Home: Interstellar: Merchant Princess

by Strong, Ray

  “Feel better?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Much,” Cookie said as he sat down.

  Abrams’s link chattered. “The complex is getting overrun.”

  Cookie rose. “Let’s go down there.”

  Abrams smiled. “No, we stick. If they win the valley, they control the Box, and if they control the Box, they win Haven,” Abrams said. “We stick.”

  “It’s suicide for those defending the complex,” Cookie said.

  Elizabeth went to the bunker and came back with binoculars, but she could see little through the thick haze. She switched to infrared and saw men entering the Blackout-Box complex, and a few seconds later, the lights on the complex and tower went out.

  “Damn, they’re overrun,” Elizabeth said. And even from far away, they could hear the shouts of “Subedei!”

  “Damn,” Cookie said. “Archers, too.”

  From Abrams’s link they heard, “All units fall back to—”

  “Communication is cut,” Abrams said. “We’re on our own.”

  “That’s the Box,” Cookie said, and Abrams nodded.

  Their primary mission achieved, the drones converged on the bunkers. Cookie spun up his laser gatler again, and Elizabeth charged the EMP cannon.

  “It won’t matter,” Abrams said, and they looked up to the sky. Above them, through the clearing haze and blinking stars, they could see the missile trails headed their way. Space-based pulse lasers set fire to the dirt while missiles approached their position. Elizabeth grabbed Cookie’s hand.

  “Down! Now!” Abrams yelled.

  ***

  Meriel awoke and felt the dry tenderness of the sun burn on her face from the explosion. She blinked to clear her eyes of the afterimage of the mechs and found the entire kitchen filled with smoke and haze. The dust cloud had passed, and the wind subsided so that only the occasional pop or buzz from small arms or laser fire broke the silence. All of the windows were blown out of the kitchen, and the door groaned twice and crashed to the floor. She knocked on the floor near the closet, and the two knocks in reply told her that the girls were all right.

  Meriel remained cautious and looked outside for escape. The farmyard was wrapped in a dense, dirty fog of dust with only the occasional twinkle of laser tracers. Looking toward the yard, lights appeared on her goggles, the red lights of aggressors. The flying droids were back and looking for targets. She grabbed the pneumatic rifle and lay prone by the kitchen door.

  Smoke and dust obscured everything in the compound, but the outlines of objects showed clearly in the goggle’s display. The riflescope synched with the display and showed her exactly where the black-suits and drones lay and where her shots would land. She targeted the drones first, and as new targets moved into her field of vision, she picked them off until she ran out of slugs.

  Sweat dripped into her eyes. She took off her goggles and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand to clear them, but her hand came away bloody—the goggles had cut deeply into the bridge of her nose.

  Staying below the counter to avoid the droids, Meriel searched for a weapon and found only slivers of wood and boards with nails. There were still soldiers and droids loose, any of which could kill her or the girls. Her legs were still weak, and her martial arts would be ineffective.

  She found Annie’s bag under the debris, but it was empty now. The toroidal device that Becky used as a toy had fallen from the counter. Meriel picked it up and sat next to John with her back against the wall. She held the device in her hand the way she thought it might be held and pressed all the buttons in all combinations but produced only the familiar hum. Her link was dead and could not help her read or identify the numbers etched along the inside of the torus. The device glowed when she pushed the right button, but nothing else. Frustrated, she threw it on the floor and glared at it.

  In the hazy dark kitchen, the glowing torus and black center bar reminded Meriel of a cat’s eye. She played with her sim-chip.

  “It’s all here,” her mother had said.

  A cat’s eye, like the one on the crate on the Princess. A minor detail from the nightmare she had relived thousands of times. She looked again at the string of numbers now clearly visible in the glow from the torus. XE-M446-…Mil-tech. A weapon. A real one! But how does it work? Forgetful of her need to hide, Meriel picked up the device again and banged it repeatedly on the floor. But the banging brought attention she had not expected.

