Chapter Nineteen

Piett and the man on the screen stared at one another in silence, equally shocked that the other was human. There were, of course, differences- the man on the screen was paler than any human Piett had ever seen, almost painfully thin, with large- pupiled eyes whose whites were not quite white. When he spoke, his teeth were brighter, and tapered to almost-points. Despite all that, he could not be anything but human.

The man on the screen, sounding almost awed, spoke again.

"Alic a qe ctoris, than te ento kizo-sa, a menturi. Kalassis."

"I don't understand," Piett said softly, meaning more than just the other man's language.

The man looked startled- and as though he understood.

"Asciens?" he asked, his large, dark eyes lighting up. "Ento Asciens?"

The comm screen went dark, suddenly.

It was nearly an hour before it lit up again, and by then, the bridge was clear of dead bodies and debris, with a dozen maintenance droids and twice that number of officers working to restore power to dead consoles, or replace shattered ones. In that time, one by one, the surviving vessels reported in.

Vice Admiral Misth, on the Omwat, had survived- but his ship was crippled.

Captain Maxell on the Silver Hammer was alive, and his ship was in good condition.

Commander Malahos, on the Eviscerator, had managed to get his ship out in more or less one piece, but his power core was damaged, and the reserve battery almost depleted.

Commodore Andleton was alive and furious- his ship had just been repaired, and now, again, it was damaged to the point of uselessness.

The Corvette Phoenix Hammer was intact, but drifting- ion blasts had shorted out every system on board, including life support, and the only survivors were those who had reached the escape pods- those of them whose launch systems hadn't been fried along with the rest of the ship's electronics.

The Interdictor Styx was being commanded from its auxiliary bridge- the main bridge was a gaping hole, and all the ships' senior officers had been either killed in the blast that struck the bridge or frozen and suffocated in the vacuum that replaced it.

The Sleipnir was damaged but intact- and Vice Admiral Litsen, nursing a broken arm, was likewise. It occurred to Piett that their dinner date was delayed again- after Itonchet and the siege of Tanroial, there had been no leisure time- and then, half- humorlessly, laughed at himself for thinking of that. The laughter died, rather bleakly. when thousands of his officers were dead, he shouldn't be laughing. And he shouldn't be concerned with anything personal.

That was when the signal from the alien ship returned, and he was left looking at the dark-uniformed man again.

A younger-looking man, looking frightened, stepped into view beside the first. His eyes were as dark, his skin as pale, his teeth as pointed. Not a singular mutation, then. Piett had assumed as much, wondering and theorizing between damage reports, drawing on decades-old remembrances of xenobiology. An entire subspecies- a separate, isolated offshoot of humanity. How much time, then, would they have to have been isolated from the rest of the galaxy? How large a population must they have had to survive?

It had to have been a pre-Republic colony. Data archaeologists had found records of hundreds of colonies, most of which had vanished down the then-uncharted corridors of hyperspace and blundered into stars, or down the gullets of black holes.

If one had survived- had settled in this isolated star cluster- and been separate from any outside contact for four or five thousand years in vastly different conditions than those on their original homeworld- it would be possible for four thousand years of evolution to have done this.

Then, the younger man on the screen spoke. His Basic was mangled with a thick, sharp accent, drawing out his consonants and compressing his vowels into almost sibilant sounds- but he was speaking Basic.

"Sthique Asciens? You have kith of aur ansestor's tong?"

It took a moment to puzzle it out, to make the sound of it understandable, and a thrill of excitement, some remnant of his xenobiology days, rejoiced at the things the young man's questions hinted at, the half-confirmation they gave to his guesses and theories.

"I do," Piett said. "It is the most commonly spoken language in the galaxy."

The young man laughed, nervously, and that sound, too, was sibilant.

"It is a dead tongue here," he said, or syllables similar to that. "And only lucrious young men with vine educations pay to learn it- the tongue of the high court and its theremonies, the tongue of the priests and the Zhitai."

The older man- a senior officer, probably, said something then, and the two of them exchanged sharp sounds in their own language.

"I am told to ask if you are, as it athears, enemies of the-" he hesitated. "The ethorae. There is no word for them in Asciens. The... the whistling ones, the hard-skins, who we defeated. If you are, I am told to ask you to come aboard, and be taken to see his Ascended Mazhetai, Cour of the Courani, the Emperor."

There was irony in the young man's voice, and Piett guessed its source immediately.

"Do I have a choice?"

The young man smiled, showing his teeth. "Whether you came to fight the ethorae or not, you have brought warships into orbit over the heartworld. Without the Emperor's thermission or pardon, that is a treasonous act. If you do not come to him, he cannot give you pardon. If he does not pardon you, you kith, we must kill you."

"In that case," Piett said, "I would be honored."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Flight Control, please repeat that?"

"We're their prisoners, Mynock Lead. They're just being polite about it."

M'thas Char flicked off his comm, swore, then flicked it on again. "You're crazy! They just saved us!"

"Not exactly. They destroyed one of two invading fleets- the one they had a grudge against already. Now they're trying to decide what to do with the other one. According to the latest update from the bridge, armed presence over their homeworld is an act of war, or treason."

