Sertian Princess (16 page)

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By the time Zara reached Cerys' position, the firing had already started.  Cerys was in the short corridor leading to the lifeboat station and with her back towards it.  She was kneeling at the actual intersection, firing round the corner to her left.  She drew back just as another blast of violet energy hurtled past to hit the wall behind her, which was by now showing signs of serious wear and tear.

Zara was approaching the intersection along the corridor directly opposite Cerys and so could not see the people who Cerys was aiming at, although it was presumably the group who had taken Princess Nerissa. What was more alarming from Zara's point of view, was that the door to the lifeboat station had slid open and Pulowski had stepped out into the corridor, obviously alerted by the exchange of fire.  Concentrating on the approaching group, who were now returning fire in a sustained attack, Cerys was unaware of the laser being aimed at her back by Pulowski.

Without knowing exactly the position of the attacking group, Zara dared not risk distracting Cerys' attention by calling out to her, so she dropped into a firing crouch and let fly at Pulowski herself.  Although needle lasers do not have the stopping power of the big blast weapons that Pulowski and his friends were using, in the hands of a marksman they could be deadly over a considerable range.  After David, Zara was the best shot in the Salamander's crew, and even though the distance to Pulowski was near the maximum effective range, he screamed in agony as the laser burnt a neat hole in his shoulder, and dropped his blaster as he grabbed for the source of the pain.  But, before she could take aim for a second shot, he recovered his balance and dived back into the lifeboat station sliding the door shut behind him.

Cerys had turned her head quickly as Pulowski had screamed and was in time to see him vanish back into the lifeboat station.  She gave a short wave of thanks to Zara and concentrated her attention again on the attacking group.  Zara crept silently up to the intersection, on the opposite corner to Cerys, and risked a quick look round the corner to assess the situation.

One man, with a heavy blaster in his right hand and what appeared to be a fragmentation grenade in his left, was creeping along the far wall of the corridor towards Cerys' position.  As he was on the near wall to Cerys and was pressing himself hard against it, Zara decided that Cerys probably had not seen him yet.  About 20 metres further down the corridor, Zara could see the Princess and Lady Lynda, and a man standing right behind them with his blaster held loosely against them. The third man, Zara could not see but, judging by the fire that was being directed at Cerys, he was probably on Zara's side of the corridor and behind some sort of cover.

The first man was by now clearly visible to her, only about three metres from Cerys.  Carefully Zara drilled a hole through his left temple and out the far side, and he dropped like a stone.  For an instant the attacking fire ceased, as the other two men weighed up the implications of Zara's shot.  She dropped full length on the floor to peer round the corner again, and wriggled back quickly as an energy bolt struck the wall just above her head.

Before she ducked back, Zara saw two men now with the Princess and Lady Lynda, apparently hustling them back down the corridor away from the intersection.  She heard the sound of running feet behind her and turned as she rose to meet David and Brianey arriving together, with Carly in close pursuit.  There was barely time to brief them on the situation before sounds of firing broke out again along the corridor, punctuated by much shouting, out of which Corin's distinctive voice could be heard challenging the group to stand still and drop their weapons.  In order to ensure that the men realised they were trapped, David sent Carly on to cover the door of the lifeboat station in case Pulowski reappeared, and then stepped out in plain view with Zara by his side.

The group of four, kidnappers and kidnapped, were about 30 metres down the corridor.  The men had their backs against the far wall and were each holding one of the girls in front of them as a human shield, with their lasers pressed against the girls' heads.  Corin and Tessa were another ten metres beyond them, in a firing crouch with their needlers aimed at the men, but obviously unwilling to fire for fear of hitting the hostages.

As David and Zara moved slowly down the passageway, the conversation between Corin and the leader of the group, became more audible.

"You're trapped.  You can't reach the lifeboat and even if you could, you're too late.  The lifeboat has been put back under Central Control and can't be launched without the authority of the Bridge," Corin lied fluently.

"You are wrong on two counts," the Major replied calmly.  "Reaching the lifeboat is not critical to the success of our plans, and you are not in charge of this situation: I am.

"Now we are going back down this passage and you will not stop us or follow us, or we will damage these pretty faces.  Show them what we mean, Xieng."

