After a moment, Lord Frichette was issuing orders and demanding information. A few moments later, medics were tending to the injured. Tad’s head hurt so much he could barely concentrate on what was going on, but it was evident that things were not good.
“Looks like we’ve had it,” Lieutenant Jones was saying. “You need to transfer your flag, sir.”
“Yes. Contact Sir Charles and have him rendezvous with us. We’ll shift all the staff, Mr. Farsvar here, and, oh, bring our two ‘guests’—assuming they’re both still alive—we can’t let them out of our sight.”
“Right away, sir.”
After a moment, Frichette drifted over to him. “Are you all right, Tad?”
“I-I think so, sir. A bit shaken up.”
“I would imagine you are. Well, the battle is over and we’re still alive. Guess neither of has anything to complain about, eh?”
“No, sir. Is it really all over?”
“I sure hope so. Just one more trip to make. Once we’re with Sir Charles we can look things over and make certain.”
* * * * *
Despite five years in the navy, Carlina had never been in a battle. After all of this, she was very glad she had not. Of course, being in a battle, shut up in the brig, with no clue what was happening, would have to be the worst way of experiencing one. The ship had been shaking and groaning, twisting and lurching for hours. Add in long stretches at very high accelerations, and there was no part of her that had not been bruised. And that last impact! She didn’t know what the hell was going on, but it sure seemed like the Anderans were losing. Perhaps she would die in battle—or even be rescued—rather than be executed.
From the moment she and Brannon had been turned over to the Anderans, ‘for safe-keeping’ the Seyotahs had claimed, she was convinced she was going to be executed. Brannon had made protests and demands, all to no avail. But now, what was happening?
“Are you all right, Carlina?” In the dim glow of the emergency lights she could just see Brannon in the adjoining cell.
“Battered, but okay. How about you?”
“I’m all right. What has happened?”
“Not sure, but the drive is off and the gravity with it.”
“Perhaps your friends are winning the battle. If so, a great many of the clan must be dead. Oh, how I had hoped to avoid this.”
“There’s no telling what has happened or who is winning. This ship may be badly damaged, but the Anderans had many ships. We shall just have to wait.”
But they did not wait very long before a party of Anderans came and took them away.
“Where are we going?”
“To another ship,” said one of them, almost cheerily. “This one’s broken.”
“But not near as bad your friends’,” added another.
* * * * *
“Lord Frichette’s party will be coming aboard in a few minutes, sir,” said Lieutenant Lindquist.
“Good,” said Crawford. “As soon as they’re here, we can start transferring the rest of the crew.”
“Yes, sir, there’s no hope of salvaging the ship, what with its size and current vector.”
Crawford nodded. Agamemnon was heading out of the solar system and there was no hope of diverting her. All they could do was rescue the crew and let the rest of it go. Waste of good material, but there was nothing for it.
“What about the other cripples—ours and the Venanci?”
“We’ve got ships rendezvousing with all of them. Any that can be towed will be. Doesn’t look like they’ll be many Venanci survivors, though.”
“Damn fanatics.”
“Yes, sir.”
Crawford leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh. “So it’s over. And we won.”
“Yes, sir, a great victory.”
“Any word on our casualties?” A sudden fear for Greg and Sheila went through him.
“Very little so far. Little word, I mean. Some of the ships will have taken a lot, I’m afraid, but it will take a while to get numbers.”
“What about here, on Indomitable?”
“I can check, sir. Probably not too bad, though. Our damage wasn’t bad at all.”
He was tempted to have Lindquist specifically ask about his friends, but no, it wouldn’t change anything—except his anxiety—and he’d learned to live with that. Speaking of anxiety, he needed to get a message off to Regina as soon as he could decently…
“Incoming message for Sir Charles,” announced the communications officer.
“From who?”
“Uh, no identifier, but it’s coming from the direction of the fourth planet, probably Bastet, but it doesn’t have the right… oh, it’s from one of Bastet’s shuttles. That would explain why it’s so faint. Trying to boost, but it’s not a good signal.”
“Let me hear it.”
“Yes, sir. On speaker.”
It was faint and it was filled with static, but it was a woman’s voice. Crawford’s smile faded when he realized it wasn’t Regina.
“…get this to Sir Charles… need help… the Governor… Doctor Ramsey… betrayed us… Reggie is locked up… going to destroy the whole planet… please, we need help!”
Crawford looked at Lindquist who appeared as puzzled as he felt.
“What the hell…?”
Chapter Twenty-four
“There’s been nothing more since that message asking for help?” asked Petre Frichette.
“No,” said Crawford. “I think it was Regina’s assistant Jeanine. She must have been in a shuttle—probably still inside the boat bay, the signal was so badly degraded—but there’s been nothing since then.”
“You tried contacting Bastet?”
“There’s a forty-minute com-delay, but yes, I did immediately. Just got the reply a few minutes ago. They say everything’s fine and that the first message was a mistake.”
“Have you talked to the governor?”
“No, I was waiting to talk to you. With that stuff about ‘betrayal’ in the message, I wasn’t sure who I could trust.”
