“God is with us. The mission is go.”
The Knight Commander ended communication.
The Knight Officer paused a moment, waited for the seconds to blink down. Then he was on the comm.
“Zulu time—sixteen hours. Mission is go. I repeat. Mission is go.”
“We have sixteen hours, by my calculations,” said Xris. “What’s our status?”
The team had assembled in the launch module. The drop ship—intruder shields up—had come out of hyperspace, was now lurking about the far fringes of the Ceres system, avoiding any vessel that looked the least official. Fortunately, most space traffic traveled in from a major Lane located near Ceres itself. And if any Navy ship would happen to run across them, Operation Macbeth gave the team a perfect reason to sit tight and keep quiet.
“I’ve been monitoring the newsvids,” Raoul reported. “According to news anchor James M. Warden, who is reporting live from the location . .. Have you ever noticed the whiteness of that man’s teeth? It is said that they are all his own, down to the last bicuspid. He must use—”
“Back on track, Raoul,” Xris said patiently.
The Loti rerouted himself. “Ah, yes. Where was I?”
The Little One reminded him.
“Opening ceremonies. They will take place on the steps of the Temple of the Goddess. The same place”—Raoul waved a hand at Xris—”in which we had our most stimulating, albeit terrifying, adventures. A viewing stand has been erected to accommodate the king and queen and the numerous dignitaries during the ceremony. After that, Their Majesties will retreat inside the temple for a private religious service, which will not be made public. As you know, my friend, it is extremely difficult to get inside the temple. Security has been tightened since the attempted kidnapping of the queen.”
“So if the knights are going to assassinate the king, their best plan would be to strike during the opening ceremonies.”
“His Majesty would be an ideal target,” Rowan said thoughtfully. “Seated on a platform out in the open. His bizarre and mysterious death witnessed by millions. Yes, that would be the time I would kill him.”
“When do the ceremonies begin?”
“High zenith two descending,” Raoul replied promptly. “Ceres time.”
Xris glared at him. “Put that in real time.”
Raoul’s eyelids fluttered. “Real time. What an extraordinary concept. When time itself is an arbitrary device, inflicted upon events by those who— Oh, very well.” Sighing, he began counting on his fingers. “Ten hundred hours. Eleven hundred hours. Twelve hundred ... I always get confused after that. Twelve hundred is high zenith. Thirteen hundred would be high zenith one descending. High zenith two descending would be— Where was I?”
“Fourteen hundred,” Xris said grimly. “Jamil, double-check that. Next: locating the negative wave device. Did the computer files we stole from the knights give us any clue what it looks like or how it’s going to be disguised?”
“Sorry, my friend,” Quong said. He and Rowan both shook their heads. “We’ve been over it and over it and nothing.”
“How do we locate the damn thing, then?” Jamil demanded. “Sniff it out?”
“We use this.” Rowan tossed a long thin sheet of paper, which curled around Xris’s arm like a flat snake.
He stared at it curiously. “Looks like my EKG the last time my battery malfunctioned.”
To his astonishment, Rowan cast him a hurt and angry glance, irritably snatched the tape back.
“So what is this?” Xris asked, wondering what he’d said to upset her.
“A spectral analysis of the power source of the negative wave device,” she returned, her voice cool.
“But we don’t know what the power source is,” Jamil protested.
“We don’t need to, do we, Dr. Quong?”
The Doc smiled, nodded complacently. “I will explain. Because of the power band the device uses, it emits a bizarre wave pattern that can be picked up if you know what you’re looking for. If not, you’d never notice it. That wave pattern is, effectively, the signature of the negative wave device. Once the knights turn it on, that signature will show up on our monitor. We set it to locate the source, and we have them.”
“There will be a time lapse while they bring the machine up to full power in order to activate the device,” Rowan added. “Unfortunately, we can’t be sure how long that will take, but hopefully enough to enable us to find them and stop them.”
Harry, completely lost, scratched his head. “What’s to keep us from blowing up some microwave pizza joint?”
