail, from how much water there should be in the main palace pool to the rates the gravcabs can charge. He discourages any initiative. As a capitalist, the Khaqan is so-so. As a CEO, he stinks.”
The Emperor swilled more beer. “However, he’s getting pretty desperate, now. He’s been begging me for some sign of support. Show his people I’m in his camp. Along with the AM2, of course.”
“And you want me to be that support?” Sten said.
“Right. Put on a big show for him. You’re one of my top heroes. Medals. Honors. Victories. In the field of battle and the halls of diplomacy and all that hogwash. I’ll have my media people make a big deal of it. Not that you’ll need much of a buildup.”
He looked at Sten. But instead of smiling, he looked thoughtful. Sten decided he didn’t want to know what his boss was thinking.
The Emperor broke off and grinned. “Take anybody you want — your pals the Bhor, some crack troops, your usual crew of experts, whatever. Just make sure everybody sparkles. And to make this a real show-the-flag exercise, I want you to take my personal ship. The Victory.”
Now that brought a grin to Sten’s face.
The Emperor laughed when he saw it. “I thought you’d like that.”
The Victory was purportedly a dream ship. A new class battle-wagon/tacship carrier built to the Emperor’s specifications. Regal as all clot. To impress the natives, he said. Everything about it was ultraluxury, from private crew quarters to the Emperor’s personal suite.
“This is what I call a great job description,” Sten said, toasting his boss. “Now. If you want kisses and hugs for the Khaqan in public, what’s my attitude when we’re alone?”
“Chilly politeness,” the Emperor said. “Real reserved. Scary as you can make it. I want him to see my eyes in yours. Tell him I’ve promised to put in a new ambassador right away. However . . . I also want some progress on who his successor is going to be when he kicks. That way, I can start some private discussions with that fellow. See if we can’t make life a little more pleasant — and stable — in the Altaics when the old boy is gone.”
Sten nodded that he understood the drill. He also realized that the Emperor would be wanting his opinion on who that successor ought to be.
“One more thing,” the Emperor said. “Tell him I’m putting him on my personal invitation list. The short list. I’ll expect his visit in a year or so.”
“He’ll like that,” Sten said. “More propaganda for the home folks.”
“Yeah, he will,” the Eternal Emperor said. “But he’s not going to like what I have to say. In private.”
And he speared the last hunk of goat. He snipped it from the fork with sharp white teeth.
Sten didn’t feel sorry for the Khaqan a bit. He sounded — in Kilgour’s words — like a “right bastard.”
Chapter Four
“AH’LLGIE TH’ POSS’BIL’TY y’ may hae saved me,” Alex grudged. “Nae, lad. Tis m’shout this round.”
He got up, walked to the bar, paid the barman, and brought back the tray. Four mugs of beer and four single shot glasses of clear liquid. Sten indicated the shot glasses with a questioning finger.
“Quill. Nae stregg. Thae’s none ae that off the Bhor Worlds or away frae th’ Emp’s palace, so this’ll hae t’ cure the dog.”
Sten was still a little skull-fried from his marathon dinner-drunk-orders group-plotting session with the Emperor some days earlier. Obediently, he dumped one shot down his throat, gagged politely, and chased it with a beer.
“Y’ll note, Ah’m but bein’t civil an’ keepin’t y’ company,” Alex said as he did the same. “Dinnae be haein’ th’ thought Ah’m still a wee alky. Gie it all up, Ah did.”
The two of them sat, anonymous in gray shipsuits, near the back of a spaceport bar near Soward City’s vast spacefields. The bar was a businesslike hum of sailors getting drunk enough to transship, or drunk enough to realize they had finally ported, and the whores and hustlers were helping both sets toward their missions.
“I really did save you?”
“Oh, aye,” Alex said. “She was wee, she was wily, she was gorgeous, and she e’en had her own money.”
“Maybe you should have married her.”
