Empire of Man Read online

  She didn’t add that the Mardukan who’d been blown all over her by one of the grenades had had her dead to rights when it hit. Another second, and the big bastard would’ve taken her head off before she could reload.

  Since it was exactly what he’d wanted to hear, Roger couldn’t understand why the statement caused him to flare with rage. But it did. He knew it shouldn’t have, but it did. He tried hard—really tried—to swallow his contrarian reaction, but his inner anger leaked through his control.

  “Thank you for your input, Sergeant,” he replied tightly. “In the future, however, I’ll try to think of a more . . . elegant solution.”

  Despreaux didn’t have a clue what it was about her comment that had pissed the prince off so badly, but she was smart enough to back off.

  “Well, thanks anyway, Your Highness,” she said quietly. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Sergeant,” Roger said more naturally. His intense flare of anger was already fading, and he wanted to apologize for his earlier tone, but he couldn’t find the words. Which only made it worse, of course.

  The rebuffed NCO nodded calmly to him in the moonlight and headed back into camp, leaving him to swing his sword and rage . . . now at both the world and his own stupidity.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “I brought everyt’ing I could pocking pack,” Poertena snapped. “How tee pock was I gonna pack a pocking plasma cradle?”

  Captain Pahner had decided the company needed a day or two to repair and reconsolidate. His initial reaction had been to push on, trying to deprive the Kranolta of time to concentrate more warriors on their position. But although all the pack beasts had been recovered, many of them were injured, and the mahouts insisted that some of them needed a few days rest. Pahner had to admit that it would help the Marines as well, so the company had spent the next day improving the camp’s defenses and recovering from the contact.

  Well, most of them had. Julian and Poertena had a different mission.

  The sides of the hide tent which had been turned into an ad hoc armory were rolled up, but they were still unpleasantly hot under it. Not as hot as the Marines digging stake-pits, perhaps, but at least the diggers didn’t have to make bricks without straw.

  “Tee pocking high-capacity tester for tee M-98 is a pocking tabletop pocking unit,” Poertena went on sharply. “How tee pock was I gonna carry it? Huh?”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Poertena!” Julian shot back. The two experienced armorers had already stripped down and inspected twelve plasma rifles, front to back. None of them had exhibited any sign that they would detonate like the late Nanni Bosum’s, but they’d pretty clearly deduced what must have happened to Bosum, and they had no way to test the high flux capacitor systems. The machine that did that was, as Poertena had pointed out, a tabletop model which had become an expanding ball of plasma along with the rest of the DeGlopper.

  Pahner walked into the tent and glanced at the disassembled rifles and parts strewn across its interior.

  “Any luck?”

  “No, Sir,” Julian admitted tiredly. “Other than expected faults, we can’t find anything. There’s nothing to indicate a malfunction that would cause a blowout,” he went on, and Pahner nodded.

  “I heard you talking about capacitors. Nothing there?”

  “No,” Julian said. “Bad capacitors are the most common cause of breech detonations, but—”

  “But we don’t have tee pock . . . I mean, I couldn’t hump tee test module, Cap’n,” Poertena put in. “It was too po—It was too big.”

  “Oh.” Pahner smiled. “Is that the only problem?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Julian gestured at the torn down weapons. “We’ve got a general meter, but we can’t stress charge the capacitors. The charge exceeds the meter’s capacity.”

  “Okay.” Pahner turned to the Pinopan. “Poertena, go rip the system pack out of a suit of armor. Better make it Russell’s.” The grenadier had been one of Third Platoon’s few casualties in the ambush, and would no longer require her powered armor.

  “Roger, Captain.”

  The small armorer trotted off towards where the armor had been stored, and Pahner turned his attention back to Julian as he extracted a precious stick of gum and popped it absentmindedly into his mouth.

  “Julian. Go get me a plasma rifle that’s been positively deadlined, a section of twelve-gauge superconductor, and a cyber-pad.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Julian stepped into the bowels of the tent to find the required items. He wasn’t sure what the captain was up to, but he knew it was going to be interesting.