“That would be one well-cooked pizza,” Rowan told him, smiling. She was obviously growing fond of Harry. “No other microwave on the planet—on any planet, for that matter—would be this powerful or have quite this same configuration.”
“So we drop out of the skies and go looking for a giant microwave,” Tycho’s translator squawked. “What then?”
Xris shrugged. “I can’t say. Sorry, guys. I know you’re used to having it all laid out in advance, but there are too damn many variables here.”
“Including the fact that the good guys are going to be shooting at us, thinking we’re the bad guys,” Jamil grumbled.
Xris had no reply to that.
“Hell of a way to run an outfit.” Jamil continued his bitching. “And speaking of getting shot at, I’ve checked out the so-called armored vehicle.” He glared at Rowan. “I thought you said it was a PVC-48 Devastator.”
“I did. At least, that’s what the computer files indicate.”
“Well, the computer made a mistake.” Jamil was grim. “It’s a PVC-2S, and this must be the first one they ever built. That tank’s older than I am. I trained on one! They must have been hauling it to a museum.”
“Probably fixing the tank up for some special mission,” Rowan suggested. “Maybe inside Corasia, behind enemy lines. The Army doesn’t like sending new armored vehicles onto enemy-held planets, in case the Corasians capture the tanks and learn from the new technology.”
“What’s the tank’s condition?” Xris asked, unperturbed. A former Army major, Jamil could have been given the very latest in technological wonders and would still have complained about it for days.
“Not bad,” Jamil conceded grumpily. “If you don’t count the fact that something’s leaking all over the deck, probably because the tank’s engine hasn’t been tuned up since the fall of the monarchy twenty some-odd years ago. The engine is a solid-fuel job, they get clogged up real easy. Which is why no one’s using solid-fuel engines anymore, not even the Corasians.
“The Devastator—and I use the term loosely—does have a forty-thousand-bhp engine driving the tracks and blower motors for hover operations. But the air-cushioning unit has been shot to pieces. The tracks are caked with some sort of gunk that’s been left to harden and might come off if we took a thurmaplasma torch to it.”
Jamil paused to draw breath. “Now for the good news. The tank’s gun is in great shape—a seven-cm particle cannon.”
“That is good.” Xris nodded.
“Yeah. The bad news is we can’t fire it. But it sure will look impressive. The power link from the gun to the engine is completely rotted away. Or maybe mice ate it. The magnetic repeller shields seem to be working, though.” Jamil appeared almost disappointed. “And the armor’s intact. At least anyone shooting at us will have a tough time penetrating our defenses.”
“The tank sounds good enough for our purposes. Have Doc give you a hand with the wiring. We’re going to need that gun. Now, anyone got any questions?”
Several hands went up.
Xris amended. “That I can answer.”
All but one hand went down.
“Yes, Raoul?” Xris sighed.
“I am uncertain what to wear. These daytime affairs are so difficult. It is a formal occasion, but one feels such an ass wearing black-tie before moonrise. I was wondering if you thought it would be correct for me to don my—”
“Raoul”�
�Xris attempted several times to interrupt, finally succeeded—”this is immaterial. You didn’t bring any clothes.”
Raoul cast a glance from lowered eyelids at the Little One. The single eye visible beneath the fedora winked at him.
Xris recalled the altercation he and the empath had had over the suitcase. He glanced around, half expecting to see it.
“Actually, I did,” Raoul murmured, cheeks flushed. “Or rather, the Little One acted in my behalf. The box you assume contains medical supplies ...”
“What?” Quong yelped. “My medical kit! You brought clothes instead?”
The Doc was on his feet. Yanking open the metal box—painted white with a red cross and marked MEDI-KIT—Quong stared, dumbfounded, at, among other items of apparel, a mass of red silk petticoat and a pink feather boa, which slithered out of the box like a long-incarcerated snake.
“Why do we need medical supplies? We hardly any of us ever get sick.” Raoul was defensive.
“I think one of us is about to,” Xris commented, grinning, and followed Jamil to check out the PVC.
