Court of a Thousand Suns
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Wildside Press
ebooks.wildsidebooks.com
Copyright ©1985 by Allan Cole
First published in USA, 1985
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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CONTENTS
FOREWORD TO THE NOVEL SERIES
THE BOOKS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dedication
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BOOK THREE
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
BOOK FOUR
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
BOOK FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
THE STEN COOKBOOK
Recipe Index
STEN
THE WOLF WORLDS
THE COURT OF A THOUSAND SUNS
REVENGE OF THE DAMNED
THE RETURN OF THE EMPEROR
VORTEX
EMPIRE'S END
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STEN #3: THE COURT OF A THOUSAND SUNS
Allan Cole and Chris Bunch
THE COURT OF A THOUSAND SUNS
Copyright © 1985 by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch.
All rights reserved.
FOREWORD TO THE NOVEL SERIES
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Hailed as a “landmark science fiction series” the Sten Series has thrilled millions of readers all over the world.
Set three thousand years in the future, the eight Sten novels tell the tale of a tough, street-wise orphan who escapes his fate as factory planet “delinq” to become the strong right-hand of the most powerful man in the Universe—a man hailed by his billons of subjects as “The Eternal Emperor."
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THE HERO
Sten is the ultimate survivor. He's lightning quick, mean streets cunning and blessed with the twin gifts of hungry intelligence and hard-won common sense. Born on a factory planet where life has less value than the lowliest machine, Sten rebels against The Company that enslaved, then killed his parents. He finds a new family of sorts—and the means for revenge—in the ranks of the Emperor's Imperial Forces.
A series of crucial missions brings him to the attention of the Eternal Emperor himself. Sten's talents and unshakable loyalty are tested in crisis after crisis, brutal warfare, and assassination.
Besides his “black ops” skills, Sten is armed with a weapon of last resort—he carries a small knife made of an undetectable substance in a flesh and muscle “sheath” in his arm. With a blade edge only one molecule thick, the knife can cut through any substance like butter.
Sten rises swiftly until he becomes a confidante and advisor to the Emperor. Through all this Sten never forgets his lowly origins. Self-depreciating humor, friendship and luck in love shield him from Fame's blinding light. If anything his empathy and sense of responsibility for the common folk of the Empire grow with each new honor and badge of rank.
Finally he is asked to make the supreme sacrifice—risking even those he loves—to stand up for the citizens of the Empire. Then, when he succeeds, he turns his back on the greatest honor of all.
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STEN'S WORLD
Picture the greatest Empire history has known. Its boundaries are the Universe itself, containing more stars, planets and sentient life than could be calculated by the swiftest 21st Century computer. This is a space kingdom where humans live side-by-side with countless alien forms. In fact the word alien itself is offensive and all species are merely called “beings.” The planetary systems range from the sophistication of Prime World where the elite gather—to the rough and ready mining and frontier worlds at the Empire's edges.
Ruling over all this is:
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THE ETERNAL EMPEROR
As his title implies, the Eternal Emperor is a human who has mastered death through the use of secret cloning techniques and mind transfer. When he's in his cups, he sometimes boasts that although he's been the target of hundreds of assassination, only three were successful.
The Emperor is the ultimate capitalist and when Sten steps onto the stage he has reigned for three thousand years. The source of the Eternal Emperor's power is a mysterious fuel—called Anti-Matter Two (AM2). It drives the star ships that link the Empire and provides the energy for all industry, agriculture and commerce. He alone controls its supply and price. And he alone knows where AM2 is to be found.
The Emperor is no tyrant. He prefers wit to force, negotiation to confrontation. But if all else fails he has enormous military resources to back up his will. His past is a rigorously guarded secret and his future is permanently entwined with the Empire he created.
Despite his vast power the Emperor greatly misses the familiar things of his 21st Century youth. On a bad day he would trade it all in for a good bottle of single malt scotch or the sweet sound of an old, hand-crafted violin. He spends his spare time in his antique-cluttered royal suites, restoring or re-constructing nostalgic objects from his salad days.
The Emperor, who has the looks of a handsome, 35-year-old, is also a consummate cook and spends hours in his Prime World kitchens recreating the recipes of ancient Earth, while hatching elaborate plans to confound his many enemies.
The Eternal Emperor sees a bit of his long ago self in Sten. After all, as he occasionally implies, his roots are as common as Sten's. If their relationship was not by necessity that of ruler and subject they might even have become friends.
Sten admires the Emperor. Perhaps, in a way, he even considers him a father figure. And he has sworn absolute loyalty to the Empire. In the end, however, he will realize that his loyalty is to the idea not the man.
