Kingdom's Swords

by David Sherman

  "And just what is that ‘mission,’ sir?" Ambassador Franks asked. "And just who are you?"

  "I am a soldier in the Army of Zion," Lordsday answered. "My mission is to send a message to your Confederation. Obey my orders and you will not be harmed. Interfere with our mission and you will die."

  "Where are Conrad and Bernstein?" one of the crewmen asked, looking around for the engineers.

  "They no longer matter," Lordsday answered.

  "You goddamned sonofabitch!" Captain Tuit shouted. "You killed my men and you're a lying bastard! You're going to kill us too! What the hell are you up to? This is a goddamned cargo ship, you can't hijack it!"

  "Captain, Captain," Lordsday admonished quietly, "you should not take the Lord's name in vain. Proceed now to your suites in an orderly manner. All will become clear to you in time."

  "Jenny," Conorado whispered to Lenfen at his side, "they're going to kill us. Stay in your room until I come for you."

  "Lew," she whispered back, "it'll be too dangerous! What can one man do anyway?"

  "Watch me," Conorado whispered.

  "Now that we are alone, my dear, shouldn't we get to know one another better?" Bengt said. He had pulled Marta's pants down to her knees, as far as they would go while she was still sitting with her legs bound at the ankles.

  "Kiruna will be back any minute!" Marta gasped as he ran his ice cold hands over her buttocks. Bengt only snorted. One hand crept up between her shoulder blades. She felt like throwing up. "Untie my hands. If you promise not to hurt me I'll be quiet," Marta wheezed, her breath taken away by the filthy probing of Bengt's cold fingers.

  Bengt paused and looked up into Marta's face. "You dare to cross me, Mrs. Marine, and I will kill you." He placed the tip of his knife under Marta's chin and pressed the blade into her flesh. She gasped and tried to wrench her head away from the point but Bengt kept pressing until blood welled out of the wound. He laughed, and tumbled her out of the chair onto her stomach, where he cut the ropes binding her hands behind her back. Pinning Marta's legs with his knees, Bengt wrenched her pants as far down as he could and began running his hands over her exposed backside. Her hands free now, Marta tried to lever herself up off the stone-cold floor, but Bengt forced her back down with one hand. "Ah, my pretty," he whispered, his breath hot on the back of her neck, "let us make love face-to-face." He grabbed her shoulder and began to roll Marta onto her back.

  Kiruna slammed a chair onto the top of Bengt's head. He fell halfway across Marta's prostrate body, and Kiruna hit him again. Then she dragged Bengt off Marta and, breathing heavily, brought the chair down on her shoulders. The force of the blow stunned Marta and slammed her back down on the floor. Screaming inarticulately in Norse, Kiruna jumped on Marta's back and began pulling her hair.

  "Bitch!" Kiruna screamed in English. "You want fucking my man? I fucking fuck you fucking good!" She tried to slam Marta's head into the floor. Marta braced her neck as much as she could and attempted to get her arms underneath her body to lever herself up enough to try to roll over on her back. Her hand closed over something hard. Bengt's knife!

  Kiruna raked her nails over Marta's face, clawing and screaming in English and Norse. "Pretty—no—more—I—finish—" Kiruna shouted. To get at Marta's face, Kiruna flipped her on her back, and as Marta rolled over she drove the blade straight into Kiruna's face. The knife slammed almost effortlessly right into Kiruna's left eyeball—up to the hilt. Kiruna Rena, professional hit woman, was dead before her body collapsed on top of Marta.

  Marta lay on the floor for a moment, too stunned to react, her breath coming in hissing gasps. At last her heart stopped its pounding inside her chest and she found the strength to roll out from under Kiruna's body. Using Bengt's bloodstained knife, she cut the ropes around her ankles. She threw the knife as far from her as she could and, pulling her pants up, got shakily to her feet. Bengt lay unconscious in a pool of blood seeping from several deep gashes on his head. Quickly, she threw on her coat and stumbled toward the open door. Already, driven snow was piling up inside the cabin. She stepped out into the raging storm. Whatever dangers nature had in store for her, Marta thought, could not be worse than what lay behind her in that cabin.

