Sertian Princess

by Peter Kenson

  “Last chance bitch. Who is out there?"

  Zara saw the whitening of the flesh around his knuckles as his finger tightened on the trigger and tensed herself to make a lunge for his arm. Lynda's head was twisted around and pushed back now as far as it would go within the confines of the cabin. Zara could see a trickle of blood as the muzzle of the pistol cut into her neck. Then Lynda cracked.

  "It's Gerry," she gasped. "I mean Prince Gerald."

  "Well, well." Hendrick sat back and switched his attention to Zara. "So it's your brother out there is it? Come to rescue his kid sister. How very touching."

  Opposite her, Lynda sat rubbing her neck. There was alarm showing in her eyes now as she realised what she had said. What if Prince Gerald thought it really was his sister in the car? What would happen if he did not recognise Zara?

  "It's all right Lyn." Zara tried to reassure her. "It doesn't matter. He would have found out soon enough that it was Gerry out there."

  "Yes but...."

  "No buts. I'm sure Gerry knows what the situation is in here."

  "Shut up, the pair of you." Hendrick snapped. He almost seemed a different man now, confident again, as if knowing the name of his enemy would give him the sort of edge he needed. There was a cunning look on his face as he sat back and calculated the possibilities of this new situation.

  "COLONEL HENDRICK."

  Hendrick signalled to the guard opposite to open the door a fraction and yelled in reply.

  "I hear you, Gerald of Serta. Can you hear me?"

  "I CAN HEAR YOU COLONEL. GO AHEAD."

  "I have your sister in here, Prince Gerald. It would be a shame if you force me to spoil her beauty. How would you explain that to your father? Now back off and hold your fire. We're coming out."

  There was a momentary silence before the disembodied voice replied.

  "THERE WILL BE NO FIRING, COLONEL. YOU MAY COME ON OUT."

  Hendrick motioned to the guard to open the door fully, then turned and thrust the blaster right into Zara's face. She recoiled back but the guard behind prevented her going far. He leaned over and grabbed her by the hair, causing Zara to wince with pain.

  "Right, your Royal Highness. You go first and no tricks. And you'd better hope your brother keeps his word."

  "Prince Gerald will keep his word, pirate." Zara put what she hoped was the proper amount of scorn into her voice. "The word of the House of Serta has always been good."

  He yanked Zara's head across sharply, twisting his fingers in her hair to get a better grip.

  "Shut up and move." He pulled her towards the door.

  "Bring the other one," he ordered one of the guards.

  Zara climbed across him and clambered out of the car, closely followed by Hendrick with his fingers still twined in her hair. Once clear of the car he ostentatiously placed the heavy pistol against her temple and pushed her head sideways a little.

  "You see your sister, Gerald of Serta. Her life depends upon your actions in the next few minutes. Now have your men lower their weapons and back away."

  Behind him Lynda got out of the car. One of the guards was right behind her with a laser rifle pressed hard into the small of her back. The other guards followed.

  "ALL RIGHT COLONEL. WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

  "This car's dead. I'm going to take that other one and go. If you follow us or attempt to stop us again, I will damage your sister. Is that clear?"

  Again, a momentary pause.

  "PERFECTLY CLEAR COLONEL."

  "Right. Now bring that car over."

  "THAT CAN'T BE DONE. YOU'RE IN A STASIS FIELD, COLONEL. THAT'S THE REASON YOUR OWN CAR DOESN'T WORK. IF YOU WANT THAT CAR, YOU'LL HAVE TO WALK OVER TO IT."

  Hendrick swore furiously but recognised that he had no option but to comply.

  "All right. But stand well away from it. We're coming over. And remember, I've got...."

  He broke off in surprise as his gun hand started moving, apparently under its own volition. Slowly Zara forced it away from her head and farther and farther round until it was pointing directly at the guard holding Lynda. The man's eyes were staring in horror as he took in the heavy pistol and then the beads of perspiration on his Colonel's forehead as he fought to regain control of the gun.

