Someone in Spasso’s organization really should have spoken to Evita about counterintelligence.
“First, we have to get to the ship. My pilot should be there, waiting for us.”
“Well, hurry,” she said, as a large explosion went off behind them. “I’m starting to really not like Mertha.”
“It’s really not that bad, once you adjust to the time,” Karvall reasoned.
“Just get me off of this place. I hate it here,” she spat, sullenly.
“Yes, Your Majesty . . . we’ll be at the ship in about ten minutes. Try to relax until then,” he soothed. After jumping a rocky mountain ridge and a huge wasteland of rocks spanning miles, Karvall finally came to the open country he’d chosen for his rendezvous. It wasn’t until he sighted the familiar teardrop shape of the shiny spaceship that he felt the last bit of tension he carried fall away from him. “There she is,” he pointed out. “And there’s my pilot. We’ll be out of here in no time.”
‘Good. I think this brat has . . . oh, no! Oh, dear God! What makes them smell so badly?” she wailed, miserably.
Karvall stifled a chuckle as he settled the car down beside the front of the ship, a fifty-foot shuttle shaped like an elongated tadpole. Lt. Bentfork – in mufti, as instructed – slung his carbine and stubbed out his cigarette as they landed. He happily waited while Karvall gently handed him Princess Elaine, whose eyes were wide open and her mouth fixed in the kind of goofy smile only an adorable baby can manage.
“There we go, Princess,” Bentfork sighed. “Safe and sound.”
“Well?” came a demanding tone from inside the aircar, “is anyone going to help me out?”
“Not particularly,” Karvall called, casually.
“What? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?” she wailed.
“Not particularly. Well, no more than your ‘reign’ was a joke, Evita.”
“What? What did you call me?” the irate ex-queen asked as she hauled herself clumsily out of the ancient aircar, nearly spilling herself on the rocky ground. “You shall address me by my proper title, Sir!” she said, her voice shrill, her chin quivering.
“A gentleman would never use that kind of language in front of a baby,” Karvall said as he jumped off the strut and stretched out. “The show’s over, Queenie. You can get your lazy butt on the ship or stay here, your choice.”
“How dare you!” she screamed in outrage. “You will treat me with the proper respect, or I shall report you to your master—” she said, stopping when she saw the blazon on the side of the shuttle. It was the big blue trapezoid-with-arms and a circular head, the sigil for Tanith. It had the Golden Hand’s sigil in the middle of the trapezoid, a severed golden hand holding a sword.
“Who? His Royal Highness, Lucas Trask of Tanith?” Karvall asked. “Oh, I do hope so. He’d be most pleased to hear from you. A good number of your former subjects who are now expatriates on Tanith would adore hearing from you, ‘Your Majesty’. Some of them have families who your late husband had executed or beggared, to feed your desire for pretty clothes and jewels. Aye,” he said, his voice suddenly turning sinister, “only a lifetime of upbringing not to strike a woman has kept me from flattening you where you stand, you ignorant, self-aggrandizing manipulating witch!”
He took Princess Elaine back from Bentfork and mounted the ramp to the shuttle while Evita stared at him in shocked silence. “Since I don’t have specific orders to kill you or capture you, Evita, I’ll give you this choice: you can either join us on the shuttle and face the mercy of Princess Valerie and Prince Lucas, or you may remain here on Mertha and take your chances. Take the aircar, go where you want, jump off a cliff, I don’t care.”
“You . . . you . . . you used me!” she screamed, enraged. She suddenly remembered the pistol he’d given her, and with a violent shout she raised it and pulled the trigger several times in a row. The weapon only clicked impotently. Karvall rolled his eyes at her.
“You didn’t think I’d trust you at my back with a loaded gun, did you?” he asked, scornfully. “I guess you’ve made your decision, then. And I have to admit, it wasn’t entirely . . . unpleasant,” he added. “But my mother thought you were wicked, my girlfriend thought you looked fat in the dress you wore at that drunken orgy you called a coronation, and no one on Gram ever liked you who hadn’t had you – which, I admit, might have been a short list.”
“You will die for this!” she screamed defiantly.
“You know how Lt. Karvall said he couldn’t hit a woman, since he was civilized and all that?” Bentfork asked, casually, after he prepared the ship for take-off.
“Yes? Why?” Evita asked, suddenly wary.
“Because I was born in a ‘mud hut’,” the Tanith native replied, dishonestly. “No one ever told me not to hit a girl if she deserved it.” And then he punched her full in the face, as hard as he would have done to a Space Viking twice her size in a spaceport brawl.
Evita’s pretty nose exploded with blood and she screamed and fell to the ground, sobbing hysterically. “You’ll survive,” the young neobarb said, spitting next to her head. “If it was up to me, I’d put a bullet in you right now for your part in the stealing of this precious child. But Karvall’s right: we don’t have orders. So you can stay here and deal with whatever is left of Spasso when we get done with him.” He stalked up the ramp to the shuttle, leaving her weeping in the field.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t take her?” Bentfork asked, concerned, as Karvall strapped Elaine into the specially-constructed safety seat.
