Swords Above the Stars

by Roman Zlotnikov

  The creature laughed melodiously. “Now that will be easy. I'm surprised by you people, why do you not want to submit to reason. Do you not understand that we are destined to rule over you?” The creature gave them all an affectionate gaze. “Do not think we do not recognize your merits. Even when you are subservient to us, you will still rule above over a thousand different species and races. It's inevitable. You are above them, but we? We are superior to you.”

  With difficulty, the cardinal barely managed to pull his hands from the console on which they rested, trying not to fall, and clutched his cross. He thought that he was starting to feel a little better, but maybe he was just fooling himself. “How dare you even consider claiming dominance? Humanity would never agree to it.”

  “Is that so?” The creature laughed again. “You do not suspect how much you are ready to accept our domination. Even within your own species, you always let somebody rise over all the others, and, generally speaking, those who you rise up in the end turn out to be completely useless. Even if they can only do part of what they promised, you honor them as being great.” It paused for a moment and the people shivered in fear. “Instead, we always deliver what we promise. Don’t you think that you need such rulers?”

  “You are outsiders,” snarled Fat Anselm through barely open lips.

  The creature held up its hands in surprise, and the gesture was so graceful that it brought tears to the people’s eyes. “That’s unbelievable! Is that what you people are saying! Those who, even among their own kind, have managed to split into multiple alien religions and races, and furthermore, to divide those religions into sects, races, and other nations.

  “That was before! Now we are united!”

  “That is a lie. So, you are saying that now in your languages there are no such words as "slant-eyed", "giaour", "heretic", and “Asian idiots". The creature shook its head disapprovingly. “And is it not true that your mission is a secret from all of your other societies that you call nations?” His voice slipped into an ironic tone. “Am I right or am I wrong?”

  Don Kior staggered and almost fell, but at the last moment rested a hand on Lucky’s chest. Under his fingers was a small silver cross, and at the same second, he felt the numbness ease away. Throwing his arm forward dramatically, Beer Keg slapped his hand onto the off switch. The screen went dead. Some of those in the room collapsed helplessly into chairs, some leaned back against the walls, some fell against their consoles, and some just stretched out on the floor. In a weak voice Grey Mustache said, “A plague on your head, Father. The Scarlet Prince almost had us bewitched.”

  Don Diaz turned on the cardinal angrily, “Listen to me, Your Eminence. If I ever see you on …”

  At that moment, the ship shuddered, so much so that if they had not had the time to take a more stable position, they would inevitably have been thrown to the floor. The captain jumped up and yelled out loudly.

  “What the …” He stopped short, not daring to risk mentioning the Prince of Darkness in front of those he considered to be his closest associates, but the rest he blurted out without hesitation. “Lucky, what are you doing, have you lost your mind? Why aren’t the shields at full capacity?”

  “I'm absolutely fine!” Yv snapped back. “I just do not want to show this red- assed creature all of our cards. At such a distance a third of our shield power is enough. A third of our power corresponds exactly to the protective field of a standard corvette.

  The captain let his breath out through gritted teeth, but said nothing. Don Anselm stared intensely at the slowly approaching ship. Stubborn Bull turned to him, “Well then, Admiral, how do you rate our chances?”

  Fat Anselm was silent for a few moments, then he swore briefly and vigorously, “Shit! If we only knew how it is moving so quickly,” he added, shaking his head.

  The captain nodded gloomily. “In that case, it is all we can do to sell our lives as expensively as possible, and hope that the Eternal One will notice it.”

  Don Kior bent over and slammed the captain on his shoulder.

  “Look, Stubborn Bull, I have an idea. One time, I was chasing after Stupid Don, and it appeared that the red assholes had cornered us.” He paused. “I do not know the specifications of the system, but on this occasion, we were lucky.” Beer Keg leaned over the console and brought some information up on the screen, then mused to himself. “I swear by Saint Elm, it wasn’t right to give Stupid Don such a nickname.”