“Ah clottin’ near did. Th’ banns were read. Th’ hall wae hired. Ah found a sky pilot thae’d go through the ceremony wi’oot gigglin’. Ah’d e’en introduced hert’ m’ wee mum.”
“What did she think?”
“She consider’t, an’ said thae i’ Ah hadda marry, still so young an’ barely beyont th’ cradle as Ah am, she c’d live wi’ th’ lass.”
“I say again my last: maybe you should settle down. Start thinking about the next Laird Kilgour of Kilgour.”
Alex shuddered gently. “Ah dunno, lad. Thae wae a moment . . . but then Ah thought a’ myself, years gone, brain gone i’ Ah e’er had one t’ begin wi’, teeth gone, chewin’ on pap, puttin’ milk i’ th’ brandy, wi’ bairns bouncin’ around an’ all. Cacklin’ on aboot how th’ old days are gone, an’ modern clots dinnae lift a candle t’ th’ mighty ones thae’re gone, men frae the old days, when men were men an’ th’ sheep ran like hell.
“Disgustin1. Clottin’ disgustin’. So Ah considers . . . looks at your signal . . . writes oot a well-reasoned arg’ment an’ slips out th’ back afore dawn.”
“Mr. Kilgour,” Sten said. “An act of cowardice! You at least should have stayed and explained.”
“Rotate around it, lad. Th’ way th’ lass impress’t m’ mum was by beatin’t her ae arm wrestlin.’ Ah’m mad, but Ah’m noo daft.”
Sten checked the time. “We’re due at the Victory in ten minutes. Let’s drink and get.”
Kilgour blurred into motion, old battle reflexes reappearing. The beer and alk on the table vanished. He burped politely, rose, and started toward the exit, threading his way between tables, Sten in his wake.
Alex’s way was blocked by a very large quadruped, whose gray hide looked as if it would make an acceptable suit armor. The being emptied the large plas balloon he had been sniffing and bounced it away into a corner. All three of his — her? its? — eyes glared around separately, then settled on Kilgour. The being’s twin manipulating arms flexed.
“Men! Don’t like men!”
“Ah dinnae either,” Alex said equably.
“You man.”
“No.”
“What you?”
“Ah’m a penguin. Frae Earth. A wee slickit cowerin’t birdie thae lives on herring.”
Sten ran through various ET handbooks, trying to ID the being. Nothing in his memory had four legs, three eyes, two arms, a dim brain — last undetermined for certain, given probability said being was blitzed — stood two and a half meters tall, weighed several squillion kilos, and had a terrible attitude.
Oh, yeah. Not very vestigial claws on the arms. Sten felt mildly sorry for the being as it accused — “You not penguin.”
“An’ how d’ye know, lad? Y dinnae hae th’ look ae a passionate penguin pervert aboot y’.”
“You man.”
“Look, son. Y’re tired. Y’hae a bit t’ . . . snuff, snort, swill, or suck. Hae y’self ae sitdown, an’ Ah’ll buy y’ a wee new balloon.”
“Don’t like men! I hurt men! First I hurt you, then hurt him.”
“Ah well,” Kilgour said. “Sten, y’ bear witness t’ m’ wee mum Ah’m noo goin’t out an’ gettin’ in th’ bloody frae like Ah wae a cub again.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Ah knew Ah c’d rely on you.”
The being was reaching for Kilgour’s neck — what little neck the tubby man had.
Kilgour’s hands circled the being’s arms, just where a wrist would be on a humanoid. And he levered down. The being scrawked in pain and collapsed down on what were maybe knees, just as gracelessly as an Earth camel. Kilgour, still holding the being’s “wrists,” stepped forward — and the quadruped collapsed back into a sprawled, seated position.
“Noo,” Alex said. “Y’ see how easy pacifism is, when y’ put y’r mind t’ it?”
“If you’re through playing, Mr. Kilgour?”
“Ah’m through, Admiral. But Ah hae t’ buy m’ friend his round. As Ah promis’t.”
