Sten and Alex back-shot the four Praetorians who were straining at the emergency-exit door. Fohlee had just enough time to spot them, and crammed his body behind the butchering machine, a free-standing bot of red-enameled steel. Its three-by-five-meter bulk stood motionless, razor-sharp knives and meat-gripping claws still and lifeless.
Sten dropped to his knees and edged his slender body into the gap between the machine and the walls. He pushed slowly down the dark tunnel. Would Fohlee keep moving, or was he waiting just around the turn? There was almost no room to maneuver, and Sten had to shift his gun to his left hand to move forward.
There! He saw the black snout of Fohlee's weapon, and Sten struck out at it, losing his balance and falling to the floor. But his knuckles hit cold metal, and he felt the weapon rip from Fohlee's grip then heard the gun clatter to the kitchen floor. Sten kick-rolled out of the narrow tunnel and started to his feet. A heavy blow sent him down again, and he twisted his body clumsily as he fell, just avoiding Fohlee's dagger. He saw the shadow of a boot flashing down at him, but he managed to get three fingers on a heel and twist. Fohlee staggered backward, slamming against the bot.
Machinery came to life with a shriek, and the bot's upper body whirled, meat-grabbing claws searching for flesh. Before Sten could recover, Fohlee dodged the claws and picked up his gun. The two brought their weapons up at the same time. But a meat hook on a chain swung out of the bot and caught Fohlee in the throat. He screamed in agony as the hook dragged him into the butcher bot's claws.
Sten found himself watching in awful fascination as the machine skillfully dealt with Fohlee. Within seconds, many knives had skinned him while still alive. Tiny hoses snaked out to suck up the blood. Saws whirred in to cut the joints, and boning knives flicked in and out to separate the flesh.
Fohlee's final scream was still echoing through the kitchen when the last of him had been carved, packaged, and shipped into cold storage.
Absently, Sten reached out and shut off the machine. Then he walked heavily around the butcher bot to find Alex.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Power sources and engines may have changed immensely, but any twenty-first-century deep-space black-ganger would have been at home in the Normandie's engine room. The chambers were the same huge echoing metal rooms, throbbing with unseen power. The gleaming AM2 drive units could have been diesel-electric or nuclear, and the same walkways spidered up, around, and over bewildering machinery and arcane gauges.
Since the Normandie wasn't under drive, only one watch officer and a wiper had been on shift, and they lay in pools of blood.
The Emperor spotted the two Praetorians one level up, crouched behind an AM2 feedway. He considered, then aimed carefully and fired four times. The four rounds hit on either side of the spiderwalk and cut it free, and the Praetorians dropped. Just like skeet, the Emperor thought as he snap-shot both men before they crashed to the deck.
"Come on, Admiral. CYA," he shouted, and Ledoh and the last remaining Gurkha helped him weasel a portable welding rig to the emergency door. The Emperor was slightly proud of himself as his body-memory adjusted the oxy-gas mix, fired the torch, and spot-welded the emergency hatchway they'd come through shut.
"That'll give us some more time, Mik."
Ledoh was glaring at him, and another part of the Emperor's brain wondered what the hell was going on with the man. When the shooting had started, Ledoh'd been one of the first to pull out a service pistol, but it had been knocked from his hand by what the Emperor considered an overly protective Gurkha. The man couldn't be scared, the Emperor thought. But maybe he is, he went on, as he led the three men up catwalks. Maybe it's been too long since he'd had somebody shooting directly at his tail.
Maybe he's as scared as Tanz Sullamora, who was wheezing up behind the Emperor, his face near-coronary flushed.
Ledoh waited until all four men were on the next platform. Now, he decided. Now. That damned Gurkha had spoiled his first chance. Now was the time, and his ceremonial sword was in his hand and he was lunging, the blade aimed for the middle of the Emperor's back.
But just as the conspirators had underestimated the lethality of the Gurkhas, so did Ledoh underestimate the reaction time of Naik Agansing Rai.
Rai—Sten's ex-batman—somehow leaped between the Emperor and the blade—and was spitted neatly through the lungs. He sagged down, almost dragging the blade from Ledoh's hands.
Ledoh stepped in, pulled the blade from the man's chest, and came back for a swing—and then Tanz Sullamora became a hero.
The fat man somehow managed to wildly swing his willygun—the willygun he had no idea how to fire—into Ledoh's ribs, staggering him into the platform's side railing. Sullamora was still reacting to his own bravery as Ledoh pivoted back and slammed the sword's pommel into his neck. Gasping for air, Sullamora went down, and Ledoh was in lunging position...
To find the Emperor standing four meters away, at the end of the platform. He was empty-handed, his willygun still slung across his back.
"That figures," the Emperor said. "Do I get to know why?"
Ledoh could barely speak—all those years, all the plans, all the hatred. But he managed, "Rob Gades was my son."
And then he was attacking.
Again the bystanding part of the Emperor's mind was wondering who in hell Gades was as he pulled a breaker bar from the emergency fire kit on the bulkhead behind him, held it two-handed in front of him, and parried Ledoh's blade clear.
Ledoh's eyes glittered as he stop-stanced closer and slashed at the Emperor's waist, a cut that was again deflected, and then the Emperor was in motion, left foot kicking out into Ledoh's chest.
A sword against a crowbar appears an unequal fight—which it is, as several people who'd pulled blades on the Emperor during his ship engineer days had found to their considerable surprise.
As Ledoh tried to recover, the Emperor slid one hand down the bar and swung, two-handed. The steel crashed against Ledoh's sword, snapping the blade just above the hilt, before the Emperor changed his swing and the bar smashed back against Ledoh's forearm.
The bone snapped loudly and Ledoh screamed in pain. Clutching his arm, white bone protruding through his tunic sleeve, he went to his knees.
The Emperor studied him. "You poor bastard," he said, not unsympathetically. "You poor, sorry bastard." He stepped back, to the emergency com next to the fire kit, and considered the next step.
Kilgour was wrenching mightily at the welded-shut hatch into the engine spaces when Sten elbowed him aside.
The knife popped from its sheath into his hand, and he held his wrist in a brace then forced the knife through the hatchway itself. The crystal blade sliced through the steel as if it were plas. Sten made two cuts around the blackened areas that marked the weld, then shoulder-blocked the hatch open and was into the engine room, kukri in one hand, his own knife in the other.
Four bodies... no Emperor. He scanned above him, then was up the ladders, moving like a stalking cat.
Levels overhead he could see two more sprawled bodies and two men.
Emperor. Still alive. Praise a few dozen gods. Around the walkway. Other man... on his knees. Ledoh.
Neither the Emperor nor Ledoh heard Sten.
Sten was on the catwalk just below the two when he saw Ledoh force himself out of his pain. His unbroken hand went back into his waistband and emerged with a tiny Mantis willygun, and Sten was only halfway up the ladder as Ledoh aimed the pistol.
A kukri cannot be thrown. It's single-edged, and its bulbous-ended off-balance blade guarantees that, once thrown, the knife will spin wildly.