Sertian Princess (27 page)

He turned back to Suzanne.  "Now all we can do is wait."

They did not have to wait long.  The next reports came through fast and furiously.  The first and by far the most terrifying, was the ululating sound that signalled "FIRE".  It was the most feared hazard for any spacecrew.  If it did not kill you by weakening the fabric of the thin shell which separated the life environment from the void, then it burned up the limited supply of oxygen and suffocated you.

The fire had started suddenly in the sickbay.  It was not a large fire and there were no reports of any casualties.  But despite it being an obvious diversion, Mikael could not ignore it.

"Bosun, double the guard on the launch bay.  And put every other available man in the fire crew."

The second report came from the engine room.

"Chief here, sir.  We've a wee problem with the main drives.  We're losing power and it's getting worse.  I canna pin it down yet."

"Does it look like sabotage, Chief?"

"Not obviously, sir.  But I canna rule it out."

The third report was the most puzzling of all.

"Captain.  The launch bay doors are opening."

"But how?  You've got the controls there, right in front of you."

"The controls have been overridden and locked, sir.  Control is being directed from the Secondary Control Centre.  I can't break the overrides from here."

"LeFevre," Mikael breathed.  "Bosun, come with me.  Frank, take the con."

Every ship in the Imperial Fleet had a Secondary Control Centre, buried deep in the heart of the ship, which could take control if the bridge was disabled.  There were supposed to be safeguards in place to ensure that commands from the bridge took precedence over commands from secondary control.  Obviously, LeFevre had found a way of short circuiting the safeties and locking out the bridge.

They reached the Secondary Centre at a run, to find the door slid fully open.  With a brusque "Excuse me, Cap'n," the bosun shouldered Mikael aside and momentarily blocked the opening with his massive bulk. When Mikael recovered his balance, he darted through the doorway to find the control centre in the sole occupation of the bosun.

"Nobody here, sir," he reported somewhat unnecessarily.  "But we can't have missed the bugger by much."

"It's still a miss, bosun.  He's still one step ahead of us.  Now close those launch bay doors before he gets clear away."

"Aye aye, sir."  He went over and examined the control panel. "According to this, sir, we're too late.  The launch cast off as soon as the bay doors were open.  He must have set it on automatic."

"Damn."  Mikael swore as he punched the intercom through to the bridge.  "Frank, we've missed him here and the launch has gone.  Have you got it on the screen?"

"Yes sir, we have it."

"Scan it for life-forms.  See if he's aboard."

"Scanners show one humanoid life-form on board, sir."

"But that's impossible, sir," the bosun broke in.  "I'll swear we didn't miss him by more than seconds.  He can't possibly have made it back to the launch before it cast off".

"So maybe he had an accomplice.  But in that case one of the two must still be on board somewhere".

Mikael pushed the intercom button again.  "Frank, I don't know who's on board that launch, but I'm damn well going to find out.  Bring the Cleo about and plot an intercept course.  I'm on my way back to the bridge".

***

In the engine room there was a welter of furious activity.  At the eye of the storm Andrew Fraser was standing, looking at the main control panel with a deepening frown on his forehead.  He took his eyes from the flickering array of telltale lights and displays only long enough to direct an engineer to another corner of the chamber and to exhort redoubled effort from his already overworked staff.

The TacAn computers had pinpointed the engine room as LeFevre's most likely target and a full scale search was underway of the room itself and its surrounding passages and crawlways.  The fear that was gnawing at the Chief's stomach was that the unexplained oscillations in the main drives which were causing the power loss were, in some way, the work of the saboteur.  The oscillations were increasingly visible now and the power loss had reached 5%.

A muffled yell brought him out of his study of the control panel.  Then the shout was repeated from inside the engine room.

"We've found something, Chief".

"Where?"

"In the crawlway behind the main drives.  Henderson doesn't recognise it but he swears it wasn't there on the last inspection.  He wants to know if he should bring it out".

"No, you blathering fool.  Tell him to keep his great paws off it.  It could be booby trapped.  I'll come in and look at it myself".

Fraser grabbed a portable communicator and hauled himself through the nearest access point.  A light ahead of him indicated where Henderson was waiting.  He scrambled down the crawlway until he reached the light.

"What've you found, lad?"

"I dunno, Chief.  I don't recognise it but it definitely shouldn't be there".

He grunted and eased forward fractionally to get a better look.  It was just an anonymous small box, not visibly connected to anything and offering no clue as to its purpose.  He thumbed the communicator.

"Bridge".

"Chief here, sir.  We've found a device behind the main drives.  I've nay idea what it is but I'll put money on it being the cause of the power loss".

"Can you disable it, whatever it is?"

"There's nay switch, sir.  Only a timing device and that's already active.  I'll have to open it up to do anything".

