Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  “The bad news is manifold,” he said, with a flamboyant wave of his hand. “Topping the list is power: if I can get the Abbots working again, there’s just enough power to get us into orbit, out where we could get into hyperspace and on our merry way, and probably enough to get us back safely on the planet -- but not much more. And that’s nothing compared to the power consumption of a Dillingham.”

  “What about the mass-energy converters?” Captain Carundun asked. He and three or four of his men, including the highly respected shaman known as ‘the Gunny’, Hercamur, whose wild tattoos were by far the most elaborate and distracting of all of the Sifians. “Can we not draw power from them? After all of that mud?”

  Max sighed. “Look, Cap, MECs are great for powering little things, like contragrav lifts and air circulation and lights. We could even bypass some systems and get the big one in Engineering to feed power to the Abbots. But you’re not going to be able to enter hyperspace on a couple of tons of mud.”

  “You see, the way an MEC works, you put matter in the hopper and the field tears apart the matter one sub-atomic particle at a time and converts it into electrons. The denser a substance, the more time it takes, and the more power you can get out of it. Mud is basically water and silica, and that’s great, for what it is. But it goes through a converter like a Gilgamesher at a bargain sale, and just doesn’t have the density necessary to provide more than a few decawatts of power.

  “For that, we use high-density, heavy elements.”

  “Gold?” the shaman asked, confused.

  “Oh, much heavier,” assured the Tinker. “And you can’t use collapsium, because at that density the field just labors and chews on it without much success until the unit powers down. That’s one reason why power cells for a space ship are plated in collapsium: at that level, instead of placing mass into a MEC field hopper, the ship builds the field inside the power unit until every atom of normal matter is gone, leaving the collapsium shell intact.

  “It takes a lot of juice to alter reality. That’s why ships are designed to use plutonium or uranium to power the main systems. Plutonium and Uranium are beautifully massive, and have other advantages, too. Ounce-for-ounce, they’re the best fuels for a ship’s MEC. Otherwise, we could load every interior space of this ship with gumbo mud, and we still wouldn’t have enough juice to keep the Dillingham hyperspatial effect active for any length of time, much less for an interstellar voyage.

  “So we need plutonium,” he declared. “There’s a tiny bit of it left in the ship, thankfully, but it will go quickly. Even if we didn’t have to power the Abbots to lift this hulk, from the minuscule stocks left in reserve, we could create and maintain a hyperspatial field for maybe twenty, twenty five hours. Less, actually,” he admitted. “The Dillinghams are intact, but they’ve been torn down and put back together without a couple of key parts. Which means we don’t have near the efficiencies of a regular ship. And until I can scrounge up some parts for that, even if we had the radioactives, our top hyperspatial pseudo-speed is going to be less than half of a standard ship, and that’s a best-case scenario.

  “Which brings us to our other problem: I have no idea where we are. Which means I can’t even get an approximate starting location for the astrogation computer, assuming it still works. We could be in the middle of a dense cluster of stars, and be at another habitable world in a matter of hours . . . or we could be hundreds of light-years from the nearest livable planet. That, my friends, constitutes a problem.”

  “Then we have two problems that need to be solved,” Lucas suggested. “I’m willing to put my men at your disposal, Max, if we can agree that once this old girl is spaceworthy, I’ll command her.”

  That brought the Sifian marines to their feet. “No one commands the Marines, save their lawfully appointed commander!” their Captain said, menacingly. Lucas was suddenly aware of just how out-numbered he and his men were -- and there’s no telling which side Max would join if it came to blows. And these were neobarbarians -- fanatical neobarbarians, at that, well steeped in a culture of violence. Perhaps a little diplomacy was in order. He did his best to remember some of the artful mannerisms of Duke Valpry, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

  “Captain,” Lucas began, gently, “I understand that I am not your lawfully appointed commander. I would never dream of usurping your command. But I ask you: are you capable of flying a space ship? A star ship? I have no doubt that you are a brave and capable leader of men -- the fact that your unit has remained intact and armed even in exile is testament to that. But this is a space ship, and it has a million different systems that all have to function perfectly for us to even take flight, much less cross the void between stars.”

  “Say what you mean,” growled the tattooed barbarian.

  “Clearly stated: I propose that your men and mine work together to get this ship spaceworthy and provisioned, if that is humanly possible. Once we lift, however, I would expect you and your men to behave the same way any infantry unit would aboard any troop transport. Surely you have protocols for that?”

  “We do,” the Gunny agreed, solemnly. “Section Ten twenty-two, Uniform Code of Federation Military Conduct and General Orders, During transport aboard a military or qualified civilian transport, it is required that for the duration of said transport that the commanding officer respect, defer to and obey the lawful commands of the commander of the vessel in question as if the commander was one rank higher than the senior-most officer aboard for the duration of the journey. So say the Regs,” he finished with a note of finality.