"How can we be committing treason? We're the Galactic Empire, aren't we?"

"Evidently, Mynock Lead, somebody neglected to tell them that. The Admiral is being taken to see their... ah... Emperor, and we're supposed to recall all fighters and deactivate all weapons until there's some sort of negotiated peace."

"And we're actually going to do it?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, we're outnumbered, half- crippled, and trespassing in somebody else's backyard."

M'thas flicked off the comm again rather than answering.

~~~~~~~~~~

They sent a shuttle across to the Phantom to get him- burnished gold instead of bronze, with smoother, less belligerent lines and smaller weapons. The honor guard on it treated him with courtesy, and were very careful not to imply that their black-anodized body armor or dangerous-looking staff weapons were meant for any purpose but his protection.

Piett had his doubts. He relaxed on the luxurious, almost decadent furnishings provided in the shuttle- as much as he could relax, considering his anxiety and the stiff dress uniform he'd hardly had the time to change into.

The descent into the atmosphere was far rougher than it would have been in an Imperial vessel, but he said nothing. He focused on the planet below- its cloud patterns were more denser, moving with more speed and violence than on Coruscant, or the average colony world. But then, he'd weathered Chadran squall-gales before, so storms didn't much concern him.

Once beneath the clouds, the shuttle arrowed down over an expanse of tall forest. The trees weren't trees, exactly- they were crowned with dark, thick petal-things, or twisting pale thorns that had to be smaller than they appeared, or rounded plates of something that might be wood.

A city lay beyond the forest, at its eaves, shaped of a polished material Piett had trouble recognizing- not stone or metal or plastic polymers, but some sort of ceramic. The buildings, like the people, tended to be tall, pale, and sharp, and at the far edge of the city was a cluster of tall towers, bound together by countless bridges and linked balconies curling around and between them.

One massive terrace, at the base of the tallest tower, already held half a dozen ships, gilded like the shuttle that carried Piett. The shuttle touched down near to the tower, directly in front of a arched, triangular gateway, mirrored silver, that led into the tower. Escorted by the fourteen dark-armored guard, Piett left the shuttle, and crossed to the door.

Chapter Twenty

Beyond the silver door was a broad stairway that spiraled up the tower, with a guard- similar to the guards around him, but with silver body armor- standing on every seventh step.

The stairs ended after four full spirals- at Piett's estimate, five to six hundred feet below the tower's peak. A single, short hallway led to another doorway- twenty feet tall, paneled with what looked like ivory, inset with veins of silver and lacquered a dark red-purple, like dark red wine. Another fourteen guards in silver stood before the door in two rows.

As Piett reached the last stair, a bell rang from somewhere above the door. The sound was crystalline, sharp and clear and compelling

Silently, the guards stepped away from the door, moving their lines in a smooth, outward arc. A moment later, equally silently, the doors themselves opened.

The chamber beyond was round, the width of the tower, and the floor was divided into seven circular terraces, each smaller, half a foot higher than the last, and closer to the tower's far end. Piett glanced up to see how high the chamber's ceiling was, and found he was breathless.

The ceiling was the tower's peak, five hundred feet above them. Intermingling shafts of light poured in through countless windows, and arched webs of structural supports criss-crossed the space between the walls at seemingly random intervals. He felt almost as if he could fall upward toward the distant rooftop, and before vertigo could catch him, glanced down again, at the room around him.

The lowest terrace, which Piett now stood on, held only a few people, dressed in what was probably their finest. Unlike the higher terraces, however, these people had no uniformity.

The next three terraces held more people, dressed in successively darker shades of green. The next held maybe two dozen men and women, dressed in pale blue and silver.

The sixth terrace held three young men in dark blue, draped with silver chains, and silver-fitted turquoise stones embroidered in along the seams.

The seventh and last terrace was a foot above the rest, with a high platinum throne. As Piett entered, the man who sat on it stood, and, as one, everyone on the lower terraces knelt. Quickly, Piett followed suit.

The man walked forward, descending from terrace to terrace. He was close to six and a half feet tall, as pale and large- eyed as his subjects, and almost as thin. His eyes were dark, his hair dark and steel-grey, hanging almost to his shoulders, covering the lower half of his face with an immaculately groomed beard.

His own robes were cut in the same style as the young men on the sixth terrace, but were burgundy, not blue, hemmed and fringed with silver, hung heavily with more silver, garnets, and amethyst. A gothic, latticed thing halfway between a crown and a helm sat on his head, dark silver and garnet.

As he stepped down to the seventh terrace, the man- the Emperor- sketched some elaborate signal with the fingers of his left hand, and the people rose.

In another moment, he stood in front of Piett, assessing him with eyes that were not, as Piett had assumed, brown, but a dark, ink-like indigo that was almost indistinguishable from black.

"You are human," the man said, suddenly- almost, but not quite, a question.

"I am, Your Ascendant Majesty." Piett said.

"You are human, but you are from outside the Cluster. In more than fifty-seven hundred years, no human has crossed the Starless Chasm."

A series of guesses chased their way through Piett's thoughts. Whatever technologies the people here had developed, their hyperdrives must still be Pre-Republic quality. This star cluster was offset from the ecliptic, the galactic plane. The gap between the edge of the cluster and the nearest star system beyond it was large- a twenty-two hour jaunt with even the fastest drive- but if these people had been completely isolated, their drives must be almost unimaginably slow. For them, the gap must take weeks or even months to cross.

"What made you make the effort to cross, when no one else had, since the time when your ancestors and mine could have looked like brothers?"

Piett refrained from explaining how little of an effort it actually took- if hostilities broke out, he'd rather not have his opponents know just how large a margin he could outrun them by.

"The- ethorae, your officer called them. They call themselves the Ssi-Ruuk, and yours are not the only systems they have invaded. The fleet I lead has been fighting them for months."

