Ninth Euclid's Prince

by Daniel M. Hoyt

  “Empty,” I said.

  The prince’s eyebrows shot up and he flicked on the comlink again. “Where are all my people in the palace?”

  “I moved them a week ago,” General Zanuck said, “in case there was an attack. Those that were willing to fight are helping us now; the others are at the camp.”

  That explained why the palace was empty when I was there almost a week earlier. I didn’t even see the Angels then, but that was because I was looking in the wrong place. They were patrolling outside the palace.

  “What about the jumpport?” I asked.

  My Lord repeated my question into the comlink.

  “We’ve got two Angels there now. I moved everyone else after the attack.” Zanuck chuckled. “Your port master didn’t want to go; we practically had to club him over the head to get him out of there.”

  No wonder I didn’t recognize the port master’s voice when we tried to land at Oasisis.

  “So, how does it look, Z?” Lord Oswald asked into the comlink.

  “Not good,” Zanuck said. “We lost a few men, but not many, mostly to stupidity. Vere’s troops have taken far more losses. They’re regular legion, nothing special; they don’t react well to tactics they’ve never seen before. We’re outnumbered almost ten-to-one, but we’ll hold ... for now. If they get reinforcements, we’re going to have a problem. And my men at Oasisis say there’s some on the way.”

  “What about pulling them away from the governors?” Lord Oswald asked.

  “Maybe,” said Zanuck, “but not without risk. Mostly, those idiots are just squabbling, lip service only, but every now and then one of them decides to attack one of the others. So far, I’ve kept the Angels out of it; I figured it’s easier to let them fight it out and get it out of their systems.” Zanuck paused. “But Vere’s only got a few men with each of the governors, and they’re kept close at hand, more like advisors than soldiers. I heard Governor Dwelman even put them up in his best guest suite, like visiting dignitaries. The problem is we can’t get to Vere’s men without the governors thinking we’re attacking them.”

  Lord Oswald blinked. Zanuck sometimes had a roundabout way of answering questions, as if he skipped steps in the explanation. He and Lord Oswald understood each other at a fundamental level, so the prince usually knew what he was getting at. This time, however, I thought my Lord was struggling to follow Zanuck’s reasoning.

  “Okay,” my Lord said after a few moments of reflection, “if the Angels are just sitting around, essentially in reserve, what’s the risk in moving them here?”

  “Oh, sorry, I thought I explained that,” Zanuck said. “It’s the reinforcements. Vere’s got three more ships on the way. That’s too many for just the palace attack; I figure he’s also planning on going after the regions that are still loyal to you. We’ll need those Angels there, unless you want to end up fighting off Vere’s troops and our own legions.”

  I thought about the situation. The Oasis legions, under the control of the fighting cock governors, were distracted, fighting each other, and they didn’t see the bigger picture. Vere even made a blatant grab for the prince’s palace, but none of the cocks had noticed yet. Vere’s reinforcements would arrive under the guise of friendly assistance and help to decimate the prince’s loyal troops.

  Under normal circumstances, the Oasis legions were sufficient in number to repel a direct attack, but the civil war circumvented that by reducing the legions involved in any given battle. Instead of attacking all the legions at one time, Vere would do it one at a time. And all the time, our legions would think they were fighting each other in a civil war. Vere’s troops wouldn’t even be perceived as the enemy until it was too late. They’d be in place all over Oasis before the final strike, which would be directed solely at the prince, and then Vere would effectively control Oasis.

  By the time Dwelman and the other governors knew what had really happened, Vere would be setting up his new regime.

  The plan was brilliant, quite unexpected for Prince Vere’s limited intelligence, but it didn’t take into account Oswald’s Angels. Vere probably thought the prince’s palace was easy pickings, since the prince was away in New Rome, but he underestimated the Angels and their ability to defend the palace. Vere undoubtedly expected to gain more ground with the in-fighting, too, but the Angels had prevented any real damage, so now Vere needed to bring in more troops to do the job.

  If I knew Zanuck and the Angels, this was shaping up to be almost as difficult for Vere as an ordinary frontal assault.