"Is it a bomb?"

"I don't think its main purpose is a bomb, sir, although it could be booby trapped".

"What if it blows when you open it?"

"Then you'll have some damaged cabling and a dead Chief Engineer, sir".

The communicator went quiet for a long second.

"Chief, I can't order you to open up that box.  You're the man on the spot - it's your decision.  But be careful.  Damaged cabling I can replace but I don't want to have to indent for a new Chief Engineer when we get back to base".

"Aye aye, sir".

Fraser put the communicator away and looked up.

"All right, laddie, off you go".

"I'm not going anywhere, Chief.  I'm staying to help".

Fraser looked at the youngster, white faced but determined in the confined space.  He nodded briefly.

"OK then, laddie.  Pass me that tool kit".

***

"Captain.  One of the coffins has ejected, sir."

Mikael spun round from the tank where he had been mentally calculating intercept times and struggled to interpret this latest information.  Emergency Survival Capsules, known universally among deep spacers as "coffins" and designed to preserve an individual for up to 10 days in deep space conditions, were fitted as standard on all Naval warships and an increasing number of commercial passenger ships.  It was one of these capsules that had now been launched.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the tank give visual confirmation of the launch as the sensors picked up the distress signal from the capsule and translated it into a brilliantly flashing dot.

"There he goes, Frank.  That's LeFevre in that capsule, I know it.  The launch will pick him up and he'll be away."

"But they can't outrun us in that launch."

"I'm sure we're not meant to be able to chase them.  That'll be the device the Chief's working on now.  What's the status on that?"

"He's got the box open and he was right.  There's a trembler device in there that'll blow if he tries to move it."

They moved across to join a small group listening as Fraser described the components and the internal configuration of the box.

"Chief, Captain here.  Can you disable the device, whatever it is?"

"Not safely, sir.  Not without knowing its function.  I could just trigger the whole thing."

"Chief."  It was Suzanne who spoke up.  "Lord David wants to know if it could be some form of Wave Particle device and whether that could be causing the oscillations in the main drive."

"Aye, it could be.  I've never seen one before but the configuration matches the theory and if that's right...."  He broke off as his thoughts ran ahead faster than the words could follow.

"Sir, I'm going to have to shut the main drive down.  Immediately.  If Lord David's right and I'm beginning to think he could be, the drives could go unstable at any time."

"But sir.  If we shut down the drives then LeFevre will get clean away," Frank objected.

"And if we don't....  Chief what if we keep going?"

"If the drives go unstable, we'll be blown out of existence and LeFevre will still get clean away."

"Shut them down, Chief.  And let me know as soon as you've dealt with that device."

"Aye aye, sir."

Mikael strode back to the tank and watched as the launch closed for its rendezvous with the capsule.  An unnatural silence descended on the bridge as the all-pervasive hum of the main drives slowly died away.  In the tank, the green dot of the Cleopatra stopped turning in pursuit and the angle between them and the other two dots began gradually to increase.

"I still don't understand the second person," he said, half to himself.  "Who else is missing from the crew and how did they get aboard the launch?"

"It's not a crewman, sir."

Frank came up to stand alongside his Captain.

"One of the guards from the launch bay has just reported in.  Why he didn't report before I don't know.  I've had him placed under close arrest but that's no help to us now."

"You're wittering, Frank," Mikael interrupted.  "If you've got some more bad news, let me have it."

"We know the identity of the person on the launch, sir.  It's not a crewman and it's not an accomplice."

"Then who the devil is it?" he demanded.

"It's Princess Nerissa, sir.  She's the person on board the launch and she's just about to rescue LeFevre."

CHAPTER 26

Princess Nerissa tucked the needle gun into her belt and went back onto the flight deck of the launch.  There was no one else on board. She was satisfied of that having spent the last several minutes searching the boat with the aid of a portable scanner she had found in the medical locker.

She turned her attention to the control panels.  The lights were flashing in a pattern which she could not immediately recognise.  She had never flown a ship of the Imperial Navy before and a number of apparently significant controls were unfamiliar to her.  She recognised the autopilot and displayed the programmed instructions.  The course appeared to describe a gentle spiral around the Cleopatra.  It made no sense.  Surely he would have wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and the corvette.

None of it made any sense, she admitted to herself.  If this was his escape route which he must have intended it to be, then where was he?  She began to have this sinking feeling that perhaps she was just making a complete fool of herself.  Cast adrift in a ships boat, without any means of communication, just waiting for someone to notice her and haul her back on board.

That was not how it was meant to be.  She sat down in the pilot’s seat and forced herself to get angry.  That at least suppressed the incipient fear.  That was not how it was going to be.  Grimly she began to concentrate on the unfamiliar controls, straining to recall every detail of her flight training.  The least she could do was to bring the launch back to the Cleopatra again.

