Sertian Princess (18 page)

They were given 5 seconds warning of the actual jump signal and crowded forward to the very edge of the airlock.  Then came the jump and Prince Gerald, once he had regained his orientation, found himself on a slightly divergent course from the corvette and coming up fast behind the liner.  He used the jets built into his armour, in large bursts at first to rapidly decelerate, and then more precisely to match velocities with the Aldebaran.  Just ahead he could see one of the troopers angling in towards the forward airlock.  He turned his head to see the rest of the squad strung out behind.

He landed with a bump on the hull of the liner and noted with some relief that the briefing had been correct: there was no force field on the hull.  He adjusted the range on his laser rifle to the minimum setting and, using it as a cutting torch, made a hole in the outer skin large enough for him to drop through.  In the void between the outer and inner hulls, he set up a miniature field generator to cover the opening in the outer hull and prevent the compartment below from evacuating when he cut through the inner hull.  Then, using the laser rifle again, he cut through the inner skin and dropped down into what was obviously one of the service passageways.

The head-up display inside his helmet, indicated that he was two levels below the bridge and that there was a service elevator some 30 metres to his right.  Cautiously he moved down the corridor and summoned the elevator.  It was empty when it arrived.  He adjusted the settings on the rifle to full power but with a maximum range of 15 metres in order to avoid putting any more holes in the hull, and stepped inside.  As the elevator rose, he knelt to one side of the doors in a firing crouch, in case the use of the elevator had been noticed and he had a reception committee waiting.

The doors opened again to reveal nothing but the blank wall opposite.  Carefully he looked through the opening and found the reception committee off to his right.  There were four of them, armed with laser rifles and facing towards him.  The saving grace as far as Prince Gerald was concerned was that they were all quite definitely dead, blasted by some form of energy weapon.  He scanned the area and found the Capacitance Device with which David had booby trapped the corridor, on the wall above the bodies.  It was fully discharged.  His sensors also picked up voices and sounds of activity to his left, in the direction of the bridge.

He padded silently down the passage towards the noise, and peered round the corner.  There was a group of 15 to 20 men clustered around a small laser cannon which was being fired at a bulkhead door.  The helmet display told him that this was the starboard entrance to the bridge.  The attention of the group was concentrated on the bulkhead, which was by now glowing an attractive cherry red.  None of the group were helmeted and his sensors could not detect any trace of personal screening, so a gas attack seemed the most promising line against a group of that size.

He selected two grenades containing a nerve gas similar to that produced on the Salamander.  The first one he threw short, behind the group and the second, using the smoke of the first as cover, he lobbed over the heads of the group to land between them and the bridge bulkhead.  The initial shouts of alarm were quickly followed by a pattern of laser beams, cutting through the murky air at the end of the corridor, trying to find the attacker who had surprised them.  Several of the beams struck his armour and were deflected away.

Prince Gerald raised his own rifle and set its action to automatic target selection.  The pattern of beams emanating from inside the smoke was already dying away as the nerve gas took its toll.  His rifle fired three short pulses and then there was no return fire at all.  Gingerly he stepped across the fallen bodies.  He switched off the laser cannon and then quickly disabled it, in case any of the unconscious group around him, should recover prematurely from the effects of the gas.

The bridge door proved, as he suspected, to be locked from the inside and what was even worse, appeared to be warped from the intense heat of the cannon.  He switched channels on the TacCom and requested the Cleopatra to patch him through to the bridge of the Aldebaran.  It took only a few seconds to get through and then another 30 or so as the bridge crew found that the door was indeed warped, and jammed solid.

He debated for a moment whether to remove the door himself but decided in favour of leaving it in place, as a precaution against any of the pirates recovering.  The effects of nerve gas could be so unpredictable.  Instead, he raced round the corridors to the port side entrance which was undamaged, and had himself admitted there.

"Captain," he began without preamble.  "What is the status of your ship?"

