Rucker nodded. “Got it.”
“Okay, give me a couple of empty water containers. I might as well take ’em down with me.”
“Finally,” Rucker said. “A task the Legion is good for.”
Avery laughed. “I’ll send your relief up at 1800 hours.”
The trip downhill was a lot easier than the climb up had been. Even with a plastic container in each hand. Fifteen minutes later, Avery was on flat ground and could feel the heat beating down on his back. He said “Hello” to a fire team comprised of sailors as he passed through the security perimeter, dumped the empties onto a pile outside the hatch, and waited for a petty officer to descend the makeshift ladder that led up to Emergency Hatch 016. Once her boots hit the ground, he was free to climb up and enter the hull.
It was cooler inside and would remain so through much of the day, thanks to the hull’s thickness. The engineering spaces were located at the very bottom of the ship and would have been crushed like everything else had it not been for the heavy-duty girders and the shielding that surrounded the drives. So Chief Engineering Officer Collins and some of her techs had survived the landing. And, thanks to their efforts, the Victorious still had some power. Just enough to keep the emergency lighting on, to power the water-purification system, and send juice to a single energy cannon that sat atop the hull.
So there was light to see by as Avery made his way up a series of access ladders to A deck and from there to the bridge. The morning meetings with Ophelia and Captain Suzuki had become a daily routine. And all of the ship’s surviving department heads were present when the empress arrived at 1017 hours. Rumor had it that her cabin was air-conditioned. She looked calm, cool, and collected as she took a seat.
As was the custom, Captain Suzuki opened the meeting with a readout on the ship’s steadily deteriorating condition. It was all he had left to do—and each report was worse than the last. Then it was Avery’s turn. He told them what he’d seen from the top of the hill and concluded the presentation with the usual admonition. “This position cannot be defended against anything other than a minor attack by poorly armed locals. I recommend that we pack up, find a more defensible location, and reestablish ourselves there. Thank you.”
“Major Avery is nothing if not predictable,” Ophelia said as she eyed the faces around her. “However, I think it’s time for us to take his advice. Help has not arrived as quickly as we had hoped. And if our message torp went astray, assistance may never arrive. So the logical thing to do is pack up, destroy the ship, and make our way to Savas Prime. I know it’s a small town, but ships call there, and the residents might have a message torp up in orbit. If so, we’ll use it to summon help. Are there any objections?”
The final sentence was directed to Suzuki, who was not only the senior military officer on Savas but had been the primary advocate for staying put. Avery waited to see what would happen. Judging from the way the proposal was worded, the empress had given the matter a lot of thought. Would Suzuki lay out an equally convincing counterargument? Or, after spending more than a week in the desert, was he ready to abandon the wreck?
Suzuki was in his midforties and looked at least ten years older than that. While in space, he had an answer for every problem. But on the ground, he was like a fish out of water. And rather than undertake what he saw as a risky cross-country trek, he wanted to remain with the thing he understood best. And that was his ship.
But like all senior officers, Suzuki was a part-time politician and a good one. That’s why he had what amounted to a plum command—and was slated to become an admiral in the not-too-distant future. So Suzuki knew what he had to say and forced himself to say it. “Her Highness is correct. The time has come to abandon ship.”
Suzuki’s reward was a royal smile. “We are all in agreement then,” Ophelia said. “So, Captain . . . How long will it take to prepare?”
Suzuki frowned. “At least two days, Highness. We’ll need to decide what to take, devise ways to carry our supplies, and prepare our personnel for the journey.”
Avery knew he should remain silent for political reasons but couldn’t bring himself to do so. “Excuse me, sir . . . But I think we should carry out the necessary preparations in one day. The ship could come under attack at any time.”
If other people hadn’t been present, Suzuki might have listened. But he had already been overridden by the empress and wasn’t about to accept the same treatment from a subordinate. “Thank you, Major,” Suzuki said coldly. “Your suggestion has been noted. But since there was no mention of an imminent attack in the report you gave earlier, a two-day interval seems appropriate. And given that most of the preparatory work will fall on your shoulders—I suspect you’ll thank me later.”
