I sighed. “Well, now that we’ve disposed of that issue, let’s assume that you do blow our ship away—will you leave Schuyler’s World alone?”
“I wish I could,” Genghis said apologetically, “but we’ve been showing the troops these pictures all week.” He opened a little drawer in the side of the divan and rummaged around until he found a stack of photos to hand to me.
“They look like gerbils,” I said, thumbing through them.
“They also look remarkably like baby Rodents. We didn’t even have to touch them up much. We’ve been telling the boys all week that the people down there fatten them up in concentration camps and eat them. If you look through, there’s a really nice photo of a roasted gerbil with a grape stuck in its mouth. Really good propaganda, isn’t it? I rather think I outdid myself there. Anyway, the troops are wild, and I couldn’t very well bring them back without a little sack of the city, could I? We promised them they could stay a few days and survey homesteads.”
“I guess that disposes of my second point.” I thought for a few seconds. “Genghis, you do realise that Rustam’s Slipper is armed and we’re going to do our level best to make you pay. You also realise that the navy is on its way.”
Genghis made small noises of amusement. “How unfortunate for you that your navy will not arrive in time.”
“True, but irrelevant. You’re not going to get away with this. When the navy does arrive, it’s going to come to !Plixxi* and clean your clock.”
“Oh, but there you’re wrong, Ken! The navy is not going to come clean my clock, at least not immediately. They’re going to be busy with my friends, the Macdonalds, for quite a while yet,” Genghis said with a certain malicious glee. He went over to a little six-legged table and picked out a cigar, lit it, and blew smoke in my face. “While your politicians are negotiating with the Macdonalds, your navy won’t be able to divert ships. I come home a conquering hero, and my darling daddy either abdicates in my favour out of joy or has an accident. When your navy arrives in force, I shall surrender. I’ll have what I want, which is my father’s throne. My friends, the Macdonalds, will have what they want, since your politicians obviously won’t want to start a war with them while I’m pillaging defenceless planets. And in a few years, after everyone forgets, we’ll do it again. If I pull this off for them, the Macdonalds are going to give me real warships.”
He pulled the cigar out of his mouth and held it under his nose to savour the aroma. “And of course—oh, rapture—when I blow your ship into tiny fragments, I also dispose of my darling demi-brother Bucky. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it is to have an overgrown boy scout as your nearest kin.”
I was running out of points to make. “You don’t really think that the Confederation is going to let you stay in power after you sack Schuyler’s World?”
“Ken, you miss the sublime beauty of my scheme. Nobody’s going to know I was here. You and the people with you will be the only witnesses, and you won’t be witnesses for long. When your diplomats come, I will have a different name and will be a newly enthroned and very peaceably inclined ruler who had nothing at all to do with my father’s militaristic policies, don’t you see?” Genghis took another puff on his cigar. “It’s all quite brilliant, if I do say so myself.”
“And the people on Schuyler’s World?”
“What’s a few peasants among friends? Actually, you should thank me for improving your species’s breeding stock.”
“So what am I here to negotiate?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing. But as the villain in this piece, I have to boast to you what my plans are now that I have you in my power. It’s in all your literature. And besides, it’s fun.” He ground out his cigar on the tabletop and looked down at his watch. “Oh well, time is money, as my grandfather used to say. How about if 1 give you a twenty-minute head start to get back to your ship.” His whiskers twitched and his upper lip curled a little, exposing his front teeth. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Ken. Ta-ta, now!”
Bucky and Harry were waiting for me when I got back to the lifeboat. The sideboys were still there, but I noticed they were wearing less clothing. One of them was practically undressed.
As I strapped myself down and we took off, I pushed my feet under my seat and a little light went on in my head. “Harry, what happened to the crate of emergency rations I was sitting on?”
“Well, sir, I decided we really didn’t need it after all,” he said circumspectly.
“Harry, what was in that crate?” I asked in a mild voice.
“Ummm, mostly honey.”
“What else, Harry?”
“A few books, maybe.”
“What kind of books, Harry?” I turned around to look at him.
“Lab studies about white rats.” He saw the expression on my face. “Sex studies. In colour.”