The Emperor nodded. "You fight them on behalf of your own Emperor?"

"How-"

"Your first message expressed gratitude on behalf of the Empire."

"The Empire I followed is... headless. The Ssi-Ruuk invasion began within a week after his death at the hands of Rebels. Our fleet is scattered, and I command only a small fraction of what it once was. I fight on the behalf of the people who serve under me, and the systems invaded."

"Your Emperor had no heir?"

"None, Your Majesty."

"How many systems did he rule?"

"Thousands. Half of the galaxy, or more."

Silence. There was no visible surprise on the man's face, but a closed look. Disbelief, maybe?

"Why did you come here to fight them, where they outnumbered you?"

"We had no choice. We intercepted communications that indicated they were gathering in one place. If their entire fleet struck us at once, we would have been destroyed utterly. We had to strike them before they gathered."

"It seems you would have been destroyed regardless, were it not for my ships."

"We knew there was that chance, Your Majesty. But there was also the chance that we could win- and there were more of them already gathered here than we anticipated, so that we were more confident when we laid our plans than we were when we arrived."

The Emperor nodded again, and the barest traces of a smile crossed his face. "You speak as you act- with courage and intelligence." He raised his voice slightly as he spoke, so that the entire court would be able to hear him. "What are your name and rank?"

"Kinneth Piett, Your Majesty, an Admiral in the Navy of the Galactic Empire."

"Then, Kinneth Piett, we have the pleasure to acquit you of the charge of treason, and you have our permission for your fleet to remain above the heartworld at this time."

His voice lowered again. "Return to your ship, Admiral. I will summon you again, tomorrow- but not before the court. Your presence changes things, and I would speak to you of them- at length."

The court knelt as the Emperor walked back to his throne. When he reached it, the guard escorted Piett out of the throne room, down the stairs, and back to the golden-hulled shuttle that waited to return him to the Phantom.

Chapter Twenty-One

"Two words, Raien, two words: remote slicing."

"What about it, M'thas?" Lieutenant Piper asked, trying to ignore the vague, sinking feeling those two words (and their speaker) inspired.

"You're good at it, right?"

Piper looked down at his food, almost reluctantly, as M'thas sat down next to him. He was morosely certain that he was about to lose his appetite. At the same time, he suspected that he should enjoy the food while he still had it- if M'thas could talk him into whatever he was planning- and M'thas could talk anyone into anything- he might be sampling the food in the brig by breakfast tomorrow.

"It's not exactly a fact I'd like broadcast to the whole ship. Whose files do you want to break into?"

"Theirs," M'thas said, and pointed out the viewport.

The ship hovering outside was not a Star Destroyer, an Interdictor, or a corvette- it was a Deikis-class cruiser, covered over in bronzed molecular armor.

A Courani ship.

The sinking feeling vanished. He wouldn't wind up in the brig, in part because slicing Courani files would probably be encouraged by Command, but mostly due to the fact that-

"It's impossible. Their files will be in Courani, not Basic- and until we learn Courani, we won't have a clue what the files say, even if we break their codes."

M'thas looked disappointed. "You couldn't crack their universities' files?"

"What?"

"Well, the rich kids have to learn Basic- excuse me, 'Asciens,' somewhere. That means language courses at their universities. And if they have language courses, their files will have translation dictionaries- which, even if they're encoded, will be in a recognizable format- two words paired up on each line, put in alphabetical order. Compare it to a standard Basic dictionary, and you can crack it in about five, six minutes flat- and teach the decrypt computers the language."

Lt. Piper blinked. "It can't be that simple."

"Why not?"

"If it were that simple, wouldn't Intelligence have thought of it? Wouldn't the Crypt team have thought of it?"

M'thas shrugged. "Naval Intelligence is a contradiction in terms, Raien. That's why they have SpecOps." He paused. "Will you do it?"

It still had to be a bad idea, he was sure- after all, M'thas had come up with it. But, after all, M'thas could sell sand to a Jawa. Sometimes, it was better to succumb to the inevitable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This time, Piett was escorted to one of the smaller towers, and to a small, opulent chamber within it. There were two chairs, set on opposite sides of a table carved from ivory. It was obvious which one was meant for him: the one that wasn't platinum.

Before he could sit, the chamber's other door opened, and four masked figures, dressed in silver, stepped through. Facing him, they spoke- or rather, chanted- in unison, with a shifting four-part harmony.

"All hail His Ascended Mazhestai, Cassian Azarile, fourth of that Name, Emperor of all Courani."

They knelt, and, as the Emperor entered, Piett knelt as well. Today, his outfit was less elaborate: the same burgundy color, but instead of being liberally hung with jewels, there was a simple pattern of braided silver.

"Rise."

Piett stood, and the Emperor dismissed the heralds who had announced him.

"You may be seated."

They sat.

"You complicate things, Kinneth Piett. Your presence- a foreign fleet above the heartworld- disturbs a rather delicate political balance I have spent the last half-decade maintaining."

"How so, Your Majesty?"

"I have the precise amount of power I need. Your fleet, if it remains long, will tip the scales. Either you become allies- in which case I have too much power, which threatens my opponents, and forces them to try for a coup- or you become an enemy, in which case my position is weakened enough that my rivals feel confident that a coup could succeed. How long until you can repair your ships and leave?"

Piett paused before answering- not because he didn't know, but because he suspected his answer would not please.

"The current estimate is two months, Your Majesty."

The older man looked at him steadily, gaze pressing into him as if hoping to detect a lie.

"That is too long. By then, the factions will have made their move- either I will be dead, or I will have their blood on my hands. I find neither option appealing. Is there a way that you could move faster?"

Again, Piett hesitated. If he lied- stalled- then more repairs could be done before someone was forced to act, and his ships could defend themselves.

The Emperor did not look like someone he could lie to.

"No."

"Then those two options are all I have. Those, or-" the dark violet eyes glanced away for a moment, then met Piett's again, steady again. "Or I could make certain that any blood spilled is not mine or my peoples'. I could rescind my permission, and command the Austringer to burn you out of orbit."

