Planet of trechery, p.17
Planet Of Trechery, page 17
Pias doffed his hat and held it over his chest. "I assure you, Admiral, you're no more sorry than I am. We could have made a pile of rubles together."
Then, before anyone else in the room could move, Pias whipped out the ministunner he kept tucked away behind the rose on his hatband. The tiny gun gave a maximum stun of six hours, but Pias only had it set on number four--a two-hour stun. With three quick bursts he was able to fell the pirates who had come to take him away. He turned back to Shen, but found himself facing down the muzzle of the blaster that had been disguised as the handle of Shen's scimitar. "Good work," said the pirate leader. "Ordinarily after a demonstration like that I might indeed offer you some post in my organization. But time is very short, and I just won't have the chance to run a thorough security check on your background. My original plan still stands, I'm afraid. Would you be so kind as to hand over the stunner so I don't have to burn a hole through you and my office wall'?"
Even with his quick reflexes, Pias knew there was no way he could stun Shen before the admiral could blast him. With great reluctance he let the stunner drop from his hand. Shen smiled and called for several more pirates to take Pias away and to clear the unconscious bodies out of the office.
As Pias was escorted out, there was a sinking feeling in his stomach. He'd been sure Shen would offer him a post in the organization. True, the pirate leader had dropped a vital clue that the strike against the Empire would be coming within a week--but unless Pias lived to let SOTE know about it, that clue would do no one any good at all.
Chapter 14
Escape from Gastonia
The attack on the door interrupted the d'Alemberts' interrogation of Lady A, and they had to think quickly of a way out. There were no other doors in the room, just a pair of windows overlooking the landscape, offering them a three-story drop to the ground. A ten-meter fall, however, was still preferable to a gun battle against unknown odds-especially since they now possessed information vital to the defense of the Empire. They had to get out with it alive.
They glanced at the windows and the same idea occurred to both of them. But Vonnie still hesitated. "What about her?" she asked, nodding in Lady A's direction.
"We'll have to leave her, I'm afraid," Jules decided. As much as he would have liked to take their high-ranking captive with them, it would have been difficult under the best of circumstances; and now, with the two of them under attack and Lady A still deep under the influence of the nitrobarb, it was flatly impossible.
Then the door to the room burst inward, and there was no time for further conversation. As a squad of guards poured into the room, the d'Alemberts made their leap for freedom. There were two simultaneous crashes as the DesPlainians smashed through the twin windows with their arms over their heads to prevent facial injuries. Then they were out in the open air, falling free three floors to the snowy ground below them.
The fall seemed quite slow to their reflexes, trained as they were under high-grav conditions. Jules in particular was an acrobat par excellence, and could twist his body around for the best landing position. Yvonne had not been raised in the Circus, but she'd known by her late teens that she would be marrying Jules and entering the Service at his side; as the daughter of a baron, she'd had plenty of leisure time to learn the necessary tricks of staying alive. Her movements as she fell now were not as graceful as her husband's, nor as effortlessly performed-but they were just as practical, and achieved the same ends.
The D'Alemberts hit a level patch of snow without any protruding obstacles. They turned the forward momentum component of their leap to their advantage, rolling over in a somersault that left them, finally, springing to their feet and facing away from the house. They were bruised from the hard landing of their fall, but no bones were broken and no muscles sprained. As the guards appeared in the windows from which they had just leaped, the two SOTE agents began running at top speed.
There was only one destination in both their minds: the small landing field behind the house where both the copter and the spaceship were sitting. There'd been no need to discuss that in advance; it was the only transportation around. Trying to leave on foot or by sleigh would be suicide.
Blaster bolts were sizzling the air around them, melting deep pockets in the snow near their feet. They ran a random, zigzag pattern to avoid being shot, but some of the beams were hitting very close anyway. As soon as the guards realized where the two fugitives were heading, however, most of them stopped firing and started racing down the stairs to head them off.
The small landing field came into view as the d'Alemberts rounded a corner of the building. The copter was at the near edge of the pad, with the spaceship more than thirty meters away at the far side. Nevertheless, Jules gasped, "Ship," to his wife, and Yvonne nodded. Taking the copter would be easy, but they would still be stuck on this planet with no way of getting the information to SOTE Headquarters on Earth. They would have to find some way of breaking into the garrison and convincing the officials there that they really were SOTE agents-and since many of those same officials were in Lady A's pay, that route was not a safe one, either.
As the DesPlainians sprinted across the open field, some of the guards appeared behind them, blasters drawn and ready to fire. Jules, checking over his shoulder for just such pursuit, saw them appear and took a second to stop, turn, draw his own blaster, and fire at the guards. The small knot of pursuers scattered in search of cover while Jules raced on. The DesPlainians took turns firing back to keep their enemies honest as they ran desperately toward the spaceship that was their only hope of escape.
They reached the side of the ship and Jules stood guard at the base while Vonnie climbed the ladder into the vessel. It was a small ship, built to hold no more than a dozen people; the d'Alemberts were hoping it was empty at present, and fueled for a quick takeoff. It would do them little good to get inside and find the-ship cold and completely shut down; starting it up again could take several hours.