An hour later, Xris came up to the bridge. He found Rowan alone, seated at the computer.
“Harry wanted to get something to eat. I told him I’d keep watch.” She barely glanced at him; her voice was cool, impersonal. “How’d it go with the armored vehicle?”
Xris sat down, fished a twist out of his pocket. “It may hold together long enough to get the job done. Or it may blow up with all of us inside.”
Having said that, he sat in silence. Rowan refused to look at him. “What’s eating you?” he asked finally.
She stopped working. Her hands rested on the keyboard. Suddenly she turned, faced him. “Damn it, Xris, why—”
She stopped, swallowed.
“Why what?” he asked, perplexed.
“Oh, nothing. Never mind.” She had turned away from him again, began moodily tapping at a key on the console. “You know the king personally, don’t you? I remember watching you in the vids during the ceremonies. It gave me a strange feeling, seeing you like that. What’s he like?”
I wonder, Xris thought, staring at Rowan, what you started to say. Aloud, he answered, “Yeah, I know King Dion. What’s he like? That’s hard to answer. Someone—I forget who—described him as a comet. He’s ice and fire and you get burned if you get too close. But once you meet him, you can’t forget him. He captures you and you get pulled along behind. I never told anyone this before,” Xris added casually, watching Rowan, “but I saw him perform a miracle.”
Rowan glanced up at him. “Really?”
“Cross my heart—or maybe I should say battery pack. Anyway, it was when I was working for Lady Maigrey, helping His Majesty escape from the Corasians—among others. One of Dion’s friends—a man called Tusk—was with Dion. Tusk got shot up pretty bad. Belly wound, sucking chest wound. About as critical as I’ve seen. Anyway, I managed to rescue him, get him back on board his own spaceplane.
“His wife was there. Great gal. Name’s Nola. She was a soldier. She knew how badly Tusk was hurt. I had a dose—a hefty dose—of painkiller. Enough to kill the pain in this world, ease him into the next. I was going to use it, when Dion boarded the spaceplane.
“Nola asked him to save her husband. Hell, I thought she was crazy with grief, but no. And what I saw next, I’m still not sure I believe. Dion took hold of Tusk’s hands and he started talking to him, real soft, and ... and Tusk got better.”
Rowan was looking at him oddly.
“What do you mean?” she asked finally. “Tusk ‘got better.’ Did his wounds heal that instant?”
“No.” Xris shook his head. “It wasn’t a change you could see. It was more of a change you could feel. All I know is that Tusk lived when he should have died. And Dion Starfire was the man who did it. That’s what he’s like.”
“Why are you telling me this, Xris?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because Fve been thinking about it a lot lately. Maybe because his wife reminded me of my wife. Maybe because I always wondered if Tusk felt the same way about being healed that I sometimes feel. That it might have been better to have died.”
Rowan lowered her head. Her hand on the keyboard clenched into a tight fist.
“What is it you’re not telling me?” Xris asked.
“Not now, Xris,” she murmured. “Not now.”
He hung around for a while, but Rowan didn’t say anything more. She went back to the computer, went back inside her machine. Finally he left, climbed back down into the launch module to see if he could help Quong and Jamil fix the PVC.
Either that or help Raoul decide between the red silk or the gold outfit with the sequins.
Twelve hours to go.
Chapter 35
So a skillful military operation should be like a swift snake that counters with its tail when someone strikes at the head, counters with its head when someone strikes at its tail, and counters with both head and tail when someone strikes at its middle.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The drop ship, intruder shields up, entered into orbit around Ceres, slid silently and invisibly into place amidst the space traffic. They were thankful for the shields. Numerous Royal Naval vessels were in the vicinity and, though Operation Macbeth was still in effect, the sight of a special force ship dropping by—”No pun intended,” Quong had chorded—the king’s ceremony might have been enough to make a destroyer’s captain seriously consider disobeying orders and opening up communications—or the big guns.
