Sertian Princess (17 page)

"Captain, you are a fool.  It is obviously possible because it has happened.  To deny it is futile.  What we must do is to reassess the relative threat posed by this civilian ship, if indeed it is civilian after all.  Let's see what her defensive screens are like."

"Bring all lasers to bear on the civilian ship: maximum power, sustained fire," Siccardes ordered.  "All turrets fire as you bear."

"All turrets engaged and firing, sir," the gunnery officer reported.  "No discernible weakening of the defensive shielding."

"Cease fire.  We can't waste any more time on her now.  We'll come back and finish the job later.  Helm hard a'port.... maximum rate of turn."

"She's not answering the helm, sir."

"What!" Siccardes nearly exploded.

"Sir, we're being held by two tractor beams.  Point of origin is aboard the civilian ship, sir."

"Well break the bloody tractor beams, then.  That's what we've got all that countermeasures equipment on board for."

"These tractor beams are of a type I've never seen before, sir.  The countermeasures are not effective on these beams."

"Then blast that goddam ship out of space."  Siccardes was nearly beside himself with rage now.  "All lasers open fire and keep firing until I tell you to stop."

The main gunnery control panel sprang into life, the pattern of lights indicating the active lasers.  On the main viewing screen, the space between the Ragnar and the Salamander was filled with streaks of brilliant light.  Then on the gunnery panel, one light winked out, followed by another.... and then another.  On the viewing screen, the streaks of light connecting the two ships became fewer and fewer.... and eventually none.

"What the hell's going on," Siccardes demanded.  "I ordered you to keep firing."

"The laser firing mechanism's being disrupted, sir.  Some sort of jamming signal from that civilian ship.  None of the main laser systems are operative, sir."

This time as Wolfram and Siccardes looked at each other, there was fear in their eyes.  Fear which quickly changed to panic when the next report came in.

"Sir, the tractor beams are moving."

"Moving.  What do you mean, moving?"

"Sir, the beams are being rotated.... in opposite directions."

One tractor beam from the Salamander had locked on to the bow of the frigate, while the other had fastened itself near the stern.  The effect of these two beams now moving in opposite directions, was to twist the hull of the warship as one might discard an empty drinks can.

Inside the Ragnar, the sounds of the unnatural stresses being placed upon her hull, could now be clearly heard.  All through the ship, crewmen were rushing to launch the ship's boats or to don space armour.  The ones who went for their armour and, of those, the few who managed to get their armour on in time, were the lucky ones. The boats would not launch because the twist in the hull was now so severe that the launch mechanism had jammed.

On the bridge, Wolfram, Counsellor to the President of the Federation of Vostov, and prime architect of the plan to overrun Serta, sat in the Captain's command position and watched as the Ragnar, pride of the Vostovian Fleet, was twisted further and further out of shape, until finally the vacuum broke through and the Ragnar died.

***

Mikael and Anton had watched the approaching Ragnar on the main viewing screen.

"Will we be able to get through without taking too much punishment?" Anton asked.

"I hope so, Tony.  On this first pass, with our combined speeds, we'll only be within range of her lasers for a few seconds.  It's when she swings round for a second pass that we could be in trouble.

"Look there.  The Salamander's trying to force him to come down our starboard side rather than the port side where the damage is."

"Will she succeed?"

"It depends on how good the Ragnar's Captain is.  If it were up to me, I'd allow myself to be forced to the outside and then, at the last minute, roll over and come down the channel between the Salamander and ourselves."

They watched in silence as the Ragnar closed within firing range and opened up with her bow lasers.

"That's all right," Mikael said.  "The screens can take that.  It's when she brings her main lasers to bear as well, that the screens will come under pressure.

"Look now.  She's slipping sideways.  I told you so.  She's going to try to come down between us."

The Ragnar had started to roll under the path of the Cleopatra and so temporarily vanished from the main viewing screen.  Mikael led the rush across to the tank, which was on maximum magnification.  The Ragnar could now be seen crossing under the Cleopatra, but the Salamander was also manoeuvring.  There was something wrong with the data on the Salamander but it took Mikael a minute to realise what it was.

"The Salamander's reversed course.  Technically that should not be possible.  There should not be a living soul left on that ship."

