Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program (29 page)

"It won't squash us, whatever it is," Spada said. "The hull's far too resistant for that. However, I do wish," and his voice turned plaintive, "we had some sort, any sort, of gauges that might suggest what the blazes just happened." He scanned the control board. "Ms. Riss, take a letter. Dear sirs, why don't you people put depth gauges or sonar or radar sets that show things in millimeters away from the hull. I remain your dissatisfied customer, sincerely, and so on and so forth, from full fathoms five."

"I've a theory," Riss said. "Which I don't like."

"Try it."

"Could that damned ship we sank have sunk on top of us?" M'chel asked.

"That's foolishness," Spada said. "But it's the only sort of foolishness that fits."

He unbuckled his safety harness, stood. The ship's antigravity kept down firmly where it should be, even if that might not be the case on the outside.

"I suppose I should suit up and take a stroll to see what fix we're in," he said. "Unless someone happens to have an advanced degree in using space suits for diving?"

There were shakes of the head.

M'chel, wanting to stay a nice, comfortable coward but thought she was too afraid to do that, held up a hand.

"I've got a few thousand hours in suit drill." She realized to her horror what her mouth was saying. "I'd better go."

Now she wished for the old sexist days, when someone might stop her for gentlemanly reasons. But none of the other three in the p-boat's control room moved.

Riss grunted, got up, and eeled herself into space gear.

"And here I go," she said, moving into the lock and sliding the hatch closed behind her.

She cycled the lock, and its outer hatch came open with a great gush of water.

M'chel held on to a stanchion until the lock was flooded, then slowly moved outside.

She didn't have to go far.

The patrol boat sat firmly on the bottom, half embedded, at a forty-five-degree angle.

The merchantman hadn't gone down exactly on top of the p-boat, but when the missile hit, its anchor had come unstoppered and crashed onto and, somehow, around, the starship.

"Wonderful," Riss muttered.

Then the ship had sunk on top of her.

All that would be necessary was to take a cutting torch to the anchor cable, and then the p-boat could bull its way to freedom.

Spada eyed Riss's sketch of what lay outside.

"How nice," he murmured. "Take another letter. Dear sirs, how dast you send out your little pickle boats without even the hint of a good argon double-throw-down anchor-chain cutting torch� Well, at least one thing. We'll die of boredom or starvation before the life-support systems run out.

"Anyone got any ideas?"

There was utter silence.

Riss had this sudden idea of herself, gray-haired and hobbling, taking her shift outside to work away with a hand file on that damned chain.

Then she had it.

It was an idea so stupid, so horrible, she frightened even herself.

She lined it out, and was not pleased to see equal looks of dread on the other three faces, even Spada's. They sat in silence for a while, mulling her idea.

"I don't see anything wrong with it," the navigator-weapons officer said. "The fumes from the missile will gas us, the explosion will hull us, and that frigging chain will crush us. Come on. Let's get on it."

It took about two hours to slide one of the missiles out of its launch tube.

Using maintenance tools, they unshipped the warhead and then suited up. Using hand tools and terror, Riss, being the most experienced with explosives, cut the back of the warhead open.

Knowing little about whatever put the bang in the missile, she found a plastic bar that looked nonmagnetic and not sparky, and set to work, gingerly digging the explosive out and rolling it in sealed tubes.

While she was doing that, the other missiles were pulled from their launchers, and their command detonators removed. One command det trigger and one tube of explosives were combined.

Riss went back outside and clambered up on the hull, and found a kink in the chain.

She hooked her tiny bomb�the detonator was almost as big as the charge�up, and climbed down. She decided to stay outside, and backed off a suitable distance.

She had her radio on.

"Firing one," she said, and could hear herself breathing very loudly.

She hit the detonator trigger inside her suit, feeling it slip on suddenly sweat-slippery fingers.

Riss saw a puff of sediment, felt a slight wash of seawater.

She climbed back up to the hatch, and then on up to the chain. There was a noticeable gouge in the metal.

