“How are we looking, Max?” he asked, curious. “Anything falling off the ship yet?”
“We’re in the air – what more do you want?” the Tinker answered, sounding a little frustrated. “The reactors are doing fine, but we’re not putting much strain on them yet. The Abbots are doing well, actually. Now leave me alone and let me pay attention to my gauges, will you?” the engineer demanded, testily.
“Thank you, Max,” Delio said into the dead connection. He smirked. Despite the Tinker’s testy attitude and utter lack of formality – he had yet to address Prince Lucas by an honorific, Delio noted – he liked the man. His competence and his ability to focus his attention on both the details at hand and the larger picture indicated an enviable intelligence. While the man was in no way a gentleman, Delio also found his facility with underworld connections and his generally likable attitude both positive advantages to this desperate gamble. Indeed, he didn’t see how the Tanith men could possibly escape without him.
“In range in thirty seconds, commander,” the pilot reported.
“Fire at will, Mr. Seely,” Delio ordered calmly.
Grinning, the young ensign targeted the squat communication and surveillance tower at the base of the antenna and fired the remote trigger to the 90mm gun somewhere below them. The viewscreen showed a spectacular night-time explosion that continued to burn, casting the orderly rows of shacks and huts into an eerie dancing glow. That was the signal to the assault teams.
While the Odyssey hovered menacingly over the central compound, the contragravity vehicles landed in the main “square” area in front of it. The air lorry touched down, disgorging twenty Sifian marines, armed with automatic weapons and a definite plan. Prince Lucas himself was in the single combat car, Lt. Jameson piloting, as he directed the battle. And two aircav pods, piloted by experienced Tanith men, were flying a perimeter around the scene, while the other four waited as reserves.
“Prisoners of Planet X,” Lucas addressed the camp through the battlefield-rated public address system in the aircar, “this is a Space Viking raid! Cooperate fully with the armed men making their way through the camp and no one will be harmed. And if His Majesty and his party will please assemble in the designated area with their luggage, we will be ready to depart shortly!”
Delio smiled – His Highness had a lilt to his voice that had been so-far absent in the grim circumstances of their imprisonment. Prince Lucas was finally able to strike back at his enemies, albeit in a small way. Over the pickup he could hear the occasional pistol shot or hammer of submachine gun fire as the slow-witted chose to interfere in the tasks of the tattooed Sifians. Delio continued to be amazed at the proficiency at moving stealthily the neobarbs had – if he didn’t know to be looking for them, it’s unlikely that he would ever have noticed them in the viewscreens.
The guards began responding to the sudden attack, all according to plan. Most of them were borderline incompetent, the only kind of screw-up who got assigned to a post like Planet X, but they had the sense to recognize the report of gunfire and grab their own weapons. The portly guard captain established a riot perimeter around the front of the headquarters building, a clearly useless gesture in the face of a three-thousand foot warship hanging overhead.
“Can we shed a little more light on that spot?” Commander Delio asked, pointing to where the guards were congregating, their rifles waving around wildly. “I’d like to see who we’re shooting at.” Obligingly, one of the spotlights from the bottom of the ship was focused on the defenders, a dozen and a half strong, who were still trying to get out their riot shields when one of the pods took advantage of the light and strafed them all to the ground.
“Ready Phase Two, Odyssey!” Prince Lucas communicated over the radio when the gunfire died down. “Open her up!”
“Yes, Sire!” Delio agreed. “All right, Mr. Seely, let’s see if you can use that 50mm gun to open up the storerooms . . . without destroying them, please.”
The feat was accomplished with little trouble – the 50mm field gun fired four times, and the ferrocrete supports along the south wall of the compound were reduced to rubble and dust in seconds, laying the stockpile of pre-packaged rations and supplies for the camp open. The air lorry backed up to the gaping hole even as masonry was still falling down, and King Ivan’s family and friends began looting the stores for a list of supplies.
