Кристофер Банч - Empire's End

Then you rolled up your sleeves and plunged in, secure in the knowledge it was only necessary to do this job well. Greater and more complex responsibilities were on the able shoulders of your superiors. Just do your job, and keep your nose clean.

Sten eased back, relaxing. He had found his center now. It was time to populate this place.

He smiled, thinking of Cind. And the warm arms he would go home to when this job was done. Comfort in those arms. Yes, and in that sharp mind as well. The way she had of always finding a way around a problem that was vexing him.

And Kilgour. His brawny, near-lifetime friend and comrade-in-arms. There was a man to have at your back. Any problem that stumped Cind would never get past his cunning Scot's brain.

After them, Sten invited Otho and the Bhor. Applauded as the Gurkhas marched on. Then Marr and Senn. Haines and Sam'l. And his other friends and loyal crew members.

Soon, they were all trooping about in his imagination. Cracking jokes. Slapping him on the back. Kissing him or shaking his hand.

The computer chirped and went silent. Sten looked over and saw the "Ready" sign blinking.

He took another sip of his caff and set the cup down. His fingers flew over the control board. Then he sent the command.

Sten looked up at the monitor screen. Light began to fill the blankness.

He leaned forward, eager to get his first look at this new universe.

He had no fear of it now. Because he was no longer alone.

He had found it!

The Emperor's glory hole!

The size of the operation seemed larger… but somehow also smaller… than he'd imagined.

Big AM 2tanker ships moved in and out of the rubble of an old, destroyed system. On the rubble itself—broken planetoids, or moonlets—his probes showed huge mining machines, harvesting the basic stuff of this universe. Smaller shuttles laden with ore moved back and forth between the tankers. Once full, the tankers moved off—for the long voyage into another universe and back.

It was a vast, complex system—all operating automatically—to accomplish the Emperor's far-off purpose.

Part of him was disappointed in the size, comparing it to the gigantic mining operations he'd seen in his travels. This place would fit in a small comer of one such complex and still have room to rattle around.

He thought it incredible that something this small had such a profound impact on civilization for so many hundreds of years. But a whole empire had been founded on one small particle from an alien universe.

The second thing that amazed him was the age of the ships and machinery. They all functioned perfectly, going about their business as if they were just off the line. But their designs were straight out of a technology museum.

They were all big, clunky things, with sharp edges and many moving parts.

The final thing that startled him—and this most of all—was that so far not one shot, not one missile, had been fired at him.

Sten smoothed the tacship past a tanker, moving deeper into the mining complex.

As soon as he had spotted it, Sten had gone into extreme stealth mode. He had cut all extraneous power, maxed his shielding on all freqs, held sensors on passive, and dropped internal operations to the barest hum. Then, using a tortuous, grab-every-speck-of-dust-for-cover route, he had "crept" in. Not one enemy sensor appeared to have sought him out. Nor did he find a single trip wire to sound the alarm at his approach.

When he was more certain, he had dropped the shields and begun an active search. Still, no reaction. Then he had emerged in plain view—every gun port of his own open and bristling for the attack. But the mining colony had gone about its robotic drudgery without paying him the slightest notice. This was very strange. Why would the Emperor leave his treasure unguarded?

Perhaps because he felt quite certain it would never be discovered. After all, it did lie in another universe. A universe that everyone until a short time ago had been led to believe did not exist. Could not exist .

Sten frowned as he ran this through, half his mind occupied with the moonlet whooshing past him on the monitor screen… Okay. He'd buy that logic.

Although, if it had been Sten's hidey-hole—no matter how impossible to find—he'd have filled it with wall-to-wall trip wires and booby traps. His paranoia had been ground in by his Mantis trainers. Trust nothing to chance.

Sten thought of the Emperor's quirky mind, and felt easier still. This was simple. The Emperor liked simple. Simple meant it was harder for things to go wrong.

His mind clicked one large step forward. A simple system would also have a single control. Which meant it was likely the whole mining operation was run from one command center. Next step… The Emperor would most likely set up his living facilities at the command center. It wouldn't take much space. Sten was sure the Emperor would always be alone. There was no living being he could trust with this secret.

Very, very good. Because this meant all Sten had to do to stop the AM 2flow to the Empire was to hunt that command center down and blow it in place.

And goddamn the Emperor's eyes!

The big white ship loomed large on the screen. It was older than his father's ghost stories. Space dust cobwebbed its archaic lines. He saw sensor banks and antenna pods he had only a dim memory of from his flight-school history fiches. He saw other apparatus whose purpose escaped him entirely.

But there was no escaping the purpose of the weapon ports. Archaic or not, they were instantly recognizable. The Eternal Emperor was not entirely unarmed.

The puzzling thing was, the ports were sealed.

Sten kept a ready hand on the button that would send two Goblins hurling toward the ship. A hint of menace and he'd blast it to whatever hell existed in this universe.

Was this the place? Was this the command center? The Emperor's ultimate safehouse?

He probed it. The ship was alive, but running on a very dim intelligence. There was atmosphere. There was function. But there was no sign of life.

Sten sighed, wishing for the thousandth time that it had been possible to sail in here with the Victory and a full crew. With their skill and the Victory's sophisticated sensor system, he would have been able to pick the white ship apart atom by atom.

He thought this was the right target. But he wasn't sure.

Sten would have to go on board to investigate.

He studied the white ship, looking for a point of entry. He dismissed the idea of docking with the ship. Or of using any of the main entry ports.

The Emperor liked simple. Booby traps are simple. Which equaled booby-trapped entrances and docking area.

He almost missed the hole back near the engine area. Sten zoomed in on it until its raw edges filled the monitor screen. A meteor impact point. It looked fairly fresh. No more than a few years old. Evidently the AM 2debris had impacted, then detonated on or near the outer skin.

Sten wondered how much damage it had caused. Was this the explanation for the closed weapon ports? The dimmed nature of the ship's operation?

Luck was still running with him. And clot Otho and his "there's only three" kinds: dumb, blind, and bad. For Sten, the first one was working just fine.

He studied the hole. Then felt luckier still when he realized it was large enough to give him his own private door into the ship.

Getting to it would be no problem. Alex and Otho had sheathed a complete spacesuit and accessories with Imperium X.

So if he encountered a stray particle of AM 2on the way over and back, he would not go bang.

Sten started gathering what he would need. Mentally figuring the size of the charge it would take to blow the ship, if it was indeed the Emperor's command center.