The Princess & The Privateer

by Peter Rhodan

  He laughed and left.

  Reaching the Captain’s office took him only a few minutes, as the VIP suites were not far from officer country. He pressed the intercom button.

  “Lieutenant Desnoute reporting sir”

  “Enter.” Came the Captain’s voice over the intercom.

  Almost immediately the door swished out of the way to let him enter. Captain Johling was a solid, fit-looking officer in his fifties, and he sat behind his desk scowling at Desnoute as the Lieutenant advanced into the room, came to attention before the desk, and saluted crisply.

  “Sir?”

  Captain Johling returned the salute and stared at Desnoute for a few moments then waved at a chair.

  “Sit Lieutenant.”

  Not a little surprised Desnoute picked up the nearest of three chairs against the left-hand wall and placed it in front of the desk and sat as ordered. Johling said nothing for a few moments before scowling at Desnoute again.

  “I have an armed female aboard my ship Lieutenant. Care to elaborate?”

  “Your orders to come here did not mention my contacting someone on the station and bringing them aboard Captain?”

  “Yes, they did Lieutenant, but there was nothing in them about letting her come aboard armed. I do not want armed civilians aboard my ship, Mister Desnoute.”

  “Yes sir. I understand, sir. Unfortunately, she requested it, sir. She apparently does not feel safe unarmed, sir.”

  “I think she is perfectly safe aboard a battlecruiser surrounded by over four hundred loyal Imperial personnel Lieutenant!”

  “Yes sir. Of course, sir. I agree with you. However, as paranoid sounding as it may be, that is what she wishes, sir, and I am afraid I have already agreed to her being armed, I authorized it under my Imperial Authority, sir. I should also mention that she has agreed to remain in her cabin at all times, indeed she will let no one enter other than me, sir. She will accept food from the Imperial Security chaps, of course, but her meals are to be left at the door and she will retrieve them.” he paused. “Sir, I have to also add that her being armed does not pose a danger to the crew, sir. In my opinion, sir.”

  Johling sat staring at Desnoute for some time. This abrogation of his traditional prerogatives as a Captain was causing Johling to feel anger towards both the man in front of him and the entire situation he found himself unwittingly forced into in general. This was the first confrontation Lucas had ever had with the Captain, indeed up until now Lucas thought the Captain rather liked him.

  “So just who is she?” the Captain asked finally, cocking his head slightly to one side.

  “If you do not already know then I am afraid I can’t tell you, sir. Matter of Imperial Security, sir.”

  Desnoute tried to keep his tone sounding respectful with the implication that he was only denying the information under duress.

  Johling studied him, the look of anger fading to one of a mixture of concern and interest.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you Desnoute?”

  “Sir. Yes. Sir.” he tried to keep his expression as bland as possible.

  The captain seemed to relax slightly.

  “Interesting. My orders are to proceed directly to Kimeria after leaving here, with all possible despatch, in fact, which is the Navy’s way of saying at full combat speed. I do not remember the last time we travelled that far at full speed. At least not in peace time. Very well, Lieutenant. I cannot go against your Imperial Authority without good reason, and if she remains in her cabin then that will be sufficient restriction I hope. Dismissed.”

  Desnoute saluted. “Sir.”

  He left the office glad the Captain had not given him a much harder time, which the aggrieved Captain could very well have done. He rather hoped the Captain’s forbearance had been in part because he had tried hard to carry out his duties as well as he could and had done a good job of fitting in.

  He had been right about how little free time he would have before his next watch started and he did not get to see his sister again until the next day. Almost immediately he realized she must have had second thoughts about sharing the details of her adventures with him. The relief-induced openness of the previous day's discussion was gone, and she was more reserved when relating them to him in response to his questions. Her description of the crew also became a lot less colorful, with less in the way of individual descriptions. Unfortunately, by the time he twigged to her newfound reluctance to discuss things he was running out of time and had to leave off getting any real information until the next time he was off duty.

  The day after he had barely settled into one of the extremely comfortable chairs her suite was equipped with when the Captain threw an emergency alert drill. By the time that was over it was too late to begin interrogating Gizel on her adventures. The following day, however, he finally had a chance to ask her some of the hard-hitting questions he had been mulling over. Her responses were vague, to say the least, and it quickly became clear she was deliberately being evasive. Eventually, he had had enough of the part answers and let his frustration show.

  “You’re not being completely open with me Gizzy. Did something bad happen to you that you are having trouble talking about?”

  Gizel sat back and eyed him thoughtfully.

  “Security,” she said finally.

  This left him somewhat nonplussed.

  “Security?” he asked, the word sounding lame even to his own ears.

  “The people I served with have secrets it is not my place to tell. I haven’t even told Baron Travgar anything of substance yet.” she offered.

  “Now I’m confused.” he countered and sat and studied her.

  “Some random person just happens to be in the right spot to rescue you from a kidnapping attempt, or even worse, but then doesn’t come running straight to Dad’s door to collect the no doubt generous reward he would have been happy to offer? Then you instigated this cloak and dagger way of meeting me, which I can understand I guess, after what you mentioned the other day about your clothes being bugged. But still, Gizzy, you’ve been gone a long time. Mum and Dad are going to want a full account of where you have been and what you’ve been up to, and a full medical too, you know.”