M'chel allowed herself to feel a bit�just a bit�of hope, and packed another charge in place and turned the detonator on.

Again, she went back, after reporting progress on her radio, and set it off.

Another puff� but this time, nothing seemed to have changed.

She wondered what the hell the difference was, tried a third charge.

This time there was not only a puff, but the anchor chain slithered down, crashing on the hull, no doubt scaring the hell out of the three inside.

Now all that was holding the p-boat pinned was a bit of the sunken ship's upper hull.

"Anytime you're ready," Riss said. "Sir."

Spada shrugged, fed power to the drive.

Through the hull, they could hear, could feel, scraping, and then the boat surged away.

"That did it," the engineer announced unnecessarily.

"Take me home, Captain Spada," Riss said, trying to avoid a sag of relief in her voice. "And never, ever, ever take me messing about with boats again."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FORTY-NINE � ^ � Signal intelligence from Irdis said that the Shaoki rulers, the somewhat reconstituted council, really did believe in killing the messenger.

When reports of the "Free Thur Liberation" group and the depredations on Thur came back, there were wholesale reliefs and several executions of officers assigned to the great military base, which wouldn't do Shaoki morale any good whatsoever.

But Grok's glee was a little buried under larger events.

King Saleph was finally ready for the assault on Irdis.

As horrified as anyone was at the debacle on VI/ III, he was now ready to listen to advice from his mercenaries, so long as they didn't rub things in.

"One of the reasons I decided to become a war leader," Friedrich said, sotto voce, to Riss, "was to stride nobly down the corridors of power, looking regal, while generals and admirals cowered out of my way."

M'chel looked at him oddly.

"Of course," von Baldur said, "if I had a brain, I would have realized the same effect can be realized with a sour expression and a clipboard." Riss hid a snicker.

"Your forces appear to be assembling quite in order," von Baldur told King Saleph, who preened.

His chief advisor, Prince Barab, did the same.

"I think the only thing that needs your approval is the exact role Star Risk and its employees might profitably play in the coming days."

The king looked a bit alarmed. "I assumed that you will be beside my fighting men and women, ensuring their tenacity is strong."

Riss wasn't sure tenacity could be qualified, but said nothing.

"Of course," von Baldur said soothingly, "but there are additional tasks we might be qualified for."

He passed a fiche across, and the king fed it into a viewer and scanned it. Then he scanned it again.

"This� this is irregular�" he started, but Barab politely interrupted.

"I think some of these are most meritorious, and you and I should provide our input, Your Majesty."

"Oh. Yes. Of course," the king said.

"I think we just won," von Baldur said as they left the palace.

"Appears so," Riss said. "Assuming someone doesn't get a wild hair."

"Always assuming that."

Shortly thereafter, one of Khelat's most noisome gossip artists had the hot flash that the famous Star Risk warriors would be mounting a special attack when the assault on the evil Shaoki's capital began, and that the clever king would be leading diversions instead of the main thrust.

Credence was led to the story by the seizure of all copies of the holo, and the whisking off to detainment of the erring hack.

Riss got a message from Prince Wahfer:

WHEN TIMES AND CIRCUMSTANCES

CHANGE FOR THE BETTER, YOU AND I

ARE FATED TO BE TOGETHER.

The message gave her chills, and she determined she had better not take Wahfer casually. When the current mess was over with, she would have to have a long talk with the man.

"I'm not happy," Redon Spada said, twirling his first, and only, glass of wine.

"Why not?" Riss asked. "Haven't your paychecks been clearing?"

"Man cannot live by bread alone," Spada said.

"No," Riss said. "A little unsalted butter and caviar makes a nice addition."

She nodded to the cut glass tray and bowls in front of them.

"I think it may even come from Earth," she said. "What the hell. My palate just says, �Fish eggs,' and then �yum.' "

Spada obeyed, and spread butter, chopped onions, caviar, and lemon on a toast point.

"Don't laugh at me," he said.

"I won't," Riss said, seeing how serious the pilot was.

"I don't think I'm going to make it through this next one," Spada said.

