Bayley, Barrington J - Novel 10 Page 7

  "Make way, make way!" Gruwert shouted angrily. "You are obstructing Imperial security!"

  He charged into the dancing throng with head bent, coarsely butting people aside. The others followed through the path he cleared. Archier recalled being invited to the party himself—as Admiral, he was formally invited to all the more organised occasions on the flagship—and realized it had been arranged before the fact of a coming battle became known. Not that it would have made much difference. A fair proportion of the flagship's population was scarcely aware of the Fleet's official business. Many might not even have heard yet that there was a major space battle in progress.

  The harried, desperate-looking face of a capuchin monkey greeted them at the door to the bridge. Archier felt momentary pity, knowing how much some of the more sensitive animals suffered emotionally at times of stress. The capuchin pressed a key to the plate of the door, which slid aside. They hurried in through an opening wide enough to take them all together.

  The monkey scurried after Archier. "Is the battle lost then, sir?" it whispered.

  "No, of course not," Archier soothed. "I'm sure we are winning, though not as quickly as I would like."

  The bridge had an old-fashioned appearance, its working area horseshoe-shaped and lined with waist-high instrument and display boards. Above these were large, curved vid-windows that served the same purpose, though in a less sophisticated way, as the pool and the combat space of the Command Room. Archier lost no time in unlocking the boards. He knew it would take a few minutes to set up a network parallel to the one he had just lost, by calling up the redundant communicators. Meantime, the fleet was fighting without overall command.

  The monkey had forgotten to lock the door behind him. People were coming in, high on incense. A withered-cheeked girl in a shimmering spectrum dress that converted infrared to visible tones flung herself on Archier as he stood at his board, clamping her chin on his shoulder and draping an arm about him. Her intense perfume engulfed him.

  "Oh, Admiral, is it true we're having a space battle? That's terrific, isn't it? Let's see the action, Admiral!"

  As if he had instantly obeyed her request, the expanse of vid-window over the board came to life. Outlined large against blackness was the long form of a ship in glittering silver and gold, not by its natural colour but as a result of the colour coding the system used to assist human vision. The vessel was a passenger liner, its outer surface spoiled by crudely emplaced weapons. Because the vid screen gave the impression of being a direct window onto space, the enemy ship seemed no more than yards away.

  "Who's paging this image?" he barked at his FMO, unable, for the moment, to make sense of the information glyphs on his board.

  "It's ours," she screeched at him. "Distance, ten light-minutes!"

  With a start he realized the rebel had crept up on them while he had been making the transfer from the Command Room. But at that moment the Escorian exploded, throwing out gouts and sprays in dazzling—and harmonious—colours. The girl clinging to him cooed and aahed in his ear, her appreciation echoed in wows and oohs by her friends who had also gathered to watch. Archier had to admit the show was pretty.

  "Well done Turrets Eight, Fourteen and Twenty-Three," Gruwert grunted. "They picked him up and fired at will," he explained to Archier.

  "That's the stuff to give 'em!" the party girl shouted. She giggled, stroking Archier's neck.

  "Let's have some more of it!" yelled a swaying young man behind her. "Come'n see, everybody!"

  Then, with shocking unexpectedness, a dull, prolonged roar sounded through the bridge. It seemed to come from somewhere aft. It was followed by a jarring, undulatory vibration that made the floor of the bridge oscillate up and down.

  The Damage Assessment Officer called out from her board. "Looks like they had time to get off a missile!"

  "Get a report."

  It couldn't be a direct hit or they wouldn't still be here, Archier thought. Probably the ship's defences had taken out the missile just before it struck, but had been unable to prevent the warhead from detonating. It must have been close: blast effects even of a fusion explosion did not travel far in space, and the force shields would have warded off most of the radiant energy.

  Anxiously the DAO worked her board. Confirmation of Archier's thoughts appeared quickly on the vid window above it. Scanning a section of Standard Bearer's external hull, it found a gaping ragged hole through which a tangle of wreckage could be seen. Three decks seemed to have been affected, seen blurrily through the emergency gel that was preventing the escape of air.

  'What's the status of repair work?" Archier asked.

  "At the start of the current shift, the robot repair teams still hadn't given an assurance of cooperation, sir," Arctus reminded him quietly. Archier watched while the window switched to an internal location. They saw an incredible scene: a gang of repair robots being driven along a broad corridor by enraged pigs and dogs. The animals had guns strapped to the tops of their heads: one robot, pausing to turn and protest, fell as a pink-glowing beam struck him square in the thorax.

  A general-purpose corridor wagon, overladen with tools, bounced along behind the yelping, squealing beasts. The DAO cut the scene, glancing to Archier.

  "I think we can take it repairs are proceeding, Admiral."

  "Now that's the stuff to give them," Gruwert pronounced. His little eyes swivelled to those who had invaded the bridge. "Get those layabouts out of here!" he snorted loudly. "Go on, get out!"

  The partygoers shuffled uncertainly, the girl stepping back from Archier. They seemed amazed by the behaviour of the animals on the vid-window. Likewise they were not accustomed to having a second-class citizen address them so.