OTHER CHARACTERS
Sten's world is filled with bizarre and wonderful characters. Among the more important are:
ALEX KILGOUR: Sten's sidekick and confidant. An incredibly strong heavy-worlder of Scots descent, Kilgour's passion is shaggy-dog stories. All of which are so awful that his mission mates can hardly wait for the bad guys to kick in the door and interrupt him.
IAN MAHONEY: Sten's mentor. A top military man, Mahoney excels at both cloak-and-dagger and more conventional warfare, and prefers to lead from the front. He is totally loyal to Emperor.
DOC: A furry alien with the psionic talent to make people like him. It helps that humans think he's a cute, cuddly teddy-bear. Carnivorous little Doc would just love to tear their throats out for that.
IDA: The brilliant Gypsy operative (and hotrod pilot) whose hobby is making huge amounts on the stock market. She could easily retire, but she loves the challenges and danger of black operations work. Fat, mustached and foul-mouthed, she delights in harassing authority.
And there are many more, including the various beautiful and multi-talented women Sten squires during his adventures. Ranging from a tough Prime World detective, to the princess of a barbaric race of space pirates.
STREGG—THE DRINK: This heart-stopping booze appears first in Book Two: The Wolf Worlds, where a race of Viking-like beings is introduced. Hailing from an ice-planet, their ancestral enemy was the Streggan, a fierce beast that hunted the Bohr almost into annihilation. Finally, they turned the tide and wiped out the beast entirely. They named their favorite drink Stregg, in honor of their ancient enemy. The names were inspired by a boozy session the authors’ had at Harry’ Bar in Century City, California. There they discovered the wonders of the Italian liqueur, Stregga. It means witch in Italian. To make your own stregg
, mix one half Stregga and one half white tequila. Some prefer a little simple syrup. We did not..
The Food: The recipes created in each book by the Eternal Emperor have become as famous as Alex Kilgour's jokes. Many readers have requested a Sten Cookbook. Wishes granted. At the end of this Sten episode you'll find a complete Sten Cookbook, suitable for printing.
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THE BOOKS
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
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NOTE: The titles of Books 1, 2, 3, and 4 are Parisian slang for various parts of the guillotine. The “bascule” is the board on which the condemned man is laid; the “lunette” is the circular clamp fitted around the man's neck; the “mouton” is the cutting blade, plus its eighty-pound weight; and the “declic” is the lever the executioner hits to drop the blade.
The title of Book 5, “The Red Mass,” comes from a phrase used by a French deputy during the Terror of the A.D. 1790s, one Monsieur Amar, in a letter inviting his fellow deputies to witness an execution “to see the Red Mass celebrated..."
—AC and CRB
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
International best selling authors and screenwriters Allan Cole and the late Chris Bunch were collaborators for nearly twenty years. Together, and separately, they have published over forty novels and sold more than 150 TV and movie screenplays. For details about Allan's life and work, see his homepage at www.acole.com. For information about Chris, see his Wikipedia entry at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChrisBunch. Both authors are also featured in the International Movie Data Base (IMDB.com)
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STEN #3: THE COURT OF A THOUSAND SUNS
Allan Cole and Chris Bunch
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Dedication
To
Elizabeth R. & Leo L. Bunch
and
The brothers four: Charles, Philip, Drew and David
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BOOK ONE
BASCULE
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CHAPTER ONE
THE BANTH PURRED at the quillpig, which, unimpressed, had firmly stuffed itself as far as it could into the hollow stump.
The banth's instinct said that the porcupine was edible, but the six-legged cat's training told it otherwise. Meat was presented by two-legs at dawn and dusk, and came with gentle words. The quillpig may have smelled right, but it was not behaving like meat. The banth sat back on its haunches and used a forepaw to pry two needles from its nasal carapace.
Then the animal flattened. It heard the noise again, a whine from the forest. The banth looked worriedly up the mountain, then back again in the direction of the sound before deciding.
Against instinct, it broke out of the last fringe of the tree line and bounded up the bare, rock-strewn mountain. Two hundred meters vertically up the talus cliff, it went to cover behind a mass of boulders.
The whine grew louder as a gravsled lifted over the scrubby treetops, pirouetted, searching, and then grounded near the hollow stump.
Terence Kreuger, chief of Prime World's police tactical force, checked the homing panel mounted over the gravsled's controls. The needle pointed straight up the mountain, and the proximity director indicated the banth was barely half a kilometer away.