They had to be careful – they didn’t want the prisoners on Planet X to starve, so they left more than half of the food. Twice guards tried to overcome the looting parties, but thanks to the quick action of the Sifian Marines, the operation proceeded without much interruption.
A small squad of the tattooed savages had infiltrated the compound proper and dragged the camp commandant outside – from the bathtub, apparently, since he was wrapped in a towel and soaking wet. Luckily, Prince Lucas had ordered audiovisual recordings of the entire raid, for propaganda purposes, and there was a camera in the combat car that relayed the entire discussion back to Delio.
“Commandant,” Lucas began, pacing in front of the lights from the ship and the combat car as his men covered the guards with machine guns. “I’ve been a guest at your facility for four months, now. And not once have you invited me to dinner. I’m hurt,” Lucas said.
He looked splendid, having raided the noble staterooms for wardrobe for the occasion. He was wearing a century-old ancestor of the Space Viking braided coat, only it came down past his fingertips, was single-breasted, and was in a rust-colored tone that, frankly, was not the best color on His Highness under natural light. But the dress dagger and the pistol at his side were all the accessories he needed as he lectured his ‘host’.
“I . . . what is the meaning of this?” the commandant asked, confused.
“This,” explained Lucas “is a jailbreak. And a raid. And most likely the capstone to a truly abysmal career, Commandant – yours,” he added with emphasis.
“You . . . you can’t do this!” the man clamored. “Where’d you get the guns? Where did you get the ship?” he demanded, mystified. “Are the Baldurans helping you?”
“I have to admit, I expected worse treatment in an Atonian prison camp,” Lucas said, mostly ignoring the man’s words. “Mostly it was just miserable and depressing. But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it, and I’m fairly certain my wife and kid aren’t pleased, so I’m going to save them the trouble of crossing the galaxy to rescue me and rescue myself. My men and I will be departing before dawn, and we’ll begin making war on Aton – a war Aton began, I might add – as soon as possible. You can count yourself the first prisoner of war for Tanith, commandant.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind—!” the man began angrily, taking a step forward in his towel. That got a menacing reaction from the Sifians, so he slunk back. “Save you and your men some real punishment and lay down your arms,” he urged. “I can’t promise much, but I can put in a good word for you—”
“At my next show-trial?” Lucas asked, pointedly. “No, Commandant, I’m done with Atonian notions of justice and social order. I’m leaving, and I’m not leaving under good circumstances. I might,” he added, “be persuaded to leave you more alive than dead if I can borrow whatever plutonium you have up at that sad excuse for a spaceport.” He nodded into the darkness beyond the ferrocrete compound, towards the long artificial causeway that led to the island landing pad where prisoners were delivered.
“Plutonium?” the man asked, surprised.
“As much as you can spare,” agreed Lucas. “Actually, the lot of it,” he added, drawing his dress dagger and fingering it idly. Delio was pleased – His Highness knew how to intimidate a man. Drawing the pistol would have implied a deadly threat. The knife could be deadly, on the other hand, or it could just be . . . painful. And fear of pain was as strong a motivator as fear or death.
“There . . . there isn’t much,” the old man admitted, visibly shaking. “We just keep a few capsules on hand in case of emergencies—”
“I’d say this constitutes a
n emergency, wouldn’t you?” Lucas asked. The commandant nodded. “Good. Then after we get our plutonium – and anything else we take a fancy to – we’ll be leaving you and the rest of your men in the care of the good citizens of the camp – I’m sure they’d love an opportunity to repay you for your hospitality, too. In the meantime, they’ll have free access to rations because,” he said, with a dramatic amount of relish, “I’ve ordered my men to destroy every single viewscreen capable of displaying your insipid propaganda!” A ragged cheer arose from the crowd that had been gathering behind the lines of Sifians – the prisoners were gleeful, mostly, at seeing the despised commandant taken to task so boldly.
