34 On Thin Ice in Thin Air
ON THIN ICE IN THIN AIR
“I THOUGHT YOU said the Empire would expect face-concealing helmets,” I murmured as I looked through the heads-up display of a combat visor at the Royal Darius’s airlock as we slowly approached the Imperial suborbital station.
“That was in the Crystal Palace. This is not,” Archduke Darius responded.
“My mistake. I was under the impression infiltrating a high-security Imperial military facility would be a smidgen more difficult than crashing a high society gala.”
“And don’t you feel the fool? Now quiet! You’re supposed to be my bodyguard, not my conversation partner.”
The charade had been discussed at length in the planning room. There, it had seemed a sound idea, but twenty kilometers above the ground approaching an Imperial high-altitude command and control center, I was less sure.
I was dressed as a Yezhidian space marine, primarily because they wore full-face helmets to protect them from decompression events during orbital insertions.
However, that meant I was also wearing the ridiculous skintight pressure suit and emergency oxygen bottles they carried.
With the oversized helmet, gloves, and boots, I looked like an anatomically correct stick figure, and not even the gear-laden equipment harness could help. At least I was armed.
“You couldn’t add an overtunic or trousers?” I asked. “The pockets would doubtless be useful.”
“They’re unnecessary,” said Tredesceu. He was a real Yezhidian space marine, spartan and severe and completely comfortable in his revealing battle uniform. “Space marines take only what they need to establish a beachhead. The ground troops bring everything else.”
I could not argue against the Yezhidian’s combat record.
They had one of the finest space forces in the quadrant, and their drop troopers and marines had proven terrifyingly effective at penetrating a planet’s orbital defenses and establishing a portal before Allied ground forces could stop them.
“Still, you could have considered your soldiers’ modesty. ”
Pavlov, the demon guard Lyudmyla had assigned to us, harumphed. “In ancient times, demon warriors fought entirely nude, clad in nothing more than war paint to show their bravery.”
I glanced at the demon, who wore little more than boots, bracers, gorget, loincloth, and the belts needed to hold his weapons. “Thank goodness we live in modern times.”
The Yezhidian cruiser groaned as it was tractored into spacedock. The ship thudded as magnetic clamps latched to the hull, then with a clang and a hiss, the pressurized docking ring connected.
“Quiet,” Archduke Darius ordered as the airlock cycled open, and the three of us fell silent. Three Imperial guards waited on their airlock’s far side. The acid test of Darius’s assertations were at hand.
We approached. The lead guard approached Pavlov and Darius, while the guard opposite me came over, took my identity card, and asked for a voice password and my confirmation code, which I gave, disguised by the modulator Darius had provided.
Darius assured me the Empire would not use retinal or genetic scanners, and as the fearsome guardsman let us pass, it seemed he was correct.
“I can’t believe it was that easy,” I breathed as we marched purposefully away from where the Royal Darius was docked.
Darius smiled. “The Imperials assume if you make it to the installation, you must belong here. We had all the correct clearance codes aboard. Besides, genetic scanners require touch contact, which Imperials think unhealthy.”
“For good reason,” Pavlov grumbled.
Darius ignored him, but glanced back at me. “I thought you’d know that, seeing how you dated the Emperor and all.”
I bristled slightly. “Yes, dated, romanced, and bedded. If you’ve any eyes at all, you’ll realize our relationship was not entirely lacking in physical contact.”
Darius laughed aloud at that. “Point taken. Now, shall we find our count?”
We walked up a staircase from the lower docking ports to the station’s large central chamber.
The suborbital station was technically an airship of sorts, held aloft at suborbital altitudes by three buoyant vacuum spheres expanded in orbit, then lowered into the upper atmosphere.
A docking ring lay beneath each of the three vacuum spheres, with inner ports for ground shuttles and outer ports for spacecraft like the Royal Darius which had sufficient gravitic engines to float.
The central chamber lay in between the three docking rings, the bottoms of the three vacuum spheres forming the chamber’s high ceiling.
Various sub-compartments were built on the chamber’s floor, forming rough terraced pyramids of observation, communication, and command centers.
Every terrace was occupied by demon warriors.