"The engine room was breached but one of your men is there now and my crew are back in control.  The environmental control centre was not breached and it appears that the attack there has stopped.  The attack on the bridge was, as you know, unsuccessful.  You have my grateful thanks and I'm sure I speak for the owners when I say...."

"Save the thanks for later, Captain.  Where are the passengers?"

"They have all been gathered together into the Astrodome.  I have no reports of any fighting from that area."

"Good."  He switched to the squad channel.  "Sergeant, status reports please."

The reports came in one by one and all stations reported secure. Both airlocks had been taken and the tender at the forward airlock had been captured intact.  The only minor disappointment was that they had failed to prevent one of the raiding parties from getting back to the freighter and disengaging from the main airlock.

"Captain," one of the comms technicians called across.  "The Corvette Cleopatra is back alongside.  She's sending over a launch with an armed detail, and also a doctor and medical supplies."

"Direct them to the auxiliary airlock at the stern," Captain Wainwright replied.  "It seems to be the only one still functioning.  And get a damage control party to the main airlock.  I want that operational again.

"Lieutenant, where are you off to now?"

"To the Astrodome, Captain.  I want to check on the passengers; maybe dish out a bit of reassurance."

***

David and Lieutenant Singh covered the 400 metres to the bulkhead at the start of the first class corridors in a time that would have done them credit at the Imperial Games.  Through the bulkhead door and into the relative safety beyond, they found the corridors deserted.

"Plan 42," said David.  "What happens to the passengers?"

"The stewards have orders to get all the passengers into the Astrodome."

"Right.  Let's go."

On their way to the Astrodome, David checked the cabins occupied by the Blue Star Streak Group, but they were all empty.  Corin must have decided that there was better protection to be had among the milling masses in the Astrodome.

The first indication of trouble did not come until they had nearly reached the entrance to the Astrodome.  Singh, who was leading the two, went hurtling round a corner and had to step smartly to one side in order to avoid tripping over the body of one of the stewards.  David skidded to a halt and knelt by the body.

"Dead?" asked Singh.

"No, just unconscious.  No sign of any physical injury."  David rolled the man over and leant close to smell his breath.  "Can't smell any trace of gas.  Must have used some form of stun gun."

Stun guns were standard issue weapons for most of the law enforcement agencies throughout the Empire.  There were many different models available but they all worked on the principle of generating electromagnetic waves in a pattern which interfered with the waves naturally produced by the human brain.  For over 98% of the population, the result was instant unconsciousness lasting anything from a few seconds to several minutes.

To David, however, the implications of the use here of stun weapons, was much more serious.  The raiding party they had encountered by the bridge, had all been armed with lasers: killing weapons.  There had not been a stun gun in sight and their appearance was distinctive enough to have been easily noticed.  So if this raiding party here was using stun guns, it meant that they were trying to take prisoners in an undamaged state.

He stood up and they went on, more cautiously now, towards the Astrodome entrance.  As they passed the door to the lounge bar, he could see through the observation window, a large crowd of people gathered on the platform just inside the entrance.  They were obviously clustered round someone or something, forming a circle on the platform itself, while others floated overhead in the ultra-light gravity.

Singh hit the door controls and they went inside the Astrodome, onto the landing platform.  Immediately they ran into the mass of people that they had seen through the bar window.  The crowd was so tightly packed that attempting to push through it, merely drew angry glances and sharp words, and achieved little in the way of forward progress.  Singh took the lead and tried to use his authority to clear a passage.

"Gangway.... Ship's Officer.  Stand aside and let me through please."

The rearmost rank of the crowd drew slightly aside to allow them forward and then closed in behind them again.  At each layer of the crowd, Singh had to repeat his call before, with obvious reluctance, anybody would give way.  Then the stewards at the front heard Singh's voice and added their own demands for a clear passage, so that progress became a little faster.