  Except that there were too few Angels at this point. Zanuck’s troops were spread thin, and they couldn’t be shifted around very much without risking exposure and a subsequent loss in that region. The only tactical advantage we had that I could see was that Vere didn’t know this fact yet.

  “Oz,” Zanuck’s voice buzzed over the comlink, “we’ve got another problem now.”

  “What is it?”

  “Prince Vere’s just landed outside the palace, but not in one of his ships. It’s the Raven, registered to Senator Noir in New Rome.”

  My heart skipped a beat or two. At least now I understood where the plan’s brilliance came from. Noir was involved, and I’d bet that he was the mastermind of the plan as well. He was probably playing Vere for a stooge, somehow.

  “He wants to parley with you, Oz,” Zanuck said. “What should I tell him?”

  “Tell him I’ll get back to him,” Lord Oswald shot back, and sent me off to ready a jumper.

  Two minutes later, after shutting down the emergency port, the prince hopped in, and we shot into the sky, leaving the Phoenix behind.

  Starships were fast, once you got into space, but they were big and lumbering in the confines of a planet’s atmosphere. The Phoenix made a perfect target for Vere’s troops; it was no wonder they took a shot at us. But a jumper was designed for flying in heavy gravity; it was made small, light and highly maneuverable. It wasn’t hard to evade Vere in the jumper; I just flew so high over the troops that they couldn’t fire with confidence, then came straight down over the palace, landing in the prince’s courtyard. A starship could never have done it, but the jumper had no problem at all.

  I was just opening the hatch when Lord Oswald put a hand on my arm. “There’s one more thing,” he said, his face clouded over with worry. “Z mentioned it after you left.”

  I closed the hatch again and waited. After all we’d been through the last week or so, I didn’t think there was anything my Lord could say that would faze me.

  “For some reason he didn’t explain,” the prince said, frowning, “Vere wants your head on a platter.”

  Chapter 22

  Stranded

  THERE WERE DAYS THAT IT JUST DIDN’T PAY TO GET UP IN THE MORNING; this was one of them.

  Prince Vere had no reason to want me dead, unless he’d found out I’d taken a cruise with his wife. But, that didn’t make any sense; his men had been spotted on Oasis before I’d even set foot on the Raven. There had to be another explanation for this new demand, but I couldn’t come up with one.

  As we hustled into the palace to meet General Zanuck, I badly wanted to talk it over with the prince, but he was too preoccupied. Instead, I kept my peace, and Vere’s threat oozed into every thought I had, making me even more anxious.

  “No deal,” Lord Oswald said, breathlessly, as we ran into the palace’s comroom and found Zanuck waiting.

  “Hmm?” Zanuck said, looking up from a message he was reading intently, and kicked his feet down from the top of the console where they’d been resting.

  “I don’t care why Vere wants Euclid dead,” my Lord said, “he can’t have him.”

  Zanuck nodded. “No negotiating, eh?”

  “No,” the prince said firmly. “Call Vere.”

  The general flicked some switches on the comlink and gestured to my Lord.

  “Hunter,” Lord Oswald said, a challenge in that single word, not just to the current situation or even the man, but a personal
challenge to Vere’s given name.

  “Adrian?”

  Prince Vere materialized as a hologram, standing next to Lord Oswald. He held himself with his normal aloofness, but his sapphire eyes kept glancing around nervously, as if he expected us to attack his hologram.

  And his sapphire earring was missing.

  I’d never seen him without the jewelry, and, along with his shifty expression, it left me with an uneasy feeling, as if I were seeing the holographic message of a friend who had just died. There was something inherently wrong about it, but there was no logical basis for my reaction.

  I put aside my misgivings with a shiver and listened.

  “No, Adrian, but I do expect you to surrender,” Prince Vere said nervously.

  My Lord narrowed his eyes at the hologram and his fists dug into his sides, twitching, as if he were ready to slug the formless image in front of him. “No.”

  “Come now, Adrian, can’t you see that you have no hope of winning?”

  “If you’re so damned confident,” my Lord spat back, “then how come you’re not in my palace yet?”