  The crewman stood his ground a moment longer. Then, with a shriek of terror he dropped the laser rifle and hurled himself back in through the open door of the car. There was the flash of a laser from the other car and Hendrick screamed in agony as the pistol fell to the ground, still in the grip of a hand which was no longer connected to his arm. The other guards quickly raised their hands above their heads as Imperial Guardsmen dropped from the sky to surround them.

  Then it was all over. Zara released her hold on the Colonel who dropped to his knees, still staring in disbelief at his hand on the ground in front of him. Lynda gave a sob of relief and ran across to Zara, just in time to catch her as she collapsed in a dead faint.

  "Zara, Zara. What's the matter with her?" She asked tearfully as David and the rest of the bodyguard arrived in a rush.

  David knelt by Zara and cradled her head as one of the medics pressed a Diagnostic Unit against her arm. He waited impatiently as the medic checked the read-out on the instrument.

  "It's only shock." He looked up at David. "I'll give her a Stim shot and she'll be fine."

  "Is she going to be all right?" Lynda was standing now with Brianey's arm around her. The great sobs had subsided but tears still coursed down her cheeks.

  "Yes, she's going to be fine," David said gently. "She was still inside Hendrick's head when I took his hand off. That's all. She's just absorbed a lot of his trauma."

  The Colonel meanwhile, had lost consciousness as another of the medics staunched the flow of blood from his wrist. In the background, the other crewmen from the car were being hustled away by the Imperial Guard.

  Zara's medic loaded a Stim capsule into the injector and pressed it lightly against the inside of her wrist. After a few seconds her eyelids fluttered, and then she opened them fully to see a cluster of anxious faces around her.

  "Hello David," she said softly. Then more strongly. "What the hell took you so long?"

  The laughter released the tension and David noticed for the first time the prickle of hairs on the back of his neck which meant that Sam was trying to attract his attention. He opened the communications channel.

  "Stop panicking, Sam. Zara's fine. They're both safe."

  "That's great, boss. I'll pass the word round the ship.

  "Uh, boss...."

  "Yes Sam."

  "Can I talk to Zara, if she's there?"

  "What's the matter, Sam? You don't trust me?"

  "No, no. It's not that. It's just that I've got some information that she asked me for."

  "Well she's still a bit groggy at the moment, Sam. Save it till we get back on board."

  "I don't think I ought to wait that long, boss. It looks urgent."

  "Well then, give it to me."

  "I'm sorry, boss, but I can't do that. This data's been stored under Zara's personal key."

  "Jesus H. Christ. Whose bloody computer are you anyway?"

  He handed the communicator to Zara who was sitting up by this time.

  "It's Sam. He's got some urgent information and he won't give it to anybody but you."

  Zara looked a bit surprised but took the communicator from him.

  "Hello Sam. This is Zara. What have you got for me?"

  "Hi Zara. You remember that research you had me do, on known assassins and the movements of Vostovian agents. Well I'm holding the results under your personal key as you instructed and I think you ought to see them."

  "Ok Sam. Wait a minute." Zara punched her private code into the communicator. "Go ahead Sam."

  "I identified three assassins known to specialise in mechanical accidents and whose whereabouts could not be precisely established at the time of Queen Serena's death. All three of them were known to have had contacts with principal Vos
tovian agents at some time in the previous three months, but none of them had any known connection with Wolfram. I filed the information as you instructed and didn't think any more about it until just now."

  "So what's happened to change the situation?" Zara prompted.

  "There were two missing persons on board the Aldebaran after the attack: one of the stewards and one of the passengers. Then two bodies turned up, hidden in lockers. Nice and neat we thought. One of them was positively identified as the steward and we all assumed the other one was the missing passenger.

  "Then about an hour ago, I got another message from the Aldebaran. The second body didn't match the medical records of the missing passenger. Out of interest I got the Aldebaran to send me the medical records of both the corpse and the missing passenger. The passenger's records match exactly with one of the assassins on your list. A man called Junius LeFevre and with a string of other aliases. He's strongly suspected of being involved in the murders of several prominent people and in various acts of sabotage. Nothing has ever been proved against him.