~~~~~~~~~

"Okay, Raien. What do you have?"

"It's complicated. Politics."

"I hate politics. Just give me facts."

"The current Emperor- Cassian- ought to be secure on his throne. He has treaties with the stronger, more independent systems on the Cluster's edge that tie them to him, and the Royal Family. The Family itself is big- the Empress is dead, but the Emperor has six kids- five sons, any of whom can inherit the throne, and one daughter, whose husband can legally become an heir. Only she's not married yet. The Emperor has only one other living relative- a cousin."

"How is that complicated?"

"There are seven major political parties- four conservative in different ways, one moderate, and two liberal. The first two conservative parties want the Emperor's eldest son to take the throne. The third wants his second son, the fourth hates the royal family and wants his cousin. The moderate party wants his fourth son, the minor liberal party wants to abolish the position of Emperor and become an aristocracy, and the major liberal party changes its position every few weeks- and has the support of those big, independent colonies the Emperor can't afford to offend- but three of the conservative parties are based on the so-called heartworld itself, and have significant fractions of the army supporting them. One of them doesn't like the Emperor because he favors the Navy over the Army, one of them is the faction supporting the cousin, and the third is dissatisfied with how much leeway he gives the outlying colonies. Those three are negotiating- they're considering merging into one party- and if the Emperor allows it, the other four parties will stop supporting him. If he forbids it, the heartworld army will stop supporting him. And Admiral Piett's presence has them all scrambling- we're sitting on the biggest political and military advantage they've ever seen- a warship that can move without being detected and hold its own with a good-sized fleet- a warship that doesn't owe allegiance to any one faction, or the Emperor himself. If they grab the Phantom, their side wins. If the Emperor gets control of the Phantom, they all lose. If the Phantom attacks the heartworld, or gets into any sort of conflict with the Emperor, he's weakened and distracted enough for them to take over. They have to act fast- within three weeks on the outside, but probably sooner. The one way to leave the planet undisturbed is just that- leave, now, before they act. But-"