At the front of the crowd, they discovered what the centre of attraction had been.  It was Carly and Tessa.  Carly was still stretched out on the floor, with stewards kneeling around her with open first aid packs.  Tessa was sitting up, looking dazed and leaning heavily on one of the stewards.  Hearing the disturbance, she looked up just as Singh reached the front of the crowd.  Then she saw David behind him and burst into tears.

"My lord...." she began.

David ran over to her and took the place of the steward who had been supporting her.  "It's all right, Tessa.  It's all right."

"No, my lord.  It's not."  She hung her head, ashamed to look into his eyes.  "We've failed.  They've taken Princess Nerissa."

CHAPTER 18

David felt a moment of numbness as the impact of Tessa's words hit him.  He looked up at Singh but the Lieutenant was talking rapidly into his communicator.  Savagely he turned on the steward whose place he had taken at Tessa's side.

"Get us some space here," he snapped.  "Organise the other stewards and clear the crowd right off this platform.  We need some air."

Singh had finished speaking into the transceiver and was now listening intently to the reply.  From the darkening of his face, it seemed as though the words he was hearing did not please him.

"Right," he said tersely as he switched the communicator off and turned towards David.

"That was the bridge.  The good news is that there's a squad of Imperial Guard on board the ship.  The bad news is, they didn't get here soon enough to prevent one of the raiding parties from regaining the freighter and making off.  We don't know whether or not they had any hostages with them."

"It's a reasonable bet they did," replied David.

The stewards had by this time, succeeded in clearing the crowd away, by the simple expedient of reopening the adjacent bar, at the announcement of which, a large part of the assembled populace lost interest in the drama on the platform and rediscovered a burning thirst.

David, meanwhile, had been trying to comfort Tessa and stem the flow of tears.  He sent one of the stewards into the bar to fetch a bottle of Galatian Brandy and, when the man returned, half-filled a tumbler with the strong liquor and forced her to drink some.  She coughed and spluttered as the spirit burnt her throat, but it stopped the tears and when she spoke next, it was in a much calmer voice.

"I'm sorry, my lord, but they came straight for us.  It didn't matter where we tried to run, they seemed to know exactly where we were."

"All right, Tessa.  Now just take your time and tell me the whole story."

Before she could begin, there was a disturbance on the far side of the Astrodome, on the floor below them, as the party from the Cleopatra arrived.  Singh waved his arm at them and spoke briefly into the communicator again.  There was an answering wave from the officer escorting the party, and they took off in giant leaps towards the platform where David and Singh were waiting.

Mikael had selected his volunteers from amongst the more experienced of the Cleopatra's crew and they were, therefore, quite accustomed to manoeuvring in low gravity environments like the Astrodome.  Anton was probably the least experienced in low-g acrobatics and did have a little difficulty in controlling his flight path, but the bosun’s mate whom Mikael had assigned to look after the surgeon, deftly retrieved him and set him back on course.

With Anton and the bosun trailing behind, the rest of the party arrived on the platform in good order and Mikael addressed himself to Singh as the only uniformed officer on the platform.

"Lieutenant Commander Boronin of His Imperial Majesty's Corvette Cleopatra."

"Commander Boronin," David stepped forward.  "I am Lord David Held. This is Lieutenant Singh, who is acting as my liaison officer on the Aldebaran."

"I'm very pleased to meet you at last, sir.  What can we do to help?"  He looked down at Tessa and Carly.  "I have a surgeon in my party."

At that, Anton and the bosun landed, with somewhat less precision than the others but nevertheless, safely.  Anton quickly recovered his balance and went straight over to the girls without waiting for an invitation.  He made a quick check of the still unconscious Carly and then turned to Tessa.

"And what happened to you?"

"We were hit by stun guns.  I think Carly took a full blast which is why she hasn't come round yet."

"I see.  And what's this?" he went on, lifting the tumbler of brandy to his nose and sniffing appreciatively.  "Galatian Brandy. You're in no condition to appreciate something as fine as this, young lady."  He sniffed it again before putting the glass down.  "I've got something here that'll do you much more good."

