We Few

"Alpha Six won't be joining us," Honal said, pulling up and over the building in salute to a fallen comrade. "Roll the shuttles."

Time to go and join Rastar. He was probably having fun at the gate.

"At least the Navy is still out of it," Ops said. "Rolling shuttles now."

"Citizens of the Empire!"

Prince Jackson Adoula's face appeared on every active info-terminal in Imperial city. He looked grave, concerned, yet grimly determined, and uniformed men and women bustled purposefully about behind him as he sat at a command station. Holo displays in the background showed smoke towering over the unmistakable silhouette of the Palace.

"Citizens of the Empire, it is my grave responsibility to confirm the initial reports already circulating through the datanet. The traitor, Roger MacClintock, has indeed returned to launch yet another attempt to seize the Throne. Not content with the murder of his own brother, sister, and nieces and nephews, he is now attempting to seize the Palace and the person of the Empress herself.

"I urge all citizens not to panic. The valiant soldiers of the Empress' Own are fighting courageously to defend her person. We do not yet know how the traitors managed to initially penetrate Palace security, but I fear we have confirmation that at least some Navy elements have been suborned into supporting this treasonous act of violence.

"All government ministers and all members of Parliament are being dispersed to places of safety. This precaution is necessary because it is evident that this time the traitors are targeting more than simply the Palace. My own offices in the Imperial Tower were destroyed by a precision-guided weapon in the opening moments of the attack, and my home—and my staff, many of whom, as you know, have been with me for years—was totally destroyed within minutes of the start of the attack on the Palace."

A spasm of obvious pain twisted his features for a moment, but he regained his composure after a visible struggle and looked squarely into the pickup.

"I swear to you that this monumental treachery, this act of treason against not only the Empire, not simply the Empress, but against Roger MacClintock's own family, shall not succeed or go unpunished. Again, I urge all loyal citizens to remain calm, to stay tuned to their information cha

He stared out of the thousands upon thousands of displays throughout Imperial City, his expression resolute, as the image faded to a standard Navy Department wallpaper.

"Calm down, Kjer," Prokourov said ten minutes after Kjerulf's reply, calmly ignoring the outburst. "I'm probably on your side. Taking out Greenberg was a necessity, distasteful as it may have been. But I want to know what you know, what you suspect, and what's going on."

"Ms. Nejad, she still busy," the Mardukan said, coming back into the monitor's field of view. "Go

"Tell her to get unbusy!" Kjerulf snapped. "All right, Admiral. All I really ask is that you keep out of this. My main worry is CarRon Fourteen. We've shut down the Moonbase fighter wing, and it turns out that they're pretty unhappy with Gianetto, anyway. I've got a small squadron of loyal ships holding the orbitals. All I need is for the rest of the squadrons to stay out of it."

He turned off his mike and looked over at Tactical.

"Any more movement?"

"No, Sir," Sensor Five said. "But Communications just intercepted a clear-language transmission from Defense HQ to all the outer-system squadrons. General Gianetto's declared a state of insurrection, informed them that Moonbase is in mutinous hands, and ordered a least-time concentration in Old Earth orbit."

"Crap," Kjerulf muttered, and keyed his mike. "Admiral Prokourov, I take that back. We may need active support—"

"Captain Kjerulf," Eleanora O'Casey said, appearing on his other monitor. "What's happening?"

The door looked like oak. And, in fact, it was—a centimeter slab of polished oak over a ChromSten core. Most bank vaults would have been flimsy by comparison, but it was the last major blast door between them and Roger's mother. And, unfortunately, it was on internal control.

Roger lifted the plasma ca

"My treat, Your Highness," one of the Mardukans said, carefully but inexorably pushing Roger away from the door.

The prince nodded and stepped back, automatically checking to be sure the team was watching in every direction. They were down to ten, including himself. But there should be only two more corridors between them and his mother, and if the information in the command center's computers was correct, there were no automated defenses and no armored guards still in front of them. They were there. If only she was alive.

The Mardukan carefully keyed in the sequence to override the safety protocols, then triggered a stream of plasma from the tank ca

On the eighth shot, the overheated firing chamber detonated.

Roger felt himself lifted up by a giant and slammed through the merely mortal walls of the approach corridor. He came to a halt two rooms away, in one he recognized in confusion as a servant's chambers.

"I don't sleep with the help," he said muzzily, picking himself out of the rumpled tapestries and ancient statuary.

"Your Highness?" someone said.

He tried to put a finger into one of his ears, both of which were ringing badly, but his armor's helmet stopped him. So he shook his head, instead.

"I don't sleep with the help," he repeated, and then he realized the room was on fire. The overworked sprinkler system was sending a fresh downpour over him, but plasma flash had a tendency to start really hot fires. These continued to blaze away, adding billowing waves of steam to the hellish environment.

"What am I doing here?" he asked, looking around and backing away from the flames. "Why is the room on fire?"

"Your Highness!" the voice said again, then someone took his elbow.

"Dogzard," Roger said suddenly, and darted back into the flames. "Dogzard!" He shouted, using his armor's external amplifiers.

The scorched dog-lizard came creeping out from under a mattress, a couple of rooms away, wearing a sheepish expression. She'd been following well behind the group. From her relatively minor damage, she'd probably run and hidden at the explosion.

"How many?" Roger said, shaking his head again and looking at the person who'd called him. It was Master Sergeant Penalosa, Raoux's second in command. "Where's Raoux?"

"Down," Penalosa said. "Hurt bad. We've got five left, Sir."

"Plus me and you?" Roger asked, pulling up a casualty list. "No, including me and you," he answered himself.

"Yes, Sir," the master sergeant replied tightly.

"Okay," Roger said, and then swore as a blast of plasma came out of the small hole his Mardukan had managed to blow in the door. So much for the CP's information that there were no guards beyond. "What are we on? Plan Z?" he said. "No, no, calm, right? Got to be calm."

"Yes, Sir," the sergeant said.

"Plan Z it is, then," Roger said. "Follow me."

"Sir, we just lost the feed from the system recon net," Senior Captain Marjorie Erhardt, CO HMS Carlyle said.

"We have, have we?" Admiral Henry Niedermayer frowned thoughtfully and checked the time display. "Any explanation of why, Captain?"