Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

She knew one of the Cadremen she’d found. He’d been in her graduating class at the academy, and they’d both been offered a shot at Cadre just out of school. Only the top ten got that offer, and Cadre had only accepted two of those that time around. She hadn’t known him well, but he’d been the more sociable of the two, although that wasn’t saying a lot.

You didn’t get through academy by being a party type.

For all that, however, he’d been a comrade, and his body here told her that he’d been loyal to the end.

“Faithful forever, friends,” she said, lips twisting slightly, as she straightened up and made her way back into the soot-coated interior of the Redoubt. Mira almost couldn’t even think the words of the old oath now, not after her own men had tried to kill her. What sort of faith was that? Who was she supposed to be faithful to? The people who tried to kill her? She’d trained those men, lived with them, laughed with them … and they still tried to burn her down.

Mira had to force down the anger, not for the first time, and turn her attention to the job at hand.

As he took his leave, Corian had used an overpressure explosive, a type of weapon that filled the structure with a flammable gas that was ignited when the mixture was ideal. Against anything less than the ancient construction of the Redoubt—or the palace—the resulting detonation would have left nothing but a crater and the faint smell of chemicals.

The Redoubt, however, had been built long before humans settled the Imperial Sector.

Corian was in a rush, or shorthanded, she decided as she made her way deeper into the Redoubt and found some of the doors stubbornly shut. Mira considered the bodies she’d deposited into the single large pit. Probably both, I suppose.

If he’d had more time or men, she was certain that he’d have opened all the internal doors. That would have caused a more complete destruction of the facility. As it were, with some of the heavy doors sealed, the explosive chemicals wouldn’t have been able to penetrate the Redoubt completely. The shock wave too would have been blunted or even stopped in certain places.

Behind those doors, once she’d gotten the mechanism working again, Mira found supplies intact.

Just foodstuffs, water supplies, and basic gear, of course. As best she could tell Corian seemed to have taken everything of real value, or destroyed it in place. She wasn’t about to complain, however, as some superweapon wouldn’t keep her alive. Food and water would.

The destruction of the command center had been, unfortunately, complete.

No way to fix any of this, she decided as she looked over the communications equipment. I’ll not be calling for help or sending any warnings ahead of that bastard, not this time.

She turned to leave the wrecked center but paused when a single blinking light caught her eye.

Mira made her way over to the station, kicking a burned and blackened chair out of the way, and crouched near the light. She brushed some of the ash away from the console, but the display and projector there were beyond repair.

Bringing her own armor back with a flick of her fingers across the projector emblem, Mira took her time and felt out for the active circuit through her armor. The empire primarily used photonic systems, which made her armor and its technology ideally suited to linking into Imperial data services. It was handy if the service in question wasn’t half blown to the furnace above, but as long as she could find a live optical link, Mira was confident she could get in.

Alarm on the detention level.

Mira was tempted to pass it off as an artifact of the blast; in fact, normally she probably would have. However, she didn’t have much else to do, certainly not until the next shadow pass. She left the command center and made her way down through the facility to the detention level. According to her briefing, it was probably the second most secure section of the Redoubt, not intended to hold many prisoners … just those that couldn’t be risked in the empire’s normal prisons.

The door to it was sealed, which likely meant that the area beyond was at least partly intact.

Whether that was a good thing or not, she couldn’t say. She hadn’t been briefed on who, if anyone, was currently being held at the empire’s premier black site. The entire system was in emergency lockdown, but that actually made it easier to access the area. She only needed valid officers’ codes to open the doors from the outside, likely on the belief that anyone already inside the Redoubt who was trying to get into the detention level was probably authorized.

The doors caught as they opened, and Mira had to brace against them and push, sliding the heavy metal back into the wall. The explosion probably tore out the pressure valves, she thought.

Mira made her way through the level, glad not to be picking through destroyed material and walking across carbonized bodies. Her footsteps rang out on the metal deck. She made no attempt to mask her presence. Her armor was up, blazing bright in full Cadre uniform, and given the mood she was in, she’d be pleased to encounter anyone who cared to pick a fight.

Unfortunately, perhaps, no one was there to take the challenge.

She found the cells and walked down the hall at a deliberate pace, taking only a moment to check each one before moving on. She reached almost the end before she stopped, finding one that was occupied. The reason for the alarm became apparent when she spotted that the cell’s environmental system was damaged. There was no immediate rush, but given another hour, the occupant would have been suffocated by his own carbon waste.

Mira sighed, then linked into the system through her armor and popped the door lock.

“Step out,” she ordered, “and identify yourself. I’d warn you not to try anything, but the mood I’m in right now, I think I’d be happier if you did.”

A slightly pudgy man with dark hair slowly made his way out of the cell, hands clearly showing.

“Name’s Gaston Rouche,” he said slowly. “Imperial engineer, assigned to the Redoubt.”

She checked her briefing files and nodded. The name and face matched.

Apparently Corian didn’t have much use for him.

“Mind telling me how you got yourself locked in the detention cells?” she asked dryly.

Gaston snorted angrily. “That bloody traitor is how.”

“Corian?”

“Who? No. Commander Jessup. She was assigned command of the Redoubt. She’s been shifting assignments for months, getting her own people into position. The rest of us never stood a chance.”

Jessup. Bethany Jessup, commander, Imperial Army. Clean record. Mira consulted the files on her personal data system while keeping an eye on the engineer. No links to Corian in her files. No surprise. If there had been, she’d have had her command pulled before he was sent here.

Every time she learned something more about this mess, Mira thought it stank of conspiracy far beyond what she’d been led to believe.

Corian is good, but this is more than a military coup. He’s got backing from inside the Senate, at the very least.

That probably didn’t narrow the field as much as she’d have liked, however, given that the only thing the Senate hated more than its own members was the Imperial Family.

The empire balanced on three powerful forces, each not entirely in opposition but certainly not in alliance with one another: the Senate, the Corporate Alliance, and the Imperial Family. Militarily, the emperor commanded enough forces to make the other two submit, but using that power had cost. The Alliance could subtly bleed the empire, and did so when given half a chance, while the Senate was made up of the various lords, barons, and other assorted nobles, who weren’t much of a force as individuals but together could present a credible threat.