  Everyone turned to him, but he did not seem to notice, just stared intensely at something on the view screen.

  “Just say something you old beer barrel!” Don Diaz said impatiently.

  Don Kior bit at his mustache and looked away from the screen.

  “The Scarlet Princes have always chosen to situate Manticores within systems with a powerful asteroid belt.”

  “My God!” The admiral was the first to understand. “Of course. They will not be able to follow us inside an asteroid belt. They carry a lot more weight than us, and the inertial compensation for their maneuvers will be too high, so that they could not match our speed.”

  “But couldn’t they catch up with us after we come out of the asteroid belt?” Cardinal Desiree timidly raised his voice.

  But the team was already working feverishly, turning the ship in the direction of an asteroid belt. The cardinal, not receiving an answer to his question, touched the admiral on the shoulder.

  “Tell me, what if they will …”

  The admiral waved him away.

  “We will think about that later. Now the main thing is not to miss this chance.”

  The Corvette was again shaken noticeably. The captain enthusiastically made a rude gesture toward the screen, as if traces of the frighteningly beautiful face remained, and yelled, “What? Didn’t catch us yet?”

  Two hours later, they entered the asteroid belt. For ten days the ship travelled within the belt. Three times the captain tried to escape, but every time he tried, the black Scorpion ship appeared behind him, and he had to quickly return. The last time they had gone too far, and barely had time to get back. Everybody on the ship felt disheartened. The Noble Dons crowded into the cardinal’s cabin and asked him to pray over the holy relics of Saint Dagmar. Everybody was looking for a miracle, but it did not happen. Don Diaz wondered around black as thunder. Although there were still some food supplies in the ship’s stores, the waste of money really annoyed him. Like any captain, he wasn’t ashamed of being a pirate, but he disagreed with feeding parasites. His principle was to raid quickly and get back as fast as possible. After that the crew could eat and drink in the bars at their own expense. But now, the ships emergency supplies, which he reluctantly plunged into, had suddenly become too meager. There was enough for no more than two weeks before they needed resupply. Finally, the captain announced a round circle meeting. Just like the before, the gun deck was chosen for the meeting. Stubborn Bull and Fat Anselm came to the very edge of the parapet of the gallery, and Cardinal Desiree hid behind their backs. The Dons were gloomy and quiet. The admiral looked hard at them and with a sigh, he began to speak.

  “Noble Dons, I have something to tell you …” He paused, waved his hand, and concluded his announcement. “You already clearly realize the facts.” He looked around at the stern faces of the Dons, pursed his lips, and said bitterly, “We are in the shit.”

  A heavy silence hung above on the gun deck. Then Grey Mustache’s voice came from behind the rows of men.

  “Do we have any chance to get away?”

  The captain stepped forward.

  “Not all of us, but if we choose to sever an arm, then maybe someone will be saved. But even in this case, the chance is one in a hundred, or even less.”

  The Dons looked at each other. It was true, severing an arm was a dignified course of action for those at the round circle meeting. For a while all was silent, then Don Kior sighed and said, “Anyway, this will not be the worst way to die, and I swear by Saint Theophane, the Eternal One will be impr
essed.” He emerged from the crowd, and treading heavily, he went to the far wall shouting, “Follow me, lambs of God.”

  The Dons were shifting from foot to foot gloomily, exchanging short worried glances with each other.

  Grey Mustache left the crowd. “I think that I have spent too much time in this world. I believe that God would be happy to accept such an innocent soul as mine.”

  The joke slightly relieved the oppressive atmosphere. The Noble Dons, one by one, then in groups, went to stand with Beer Keg. The cardinal timidly touched the admiral’s shoulder.

  “Can you tell me, my friend, what is a severed arm?”

  Don Anselm turned to the cardinal, and sighing heavily, explained.

  “What will happen is that you and I will be tucked up safely inside a landing craft full of food, and they will leave us in the asteroid belt. Then the corvette will go to its death, sending a distress flare in the direction of inhabited worlds.

