Kyle, part 1

The small band of underground fighters crouched inside the cargo container, holding their breaths and praying that this night, of all nights; a warehouse worker wouldn't look too closely at a stack of plasteel containers that weren't on any manifest.

Through the one-way mesh window of the container they watched the scene unfold on the open landing field of the star port -- watched in horror and thought of the oppression that the people of the Thousand Suns had lived under for the past twelve years.

On a temporary stage, a number of troopers and guards, all heavily armed and armored, stood guard while waiting for the luxury grav car to empty out its passenger.

"I can take him--", it was Corporal Sven Johansen, the renegade Imperial Marine who went AWOL when he found his family had been killed by tax collectors. He thumbed the safety of his combat rifle to the off position, and took aim through the laser peeps. But a firm hand gripped his shoulder, and he lowered the weapon.

"No, Sven, wait. I know you have a bill to repay, but this must be done right. Wait for him to get out and begin speaking. Then the time will be right. Then we'll have our revenge." Maj. Burnes thought of his own family; all forced into hiding when the church settlement they worked on was shut down for economic reasons. They fled, along with the monks and the rest of the settlers, to a small agro station on the large moon of Jardus VII -- proud hydro-farmers now living as refugees. All the churches had been closed, and the lands requisitioned for the new Imperial Government. Families disrupted, planets cut off, universities emptied -- all in the name of Imperial Bureaucracy.

The grav car came up to the speaking platform, and an honor guard, dressed in red combat armor and carrying sleek, expensive laser carbines, formed a cordon for the honored Imperial Person who had come to this out of the way military depot to address sector wide media reporters on the recent war victories.

The assassin known only as Celena rechecked the seating of the suppressor on her combat pistol. She had once been a Baroness, living a life of study and recreation in an orbital palace above a wildlife preserve world. Her family had been benevolent and a great patron of the arts and sciences, but nevertheless, when the new junta government had seized control of the Imperial Moot and ensconced their own Emperor - Celena's family (like all the other noble families) had to renounce their titles and possessions, and begin life anew in whatever manner they could. Celena used the tracking and survival skills of her childhood, with her understanding of animal instincts, to survive as an assassin, working for the underground.

Finally, he came into view. Wearing his trademark long black leather duster, and with his head now shaved. The Imperial tattoo on his scalp showed a contrasting read to his fair skin. The black-rimmed mirror shades reflected the bright red armour of his bodyguards, and he flashed a winning smile to the senior officers. He mounted the stage, approaching the podium.

Suddenly, the massed troopers and starmen gathered on the open field of the star port began chanting. "E-Kyle, E-Kyle, E-Kyle . . ."

The young emperor reached the podium and raised his hands into the air in a quick flash of movement, with a broad grin. The soldiers in the field went crazy at this, and began firing their automatic weapons in the air with the excitement. The gunpowder smoke from the caseless rounds filled the night air with a pungent smell, and the noise was deafening. Through it all, though, you could still hear, faintly, the unified chanting, "E-Kyle, E-Kyle, E-Kyle . . ."

In all the noise and the din, Burnes gave the shoulder of Cpl Johansen a squeeze, and said simply, "It's time."

Sven, with all the smoothness learned as a combat sniper in the Imperial Marines, took careful aim with the infrared laser peeps on his combat rifle, peering through the IR scope. He drew a bead on the head of the usurper leader - the man who took control of the one civilizing force in all the many star systems mankind had settled. In a brief instant, Johansen had a sharp pain when he thought of the Imperial Marine Corps that he lovingly served before the usurper took control of the entire Imperium. Then he squeezed the trigger.

The spray of the deadly APHE rounds should have reduced the head of the Emperor to so much jelly; instead the underground team was shocked to see just the disruption of what was a hologram. Damn! That's why they called him E-Kyle, it suddenly dawned on Burnes - they had come to a world to assassinate a hologram!

