Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front Page 17

  Angel aimed his weapon, developing a good sight picture on the man. His finger was on the firing stud, his mind telling his body to not to hurry the shot, much as he wanted to get it over with, and then engage the second target. And she’s fucking pregnant, he thought with repugnance at what he was about to do.

  From what he had heard, the Emperor was a good man, a good ruler, and what the Empire needed at this time. And the person who wanted him killed was not a good person, and would see that the Empire was misruled from the moment she took over. Oh yeah, you bitch. Don’t think I know who you are, that you were so clever, but you really don’t know who you’re dealing with.

  The couple started walking toward the lift, the woman with her hand on the forearm of the man. Angel could imagine what her last image would be, before he took off her head as well and ended her nightmare. He looked back into the scope, developed the perfect picture, and let them step into the lift, the doors closing behind them instantly.

  What the hell is wrong with me? he thought as he watched his hundred million imperials walk away. What the hell is wrong with me? he thought again, though this time in another context. He was out here in the night attempting to kill his Emperor.

  At one time Angel had been a Fleet commando, serving his Empire with honor and courage. And then had come the incident that had ruined his career, and sent him into another line of work. Mostly he killed people who deserved it. Mostly. He demanded a high wage, and guaranteed his work. Contract Angel to kill and the target was dead. So why in the hell did he take this contract to kill someone who didn’t deserve it. Anger at the Empire for kicking Lt. Commander Sergio Martinez from the service he loved? And taking it out on the son of the Emperor in charge at that time, who also had nothing to do with it? Was it because he gave up a predicted five decades of his life to become augmented, only to have them take that away from him as well?

  That was one of the reasons he became a killer for hire, making the kind of money that could buy his augmentation back from the right people. But the thrill of the hunt and the kill had become addictive as well, and now he was trapped in this lifestyle.

  I’ve got to go through with this, he thought as he lowered his rifle and relaxed in a hover against the building. I’ve taken the money, and even if I give it back, I will still become a target myself. While he was sure he could handle the first team to come after him, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. So he would just have to quell his misgivings and kill the young couple when they exited the theater.

  * * *

  “That was wonderful,” said Jennifer as they stepped into the lift for the short ride to the rooftop landing pad.

  “It was a lot of fun,” said Sean, thinking back to the spectacle they had just attended. Based on a fantasy novel from old Earth, adapted by the greatest living playwright in Capitulum, it had featured a mixed cast of humans and citizen aliens. Humans had played most of the parts, though Malticons had taken the roles of the dwarves and halflings, and a huge Phlistaran had enacted the part of the dragon, much to the delight of the audience. Not really the most philosophical or thought provoking play, but very enjoyable.

  Jennifer closed her eyes and smiled, and Sean squeezed her hand. And what would I do if you were not here? he thought, looking into her deep blue eyes as she opened them and looked up at him.

  The lift stopped, the doors opened, and he saw that she security detail was already prepared. He helped his wife from the lift and was about to lead her to the car when shouts of alarm came over the tactical net, followed by an inrush of troopers in heavy suits, three each on he and the Empress. In an instant they were sealed in armored cocoons while the detail handled the threat. He heard a couple of muffled explosions, then more calls over the net.

  * * *

  “We have a shooter up here, sighting in on the Emperor,” came the call over the suit’s com.

  Angel thought he still had time for the shot, though he couldn’t understand why he had hesitated yet again. He never hesitated. Not when he had made up his mind, as he thought he had. But when he saw the young man and his pregnant wife once again, that surety went out the window.

  His suit had a complete com suite, and he was constantly monitoring every tactical channel, police and military. Most of those coms were encrypted to the maximum, and he had the protocols to break through that encryption. The suit computer was, of course, screening through all of the channels, looking for keywords that might alert the assassin that someone was on to him. Shooter was one of those words.

  He thought he still had time for the shot, which was also uncharacteristic for him. He looked back through his scope, zooming in, just before two groups of armored soldiers ran into the picture, something releasing and expanding from their armor. Within less than a second both were surrounded in cylinders of armor, while the troopers turned outward, their weapons ready.

  That’s a neat trick, he thought, not sure he could get a shot in through that kind of protection, which had to be as strong of armor as could be made. And why didn’t I go ahead and shoot?

  A wide spectrum sonic played over his armor at that thought, enough energy to drop just about any living being into unconsciousness. His suit shrugged it off like it wasn’t there, while alerting him to its presence. He looked up to see a military aircar hanging overhead, the source of the sonic, the turreted particle beam on its nose turning in his direction. Angel didn’t think his suit would shrug off that weapon. It might survive a second or two, no more, and even that much exposure could damage it to the point where he was rendered helpless.

  With a thought he swung the rifle up, the link with his suit switching it to full auto. He pressed the stud and sent a stream of penetrators into the nose of the car as it sat above him at a distance of seven hundred meters. The rounds impacted just about perfectly on the particle beam, striking within centimeters of the barrel. The minute antimatter warheads detonated in bright pinpoints, shredding the barrel and the hull around it.