Vonnie had reached the top of the ladder and paused there to draw her own blaster once more. Now it was Jules's turn to climb, an exposed target on the side of the ship, hoping that his wife could keep their attackers busy enough evading her fire that they'd be unable to get a clear shot at him. He used the strength of his powerful arms to pull himself up three rungs at a time, but on the last few pulls his hands were sweating so much, despite the cold, that his grasp almost slipped. At long last-less than ten seconds from when he started-he reached the airlock level beside his wife, and the two of them ducked inside and slid the door shut behind them.
They had gained a respite, but it would be a very short-lived one unless they acted quickly. They raced through the ship with guns drawn, on the chance that there might be crewmembers still aboard, but they found themselves alone here. While Vonnie continued the search through the small vessel, Jules went straight to the control room to check the ship's takeoff status.
He was happy to see that the instruments were in the standard format, and that there were controls for weapons as well as for flight. Lady A had a rather sleek little craft here, and he approved wholeheartedly. His eyes quickly scanned the rows of dials, noting their reactions as he flipped some of the toggles. By the time Vonnie returned from her search with the happy news that they were alone in the ship, Jules had completed his systems analysis. "All smooth and roaring to soar," he said happily.
Vonnie slid onto the acceleration couch next to his. Turning on the external field monitors, she said, "We've got company, though. They're not happy about our being here."
Jules glanced over at her screen. The ground around the ship was swarming with guards, trying to figure out some way of getting inside. "Can you use the ship's guns on them?" he asked.
Yvonne checked her gunnery board. "No, they're inside minimum range."
"Then I'll have to get fancy. Hold onto your boots." The ship was not yet ready for takeoff, as it still lacked a course plotting and systems coordination-but, to scare the people around the base, Jules made a quick motion to turn on the engines for a fraction of a second. The roar from the base of the vessel was enough to send Boros's guards fleeing in all directions. The ship shuddered, but stayed where it was as Jules quickly turned the motor off again after he'd made his point. Anything more than an instant of unguided reaction could send the ship toppling over on its side.
Boros's army was scattered around the ship now at a respectful distance, but not abandoning the fight entirely. As Jules continued to run quickly through the preflight systems checkout, Vonnie watched the scene outside with a dubious eye. "I really think we should give them something to keep them busy," she mused. "Do we need that house any longer?" Jules smiled. "I really don't think so."
With great glee, his wife set about lining the building up in her sights. "Stationary targets aren't much fun," she muttered, "but they're better than nothing."
The ship's guns roared, and the upper floors of the house exploded in a burst of flame. Vonnie aimed again, and more of the structure was demolished. "Think that finishes Lady A and Tanya Boros?" she asked.
Jules didn't look up from his instruments. "It's a nice thought," he said, "but somehow I doubt it. They probably hid in a bomb shelter the instant we got in here. That's what I'd have done in their place."
The display of force from the ship finally caused the guards to scatter altogether and move back toward the house to put out the fires now burning there. With the external pressures removed, Jules was able to finish up his necessary operations in less than ten minutes. "Strap yourself in," he warned needlessly, for Yvonne had done so long ago. "We are about to take our leave of beautiful Gastonia."
The rockets roared beneath them as their ship lifted skyward with effortless efficiency. Minutes later they had cleared Gastonia's atmosphere and were speeding at top velocity away from the prison planet. Vonnie kept her eyes resolutely on the scanner screens, looking for any sign of pursuit from the garrison, but nothing came after them. Perhaps Tanya Boros and the Governor could not mobilize their forces in time; or perhaps-more likely, in Vonnie's opinion-they didn't want to find themselves in the midst of a running gun battle with this particular craft. Yvonne could tell from studying her instrument board that Lady A's ship was as well-armed and deadly as the d'Alemberts' own Comete Cuivre.
The instant they were far enough away from Gastonia's gravitational influence, Jules slipped their little vessel into subspace. He did not make a long jump, just enough to get them away from the Gastonia system so that their position couldn't be traced. As soon as he was positive they were safe from detection, he dropped back into the normal universe and began warming up the subcom set. He and Yvonne had a long report to send back to Earth--a report that SOTE Headquarters would want as quickly as possible.
The Service, meanwhile, was having plenty of problems just coping with the routine security arrangements for the Coronation that was now just four days away. They had thought that the security arrangements for Edna's wedding the previous year had been difficult-but those were child's play compared to the logistical monstrosity that confused them now.
Only once before in the more than two-hundred-year history of the Empire had a monarch abdicated in favor of a successor. Most of the Stanleys came to sudden. violent ends, and the ascension of their heirs was a much more spontaneous affair. Although it was a tradition to publicly broadcast the Coronation from Earth to every planet in the Galaxy, few people were privileged to be on hand to attend such an event in person.
Edna's coronation as Empress Stanley Eleven, though, had been private knowledge in high government circles for years, and had been announced publicly months ago. People knew in advance that it would be happening-and they knew, too, that they might never see another coronation within their lifetimes. Stanley Ten had reigned for well over forty years; a majority of people within the Empire had never even lived under another ruler. The excitement caused by the upcoming change in power had electrified the populace throughout the Galaxy.
