“Please, Captain Rogers. Stop.”
Ardala’s curiosity was aroused. “What inner sections?”
“Just the sections of his mind,” Wilma replied drily.
“Aw, now, that’s hitting above the belt,” Buck complained. “I may not be memorable to the princess, but I’ll never forget her. I especially love that dress with the peacock feathers. They set off your neck so beautifully!”
Wilma turned to another officer. “Major, please guide Captain Rogers and the rest of our pilots to their ships.”
“But we haven’t told the princess why we came, yet,” Buck complained. “The pirate forces are at their worst in this sector. We brought our ships up to escort the princess’ ship and assure its safe arrival.”
“That’s very reassuring, Captain,” Kane commented smoothly.
Wilma attempted again to shut off the conversation. “Captain Rogers!” she repeated.
“As a matter of fact,” Buck went on, “if you would like us to attach a squadron directly on board your ship… just to be on hand in case of attack, you see….”
“Most generous of you,” Kane said. “Most generous, Captain… Colonel Deering. But I’m sure that your mere presence in this vector will assure our security.”
“And it is the strict interpretation of our mutual treaty,” Princess Ardala added, “that this ship not bear arms of any kind. I would interpret that to mean … arms… from either side.”
“I had a feeling you’d interpret it that way,” Buck commented.
From Wilma Deering’s point of view the conversation had been an unmitigated disaster, starting with Buck’s kissing that horrible space vamp’s hand and ending with the quarrel over the neutrality treaty. The best she could do was to end it as fast as possible. “To your gracious majesty,” she said, “our thanks and our prayers for a safe arrival. I wish you good day.”
“Good day,” Ardala replied, smiling smugly. She started to turn away.
Suddenly—a resounding shock rocked the ship.
“What in Draco’s name!” Ardala exclaimed.
Kane reacted instantly, shoving Tigerman forward to guard the princess. “Protect her! Attention! Alert all stations! Secure ship!”
A voice echoed through the deck, coming from the bridge above. “Hostile aircraft approaching. Ship under attack!”
“So this is how you bid us safe conduct,” Kane snarled at Wilma. “Well, at least you and your fellow traitors will die with us!”
Wilma Deering ignored the insulting accusation, turning instead toward her own party. “To your ships—now!”
Along with the others, Buck forgot all about the just-ended confrontation and put his attention into the emergency. He scanned the deck, looking for the source of the explosions. He took a final quick glance at Kane before running for his interceptor ship, and found himself met with a glare of unspoken hatred.
“Okay, pal,” Buck shot out, “we’ll meet again!”
The pilots scampered to reach their ships. Just as Buck jumped for the entry hatch of his, he saw Wilma standing and glaring at him. “You are under arrest, Captain,” the colonel snapped.
“Sure,” Buck answered. “You gonna put handcuffs on me now, or can I use both hands to fly this toy?”
“You are disqualified for all combat operations, Captain Rogers! You will return directly to Earth and land there, under arrest!”
But Buck didn’t hear the words. He was already inside his ship, busily dogging the hatch and the pilot’s canopy.
Meanwhile the sky around the Draconian flagship was filled with swarming, gaudily painted pirate ships. A marauder decorated with extravagant dragons’ heads screamed across the sky, making a pass at the Draconia. The raider sent a cluster of fireballs blasting at the flagship.
The Draconia’s early warning net had functioned in time, and the Earth interceptors made their escape from the great ship, swarming away from its monstrous bulk to counterattack the dancing, lethal pirate craft. Buck Rogers, handling his interceptor with an ease and familiarity learned in hundreds of mission-hours half a millennium before, shoved the Starfighter through a sudden snap-roll, righted the ship, found a pirate craft angling in at him from an insanely high angle.
Buck wheeled away, saw the marauder flash by over his shoulder. The one major difference between combat in space and in the air was that aircraft, even though operating in three dimensions, had a constant reference point of the Earth. Up and down were relative concepts, but always relative to the planet’s surface. Here in deep space the same three dimensions obtained, but there was no up, no down. He was fighting within a completely free-form medium.