Out of his medical kit he took a needleless injection gun and selected a cartridge to load into it.  He took Tessa's hand and, turning it over palm up, pressed the gun against the inside of her wrist.  Then he reached over to Carly and did the same for her.  The effect was dramatic.  Carly opened her eyes and tried to sit up: Tessa lost her slightly dazed expression and snapped fully alert.

"You won't be needing this anymore, I think," said Anton, and promptly finished off the remains of the tumbler of brandy.

David, who had been watching Tessa's recovery out of the corner of his eye, brought Mikael up to date with the few details that were known.

"It appears that one of the raiding parties from the Palomar has managed to seize the Princess.  We also have reports that one of the raiding parties made it back to the freighter before she took off.  We presume that it was the same party, but we don't know for certain."

He knelt down in front of Tessa and took one of her hands in his. "Ok Tess.  If you're feeling better now, let's have the story."

"Well, Corin decided not to use any of our cabins in case an agent on board had passed on the cabin numbers to the pirates.  So we chose a cabin at random and Corin picked the lock.  We hid in there but it didn't make any difference.  They came straight for us.  They didn't try any of the other cabins in the corridor; they just came straight to ours and blew the door in."

"Go on," David prompted.  "How did you get out of there?"

"The door was the only proper exit from the room, so as soon as we got there, Corin had us cut a 'back door' through the wall to the next cabin for insurance purposes.  When they attacked he sent Carly and me, with the Princess and Lady Lynda, out through the hole while he stayed behind with Cerys, to cover our escape."

"Where were Zara and Brianey?"

"They weren't with us.  They'd gone off on their own earlier, while Corin was opening up the cabin.  We did run into them again later.  At least.... I think we did."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when we got out of the cabin, we set off down the corridor, not really knowing where we were heading; just away from the fighting. Then we ran into this steward.  He was insisting that we went to the Astrodome: that all the passengers were supposed to be in there.  So I thought that, if all the passengers were there, a crowd of that size would make good cover to hide in.  So we went with him.

"We heard shouts and the sound of running feet behind us.  Some of the pirates had broken off the attack on the cabin and were following us, so we didn't hang about.  We had nearly made it to the Astrodome, when I heard the sound of weapon discharges and somebody shouted 'Look out'.  I'm sure it was Zara's voice but I couldn't see her anywhere.  I looked round and saw the steward all crumpled up on the floor, so we made a dash for the Astrodome door.... and didn't quite make it."

"Who found them," David demanded looking up at the stewards still around them.

"I did," one of them volunteered.

"Were they alone?  Did you see anyone else?"

"There was just the two of them, sir.  Right outside the door.  We could see Max, that's the steward who was with them, on the floor at the end of the corridor, but we didn't dare go that far down to get him."

"Did you see anything of the bloody pirates?  Anything at all?"

"No sir.  I'm sorry, sir."

David stood up and turned to Mikael.  "That doesn't get us much further forward.  We still don't know for certain whether or not they got the Princess back to the freighter.

"Commander, could you send your Surgeon and some of your men down to that cabin and see what the situation is.  Tessa will tell them the cabin number and I'm sure one of the stewards will show them the way."

"Right.  What about the rest of my men?"

"If only one raiding party got back to the freighter, then there must be a number of armed pirates still aboard the liner.  They'll have to be flushed out.  I suggest that we get the Aldebaran's crew to conduct a full scale search of the ship, with your men providing the fire-power to back them up where necessary."

"I'll organise it."  Mikael swung round and began issuing rapid orders.

"Tessa, Carly, if you're feeling up to it, get along to my cabin. Brianey said the transmitter's still in working order.  Contact the Salamander and make sure she's tracking that freighter.  Have them extrapolate her course, both for planetfall and for possible rendezvous with any other ship registering on the scanners."

Tessa helped Carly to her feet and made a quick weapons check before leaving at a run.  Mikael sent two of the Cleopatra's men with them: there was no shortage of volunteers.

