Кристофер Банч - The Court of a Thousand Suns

They'd been exploded, quite carefully, so the fragments maintained planetary orbit. And then any fragment larger than a baseball had been manned with Saragossans who were less interested in living than keeping the Empire away. Imagine trying to push a landing force through an asteroid belt that is shooting back.

The first battleship was holed and helpless more than three planetary units offworld. The admiral in charge of the landing—Fleet Admiral Rob Gades—transhipped with what remained of his staff to a command ship in time to see his other four battleships explode into shards.

At that point it was too late to recall the troopships. Even before the ships split into capsules, most of them were destroyed. The landing caps that entered atmosphere without support lasted bare seconds under the ravening fire from the surface.

That, Hakone explained to Sten as he swung ships through the battle chamber, was when his own probeship was destroyed. He never saw the end of the battle. What ended it was Admiral Gade's order— sauve quipeut , save what you can. One third of the assault fleet was able to pull off Saragossa.

"One third, Captain," Hakone said, as he shut down the battle chamber. "Over one million men lost. Isn't that enough of an axle?"

Sten flashed briefly to the livie he'd undergone before basic training—experiencing the heroic death of one Guardsman Jaime Shavala—and his subsequent decision that he had less than no desire to see what a major battle felt like, ignored his gut agreement, and used the safe answer of stupidity. "I don't know, Sr. Hakone."

"Perhaps you wouldn't. But now do you understand why I hired Stynburn? He went through the same hell I did."

Sten noticed with interest that Hakone, while he'd been sitting behind the control chair of the chamber, had gone through half the decanter of Scotch.

"By the way, Captain, do you know what happened to Admiral Gades?"

"Negative."

"For his—and I quote from the court's charge—retreat in the face of the enemy, he was relieved of command and forcibly retired. Do you think that was fair?"

"Fair? I don't know what is fair, Sr. Hakone." Sten brought himself to attention. "Thank you for your information, Seigneur. Should we have any other questions, may I assume your further cooperation?"

"You may," Hakone said flatly.

Sten was about to try a wild card and ask if the phrase Zaarah Wahrid meant anything to Hakone. Instead, he shut off his recorder, nodded, and headed for the exit.

If he had left a few seconds earlier, he might have caught one of Hakone's men clipping a tiny plas box to the underside of Sten's gravsled.

Hakone walked out of the battle chamber, back into his library. Colonel Fohlee was waiting, and looking distinctly displeased.

"You think I erred," Hakone said.

"Why were you giving him all that, dammit! He's the Emperor's investigator."

"I was fishing, Colonel."

"For what?"

"If he'd shown one iota of understanding—one flicker of what is important—we might have been able to make him one of us."

"Instead you ran your mouth and got nothing."

"Colonel! You are overstepping."

"Sorry, sir."

"As a result, I found that this Captain Sten is unreachable. I have a tracer attached to his gravsled. Put a team of the deserters after him. Track the sled until we have the location of the safe house he's using for his investigation. Then kill this Captain Sten. That is all!"

Fohlee found himself saluting, pivoting, and exiting, and never wondered why he had that response to the command voice of a man who had not worn a uniform for almost a hundred years.

The vid-screen glowed in the darkened room. In one comer, the computer held its target: the phrase zaarah wahrid. The rest of the screen was filled with line after constantly changing line of information. At the moment, the computer was postulating that the phrase meant some kind of commercial product. It was searching the Imperial patent office for everything registered since the department was founded.

Liz Collins, the hunter, tried to keep her eyes glued to the screen, looking for some kind of connection or vague reference. As each line rolled up the screen, her eyes followed, and then automatically clicked down a stop for the next. At the moment, she was scanning a catalogue of household bots, almost all of them a century or more out of date.

She had to fight to keep her brain on her job. Steady on, woman, she thought to herself. If you think this is boring, guess what comes next. Then she groaned as the finis asterisks rolled up and the next and a worse category came up: Defense.

The air stirred behind her and then she heard the door open and soft footsteps pad in. She turned to see Alex standing behind her, two mugs of frothy beer in his hands.

" 'Bout that drink, lass?" he said softly. "Ah whidny be disturbin' y' noo, would Ah?"

"Oh, my god, yes," she said, meaning the drink. Then she caught Alex's crestfallen face and corrected herself. "I mean, no. No, I mean… right, I could use a drink."

She palmed the computer to automatic, setting up the search alarms, and then rose to take a glass out of Alex's hand. She took a small sip and gave a bit of a start. "This isn't just beer!" She grinned. And then she noticed the shot glass sitting in the bottom of the mug.

"A wee boilermaker," Alex explained. "Beer and a good single-malt Scotch that'll oil th' bubbles."

Liz took a long, slow swallow. "Mmmm, I don't mind this at all."

She crossed over to the fur-covered couch and sat down, crossed her legs, then started to tug her uniform skirt down over her knees. She stopped when she saw the wistful look in Alex's eyes as the slight flash of thigh started to disappear. "What the clot." She patted the place next to her. As if almost suddenly coming awake, Alex shook his head then took the few steps required to reach the couch and sank hesitatingly down beside her. He carefully studied the wall opposite them, afraid to meet her eyes.

"So," he finally said, "do y' think we'll be finding this Zaarah whatever it is?"

Liz remained absolutely silent. She just took another sip of her drink.

"Ah mean, y' been workin't your pretty, beg your pardon, y' been workin't hard, lo these many—"

"Alex," Liz whispered, breaking in.

He turned and looked directly at her for the first time since he entered the room. "Yes, lass."

"Do we have to talk?"

"No, lass."

"Well, then…"

Alex finally got the point. He reached out his arms to enfold her, and he felt the muscular but somehow so soft arms go around him. Slowly they sank down into the couch.

Once again, Liz didn't bother about the flash of thigh as the uniform skirt rose higher and higher and…

Unnoticed by them, the computer screen began winking red. It sat patiently, pulsing that it had found it… found it… found it…

The screen read:

ENT: JANES, Historic Records. BATTLESHIP: ZAARAH wahrid (Flower class—14 constructed).

The entry went on, covering the ship's dimensions, crew, armament, launching date, and history, ending with the information that Zaarah Wahrid had finished her illustrious career as flagship on the Saragossa invasion during the Mueller Wars. The ship was totally destroyed, with a loss of 90 percent of its crew…

Fortunately for the lovers, it would be many hours before they read the entry. Because once again the case had come full circle. Zaarah Wahrid was a ship that no longer existed.

Sten lifted the gravsled away from Hakone's mansion and set his course directly from Soward across the city of Fowler toward the Imperial palace.