Ophelia smiled thinly and chose to remain silent. That left Avery with no choice but to obey Suzuki’s orders. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“Good, it’s settled then,” Suzuki said. “Let’s get to work.”
And there was plenty of work to do. It began with a hurried inventory of what they had. Then it was necessary to agree on what they would take. The final task was to pull everything together and load it onto improvised pack frames. The work went on and on, so that by the time Avery collapsed on his bunk, he was exhausted. Sleep pulled him down.
The second day was equally grueling. And by the time Avery finished inspecting the security perimeter at 1900 hours everything was ready. So he returned to the ship, took a much-needed sponge bath, and went to bed dressed for the day ahead.
There were dreams. A lot of dreams. And Cat played a part in some of them. They were fighting something, battling it side by side, when she began to moan. Then the moan morphed into the mournful sound of the ship’s emergency Klaxon.
Avery rolled off the bunk, stood, and slipped his arms through the corresponding holes in the load-bearing vest. It was equipped with a pistol, ammo, and some grenades. He made a grab for his assault weapon and heard a cacophony of radio traffic as he pulled his helmet on.
“There are thousands of them!” an excited voice proclaimed. “Over.”
“Thousands of what?” another person demanded.
“They’re like cattle,” a third voice chimed in. “But different.”
“There are some digs too,” the first voice added. “Riding the cattle.”
“This is Major Avery,” the legionnaire said. “All personnel will use proper radio protocol from now on. As for the riders, shoot the bastards—and secure all the hatches. Over.”
“It’s too late,” a desperate-sounding female voice said. “Sorry . . . This is Riley. They’re in the corridors! I shot one of them, but there are more. Shit! They’re everywhere!” That was followed by a short burst of automatic fire and silence.
Avery swore under his breath. From the sound of it, the locals had used some sort of cowlike animals to stampede through the area, ridden them in, and taken most of the sentries by surprise. He stepped out into the corridor and saw an indig coming toward him. The warrior was bipedal, had a crested head, and was armed with what Avery recognized as a Hudathan pistol. The weapon was so large it was difficult for the warrior to handle. And while he was fumbling with it Avery shot him. The dig jerked spastically as the 4.7 mm slugs hit his chest and knocked him off his feet.
Avery had to go that way anyway, and paused long enough to grab the pistol and shove it into a pocket as he took a left. The access ladder was directly in front of him. The sound of firing could be heard as he climbed upward. Avery wanted to rally the crew . . . But where? And was it too late?
He stepped off the ladder onto B deck. Maybe it was safe . . . If they could seal it off. Then he saw Ophelia and Nicolai hurrying toward him. “Major Avery,” she said urgently, “please get us out of here.”
All sorts of thoughts whirled through Avery’s mind. Get them out . . . How? Especially under the circumstances. Plus, here was the perfect opportunity to kill
the bitch . . . For Cat and all the others. “Major John?” Nicolai said. “Can I have a gun? I want to fight.”
Avery swore. He was about to reply when a sign caught his eye. EMERGENCY POD B-14. “Get in,” he ordered, and pointed his weapon at the hatch.
Ophelia flipped a protective cover out of the way and hit the big red button with the heel of her hand. There was a whoosh as the air inside the capsule equalized with the ship’s atmosphere. The empress sent her son in first and followed him. Then she turned and motioned for Avery to enter.
It had been his intention to seal the royals inside and defend the entrance. But a new possibility had occurred to him. Pods weren’t equipped with power plants. They were propelled out and away from a ship by a powerful blast of compressed air. Would the system work? And, if it did, where would the capsule land? Outside of the combat zone? Or right in the middle of it? There was no way to be sure—but he figured it was worth a try.
Avery couldn’t go though . . . His responsibility was to defend the ship. “Lock it!” he shouted. “I have to stay.”
