Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

“Immediately, sire.”

Corian turned to the largest display as it snapped into focus to show the command deck of the Caleb Bar with Bethany Jessup standing center screen, a lase blaster in hand as she gave orders to secure the access ways to the deck. He knew better than to interrupt her, so Corian waited as patiently as he could for her to finish and notice the screens.

She did a few seconds later, eyes widening in surprise.

“Sire!”

“Forget that. Just tell me what’s going on?”

“Two teams, sire,” she said stiffly. “The first took engineering with little resistance. Sire, they had to know the interior and all our systems. They bypassed security like they had the codes!”

A thud shook the screen and she looked over her shoulder, worry clearly etched on her face.

“We still have superior numbers,” Jessup said, “but my teams are splintered all over the ship and they’re not going to get here in time to keep them off the bridge. I’ve called for all available help …”

“You’ll have it,” Corian said firmly, waving his hand at the people to his side, signaling them to do just that.

Jessup dropped to a crouch as the main door to the command deck blew in, and Corian winced as he recognized the sound of a breaching charge. Jessup turned in her crouch, blaster coming up as she started firing. The smoke lit up the lasing blasts more than mere plasma trace, casting red glares around like strobes.

Corian thought he spotted a gleam in the smoke, but he couldn’t be sure until an armored form strode out of the veil of smoke with twin blades filling both fists. He recognized that the armor was female and that she held an Armati, but beyond that, the armor was intentionally vague in design to hide identities of Cadre operatives.

It is Cadre, then. Corian shook his head in wonder, still unable to believe it. He’d never heard of more than two Cadre being assigned to a mission before, and even then it normally had to be a pair that was known to work well with one another.

Most Cadremen were jealous of their compatriots’ position and honor, and didn’t work well with others as equals.

Corian himself was a particularly ideal example of that, if he were to be honest with himself.

The blades twisted in the air, deflecting plasma and lase blasts with easy motions, and more armored forms charged in behind using the first as cover as they opened fire on the bridge with a combination of lasing blasts and gamma carbines.

Jessup came up firing, but her blasts were easily anticipated by the armored form. Blades flashed, intercepting most of the shots, and the armor absorbed the rest. Corian watched as the armored figure spun, flipping the blades together where they sealed into one and melted to staff form. The spin finished with the staff coming up and smashing Jessup hard enough across the jaw to send her sprawling across the deck, a sickening crack filling the air with the sure sign that her jaw was broken.

“Secure the command deck; barricade the doors,” the figure ordered, sweeping the staff around again before retracting it back into its pommel and sheathing it in a single smooth move.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Corian said, making his presence on the display known. “I’ll soon have an entire legion boarding that ship, and there’s no way you’ll gain control soon enough to stop me.”

The figure paused, angling its head and looking at the screen. Corian hissed in surprise as the armor vanished to show a smiling face he was all too familiar with.

“Hello, One-Eye,” Mira Delsol greeted him with a wide grin. “Ready for a rematch?”

“Any time, Cadrewoman Delsol,” Corian gritted through clenched teeth.

“Oh, I think we’ll meet up sooner than you believe,” she told him.

“Only with you in chains.”

Mira winked at him, choosing the eye she’d cost him to do so. “Sorry, I don’t play those games with psychopaths.”

Corian seethed but knew enough to recognize the psychological war games she was playing with him and took a few breaths to calm himself.

“My legion will be there shortly with your invitation ,” he told her with a tight smile. “Refusal is not an option.”

She glanced to one side, a reflexive motion he recognized as her checking the system display her armor was still projecting for her.

“Oh, I think that your legion is about to have their hands full with something other than me.”

Alarms chose that moment to start screaming all around him, causing Corian to wrench his attention away and look to the flashing displays. He paled as he recognized incoming tracks being plotted on their long-range systems.

There were so many of them that the display system showed them as a single large track at the current zoom level.

The capital was under attack.

Lydia had never seen so many sails in the sky, and she was no stranger to parades and military formations. Cruisers and destroyers had the lead, with heavy transports filling up the bulk of their formation. Dotted in among the rest were a few heavy cruisers and the baron’s personal flagship, the Pillar of Miogaro .

The capital lay ahead of them now. They could see the skyline of the city against the backdrop of farmland that stretched on to the mist behind it and below them.

“We’ve tripped their long-range scanner traps,” William said as he stepped up to her side.

The flotilla was in the first wind layer now, just a little over ten thousand feet. It was cool, and a slight crosswind buffeted them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

“So no turning back, then?” she asked softly.

“Would you, if you could?”

Lydia had to think about it, but finally she shook her head. “No.”

That probably wasn’t the answer she’d have given a few weeks earlier, and it was certainly not what she’d have said before the coups, but now when the word left her mouth it felt like a weight was lifting from her. Given the choice between standing by and watching other people screw things up and actually having a hand in doing what needed to be done herself … ? After everything, no, there was no turning back for her. Not anymore.

“Good,” William said simply, glancing to where the sky ahead was suddenly lit up with plasma trace. “It’s beginning. Someone on the ground got nervous, jumped the gun.”

Lydia focused her attention on the plasma trace that began to slash across the sky in both directions, the lead cruisers and destroyers opening fire on the first guns that had fired on them. Explosions tore up the ground as heavy blaster fire superheated whatever it struck. In the case of things like concrete, that often meant flash boiling whatever water was present and causing the material to explode violently.

Some hits were scored on the lead ships, but the initial sporadic fire from different installations had revealed their location before a proper trap could be sprung, allowing the cruisers to pick them off piecemeal.

“Corian will be hopping mad over that,” William said with a chuckle, knowing that precision was one thing that the former Cadreman valued over all else. He just wasn’t used to wielding a force the size of the one now under his command and hadn’t had the time to properly drill them or even get used to the situation himself.

“Will it all go like this?” Lydia asked, hopeful.

“Not likely,” William said simply.

Corian, while not experienced with such a command, was a fast learner. He’d have made significant strides, and William had no doubt that the majority of his forces would hold to their discipline. The fighting was just getting started, and it would get far, far worse before it even began to get better.