  “We go by the Regs,” every man present said in unison. Captain Carundun uncrossed his arms, nodded in agreement, and returned to his seat.

  “Continue,” he said, cautiously. Now that there was a ritual allowance available, he was interested in what Lucas had to say.

  “We get the Iron Crown running and get back to civilized parts, hopefully all the way back to my world of Tanith, where I have many resources. I’ll ensure that you return home to Sif, and if it’s in my power I’ll give you whatever arms I can to continue your struggle against our mutual enemies. Now, I know you don’t know me and my men, but we honor our bargains. I cannot make the ship fly without your help. You cannot do so without mine. We both hate the Atonians. Simple agreement: fly with us, fight with us as allies, and I will get you home. Tell me, do you have a family?”

  Captain Carundun nodded, gravely. “My wife. Six children.”

  “I just had a baby girl only a few hundred hours before I left my world. I’ve barely held her. She’s over six months old now. My wife is going mad with worry. I want to see my family more than anything, and I blame the Atonians for taking that away from me. If there is a way to get home, I will find it. And if I can do that, I can take you gentlemen with me. I’ll treat you fairly, and I’ll listen to your counsel.

  “But I need you to work with us, so that we can all get home. And,” he added, slyly, “if we can kick the Atonians in the jewels a couple of times along the way, I figure that’s just something they owe us. If you don’t like the way I treat you and your men, you’re free to walk away at any time. I won’t stop you -- I don’t think me and all of my men could stop you, if you’re as good soldiers as Max says you are.”

  Carundun considered. “I must discuss this with my men,” he said, uneasily as he rose – and the rest of the Sifians followed suit. “But I think it’s a good idea.” From the way he said it, Lucas could tell he was sending a message to the rest of his men. “Besides,” he laughed as they withdrew, “if we didn’t like you, we’d just slit your throats.”

  “What an amusing culture,” Lt. Delio said under his breath as the marines shuffled out. “Do you think they’ll go for it?”

  “It’s their only realistic shot at getting off of this rock,” Max reasoned. “Even they know that. Of course, what they don’t know is all the things that could go wrong, even assuming we can get her airborne again. This is gonna be a scissors-and-tape job, Luke, chewi
ng-gum and string, duct tape and glue, coat hangers and--”

  “I get the picture,” Lucas said, stopping him. “What about you, Max? You with us on this?”

  “While I love to be a big fish in a small pond,” he said, as he poured himself another drink, “this pond is just too gosh darn small for me. I was born in the stars, fellas, I can’t end up here. You seem like a savvy guy, Luke -- you handled ol’ Carundun and the Gunny there beautifully. Your men know about ships, and they look pretty strongly to you . . . and you hate the Atonians, which makes you a fellow traveler. And that whole speech about your wife and kid was pretty convincing. So . . . yeah, I’m in.

  “But I get a title: Chief Engineer. And when I tell you something is a problem, you listen to me. And you get me back into civilized space again. Promise me that, and I’ll fix the ship and knit you a caftan in my spare time.”

  “You won’t have any,” Lucas chuckled. “Getting this ship airborne again is going to be a herculean task.”

  “You have no idea what you’re saying, and you are entirely understating the problem,” agreed Max. “But you do have me, and that’s worth a lot. But I can only work on one problem at a time. You figure out where we are, I’ll get us to where we’re going. Shake on it.”

  Lucas did. He was starting to really like Max. “Oh, looks like deliberations are over,” he said, as the Marines filed back into the room. “Did we get the job?”

  Captain Carundun stood proudly in front of him, flanked by a grinning Gunny. “It has been decided: the unit will cooperate with the repair of the ship, and put ourselves under your command for the duration of the journey, as per the Regs—

  “We live by the Regs!”

  “In order to return to base and await further orders,” the Marine captain continued. “Providing that you agree to be declared an Authorized Allied Service Personnel, Military Class, according to Section Twenty-One Eighty One of the Regs--,

  “We live by the Regs!”

  “--so that we can seal the agreement. It’s just a matter of paperwork,” he said, dismissively.

  “Well, then I’d be happy to,” Lucas nodded, enthusiastically. “If it means your men and mine can work together. I’d be honored.”

  “I will make the necessary preparations,” the big man nodded, grinning toothily. “It will barely hurt.”

  “What did he mean by that?” Lucas asked, uneasily.

  “My thoughts exactly, Sire,” Lt. Delio agreed. “That did seem a little strange.”

  Max the Tinker, on the other hand, could barely contain his laughter. “I can’t believe you agreed to that! That’s icing on the cake: if you wanted to get on Carundun’s good side, you just did it!”

  “What are you laughing about?” Lt. Delio asked.