“And the rest of you,” Lucas called out to them at large, “you remember that today Prince Lucas Trask of Tanith had the opportunity to blindly lash out at his enemies, when they least expected it – and that on this day, Prince Lucas Trask of Tanith has chosen to show mercy! I do not want this man harmed after we are gone – is that understood? He has been deceived and abused by the Atonian Planetary Nationalists as you have, even if he has chosen to continue to wear the uniform and obey their orders.
“But I want him to deliver a message to his masters: you cannot stop Lucas Trask,” he declared. “You cannot stop the men of Tanith! You cannot stop us, but more importantly, you cannot defend yourselves: for we will strike at you from unseen places and unknown directions, when you least expect it, until I am satisfied that Aton poses no further threat to my world. So today I show mercy,” he repeated. “Tomorrow . . . Aton will not be as lucky!”
After the cameras were off and the theatrics were toned down, the business of loading up the ship began. The air-lorry made five trips, between food and passengers, and then another one with the emergency power cartridges stored at the deserted spaceport. Max gleefully confiscated a few other useful tools, as well, but the power cartridges were the important thing.
“I’m feeling a lot better about crossing that ocean, now,” he admitted over the phone to Commander Delio once the equipment was safely stowed aboard. “We only pulled three small cartridges, pinnace-sized things, but they’ll get us there and up to orbit. The Dillinghams, on the other hand, need an order of magnitude more power. We need real ship-movers, Armand.” Max seemed pathologically averse to referring to people other than by their titles or last names. Indeed, he seemed to be on a first-name basis with the entire universe.
“We’ll get them on the Ludmilla side,” he promised. “Everyone back aboard?”
“I just got the ‘all clear’ signal,” agreed Max. “Luke’s back on board, so are all the contragravity. Took on just over eighty passengers,” he added. “I’ve got them settling down in a staging bay, where Luke’s gonna talk to them. So we can leave here any old time,” he added.
“I’ll make preparations to do so at once,” Delio promised. “If you see His Highness down there, please tell him I but await his command.”
It wasn’t a real Space Viking raid, of course, he reflected after he signed off – the goal hadn’t been riches, but escape, survival and revenge. The camp prisoners were now in charge of the place, and when reinforcements showed up from Ludmilla proper to restore order, they’d be facing more of a revolution than a riot.
Putting Planet X back together again was going to take a long time, a lot of money, and a whole lot of hard work. And, Delio noted as he watched the naked commandant hang his head in despair, the “king’s men” responsible for doing it were having a very bad day.
* * *
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Lucas began, as he surveyed the crowd sitting haphazardly all over the vehicle bay. “My lords and ladies, monks, kings, queens, spies and rogues – all of you: welcome. Welcome to the Odyssey. My men and I, with some very courageous help, have succeeded in putting this old wreck back together as a means of escaping this prison. You were selected because you were either good friends of King Ivan, who is busy taking inventory in the kitchens, or you were deemed anti-Atonian Planetary Nationalist Party enough to be a gigantic pain-in-the-neck to them if you were at liberty.
“I’ll let you in on a secret: I encourage you to cause as much grief as possible for Aton. But while you are aboard my ship, you shall keep the grief to a minimum. I am captain here, as well as a sovereign prince on my own world. But my crown doesn’t matter – here all that matters is that I am captain, and I will tolerate nothing that impedes my progress back home.
“Now,” he continued, pacing again, “I understand that the majority of you had no idea that you would be trying to escape today. That was unfortunately necessary to screen our efforts from the guards. But now that you are free of that hell-hole, you may continue to voyage with us – all the way back to my homeworld, if you desire – or you can get off at our next stop.”
“Where is our next stop?” someone asked, meekly.
“Ludmilla,” Lucas answered. “It’s actually not even off-world. You’ve been on the tiny moon of Ludmilla the whole time. The nice parts are on the other side of it, however: that’s where we’re heading now. Ludmilla is still Atonian territory, however, so it would be dangerous for anyone to get off there and remain free. However, if you decide you like it here that much, I won’t stop you.”
