Read Empire's End for Free Online Page A

move it!”
    The captain rushed into action.
    Anders turned back. Sten was still talking. Good. I’ll see you in hell, you son of a bitch.
    Alex signaled to Sten. A finger across his throat. Time to get the clot out.
    “… The list of the Emperor’s sins is far longer than I have time to detail. I suspect his fleets are on the way now. So, I haven’t much time. Except to say this:
    “I, Sten, declare war on the Eternal Emperor. And I urge you all to join me in this crusade. He’s left you nothing to lose. And all your freedom to gain.
    “Thank you. And good night.”
    Sten lifted his weapon and turned the camera into molten metal and plas. The station jolted again and again, as Sten’s forces blew their strategically placed explosives. No innocents would be hurt. But it would take many months and even more credits before K-B-N-S-O broadcast again.
    Sten prodded Jynnings with his toe. The man whimpered and looked up at him with terror-stricken eyes. The anchor was sure he was staring a madman in the face.
    “Thanks for the loan of your program,” Sten said.
    “Sure,” Jynnings squeaked. “Anytime.”
    Cind shouted, “We’re three seconds behind schedule.”
    Sten nodded, and sprinted through the blackened hole posing as a doorway, his team behind him. The last out was Cind. She paused and fired a long burst around the room to add to the terror and confusion. Molten metal and plas dripped from smoking walls.
    Then she was gone.
    Jynnings raised his head from the floor. “Thank God,” he breathed. “I’m safe.”
    “Who cares,” the director said as he scrambled to his feet “You realize what we just broadcast? I tell you, the numbers we get on this baby are gonna blow our competition out of the water.”
    Badee looked around at the ruins of the studio. Humming to himself. It was gonna be easy street all the way, now. He would have his pick of any job in the livie business.
    He wondered if there was a com line undamaged. He had to call his agent. Real quick.
    All the alarms were hooting warnings as Sten and the others dived aboard the Victory . Within minutes, Sten was on the bridge. Captain Preston’s face relaxed slightly.
    “Just in time,” Freston said. “We’ve got a whole clottin‘ fleet after our tender young hides. Led by a big clottin’ battleship… the Nevsky . Permission to run like hell, sir.”
    “Negative,” Sten said, scanning the incoming blips. There was just enough time. “I want to thin out a little of the competition, first, Captain.”
    Sten swiveled to Lieutenant Denzi. “Weapons?”
    “All Kali and Goblin units at full launch-readiness,” she reported. The woman was ready to fight.
    Sten hated to disappoint her. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to do the honors, Lieutenant,” he said.
    He raced for a Kali station. He called out to Captain Freston as he pulled on the helmet. “When I say go… go, dammit!”
    Freston nodded. He wouldn’t need to be prodded. The monitors showed the Nevsky coming fast, accompanied by half-a-dozen cruisers and a forest of destroyers.
    Sten’s hand automatically armed the missile, then fired. His point of view was black space pricked with flares of color rushing by him as the missile hurtled out.
    There was a cruiser bearing down on the Victory . Behind it he could see the battleship. There was just a chance he might slip his Kali past the cruiser. But Sten opted to play it safe. Especially when he saw the cruiser’s missile bays’ gunports yawn, ready to fire at the Victory .
    Aboard the Nevsky , Captain Leech faced a similar problem. His battle monitors snowed the Victory in a parking orbit to the side of the orbiting livie station. An alarm indicated an enemy Kali honing in on his lead cruiser. And that the cruiser blocked any possible shot at the Victory .
    Then he saw the solution. The livie station.
    Leech had become addicted to an ancient Earth game when he was a young officer on his first lonely outpost. It was called