"Programmer General?"
He blinked away the internal display and brought up the external HUD. He stared at Riddle's image as if he were only a meter in front of him. Shifting from the vast world of rampaging data on every aspect of life in Burran to the anxious officer took a few seconds.
"What is it?"
"The Highlander just launched."
Weir took off the helmet and reached to a spot on his desk display. A cruiser sprang up in 3D and slowly turned before a flare shot from its aft.
"You're blocking my full feed," Weir said. "All I'm picking up is a view of Lochlan's vessel."
"Sorry. I kept it confidential so my staff wouldn't ask questions."
"It's entirely off their screens?"
"For all they know, the cruiser is still docked at the station."
Weir watched closely as Riddle allowed the hidden data to pour forth. A new view filled the space. A tiny red speck marked where Tomlins' vessel had Dropped from LiftSpace. A thin yellow spiral showed the least-time orbit the Highlander followed to intercept.
"Have Lochlan use a missile. Blow up the Shillelagh so only atoms remain. If he uses energy weapons, there's a chance he will only disable the ship."
"Already done. I ordered him to use a missile with a mechanical drill to penetrate the hull at the bridge. The warhead will explode after hull breach and take out all command personnel, as well. Sorrel won't be a problem then."
Weir approved. The Shillelagh was a dreadnought but not completely outfitted with offensive weapons. Tomlins had ordered all long-range energy weapons removed so Far Kingdom wouldn't see his visit as a military incursion. That worked against the dreadnought now, as if Sorrel would challenge the Highlander as it approached. If Lochlan had any sense, he would signal the Shillelagh that he was an honor guard to escort the dreadnought to the orbital docking station, then blow the ship out of space.
He shrugged that off. It hardly mattered what Lochlan did, if he succeeded. A quick swipe cleared the ever-changing rainbow display of everything other than the two ships and the approach vector.
The yellow line vanished, centimeter by centimeter as the Highlander neared the point where Weir would make history. He reflected how easily he had assumed control of the Burran computerized control network. There wouldn't be even a ripple in the vast ocean when Tomlins died and he assumed the position of Programmer General. A perfect coup. No one in Burran would even know it happened. The perfect crime, the perfect transition of power.
"Do you want a parade proclaiming your assumption of the post?"
He blinked. He had been lost in how perfect his scheme was, and Riddle interrupted with an inane question.
"Of course not. I'll appear physically at the funeral, his body in absentia. A cenotaph will be built somewhere not too important. Maybe at his Emerald Isle summer mansion." He checked the estimate on the Highlander's approach. Minutes. "There are other matters to take care of."
"His family?"
"His wife is going to be a problem since she has so publicly announced their daughter will become the next Programmer General. Kori will take this proclamation public and create a great furor if she is not silenced beforehand."
"I have that taken care of, Programmer General."
Weir stared at Riddle's hologram, wishing the man were present so he could throttle him. It did no good to dismiss the floating image.
"What have you done? She's on Emerald Isle, and I've blocked all com from it so it all comes through the CIO desk."
"Can you trust the Chief Information Officer?"
That question bothered him. He trusted no one, much less the CIO, but he trusted him more than he did Riddle.
"I can. Scarlotti's a spineless slug. The promise of just keeping his job will get him in line." Weir heard something in Riddle's words that he didn't like. "How have you taken care of Tomlins' family?"
"It is a training mistake. The GPS target for a commando raid was off by a single digit."
"You've ordered a military unit to kill her and her brats?"
"You make it sound outrageous. You assassinated the Programmer General and are going to destroy the evidence using the Highlander. My promotion left a gap in the chain of command and the new Low Guard Commander was not yet fully aware of all training operations. I will decry the tragic mistake made by a low-ranking officer in attacking the Programmer General's family home and won't have to sacrifice a veteran officer."
"Too many deaths all at once makes it look suspicious."
"You worry too much, Programmer General. You control the news cycle."
"I'll flood it with sympathy for Tomlins, of course, but the citizens will wonder why his family isn't heard from."
"A carrier crash as they rush to the capital? Kori demanded they leave without proper check down."
"That's absurd." Weir felt himself tensing. He hadn't expected Riddle to make such overt moves against the surviving Tomlinses. "Order your commandos to withdraw. Now, Riddle, do it now. There will be other opportunities."
"Such as Eire guerrillas taking advantage of Tomlins' death to kill off Bella Tomlins? The daughter was his heir apparent. Kori Tomlins said so. Donal hinted at it repeatedly. This puts Eire directly in your laser sights. Perhaps the Shillelagh's destruction was caused by an Eire missile? This could be the opening battle in a major offensive against Burran."
"That is more likely." Weir considered Riddle's scheme. The Planetary Guard Commander had stumbled onto a stratagem that held just a gram of truth and would be believed if a concerted news assault presented it properly. It covered up a great deal and afforded alibis for all concerned with the coup. "I can do all I can to hold down the understandable outrage. Burran will respond, but it has to be with measured and reasonable actions."
"It will take you some time to consolidate your power by changing Tomlins' guide algorithm."