  “Oh shit. They will too, won’t they, just to be sure nothing was done to me. Damn. I hate full-on medicals!” she said with feeling.

  “Don’t we all.” her brother replied with sympathy.

  Being a serving officer and the Imperial Heir meant that he was regularly given medical check-ups just to make sure no one had done anything subtle to him with drugs or whatever. The testing regime still continued even though he was serving aboard one of the safest and most modern battlecruisers in the fleet. The price of Imperium, at least at a personal level, he thought to himself. Another downside of being first in line to the throne that he had been thinking about recently was his very limited chance of finding someone who loved him for himself and not for his rank.

  “Besides, you would have had to have one anyway before going into the Academy.”

  Gizel nodded. “True. I will probably have to wait until next year’s intake now anyway, unfortunately.” she paused, and continued in a depressed tone. “And have to take yet another medical at that time too... sheesh!”

  Lucas smiled at this but felt little sympathy given he had regular six-monthly checks, as well as the ad hoc ones he had to endure after every social event he attended away from the ship.

  “Yes, well if you want to go off gallivanting for months at a time it’s your own fault for having to wait until next year now. The part I’m most looking forward to seeing is how long you’re grounded for once we get home. I might have to ask the Captain for leave just so I can be there!”

  Lucas was unable to keep his enthusiasm for this idea out of his voice.

  “Ha ha. They can’t keep me grounded now. I turned eighteen while I was out gallivanting, as you so elegantly put it, so there!” she grinned at him triumphantly.

  Lucas made a face. �
��I think that if Dad, the Emperor of Kimeria, says you’re grounded, I imagine even you will find it hard to get around it!”

  Gizel stuck out her tongue like she was still eight, not eighteen.

  “Didn’t stop me from getting to Starfire! And I have a whole new skill set now. I know how to carry out a boarding attack on a spaceship and...” She had to break off to defend herself from her brother who was trying to tickle her like he used to when they were kids. She was older, fitter, and a lot tougher now, yet her brother still out massed her considerably and she was hard-pressed not to succumb to his devious attack. She managed to get the small dining table between them and used that to keep him at bay until his ardor to inflict mayhem upon her person cooled.

  “And...” she continued her previous sentence. “If you don’t stop harassing me I will be forced to use some of the dirty little tricks the Iskander Marine Instructor showed me for dealing with unwanted male intentions!”

  “Iskander Marine Instructor? Sure. What was he doing on a tramp ship?”

  She smiled blandly at him.

  “Never said it was a tramp ship, and he is retired. Very dry sense of humor too,” she said, her voice taking on a reminiscent tone.

  “An Iskander Marine with a sense of humor? Now I know you’re pulling my leg!”

  She laughed at this comment.

  “It’s true. He was a Sergeant and taught hand-to-hand combat at their Marine Academy and was really nice in a gruff Iskander sort of way. He was from that fake German planet so had a very interesting accent.”

  Her brother cocked his head and looked at her strangely.

  “The ship you were on had a retired Iskander Marine Drill Sergeant on it eh? And what other interesting people were there? You didn’t give me much information on the people who made up the crew the other day.”

  Gizel’s face looked like she had bit into a lemon, realizing she given him more information than she should have. Lucas debated how much information he should put into the next letter to his parents. He had already sent off two, one reassuring them that Gizel was all right and they had picked her up without trouble and another giving them a quick outline of her travels, based on the limited information she had given him.

  Gizel struggled with her conscience for a bit.

  “We had a whole range of people in the crew, including a Nordland engineer, a tech wiz from Nue Limborg, even a Kimerian who didn’t recognize me at first, cause of the hair. The captain was Brython, not nobility I don’t think, given what he does for a living, but certainly from their upper classes like most of their officers.” she paused for a moment with a considering expression on her face.

  “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the younger son of some low-level Baron you know.”

  Her tone of voice made this sound like an attractive idea that was worth further contemplation, and once again something about the tone of her voice when describing the captain attracted his attention.

  “He was nice then, the captain?”

  “Oh yes. Handsome, brave, gentlemanly, and very capable.”

  She paused, realizing she was perhaps either saying too much or sounding too gushy about Karvon.

  “He was not happy when he discovered who I was.”

  I bet he wasn’t, not! Lucas thought to himself.

  “So why didn’t he offer you to mum and dad for a reward?”

  “Because he’s not like that. And because he is a proper gentleman in the Brython way, you know. He was more concerned with me getting home safely than any reward. We had all these question marks about how far the bad guys could reach and how widespread their reach was. That is why we didn’t use an embassy somewhere.”

  She paused and then shook her head.

  “You should have seen how upset he was when we boarded that pirate ship and I ran into three armed guards on my own. He wouldn’t let me do anything after that!”

  Lucas did a quick recap of the story she had told him.

  “When you said you took down three pirates I thought you meant you were with the rest of the boarding party, not that you took them down on your own!”

  Gizel shrugged. “It was no big deal. I was in Nordland combat armor and they were just pirates.”