  “So, they're all going to die, and we'll survive?” Despite the cardinal’s best efforts, besides the sincere sorrow in his voice, there sounded a note of relief.

  The admiral chuckled.

  “It isn’t quite that simple. If we are lucky they will have a chance to blow up the corvette before it is captured. If the Scarlet Prince believes that we were all inside, he will leave the system. If the distress flare reaches the inhabited worlds and our call for help is heard, if we can survive until help comes. If, if, if … there are too many ifs for us to have a real chance.”

  “So, what can we do?” asked the cardinal distractedly.

  Fat Anselm chuckled

  “You have only one thing to do—pray.”

  They came out of the asteroid belt some forty hours after the roundtable meeting. Somewhere in the depths of the asteroid belt, a landing craft holding six passengers was attached to one of the rocks. Stubborn Bull, as usual, was sitting in the command seat and staring intently at the screen. After fifty-two hours a Scorpion ship arrived. Every possible opportunity to go back had vanished like smoke around twelve hours ago. The Scorpion grew inexorably larger on the screens. Nine hours later, a heavy volley again shook the corvette. Then another and another. Yv, as before, kept the protection field at a third of capacity. The Dons of the boarding party were locked up in their cabins, without a choice. They lay on their beds, gritting their teeth and clutching hold of the shaking struts. After another volley, Yv suddenly shouted out, “Captain!”

  The captain turned to Lucky, who quickly switched something on the console.

  “Watch this! This is a recording of the last volley.”

  The Enemy ship’s image flashed up on the big screen. The back two antennas that looked like scorpion’s legs, and were located at the base of the thick, curved tail, were shuddering, and had changed color to an iridescent blue. The captain clenched the arms of his seat, and muttered, “They have accelerator boosters!” He leaned back in his seat. “So that's why he's so fast.” Stubborn Bull cursed fluently in three languages. “Shit, if I had known this before!”

  Yv slightly changed the configuration of the protection shields. The corvette shook, and cups of coffee fell to the floor, but the protection shields held again this time. Once the shaking of the protection shields had returned to normal, Yv relaxed and shouted to the captain.

  “It’s not too late, even now!”

  “What?” The captain didn’t understand what he was talking about.

  “We have forty thugs sat in their cabins humbly awaiting death.”

  The captain's face grimaced, and he grabbed the microphone.

  “Commander of the boarding party—come to me!” Don Diaz’s narrowed eyes stared at the image of the enemy ship, then after calculating on screen the details of the rate of convergence and the distance to the Scorpion ship, he muttered, “Maybe we can do this. Can we survive another volley at one-third power?” he asked, turning to Yv.

  Yv shrugged his shoulders.

  “Maybe we will survive, and maybe we won’t.”

  Stubborn Bull shook his head.

  “All right, we will die all the same. Keep to one third power, then reset to emergency shields.

  A bewildered sigh swept through the command and control room.

  “We will be broken like matchsticks!” said Yv in surprise.

  Don Diaz was thoughtful for a moment.

  At their next volley you will increase power to fifty percent, then throw all power along the line of the volley.

  Yv looked at him blankly.

  “Well, Lucky, try to get this as quickly as possible. I need the shields off the ship, like the skin of a banana!” yelled the captain.

  Realization finally dawned on Yv, his face beamed, and he turned to his console, frantically banging his fingers on the keyboard. The captain turned to the screen and commanded in a loud voice, “Everybody be prepared. When we get hit by the next volley the gravity stabilizers will be turned off!” He began frantically typing something on his console, muttering, “Let them think that they have got us.”

  At this point Don Kior stumbled into the command and control room. The captain gave him a frenetic glance, and adjusted a small portable screen. He put on the recording of the last volley and growled, “Look at this and understand, but don’t bother me right now!”

  Then Yv yelled, “Incoming volley!”

  The captain barked over the open coms channel, “Everybody hold tight!” And he gripped the armrests tightly.

