The Thousand Emperors Read Free Page A

was Luc’s call, of course, as expeditionary leader. If he was wrong, he’d pay for it with his career.
    ‘It’s going to be most of a day before the storm reaches its peak,’ said Luc. ‘If we’ve hit him as hard as you say, then we still have time to figure out why
we’re having comms problems before we go any further.’
    Marroqui stepped up close enough to Luc that their noses were almost touching. ‘You’re just a bureaucrat,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘No, less than that: a glorified
clerk. I have the safety and the honour of my Clan to consider. I say we go ahead and clear this damn place out now .’
    ‘If you go against my orders,’ Luc replied, ‘you’re going to find yourself in a shitstorm of trouble.’
    ‘Like I give a damn,’ Marroqui snapped, turning back to his soldiers and ordering them to split into separate teams, each to make its way down a different shaft before meeting up
again at the reactor room.
    Most of the soldiers voiced their affirmatives and made their way back out of the prayer hall, while a few stayed behind. Luc’s hands tightened into fists by his sides, the frustration
pooling inside him like a hot lava tide.
    ‘How many of our ‘skeets are primed with explosives?’ Marroqui asked his second-in-command, a pale-skinned woman with a scar on one side of her nose.
    ‘We’ve used up two, but we still have three left,’ the woman replied.
    ‘Fine. Once we’ve established line-of-sight with those missing ‘skeets, let’s send those three all the way down to the bottom and have them focus on taking out any
automated defences or hunter-killers Antonov might have left waiting for us.’
    Marroqui glanced back at Luc. ‘You’ll wait here, Mr Gabion. Someone has to monitor the uplink with the lander.’
    ‘Your mosquitoes can monitor things just fine without my help. I’m coming with you and your men.’
    Marroqui regarded him with distaste. ‘You’re from Benares, right?’
    Luc stared back at him. In that moment, he finally understood the reason for Marroqui’s unrelenting hostility. It had nothing to do with the rivalry between the Sandoz and SecInt; it was
because he came from Benares.
    ‘I don’t know what they taught you in those combat temples they trained you in, Master Marroqui, but coming from Benares doesn’t make me a traitor.’
    ‘I never said—’
    ‘So you can either take me down there with you,’ Luc continued regardless, ‘or take the risk of having to explain to our superiors why you let Antonov escape a second time, right on the eve of Reunification. Your choice.’
    A muscle in one of Marroqui’s cheeks twitched. For a moment Luc thought the Clan-leader might strike him, but instead the other man nodded curtly, his face impassive.
    ‘You follow every order I give you while we’re down there, instantly, and without question, until the moment the lander comes back to pick us up. Is that clear?’
    Luc nodded. ‘As crystal.’
    ‘Shit. We’ve lost another mosquito,’ said Marroqui’s second in command, waiting by the entrance. ‘No, hang on . . . that’s another three out of contact, all
in just the last minute.’
    ‘What about the rest of the ‘skeets?’ asked Marroqui.
    ‘They all check out,’ she replied.
    ‘We’d better get moving,’ said Marroqui, abruptly businesslike. ‘Anything out of the ordinary’ – and with this, he glanced reflexively towards Luc –
‘report it immediately .’
    The entire complex turned out to still be pressurized. By the time they reached one of the shafts, mandalas and statues had given way to rough undecorated surfaces barely
visible in the near-lightless gloom. Luc’s IR filters showed an open elevator platform dead ahead, ringed by a steel rail. According to the map, the shaft went straight down for almost a
kilometre. A faint breeze drifted up from below.
    ‘How come these are working when the power’s out?’ he asked.
    ‘They run on localized emergency power