That was when Suzuki’s voice filled his helmet. “This is the captain. They have Empress Ophelia,” he said dully. “We can’t let them capture the Victorious. All personnel are to abandon ship. The demo charges will blow in sixty seconds.”
Avery wanted to object, to explain, but there was no time in which to do so. He turned to the pod, stepped inside, and told the royals to sit down. As Avery fell into a chair, a well-padded cage folded around him.
Controls were available at each seat. Avery flipped a transparent cover out of the way and pushed the FIRE button. Like the rest of the crew, he’d been forced to participate in regular abandon-ship drills, and that knowledge was about to pay off. Or so he hoped as an outer hatch opened and a powerful blast of air threw the capsule up into the sky. “Hang on!” he shouted. “We’re going to hit hard.”
And he was correct. Avery felt a brief moment of weightlessness followed by a fall and a heavy impact. His jaw hit his chest, and the unsecured AXE almost struck Ophelia’s head before bouncing off a bulkhead and hitting the deck.
The protective cage hugged Avery even more securely as the pod bounced up into the air. But the second ride was mercifully short. It ended when the capsule hit the ground and rolled for a distance before finally coming to a stop. Nicolai’s eyes looked huge and his lower lip was starting to quiver. “I want my mommy.”
That was when Avery opened his mouth to say, “She’s right here,” looked at Ophelia, and realized the truth. Suzuki was correct. The empress had been captured. And he was looking at Daska. The robot nodded. “The empress was outside when the attack came.”
Avery swore. Somehow, he had wound up on the surface of a hostile planet with a five-year-old boy to take care of. And that was when the future emperor began to cry.
—
The sun was high in the sky, the air was heavy with the stench of animal feces, and Admiral Dor Nola-Ba was seated inside a Paguumi hoga. The shade was welcome. His back was exposed, however—and the swill his host called “tea” made his stomach churn.
But those irritations were nothing when compared with the frustration that stemmed from Chief Imeer Oppo’s failure to move against the Human ship in a timely fashion. Nola-Ba’s battle group had become aware of the vessel shortly after it dropped hyper and approached Savas.
Nola-Ba was alarmed at first, fearing that a landing similar to his own was about to take place, but it was only a matter of minutes before the actual situation became clear. The alien ship was out of control and about to crash. So all Nola-Ba had to do was watch it hit the planet’s surface, skip like a stone on the surface of a pond, and slam into a large hill. Shortly thereafter, some survivors appeared but made no attempt to leave the wreck.
The Hudathan’s first reaction was to swoop in and take control. But then what seemed like a better plan entered his mind. What if more Humans were on the way? If so, the wreck could serve as bait. Then he would attack once the would-be rescuers were on the ground.
But then he had another even better idea. After the attack on the Head Hunter, Nola-Ba had sent scouts out to speak with the local nomads and, based on their reports, had a basic knowledge of local politics. It seemed that there were three groups of Paguumis—all descended from common ancestors hundreds of thousands of years earlier. But two of them were of primary concern. They included the northern tribe, which was responsible for the attack on his base, and the southern tribe, led by Chief Oppo.
So, given that his orders directed him to forge alliances with the indigenous peoples, Nola-Ba decided to befriend the southern Paguumis, knowing that they hated the northerners. And what better way to cement the new alliance than to give them the Human wreck? A rich source of what the locals valued above all else, and that was metal. The single caveat was that his intelligence people would be allowed to survey the ship before the locals took it apart. And if the Humans arrived, so much the better . . . While they were busy killing the natives, he would attack them!
Oppo was thrilled to receive title to the bounty that had fallen out of the sky. In fact, he had even gone so far as to sign a thousand-year peace treaty with the Hudathan Empire. A largely meaningless document, of course—but one Nola-Ba would submit as proof of his success on Savas. All of which was good except for the fact that Oppo was a very cautious creature who, rather than dash in to capture the wreck shortly after it was brought to his attention, insisted on watching it for days while gathering his forces.
