Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

In practice, the corporatists were too focused on their profits to play the long game, and the nobles were too busy fighting each other to ally against the Imperial forces. That left Emperor Scourwind largely in charge, but exceptions had happened in the past and, it seemed, might just be happening now.

“Do you know what they were after?” she asked the engineer.

He shook his head. “Jessup locked me up from the start. Didn’t even bother trying to recruit me … Should I be insulted, do you think?”

Mira laughed humorlessly. “I don’t know. Maybe she just didn’t like you much.”

“There’s truth in that,” he grumbled. “Never got along with her from the start. She was always a little too interested in my project …” He trailed off, his eyes losing focus.

“What?” Mira asked, recognizing that he’d just thought of something.

“I need to get to secure storage,” he said. “Flight deck.”

“Knock yourself out,” Mira gestured, following him after he started to walk quickly away. “Don’t expect to find much.”

Gaston stopped, turning back to look at her sharply. “Why not?”

“Corian—I’m guessing it was him … It’s his kind of move—” she said idly as she caught up with him, “used an overpressure bomb to clear the Redoubt. Not a lot left in one piece up there.”

“That wouldn’t have destroyed my …” Gaston shook his head. “I have to check.”

Mira just gestured again, then followed when he ran off.

“Oh, burning skies!” Gaston swore as he looked over the large flight deck. “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?” Mira asked from behind him, still debating how much to trust the man.

“We were working on a prototype ship,” he said. “The Caleb Bar . It’s … it’s one of a kind.”

“That’s often what prototype means,” Mira said, now tensing up. “What kind of ship?”

“The Caleb is a strato-cruiser, heavily armed,” he said. “She’s got some of the heaviest armor projectors we’ve ever built, but that’s not what makes her so dangerous.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Rouche,” Mira growled. “What the hell did Corian fly out of here?”

“The Caleb ’s equipped with a prototype quantum-rail drive,” Gaston said. “You know how those work?”

Mira nodded. “Sure. You lay a quantum rail by linking subatomic particles. Slow acceleration, unbelievable power, very efficient for superatmospheric transport over long distances.”

“Right, but with a quantum tractor drive you can’t go anywhere there’s no rail, so the rails have to be linked by a strato-ship or a reaction vessel.”

“So?”

“The Caleb can link its own rail as it goes,” he said. “She can travel above the atmosphere and strike from any angle, like a reaction ship, but the Caleb is hundreds of times the mass of a reaction ship and can do it without a thermal signature. It’s unstoppable.”

Mira closed her eyes, half turning away, as she tried to keep from swearing.

“We need to get back to the capital,” she finally said, “while there still is a capital to get back to.”

The open foredeck of the Caleb was awash in the wind of the upper atmosphere as General Corian walked stiffly to the large wheel mounted on the center platform. His missing leg had been replaced with a temporary prosthetic that was ill matched, but he didn’t have time to do things the right way just then. For the moment he’d eat the pain and walk on fire and plasma if that was what it took to finish the job.

The wheel was a throwback, a nod to a bygone era of Imperial greatness, but it did the job. He gripped it tightly, easing it back as he felt the ship respond under his feet. They were at full sail, with long runners reaching high up above the ship into the strato-winds, pulling hard for the Imperial capital.

He heard steps behind him but didn’t bother to look back.

“My compliments, commander,” he said, a smile flitting across his scarred face. “She is everything you said she’d be.”

“The best engineers in the empire worked for half a decade on design alone to make her so, general,” Bethany Jessup said as she came to a stop on his blind side.

“I’m shocked that something so purely beautiful could be made under the corrupt fools that control the empire,” he said, rolling the wheel to the right just enough to feel the big ship shift underfoot and dip her starboard side, showing the ground far beneath them as he finished adjusting the course and leveled out. “Magnificent.”

“I’ll take that as a personal compliment.” Jessup let the roll lean her into his side, careful not to put too much weight on him for fear of aggravating his injury.

“You should. You oversaw the construction of something that will change history,” Corian told her, turning his head so he could see her with his good eye.

He tilted his head down, his lips capturing hers for a long, deep kiss before Corian looked back over the foredeck of the ship.

Jessup just smiled. “What now?”

“Now we take the empire,” Corian said with a smile as he locked the wheel and stepped back. “Time to go belowdecks, love. Call down to the engines; tell them to warm up the tractor drive.”

“Of course, Corian,” Jessup answered.

“Seal all ports. Dog the hatches shut,” he ordered as he stepped down through the heavy door that led below. “We’re taking the Caleb clear of atmo. Next stop,” he said as the door swung closed with a heavy clang, “the capital.”

Brennan Scourwind whooped as he landed his skimmer, glancing along the roof of the palace and sliding sideways for a dozen feet or so before bringing it to a stop a scant few feet from the edge of a straight hundred-foot drop. He grinned and peeled his skullcap back as he hopped clear of the craft, planting his boots on the rooftop.

He stomped a few times, dancing from the heightened adrenaline rush he was still on, but came to a stop when he recognized the two people standing across the rooftop waiting for him.

“Brother,” he said, feeling like he was crashing as his brother and William walked across the rooftop toward him.

“Brennan …” Kayle Scourwind nodded politely. Kayle always did everything politely. “That was … impressive flying.”

“I’m the best.” Brennan smirked.

“You’re also reckless and stupid.” William glared at him. “One mistake and you’d have pitched to your death on that landing, to say nothing of those maneuvers.”

Brennan rolled his eyes and made a rude gesture, one that would have gotten him belted if he’d tried it with his father. William merely glowered but said nothing further.

Kayle, on the other hand, cuffed him lightly behind the head.

“I taught you better than that, flying and manners, you little fool.” Kayle chuckled. “Stop baiting William when you know he’s not going to call you on it.”

“You haven’t taught me anything about flying since I was seven, and you know it,” Brennan told him cockily. “I can outfly you any day you choose.”

Kayle smiled fondly at his younger brother, memories briefly eclipsing his annoyance. “You’re a natural flyer, Bren. I told you that the first day I took you up in my skimmer. You’re also a spoiled brat who’s been a pain in my ass ever since I qualified you on your own.”

Brennan shrugged. “What else is new?”

“I hear you can’t find a flyer to qualify you on reaction craft or heavier skimmers.”

Brennan looked away. “I’ll find someone.”

Kayle shook his head. “I’m not going to put my reputation on the line for you again, not when you’re flying like that. If I won’t, no one else will.”