A second marauder craft streaked in, following the lead of the first. Buck was in the clear, at least momentarily, but the second marauder swerved to attack another Starfighter. “Heads up, major!” Buck shouted. “Enemy craft on your tail. Hit a roll, I’ll pick him up!”
The second Starfighter rolled, turned, snapping through the maneuvers that were programmed into its ship’s computers. The enemy craft stayed dangerously close behind, matching the Starfighter’s maneuvers move for move.
“Not that way,” Buck radio’d, “you’re rolling right into his power!”
The marauder craft fired its lasers, the Starfighter tried to move out of the path of the deadly weapons but the marauder craft seemed to anticipate its every move. There was a horrendous blooming of flame and flying, white-hot fragments as the Starfighter, caught fully by the laser blast, exploded through space.
Buck clutched the controls of his Starfighter, his fine-tuned instincts guiding the spacecraft through its maneuvers while his mind recoiled in horror from the sight he had just beheld.
Nearby in her own craft, Wilma Deering shared similar emotions. She scanned the blackness around her, picking out the maneuvering marauders and Starfighters. Spotting Buck’s Starfighter she switched on her radio and snapped a command to the captain. “Rogers—I ordered you back to Earth!”
“Colonel Deering, you need all the help you can get,” Buck replied. Before he could say anything more he spotted another Starfighter in dire peril. “Look out, Baker,” Buck cried. “He’s on you!”
The young pilot Buck had warned swung around in panic. He spotted a marauder on his tail, about to fire its deadly lasers at his Starfighter.
“Pull up,” Buck shouted, “I can cut him off!”
Baker pushed the automatic evasion button in his cockpit. It was the same button that had led the major to his destruction minutes earlier. The Starfighter rolled away, the marauder craft holding course with it, move for move, turn for turn. After two quick rolls, the marauder fired its lasers.
Baker’s Starfighter blossomed into a second of the deadly fireballs, flames rolling away from the destroyed fuselage, white-hot fragments flying in all directions.
“You jackass!” Buck despaired.
Wilma choked back a cry of horror as she saw Baker’s ship blossom into flame. Suddenly she found the sky on fire around her own Starfighter.
She whirled frantically in her pilot’s seat, saw a marauder streaking after her. Desperately she pressed the red flashing evade button.
Her Starfighter went into its automatically programmed maneuvers, rolling across the sky. The marauder craft followed, matching move for move.
Buck watched in shock, flicked on his radio, shouted at Wilma, “Take it down, Colonel! Straight down! Don’t roll! Throw on your space-flaps!”
“I can’t!” Wilma cried in response. “It’s against all the principles of modern space combat!”
And the sky began to explode all around her.
Buck shook his head, muttering half to himself, “Where’d you guys learn to fly! You’d never have made it past basic aero in my day, no less got certied for space combat.” Buck pushed a button on his control board. A yellow light flashed on the indicator panel. Etched lettering on it read, Manual override. Buck reached for a control lever, took a firm hold on it and swung it hard over.
He brought his craft in behind another Starfighter under heavy marauder attack. The marauder as usual was able to match its course perfectly with the Starfighter’s. As the heavy attacker came within laser range it seemed inevitable that still another Starfighter was shortly to blossom into flame and flying fragments.
Instead, Buck’s ship flashed across the sky, streaking to a point above and beside the maneuvering pair. Buck dived, swung through a difficult Immelmann, streaked toward the marauder from nine o’clock and pressed his firing stud once, twice.
This time it was the marauder rather than the Starfighter that blossomed into flame. For once Buck was able to grin… as was the pilot of the rescued Starfighter, Colonel Wilma Deering!
Buck pulled his Starfighter alongside Wilma’s, tossed her an old-fashioned thumbs-up salute and a grin, then streaked away, leaving the colonel to reexamine her notions of military doctrine—and her feelings about Captain William “Buck” Rogers!