Weir looked sharply at the hologram. He thought more deeply than before. When the original coup had been outlined, all Riddle talked about was displacing Cletus Tomlins and taking what he thought was his rightful post as Commander in Chief Armed Forces. Riddle's military training must have been more intensive than Weir had realized. His background suggested no practical experience in the field─who in Burran had such combat experience, anyway? Riddle might be more than a petty bureaucrat if he took action without authorization. This posed a threat to his own power, but once the guide algorithm was changed, he could make sure neither Riddle or any cabal could displace him.
But that took time. First came the Shillelagh. The rest would follow.
The yellow line disappeared. A tiny white star appeared. Lochlan had launched the missile with its drill bit. Weir sucked in his breath and held it. Then he exhaled.
The brilliant flare announced the destruction of the dreadnought and everyone aboard. Donal Tomlins was shot down. Now Sorrel and the other conspirators were plasma. It was now time to complete the silent coup d'etat.
Chapter Six
"Oh, Mama, it's happened, just as I thought." Bella sank into a chair, hands in her lap, folding in on her already petite body until she threatened to vanish entirely. Tears ran down her cheeks. She made no effort to wipe them away as she looked up to the vidscreen her fiery-haired mother had been reading only an instant before.
"I know. I should never have doubted you, my dear. He's dead." Kori Tomlins stood with her back to her daughter to hide her own emotions, peering out the window onto the grassy slopes of Emerald Isle but not seeing any of the beauty. Her attention focused when a jet flare lashed out at the landing field. "There's a carrier taking off. Is that Ebony's?"
"I'm trying to contact her to let her know but─" Bella's words were smothered by an explosion that blew glass inward and wrecked the room.
Kori felt as if she took wing, her arms flapping and her feet finding nothing but air to walk on. For an eternity she sailed, only to land hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs. Gasping sent fiery knives into her chest. She sobbed, rolled onto
her side and fought to keep from vomiting. The effort allowed her body time to fight off the impact. Air crept again into her lungs. She forced herself to hands and knees amid the debris.
"Mama, are you all right?" Bella knelt by her mother, hugging her.
"Stay clear of the windows." Kori wiped blood from her face, cutting her hand on embedded glass in her cheek and forehead. With the help of her daughter, she turned around and sat up. Blood turned the vision in her left eye black. She blinked hard. Sight would return in a few minutes. This wasn't the first time she'd gone blind from her own blood. By now she saw that there weren't windows to avoid. The entire wall was gone, leaving the room open all the way to the floor. She started to laugh, coughed, then realized the truth.
"Ebony's carrier blew up!"
"No, Mama. It was a missile. See?" Bella pointed a controller at the far wall, which dissolved into a shattered viewscreen.
Kori shielded her eyes as the scene ran in reverse, the bright flash, the trim carrier with its garish yellow racing stripes and insignia, then edging backward to the cradle where it launched. Her daughter ran the video forward in slow motion. She caught her breath as Bella pointed out a fiery streak on the frozen picture.
She got to her feet and edged closer. Every step crunched down on broken glass and twisted furniture. Gusty salt-laden wind off the ocean pressed into her back. The elegant rugs were ruined, and distant fire alarms rang stridently. Both eyes functioned now, her left still blurry, but clear enough to make out the image of the hypervelocity missile.
"Advance it a millisecond at a time."
Kori watched in horror as Bella traced the tail flame from the missile. It had been fired from the air. Given the type and speed of the missile, the fighter launching it was only a few kilometers distant. The picture lurched, then advanced at the speed she commanded. One millisecond the missile almost touched her older daughter's carrier. The next produced only eye-searing light as the high explosive warhead detonated.
Kori clutched at straws. "Ebony might have sent Florin to─"
"She posted the flight plan herself, Mama. She was piloting the carrier."
"We've got to get out of here. If an interdiction zone has been set up, that means they are coming for us, whoever 'they' are. A heavier missile will level the house!"
"Weir is responsible. He has to be." Bella dropped the remote and stared at her mother. "I detected unusual activity whenever he got onto the Blarney Stone. He tried to break Papa's encryption on the guide algorithm so he could reprogram everything."
"You're giving that snake too much credit. Weir doesn't have the balls to do this to us. Eire might have decided to attack. Their suzerain has been badgered by her council over poor crops the past couple years. They want our aqua farms along the border. With your father gone on his ridiculous trade mission, this is the perfect time to steal away our borders."
"It is Weir." Bella spoke decisively. "I have confirmation."
Kori forced herself to calmness to think better. She shook her head. Weir? Killing Donal and then trying to murder them with a missile?
"Sean contacted me on a burst circuit. He said Weir intends to kill us."
"Do you trust him? Never mind. I know you do. He's in love with you." Kori stared at her daughter. That love went both ways. She took out her ire at this injustice by plucking pieces of glass from her face. Every shard brought its own tiny stab of pain. She wanted that suffering to erase all she thought and felt, but every prick and trickle of blood increased her anger.
"He can rescue us, Mama. Sean has the resources."