  "But where was LeFevre? I extended the parameters of your research a little and fed all the details of the operation on the Aldebaran and the subsequent killings into the main processing arrays. There was only one fact which showed any statistical significance."

  "Get to the point, Sam."

  "The second body was found in a locker near the rear, auxiliary airlock. The launch from the corvette Cleopatra had docked at that airlock. As we still can't reach the Cleopatra, I contacted the Star Base at Runnymede and requested the medical records of all the Cleopatra's crew. One set of records matched. The corpse had definitely been a crewman on the corvette."

  David snatched the communicator back out of Zara's hands.

  "Sam, listen to me. When those two people first went missing; it was before we lost contact with the Cleopatra. Didn't she report that all her crew were on board and accounted for?"

  The reply was flat and unemotional. "Yes boss."

  David turned and looked at the circle of faces around him. Brianey and Lynda, Julia and Prince Gerald, Zara still sitting with the medic beside her. His eyes sought out Gerald's.

  "You know what this means. We put Neri on board the Cleopatra to keep her safe. But there's an assassin on board with her, masquerading as a member of the crew, and the Cleopatra is completely out of contact. There's no way we can warn her."

  CHAPTER 24

  LeFevre, in his role as Leading Artificer Francesco Galileo, lay patiently waiting as the door closed behind Anton. He heard the lock click, rolled quickly off the bunk and immediately regretted it. Another spasm was just starting. He clung to the edge of the bunk and waited for it to pass. Fortunately each succeeding attack was now noticeably weaker than the last. The effects of the drug were wearing off.

  When the spasm finally eased, he padded silently across the sickbay and tried the door. It was no great surprise to find that it was locked but neither was it any great obstacle. He ran a professional eye over the lock. It was a standard Beta-2 type of electromagnetic lock, keyed on a simple four digit code. The sickbay, not being a high security area, had not been fitted with the infinitely more complex Alpha locks.

  Still four digits to select from a ten digit pad meant that there were 10,000 possible codes. He gave a little sigh of annoyance. With the more sophisticated equipment in his case he could have simply read off the code and then used it to open the lock without leaving any trace. But the case was still hidden on the launch, so it would have to be the brute force approach. He took out a miniature field generator from the small equipment pouch on his belt and reset the combination to 0000. It might cause the surgeon some surprise when he returned to find the sickbay unlocked, but that could not be helped. LeFevre knew that he had to move fast now to protect his position.

  The first stage was to recover the case of special equipment from the launch. He slid the door open a fraction and checked the passageway. It was deserted. The bay where the launch had docked was roughly amidships and he had been led aft from there to the sickbay. So now he had to go forr’d again. He stepped out into the corridor and carefully slid the door to.

  The passageway was stacked high with boxes of medical supplies but there was still nobody about. Behind a bulkhead door in what was apparently the aft torpedo room he could hear voices, but they did not sound as though they were approaching. He turned away from the torpedo room and headed for the launch, staying down on the lower levels, away from the sounds of activity until he judged that he should be roughly below the launch bay.

  It may have been luck or it may have been that during a routine transit operation, all of the crew were either at their posts or in their quarters. Whatever the reason, he reached the launch bay unchallenged and quickly cycled through the airlock onto the launch. To retrieve the case of special equipment from the locker was the work of only a few seconds. He set the case down by the airlock door and ducked through onto the flight deck. There he activated the command console and tapped in the entry code he had used before. Galileo's code was still accepted so there was no suspicion of his identity yet. He sought out the structural plans of the Cleopatra and quickly found the main comms centre. He spent a few seconds studying the access routes then switched to the services plan and spent somewhat longer studying the cable routes and air-conditioning ducts.