  Vere rolled his eyes. “If I wanted it, I’d take it, you mealworm of an excuse for an heir.”

  “Hah! I dare you to try, you spawn of a watersloth!” my Lord yelled back.

  “Now, let’s be civil, shall we?” Vere sniffed. “We are Princes, after all.”

  And so it went, for another half hour or so. The two of them argued and insulted each other in cycles, degenerating into name-calling every few minutes, without actually solving anything.

  Through all the arguing, though, Vere never mentioned why it was he wanted me dead. In fact, it didn’t seem to me that Vere cared much for my head. After the negotiations had stretched on long enough to put me nearly to sleep, I tried to get Lord Oswald’s attention.

  Taking my waving arms as a sign to inquire about Vere’s vendetta against me, Lord Oswald said, “What about Euclid?”

  “Huh? Euclid?” Vere said, then cringed slightly, as if someone near the real prince had threatened him physically. “Oh, yes, your secretary.”

  “What do you want with him?” Lord Oswald shouted angrily.

  “Who? Euclid?” Again, Vere cringed slightly.

  If it hadn’t been that I was alert to odd behavior from Prince Vere, I never would have noticed him cringing. Even so, I was sure Lord Oswald saw Vere cringe, but ignored it as useless knowledge, since he saw no reason for it.

  But there was something wrong about this Vere; I’d spotted it at the beginning, and now a suspicion nagged at me, one which required some proof before I could mention it to my Lord. I saw the cringes as significant behavior; I just didn’t know why yet.

  “He’s to go back to New Rome,” Vere said, glancing apprehensively off to his side, “where his crimes will be exposed and dealt with.”

  My blood chilled. What crimes? Had Vere found out I cared for Willow? Or had the empress confided to her lover what I’d done to earn Lord Oswald’s freedom? Either one could have been construed as a personal offense to the prince, but Vere didn’t act as if it were a personal vendetta.

  It appeared that he barely even remembered me at all.

  They argued again for a few more impotent rounds, as if verbal sparring were the whole point of the interchange, then Vere threw up his arms in exasperation.

  “I give up, Adrian. You leave me no choice but to invade.”

  Vere’s image dissolved, his connection abruptly severed.

  Lord Oswald looked at General Zanuck and smiled weakly. “Better get ready. Can we hold him off long?”

  Zanuck shrugged. “Depends on how many he’s got in that crate with him. The reinforcements he’s expected haven’t arrived yet, so it’s just the new ones he’s brought along.” The general’s face washed over with concern. “Assuming, of course, they’ll pitch their battle here, not somewhere else.”

  “Well, Euclid,” my Lord said, winking, “it’s been a while since I’ve had any real battle experience. Are you ready for the real thing?”

  I gulped and put on my best devil-may-care grin. “Bring it on.”

  ***

  Prince Vere probably intended to smash through our meager defenses, grab Lord Oswald’s palace and declare himself the victor in time for bed that day, but that was probably because the prince had precious little actual battle experience to refute such unreasonable expectations. At the very least, he should have realized that Oswald’s Angels, who had successfully repelled his attackers for some time now, would be capable of holding him off a little longer.

  To be fair, by the time the following night had rolled around, we had lost a little ground, due to Vere’s small number of reinforcements added to the fray.

  The addition to our side — my Lord and I — was mostly in the background. The Angels lived, trained and fought together as a unit under General Zanuck. Jumping into the legion ourselves would have put us at a severe disadvantage, since we didn’t know their drills intimitely, as well as hampering their ability to execute those drills. As a result, we shadowed Zanuck and discussed strategy incessantly.

  Despite our best efforts, though, Vere was gaining ground. Those few extra troops upset the delicate balance that Zanuck had established, and we were losing.

  And we’d lose more ground if we didn’t get some reinforcements from somewhere. The ground we had lost so far had put us perilously close to the palace, and Zanuck estimated only a few more days until Vere breached the palace.

  Lord Oswald grew more sullen through those two days. He was coming to grips with the fact that we couldn’t win this battle while our own forces were engaged in a civil war, but he was out of ideas.