"Team, we are well and truly screwed, but if we hold our cool we can get out of here in one piece. Celena see what you can do to secure that modular cutter. Johansen, you and Marois take out that power generator. IR goggles for everyone as soon as the lights are out. Now everyone move, and I don't have to say this, but if you get immobilized you are on your own, devil take the hindmost. Good luck..."

*****

In his childhood, he would stroll about the arcology of his birth looking up into the clouds at the vast structure. From the moment of his first awareness, he knew he was born to rule such a place - a city full of humanity. More people than existed in most cities on other similar planets, and they were all his. They were owned by his family, serfs in a word. Heady stuff for a pre-adolescent, and now in retrospect it still sent an electric thrill through Lord Hollingsworth to think of it. An entire planet of 29 billion people, all sworn to the Abusheega Haut Hollingsworth family. The power over life and death. The power of a ruler, a Principe, a god.

Little damn good it did him...

"Get that shithole of a cargo deck depressurized now - and Deyo, make damned sure that our navigational beacon looks completely harmless."

The metallic voice over the intercom from the avionics chamber was sure and steady.

"Our navibeacon is true...still broadcasting...five by five...all is well."

"Danny, I want you to get in a suit and get down to the cargo deck, when they land that cutter inside us, you need to make sure they can get out without turning into jelly. Heeswyck, see what you can do to make them comfortable."

Danny was short for Dananainiewoaeeo, and his huge feline frame started blithely down the corridor. He was wearing his customary kimono with his clan's emblem on the back, and wuraji. As he neared the hatch to his chamber, he stripped down to just his lime green fundoshi, and shook out some loose fur. The humidifier problems with the life support system have been causing the big Aslan to lose fur at an alarming rate. Captain Hollingsworth meant to have words with Mitchell about that before the damned air filter system got clogged with calico fur balls.

Heeswyck, on the other hand, remained in the small cramped bridge of the ore freighter, and was slowly thinking. "I believe . . ." He walked in a small circle tapping his chin. "Yes, I can make a big pot of bisque, and a few groatl steaks, and maybe an elp stick salad. Captain, do you think the Virushi Sonata would be appropriate, or the Mozart?"

Heeswyck served as a Steward's Mate on a large commercial liner before joining the rebellion, and he put everything into terms of hosting a dinner party. It seemed to work for him.

"Doesn't cuffing matter - just get some food ready, and pronto!" Hollingsworth was getting short.

It turned out that the assassination attempt was a total botch-job that E-Kyle never really landed on Euphoria/0239 -- the whole review was done by a hologram posing as E-Kyle.

In the ensuing gunfight, Celena and Marois were dead. Celena. The very name was a discordant note . . .

But, Burnes and Johansen still lived, and they had stolen a modular cutter and were headed towards the "Rani of Lahore". The ship had been a minimal-crewed ore freighter until it was hi-jacked by Hollingsworth and his crew. Now it served as their clandestine base of operations.

Heeswyck started down the ladder way to the galley, when the hatch door on the avionics "shack" slammed open. Out rolled the usual cloud of thick smoke, and Deyo appeared wearing his usual work outfit. A black light-absorbent skinsuit, velcro'd ship boots, and a head full of IR gear. He kept the avionics/commo shack completely dark while working, and had the displays reworked to IR. Preferred to operate his console by sense of touch, and getting royally stoned before a mission didn't hurt either. Ever since the Zhodani telepath "sensed" his mind over Croder/0916 he wasn't taking any chances.

"Hello. I am PJ. You --"

"Fuck Deyo, we know it's you. Out with it."

"Well, it appears that the normal ID sensor on this ship does broadcast that we are a worthless hulk of a freighter, with half our crew being artificial persons." He refused to use the word robot now that Calixta-B9 shared his stateroom. "However...something about us being 4 parsecs from our normal run has gotten the locals VERY curious. We have a pair of Rampart interceptors heading this way."

*****

Skimming the high layers of a gas giant for reactor fuel was something only done by a man with his back to the wall. Lord Hollingsworth was such a man. He was the pickup for an assassination team that attempted to drop the most powerful man in the Orion Arm. That attempt had failed, and now he was fleeing for his life, with the remainder of the team.