That the Salamander was still under control was evident from the neat way in which she completed the manoeuvre, dropping precisely into the slot between the Cleopatra and the point where the Ragnar was emerging from its roll.

The two ships now started to drop behind the Cleopatra and Mikael turned to his Exec with the expression on his face alternating between relief at escaping so lightly and utter disbelief at the manoeuvre he had just seen performed.

"We're through, Frank.  I don't know how she did it but she got us through.  Please inform Prince Gerald that we're commencing our approach run on the Aldebaran.  Jump off time will be in ten minutes.

"Tony, I'm going to make a fast spiral approach to drop off the Imperial Guard and let them do their stuff.  Then I'll circle back and take the launch across to see what we can do to help clear up the mess.  Strictly volunteers of course."

"I'm coming with you, Mikky.  We don't know how many casualties there'll be down there.  I'll gather a few things together and meet you by the launch."

"I was hoping you'd say that.  Thanks, Tony."

As Anton went to leave the bridge, Mikael turned back to the viewing screen which was now showing the Aldebaran in its centre.  Suddenly the view of the liner, and most else as well, was obscured and there was a raucous clamouring on the bridge as the proximity alarms went off.

“Collision imminent.  Collision imminent."  The automatic warnings blared out.

"Helm hard a'port and dive," Mikael shouted above the noise.  "Maximum rate of turn.  Full power to the gravity shields."

Despite the gravity shields, he could feel a giant hand pressing him sideways into the seat of the command position, as the Cleopatra desperately tried to turn away from the ship which had suddenly emerged in her path.  Slowly at first and then more quickly, the clamour of the proximity alarms, the level of which was tied to the distance between the ships, began to die away.

"What happened, Mikky?" Anton asked when he could make himself heard.

"Another goddam ship just materialised into space right in front of us.  The chances of that happening are supposed to be infinitesimal.  And she should have picked us up on her probe anyway."

"Sir, I don't think she can be using a probe or we'd have picked it up ourselves," Frank objected.

"Well what kind of ship would jump blind?  Have we got an ID on her yet?"

"Not yet, sir.  We're...."

The rest of the report was lost as the alarms went off again.

"What now?" Mikael demanded.

"We're under attack, sir.  That new ship has opened fire on us."

"Full power to the defence screens," Mikael ordered.  "Take evasive action.  Do we have that identification, yet?"

"Just coming through now, sir.  She's a Rigellian frigate.  It's one of the rebels, sir."

"A rebel.  Should I give the order to return fire, sir?"

"Yes.... no wait, Frank.  We haven't got enough time.  We have to get the Guards onto the Aldebaran as quickly as possible.  Get us back on course for the liner."

"But sir...."

"No buts, Frank.  Lay in a course for the Aldebaran.  That is an order.  Now we'll find out just how good our defensive screening really is."

"Aye aye, sir."

Mikael put the image of the Rigellian frigate and its analysis readings on his command console and sat there studying them.  The frigate had obviously taken a pounding in the recent battle from which she was still fleeing.  Her signature looked vaguely familiar to Mikael but he could not place where he had seen it before.

Her captain, however, was nothing if not brave.  Mikael could imagine how he must have felt on emerging from sub-space and finding himself right on top of an Imperial warship.  He had certainly reacted to the situation quicker than the Cleopatra, although if he had been jumping blind, he must have had his crew on full alert for just such an eventuality.

"We're back on course for the liner, sir.  The screens are holding up well but they're absorbing a tremendous amount of energy."

"How much longer will the screens hold at this rate, Frank?"

"Chief estimates 5 to 6 minutes, sir."

"And where is the Salamander?"

"She's still locked to the Ragnar.  We can't expect any help from her, sir.  We'll have to take on the rebel ourselves."

"No.  We'll maintain our course for the Aldebaran, Frank."

"But sir.  We can't drop the Guard off when we do get there.  With all this energy flying around out there, they'll be fried to a crisp as soon as they get outside our screens.  Space armour won't protect them against the level of energy that frigate is pouring into us."

"Maintain course for the Aldebaran, Frank.  And give me a continuous read-out on the state of the screens.  We will hold this course until the last possible moment.  Is that clear?"

"Aye aye, sir."

