Кристофер Банч - Empire's End

"An analysis of the intentions and makeup of these organisms is now complete," the voice continued. It had to be the ship's command center talking.

The Emperor's judgment machine.

"The Prime Organism's directive to permit the intruder organism's presence has been found in error and has been overridden. The alien organism is an enemy. And shall be killed."

Big clottin' deal, Sten thought, a little wild. Dead by the gun. Or dead by the ship. What's the difference?

"The Prime Organism has also been found wanting," the ship's voice said. "It has been declared flawed. And it, too, shall be killed."

Sten saw the Emperor jump in even greater surprise. The gun drooped.

It was Sten's first and only break.

He dove for the Emperor.

STEN TUCKED IN middive, shoulder scraping the deck, sending him in a backflip to one side as the Emperor fired and the AM 2round blew a jagged hole in the deck and metal shrapneled. Feet first, he slammed into the Eternal Emperor and sent him tumbling. The Emperor took the fall, pistol aiming. Sten scissor-kicked and the gun spun away. The Emperor double-rolled and was on his feet, wrists instinctively up in a V-block as Sten's knife came out of his arm and slashed. The block caught Sten's knife-hand and he lost balance, recovering his stance by dropping into a momentary crouch.

Sten lunged… and the Emperor threw himself back, across the tabletop, whirling, and was on his feet.

Feint… bob…

The Emperor doublefist-smashed the table and the plas shattered. Sten's knife flicked out… and first blood ran down the Emperor's forearm.

The Emperor backed away, hand scooping up a razor fragment of the tabletop, nearly forty centimeters long. He held it low, close to his right side. Sten chanced a look away from the Emperor's eyes. Noted the Emperor held the shard in the relaxed thumb-forefinger fencing grip of a trained knifefighter.

Shiphum. Feetshuffle as each of them moved, circling toward his opponent's offside.

Sten realized he was being maneuvered… and caught the Emperor's goal. The pistol. The Emperor sliced at Sten, and Sten back-leaned… away from the cut… chanced a riposte of his own, missed, recovered.

The Emperor's eyes flickered, giving away his next strike, and Sten's arm wasn't where it'd been a moment earlier. Too long, Sten thought. You haven't been in a real brawl in too long.

But neither have you, Sten.

Sten chanced a bravo's flip, tossing his blade from right to left hand—and the Emperor attacked. Sten damned near lost the knife, reeled back, cursing himself for even thinking of a grandstand play. Again he slashed at the Emperor's wrist, recovered, slashed, blade slicing off a long curl of die plas, and Sten's hand flashed to the deck, came up with the pistol, and the Emperor underhand-cast the plas, and it cut into Sten's shoulder, muscle spasm on the trigger, round going somewhere, missing, pistol flipping out of his hand from recoil and…

Darkness.

The voice was calm. " I have determined that the intruding organism is more dangerous to my assigned duties than the aberrant one that was created. His termination will be given priority."

Jesus. It hurt. Sten put his knife between his teeth, clenched on the machined crystal, and pulled the long shard from his shoulder. Waver of pain. Put the plas down. Wipe blood from your fingers. Feel the wound. Bleeding? Some. Badly? Not to worry about. For a while. Pain?

Sten mumbled the mantra he had been conditioned with years before, back when he had been a Guards trainee, and his body forgot the pain. He went prone on the deck. Slowly let his fingers move across the deck, looking for that pistol. It could not be far.

Across the chamber, a clatter.

Laser aircrackle blast as the round hit somewhere. High, and left.

Sten's fingers touched something.

The pistol butt.

Clot. So the Emperor had a backup gun.

"Stand by," the voice announced. "I have the intruding organism located. Prepare to fire."

Twin lights flashed on, glareblind, and Sten shot twice, explosion, dying into darkness, the Emperor shooting a little late, the bullet smashing down where Sten had been a few seconds earlier.

All right, you bastard, Sten thought, and, concentrating on where those lights had been, sent five rounds rapid into the general area, rolling and spinning as he fired.

If the Emperor shot back, Sten didn't know it, as thunder rocked the room and alarms screamed. Sten thought he heard a shout. That strange voice that had to be the ship itself? The Emperor? He didn't know. Smoke boiled, fire flashed, lights strobed. A panel was sliding closed; Sten snapped a shot through it, buckling the door.

Sten started after the Emperor, trying to stop him before he got to whatever nasty surprise he was heading for in this, his ship. Stopped, damned himself for a fool, and headed for his spacesuit. He tugged it on, but left helmet and gauntlets clipped to the belt. Before he sealed the suit's chest opening he touched his medkit to his arm, and the box clicked, clicked, feeding painkillers and disinfectants into the wound. He sprayed a dressing across it, then buttoned up.

Take your time, he thought. Better to let him get a bit of a lead rather than stumble into something.

"Ship," he panted, feeling very much a damned fool.

The voice did not respond.

Sten blew two more rounds into the biggest wallcrater. More alarms, and the flicker of flames, and the hiss of extinguishers.

"Ship! I will not harm you," Sten lied. "You can continue your mission."

Toneless: "Does not compute. Organisms other than the created organism are hostile and to be destroyed. Basic program applies."

Okay, try to kill me then, Sten thought. If you can.

He went to the buckled doorpanel and started to kick it open. Stopped, cursing himself for still not having his head oil correct, picked up a chair and hurled it through the plas. Gunslam, and an AM 2round blew the panel away. Remember, that could of been you.

He sent a doubletap down the corridor for confusion's sake and went through. He was about to go after the Emperor when a thought struck him.

He aimed back into the ruined compartment and blew five carefully aimed shells into the deepening hole in the wall. He flashsaw metal peel/girder strips/smoke boiling into another chamber and then the smoke and fire closed in as a new alarm DEEdawDEEdawDEEdawed …

This one he knew. This one was standard— Ship holed/Atmosphere being lost .

His ears popped as the ship lost air. Sten scrabbled for his helmet. He had it on and was ready to slam the faceplate when pressure returned to normal. The ship was self-repairing. Having given the ship something to busy itself with, Sten ran down the corridor after the Emperor.

He understood none of the rooms he searched, any more than he had the first time through. Some were tiny, yet packed with consoles and equipment. Others were huge and completely bare.

It was in the first of those that the ship tried to kill him, as the McLean generator went off, and Sten floated up toward the ceiling, and then gravity slammed back on, but you didn't wait enough to let the fall kill me , as Sten dropped back, landing cat-quick on his feet. He put two rounds, out of spite, straight down, into the deck. One worry he did not have was ammo—the ammo tube contained five hundred of the 1mm-diameter AM 2rounds in their Imperium X shield.

The blast tincanned the decking, and Sten looked down, into another level. He quickly ran a three-D prog in his head. The Emperor would probably be farther along this deck I'm on, so if I can get down there and circle up behind…

Sten dropped through the hole.