  The sound of voices outside in the docking bay, disturbed his concentration. He cleared the screen and slipped quietly off the flight deck as the voices started to come through the airlock. The main compartment of the launch was singularly devoid of any useful cover and the voices were coming through the only other exit he could reach in time. He scanned the room again. There were access hatches to the service ducts along both sides of the compartment. He quickly opened one of the hatches and crammed himself into the confined space leaving the hatch slightly ajar.

  The voices materialised into two of the Cleopatra's crew with a portable diagnostic unit floating behind them on an antigrav sled. LeFevre watched as they entered the main compartment and then stopped, almost directly opposite the hatch where he was concealed.

  "Look at that," he heard one of them say. "Them buggers is getting right sloppy."

  LeFevre followed the line of their eyes and cursed silently to himself. The object of their attention was his case of special equipment which he had left by the airlock, ready to take.

  "Airlock left open," the man went on. "Gear not stowed away."

  "It's lucky for them it's us that's found it, not some bloody officer," the second man agreed. "What'll we do with it?"

  "Leave it there for now, we'll put it away before we go. And that bugger Jonson's going to owe us for this one. Keeping his arse out of a sling."

  The first man, who was obviously the senior of the two, turned to his companion. "You take that diag unit on down to the engine room and connect it up. I'll set up the tests on the main panel."

  LeFevre watched as the second man headed off with the antigrav sled in tow. The other man looked round the compartment for a few seconds more, and then shrugged and ducked through onto the flight deck.

  LeFevre forced himself to wait for a full minute before cautiously opening the hatch and easing himself out. He could hear the crewman on the flight deck talking via the intercom to the other man, presumably now in the engine room. They were deep in the detail of the equipment checks they had to run. He quickly crossed the floor, picked up the offending case and made his escape through the open airlock.

  ***

  When Anton arrived on the bridge, he found Mikael in close conference with Frank Bennetton, the Exec Officer. He waited a moment until Mikael noticed him there and waved him over.

  "Tony, come and join us. How is Galileo?"

  "He's resting in the sickbay. He'll be all right, but it bothers me that I can't pin down the cause of the problem."

  "What about the others?"

  "I've checked everybody who was on board the Cleopatra with the exceptio
n only of yourself. No-one else is showing any reaction whatsoever. Now hold out your arm and let me check you out."

  "You don't need to fuss about me, Tony. I'm feeling fine," Mikael said, but he obediently stretched his arm out towards the surgeon.

  Anton pressed the sensor lightly against Mikael's wrist and waited for the readings to settle. "Ok Mike. You're clear."

  "So it's just Galileo then. Can't the databanks come up with anything?"

  "There's nothing in the immediate memory. There's one or two drugs that come quite close to a match, but nothing that fits exactly. I'm running a search through the Medical Archives now."

  "Ok Tony. Let me know when you come up with something. And if there's no improvement by the time we reach Serta, we'll ask permission to transfer him to the hospital facility there."

  "What's our ETA at Serta?"

  "72 hours, near as dammit. She's just showing in the tank at maximum magnification. Come and see."

  Mikael led the way over to the Stellar Display Tank and set the controls to extrapolate the Cleopatra's course. The dotted line showing the intended course ended at a star system on the very edge of the tank.

  Just as Mikael was expounding on the strategic importance of Serta at the confluence of so many trade routes, the lights in the tank suddenly dimmed, flashed back up again and then died completely. Mikael punched angrily at the controls but there was no response from the display.

  He turned and looked across to where Andy Fraser was making furious adjustments to his control panel. "What's up with the tank, Chief?"

  "It's no the tank, sir. That checks out fine. But there's nay signal coming in. We've lost the main feed."

  "The tank isn't totally dark," Anton pointed out. He indicated a cluster of white dots surrounding one flashing green.

  "That's the Cleopatra, and the local space around us. It looks as though the tank is only displaying what we can pick up on our own sensors. We seem to have lost the signal from the Navigation Beacons. Frank, chase up Communications. See what the problem is."

  The Exec broke off the conversation he had been having over the intercom and came hurrying over to join them at the tank, with a worried expression on his face.