  The Corvette felt like a giant leg had kicked it. The ship reared up, then fell to one side, and spun around in a circle. There was a horrendous creak, then a wild roar that burst from damaged bulkheads and cracking framework. The main lighting went out. The emergency lighting came on, then also went out. The combat alarm sounded loudly, and the ship shuddered and froze. There was a dead silence and complete darkness in the command and control room. For a few moments there was no sound, then someone asked anxiously, “Hey is there anybody alive out there?”

  The voice of Stubborn Bull responded, who, after a long phrase in Russian suddenly asked quietly, “Any questions Beer Keg?”

  He replied calmly, “No.”

  “So … what are you still doing here? The red asshole will be alongside in forty minutes.”

  There was a loud clattering of heels in the dark, a hatch door was gently opened manually, then all was quiet. For a while there was silence, then the voice of the captain asked grumpily, “So how long do I have to sit here in the dark? Is there any chance that maybe the head of the emergency repairs team will finally deign to tear his ass from his chair?”

  Half an hour later the largest fragments of debris had been removed, and the command and control room was lit as in twilight by the screens that had recently returned to life. The officers sat at their desks in combat suits. Around three dozen Dons, with plasma rifles at the ready, were standing on the gun deck almost shaking with anticipation.

  The Scorpion ship hovered majestically a mile from the corvette. Don Kior gritted his teeth, and looked on as two assault craft carrying boarding parties rushed toward him. He gently moved across to Grey Mustache and hurriedly adjusted the folds on his camouflage cape, which prevented the Enemy’s sensors from detecting them on the corvette’s outer hull.

  The next moment he switched on a remote sensor, and he hid it under his cape. Then he froze and counted down the seconds. The ship shook, but it was only barely perceptible. The assault crafts gravitational hooks had caught on the hull. After a couple of moments there were several weaker shudders along the hull. Beer Keg waited a little longer, then shoving Grey Mustache to one side, he threw back his cape.

  The ship shuddered, and the captain's voice sounded in the Don’s headphones.

  “Some of you move to the left side of the second compartment, and the rest to the main outside hatchway on the right!”

  “God be with you, gentlemen,” breathed out Don Anselm. The Dons divided into two groups, and rushing towards the boarding parties they broke u
pon the enemy.

  Don Kior hung on upside down by gravitational hooks, and watched the approaching Scorpion ship. However, the concept of up and down was only relative here. One assault craft was returning to collect a new boarding party, but the pilot did not know that he was also taking back passengers.

  When the landing gate was less than two hundred yards away, Don Kior bent down, and pinned an exploding charge to the left thruster of the assault craft. Setting the timer on a slow setting and disabling his gravitational hooks, he leaped forward.

  Slightly bent over to precisely control his trajectory as much as possible, Beer Keg squinted and looked back. All seven of the Dons in his team hung next to him against a background of stars. Seconds later he somersaulted, gently decelerated, and landed on the Scorpion ship’s hull. His gravitational hooks quietly attached.

  Don Kior again twisted his head, making sure everybody was in place, then strode over to the base of the antenna holding the accelerator booster. The other Dons swiftly followed. They quickly set up eight tight bundles of five exploding charges each, and Beer Keg waved them off. The Dons looked at each other. If anyone made a mistake, they would not have time to try again, even if there was still power in their backpack.

  A moment later all eight had soared away towards the corvette which was hanging above their heads.

  ***

  Don Anselm repulsed an attack, and feeling that he was about to suffocate, simply fell forward. He threw his outstretched sword hand in the direction of a figure wearing a combat helmet, whose fangs were visible through the visor. Whether he was just lucky, or, in all probability, as the late Don Krushinka used to say, it’s impossible to drink away skill. But the dumpy-shaped troll, as the Dons called the most numerous members of the Lower castes of Enemy warriors, jerked, and fell on its ass on the floor of the corridor.

  The admiral pulled out his sword, turning it in the wound as he usually did, and after the blade emerged from a hole in the suit, the troll’s blood bubbled out, like a gushing thick, green mucus. Don Anselm took a deep breath and looked around.