  “We’re hit,” yelled a voice over one of the police tactical bands, which was the overall command and control frequency of the Emperor’s security. Others answered, and Angel’s suit picked up a number of aircars and a tactical police squad in power armor headed his way. A particle beam came up from the roof of the theater, barely missing him and blasting a hole in the window behind him.

  “Cease fire,” called out a commanding voice. “Only fire when you have a clear shot.”

  And Angel was not about to let them get that shot. He engaged his grabbers and shot up at two hundred gravities, trading stealth for speed as the propulsion vanes popped out on his arms, legs and back to start offloading heat.

  Uh oh, he thought as his HUD showed more objects converging on him from above. He increased his acceleration, shooting over the top of the skyscraper, then reversing his boost, curving over the crown of the building and shooting down the other side.

  Yells of amazement and alarm came over the com. His suit was pulling more gees than the best atmospheric fighter in the Imperial inventory, more than three times what any aircar could do, much less a suit. He sped down the side of the building, watching the ground approaching in a rush. Something shot, and a series of windows blew out behind him, as more calls to cease fire came over the net. The bastards really want me, thought Angel, and he couldn’t blame them. But he was counting on their not wanting to cause collateral damage in the capital city to get him.

  Angel pulled up, going a bit beyond the capabilities of the suit, his vision redding out for a second before he flattened out and headed down the center of the street, hitting Mach four ten meters above the surface. Ground cars, what few there were, rocked underneath, while pedestrians were blown off their feet.

  The HUD showed more aircars converging well ahead. They weren’t about to give up, and if they responded fast enough, there was a possibility they could trap him. Probably not a capture, but a kill was a definite possibility. He checked the map on the HUD
and planned his next move, just seconds before he had to execute. The suit decelerated at twelve gravities above the limits of its inertial compensators, and his vision blacked for a moment while the suit executed the maneuver on its own, taking a ninety degree turn and shooting down a narrow alleyway.

  A kilometer further, he took another killing turn, and headed for the zoological gardens, a huge park that was sure to be filled with people even at this hour. First, I need to get rid of this thing, he thought, releasing his rifle and letting it fall under its own antigravs, heading for the industrial class waste receptacle on a side alley. Maybe he would be able to recover it later. If not, it was not worth more than his life and freedom, and could be replaced.

  Pursuit vehicles were still on closing trajectories, and he knew that he was giving off enough heat that the high atmospheric sensors were tracking him despite his maneuvers. The zoo was coming up fast, thousands of square kilometers of habitats and buildings, one of the major attractions of the megalopolis, with animals from thousands of worlds.

  Now, he thought, setting the last trick in place. The suit went into a max deceleration profile, slowing to a couple of hundred kilometers per hour, then jettisoning the framework the grabber units were attached to. That framework shot ahead, accelerating and going into a severe right turn. Angel then turned in the air and activated his reserve grabbers, dropping lightly to his feet in the shadows behind one of the habitats. Whatever was in that habitat, a square kilometer of glassed in holding area, started trumpeting its displeasure at the sound of the decoy unit flying over.

  Angel activated the next stealth feature of the suit, and while the helmet and gauntlets retracted out of the way and the surface of the armor rippled and took on the appearance of cloth, and suddenly he looked just like any other office worker in a working jumpsuit. He walked with a normal pace out of the shadows and blended in with the crowd, most of which were still looking up to see if they could locate whatever it was that had flown over. Minutes later they were back with their attention focused on the wonders around them. Angel walked toward the nearest transport hub, his suit powered down except for its stealth features, just another one of the crowd, while the police and military were still engaged in seeking the decoy.

  As he reached the stairs down to the public transport something exploded in the sky kilometers away. The decoy had been destroyed, fulfilling its purpose, and as long as he didn’t make any attention catching mistakes, he was home free.

  * * *

  “We think he’s one of your assets, Sondra,” said the Imperial Intelligence Agency Director Ekaterina Sergiov, looking across the table at the Chief of Naval Operations, Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom. “Or at least he was, before you kicked him out.”

  “And what did he get kicked out of the Fleet for?” asked Sean, sitting at the head of the table, his cousin and Regent, Samantha Ogden Lee, to his right. Jennifer had excused herself from this meeting, and Sean could not blame her a bit. After all, by all indications they could have been, should have been, dead. But for some reason the assassin had not taken the shot.

  “What was his name, Ekaterina?” asked McCullom, closing her eyes as she went into link with the building’s comp.

  “Angel Sergio Martinez,” said the Intelligence Director. “Now known in the underworld as the Angel of Death.”

  “Got him,” said Sondra, and the image of a young man in Fleet dress uniform came up on the holo, the gold oak leaves of a Lt. Commander on his shoulder boards, a Naval Commando slash on his left upper sleeve. “Graduated at the top of every class at the Academy, then breezed through commando training. One defect. He was on the top end of people who were longevity sensitive to the augmentation process, and lost an estimated five decades of life.”