Then, after what seemed like an eternity Oppo did something rather clever—and that was to send thousands of herd animals stampeding through the area where the wreck was located. The unconventional attack had the effect of neutralizing most of the Human’s defenses. Meanwhile, warriors who were mounted on the four-legged beasts had been able to get in close and finish the job.
But then, in a move worthy of Nola-Ba’s race, the Humans destroyed both themselves and their ship, killing more than a hundred warriors in the process. A terrible loss to be sure . . . But one that in no way weakened Oppo’s position as chief since the attack netted more metal than his tribe knew what to do with. So what if they had to go out and gather the far-flung pieces? It was still an incredible haul.
The result was that they were drinking tea while Oppo talked nonsense, and Nola-Ba seethed with anger. Due to Oppo’s failure to act expeditiously, what could have been a significant intelligence coup had been lost. Would he be blamed for allowing that to occur? Of course he would.
That’s what the Hudathan was thinking about when Oppo said something important. Something so significant that it broke through his chain of thought. The electronic translator had a tendency to render everything in a monotone, but there was no mistaking the meaning of what was said. “So,” Oppo said, having concluded a long tirade, “we plan to execute the Humans tomorrow . . . Would you like to watch?”
Oppo’s head crest had been notched so many times that it resembled a saw blade. His skin was like old leather, a rakish-looking patch covered the hole where his left eye had been, and most of his front teeth were missing. But he was a clever old bugger and had been waiting to drop that piece of news on him! The southerners had prisoners . . . And, not content with a fortune in alien metal, Oppo was determined to squeeze even more out of his off-world allies.
“I never tire of watching Humans die,” Nola-Ba replied truthfully. “But on my world, we like to ask prisoners a few questions prior to removing their heads. I’m sure it’s the same with you and your people.”
Oppo nodded agreeably as he gummed a piece of dried fruit that his wife had presoftened for him. He was seated on a beautifully woven carpet with a large cushion to support his back. “This is so,” the chieftain said. “Unfortunately, what might otherwise be a routine matter is made more complicated by the deaths of so many warriors. Their families are very sad, but some speedy executions will serve to l
ift their spirits.”
Nola-Ba clenched his considerable jaw in an effort to control the anger he felt. Most, if not all of Oppo’s warriors would still be alive had the old geezer attacked right away. Now the chieftain was trying to squeeze what amounted to reparations out of Nola-Ba. And, much as he didn’t want to, the Hudathan would have to bend. Not because he believed that interrogating the Humans would produce a treasure trove of intelligence—but because he could use the resulting transcripts to paper over the loss of the Human ship.
So Nola-Ba repressed the desire to kill Oppo with his bare hands and offered him a deal instead. “There’s no way in which one can make up for the loss of a father, brother, or son. But life continues. Perhaps I could make that life a little easier.”
Oppo seemed to perk up. “Really? What does the honored emissary from the stars have in mind?”
“You have metal now,” Nola-Ba replied. “A great deal of hard metal and no efficient way to cut it.”
Though no expert on Paguumi facial expressions, Nola-Ba could tell that Oppo hadn’t considered that. And now that the idea had been planted in his head, he was worried. “How true,” the Paguumi said, as if the issue had already occurred to him. “We would welcome whatever help you could provide.”
“We have special saws,” Nola-Ba said, conveniently ignoring the fact that his troops were equipped with plasma torches as well. “Saws that can cut through the toughest metal. Could it be that the joy associated with receiving such saws would be great enough to render the executions unnecessary?”
Oppo produced a frown. “Yes,” the Paguumi chief allowed, “a thousand such saws would improve morale. There’s no doubt about it.”
“I’m sure they would,” Nola-Ba answered smoothly. “And I hope a hundred blades will suffice. That’s all we have beyond our own needs.”
Nola-Ba could tell that Oppo didn’t believe it—but knew better than to push his luck. “More tea,” the Paguumi ordered imperiously. “We must seal the agreement. A hundred saws it is.”
Andromeda's War (Legion of the Damned Book 3) Page 17