  At the sound of creaking on the stairs, she grabbed a board from the debris. She rolled to hide next to the door to the hall and stairs. A black-suited man appeared at the foot of the stairs, scanned the room, found John, and raised his blaster. Meriel hit the man in the back of the knee, between his calf and thigh armor, with the edge of the board, and he collapsed, dropping his blaster. She whacked him in the head with the board, grabbed the blaster, and shot the next man who came down the stairs.

  She heard another creak; this time on the porch. Meriel turned to see a big shadow standing in the empty doorframe. The smoke cleared, and he stepped into the light—the nondescript man who had followed her on Lander and Etna.

  “Well, Ms. Hope, we finally meet,” he said.

  Meriel pointed the blaster at the anonymous man, but they could both see the charge light blinking yellow, and nothing happened when she pulled the trigger.

  “It’s over, Ms. Hope. Let it go.” He raised his weapon, but Meriel threw the empty blaster at him, and he lost his aim.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Meriel said while ducking behind a counter.

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “What kind of man are you that kills defenseless women and children?” she asked, stalling for time to find a weapon.

  “A professional,” he said and blew off a large piece of the counter that hid her. Its slivers cut her cheek. He reloaded his pistol and stalked her.

  Meriel threw a chunk of debris across the kitchen, and when he turned to target it, Meriel stabbed him behind the knee with a shard of scrap metal and rolled away behind another counter.

  “BioLuna and Biadez, they have everything. Why are they doing this?”

  “You don’t understand power, Ms. Hope,” he said.

  All Meriel had in her hands now was the device. She gripped it to use as a club, but the device beeped, and the buttons began to move without her pressing them.

  “Ah, there you are,” the assassin said, and she heard glass crunch as he approached.

  A display projected from the device in Meriel’s hand with jiggly lines and a logarithmic scale in Hertz written sideways. She rotated her wrist so that the projection was readable, which made it show above the counter where she hid.

  “Merde!” the assassin said, and Meriel could hear him shuffling toward her more quickly. She pushed a display area marked “Activate,” and a display of controls appeared. A map that Meriel remembered from the view from space—the Johnston valley and their farm.

  The assassin turned the corner of the counter and pointed his pistol at her, but he saw what Meriel saw—trajectories moving across a familiar map. He followed Meriel’s gaze skyward through the dusty haze and the holes in the roof to see the missiles arching toward the Johnston Valley, where Elizabeth and Cookie had headed, and their own position at the farm.

  The assassin raised his pistol.

  “You know what this is,” she said.

  “Of course I do,” he said but watched the missiles arc toward them.

  “Then you know they plan to kill you too.”

  “Then I’ll see you in paradise.”

  “That’s not where you’re going,” Meriel said and pushed a button on the display marked “Abort.”

  As they watched, the missiles veered wildly off course. One landed in the farm compound and blew the nondescript man off his feet.

  ***

  Elizabeth’s team ducked below the bunker wall and watched the missile trajectories suddenly change from smooth converging arcs to random spirals. Missiles collided and
exploded in the air. Drones and mechs now stumbled every which way, shooting at random targets. Crawlers attacked each other as well as the men who walked with them.

  “That’s a Blackout-Box in action,” Cookie yelled over the explosions. “Someone else is controlling it.”

  “Someone friendly,” Abrams said.

  “How soon can I call my sister?” Elizabeth asked.

  Abrams tried his link, but it was still dead. “Dunno. In the meanwhile, please remove the remaining drones from the valley.”

  “With pleasure,” Cookie said and picked up the laser gatler. The two of them stood on the broken wall of the concrete bunker and sprayed fire into the disoriented drones until nothing moved in the valley.

  Cookie sat on the edge of the rampart, and Elizabeth joined him to watch the now quiet valley. She sighed to break the silence.

  “Meriel told me about your niece. Sorry,” she said and leaned against his shoulder.

  Cookie nodded and patted her hand, but he remained silent and looked over the rubble in the valley.

  “You sorry you missed the fight on the Tiger?” she asked.

  “Damn straight,” he said, then stood and held out his hand to her. “Now, let’s go help your sister.”