  In her rush to get away, she neglected to don either gloves or headgear.

  "Madam President," Glecko Malaka began gravely, "I have just received the most dreadful communication."

  Madam President Chang-Sturdevant looked up from her reader and regarded her chief of staff balefully. He was standing here personally, so the news was very bad indeed. But with Glecko, all news was bad anyway. "Here is a transcript of a most extraordinary message the communications staff has just received from what appear to be terrorists aboard a cargo ship, the SS Cambria, even now en route to Earth's orbit where—" His voice faltered. "—where they are going to blow it up!"

  Madam Chang-Sturdevant took the palm reader Malaka offered and looked at it. "Glecko, what in the world is this nonsense?"

  The message read:

  We are the army of Zion, the sword of the city of god.

  Most honored madam Chang-Sturdevant, president of the confederation of worlds, greetings and may the blessing of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, be upon you always!

  We make the following testament:

  Whereas the evil of Satan is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out against god's people in manifold judgments, particularly in drawing out persecutions against them and more especially respecting ourselves in our province of kingdom, diminishing our substance, cutting short our harvest, blasting our most promising undertakings, and in more ways than one accomplishing the unsettling of us, and by his more immediate hand snatching away many of our embraces by sudden and violent deaths even at this time when the sword is devouring so many both at home and abroad, and that after many days of public and solemn addressing of the lord for surcrease of these hideous evils, and although considering the many sins prevailing in the midst of us, we cannot but conclude that the lord god our master has permitted these disasters to be accomplished against us for a reason.

  "Jesus H. Christ, get on with it!" Chang Sturdevant muttered.

  Doubtless there are some particular sins about which god is angry with our Israel that have not been duly seen and extirpated by us, about which god expects to be sought, and it is evident that chief among them has been our docility and inaction in the face of the overpowering evil that emanates from your government, madam president! The incursion of your minions upon our plantations is an intolerable affront to god and his chosen people! That your government has chosen to intrude upon us in this sly and covert way, pretending to extend the hand of friendship to our people while holding a sword over us, is the very mark of Satan, and were it known among righteous and honorable men, they would rise up as one and demand that you instantly withdraw your detestable oppressors from our lands and provinces.

  Therefore, we must now set aside the patience and mercy of our lord Jesus Christ and take up the sword of Jehovah. It is with the greatest sadness we now inform your excellency that we have been forced to seize the cargo ship, SS Cambria, the property of the Sewall Shipping Company, its cargo, crew, and passengers. Cast then your eyes toward the night sky and witness the anger of the lord!

  Revelation 10:18

  Madam Chang-Sturdevant blew out her cheeks and looked up at her chief of staff. "Long-winded bastards, aren't they? What's the quote from the Book of Revelation?"

  "‘By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.’ That's why I think they plan to blow her up, ma'am."

  "Yes, and seems to me they plan to blow her up so everyone'll know about it. And they're going to do it when it's night in this hemisphere. It's eight hours now, so it'll be either tonight or tomorrow. We need to know where that ship is now and how far it is from Earth's orbit, and I want to know who's on board her and what she's carrying."

  "The navy's checking n
ow to get a fix on her position, ma'am, and I have some of that information. She's carrying a full load of ore from the mines on Siluria—it's worth trillions. If she goes up, Sewall may well be bankrupted, ma'am, and you know the effect that could have on the economy. Sewall gave us a partial list of passengers, but since it was made up months ago, we can't be sure it's complete. Ambassador Jamison Franks III and his team were to have been picked up on Thorsfinni's World."

  "Oh, that's perfectly delightful!" Madam Chang-Sturdevant banged her fist angrily. Jamison Franks was well-known in the political world of the Confederation since he came from a prominent family that contributed liberally to various parties, chief among them the one Madam Chang-Sturdevant represented. "We don't have much time, Glecko. Assemble my cabinet. Make sure the Combined Chiefs are there, especially whatshisname, the Chief of Naval Operations."

  "It is already being done, ma'am."

  "Has anyone tried to contact the Cambria?"

  "Yes, ma'am. They are not responding."