  Archier turned to face them. "Perhaps you had better leave," he suggested politely. "We have our hands rather full at the moment."

  "Yes, of course, Admiral," said a man, somewhat older than the others, after a pause. "Sorry if we've got in the way."

  He ushered the others out with placatory motions. At the door he suddenly turned round with a smile.

  "Good luck with the battle!" he said brightly.

  The capuchin monkey closed the door after him. By now the bridge had obtained contact with the rest of the fleet. On the vid-windows, the current assessment began to take shape.

  The combat region had again expanded during the interim when the flagship had been unable to exercise control. Archier gave the order to contract the perimeter once more, to give Ten-Fleet the advantage of its gun range. At the same time he put a stop to the useless headlong flight.

  But as the reports came in it became clear that the Escorians were already beaten; had, in fact, been doomed from the start to be beaten. Even with the partial success of their game plan—which had simply been to prevent Ten-Fleet from employing any fanciful tactics—even when fighting ship on ship or in small groups, even in the most favourable circumstances they could find, the terrible Imperial guns, the sheer size and power of the front-line-o'-warships that had emerged long ago out of Diadem, had taken their toll on them. They had been wiped out by the score. And now, as Ten-Fleet began yet again to gather itself together and take up one of the many geometrical dispositions outlined in the manuals, the opposition's will to continue the conflict broke. It must have become clear to the Escorian commanders that they faced annihilation: those ships remaining—less than a third of the original force, many of them battered or even crippled—received the order to flee. They began to edge away from the area; then, like an exploding starburst, sped in all directions.

  Archier put out a call; pursue. All surviving rebels were to be hunted down and destroyed, unless they managed to surrender first. In any case, it would now be necessary to distribute his ships all over Escoria. There was the final stage of putting down rebellion to be dealt with.

  Besides which, he had an unfulfilled instruction: to find out about the weapon prophesied by Oracle. Possibly the rebels' unexpected possession of feetol cannon was what Oracle refe
rred to ... but his duty remained to investigate the matter exhaustively.

  He sighed. There was much work ahead. And while Gruwert snuffled and squealed in exultation, the humans of the command staff were subdued, as were the captains of other units that were appearing briefly on the new network.

  For his Damage Assessment Officer was now collating the losses Ten-Fleet had suffered. And they were heavy. Over a quarter of Archier's ships were gone, and thirty more reported damage varying from superficial to serious.

  The Empire would not long sustain losses like these, he realized. Dolefully he listened to the list of names the officer read out to him. Each of them was like hearing of the death of a friend; but one gave him particular pause.

  "What was that again?" he queried.

  "Lilac Willow, sir. She took a direct hit in the seventh minute. The rebel responsible was subsequently destroyed."

  Archier pursed his lips. He was remembering Volsted Magroom. The little fellow had been appealing, in a way. Archier had liked him.

  Well, he would know all about space battles now.

  Once more Archier sighed. He wondered if the party would still be in progress when he had finished here. He could certainly use some relaxation.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was with caution that the privateer approached the big, empty bulk of the Imperial warship. In the nose cabin that he used as a control room, Ragshok peered disbelievingly.

  " 'Claire de Lune'," he murmured, reading the name on the ship's side, among the Imperial blazon, the flags and ensigns painted there. "What the Simplex does that mean, Morgan?"

  "I don't know, chief. It's some foreign language." Morgan, a dark-haired, florid man, scratched his head perfunctorily.

  "Take us in a bit closer," Ragshok ordered.

  "Yes chief."

  The vessel loomed. She was not one of the fleet's biggest ships, not a front-line-o'-war, but she was big enough. If Ragshok knew his ships—and ships was one thing he knew— she was a Planet Class destroyer. She loomed, lights still blazing, drive either idle or defunct . . . derelict.

  Ragshok had watched the battle from a safe distance. He had hoped the rebels would win, naturally, but not over-enthusiastically so. He was on the side of political instability because it made the pickings richer, but on the other hand it might lead to merchant ships being better armed and therefore less easy prey. He did not want to be a prospector again, hewing wealth from the natural environment, which was what he had been doing before he realized how wealthy space was with other people's riches.

  The latest news he had was that Ten-Fleet had nearly finished the job of hunting down remnants of the rebel fleet and was beginning to regather. It was easy to understand why Claire de Lune had been abandoned in the first place: she had taken damage, perhaps to her drive, perhaps to her defences or to her offensive weapons, that rendered her a sitting duck. "But why haven't they come back to her?" he murmured.

  "Think she's just plasma by now, I expect," Morgan said. "She ought to be, too."

  "All right, let's go over and have a look."

  He snapped down his helmet while Morgan went aft to rouse the others. A minute later a force forty strong was floating across the gap, drifting across the bulging, engineered cliff face of the other vessel until they found a port.

  Inside, the air was good. Ragshok snapped open his helmet and smelled, with startlement, the sweet perfumes of the ship's interior environment. Here, close to the hull, the surroundings were more businesslike and he did not see the luxurious furnishings that were later to amaze him.

  But it was less than a minute before he realized the effect some of those perfumes were having on him. He gave a strangled cry of incredulity.