A dark spire ran up between the three vacuum balloons, sending silver turbolifts to the topside orbital observation deck and communications dishes.
Suborbital stations were an installation particular to the Empire, who liked to keep a closer eye on their ground operations than they could from orbit.
This station hovered directly over the Crystal Palace, ensuring its security.
If only it had protected the Astrid as their Emperor.
Darius swaggered through the artificial canyons ahead of us, leading the way between chrome and neon ziggurats to Count Zukov’s office with a jaunty step, punctuated by wide swings of the walking stick he’d brought with him.
It was a Royal affectation, and one which comforted me, almost as though I were following a Commonwealth officer rather than a former foe.
We were still surrounded by foes, though, and they felt no compunction in letting us know how little they thought of us.
Taunts rained down upon us, occasionally accompanied by a thrown piece of trash, although our demon companion would snarl and threaten violence if any taunts were directed at him, which invariably resulted in vicious posturing and shows of strength, followed by laughter as they called each other valiant and passed.
We humans had no such consideration shown to us.
The Imperials took particular pleasure in tripping Darius, laughing viciously as Tredesceu and I helped him up.
“Don’t respond,” the archduke muttered. “They won’t tolerate rudeness from a human. ”
“Is this your life, as an ally of the Empire?” I asked, aghast.
Darius pursed his lips. “Sometimes. Never when the Emperor or her loyalists were around. They at least maintained the facade of politeness. The Emperor would never have tolerated such incivility.”
After an age, we reached Zukov’s office. Darius snapped his walking stick up under his arm, reached into his breast pocket, and produced papers for the guards outside his door. “Archduke Darius and retainers to see the count. We have an appointment.”
The demon guards scrutinized the papers, then glanced over our heads at Pavlov, who shrugged and sneered as if to say Miserable business, but orders are orders. The guard gave him a sympathetic look, then wordlessly opened the door for us to enter.
Zukov stood before a wide window overlooking the planet far below.
This high up, the sky was black, the horizon’s curve clearly revealed.
The count cared about none of it – his attention was occupied by the holodisplays projected on the window’s surface.
“What is it, Archduke? I don’t have time for your banalities today,” Count Zukov said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be brief,” Darius said, and as the door closed behind us, we went to work.
There were two guards in the room, one on either side of the door.
Tredesceu and I turned on the right one, unsheathing our dirks and driving them up into the demon’s lungs, while Pavlov ripped the other demon’s throat out with the zeroblades capping his curving, forward-pointing horns.
Zukov had barely turned around before Darius popped the cap off the end of his walking stick and jammed the exposed leads of his stunner into the count’s unsuspecting torso.
The demon lord’s shield strobed with rainbow flashes as his body convulsed, then collapsed, his nervous system overwhelmed by the stunner’s pulses.
“It’s a good thing you have one of those,” I commented, sheathing my zeroblade.
Stunners were rare weapons designed to incapacitate a shielded combatant without killing them by attacking the shield itself.
They were more expensive than a zeroblade, more fragile in combat.
A zeroblade could get through a fighter’s shield and kill the target just as easily, so few people used them.
Darius recapped the leads. “My father gave it to me for self-defense when all other weapons were banned.”
“What if an unshielded assailant attacked you?” Pavlov asked, curious.
Darius swept the stick through the air. “It’s still stout enough to cudgel a peasant’s death wish out of them. Now help me bind his hands and feet.”
The count came to soon after, his eyes fluttering open to see the point of my zeroblade centimeters from his eyes. “Now, we’ll have no screaming. I want this to be civilized,” I said.
“Captain Boylan. You’re supposed to be dead,” Zukov said, his voice at a low, even volume.
“The second time you’ve made that mistake. I’m not sorry to disappoint,” I replied.
“I suppose you’re here to learn where we are keeping your insipid little girlfriend.”
“Very clever,” I said, my tone mocking.
“Not so clever of you. Do you expect to torture the information out of me?”
I stood. “No, not torture. It never works. The subject simply tells you whatever they think you want to hear. Even if they do tell you the truth before they die, they’ll have told you so many lies, you won’t know which is the real story until it’s too late.”
Zukov’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “If not torture, then what?”
I tapped Zukov on the nose. “I was thinking I would bribe you.”