  Pahner held the charge-couple ring steady in one hand and applied the edge of his combat knife to the base of the contact points.

  “Essentially, the tabletop tester for these things is identical to the built-in system in the armor.” He sheared the contact off cleanly and caught it in midair. “But the contact points are different. The old Mark Thirty-Eight used different contacts, too, but it had a field service kit. You should have heard the bitching and moaning about not having a portable tester when these Mark Ninety-Eights came out! But this trick had been around for a long time, so we just kept using it.”

  “Why didn’t they specify the same design?” Julian asked. “Or a field tester?”

  “You don’t know much about procurement systems, do you, Julian?” Pahner smiled crookedly and wiped a trickle of forehead sweat off on the shoulder of his uniform while he concentrated on lining up the superconductor and the contact.

  “The same company that supplies the plasma rifles supplies testing equipment. Naturally, they want to sell the equipment with the rifles. If they say ‘Hey, you can use the same testers as you use on your armor,’ there goes the sale. Not to mention the fact that the tabletop model is about three times as expensive as the field tester. I never have figured out why; it does exactly the same thing.”

  The captain shook his head, and this time there was very little humor in his smile.

  “The Mark Ninety-Eight is about twice as powerful as the Thirty-Eight, but I think Kruplon Armaments just overcharged a Thirty-Eight and put on a new cover. The interior modules are practically identical. I’d heard the rumor that the Ninety-Eight had a tendency to blow, but this is the first time I’ve personally seen any evidence of it.”

  “But why doesn’t somebody call them on it?” Julian demanded, then shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Yeah,” Poertena laughed. “You got any pocking idea how much pocking money ‘e’s talking about?”

  “If they lose the sale, there goes the money for the senator’s reelection campaign,” Pahner agreed quietly. “Or the big dinners for the procurement officers. Or the high-paying jobs for the retired admirals.”

  He didn’t bother to mention that the Imperial Bureau of Investigation had enough to do lately tracking down various conspirators against the throne without worrying about such minor matters as exploding weapons that killed the people using them. It was, frankly, a bad time to be a Marine.

  He took the mated contact and superconducting wire and wrapped them with a piece of gum the size of a pea.

  “The gum will harden when the current hits it,” he said with a smile as he pressed the joint tight. “And you thought it was just a habit,” he added, blowing a tiny bubble.

  Out of two dozen plasma chamber capacitors, they found a distinct drop in current management on half a dozen. As the current flow increased, they faltered. In a spike situation, the capacitors would fail catastrophically, with predictable results.

  And all of them carried similar lot numbers from the same manufacturer.

  “Fuck.” Captain Pahner popped another tiny bubble and smiled grimly.

  “There’s microscopic cracking in tee capacitor wall,” Poertena said, examining one with a field-scope. A tiny pseudo beetle wandered across the field of view, but he didn’t even notice. “They probably let tee moisture get in. Especially when they been used and tee capacitor is swell. T’at’s death
on these dry capacitors.”

  “So if you don’t have a spike, everything is fine.” Julian shook his head. “And if you do, but don’t have a bum capacitor, everything is fine. But not both.”

  “Right,” Pahner said. “Okay. Toss these crap capacitors into the fucking jungle, except for a couple of samples. When we get back, I think Her Majesty is probably going to hang a couple of subcontractors. Given how annoyed she’s going to be over this entire little adventure of ours, I think that may be a literal statement. And I’ll tie the rope for her.

  “After you get rid of them, put together the best plasma guns you can, as many as you can. Check every component, every piece and connection. Go over all of them with a field-scope. Then put them in zipbags with something to keep them dry.

  Julian grimaced.

  “Losing the plasma guns is really gonna suck, Boss.” The weapons were almost a security blanket for the ground-pounders.

  “Can’t be helped. I’m not losing another squad to a breech blow. We’ll hold them in reserve until it really has dropped in the pot. If it turns out we can’t survive without them, we’ll bring them out.”

