Sten and the Mutineers Read online

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  THE STEN SERIES

  DEDICATION

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 2016 by Allan Cole.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  www.wildsidepress.com

  THE STEN SERIES

  Sten

  The Wolf Worlds

  The Court of a Thousand Suns

  Fleet of the Damned

  Revenge of the Damned

  Return of the Emperor

  Vortex

  End of Empire

  DEDICATION

  For Kathryn, my love, my everything

  and

  Drew And Vicky

  whose love and care saw me through

  and

  Scott Braun

  who gave me the strength to carry on.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This tale is set between Sten #2, The Wolf Worlds, and Sten #3, The Court of a Thousand Suns, when Sten was still a young Mantis officer.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE COVENANTER

  Mahoney started up the cargo ramp, then stepped aside as two Psaurs loomed out of the swirling nighttime fog, back claws clicking against the ramp, sawtooth-rimmed jaws unhinged in what Mahoney thought might be anger. But who could tell with the Psaurs? To most beings, their natural look was homicidal.

  When they reached Mahoney, they paused, two pairs of fierce red eyes peering down at him.

  The tallest one hiccupped, then slurred, “Lookin’ for th’ Covenanter, cheena?”

  The shorter one gave what Mahoney could have sworn was a girlish giggle—as issued through a rusty exhaust pipe—then said, “’Course he is, Ursie, baby. Can’tcha see that look he’s got? Wants nothing better’n get drunk and take a Joygirl for a grav ride.”

  She looked closer at Mahoney. “Or, mebbe a…joyboy?”

  Reflexively, Mahoney shook his head. The lady Psaurs shrugged. “Makes no diff’ to us, cheena.”

  Mercifully, her companion broke in. Pointed. “Straight up the ramp. Escalator on left. Won’t see it. Too dark. But you can hear it. Bad bearings. Sounds like a stepped on Ceres cat. Head for th’ cat. Then stairs. Careful with stairs.”

  He made a zip/splat motion with one broad claw… “Greasy. Slip and fall. Red sign. Mebbe not see in fog. Hail th’ house. Somebody’ll come and getcha.”

  Mahoney thanked them and started up the ramp. Behind him, the lady Psaurs called out, “Tell Janiz that Ursie ’n his mate sentcha. Our Janiz’ll set you right.”

  Without those directions, Mahoney would have been lost in the warren that was Port Soward, the busiest spaceport on Prime World—which meant the entire Empire.

  On top of that, the Covenanter was at the arse end of the arse end of Soward. Mahoney had to negotiate a three-level architectural mess of warehouses, tool shops, and repair bays all cloaked in a dense nighttime fog.

  Once he thought he spotted a red light glittering through the fog and pushed on. But he kept losing sight of the glitter and found himself moving in a circle.

  Finally, in total frustration and feeling like a potato-gobbling Irish fool, he raised his head and bellowed:

  “Ahoy the house!”

  A moment later he sensed a presence and instinctively reached out to see what it was. But before his fingers could touch, a door opened. Glaring light and loud sound poured over him. A blur and then out of the glare stepped a remarkably beautiful women.

  He was momentarily rendered speechless by her presence. Finally, he blurted, “You must be Janiz.”

  Her smile added to her stunning beauty. “That’s me,” she said. “Janiz Kerleh. Chief bartender, cook and bottle washer.”

  She opened the door wider, stepping aside and motioning for him to enter.

  “This way, Sr. Mahoney,” she said. “Engineer Raschid is expecting you.”

  * * * *

  Hard to find though it might be, The Covenanter was packed arses to carapace with beings from every corner of the Empire. Be they ET or human, all seemed to be having a boisterously boozy good time. Mahoney even saw traditional enemies like the Suzdal and Jochians competing in round-buying generosity. The main thing seemed to be that they were all space rats together, from greasy engine devils and brawny boson’s mates to tight-fisted merchant captains and rumpled techs, who all seemed to be wearing corrective lenses, whether they had faces or not.

  The bar was decorated Antique Space Age style, with mysterious bits of machinery, oddly shaped tools, and colorful emblems and banners from the distant past where—as the old timers liked to say—beings were beings and interstellar jumps frequently ended in maiming or even death.

  As Mahoney followed Janiz, the crowd magically parted before her. And what a magical sight she made: all that bounty contained in a short emerald green tunic, cut low to better display her creamy white charms. Long legs sheathed in thigh-high boots. Fiery red hair spilling over pale shoulders.

  On one side of the Covenanter stood a long bar—made of a rock-hard material so black it seemed to devour light rather than reflect it. In the center was a jumble of tables and chairs of both human and ET design. Booths lined the other three walls. One of the booths, Mahoney noted, had a drawn curtain. As they approached, he spotted a brass place plate at the base, which read: Booth C. Reserved.

  Janiz called out, “Raschid, honey. Your guest is here.”

