Heirs at War (The Marmoros Trilogy Book 2)

by Peter Kenson

  “By an Imperial frigate that was hiding inside your system,” Trast reminded him. “But you’re right. The High Command is going to be very unhappy about this. It also means that the Empire now knows exactly what we’re mining on Ystradis and will almost certainly try to prevent any further shipments. Every freighter from now on, will have to be escorted which will increase the costs of the operation, and the risks.

  “There is another aspect to this as well. If the Empire knows about Biridium, it’s a sure bet that they’ll tell the Ystrad. You had better prepare for an increase in terrorist activity around the mine and it may well force their new queen into taking some more direct action.”

  “Well we have a solution to the terrorist problem,” Bargas said. “That little demonstration this morning proved that. How are we going to deploy that on Ystradis and how quickly can we do it?”

  “We will use missiles that have been specially modified to carry vials of the virus. We fire them into the atmosphere and explode them at altitude. As Professor Berkovis said, the virus is airborne and so the winds will do the rest. The problem is, we only have enough of the virus with us, for the demonstration today and possibly one missile. When I send the report of our success back to Vostov, they will increase production but it will be four to six weeks before we have sufficient to seed an entire planet.”

  “General, you will take whatever action is necessary to contain the situation on Ystradis until we are ready to move. I will arrange another drill to be shipped down for your use and I expect it to be better protected this time. The bigger worry is what that Ystrad bitch is going to do when she finds out about the Biridium.”

  “Let’s take this discussion somewhere more private, Mr President,” Trast said cautiously. “I may have a solution to that particular problem for you.”

  Chapter 19 – Sorinto & Sarnak

  “Biridium,” David thought to himself he manoeuvred the Salamander into a parking orbit above Sorinto. “That certainly explains Vostov’s interest.”

  With energy weapons of all types pre-eminent in deep space naval engagements, it had become vital to develop a lightweight armour that, in addition to its normal properties, would dissipate the incoming energy over the whole surface of the ship, rather than let it concentrate on one particular area of the hull. There were many compounds available that were superconductors at the temperatures normally prevailing in deep space, but most of them rapidly lost their superconductivity as the temperature rose even a few degrees. The result was that, the more energy that hit a ship, the less effective its armour became.

  Biridium, however, changed all that. Using small amounts of Biridium, armour could be constructed that retained its superconductivity across temperatures ranging from near absolute zero to well above normal room temperature. Unfortunately, Biridium was in exceedingly short supply and before the news from Ystradis, there were only three sources able to supply it in significant quantities.

  Until fairly recently, one of those sources on the planetary system of Parm, had been firmly under the control of Vostov. The loss of that system to the Empire, in an incident in which David and the Cleopatra had played no small part, meant that Vostov was desperate to find another source of supply. Whether the discovery of Biridium on Ystradis was made before or after the Belsi invaded was uncertain, but it clearly explained the new found friendship between the two regimes.

  The news of the cargo discovered by the Swordfish had been relayed by Suzanne while he was in transit from Marmoros. Then only minutes before he arrived, he received a priority message from Khan, instructing him to find out what, if anything, the Ystrad knew about this. David suspected it would be nothing, as it was not the sort of resource that the legitimate owners would want to keep quiet about.

  He unshipped the ex-smuggler’s craft from the Salamander’s docking bay and dropped down to the surface of the planet. He made a direct approach as this was an official visit at the request of the Ystrad, but he was careful to keep some of the shuttle’s more specialised systems switched off, just in case. The spaceport had a sealed terminal building with its own environment for the benefit of off-world visitors and a little hovercar came shooting across the field to take him there.

  Rachel was waiting for him as soon as he completed the formalities of arrival and smiled happily as he walked across to the reception committee.

  “Lord David, thank you for coming so promptly.”

  “You mean I had a choice, your Majesty?”

  “Hmph. Well anyway, you already know Chancellor Mahagama and this is my War Minister, Lord Dhamina.”

  “Excellencies. Will you be accompanying us on our little shopping expedition?”

  “Lord Dhamina is coming with us,” Rachel replied. “Lord Mahagama will stay here to look after things in my absence.”

  “All right, well before we leave I have some news to share with you, if we can find a quiet space somewhere.”

  The terminal building was busy but they managed to secure a corner table in the bar. David took a small device from his belt pouch and placed it in the centre of the table. It emitted a quiet hum but immediately the noise from the rest of the bar vanished. He leaned forward slightly to make sure he was well within the isolation barrier before he began.

  “The Swordfish, Captain Boronin’s new command, intercepted a freighter leaving Ystradis yesterday. The cargo was Biridium ore bound, we believe, for Vostov.”

  The looks of surprise on the faces of the councillors and the puzzlement that was evident on Rachel’s face, confirmed David’s suspicions.

  “You didn’t know about this, did you?”

  “Well obviously we knew they were mining something,” Mahagama said. “But we had no idea what it was. It’s not something that we ever bothered with, or even knew that it existed on Ystradis.”