Lynda screamed as Xieng jammed the hot muzzle of his blaster hard against her cheek.  She struggled furiously to get free but he tightened his grip, until she fainted from the pain and collapsed unconscious in his arms.

"You bloody fool," the Major hissed at Xieng.  Then.... “Get back," as Corin tensed himself to rush forward.

"Corin," David yelled sharply.  Corin relaxed his stance but still kept his needler trained on the group.

"Now that's better," the Major said.  "That's being sensible."

He switched his attention to David.  "Tell them to put their lasers on the floor and let us through."  He moved his blaster closer to Nerissa's cheek.  "Do it," he yelled.

David nodded and slowly raised his hands in the air so that the needler was pointing at the ceiling.  Then he bent down and carefully placed the laser on the floor in front of him, straightened up and stepped back from it.  The others followed suit.

The tension in the Major and in the one called Xieng, dropped visibly.  The Major smiled, obviously now in charge of the situation again.  He removed his blaster from Nerissa's head and pointed it vaguely in the direction of Corin and Tessa.  "Tell them to stand aside and let us through," he ordered.

David signalled to Corin to do it and they moved back to the opposite wall.  Cautiously, the Major started edging past them, his arm still tight around Nerissa's throat.  Lynda was still unconscious and Xieng had to change his grip to around her waist, and drag her along with him.

Slowly David reached inside his tunic to where the moonstone hung on its chain around his neck.  He pulled it out so that it lay outside the tunic and glanced sideways at Zara to make sure she had noticed.  She nodded and with an almost imperceptible tilt of her head, indicated that she would take Xieng

He lowered his psychic guard and let the waves of thought emissions wash over him.  Rapidly he began to sort through them, searching for the ones originating in the man holding Nerissa. In the process, he felt Zara working alongside him, and there was a reassuring warmth in the contact.  Then he found his target, and was there with his arm around Neri's throat, looking back down the corridor at Zara and himself, through the eyes of the Major.

Major Rodgers, as David quickly discovered, was a highly intelligent man, but with no particular psychic ability, either natural or developed.  David could have opted, at that point, to take total control of the Major's body by subduing the Major's own consciousness. This was, however, a fairly risky operation against an intelligent or strong willed subject, who could mount a surprising level of resistance even without any psychic ability.  He opted instead to use a technique which both Zara and he had learned on Platos, to place neural blocks on the main motor nerves of the target.  Long experience had shown that subjects without any psychic awareness that they were under attack in this way, would spend several minutes wondering why their arms and legs were progressively going numb, before working out how to release the neural blocks.

He selected the right arm for treatment initially and was rewarded with a feeling of anxiety in the Major's mind, as the hand holding the blaster fell numbly to his side.  The left arm was next and Nerissa, feeling the grip on her throat slacken, broke free and ran back up the corridor to where David was standing.  Zara was obviously enjoying a similar success with Xieng and, as Lynda's unconscious body slumped to the floor, Corin and Tessa made a dive for their needle lasers and came up covering the two men.

He left the neural blocks in place in the Major's mind and returned to his own body just as Nerissa reached him, and as Brianey and Cerys rushed past to help disarm the men.

"Oh, David.  I'm so sorry."  Nerissa flung herself into his arms and sobbed.  "You were right and I should have listened to you."

"Hush now, Neri.  It's all right.  I'm just sorry we didn't get our timing that little bit better, and spare you some of this ordeal.  Now then.... "

He broke off as Lieutenant Singh came pounding up with six large and very muscular crewmen in his rear.  Each of them, David noticed, had a sidearm strapped to his waist.

"Lieutenant Singh, well done.  You're just the man I need."

"It looks as though you've got the situation well under control," Singh said, surveying the scene.

"Yes, but we need somewhere secure to store those two."  David indicated the Major and Xieng.  "Is there a brig on this ship?"

"Yes there is.  I'll see to it."

He snapped out a series of orders and two of the burly crewmen took hold of the prisoners and hustled them away, followed by a third member of the crew with drawn laser.

"Be careful of them, they're dangerous," David warned.  "And they may have friends around.  I want an armed guard outside their cell at all times."

Singh nodded in agreement and spoke into a small portable communicator.  He noticed David's interest in the device and the ease with which he apparently got through.