Kilgour, an upright and honorable man from the high-gee world of Edinburgh, Sten’s long-time aide and accomplice and one of the Empire’s most highly trained elite commandos, did keep his word — and bought the now quiescent monster a balloon before they left for their inspection tour of the Imperial battle cruiser Victory.
“ Tis all i’ th’ the leverage,” was his only explanation to Sten. “Like tearin’ a phone book apart.”
“What’s a phone book?”
“ ‘Tis quite a ship,” Alex said, three hours later.
“Aye,” Sten agreed. He took off the sensor hood he had been wearing and stopped his run through of the Victory’s tertiary and redundant TA systems.
Alex’s eyes swept the room before he spoke. There weren’t any crewmen within earshot, and the com box wasn’t picking up. “Perhaps Ah’m gettin’ old,” he went on, still tentatively, “but the way this scow’s set up’s noo like it would have been back in the — the old days.”
“You mean before the Emperor’s assassination.”
“Aye,” Kilgour said. “Thae’s a bit too much flash ae filigree fr this to suit th’ old Emp. Or am I rememberin’t th’ past ae better’n it wae?”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Sten said. He touched keys, and the computer obediently threw a three-meter hologram of the Victory into the air over the mess table they were sitting at. Another key combination, and the computer began peeling the hologram, displaying the new battle cruiser from all angles and deck by deck.
“Ah’d heard this wae t’ be a ‘maphrodite,” Alex said. “But it looks more like a three-way or four-way arrangement t’me.”
Sten nodded agreement. He wasn’t happy, on a number of levels. First was the entirely pragmatic consideration of the Victory as a warship. Sten had experience with tools, vehicles, and ships that were ostensibly dual- or multiple-purpose. Almost without exception that meant that the tool did quite a number of things badly, and nothing well.
Battle cruisers, for instance, were based on aeons-old designs of ships that had enough muscle to beat up almost anything — except battleships or monitors — and enough power to run away from the biggies. Quite frequently, though, it worked out that the class was too slow to be able to catch and destroy smaller ships, and played hell getting away from the monsters. Plus, once the ship was caught, its armament, quite capable of bashing a stray destroyer or such, was too light to damage a battleship, and its defensive systems, active or passive, were too weak.
Sten had gone through the builder-promised specs on the Victory, cross-correlating them with the actual performance the battle cruiser produced during its trials. Unless the Imperial procurement people were on the take — not an impossibility, but not very likely — it looked as if the Victory might be an effective weapon.
The problem was this tacship capability the Emperor had evidently decided was vital. The Victory’s rear third was dedicated to hangar/weapons/quarters for a complete tacship flotilla — three squadrons of four ships each. The tacships were Bulkeley-II class ships, developed and refined during the Tahn war. They were just-over-hundred-meter-long needles of destruction. They were built to get in at speed, hit hard, and get out. Anything else — crew comfort, defensive capabilities, armor — was secondary or nonexistent. Sane pilots hated the tacships — they required constant hands-on pilot response and were unforgiving, as in kill you, of the slightest error. Sten loved them.
So on one hand the Victory’s added capability was something Sten appreciated. But it also meant that the rear spaces were flying time bombs, packed with sensitive explosives, fuels, and weaponry. The large hangar and maintenance areas meant any hit in those spaces might destroy the battle cruiser. Plus the Victory was more than a bit blind and defenseless around the stern. “Thae’ll be a problem,” Kilgour had observed. “Means thae i’ we cannae break an’ run, we’ll hae t’ retreat backwards, clutchin’ our bustle an’ flailin’ wi’ our wee ladylike brolly.”
That image of Earth Victorian times brought up the Victory’s final oddity: complete luxury. Sten already knew the ship had been outfitted for luxury — even the lowest-rank wiper had his own tiny compartment. Paneling appeared to be wood and stone on many of the passageways. The kitchens could efficiently prepare and serve Imperial conference banquets with no strain.