M'thas swore. "But our hyperdrive won't be repaired for eight weeks."

~~~~~~~~~~

Admiral Piett and Emperor Cassian talked politics and history for two hours, before their conversations devolved into something simpler. They were both powerful men, intelligent and cultured men, who were trying to make their way through a storm: for the Admiral, it was the aftermath of the fall of the Empire he served, while for Cassian it was the threat of such a fall. There was, almost instantly, a camaraderie between them, and when they grew tired of discussing the intrigues in Cassian's court, they fell back to discussing other things they had in common. Cassian had been the youngest of three sons, and, as such, prepared for the military instead of for taking the throne. In the wars with the colonies that preceded his father's death, and the near-anarchy during the epidemic that caused it, Cassian had seen nearly as much action as Piett himself, both on the ground and in space.

"No, Piett, of course the shot didn't hit him. I was half-blind with my own blood, remember, and losing more from the wounds on my shoulders. But it came close- it knocked the fletcher out of his hands before he could fire. And that was when my unit came over the hill. Of course, it looked to them as though I'd made the shot on purpose, forcing him to surrender- even though I'd sworn up and down I wanted him dead. They called me Eagle-eye after that, though I couldn't hear them until they cleaned the blood out of my ears- and by then they could see that I couldn't have shot straight if my life depended on it."

"So the Driscians surrendered?"

"Their general was our prisoner- and, for all he claimed to be fighting for their sake, it was his quarrel as started the war. They had no real choice."

"I've never been in a situation quite like that, I have to admit, Your Mazhestai."

"Surely there is something comparable?"

"Well… maybe. But I have to return to the Phantom soon- with your permission, can we continue this conversation later?"

"Certainly. I-"

The door opened.

The first things Piett saw through it were the four silver-clad heralds, slumped against the wall, attire marred by pools of dark blood.

The second was the sword- a single stationary blade, with a second, shorter blade behind it, snapping back and forth with a smooth, lubricated sound of oiled metal against metal, of metal cutting through air, of droplets of blood sliding off the double blades.

The third thing he saw was the man holding it, and advancing with a look in his eyes that was darker than the spilled blood in the hall. This man, also, was dressed in silver- the elaborate body armor that marked him as a member of the Courani Royal Guard.

Moving the blade up, into a more aggressive stance, the man stepped forward, toward the Emperor.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Guardsman-- the traitor, the would-be assassin-- walked forward with a smooth, quick stride, putting the stationary blade of his sword in line with the Emperor's heart.

The older man, disbelief etched into every line on his face, moved as if to stand, slowly, then quicker and with more violence as the assassin stepped closer.

Piett stood faster, stepping back behind his chair, apparently out of the assassin's way. The man favored him with a single dark look as he moved, then turned back toward his target.

Rather than wasting time cursing the fact that he hadn't been allowed into the Emperor's presence armed, Piett sent a single assessing look around the room, evaluating which objects could be used as weapons and which would be obstacles.

He reached down and wrapped his hands around the back of the black-lacquered chair he'd been sitting in. It was lighter than he'd thought it would be, and he was able to lift it quickly-- quickly enough so that, by the time the assassin had turned back to face him, the chair was hurtling over the ivory table and into the man's face.

The twin sword blades sheared through it, spitting splinters at random around the room, and the two halves of the chair only clipped the assassin's shoulders, knocking him back two steps before he regained his balance, glaring around the room, looking for another attack.

Piett had vanished.

The assassin swore under his breath, looking around again, locking eyes with the Emperor, who stepped back, drawing a short dagger with a blade like an elongated teardrop.

As soon as Emperor and dagger held the assassin's attention, Piett lunged out from underneath the table, crashing into the man's knees, locking his arms behind them, and pulling him off his feet onto the floor.

The man curled up as he fell, slipping his legs out of Piett's grasp, kicking as he hit, so that two armored boot heels struck Piett full in the face, sending him careening backwards into the edge of the table, knocking all the breath from his body. Before Piett could recover, or the Emperor step forward with his dagger, the assassin threw himself sideways, half rolling, half somersaulting, and landed on his feet, crouched, sword still in hand. he came at Piett first, face livid, running sideways-- with his body armor and his two-bladed sword, he looked like nothing more than a massive, silver crab.

Ignoring the double images, the fuzzy look of the lights, and the queasy sort of pain that told him he had a concussion, Piett ducked down and back, under the table once more, fast enough to avoid the sword strike. What he thought was a chip of ivory shrapnel from the table's shattered edge hit him under the right eye, opening what was probably a flesh wound but felt considerably more severe, and he moved back again, stumbling, as the assassin stabbed the sword under the table, searching for him with its point.

He nearly tripped over a broken chair leg, then picked it up, reflexively, and knocked the questing sword's tip away from him. The moving blade caught the chair leg, shearing two inches off of it and jarring it out of his hand. Then, he was out from under the table, on the other side, just in time to see the assassin leap onto it, as if his armor weighed nothing.

Cassian threw the dagger with a full-armed, smooth motion like the cracking of a whip, and it struck the assassin in the back of the head, pitching him off the table, directly at Piett. For a moment, he felt relief-- if he dodged the sword as the man fell, he was safe.

Then, he saw that the dagger had struck hilt-first.

The assassin swung the sword before him as he fell, tearing through the stiff fabric of Piett's dress uniform, and tracing a line in blood across his chest, a line that went deeper as it came across, and bit into his rib as it reached his right side.

Then the two of them collapsed to the floor, the assassin on top, his own weight trapping the sword at his side, pinning his arm where it lay across his chest. He tried to lever himself up with his other hand, but Piett struck his arm as he did so, breaking at least one finger on the body armor. While the man was off balance, Piett threw himself sideways, using their combined momentum to roll them so that he was on top. He watched the man beneath him gather strength to throw him off, the muscles in his jaw and neck going taut with concentrated fury. Then, as hard as he could, he head-butted the assassin, slamming his forehead into the man's face, shouting in desperation and pain as his vision went black-- he had, for an instant, forgotten the concussion. He gritted his teeth, choking off the cry but not the pain, and felt the man's nose break and collapse as he struck him again, then feeling hot, thick blood smear across his forehead.

Blindly, he reached sideways, groping for the sword he could only hope the assassin had dropped. His fingers found its hilt at the same instant the assassin's did, fumbled, and succeeded only in pushing it away from both of them, out of reach.

Neon shapes danced on grayness in front of his eyes- an improvement on the blackness, but still leaving him blind.

He remembered where Cassian's dagger had fallen, after it struck the assassin, and he scrambled backwards, ignoring the spinning and the nausea inside his head, feeling behind him for the edge of the table, then moving his palm across the sword-scarred surface, hearing movement both in front of him and to his side-- the Emperor and the assassin-- his left hand closed around the dagger's hilt, and he curled his fingers around it, wincing as the broken ones sent sharp, angry pains up along his arm.

