Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

Now, however, he rather wished he had one.

“Come on.” He nudged his sister. “We need to keep moving.”

Lydia let him pull her along, heading down another path away from the lasing blasts. A few dozen feet from the central hall, they were stopped when the doors to the hall blew open. Brennan stumbled back, surprised by the sudden movement. That surprise likely saved his life, as a lased blast vaporized a chunk out of the wall where his head had been just moments before, hot plasma scorching his face.

“Bren!” Lydia screamed, yanking him back and to the ground as more blasters fired.

Men poured in through the door as Brennan and Lydia scrambled back, lasing blasts filling the air above them. The siblings twisted, clawing at the ground as they scrambled in the other direction, only to find another group of men coming from that way as well, firing their blasters.

Caught in the cross fire, the two teens crawled to a doorframe.

“What’s going on?” Lydia screamed.

Normally Brennan would have cringed at the volume of her voice, but at the moment his ears were ringing so badly that he barely heard her as it was.

“We’re under attack!” he shouted back.

Lydia slapped his arm, annoyed. “I know that much, idiot!”

“Don’t hit me, damn it! I just answered your question. We have to get out of here!”

He got the door beside them open, and they fell into the room beyond as the fighting intensified behind them.

“They’re between us and the Cadre wing,” Brennan said, peering back out. “I think we need a new plan.”

Corian limped with each deliberate step he took into the palace. The prosthetic taking the place of his leg was just a fraction shorter than it should have been. He ignored it, focused on making each step as certain as possible as he followed the assault teams through the halls.

“Sir, heavy fighting in the residency wing.”

Corian nodded. That was expected. The guards assigned there were the most strictly vetted people in the empire. Subverting them hadn’t been worth the risk associated with such an endeavor.

“Remember, we need at least one of the family,” he said, his voice deadly calm, “alive. The girl would be preferable.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Senate would be just as happy, happier probably, if the Scourwinds simply ceased to exist, but that wasn’t his game plan. Killing the entire family would have its own perils, not to mention the near criminal loss of their bloodline. Politically the name had power, and it was power he could use.

Corian had few delusions that the Senate would be his ally forever. They were backstabbing, self-entitled fools without the slightest clue as to how the real world worked, or should work. They only thought about their own short-term benefit, and not one of them was smart enough to even consider how his actions would affect himself more than a cycle or two into the future.

The instant one of them thought it would get him a quick shot of power, Corian knew they’d betray him, just as they were now turning on the Scourwinds.

To maintain the power balance, albeit nudged more than a little in his own favor, Corian needed one of the younger Scourwinds on his side … in appearance at least.

“Reports from the Cadre facilities?” he asked, glancing at the aide walking alongside him.

“Our infiltrators have kept them from proactively moving on the rest of the palace, and the emperor has been cut off from them,” the aide confirmed. “Last reports put him on his way to the throne room.”

Corian nodded. “He’s going for the master communications panel. Predictable.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s pay our respects to the emperor then, shall we?”

Edvard Scourwind was sitting calmly on the massive throne as the doors blew open, sending several of his guards scattering like leaves in a hurricane wind. Gamma carbines and lasing blasters roared back and forth, but the fight was never in question as more and more men poured into the hall.

As the blasts faded and the fighting ended, the invaders split to allow the approach of a man clad in a long, dark coat and heavy combat gear, a man who Edvard recognized without any strain, even considering his rather shocking appearance.

Corian limped to a deliberate stop, well within the point where he would normally have been checked for weapons. The calculated statement was clear and brought a smile to Edvard’s face.

“Not one for subtlety, are you, old friend?” the emperor asked mildly, ignoring the armed men to focus on the man he’d known for so long. “You’ve looked better.”

Corian laughed softly. “Thank your pet guard dog for my new look. I have to hand it to you, Edvard, that one was as ruthless as any I’ve seen.”

Edvard’s expression didn’t waver as he shrugged. “And what, if I may ask, happened to Cadrewoman Delsol?”

“By now? Dead of thirst in the Great Desert,” Corian said with a calm gesture. “I didn’t get to kill her personally, unfortunately, but then I’d have been cleaner and more merciful than the desert.”

“Ah …” The sound rattled dryly from the emperor’s throat. “That does answer some questions I had concerning the scene. She managed to cause you this much injury and escape into the desert? You must be getting old, Corian.”

Corian snorted, rolling his eyes. “Crazy bitch turned the inertics off in the prison car before the train was derailed. I never got a chance to cross arms with her.”

Edvard snorted and then slowly began to shake on the throne, finally laughing out loud at the man who was pointing a dozen blasters and carbines at him.

The former general just sighed, nodding his head. “I know. I know.”

For those present, the sight of the emperor laughing near helplessly at the man holding him at gunpoint was a scene that would not be forgotten, nor spoken of without looking over their shoulders, for the rest of their lives.

Corian, however, didn’t seem particularly put out by any of it. In fact he just waited calmly for the other man to stop, an expression of mild chagrin on his face.

“If you’re quite finished?” he asked as Edvard slowly stopped laughing and took a few deep breaths.

“Ah, Corian, how many times did I tell you? You underestimate people, old friend. It’s your fatal flaw,” Edvard said calmly as he took another breath.

“And you overestimate them—that’s yours,” Corian said, his affable posture and tone gone now.

“Perhaps,” Edvard conceded. “I certainly overestimated you …”

“Enough,” Corian snapped. “It’s over, old friend .”

“I suppose it is,” Edvard said, his hand dropping to an object on the arm of his throne. “I believe this is what you came for?”

Corian’s eyes twitched to the object and flickered in recognition.

“You didn’t reassign it?” he asked softly.

“Who would want an Armati tainted by what you did? By what you are?”

Corian seethed, but did his best to keep it under control. Few people could push his buttons quite the way Edvard did.

“I am what you and the empire made me, and I’ll take that back now,” he said calmly.

“Will you?” Edvard asked. “You know, in training I never could take you. You were the best of us, but you’re not looking so good right now.”

“You have over a dozen carbines and more blasters aimed at you.” Corian shook his head. “Give it up, Edvard. You’re still worth a little more alive than dead.”

“I think we both know that if this little coup works, I don’t keep breathing.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Corian said, shaking his head.