  The curtain parted. Lounging in the booth was The Eternal Emperor.

  “Slide on in, Ian,” the Emperor said. “The narcobeer’s fine.”

  The Emperor’s spymaster grinned. “Music to an Irishman’s heart, boss,” he said and slid on in.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE ETERNAL EMPEROR

  As chief of the Emperor’s Mercury Corps—along with its super secret blackarts ancillary, Mantis Section—General Ian Mahoney was one of the few people who knew that his boss was wont to—as he put it—“go walkabout” without any notice.

  He’d disguise h
imself as an ordinary citizen to embark on these mini-journeys. He favored the guise of a chief engineer, hinting that such a role came from his very distant past.

  How distant? No one really knew. All histories that dealt with the subject strictly avoided that sort of speculation—much less scholarly study.

  There were rumors—the sort of rumors only a spymaster would hear—that certain historians who expressed interest in that area had been contacted by a rich benefactor and steered into other fascinating subjects of study with guarantees of fully-funded research. The few who resisted in the spirit of academic freedom tended to disappear and never be heard from again.

  The walkabout business was the Emperor’s way of what he called “rejoining the herd.”

  “What everybody’s really talking about is what I want to know,” he’d say during one of his frequent booze sessions with Mahoney.

  “Are they working? Kids doing okay? I know they think the government’s full of drakh—and it sure as clot is—but are they really mad about it? Or just blowing steam? I want to see it up close and personal, not through the filter of one of Parliament’s functionaries.”

  And so the supreme ruler Mahoney was presently looking at wore a merchantman’s uniform that had survived many orbits, with tattered Chief Engineer tabs on either shoulder and a greasy Space Workers Union seniority badge pinned to his chest. He did not resemble anyone the royal courtiers of Prime World had ever seen.

  The Eternal Emperor was a big man. Handsome. Strong features, marked by steely blue eyes that had a slight Asian cast to them. Age? A drinking buddy might guess thirty-five going on forty.

  When the Emperor spoke, he sometimes used unfamiliar words—words that when Mahoney looked them up would turn out to be from an age so distant it was all but lost to memory.

  Sometimes when asked a question he’d drift off into extended thought, as if the question had triggered some memory so buried in the past that he’d have to peel back the layers century by century.

  His moods could be mercurial, although he was always deadly calm in a crisis. At the moment, the Emperor looked cheery—a man looking forward to a boozy night on the town. Ending with some nice soft and fragrant company.

  Janiz spoke up, startling Mahoney, who’d momentarily forgotten she was there.

  She said, “You look like you could use another, Rashid, honey.” She turned to Ian. “How about you, sweetie? What’s your preference?”

  Mahoney nodded at the Emperor’s setup. “Same as the boss,” he said. “Narcobeer with a synthalk back.”

  Janiz laughed. Ian liked the sound of it. She said, “You a barrel bombardier too, honey?”

  Mahoney frowned. “Barrel bombardier?”

  “That’s what he calls them,” she said, nodding at the Emperor. “Barrel bombs. Drops the shot glass into the mug of beer—bombs away! So I named him the Barrel Bombardier.”

  They all laughed, and then Janiz collected the Emperor’s empty glasses and ankled toward the bar. Mahoney couldn’t help but gaze lustfully at those swaying hips.

  “She’s all that…and more, Ian,” the Eternal Emperor said, as if reading his thoughts.

  Mahoney swung back, feeling a bit guilty. He said, “Is she…uh…I mean, are you and she…you know…”

  “On and off,” the Emperor said. “More off than on these days. We had quite the fling twenty years or so ago. Met her on walkabout. She was taking business classes, or some such, by day. Little Joygirl work at night. Down on her luck when we met. Run over by a bad choice in boyfriends, or something. I was down myself. It was a bad time in the throneroom, I’ll tell you that.

  “Anyway, we clicked. Got her a place. Some off-the-books government work. And told her I’d mostly be off on merchant runs and I’d see her when I could. Meanwhile, she could do what she liked.

  “Eventually passions cooled, as they say, but we remained friends. So I set her up in business.” He waved around the room. “We own it together, with me playing the part of the very silent partner.”

  Janiz was coming back through the crowd, carrying a tray of drinks.

  Mahoney said, “So you and she…are…uh…”

  The Emperor laughed. “Sorry, Ian. Out of luck tonight.” He grew serious. “They’re getting to me, Ian.”

  Mahoney didn’t have to ask who they were. “Yeah, I know, boss.”

  “And Janiz… Well, she has a way of…”

  He let the rest trail off as Janiz reached them and started unloading her tray. She looked at Mahoney. “You look lonely, honey,” she said. “Some silly woman disappoint you?”

  Mahoney sighed. “If wishes were wings, as my granny used to say.” And he thought—dear old granny was Irish and knew how hopeless that would be.