The grey curtain blocking his vision lightened, the neon shapes faded and thinned, until he could see two indistinct shapes moving to his right. He blinked-- twice, three times, four-- and saw the assassin leap back as Cassian swung his own sword at him. The Emperor moved smoothly, proficiently, like a man half his age, like the soldier-prince he had once been. As the assassin retreated, Piett saw that one of his arms hung limp beside him, as if it was numbed, nerves pinched or muscles bruised.

Then he saw that, behind the assassin's back, the fingers of the 'numb' hand were moving, slipping something out of a sheath or holster at the small of his back.

Piett threw the dagger left-handed, not waiting to see what kind of weapon the man was reaching for.

It pierced the man's palm between the first finger and thumb, but the throw was a weak one, and the dagger fell out of the wound. It distracted the assassin, however, long enough for the Emperor to bring the sword across his chest, scoring a line deep into the armor-- but not through it.

The assassin reached for his weapon again, closed his hand around it and drew, tightening his finger on the trigger even as he brought it to bear.

Piett ran forward, limping-- how or when his leg had been injured he wasn't sure-- and it seemed as though he was moving through quickmud on Endor, too slow to do anything but watch.

He was surprised, then, when his hand closed over the assassin's, pulling the gun out of line with the Emperor's chest, letting it discharge its blast-- something like condensed threads of violet lightning-- into the wall, then knocking it out of the assassin's hand..

The assassin screamed in frustration, sounding more bestial than human, and flung his arm around and forward, pulling Piett with it, tearing loose his grip and sending him stumbling back into Cassian, who dropped the sword to avoid stabbing Piett through the chest. They collided, and both of them fell back to the floor.

Again, Piett had the breath knocked out of him. He tried, weakly, to stand, but slipped and fell back when his foot caught on another broken chair leg, and was unable to find any purchase on its round, smooth surface.

The assassin retrieved his firearm and smiled broken-toothedly, his lips split, his nose a flat and ugly thing, lopsided on his face. Slowly, he pointed it at Piett's face, snarling something in Courani, nearly foaming at the mouth as he did so.

He stepped forward, closer, aim unwavering.

He began to take another step, his aim and his gaze sliding downward as he did so, until the barrel of his weapon was pointed between Piett's legs.

As he stepped, he spoke in rough, accented Basic. "Die slow."

It sounded more like a promise than a command.

Piett kicked the chair leg forward, under the assassin's foot as it came down, and watched, vision still hazy, as the man tripped on it and fell forward, firing his gun wildly, missing his target but burning three holes into Piett's left leg.

There was an audible snap as the assassin hit the tiled floor, and his eyes fixed on Piett as they clouded over-- something that would have been impossible if it weren't for the crooked, awkward angle at which his neck was bent.

Redness or blackness threatened to drown Piett's vision again, but he shook his head, and the clarity of the pain drove them away.

"Are you all right, Your Majesty?"

"Bruised. No more than that, I think." He laughed, not amused but relieved. "I think you've found a story to top any of mine there, Admiral. Can you stand?"

"Not at the moment."

"All right. How badly are you wounded?"

"Nothing fatal, Your Majesty."

"Stars afire, I should hope not. Tell me, would you like a marquisate? A duchy? A planet? I'm permitted by the Imperial Charter to give orders of nobility to anyone who saves my life, and while that clause hasn't been invoked in two centuries, I'm feeling extravagantly grateful at the moment."

"At the moment, I'd like a medical team."

Chapter Twenty-three

The Courani medics salved and bandaged his wounds amidst a flurry of other activity: some sort of priests performing funeral rites for the dead heralds, security officers and Royal Guards examining the assassin and combing the area for any signs of accomplices, various bureaucrats and courtiers running this way or that in a panic about some related matter or political nuance this had brought to their attention. In the middle of it all, a young man in dark blue brocade walked up to Piett and pulled him away from the medics and suspicious security officers for a moment. He pressed a small, wide-muzzled and blocky-looking pistol into Piett's hands, and spoke quietly, lips barely moving.

"My name is Illias. Thank you for saving my father. The local militia is being mobilized, and I must go with it, but I am not convinced that the palace is safe yet. Someone will be very angry with you now, and the guard are not always reliable defenders, even for the Emperor himself-- as you have seen. I would not have you walk into another attempt, on you or on my father, unarmed. Chai va, Cour-katas!"

He walked away, leaving Piett both grateful and unsettled, and with just enough time to tuck the weapon into an hidden pocket before the medics clustered around him again. He shooed them away for a moment, long enough to produce his comlink and give an abbreviated version of recent events to Vice Admirals Misth and Litsen. Gradually, as they saw to him, they and the other assorted Courani around them drifted in the direction of the throne room, drifting in the wake of the Emperor, now flanked by guards on all sides and wearing a thick armor mantle that covered his shoulders and upper chest down to the bottom of his ribcage. The general excitement and chaos around them increased as their proximity to the throne decreased, and they were surrounded by ever more important looking people- the greens of noble houses and others given noble orders, the pale blues of distant members of the royal family, and the occasional flicker of dark blue walking up beside the Emperor for the moment- one of his five sons, checking in as the hunt for other potential assassins or conspiracies progressed. After a quarter of an hour- they were traveling by a circuitous route, presumably to avoid convenient spots for ambushes and assassinations, Piett realized that no new reports had been made in almost ten minutes. Tension and anticipation were in the air like static and moisture before a thunderstorm. Somewhere, he had no doubt, something important was happening, something they ought to know about but didn't.

An elaborate, arched bridge connected this tower to the Court Tower where the throne room was, and as they crossed it, Piett felt vulnerable, exposed.

Halfway across the bridge, his paranoia was justified- somewhere in the tower behind him, he heard gunfire, and flashes of the same suddenly lit one of the balconies below them. The entourage broke into a run, racing across the bridge, squeezed between its slender rails, moving with such speed and desperation that Piett feared someone would be knocked off. Everyone was yelling, everyone was panicking, and Piett remembered Illias's admonitions about safety. Cursing, he pushed forward, trying to position himself closer to Cassian, though what protection he could provide and fourteen royal guards could not, he was unsure.

Something exploded on the bridge behind him, pressing a wave of fierce, heated air against his back, sending his mind spiraling back to the forest fire on Endor for a single terrifying, semi-delusional second. Then he was running forward again, and someone was shouldering past him, face reddened, bleeding from his ears and nose and the corners of his eyes, screaming the Emperor's name again, and there was something in his hand that might be a weapon. He was large enough to be pushing the crowd aside, and Piett tore after him, off the burning bridge and into the tower where Emperor and guards were clustered near the doors of the throne room, stepping inside with little more than brisk speed, the Emperor giving commands in a firm, strident voice, sounding confident and in control.

Piett reached the man as the man reached the door and the Emperor stepped onto the second terrace, diving and tackling him, dragging him down by the legs, then, spinning him onto his back so that he could see the man's hands and his face.

The thing in his hand was not a weapon but a Courani holo-rod, marked as an emergency dispatch.

"I have," the man gasped in nearly incomprehensible Basic, "a message… for the Emperor."

