As they walked up to it from the west, Kryger was impressed at the amount of damage to the fortress's wall. It looked as if two or three batteries had fired at it independently at first, not concentrating their fire. Seen from outside the walls, the palace towers, however, looked relatively undamaged.
Gate sentries in imperial green snapped to present arms as the commander-in-chief approached with his aides and the ex-ambassador. But the CIC, instead of entering through the open gate, elected to continue along the square to a breach his artillery had pounded through the wall a hundred feet beyond. It would have been easier to blast through the gate, but the officer in charge had decided to do it this way.
Good judgement, Kryger thought. Get inside and open the gate, and you have a paved ingress not buried in rubble.
Some civilians, dirty, haggard, and guarded by Almaeic troops, were throwing rubble out of the breach. One of the guards shouted at them in Almaeic to stop, and remarkably they did, as if reacting to the tone and situation. They stared at the richly uniformed officers. And at Kryger in mufti; they probably recognized him. The CIC led his party over the rubble and inside, in the process roughing his beautiful, glass-bright knee boots. ["Wellingtons" in another place and time.]
Seen from inside, the compound looked larger than from out. The palace stood near the west wall, and the appearance of its towers had been misleading. Parts of the magnificent building were heavily damaged. The wing where Kryger had been quartered had been gutted by fire.
The bodies had already been removed. Which was more than one could say for most of the city. Their enlisted driver had repeatedly steered his team around rubble and bodies. Then the CIC had gotten out, and they with him, to walk the last quarter mile, apparently to get a more intimate look at the aftermath of battle. Most of the bodies were droids of course, but corpses in imperial uniform were common enough. They'd poked around in a couple of buildings and seen the bodies of several women and girls who'd been raped and killed. Presumably in that order, Kryger thought wryly. He'd half expected the CIC to say something, tell an aide to see about identifying the troops who'd done it, but nothing was said. Of course, he thought. They're droids. And the men who did it were commoners.
He'd gotten so used to the Gorballis, he tended to think of them as people.
A colonel came hurrying up with his own aides, and saluted sharply before the CIC. "Colonel Gralbeg, sir, at your service! I'm in charge of the fortress!"
The CIC's eyes drilled through the man's forehead, and he imprinted the name for future reference. "Gralbeg. I am told the king here is dead."
"Yes, sir. We have not moved his body, sir. I assumed you'd want to see it where it fell."
"Take me to it."
"At once, Marshal Dersfolt!"
He led them to the palace and up the wide semicircular stairs to its grand entrance. In more than thirty years as a soldier, Kryger had never seen war before. It looked to him as if someone had poured buckets of blood on the stairs and on the landing at the top.
Inside, the great entrance hall was, if anything, worse. The splendid marble pillars were chipped and bullet-pocked, the marble floor gouged and pitted from grenades. Apparently the royal guard had tried to make a stand there and been slaughtered.
Considering they'd been engineered for pleasure, Kryger thought wryly, the droids were a hardnosed bunch of bastards.
The colonel led the command party down the central hall to the throne room. Remarkably there was little blood in the hall, as if Gamaliiu had insisted on making his personal stand alone. For whatever reasons. The body lay twenty feet inside the throne room door. The CIC went to it, his retinue following, and he knelt to examine what had been king there. Gamaliiu had been wearing ceremonial armor: gold cuirass and greaves and plumed gold helmet. The helmet lay several feet away, holed and bloody. His royal sword lay beside him.
"He was shot in the face," said the CIC, then looked up. "Between the eyes, and the bullet exited high in back."
He stood, and his eyes found the colonel. "Who was in charge of the unit that took the fortress?"
The colonel paled to near white. "I was, sir."
"Who was in direct charge of the unit that stormed the palace?"
Kryger looked at the colonel and felt a touch of pity for him. The CIC's tone said as plainly as words that someone's career was going to be destroyed.
"Captain Feelans, sir," the colonel answered. "Commanding Officer, Company Four."
"And who, personally, killed this king?"
"I don't know, sir."
The CIC looked long and hard at the regimental commander. "Colonel, all commanding officers down to company level were at my final briefing. Is that not correct?"
"Yes sir, to the best of my knowledge."
The cold eyes drilled him. "And did I not plainly stress the importance of taking the king alive if at all possible?"
"Yes sir, you did."
"I want you to identify the person who shot him. Probably someone vain of their marksmanship. The weapon was obviously fired from the waist, which suggests a sidearm. So does the exit hole. Only officers are issued sidearms."
Of course. Kryger thought. Gamaliiu had been tall, even by Gorrbian standards, more than six feet four. But even so, for the bullet to take the line it had . . .
"If he had to shoot him," the CIC continued, "he should have shot him in the leg. I want the killer arrested and charged with regicide. When you have him, I want his immediate superior arrested. And Captain . . ."
He turned to an aide. "What was the name?"
"Captain Feelans, sir."
"Captain Feelans. And when Captain Feelans has been arrested, I want you to turn yourself in for arrest. To Provost Marshal General Bronswo." He gestured with his head toward a burly, graying officer.
"Yes sir!" The colonel saluted, about faced, and left the throne room.
The CIC looked around, then turned on his heel and stalked out, the others following closely. They left the building, and the CIC ordered a sergeant to lead them onto a safe section of the west wall, then dismissed the man. He stood looking out across the city at the harbor. There wasn't a ship afloat, except for some small Djezian sloops and fishing boats tied to the wharf. All that was visible of the invasion fleet were masts protruding above the water at various angles.
"The Imperial Grand Fleet," he said drily, "and most of our munitions. We'll have to see what we can salvage. As it stands, we have enough ashore to last for perhaps two or three days of serious fighting."
He turned to Kryger. "How did this happen?"
Kryger's guts knotted. "Sir, I have no idea."
"No idea." The CIC's mouth twisted slightly, and his voice became ironic. "I know I didn't sink them, and I'm sure the admiral didn't. Or the seamen. Do you suppose it could have been the droids?"
Kryger's mouth opened slightly, but he could think of nothing to say.
Abruptly, loudly: "You were here! On the site! You were supposed to know what was going on! That debacle out there took a lot of preparation! And tons of explosives! How could they do that? How did they get the explosives? You should have gotten wind of it!"
Another thought struck him then. "You must have had a serious information leak! What kind of security did you have here? They couldn't have done something like this without knowing we were coming! Well in advance!"
Kryger began to see a glimmer. But it would make no difference.
For several seconds, Marshal Dersfolt, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army of Invasion, glared at Kryger, the glare reducing to a look of grim disdain. He turned once more to regard the wreckage of the fleet, and when he spoke again, his voice was casual. "General Bronswo, arrest Lord Kryger for neglect of duty leading to gross disaster." He glanced back over his shoulder at Kryger. "Your court martial will be at noon today, your execution at sundown."