  “It’ll take us a while to put them together,” Julian said.

  “I’ll get you some help. You’ve got today and tomorrow.”

  “Okeedokee,” Poertena acknowledged with a resigned headshake. “Nice pocking trick,” he added. “Where’d you learn it?”

  “Son, I’m seventy-two,” the captain said. “I joined up when I was seventeen. After fifty-five years of being on the ass-end of the supply chain, you learn to make do.”

  Kostas Matsugae had always enjoyed cooking on a small scale, but preparing dinner for a wider audience was a challenge. That was especially true with completely unknown spices and foods, but he was learning to make do.

  With the company stopped, he finally had some leisure to experiment. He knew the troops had started complaining about the sameness of the menu, and he didn’t really blame them. With very little time each evening and a large number of meals to prepare, he’d been forced to fall back on stew almost every night. The running joke was that they’d have a different meal every day—today it was stew and barleyrice; tomorrow it was barleyrice and stew.

  The valet might not be a Marine, but he recognized the importance of food to morale, and he meant to do something about it. Although he intended to stay with the basic “lots of stuff in a big pot” meal plan, those parameters permitted a variety of dishes, and he was working on a new one now.

  The Mardukans grew a little-used fruit that was vaguely similar to a tomato. He’d purchased a large quantity of it, and now he was simmering it in a pot spiced with the blowtorch herb peruz and filled with a brown legume which filled much the same culinary niche as lentils in Q’Nkok. With any luck—and it was certainly smelling good—he had a Mardukan chili in the pot. Or, it might turn out to be inedible. In which case, the company would be having . . . barleyrice and stew. It was Wednesday, after all.

  He smiled as Sergeant Despreaux leaned over the pot and sniffed.

  “My,” she said, “that smells heavenly.”

  “Thank you.” Kostas stirred at the top of the large kettle with a wooden spoon and took a taste. Then he waved at his mouth and took a hasty drink of water. “A bit too much peruz,” he said in a strangled voice.

  Dogzard had been sleeping in a patch of sun that penetrated the enveloping canopy. But at the sound of a spoon hitting the side of the pot, the lizard flipped to all six feet and padded rapidly over to the cooking area, and Kostas picked a small bit of meat out of the ersatz chili and tossed it to the begging lizard. The dog-lizard had become a general company mascot, emptying bowls and cleaning up messes with indiscriminate zeal. Since leaving the village of The People she’d started to grow, and was already a fairly large example of the species. If she didn’t stop growing soon, she was going to end up a veritable giant.

  “It’ll remind us to drink,” Despreaux said. She looked around for a moment, then lowered her voice. “Can I ask you a personal question?” she asked seriously.

  Kostas cocked his head to the side and nodded.

  “I would never betray the confidence of a lady,” he said, and Despreaux snorted a laugh.

  “La, sir! Seriously, no lady I. Being a lady and a grunt are sort of contradictions in terms.”

  “No,” Kostas said. “They’re not. But ask your question.”

  Despreaux looked around again, then looked at the pot rather than meet the valet’s eye.

  “You’ve known the Prince for a long time, right?”

  “I’ve been his valet since he was twelve,” Kostas said. “And I was a general servant in the Imperial Household before that. So, yes, I’ve known him for quite some time.”

  “Is he gay?”

  Kostas stifled a snort. Not because the question was unexpected—he’d almost answered it for her before she asked—but because it was such an incredibly normal question out of this enormously capable Amazon.

  “No.” He was unable to keep his amusement entirely out of his tone. “No, he’s not gay.”

  “What’s so funny?” Despreaux asked. Of all the reactions she’d anticipated, amusement hadn’t been one.

  “You have no idea, nor will I try to give you one, how many times I’ve heard that question,” Kostas replied with a smile. “Or heard the suggestion. Or noted the rumor. On the other hand, I’ve heard the opposite question just as often. There are just as many—perhaps more—gay young men as straight young ladies who have hit Roger’s armor and bounced.”