"It's tuned to the ship's main communication circuits," he explained.  "Saves having to use one of the fixed consoles all the time."

"Neat," David admitted.  "Should have thought of that ourselves."

"I take it that one...." Singh indicated Foss' body, "....is past requiring to be locked up."

"Quite," David agreed.  "There's one more live one, actually inside the lifeboat station.  He's been wounded and we're not sure if he's still armed."

He looked down the corridor and saw that Lynda had, by this time, recovered consciousness, and was lying half-propped up in Zara's arms.

"Neri," he said gently.  "Go and see if you can help Zara look after Lynda."  He signalled to Tessa to go with her.

Then he led the rest of his group, with Lieutenant Singh and his men, back to the intersection and round the corner towards the lifeboat station.  Carly was still there watching the door, but as she hurried over to report, there was a shuddering through the hull of the ship that threw them all off balance.  It only lasted for a moment and then ceased.  David turned to Lieutenant Singh with a question framed on his lips, but the young lieutenant rushed past him and ran up to the display console outside the lifeboat station.  He studied it for a few seconds and then turned back to the group with an expression of astonishment on his face.

"The lifeboat.... it's been launched.  He's launched the bloody lifeboat.  It's gone."

David was the first to recover sufficiently to speak.  "It doesn't matter.  He's probably less danger to us out there than he was on the ship.  However, I think you'd better get me on to the Bridge straight away, so that we can keep an eye on him.

"Corin, you and the others take the Princess and Lady Lynda back to your cabin and get a doctor to look at Lynda's face."

CHAPTER 16

Suzanne arrived on the bridge of the Cleopatra at a run.

"Captain, it's started.  There's trouble on the Aldebaran."

"Are you sure?"  "How do you know?"  came from Mikael and Anton simultaneously.

“I was in contact with Lord David when gunmen broke into his cabin and started firing.  He broke the contact and I haven't been able to reach him since."

"Make a signal to the Salamander," Mikael ordered.  "Advise them of the trouble on the Aldebaran and ask for instructions.

"Frank, I want a complete scan of this region of space."

"We've been scanning continuously, sir.  There's only two ships on the scanners: the Salamander and the Aldebaran."

"Then put out some probes to extend the range, Frank."

"Yes sir, I can do that.  But we don't have enough probes to extend the range in all directions."

"Then concentrate on the region between the Aldebaran and the system of Parm, as far out as you can go."

"Aye aye, sir."

One of the comms technicians swivelled round at his console. "Captain, Salamander acknowledges our signal and requests that we stand by."

"Stand by," Mikael snorted exasperatedly.  "It's starting.  I can feel it.  And they tell us to 'Stand by'.

"Frank, bring the ship to Action Stations.  Let's at least be ready, when they do slip the leash on us."

Above the clamour of the alarm bells and the noise of the crew arriving to take up their action stations, Mikael could hear the preparations for extending the scan.

"Probe 1, ready for launch.  Launched.  Probe 2, ready for launch.  Launched."

"Ship cleared for action, sir," Frank reported.  "2 minutes 43 seconds, sir."

"Thank you, Frank.  Carry on."

"Message from Salamander, sir," the duty officer reported.  "They want to know why we are launching probes."

"Reply 'Intuition'," Mikael ordered.

Frank was there when he turned round.  "We have two contacts on the probe scanners, sir.  Extreme range, but they're on an intercept course with the Aldebaran.  We can't make out their type yet, but we're putting the signals through analysis now.  That was very well done, sir, ordering out the probes when you did."

"Thank you, Frank.  Feed the signals through to the tank and relay them to the Salamander, please."

This time the response from the Salamander was more positive. "Follow me.  Move to intercept incoming craft."

This was followed almost immediately by a second signal. "Information from Lord David: Opposition have seized Princess.... will probably attempt escape using Aldebaran's lifeboat."

As the two ships piled on the power and sped in formation towards the unidentified ships, the Analysis Computers were fed with more and better data about the targets.  Three main types of data were sought: the mass displacement of the craft, the pattern of heat emission from the hull, and the pattern of emissions across the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum.  By combining these signals, a unique signature of the spacecraft could be obtained.  The databanks of both the Salamander and the Cleopatra, contained the group signatures of every known class of spaceship, so that classifying the new ships was quite straightforward.