  But then, the whole situation suddenly struck Mahoney as incredibly funny. He started laughing and kept on laughing until it turned to coughing and the Emperor was slapping him on the back.

  “Drink up, Ian,” he said. “A barrel bomb will cure what ails you.”

  And so he dropped the shotglass of synthalk into the mug of narcobeer, then chugging it down in one long pull.

  He set the empty mug down. Burped. “I’ve taken my medication,” he said, “and I feel much better now.”

  More laughter. Finally, Janiz ankled away to tend her other customers.

  Silence.

  Then the Emperor reached under the table and palmed a button. The curtain closed and all sound from the outside vanished. Mahoney realized this was state of the state of the art security stuff. Impervious to electronic penetration.

  The Eternal Emperor leaned across the table. “Now, tell me, Ian,” he said. “What the clot are we going to do about those damned mutineers?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE MISSION

  “I know the situation is an embarrassment, Your Highness,” Mahoney said, dropping all informality the moment the curtains shut off the outside world. “But we can’t just send in an Imperial Cruiser and snatch them up.”

  “I don’t mind a little embarrassment, General,” the Emperor said, “as long as I have a willing scapegoat I can blame it on. Some functionary who will fall on his sword for the greater good of the Empire and a guaranteed lifetime of wealth.”

  “Yes sir,” was all Mahoney said. When the boss wanted the floor, it was best to give it to him.

  “For someone to steal an entire space-train of Imperium X would be blow enough,” the Emperor said. “But we’d just be talking piracy, and the guys with the big com units are all insured for pirates. It would shake the drakh out of the insurance companies, but I could shore them up with a little creative bookkeeping.

  “Meanwhile, I’d send a cruiser—hell, I might send a whole clotting fleet—and I’d kick some pirate ass and get the Imperium X back. Put it in the royal treasury to offset all those credits I’d spent.”

  He sighed, took a pull on the mug, then said, “But it wasn’t pirates that stole a 125-kilometer-long ore train. No, it was a group of my very own citizens. True blue and loyal Imperial merchantmen who proved to be vipers. Traitors.” And he almost spat the last—“Mutineers.”

  Once again, silence reigned.

  Then the Emperor sighed. “I’m done ranting, Ian,” he said. “Now, tell me what we’re up against. What are their latest demands?”

  Mahoney said, “Sir, they claim they’ve got a handsome offer from those rogues over in the Possnet Sector. A fortune in credits, Your Majesty, plus protection from us.”

  “I’m not surprised,” the Emperor said. “All that Imperium X. The second most valuable commodity in my Empire.”

  Mahoney nodded. It went without saying that the most valuable commodity was AM2. The stuff that fueled the Empire. But without Imperium X as the shield, Anti-Matter Two was useless. And without AM2—the ultimate energy source—the Empire would collapse.

  He
said, “What they want is for us to better the deal.” After a pause, he added, “And they want amnesty.”

  The Emperor glared at Mahoney. “Amnesty?” he said. “I’ll give them amnesty. I’ll have them skinned alive. I’ll have them drawn and quartered. I’ll have them—” He broke off. Drained his glass. Muttered to himself.

  Mahoney frowned. “Drawn and quartered, sir?”

  The Emperor waved the question away. “I hope you have a plan, Ian.” His tone was icy.

  “I do, sir,” Mahoney said. “At least the beginnings of one. As you know, sir, if they spot us coming, they’ll just go over to the pirates. Sell their goods and pickle their livers for the rest of their lives.”

  “Which is why I’m meeting with you right now, Ian,” the Emperor said, “and not a table-full of generals and admirals. We need sneaky, here, and you give good sneaky.”

  “Well, sir,” Ian said, “if you really want sneaky, it so happens we have a Mantis team in the area. Just over by the Lupus Cluster.”

  The Emperor frowned, then remembered. “That young lieutenant,” he said. “The one who handled the Wolf Worlds matter so well. His name was…Sten. Yes. That’s it. Sten.”

  “The very man, sir,” Mahoney said.

  The Emperor frowned. “I thought I had him promoted to captain,” he said.

  “You did, sir.”

  “And wasn’t I going to put him in charge of my Gurkha guard?”

  “You were, sir.”

  The Emperor’s brow cleared. “Ah, I recall now. All that trouble broke out in the Frontier Worlds. Greedy mining companies. Smugglers. Pirates. So I thought it best to freeze him in place. Keep him handy for when we needed him.”

  “Yessir. That was the decision, sir.”

  “How wise of me,” the Emperor said.

  “Indeed, sir,” Mahoney said. He paused, then added. “I thought it best not to mention his impending promotion until the situation changed, sir. Besides, the seasoning will do him good.”

  “If I were young Sten,” the Emperor said, “I’d be pretty ticked off that I didn’t get any recognition for cleaning up that Lupus Cluster mess.”