David Weber - Empire from the Ashes

He fed a fresh belt into his launcher and looked up. Luis Esteben was the senior man, and he looked profoundly unhappy. Their orders were to leave no witnesses; sooner or later, someone was going to have to go in after the last survivor, and Esteben had a sinking suspicion who Brigadier Jourdain was going to pick for the job if he hadn't gotten it done by the time the Brigadier got here.

"All right," he said finally. "We're not going to take this bastard out with a frontal assault." His fellows nodded, and he bared his teeth at their relieved expressions. "What we need to do is get in behind him."

"We can't. That's a blind corridor," someone pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's got walls, and we've got energy guns," Esteben pointed out. "Frank, you keep him busy, and the rest of us'll go back and circle around to get into the conference room next door. We can blow through the wall from there and flank him out."

"Suits me," Detmore agreed, "but—" He broke off and his eyes widened. "What the hell is that ?" he demanded, staring back up the corridor.

Esteben was still turning when Galahad and Gawain exploded into the Security men's rear.

Vlad settled the charge delicately and sighed in relief. He was still alive; that was the good news. The bad news was that he couldn't be certain this was going to work... and there was only one way to find out.

He set the timer, turned, and ran like hell.

Alarms screamed as Oscar Sanders hit every button on his panel. Security personnel and Imperial Marines fighting to control traffic in the mat-trans facility looked up in shock, then turned as one to run for White Tower as Sanders came up on their coms.

The foyer door vanished in a hurricane of fire, and two men slammed through the opening. They saw the piled fortress of furniture facing the door and charged it frantically, firing on the run, desperate to reach it before Horus could pop up and return fire.

He let them get half way to it, and then, without moving from his position in the corner, cut both of them in half.

Jourdain cursed in mingled rage and triumph as his men went down. Damn that sneaky old bastard! But his fire had given away his position, and the brigadier and his five remaining Security men knew exactly where to look when they came through the door.

Energy guns snarled in a frenzy of destruction at a range of less than five meters. Men went down—screaming or dead—and then it was over. Two more attackers were down, one dead and one dying... and the Governor of Earth was down as well. Someone's fire had smashed his energy gun, but it didn't really matter, Jourdain thought as he glared down at him, for Horus was mangled and torn. Only his implants were keeping him alive, and they were failing fast.

Jourdain raised his weapon, only to lower it once more as the old man snarled at him. Horus couldn't last ten more minutes, the brigadier thought coldly, but he could last long enough to know Jourdain had killed his daughter.

"Find the bitch," he said coldly, turning away from the dying Governor. "Kill her."

Vlad rounded the last corner, skidded to a halt, and flung himself flat.

The charge went off just before he landed, and the floor seemed to leap up and hit him in the face. His mouth filled with blood as he bit his tongue, and he yelped in pain.

It was only then that he realized he was still alive... which meant it must have worked.

Agony drowned Horus in red, screaming waves—the physical agony his implants couldn't suppress, and the more terrible one of knowing men were hunting his daughter to kill her. He bit back a scream and made his broken body obey his will one last time. Both his legs were gone, and most of his left arm, but he dragged himself—slowly, painfully, centimeter by centimeter—across the carpet in a ribbon of blood. His entire, fading world was focused on the closest corpse's holstered grav gun. He inched towards it, gasping with effort, and his fingers fumbled with the holster. His hand was slow and clumsy, shaking with pain, but the holster came open and he gripped the weapon.

A boot slammed down on his wrist, and he jerked in fresh agony, then rolled his head slowly and stared into the muzzle of an energy gun.

"You just can't wait to die, can you, you old bastard?" Alex Jourdain hissed. "All right—have it your way!"

His finger tightened on the firing stud... and then his head blew apart and Horus' eyes flared in astonishment as two bloodsoaked rottweilers and a Marine corporal charged across his body.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

Jiltanith stiffened, then shuddered in relief as she recognized the voice. It was Anna, and if Corporal Zhirnovski was calling her name and there were no more screams and firing—

She jerked the door open, and Gwynevere shot out it, hackles raised, ready to attack any threat. But there was no threat. Only a smoke-stained, bloodied Marine corporal, one arm hanging useless at her side... the sole survivor of Jiltanith's security team.

"Anna!" she cried, reaching out to the wounded woman, but Zhirnovski shook her head.

"Your father!" she gasped. "In the foyer!"

Jiltanith hesitated, and the corporal shook her head again.

"My implants'll hold it, Your Majesty! Go! "

Horus drifted deeper into a well of darkness. The world was fading away, dim and insubstantial as the hovering smoke, and he felt Death whispering to him at last. He'd cheated the old thief so long, he thought hazily. So long. But no one cheated him forever, did they? And Death wasn't that bad a fellow, not really. His whisper promised an end to agony, and perhaps, just perhaps, somewhere on the other side of the pain he would find Tanisis, as well. He hoped so. He longed to apologize to her as he had to 'Tanni, and—

His eyes fluttered open as someone touched him. He stared up from the bottom of his well, and his fading eyes brightened. His head was in her lap, and tears soaked her face, but she was alive. Alive, and so beautiful. His beautiful, strong daughter.

" 'Tanni." His remaining arm weighed tons, but he forced it up, touched her cheek, her hair. " 'Tanni..."

It came out in a thread, and she caught his hand, pressing it to her breast, and bent over him. Her lips brushed his forehead, and she stroked his hair.

"I love you, Poppa," she whispered to him in perfect Universal, and then the darkness came down forever.

Lawrence Jefferson gazed into the mirror and adjusted his appearance with meticulous care, then checked the clock. Ten more minutes, he thought, and turned back to the mirror to smile at himself.

For someone who'd seen almost thirty years of planning collapse with spectacular totality less than two months before, he felt remarkably cheerful. His coup attempt had failed, but the governorship of Earth was a fair consolation prize—and, he reflected, an even better platform from which to plan anew after a few years.

He'd gone to considerable lengths to set Brigadier Jourdain up as the fall guy if his plans miscarried, and the brigadier had helped by getting himself killed, which neatly precluded the possibility of his defending himself against the charges. Lieutenant Governor Jefferson had, of course, been shocked to learn that one of his most senior Security men had formed links to the Sword of God and had, in fact, used Security's own bio-enhancement facilities to enhance his own select band of traitors! The stunning discovery of Jourdain's treason had led to a massive shakeup at Security, in the course of which an Internal Affairs inspector had "stumbled across" the secret journal which chronicled the brigadier's secretly growing disaffection. A disaffection which had blossomed to full life when he was named to head the special team created by newly appointed Security Minister Jefferson to combat the Sword's terrorism following the Van Gelder assassination. Instead of hunting the Sword down to destroy it, he'd used the investigation to make contact with a Sword cell leader and found his true spiritual home.