~~~~~~~~~~

M'thas and Raien had spent the last several hours pacing opposite walls of Raien's quarter, waiting as new information came up on the computer terminal. M'thas, suspicious, had asked Raien to continue slicing files- this time, anything he could find about the alliance between conservative parties. They had found an overwhelming amount of official information, and some unofficial data as well- correspondences between Courani officers, politicians, and nobles, some of which had disconcerting implications written in between the lines. They'd determined to M'thas's satisfaction that not only was their a plot for a coup underway, but that it would be soon- inside the next few days. The more they learned, the more sinister it seemed, and the more likely to succeed. Piecing together what wasn't said, there were two traitors at court- one of them who was a member of the royal family, would succeed the Emperor, and was behind the upcoming coup, and another, an advisor, who was his tool and source of information.

Nowhere were they overtly named, and this infuriated M'thas.

So, they paced, and looked for a solution. Raien hit upon it- if he cross-referenced their communiqué histories, he ought to find one link, presumably unnamed, inside the palace. Once he did that, slicing open those correspondences ought to reveal the actual assassination orders, and by process of elimination give them the name of the man behind the coup.

It did, in complete and devastating detail.

It also gave timetables for the assassination and takeover. They converted the time from the Courani calendar, calculated the correct time zone-- and found, to their chagrin, that it was already underway.