  "Good grief, Morgan—they were taking drugs during a battle?"

  His men spread out through the ship, each one having been briefed on what to find out. Ragshok made his way to the bridge; it was locked, and when he shot the door open, it had the appearance of being disused. Shortly, his ship's engineer informed him that the ship had apparently been controlled from another place, a sort of command centre. He went there and played with the equipment while reports were brought to him.

  The ship was holed, which he had not noticed while approaching, but not seriously so. The emergency gels had kept her airtight, and it would not cost too much work to draw a new skin over the ruptured parts of the hull. The feetol engines were out of action, which was what had caused her to be abandoned. But before leaving, her crew had spiked all the guns.

  "Well what about the engines?" Morgan demanded of the engineer while his master, Ragshok, fiddled with a piece of rubbery plastic on the arm of the command throne. He had discovered it gave him weird visual effects.

  The engineer was a wiry Salpian. Ragshok had taken him off a passenger liner, had offered to take him home after he had got a junked engine running. But he had preferred to stay with the privateers.

  He grinned. "The damage is mostly superficial, except for one thing. They need a new flux unit. Then, with a bit of repair work, she'll go."

  He paused. "The one we have in the Dare would do the job, at a pinch."

  Ragshok started. "The Dare?' He pulled a face. The Dare was his best and biggest ship ...

  But look at what he would be getting in exchange, he told himself ...

  He left off playing with the command throne and looked about him, musing. He had always dreamed of some great exploit. "Do you remember Varana?" he murmured. "Not a big place. Just a little moon, really, with a littler moon in attendance. But a nice place, and we had it to ourselves for weeks ... a million people under our thumbs ..."

  "Until we scarpered rather than face a proper fight," Morgan said acidly. "And remember, this tub is just a weaponless hulk now."

  "But what a hulk. You could get thousands in here, armed to the teeth."

  "We don't have thousands. We only have a couple of hundred."

  "It's no secret where we could get more, if there's enticement enough." Ragshok turned to his Salpian. "How fast could she go if we installed Dare's flux unit?"

  "As fast as she ever went—for a while. You'd have to replace it after a year or so."

  Ragshok leaned back, still thinking. The idea is ludicrous, he admitted dismally to himself. There's nothing we can do with this thing, except strip it bare of everything valuable.

  He knew why he was so reluctant to let the ship go. It was because of his notions of grandeur. To be the outlawed master of a stolen warship of the Empire!

  Just then Tengu, his systems engineer—or one of them— came bursting in. The lean, dark-skinned man seemed hot and tense.

  "Those stories we heard were true," he said in a clipped, harsh accent. "They've got matter transmitters aboard. They use them to transfer from ship to ship.''

  Ragshok stared at him. "You're sure?"

  "Chief, you can eat my brains if I'm ever wrong."

  The privateer captain turned away. His face was slack, his eyes glazed. The idea that was bubbling, fermenting, bursting within his skull was just too good . . .

  The strident clamour that rang through the craft as it approached the edge of the planetary system ahead made Hesper Positana grit her teeth in frustration. It was the 'every man for himself call.

  Sheathed in one of the forward bubbles (she was supposed to be manning a dart—a short-range missile launcher), she banged a fist angrily on her communicator and heard the voice of the captain issuing final instructions to his officers.

  The ship had once been a licenced police craft and was one of the few vessels in the rebel fleet—one of the few in the whole of Escoria—actually built as a fighting vessel. They had done some fighting, but not nearly as much as they had been running, so it seemed to her, and all her gall was in her voice as she yelled, "What in space's name is this?"

  "We can't outrun them, Hesper," the captain's voice came back. "Save yourself."

  "Then let's make a fight of it!"

  "It's no good, Hesper—it's the
flagship itself that's after us."

  She swallowed. The alarum was still ringing.

  Then, with a snarl and "Tcha" of annoyance, she loosed of all three remaining darts in succession and, moving lithely, snaked herself through the hatch at her back and loped down a narrow corridor to the escape station. There were several survival eggs left. Without more ado she tucked herself into one, pulled down the starting blind, and felt herself go down the chute.

  On the glowing screen before her eyes she could see what was happening. The Shark—the ex-police cruiser—was by now ploughing halfway into the planetary system where they had hoped to hide, crossing the orbits of the gas giants. As the survival eggs sprayed out of the feetol field they carried its remanence; they would guide themselves as close as possible to any near inhabited planets.

  The screen tracked the paths the eggs were taking. Many were making for a small planet with a reddish hue. But others, herself included, had chosen a different target: the next world inward, of which she could make out little.

  Then the dot that was the Shark flared briefly: a point of light momentarily brighter by virtue of a consuming instant of nuclear fusion. A feetol shell had found its mark.

  The survival egg was decelerating rapidly but it would probably take her, in the next minute or so, to the inward planet it had selected. Its inertial protection was without sophistication, and barely adequate. She was spun at she did not know what rate, at thousands of rotations per second, on a hundred different axes, as it handled and dissipated the excess inertial energy arising from a slowing down to below the speed of light and lower still, and which would otherwise have converted her to a puff of gas. Even so, she passed out several times.