“We’re over the drop site,” Harry reported, studying his instruments. “Right on target. We should land about a kilometer from the temple. That should let us pick up the signal from the negative wave device, find it, destroy it.”
“I’m entering the signature in the launch module’s computers,” Rowan added, heading below. “I’m going down to make final transfer now.”
“Good. Very good.”
All was going well. About time, too.
Xris took a final glance at the other ships of the Royal Fleet silently maintaining their positions. All of them watching, wary, mistrustful. But none of them was actively looking for him.
“Operation Macbeth’s been a pain up to now,” he remarked to the rest of the team, who had gathered in the launch module below. “It’s about time it worked for us for a change.”
“Don’t say such a thing, my friend!” Quong remonstrated, looking grave. “You will jinx us.”
“Doc, you’re a scientist. You know there’s no such thing as a jinx.” Jamil winked, grinned at the others. This was a long-standing joke.
Quong shook his head. “I know that it is not wise to flaunt good fortune. It is said that the gods never like to see mortal man too happy. It gives him delusions of godhood and so they are always tempted to strike him down. Hubris, the Greeks called it.”
“Hubris. I smoked some of that once,” Raoul remarked.
Jamil laughed loudly. Quong frowned, offended. Xris opened his mouth, prepared to say something to avert a quarrel.
Harry, above on the bridge of the command module, said it for him. “Oh, shit!”
Xris scrambled awkwardly back up the ladder. “What? What’s the matter?”
Harry pointed at a flashing red light on his console as he might have pointed at a poisonous snake. “Someone out there’s spotted us.”
“That’s not possible. We’ve got the damn intruder shields up. How did they find us?”
“They must be scanning the area, probably on account of the king being here. I thought I heard something ping against—”
“Rowan, get up here!” Xris called down below.
“They found us! Maybe Doc’s got a point about that jinx,” Tycho observed.
“Balls!” Jamil sounded angry. “The only jinx we have on board is the Doc talking about jinxes!”
Rowan pulled herself up the ladder onto the deck. “What’s wrong?”
The commlink spoke in answer.
“Navy Lima Sierr
a Tango Two Zero Niner. This is Ceres Military District Command, relayed through the dreadnought Jeanne d’Arc. Operation Macbeth is ended. I say again: Operation Macbeth is ended. Stand-down code is Rubicon Three Five Hadrian Niner Alpha Two. Prepare to issue your stand-down code in two Standard Military minutes. I say again: Prepare to issue your stand-down code in two Standard Military minutes. Jeanne d’Arc out.”
“What’s our stand-down code?” Xris looked at Rowan.
She bit her lip. “Beats me.”
He glared at her. “Hell, you probably wrote the damn thing.”
“I probably did.” She was unperturbed. “But each ship has its own code. It’s given to every captain along with his sealed orders.”
“Would he enter it into the computer?”
Rowan shrugged. She was already seated at the keyboard. “Captains aren’t supposed to. Some do, of course. The sealed orders are required to be kept in a vault in the captain’s quarters. But,” she added, as Xris was already headed in that direction, “he would have undoubtedly taken them with him when he left the ship to be overhauled.”
Of course. That was only logical. Still, they might get lucky. The captain might be either forgetful or an idiot.
Entering the tiny, cramped room that was the captain’s quarters, Xris was already mentally preparing the plastic explosives, only to find the vault standing wide open. Halfheartedly, he peered inside.
He hit the comm. “What the devil am I looking for?”
“Is it there?” Rowan sounded amazed.
“No, I don’t think so.” He searched for a scrap of paper, anything. “But tell me anyway.”
“Well, it would be a series of digits and numbers, arranged in what would appear a random pattern. They’re not, of course. The way it works is that the command vessel of this fleet gets its own stand-down from the admiralty, then they work through each ship in the fleet. They issue a single cipher and each individual ship completes that cipher with one that is uniquely its own.”
“Huh?”
That was Harry, but Xris could have echoed his pilot. The cyborg stuck his hand inside the vault, groped about in the shadows.
The Knights of the Black Earth Page 37