They were undercover in an ore freighter called the "Rani of Lahore", and for some unknown reason, their ruse had been suspected. They were being pursued out system by a number of small Rampart fighters, and before they made the jump to inter-Newtonian space, they would have to fill the ship's fuel tanks. Creating a jump nexus required an ENORMOUS amount of fuel for the ship's drives, and it was normally available at a local star port -- or even from the wet oceans of a terrestrial world. But not when you are on the run.

So the "Rani of Lahore" decided to dip into the outer layers of the gas giant GCI-XXIII -- a Saturn like gas giant, surrounded with luminescent rings. The trip into the turbulent gasses wasn't pretty, and it usually exacted a huge tariff from the life of the ship, as well as the nerves of the crew.

Mitchell, the ship's engineer was in the drive room, cursing the captain in as many different tones and hues as she was capable, while trying to nurse the makeshift fuel filter she had devised. Didn't matter, the muck he was scooping up out of the cloudy turbulence would screw up any drive, no matter how many times it was filtered.

The crew on the bridge were being treated to the ride of their life, shaking all over the place, and being pummeled by handheld computers, coffee mugs, souvenirs from backwater worlds, and even a dirty pair of fundoshi that belonged to the chief armsman of the crew, an Aslan named "Danny".

In the middle of this horrific shaking, the nobleman Abusheega Haut Hollingsworth, captain of the "Rani" yelled out, gripping his command chair, "What the hell is that smell? Did something overturn? Someone find out if Mitchell let some of those gasses escape out of engineering!"

"Negative, Sir. It's not engineering," Ryan, ship's steward, paused his explanation, which he was shouting over the massive noise. He paused to reset and rebalance the stack of meal bowls he was delivering to the crew and passengers. It was 1400 ship time, and lunch was an hour late already -- he'd be damned if he were going to scrap 12 bowls of fresh sashimi. "No Sir," still shouting, "The smell is coming from the fresher just outside of the bridge. Turnitsa is in there, taking his daily constitutional."

"What!??! Tell him to get his ass -- never mind." Captain Hollingsworth started across the rocking deck towards the hatchway that led aft from the command section.

"Turnitsa, you damned hacker, get the hell out of the shitter! Don't you know we're almost done skimming? When we break from this giant's g-well, we'll need you to do a hot swap on the ship's computer to let Deyo get his navigationals online. Turnitsa! Do you here me in there? Get the hell out of there, pronto!"

There was a pause, then a voice, sure but quiet, came from the fresher stall - accompanied by a fresh stench. "Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered."

"What? Cut the crap, programmer, and get out here."

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Wait a second while I pinch this off, and I'll be out. Damn. Sure stinks in here."

Captain Hollingsworth bounced back through the hatchway, and tried to make it back to his acceleration couch, but ended up with a pair of fundoshi smacking him in his face for his efforts.

All of a sudden, there was a crackle of static from the avionics shack, and then Deyo's steady voice came over the intercom.

"Mitchell reporting a 97 percent fill on the fuel bags...vectoring out of high atmosphere.... clearing g-well.... we should be back in normal oort space momentarily."

"Great. Someone get me Mitchell on the horn, and find out if Sekula has decrypted anything else from those journals. Deyo, when we -"

"Sir", it was the avionics intercom again, "I have located a previously unknown transponder in our own ship. I just jammed it, but it was getting a feed from our navigation system and tight beaming it. We were bugged - and only the trip through the atmosphere of the gas giant cleared whatever it was that kept me from reading it earlier. The imperials knew exactly who we were, where we were, and where we are going all along."

"Damn. Damnation. Hot jumping cheese."

"Sir?"

"Never mind - Turnitsa glad to see you back to the living. Cripes - did all that smell come out of you? Next time use the crapper down in cargo. Anyway - get on a terminal and give Deyo a hot swap to the navigational suite. We are going to jump out of this system, and pronto. Has Mitchell anything else to say that is fit for my noble ears?"