M'thas attached the files to a single message, flagged it as urgent, and fired it off to every ship commander in the fleet.

~~~~~~~~~

Vice Admiral Litsen was already on alert, after Kinneth's- the Admiral's- update and warning, when two other pieces of information reached her.

The first was Brevet Captain Char's sliced files.

The second came when she glanced up from the report, out the transparisteel window, and saw a Courani fleet emerging from hyperspace. If the Brevet Captain was right, a rebellious fleet.

She hated Rebels.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Piett let the bloody-faced messenger stand, and instantly the man sank back to one knee.

"Your Mazhestai," he said, sounding shaken and uncertain, "I have news. I… Your Mazhestai, I…"

He was crying, silently, and paused to breathe.

"Speak quickly," The Emperor said.

"Mazhestai…" he repeated the words like a plea, like a mantra, like an invocation- anything that would bring mercy or relief. "Mazhestai, your sons are dead."

The court was silent.

The Emperor opened his mouth, trembling visibly, but did not turn to look at the man, as if averting his eyes could make the bad news go away.

"How?" he asked. His voice was quiet and hoarse, and in the stillness of the throne room it carried easily and well, and echoed once.

"Killed, all of them, by assassins and traitors in the guard. There is fighting across the city… Your Mazhestai, Your Mazhestai…" the man broke down again.

The Emperor made a vague gesture with one hand, his eyes focused somewhere far away. "Kovall… Tanchis… send my guard away, to the base of this tower. See that the wounded are cared for… have any further reports brought to me. I must know… I must know who is loyal."

The two advisors at the Emperor's side moved to comply at once, their faces chalk-white and drawn.

The messenger stayed kneeling and weeping, and after a moment the Emperor turned to him, but did not meet his eyes.

"Even Astya? I had… I had him sent south, so he could see that girl… the Marquis' daughter… in her game." Every detail was spoken carefully, as if the specifics were what was important.

"Yes, Your Mazhestai. The dantra-field was bombed."

"Alycinthara?"

"No news from her, Your Mazhestai."

"Good, then- that is good, I think."

The Guard were cleared out of the throne room, the messenger included, and the doors shut again. Only the Emperor, his two advisors, and Piett remained.

Illias's gun felt heavy in his pocket. His hand was on it, and his mind elsewhere- with his ships in orbit, with the Guard at the base of the tower, with anyone in the city wearing blue robes and silver jewelry.

He looked up in time to see the younger of the two advisors- Kovall- slide a knife under the Emperor's armored mantle.

The knife slid back out, stained red, and the Emperor crumpled. Kovall moved with the grace and economy of motion Piett had seen at Palpatine's court, among the best of the dancers and courtesans, and on Emberlene among the Mistryl guards.

He looked at Piett, and began walking toward him, collected and calm.

"You next, I think, foreigner," he said, and Piett drew Illias's gun and pulled the trigger. There was a sharp whine and a coughing noise, and a cloud of glittering splinters darted through the air and into Kovall's chest, perforating the pale green of his robes and spotting them lightly with the same sort of red that stained his knife. Kovall fell backwards stiffly, like something inflexible, inanimate, as Piett ran past him and to the Emperor's side, pointing the gun cautiously at the other advisor.

"Your majesty?" he asked, kneeling to examine the wound, as ignoring the weapon pointed at him, the advisor did the same.

Cassian coughed wetly by way of response, coughed again, then spoke.

"He was listening to my cousin more than I thought, I see. Mustn't let Usan take the throne- usurpers are beneath the dignity of the house, my father said. Awful sense of humor."

The kneeling advisor, Tanchis, took his hand, and as he did so a degree of clarity faded back into the Emperor's eyes.

"My cousin cannot take the throne, I haven't the time to marry off my daughter, and the bastards killed my sons, Tanchis. Whatever am I going to do?"

He sounded intrigued, as if it was a philosophical and not a pragmatic question.

"Your Mazhestai," Piett said, throat dry, "my people have medical technology beyond yours. If we can get you to a shuttle, and from there to one of my ships-"

"An admirable solution, but I think my time is too short too allow for that." Cassian told him. "I must concentrate. I need to find-" he broke off and laughed, a wetter sound than his earlier cough. The laughing broke down into another cough, however, that sounded worse- it had bubbles in it, and blood trickled from the corner of the Emperor's mouth.

"An admirable solution," he said again, slurring the last two syllables so that the b-sound all but disappeared. "Tanchis, quick- find me five of the Guard you trust not to hurry me along, and unseal a holorod marked for declarations."

The advisor stood quickly, sent Piett a startled glance, then looked away and ran out of the throne room.

"What solution?" Piett asked, wondering if the man was still lucid, or if his mind had wandered to some time past or some imagined future.

"I promised you noble orders," Cassian said, sounding remorseful.

"I don't need them. You don't need to apologize or-"

"You do, you do. And I do, but not for that. Not for anything yet."

Tanchis and the guards returned, carrying a holorod with them.

"Activate it, and help me to sit. Piett, beside me." The command was both Courani and Imperial, and both Tanchis and Piett obeyed. The rod glowed softly with a rosy light, its end pointed at Cassian's face, reflecting from the blood still trickling from his mouth.

"On this the fifteenth day of the third month of the twenty-fourth year of my reign, I, Cassian Azarile the Fourth… of that name… do… do bestow the orders of nobility and the title and lands of the Marquisate of Cheila upon the man beside me, Kinneth Piett. Furthermore, in the presence of five witnesses as the law demands-" here, Tanchis panned the rod sideways, so its light swept across the faces of the guardsmen- "I do adopt the Marquis of Cheila as my son, and as he is the only son of mine surviving, I make him heir to my crown and kingdom- hereafter his line will bear the name of Azarile, and such descendants or heirs as he may have or designate will rule Couran and her peoples so long as they survive as the rightful Emperors and royal family. I do these things in the sight of my people, my forefathers, and the True Powers that drive us all. So I say."

The rose glow of the holorod faded.

"Crown him and broadcast it," the Emperor said to Tanchis, then turned to Piett again. "An admiral solution." He looked unduly amused, looking as though he was about to laugh, and then stopped breathing.

Piett, too shocked and distraught to wrap his mind around this, to truly believe it, moved back, away from the body of the Emperor, and stood.

Tanchis and the guards sank to their knees before him.

Even dead, Cassian retained his amused smile.

Conclusion... Part V- Emperor