The image on the main viewing screen was starting to break up now, as the aurora of energy surrounding the corvette began to interfere with the sensing systems.  From his command seat, Mikael watched the strain on the defensive screens build closer and closer to the critical point.

"Chief says the screens will last less than another minute, sir. Then those beams will be hitting the hull direct."

"And how much longer will the hull hold?"

Frank stared at his Captain for a moment as if unwilling to believe he had heard the question.

"Chief's not sure, sir.  The damage we took on the port laser turret has thrown out all the equations.  There could be some hairline fractures in the hull, which we haven't been able to detect."

"Well what's his best guess?"

"If the hull's intact, maybe another 4 or 5 minutes.  If not, maybe nothing at all."

"Thank you, Frank.  Maintain current course and speed."

"Aye aye, sir."

"Screens have gone, sir.  She's still firing."

The defence screens had finally overloaded and given out.  Now the beams from the Rigellian frigate were playing directly onto the unprotected hull of the Cleopatra.  Mikael switched his attention to the reading of the external hull temperature and watched as it started to rise.

The tension on the bridge was suddenly shattered by shouts from two of the monitoring consoles.

"There's another ship on the scanners, sir.  And she's using IFF."

Followed by.  "The rebel's breaking off the attack, sir.  She's running."

A cheer went up around the bridge and then was quickly stifled as Mikael stood up.

"The new arrival," he said.  "Is it by any chance the Antares?"

"Uh, yes sir.... It's the frigate Antares.  How did you know, sir?"

Mikael smiled to himself as he turned away, but he said nothing.  Word of this would, he knew, spread round the ship like wildfire.  It did not matter whether they put it down to good fortune or good planning.  If they thought their Captain was clever, then he would look after the ship.  If they thought he was lucky, then the ship would also be lucky.

"Please inform Prince Gerald," he said quietly, "that we shall reach the jumping off point in one minute 42 seconds."

CHAPTER 17

If Captain Wainwright had been annoyed after Floreat, he had been positively furious at Andes and was by now, metaphorically hovering several feet above the floor of the bridge.  He had been delayed in the transit orbits at the last two stops.  He had been forced to make up time by increasing the length of the sub-space jumps, which for a ship the size of the Aldebaran, meant a significant increase in energy consumption, all of which he would have to account for to the owners of the liner.

Then there had been that explosion in the first class staterooms: why did it have to be the first class?  Reports were still coming in about a couple of shooting incidents which seem to have caused a substantial number of fatalities.  Now, in the middle of an unscheduled lifeboat drill, somebody had actually launched one of the lifeboats and appeared to be making off with it.

As he paced up and down one side of the bridge, stopping occasionally to glare at the main viewer, there was a wide circle of studious attention to duty around him.  Not a head turned from the screens they were monitoring, as Lieutenant Singh led David onto the bridge.  Captain Wainwright rounded on him at once.

"Are you the man responsible for... for all this," he spluttered with an expansive wave of his arm.

"Good Lord no," David replied, looking around with an expression of pained surprise on his face.  "Only a relatively small proportion of it, actually.... Ah, is that the lifeboat?"  He led the way over to the viewing screen where the lifeboat could be clearly seen speeding away from the liner, towards the two twinkling dots that were the incoming ships.

"Don't try to be funny with me, sir," Captain Wainwright bellowed from a position less than a metre from David's ear.

David turned and gazed calmly into the other man's eyes.  "I'm not trying to be funny," he said.  "In fact, I regard this whole situation as extremely serious. But the fact remains that I am not responsible for much of what has happened either at the spaceports or on board this ship.  I have simply reacted to events: been forced to take action because of them.  I am driven by circumstances, as indeed we all are, Captain."

"Then just who do you suggest is responsible," he shouted, not reducing the number of decibels in the slightest.

It was a question David had been expecting and he had been considering the various alternative answers on the way up to the bridge.  Captain Wainwright was obviously looking for a scapegoat; someone he could blame for all the disruption to his schedules and the damage to his liner.

David judged that a story of power politics, of interstellar warfare and armed fleets poised for imminent invasion, might not go down too well.  Drugs were much more believable.  Drug smuggling was something that would certainly be within the Captain's direct experience.  On a liner such as this, it must be a regular, if not everyday occurrence.  And, he reasoned, he could still work in the bit about the 18 year old Princess being abducted to provide a hold over her father.  After all, what Vostov really wanted from Serta was to gain control of her trade routes, and it did not require much imagination to work out what a large proportion of the new Vostovian trade goods would be.