As tradition decreed, the ceremony would be held at Bloodstar Hall in the Angeles-Diego metropolitan complex. Despite SOTE's best precautions, Edna's wedding there had been a near-disaster, with only Jules and Yvonne averting tragedy at the last possible moment. The Head was determined that this ceremony was not going to be the fiasco the last one had been, and as a consequence was spending most of his time away from Headquarters coordinating the security precautions with the young Lord Bloodstar. He left his daughter and Girl Friday, Helena, to mind the more routine business back at the office.
It was late at night in Florida, where SOTE Headquarters was hidden, and Helena von Wilmenhorst was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Since her father had gone to Angeles diego she'd been averaging only four hours of sleep a night after coordinating his needs with the normal press of Service business. No matter how important the Coronation was, there was still an Empire to be run-an Empire that was rapidly approaching fourteen hundred planets in scope. As one of the people with primary responsibility for the safety of that Empire, Helena had little private life for her own satisfaction.
The words in the daily reports were running into one another in a jumble of jabberwocky. After reading over the same sentence in a manpower requisition for the sixth straight time without comprehending it, she had just about decided to quit for the day. Then the d'Alemberts' report came in-and suddenly, Helena had never been more wide awake in her life.
It was not just the fact that the report was a long-awaited . one from two of the top agents in SOTE's retinue; Helena and her father routinely gave d'Alembert reports top consideration anyway. What really made Helena sit upright in her chair was the coding: Class 10 Priority. In all the history of the Service there had been exactly six Class 10's prior to this one. It was an acknowledgment of dire peril to the Empire, an armed attack or revolution either in progress or imminent. Class 10 commanded instant attention at any hour of the day or night. Within seconds of being notified, Helena had the images of Jules and Yvonne on her screen. She noted with some annoyance that they were not on a scrambler circuit, but knowing the d'Alemberts as well as she did she realized there had to be a good reason for it. Without wasting time on trivial formalities like greetings, she said simply, "Father's at Bloodstar. Let me have it."
Of necessity, Jules's report came in with painful slowness. Lady A's ship was not equipped with a Service scrambler, and he was not about to broadcast such vital information over open ether without some protection. He had to reword everything he wanted to say into one of SOTE's verbal codes, a complex process even under the best of conditions. He had a lot to tell her, too, and he wanted to make sure that every word of it was transmitted correctly. They could not afford any errors at this stage of the game.
Helena took down all the information with a growing feeling of urgency, double-checking the most salient points to make sure she'd understood correctly. The story of impending revolution that Jules was relating was grim indeed, and bound to put a serious strain on the Empire's resources.
She listened for more than an hour as Jules worked his way through the facts. When he was finally finished, she nodded and told him she would pass it right along to the appropriate people. Jules told her that he and Vonnie would rip a seam through subspace and get back to Earth in three days to give a fuller report in person. Then the connection was broken and the screen went blank.
Helena instantly put through a call to her father. She did not use the phrase "Class 10 Priority," not wanting to cause panic throughout Angeles-Diego; but the codeword she used to get through was a personal reference between father and daughter that conveyed roughly the same urgency. Zander von Wilmenhorst was on the line instantly, concern evident on his face.
Since this call was going through double scramblers, Helena did not have to waste time encoding what she said, and she conveyed the information in less than half an hour. The Head did not interrupt his daughter once during her recitation; his superb mind was too busy assimilating data, correlating it with other reports and planning alternate tactics. When she finished, he had only one question: "I know the source, but I still have to ask-is this information one hundred percent accurate?" "I double-checked that myself," Helena confirmed. "It was obtained under nitrobarb."
The Head nodded. "Good. We may have to commit the disposition of Imperial forces on the basis of this, and we can't take any chances. And put Metzenbach in charge of the office; I want you out here with me by first light tomorrow. We've got work to do."
As soon as he'd ended his conversation with his daughter, the Head was on his way to the palace in Los Angeles where the Imperial family had taken up residence to prepare for the ceremony to come. He would not go into details over the vidphone, but he managed to convey the urgency of his mission. When he arrived at the palace, he was escorted quickly to a small planning chamber that was completely bugproof.
The three other people he'd asked for were already there: Emperor William Stanley, a distinguished man with graying hair, seventy years old with all the experience such an age implies; his daughter, Crown Princess Edna, twenty-five years old but already experienced at wearing the mantle of Imperial responsibility; the Lord Admiral Cesare Benevenuto, the Empire's top military tactician. On these four people, then, the fate of the Galaxy would hinge.
"The conspiracy is ready to make its move," von Wilmenhorst said as preface, then explained the situation as the d'Alemberts had discovered it. The other three listened, their faces getting longer as their predicament grew clearer.
There was a pause after he finished his briefing. It was, by courtesy, the Emperor's right to comment first on the information. William Stanley considered what he'd heard. and finally spoke.
"Even though this information was obtained under nitrobarb," he said, "and was obviously true when it was spoken, it may already be outdated. This mysterious C must know by now that his chief lieutenant has been interrogated, and therefore that there is some chance his plans have been compromised. Couldn't he decide to postpone the entire attack until he can again be sure of surprise?"