“She’s a minor annoyance and whether she knew it or not, she served our purpose in getting Princess Elaine out of there. Besides, we’ve got bigger things to deal with,” he assured his comrade. “First, get us to the Princess Valerie as fast as possible. Have the ground assault recalled – we don’t have time for it now. Evita was sloppy and let slip a few things that . . . well, Her Highness is going to want to know about, almost as much as she wants her child back.”
“Maximum thrust,” Bentfork agreed, and put the fast little ship through her paces. “So, how was Mertha?”
“Miserable,” Karvall said, after a moment’s thought. “Absolutely and utterly miserable.”
“Well, she looked pretty, at least before I messed up her face,” Bentfork said, nodding towards the ground behind them, where the aircar and its sobbing occupant were rapidly disappearing. “Did you two get . . . cozy?”
“Only in the line of duty,” Karvall growled. “She’s the most miserable thing on Mertha. And now she doesn’t even have the wretched neobarbs to protect her. In fact,” he reasoned, “I think she’s going to need protection from them, once they find out what happened.”
* * *
The reunion took place at the airlock of the Princess Valerie, which had been in a translunar orbit around the world . . . along with the Golden Hand, the Star of Tanith, the Corisande, and the Queen Flavia, to Karvall’s delight. He wished he could have told Evita that the ship bearing her predecessor’s name had come to find her. That would have been an irony he would have crossed light-years to enjoy seeing.
Princess Valerie was in Karvall’s arms the moment the lock cycled, weeping uncontrollably as she held and rocked her baby. She wouldn’t speak or do anything for nearly ten minutes while she made certain that the Princess was real, that she wasn’t dreaming, and that the baby was unharmed. Countess Dorothy then grabbed the child away for a thorough physical, causing Princess Valerie to tremble anew at the parting.
Karvall was impressed by the resolve she showed by turning away from her recently-recovered infant and addressing him. “Lieutenant, that was brilliant work down there,” she said, her eyes still moist and her voice heavy with emotion. “The Realm owes you a debt, as does House Trask.”
“Your Highness,” Karvall said, bowing low, “I only did my duty, and discharged a little of the great debt my house owes yours. And I have to commend the quick-thinking and excellent support I received from Lt. Bentfork in the pro
cess,” he said, clapping his hand on his friend’s broad shoulders.
“You both did admirably,” she agreed. “In fact . . . Duke Otto!”
“Yes, Highness?” the old Admiral asked, startled. He’d been peering over Countess Dorothy’s shoulder while she played with the baby and took the child’s vitals.
“Your sword, Duke,” she requested formally. Harkaman understood at once, and drew the ceremonial blade with one smooth stroke before presenting it to his liege.
“If you will assist, Your Grace?” she asked. Harkaman nodded, and held the hilt while she directed the motion of the blade. “Take a knee, gentlemen:
“I, Valerie, Sovereign Princess of the Realm of Tanith do by my hand on this day and on this hour, with the assistance of Sir Otto,” she said – whose assistance was required, as tradition dictated only a knight could make a knight, “do hereby dub thee Sir Alexi, of House Karvall, and Sir Nogal, of House Bentfork, for your bravery and dedication in defense of the Realm. Arise, noble knights. And be certain that this is but the first of the rewards you should have. After we invest the fortress below—”
“Highness, forgive the interruption,” Karvall said, coolly. “We must forego a proper invasion, I’m afraid. We must make for Tanith with all speed, within the hour. While among the savages and Spasso’s cronies, I learned some valuable intelligence to the effect that Spasso was using the kidnapping as a ploy, to get Tanith to lower our defenses and disperse the fleet. He’s planning something, Highness, something involving a fleet and an armed landing.”
“That can’t be good,” agreed Harkaman with a sigh. “I left the defenses in decent shape, but—”
“Sir Alexi is correct, of course,” Princess Valerie said at once. “Admiral, inform the fleet to prepare for departure. We leave at once. But I dislike leaving a known snake-pit behind. Once our men are safely out of range, sterilize the area. Use at least a 20 kiloton device. I don’t want anyone to think we weren’t being serious.”
“As you command, Princess,” Harkaman said, bowing. He stopped briefly to chat for a moment with Countess Dorothy where she was bathing the baby princess before beginning to bellow orders.
“I’m serious, Alexi,” Valerie said, as she looked at her daughter playing gleefully with the soapy water in the little plastic basin, “as soon as we’re back home and at peace, I’ll find something more fitting to reward you with. I owe you – Lucas and I owe you – everything.”
“It was my pleasure, Highness,” he assured her, touched. “I did the best I could to ensure she was properly cared for while I was there. She seemed well enough, or I would have taken action before now to see to her safety.
“And I have additional information that may be of interest to Minister Karffard and his . . . ‘friends’. I was able to rifle through Spasso’s underwear drawer, so to speak, and found some intriguing items. But we can speak of this later, Highness, I know you want to spend some time with the Princess,” he said, fondly.
“I do,” she agreed. “But I shall see to your comfort, first. Is there anything you need?”
“Twelve straight hours of darkness, and no one referring to themselves in the third person? That, a meal and a shower, Highness, and I’ll be ready for duty.”