The sudden lurch as the launch changed course took her by surprise.  The course in the autopilot had been a smooth spiral a few minutes ago.  She checked the autopilot again now.  It was still engaged, but the programmed course had changed.

Then another light on the far left of the console caught her eye.  It had not been flashing before, she was sure of that.  She reached over and touched the associated button.  Immediately the flight deck was filled with the sound of the universally recognised distress signal.  Somewhere out there was a survival capsule whose signal had been picked up by the onboard computers which had overridden the autopilot and put the launch on an interception course.

She concentrated now on the scanner controls.  These at least were similar to the ones she was used to.  The main screen in front of her sprang into life.  There was the escape capsule tumbling away from the Cleopatra.  Somebody had ejected from the warship.

She had a momentary feeling of fear that her friends on the Cleopatra might be in some serious trouble but no other escape capsules followed.  So it was not a general evacuation.  Then the realisation struck her like a blast of hot air.  She had not been foolish after all.  She was in the right place: she was just too early.  And he was coming.  He was coming.

She sat back in the pilot’s seat and began to prepare.

***

The stunned silence that had followed the announcement of Princess Nerissa's presence on the launch had only lasted a few seconds.  Then Mikael had galvanised the bridge crew into furious activity which he was increasingly coming to believe was futile.

The comms were still inoperable.  There was no way to contact the launch to warn Nerissa of the impending danger.  "And what could she do anyway," thought Mikael bitterly.

Erik van Gelst had an electronics crew working desperately to override the automatics inside the launch and bring it back under the Cleopatra's control but they were being seriously hampered by the comms failure.  It did not look as though they were going to succeed in regaining control in time.

The main drives were still shut down as the Chief worked on dismantling the Wave Particle Transformer.  There was no possibility of moving the Cleopatra until that was complete.

To cap it all, the launch and the survival capsule were squarely on the port beam where Mikael could not even bring his sole operational laser turret to bear.

"Chief.  Status report," he barked into the intercom.

"Och, I'm getting there sir.  But it'll be another 10 minutes yet. I canna rush it."

"I don't want you to rush it Chief but I need to move the ship.  I want to bring the starboard laser into action."

"Well we still have the manoeuvring jets sir."

"They're not affected by that device?"

"No sir.  They work on a different principle.  They'll no be affected by this little bugger."

"Thank you very much Chief."

Peter Chen who had been sitting disconsolately in the pilot’s seat, sat up as Mikael broke the connection and turned towards him.

"Well, you heard him Peter.  We can use the manoeuvring jets.  Spin the Cleo round until the starboard laser bears on that capsule."

"Aye aye sir."

With a grin now upon his face, Chen's hands flew across the control panel in front of him.  Mikael set the main display screen to show the starboard laser's field of fire and waited impatiently as the corvette slowly started to spin.

The pattern of stars on the screen shifted with maddening slowness as the pilot nursed the crippled ship into motion.  Mikael darted a look at the tank where the gap between the coffin and the launch was now almost imperceptibly small.  He increased the magnification of the tank but it was obviously going to be a close run thing.

"Frank, tell the turret to open fire as soon as they have a bearing."

"Aye aye sir."

The stars were sliding across the screen a little faster now.  In the background Mikael could hear the voice of the turret commander counting down the seconds.

"Five, four, three, two, one..."

A dot appeared on the edge of the main display screen, followed almost immediately by a second.

"Target in view.  Laser locked on.  Fire."

A pulse of brilliant light appeared in the centre of the screen and arrowed its way towards the two dots.  Then nothing.  The laser pulse dwindled to a pin prick and vanished.

"Fire," came the voice of the turret commander.

A second pulse appeared on the screen and traced a path towards the target.  This time there was a flash of light as the coherent energy of the laser pulse broke up against a force screen.

"We've hit the launch."

"Sir.  Turret commander reports the angle between the targets is too small to differentiate."

"I had noticed he was having some difficulty, Frank.  Tell him to cease fire: we can't risk hitting the launch again.  There's nothing more we can do now until the Chief gets the main drives working again."

***

Nerissa felt the launch lurch as the laser pulse struck home.  At first she thought the boat had collided with the survival capsule but a glance at the screen showed the capsule still there and closing rapidly now.

There was no time to wonder about the bump now.  She checked that the automatic docking mechanism was working and left the flight deck.  In the main compartment she made a final round of the equipment she had prepared and set herself opposite the airlock.

A faint tremor ran through the launch as the survival capsule docked with the Li-Matsu airlock.  She drew the needler and checked the charge level for at least the fifth time.  It was still full.  The knuckles of the hand holding the needle gun were almost white, she noticed with some surprise.  Her mouth was dry and her palms were moist.  Despite all of her preparations, she was more scared than she could ever remember being.

