Allan Cole - Sten

Robotlike, Sten stalked forward, hosing the nozzle back and forth. Finger locked on the trigger, eyes wide in panic. And then the flame sputtered and dribbled back to the nozzle.

Sten dropped it and just stood there.

Bet grabbed his arm.

"Come on!"

Sten came back to the world. The patrol team that had been blocking the entrance was gone. All dead.

Sten and Bet ran for the door, and only one other Delinq came out of his hiding place after them.

They went out the door and pelted down the corridor. There wasn't time enough to make it back to their rat paneling. All they could hope to do was put distance between them and Thoresen's quarters.

A running blur—the three of them down corridors, ducking as patrolmen came after them. Panicked Execs back and doors slamming and locking.

A floor grating. Sten and Bet heaving up. The grating coming clear.

Sten looked down. The passage went down, endlessly. No fans or acceleration ducting. He didn't know what it was for, but it didn't matter. A team of patrolmen was jogging down the corridor after them.

Narrow climbing cleats ran down the side, and Sten could make out some kind of tunnel about ten meters below the main passageway. He waved Bet into the hole. She clambered in awkwardly and Sten realized she'd been hit somehow. Sten followed.

The other Delinq was still shaking his head when the riot gun blast caught him and blew him apart.

Bet slipped, one foot left the cleat and her leg fluttered into the passageway. Gunk. Grease. Something. She clawed at the cleat, lost her handhold. Screamed.

Too late, Sten reached for her as he stared down half a world. Bet, screaming endlessly, fell away from him.

Sten watched her body drop away. Until he couldn't see it. Then, somehow moving quickly, he slid sideways and began working his way down the passageway.

Mahoney paced his office. After he heard the alarms, he had monitored the patrol net and heard the riot squads being sent in.

The door opened suddenly and Sten walked into the room. Empty-handed. "They caught us. They caught us. Bet's dead."

Mahoney caught himself. "Bet. That girl?"

"Yes. She's dead. Dead. And the file. What you wanted. Oron had it."

"Where's Oron?"

"Oron's dead. Like Bet."

Mahoney squelched his natural reaction to curse. "All right. It's blown. But the bargain still stands. I've got the cruiser standing by."

"No. I don't want to go."

"Then what do you want?"

"A gun. Bet's dead, you see."

"You're going back out there?"

"Bet's dead."

"Yes. I keep two over there. In that desk."

Sten turned around and walked to the desk. He never heard Mahoney's step or saw the meat-ax hand snapping down. Sten crashed forward, across the desk.

Mahoney eased Sten around and gentled him into the chair. Then allowed himself a personal reaction. "Clot!" He brought himself back, and took a copy of the Articles from a drawer. He laid Sten's right hand on it.

"I'm not knowing what religion you have. If any. But this'll do. Do you—whatever your name is—Sten it is. First name unknown. Swear to defend the Eternal Emperor and the Empire with your life—I know you do, boy. Do you solemnly swear to obey lawful orders given you, and to honor and follow the traditions of the Imperial Guard as the Empire requires? You do that, too. I welcome you, Sten, to the service of the Empire. You've not made a mistake, enlisting in the Guard. And it's a personal honor to me that you've chosen me own mother regiment, the Guard's First Assault."

He put the book down, and stopped. Ruffled Sten's hair.

"You're a poor sorry bastard, and it's a shame things have worked the way they did. The least I can do is get you off this hellworld and let you be alive awhile longer."

He tabbed the communicator switch.

"Lieutenant. In my office. A new recruit for the Guard, Seems to have fainted when he realized the awful majesty of it all."

Mahoney took a bottle of synthalk from his desk and without bothering with a glass, poured a long drink down nis throat.

"With the wind at your back, lad."

THORESEN WAS WADING in excuses and assurances from the chief of security. The more he looked at the man's vid-screen image, the more he wanted to smash his earnest face. "No real harm done," the man said. How could he know?

Thoresen didn't really give a damn about the damage to his quarters or the charred bodies of the patrolmen. But what about Bravo Project? He had recovered the file. But he'd be a fool not to act on the assumption that someone had seen enough of the file to be dangerous.

Thoresen's head snapped up as he caught something in the drone from his chief of security.

"What did you say?"

"We have recovered the bodies of thirteen Delinqs and full identities have been made."

"Not that. After."

"Uh, one, possibly two of them escaped."

So. He was right to worry.

"Who were they?"

"Well, sir," the chief said, "we recovered a hair particle in your quarters. A chromosome projection estimates the man would have been—"

"Let me see for myself," the Baron snapped.

A computer image began to build on the screen as the chromoanalysis built the image of a man cell by cell. Finally, there was a complete three-dimensional figure. It was Sten. Thoresen studied the image carefully, then shook his head. He didn't recognize the suspect. "Who is he?"

"A Mig named Karl Sten, sir. Reported missing in that Exotic Section explosion some cycles—"

"You mean the man responsible for that debacle is alive? How could he possibly—oh, never mind. That's all."

"But, sir, there's more infor—"

"I'll go over the report myself. Now. That's all!" The Baron scrolled the report that was Sten's life. It didn't take him long. There wasn't much to it, really, if you separated out all the legal and psych trash.

Suddenly, the connection was made. The Bravo Project. Sten was an orphan of Recreational Area 26. The Row had come back to haunt him.

He palmed the console board and the startled face of the chief leaped on the screen.

"I want this man found. Immediately. I want every person available on this."

"Uh, I'm afraid that's impossible, sir."

"Why is that?" Thoresen hissed.

"Well, we—uh. . .have located him. He's on an Imperial troop ship, bound for—"

Thoresen blanked the man out. It was impossible. How could—? Then he pulled himself together. He'd find this Sten. And then. . .

A few moments later the Baron was talking quietly to a little gray man on a little gray world. The hunt for Sten had begun.

NUCLEAR FIRES BLOOMED up from the planet, silhouetting the warships hanging just out of the atmosphere.

"H minus fifty seconds and counting. Red One, Red Two detached to individual control. Begin entry maneuvers." The command ship's transmission crackled in the assault ship's control chambers.

Controls went live, and the fleet transports swung in from their orbital stations. Braking rockets flared as the ships killed velocity and sank closer toward atmosphere's edge.

"Foxfire Six, I have an observed ground launch. Predicted intersection. . .uh, thirty-five seconds. Interception probability eighty-three percent. Beginning diversion. . ." signaled an observation and interdiction satellite.

Foxfire Six's pilot cursed and slammed full power to the drive on his assault transport. He picked a random evasion pattern chip and fed it into the computer.

Deep in the ship's guts, Sten crashed forward against the safety straps. His platoon sergeant slammed against the capsule wall. The ceiling rotated around Sten, swung up crazily, and then went away as the artificial gravity went dead.