Konstantin issued commands to his power armor through the synaptic link probes, reducing the electromagnetic clamp-lock power in his boot soles so he could move easily inside the cabin without floating up in the near-weightless upper atmosphere and suffering the embarrassment of something like his pointed helmet smacking into the shuttle's ceiling. This shuttle was a new model produced by the Martian Foundry: stronger firepower, a roomier interior, and higher payload capacity. After Konstantin personally tested and approved it, the Praetorians finally no longer had to twist themselves around with exaggerated caution inside cramped assault shuttles when traveling with the Sovereign. Because this was a dedicated ride, the once-cold crew compartment bulkheads had been fitted with Baroque ornamentation; it looked less like a flying craft than the living room of a mansion.
By contrast, Hammurabi wasn't nearly as practiced at the maneuver—this was his first time aboard. "You'll get used to it next time." Konstantin only smiled kindly at the thumps when his companion's armor knocked into the cabin and the combat robots strapped along both sides. Relying on keen reflexes and balance, Hammurabi corrected himself in time. No sooner had he found his footing than Konstantin handed him a datapad and explained why he'd left his seat. "From an intelligence objective standpoint, Mycroft Holmes still isn't willing to give up his offshore diplomacy policy. That behavioral pattern is easy to anticipate. We can keep squeezing him for more useful information—but so can others."
"Mycroft Holmes is a leak risk. Victoria Hand's analysts have already reached that conclusion." Flipping through the datapad, Hammurabi signaled his agreement. "But his weaknesses are just as obvious. One: his power. Two: his family. The decision the IMF is about to pass under White House and EU manipulation offers Mycroft no personal benefit. He wants us to sabotage it—that's the short-term interest, plain to see. Seems he still carries the afterglow of the British Empire in his heart. Rare enough."
"His IQ may be high by civilian standards, but he's an ordinary man in the end. He can only keep his eyes on what's right around him. He's arrogant—that's his clearest weakness." When Konstantin assessed Mycroft Holmes, he had little patience for Mycroft's inner thoughts. The Praetorians found it hard to empathize—partly a side effect of psychic cleansing, partly remnants of pre-augmentation personalities. "I want to petition the Sovereign for a raid on the prison island—to bring back Ms. Holmes with the antisocial personality." Konstantin said, "For one thing, she's more valuable than Mycroft or Sherlock, and the Praetorian Order needs a suitable intelligence analyst. Ms. Holmes's gifts would be quite useful. For another, we can use her as a hostage to force Mycroft Holmes to work for us with full devotion."
"I'm already planning Ms. Holmes's menu. I wonder if she'll like orange-flavored ration bars." Hammurabi said cheerfully. "Suppiluliumas strongly recommends that flavor. He says those emergency rations are a big help on wilderness infiltration missions—at least you don't gag from the taste and get tracked by predators. His exact words on the comm channel last night." Hammurabi was well pleased with his South American comrade's sense of humor. "My library doesn't have the latest on Helmut Zemo. Has he arrived in Vienna? I'm worried he won't follow the plan to the letter—sooner or later he'll generate an unexpected result. Can his wife really keep him in check?"
"The psych team issued a formal written assessment, appendix C. We may not feel those emotions ourselves, but we can't ignore a mortal's compensatory psychology. Helmut Zemo has believed all along that our goals are perfectly aligned—namely, the destruction of that ludicrous outfit called the Avengers. He has no idea what our actual target is. Without his knowledge, our assassins have already adjusted the equipment he uses." Konstantin frowned, his tone one of "I can't see why this is necessary." "The Sovereign wants him to have a good ending. Once we cut him loose cleanly, find them a place to live in seclusion—somewhere Wakandan agents can't find."
This shuttle had no portholes; only the cockpit's armored glass offered a view outside. Even so, Konstantin could judge their position by the time readout projected in his visor and the simulations and calculations in his head. He estimated the distance between the Sisterhood's assault shuttles and the destination, then used the ops channel to order them to close up. The shuttle's straight-line distance to Vienna was under two hundred kilometers now—a blink for this craft. Vienna was about to host a conference attended by leaders from many nations. That meeting would be Latveria's war bugle, the moment the Eternal City's Sovereign delivered both a speech and a stratagem. Konstantin glanced at the tightly secured armory case beside his seat; inside were the props required for this mission.
A few hours earlier, Latveria and the Eternal City's Regent Victor von Doom had announced on television that they would present a "gift" to the nations of the world. For ill-intentioned interest groups, it would serve as a deterrent; for friendly states, an extraordinary boon. But delivering that gift wouldn't be easy. Konstantin demanded that during the Sovereign's address they must control the venue and surrounding area. That meant the Praetorians would need overwhelming firepower and manpower to accomplish the objective.
"Fortress-class intelligent-control combat robots, Alpha Team, commencing self-check. Neurocortical tendril integrity: 98.52%. Electromagnetic noise isolation apparatus: intact. Algorithm version: Fortress-1.013 Omega-0.04. Improvement over prior version: 0.013%. Reactor core temperature and cooling system: nominal. Ion shield generator: nominal. Neural fiber-optic conduction efficiency: 95.56%. Adaptive reactive targeting array accuracy: 99.89%. Behavioral pattern code check… check complete…"
"Sages, speak plainly." Konstantin cut off the Martian Foundry tech's long report without ceremony. These combat robots had seen action against carrier strike groups, and even in that context their firepower felt like overkill. But time was tight, and the senior engineer cadre had not managed maintenance on every unit. Ever since the Fortress-class robots were clamp-mounted along both sides of the cargo bay, the engineers had stayed inside, checking them without rest.
"My Lord is about to take the stage. I need you to finish your jobs."
"F-finish, finish…" The barked order startled the tech into a stammer, like a robot crammed with deprecated code and stuck in a logic freeze. A few seconds later, he raised a palm and tapped the cognitive booster on his head. The interface bore the glossy residue of dried antiseptic gel. Without the Praetorians' arcane gene alchemy or similar genetic augmentation, mid- and junior-level data specialists at the Martian Foundry commonly had to use external thinking modules and brain–machine interfaces. A normal human brain's neurons could, yes, operate on datasets beyond today's supercomputers. But interfacing with Fortress-class intelligent-control combat robots without a plugin—robots carrying supercomputers—meant a scorched cerebral cortex, because the volume of feedback code they produced was staggering. Even when algorithm iterations created new redundancy and dead code, the technicians' cognitive modules had to keep pace.
"Self-check complete. It's just… this intelligent machinery the Grand Sage developed personally contains so many mysteries—for us, it's too perfect," the tech said, a little sheepish. "It's a whole new world—a world made of binary and computer language…"
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