Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

“Hold the line,” he ordered grimly, shifting his grip on the Armati he’d lived with for the last forty-odd years of his life. “We’ll do our duty to the end.”

“The end might be closer than you think, Everett.”

William half turned to see General Aleksander approaching. “Sir! What?”

“We just got confirmation. The emperor is dead.”

William felt like he’d been struck by a skimmer. “Are you sure?”

“I said we got confirmation. He’s gone.”

William shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around that bit of information, “The heirs, we have to …”

“The squad you sent after Kayle just reported back,” the general said, shaking his head.

“Brennan, then, or Lydia …”

“Reports suggest they escaped by skimmer.”

“Brennan is a natural flyer,” William confirmed.

“Well, we can only hope that they got out clean. For now we have a larger problem,” the general said grimly. “We’ll try to track them down, but it’s clear that the invasion had far more support than anyone thought possible. There are currently three legions outside the capital sector. They’re not doing anything yet, but we didn’t call them in.”

William closed his eyes for a moment, considering that.

Three legions would be enough to lay siege to the capital, but he doubted that was the plan. They already had enough forces inside to break a siege defense if they wanted to, which meant that the legions were a threat, a message to the Cadre.

It was a good threat too.

Fight us, and we’ll level the capital.

“We can’t give up that easy, sir.”

“We’re not,” the general said darkly. “But we can’t win here. I’m going to signal a withdrawal, but Everett … I have one more operation for you.”

Brennan pulled up hard on both sticks, leveling out the skimmer within a couple hundred feet of the ground. Buildings rose up on either side of them as they flashed through the fabricated canyons, heading for the great walls at the city’s edge.

“Bren!” Lydia yelled. “I’m going to kill you!”

“Sorry, Lyd, I know I promised, but it was the only way.”

He jammed the left stick forward as a building came too close to one side, throwing the skimmer into a sharp bank even as he fought the motion with the foot pedals, trying to keep the trajectory straight. Before they could lose too much altitude, he threw the stick back and leveled the skimmer out as the building flashed by them.

The walls of the capital were manned, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. In fact, the patrols there seemed a little light. Brennan hoped that meant that these were the normal guards and some had been called away due to the fighting at the palace or the destruction of the initial strikes. If they were, then they’d probably just flag his skimmer ID and send him a fine.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

If they were part of the invasion of the capital, though, they might just shoot them down.

Brennan was praying as he hit the inner perimeter of the wall and then as the wall flashed under them. They were well past the wall before he took another breath and started to relax.

“I think we made it out,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m going to get as much distance as I can before I launch the light sails again.”

Lydia nodded quietly behind him, but her eyes were focused elsewhere.

“Bren, look out to your right.”

Brennan did, and his eyes widened at what he saw.

“There shouldn’t be a legion this close to the capital, Lyd. We’d know if they’d been called in for any reason.”

“I know,” Lydia whispered. “The Senate must have summoned them.”

“To help?” Brennan asked, confused.

“Bren”—Lydia shook her head—“they’d have had to cut those orders weeks ago.”

Brennan swallowed. “You’re saying that the Senate is in on it?”

“Some of them, yes.”

He pushed the right stick forward, pumping the pedals to match, and banked the skimmer away from the assembled forces of the Imperial legion. In moments they were out of sight, and the skimmer was running low to the ground and a lot faster than even he felt comfortable with at that altitude. Still, Brennan hesitated with launching the light sails, since his skimmer wasn’t equipped with the stealth tech of military aircraft. Once their sails went up, he knew that he and Lydia would have effectively sent up a flare.

Need to run as long as I can. I might be able to get out of their range before they spot us.

Just a little longer.

The fighting had intensified around the Cadre wing. Now that the invaders had apparently accomplished their primary goals, they were moving in force against the biggest remaining threat to their actions. The volume of fire from the embattled sections of the wing was truly impressive, particularly considering that it was being mounted by very few volunteers.

Most of the Cadre personnel had already evacuated the wing, scattering to the winds. You didn’t serve the Cadre for long without learning to have fallbacks—and backups for your fallbacks.

William Everett walked unhurriedly away from the sound of fighting. He had orders of his own to complete, and then if he were lucky he’d be ready to vanish into his own little bolt-hole.

An explosion behind him told him that the defenses had fallen. He didn’t look back. William stepped into a large room filled from one end to the other with gleaming metal boxes, half as tall as he was, each of them whirring with restrained power and guided intent. He walked down the length of the room, pausing only to attach small devices to each of the boxes in turn.

At the far end, William stopped and pushed a seat out of the way as he activated a projection interface and sent a few quick commands into the main computer system of the empire. There was only so much he could do from the Cadre systems, of course, but he could make things a little more difficult for Corian and the Senate.

He could also make things a little easier for himself, since he was about to become an outlaw and all anyway.

The door behind him was kicked open and men stampeded through the doors, running toward him. They stopped well out of his reach, weapons leveled on him as the officer in charge stepped forward.

“The Cadre have been disbanded, by Imperial edict. Surrender yourself and your weapon now, or I will authorize lethal action.”

“Emperor Scourwind is the Cadre’s most ardent supporter,” William said, still working without turning around.

“The Scourwinds are no longer in control of the empire. Stop what you’re doing and turn around, or we’ll fire!”

William entered his last command and straightened up, turning slowly with his hands visible.

“My oath is to the emperor,” he said. “If Edvard Scourwind is no longer the emperor, then my oath goes to his heir.”

The men relaxed a little as he showed no weapons, and the officer actually lowered his sidearm.

William shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Amateur.

“Surrender your weapon. Slowly.”

William reached down, slowly, and tapped the blaster on his hip. “This one?”

“Your weapon . Now.”

“Ahhh”—he breathed out slowly—“ that one. Sorry, never going to happen.”

“Then you die here.”

William locked eyes with the officer and smiled. “You talk too much.”

The room exploded, engulfing them all in flames as the bombs he’d put on every computer mainframe in the room detonated on his command, taking the identities of every Cadre officer in the empire with it.

Trees were whipping by mere feet below the skimmer as Brennan scanned the skies for any sign of military flyers.