Sten appreciated this to a degree. A lean, clean fighting machine might sound good in the livies, but Sten knew from his tacship experience that after three or four weeks into a mission, one thing not appreciated was a fresher one had to squeeze oneself into to degrease the body. Especially if that fresher just happened to have a sharp corner cleverly located where elbows and knees went.
But then there was the Imperial Suite, which included living quarters large enough, it seemed, for an entire Imperial court, plus guest area and troop support sectors, including armories and gymnasiums. Sten was glad to see the latter — he was still aware of the smallish handles he had previously noted in the Imperial mirror.
The Imperial Suite — if that was the correct label for such a large area — covered the upper quarter of the Victory between the tacship decks to the forward command spaces for the Victory’s own crew. A frontal cross-section would show the Imperial area as a T, the figure’s leg extending deep into the ship’s center. Like all flagships, the Victory was designed and built so the Imperial — or flag — quarters were independent of the warship’s own areas. For thousands of years every admiral had known he was a better captain than the flagship’s own captain, and would frequently drop the larger concerns he was paid to worry about and play skipper-for-a-day.
Yes. Sten agreed with Alex that this Imperial Suite was a bit much. The heads had gold fixtures. The basins were real marble. The bedchambers were richly upholstered. As for the beds themselves, particularly the ones — plural correct — in the Imperial private quarters, Sten wondered how they would be described in the inventory:
BED, Mark 24, perhaps. Multiple-user-capable. Structurally reinforced to allow occupants limitless creativity. Bed fitted for hydraulic modification while in use, which includes adjustment overall area from polyhedron to circular to conventional; vertical adjustment of any portion of bed for height. Internal and external multiple capabilities, including, but not limited to, internal illumination, external illumination, holographic projection, holographic recording. Includes refrigeration and snack area. Includes full communication capability. Overhead rack (can be hidden) capable of supporting as many as three beings. Fitted for light array to include, but not limited to, stroboscopic or holographic imaging.
The owner of such a bed, Sten summarized, would be listed as orgy-qualified and -experienced.
The Emperor?
Sten did not give a damn — but it was odd that during his time as captain of the Emperor’s Gurkkha bodyguard, he hadn’t noticed that the Eternal Emperor seemed particularly sex-driven. He hadn’t thought much about it, but sort of guessed that after a few thousand years maybe the possibilities had been completely explored.
But now?
Hell, he was not even sure he was right — it wasn’t as if Sten had personally explored every inch of Arundel Castle to ensure that what was listed as a storeroom might not, in fact, have been an Imperial bordello.
The problem was going to be, Sten thought, sleeping in that bed himself. Why you puritanical little clot, his mind jeered. There have been times, he prodded himself, that he’d been known to roll about in a big pile with friends. And speaking of which, his thought went on, who’s going to see you sleeping in that humongous great bed, anyway? You might as well have been a clottin’ castrato of late.
Sten brought himself back to the issues at hand. “Mr. Kilgour,” he said, “I’m not at all sure what this goatrope they call the Altaic Cluster is going to be. But I’m getting the idea our boss isn’t giving us all these goodies just because he likes my legs.”
“Prog: ninety percent,” Alex agreed.
“Which means I’ll be needing all my assets. So, uh, do you think it’d be a proper utilization of your talents, Laird Kilgour, for you to skipper this solid-gold whorehouse?”
Kilgour appeared taken aback. “Me? But thae’s an admiral rank. Twa-star, Ah’d hazard. An’ th’ highest rank Ah e’er held, last time Ah meter-metered the matter, wae but wee warrant.”
“I don’t think that would present a problem,” Sten said. “And it wasn’t what I asked.”
Alex considered. Then slowly shook his head. “Ah dinnae think so, lad. But Ah’m touched ae the thought. T’now, thae’s nae been a Kilgour been an admiral. ‘Ceptin’ the pirates, a’ course.