  Me, I grew up on Oasis, and I had no wish to give it up, either, but I couldn’t imagine any other outcome.

  The two of us, Lord Oswald and I, retreated to the palace for the second night in a row, while the Angels held the line not far from our bedrooms.

  “Euclid,” my Lord asked as we walked through the empty halls of the palace, our footsteps echoing eerily, “do you think we have a chance to save Oasis?”

  I didn’t answer him, just continued walking, the banging of my heels drowning out all other thought.

  The prince nodded in understanding. “I see.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. We got here too late. Oasis may be lost.”

  My heart felt heavy in my chest, every breath was torture and the dull beat of our shoes pounded in my ears. Never in my life had I been homeless, yet it seemed inevitable now. And, worst of all, it was completely out of my control, too.

  Still, my mind refused to yield. There was a nagging suspicion that was yet unsatisfied, and the pieces of the puzzle still didn’t fit.

  “Oz?”

  My Lord faltered for a couple steps and smiled, a silent recognition of my long overdue familiarity.

  “Are you sure,” I asked, “that Vere is the real threat?”

  “Of course, who els—”

  Lord Oswald stopped walking, and bent his head slightly in thought. His eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he nodded.

  “Noir,” we said together.

  “Yes,” the prince said, “the whole scenario smacks of Noir, but ... how do you explain Vere? I grew up with Hunter, and that was Vere’s hologram, I’d swear it.”

  “I think it really was the prince.”

  My Lord raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

  “What if it’s Noir’s ploy, but he’s forcing Vere to front for him? As if Vere were calling the shots?”

  The prince considered this for a moment, then nodded. “Could be. Vere did seem somewhat nervous in that holo.”

  “And distracted. As if someone else told him what to say, but not why he should say it.”

  “I didn’t think much of his odd behavior at the time, but now that you mention it....”

  Excitement washed over me, the feeling that I’d put another piece of the puzzle into the right place. The feeling was transitory, though, overwhelmed by
the foreboding knowledge that understanding the situation didn’t help me to solve it any better.

  We resumed walking in silence, headed for the comroom for a cursory check.

  “The question is,” said Lord Oswald after a minute or so, “what’s Noir have on Vere? He’d need something major for this kind of plot.”

  I shrugged and slipped into the comroom.

  There was one message, from the Raven, and it was encrypted with a message code my Lord had never used.

  The prince examined the message briefly, noting that all known palace decryption routines had failed. He was about to delete the message when I stopped him, for reasons I couldn’t explain at the moment. Shrugging, he got up from the comlink console.

  Something nagged at the back of my brain, and I knew I’d seen the encryption code before, but I couldn’t quite place it. But something remembered in my subconscious sent my heart racing in anticipation. Then, suddenly, like a fog lifting, I knew.

  It was one of the private codes I found in Noir’s personal messages, one of the codes I’d seen on the Raven.

  I jumped to the console and entered Noir’s code and algorithm from my eidetic memory, fingers blurring as I programmed the complicated sequences and seemingly random key values. Decryption was almost instantaneous once I was done, and I smiled when the sender was revealed as Lady Willow Vere.

  ***

  Dear Euler,

  Please forgive us. Hunter and I didn’t know what Noir was doing here until it was too late. I was just as surprised as Hunter when Noir brought us to Oasis. After I saw Hunter threaten you and poor Adrian, I confronted him. He says Noir made him do it and I made him tell me why. It’s a long story, but it started with Jewel. It turns out the rumors are true, Hunter really was carrying on with the empress, but he says she won’t let him break it off. I don’t know if I believe him or not, but it doesn’t matter now.

  Noir knows about him and Jewel, too, and he threatened to tell the emperor personally unless Hunter does everything he asks. Hunter told him he wouldn’t do it, that he’d denounce Noir to the emperor instead. That’s when Noir got us all together a few days ago. Hunter thought Noir was going to expose him right up until the guards arrested Adrian, then Noir told Hunter afterward the same would happen to him if he didn’t cooperate.