Vortex (Sten #7). Allan Cole

a grimace held out his hand.

      Sten shook. Then he pointed around at the signs of destruction. “What happened?”

      Menynder sighed. “I hate to be the one to break the news, but . . . the Khaqan is dead.”

      Sten had to yank fast into his diplomatic bag of tricks to turn the gape that was growing onto his face into professional surprise.

      “Clottin’ what?” Kilgour said. “An’ who kill’t ‘th’ ol’-”

      “Natural causes,” Menynder assured them. He eased his collar away from his neck. “I was there myself. Saw the whole thing.

      “It was a terrible experience. We were all just about to sit down to . . . dinner, and the Khaqan keeled over on the table. Dead. Just like that.” He snapped his lingers.

      “There was an autopsy?” Sten asked coolly.

      “Lord, did we have an autopsy,” Menynder said. “Nobody wanted to . . . I mean, under the circumstances, we thought it wise. Two teams worked on him. And we really pored over those reports. Just to make double clottin’ sure.” He fingered the collar again. “It was natural causes all right.”

      “When is the funeral?” Sten asked. This had torn the whole thing. The Emperor would not be pleased.

      “Uh . . . kind of hard to say. You see, we all agreed to agree until the final coroner’s report. Things sort of fell apart before we got to talking about a funeral.” Menynder indicated the bomb craters. “If you see what I mean.”

      Sten did.

      “I don’t want to point fingers,” Menynder said, “but the Jochians started it. Squabbling among themselves over who was to be the new Khaqan. The rest of us weren’t consulted. Although we told them plainly, before the shooting, that we had some ideas of our own.”

      “Naturally,” Sten said.

      “Anyway, when the Jochians ran out of hot words, they started fighting. We all hunkered down. Then a stray shell landed right in the middle of a Tork neighborhood. It was . . . pretty bad. My home world thought it best to send a militia.”

      “Oh?” Sten said.

      “Just to protect my people. Not to get into anything with the Jochians.”

      “How did that work out?”

      “Not well.” Menynder sighed. “I didn’t think it would. There have been some . . . ahem . . . sharp exchanges, if you know what I mean.”

      Sten could see just fine.

      “Of course, once our militia showed up, well the Bogazi and the Suzdal militias decided their folks needed protecting, too.”

      “I figured that,” Sten said. It was getting worse and worse.

      “Okay, you’ve got the picture. Now, I’ve got some real bad news for you,” Menynder said, checking his timepiece and looking nervously around the spaceport.

      “Och, so thae’s th’ braw news, i’ it?” Kilgour growled, liking it even less than Sten, if that was possible.

      “See, everyone’s been glued to the emergency bands, praying for the cavalry to show up. We all heard your broadcasts. Folks probably overloaded the Jane’s fiche, checking out the Victory.” He pointed at the sleek craft behind Sten that was the Emperor’s ship. “Personally, I already knew. Pride myself in keeping up at my old trade. But I had only vaguely heard of you.” He nodded at Sten.

      Sten cursed under his breath, remembering the com officer saying he had tried everything.

      “So . . . I’m the cavalry,” Sten said.

      “You got it, Ambassador,” Menynder said. “I checked the Imperial Who’s Who. Pretty impressive. Hero soldier. Hero diplomat. The Eternal Emperor’s main man. At least, that’s how it’s playing on Jochi.”

      Sten could imagine. This was not good. Definitely not how he had planned this miserable day.

      “Everybody’s on the way now,” Menynder said. “I hustled like clot to beat them. And they’re going to want your ear. They’ll kick reptile snot out of each other trying to rip it off your corpse, if they have to.”

      Menynder let this sink in a second before going on. “See, whoever has you, is top dog.” He winced. “Gotta watch myself. Some of my best friends are Suzdals.”

      “I assume you had some sort of a plan,” Sten said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

      “I sure did,” Menynder said. “Although I might have trouble convincing you of my good intentions.”

      “Ah. I see,” Sten said. “You were thinking we could go have a nice quiet word in some safe Tork neighborhood. Am I right?”

      Menynder grinned. “What the clot? It was worth a try. If not, maybe you better get out of here. Fast.”

      Sten ignored this. Thinking. He got a glimmer.

      “How far to the embassy?” Neutral turf. No one would dare fire on or even near the Emperor’s embassy.

      “Clear across town,” Menynder said. “You’d never make it.”

      There was a grind and heavy clank of tracks. Sten jolted up to see an armored ground vehicle push its way through rubble. A small flag flew from a standard next to the tank’s chain guns. Sten didn’t have to ask. It was Jochian.

      There was a cry from the other side of the field. Sten turned to see Cind running like the wind, her Bhor scouts right behind her. She was yelling some kind of warning and gesturing at a low building behind her.

      Mortar dust suddenly sprayed out from the building. The entire front collapsed. Another track emerged under a rain of metal and brickwork. The track was also armored. It had chain guns and flew a flag — Jochian, as well.

      Cind panted up to Sten. “And that’s not all,” she said, pointing at the track. “There’s more of them. Plus soldiers. And from the sound of things, a great big mob on its way.”

      The tracks’ main gun turrets suddenly swung around. They had spotted each other. Simultaneously, their guns opened up, hurling spent uranium AP shells.

      Admiral Mason’s voice crackled over the Victory’s outside speakers. “I suggest we leave, Ambassador,” he said.

      Sten agreed. He turned to Menynder. “You better make yourself scarce,” he said. “Good luck.”

      “We’re going to need a lot more than luck,” Menynder said.

      And he puffed away for cover. Sten and his group sprinted to the ship and thundered up the ramp.

      Behind them, first one track exploded, then the other. A mortar round slammed in. More tracks appeared. Guns blazing.

      Braced against the gees exerted by the Victory’s fast takeoff, Sten watched the battle scene shrink away from him on the bridge’s main screen.

      Some welcome, he thought. Now, how the clot was he going to unravel this muck-up?

      * * * *

      Sten huddled with Mason in the admiral’s cabin, trying to figure out what to do next. As they worried over several possibilities — ranging from poor to plain stupid — the reports kept flooding in. Jochi was no longer silent.

      Sten’s eyes swept over a sheaf of transcriptions the com officer had handed to him. “They’ve gone mad,” he summarized. “Everybody’s calling everybody else all kinds of obscenities. Prodding the other guy to come out and fight like beings.” He read on, then gave a low whistle and lifted his eyes. “Which they are doing.” He tapped one report. “A Jochi militia caught some Torks in a building. They wouldn’t come out to be slaughtered. So the Jochians burned it around their ears.”

      “Wonderful,” Mason said. “Plus we