  Madam Chang-Sturdevant shook her head in exasperation. "So there'll be no negotiations." She grimaced. "Well, find out all you can about this Army of—of—what do they call themselves, the Army of Zion? And find out what the hell we're doing on—on Kingdom, did they say? Christ, I remember something about that place in a meeting months ago now, but damned if I can remember the circumstances. Find out why these guys are upset with us." She stood up. "Okay, let's get to the war room."

  Admiral Joseph K. C. B. Porter, Confederation Chief of Naval Operations, ran a hand nervously over his enormous muttonchop whiskers and looked at his reader again. "Madam President, we have a fix on the Cambria. She's approximately seventeen hours out of Earth orbit, given her present course and speed, which seem fixed. It gets dark in this hemisphere at this season beginning at about nineteen hours on the eastern seaboard, so it'll be full dark here at Fargo by twenty-one hours tonight. If they really intend to blow the Cambria up, they're going to do it sometime tonight. It's nine hours now. We don't have much time to react."

  "Can we react?" Chang-Sturdevant asked. All eyes turned to Admiral Porter, who was not enjoying the attention.

  "Yes, ma'am, we can have a ship at her location in two hours. But a rescue operation might be very chancy. If they've rigged the ship with explosives and intend to immolate themselves along with her, we could lose a navy ship and its entire crew."

  "Well, gentlemen, my chief of staff informs me we have a break. The damned fools—this Army of Zion, as they call themselves—neglected to send their message to anybody but us." She paused.

  "How does that give us a break, ma'am?" a cabinet officer asked.

  "Simple. Since the rest of the world doesn't know what's going on, we can minimize the embarrassment of being ridiculed by these fanatics by striking first. It'll be bad news for Sewall and Lloyds, but I think we can work out some subsidies that'll keep the company and its insurers afloat until they can make up the losses. We can find an explanation for the disaster that'll satisfy public opinion."

  "Madam President, are you saying that...?" Admiral Porter shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  "I am saying, gentlemen, that we dispatch a destroyer to the position of the SS Cambria and blast it out of space before the fanatics do it for us, in front of half the world, to the utter embarrassment of this administration and the frustration of our foreign policy, which demands that we deploy our military forces whenever and wherever they are needed. I am not going to stand for a bunch of crazies dictating to my government. The damned fools who took over the Cambria screwed up when they didn't send their message to the goddamned press. We have to act quickly and decisively before they realize their mistake, before they execute their threat." There was utter silence in the war room.

  "Gentlemen, the passengers and crew on that ship are doomed no matter what. I believe—we believe—this Army of Zion intends to immolate itself along with them. I will not risk the entire crew of a navy ship to attempt a rescue." Madam Chang-Sturdevant turned to Admiral Porter, who unconsciously was slumping as far down in his chair as possible, as if that would excuse him from what he knew was coming. "Admiral," the President of the Confederation Council of Worlds said calmly, with complete confidence in her voice, "give the order."

  Captain Lewis Conorado, Confederation Marine Corps, lay in his bunk thinking. There was no doubt in his mind that the fanatics who'd taken control of the ship were going to kill them all. Otherwise, why sabotage the navigation system and the lifecraft? Nobody, not even the terrorists themselves, was going to get off the Cambria alive. Conorado knew he had to act. He had to do something, no matter how desperate. It was not in his nature to sit by when threatened.

  There were three of them in the main part of the ship and two more in the propulsion unit. The three he had seen were all armed with military hand-blasters. If he could just get one of the bastards, he'd have a chance at the rest of them. But then what? Evidently they were going to set off some kind of bomb in the propulsion unit, and when it went, everything else would go too. So suppose he somehow could overpower the three men up here. How could he get to the ones in the power plant before they set off the bomb? Probably it was already set to go off, so if he did succeed in eliminating all five of the terrorists, how could he defuse the damned bomb? What a prizefight, and he was the underdog!

  Okay, okay, Conorado told himself, think it through, take it one step, one round, at a time. First step: get the three up here. How? He suddenly sat bolt upright in his bed, grinning, and swung his legs to the deck.