“It’s not terribly clear who is doing the betrayal, Ramsey, the governor, or both.” Frichette sighed. “Y’know, I was really hoping to take a nap once the battle was over…” Crawford looked at the young man and saw the dark circles under his eyes, the fatigue on his face. Considering how wrung-out Crawford felt, Petre must be exhausted.
“I could try to contact Regina directly, but if something really is wrong, they could drag it out for hours.”
“And if that ‘destroying the whole planet’ part of the message means some sort of sabotage of the Thermal Enhancement Plan then we don’t have any time to waste: it’s scheduled to begin in less than forty-eight hours.”
“So what do we do? I’ve already checked with the astrogator and by draining the tanks we could just make it—at five Gs the whole way. But only if we left right now.”
“Ouch. That would be hell on the crew—not to mention me.” They both glanced at the milling throng of celebrating officers on the bridge. They were tired, too, but they all thought the job was done. Could he ask them for more?
“I want to go, but dammit, I don’t know what to do!”
Frichette rubbed at his eyes. “All right, let’s try to look at this logically. The Venanci are beaten. Their two transports are no threat and I can send our least damaged ships to keep a close watch on them or catch them if they can. If we do make a high-speed run to rendezvous with Bastet, is there anything to be lost? Other than sleep and tempers, I mean?”
“Uh, I can’t think of anything…”
“Neither can I. If it’s a false alarm we lose nothing. And if it’s not…Let’s get cracking.”
* * * * *
“Reggie, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault!” Jeanine was sobbing and Regina couldn’t resist holding her and stroking her hair as she rocked her.
“Hush, little one, hush. Ramsey and Shiffeld must have had this planned from the start. There’s no way you could have st
opped them.”
“I could have warned you! I could! B-but I didn’t.”
“When did you find out?”
“A few weeks ago. Just before you got back here.” Jeanine sniffled, but stayed leaning against her. “I noticed the same things you did, I guess: the servicing on the penetrators, then I found flight plans for the shuttles that could have only one purpose.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to Ramsey.”
“And what did he do?”
“Bribed me. Threatened me, too, but mostly bribed. Told me how grateful the governor and the Protector would be. Made some big promises.”
“So you agreed to do what he wanted?”
“Y-yes. He just wanted me to distract you. Keep you from finding out what was happening until it was too late. B-but he told me that there were only going to be a few more magma pockets tapped—not all of them! He said you were being too conservative in your safety estimates. He said that no one would get hurt. I didn’t really believe him—oh, maybe I wanted to believe him. I was so confused I didn’t know what I was doing! But he never said anything about framing you for it! I swear! Oh, Reggie, I didn’t know! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“I believe you, I really do. And while you were busy keeping me busy, you wouldn’t see the scope of what he had planned. He’s damn clever. But why’d you accept the bribe?” Regina thought she knew, but she wanted to hear it from Jeanine. It took a while before she answered.
“I was angry. And hurt.”
“You’d heard about me and Charles?”
“Yes. It drove me crazy. I was so angry.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Jeanine. I never meant to. I suppose I never should have encouraged you at all, but… but I do love you, little one—just not like that.”
“I know. I always knew. But I just built up a fantasy in my mind and let it get too real. I love you, too, Reggie.”
She gave the young woman a hug and then held her away. Her face was covered with tears, but she smiled a little. “Friends again?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yes. But, oh, what a mess I’ve made! What are we going to do? If Ramsey isn’t stopped he’ll kill all those people and you’ll be blamed!”
“We’ll both be blamed. He won’t let you off, either. Not now.”
“But why is he doing this?”
“Shiffeld bribed him, I suppose. Our dear governor is in terror of what the Protector is going to think about the sabotage and all this other mess. I think Shiffeld wants to carry out his mission as completely as he possibly can—and the locals be damned. And Ramsey has always resented my position here. He’d jump at a chance to take charge—and get rid of me at the same time.”
“What are we going to do?”
Regina looked around at the detention cell. It seemed quite sturdy. “Only a handful of people know what’s really going on and they’re in Ramsey’s pocket. He’s told everyone else that I’ve had a nervous collapse and I’m confined to my quarters to rest. No one’s going to get suspicious until it’s too late. So, there’s no hope of help from aboard Bastet. Did you really get a message off to Sir Charles?”
“I don’t know,” Jeanine started crying again. “I broadcast a message for as long as I could, until the guards caught me. But there wasn’t enough time to get any reply. I don’t know if I got through.”
“Well, you did your best. All we can do now is wait… and hope someone’s coming to the rescue.”
* * * * *
The thrust eased off until Tad was under what he knew was normal gravity. After two hours at what felt like three Gs (but was really five) normal gravity felt very light. He had ten minutes to attend to bodily needs before the high acceleration would return. He flung himself into the washroom, stripping off his clothes as he went. A minute for the toilet, five minutes in the shower, two minutes to dry and dress, grab a few bites of food and something to drink, and then back to his couch just as the acceleration alarm was sounding. He settled into the cushions and didn’t have to wait long for the crushing weight to return.