“Harry, you didn’t!” Bucky exclaimed.
“Harry, you weren’t trading stuff, were you?” I asked.
“Oh, no, sir! I gave some of those Rodents some gifts, and they gave me some gifts.” He beamed from ear to ear. “Like this tunic.” He pulled one out. “Ain’t it a beauty?”
“It looks like it would be a little tight on you,” Bucky observed.
“Harry, these Rats want to chop us into chutney, and you’re trading with them for souvenirs?”
Harry knitted his brow. “Sir, is something bothering you?”
“Nevermind, Harry.”
Catarina moved the Scupper toward us. We didn’t have time for normal lifeboat-recovery procedures, so I moved in close, whipped the lifeboat’s nose around, and matched speeds. Catarina was ready for me. The lock opened and the cargo arm came out and hooked us by the nose to ease us the rest of the way. Clyde and Rosalee were waiting.
“Not real promising, huh?” Rosalee commented, reading my expression.
“Battle stations,” I told her, undoing the faceplate on my space suit and running toward the bridge.
Commander Hiro was pacing the bridge when I arrived. “Did your mission meet with success, Mickey?”
In the viewscreen, I saw the winking lights of the truce flag disappear, and Nemesis fired off two huge missiles at extreme range. The two lead Rodent ships began moving toward us to take us in a pincers movement while Nemesis kept us occupied with long-range fire.
“Perhaps not,” I said, flipping on the intercom. “Prepare to manoeuvre.”
“Hey! They’re shooting at us when we’re out of range,” Annalee complained.
“They are out of our range. We are not out of their range,” Catarina corrected. “Hard manoeuvring. Cutting spin, now! Everybody close the faceplates on your suits and get strapped down.”
“Can I shoot? Can I shoot?” Harry asked.
Hiro went over to help Bucky into his jump seat.
“Sir, I need you to strap down, too,” Catarina told him. I could feel her preparing to shove the ship’s nose down.
“In a second,” Hiro assured her.
Bunkie called us. “Dare is still in with Joe and Larry. She doesn’t know the Rodents have arrived, but I can’t stall her much longer. I’ve been jamming the phone calls to her from her station for the last twenty minutes, and they’re about to send a car over and drag her back.”
“Good work, Bunkie. We’ll take it from here,” Hiro said. He turned to us. “Engage the enemy more closely!”
I took control to firewall the old girl. “Sir, will you kindly strap yourself down, now!” Catarina said to Hiro.
Both impellers kicked in raggedly, and I heard a loud thump.
“Oh, dear,” Bucky said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hiro drift by with his eyes shut and a lump the size of an egg on his head. Catarina snagged him by the ankle and pushed him in Bucky’s direction.
The two missiles slid past us. “I am taking command,” Catarina said quietly. “Bucky, please grab Commander Hiro and try to get him strapped down.”
As the two smaller Rodent ships dar
ted toward us and penetrated the outer edges of the minefield, we powered forward.
“Nemesis is hanging back,” Catarina called out in a clear voice over the loud-hailer so that Piper could hear her. “We are engaging the other ships.”
I felt her shrug. “We need to make them hit some mines,” she said casually so that only I could hear. “Otherwise, we’re probably dead.”
“Tracking, tracking second ship. Keep your fingers off that firing button, you stupid chauvinist pig! Contact’s twisting. Tracking, tracking. Contact’s too fault, I’m losing it!” Annalee called out.
“Engage with one missile at maximum range. Fire as soon as you acquire a target,” Catarina told her.
“Harry, tracking. Follow the little bouncing ball. Tracking, good long contact! Mark! Fire!” Annalee said.
I had that little thrill you get just before you expend a piece of ordnance that consists of fifty thousand moving parts all manufactured by the lowest bidder.
Harry hit the firing button. Two missiles leaped out of Number One hold.
“Oh, crap! I only meant to fire one missile. Reload! Reload!” McHugh yelled to Harry and Dinky.
Both Rodent ships dodged nimbly out of the missiles’ flight paths. The missiles lost acquisition and sped off harmlessly into space.