  Sean whistled. The average augment lost three decades of life for the privilege of becoming a superman. Some lost as much as four. People who had the genome that would cause more of a loss were discouraged from undergoing the process, but some still insisted on it.

  “Perfect record, including five combat operations in the Lasharan sector, until the incident that led to a court martial and release from the service,” said McCullom, nodding at the image, which changed to a man in combat cammies, his face painted, looking ready for a drop.

  “And what was the, incident?” asked Sean, looking at the serious face.

  “Four of his platoon were killed by an explosive device planted by Lasharan rebels,” said McCullom, closing her eyes once again. “Unrecoverable. So he took it out on the village nearest the booby trap.”

  “Crap,” said Sean, closing his own eyes. He could understand how the officer must have felt, having men under him, some of whom may have been close friends, vaporized before his eyes. And no killers to strike back at. Just a nice peaceful village full of people who hated his guts, and probably knew who had planted the device. And the temptation to get revenge on those who had killed people who were dear to him. Understandable, but in no way acceptable, and he should have been drummed out of the service. He was lucky that he didn’t get serious time in confinment.

  “Are you sure this man is our assassin?” asked McCullom, looking over at Sergiov.

  Ekaterina looked at her own boss, Lord T’lisha, the Phlistaran Minister of Security, who shook his massive head.

  “We do not know for sure if this is the Angel of Death,” said Ekaterina, looking at the Emperor. “All we have are suspicions, and some eyewitnesses that put him near meetings with people just before some of the enemies of those folks disappeared. Otherwise, with the tech he uses it is just about impossible to find any evidence at the scene.”

  “But you think this is the man who tried to kill me and the Empress?” asked Sean, his eyes narrowing.

  “If I had to bet, then yes, your Majesty,” said T’lisha in his deep growling voice. “This is the man.”

  “Then I want him,” yelled Sean, slamming his hand down on the table. “No matter how many people you have to put on this, I want him, dead or alive. Preferably alive, so we can find out who put him up to this.” Sean had his suspicions about exactly who hired this assassin, but without proof there wasn’t much he could do to a peer of the realm, not with the political power they had. With proof, he could bring them to a swift trial and get them out of his hair.

  “I still have some problems with this entire scenario, your Majesty,” said Ekaterina, her expression one of anxious determination to broach a difficult subject.

  “And what is that, Ekaterina?” asked Sean, glaring at the woman.

  “Look at this, your Majesty,” she said, switching the holo to a view of the assassination attempt. “We didn’t know what we were looking at on the scene, because his stealth systems were so good. The best I have ever seen, much better than anything our own agents use. Or that the Fleet uses.”

  The holo showed the side of the skyscraper that looked directly down on the theater. There was a very blurry image hanging in the air against one of the windows high up the building. “This is actually an enhanced image, run through our systems until we got this much. The people on the spot were not able to get even this much. There were some reported anomalies by the people on the spot, but only after the fact, because it was something that was easy to overlook.”

  The holo split, showing both the image on the side of the building, and the Emperor and Empress coming out of their car and heading into the building. The time stamp was the same on both views, indicating that both were happening simultaneously. It took them almost a minute to get from the car to the lift with their speaking and meandering.

  “Do you see it, your Majesty?” asked Ekaterina, nodding toward the holo.

  “He had more than enough time to kill both of us,” said Sean, nodding in return. “But would he have gotten away with it? Maybe that’s why he didn’t pull the trigger.”

  “And here is the take when you came out of the theater, while the assassin hung there for over two hours,” said Ekaterina, as the images played b
ack. The image moved in on the assassin and the com erupted with calls of sighting him. The assassin fired his rifle, and pinpoint bright explosions erupted over the nose of an aircar that was trying to bring its forward mounted particle beam to bear.

  “And about him not being able to get away?” asked Ekaterina as the image showed the blurred but slightly more noticeable figure, now being hit with massive amounts of active sensors, zooming off. “We, meaning your security force and Capitulum PD chased him for over five minutes and didn’t come close to catching him. With the weapon he had, and the position he was in, he could have killed you and your wife, and had a very high probability of getting away.”

  “And we still need to find him,” said Sean, looking around the table. “I’m not about to let an assassin get away with threatening us just because he had an attack of conscience at the last moment. And he knows who hired him. Or at least he should.”

  “We are doing everything we can to find him, your Majesty,” said Ekaterina. “But remember, there are three billion people in this city, and almost twenty billion on the planet. We might be able to stop him from leaving Jewel, though I can’t guarantee that. But if he lies low, blending into the population, I’m not sure we’ll be able to find him.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I define a ‘good person’ as somebody who is fully conscious of their own limitations. They know their strengths, but they also know their ‘shadow’ - they know their weaknesses. In other words, they understand that there is no good without bad. Good and evil are really one, but we have broken them up in our consciousness. We polarize them.

  John Bradshaw.

  CAPITULUM, JEWEL MAY 19TH, 1002.