While aboard the Draconia, Princess Ardala stood watching the aerial combat ending in the vacuum above her observation bridge. The marauder craft streaked away, abandoning their attack on the flagship, leaving the surviving Star-fighters to circle triumphantly over the broad decks of the Draconia.
Princess Ardala spoke aloud, knowing that radio pickups would capture her voice and carry it to Wilma Deering and the rest of her Intercept Squadron. “The people of Draconia thank you for your brave support, Colonel,” Ardala intoned, “and also bereave your losses. May our Father’s light guide you to safety. And may our impending arrival on your planet be equally blessed. Please inform your Council that the peace mission is arriving and ask them to proceed with the appropriate ceremonies.”
Back in space, Wilma watched Buck’s ship streak away. She switched on her radio and said, “Now, Captain—let’s go home.” She watched Buck’s ship and the few other survivors drop away from the flagship Draconia and into their reentry orbits. Then she threw her own Starfighter into a wingover and dropped back toward earth.
At the Intercept Squadron hangar, Buck Rogers walked deliberately away from his ship. Wilma had landed shortly behind him and ran from her own Starfighter to catch up with Buck. “Captain Rogers,” she called. Buck halted, waited for her to speak. “I know you expect undying gratitude for what you did up there,” Wilma said, “and I suppose you did save my life.”
“I was saving a Starfighter,” Buck answered bitterly. “You told me there was a short supply of them, and I can see why now.”
“Your approval of our flying skills is inconsequential,” Wilma Deering snapped. “You won’t be flying with us again!”
“None of you’ll be flying for long, if you don’t get rid of whoever’s programming your defense tactics!”
“I designed our tactics, Captain Rogers. They have seen us through a nearly endless war and have kept us in command of the skies throughout its duration.”
“Didn’t look that great to me up there,” Buck said sardonically.
Wilma conceded, “We have suffered casualties unusually high since encountering those pirates. I don’t know why….”
“I do,” Buck bounded back. “They know every move you’re going to make before you make it!”
“That’s impossible!”
“I saw it, Colonel. Take my word for it, if I hadn’t shut off my flight computer and gone onto manual, neither you nor I would be here now. You’ve got a spy, all right, but it isn’t me.” He turned away and again started to walk toward the headquarters shack.
“Wait,” Wilma cried. “Captain Rogers, the princess denied your story. I have no choice but to arrest you, pending a renewed proceeding in your case.” He kept on walking. “Captain Rogers! Don’t make me shoot you again!”
Buck turned back and saw Wilma’s hand resting on the holster that held her laser pistol. “Wilma,” Buck said, “where can I go? The only home that I know isn’t just miles away, it’s separated from us by centuries! There’s no place for me to hide. So just forget this silly arrest stuff, and get your act together.”
As he had before, Buck simply turned his back and walked away. But this time he heard no count, nor did Wilma unholster her laser. Instead she stood confused, watching Buck Rogers’ form diminish as he crossed the landing pad. She muttered under her breath, whispering angry curses that would have curled the hair of a longshoreman in Buck Rogers’ time, yet fighting to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling over onto her softly rounded cheeks. Her mood held for a few seconds, then was broken by a mellow, soothing voice.
“Colonel Deering, have you seen Captain Rogers?” It was none other than Dr. Theopolis, his plastic case cleaned and polished to show no sign of his ordeal in Anarchia. He hung from the neck of his drone Twiki, also cleaned up, refurbished, and restored to perfect condition.
“That man Rogers is a primitive barbarian,” Wilma grumbled.
Theopolis said simply, “Oh?”
“Not to mention,” Wilma continued, “a liar!”
“Oh, dear,” Theopolis said, “I am sorry to hear that. It’s going to make matters very, very awkward that you feel that way.”
“Sending Captain Rogers back to Anarchia will not be awkward. And this time there will be no rescue expedition!”
“But I’m afraid… that there is.” Theopolis paused, his lights flashing in confused patterns. “You see, Wilma my dear, our Council has had a formal request from her majesty, the Princess Ardala.”
“What’s that got to do with Buck Rogers?” Wilma demanded.