“You missed, damn it! You missed! Reload, reload!” McHugh shouted helplessly.
As the second ship jumped aside, a mine identified it and erupted into life. It struck the Rodent ship just forward of the engines and ruptured them. The engines went up, causing the ship to engage in a little energetic disassembly. The lead ship kept coming.
All of us cheered.
A second later, one of our missiles exploded.
“I don’t know how you two did it, but you just shot down the television satellite,” Annalee said in utter disbelief.
“War is hell,” Rosalee commented. Rosalee liked her soaps.
“Reloaded. Ready,” Dinky announced, but Nemesis and the remaining Rodent merchantman both fired, and it was our turn to dodge.
“We’re bracketed. This is going to get rough,” Catarina said as we hauled the ship’s nose around. The smaller Rodent ship turned itself over and disappeared below our firing arc.
“Pinging! Pinging!” McHugh yelled to tell us that one of the missiles had locked on to our image.
“Oh, dear,” Bucky said.
“Make it good, Ken,” Catarina ordered as we wrestled the ship around and doubled back on our course.
The missile lost acquisition and skipped on by. That left Nemesis clearing mines with her laser, and the smaller Rodent ship on our tail closing fast.
Mounted as it was in Number One hold, our launcher could cover an arc of about two hundred degrees from side to side and about ninety up and down. With the Rodent ship behind us, it wouldn’t bear.
“Oh, boy, we’ve got them now!” Harry said.
“The smaller ship’s launching,” Annalee said desperately.
Catarina and I tilted the Scupper’s nose and dodged to the left, guessing right but losing momentum in the process.
The other ship closed on us.
“Harry, Annalee, we can’t hold this. I’m going to roll the ship and pivot. Fire as you bear,” Catarina called.
As we turned to meet the Rodent vessel, McHugh said, “Harry! Mark. Mark, damn it. Mark. Fire!”
Harry fired. One missile misfired; the other one missed. As he and Dinky struggled to reload, the Rodent ship dodged nimbly aside and closed in the dead zone behind us where our missiles couldn’t reach.
“What do we do?” I asked as we zigzagged to throw them off.
“Usually, warships have to trade speed for agility. We should either out-turn her or outrun her,” Catarina said. As we weaved to keep from straying inside the Rodent ship’s cone long enough to eat a missile, we rapidly discovered that she could fly faster and turn tighter than we could. “Unfortunately,” she said, “we can’t do either.”
That made us what the navy likes to call a “BFT”—Big, Fat Target. The Rodent ship took position below and behind us where she could plaster us at will. In a straight stern chase, we were dead, quickly. If we bobbed the wrong way, we were also dead. Flying the ship by instinct, Catarina pulled the nose around and used the impellers to slip left, left, left again, then right. Each time, I caught her movement and forced the Scupper to respond. The board started lighting up like a Christmas tree. With her superior speed and agility, the Rodent ship skilfully maintained her position close behind us, methodically herding us into the planet’s gravity field and cutting us up with her lasers while waiting for us to make a mistake so she could sink a missile.
Meanwhile, Nemesis was still busy clearing mines, although at the moment it didn’t look like she’d be needed.
Catarina faked reversing thrust, then sped up. The Rodent merchantman reacted, lost a little distance, and quickly recovered its position. Her lasers began turning the wheat in Number Three hold into popcorn.
“Ken,” Catarina said calmly, “I can’t shake her. The only gamble left to try is to reverse thrust and hope she sails on past. That will give her a perfect launch as she goes by, and if she outguesses me and drops her speed immediately, she’ll put two or three missiles into us before we build up thrust.”
The chase brought us closer to the space platform. “Piper,” I said.
“No! We can’t!” Catarina said. Piper had orders to stay concealed until Nemesis came into range. “Piper has to surprise Nemesis!”
“Missile launched. Pinging! Pinging!” McHugh yelled. “Do something!”
Catarina and I desperately reversed thrust and somehow the missile slid by. That left us wallowing with no forward momentum.
“We’re losing power,” I said.