"He'll be crossing Weir, if he tries. He lacks the spine to even think about that." She wanted to spit out more invective aimed at the CIO. Sean Scarlotti preened before the cameras and delivered canned speeches well, but looking at him made her feel oily, unclean. He lacked any evidence of original thoughts in his well-coiffed head. "I don't know what you see in him, and he might use this as a way to get into Weir's good graces. Turning us over to him would be simple enough and without any risk, if Donal is truly gone." The words caught in her throat. She might have doubted her husband's death if it hadn't been for Ebony dying so spectacularly.
"He is quite expert at his job, Mama. He has advanced degrees in both human cognition and mass communication. Without him, Papa would never have been able to quell the unrest along the border the last time Eire made an incursion."
"Too bad," she muttered. With a quick swipe, she plucked free the final piece of glass from her cheek. Dabbing at oozing cuts with a piece of fabric ripped from the draperies by the explosion, she went to where the window had been and leaned out.
She caught her breath and ducked back.
"They've landed soldiers, haven't they?" Bella stared at the blank viewscreen as if she saw every detail there instead of cracked glass.
"Destroy all your files. I know you have an auto destruct program installed. I've heard you talking with your father about it. Destroy everything. Those are our own commandos moving in─and they are shooting any of our staff they see. We're not going to escape them unless we leave now."
Bella went to the desktop display so that both her palms pressed down hard. Her fingers tapped out an erratic pattern, then she stepped away. A quick nod signalled she had destroyed all data that might otherwise fall into Weir's hands. Donal and Bella had worked extensively on security for the guard algorithm. If those notes hadn't been destroyed, Weir would have found it easy to enter changes and get complete dominance over Burran through its computer. As it was, he still held significant power serving as Donal's replacement while the real Programmer General was off world but real power would be denied him.
A loud crash warned that the commandos had kicked in the front door. The sizzle of laserifle fire and groans that ended quickly told of household staff being massacred. She looked around the large study. A wall of old print books, floor to ceiling, gave scant protection if the soldiers fired their energy weapons from the outer hallway. The elegant furnishings had all been selected over the years, added to the existing decor only when she was certain there was a harmony. Donal cared nothing about that; his daughter was like him in that way. But Kori's eye for furnishings that both harmonized and intrigued anyone willing to carefully study the details was unmatched.
All lay in ruins, blasted when her other daughter's carrier had been shot from the sky.
"To the safe room." She herded her daughter to the alcove beside the bookcase. She stopped and ran her hand over the gold decorative pattern, her fingers seeking the latch. "It's here somewhere."
"Oh, Mama. Let me." Bella pushed past, reached up and pulled down a small decorative segment of edging. The hidden door folded inward silently to reveal a spiral staircase twisting downward into the heart of the mansion's foundations. "Ebony and I used to play here. I know you and Papa didn't want us to, but it was so much fun."
The hiss of laserifles firing and igniting the wall hangings in the hallway goaded Kori into shoving her daughter forward into the claustrophobic, dark room. The door silently closed. She pressed her eye to a spy hole in time to see a squad of soldiers burst into the room. The actinic glow around the muzzles of the laserifles showed they were only an instant away from discharging. The commandos hunted for them and would kill them if they found the hidey-hole.
Kori pressed her finger to Bella's lips to silence her, then pointed down. Bella chuckled, sat on the railing and spiraled down at amazing speed. This was how she and her older sister had played when their parents had no idea where they had gone. Kori wasted no time duplicating the move. She pressed down on the rail, then released her grip to spin downward into darkness at a breathtaking speed. She reached the bottom far sooner than anticipated. If Bella hadn't caught her, she would have sprawled facedown on the floor.
"Sound will echo upward," she said, lips pressed to her daughter's ear.
"Oh, Mama, it's all soundproof."
As if to make her out a liar, the hidden door two stories above exploded i
nward and sent a cascade of plaster and molten decoration raining down. The soldiers had discovered the secret panel. Kori cursed. They were combat outfitted and had an array of detection equipment. Millimeter wave, IR, synthetic aperture radar, who knew what else they had played against the walls to find the escape route.
"Hurry," she said needlessly. Bella already ran hard down the corridor. Entering the safe room would mean their death. They would be trapped inside. Even with a month's supplies, the commandos could wait them out. More likely, they had heavy lasers to drill through the most obdurate wall or explosives to knock down the door. The room had not been designed as a fortress against all comers; its intention was to keep the occupants safe until military units could come and rescue them.
The soldiers that should have been their rescuers were now their assailants.
Panting from the unusual exertion, she caught up to Bella at the entry port to the room. She flipped on a pale yellow light and looked around inside.
"That's not going to be our tomb. We've got to find a way out and into the woods."
"There's a comlink, Mama. Do we have time for me to use it?"
She craned her neck around and listened for pursuit. Imagination or keen hearing warned her that they had only minutes. Less.
"Do you think Scarlotti will rescue you?"
"Sean warned me. That was a big risk he took."
Darklight Pirates Page 7