  “So it’s not just me?” she said quietly.

  “No, my dear.” This time, there was a note of sympathy in the valet’s voice. “It has nothing to do with you. Indeed, if it makes you feel any better, I would guess that Roger finds you attractive. But that’s only a guess, you understand. The Imperial Family follows the core world aristocratic tradition of providing its children with first-class sexual education and instruction, and Roger was no exception. I also know that he’s inclined to prefer women; he’s had at least one sexual encounter I’m aware of, and it was with a young lady. But he’s also rebuffed virtually every other advance that I’m aware of.” He chuckled. “And I’m aware of quite a lot of them. Frankly, if Roger were interested, he could have more ‘action’ than a company of Marines, pardon the expression.”

  “No problem.” The Marine sergeant smiled. “I’ve heard it before. So what’s with him? He’s . . . what’s the term? Asexual?”

  “Not . . . that, either.” Kostis shook his head, and there was a thoughtful, almost sad, look in his eyes. “I haven’t discussed it with him, and I don’t know anyone who has. But if you want the opinion of someone who probably knows him better than most, I would say it’s a matter of control, not disinterest. Precisely why he should choose to exercise that control, I don’t know, but that in itself tells me quite a bit.” The valet shook his head. “There are many things Roger won’t discuss with most people; I think there are very few he won’t discuss with me, but this is one of them.”

  “This is . . . weird,” the Marine said. Her own lovers hadn’t exactly been as numerous as the stars in the sky, but she wasn’t counting them on the thumbs of one hand, either.

  “That’s my Roger,” Kostas told her with a smile.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Looks like it’s just you and me again, Pat,” Roger said, patting the pack beast just below the bandages swathing its side.

  Pahner had the three most heavily injured flar-ta, shorn of the company’s supplies, breaking trail. The pack beasts’ individual reactions to the ambush had been remarkably variable. Most of them had run away from the fire and confusion of the attack, but two of them—the one Roger had coincidentally been riding and one in Third Platoon’s sector—had charged the attacking Kranolta. For obvious reasons, these particularly aggressive beasts were two of the three breaking trail.

  Roger, who’d decided that near a flar-ta was the place to be in an
ambush, was walking beside “his.” She reminded him of a “Patricia” he’d known in boarding school, and the name the mahouts gave her was nearly unpronounceable, toot or no toot. So “Pat” it was.

  The company had been hit three more times, but not only had the additional ambushes been on a smaller scale, the wider path being forged by the trio of pack beasts had prevented the Mardukans from surprising them at such close quarters. Coupled with Pahner’s decision to beef up his point team and push it further forward, the humans had escaped the attacks unscathed.

  It would be nice if anyone had expected that to remain the case.

  According to Cord, they were nearing the region Voitan had dominated in his father’s day. Thus far they’d seen no sign of civilization, but neither had there been any sign of a Kranolta concentration against them, and the company was inclined to take the good with the bad.

  Roger saw one of the point-guards raise a hand and drop to one knee. The mahouts drew the pack beasts to a stop instantly in response, and the prince trotted forward as the column accordioned behind them.

  Dogzard looked up from where she’d been riding on Patty’s rump. The dog-lizard raised her striped head as she sniffed the air and hissed. Matsugae wasn’t cooking, and nothing was trying to eat anyone, so she jumped off her perch and followed Roger.

  The point, Lance Corporal Kane from Third Platoon, was stopped at the lip of a marsh. The bank was short, barely a quarter of a meter of bare dirt, and then there was only water, covered with weeds.

  The vista stretching into the distance wasn’t encouraging. The swamp was choked with fallen trees and dead vines, and the live vegetation was gray and weirdly shaped, clearly different from the normal jungle foliage. Roger looked around, then walked over to a sapling and lopped it off with the sword he’d taken to carrying slung over his back.

  He was probing the marsh with his stick while Dogzard sniffed at the water disdainfully when Pahner walked up behind him.