This had been the routine for the last eighteen hours: two hours of high gravity with ten-minute breaks. He’d tried to sleep as much as he could, but it was very hard. He’d doze off and then wake a few minutes later, gasping for breath. His sleeping body didn’t seem to realize what it had to do to keep breathing properly. And from what he’d been told, he had to endure another thirty hours of this torture.
He just wished he knew what was going on.
Some sort of crisis on the Newcomers’ terraforming ship, Sir Charles and Lord Frichette had said. No details, but they had to get there as quickly as possible. They’d offered to put Tad off the ship, but he’d foolishly said he wanted to come along. If he’d only known! Too late now, he was stuck here.
Something was digging into his back. Very, very carefully he lifted himself up and smoothed out a wrinkle in the back of his shirt. It was amazing that something as small as that could feel like a boulder under these circumstances. Even more carefully, he lowered himself back down, his arms quivering with the effort. Safely down, he lay there gasping. After a while, he activated the display screen with the controls by his side. There were an incredible number of entertainment tapes available, not that any of them made much sense, but they did help pass the time.
Thirty hours to go.
* * * * *
“Brannon, are you all right?” asked Carlina. Her husband was slumped in his couch, looking very gray and scarcely seeming to breathe.
“I will survive,” he gasped. “I think. I have never experienced anything like this—nor do I want to again.”
“I had some high-G training when I first went in the navy, but never anything as long as this. I wonder what the hell is going on. Those crewmen said the battle was over.”
“Yes, it is a great mystery. But somehow I doubt any of these people are going to enlighten us.”
“No. But just hang on. They can’t possibly have the fuel to keep this up much longer.”
“I do hope you are right.”
Me, too.
* * * * *
“Reducing thrust to zero-point-two Gs,” announced the helmsman. “Matching course with Bastet in… three minutes.”
“Thank God!” gasped about a dozen different people around the flag bridge. Charles Crawford heartily agreed. He was exhausted. The acceleration had not bothered him as much as it had the others, but he, along with a few other high-gravity natives among the crew, had spent the last forty hours tending to those who needed assistance. The sick bay was full of them by this time.
“Bastet is signaling again, sir,” said the communications officer. “They want to know what our intentions are?”
Crawford looked over to where Petre was sitting. The last two days had seen a strange and puzzling set of messages going back and forth across the solar system. Naturally enough, Governor Shiffeld had wanted to know where they were going once he became aware of Indomitable’s departure. They had sent back a vaguely worded reply stating that they were investigating a rumor of sabotage on the terraforming ship. Surprisingly, there had been no further word from Shiffeld, no request for more information and no orders, either. Very strange. Once they were under way, Crawford had tried to get in touch with Regina, but unsurprisingly, he’d been told that she was ‘temporarily unavailable’. Clearly, something was wrong, but any meaningful communications was impossible with the long com-delay. Finally, for the last ten hours, as Bastet noted Indomitable’s approach, there had been a steady stream of requests for information on why they were coming. Afraid to tip their hand too soon, they had concocted a story about a Venanci ship slipping off in this direction, but it was obvious the people on Bastet didn’t believe it.
“Sir, the last of those big shuttles is docking with Bastet now,” said the sensor officer. Yes, they’d been watching those shuttles for hours. They, and their mother ship, had been busily shifting orbits, presumably placing bombs for the TEP. Had the
y finished?
“What about the bombs?”
“I’m still reading the transponder codes from one thousand and ninety-two of them, sir, and they all match the ones on the TEP. But I’ve been plotting the courses on those shuttles, and even though it sure looked like they had to be placing bombs into orbits, I’m not seeing any transponders at all from the places they had been.”
“Can you pick up any radar returns from anything they might have placed?” asked Petre.
“Uh, picking up a lot of junk in various orbits. Sir. Hard to really get a good reading from way out here.” Bastet had taken up a very high orbit in the last hour and Indomitable had matched it. They’d launched a recon drone to get a look at the other side of the planet, but it was still just as far out.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” said Crawford. “Let’s get Ramsey on the line and demand to talk with Regina.”
“Yes, I think you’re right. Communications, get us Doctor Ramsey. Don’t take no for an answer.”
“Yes, sir.”
It only took a few minutes, but Crawford was fuming by the time Ramsey appeared on the screen. He looked tired—and worried. “Ah, Sir Charles, oh, Lord Frichette, I wasn’t expecting…what can I do for you?”
“I would like to speak with Dame Regina,” said Crawford, trying hard to keep the worry and impatience out of his voice.
“Uh, ah, I’m afraid that’s not possible. The poor woman has been working so hard she’s had a bit of a collapse. She’s in sick bay under sedation and needs rest. I’m sure you can understand.”
“We’re coming over to see her. Immediately.”
“Ah, no, I’m afraid I can’t allow that. We’ll be initiating the Thermal Enhancement Plan in just a few minutes. All the orbits are set and we cannot delay. Nor can we afford the distraction of an official visit. I’m sure you understand. Perhaps tomorrow…”
“We are coming over. Now.”
“Tomorrow, gentlemen,” said Ramsey, and now there was steel in his voice. “My orders come direct from the governor. For the moment, our locks are closed to you and you will not be permitted aboard. Until tomorrow, then.” The connection broke and the screen went blank.
Across the Great Rift Page 44