After nine months of humble instruction, Admiral Molk requested that Heebner begin calling him Yuki.
Admiral Mason defined diplomacy as a word occurring somewhere in a dictionary between dildo and dissidence. That explained his response when the supposedly neutral convoy complained: "Imperial units...Imperial units...do not understand your order to stand by for boarding. We are from the Umed systems. Repeat, Umed systems. We are allies of the Empire. Our cargo is necessary energy supplies. Please respond, over"
Mason, were he polite, could have responded over the com or boarded and delivered the same information.
The Umed systems, allies of the Empire indeed—on paper—were provided with X quantity of AM2. According to information received from spies, the systems practiced severe rationing. Nearly twenty percent of their allocated AM2 was not utilized in any known way. It was instead very profitably sold to the Tahn.
Such would have been the response—from a polite man.
Mason, instead, responded: "Umed ships. All Umed ships. You have seven minutes remaining. Stand by for boarding. Any resistance will be met with maximum force. All Umed ships. All Umed
crewmen. Prepare to abandon ship. Your ships and their cargo have been seized. Imperial Strike Force Mason clear."
It was to be hoped that Admiral Mason would not survive the war and thus require that the Emperor deal with his vagaries.
"Cut it," Haines ordered.
The soldier nodded, touched the button of his flamer, and seared through the main power cable that led into the shabby apartment building above them.
"Good. Go!" Haines shouted.
Burdened by a stun rod in one hand, a willygun in the other, plus two separate ranks, Major (Imperial Forces—Mercury Corps—Reserve—Temporary) and Captain (Imperial Police—Prime—Homicide—Permanent) Lisa Haines led the raid upstairs. Two Security mastodons sent the door crashing down, neatly timed so that Haines did not miss a step going into the apartment.
The gray-haired old woman sat up in bed, befuddled, grabbing the ruins of what once might have been a lace nightie around her skinny shoulders.
"Imperial Intelligence," Haines intoned, pro forma. "Andrea Hayyl. You are under arrest as a suspected agent of an enemy power. You are advised that you can be detained for as long as six cycles without benefit of court or attorney. You are also advised that you may be subjected to wartime interrogation techniques authorized by the proper conventions.
"You are also advised that any cooperation you extend voluntarily will be recorded, and be of extreme importance as evidence when you are brought to trial."
The thugs, without needing any orders, had the old woman out and down the stairs in seconds.
The search team came in.
As expected, the transmitter was found in seconds, amateurishly hidden in a false-drawered dresser that might have been the old woman's prized antique.
That was one more.
Haines left the evidence team shooting pictures and went down the stairs.
Six thus far. Two more to go.
More than 12,000 raids were made by Imperial Intelligence at nearly the same time. Years had been spent identifying deep-cover Tahn agents assigned to capital worlds. And then, nearly simultaneously, they were taken.
Haines was disgusted with herself and her job, even more than after the officially sanctioned "disappearances" she had been witness to after the failure of Hakone's conspiracy, the conspiracy that had begun the war.
The agents would be isolated and then given a simple choice: either be doubled or be executed. Wartime penalties for espionage never changed.
The ploy worked. Almost instantly, Tahn Intelligence began receiving completely false information. The few agents the Empire had missed, who continued to feed correct data, were siberiaed as having been doubled. Eventually they were trapped, tried, and executed, along with those agents who had decided to remain true patriots to their cause.
The end result was that the Tahn's own lovingly developed spy network became one of the most lethal weapons the Empire had.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Chief Warrant Officer Alex Kilgour went into something approaching battle shock when he realized that not only had he bad-mouthed the Eternal Emperor, his Eternal boss, and been overheard, but he actually was in the presence of said Emperor.
The Emperor allowed himself a wintery smile. "Thank you for your input, Mr. Kilgour. Perhaps you would be interested in stepping into the next chamber, where more information shall be provided."
Alex numbly saluted and stiff-legged through the indicated hatchway, which hissed open and then shut behind him.
"In times like these," the Emperor observed, "you tend to allow yourself cheap little shots as I just did. Pour the stregg, my friend."
Sten, equally obedient, went to a sideboard and decanted two shots of the probably hydrazine-based Bhor liquor he had introduced the Eternal Emperor to years earlier.
The Emperor was in an easy chair, his feet propped on a tabletop, when Sten delivered the drink.
"Chin-chin," he toasted. Sten just mumbled and drank.
"Yes, indeed," the Emperor began, "I want you two thugs back on Heath."
"Yessir," Sten said after the stregg had finished replumbing his plumbing. "However... when I left there were people that were real... interested in me."
"No longer," the Emperor said. "Somebody who must've been taken by the charm of your smile planted a virus in the Tahn central computer. Seems that neither someone named Sten nor someone called Firecontrolman Horatio ever existed. No ID, no prison record, no nada.
"Any idea who your unknown benefactor could be?"
Sten had less than none.
"Light a votive candle to the patron saint of computer programmers. Whoever that is.
"However. If such circumstances are correct, would you be willing to go back to Heath? That's an honest question. You've already figured out, I assume, what your next assignment would be if you tell me to clot off."
Sten had not so figured. "Uh," he hazarded, "in charge of some garbage scow somewhere."
"Admirals don't run drakhbuckets."
"Huh?" was all Sten could get out.
The Emperor smiled. "You're most unobservant, Sten. Think. How many of my Gurkhas, looking stupid and uncomfortable in white gloves, were on the ramp when you boarded?"
Eight, Sten suddenly remembered.
"Exactly," the Emperor said. "Four clots to pipe you aboard when you're a working slob. Eight when you put up your star."
Sten, uninvited, got up, poured himself another shot of stregg, drank it down, and refilled his shot glass while recovering.
"If you don't go back to Heath, you'll get a destroyer squadron, and you can go out there and be one more dashing leader who'll get some nice medals and whom I'll be publicly proud of in the livies.
"Sten, the one thing I don't have a shortage of is heroes. What I don't have is somebody who knows what's going on on the bad guys' home turf."
A destroyer squadron, Sten thought. And a star. That was a bit beyond Sten's dreams. Years ago, he had decided to be career military. At the end of the line, he had figured, was, if not a gravestone, some kind of honorable wound and retirement as colonel—maybe, with his naval training added, commodore.
The Emperor filled his own glass and stayed silent.
Sure, Sten's mind went on, I could do some serious ass kicking on the Tahn. I know how what passes for their mind works. I could turn any Tahn ship or formation under a battle-wagon every which way but loose. But like the Emperor just said, I'm not the only one who could do that.