“Everything,” Theopolis said. “They wish to decorate him for valor. With the Draconian Order of Merit or some such award. The princess says that he single-handedly saved her unarmed flagship from attack by the renegade pirates.”
“Did you say single-handedly?”
“Apparently, even your command ship was nearly destroyed, Wilma. Were it not for Captain Rogers’ inordinate skills and quick thinking, the princess feels that—”
“I’m not interested in what the princess feels,” Wilma cut him off agitatedly. “I know what happened. I was there.”
She turned away and began to cross the field, anger and resentment visible in every line of her trim body. “And what’s more,” she called back at Theopolis, “if Captain Rogers is to remain out of custody, then I am personally going to see that you are held responsible for him. Wherever he goes, whatever he does! And whatever the consequences! Good day, Doctor!”
She disappeared, and now it was Theopolis’ turn to grumble in distress. “Dear me, dear me, did you hear that, Twiki? If the captain does anything wrong, we’re all going to end up back in Anarchia again!”
Twiki stood still for a moment, for all the world as if he was concentrating on Theopolis’ prediction. Then he began to scuttle across the landing pad, zigging and zagging like a broken-field runner. “Twiki,” Theopolis cried, “stop this! Where do you think we’re going? This is no time to get hysterical. Twiki, please, come to your senses at once!”
Wilma Deering by now had reached the office of her friend and mentor, the aged scientist Dr. Huer. She entered to find him with his back to the entryway, his hands clasped in the small of his waist, gazing abstractly from the window. Before him stretched the magnificent vista of the Inner City, its gleaming spires reaching nearly to touch the inner surface of the great arching dome that held the city in, held the poisoned air and vicious denizens of Anarchia without.
Huer turned as Wilma entered and listened patiently as she poured out her concern over the situation with the pirates, the dogfight, and her distressing relationship with Captain Buck Rogers. When she finished, Huer said, “I’m inclined to think that the pirates and Buck are the least of our worries. The Council was too quick to accept this treaty with the Draconians. They took them at face value, and I fear that was a mistake.”
“It was understandable,” Wilma said. “We need that trade! If Earth doesn’t have an assured, steady flow of food coming in, we face either another holocaust or a long, slow sl
ide toward barbarism.”
“Still,” Huer persisted, “my apprehension is unrelieved.”
“Maybe I can help a little,” Wilma volunteered. Dr. Huer stood, listening closely. “Our visit to the Draconian spacecraft may have proved Captain Rogers to be a liar,” Wilma said, “but it also proved that the Draconian ship is unarmed, and our scanners picked up no other warcraft within range. The only other ships within striking range were the pirate marauders that attacked while we were up.”
“Then you believe it’s safe to allow the Draconia to penetrate our shield?”
“I believe we can admit the Draconia into the Inner City itself. They have no attack craft with enough range to have arrived since we checked out the Draconia.”
“You don’t know how much better you’ve made me feel,” Huer said gratefully.
Aboard the Draconia the Princess Ardala posed and preened before her mirror. At a knock on her door and the princess’ command of “Enter,” Tigerman stepped aside and admitted Kane to the royal chamber. Kane had donned his own fanciest and most elaborate dress uniform, and he advanced to stand behind the preening princess so she could see him as well as herself in her boudoir mirror.
“You are ravishing tonight, my princess,” Kane lipped coolly.
“Your princess?” Ardala asked suspiciously. “That has the ring of possession to it, Kane.”
The uniformed man reached with his arms and folded them around the magnificently outfitted princess. He bent and placed a kiss on the back of her neck. “I was thinking more of a partnership than of possession,” he explained.
“Do you truly desire me, Kane?” the princess asked. “Or is it merely my throne that draws you to me?” She disengaged herself from his arms and turned on her dressing-seat to gaze up at him and receive her answer.
“It is your desires I serve,” Kane said. “I will see to it that one day you will sit on your father’s throne as the queen of all the empire.” With these words Kane bent and kissed the princess directly on the mouth. She permitted him the liberty, then slowly drew away as his demands became greater.
[Buck Rogers 01] - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century Page 10