“Then make it happen, Sir Alexi,” she smiled. “And be sure to be well-rested. If what you say is true, then Tanith may well need every brave fighting man we can put on the field.”
“Why didn’t you tell her about Queen Evita?” Bentfork – Sir Nogal – chided his friend as they headed for their temporary ship-board quarters.
“Because that would have caused delay, and we do need to get home quick. Spasso’s been planning something, and once again we’re on the wrong side of the initiative. No, Evita was lucky to make it off of Gram alive. If she gets off of Mertha alive, I’ll count her a true survivor. But mostly it wasn’t her fault – she’s not evil, just selfish, self-centered, a little wicked, mean, spiteful . . .”
“And pretty,” reminded Nogal.
Karvall sighed, stopping in the middle of the corridor. “Yes, damn you, she was pretty. And after watching hairy potato-shaped locals day-after-too-short day, yes, she got to me a little. But I swear to you, as brother knights, I didn’t enjoy it any more than I absolutely had to for duty’s sake,” he pledged.
“I’ll be certain to note that in my official report,” Sir Nogal agreed with a knowing grin.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” agreed Sir Alexi, with exaggerated loftiness. “I’d hate for it to be thought I did anything inappropriate.”
* * *
Two hours later they were in hyperspace, careening through unreality towards the distant Ertado’s Star, Tanith’s sun, sixty-odd hours away, leaving a mushroom cloud where there had been a castle behind them. Harkaman had turned over command of the Corisande temporarily to his new exec and joined the Princess on Princess Valerie to plot out some elementary strategy on the way.
The plan was for the fleet to all appear out of hyperspace at checkpoint Lambda-5. That was near the orbit of the fifth planet of the system, a small rocky 4000 mile plutonic world that was caught between the twin Jovian worlds that dominated the planetary masses around Ertado’s Star. There was a detection array and an emergency beacon there, in case a ship became stranded nearby, but little else. From there they could assess the situation on Tanith remotely and figure their best response.
Harkaman was certain that between the lunar base, the hardened fire control station on the Lamia, and the three other ships he’d left behind that Rivington was safe from all but the most robust assault. But that didn’t mean Spasso was going to assault directly – from what Sir Alexi had learned about his plans for Katoland, everyone was a little nervous. Harkaman convened three or four planning sessions to prepare for several contingencies, and drew up a surprisingly complete selection of strategies. By the time they’d popped back into reality around the fifth planet, they had several plans to choose from.
Remote detection from the distant world revealed an ongoing space battle between two or three orbital ships, identities unknown. That was troublesome enough – but also encouraging. If the battle was still ongoing, then that meant that there were still defenders.
Harkaman regrouped his command, selecting one of the prepared strategies they’d discussed. A pinnace was launched to go in first, both to scout and to lend immediate support. After a quick report – it should only take about ten light-minutes to relay the situation in orbit – then the Queen Flavia and the Corisande would microjump into the cis-lunar orbit and provide interdiction and assistance, while the smaller ships – the Golden Hand, the Star of Tanith, and the Princess Valerie – microjumped into an even lower orbit, to get assistance to the ground-based forces around Rivington.
Things went more-or-less according to plan, although there were some tense across the bridges of all of the Tanith ships until the pinnace’s signal was detected. Harkaman watched the news with the other commanders by screen.
“Admiral, it looks like the Moon Goddess and the Gunloggi are still dueling with two other ships – one’s a thousand-footer with a weird two-headed snake blazon,” the brave young Golden Hand commando described from the cockpit of the pinnace. “Hold on, let me shoot at someone . . .”
“That’s the Whadan’s Dilemma,” Harkaman nodded. “Captain Grutman. Nasty piece of work. Just Spasso’s speed.”
“And the other ship, I can’t see the blazon,” the Golden Hand commando said, after he was done firing his guns at a passing target, ten minutes ago, “but the moonbase says it’s the Void Hunter, a fifteen-hundred foot raider out of Flamberge. Independent,” he added. “They’ve been here about twenty-eight hours, now. Oh, and the Lamia’s been sabotaged: we still have men aboard, but some of Spasso’s confederates are in control, and are launching attacks on the moonbase from there. There are also about six pinnaces of five hundred feet or less harassing everyone.
“Things seem to be pretty even,” the scout concluded. “The
y already got one of our, pinnaces, and it looks like the Gunloggi took a bad hit. But there was another ship, too, that the Moon Goddess and the Lamia hit, before the Lamia was turned. And they shot up some of the repair yards. The Nemesis and that new Gram ship both got hit— more speed, now, Mr. Maysan!”
“The Void Hunter is Bill Norkas’ ship,” Harkaman frowned. “Bill’s a drunk, but he’s no coward. He also doesn’t work on spec. Spasso had to pay him cash, if he wanted him on this raid. He’s notorious for that sort of thing.”
“That’s not all, Admiral,” the Golden Hand pilot relayed without pausing – he was ten minutes away, too far for normal conversation, so he was relaying his report in a monologue, “the moonbase says they’re holding out fine, but the two Space Vikings are hiding out from them on the other side of the planet. The Moon Goddess and the Gunloggi are still fencing with them, but no one’s been able to land anything decisive.
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