  She reached down and produced the pistol she kept close by at all times.

  “Took this off one of them. It has gold inlays would you believe. Who decorates blasters with gold inlays for Pete’s sake!”

  Lucas couldn’t help smiling at her tone, but he had seen such gaudy toys before, usually on the hips of two-bit rulers of petty kingdoms on backward planets or their top guardsmen. Mind you, he knew one Kimerian Marine Colonel who had matching blasters with the handles covered in Hornbeast hide. He realized belatedly that he was just accepting his little sister had gunned down three pirates.

  “How did you beat three pirates?”

  “Reacted faster, shot straighter. My years of playing Starmaster really paid off. Shot the first two in the neck, they were wearing typical space armor, which is weak there. The third was around a corner so I fired at the ceiling which caused him to back off from dripping melted plastic, and while he was distracted I got the jump on him too.”

  She paused, her eyes seeing something Lucas couldn’t, then she shook her head and laughed.

  “Karvon was really pissed that I had been forced to take on the three of them alone. The freed spacers were pretty grateful though!”

  Lucas made a note of the name she had slipped in without realizing it. Unfortunately, he was due on duty and had to leave off his subtle interrogation of his sister. This proved to be very unfortunate timing because he found the next day that she was not inclined to share anecdotes with him any further. He did a search of Brython ship captains and come up with three named Karvon. One was listed as retired, so he was pretty sure he could rule that fellow out. One was listed as the captain of a cargo ship and, bingo, the other was listed as a half-pay Naval captain and had the same surname. Being on half-pay meant the Naval captain wasn’t on active duty with their fleet, although what he was doing working as a cargo ship captain instead of actively serving in the Navy sort posed an interesting question. He stored the man's name for future reference.

  Given the extremely high-speed passage the ship was undertaking he had no further time to get information out of his sister. They would be jumping into the Kimeria system during his next sleep period and would reach orbit during his duty watch. In the event, he was awoken an hour early by the captain.

  “Desnoute?” came the Captain’s strident voice over the cabin intercom.

  “Sir?” Lucas answered somewhat groggily.

  “There’s an Imperial Security courier vessel on route to match orbit with us in about ninety minutes. They want your guest ready to transfer across once they dock with us. I want you to escort her, mister.”

  “Aye, sir. Shall do.”

  The intercom went silent and Lucas got himself moving. The battlecruiser made space for the courier vessel by launching one of her own shuttles so the Imperial Security courier ship would be able to dock in that shuttle's now empty bay. Lucas led Gizel down to the shuttle bay without them speaking on the way. She had donned her merc outfit with a hat pulled low, which, when combined with the humped duffle bag, did a good job of hiding her identity. The two Imperial Security chaps who had been on duty outside her room trailed behind them as they traversed nearly half the ship.

  The bemused-looking docking bay crew had all been temporarily relieved of duty while the courier was in the shuttle bay and were on their way to the mess to grab a quick coffee while the chance offered.

  There were four heavily armed Imperial Security troopers ranged around the entrance into the courier and a severe-looking captain at their head. Lucas marched up to the captain and saluted.

  “Lieutenant Desnoute with a passenger for transfer sir.”

  The Imperial Security Captain returned the salute. “Very good Lieutenant.”

  He turned to Gizel.
“Ah, miz, if you would please.”

  He waved his hand at the courier entrance hatch.

  Gizel turned to Lucas

  “Be seeing ya,” she drawled, in the same manner as Krevis, and headed aboard.

  The Captain followed her into the courier and then his men folded in and also disappeared, the hatch closed and the hanger klaxons rang out warning personnel to clear the hanger. Lucas exited the hanger and with nothing else to do, returned to his cabin wondering how long the ship would be in dock at Kimeria orbit and if he could get some leave to visit his parents and wayward sister.

  Chapter 14

  Home at last

  Gizel felt butterflies building in her stomach as the courier arced down through the atmosphere heading for the Imperial Palace and her waiting parents. Suddenly she was nowhere near as casually blasé as she had been when Lucas had ribbed her about being grounded for years. The rapidly closing distance to home and her parents, with their justified anger, was eating away at her bravado. The small courier ship shuddered as the retro thrusters fired, despite the antigrav field making the long descent fairly easy. There came a series of quick course adjustments and the ship settled to the ground with a small thump.

  The Captain had seated himself alongside her although they hadn’t exchanged a word throughout the journey back to the Palace. Once the ship stopped he rose and beckoned her to follow him to the access hatch. As when she had boarded, absolutely none of the shuttle crew were in evidence as she exited the ship. Surprisingly she found herself in the south vehicle park, used by tradesmen and delivery vehicles, rather than the proper shuttle deck on top of the south wing of the palace.

  Waiting in front of a side door were two Imperial Security officers who approached the shuttle. One was a Captain Gizel did not recognize but the other was Lena’s boyfriend Teron. She had never been so relieved to see anyone in her life; thank God he was still alive! She felt very guilty whenever she had thought of him during her time away, believing that he had been killed trying to protect her. Even if by some miracle he had survived, she thought he would have been fired from Imperial Security because of the role he had played in her little escapade, even though he was officially off duty at the time.