Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

Within a few dozen feet of the ground, the commander activated his armor’s wings, turning his plummeting dive into a fast, swooping curve. He was late in slowing his fall, however, and hit the ground moving too fast for a safe landing. With the armor keeping him from breaking bones, the crash landing was operationally survivable … that is, he not only lived through the impact but he didn’t injure himself beyond his ability to continue the mission.

It still hurt like hell.

After several long moments of trying to get his breath back, the Cadre squad commander finally spoke. “Sing out,” he ordered over the comm line. “I’m down and intact.”

Slowly all but two members of the team checked in, and he called them in. Once they’d regrouped, the four of them took a moment to try to locate their missing members, but considering the density of the air-defense fire, it seemed likely that they were officially two men down. The survivors’ armor had a dull sheen to it, masking their location as best it could, and each had his weapon drawn as they gathered.

“The Redoubt is over those dunes”—the commander nodded—“and I suppose it’s safe to say that it’s currently held by unfriendly force.”

The other three Cadre warriors laughed dryly, though there was little to find humorous in any of it.

“The way I see it, we’re pretty much screwed,” Cadre Commander Meynard admitted cheerfully. “We’re weeks from any source of food or water, as this entire region is a dead zone for a thousand miles, except for the supplies in the Redoubt. Fair bet Corian has control of it now, so unless we get a miracle, I doubt we’re cracking that nut with four men.”

The others nodded in agreement, but the choice between dying of thirst or going out in a blaze of glory wasn’t remotely a difficult one.

“Have a plan, chief?” asked Sergeant of Arms Birk, the largest of them.

“Well, we could try being sneaky and infiltrate,” he said, no thought of backing down or surrender entering the conversation, “or just launch a head-on assault. End result will be the same.”

“My ego says let’s go with the head-on assault, boss, but my head says we’ll cause more havoc if we infiltrate.”

The commander looked around at his remaining men and nodded. “All right. Split up, pick your ingress points, and I’ll see you on the inside. I’ll be the one with my hands around Corian’s throat.”

“Not if we beat you to it, chief.”

“Scanners in sector three just went dead.”

Corian shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he considered the news from where he was sitting. He was more than a little disgusted. They could have at least been subtle about it.

He didn’t know who was attempting to sneak into the Redoubt, but if it were any of the Cadre officers he’d trained in the past, he was going to make their death painful and longer than it needed to be. There was no excuse for that sort of incompetence.

“Pull the men back from sector three,” he ordered. “Have them converge in sector … eight.”

“Yes, general.”

That should be far enough back, just in case someone is getting a little clever and attempting to lure my men into a reverse ambush.

Unlikely, he thought. Cadre officers tended to be a little less complicated than that in the field, since simple actions were less prone to failure. There were a few who enjoyed toying with lesser foes, however.

“Help me up,” he ordered, extending an arm to the closest man-at-arms.

“General, you should be at ease, we’ll—”

“Help me up.”

One look from him ended the discussion, and one of his men helped him carefully to his feet and put a brace under his arm. His injuries had been bandaged up, the worst of the bleeding stopped long past in the field with rougher methods than he’d have preferred. But even if everything from this point forward went to plan, he would still be down a leg and an eye.

Prosthetics would handle the former, but even the best Imperial technology wouldn’t replace an eye torn from the socket as messily as his had been.

Commander Meynard shifted the grip on his Armati, eyeing the corridors of the section of the Redoubt he’d been able to infiltrate. As empty as they were, he’d be suspicious of a trap under normal circumstances, but without knowing just how many men Corian had to his credit, it was entirely possible that the Redoubt was nearly deserted.

It would take significant forces just to man the defenses appropriately, so patrols might be few and far between.

We may have just gotten lucky.

He flicked his wrist, the Armati in his hand flowing out slightly as it extended for medium-range engagements. The Cadre Armati were unique devices, no two precisely alike just as no two Cadremen were precisely alike. His was about a 70 percent link, a very high match for the ancient weapon.

To even qualify for Cadre, you had to be able accomplish a 20 percent link to an Armati and your projection systems. No active Cadremen, as far as he knew, operated with less than 40 percent. It was one of the advantages the Cadre held, being the only organized group of humans with that level of interface capability.

There were, of course, others with the capacity throughout the population. Flyers were the most common, as interface capacity was important to their lives, but most were never tested. Even then, however, only the Cadre had the resources and capacity to recruit, train, and outfit men and women to the level they enjoyed as the elite of the empire.

Of course, that was partially due to the empire controlling every single known Armati and most of the projection technology available.

Meynard’s own Armati Turo felt warm in his grip as he slowly made his way down the corridor, pausing by a pair of sealed autodoors. He laid his fingers on the door, using a sensitive photon field to pick up vibrations and convert them into sound.

Quiet. Too damn quiet. Corian can’t have this few people here, not if he took the Redoubt.

He smirked.

Ambush.

Seph knew Corian’s playbook. Ambush was the only thing that made sense. That left him with two options that he cared to consider. He could avoid conflict, fade away, and come back from another route. That would be the best option if he were alone, but he wasn’t. Or, he could …

Trigger the trap. Get Corian’s attention focused on me. Give the others a better chance.

Decision made.

Seph stepped back, twisted around, and then mule kicked the doors right at the locking mechanism. As they exploded outward, he turned and strode calmly into the room beyond.

He made it about twenty feet, right into the center of the kill zone, before Corian made his move. The men with carbines popped up from the elevated catwalks, their weapons aimed down at him, but Seph only had eyes for one person in the room.

“You’ve seen better days, general,” he said amiably, looking up where the familiar man in a dark-blue uniform was standing. “Someone took a liking to your flesh, I see.”

Corian smiled crookedly, only half his face seeming to respond. “I underestimated the bitch they assigned to watch me.”

“Delsol?” Seph asked, amused, as he counted the heads he could see. “She kick your ass?”

“Crazy bitch turned off the inertics in my car before the crash.” Corian laughed. “Just about the only thing I hadn’t planned for. Can you believe that?”

Seph didn’t know Delsol personally, but that told him a lot about her. “She saw you coming. Impressive.”

“Yes, it was,” Corian said, almost sadly. “I almost regret leaving her to die in the desert. I’d have still recruited her, even after …”