  “Oh, that’s right, you don’t know. See that massive eagle-like creature tattooed on the back of that corporal there?” he asked, pointing to a brawny specimen of Sifian manhood.

  “Yes, that must have taken hours,” Lucas nodded. “It’s very impressive.”

  “Yeah,” Max chortled. “Painful as hell, too, but he earned it. That’s his ‘paperwork’.”

  “What?” Lucas asked, his eyes wide.

  “They call their tattoos ‘paperwork’. Once they lost the ability to record their culture, they started putting their service record, rank, performance evaluations, the whole thing on their bodies, as tattoos. It’s a very elaborate symbolic system, but an effective one. And it can’t get lost. There’s a big purification ritual, too. And chanting. Lots of chanting. It goes on for hours for a big promotion.”

  “His Highness?” Lt. Delio asked, his eyes bulging. “Just agreed to get tattooed?”

  “That’s exactly what just happened,” agreed Max, unable to stop laughing. “Oh, this is going to be fun to watch!”

  Lucas swallowed nervously, then sighed and relaxed. It was only a little pain, after all, and it would seal the deal with the Marines. It was the least he could do towards the unlikely idea that they could get the Iron Crown operational again. If he had to get his whole body tattooed to get home, that would be a small enough price to pay to see Valerie and Elaine again.

  After all, he reasoned. How much could it really hurt?

  * * *

  The next morning, Lucas sent Delio back into camp with Max in his rattletrap while he and Mr. Sebastian did their best to take inventory of what was still left on the massive, cavernous ship. That was difficult, when half the power doors wouldn’t open and had to be pried apart in sections.

  Whatever had happened to her since her capture, the Iron Crown had been stripped of a lot of major equipment. Not all of it, he noted, just certain select pieces: mass energy converters, viewscreens, weapons systems, and other items. In places whole sections of the bulkheads had been removed and replaced inexpertly.

  “It looks like someone was taking samples of the ship,” observed the young engineer.

  “That’s it, they were reverse engineering,” Lucas said, snapping his fingers. “Seeing what technological improvements the Sword Worlds had developed. The question is, did they leave enough of her intact to get her running again?”

  “Sire, I believe so,” Ensign Sebastian said, hesitantly. “We may have to close off significant portions of the ship to conserve energy to life support . . . but if she can be pressurized, I think max is right, we have a pretty good chance.”

  They made several intriguing discoveries during their explorations.

  There were four more contragravity vehicles left intact, besides the combat car Lucas had found: an air lorry, two jeeps, and a half-dozen air cavalry mounts. They also found a nearly complete infantry armory along one of the lower staging areas, a section that had sustained damage to the point of the door to the room not being able to be opened without an atomic torch – one of which Sebastian had found in a machine-shop. It took half an hour to cut through the armored bulkhead around the door, but the result was worth the effort: rows of carbines, battle rifles, submachine guns, and light infantry support weapons, covered with a sheen of protective cosmoline, remained untouched, as well as a goodly amount of ammunition. Enough to arm all the Tanith men, the Sifian marines, and still have plenty left over. Lucas was ecstatic about that.

  The major weapons systems were also more or less intact. Nine of the twelve great 90mm ship-to-ship guns around the equator of the Iron Crown were still there -- two had been destroyed in combat and one had been removed from the bay entirely. There were only a few shells apiece for each gun, they saw to their dismay. But one of the four missile bays was almost completely intact, racks of century-old conventional rockets, anti-missile missiles, and ground bombardment ordinance remained. She was nowhere near the battleship she once was, but the old girl did still have some fight left in her.

  The hydroponics bays and carniculture vats were intact, but the culture medium was long spoilt and the plants long dead. Lucas was sure they could get some kind of garden growing, but he had yet to encounter any flesh on Planet X he cared to replicate in a bioreactor. Wherever they ended up going, they would have to lay in enough rations to make the trip without recourse to fresh meat and vegetables. Water was easy enough – and the filtration system on the ship might even get the oily taste out of it, he hoped.

  And showers. Hot showers. That alone was reason enough to restore the Iron Crown. While plumbing was at the low end of the priority list, it was a comparatively simple system. One he looked forward to enjoying.

  The enlisted men’s crew quarters and the barracks for the ground fighters were Spartan, but there were locked chests at the foot of almost every bunk, the worldly possessions of the long-dead Haultecleran soldiers and spacemen who’d made the fateful voyage to Aton. The ship had carried almost two thousand ground-fighters aboard when she’d arrived at Aton. Most of their gear was still here. Lucas knew that there might be valuable items in them – Space Vikings collected the darnedest things on raiding voyages – but he was loathe to disturb them unless he had to. It w
as too much like robbing the dead. That wouldn’t stop him, if it became necessary – nothing in the galaxy would stop him from returning to Valerie and Elaine – but he preferred to let them lie.