“What are we going to do in Ludmilla?” someone else asked, hesitantly.
“We’re going to raid,” Lucas insisted. “I am a Space Viking, by trade, when I’m not ruling my world. This is a Space Viking ship – and a very famous one to Atonian history. But we need supplies, we need power, we need food, and we’re going to need things we can trade for spare parts. So we’re going to raid Ludmilla.”
“That’s barbaric!” came an educated-sounding voice from the front of the crowd. Probably one of the university professors, or a political dissident. “That’s an unprovoked act of war—”
“So was ceasing a sitting head-of-state and kidnapping him and his men without legal recourse,” Lucas interrupted. “So a state of war already exists between my planet and Aton. Therefore this is neither unprovoked, nor is it illegal. It is well within the laws of war to raid the enemy for materiel on the battlefield.
“And yes, while we are raiding Ludmilla, people will die, things will get destroyed, and some will lose their worldly possessions. Unlike some of my colleagues, however, I prefer to keep the violence to a minimum. Since we have limited ammunition and resources, we’re going to be very selective about what we hit and how. But let’s have no more talk about ‘unprovoked acts of war’ – I’m at war with Aton, folks. I’m going to act like it. If you have moral objections to that, I’ll set you out at the next stop to take them to the local authorities. Now, are there any questions?”
Way too many, he saw, from the number of hands that went up. He stifled a sigh and pointed to one of the other factions he’d brought aboard – the freetrader family Max had insisted they bring.
“Yes, Captain, me and mine have some experience as shiphands, before the blasted Atonians took away our vessel. Might be we could be some help in an old girl such as this,” the man drawled – older, solid, a shock of gray hair that put him probably in his sixties. He had a rough-and-tumble air and a good-natured arrogance about him that many freetraders cultivated.
“Thank you,” Lucas acknowledged. “In fact, while I have most essential posts covered on this ship, the fact is that when she’s fully crewed she takes about a thousand, and I don’t have a tithe of that. Worse, most of my crewmen were inexperienced when they flew with me. So I want any and all of you to volunteer whatever skills you have – I guess we need a ship’s steward, would you like that job mister . . . ?”
“O’Roarke,” the man supplied. “Thompson O’Roarke, late of the May Queen. It’d be a pleasure, Your—Captain,” the man assured him.
“I’ll provide you with whatever you need to get started,” Lucas said, gratefully. “And I’ll discuss what else you and your family can do for us soon. But if you could at least figure out who knows what and where they might be placed for shipboa
rd duties, I’d be appreciative. Any other questions?”
“Where are we going?” came a child’s voice.
“Tanith, eventually – that’s well over three thousand light years from here. But long before that we should be crossing paths with some Mardukan ships. Tanith is on very good terms with Marduk, so I’d expect that they’d help us. It’s possible that you could be headed for Marduk – which while it lacks Planet X’s innate charms, is still quite a quaint little world,” he added with a chuckle.
“Where are we going . . . next?” someone else asked.
“That’s classified, for the moment,” Lucas decided. “For security reasons. I’ll reveal that once we’ve made it to hyperspace. Sorry, I don’t want any argument – or any word about our itinerary leaking to the Atonians. Yes?”
“This old thing sure seems shaky!” a young woman commented, glancing around nervously. “Are you sure she’s going to make it?”
“Max the Tinker assures me that, with sufficient power, there’s no reason at all why the Odyssey can’t make it through hyperspace perfectly fine. I understand your concern – but trust me when I say I’ve taken ships a lot more wounded than this one through hyperspace. She’s built as a warship, so she’s very sturdy.” He hoped he sounded far more confident than he actually was. That was a large part of being a successful commander, he’d realized long ago: the ability to lie convincingly.
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