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He saw the point coming, and then a battle-ax split his killer from crown to navel. Blood fountained over him, and he gasped in surprise as Sandy bounded past him. The ax she'd snatched from the trophies on the wall was as tall as she was, and she shrieked like a Valkyrie as she swung. She'd lost her helmet, and her brown eyes flashed fire as she cut a second man cleanly in half, and another voice screamed in horror.
"Demon! Demon!" it wailed as they realized she was a woman.
Guardsmen who'd been howling, fanatical warriors the instant before shrank from her in terror, and she snarled.
"Come on, then, you bastards!" she yelled in Imperial Universal, and a fresh wail of terror went up as the Guardsmen recognized the Holy Tongue in the mouth of a demon. She cut down another man, and for just a moment, Sean thought she was going to pull it off. But the men still in the tu
Fresh pressure pushed the Malagorans back, and Sean and Sandy with them. Their infantry formed a wedge behind them, fighting to cover Lord Sean's and the Angel Sandy's backs, and they lunged forward once more while bodies flew away from them. Under any other circumstances, the Guardsmen probably would have fled from their "superhuman" foes, but the tu
Behind his friends, Tamman worked frantically, hands flying as he fought to reco
There! He made the last co
"ID code required for implant access. Please enter code," it said, and he stared at the console in horror.
Sean gasped as another mace crunched into his left arm. The mail sleeve held and his implants overrode the pain and shock, but the blow had hurt him badly and he knew it. He staggered back, and Sandy whirled around him, graceful as a dancer as she swung her huge ax with dreadful precision. Sean's attacker went down without a scream, and he lashed out with his sword and killed another man before he could hit Sandy from behind.
"Sean! Sean, it's ID-coded!" He heard the voice, but it made no sense, and he hacked down another enemy. "Goddamn it, Sean, it's ID-coded!" Tamman bellowed, and this time he understood.
He turned his head just as Tamman hurtled past him. His friend's sword went before him, and Sean and Sandy followed. They forged forward, killing as they went, and this time there were three of them. Tamman took point, with Sean and Sandy covering his flanks, leaving a carpet of bodies in their wake, and at last, the Guardsmen began to yield. The sight of three demons—and they must be demons to wreak such carnage—coming straight for them was too much. They scattered out of their way, and Tamman reached the archway. His sword wove a deadly pattern before him, building a barricade of bodies to block the arch with the dead, and even with the weight of numbers pressing them forward, no man could break past him.
"Watch his back, Sandy!" Sean gasped, and turned back to the combat still raging in the command center. Only ten of his men still stood, but they'd formed a tight, desperate defensive knot in the center of the huge chamber, and he flung himself into the rear of their attackers.
The Guardsmen saw him coming and screamed in fear. They backed away, unwilling to face the demon, and their eyes darted to the arch by which they'd entered. Two more demons blocked it, cutting them off from their companions, but the main hatch was open, and they took to their heels, trampling one another in their desperate haste to escape with their souls.
The sounds of combat died. The tu
They'd come so close! Fought so hard, paid such a horrible price. Why hadn't it even occurred to him that the interface would be ID-coded?!
"Tam!" he croaked. "If the interface's coded, what about voice access?"
"Tried it," Tamman said grimly, never looking away from the tu
"Oh, God," Sean whispered, his face ashen. "God, what have we done? All those people—did we kill them for nothing?"
"Stop it, Sean!" Sandy was splashed from head to toe in blood, and her eyes still smoked as she rounded on him. "We don't have time for that! Think! There has to be a way in!"
"Why?" Sean demanded bitterly. "Because we want there to be one? We fucked up, Sandy. I fucked up!"
"No! There has to be—"
She froze, mouth half-open, and her eyes went huge.
"That's it," she whispered. "By all that's holy, that's it!"
"What's 'it'?" Sean demanded, and she gripped his good arm in fingers of steel.
"We can't access without the ID-code, but you can—maybe!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Sean, it's an Imperial computer. A Fourth Empire computer."
"So?" He stared at her, trying to comprehend, and she shook him violently.
"Don't you understand? It was set up by an Imperial governor. A direct representative of the Emperor!"
Comprehension wavered just beyond his grasp, and his eyes bored into hers, begging her to explain.
"You're the heir to the throne, second only to the Emperor himself in civil matters, and you've been confirmed by Mother! That means she buried the ID codes to identify you to any Imperial computer in your implants!"
"But—" Sean stared at her, and his brain lurched back into motion. "We can't be sure they were ever loaded," he argued, already turning to run towards the console. "Even if they were, it's going to take me time to work through them. Ten, fifteen minutes, minimum."
"So? You got anything else to do right now?" she demanded with graveyard humor, and he managed to smile.
"Guess not, at that," he admitted, and stopped beside the console.
"They're reforming on the stairs, Lord Sean!" one of the Malagorans called, and he turned, but Sandy shoved him back towards the console.
"You take care of the computer," she told him grimly. "We'll take care of the Guard."
"Sandy, I—" he began helplessly, and she squeezed his arm.
"I know," she said softly, then turned and ran for the hatch. "You, you, and you," she told three of the Malagorans. "Go watch the arch. Tam, over here! We've got company!"
"Here they come!" someone shouted, and Crown Prince Sean Horus MacIntyre closed his eyes and inserted his neural feed into the console.