"Oh, piddle," Riss said. "Do you know how many times someone has crept up to me and said how mortal he felt� and how alive and healthy the sniveler is today?"

"I've never had this feeling before," Spada said.

"I could, were I a suspicious woman, think that you were hoping to rouse up my womanly instincts, and I'd take you home with me and let you screw my little lights out."

Spada brightened, tried to hide it.

"Sirrah," M'chel said. "I thought you were a perfect gentleman."

"Great gods," Spada said. "I hope not."

"So do I," Riss purred.

It was just dawn when M'chel Riss kicked Redon Spada.

"Wake up and get dressed, and take your sorry ass back to your ship. Love's for later. Now it's time to make war.

"And stay alive, hey?"

Jasmine came into Friedrich's quarters with a quizzical expression.

"Boss, I got something I don't know how to handle."

"Go," von Baldur said, turning from his computer.

"I sent the monthly retainer to Anya Davenport� And it was returned, marked escrow account closed."

"Hmm," Friedrich said. "Well, she said she was going to fire us. I guess she's honest."

"That's not the problem," Jasmine said. "I tried to com her, to get a complete explanation."

"And?"

"I got somebody who said he was taking care of her accounts while she was offworld. I asked where she was, and was told, and I quote, �Some faraway cluster called the Khelat worlds,' end quote. No other details were offered."

Von Baldur stroked his chin thoughtfully, then shook his head.

"I'm damned if I know what it means, either. I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

The fleets from the other Khelat systems drifted in to Khelat II and were escorted to parking orbits by Spada and Inchcape's ships.

Then, secretly, the destroyers and p-boats loaded up Goodnight's battalions of raiders and vanished from the Khelat worlds.

At about the same time, Grok, King, and von Baldur disappeared.

The Shaoki agents Grok had discovered were carefully fed the news about von Baldur's disappearance, and that several new divisions of Khelat had vanished with him.

Then King Saleph, on the bridge of his warship, flanked by the might of Khelat, went off to the final battle.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIFTY � ^ � The only nifty thing about this operation," Chas Goodnight told M'chel Riss, "is that it ain't in our contract to pick up the pieces after we go and break them. No peace plan, no negotiations, no foreign aid."

"It's nice to lead a simple life," Riss agreed. "But how much you want to bet they'll find some way to make it complicated again?"

"No takers here," Goodnight said. "But I better get back to my troopies. We'll be on the ground in another hour."

Slightly against policy, which dictated there never should be more than one general in one spot at a time, to avoid catastrophic damage, the two had jumped out from Khelat on a single transport, the rest of Goodnight's battalions trailing behind on other ships.

There was a time tick on the control panel of Riss's transport showing the time until landing�or, rather, assaulting�Irdis.

Riss wondered why she never lost the symptoms�dry mouth; sweaty palms; the desire, heavily suppressed, to babble nervously; the constant feeling of a full bladder, without being able to empty it�before an attack.

She checked her blaster, her ammo pouch, and her emergency pack.

She was as ready as she could be.

At least this time, she thought, we're not landing in goddamned suits.

She went down into the troop holds, made sure officers and noncoms were checking their men and women.

Another blessing, she thought, was that most of the raiding force was mercenary rather than Khelat, which suggested a bit more professionalism.

"Strap down," the intercom brayed. "We're coming in fast and hard."

M'chel found an open bulkhead with an emergency landing harness, obeyed the command.

There was air scream as the transport entered atmosphere, hard bumps from maneuvering, atmospheric conditions, or near misses.

Riss preferred not to think about the last.

If a transport, on final, took a hard hit, that would pretty much be it for its passengers, and she despised the thought of dying helplessly.

At least the antigravity was full on, so her stomach wasn't changing places with her tongue every few seconds.

"Landing in four� three� two�" And the crashing thud and bouncing didn't need to finish the countdown.

The ship stopped moving, and the large clamshell doors on each hold crashed open.

Riss flipped open her landing harness, and ran down a ramp into rubble.