David Weber - Empire from the Ashes

But that was for the future. For now, there was this latest news about the Narhani to consider, and she pondered it carefully. Officially, she was simply the general secretary of the Church's coequal bishops—but then, Josef Stalin had been "simply" the General Secretary of the Central Committee, hadn't he?—and it would be her job to soothe her flock's anxiety when the information was officially released. Still, the Achuultani were the Spawn of the Anti-Christ, and with a little care, her soothing assurance that Narhani weren't really Achuultani—except, perhaps, in a purely technical sense, which, of course, loyal subjects of the Imperium could never hold against their fellow subjects when no one could prove they had Satanic origins—would convey exactly the opposite message. Add a particularly earnest pastoral letter reminding the faithful of their duty to pray for the Emperor's guidance in these troubled times, and the anti-Narhani ferment would bubble along very nicely, thank you.

And, in the meantime, there were those other members of her flock whom she would see got the news in somewhat less soothing form.

The Reverend Robert Stevens sat in the dingy room beneath his church and watched the shocked eyes of the men and women seated around him. He felt their horror rising with his own, and more than one face was ashen.

"Are you sure , Father Bob?" Alice Hughes asked hoarsely.

"Yes, Alice." Stevens' grating, high-pitched voice was ill-suited to prayers or sermons, but God had given him a mission which put such paltry burdens into their proper perspective. "You know I can't reveal my source's identity—" in fact, he had no idea who the ultimate source was, though its information had always proven reliable "—but I'm sure."

"God forgive them," Tom Mason whispered. "How could they actually help the Anti-Christ's spawn breed? "

"Oh, come on, Tom!" Yance Jackson's lip curled and his green eyes blazed. "We've known the answer to that ever since they started cloning their precious ' Narhani .' " He made the name a curse. "They've been corrupted."

"But how?" Alice asked hesitantly. "They fought the Achuultani as God's own champions! How could they do that... and then do this? "

"It's this new technology," Jackson growled. "Don't you see, where fear couldn't tempt them, power has. They've set themselves up as gods!"

"I'm afraid Yance is right," Stevens said sadly. "They were God's champions, Alice, but Satan knows that as well as we do. He couldn't defeat them when they fought in His armor, so Satan's turned to temptation, seducing where he couldn't conquer. And this—" he tapped the piece of paper on the table before them "—is the proof he's succeeded."

"And so is the name they've given this demon of theirs," Jackson said harshly. " ' Eve! ' It should've been 'Lilith'!"

Stevens nodded even more sadly, but a new fire kindled in his eyes.

"The Emperor and his Council have fallen into evil," cold certitude cleansed his voice of sorrow, "and God-fearing people are under no obligation to obey evil rulers." He reached out to the people sitting on either side of him, and more hands rose, joining in a circle of faith under the humming fluorescent light. Stevens felt their belief feeding his own, making it strong, and a fierce sense of purpose filled him.

"The time is coming, brothers and sisters," he told them. "The time of fire, when the Lord shall call us to smite the ungodly in His name, and we must be strong to do His will. For the Armageddon is truly upon us, and we —" his eyes swept around the circle, glittering with an inner flame "—are the true Sword of God!"

The planet Marha, seventeen light-minutes from Bia and smaller than Mars, had never been much of a planet, and it had become less of one when the Fourth Imperium made it a weapons testing site. For two thousand years, until antimatter and gravitonic warheads made planetary tests superfluous, fission, fusion, and kinetic weapons had gouged and ripped its near-airless surface into a tortured waste whose features defied all logical prediction.

Which was precisely why the Imperial Marines loved Marha. It was a wonderful place to teach infantry the finer points of killing other people, and Generals Tsien and MacMahan were delighted to share it with Admiral Robbins' midshipmen. Naval officers might not face infantry combat often, but they couldn't always avoid it, either, and not knowing what they were doing was a good way to get people (especially their Marine-type people) killed.

At the moment, Admiral Robbins rode the command deck of the transport Tanngjost ,sipping coffee, and her brown eyes gleamed as her scanners watched her third-year class deploy against the graduating class. That Sean was a sneaky devil, she thought proudly. He'd made an absolute ass of himself at his first parade, but he'd survived it, and he stood first in the Tactics curriculum by a clear five points. He was a bit audacious for her taste, but that wasn't too surprising, and his parents would have just loved this one.

Mid/3 MacIntyre hand-signaled a stop, and his company of raiders slumped in the knife-sharp shadow of the tortured ring wall. He slumped with them, panting hard, and tried to remember he was being brilliant. If he managed to pull this off, he might even find two or three people to agree with him; if he screwed up, everybody would be waiting to tell him what a jackass he'd been.

He glanced at Sandy, more worried than he cared to admit as he noted how wearily she sat. This was her company, and she'd loved the idea when he sketched it out, but her small size was working against her.

An enhanced person could move in powered-down combat armor, if its servos were unlocked. It wasn't easy (especially for someone Sandy's size), but the sheer grunt work could be worth it under the right circumstances. Unpowered armor had no energy signature, and it even hid any emissions from its wearer's implants, which meant his raiders were virtually invisible.

The only real threat was optical detection, and he'd noticed that while his peers gave lip service to the importance of optical systems, they relied on more sophisticated sensors. He'd started to mention that during the critique of the last field exercise, but then he'd remembered he would be leading this one... and that the Academy didn't give out prizes for losing.

He slithered up the ring wall, unhooked the passive scanner from his harness, poked it over the crest, and grinned at its display. Onishi and his staff were exactly where The Book said they ought to be, safely tucked away at the heart of the sensor net guarding their HQ site. But The Book hadn't envisioned having a company of raiders barely half a klick away, well inside the sensor perimeter which should have protected Onishi's tactical HQ and ready to decapitate his entire command structure before Tamman (who'd always wanted to be a Marine anyway, for some strange reason) led in the main force.

He slid back down beside Sandy and pressed his helmet to hers. The face behind her visor was sweat-streaked and weary, but her brown eyes were bright, and he grinned and slapped her armored shoulder.

"We got 'em, Sandy!" Their helmets conducted his voice to her without the betraying pulse of a fold-space com. "Get the troops saddled up."

She nodded and began waving hand signals, and her support squad set up with gratifying speed, even without their armor's "muscles." He left them to it and reclimbed the slope to double-check the target coordinates. A standard saturation pattern would work just fine, he thought gleefully.

He glanced up. Sandy's heavy weapons types were set, and her other people were creeping up beside him, "energy guns" ready. It was just like laser tag, he thought, prepping his implants to activate his armor. And then he energized his com for the first time in almost six hours.