  “But you know what it is, don’t you? You understand the significance of this find.”

  The two men nodded but Rachel shook her head. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Biridium is an essential component in the manufacture of lightweight space armour,” David explained. “It’s used for both military spacecraft and personal armour such as the Imperial Guard use. It’s very rare; including Ystradis there are only four known commercial deposits throughout the Empire. It does mean that whoever controls Ystradis is becoming very wealthy, very quickly. It also means that the Belsi, and their new best friends from Vostov, will do everything in their power to retain control of that deposit.”

  Rachel’s face hardened. “Then it makes our little shopping expedition, as you call it, all the more important. I want my planet back, David. Not for this Biridium, although I do object to the Belsi making a profit out of their illegal occupation, but for my people. We are grateful to Sorinto for allowing us to live here, but we are little more than refugees and these domes are crushing the soul of the Ystrad.

  “We are essentially an agrarian society. I have seen the recordings that people brought with them when they fled Ystradis. All of the houses and public buildings were open to the elements. Yes there were universities, factories and centres of technology; all the components of a modern society in an age of interstellar commerce. But my people’s love is the land and back home, every adult Ystrad would make sure that he or she spent some part of each day out in the open, feeling the sun and the wind on their faces.

  “They cannot do that here under these artificial domes, David, and it is killing them. That is why we are going to retake Ystradis and neither the Belsi nor this Vostov are going to stop us.”

  David switched his attention to the councillors sitting on either side of their queen. “And what do you gentlemen say? I’ve heard Rachel’s passion but what support does she have amongst the Ystrad?”

  “More as every day goes by,” Dhamina replied as Mahagama nodded his agreement. “The council have been shocked out of their complacency. One or two of them, myself included, had their noses put well out of joint to st
art with but once we got over that, I guess we started to believe in ourselves again. Her majesty can be quite persuasive and, as you have just heard, very determined when she wants something.”

  “So do you have a shopping list of supplies for the Resistance? And a budget?”

  “The suggested list of supplies is on this data chip,” Rachel said, handing it over. “And we have set aside 25,000 credits for the purchase and, hopefully, the transport.”

  “Okay, I’ll review the list once we’re underway. We may need to visit two or three places to get the best deal. What about the warship?”

  Rachel grimaced. “Lord Dhamina and some of the others are in favour but the council is split.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised. Lord Mahagama, what’s your view?”

  “I understand the queen’s motive but I’m worried about the expense. We would have to mortgage everything to buy even a small frigate. And what could one frigate do against the Belsian fleet? If we lose it, we would be back to square one, only considerably poorer.”

  “Well, let’s see what’s available before we make any decision then. One question: if we do buy a ship, how would you crew it?”

  “That might present a problem,” Dhamina admitted. “There are some older Ystrad with space crew experience here on Sorinto. But we’ve had no space fleet of any description for twenty five years. The younger generation have all the enthusiasm you could ask for, but no experience.”

  “Then I suggest you start a crash training programme. I know there’s a Space Academy here on Sorinto. Lord Mahagama, you’re staying here. Talk to the authorities and see what they can do for you. Even a few weeks concentrated training would be good and, even if we come back empty handed this time, that sort of training will come in useful in the future. In the meantime, let’s go and do some shopping.”

  ***

  “Wow, look at that!” Rachel exclaimed as she stared at the two red discs that had suddenly filled the forward viewing screen after their last jump.

  “That’s Arthrides,” David laughed. “It’s a binary system of two red dwarf stars in a stable orbit around each other. It’s a little unusual because each of the stars has its own collection of planets with one planet in each system in the habitable zone. The one on the left is called Rhoda and it’s huge; much bigger than Ystradis or Sorinto and it’s the main planet in the system. Circling the other sun on the right, there’s a smaller planet called Sarnak and that’s where we’re headed. We can’t see either of the planets yet because they orbit too close to their suns but they’ll come into view soon, as we run in.”

  “And that’s where we’ll buy the weapons?”

  “You can buy pretty much anything on Sarnak. It’s the centre of the black market for this whole sector. Because of that, they tend to be suspicious of new visitors and so I’ll need to update your ident chips before we land.”

  “But why?” Rachel asked, looking at the tiny scar on her wrist. “It was only fitted when I reached Sorinto. They didn’t have them on Marmoros.”

  “No they wouldn’t. Marmoros isn’t a member of the empire and therefore the people there aren’t required to have ident chips. But you are a citizen of the empire and that chip identifies you as Queen Rachel of the Ystrad. Similarly for Lord Dhamina. I don’t want to arrive at Sarnak with royalty aboard. It will generate much less interest if you are simply members of the Salamander’s crew.”

  “I thought these things were supposed to be tamper proof,” Dhamina put in.

  “Officially they are. But nothing is ever 100% secure. In my line of work I sometimes have to change my identity at very short notice and so I always carry a little device in my toolkit that will do just that.”

  “And what exactly is your line of work?” Dhamina started to ask, ignoring the furious glare that Rachel threw at him.