  ***

  When Meriel crawled out from under the debris, she saw the silhouette of the assassin against the glare of a space-based pulse laser that sliced through the farmyard in a meter wide swath. She heard the crunch of broken glass as he climbed to his feet and moved closer.

  “Come now, Ms. Hope,” he said, clearing a path through the smoke and dust.

  “I saved your life. You owe me,” Meriel said.

  “You are my mission, not my savior.”

  As he rounded the cabinet where she hid, Meriel stabbed him behind his other knee.

  “Arh!” he howled as he collapsed. He managed to clip Meriel’s shoulder with fléchettes as she scrambled away. He struggled to his feet again and nearly collapsed.

  In a much more congenial tone he said, “You know you and the girls can all survive this if you come with me now. All they want is your cooperation and your silence. It does not have to end this way.”

  “Tell me more,” she said.

  “You know how powerful we are. We can take care of them and give them a good life. The life you’ve dreamed of.”

  But Meriel imagined Etna and a world of drugs and horrors they would be exposed to as hostages for her silence. And John would die attempting to free them.

  The nondescript man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small clear-plastic tube. “I know these are hard to get out here,” he said and tossed the tube to the floor near where he guessed Meriel hid.

  Meriel watched the tube roll toward her. She reached over, picked up the tube, and opened it—her meds, or rather, just one med, one pill.

  “I know this is all very hard on you, Ms. Hope. Perhaps if you take your medication and come with me, we can make all this pain and confusion go away.”

  Meriel heard a rattle that might be more pills. He’s right. I have nowhere to go, no place to hide, no way to protect the girls and John. She rolled the pill between her fingers. One pill and I won’t care anymore. But Meriel had another thought.

  He offered me a pill rather than coming for me, so he doesn’t know I’m off the meds. Ferrell didn’t tell them. And he’s just a few feet away. If he could kill me, I’d be dead. I crippled him, and he can’t get to me. But Meriel had no weapon and could not reach him either.

  “OK,” Meriel said and tossed the empty vial back to him. “They’ll take care of us?” she asked with a shaky voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll come,” she said, “but put the gun down.”

  “OK,” he said, and Meriel heard something heavy strike the counter.

  She rose slowly, unsteadily, but she held a board behind her back. Clearing the counter top she saw the assassin only a few feet away leaning heavily against the wall; the pistol lay on the counter in front of him. He supported himself with one hand and raised the other hand away from the pistol. Meriel maneuvered closer, trying to get within swinging distance.

  A creak behind the assassin drew their attention to the closet door and they both turned.

  “Merry, are you OK?” said a muffled voice from behind the door.

  “Hide!” Meriel shouted and swung the board from behind her back.

  The assassin turned quickly back to Meriel, and before the board could complete its arc, he punched her in the face with his free hand. The punch knocked her into the wall and she slumped to the floor. He picked up his pistol, turned toward the closet, and fired until the door hung in shreds. Using a board as a crutch, he limped over to the door, which crumbled in his hands when he turned the doorknob. Beyond the shards of door, he found only a hatch in the closet floor. He fired at the hatch, but the fléchettes merely pinged and bounced off.

  Meriel watched as he leaned over to open the hatch and aimed his pistol into the widening gap. She threw the controller device at him and hit him in the shoulder to distract him. Before the nondescript man could return his aim to the hatch and pull the trigger, Meriel heard the faint buzz of a stunner and then the pop of a pellet gun. The assassin staggered backward and dropped the pistol from his limp right hand while scratching at a pellet embedded in his cheek with his left hand. He dropped the crutch and reached down to pick up his gun with his left hand. Meriel struggled to her knees and picked up a board.

  “Hey!” Meriel shouted behind him, and when he turned, Meriel hit him in the face with the edge of the board. He fell to his knees and reached into his sock for a hidden pistol. Becky threw the stunner to her, and Meriel fired point-blank. The assassin fell on his back and lay still.

  Meriel crawled over to Becky and the hatch in the closet floor.

  “Where’s Sandy?” Meriel asked, panicking.