As the Rodent ship lined us up, two missiles leaped toward her from the space platform. Piper broke transmission silence. “Is this a private fight or can anyone get in it?” she asked dryly.
The Rodent ship suddenly forgot about us and manoeuvred desperately.
One missile missed. The other punched a hole in her side and ripped a thirty meter gash. The Rodent lost power and began drifting, spreading a trail of metallic debris.
There was another round of cheering. “That’s two!” Harry said. Catarina nodded, and I commented to Piper, “Thanks, Beam. As Eddie would say, ‘You headed them off at the pass!’ “
After that, we were a little too busy for chitchat. As Catarina tried to pull us out of the planet’s gravity well so we could build momentum, the ship skewed sideways.
“She’s not handling,” I said, trying to pull her in.
“We’ve lost the starboard impeller!” Catarina shouted over the whine of abused machinery.
“She’s packed it in,” I said as the ship began spinning like a top.
Von Tirpitz may have been a hood, but he knew his business. Before we could regain control, he fired one missile at us to keep us occupied and moved in to plaster the space platform.
Piper and her crew made a fight out of it. She tilted the platform with her emergency jets and launched twice. The cruiser fired six shots to her two. Four antimissiles obliterated Piper’s missiles. The other two ship-killers impacted on the platform and half of it disappeared. The plastic tubing that acted as the station’s umbilical cord to Schuyler’s World ripped free and hung in space. Broken pieces spun off in all directions.
As Clyde and Rosalee struggled to repair the damage, Nemesis turned her attention toward us.
“The busted Rodent ship is launching a lifeboat,” Annalee commented.
“So is the space platform, so somebody there is alive,” Catarina said.
“Well, at least we’ve got the odds in our favour,” Harry added optimistically.
“Oh, dear,” Bucky and Dinky both said.
Bunkie called us. “Lydia Dare is about to start broadcasting. I tried shooting her tires out, but I missed.”
“No problem, Bunkie. We have other things to worry ab
out.”
Moving at an exaggerated crawl, we aimed ourselves at Nemesis.
“Marking, marking,” Annalee coaxed.
Harry fired.
Nemesis wasted three antimissile missiles knocking our efforts out of space and then put a shot into Number Five hold, where it exploded just inside the ship’s skin and ripped the hold apart. The engines shut down to keep from exploding. We lost power and the lights dimmed.
A few seconds later, Lydia finally came on the air and started broadcasting the details of how we planned to pull off the biggest upset since David decked Goliath with a sucker punch in the opening round.
McHugh came on over the intercom. “Goddammit, MacKay! You got us out of this predicament the last time, think of something! We got any shit left?”
I turned to Catarina. “We’re holed badly and listing. We have no thrust, and the impellers aren’t working. In short, we can’t run, we can’t fight, and we can’t hide. What does the master plan call for at this point?”
The hulking mass of the Nemesis slowly moved toward us, carefully staying where our missiles could never reach.
“To tell the truth, I was hoping you had a few ideas.”
“I regret that I, too, have nothing to contribute,” Bucky chimed in. “I am exceedingly sad that our brief but fruitful comradeship will come to an end.”
Harry punched in over the intercom. “We’re not moving!”
“Why don’t you get out and push?” McHugh snapped back.
“While I believe in miracles, I understand that God’s timing is a little bit off now that they’ve started making Him file environmental-impact statements,” I commented. “Piper?”
“I just hope she got out alive,” Catarina said grimly. She turned to Bucky. “Bucky, you get in a lifeboat and get out of here. We’ll tell Genghis you’re in it.”
“Mistress Lindquist, I thank you for your excessive solicitude on my behalf, but I feel that I must share your fate. I believe that my demi-brother would be more likely to fire on a lifeboat I was in than a lifeboat I was not in. I truly believe that one of his objectives is to remove me from the—I forget how it goes, is it the picture or the frame? In any event, he would like to succeed my father, and as we Rodents say, there’s only so much swill in the trough.” He sighed. “I feel that I somehow failed with him.” He meditated for a moment. “But remember, Ken, death is a truly wonderful adventure. Did I ever show you a hologram of my fiancée?”
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