The communicator clipped to Singh's belt began bleeping plaintively.  He answered it and listened for a few seconds before holding it out to David.

"It's the Bridge," he said.

David took the communicator.  "Held here."

“Captain Wainwright.  That freighter, the Palomar, is broadcasting on all frequencies, repeating the message over and over."

"What message?"

"I'll read it to you.  'Attention all ships in the vicinity of the liner Aldebaran.  This is the freighter Palomar.  We have Princess Nerissa of Serta and her travelling companion as our guests on board this ship.  Do not attempt to follow us or interfere with our passage in any way, or they may be hurt in the resulting manoeuvres.'  And then the message repeats."

"Thank you, Captain."

David switched off the communicator and gave the others the gist of the message.

"At least it removes the element of uncertainty," he remarked wryly.

"So what do we do now?" Mikael asked.

"Follow that damn freighter, by the look of it.  But if they've got Princess Nerissa on board, it's going to be tricky getting her back.  We can't risk an assault in deep space; there's too much scope for accidental damage from our action, let alone what they would do if threatened.  They'll probably be making for Parm.  I know I would in their situation.  So that's where we'll have to go to get her back."

"But Parm's space defences are the best in this entire sector. They've never been breached."

"They've never had to keep the Salamander out before, Commander."

David looked up as the entrance to the Astrodome irised open.

"Ah, now this is an interview I'm not looking forward to."

David knew that the officer commanding the detachment of Imperial Guard was Prince Gerald.  Now, as the young officer strode onto the platform, still in full armour and with the insignia of his rank gleaming under the Astrodome lights, he experienced a slight sinking feeling at the thought of explaining to the Prince that his sister was in the hands of his father's enemies and on a freighter probably bound for one of the most impregnable bases in the Sector.

He was, therefore, somewhat taken aback when, as he was stepping forward to greet the Prince, the young man rushed straight passed without any appearance of even noticing him.

"Neri.  Thank God you're safe.  I've been so worried about you."

David spun round and watched in amazement as Gerald and Nerissa embraced.

"Ow! Gerry, you really should take that armour off before you go hugging a girl.  You're more likely to wound her than woo her, encased in that steel box."

"Sorry, sis.  I'm just glad to see you."

A little to one side of the couple, Brianey was standing, cradling a lightweight assault laser in her arms, and watching the display of sibling affection with a broad smile.  At the sight of David's expression, she stopped smiling and hurried over to report.

"You seem to be making a habit of turning up at the right time today, Brianey.  How the devil did you manage it this time?  And where is the Lady Lynda?"

"It was Zara's idea, my lord."

"Zara...." he began, with an enquiring raise of the eyebrow.  He was about to ask where Zara was, and whether she was with Lady Lynda, when suddenly he had a feeling that he knew the answer to both questions.

"Do go on, Bri."

"We were following four of the raiders who were using some sort of tracking device to guide them round the corridors.  They were concentrating so much on the device that they didn't notice us at all, so we moved quite close behind them to see if we could find out what they were tracking.  Then we saw Tessa and Carly in a group with the Princess.  The pirates saw them at the same time and opened up with their stun guns.  Zara shouted a warning and Tessa and the others ran for it, but they were cut down by the stunners before we could intervene.

"We hit them from behind while they were still concentrating on Tessa's group.  A couple of them were tough little buggers: we had to damage them a bit before they gave up.  Zara borrowed their tracking device and used it to make a close scan of both the Princess and Lady Lynda.  The transmitter turned out to be a surgical implant, just under the Lady Lynda's left collarbone.  There was a small scar from a recent operation.  Since there was no way to disable the transmitter, we had to separate it from the Princess.  Zara told me to take the Princess and she took Lady Lynda.  They were both still unconscious at that stage, so I carried the Princess down a couple of floors and hid in a cabin until it all went quiet.  Princess Nerissa came round and we decided to make a run for the Astrodome, and that's it."