  “That’s a story for another time, my lord,” David smiled.

  By the time they landed at Sarnak, Rachel had become Rakela Anosova from Novaya Zemlya in the system of Kola and was entered in the ship’s log as the supercargo. Dhamina transformed into flight engineer Dansa Khan from Ragen and the log recorded that both had crewed the Salamander for the last three years.

  Sarnak was a wet and windy planet, tidally locked so that the same hemisphere always faced its sun. The resulting temperature gradient generated huge flows of moisture laden air from the ‘light’ to the ‘dark’ side of the world and correspondingly massive rivers, carrying the liquid water back again. Most of the planetary infrastructure was located in the twilight zone between the two extremes, however there were some settlements further into the dark side, made possible by the small amount of heat and light received from the binary twin sun.

  After registering their arrival at the main spaceport, David took off again in the shuttle and headed for one of the more remote regions in the interior. The rain, which had been falling incessantly at the spaceport, gradually eased although it was now mixed in with some sleet and flurries of snow. The buffeting from the wind lessened as well, although the worst of that had been dampened by the compensating field generators on the little shuttle.

  “This is what passes for summer here,” David explained. “Sarnak now is at its closest point to the second sun which warms everything up a bit. When the planet moves away, the winters here can be quite extreme but, fortunately, they don’t last very long.”

  The shuttle swung into the lee of one of the larger mountains and the wind and rain died almost completely away. Ahead of them they could see a cliff face rushing towards them with two flashing red lights visible in the distance. As they approached, David slowed the shuttle to a halt and the lights resolved themselves into two massive gun emplacements, either side of a small opening in the cliff face.

  “Is that where we’re going?” Rachel asked. “Into that cave?”

  David nodded. “Behind that cliff face is the residence of one Balthazar Urghul, one of the biggest arms dealers on Sarnak. I sent word on ahead but there’s no guarantee that he’ll let us in.”

  “So what are we waiting for?” Dhamina asked impatiently.

  “The green light,” David replied. “Or more precisely, two green lights. Ah, here we go.”

  The two lights on the gun emplacements changed to a steady green and David eased the shuttle forward towards the opening in the cliff. On the viewing screens, even though the lights were green, they could see the muzzles of the guns continue to track them as they approached. A series of pathfinder lights came on as they entered the cave, which turned out to be a tunnel leading back into the cliff. The tunnel was comfortably wide enough for the shuttle in most places but there were several twists and turns which had to be carefully negotiated before it opened out into a massive cavern with space for three docking bays. A green light was flashing on one of them and David steered the shuttle alongside, nudging it in gently until the automatics took over and clamped the ship in place.

  As they exited the shuttle they were met by a six man squad in full body armour and carrying an assortment of energy and projectile weapons. The squad leader checked their ident chips on a portable scanner before brusquely turning his back and signalling them to follow. There was another security checkpoint at the exit from the cavern and another two at the bottom and again at the top of the elevator that whisked them up to the surface.

  “This Balthazar is a trusting soul, isn’t he,” Dhamina muttered under his breath.

  “There’s a lot of competition is this particular market,” David whispered back, knowing that their comments would be picked up by the squad leader’s comms pack. “If we don’t get a deal here, we’ll just try somewhere else.”

  They were escorted into a large antechamber containing another of the ubiquitous security scanners and a wide staircase leading up to an opening in the ceiling that was sealed horizontally with a blast-proof door. Two of their escorts took up position at the entrance to the room while the others urged them towards the scanner and
the staircase. As the last of their ident chips was scanned, the door in the ceiling slid sideways allowing a deep red light to flood down from above.

  At the top of the stairs, they paused for a second to allow their eyes to adapt to the light. The room was the same size as the one below but with one wall of a translucent material that provided a panoramic view of the ruddy landscape and the distant sun, hovering just above the horizon. A large man sat behind an even larger desk with his back to the window. He did not get up as they entered but the squad leader and one of the escorts, moved to take position on either side of the desk. The other two guards remained at the top of the stairs as the opening sealed closed behind them.

  David led the others towards the desk, noting as he did so, the vast expanse of highly polished wood that must have cost a fortune to import into Sarnak. Trees of any description were a rarity on the planet.

  “Lord David Held,” the man behind the desk said. “My name is Balthazar Urghul. It is not often that I see a representative of one of the major trading baronies in here.”

  “Even the major houses occasionally have transactions that require, shall we say, a certain amount of discretion,” David replied smoothly.

  “Of course. But I am forgetting my manners. Please take a seat. Your charming companion should not be kept standing in her condition.”

  Rachel fought to keep her face under control as Balthazar pressed a button on the desk and three mushroom stools emerged from the floor.

  “Now then, I assume you have a list of your requirements.”

  David produced the data chip and slid it across the polished wood. Balthazar caught it and dropped it into a concealed slot on the desk. A holographic screen appeared in front of him and he studied it intently for a minute.

  “A comprehensive list but I can supply all of these items.” He tapped another button on the desk. “The price will be 40,000 credits.”