"Remember your training."  She forced herself to think clearly now.  "Acknowledge the fear and then concentrate on the job in hand."

She heard the airlock cycling and aimed the needler at the airlock door as it started to slide open.  A man stood framed in the opening.  "He looks quite ordinary," she thought as the man sensed her presence and automatically dived to his right in a roll.  Before he hit the floor she flicked a switch on the device by her left hand and the wide angle force field sprang into life and trapped him in its beam.

LeFevre collapsed to the floor in slow motion.  His arms and legs felt as though they were surrounded by thick treacle.  The intended roll lost all momentum and every movement required extreme effort.  He recognised Princess Nerissa but could see nobody else.  "Must be on the flight deck," he thought as he started to analyse the situation.

It was obviously some kind of force field.  He began moving one hand towards his belt to switch on his personal force screen and counteract the general field in which he was caught.

"Stop.  Keep your hands away from your belt," Nerissa ordered.  "And keep them where I can see them."

He relaxed and looked up at the beautiful young woman with the deadly needle gun in her hand.  It was pointed straight at his head, he noted and without any telltale trembling to give away her emotional state.  But he was still alive and every minute that he continued to live made it more unlikely that she would be able to kill him.

"Do you mind if I sit up?  It's rather undignified being sprawled here."

With her left hand Nerissa indicated that he could sit up.  The needler did not move from his head he observed.  Still any gain, he thought, is worthwhile in this situation and he slowly manoeuvred himself into a sitting position.

"Who are you?" Nerissa demanded.

"My name is Junius LeFevre.  But then you know that Princess."

"Why are you trying to kill me?"

LeFevre considered the possible replies to that question for a few seconds as his thoughts raced furiously.

"Where was the crew of the launch?  Was it possible that she was on her own?"

He strained his ears listening for the sounds of the crew but the silent questions received no reply.  He made his decision and looked squarely at Nerissa.

"You already know most of it so I might as well tell you.  I was employed by Vostov to destabilise the Sertian kingdom ahead of the coming invasion.  You were to be kidnapped or killed.  The kidnap failed so I have killed you."

"But you failed, didn't you.  I'm not dead."

He tried to shrug his shoulders but gave up under the effects of the force field.

"As good as.  The corvette is crippled if not totally destroyed.  If you kill me, the odds on you being able to pilot this launch back to Serta before the invasion are infinitesimal.  And if you don't kill me...."

"Tell me about Queen Serena."

The sudden change of direction took him by surprise.

"Your mother.  What about her?"

"You killed her."

"No not me, Princess.  Anyway I heard it was an accident."

"That's what we thought at the time.  But I know better now.  You killed her in the same way as you tried to destroy the Cleopatra."

"That was nothing to do with me."

"I don't believe you."

She shifted her aim slightly and a thin beam of violet light shot past LeFevre's ear.

"It was an accident.  You've got nothing on me.  No proof".

"Oh but we have, LeFevre.  You see we recovered the black box from the shuttle.  Just before the final explosion, the main drive started to oscillate and there was an increasing power loss.  Nobody could explain that at the time but sabotage was considered.  Your name was on the list of possible saboteurs which our Security Chief drew up during the enquiry but nothing could be proved and the investigation was closed.  Now you turn up here and the Cleopatra starts exhibiting similar symptoms.  That's an awfully big coincidence."

She shifted the point of the needle gun again and the violet beam scorched past LeFevre's other ear.

"Ok ok.  So you've got a case.  What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to kill you," she said simply.  "I just wanted to hear you admit that you killed my mother."

She aimed the needler at the centre of LeFevre's forehead and began to squeeze the firing stud.  Instantly she felt her wrist seized by an iron grip and her fingers refused to respond.  Nerissa looked at her hand in amazement.  There was nothing touching it, nothing holding it but it was no longer under her control.

"No you don't want to kill me, Princess," said a voice from inside her head.  "That's not the way the game's supposed to end."

Panicking now Nerissa fought desperately to regain control of her hand but it was no use.  She had physically restrained the man on the floor before her but she had not considered this possibility.  LeFevre was a telepath.

Softly the voice inside her head went on.  "You've been very clever, Princess.  Worked it all out, didn't you.  All except for this.  You should have killed me while you had the chance."

Nerissa saw the hand holding the gun start to move.  She could not feel it move.  There was nothing at the end of her arm at all that she could feel.  But slowly her arm pivoted from the elbow and the point of the gun crept nearer to her own face.

"Suicide I think, Princess.  In despair at the loss of your friends on the Cleopatra.  Such a shame."

She felt her eyes staring wide in horror as the gun continued turning.  Her whole body began to shake under the strain of fighting for control of that gun.  But he was too strong.  She could not beat him.  She looked at death at the point of her own gun.