  Round one to the Marine?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The hours crept slowly by for the three men in the makeshift police operations center. Hamnes and Buskerud stayed constantly on the radio and vid hookups with the teams as they laboriously went from site to site, approaching cautiously and effecting traumatic entry into the cabins. Not a few citizens were terribly surprised to be interrupted at their long winter's pastimes as heavily armed men burst into their bedrooms.

  Colonel Ramadan had already smoked two of his precious Anniversarios and shared a third, cut into equal halves, between Hamnes and Buskerud. After the one he had just popped into his mouth, he would be out until he got back to Camp Ellis.

  "How many more sites do we have to search in those mountains?" Ramadan asked.

  Buskerud shook his head. "Lots, Colonel. We have only just begun."

  "Well, the cops are sure on duty, but where in the hell is the Dragon?" Ramadan groused, looking at his watch again for the umpteenth time. "They should've been here an hour ago! Inspector, how's the weather holding?"

  Inspector Hamnes finished talking to a team chief who had just come up with another dry hole and turned to Ramadan. "We're in luck there, Colonel. The weather report has been revised. The storm will last at least until morning. And when the sun finally rises, we'll have surveillance over every square meter of those mountains, especially on the routes leading to the sea. Do not worry, Colonel, we will get them." He went back to talking to the teams.

  "This is an exceptionally good cigar, Colonel," Buskerud said, holding up his half of the Anniversario admiringly. "I compliment you on your judgment in smoking materials."

  "And I on your taste, Ollie," Ramadan answered, bowing slightly toward the little man. Colonel Ramadan had decided that if Ollie Buskerud appreciated a fine cigar, he couldn't be all that bad. And he was indefatigable in his work, constantly plotting the sites to be searched, expertly guiding the teams to their targets.

  "Your embassy is on the line at last, Colonel! I think your Dragon is down," Inspector Hamnes announced.

  "Gentlemen," Ramadan said as he slipped quickly into his foul weather gear, "I'll be back within the hour."

  It had been a long, long time since Colonel Israel Ramadan had driven a Dragon. The entire instrument panel seemed to have changed since his days as an enlisted man, but the power-up sequence had remained the same. The mechanic who had driven the Dragon to the embassy compound from t
he spaceport only shrugged when Ramadan refused his offer to continue as driver. The commander of the Marine security detachment at the embassy raised his eyebrows in astonishment as the colonel mounted the ramp and buttoned up the Dragon, even after his offer to go along had been politely refused. But he was a captain and Ramadan was a bull colonel. The captain discreetly closed his eyes as Ramadan unskillfully slewed the Dragon through the main gate, knocking over a pillar as the behemoth slid out into the late afternoon traffic. The mechanic laughed outright but he shut up immediately at a withering glance from the officer.

  Ramadan plowed along at twenty kilometers per hour, happily reliving his youth in the driver's seat, but he quickly regained his confidence and the Dragon picked up speed. A huge cloud of blown snow marked its passage down the streets of New Oslo. Drivers pulled to the curb to let him pass and pedestrians gaped in wonder as the monster roared along.

  "We have a break!" Inspector Hamnes shouted as Ramadan clomped back into the command center. The inspector looked up and paused. Ramadan's face was flushed bright red and his face split from ear to ear with an enormous grin. "Colonel, you look twenty years younger than you did an hour ago!" the inspector exclaimed.

  "I feel younger!" Ramadan exclaimed. "Been a long time since I drove a Dragon! Man, do we have a powerhouse there! What's up?"

  "Your satellite surveillance got an infrared signal from a remote chateau, Colonel," Buskerud answered. "The owners are in the city and they say there should not be anybody in there. We think it might be the kidnappers." His face too was flushed with excitement. "Best of all, Colonel, none of the teams in the field can get up there for a long time. That means we get to go in!"

  "Huh? Inspector Hamnes?" Ramadan turned to the policeman.

  "Yes, Colonel, Ollie and I have discussed the situation. Your arrival is absolutely fortuitous. We have three aircraft down due to mechanical failure. None of the other teams is close enough to get to this site today. The break in the cloud cover was only temporary. The storm has in fact increased in its fury. Only land vehicles could make it up there now, and none of the teams is close enough to a road to get through. You and Ollie must go."