I'm in, she exulted, then, hearing the scuffle of feet outside, rolled out of the chair, and the two security techs burst through the door. They wore gas masks and body armor, and it mattered little as Cind snap-shot them both below their faceplates, and sent two rounds into the lying computer screen, and then dived out the door, bellyfirst.
She hit, skidded, rolled, and dropped the covering guard beside the door, and shot twice at another one coming down a stairway—dammit, I missed, but I sure whitened your hair, woman.
Cind, wanting heavier artillery, shoved her pistol in her suit's waistband, grabbed the dead guards' rifle—an Imperial-issue willygun, she noted, and shame on breaking your cover— thumbed the safety down to autofire, and sent a burst shattering the doors into the library.
And now the alarms were howlingroaringscreaming, and there were shouts, and Cind saw a face peering around a corner. She sent a burst in its general direction, another burst blowing out a huge window, grating, alarm wires and glass and all, and dived through her newly created exit.
Hell, just like a clotting infil course, she thought, turfing down across a bush, feeling that ultraexpensive suit rip and tear, siderolling down to the ground, burst... burst... burst...
There, that's got them pinned down or at least thinking for a minute; after all, they may be Imperial-trained, but their reflexes are a little slow, and why the clot can't I find the car key.
She found it, as she slid behind the controls of the Stewart/ Henry... POWER ON... GENERATOR TO SPEED... WAITING COOLANT FLOW... Come on, I really don't give a damn if your luxury handbuilt engine cooks off like a teakettle... READY... READY...
Full lift, full drive, and the passenger door and some of that hand-rubbed dashboard exploded, and the gravcar was airborne, straight ahead, screw the twisty path, for those gates, and she rolled out of the gravcar, three meters in the air, hit turf at twenty kph, rolled a PLF, and was behind some stupid bush carved to look like some clotting animal, and then running, scuttling low, unseen, using every bit of cover.
The Stewart/Henry flamed, ten meters short of the gate, and about fifteen in the air—bastards must've had some kind of antiaircraft capability in that goddammed gate—and plowed into the manicured lawn.
The fence... not yet... wait a second, woman...
Come on, you stupid gravcar...
The demo charges she had thoughtfully left in the spotter's trunk blew up, sending the stone portals and metal gates pin-wheeling up, around, and then down in a ball of fire.
Cind blasted the fence's alarm system and the jagged glass it was topped with in an obvious distrust of anything electronic. They'll think it's part of the general defunct-o as everything's hemorrhaging.
I hope. Up, up, and away.
Exactly like an infil course, she thought, rifle across the walltop, slither on side, roll down, hit in firing position.
Nothing to shoot at.
She doubled away, into the surrounding brushland, grateful that the Emperor not only secured his mansions with a lot of grounds, but had them built way out in the country.
It would be a three-klick cross-country run to where she had her backup hidden—a bottom-of-the-line utility gravsled bought on the local graymarket.
She surveyed damage—mission, not costume or scrapes. Negligible, she decided. Since the Emperor and his people were operating on the basis that Sten was dead, and she herself wasn't a known entity to the Empire, or so rebel intelligence indicated, the most logical interpretation was that some high-credit computer criminal had tried a speculative B&Eing. And if someone in Internal Security added things together, and got a worst-case explanation—well, she'd asked Sten about that, and he said it was all to the good if the Eternal Emperor got the idea that some unknown hellhound is on his trail.
At least I got to try flashin‘ and prancin', Cind thought. For an amateur, I didn't do badly, richbitching.
And I think I'm one step closer to the Emperor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE ETERNAL EMPEROR would not have been pleased to see the use Sten and Cind were putting to his former suite aboard the Victory. The luxurious sleeping area—with its athletic-field-sized bed—was littered with fiches and printouts and wads of scrawled notes.
Sten and Cind were perched on the bed itself, plotting the Emperor's demise.
They went over all the information Cind had gleaned. And then checked it again. Finally they were done. There was only one more piece missing.
"I don't see any other way to look at it," Sten said. "That tightbeam antenna has to be the key."
"Which gives us one directional leg," Cind said.
Sten grimaced. "Yeah. But to get a fix we're still going to have to come up with another. A second leg. Right now all we know is that the Emperor's hideout is somewhere between Point A and infinity."
Cind nodded, gave a weary sigh, and lay back on the bed. As one side of Sten's mind worried at the problem, the other noted the slender form of his lover. She was gloved into a black skin-tight jumpsuit that covered her from neck to heel. It had been a long time since they'd had many hours together.
A small part of him wished the impossible. That their existence could be different. That he and Cind could be normal beings with normal problems. Instead, the course he was on required him to continually risk the life of the person who was closest to him.
"Well, I'll be a beardless mother," the woman of his dreams suddenly exclaimed. She sat up in the bed. Abrupt "Wait just a clottin‘ minute, here!"
"What do you have?"
Cind shook her head, impatient. Started burrowing through notes. "I'm not sure... but if you will button your lip for a second, my love, I'll..."
Her voice trailed off as she grabbed a handheld and began punching in data. Sten did as he was told, watching with growing interest as she muttered to herself and pawed about for more bits of information.
She finally looked up at him, eyes bright with excitement. "I think I've got it," she said. "The other leg, I mean. Or how to find it."
Cind scooted closer to Sten, so he could see the handhold's small screen. "See... That little factor that kept messing us up before. We thought it might be static. Or, maybe even a screwy secondary from all that security apparatus. But look. That wasn't the explanation at all."
She watched anxiously as Sten weighed the information on the screen. "Maybe I'm full of it," she said, beginning to doubt herself. "Maybe my brain has turned to something like one of Kilgour's pet haggises."
"No," Sten said, hastily running a recheck program. "I'm pretty sure your mind is functioning perfectly."
A grin split his face from ear to ear. "It's a second beam, all right. It's gotta be. On a different freq and aimed in a completely different direction!"
Sten quickly patched into the Victory's main logic banks and ran the data. In a few moments the answer came back. "That's it," he said. "There's no other possibility."
Cind chortled in triumph. "Now all we have to do is track that bearded wonder down... and locate Point B. Which should be... I'm hoping... one of the relay stations like Kyes found. Except that it hopefully won't have done a meltdown. Run a fix from there, and that should give us the other leg—straight into the Emp's scrotum."
She knelt on the bed. Hoisted a lovely hand to give Sten a salute. Looking sexier than hell. "Sir! I respectfully request permission to investigate."
Sten hated what he had to say next. He would have to tell her no. His rejection would take a great deal of explanation. None of which Cind would buy.
This time, he would be the one to go. Alone.