*****

Down in her stateroom-cum-office, Sekula was carefully erasing a number of records from her translation computer. She had carefully translated, and extracted the important information from half a dozen journals and logs she had brought with her, but now she thought better of it.

After all the years of oppression, all the power, all the atrocities, she still loved him. She couldn't give him over now. At least not this way. She was all for the Rebellion, but not at the price of turning over all the psychological patterns gleaned from the journals of two years he spent with her. She was willing to be Judas to Kyle the man, but not to Kyle the lover.

Perhaps if she had known that his bodyguard, Barnette, knew she had come over to the Rebellion, she'd have different ideas. Especially if she'd known about the tracking device he had implanted into her computer terminal. If she'd known that instead of turning over important information on the man who had become E-Kyle, she instead was leading his assassins and killers right to the "Rani of Lahore".

*****

Dananainiewoaeeo stood in his quarters holding up the kimono and staring at it blankly. Somehow he knew he should be able to figure out what to do with them when they were soiled, but it eluded him. So he tossed it in the huge pile in the corner, and popped open the door on his clothing closet.

In the closet were dozens of finely pressed, brand new kimonos, and assorted other accessories, all new and packed in fine paper bearing the family clan symbol of the Nainiewo family. His older brother's holding had including a manufacturing world. That was how you were supposed to acquire things - conquer and own them. He never could get used to the human idea of trade - money for goods? It seemed so female to him.

The big Aslan pulled out a fine silk green kimono with the Nainiewo starburst on the back, and with an extended dewclaw, he slashed the paper wrapper off it. When they got dirty, he just discarded them. What else would a male of the clan do with used up clothing? The more he thought about it, the more he felt like he needed a female.

There was a knock at his hatchway. "Danny - hey, Danny"

It was the human male Johansen. A good warrior, Johansen - knows about revenge and honor. Danny - as they called him - cleared his throat, preparing for a conversation in Galanglic, and said "Come."

"Hello old friend, glad to . . . uh . . . see . . ." He gingerly entered through heaps of dirty food trays, and tried not to let his expression give away what the smell of dirty clothing and swirling furballs was doing to his sinuses. Johansen made it to an open spot on the floor, near a low floor table, and sat.

"What I was saying is that I was glad to see you still here on the ship. Good that you haven't left yet. I know they are paying you, and all that, but this is not going to be a pleasant journey, for any of us."

"Herrowwl. Yes, they still pay me. What good it will do, I don't know. I really want land - holdings - domains. And all they give is credits. Still, to them it means something, so I try not to insult. I'm only waiting until I can garner enough to attract a female. In the meantime, Hollingsworth is an honorable lord."

"How much are they paying you?" In answer, Danny shrugged, and handed a small black cloth encased portable computer to Johansen

"This is incredible. With this month's haul, and the bearer interest you are entitled to, this gives you letters of credit for several million. You, my friend, have enough to buy a small moon. Two, perhaps."

"Buy, buy, and buy! What good is buy? I want to own. I need to conquer. This whole buy idea drives me crazy with confusion. Still, two moons you say? With that I could attract a female. And with a female to handle my affairs, I could then begin to REALLY grow an estate. Herrowwl..."

"Anyway, like I said, I'm glad to see you here, and still in one piece. Our mission was a failure, as I'm sure you heard. I got a very clean, perfect shot off at the target, and it turned out to be a hologram. He wasn't even there."

"I was once the partner in a large undertaking, where our mission was to guard some supplies. My counterpart was a human that did not know to respect my people, my clan, nor myself. I challenged him to an affair of honor, expecting him to duel me. I even offered to his second a choice of weapons, as he was not given a dewclaw at birth. When the time of the duel arrived, he was not present. He had hired a vagabond to dress as himself, so none would know until much time had passed, and he had safely retreated. No honor in that."

Johansen thought for a moment.

"You know, my friend, I don't believe I've ever heard a story of anyone actually interacting with E-Kyle face to face. Always through his staff or electronically, but never in person."

part 2