"One of the ships is a naval craft, sir.  Frigate type.  The other is a heavily armed freighter, a modified P-class vessel.  Neither ship has IFF.  Provisional classification is hostile."

From this point, however, the databanks of the two ships diverged.  As well as the group signatures, the databanks contained the actual signatures of many thousands of individual ships.  The signature of every new ship that was met, was added to the databank, and existing data was revised if necessary, as almost any modification to a ship could change its signature.  Signatures, too, were traded whenever ships met in deep space.  Information is a valuable commodity, and none more so than the identification of ships which might be in your region of space.

And so the databanks of the Cleopatra and the Salamander contained quite different lists of individual signatures, and it was the Salamander that came up first with the positive identification of the two ships.

"Message from Salamander, sir.  The frigate is the Ragnar, the latest addition to the Vostovian Navy.  The freighter is the Palomar, out of Parm.  The Palomar has been suspected of involvement in several acts of space piracy, but nothing has ever been proved."

"We have the two ships on the main scanners now, sir," Frank reported.  "I am recalling the probes.  We can...."

"Sir, sir."  The shout came from the main scanner console.  "We've got another contact on the scanners.  It's in close to the Aldebaran but heading out towards the other two ships.  It looks as though she's launched one of her lifeboats, sir."

"Damn.  They must have got through to the lifeboat with the Princess.  Can we cut them off before they reach the other ships?"

"No sir.  They will rendezvous with the incoming ships before we can even get within laser range."

Cursing silently to himself, Mikael went over to the tank and adjusted the controls, so that the local area of operations expanded to fill the whole display.  He watched helplessly as the orange dot representing the lifeboat, closed rapidly with the two red dots of the ships from Vostov and Parm.

"Sir, we're picking up a transmission from the lifeboat."

"Is it in code?"

"No sir.  It's in clear.  It's from somebody called Pulofsky... he's wounded and requesting that they stop to pick him up.  There's a lot of coded traffic between the two big ships, sir, but nothing that I can make out."

"Thank you."  Mikael turned to Garcia and called him over.  "Run some of these coded signals through the decrypt computers, Georges.  See what you can make of them,"

"There's another signal in clear, sir.  They want to know how many people are aboard the lifeboat....

"Lifeboat's replying now, sir....  it's apparently only this Pulofsky chap on board."

"He's on his own?"

"Apparently, sir."

"It looks as though they didn't get through to the lifeboat with the Princess after all," Mikael said.  "It'll be interesting to see what they do now."

There wasn't long to wait.  On the main viewing screen, a long finger of brilliant light streaked out from the Vostovian frigate and connected it with the onrushing lifeboat.  There was a ball of flame and debris which expanded rapidly and then faded from view, and when it had gone, the lifeboat had vanished.

"Nice to see they look after their own," Mikael commented.

"The frigate is changing course, sir.  She's now heading straight for us."

"And the freighter?"

"The freighter's still heading for the Aldebaran, sir."

"Signal the Salamander.  Request permission to engage frigate."

There was an air of nervous excitement building on the bridge of the Cleopatra now.  Mikael and Frank walked slowly around, calming down the youngsters in the crew for whom this would be their first engagement.  There was time for a few words with everybody at the various control positions, ensuring that the usual pre-engagement procedures were being followed, and that no checks were being missed in the excitement.

"Message from the Salamander, sir.  The Officer Commanding is requesting direct talk-through with you, sir."

"Thank you.  Put him through to the Command Position, please."

Mikael walked over to his Command Console and sat down.  No sooner had he done so, than the screen in front of him cleared and Simon's face appeared.

"Captain Boronin, good day.  Please switch your communicator to secure mode using Scrambler A43/B."  Simon's face vanished from the screen to be replaced with a pattern of white noise.

Mikael quickly suppressed his surprise at the civilian craft being equipped with the latest Naval Scrambling Device, which was, to the best of his knowledge, still on the Top Secret list, and flicked the switches on his console to bring the A43/B into the circuit.  This time the noise pattern was replaced, a line at a time from the top of the screen, by the image of Simon's face.