  “In the basement,” Becky said. “She shot through the crack in the trapdoor and got some of the stun on herself. She’s OK, just sleeping. Where’s Papa.”

  “He’s been hurt,” Meriel said. Becky moved to get out of the hatch, but Meriel held her shoulders. “I’ll take care of your papa, hon. You stay hidden.”

  Meriel heard another creak on the porch and turned to see two shadows in the smoke and dust—one small, one huge, both with gigantic weapons.

  “God, no,” Meriel said while raising the stunner again.

  “Hi, Liz!” Becky said.

  A slight breeze cleared the smoke and dust, and Meriel saw Elizabeth and Cookie standing where the door once stood.

  Elizabeth saw Meriel and ran to help her. “It’s clear, M. Colonel Lee gave us a ride here.”

  “Liz, can you help Sandy?” Meriel asked, and Becky waved Elizabeth to the basement. She turned to Cookie. “John’s down, Cookie. Call for a medic. And tie up this garbage,” she said, pointing to the unconscious assassin and black-suits. Then she went to help John.

  ***

  When the medics arrived, Meriel limped over to the assassin. She took the pill from her pocket, crushed it between her fingers, and sprinkled the powder on his face. She stunned him again and leaned against the counter.

  Becky rose from the hatch and looked worriedly at the medics helping her father.

  “Becky, I need your help,” Meriel said and gave her the stunner. “Watch him, OK? If he moves, stun him.”

  “Is he the one that hurt Papa?” Becky asked.

  “One of them,” Meriel said. Becky frowned, turned, and stunned the assassin again.

  Meriel picked up the link and walked over to check John. Cookie gave her a nod. Then she clicked the channel to Khanag.

  “Looks like you lose again, thug. If I’m right, the troopers should have your position about now.” She stopped and looked up through what once was a roof to see the beams of laser cannon and flashes of light in space. Abruptly, the connection to Khanag dropped. Within the ribbons of laser fire, the explosion of Admiral Leung’s flagship appeared as only a mome
ntary flash.

  Meriel turned back to see Becky repeatedly stunning the assassin. His body twitched at the shocks and then remained still.

  “He keeps twitching, Merry. When do I stop?”

  “Oh, a few more will probably do it,” Meriel said.

  “Easy,” Cookie said. “We need some residual brain function for testimony.”

  Meriel and Becky looked disappointed.

  “Maybe just a few more,” he said.

  Becky grinned and stunned him again.

  Elizabeth brought Sandy from the storm shelter in the basement while Meriel and Cookie built a lean-to over John to keep the muddy rain off the medics who prepared to move him to the field hospital nearby. When the shelter was completed, they sat close to John alongside Elizabeth and Abrams under the collapsed eaves of the porch. Each of them felt the occasional drop of mud from the holes in the roof. Sandy, still groggy from the stunner, sat in Meriel’s lap.

  “You knew Khanag was coming?” Meriel asked Lieutenant Abrams.

  “We figured BioLuna and Biadez would try again,” Abrams said and wiped the mud from his face. “When BioLuna dropped the embargo last month, we knew something was coming, something much bigger than Khanag.”

  “I thought they pulled back because of the charges against them,” Elizabeth said.

  Abrams shook his head. “They pulled back for safety. They knew what was coming.”

  “And you didn’t tell us,” Meriel said to Abrams.

  “He didn’t know, M,” Elizabeth said to defend him. “He was surprised too.”

  “Was I the bait here?”

  “No,” Colonel Lee said as he walked to the makeshift shelter. “A magnet. A concentration of forces.” He turned toward Abrams and handed him a flask. “You see the medic yet, soldier?” he asked.

  “I’m next, sir,” Abrams said.

  “You need to see the medics as well, Ms. Hope,” the colonel said. He looked over to the nondescript man who Becky had just stunned again. “Is that him?” he asked. Meriel nodded, and Lee waved his escort to take custody.

  Becky watched them handcuff the assassin and frowned that she would not be able to stun him again. Meriel held out her hand, and Becky put the stunner into it. Then she sat next to Meriel, took Meriel’s arm, put it around her shoulder, and snuggled in.