Kreuger unslung a projectile weapon from its clips behind his seat and checked it once again: projectile chambered; safe off; ranging scope preset for one meter, the approximate dimensions of the banth's chest area.
He checked the slope with a pair of binocs and after a few seconds saw a flicker of movement. Kreuger grunted to himself and lifted the gravsled up the mountain. He'd already missed the banth once that day; he was less than pleased with himself.
Kreuger fancied himself a hunter in the grand tradition. Time not required for his police duties was spent hunting or preparing himself for a hunt, an expensive hobby, especially on Prime World. The Imperial capital had no native game, and both hunting preserves there charged far more than even a tactical group chief could afford—until recently.
Kreuger's previous hunts had been restricted to off-world, and mostly for minor edible or nuisance game. That was well and good, but provided Kreuger with little in the way of trophies, especially trophies of the kind that the gamebooks chronicled. But things had suddenly become different. His friends had seen to that. After thirty years as a cop, Kreuger still prized his honesty. He just rationalized that what his new friends wanted wasn't dishonest: look at the benefits! Three weeks away from Empire Day madness. Three weeks on a hunting reservation, expenses paid. Tags for four dangerous animals—an Earth rhino, a banth, a male cervi, and a giant otter.
He had already planned on which wall each head would be mounted. Of course, Kreuger did not intend to mention to his soon-to-be-admiring friends where those trophies had been taken.
The gravsled's bumper caromed him away from a boulder, bringing Kreuger back to the present. Concentrate, man, concentrate. Remember every bit of this day. The clearness of the air. The smell of the trees below. The spray of dust around the gravsled.
Kreuger guided the gravsled up the slope, following the homing needle toward the sensor implanted in the banth.
Below, a second, one-man sled coasted through the trees. Clyff Tarpy did not need binocs to follow Kreuger's sled. Contour-following, he lifted his sled after Kreuger.
The banth was cornered.
Ahead of him to the right, the ground fell away steeply, too steeply for even his clawed legs to descend. To the left was a sheer cliff. The banth huddled behind a boulder, puzzling.
Kreuger's gravsled landed just outside the nest. Weapon ready, Kreuger moved forward.
Again, the banth was perplexed. The whine had been the cause of a loud explosion and searing pain earlier, the pain that sent the banth fleeing through the forest toward the mountains.
But the smell was two-legs. Two-legs, but not familiar. Had the banth done something wrong? The two-legs would tell him, feed him, and then return him to the warmth of his pen.
The banth stood and walked forward.
Kreuger's projectile weapon came up as the banth walked into view. No errors now. Safety off, he aimed.
The banth mewed. This was not his two-legs.
"Bastard!"
Kreuger spun, the banth momentarily forgotten. He had not heard the second gravsled land behind him.
From five meters, the barrel of the weapon was enormous. Tarpy allowed just enough time to pass for terror to replace the bewilderment on Kreuger's face. And then he fingered the stud. The soft metal round expanded nicely as it penetrated Kreuger's sternum, then pin wheeled through the tac chief's rib cage into his heart. Kreuger, instantly dead, sat down on a small boulder before slowly toppling forward onto his face.
Tarpy smiled as he took a thick chunk of soyasteak from his beltpak and tossed it to the banth. “Eight lives to go, pussycat."
Tarpy took a small aerosol can from his pak, and, backing up, erased his footsteps from the dusty rock. He paused by Kreuger's gravsled long enough to shut the power off and disconnect the beacon. The longer it took to find the body, the better. Tarpy mounted his own sled and nudged it back down the hill.
The banth's tail whipped back and forth once. He did not like the smell from the strange two-legs. He picked up the slab of soyasteak, sprang over the rock wall, and went back down the mountain. He would eat on the ground he was familiar with, and then perhaps unravel the puzzle of the other soyasteak, the one with needles that walked.
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CHAPTER TWO
THE MAN IN THE BLUE boiler suit had his long knife against the throat of Admiral Mik Ledoh. With his other hand, he forced the Eternal Emperor's Grand Chamberlain closer to the edge of the battlements, “Either our demands are met immediately, or this man dies!” His amplified voice echoed across the castle's stonework, down the 700 meters of emptiness and across the parade ground.
One hundred meters below and to the right, Sten checked his foot/handholds. His clawed fingers were barely clinging to mortar notches in the stone. One foot dangled over emptiness, the other was firmly braced on the face of Havildar-Major Lalbahadur Thapa. Sten's willygun was slung from a clip-strap on his dark brown combat suit. Snapped to one arm was a can of climbing thread. At its end was a grapnel.