So it was out with the DEA identification disc again and, calling on Lieutenant Singh for support whenever possible, David painted a drug based picture of the events which had taken place so far.  To his credit, the irate Captain calmed down sufficiently to hear him out, only interposing the occasional question in a voice which reverberated around the bridge.

"What happens next?" he demanded when David had finished.  "What is going to happen when they discover that Pulowski is on his own in the lifeboat?"

"Well, I'm not sure but...."

He stopped as the answer to the first question became obvious on the viewing screen.  The two oncoming ships were much larger now but their image on the screen was partially obscured by the expanding cloud of debris which was all that remained of the lifeboat.

Captain Wainwright's face turned an interesting shade of purple and David worried for a moment that he might be about to have a seizure.

"My lifeboat," he ground out.  "They've destroyed my lifeboat. Why?"  He turned to David.

"The price of failure, I suppose."

"But why was it necessary to destroy the lifeboat?"

David did not answer.  There really was no rational answer. Instead he pointed to the screen.  "Look there.  One of the ships has changed course."

On the screen it was obvious that only one of the ships was still headed for the liner; the other was now angling away at an increasing rate.

"With your permission, Captain," David asked as he walked over to the 3-dimensional radar scanner.  "Plot the course of the second ship, the one that's just turned away, and put its track up on the screen," he ordered the technician.

The girl's fingers darted over the console as she put in David's request.  "Sir, there are two more ships coming in from the other side. The ship you asked about has altered course to intercept them."

"Not more ships," Captain Wainwright growled.  "Who the devil is it now?  This sector of space is becoming more crowded than the main shipping lanes at Galaxy Central."

"Ah, but I think this might be the Cavalry, Captain."

David spoke to the technician again.  "Please put these new ships up on the main viewer".

The main screen cleared and then there was the image of his beloved Salamander, accompanied by a corvette of the Imperial Navy which looked somewhat the worse for wear.  He switched his attention back to the radar screen and studied the computer predicted tracks.

"They're not going to get here in time," he announced.  "Captain, I think you had better make preparations to receive a boarding party."

"Boarding party? But we're in free space.  There's nobody who has jurisdiction...."  He trailed off as the realisation struck him. "Pirates?" he said incredulously.

"I believe so, Captain."  David looked round to assess the impact of this latest revelation but the Captain suddenly seemed to be a totally different man from the one he had been dealing with before.  He appeared to be a full five centimetres taller, his face was no longer purple and there was a dangerous glint in his eye.  When he spoke, it was not in a stentorian bellow but instead, with a softness in his voice that was somehow more menacing than the loudest shout.

"Pirates, eh.  Well, they may just get more than they bargained for.  Somebody's going to pay for that lifeboat."

He strode over to his command position and sat down.  "Open the general intercom channel," he ordered.

"Attention.  Attention all crew.  This is Captain Wainwright speaking.  We have an emergency situation here.  Please action Contingency Plan 42 immediately.  Repeat Contingency Plan 42, with immediate effect.  All passengers please stay calm and obey the instructions of the stewards.  Thank you."

He swung the chair round to face David.  "I've been a deep space man for over 25 years now, as an officer and then captain of various passenger ships.  But this is the first time I've ever had to put Plan 42 into effect.  I just hope that some of them out there can remember what the hell Plan 42 is."

"I take it that it covers the defence of the key points; the bridge, engine room, environmental control centre and places like that."

"That's right.  That's what the pirates will go for.  And if they can gain control of them.... we're lost."

"Is there anything I can do to help here, Captain?"

"No, I think you'd better get back and look out for this Princess. From what you say, she's going to be their prime target.  But get a move on, because I'm just about to seal the bridge."

"I'll leave you to organise the defence of your ship then, and get back to my own people," David said.  "I do have one favour to ask though," he added.

"Oh, and what might that be?"

"Can I have Lieutenant Singh here, to act as a liaison officer between my people and the bridge?"

"Yes yes, of course.  Lieutenant, go with him."

"Thank you, Captain."

