Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

“Yeah …” It was Lydia who finally spoke. “We lost ours too.”

“Look, I’m all for sentiment,” Brennan lied, “but we’ve got to get moving.”

“We’re not allowed to leave,” Dusk whispered, eyes rising to where the perimeter of the camp was being patrolled.

Brennan snorted. “We snuck in. We can sneak out.”

The two other teens stared at them both with a sort of horrified awe.

“Why in the burning skies would you sneak in ?” Mikael asked, his tone hushed.

“We have our reasons,” Lydia said. “Now come on. If you’re with us, you’re going to need to learn to move quickly and quietly.”

Cadrewoman Delsol glared over the table at the man in a legionnaire colonel’s uniform, though she knew damn well he had no right to that rank. The chaos left in the aftermath of the coup had splintered the ranks, and field promotions were flowing quickly in the loyalist camps as well as more than a few self-given bumps in rank.

That wasn’t why she was pissed with the fool sitting in front of her, though.

“The empire is grateful for your aid in the war effort,” he told her, a smarmy smile on his face. “However, we simply don’t have the available funds to complete the agreed deal. You’ll have to wait until the next—”

“Listen to me, you smug, hopped-up piece of sky shit,” she growled out slowly, cutting him off. “I’m loyal to the Scourwind empire. I’ve pledged my blade, my blood to them. My men are loyal to the empire as well, but they are soldiers . Soldiers get paid . They don’t fight for the honor, and duty fills no stomachs. If you want the shipment, you’re going to pay for it. Burning skies, man, it’s not like I’m asking for even a third of the value of the lot!”

“Be that as it may”—the hopped-up colonel shrugged, smirking at her—“you’ll just have to wait.”

“How long are you planning on making my men wait for their pay?” Mira growled.

“Could be some time. This is a war after all.”

Some time my ass. Mira scowled. It was clear that the rumors she’d been tracking were, in fact, true. The loyalists were losing . Badly.

Everything she’d heard said that the Scourwinds were no more, that the Cadre were scattered to the wind, and that Corian was solidly in power and gaining ground with every passing day. She’d continued to funnel whatever aid and supplies to the loyalists that she could, partially out of loyalty to the empire she’d pledged to serve but mostly because it was a way to stick a blade into Corian’s eye.

Someday she wanted to do that personally, but for now she was willing to settle for living her dream vicariously through others. But that ended now .

“No payment, no supplies,” she said, her tone flat as she let her temper flow from her body like dross from a metal forge.

The “colonel” smiled superiorly at her. “Need I really remind you just how many troops I have in the immediate area, and just how few you have?”

“You only live so long as I allow it,” she countered. “None of your troops are close enough to save you from me.”

His face twitched as that struck home, but surprisingly he didn’t back down.

“Yes, that’s true enough,” he told her. “Unfortunately for you, the colonel was well aware of that.”

She twitched as she realized that the reason he was wearing a rank he hadn’t earned was for an entirely different reason than she’d thought. Her head cocked slightly to one side as she heard the distinct clunk of a blaster round loading into the combustion chamber.

“Now, Cadrewoman, if you value your crew, you’ll surrender peaceably,” the fake colonel said, his voice only slightly shaking to betray the nerves he felt. “The bounty on you is such that—”

Mira’s blaster practically leapt into her hand, roaring once as she started to spin. The lased blast took the fake colonel midsternum, vaporizing flesh, blood, and bone the size of a fist from the shocked man’s body. The explosive ejection of the plasma from the vaporized material pitched him back over his chair and to the ground as she finished her move, dropping to one knee as her free hand closed over her weapon grip to steady her shot.

The blaster roared three more times, mowing down the guards who were rushing in to take her with a clean efficiency. Before they hit the ground, Mira activated her comm line back to the skimmer.

“Gas, report.”

Gaston’s voice came back. “I’m seeing movement around the Andros , skipper.”

“Betrayal, Gas,” she said in a dull tone that sent shivers down the back of the man on the other side of the comm line. “Raise the black flag.”

“Aye, skipper.”

Mira Delsol rose from her kneeling position, blaster in hand, and strode out of the legion tent. Beyond the synthetic fabric walls, she could hear the guns of the Andros open fire. A dark smile was pasted on her face against a dull bored look. She was already running enhanced, deep in her own mind as her body walked out and into the chaos.

On the command bridge of the Andros , Gaston looked over the field they’d landed in and noted just how badly things had turned on them. The loyalist forces numbered no more than a few companies, but that was a few companies more than the crew of the Andros .

He swore, slamming his hand down on the console to send up the black flag as ordered.

The light-sail projectors erupted to life, putting a rippling image above the ship of a black flag with a crossed Armati and blaster over the skipper’s own Cadre emblem. It wasn’t subtle, but it made a point, and the Andros was moving to battle stations instantly.

They’d hijacked the Andros from an Imperial yard. The little luxury skimmer had originally been commissioned by the Scourwind family for their personal use. Unlike almost every other vessel of its class, the Andros was more than a pretty face. Gunports slammed open along port and starboard, the ship-mounted blasters roaring almost in unison.

That should set the bastards back on their heels for a moment, Gaston thought with satisfaction. Come on, skipper, get your ass back here.

Mira was walking on the balls of her feet, a light feeling making her almost bounce like a giddy schoolchild. Anyone experienced with the Cadre would have given her a wide berth just on seeing that stride alone, but none of those nearby knew this.

The first attack came from her left. She watched it from the corner of one eye with an almost disappointed feeling. Mira reached out at the last moment, grabbing the arm of the attacker and yanking hard enough to lift the poor man off his feet. She held him aloft like a shield as a barrage of blaster bolts rained down, tearing his armor and back to shreds, and watched the life fade from his eyes before letting him drop.

A part of her mind knew that when she came out of enhancement, she’d feel bad about that.

For the moment, however, she merely answered the shots with blasts of her own. The blaster in her hand bucked as the explosively lased material was ejected from the barrel. A hand blaster was controllable on rapid fire, but only just, and there was a trick to it. The weapon had been balanced to drive the force directly back, so if you held it precisely right, you could keep on target with little trouble.

Few managed it, but she was Cadre. She could do it in her sleep.

She walked through the confusion of the battle untouched, as if nothing could harm her in all the world. Anything that got too close met its end at the impact of a bolt from her blaster, but honestly, few even seemed to notice her once the black flag snapped into being above the Andros and the big skimmer began to shift in the soft dirt.