"Thank you, Captain.  Our assessment of the situation is this: the opposition has been frustrated in their original plan to seize the Princess and leave the Aldebaran in one of its lifeboats, by the action of Lord David and his group of agents on board.  We have had confirmation from Lord David that the Princess is safe at the moment.  The opposition's back-up plan will be to board the Aldebaran from the freighter, using armed men or possibly even troops, and seize the Princess by force.  The frigate, which as you have observed, has altered course towards us, is presumably intending to ensure that we do not interfere with this act of piracy.

"We cannot intercept the freighter before she reaches and boards the liner, so the priority must be to get your detachment of Imperial Guard onto the Aldebaran as well.  You will, therefore, not engage the Ragnar, but will maintain your present course and speed towards the Aldebaran."

"But what about the Ragnar?" interrupted Mikael.  "We can't just ignore her.  She may force us to engage."

"Don't worry about the Ragnar, Captain.  The Salamander will keep her busy."

"I admire your confidence, sir.  But, if the reports I have of the Ragnar are correct, she is extremely fast and powerful for a ship of her class.  Are you sure you won't need some help?"

"The Salamander can handle the Ragnar," Simon repeated.  "We have the weapons to do that.  What we do not have is any capability for the sort of on-ship fighting that will be taking place on the Aldebaran. Your objective is to get that squad of Guardsmen onto the liner as quickly as you possibly can.  Do not divert from that objective for any reason, Captain.  The safety of the Princess is in your hands."

On the bridge of the Ragnar, Wolfram, ex-duke of Gan, stood talking to Captain Siccardes.

"You see Captain.  I promised you action and you shall have it.  And against the Imperial Navy as well.  Their High Command has, I think, made a serious error of judgement here, in sending only a corvette against us."

"Do you want us to take out the corvette first?"

"Yes, and do it cleanly.  Our friend the Colonel gets a mite nervous with the Imperial Navy around."

"You can tell him that the Imperial Navy won't be around for long. I'll bring all lasers to bear on the first pass and rake her from stem to stern.  If her screens survive that, we'll swing round and run parallel on her port quarter."

"Why the port quarter?"

"Analysis reports that her main port laser turret has been completely destroyed.  If we can lock on to her port side, and stay with her while she wriggles, we can hit her at a point where she's already been damaged and, as a bonus, she won't be able to return our fire."

"Very well, Captain.  Carry on."

The Ragnar was closing rapidly now with the Cleopatra, as Captain Siccardes gave the orders for the attack.  The Salamander, which had maintained station with the Cleopatra, now drew slightly ahead and took up a position on her port bow to pre-empt an initial attack on her weakened port side.

"They won't stop the Ragnar with such a simple manoeuvre," Siccardes boasted to Wolfram.  "We'll feint to her starboard, then roll underneath and come up in between the two ships.  With a bit of luck, we might even get a shot at that civilian ship while we're at it."

As the Ragnar was approaching her targets almost head-on, she reduced her velocity both to increase manoeuvrability and to extend the period of time when she would be in passage between the two ships and able to bring her lasers to bear.  A slight course correction to bring her onto the Cleopatra's starboard bow and an opening blast from the bow lasers, then she slipped away to roll under the approaching corvette.

"Each turret, independent fire as she bears," Siccardes ordered.

"We can't bear on the corvette, sir.  The civilian ship is in the way."  Each turret reported the same story.

"That's impossible," Siccardes blustered.  He pushed his way over to the viewing screen, to be met with the image of the Salamander, filling the screen and totally obscuring any sight of the Cleopatra.

"How the devil did she manage to get in our way? Never mind, we'll soon be past her.  Then we'll swing round and pick up the corvette again."

"I'm afraid not, Captain," Wolfram observed.  "It appears that this civilian craft has reversed course and is now tracking us; running parallel to our course and lying between us and the corvette."

Siccardes and Grey Wolf looked at each other, trying to comprehend the enormous g-forces involved in suddenly reversing the course of a ship travelling at that speed.  All spaceships have anti-gravity screens of some description fitted, to cushion the human travellers from the effects of high-g manoeuvres.  The hulls of modern ships, particularly warships built for manoeuvrability, are well able to take stresses of up to 100g but, without gravity protection screens, the human body tends to get smeared across the interior walls at anything above 20-30g.

"That's impossible," Siccardes said again.  "There's no g-screen in existence which could take that pressure."