***

When the attack came it was on two fronts.  The freighter itself made for the main airlock and docked with a clang which vibrated through the hull of the liner.  Normal docking procedures required the cooperation of both ships but the freighter was equipped with a modified Li-Matsu system, originally designed for rescue and salvage work.  This system was designed to magnetically clamp itself to the hull of a disabled ship and form an airtight seal around the outside of the airlock, thus enabling the rescue crews to work on the outer airlock door, even if there were no survivors left on board to operate the airlock from the inside.  In this current situation the use of the modified Li-Matsu, had been adapted by the space pirates to provide a means of forcing entry to a ship against the opposition of its crew.

The other attack came through the forward airlock nearest the bridge.  On its approach run, the freighter dropped off a tender carrying a party of 30 men armed with laser rifles, shaped explosive charges and a small portable laser cannon.  The shaped charges took them through the outer and inner airlock doors and they brushed aside the small group of crewmen hastily assembled to guard the airlock under Contingency Plan 42.

It was this party of men that David and Lieutenant Singh ran into on their way from the bridge.

"Get back," Singh yelled, as a blast of violet energy scorched past his ear.

They dodged back round the corner and flattened themselves against the wall.  Both men drew their weapons, but the number of men they had seen in the passage precluded any chance of getting through that way.  David took a stun grenade from his belt and hurled it round the corner.  There was a brilliant flash of light and a deafening percussive clap, followed by shouts of pain as eyes were seared and eardrums shattered.

"That should hold them for a moment," he said.  "Now is there another way through?"

“Not on this level.  Down below there's all the service passageways but it's not a straight run.  We'd have to go round all the plant rooms and, as we left the bridge, I heard the Captain ordering all the bulkheads sealed."

"We're likely to run into more pirates down there anyway.  They're bound to go for the main control centres.  What's up above us?"

"The viewing gallery.  It would give us a direct route to the staterooms.... providing it's still intact."

"What do you mean.... intact?"

"Because of the construction of the gallery, there are no bulkheads until we get to the first class corridors.  If the raiders break any part of that window, either through accident or design, the whole gallery will evacuate, taking us with it if we're in there."

"How far would we have to go along the gallery?"

"From here to the start of the first class cabins.... about 400 metres."

"It still sounds like our best bet."  He grinned at Singh.  "How fast can you do 400 metres?"

Singh grinned back.  "Pretty bloody quickly, if I'm sufficiently motivated.  Come back along here.  There's a serviceway leading up to the gallery."

"Wait a minute."  David fished a small contraption out of one of his belt pouches and attached it, waist high, to the wall of the corridor.

"What is it?"

"Capacitance Discharge Device.  Sets up an interference field across the corridor.  If anything enters the field, one of the capacitors discharges sending an energy pulse through the field.  There are six charges in that little beauty.  Now let's go."

***

Prince Gerald stood in the airlock of the Cleopatra and watched as the outer airlock door slowly opened.  He stood resplendent in full space armour with the golden insignia of his field officer rank gleaming brightly in the airlock lights.  Behind him, his sergeant and the five troopers were going through their final equipment checks.  He listened on the squad's internal TacCom as the checks were made and reported; the final report coming from the sergeant.

"Squad checked and ready for action, sir."

He acknowledged the report and, flexing his jaw muscles against the microswitch, changed channels to pick up the signal from the bridge of the corvette.  When the jump signal came they would have less than three seconds to leave the airlock and even then, at the speed the Cleopatra would be travelling relative to the Aldebaran, they would be spread out the entire length of the liner, if not slightly beyond.

Each guardsman was trained and equipped to act independently of the others and they had all studied the plans of the liner which had been sent across from the Salamander.  The plans, together with their individual targets, had also been fed into the computers of the local Tactical Control Centre which they had set up on the Cleopatra.  These computers were tuned to the TacCom channel used by the squad and could receive the visual and other signals from the sensors in each guardsman's helmet.  The position of each of the squad could then be tracked against the plans and optimum route information relayed back down.

Prince Gerald's target was the Aldebaran's bridge.  Two of the squad were detailed to take control of the airlocks and sever the links with the attacking ships.  The others had targets based on an analysis by the tactical computers, of the control centres the pirates would most likely have made for.